Read Online The Spider-Orchid by Celia Fremlin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Celia Fremlin
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because it was vulgar, she began to feel better.
She hadn’t really anything much to do. She had finished her homework at Daddy’s, and had brought her diary up to date, too, though this had been a less tranquil activity than usual because of Rita being there, and fidgeting about the room all the time so that you never knew when she might be looking over your shoulder;Amelia had kept having to cover the page with her elbow whenever Rita seemed to be moving in her direction, and this meant that the passages written up today were more disjointed than usual. Amelia opened the marbled covers of the exercise book, and, lying full-length on her bed, re-read the last few pages of what she had written this afternoon:
Wednesday, March 3rd
Mr O. was late this morning, he came into prayers just before the hymn, and he leaned over Daphne to see the place in her book. Over Daphne! Oh, God, why couldn’t I have been at the end of a row this morning, then he’d have leaned over me ! Oh, cruel Fate! And then, when we filed out, there was such a squash through the big doors I couldn’t get through quick enough, and so all I saw was his back disappearing down the staff-room corridor!
What a wonderful way he walks, with such a swing to his movements, as if he owned the world.
He does own my world, little does he know!
Thursday, March 4th
No English lesson today! Doom, doom, doom! The day is a desert that I have to cross without food or water.
One tiny ray of light—I saw him going along the corridor while I stood in the dinner-queue, but he didn’t see me.
Daphne says he’s married. I didn’t want her to think I was upset, so I just said, “Yes, I know.” Well, I did know, didn’t I, because she’d just told me, so it wasn’t actually a lie.
They are not going to know that I mind. Not, not, not.
And I don’t mind, I DON’T ! I’ve been thinking about it all through chemistry, my nitrous oxide wouldn’t support combustion at all, not for a second, I put taper after taper into it and they just went out. But of course I didn’t put that in my notes because really I know it does support combustion, it says so in our book as well as Miss Harland.
My heart is no longer broken, him being married is nothing to me, mine is a higher kind of love, I just want him to exist in the Universe, and he does exist.
Daphne doesn’t understand about love, I have to say it, even though she’s my best friend.
Tomorrow we get back our essays!!!!
Friday, March 5th
Got our Milton essays back! He didn’t read mine out, but he did write two lines at the end of it! Two whole lines! I shall cut them out and paste them in here so that they may be preserved for ever in his own handwriting:
*
“Quite good, but please, not such long quotations. I do know the poem, you know!”
*
Just imagine, he must have been smiling while he wrote it! That little crooked, cynical smile that makes his eyebrows tilt, and he was smiling about me ! About Amelia Summers! Me, me, me!
I’m so glad my name is Amelia, and not Jean or something.
This was the latest entry. Amelia read it through once more, and then, sleepy though she was by now, she decided to make a start on the leather-bound diary of Dorothy’s grandmother. She had promised Dorothy that she would bring it back without fail on the following Sunday, and there mightn’t be much time for it during the week. She had already ascertained, by a swift glance through, that it was quite long, and that the writing, though neat and carefully penned, was in an unfamiliar style and, as Dorothy had said, somewhat hard to read until you got used to it.
Slowly, she unfastened the gilt clasps and raised the leather cover. On the fly-leaf was written:
Amelia Caroline Ponsonby. Her Book.
Presented on this Day of her Fourteenth Birthday
February 12th, 1854
By her Loving Godmother, Henrietta Mary Mills.
“May she dwell in the Light of the Lord”
CHAPTER VI
“ What CHOCOLATE-COATED Swiss roll?”
She hadn’t really anything much to do. She had finished her homework at Daddy’s, and had brought her diary up to date, too, though this had been a less tranquil activity than usual because of Rita being there, and fidgeting about the room all the time so that you never knew when she might be looking over your shoulder;Amelia had kept having to cover the page with her elbow whenever Rita seemed to be moving in her direction, and this meant that the passages written up today were more disjointed than usual. Amelia opened the marbled covers of the exercise book, and, lying full-length on her bed, re-read the last few pages of what she had written this afternoon:
Wednesday, March 3rd
Mr O. was late this morning, he came into prayers just before the hymn, and he leaned over Daphne to see the place in her book. Over Daphne! Oh, God, why couldn’t I have been at the end of a row this morning, then he’d have leaned over me ! Oh, cruel Fate! And then, when we filed out, there was such a squash through the big doors I couldn’t get through quick enough, and so all I saw was his back disappearing down the staff-room corridor!
What a wonderful way he walks, with such a swing to his movements, as if he owned the world.
He does own my world, little does he know!
Thursday, March 4th
No English lesson today! Doom, doom, doom! The day is a desert that I have to cross without food or water.
One tiny ray of light—I saw him going along the corridor while I stood in the dinner-queue, but he didn’t see me.
Daphne says he’s married. I didn’t want her to think I was upset, so I just said, “Yes, I know.” Well, I did know, didn’t I, because she’d just told me, so it wasn’t actually a lie.
They are not going to know that I mind. Not, not, not.
And I don’t mind, I DON’T ! I’ve been thinking about it all through chemistry, my nitrous oxide wouldn’t support combustion at all, not for a second, I put taper after taper into it and they just went out. But of course I didn’t put that in my notes because really I know it does support combustion, it says so in our book as well as Miss Harland.
My heart is no longer broken, him being married is nothing to me, mine is a higher kind of love, I just want him to exist in the Universe, and he does exist.
Daphne doesn’t understand about love, I have to say it, even though she’s my best friend.
Tomorrow we get back our essays!!!!
Friday, March 5th
Got our Milton essays back! He didn’t read mine out, but he did write two lines at the end of it! Two whole lines! I shall cut them out and paste them in here so that they may be preserved for ever in his own handwriting:
*
“Quite good, but please, not such long quotations. I do know the poem, you know!”
*
Just imagine, he must have been smiling while he wrote it! That little crooked, cynical smile that makes his eyebrows tilt, and he was smiling about me ! About Amelia Summers! Me, me, me!
I’m so glad my name is Amelia, and not Jean or something.
This was the latest entry. Amelia read it through once more, and then, sleepy though she was by now, she decided to make a start on the leather-bound diary of Dorothy’s grandmother. She had promised Dorothy that she would bring it back without fail on the following Sunday, and there mightn’t be much time for it during the week. She had already ascertained, by a swift glance through, that it was quite long, and that the writing, though neat and carefully penned, was in an unfamiliar style and, as Dorothy had said, somewhat hard to read until you got used to it.
Slowly, she unfastened the gilt clasps and raised the leather cover. On the fly-leaf was written:
Amelia Caroline Ponsonby. Her Book.
Presented on this Day of her Fourteenth Birthday
February 12th, 1854
By her Loving Godmother, Henrietta Mary Mills.
“May she dwell in the Light of the Lord”
CHAPTER VI
“ What CHOCOLATE-COATED Swiss roll?”
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