"Robin McKinley - Rose Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

room and run the legs off the maid assigned to attend her.
Beauty looked at the poor flowers standing in their buckets of cold water, and at the array of noble
vases laid out for them, and began to arrange them, only half aware of what she was about, while her
sisters were rushing around the house shouting (in LionheartтАЩs case) or muttering savagely (in
JeweltongueтАЩs) while they attended to what should have been the housekeeperтАЩs other urgent duties on
the day of an important party. Most of BeautyтАЩs mind was occupied with what the nightтАЩs events would
bring; she would much rather scrub a floorтАФnot that she ever had scrubbed a floor, but she assumed it
would be hard, dull, unpleasant workтАФthan attend a ball, which was hard, dull, unpleasant work that
didnтАЩt even have a clean floor to show for it afterwards.
Neither Lionheart nor Jeweltongue at best paid much attention to flowers, beyond the fact that one
did of course have to have them, as one had place settings for seventy-five and a butler to cherish the
wine; but when they came downstairs to have a final look at the front hall and the dining-room, even they
were astonished by what Beauty had done.
тАЬMy saints!тАЭ said Lionheart. тАЬIf the conversation flags, we can look at the flowers!тАЭ
тАШ The conversation will not flag,тАЩтАЩ said Jeweltongue composedly, тАЬbut that is not to say that Beauty
has not done miracles,тАЭ and she patted her sisterтАЩs shoulder absently, as one might pat a dog.
тАЬI didnтАЩt know flowers could look like this!тАЭ roared Lionheart, and threw up her arms as if
challenging an enemy to strike at her, and laughed. тАЬIf Miss Fuss-and-Bother could see this, perhaps it
would quiet her nerves!тАЭ Miss Fuss-and-Bother was the name Lionheart had given to die governess least
patient with the frequent necessity of fishing Beauty out of her latest muddy haven in the garden and
bringing her indoors and dumping her in the bath. Lionheart had often been obliged to join her there after
other, more dangerous adventures of her own.
But that ball was particularly successful, and her sisters teased Beauty that it was on account of her
flowers and asked if she was keeping a greenwitch in her cupboard, who could work such charms.
Beauty, distressed, tried to prevent any of this from reaching their fatherтАЩs ears, for he would not have
taken even a joke about a greenwitch in their house in good part. The housekeeper, who did hear some
of it as she hobbled around the house on a stick, was not pleased and contrived to snub тАЬMiss BeautyтАЭ
for a fortnight after. (She might also have denuded the garden of flowers in her efforts to have a grander
show than BeautyтАЩs for the next party, but the head gardener was more than a match for her.) Beauty
stayed out of her way till she had moved her ill will to another target; there was too much temper and
spitefulness in the house already, and she thought she might forget her promise to herself never to add to
it, and tell the housekeeper what a dreadful old woman she thought her.
Besides, she would probably then have to hire another housekeeper afterwards, and she could think
of few things she less wanted to do.
The sistersтАЩ parties, over the course of several seasons, became famous as the finest in the city, as
fine as their motherтАЩs had been. Perhaps not quite so grand as the mayorтАЩs, but perhaps more enjoyable;
the mayorтАЩs daughters were, after all, rather plain.
Only the ill-naturedтАФespecially those whose own parties were slighted in favor of the sistersтАЩтАФever
suggested that it was the work of any hired magician. Their fatherтАЩs attitude towards magic was well
known. His sudden revulsion of feeling upon his wifeтАЩs death had indeed been much talked of; but much
more surprising was its result.
It was true that he was the wealthiest merchant in the city, but that was all he was; and if he had long
had what seemed, were it not absurd to think so. an almost magical ability to seize what chance he
wished when he wished to seize it, well, seers and soothsayers were always going on about how there
was no such thing as luck, but that everyone possessed some seeds of magic within themselves, whether
or not they ever found them or nursed them into growth. But no mere merchant, even the wealthiest
merchant in the biggest city in the country, and whatever the origins of his business luck, should have
been able to dislodge any magical practitioner who did not wish to be dislodged; but so it was in this
case. Not only were all the magicians, astrologers, and soothsayers who had been members of his wifeтАЩs
entourage thrown out of his houseтАФwhich ban was acceptably within his purviewтАФbut he saw them