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

cooking; Jeweltongue took over the housekeeping. Beauty began going through the boxes of papers that
had been delivered from what had been her fatherтАЩs office and dumped in a comer of one of the
drawing-rooms.
Lionheart could be heard two floors away from the kitchens, cursing and flinging things about,
wielding knives and mallets like swords and lances. Jeweltongue rarely spoke aloud, but she swept floors
and beat the laundry as pitilessly as she had ever told off an underhousemaid for not blacking a grate
sufficiently or a footman waiting at table for having a spot on his shirtfront.
Beauty read their fatherтАЩs correspondence, trying to discover the real state of their affairs and some
gleam of guidance as to what they must do next. She wrote out necessary replies, while her father
mumbled and moaned and rocked in his chair, and she held his trembling hand around the pen that he
might write his signature when she had finished.
Even the garden could not soothe Beauty during that time. She went out into it occasionally, as she
might have reached for a shawl if she were cold; but she would find herself standing nowhere she could
remember going, staring blindly at whatever was before her, her thoughts spinning and spinning and
spinning until she was dizzy with them. There were now no gardeners to hide from, but any relief she
might have found in that was overbalanced by seeing how quickly the garden began to look shabby and
neglected. She didnтАЩt much mind the indoors beginning to look shabby and neglected; furniture doesnтАЩt
notice being dusty, corners donтАЩt notice cobwebs, cushions donтАЩt notice being unplumped. She. told
herself that plants didnтАЩt mind going undeadheaded and unprunedтАФand the weeds, of course, were much
happier than theyтАЩd ever been before. But the plants in the garden were her friends; the house was just a
building full of objects.
She had little appetite and barely noticed as LionheartтАЩs lumpen messes began to evolve into
recognizable dishes. She had never taken a great deal of interest in her own appearance and had minded
the least of the three of them when they put their fine clothes away, for they had agreed among
themselves that all their good things should go towards assuaging their fatherтАЩs creditors. She did not
notice that Jeweltongue had an immediate gift for invisible darns, for making a bodice out of an old
counterpane, a skirt of older curtains, and collar and cuffтАЩs of worn linen napkins with the stained bits cut
out, and finishing with a pretty dress it was no penance to wear.
Nor could she sleep at night. She felt she would welcome her old nightmare almost as solace, so
dreadful had their waking life become; but the dream stayed away. Since her motherтАЩs death it had never
left her alone for so long. She found herself missing it; in its absence it became one more security that had
been torn away from her, a faithful companion who had deserted her. And it was not until now, with their
lives a wreck around them, that she realised she had forgotten what her motherтАЩs face looked like. She
could remember remembering, she could remember the long months after her motherтАЩs death, waking
from the dream crying, тАЬMamma!тАЭ and knowing what face she hoped to see when she opened her eyes,
knowing her disappointment when it was only the nurseтАЩs. When had she forgotten her motherтАЩs face?
Some unmarked moment in the last several years, as childhood memories dimmed under the weight of
adult responsibilities, or only now. one more casualty of their ruin? She did not know and could not
guess.
What unsettled her most of all was that her last fading wisp of memory contained nothing of her
motherтАЩs beauty, but only kindness, kindness and peace, a sense of safe haven. And yet the first thing
anyone who had known her mother mentioned about her was her beauty, and while she was praised for
her vitality, her wit, and her courage, far from any haven, her companionship was a dare, a challenge, an
exhilarating danger.
In among her fatherтАЩs papers Beauty discovered a lawyersтАЩ copy of a will, dated in May of the year
she had turned two, leaving the three sisters the possession of the little house owned by the woman
named. Beauty puzzled over this for some time, as she knew all her fatherтАЩs relatives (none of whom
wanted to know him or his daughters anymore), and knew as well that her mother had had none; nor did
she know of any connexion whatsoever to anyone or anything so far away from the city of the sistersтАЩ
birth. But there was no easy accounting for it. and Beauty had no time for useless mysteries.