"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - A Baroque Fable" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

to studyтАФnot anything too awfulтАФand I will do my best to learn it, so that I can offer you some
intelligent conversation when we are finished with the work of the day." Her eyes are growing pensive
now, and she droops where she stands. Her pretty, amazingly clean frock shows off her posture to the
best advantage and her half-closed lips would appear pouting on anyone less patently innocent.
"So you wish to please me? Will you listen to it, Liripoop, the moron wants to please me. How
delightful." Her tone is filled with something that Esmeralda does not recognize; it is malice. "There must
be some little thing I could think of, if I put my mind to it. What do you say, Liripoop? Isn't there
something that would be simply perfect?"
Liripoop gives a slow, studied stretch, then drops his chin back on his feet.
For once, Esmeralda has the good sense to be apprehensive. "I didn't mean... I don't want to be a bother
to you, but if there is something... you might not want to..." Even dithering, she is lovely, which Alfreida
notices with a cultivated sneer.
"You want to please me, and the way you are, no matter what you did, you would please someone, I'm
sure." She reaches out, tapping her long, booked fingernails on one of the metal pots. The noise is like
pebbles or teeth rolled down a metal washboard. "I'm sure," she muses, her eyes half closing, taking on
an expression very like Liripoop's. "Yes. But what if you were changed? What then?" The sly eyes do
not open, but they whisk from Esmeralda's face to the cat's and back again. "What if you were plain?
What if you were ugly? What if you were hideous? What if you were frightful? Do you think anyone
would be glad to have you help them, and make you fed so happy? Not a chance, not a chance. No one
would want you near them, no one! That idiot dog of yours would bite you if be didn't run bowling out of
the room." Alfreida cackles with glee at the dwught, exactly as all wicked witches are supposed to do.
"We'd see what's what then, wouldn't we?"
Esmeralda had turned divinely pale. "What are you say-
A BAROQUE FABLE
11
ing? Why should such things make a difference? I am certain mat you have let your disappointments sour
you, and I am sorry for it. It isn't possible that you could be right." Her indignation is almost as splendid
to behold as her dismay was. "It is just that you are an unfortunate, neglected, unhappy old witch!"
Both Alfreida and Esmeralda are stupefied by her outburst, as much because it is a pretty good summary
of the problem than anything else. Liripoop licks his nose in a thorough and studious manner.
"What was that?" Alfreida demands ominously.
"Oh, dear," Esmeralda cries, shrinking back. "What a dreadful thing for me to say to you. What can I
nave been thinking of, to speak of you in that way?"
"It wasn't your family's crops," Alfreida declares with a slow nod. "They'll be eating weeds before the
summer is over, you spiteful little worm."
Esmeralda looks around the hut, overcome by distress. "I never meant that, never. I was... foolish!
stupid!"
'That you were," Alfreida agrees with spurious good will.
"I'd do anything to make amends. I beg your pardon." She curtsies, as graceful as a willow bending in the
wind. This does nothing to appease Alfreida, who rolls up her eyes in exasperation.
"What a ninny it is. What an aggravating ninny." Her chuckle is low and nasty. "And it expects me to
forgive and forget the insult. Well, I'm not so blind as some I could name. And I'm not so
namby-pamby."
"No, certainly you're not. You have great perspicacity," Esmeralda assures her, eager to placate her
captress. "You are more learned and erudite than anyone I've ever met."
"Fine words for someone who should be scratching out bequests," Alfreida warns her, then pauses. "You
do want to get back into my good graces, don't you. You're not just saying that to convince me you're
harmless."
Esmeralda is not wise enough to be nervous at this sudden change of humor on Alfreida's pan, so she
nods earnestly, the color coming back into her cheeks. "Oh, yes. Yes, it would mean so much to me.