Отрывок из книги
He touched her cheek with a gentle finger. “It’s real, my dear.”
He spoke so softly that she exclaimed, “Oh, Radmer, are you sorry that…? Do you want to change your mind…? It would be all right, truly it would. I can’t think why you chose me in the first place.”
.....
Lavinia forbore from commenting that she had had nothing done for her at all; even holidays and days off had been denied her, and though she was a fair-minded girl, the worthy stockings, edifying books and writing paper she had received so regularly at Christmas and birthdays could hardly be classed as sacrifices. And her aunt could quite well afford to pay for a companion; someone she could bully if she wanted to and who would be able to answer back without the chain of family ties to hold her back. She sighed with deep contentment, thinking of her new job, and her aunt mistaking her reason for sighing, remarked that she was, and always had been, an ungrateful girl.
Lavinia wasn’t going to see Peta again before she left England, although she had arranged to telephone her at a friend’s house before she went. She spent the week in making final arrangements, aided, and hindered too, by her many friends. They had a party for her on her last night, with one bottle of sherry between a dozen or more of them, a great many pots of tea and a miscellany of food. There was a great deal of laughing and talking too, and when someone suggested that Lavinia should find herself a husband while she was in Holland, a chorus of voices elaborated the idea. ‘Someone rich—good-looking—both—with an enormous house so that they could all come and stay…’ The party broke up in peals of laughter. Lavinia was very popular, but no one really believed that she was likely to find herself such a delightful future, and she believed it least of all.
.....
