FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  
over her. She hated him. She hated him for such loutish cruelty. He didn't care. And because he did not care, although she tried to feel indifferent, she loved him the more. Blindly she walked away from the house, and heard the trams grinding, and the rattle of carts over the rough paving. Holloway Road at this point is at its worst--dull and ugly, with an air of third-rate respectable indigence. She crossed the road, and passed into a squalid thoroughfare called Grove Road, and marched past the ugly houses with her head in the air, pretending that she had no interest whatever in Toby. All her thoughts were busy inventing indifference; and her consciousness was at each turn confusing and contradicting her thoughts. If solitude had been possible to her, Sally would have cried; but as a rule she cried very little, both because she was rarely alone and because she was not naturally hysterical. Fighting, therefore, against what she felt to be weakness, she proceeded on her way, trying to laugh at rival butchers shouting insults and challenges across the street. At the post office near her old home she changed her open postal-order, and was given a half-sovereign and ten shillings-worth of silver. This money she carefully put, in paper, inside her blouse. She was then ready for her interview. At the old address new tenants already occupied the first floor flat, and Mr. Clancy stood at the gate smoking his pipe. The man who lived in the ground floor flat next door still showed his glass-covered sign "Why Pay Rent?" Children littered the few inches of asphalt which served as front garden to the two houses. Seeing Sally, Mr. Clancy took his pipe out of his mouth, spat, and nodded at her in a friendly way. "Hello, Sally. Keepin' well? Look fine." "I've come to see Mrs. Perce-- Mrs. Barrow, you know." Mr. Clancy jerked his head, receptive of the news, and as Sally passed him continued to smoke and to regard the traffic. He must have been bitterly cold, she thought; but she knew he must be standing outside either because Mrs. Clancy was out or because she was in. The stairs were just as steep as of old, and as dark. Sally had absolutely no memory of her father's fall. She was merely curious about the new people in the flat. But she did not see them, for all the doors were closed, and she kicked her feet against the stairs, stumbling a little in the darkness. At her further progress a door flew open above, and Mrs. Perce
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Clancy

 

thoughts

 

houses

 
passed
 

stairs

 

Children

 

asphalt

 

served

 

littered

 
inches

garden

 

occupied

 

smoking

 
tenants
 

interview

 

address

 

showed

 

covered

 

ground

 

progress


darkness

 
absolutely
 
bitterly
 

thought

 
standing
 

memory

 

people

 

closed

 

curious

 

father


kicked

 
traffic
 

regard

 

Keepin

 
friendly
 
nodded
 

receptive

 

jerked

 
continued
 
blouse

stumbling

 

Barrow

 

Seeing

 

street

 
indigence
 
respectable
 
crossed
 

squalid

 
thoroughfare
 

interest