Delafield E. M. Delafield Premium Collection: 6 Novels in One Volume

Zella Sees Herself, The War Workers, Consequences, Tension, The Heel of Achilles & Humbug by the Prolific Author of The Diary of a Provincial Lady, Thank Heaven Fasting and The Way Things Are
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-80-268-4261-3
Verlag: e-artnow
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 760 Seiten

This carefully crafted ebook: 'E. M. Delafield Premium Collection: 6 Novels in One Volume' is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. 'Zella Sees Herself' (1915) - Zella is a beautiful orphan who must come to terms with her mother's death in a largely hostile world. The Novel is largely autobiographical and the first written work of E. M. Delafield. 'The War-Workers' (1918) - The travails of working in a Supply Depot under the tyrannical control of Charmain Vivian, who meets her match in a newly arrived clergyman's daughter Grace Jones. 'Consequences' (1919) - A young woman entering a convent. Its heroine, Alex Clare, refuses to marry the only young man to make her an offer of marriage, and, finding herself regarded as a failure by society, must resort to convent life. 'Tension' (1920) - Pauline Marchrose is a successful candidate, a woman claiming to be 28 but probably in her early thirties, when women are only beginning to fight for their rights and for equal opportunities. 'The Heel of Achilles' (1921) - A middle-class young woman Lydia Raymond who intends to marry 'above her' during the first world war in England while her daughter Jane rebels against her. 'Humbug: A Study in Education' (1922) - The protagonist Lilly is a charming character who in spite of believing in the goodness of things is bogged down by her family and society to conform. E. M. Delafield (1890-1943) was a prolific English author. She is best known for her largely autobiographical works like Zella Sees Herself, The Provincial Lady Series etc. which look at the lives of upper-middle class Englishwomen.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Delafield, E. M.

Leseproben

II
Table of Contents ON Wednesday afternoon Mrs. Lloyd-Evans saw her brother-in-law shut himself into the study, after a morning spent in necessary and painful business, and immediately said to Zella, who had been gazing hopelessly into the small fire for the last hour: "Will you come upstairs with Aunt Marianne now, darling?" Zella understood that she meant to visit her mother's room, and her little drawn face became a shade more colourless than before. She had scarcely seen her father since Aunt Marianne's arrival, and had clung to the weeping, demonstrative tenderness and ceaseless murmured recollections of dear, dear mother that alone seemed to make endurable the endless hours. She crept upstairs with her little shaking hand in Aunt Marianne's, but at the familiar door, which had suddenly grown terrible, Zella began to sob hysterically. Aunt Marianne tightened her hold on Zella's hand and gently opened the door. Such a curious hush pervaded the darkened room that Zella instinctively ceased sobbing. At the foot of the bed was a light oak coffin placed upon trestles. It was closed. In the gloom Zella could make out the familiar shapes of the dressing-table and the big bed and the old armchair she had always known in the bow-window. Her aunt moved gently forward, fumbling for her handkerchief as she went. "Wouldn't you like to kneel down and say a little prayer?" she whispered to Zella, who stood as though stupefied. Zella's mother had taught her to pray as a baby, but for- the last three years she had dropped the custom, which was meaningless to her. But, thus prompted, she fell upon her knees beside the strange hard coffin, and leant her aching head against the wood. She felt too sick and bewildered to cry any more. But what was there to pray for, if God would not bring mother back to life again? Zella looked across at her aunt, whose head was dropped upon her hands. Suddenly Zella felt that it must all be a nightmare, and that she would presently wake up and find that mother was here and this dreadful dream gone. It couldn't be true. A horrible sort of impatient fury seized her—the fury of the undisciplined soul against pain. She clenched her hands to prevent herself from screaming aloud, and suddenly found that she wanted to go away from this darkened room as she had never wanted anything before. She looked across at her Aunt Marianne with a kind of suppressed rage, and began to pray wildly and half unconsciously: "O God, let us go—let Aunt Marianne get up and go— I can't bear it—make her get up—make us go away from here—oh, make her get up and go!" It seemed to her that she had been calling so, madly and agonizedly, upon an unheeding God for hours, when her aunt rose at last and laid a hand upon her shoulder. Zella's little tense form relaxed suddenly, and she felt curiously weak and spent. Aunt Marianne stooped solemnly and pressed her lips upon the lid of the coffin. Then she paused a moment, and Zella, rising trembling to her feet, bent also and passionately kissed the senseless wood. "It is good-bye to mother," she thought desperately; but she did not really feel that the hard wood of the coffin and this cold, darkened room had any connection with the sweet, laughing mother whom she had last seen leaning back against her pillows, and saying gaily: "I shall be quite well again to-morrow." When they had left the room, Aunt Marianne had said, as she seemed to have said so very often since she came: "Now, if I were you, I should go and lie down for a little while upon your bed, Zella dear. It will do you good. Let Aunt Marianne come and arrange you comfortably." Zella mechanically followed Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, and passively allowed herself to be divested of her shoes, helped on to her bed, and covered with a quilt. Mrs. Lloyd-Evans kissed her very kindly, said, " Try and have a little sleep now, darling, just till five o'clock," and rustled softly away. Zella lay still. She had gone to bed very early the evening before, and had slept all night with the heavy slumber of a child exhausted from crying, and she felt no inclination to sleep again now. She traced the pattern of the wall-paper idly with her finger. When the funeral was over, would things be as dreadful as they were now? Zella felt that, somehow, it would be terrible to be left alone with her father, who must be so very, very unhappy, poor papa! although he had not cried and did not talk about mother like Aunt Marianne did. Would he never talk about her any more? Some people did not ever talk of their relations who were dead. Mother was dead. Zella came back to that thought with an aching wonder that it should bring no greater pang of realization with it. Perhaps that was what people meant by being stunned with grief. Perhaps one only realized later, when one had got used to being without— No, no! it would be impossible ever to get accustomed to it, ever to be happy again, all one's life long. ... "And I'm only fourteen, and perhaps I may live to be very old," thought Zella, and tears of self-pity welled into her eyes. She cried a little, but her swollen eyelids burnt and smarted so that presently she stopped. She had been here a long while; it must be five o'clock, and tea would break the miserable monotony of the day. Zella looked at her watch, and thought, as so often during those unspeakably wretched days of inaction, that it must have stopped. It was not yet a quarter 'past four. She held the watch despairingly to her ear, but it was still going. It seemed unbearable. Zella tried to make herself cry again by thinking of all the early recollections of her mother that had made her sob so unrestrainedly when she and Aunt Marianne had talked of them yesterday. But the tears would not come. She turned over and buried her face in the pillow, unspeakably wretched. Only the third day since her mother's death, and she felt as though this life of strained misery had lasted for years. Would nothing ever bring it to an end? It must be at least ten minutes since she had looked at: her watch. It couldn't be less than twenty-five minutes past four now, thought Zella, half expecting to see that it was even later. She looked at her watch again, and held it to her ear. Four minutes had passed. Her eyes fell upon a half-read copy of "Treasure Island" on her bookshelf. She had looked at it that morning and remembered how much excited she had been over reading it only three days ago, and then turned away her eyes with a feeling of shame that she should be capable of such a thought at such a time. Now she felt that, if only she might read, it would make the time ' less unbearably long. Confusedly she craved any relaxation of the emotional tension to which her mind had been strung during the last three days. For a few moments Zella battled against the suggestion. It was wicked and heartless to want to read a story-book when mother How dreadful Aunt Marianne would think it! But, then, Aunt Marianne needn't know—no one would ever know—and to read for a little while would help her to forget her misery. . . . Zella crept to the bookshelf in her stockinged feet, casting terrified glances at the door, and pulled down the brightly bound blue and gold book. Then she fled back on to the bed with it. At first she could understand nothing of what she read, and was only conscious of a sickening sense of guilt and the heavy pounding of her own heart as she strained her ears for the sound of Aunt Marianne's possible approach. But presently the excitement of the story revived, and Zella read eagerly, dimly conscious that unhappiness was waiting in the background to seize upon her, but knowing it to be kept at bay for so long as she should be held absorbed by her book. When at last she heard the unmistakable rustle of Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's new mourning at the door, Zella, a patch of colour blazing in each pale cheek, thrust "Treasure Island" beneath her pillow. After that she read eagerly and furtively whenever she could. It was the only means of forgetting for a little while the dull pervading sense of grief which was making life so strange and unbearable. When Thursday morning dawned serene and cloudless, Zella woke early, and lay in bed reading intently until she remembered, with a sickening pang, that on this day was to take place her mother's funeral. Then she pushed the book away and began to sob, with a dreary sense of shame and degradation added to her unhappiness. After the silent breakfast, at which Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with all the first shock of her grief apparently renewed, had refused everything but a cup of tea, Louis de Kervoyou said abruptly: "They will be here at two o'clock, Marianne, to fetch" "I know—I know," she interrupted hurriedly. "It will take quite an hour to walk down there; they will have to go slowly." The coffin of Esmée de Kervoyou was to be borne down the hill to the village churchyard by some of the tenants on the estate. "Will anyone be coming back here afterwards?" asked Mrs. Lloyd-Evans. "Only old Mr. Oliver and his daughter, who will have a long way to drive," said Louis, with his fixed composure; "and Henry, of course," he added. Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's husband was arriving that day. "Will you be kind enough to see about some refreshment, Marianne?"...