The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
delightful room, Mr. Fleetwood. There are none so pretty at the Hall, and I am very sure
our maids do not polish the furniture as yours do. I can see myself in this great table.
Pray look, Mr. Fleetwood, how my hands are reflected on this polished surface. And
now my face — look! I can see that my hair is very untidy."
She leaned forward smiling at her own reflection and patting a refractory curl into place.
If it was coquetry, it was the innocent coquetry of a child. Simon was in no mind to
criticise or analyse, and his fascinated eyes wandered from the laughing face bent over
the table in such a manner as to display the most delicate little ear in the world and the
most exquisite line of throat and shoulder, to the polished board where, indeed, he could
discern the reflected gleam of bright eyes and flashing teeth. Meanwhile Miss Belinda
had been fussing in and out
[69]
of the room intent on hospitable preparations. She had peremptorily waved away the jug
of small beer which Dolly had been prepared to set upon the table. When Miss
Charnock of Charnleigh Hall partook of refreshments at the Farm, a dish of tea was the
least one could offer her, expensive and rare as that luxury was. Since Sister
Fleetwood's death Aunt Binney had had it all her own way with the housekeeping, and
preserved the traditions of the “good plain table" kept by her mother and her
grandmother before her. But economy was one thing and civility another, and Miss
Belinda knew what was due to an honoured guest. Mrs. Fleetwood's best tea-service of
Crown Derby china was got out. Miss Belinda's special tea-caddy was unlocked, and
four teaspoonfuls were measured out with her own little silver scallop-shell — one for
each person and one for the pot, according to the prescribed formula. A honeycomb was
added to the dainties of which Rachel had already caught sight, and Miss Belinda, with
her own hands, cut bread and butter of egg-shell thinness, to which Miss Rachel did
ample justice as well as to everything else on the table, for this goddess of Simon's had
the healthy appetite of her sixteen years. She chatted away very amicably while she ate,
informing her hostess that she had now returned home for good. She had been at school
for five years, and she had paid a long visit to her grandmother in Hungary, and now her
education was complete, and she was to go into society, and take her place in the world.