Author : Arnold Bennett
Release : 2021-01-21
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Kind : eBook
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Book Synopsis The Lions Share by : Arnold Bennett
Download or read book The Lions Share written by Arnold Bennett. This book was released on 2021-01-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Audrey had just closed the safe in her father's study when she was startled by a slight noise. Sheturned like a defensive animal to face danger. It had indeed occurred to her that she was rather likean animal in captivity, and she found a bitter pleasure in the idea, though it was not at all original."And Flank Hall is my Zoo!" she had said. (Not that she had ever seen the Zoological Gardens orvisited London.)She was lithe; she moved with charm. Her short, plain blue serge walking-frock disclosed the formof her limbs and left them free, and it made her look younger even than she was. Its simplicity suitedher gestures and took grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the least interest in it-almost unconsciously. She had none of the preoccupations caused by the paraphernalia of existence.She scarcely knew what it was to own. She was aware only of her body and her soul. Beyond theseher possessions were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have carried them to thegrave and into heaven without protest from the authorities earthly or celestial.The slight noise was due to the door of the study, which great age had distorted and bereft of sense, and, in fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched itself, paused, and then calmly but firmly swung wideopen. When it could swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and herself for a poltroon. She became defiant ofperil, until the sound of a step on the stair beyond the door threw her back into alarm. But when thefigure of Miss Ingate appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to the point of disdain.All her facial expression said: "It's only Miss Ingate."And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her untidy hair was greying; she was stout, she wasfifty, she was plain, she had not elegance; her accent and turns of speech were noticeably those ofEssex. But she had a magnificent pale forehead; the eyes beneath it sparkled with energy, inquisitiveness, and sagacity; and the mouth beneath the eyes showed by its sardonic droppingcorners that she had come to a settled, cheerful conclusion about human nature, and that theconclusion was not flattering. Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local Representativeof the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. She had studied intimately the needy and the richand the middling. She was charitable without illusions; and, while adhering to every socialconvention, she did so with a toleration pleasantly contemptuous; in her heart she had no mercy forsnobs of any kind, though, unfortunately, she was at times absurdly intimidated by them-at othertimes she was no