Sarah's Story: Sisters of the Quantock Hills (Quantock's Quartet) - Softcover

Elwin Harris, Ruth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0763617075 ISBN 13: 9780763617073

Verlag: Candlewick, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

Four independent-minded sisters come of age in the early 1900s - and four interwoven novels tell their stories, each through a different sister’s eyes.

The year is 1910, and the four Purcell sisters have only each other. Their mother has died, leaving them orphans in a rambling country estate. But with the help of the Mackenzies - their guardian and his family, whom the sisters come to love in very different ways - Sarah, Frances, Julia, and Gwen find the courage to follow their own paths in a world that is rapidly changing.
Avid readers and fans of historical-fiction classics will love these spirited heroines - named "the Little Women of our times" by the TIMES of London - and will be thoroughly absorbed by their intertwining tales, full of feistiness, creativity, and young romance.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ruth Elwin Harris began storytelling during the Second World War when she and her brother went to stay with their grandfather in his isolated Somerset house. "We led a very solitary existence," she says. "Not that we minded. We read a lot and made up stories to entertain each other." It is that house, christened Hillcrest, that plays an important part in her Quantock Hills series. "My grandfather bought it in the 1930s from three elderly sisters - all of whom had been painters. Their murals still remained on the stable walls. I used to think about those sisters and wonder about life in the village when they were young."

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They lurked in the shadows, all the evil spirits of every fairy story that she had ever read, ghouls, goblins, imps, crowding round the edges of the room, waiting for her to move into the darkness. One step outside the safe circle of lamplight and she would be trapped, caught in shadowy arms, carried away.
Even in her most terrible dreams she knew that in some way, at some time, there would be an awakening. Not tonight. Tonight was worse than any nightmare. She could not pretend tonight that her body was lying in bed upstairs. She knew it was here, in the kitchen, shivering on a stool, while Annie, like a witch at her cauldron, took the brightly coloured garments from a pile on the table and dropped them one by one into the bubbling copper on the range. One by one, the happy colours became the dreary black of night until only one garment remained.
"Not my yellow dress!" She fell off the stool, grabbed Annie's arm. "Please, Annie, not that. I don't want black. I hate black. Please, please, let me keep my yellow dress."
"Oh, Miss Sarah," Annie said, "you can't wear yellow - not at a time like this. 'Twouldn't be respectful. Let me have it now, there's a good girl."
"I won't, I won't!" But her voice wavered as she struggled to hold the material. It was no good, she should have known it would be no good. Her lips trembled as the dress disappeared into the dye. Now there was nothing left; even her favourite dress had gone. She put her head down on the soft, smooth surface of the table and wept.
Annie pulled up a stool. "It's only for a little while, wearing black," she said gently. "You can have all the bright colours you want after."
"It was for ever when Father died."
"It only seemed that way." She stroked the child's hair. "It's a mark of respect, you see, for your mother. And to let people know you're sad."
Sarah lifted her head. "She wanted to die. The doctor said she'd get better but she wanted to die. I heard you tell him so. It's her fault she's dead."
"Oh, love. You shouldn't listen to things like that. I didn't mean . . . " Annie searched for words. "She . . . she lost heart, you see, when your father died. She wanted to be with him."
"But Father's all right. Father's got God." Tears trickled down into Sarah's mouth, warm, salty. "Why didn't she think of us? We haven't got anybody. What's going to happen to us?"
"I don't know. No-one tells Annie things like that." She tried to smile. "Don't you worry, love. Mr. Mackenzie'll make sure you're all right. And your sisters are coming home tomorrow. You'll feel better then. Now, how about a nice cup of cocoa before I take you up to bed?"
The mug warmed Sarah's hands. She was safe on Annie's lap, with Annie's arms around her. She sipped the cocoa slowly, delaying the moment when she would have to pass that door on her way to bed.
"Not Miss Sarah," Annie had said. "There's no call for it. She's fanciful at the best of times - gets funny ideas in her head. We'll have bad nights for weeks. Let the child remember her mother as she was."
But Mrs. Mackenzie knew best. Mrs. Mackenzie always knew best. Grasping Sarah's hands, so tightly that the rings twisted into Sarah's fingers and made dents in her flesh, Mrs. Mackenzie had taken her through the door into the dining-room.
Don't look, Sarah had told herself, fixing her gaze on the rich maroons and peacock blues of the carpet that Father had brought back from Constantinople. First Father had gone, now Mother. But Mother had wanted to die, had wanted to be with Father. Perhaps she had even asked God to make her die. Sarah thought of her own prayers, of the shivering hours spent on her knees by the side of her bed, the promises to be good, for ever and ever, if only God would help. God hadn't listened to her. He had listened to Mother instead.
Sarah looked at her cocoa now, and wondered. How did God decide whose prayers to answer?
"Come on, love," Annie said. "It'll go cold if you don't drink it up quick."
Skin had formed on the surface, purply-pink and wrinkled, soft against her lips. When she drank, it separated into little pieces that caught between her teeth and on her tongue.
"Carry me, Annie."
"A big girl, like you! Seven - you're too heavy for poor Annie to carry."

SARAH'S STORY: SISTERS OF THE QUANTOCK HILLS by Ruth Elwin Harris. Copyright (c) 1986 by Ruth Elwin Harris. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Candlewick
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0763617075
• ISBN 13: 9780763617073
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Acco Brands Italia S.r.l.; leitzaccosupport@acco.com; ; Strada della Merla, 49/B; Settimo Torinese; 10036; Italien