Outing With Sister Quotes

Lucy grimaces at me. “I ran into Marie and Beth while we were out.” “Oh? And how were they?” Marie and Beth had been Lucy’s best friends for years, though it’s been a few months since I last saw them around. “They were on some kind of outing for Marie’s birthday,” Lucy says, and her eyes glitter. She sniffs. “Apparently they don’t think I’m worth an invitation anymore.” “What?” She hugs her arms around her middle, squeezing her eyes shut. “When I asked why they didn’t invite me, Marie said they figured I would say no, so they didn’t bother. As if I’m choosing to be sick. As if the reason I didn’t go to Beth’s spring tea was because I couldn’t be bothered and not because I was afraid I might vomit on her mother’s sofa.” Her voice breaks. “Oh, Luce.” I wrap my arms around her, and she buries her face against my neck. “Is it so terrible of me to want an invitation, even if I’m unable to go?” I shake my head, combing my fingers through her hair. “Of course not.” “You know what else Beth said? She said, ‘You aren’t as fun anymore, and Marie wanted to have a good time.’” A sob chokes out of her lips, and her shoulders shake. “It’s like they think I’m lazy or something.” An inferno rages in my chest. I squeeze her tighter, blinking away my own tears. “They’re wrong, Lucy. You are the most fun person I know, and you sure as hell aren’t lazy. I’d like to see Marie or Beth work half as hard as you.” “But I don’t want to work hard just to live my life. I want to go to the tea parties and the birthday outings and have fun like them.” She mops her eyes with her sleeve. I press a kiss to her forehead as the blood under my skin boils. The things I wish I could say to those girls. To their mothers. I grit my teeth and tighten my arms around my sister, wishing I could protect her from every hurt, every ache, every unkind word. “I know, Luce.I know.

What is involved in appearing to court me?” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You haven’t been courted before? What about the climbing cits and baronets’ sons? They never came up to scratch?” “Many of them did.” She wondered what he’d look like if somebody were to shave off those piratical eyebrows. “They did not bother much with the other part of the business.” “The wooing?” “The nonsense.” “We need the nonsense,” he said. “We need to drive out at the fashionable hour; we need to be seen arm in arm at the social events. I need to call upon you at the proper times with flowers in hand, to spend time with your menfolk when I creditably can. I’ll carry your purchases when you go shopping and be heard begging you to save your waltzes for me.” “There’s a problem,” she said, curiously disappointed to see the flaw in his clever scheme. He was a wonderful dancer; that was just plain fact. And she loved flowers, and loved the greenery and fresh air of Hyde Park. She also liked to shop but generally contented herself with the occasional minor outing with her sisters. And to hear him begging for her waltzes… “What sort of problem can there possibly be? Couples are expected to court in spring. It’s the whole purpose behind the Season.” “If you court me like that, Their Graces will get wind of it. They very likely already know you’ve called on me.” “And this is a problem how?” He wasn’t a patient man, or one apparently plagued with meddlesome parents. “They will start, Mr. Hazlit. They will get their hopes up. They will sigh and hint and quiz my siblings, all in hopes that you will take me off their hands.” “Then they will be disappointed. Parents expect to be disappointed. My sister was a governess, and she has explained this to me.” He looked like he was winding up for a lecture before the Royal Society, so she put a hand on his arm. “I do not like to disappoint Their Graces,” she said quietly. “They have suffered much at the hands of their children.” He blinked at her, his lips pursing as if her sentiments were incomprehensible. “I won’t declare for you,” he said. “If they let their hopes be raised by a few silly gestures, then that is their problem. You have many siblings. Let them fret over the others.” “It isn’t like that.” She cocked her head to study him. Hadn’t he had any parents at all? “I could have seventeen siblings, and Their Graces would still worry about me. You mentioned having sisters. Do you worry less about the one than the other?” “I do not.” He didn’t seem at all pleased with this example. “I worry about them both, incessantly. Excessively, to hear them tell it, but they have no regard for my feelings, else they’d write more than just chatty little…” “Yes?” “Never mind.” Some

Speaking of shooting, my lady,” Mr. Pinter said as he came around the table, “I looked over your pistol as you requested. Everything seems to be in order.” Removing it from his coat pocket, he handed it to her, a hint of humor in his gaze. As several pair of male eyes fixed on her, she colored. To hide her embarrassment, she made a great show of examining her gun. He’d cleaned it thoroughly, which she grudgingly admitted was rather nice of him. “What a cunning little weapon,” the viscount said and reached for it. “May I?” She handed him the pistol. “How tiny it is,” he exclaimed. “It’s a lady’s pocket pistol,” she told him as he examined it. Oliver frowned at her. “When did you acquire a pocket pistol, Celia?” “A little while ago,” she said blithely. Gabe grinned. “You may not know this, Basto, but my sister is something of a sharpshooter. I daresay she has a bigger collection of guns than Oliver.” “Not bigger,” she said. “Finer perhaps, but I’m choosy about my firearms.” “She has beaten us all at some time or another at target shooting,” the duke said dryly. “The lady could probably hit a fly at fifty paces.” “Don’t be silly,” she said with a grin. “A beetle perhaps, but not a fly.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she could have kicked herself. Females did not boast of their shooting-not if they wanted to snag husbands. “You should come shooting with us,” Oliver said. “Why not?” The last thing she needed was to beat her suitors at shooting. The viscount in particular would take it very ill. She suspected that Portuguese men preferred their women to be wilting flowers. “No thank you,” she said. “Target shooting is one thing, but I don’t like hunting birds.” “Suit yourself,” Gabe said, clearly happy to make it a gentlemen-only outing, though he knew perfectly well that hunting birds didn’t bother her. “Come now, Lady Celia,” Lord Devonmont said. “You were eating partridges at supper last night. How can you quibble about shooting birds?” “If she doesn’t want to go, let her stay,” Gabe put in. “It’s not shooting birds she has an objection to,” Mr. Pinter said in a taunting voice. “Her ladyship just can’t hit a moving target.” She bit back a hot retort. Don’t scare off the suitors. “That’s ridiculous, Pinter,” Gabe said. “I’ve seen Celia-ow! What the devil, Oliver? You stepped on my foot!” “Sorry, old chap, you were in the way,” Oliver said as he went to the table. “I think Pinter’s right, though. Celia can’t hit a moving target.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she protested, “I most certainly can hit a moving target! Just because I choose not to for the sake of the poor, helpless birds-“ “Convenient, isn’t it, her sudden dislike of shooting ‘poor, helpless birds’?” Mr. Pinter said with a smug glance at Lord Devonmont. “Convenient, indeed,” Lord Devonmont agreed. “But not surprising. Women don’t have the same ability to follow a bird in flight that a man-“ “That’s nonsense, and you know it!” Celia jumped to her feet. “I can shoot a pigeon or a grouse on the wing as well as any man here.” “Sounds like a challenge to me,” Oliver said. “What do you think, Pinter?” “A definite challenge, sir.” Mr. Pinter was staring at her with what looked like satisfaction. Blast it all, had that been his purpose-to goad her into it? Oh, what did it matter? She couldn’t let a claim like this or Lord Devonmont’s stand. “Fine. I’ll join you gentlemen for the shooting.” “Then I propose that whoever bags the most birds gets to kiss the lady,” Lord Devonmont said with a gleam in his eye. “That’s not much of a prize for me,” Gabe grumbled. She planted her hands on her hips. “And what if I bag the most birds?” “Then you get to shoot whomever you wish,” Mr. Pinter drawled. As the others laughed, Celia glared at him. He was certainly enjoying himself, the wretch. “I’d be careful if I were you, Mr. Pinter. That person would most likely be you.

It wasn’t dignified in the least, the way the grown man crouching on the floor played with the child—made a fool of himself to entertain a stranger’s abandoned baby. Not dignified, but it was… oddly endearing. Sophie felt an urge to get up and put some distance between herself and this tomfoolery on the floor, and yet she had to wonder too: if she brushed a lock of her hair over the child’s nose, would the baby take as much delight in it? She sat back. “How is it you know so much about babies?” “My half sisters are a great deal younger than my brother and I. We more or less raised them, and this is part of the drill. He’ll likely nap next, as outings tend to tire them when they’re this young.” He crouched low over the child and used his mouth to make a rude noise on the baby’s belly. The child exploded with glee, grabbing wildly for Mr. Charpentier’s hair and managing to catch his nose. It was quite a handsome nose in the middle of quite a handsome face. She’d noticed this at the coaching inn, in that first instant when he’d offered to help. She’d turned to find the source of the lovely, calm voice and found herself looking up into a face that put elegant masculine bones to the best possible use. His eyes were just the start of it—a true pale blue that suggested Norse ancestry, set under arching blond brows. It was a lean face, with a strong jaw and well-defined chin—Sophie could not abide a weak chin nor the artifices of facial hair men sported to cover one up. But none of that, not even the nose and chin and eyes combined, prepared Sophie for the visceral impact of more than six feet of Wilhelm Charpentier crouched on the floor, entertaining a baby. He smiled at the child as if one small package of humanity merited all the grace and benevolence a human heart could express. He beamed at the child, looked straight into the baby’s eyes, and communicated bottomless approval and affection without saying a word. It was… daunting. It was undignified, and yet Sophie sensed there was a kind of wisdom in the man’s handling of the baby she herself would lack. “He’ll

The sun had lit up the top row of leadlight windows, and the family home, polished to within an inch of its life, was sparkling like a bejeweled old dame dressed for her annual opera outing. A great swelling wave of affection came suddenly upon Alice. For as long as she could remember, she'd been aware that the house and the gardens of Loeanneth lived and breathed for her in a way they didn't for her sisters. While London was a lure to Deborah, Alice was never happier, never quite as much herself, as she was here; sitting on the edge of the stream, toes dangling in the slow current; lying in bed before the dawn, listening to the busy family of swifts who'd built their nest above her window; winding her way around the lake, notebook always tucked beneath her arm. She had been seven years old when she realized that one day she would grow up and that grown-ups didn't, in the usual order of things, continue to live in their parents' home. She'd felt a great chasm of existential dread open up inside her then, and had taken to engraving her name whenever and wherever she could- in the hard English oak of the morning-room window frames, in the filmy grouting between the gunroom tiles, on the Strawberry Thief wallpaper in the entrance hall- as if by such small acts she might somehow tie herself to the place in a tangible and enduring way.

My poor boy!” he cried. “It’s not you anymore! Hey! I’m not saying that those idiots at Vassetot and that scoundrel Roffieux were right when they said there was something wrong with your brain; but there’s something strange, something unnerving, going on with you. I want to take care of you here—right here. No mental hospitals, no annoying treatments! I know people who will understand that it’s simply a problem of nerves and who will pull you through with nothing but a little mental discipline, laying out a nice, calm program for you with a few distractions and outings…” Kmôhoûn kept me from hearing the rest of the sentence. I thought my head was going to explode. The Tkoukrian howled and stormed, but for me alone. Only I could hear his awful racket and his abominable explosion of rage made me panic. I was about to say something stupid again—after so many other things—but I could not talk reasonably anymore. It was a psychic racket that no one would be scared of, except me—but I was stunned by it. I did not miss a single word that Kmôhoûn yelled, even though he did not articulate any of them. But I do not have the least desire to repeat them all here; it tumbled out like a torrent of trash. I would be forced to write pages and pages on which the most terrifying curses and the most revolting obscenities would be repeated again and again. This whole flood of filth, moreover, could be boiled down pretty much to this: “You lunatic, moron, agitated idiot! Don’t you see your crook brother’s scam? Ha! I knew it! They’re not doing it to me! Let’s f…ly the coop—and quick! They’re going to have some fun in this… this… whorehouse! And you will have your rotten… whoremonger of a sister in-law to stir up the foul… pimp guards that they’ll give us. Your brother is a crap-stained pig, walking dung,” etc, etc. And I’m softening up many of Kmôhoûn’s terms! Pretty, yes, pretty, my expression psychic racket. Charming soul, that Kmôhoûn!

Meaning, though, changes with time; text with context. What am I to do? There was a time, as in the minutes after we learned of my father’s death, when those words or words roughly like them, uttered in panic, escaped my mother’s lips. Today, after so many years of lonely meditation, and so many conversations with me that describe but a fraction of those meditations, and so many outings and travels with her Bon Sisters and other friends to explore beyond those meditations, my mother says the words with new meaning. Today she asks the question with what Zen Buddhists call “beginner’s mind.” A lack of preconception, a reflexive resistance to rutted thinking. A life-sustaining curiosity that takes each moment as a fresh start. What am I to do? has become, for my seventy-seven-year-old mother, What might I do?