April Snippets of Story

Time for Snippets of Story again.  I'm getting way too much fun out of this--and I can't wait to read all of your snippets too! Don't forget to stop by Katie's blog, Whisperings of the Pen, to link up.

(The Very Astute among you may guess that the last three snippets, all from my currently untitled Work In Progress, all come from the same scene.  This is because that scene is one of only two that I've written so far for that story, and the said scene amuses me so immensely that I couldn't help sharing, well, a lot of it.)

“I have never been employed before,” said Elizabeth.
“No?” Mrs. Leopold’s caterpillar-like eyebrows drew together in a disapproving frown. “Dear Eloise recommended you highly. I had thought perhaps you had previously been dear Lavinia’s governess. Though I must admit your extreme youth has caused me to retract THAT opinion.”
Elizabeth did not feel that her youth was extreme, or that any measure of youth was a monstrous crime against humanity, but she prudently said nothing.

~Only a Novel

Elizabeth cast about in her mind as to whether it would be simpler to sit upon the dress to hide it or put the nearby bowl of potatoes on top of it. Neither seemed a practical solution, and besides Rodney must have noticed the dress by now. Indeed, he looked as if he were on the point of making a remark about it. She could only hope that he could be prevailed upon not to mention the dress to Mercy.
“Much obliged. What’s this on the table? Hmmm. I should have known what would happen if Mrs. Ingle left you in charge of supper, Jenny. This—” he lifted one sleeve—“will be delicious with buttered potatoes. Indubitably.”

~Only a Novel

The dress looked even lovelier when she spread it out on the bed. In Lavinia’s gorgeously decorated bedroom it had been just another conglomeration of velvet and lace, but here in the starkness of Elizabeth’s room it fairly shone in contrast. The crimson of the skirt was such a comforting color that Elizabeth thought it might almost be warm to the touch. She touched it. It wasn’t.

~Only a Novel

“When you cook with onions, it’s like using a silent E,” said Maeve. “You know it’s there, but it doesn’t assert itself. It just strengthens the sound—or the taste—and gives the word—uh, dish—a new… a new… taste.”
“Poetic,” said Ismelda.
“Thank you.”

~It's Thursday Again

“Piffle,” said Lavinia. “It will do you no harm to have a few nice dresses. And I beg you, Lizzie, don’t talk of such vulgar things as cost. I care not how much I pay for a dress, so long as it is good quality, and if I choose to make you a present of a dress, what business is it of yours?”
But Elizabeth won in the end, and Lavinia sighed. “I do not know what to do with you,” she said. “You are certainly the most trying friend I have ever known. If I didn’t think you were the dearest girl in the world, I would have nothing to do with you, you know, Lizzie.”
Elizabeth knew.
“Ah, well,” said Lavinia. “How do you think this color would look on me? If I cannot make you a present out of this dress, I am resolved not to be cheated out of the pleasure of buying it for myself, at least.”

~Only a Novel

Elizabeth looked around the stateroom. There was a bed, firmly attached to the wall. There was a table, firmly secured to the floor. There were a washbasin and pitcher, which were not attached to anything at all. Elizabeth imagined a stormy night, the wind-tossed ship, the bowl and pitcher clattering off the table and onto her head as she lay shivering in the bed—

“Is there a great deal of—er, motion during storms?” she asked in a small voice. Then she reproached herself for asking such a childish question. Of course the ship would toss about in a gale. She was not in a solid building, after all.

~Only a Novel

“I have never been to a ball,” said Elizabeth. She was not sure if she would like it or not, but she could not help being excited. Grandmother had never let her go to balls.
“Hush,” scolded Lavinia. “My dear Lizzie, you must not speak so loudly of your misfortunes. People will think you are no better than a guttersnipe.”
“Lavinia!”
“My dearest creature, of course I do not think you are a guttersnipe, but Lady Judith Meriwether Fagles may if you do not take care. Now, as it is nearly eight and we are requested to come at eight, we must be on our way.”

~Only a Novel

“What’s wrong with you?” Maeve demanded.
“Everything,” said Ismelda, kicking at a harmless rock.
“What do you mean, everything?”
“Well, to say that every thing is wrong is just as much a lie as to say that nothing is wrong. And you may as well be hung for an everything as a nothing.”
“I think it’s going to rain,” said Freddie, who had stopped listening five minutes ago.

~It's Thursday Again

“Heartless villains are so run-of-the-mill,” said Phoebe, chewing the end of her pencil the way she always told Freddie not to.

~It's Thursday Again

Where Lady Fagles was all harrumphing and supercilious camel-like expressions of the face, Mrs. Wakenshaw was all chirping and twittering and fluttering feathers.
 “Miss Bancroft, don’t you think Miss Markette will like Lieutenant Scarborough? He is quite distinguished—soon to be promoted, we hope—and he is not married,” she hastened to add.
 Lavinia gave Elizabeth another eloquent look. Apparently these ladies were not at all subtle in their attempts to marry off this Lieutenant Scarborough.
 “I am sure Miss Markette will like Lieutenant Scarborough,” Mrs. Wakenshaw persisted hopefully.

~Only a Novel

“Well, then, why, please?” Emily was not to be distracted by string beans.
Mr. Rochester handed Alice the pepper. “Because I see absolutely no purpose in teenage girls going out on so-called dates with teenage boys. Especially when neither party is old enough to drive or possess a car. Which, I might add, is the case with you and Frank Whittaker. Moreover, teenage boys are, in general, idiots and I do not care to have my daughter keeping company with an idiot. Which, I might add—but shall not for fear of offending—might be an apt way to describe the young man in question—i.e., Frank Whittaker.”
“Why Daddy, you said just last week that you thought Frank was a very nice boy.”
“I do not deny it. However, idiocy and niceness are not necessarily isolated characteristics—as life will teach you all too quickly, I fear.” Mr. Rochester gave a sad, solemn shake of his head. He was enjoying himself immensely.

~Untitled W.I.P.

“Daddy, do you mean that I need to wait four years to go to the movies with Frank? I’ll be nineteen!”
“Movies will be obsolete by the time Em’s nineteen,” put in Mark, snickering. “We’ll all be going to supersonic atom-blasting theaters that project the story right into viewers’ heads.”
Emily kicked him under the table and looked to her father.
“A fine and sensible age,” said Mr. Rochester, ignoring Mark’s comment. “Yes, nineteen is a splendid age. Almost out of the danger zone, though of course not quite. Your Uncle Ned broke his right arm at the age of nineteen after riding his bicycle backward down our driveway with his eyes shut. An excellent example of my previous point regarding the mental capacity of teenage boys. Alice, these mashed potatoes are superb. Are these our own chives?”

~Untitled W.I.P.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to tell Frank I can’t go.” Emily, who was (as aforementioned) not the drippy type, was also not the type to bewail her losses. She took a pragmatic sip of milk.
“I suppose you shall,” agreed Mr. Rochester, “but if you care to pull a Bartleby the Scrivener and would prefer not to, I will be happy to perform the hated task myself. Do you think that I might look more harsh and forbidding and properly like a stern guardian if I wore my horn-rimmed spectacles during my little chat with Frank, the hopeful suitor? I believe they’re in the attic somewhere—I can easily fish them out if you think they’ll aid me in the part.”

~Untitled W.I.P.

March Snippets of Story

Snippets of Story (hosted by Katie at Whisperings of the Pen) is back again!

Elizabeth’s brief glimpse of Lavinia’s world had only served to show her that their lives were, in truth, very, very different. Lavinia still led a life of luxury and beauty, while Elizabeth had taken several steps downward, and was now shivering from the cold in a whitewashed bedroom without even pictures on the walls.
True, the shivering was her own fault. The radiator was steaming away, and it was rather silly of her to sit here in her nightgown without even a shawl around her shoulders.

~Only a Novel

“Do sit down, Lizzie, you make me nervous standing by the door like a statue. There is nothing in the rumors that pacing makes people nervous. I believe that standing still is what makes people nervous. It makes one fidget.”

~Only a Novel

Lavinia nodded slowly. “Yes… well… and she is so mean to poor Sarah Redgrave. Now, between you and I and that cushion—” she nodded to a fringed, puffy little thing sitting pompously atop a hatbox—“I do not think Sarah Redgrave is a particularly bright creature, but no one needs to be condescended to the way Annette Pickering condescends to everyone. Did you see how she took just one bite of the shortbread? Horrid thing. Mrs. Shurtleff’s shortbread—my, that’s a mouthful—is practically famous. Mamma serves it to all her guests and everyone says they want to hire Mrs. Shurtleff, but of course Mamma would never dream of letting our cook leave our employment, the very idea! The nerve of Miss Prunes-and-prisms Pickering, to take just one bite as if it wasn’t worth her while.”

~Only a Novel

If her thoughts could be made to stay in one place for any length of time, she might accomplish something in her hodgepodge of ponderings, but they would not. They leapfrogged about and slid from one topic to another with astonishing rapidity. Perhaps this was due to the fact that her brain was deprived of sleep. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she was really a very silly creature, after all.

~Only a Novel

The garret was colder than she had expected—most likely a result of the fire in the stove having sunk down to a few dark ruby embers and a lone chilly flame. Mercy shivered and poked a few more sticks into the stove. Nothing happened. The flame flickered, gasped, and sank.
“Just what I need,” snapped Mercy, dashing a stick to the floor. “It always goes out like that when I’m especially put out. Where did I put the poker? I had it last night, I know I did…”
Elizabeth was not quite sure if Mercy was talking to herself or to Elizabeth, so she refrained from answering and joined in the search for the poker. Mercy’s dejection had given way to frustration, and she slammed things about in a manner that bordered on the frightening. Elizabeth had to rescue a copy of Nicholas Nickleby—Rodney’s, no doubt—from being furiously flung into the wood box.

~Only a Novel

The toad blinked balefully at Isabelle, who regarded it with a mixture of fascination and disgust. “Does it bite?”

“Only clowns,” said Rodney solemnly. “Are you a clown?”

“No.”

“Good. Then you can hold him.” Rodney held out the toad, who closed his eyes and pretended that Isabelle was not there. Isabelle recoiled.

“Put that toad down at once, Rodney, if you don’t wish to be bit,” scolded Mercy. “I declare, if that toad finds clowns to his taste, your hand is in mortal danger.”

~Only a Novel

It’s quite cold and rainy and dreary here, Lavinia. You must be enjoying the sun and warmth of southern Italy. I assume you must be in Italy by now, which is why I am sending this letter to the address you provided earlier. If you are indeed in Italy, you are reading the letter—if you are not in Italy, you won’t have received the letter. Therefore you won’t be reading this letter at all, and I needn’t have said that last bit.  Oh, dear, I’ve been reading far too much Alice in Wonderland to the children, and I’m afraid it has sadly muddled my logic. 

~Only a Novel

Ismelda’s eyebrows had been creeping closer and closer toward each other as Phoebe spoke, and now they were twisted into what could only be called a scowl. “You’re rooming with Maeve Alistair? That’s impossible because I room with Maeve Alistair.”
Phoebe swallowed. “Oh. Oh, I see. Er—well—perhaps there’s some mistake.”
Ismelda scowled harder. Not only had this new girl trumped Ismelda in mathematics all morning long, but now she was also taking away Ismelda’s room--and her roommate--, and on top of that she did not appear to be quite the brightest crayon in the box.

~It's Thursday Again

“A new pupil? Another one? But why so late in the year?” Phoebe was almost running to keep up with Ismelda.
“Oh, well, they’re always late. The scholarship students, I mean.”
Phoebe flushed. “I’m a scholarship student,” she said.
“So am I,” said Ismelda breezily.
Maeve came to Phoebe’s rescue. “She doesn’t mean that scholarship students are, in general, late for things. When a student comes here on a scholarship, it usually takes a while to get all the paperwork straightened out, with applications and whatnot. So scholarship students generally come after the school year has already started. You were one of the early ones—we’d only been in session two weeks when you came.”
“What she said,” said Ismelda.

~It's Thursday Again

Emily gave an immense yawn. “I dreamed last night that we went to a family reunion and I showed up in my pajamas.”
“Thank you for sharing that vital bit of information.” Alice swept the cream pitcher out of Mark’s reach with an enough-is-enough look.
“I was the only one who noticed, though,” said Emily placidly, “so it was okay.”

~Untitled W.I.P.

February Snippets of Story

I encourage you all to join in Katie's Snippets of Story event at Whisperings of the Pen!  If you'd like to find out more about it, go here.  I don't know if I'll participate in this every month, but I thought I'd give it try, at least for the first time.  Looks like fun!

(By the way, most of these snippets are coming from my NaNoWriMo story, Only A Novel, which was formerly titled What Would Elizabeth Bennet Do?)


There is something about snow that makes everyone discard his or her dignity and just enjoy the moment. Elizabeth knew perfectly well that it was not proper for a governess to be running around the garden with her charges, (hadn’t she gotten in some trouble for running a couple of months ago?) chasing snowflakes and shrieking with laughter, but for the time being she did not care. Not the least, tiniest bit.
~Only A Novel

She had only just crossed the threshold into the dining room when a hoarse, harsh cry split the air and Mr. Crimp’s dreadful, rusty red parrot came diving at her head.
Elizabeth screamed. She hated to scream, and did it only under the most trying circumstances. This, she felt later, was a circumstance deserving of a good healthy shriek. She was not alone in her screaming; Isabelle was treating the company to a demonstration of her lungpower, and Mrs. Crimp was making unearthly squeaking noises as the parrot dove around the room.
Elizabeth, her heart pounding nearly in her throat (something she had always read of in novels, but had never before thought to be physiologically possible) covered her head with both her hands and shrank back against the doorframe in a very cowardly manner. She later made excuses for herself (to herself), saying that if the bird had managed to entangle itself in her hair, she would have laid down on the floor and died.
Which would not have been a dignified thing to do.
~Only A Novel

Elizabeth searched under her table, under her bed, under her pillow, under her lamp, behind her ear and finally under Lavinia’s letter until she found her pen. It had been under Lavinia’s letter. Naturally, whenever she lost something she always found it in the last place she had looked.
Well, of course the last place she had looked had been the place she had found it, for after she found it she need not look for it any more.
Though geometry had been one of her best subjects, logic had never been her strong point, and she returned to her page with her head in a bit of a muddle.
~Only A Novel

They pulled to a stop at an intersection. Elizabeth pulled her head back into the brougham and straightened her hat. Wisps were already escaping from her French twist, and she had been so proud of it only an hour ago. It was no light feat to do one’s own hair so prettily without even Jenny’s help. But the wind rushing past the window had no regard for her hard work and, indeed, seemed to scorn it.
~Only A Novel

“LaVEENia, darling,” squealed the tallest of the group, a sallow-faced young woman attired in an unflattering shade of gold. “How lovely to see you, you look simply lovely, darling, and who is this lovely little friend of yours, how lovely to meet you, you sweet thing!”
Elizabeth, who did not particularly relish being dubbed a sweet thing, politely took the young lady’s hand and shot Lavinia a beseeching look.
~Only A Novel

“And may I introduce,” said Lavinia quickly, “Miss Vivian Applethwaite, Miss Annette Pickering—my dear friend Miss Elizabeth Markette.”
“Delighted,” said Miss Applethwaite.
“Charmed,” said Miss Pickering.
Elizabeth sought for a synonym. “Enraptured,” she said solemnly, shaking hands all around.
~Only A Novel

With great effort, Miss Ballantyne managed to squeeze out two or three tears. Usually the tears were quite effective, but today her friends--and even her sister--seemed made of stone. She offered another injured sniff. In honor of the day, she was wearing her best black bombazine, the one trimmed with delicate fluting all around the waist and hem... so tasteful and so appropriate to the memory of poor dear Humphrey. And yet no one had complimented her on it, nor even seemed to notice how well the fine black material set off her complexion. She had always looked well in black.
~Untitled Story for Rachel's Contest

Miss Waxington drank tea and coffee—in the same cup—every morning for breakfast, and the other teachers were so polite that they never said anything about it to her. The students were not so polite, but they were so in awe of their teachers that they never said anything to Miss Waxington either.
~It's Thursday Again

In the mathematics classroom, Miss Box rapped firmly on the table. “Young ladies, may I introduce to your our newest pupil,” she said.
“Good morning Miss Box,” droned the students. Then they realized that she had not said “Good morning, class,” and they looked at each other sheepishly.
~It's Thursday Again


“Of all the dreadful, rude, insufferable creatures I have ever met in all my life, Annette Pickering is the worst. Don’t try to think of anything nice to say about her, Elizabeth, you’ll only hurt your brain.” If Lavinia could be said to plop, she would have plopped onto her chaise longue. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mother, of course. Thank you for not saying anything when I lied through my teeth at dinner and told Mother we had a perfectly lovely tea. I can always count on you, Lizzie.”
~Only A Novel