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If Winter Comes by A. S. M. Hutchinson
Penny Green, like Rome, had not been built in a day. The houses of the Penny Green Garden Home, on the other hand, were being run up in as near to a day as enthusiastic developers, feverish contractors (vying one with another) and impatient tenants could encompass. Nor was Penny Green built for a day.
The houses and cottages of Penny Green had been built under the influence of many and different styles of architecture; and they had been built not only by people who intended to live in them, and proposed to be roomy and well cup boarded and stoutly beamed and floored in them, but who, not foreseeing restless and railwayed generations, built them to endure for the children of their children's children and for children yet beyond. Sabre's house was of grey stone and it presented over the doorway the date 1667.
"Nearly two hundred and fifty years," Mabel had once said.
"And I bet," Sabre had replied, "it's never been better kept or run than you run it now, Mabel."
The tribute was well deserved. Mabel, who was in many ways a model woman, was pre?minently a model housewife. "Crawshaws" was spotlessly kept and perfectly administered. Four living rooms, apart from the domestic offices, were on the ground floor. One was the morning room, in which they principally lived; one the dining room and one the drawing-room. They were entered by enormously heavy doors of oak, fitted with latches, the drawing-room up two steps, the dining room down one step and the morning room and the fourth room on the level. All were low-beamed and many-windowed with lattice windows; all were stepped into as stepping into a very quiet place, and somehow into a room which one had not expected to be there, or not quite that shape if a room were there. Sabre never quite lost that feeling of pleasant surprise on entering them. They had moreover, whether due to the skill of the architect or the sagacity of Mabel, the admirable, but rare attribute of being cool in summer and warm in winter.
The only room in the house which Sabre did not like was the fourth sitting room on the ground floor; and it was his own room, furnished and decorated by Mabel for his own particular use and comfort. But she called it his "den", and Sabre loathed and detested the word den as applied to a room a man specially inhabits. It implied to him a masculine untidiness, and he was intensely orderly and hated untidiness. It implied customs and manners of what he called "boarding-house ideas",-the idea that a man must have an untidily comfortable apartment into which he can retire and envelop himself in tobacco smoke, and where he "can have his own things around him", and "have his pipes and his pictures about him", and where he can wear "an old shooting jacket and slippers",-and he loathed and detested all these phrases and the ideas they connoted. He had no "old shooting jacket" and he would have given it to the gardener if he had; and he detested wearing slippers and never did wear slippers; it was his habit to put on his boots after his bath and to keep them on till he put on shoes when changing for dinner. Above all, he loathed and detested the vision which the word "den" always conjured up to him. This was a vision of the door of a typical den being opened by a wife, and of the wife saying in a mincing voice, "This is George in his den," and of boarding-house females peering over the wife's shoulder and smiling fatuously at the denizen who, in an old shooting jacket and slippers, grinned vacuously back at them. To Mark this was a horrible and unspeakable vision.
Mabel could not in the least understand it, and common sense and common custom were entirely on her side; Mark admitted that. The ridiculous and trivial affair only took on a deeper significance-not apparent to Mark at the time, but apparent later in the fact that he could not make Mabel understand his attitude.
The matter of the den and another matter, touching the servants, came up between them in the very earliest days of their married life. From London, on their return from their honeymoon, Mark had been urgently summoned to the sick-bed of his father, in Chovensbury. Mabel proceeded to Crawshaws. He joined her a week later, his father happily recovered. Mabel had been busy "settling things", and she took him round the house with delicious pride and happiness. Mark, sharing both, had his arm linked in hers. When they came to the fourth sitting room Mabel announced gaily, "And this is your den!"
Mark gave a mock groan. "Oh, lord, not den!"
"Yes, of course, den. Why ever not?"
"I absolutely can't stick den." He glanced about "Who on earth's left those fearful old slippers there?"
"They're a pair of father's. I took them specially for you for this room. You haven't got any slippers like that."
He gazed upon the heels downtrodden by her heavy father. He did not much like her heavy father. "No, I haven't," he said, and thought grimly, "Thank God!"
"But, Mark, what do you mean, you can't stick 'den'?"
He explained laughingly. He ended, "It's just like lounge hall. Lounge hall makes me feel perfectly sick. You're not going to call the hall a lounge hall, are you?"
She was quite serious and the least little bit put out. "No-I'm not. But I can't see why. I've never heard such funny ideas."
He was vaguely, transiently surprised at her attitude towards his funny ideas. "Well, come on, let's see upstairs."
"Yes, let's, dear."
He stepped out, and she closed the door after them. "Well, that's your den."
As if he had never spoken! A vague and transient discomfort shot through him.
Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson (2 June 1879 – 14 March 1971), commonly known by his initials A. S. M. Hutchinson, was a British novelist.
Arthur S. Hutchinson was hailed by the New York Times as having the “touch of a master hand." Here he tackles the question of a woman's place in the home in This Freedom. Attacked as an anti-feminist novel, it is an intriguing portrait of a marriage in the early twentieth century.
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Once upon a time, there were two kingdoms once at peace. The kingdom of Salem and the kingdom of Mombana... Until the day, the king of Mombana passed away and a new monarch took over, Prince Cone. Prince Cone, has always been hungry for more power and more and more. After his coronation, he attacked Salem. The attack was so unexpected, Salem never prepared for it. They were caught off guard. The king and Queen was killed, the prince was taken into slavery. The people of Salem that survived the war was enslaved, their land taken from them. Their women were made sex slaves. They lost everything, including their land. Evil befall the land of Salem in form of Prince Cone, and the prince of Salem in his slavery was filled with so much rage. The prince of Salem, Prince Lucien swore revenge. 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳 Ten years later, thirty-years old Lucien and his people raided a coup and escaped slavery. They went into hiding and recuperated. They trained day and night under the leadership of the fearless and cold Lucien who was driven with everything in him to get back their land, and take Mombana land too. It took them five years before they ambushed and attacked Mombana. They killed Prince Cone and reclaimed everything. As they screamed out their victory, Lucien's eyes found and pinned the proud princess of Mombana. Princess Danika. The daughter of Prince Cone. As Lucien stared at her with the coldest eyes anyone can ever possess, he felt victory for the first time. He walked to the princess with the slave collar he'd won for ten years rattling in his hand as he walked. He reached close to her and with a swift movement, he collared her neck. Then, he tilted her chin up, staring into the bluest eyes and the most beautiful face ever created, he gave her a cold smile. "You are my acquisition. My slave. My sex slave. My property. I will pay you in spades, everything you and your father ever did to me and my people." He stated curtly. Pure hatred, coldness and victory was the only emotion on his face. .
Rachel used to think that her devotion would win Brian over one day, but she was proven wrong when his true love returned. Rachel had endured it all—from standing alone at the altar to dragging herself to the hospital for an emergency treatment. Everyone thought she was crazy to give up so much of herself for someone who didn’t return her feelings. But when Brian received news of Rachel’s terminal illness and realized she didn’t have long to live, he completely broke down. "I forbid you to die!" Rachel just smiled. She no longer needed him. "I will finally be free."
Rena got into an entanglement with a big shot when she was drunk one night. She needed Waylen's help while he was drawn to her youthful beauty. As such, what was supposed to be a one-night stand progressed into something serious. All was well until Rena discovered that Waylen's heart belonged to another woman. When his first love returned, he stopped coming home, leaving Rena all alone for many nights. She put up with it until she received a check and farewell note one day. Contrary to how Waylen expected her to react, Rena had a smile on her face as she bid him farewell. "It was fun while it lasted, Waylen. May our paths never cross. Have a nice life." But as fate would have it, their paths crossed again. This time, Rena had another man by her side. Waylen's eyes burned with jealousy. He spat, "How the hell did you move on? I thought you loved only me!" "Keyword, loved!" Rena flipped her hair back and retorted, "There are plenty of fish in the sea, Waylen. Besides, you were the one who asked for a breakup. Now, if you want to date me, you have to wait in line." The next day, Rena received a credit alert of billions and a diamond ring. Waylen appeared again, got down on one knee, and uttered, "May I cut in line, Rena? I still want you."
Blinded in a crash, Cary was rejected by every socialite—except Evelina, who married him without hesitation. Three years later, he regained his sight and ended their marriage. "We’ve already lost so many years. I won’t let her waste another one on me." Evelina signed the divorce papers without a word. Everyone mocked her fall—until they discovered that the miracle doctor, jewelry mogul, stock genius, top hacker, and the President's true daughter… were all her. When Cary came crawling back, a ruthless tycoon had him kicked out. "She's my wife now. Get lost."
The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."