Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:
But I couldn’t skip A Tangled Web
What ends up happening is fantastic. It’s a great premise for a book. Basically, Becky announces at this meeting that the recipient of the jug will not be announced until exactly a year from that date. And she has a list of stipulations of the type of person it will NOT be given to. No drinking, no swearing, no whatever … the list goes on and on. Naturally the vices cover pretty much everybody in the room. So over the next year, desperate to be good enough to get the jug, everyone begins to change their behavior, subtly, in order to be worthy to get the jug. Drunkards stop drinking. Etc. etc. And of course, with a clan like this one – a “tangled web” – any tiny change will have resounding implications. So shit starts to hit the fan, left and right.
Here’s the section at the beginning of the book where Becky reads out her will. I am just amazed at how many characters she can keep going, and how – with one or 2 lines apiece, we know everything we need to know about everybody. I love, too, Lucy Maud’s sense of humor. I just respond to it.
Excerpt from A Tangled Web
Aunt Becky unfolded her will, and settled her owlish, shell-ringed glasses on her beaky nose.
“I’ve left my little bit of money to Camilla for her life,” she said. “After her death its to go to the hospital in Charlottetown.”
Aunt Becky looked sharply over the throng. But she did not see any particular disappointment. To do the Darks and Penhallows justice, they were not money-grubbers. No one grudged Camilla Jackson her legacy. Money was a thing one could and should earn for oneself; but old family heirlooms, crusted with the sentiment of dead and gone hopes and fears for generations, were different matters. Suppose Aunt Becky left the jug to some rank outsider? Or a museum? She was quite capable of it. If she did, William Y. Penhallow mentally registered a vow that he would see his lawyer about it.
“Any debts are to be paid,” continued Aunt Becky, “and my grave is to be heaped up – not left flat. I insist on that. Make a note of it, Artemas.”
Artemas Dark nodded uncomfortable. He was caretaker of the Rose River graveyard, and he knew he would have trouble with the cemetery committee about that. Besides, it made it so confoundedly difficult to mow. Aunt Becky probaby read his thoughts, for she said,
“I won’t have a lawn-mower running over me. You can clip my grave nicely with the shears. I’ve left directions for my tombstone, too. I want one as big as anybody else’s. And I want my lace shawl draped around me in my coffin. It’s the only thing I mean to take with me. Theodore gave it to me when Ronald was born. There were times when Theodore could do as graceful a thing as anybody. It’s as good as new. I’ve always kept it wrapped in silver paper at the bottom of my thrid bureau drawer. Remember, Camilla.”
Camilla nodded. The first sign of disappointment appeared on Mrs. Clifford Penhallow’s face. She had set her heart on getting the lace shawl, for she feared she had very little chance of getting the jug. The shawl was siad to have cost Theodore Dark two hundred dollars. To think of burying two hundred dollars!
Mrs. Toynbee Dark, who had been waiting all the afternoon for an opportunity to cry, thought she saw it at the mention of Aunt Becky’s baby son who had been dead for sixty years, and got out her handkerchief. But Aunt Becky headed her off.
“Don’t start crying yet, Alicia. By the way, while I think of it, will you tell me something? I’ve always wanted to know and I’ll never have another chance. Which of your three husbands did you like best – Morton Dark, Edgar Penhallow, or Toynbee Dark? Come now, make a clean breast of it.”
Mrs. Toynbee put her handkerchief back in her bag and shut the latter with a vicious snap.
“I had a deep affection for all my partners,” she said.
Aunt Becky wagged her head.
“Why didn’t you say ‘deceased’ parters? You were thinking it, you know. You have that type of mind. Also, tell me honestly, don’t you think you ought to have been more economical with husbands? Three! And poor Mercy and Margaret there haven’t been able even to get one.”
Mercy reflected bitterly that if she had employed the methods Alicia Dark had, she might have had husbands and to spare, too. Margaret coloured softly and looked piteous. Why, oh why, must cruel old Aunt Becky hold her up to public ridicule like this?
“I’ve divided all my belongings among you,” said Aunt Becky. “I hate the thought of dying and leaving all my nice things. But since it must be, I’m not going to have any quarreling over them before I’m cold in my grave. Everything’s down here in black and white. I’ve just left the things according to my own whims. I’ll read the list. And let me say that the fact that any one of you gets something doesn’t mean that you’ve no chance for the jug as well. I’m coming to that later.”
Aunt Becky took off her spectacles, polished them, put them back on again, and took a drink of water. Drowned John nearly groaned with impatience. Heaven only knew how long it would be before she would get to the jug. He had no interest in her other paltry knick-knacks.
“Mrs. Denzil Penhallow is to have my pink china candlesticks,” announced Aunt Becky. “I know you’ll be delighted at this, Martha dear. You’ve given me so many hints about candlesticks.”
Mrs. Denzil had wanted Aunt Becky’s beautiful silver Georgian candlesticks. And now she was saddled with a pair of unspeakable china horrors, in colour a deep magenta pink with what looked like black worms wriggling all over them. But she tried to look pleased, because if she didn’t it might spoil her chances for the jug. Denzil scowled, jug or no jug, and Aunt Becky saw it. Pompous old Denzil. She would get even with him.
“I remember when Denzil was about five years old he came down to my place with his mother, one day, and our old turkey gobbler took after him. I suppose the poor bird thought no one else had a right to be strutting around there. ‘Member, Denzil? Lord, how you ran and blubbered! You certainly thought Old Nick was after you. Do you know, Denzil, I’ve never seen you parading up the church aisle since but I’ve thought of that.”
Well, it had to be endured. Denzil cleared his throat and endured it.
“I haven’t much jewellry,” Aunt Becky was saying. “Two rings. One is an opal. I’m giving that to Virginia Powell. They say it brings bad luck, but you’re too modern to believe that old superstition, Virginia. Though I never had any luck after I got it.”
Virginia tried to look happy, though she had wanted the Chinese screen. As for luck or no luck, how could that matter? Life was over for her. Nobody grudged her the opal, but when Aunt Becky mentioned rings many ears were pricked up. Who would get her diamond ring? It was a fine one and worth several hundreds of dollars.
“Ambrosine Wentworth is to have my diamond ring,” said Aunt becky.
Half those present could not repress a gasp of disapproval and the collective effect was quite pronounced. This, thought the gaspers, was absurd. Ambrosine Wentworth had no right whatever to that ring. And what good would it do her – an old broken-down servant? Really, Aunt Becky’s brain must be softening.
“Here it is, Ambrosine,” said Aunt Becky, taking it from her bony finger and handing it to the trembling Ambrosine. “I’ll give it to you now, so there’ll be no mistake. Put it on.”
Ambrosine obeyed. Her old wrinkled face was aglow with the joy of a long-cherished dream suddenly and unexpectedly realized. Ambrosine Winkworth, through a drab life spent in other people’s kitchens, had hankered all through that life for a diamond ring. She had never hoped to have it, and now here it was on her hand, a great starry wonderful thing, glittering in the June sunshine that fell through the window. Everything came true for Ambrosine in that moment. She asked no more of fate.
Perhaps Aunt Becky had divined that wistful dream of the old woman. Or perhaps she had just given Ambrosine the ring to annoy the clan. If the latter, she had certainly succeeded. Nan Penhallow was especially furious. She should have the diamond ring. Thekla Penhallow felt the same way. Joscelyn, who once had had a diamond ring, Donna, who still had one, and Gay, who expected she soon would have one, looked amused and indifferent. Chuckling to herself Aunt Becky picked up her will and gave Mrs. Clifford Penhallow her Chinese screen.
“As if I wanted her old Chinese screen,” thought Mrs. Clifford, almost on the point of tears.
Margaret Penhallow was the only one whom nobody envied. She got Aunt Becky’s Pilgrim’s Progress, a very old, battered book. The covers had been sewed on, the leaves were yellow with age. One was afraid to touch it lest it might fall to pieces. It was a most disreputable old volume which Theodore Dark, for some unknown reason, had prized when alive. Since his death, Aunt Becky had kept it in an old box in the garret, where it had got musty and dusty. But Margaret was not disappointed. She had expected nothing.
“My green pickle leaf is to go to Rachel Penhallow,” said Aunt Becky.
Rachel’s long face grew longer. She had wanted the Apostle spoons. But Gay Penhallow got the Apostle spoons to her surprise and delight. They were quaint and lovely and would accord charmingly with a certain little house of dreams that was faintly taking place in her imagination. Aunt Becky looked at Gay’s sparkling face with less grimness than she usually showed and proceeded to give her dinner set to Mrs. Howard Penhallow, who wanted the Chippendale sideboard.
“It was my wedding-set,” said Aunt Becky. “There’s only one piece broken. Theodore brought his fist down on the cover of one of the tureens one day when he got excited in an argument at dinner. I won out in the argument, though – at leats I got my own way, tureen or no tureen. Emily, you’re to have the bed.”
Mrs. Emily Frost, nee Dark, a gentle, faded little person, who also had yearned for the Apostle spoons, tried to look grateful for a bed that was too big for any of her tiny rooms. And Mrs. Alpheus Penhallow, who wanted the bed, had to put up with the Chippendale sideboard. Donna Dark got an old egg dish in the guise of a gaily coloure china hen sitting on a yellow china nest, and was glad because she had liked the old thing when she was a child. Joscelyn Dark got the claw-footed mahogany talbe Mrs. Palmer Dark had hope for, and Roger Dark got the Georgian candlesticks and Mrs. Denzil’s eternal hatred. The beautiful old Queen Anne bookcase went to Murray Dark, who never read books, and Hugh Dark got the old hour-glass – early eighteenth century – and wondered bitterly what use it would be to a man for whom time had stopped ten years ago. He knew, none better, how long an hour can be and what devastating things can happen in it.
“Crosby, you’re to have my old cut-glass whiskey decanter,” Aunt Becky was saying. “There hasn’t been any whiskey in it for many a year, more’s the pity. It’ll hold the water you’re always drinking in the night. I heard you admire it once.”
Old Crosby Penhallow, who had been nodding, wakened up and looked pleased. He really hadn’t expected anything. It was kind of Becky to remember him. They had been young togehter.
Aunt Becky looked at him – at his smooth, shining bald head, his sunken blue eyes, his toothless mouth. Old Crosby would never have false teeth. Yet in spite of the bald head and faded eyes and shrunken mouth, Crosby Dark was not an ill-looking old man – quite the reverse.
“I have a mind to tell you something, Crosby,” said Aunt Becky. “You never knew it – nobody ever knew it – but you were the only man I ever loved.”
The announcement made a sensation. Everybody – so ridiculous is outworn passion – wanted to laugh but dared not. Crosby blushed painfully all over his wrinkled face. Hang it all, was old Becky making fun of him? And whether or no, how dared she make a show of him like this before everybody?
“I was quite mad about you,” said Aunt Becky musingly. “Why? I don’t know. You were handsomer sixty years ago than any man has a right to be, but you had no brains. Yet you were the man for me. And you never looked at me. You married Annette Dark – and I married Theodore. Nobody knows how much I hated him when I married him. But I got quite fond of him after a while. That’s life, you know – though those three romantic young geese there – Gay and Donna and Virginia, think I’m telling rank heresy. I got over caring for you in time, even though for years after I did, my heart used to beat like mad everey time I saw you walk up the church aisle with your meek little Annette trotting behind you. I got a lot of thrills out of loving you, Crosby – many more I don’t doubt than if I’d married you. And Theodore was really a much better husband for me than you’d have been – he had a sense of humour. And it doesnt’ matter now whether he was or wasn’t. I don’t even wish now that you had loved me, though I wished it for so many years. Lord, the nights I couldn’t sleep for thinking of you – and Theordore snoring beside me. But there it is. Somehow, I’ve always wanted you to know it and at last I’ve had the courage to tell you.”
Old Crosby wiped his brow with his handkerchief. Erasmus would never let him hear the last of this – never. And suppose it got into the papers! If he had dreamed anything like this was going to happen, he would never have come to the levee. He glowered at the jug. It was to blame, durn it.
“I wonder how many of us will get out of this alive,” whispered Stanton Grundy to Uncle Pippin.
But Aunt Becky had switched over to Penny Dark and was giving him her bottle of Jordan water.
“What the deuce do I care for Jordan water,” thought Penny. Perhaps his face was too expressive, for Aunt Becky suddenly grinned dangerously.
“Mind the time, Penny, you moved a vote of thanks to Rob Dufferin on the death of his wife?”
There was a chorus of laughter of varying timbre, among which Drowned John’s boomed like an earthquake. Penny’s thoughts were as profane as the others’ had been. That a little mistake betweent hanks and condolence, made in the nervousness of public speaking, should be everlastingly coming up against a man like this. From old Aunt Becky, too, who had just confessed that most of her life she had loved a man who wasn’t her husband, the scandalous old body.
Mercy Penhallow sighed. She would have liked the Jordan water. Rachel Penhallow had one and Mercy had always envied her for it. There must be a blessing in any household that had a bottle of Jordan water. ASunt Becky heard the sigh and looked at Mercy.
“Mercy,” she said apropos of nothing, “do you remember that forgotten pie you brought out after everybody had finished eating at the Stanley Penhallow’s silver-wedding dinner?”
But Mercy was not afraid of Aunt Becky. She had a spirit of her own.
“Yes, I do. And do you remember, Aunt Becky, that the first time you killed and roasted a chicken after you were married, you brought it to the table with the insides still in it?”
Nobody dared to laugh but everybody was glad Mercy had the spunk. Aunt Becky nodded unperturbed.
“Yes, and I remember how it smelled! We had company, too. I don’t think Theodore ever fully forgave me. I thoguht that had forgotten years ago. Is anything ever forgotten? Can people ever live anything down? The honours are to you, Mercy, but I must get square with somebody. Junius Penhallow, do you remember – since Mercy has started digging up the past – how drunk you were at your wedding?”
Junius Penhallow turned a violent crimson but couldn’t deny it. Of what use was it, with Mrs. Junius at his elbow, to plead that he had been in such a blue funk on his wedding-morning that he’d never had had the courage to go throughwith it if he hadn’t got drunk? He had never been drunk since, and it was hard to have it raked up now, when he was an elder in the church and noted for his avowed temperance principles.
“I’m not the only one who ever got drunk in this clan,” he dared to mutter, despite the jug.
“No, to be sure. There’s Artemas over there. Do you remember, Artemas, the evening you waled up the church aisle in your nightshirt?”
Artemas, a tall, raw-boned, red-haired fellow, had been too drunk on that occasion to remember it, but he always roared when reminded of it. He thought it the best joke ever.
“You should have all been thankful I had that much on myeslf,” he said with a chuckle.
Mrs. Artemas wished she were dead. What was a joke to Artemas was a tragedy to her. She had never forgotten – could never forget – the humiliation of that unspeakable evening. She had forgiven Artemas certain violations of her marriage vow of which every one was aware. But she had never forgiven – could never forgive – the episode of the nightshirt. If it had been pajamas, it would not have been quite so terrible. But in those days pajamas were unknown.
Aunt Becky was at Mrs. Conrad Dark.
“I’m giving you my silver saltcellars. Alec Dark’s mother gave them to me for a wedding-present. Do you remember the time your and Mrs. Clifford there quarreled over Alec Dark and she slapped your face? And neither of you got Alec after all. There, there, don’t crack the spectrum. It’s all dead and vanished, just like my affair with Crosby.”
(“As if there was ever any affair,” thought Crosby piteously.)
“Pippin’s to have my grandfather clock. Mrs. Digby Dark thinks she should have that because her father gave it to me. But no. Do you remember, Fanny, that you once put a tract in a book you leant me? Do you know what I did with it? I used it for curl papers. I’ve never forgive you for the insult. Tracts, indeed. Did I need tracts?”
“You — weren’t a member of the church,” said Mrs. Digby, on the point of tears.
“No – nor am yet. Theodore and I could never agree which church to join. I wanted Rose River and he wanted Bay Silver. And after he died it seemed sort of disrespectful to his memory to join Rose River. Besides, I was so old than it would have seemed funny. Marrying and church-joining should be done in youth. But I was as good a Christian as any one. Naomi Dark.”
Naomi, who had been fanning Lawson, looked up with a start as Aunt Becky hurled her name at her.
“You’re to get my Wedgwood teapot. It’s a pretty thing. Cauliflower pattern, as it’s called, picked out with gold lustre. It’s the only thing it really hurts me to give up. Letty gave it to me – she bought it at a sale in town with some of her first quarter’s salary. Have you all forgotten Letty? It’s forty years since she died. She would have been sixty if she were living now – as old as you, Fanny. Oh, I know you don’t own to more than fifty, but you and Letty were born within three weeks of each other. IT seems funny to think of Letty being sixty – she was always so young – she was the youngest thing I ever knew. I used to wonder how Theodore and I ever produced her. She couldn’t have been sixty ever – that’s why she had to die. After all, it was better. It hurt me to have her die – but I think it would have hurt me more to see her sixty – wrinkled – faded – grey-haired – my pretty Letty, like a rose tossing in a breeze. Have you all forgotten that golden hair of hers – such living hair. Be good to her teapot, Naomi.”
Aunt Becky is fun to read about, but she would have been quite a terror to actually have in the family! I’m glad my family’s clannishness is a bit more loving than that of the Darks and Penhallows.
Harriet – yeah, my family is much closer … not QUITE so cutthroat as these 2 clans!
My favorite plotline is Donna, the widow who pledged to grieve forever – who suddenly falls head over heels in love with a guy she had vowed to hate ever since he made fun of her in 5th grade. But it’s like love at first sight – and it shocks everybody!
I think that one’s my favorite, too, although I don’t remember all the characters. This one isn’t a book that I can just read here and there, because I can’t keep all the characters straight without extended concentration, so I don’t reread it often. But I certainly remember Donna–and what’s-her-name who left her husband on her wedding night, so they’ve spent the last 10 years or so sending agonized glances at each other when the other isn’t looking!
Oh yes!! I remember that one, too. Joscelyn and Hugh. I love the scene of her stalking home from his house on her wedding night, wearing her silk wedding dress. I can’t even remember what they fought about.
She had seen his best man or someone at the wedding and fallen madly in love with him, so once she got over the shock she told Hugh she could never live with him. Then finally the man comes back to town and she realizes he’s nothing like what she’d built up in her mind and she’d been in love with Hugh all along. She begs Hugh to take her back, and he does, but only if she comes in her wedding dress (after all, he’s got plenty of pride, too). Everyone stares, but Joscelyn doesn’t care, and they reunite.
Now this one is coming to my house…. I’ll read it next week.
Melissa – you haven’t read it?? Oh, I’m so excited!!
Oh my gosh, I’ve never even *seen* this book and now I have to read it!
It arrives tomorrow… I’ll let you know what I think! (I broke down recently and paid for Amazon prime, as I buy enough from there and I’m _very_ impatient. Possession is in the same box.
I have now read this book. I love it.
Its _so_ complicated! Tangled Web is the right name for it.
I love Donna and Peter’s romance. Drowned John.
But, Jocelyn is my favorite. How she fell in love at a glance on her wedding day (just like Peter and Donna, actually), and her self-honesty makes her admit it. I also like her little conversation with Aunt Becky after the quoted section.
Its LMM’s gift for simple characterization that shines through. Its like watching a street artist – a few quick strokes, and you have a wonderful depiction of a person.