July 24th to 31st
Format: Triple
Despair upon despair, misery upon misery, fear after fear, each causing their distinct and separate woe, packed in upon me for an unrecorded length of time, until at last they blurred together… |
This is from “The House-Surgeon” in Actions and Reactions. The narrator is visiting the house of a friend, which is afflicted by a dreadful atmosphere of gloom and horror. Later he unravels the mystery, and the gloom is lifted. |
|
‘…I suffered, like I’d not wish my most arrantest enemies to. God’s Own Name! I went through the hoop that spring! One part of it was ’eddicks which I’d never known all me days before. Think o’ me with an ’eddick! But I come to be grateful for ’em. They kep’ me from thinkin’ … ’ |
This is from “The Wish House” in Debits and Credits. Mrs Ashcroft, an old Sussex lady, who is dying from a fatal cancer, is telling an old friend about how she suffered when the love of her life, Harry Mockler, left her. Later she takes on herself through the ‘Wish House’, the pains and troubles that would have come to him. |
|
He coughed, and as he caught breath, the pain broke through the drugs, and the outcry filled the room. |
This is from “Dayspring Mishandled” in Limits and Renewals. Manallace has for years hated Castorley for his callousness towards a woman they both had loved, and planned an elaborate revenge. But as the plan matures, Castorley is in the last throes of fatal cancer, while his sinister wife waits impatiently for his death so that she can join her lover. With vengeance within his grasp, Manallace has lost his consuming thirst for retribution, and holds back. |