yuletide recs, second set

[schmerica]

Second round of yuletide recs, yay!

A Different Road (Alcott - Little Women Universe)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/11/adifferent.html

Jo herself had no hope that it would bring any ease, but the next day found her up in the garret with the hoard of papers from her little writing-desk spread out in a circle about her. How vain and foolish all her stories seemed now! How contrived her characters' griefs, and how false their expressions! And yet, even as she berated herself for ever dreaming that she might have even a shred of talent, a blank page beckoned to her. It came to her, then, that there were things about Beth that she wanted never to forget, things that even now were growing a little distant and dreamlike though not even a month had gone by yet since Beth's gentle passage.

Jo took up her pen. She returned downstairs hours later with a tear-stained countenance and a calmer heart. All those who loved her best could see the change in her, and no one begrudged the time she begn spending up in the garret every afternoon. Perhaps they would have if they had known the conclusions Jo was drawing as she poured out her heart to the page each day: no longer did she feel the noose tightening so close about her -- she could face her family and the routines of her home and remember the comforting beauty they had always held for her before -- but she began to grow ever more certain that she was destined for a life different than the one she was leading now.

(I am one of the few girls, I think, who read Little Women at a young and impressionable age and *didn't* come away with a Laurie/Jo OTP, and preferred Laurie/Amy anyway -- but this story really is excellently and convincingly done.)

Nom de Coeur (Casablanca)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/9/nomde.html

"I'm sure you'll be hearing it around town tomorrow." He stretched as far back into the secret compartment as he could, his head nearly shoved all the way inside the bureau, making his voice sound flat and loud in his own ears. "Mr. and Mrs. Laszlo left on the Lisbon plane, on their way to America." There was nothing left back there after all. Fine, then. Third drawer.

There was an uneasy silence from Sam's direction; Rick imagined the tug of war in Sam's head between being glad and being sorry for him. It isn't like before, he wanted to say--this isn't the Paris train station. But instead he just packed. Anyway, he wasn't so sure it mattered, in the end.

Regrets and Reminiscences (Mansfield Park)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/8/regretsand.html

At the time, Edmund's more general distress at the breaking off of all relations between the two families had been sunk in the particular anguish of the revelation of Mary Crawford's true character, but he was able now to acknowledge that he had suffered nearly as much from the loss of Crawford's friendship, as from the destruction of his hopes of marrying his sister. Edmund's attachment to his home and family had never allowed for his making any extraordinarily close friends outside of his family circle, and Henry Crawford had been the one of the few intimate friends of his adulthood. His manners, understanding and disposition had all recommended him to Edmund peculiarly, by their excellence, and their possessing a liveliness that his own nature did not know; but he had also been attracted by Crawford's less respectable qualities -- his carelessness, almost his neglect, of decorum; his levity on subjects that were not generally treated of with any thing less than reverence; his contradictory attachment to, and simultaneous laughing disdain of, the worldly ideals which had formed the better part of his upbringing.

These were things of which Edmund could not approve, but whose appeal he could not honestly deny to himself: whilst he might denounce them, and wish Crawford more serious, and possessed of a greater respect of principle, a greater attachment to the notions of propriety, than he did, he could not help being engaged by the charm that the intelligence and benevolent feeling in Crawford's character gave his light-hearted approach to every thing.

subtext (Mona Lisa Smile)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/5/subtext.html

Giselle stumbled into Betty at a mixer one night. She smelled of alcohol and other things nice girls shouldn't, with a hint of vanilla musk rising from her breasts; Betty shoved her off, harder than she'd meant to, but she'd been startled, and Giselle probably wouldn't even notice, anyway. Giselle just laughed, carmine lips pulling off her even teeth, adjusted her cleavage in her tight red dress, and stumbled into a Harvard boy who was more willing to hold her up.

Betty watched, safe behind a twittering wing of other girls, as he offered her a shiny little silver hip flask.

The next time she glanced up, eyebrows creased slightly in disapproval, Giselle and the Harvard boy were gone.

Waste Our Lights in Vain (Romeo and Juliet)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/7/wasteour.html

Romeo has learned a new word. It is Rosaline.

Mercutio's mask scratches his cheeks, and plaster flakes into his eyes as he watches Romeo kneel before her green skirts, her sallow hands, her plump face.

Romeo watches her, his face a triangle of adoration, his lips quivering with lust. Rosaline covers her mouth with fluttering fingers as she yawns, and looks away.

Mercutio is not impressed.

Fortune's Fool (Romeo and Juliet)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/10/fortunesfool.html

MERCUTIO

Benvolio! Ah, he's gone. But, Valentine,
You marked how Romeo took no note of me
Nor none of you, nor good Benvolio --
He never sees but one thing at a time,
And woman's what I mean when I say thing.

VALENTINE

I did. Indeed, I never doubted you.

MERCUTIO

Sometimes I wish that we had never met,
I'd never been his friend, nor been so dense
To love him so -- that I had never let
Him rob me of my reason, of my sense.
But every time he gives away his heart
He takes another little piece of mine;
Though his stays whole, yet mine is rent apart;
I suffer slowly, but exceeding fine.
And still, I cannot rid myself of this,
This gaping wound, invisible to view.
I wake some mornings dreaming of his kiss;
If only I believed that dreams come true.
Time heals all hurts -- or so at least I'm told.
May she mend this one well before I'm old.
But I did mask it well, think'st thou not so?

Court and Spark (The Secret Garden)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/7/courtand.html

Occasionally, Mary Lennox found herself wishing that Dickon would do more than smile. Though, really, she liked that smile quite a bit. But she said nothing, only kept on with her stitching by the fire and occasionally threatened to grab Colin and feed him to the wolves if he didn't close his mouth.

Wolves haven't been seen in Yorkshire since the fifteenth century, Dickon would point out, and Mary would retort, Oh, you and your book-learning. She failed to notice that Dickon's smile became strained.

For really, Dickon had changed with the tutoring he had received (courtesy of Archibald Craven) in horticulture and geography and biology, and Mary had changed with the endless stitching and bowing that she had learned along with maths, and Colin had changed with his learning to ride and to read fine poetry.

Blood and Whiskey (Tombstone)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/6/bloodand.html

It is a hard feeling to explain to someone who has never been introduced to the business end of a gun or seen what one can leave behind of a man. I know some say their knees go weak and others start thinking of their loved ones or the Almighty, but for me I must confess I was occupied mostly by wondering whether I could take Morrison or Driscoll with me, and which one I should try for. I have never been a very religious man, I am afraid.

Others say they don't mind it at all, but I only ever met one who wasn't lying, and he was already under sentence of death from a higher power.

In Which Rabbit Attempts to Make a Noble Sacrifice, and Eeyore Does Not Go to School (Winnie-the-Pooh)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/6/inwhich.html

It was getting cold, actually. Maybe it would be Christmas soon. The other animals were bound to have a party, but it was somewhat unlikely he would be invited, he felt. Nobody would remember that he was actually quite partial to a bit of Christmas cake, and he might not eat his party hat this time.

He was so distracted by his fantasy of the Christmas party everybody else was having that he didn't notice Christopher Robin's arrival until there was a small throat-clearing noise from just the other side of the thistle he was munching upon.

"Oh, hello, Christopher Robin. Who were you going to see, again?" he asked, dolefully.

"You, of course," said Christopher Robin. "Why else would I be here?"

"Well, you might have lost a ribbon, or a shoe," said Eeyore, "and be looking for it. Or you might be on your way to visit some other animal, and noticed that I was in your way, so you decided you would ask me to please move so you could be about your vastly more interesting business with someone else."

Wooster's School for Wayward Girls (Wodehouse - Jeeves and Wooster)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/6/woostersschool.html

Then I saw that the telegram in question was from D'Arcy Cheesewright, known to all those who loathe him, which is to say anyone to whom the roundheaded louse has ever been introduced, as Stilton:

HO! YOUR TRICKS TO SEPARATE FLORENCE FROM SELF LOWEST, MOST CONNIVING, WORTHY OF TRIP BEFORE THE OLD BAILEY. ONLY REGRET HAVE LEFT THE POLICE FORCE AND CANNOT CLAP YOU IN IRONS AS YOU DESERVE. UPON NEXT MEETING WILL TAKE YOUR SKULL AND -

There was much more in this vein, not worth repeating, and the sort of thing to make you wonder if telegraph people will simply tap out anything one says without ever saying, "Desist, evildoer! Thou shalt sully the hallowed lines of Marconi no more!"

Green Ice (crossover with Lord Peter Wimsey and Bertie Wooster)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/8/greenice.html

I was listening to Anatole's invectives against the copper who pulled him away from his kitchen, ruining, positively ruining his sauce for mousse de la boue dans une panier de la p&acric;té de chaussures, when Sugg returned in triumph with a mass of glittering green in his hands. He came directly towards me, washing up a few feet away with the rest of the inmates clustered around him like hens in a farmyard.

"Mr. Bertram Wooster?" he asked with the sombre satisfaction of a judge on the bench about to nick you for a five pound fine. I nodded, not liking the tone at all. "Could you tell me, sir, how this came to be in your bedroom?"

You would think with the number of times the distaff half have landed me in the soup, accused of stealing necklaces, cow creamers, and other objets d'art, that I would be accustomed to policemen asking awkward questions. The truth is I could only gawp like one of Gussie Fink-Nottle's newts stranded on the carpet.

The Unlikely Story of a Nobleman's Daughter (Lord Peter Wimsey)
http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/10/theunlikely.html

A pale arm twitched back a corner of the coverlet. The owner of the arm considered whether to address the day. He rather thought not.

The sun had risen a few notches higher over 110 Piccadilly when Lord Peter Wimsey next opened his eyes. He immediately shut them again. Chronological time was not a thing a man should be a slave to, he decided.

A waft of something caught his nose. Of course, one mustn't overdo the poetical languor, either.

"Bunter, is that coffee I smell?"

"Yes, my lord. Would you like to see the newspapers?"

A groan issued from the bed.

"There's also tea, if your lordship prefers."

His lordship did not.

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen, Bunter, but this one, I think, must go unviewed."

Now off with my sister for the Lemony Snicket movie. Woot.