Mary Stewart Vignettes

[telleroftales]

"It was the egret, flying out of the lemon grove, that started it. I won't pretend I saw it straight away as the conventional herald of adventure, the white stag of the fairy-tale, which, bounding from the enchanted thicket, entices the prince away from his followers, and looses him in the forest where danger threatens with the dusk.

But, when the big white bird flew suddenly up among the glossy leaves and lemon-flowers, and wheeled into the mountain, I followed it. What else is there to do when such a thing happens on a brilliant April noonday at the foot of the White Mountains of Crete; when the road is hot and dusty, but the gorge is green, and full of the sound of water, and the white wings, flying ahead, flicker in and out of deep shadow, and the air is full of the scent of lemon-blossom?"  

The Moon-Spinners, 1962

[telleroftales]

"So I wore the Greensleeves gown at the show, and Morelli got his sensation, and I was so scared of the fashionable crowd that when I spoke at all, it was in a tight, flat little voice that must have sounded the last word in bored, brittle sophistication. I must have looked and sounded, in fact, like a pale little copy of that arrogant worldling behind me in Zollner's canvas, for that is what Nicholas Drury undoubtedly took me for, when at length he elbowed his way through the crowds and introduced himself.

I, for one, was so thoroughly scarified that I froze into complete stupidity, and under his sardonic look stammered some meaningless schoolgirl rubbish that, God help us both, he took for coquetry. We were married three months later."

Wildfire At Midnight, 1956

[telleroftales]

"The terrace was a wide tiled platform perched at the end of the promontory where wooded cliffs fell steeply to the sea. Below the balustrade hung cloud on cloud of pines, already smelling warm and spicy in the morning sun. The bay itself was hidden by trees, but the view ahead was glorious - a stretch of the calm, shimmering gulf that lies in the curved arm of Corfu. Away northward, across the dark blue strait, loomed, insubstantial as mist, the ghostly snows of Albania.

It was a scene of the most profound and enchanted peace. No sound but the birds; nothing in sight but trees and sky and sun-reflecting sea..."

This Rough Magic, 1964

Greek fjords by LeelooDallas on Flickr.

[telleroftales]

"There was Jennifer, a lovely ghost in silver-white, with one foot on the bottom step, and her head turned back toward Stephen, whose hand was on her arm, detaining her. Mrs. Silver could not not see Jennifer's face, but she could see Stephen's, and what she saw there made her open the door wide and gather her daughter with a pretty show of ceremony into the lighted safety of the hallway..."

Thunder On The Right, 1957

[telleroftales]

"I climbed the narrow aisle and found a seat two-thirds of the way up the amphitheatre. The circular stage looked small below me. Simon was nothing but a bodiless shadow. Then his voice came up out of the well of darkness, and the great rolling Greek lines rose and broke and echoed, rounding like a wind among the high crates. A phrase, a name, swam up from the flood of sound, giving directions to the music, like flights to an arrow. Hades, Persephone, Hermes... I shut my eyes and listened."

My Brother Michael, 1959

[telleroftales]

"I looked across at Richard Byron.

He was sitting, head bent, watching the brandy swirl in the bottom of his glass. I found myself for the first time really looking at him without any underlay of fear and suspicion to colour my picture of him. And the first thing that struck me was the deep unhappiness of that face; it was unhappiness rather than harshness that had driven those furrows down his cheeks, and given the eyes such sombre shadowing.... the angry lines of brow and mouth were smoothed away, and instead there was a withdrawn and brooding look..."

Madam, Will You Talk?, 1955

[telleroftales]

"And now ahead of us, in the center of the mountain crescent, I could see the dip of a bay, where a green valley cut throughout the hills to the sea's edge.. Higher up this valley, as I knew, was a loch, where the hills crowded in an cradled the water into a deep and narrow basin. Out of this the river flowed; I could see the gleam of it, and, just discernible at that distance, a white building set among a mist of birch trees where the glittering shallows fanned out to meet the sea."

Wildfire at Midnight, 1956

http://www.flickr.com/photos/apurdam/3915571148/in/photostream/

[telleroftales]

"Nothing ever happens to me."

I wrote the words slowly, looked at them for a moment with a little sigh, then put my ballpoint pen down on the cafe table and rummaged in my handbag for a cigarette.

As I breathed the smoke in I looked about me. It occurred to me, thinking of that last depressed sentence in my letter to Elizabeth, that enough was happening at the movement to satisfy all but the most adventure-hungry. That is the impression Athens gives you. Everyone is moving, talking, gesticulating - but particularly talking.... the sound of Athenian voices arguing, laughing, talk-talk-talking, as once they talked the world into shape in the busy colonnades of the Agora, not so very far from where I sat.

My Brother Michael, 1959

[telleroftales]

"The music followed us through the long windows; and there was the Easter moon and the ghosts of jonquils dancing in the dark garden. My skirt brushed the narcissi on the terrace's edge. Raoul's shoulder touched jasmine and loosed a shower of tiny stars. We didn't speak. The spell held. We danced..."

Nine Coaches Waiting, 1958