Fragment Friday

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

On Christmas Eve the sky was overcast and threatened rain. It had turned mild, too, in the night, and the mud in the yard was churned where the cows had trodden. The walls of Mary's bedroom felt damp to her hand, and there was a great yellow patch in one corner caused by the shrinking plaster. 

Mary leant out of the window, and the soft wet wind blew upon her face. In an hour's time Jem Merlyn would be waiting for her on the moor, to take her to Launceston fair. Whether she met him or not depended upon herself, and she could not make up her mind. She had grown older in four days, and the face that looked back at her from the spotted, cracked mirror was drawn and tired. 

There were dark rings beneath her eyes, and little hollows in her cheeks. Sleep came late to her at night, and she had no appetite for food. For the first time in her life she saw a resemblance between herself and her Aunt Patience. They had the same pucker of the forehead, and the same mouth. If she pursed up her lips and worked them, biting the edges, it might be Aunt Patience who stood there, with the lank brown hair framing her face. The trick was an easy one to catch, as was the nervous twisting of the hands, and Mary turned away from the tell-tale mirror and began to pace up and down her cramped room. During the past days she had kept as much as possible to the privacy of her own room, excusing herself on the score of a chill. Mary could not trust her Aunt at present - not for any length of time. Her eyes would have betrayed her. They would look at one another with the same dumb horror, the same anguish; and Aunt Patience would have understood. They shared a secret now, a secret that must never be spoken between them.