Everyone was dressed in the very height of fashion. The ladies wore gowns of the most exquisite colours (though to own the truth, very few of them were colours that Stephen could remember having seen before.) The gentlemen wore knee breeches and white stockings and coats of brown, green, blue, and black, their linen was a sparkling shining white and their kid gloves had not as much as a stain or mark upon them.
But in spite of the fine clothes and gaiety of the guests, there were signs that the house was not so prosperous as it once had been. The room was dimly lit by an insufficient number of tallow candles, and there was just one viol and one fife to provide the music.
"That must be the music that Geoffrey and Alfred spoke of," thought Stephen. "How odd that I could not have heard it before! It is every bit as melancholy as they said."
He made his way to a narrow unglazed window and looked out upon a dark, tangled wood under starlight. "And this must be the wood which Robert talks about. How malevolent it looks! And there is a bell, I wonder?"
"Oh, yes!" said a lady who was standing close by. She wore a gown the colour of storms, shadows and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell
page 151-152, 2004, Susanna Clarke,
2 comments:
"... a necklace of broken promises and regrets."
Now that is beautiful. Just beautiful.
Amazing! I really must start re-reading things with a different focus.
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