{"product_id":"2940013663121","title":"Mapp and Lucia","description":"Though it was nearly a year since her husband's death, Emmeline\u003cbr\u003eLucas (universally known to her friends as Lucia) still wore the\u003cbr\u003edeepest and most uncompromising mourning.  Black certainly suited\u003cbr\u003eher very well, but that had nothing to do with this continued use\u003cbr\u003eof it, whatever anybody said.  Pepino and she had been the most\u003cbr\u003edevoted couple for over twenty-five years, and her grief at his\u003cbr\u003eloss was heart-felt: she missed him constantly and keenly.  But\u003cbr\u003emonths ago now, she, with her very vital and active personality,\u003cbr\u003ehad felt a most natural craving to immerse herself again in all\u003cbr\u003ethose thrilling interests which made life at this Elizabethan\u003cbr\u003evillage of Riseholme so exciting a business, and she had not yet\u003cbr\u003ebeen able to make up her mind to take the plunge she longed for.\u003cbr\u003eThough she had not made a luxury out of the tokens of grief, she\u003cbr\u003ehad perhaps made, ever so slightly, a stunt of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor instance.  There was that book-shop on the green, 'Ye Signe of\u003cbr\u003eye Daffodille', under the imprint of which Pepino had published his\u003cbr\u003eseverely limited edition of Fugitive Lyrics and Pensieri Persi.  A\u003cbr\u003efull six months after his death Lucia had been walking past it with\u003cbr\u003eGeorgie Pillson, and had seen in the window a book she would have\u003cbr\u003eliked to purchase.  But next to it, on the shelf, was the thin\u003cbr\u003evolume of Pepino's Pensieri Persi, and, frankly, it had been rather\u003cbr\u003estuntish of her to falter on the threshold and, with eyes that were\u003cbr\u003edoing their best to swim, to say to Georgie:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'I can't quite face going in, Georgie.  Weak of me, I know, but\u003cbr\u003ethere it is.  Will you please just pop in, caro, and ask them to\u003cbr\u003esend me Beethoven's Days of Boyhood?  I will stroll on.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Georgie had pressed her hand and done this errand for her, and\u003cbr\u003eof course he had repeated this pathetic little incident to others.\u003cbr\u003eTasteful embroideries had been tacked on to it, and it was soon\u003cbr\u003eknown all over Riseholme that poor Lucia had gone into 'Ye Signe of\u003cbr\u003eye Daffodille' to buy the book about Beethoven's boyhood, and had\u003cbr\u003ebeen so sadly affected by the sight of Pepino's poems in their\u003cbr\u003erough brown linen cover with dark-green tape to tie them up with\u003cbr\u003e(although she constantly saw the same volume in her own house),\u003cbr\u003ethat she had quite broken down.  Some said that sal volatile had\u003cbr\u003ebeen administered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSimilarly, she had never been able to bring herself to have a game\u003cbr\u003eof golf, or to resume her Dante-readings, and having thus\u003cbr\u003eestablished the impression that her life had been completely\u003cbr\u003esmashed up it had been hard to decide that on Tuesday or Wednesday\u003cbr\u003enext she would begin to glue it together again.  In consequence she\u003cbr\u003ehad remained in as many pieces as before.  Like a sensible woman\u003cbr\u003eshe was very careful of her physical health, and since this stunt\u003cbr\u003eof mourning made it impossible for her to play golf or take brisk\u003cbr\u003ewalks, she sent for a very illuminating little book, called An\u003cbr\u003eIdeal System of Callisthenics for those no longer Young, and in a\u003cbr\u003esecluded glade of her garden she exposed as much of herself as was\u003cbr\u003eproper to the invigorating action of the sun, when there was any,\u003cbr\u003eand had long bouts of skipping, and kicked, and jerked, and swayed\u003cbr\u003eher trunk, gracefully and vigorously, in accordance with the\u003cbr\u003einstructions laid down.  The effect was most satisfactory, and at\u003cbr\u003ethe very, very back of her mind she conceived it possible that some\u003cbr\u003eday she might conduct callisthenic classes for those ladies of\u003cbr\u003eRiseholme who were no longer young.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47172446454000,"sku":"2940013663121","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013663121_p0.jpg?v=1763596730","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013663121","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}