Before the Storm Read Online Free PDF

Garlands, who her research had revealed to be exceedingly wealthy but not particularly well bred. Of course she may well have hired actors to improve her diction, as Sidonie’s last employer had done with variable results, but she thought it unlikely.
    ‘My dear, you look very young!’ Mrs Garland remarked with a frown as she peered up into Sidonie’s face. ‘Oh dear, did they not send the right person?’
    ‘I am six and twenty and no, there wasn’t a scene,’ Sidonie replied in a placatory manner. ‘Clementine was upset but it was nothing that I have not seen before. It is usually thus with young ladies who are unused to governesses.’  
    ‘Well, I am sorry for it,’ Mrs Garland said, putting aside her magazine and chocolate box. ‘We may not be nobility, but I assure you that my girls have been better brought up than to make scenes in public.’ She nodded fondly to her eldest daughter, who was lurking impatiently by the door and clearly longing to be with her friends again. ‘You may leave us now, Eliza.’
    As soon as the door had softly closed behind the elder Miss Garland, she indicated that Sidonie should sit down, which she gratefully did as she was beginning to feel awkward standing over the still reclining Mrs Garland. ‘I am so grateful to you for accepting this position,’ she began with a little nervous flutter of her hands. ‘You have already met Clementine so you can see how wild she is becoming.’
    Sidonie smiled, well used to soothing the worries of anxious mamas. ‘I did not think that Clementine is wild,’ she said. ‘She is very young and has the high and changeable spirits that are natural to her age. I see nothing wrong with that.’
    Mrs Garland acknowledged the attempt to pacify her with a thin lipped smile but carried on as though Sidonie had not spoken. ‘You must not think that my girls have had no education, Miss Roche for that just isn’t true. We made sure to send them to the very best school that money could buy, a proper seminary for young ladies in Islington village where they were taught to read and write and do sums and sew such pretty samplers. It suited Eliza very well for she, as you have seen, always behaves just as a young lady ought to.’ She allowed herself a proud smile before sighing and carrying on. ‘Clementine turned out less well, I am afraid to say and I am very worried that if things don’t improve then she won’t make a good marriage.’
    Sidonie sighed. ‘To be sure, a good marriage is very important but it is not the only concern that a young lady should have,’ she murmured as her mistress gazed at her uncomprehendingly.  
    ‘No? And what other concerns should she have?’ Mrs Garland asked with a frown. ‘It’s all very well being accomplished and being able to sing and dance and draw pretty pictures but what good is it all really if you can’t get a husband?’
    Sidonie was a little startled by this outburst. ‘So what sort of marriage do you envision for your daughters, Mrs Garland?’ she asked patiently, regretting the words as soon as they had left her lips as she feared that she already knew the dispiriting answer.
    ‘The very best,’ Mrs Garland immediately replied as Sidonie, unnoticed by her, gave an enormous inward sigh and collapsed a little in her chair. ‘Their father would be happy if they were to marry businessmen like himself but I don’t see why they couldn’t both marry into the nobility,’ she said with a petulant moue of her red rouged lips. ‘They’re both pretty, have nice manners and will be rich too. What man wouldn’t want one of them for a wife?’
    ‘I can’t possibly imagine,’ Sidonie responded mechanically, having had this conversation a few times before with other proudly ambitious mamas who were keen to see their pretty, well brought up girls decorate the glittering drawing rooms of the aristocracy. ‘They are both very lovely young ladies.’
    ‘To be sure we do not move in the very best