Cardington Crescent Read Online Free PDF Page B

futility of it. She was bound to fail. She knew her voice sounded flat, her smile must be sickly. But since there was nothing else with any hope of success, after a moment’s solitude—perhaps merely in walking from one room to another—she had renewed her effort, trying with every strength she possessed to be amusing, considerate, and courteous. She even forced herself to be civil to old Mrs. March, although she could not resist exercising her wit on her in her absence, to the rather exuberant laughter of Jack Radley.
    By dinner on the third day it was becoming extremely difficult. They were all most formally dressed, Emily in pale green, Sybilla in indigo, sitting round the monstrous mahogany table in the dining room. Rust red velvet curtains, heavily swagged and draped, and too many pictures on the wall made Emily feel suffocated. It was almost unendurable to force the smile to her lips, to dredge up from a weary and fearful imagination some light and flippant remark. She pushed the food round her plate without eating and sipped more and more wine.
    She must not do anything as obvious as flirting with William; that would be seen as retaliation—even by George, uninterested as he was—and certainly by everyone else. Old Mrs. March’s needle eyes missed nothing. She had been a widow forty years, presiding over her domestic kingdom with a will of iron and an insatiable curiosity. Emily must be equally entertaining, equally delightful to everyone—including Sybilla—as befitted a woman of her position, even if it choked her. She was careful not to cap other people’s stories, and to laugh while meeting their eyes, so as to appear sincere.
    She searched for the appropriate compliment, just truthful enough to be believed, and listened with attention to Eustace’s interminably boring anecdotes about his athletic exploits when younger. He was a great and vociferous believer in “a healthy mind in a healthy body” and had no time for aesthetes. His disappointment was implicit in every phrase, and watching William’s tense face across the table, Emily found it increasingly hard to hold her peace and keep her expression composed in polite interest.
    After the sweet, with nothing left on the table but vanilla ice, raspberry water and a little fruit, Tassie said something about a soirée she had been to, and how bored she had been, which earned her a look of disgust from her grandmother. It struck a sudden chord of memory in Emily. She looked across at Jack Radley with a tiny smile.
    “They can be fearful,” she agreed. “On the other hand, they can also be superb.”
    Tassie, who was on the same side of the table and could not see Emily’s face, was unaware of her mood. “This was a large soprano singing rather badly,” she explained. “And so terribly serious.”
    “So was the best one I’ve ever been to.” Emily felt the memory sharper in her mind as the scene came back to her. “Charlotte and I once took Mama. It was marvelous ...”
    “Indeed?” Mrs. March said coldly. “I had no idea you were musical.”
    Emily continued to keep a sweet expression, ignoring the implication, and stared straight at Jack Radley. With a stinging pleasure she knew that she had his attention as deeply as she would like to have had George’s, and with precisely the same nature of excitement.
    “Go on!” he urged. “Whatever can be marvelous about an overweight soprano singing earnestly and badly?”
    William shivered. Like Tassie, he was thin and sensitive, with vividly red hair, although his was darker and his features sharper, etched with an inner pain that had not yet touched her.
    Emily recounted it exactly as it had been. “She was a large lady, very ardent, with a pink face. Her gown was beaded and fringed practically everywhere, so that it shivered when she moved. Miss Arbuthnot was playing the pianoforte for her. She was very thin, and wearing black. They huddled together for several minutes over the music, and