Danse de la Folie Read Online Free PDF

spinster staying as the guest of the present marquess’s sister. With her maid. Until you can send Mr.
Bede to return for me. The marquess in question is dead, and unless you are
afraid of licentious ghosts...”
    Aunt Sophia began to protest, but gave up her expostulations
when Kitty joined them. She was dressed in a simple gown of exquisite white linon mouchette , a fabric that Clarissa
had once seen in the trunk containing her own mother’s clothes. So Lady Kitty was wearing her mother’s gowns, adapted
by a clever needlewoman. Over her gown she had pulled a thick knitted shawl.
    Mrs. Latchmore scowled at the gown, and Clarissa knew she
recognized an old one when she saw it.
    Kitty stood by, intensely aware of that scowling stare. She
knew very well what it meant. She could only be glad when Miss Harlowe spoke a
hasty farewell and joined Kitty, who led the way back inside, her gladness
divided between the imminent departure of the terrible woman, and the fact that
the pleasant one was staying. She was so lonely—company would be so wonderful,
even for a day or two!
    She and Clarissa watched from the morning room above as the
well-muffled driver cracked his whip over his leaders’ heads, and the coach
rumbled over the slushy ground until it was hidden by the thick copse of
winter-bare trees of the Park.
    Kitty said with somewhat forced cheer, “Sadly outmoded it
may be, but that old berlin is comfortable.”
    As Clarissa followed her hostess away from the window, Kitty
had been squaring herself to the question she had been dreading all morning. “Did
your aunt guess?”
    Clarissa tried to summon a reassuring smile. “She did not.
That is,” she corrected herself scrupulously, knowing how her aunt’s
conversation would go when she reached Oakwood, “she questioned the
significance of our accident, but I also know that my family is used to her... flights.
My step-mother will be grateful that I am well taken care of.”
    “Step-mother! You have a step-mother. I hope she is not
wicked?”
    “Not at all. It would be difficult to find a more
tender-hearted parent,” Clarissa said loyally, not adding that it would also be
difficult to find one more absent.
    Kitty sighed. “I used to half-wish that I would get a
step-mother. It would have been more agreeable than...” She gave her head a
little shake, then said, “But I was afraid that she might be wicked. Did your
mother take a fall from a horse, too?”
    Clarissa looked away. “No. She was ill after a difficult
birth,” she said. “My brother died with her.”
    Kitty begged pardon for being inquisitive, and returned to
the subject that worried her. “You might think I am demented to... dress as I
have, and to join with my brothers in such a venture.”
    Clarissa said, “No, not demented.” She made a quick gesture.
“Please do not think I am passing judgment, but you appear to be concerned with
the consequences should you be caught at it. Yet you went ahead?”
    “I know,” Kitty said, her head drooping as she led the way
down a long hall full of old pictures and heavy Tudor furnishings. “My brother
Carlisle did not want me by. But I wanted to help, and they needed me, and Ned made it sound so much like a lark, and
romantic. I do so love romantical
things. And my life has been so... so unromantical,” she burst out, then
recovered, saying in a stiff, small voice, “I know I ought to be grateful for
what I have. My grandmother, before she died, made me copy out Mrs. Lennox’s
book three times , to cure me of
romance.”
    Clarissa had read The
Female Quixote once. She sincerely pitied anyone having to write out the
pages of earnest sermonizing at the close of that novel.
    “Here we are,” Kitty said, as they traversed a gloomy hall
into another part of the house, this wing much older. Though the house was
primarily made of dark wood in the style of Queen Bess, this portion was
well-cared for, the parquet under their feet shining with polish,