Daughters of Rebecca Read Online Free PDF Page A

home.
    â€˜I would like to see the downtrodden of the world seek their rightful place in society,’ Madame Isabelle said. ‘I believe it wrong that a husband owns his wife as though she was little more than a chattel. But, my dear, education is required to achieve such aims.’
    She stood up. She was a tall woman and towered above Shanni. ‘To start on that road you must learn your lessons well. You must learn oratory and for that your voice must be improved. You will lose the cadences of your forebears, you will speak like the gentry and then, only then, will you be listened to. Do you understand?’
    Shanni did. Her coarse speech had become apparent once she was settled in her new home. Listening to Mrs Mainwaring’s cultured, gentle voice had emphasized that Shanni sounded rough and uneducated.
    â€˜I will bring you some books to read, my dear,’ Madame Isabelle said, ‘but by some they would be considered subversive, so you must make this our little secret.’
    Shanni nodded and Madame Isabelle smiled in approval. ‘And in the meantime you will practise the scales just as I have shown you.’
    â€˜I will,’ Shanni said, delighted at the prospect of learning more than the intricacies of music. ‘I will try my best to master them by the time you come again.’
    â€˜Ring for the maid to bring in my hat and gloves, there’s a good girl.’ Madame Isabelle was once more in charge. ‘I will forgo tea as I have another appointment.’
    Shanni obeyed, storing away in her mind the fact that the music teacher was not the martinet she had first thought her but an intelligent, educated woman who seemed determined to show Shanni a better way of life.
    Together, Mrs Mainwaring and Shanni watched from the window as Madame Isabelle rode away in her coach. ‘Well, what do you think of her?’ Mrs Mainwaring asked. ‘Is Madame Isabelle as strict as she appears to be?’
    Shanni shook her head. ‘She is a very interesting lady,’ she said quietly. ‘I think I will learn a great deal from her.’
    It was on the following day that Shanni first met Lloyd Mainwaring. He had come home on holiday from his college and Shanni watched from the window as he climbed out of the coach and stepped outside on to the dried earth of the forecourt.
    He was a handsome boy, whose hair clustered around his face in tight curls. He was tall, his limbs slender like those of a newborn colt. He looked every inch a gentleman in his fine suit of clothes yet he did not stand aside as the coachman lifted down his luggage but pitched in to help him.
    He looked up suddenly and his eyes held fire as he saw her framed in the window. He smiled and Shanni smiled back at him, knowing instinctively that in Lloyd Mainwaring she had found a friend.
    â€˜He needs feeding up.’ Llinos sat beside Joe in the garden and stared at her son as he walked through the lawns with young Shanni at his side. The girl’s head was bent and her shoulders turned away from the boy in an attitude of shyness. Llinos laughed. ‘I do believe that Shanni is falling for our son, Joe.’
    â€˜No, I think this is simply her first real friendship. She likes Lloyd and he likes her, but love? No, I don’t think so.’
    â€˜I suppose you’re right,’ Llinos mused. ‘It’s good for her to learn to mix with all sorts of folk and, in any case, she will probably fall in love several times before she becomes mature.’
    Joe took his pipe from between his teeth, his eyes thoughtful. ‘I think she will fall in love only once,’ he said, ‘and her love has not yet entered her life.’
    â€˜I only fell in love once,’ Llinos said, ‘and I have stayed in love with the same man all my life.’ There was a break in her voice.
    â€˜Llinos, I have always loved you. Why do you keep on reproaching me with what is past?’
    â€˜Because it still