Heir to Rowanlea Read Online Free PDF Page B

not want Henry, or Harry for that matter, posting all over France on an errand some clerk could have done better. Think how impatient they would have become when there were delays, and some petty official refused to see them, or directed them wrongly!”
    “Do you think Cousin Frederick is still alive?” Charlotte asked, her thoughts diverted to this possibility.
    “I cannot think so, for surely his mother or her relatives would have contrived to get in touch with us somehow if he had been. After all, there is plenty of illicit traffic with France through the free traders, and a message could have been sent if anyone had really tried.”
    “I used to like him,” Charlotte said slowly. “I was only six when they went to France, but I can still remember the fun we all had at Rowanlea. I want cousin Frederick to be alive, and yet Harry would be such a good master for Rowanlea, and has, I am sure, come to look on it as his, despite Uncle Henry’s refusal even to admit the possibility.”
    “Well, it will all soon be settled,” Lady Weare said briskly.
    “Are all men the same?” Charlotte asked, intrigued with what her mother had been saying.
    “Oh yes, your father was as persuadable as Henry, and I can even persuade your Uncle Robert, James’ other trustee, to invest his money where I want it, although he maintains females cannot handle money. Those investments have has been successful, too,” she added. “Even James, if I suggest he would hate riding on a dull day, seems to prefer that to taking out his boat, when all the time I have been fearful a storm was brewing. If I dared to show I was worried he might not be able to handle the boat in a rough sea, he would be only too anxious to prove me wrong.”
    Charlotte laughed in agreement.
    “You sound as though you can contrive to make them do whatever you want,” she remarked wistfully. “Do you manage me in the same way?”
    Lady Weare ruffled her curls and sighed mockingly.
    “You, my dear, are not a man! Sometimes I wish you were, for then you would be far easier to manage. I dare not suggest things to you, hoping you would do the opposite, for you would most certainly not. Let anyone put any crazy scheme into your head and like as not you’ll want to carry it out.”
    “Then how do you manage me?” Charlotte asked, laughing.
    “That I shall most certainly not tell you, my love, for I cannot lose all my influence over you by letting you into all my secrets!”
    “It cannot always work,” Charlotte mused.
    “No,” her mother agreed. “You have to be ahead of them, proposing some scheme you fear they will think of so as to prevent their approving it. Stopping them from doing something they are set upon already is far more difficult.” She picked up one of the journals lying on a small table. “But that is enough of that. Oh, my love, do you like this gown? I think Jane might make it up for you in that pale jonquil muslin we bought today. Miss Drover has rather a lot to do, and this would not take her long, and would be ideal for the musical evening Lady Charles invited us to when we met her in Bond Street.”
    * * * *
    On the following day when Charlotte was occupied with fittings for her new gowns, James was intent on his own pursuits. Yesterday he had accompanied his tutor, Mr Williams, to the Tower, where he consented to be amused by the wild beasts kept there. Unfortunately Mr Williams had seen fit to follow this with a proposal to visit the British Museum on the following morning, and James had rebelled. Still smarting from what he considered unjustified censure over the matter of the cricket ball, he escaped from the house early in the morning and found his way down to the docks, gazing in fascination as the busy scene, at first so tangled and incomprehensible to him, gradually became more orderly and took on meaning.
    He watched the men loading the barges, and crept gradually nearer the wharf side, being careful to avoid those men who were