Indiscretion Read Online Free PDF Page B

afternoon — like a fool! She soon put me in my place with that one. She does not receive visitors in the afternoon, says she, very high — which, of course, she don’t! I should have known that. She’s a true stickler, that’s what: and I admire her for it!’
    Caroline could not entirely share his admiration. That mental picture of a Gorgon was growing more complete by the minute. But it was no use pressing her father for a more detailed portrait of her prospective employer. Captain Fortune, in his gallant way, liked all women, classing them as fine, damned fine, splendid or estimable. She must cultivate a fatalistic patience until the next morning, when she was to present herself to Mrs Catling. A hag-ridden night, in which various dimly seen but terrifying creatures pursued her down corridors with gaping jaws, drove her to an early waking; and before breakfast she spent a rather disconsolate time laying out her clothes, and wishing that she had a mother or sister to counsel her on what to choose from the modest array. The task was made more difficult by the small foxed mirror that was all she had to dress by. It was apt that Caroline was used to seeing only a dim, cramped, and partial reflection of herself; for while she did not lack a sense of her own merits, and had too much spirit ever to submit to being walked over, still she thought herself no more than tolerable-looking, and nurtured abysmal doubts about her ability ever to shine in company. She had a quick tongue, an active fancy and a turn for wit, but these she employed, in truth, somewhat as a shield behind which she could shelter.
    As for the figure in the mirror, which any observer must approve as tall, slender, and flexuous, she thought it gawky. To be sure, men paid it the tribute of glances, but she knew that went for any woman short of senility and lacking an absolute hump. Her hair, which was of a dark chestnut, coiled at the crown and fringed on the brow with a few curls around the ears, she could just contemplate without bitterness. As to her face, the strongly arched eyebrows that had been the secret envy of her schoolfellows at the Chelsea seminary gave her, she thought, a ridiculously surprised look. The thinness of her nose displeased her: ‘cut cheese with it,’ was her murmur. And the waxy fairness of skin that her contemporaries sought in vain with buttermilk washes and powder of pearl-of-India she hardly noticed, except to mutter that she looked like a ghost as usual.
    Frugality at least simplified her choices. If Mrs Catling was a stickler for correctness, then a morning-dress it must be, and of those Caroline had precisely two. They were the same two, in fact, that served her as afternoon-dresses, walking-dresses and carriage-dresses.
    ‘How much more simple could it be!’ she said to herself, with a laugh; and all at once passed from despondency to a peculiar lightheartedness. She was young, the June sun was streaming through the window and turning the dust to powdered gold, and her cream figured muslin, with the green spencer, would do very well.
    This euphoria accompanied her all the way to Dover Street — as did her father: equally cheerful, yet somewhat nibbled by anxiety as they approached the house, and inclined to wonder whether the whole idea was a bad one after all. But this was no more than characteristic of Captain Fortune, the type of man who would jump gaily off a cliff and then experience second thoughts when he neared the bottom.
    ‘You need go no further,’ he said, at the area steps. ‘We may turn round, Caro, and go home, and forget all about it: the choice is yours.’ But she would not hear of that, having come so far. A curious truth about Caroline, whose whole chaotic life had been subject to the wayward vagaries of her father: she disliked uncertainty.
    The house was imposing and, as Caroline saw when the footman admitted them, elegantly fitted out. Mrs Catling’s purse must be long indeed for her to be