My Dear Jenny Read Online Free PDF Page B

the blank paper. “I suppose I had best throw my heart over
the fence.” She wrote a few words, studied the paper again. “Oh, Lord.”
    “Would you prefer that I write it?” The voice rose up from
the vicinity of Mr. Teverley’s neckcloth.
    “Don’t you think that it would come easier from me?” she
asked seriously. “That is, as I said before, I am a respectable
female-companion sort, which should ease her situation somewhat. If they have
come from London, they could only have left this morning. Oh, drat this! What
do I say to perfect strangers? ‘Dear Sir and Madam: Please do not, worry about
your’ —what? Daughter? Niece? Grandchild? Ward? I don’t even know who her
family are. ‘Emily is perfectly well, but trapped for a while in an inn with a
measly child, the rake that she ran off with, and a respectable female?’ Good
heavens, what sort of madcap will they think me?”
    Mr. Teverley vouchsafed no answer, and lphegenia suspected
that the sound she heard from that corner of the room might be an unobtrusive
snore. She shook her head in amusement and bent again to her work. She had made
a rough but satisfactory draft, and had begun to copy it out afresh, when that
dry voice interrupted the still of the coffee room.
    “Just how have you become such a respectable female
companion? I would have thought you were the sort that would have married long
since, with a slew of rowdy brats hanging at your skirts.”
    “And what sort is that?” Genia asked without conspicuous
rancor—or interest either, it seemed, as her head stayed bent over her
work.
    “Damme, now you have caught me properly, haven’t you? No
matter what I say I’m damned for it, and serve me right for making such a
fatuous statement. All right, then, Miss-Prydd-whom-I-may-not-call-Jenny, will you tell me what brings you
traveling, and all alone? You obviously are of a good family, if a little
purse-sprung, but what they can be thinking of to let you travel the London
road unattended I do not know.”
    “If they think of it at all, I am sure they are confident
that I can take care of myself.”
    “Your parents—” he began.
    “Have been deceased these many years,” she answered calmly.
    “Stuck my foot in it again. Damn, you do have a knack for
putting a man at a disadvantage.”
    “On the contrary, I should rather say that it was your own
genius.” Before he could protest, she continued. “As for myself, I was, until
this afternoon, going to London to see a school friend through her sister’s
wedding and to help set up her nursery. I collect that she is the sort of woman
you meant before, only the differences between us are quite enormous. At any
rate, I did have a maid, but the stupid girl would not come into the
inn. Insisted that everyone would be staring at her.”
    “Considering our present case, I wonder that you would call
her stupid. Prescient, I should think, is more the word. One more prying
question, then. What are these enormous differences between you and your school
friend?”
    “Just the ordinary and very important differences of money
and beauty. Mary has both, while I—I am simply a respectable female. My mother used to say that I was a born companion, and it was no use to
groom me to anything else, meaning to marry, I suppose.”
    “Your mother,” Teverley said, “sounds like a Gothic fool.
Why on earth did she decide to put such a fustian notion in your head?”
    “More practical than fustian.” lphegenia had given up on her
copywork, put aside her pen, and capped her inkpot. “I was rather a
disappointment to my mother. We always knew there would be no money for any of
us, of course, only Cassie and Sephie are quite delightfully pretty. Cassie is
the absolute beauty of the family. Remains only me, and I’m afraid I take after
Mamma, on a smaller scale. As you can see, she was no beauty, and without that ,
I suppose she felt it not worth the effort. Poor Mamma. She never really
forgave me for looking