The Chocolate Debutante Read Online Free PDF

her mouth on the tablecloth, and Harriet proceeded to lecture her on maidenly behavior, Harriet had a shrewd idea that much as Susan liked to portray her teachers at the seminary as lax, she had heard all this before.
     
    In the morning, when they set out, Lord Ampleforth and his friends were waiting in the courtyard. How they had managed to obtain bunches of hothouse flowers was a puzzle to Harriet. They pressed them on the delighted Susan, and Harriet could not bring herself to create a scene by making the girl refuse them.
     
    “If only one of them had the wit to give me chocolates,” mourned Susan as the carriage drove off.
     
    “Oh,
Susan
!” exclaimed Harriet.
     
    As soon as Susan was settled in London, Harriet decided to engage a tutor for her, feeling the girl might learn better from a stranger. To this end, she hired an elderly retired vicar to teach Susan to read and write, a music teacher to instruct her to play the pianoforte, a dancing master, and a seamstress to show her the fine art of sewing.
     
    Having successfully managed to fill up the girl’s days, she felt free to visit her friends. Her friends were also ladies of independent means. One of them, a Miss Barncastle, had prepared a lecture for them on the folly of fashion. As Harriet listened to Miss Barncastle pointing out the idiocies of the sisterhood having to paint themselves like savages and wear nigh indecent dresses and all to attract men, she glanced down at her own sober clothes and frowned.
     
    She had not before been particularly conscious of her age and appearance. But having the ravishing Susan around had made her sharply aware of her declining years and dowdy clothes. She would need to order a new wardrobe for herself, she thought. She could not possibly take Susan to balls and parties in old-fashioned clothes. And perhaps she might indulge in one of the new fashionable crops. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in a looking-glass and scowled. She had hitherto chosen her bonnets to keep her head warm in winter and shade her from the sun in summer. The bonnet she was wearing was shaped like a coal scuttle and of dark felt. Susan had exclaimed, “What a quiz of a bonnet, Aunt Harriet! But then, I suppose when one is old, one does not need to bother about fashion.” That had rankled.
     
    But it
was
a quiz of a bonnet, thought Harriet, unaware that Miss Barncastle had come to the end of her lecture and all eyes were turned upon her, Harriet.
     
    “Miss Tremayne,” chided Miss Barncastle, “we are waiting to hear your views on the folly of fashion.”
     
    “I am not a good person to ask at the moment,” said Harriet. “I have a young niece to bring out at the Season and that means I will need to help her choose gowns and all the frivolities. She is a good girl, but heedless and not interested in anything other than food. She would not understand my views.”
     
    Miss Barncastle raised her hands. “But you must teach her. How old is your niece?”
     
    “Susan is nineteen.”
     
    “But it is your duty to school your niece, Miss Tremayne. We must save our sisters from becoming mindless chattels.”
     
    For the first time, Harriet felt like a stranger among them. She was worried about the responsibility of bringing out Susan and suddenly longed for the advice and help of someone in a similar situation. “Susan is quite happy to be a mindless chattel,” she said. She raised a hand. “No, I do not wish to discuss the girl further. I must take my leave, ladies. I have much to do.”
     
    When she returned home to Berkeley Square, it was to find Susan sprawled out on the sofa with her gown hitched up and her face smeared with chocolate.
     
    “Where is your dancing master?” demanded Harriet sharply.
     
    “I’m learning,” said Susan with an angelic smile.
     
    “Learning what?”
     
    “How to behave. I sent him away.”
     
    “Why?”
     
    “He brought me these lovely chocolates, but then, when he was teaching