The Love Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

have been the candlelight which gave her that added lustre, or it might have been something else. My mother always said that candlelight was more flattering to a woman than any lotions or unguents.
    She wore a beautiful gown, too. The long pointed bodice was cut rather low, and worn without kerchief or collar showed her attractively sloping shoulders. One curl had been allowed to escape from those tied at the nape of her neck and hung over a shoulder.
    Her gown was of lavender silk and under it was a grey satin petticoat. I wondered at the time how she had come by such a dress in that cheese-paring rectory and I learned that it had come from Westering Manor. As she said, it was one of the “cast-offs for the needy,” and when I saw it in daylight I would see that it had become too shabby for her ladyship’s use.
    I wore my blue silk, and although I had previously thought it rather charming it seemed insignificant beside Christabel’s.
    Both Edwin and Leigh changed from their elaborate uniforms, but I thought they looked very fine-both of them-in their knee-length breeches and short jackets which were fashionably beribboned, Ed-31
    win’s slightly more so than Leigh’s, for Edwin followed the mode more slavishly than Leigh who I suspected was more than a little impatient with the laces and ribbons which had come into vogue as a kind of turnabout after the puritanical style of dress.
    Carl was full of excitement because of the arrivals and we were a very merry party at the table. The servants were delighted as always to have the men home, and I knew how disappointed my mother would be to miss them.
    They talked of their adventures. They had been serving in France, from which country they had recently come, but what I remembered from that night and what was really a prelude to the events which were about to begin was the talk of Titus Gates and the Popish Plot. It was like the overture before the curtain rises on the play. Being so much with Harriet had made me think that all the world was truly a stage and the men and women merely players.
    “There’s a feeling in England,” said Leigh, “that wasn’t there when we left.”
    “Change can come quickly,” added Edwin, “and when you’ve been away and come back you are more aware of it than those who have had it gradually creep up on them.”
    “Change?” I cried. “What change?”
    “The King is not an old man,” said Edwin. “He is past fifty.”
    “Fifty!” cried Carl. “It’s ancient.”
    Everybody laughed.
    “Only to infants, dear boy,” said Leigh. “No, Old Rowley will live awhile yet. He must. A pity he hasn’t a son.”
    “I was under the impression that he had several,” said Christabel.
    “Alas, born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
    “I’m sorry for the Queen,” said Edwin. “Poor, gentle lady.”
    “To accuse her of being involved in a plot to kill the King is the utmost idiocy,”
    added Leigh.
    Carl leaned forward, forgetting his lamb pie-a favourite of his-in his excitement.
    Carl was old for his ten years. My father had always wanted him to grow up quickly and he had. He understood about the King and his mistresses and the right and wrong sides of blankets-a fact which Sally Mullens deplored. She would have liked to keep him in her nursery until he married.
    “Was she?” he demanded. “Did she want to kill the King? Has she got a lover?”
    “What a blase old fellow this is!” cried Leigh. “My dear Carl, the Queen is the most virtuous lady in England-present company ex-32
    cepted.” He bowed to us each in turn. “This Titus Gates will hang himself if he doesn’t take care.”
    “In the meantime,” said Christabel, “he has succeeded in hanging several others.”
    “If only it could be proved that the King had married Lucy Walter that would make Jimmy Monmouth the next to wear the crown.”
    “Is he suitable?” asked Christabel.
    “I believe he is rather wild,” I added.
    “He is fond of feminine society,