The Regency Read Online Free PDF

through Marie, that both women had been in love with James, and probably still were, but she gave no sign of that as she smiled and chatted easily to them.
    ‘God moves in mysterious ways, Lady Fussell,' she said, embarrassing the ladies a little with the familiar way she introduced the Almighty into conversation. 'He has denied you children, which is very sad; but you are blessed with a great many nephews and nieces; and an aunt, you know, may sometimes have the best of it — all the fun and none of the sorrow.'
    ‘ Well, yes,' Lizzie said reluctantly, 'John's children bring me great pleasure, I grant you, and I'm fond of 'Tina's little boys.'
    ‘ My ward Mathilde is at this very moment visiting Miss Keating, who is also your niece, is she not?'
    ‘Yes, Patience is my eldest sister Augusta's girl.'
    ‘ You must be very pleased with the way Miss Nordubois has turned out, Lady Morland,' Valentina put in. 'I have not had the pleasure of meeting her yet, but I hear good reports of her — a very modest, pretty-behaved girl, they say.'
    ‘ And her eighteenth birthday is next week, is it not?' Lizzie asked. 'I believe you are having a ball for her?'
    ‘ A very small thing,' Héloïse said. 'As she is my ward and not James's, it would not be proper at Morland Place to have anything very grand. But Mathilde looks forward to it very much.'
    ‘ Despite having her come-out in London?' Valentina said. ‘She must be a modest girl indeed! And a trip to Brighton with Lady Chelmsford into the bargain, and all the glories of the military camp!'
    ‘Ah yes, Brighton!' Héloïse laughed. 'She fell in love with a different officer every day!'
    ‘ Red coats have a dreadful effect on a girl's heart,' Lizzie said. 'I remember when the regiment was here in '79 — well, I was too young to care about officers, of course — but Augusta and your sisters, 'Tina, could talk about nothing else. They nearly broke their hearts when the regiment went abroad.'
    ‘ I remember!' Valentina laughed. 'Amelia and Caroline cried in each other's arms for a week over a certain Captain Matlock. If he'd favoured either of them over the other, they'd have hated each other, of course, but as he regarded them both with perfect indifference —'
    ‘There is no better cure for a young girl's heartbreak than indifference,' Héloïse agreed. 'With Mathilde it was a certain Major Ashton of the Ninth.'
    ‘ We have a very decent sort of officer here at Fulford, you know,' Valentina said. 'A very gentlemanly set. Miss Nordubois might do worse than a handsome ensign.'
    ‘ There will be one or two officers at the ball,' Héloïse con fessed. 'James knows the colonel.'
    ‘ Oh yes, of course. They all meet at the Maccabbees,' Lizzie said in a flat voice. The Maccabbees club was the source of a great deal of Lizzie's and Valentina's misery.
    ‘ James does not go there very often now,' Héloïse said, a little apologetically. 'He called on the colonel at the barracks, and the colonel invited him to dine.’
    Just then the door was flung open, and Crosby Shawe walked in. He stopped short and goggled at them.
    ‘ Good God, what've I interrupted?' he exclaimed. It was evident from the first words that he was not entirely sober. 'It looks like that scene frori that play — what's it called — with the three witches. You know — "Double, double —" or is it "Bubble, bubble —"? Never could remember. Shakespeare! Pa made me recite it for ever when I was in short coats. Macbeth, that's the dandy! The three wise women.'
    ‘ Mr Shawe, Lady Fussell and Lady Morland are visiting me,' Valentina said hastily.
    ‘ Can see that!' Crosby said indignantly. 'Wouldn't have come in if I'd known. Thought the room was empty. Damned if I want to listen to a lot of women's clacking!'
    ‘Mr Shawe!'
    ‘ Anyway, Lizzie Fussell's always here. Nothing to make a fuss about. Is that your phaeton in the yard, Lady M? Wants its offside driving-wheel looking at, you know.'
    ‘ No, I didn't