Yvonne Goes to York Read Online Free PDF Page A

housekeeper. “But you must stiffen your spine, Hannah ,” she told me. “If you are always afraid of those above you, you will encourage bullying. Bullies sense fear. So smile, and throw your shoulders back and look them straight in the eye.” Very simple advice, Miss Grenier, but very useful. Shall we go to dinner?’
    Yvonne smiled suddenly, her large eyes sparkling. ‘Amazing Miss Hannah Pym,’ she said. ‘You give me courage. En avant !’
     
    The gentlemen rose to meet them as they entered the dining-room. Monsieur Petit was wearing much the same style of clothes as he had worn on the coach, but Mr Giles was magnificent in evening dress, black coat with silver buttons, black knee-breeches, gauze stockings , and ruffled shirt. As the ladies sat down, the maitre d’hotel bowed low before Mr Giles and said, ‘Dinner will be served in a trice, my lord.’
    ‘My lord?’ Hannah looked amused. ‘Your fine clothes have elevated you to the peerage, Mr Giles.’
     ‘Not Mr Giles,’ said Monsieur Petit crossly. ‘His secret is out. He is recognized here. He is the Marquis of Ware who, for some dark reason, needs to travel incognito.’
    ‘No other reason but debt,’ said the marquis languidly . ‘The duns were after me.’
    Monsieur Petit snickered. ‘That diamond pin you are wearing in your cravat, my lord, would fend them off for a time.’
    The marquis’s face suddenly became hard and stern and his silver eyes bored into those of Monsieur Petit as he put both hands on the table and leaned forward. ‘Do not be impertinent, sir, or I will drive your teeth down your throat.’
    ‘An’ I’ll help you,’ commented Benjamin gleefully from behind Hannah’s chair.
    Monsieur Petit cast the marquis a venomous look and then turned to Yvonne. ‘You must find the manners of the English very boorish, Miss Grenier.’
    ‘On the contrary,’ said Yvonne, looking directly at him. ‘I find the gentlemen of England courteous and charming and safe .’
    She has thrown down the gauntlet, thought Hannah, amazed. He is startled and furious, but she is not afraid.
    ‘What were your first impressions of London?’ asked the marquis.
    ‘I came up the Thames past Greenwich on a ship,’ said Yvonne, smiling at him. She was no longer afraid of him. He was nothing more than an aristocrat in debt. ‘So much shipping! it looked to me as if a forest of masts was growing out of the river. And the river itself!So brown and muddy, with mist drifting over the surface. There were jetties which thrust out fifty paces into the river on either side. There was gleaming mud left by the ebb-tide. Oh, a jumbled impression of warehouses and docks, ship-building and -repairing yards, mean dwelling-houses, the iron carcass of a church being made for assembly in India, or so someone told me, and all the many canals with their ships leading into the river, giving the impression of streets of ships. The mist changed into yellow acrid fog as we approached London. I thought myself in Homer’s inferno, in the land of the Cimmerians.
    ‘I arrived in London on Sunday.’
    ‘Ah,’ said the marquis. ‘Our famous English Sunday.’
    ‘It all had the aspect of a large, well-kept graveyard,’ said Yvonne with a shiver. ‘ Tiens ! How frightened and lost I felt. Shops closed, streets almost empty. It was raining – small, fine, close, pitiless rain. Everything was dirty and impregnated with soot. In the livid smoke, objects were no more than phantoms, and London looked like a bad drawing in charcoal over which someone had rubbed a sleeve.’
    ‘But the family with whom you are staying no doubt made up for the gloom outside with the warmth of their welcome,’ put in Monsieur Petit.
    ‘Indeed they did.’
    ‘Their name being …?’
    ‘What is it you English say?’ asked Yvonne with a sarcastic inflection on the you . ‘Mindyour own business.’
    Hannah noticed that the marquis was toying with his food. He seemed fascinated by Miss Grenier.