An Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan

Author:Jude Morgan [Morgan, Jude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical
ISBN: 9780755385454
Google: wQdk9pUls7kC
Amazon: B004NSVEGY
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2009-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVII

The presence in Bath of the beautiful Miss Rae, and her still more beautiful fifty thousand pounds, was now sufficiently known for a regular deck of calling-cards to appear on the hall table at Sydney Place. Shuffling, Lydia found a viscountess and her honourable son — perhaps the ace in the pack — besides several esquires, a pair of reverends, and a solitary lieutenant R.N. gamely hoping that even a deuce could take a trick now and then.

Phoebe was not interested — or rather, only as interested as she was in everything. She would be very glad to make the acquaintance of all these people; but Lydia could not foresee any of them being added to the equation of Mr A and Mr B.

From one point of view — the selfish — this was a relief. Lydia reeled at the thought of having to counsel Phoebe on the relative merits of Mr C, Mr D and Mr E ... Yet still she felt that Phoebe was being too precipitate in trying to add up the sum at all. Where was the need for hurry? She was not yet twenty-one, and the world was wide. This was what she tried to convey to her friend the next day, when Phoebe, by various hints, revealed her anxiety to know what she thought of her two suitors.

‘Well. Now that I have had the pleasure of meeting both gentlemen, I can say that I see nothing absolutely to object to in either. I am assuming, of course, that you do value my opinion on the matter. And despite what Lady Eastmond says, I am far from convinced that it is my place to speak on it—’

‘Oh, but you must!’ Phoebe cried. ‘That is — Lydia, I have never had a true friend before. A friend I can speak with openly, and in confidence. It is what I have so wanted. And this is what friends do, is it not? They are not afraid of offending, or being too familiar: they know that each has the other’s best interests at heart.’

Lydia was touched; not only by this but by the brushing thought of her mother, and the friendship she had needed at the most vulnerable time of her life. ‘Well, then, as a friend, I would only urge you not to be hasty in any decision you may make. It is simply unnecessary. Consider: soon enough you will be twenty-one, and in control of your whole fortune. You will have an enviable degree of independence. You may well find that that in itself is a satisfaction, for now: being your own woman, and able to do as you like. It may allow you to realise better who you are and what you want in life. You remember the magnificent cedar at Culverton? It grew so splendidly because it was planted on its own, with no other trees to crowd it.’

‘That is true,’ Phoebe said; and then, after a thoughtful pause: ‘But I always think there is something rather melancholy about those solitary trees.

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