The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson

Author:Eva Ibbotson [Ibbotson, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780230226036
Publisher: Young Picador

The dowager was tired. She had spent the morning in the village, comforting Mrs Bunford, who was still very much upset at having been asked to make neither the wedding gown nor any of the dresses for the bridesmaids and, to console the widow, had ordered her own outfit of powder blue wild silk. To give Mrs Bunford wild silk to ruin was the act of a lunatic and the dowager was already regretting it. Then as she walked to her brougham she was accosted by tiny, tottery Miss Frensham who had played the organ in Mersham Church for forty years. Miss Frensham, rheumy-eyed and quavery, wanted to know if it was true that Miss Hardwicke wanted neither ‘The Voice That Breathed O’er Eden’ nor the ‘Lohengrin March’ like they always had, but something modern that Miss Frensham was almost sure she wouldn’t be able to play since she couldn’t see too well nowadays to read new music. Because if so, perhaps they’d like to get someone else to play, though it wouldn’t be easy not to see Master Rupert married, not after she’d read him every single page of The Prince and the Pauper when he had the measles, because he always noticed when you missed a bit out, not like other children . . .

By the time the dowager had soothed Miss Frensham she was late for her appointment with Colonel Forster at the Mill House and must, she realized, have made a mess of explaining why she had to move into the Mill House immediately without waiting for the improvements that the Forsters were so kindly putting in for her, because Colonel Forster had looked at her very strangely and Mrs Forster had patted her hand in quite the wrong way when she left. And when at last she had gone home and sat down for a moment to rest, there had been the usual psychic vibrations and the voice of Hatty Dalrymple had come through as clearly as if she were still beside her in the dormitory all those years ago at school. Hatty, who had passed over as the result of a boating accident at Cowes, had always been a gusher and the information that she could see rays of aetheric ecstacy emanating from Rupert and his lovely, lovely bride did little for the dowager, remembering the look in Rupert’s eyes these days.

And now she really had to make up her mind whether or not to send a wedding invitation to the Herrings.

Mr and Mrs Melvyn Herring and their twin sons, Donald and Dennis, were not so much herrings as sheep, and extremely black ones at that. The dowager came from an old Irish family whose pedigree was excellent, but whose upbringing, on a wild and lovely estate in County Down, had been unconventional and lacking in discipline. As a result, when the dowager’s youngest sister, Vanessa, fell passionately in love with the extremely handsome hairdresser who came to prepare her glorious, golden ringlets for her coming-out ball, she had put lunacy into action and eloped with him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.