Half a Crown by Jo Walton

Author:Jo Walton [Walton, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9780765316219
Google: AHgQTN2VFxcC
Amazon: B004N6363A
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2008-09-30T07:00:00+00:00

17

Mrs. Maynard was sleepy, so she wasn’t at all reluctant to leave the ball. She looked down her nose at me as we got into the car, but I was used to that. When we got home, Nanny helped us undress, then Betsy and I talked half the night. What we decided was that I couldn’t keep on saying no without Sir Alan believing it, but that it had probably already gone far enough to stop him being able to propose to Betsy. She was delighted. I, on the other hand, was confused. I didn’t want to marry him for the triumph of it, or even to be a lady, but I was thrilled he’d proposed, that I’d had the possibility of all of that. I would have fallen asleep in Betsy’s room, which I had plenty of times before, but she shooed me out because of her arm. Even in my own bed I slept badly. I kept waking out of complicated dreams in which one of us was getting married, or being crushed in the riot, and sometimes both at once, walking up the aisle and slipping and being trampled and “Here Comes the Bride” turning to the pretty song the British Power man had sung.

I woke ridiculously late. They usually let us sleep in on days after balls, only waking us if there was a luncheon party. I got up slowly, yawning, and smiled at my little vase of primroses as I pulled on my nylons. I was much too late for breakfast, and as I buckled my watch on I realized I was only just in time for lunch. I rushed downstairs and took my place at the table. Betsy wasn’t there. Mr. Maynard grunted, and Mrs. Maynard glared at me. I wasn’t aware of having done anything extra awful, so I ate my lunch quietly—roast lamb and mint sauce, since it was Sunday. “How’s Betsy?” I asked over the apple crumble and custard. “I haven’t seen her this morning.”

“She’s still sleeping,” Mrs. Maynard said.

“We both missed church then,” I said, thinking that I had worked out what was making her so unreasonably cross. “We’ll have to go to evensong.”

“There’s a very nice sung evensong at St. Luke’s,” Mr. Maynard said. “I might stroll down with you myself before dinner.”

Mrs. Maynard did not stop glaring, and Sunday morning church wasn’t obligatory in London anyway, not for people like us, so it couldn’t have been that. I found out what I’d done when we moved into the drawing room for coffee. Another enormous bouquet had arrived for me from Sir Alan—and on a Sunday! This one consisted entirely of roses. He did have the good sense to have made them mixed colors, to make the message slightly less unsubtle, but even so it was an unmistakable declaration. The card, which I knew Mrs. Maynard would have seen already, read “To my dear Cinderella, after the ball. I am waiting with your slipper. —Alan.” She glared at me while I read it.

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