The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan

Author:Sara Sheridan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529336238
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Published: 2021-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

That night Clementina is long abed but Elizabeth cannot conceive of sleep. Instead, late, with only two candles alight, she sits alone in the drawing room by the window and watches the city as one by one the flames of the far windows dim beneath the stark white lamp of the moon. The air outside is cool and fresh. She has become accustomed to the smell of lilac at night on this side of the house but this evening the scent is laced with honeysuckle as if a bough was creeping along the façade and over the window frame. Around her, the rooms are absolutely silent except for the ticking of the clock on the mantle. One of the clock strikes and then two, as Elizabeth goes over and over what happened.

She did not eat dinner, but she managed to show no other sign of her distress until Clementina retired. Then she dismissed the staff and sat crying for an hour in a high-backed chair by the fire. Howling. Gasping to catch her breath. Belle is a liar and a whore and Herr von Streitz is like every other man – what must he think of her, to have made such a proposition in that way, in the street? How will the world judge her, seeing her arm in arm with a courtesan along George Street? A kept woman. A whore. A lady’s reputation is as frail as a butterfly’s wing. She crumples the drawings she made of Belle and throws them to the ground. As the tears subside, she rubs her eyes. Her appetite stirs, longing for sweetness – a choux bun or a shortbread biscuit or a soft slice of bread spread with butter and honey. Some comfort. There is, she knows, no hope of any such thing at Inverleith House for the pantry contains only Cook’s bread, which is as good as a brick, and no cake at all. Still, the desire is overwhelming. It has been hours since she ate. At dinner she only picked at the fish on her plate. So, without as much as debating the matter, on a whim, she lifts a candle and leaves the room, moving into the darkened hallway and down the servants’ staircase concealed behind a door backed with green baize to muffle its opening and closing. Tiptoeing as she makes her way into the service part of the house, the bowels of the place.

She has never before made the descent to the kitchen, but she is guided by her nose – the smell of roasting meat and simmering broth. The room is warm as she enters, for the stove is always alight. Nobody is up. The table lies ready for the morning’s breakfast. A cat sits curled in a chair at its head, sleeping. In Richmond Elizabeth had only a single maid – a thin slip of a fifteen-year-old who mostly kept things clean and did the shopping. Elizabeth shifted for both of them in the kitchen, though she has never admitted to anyone that she fell so low.

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.