Darkwater by Dorothy Eden Read Free Book Online Page B

cent, or even more,’ the letter concluded.
    Upstairs, Louisa Davenport was dressing for dinner. Since Hannah was not yet back from London, Dora, the new maid, was called in to help. She was slow and clumsy and terribly nervous. Louisa had little patience with inexperience. She increased the girl’s confusion by ordering her to do too many things.
    ‘Lay out my grey silk. No, not that. That’s blue. Where are your eyes? The crinoline. Put it on the bed. Now come and lace me. How strong are you?’
    Dora looked at her skinny arms. She was undergrown, plain, with crooked teeth, and only fourteen years old. She had just been promoted to the upstairs after two years of washing dishes and scurrying hither and thither for cook in the kitchen. The mistress had asked her if she were fond of children and she had said yes, because how could you say anything else? Anyway, it was true. There were ten brothers and sisters in the cottage on the moors and she found she had missed them painfully when she had come to the big house. She had been pleased and excited to be told that if she wished she could move upstairs and help to care for the new arrivals from far-off China.
    But she hadn’t known that would bring her to do anything so terrifying as lacing the mistress.
    ‘I’m very wiry, ma’am,’ she said nervously.
    Louisa had found the new fashion of the crinoline much to her liking. The only drawback was that it necessitated a neat waist, and that she had not got.
    ‘H’mm,’ she said to Dora sceptically, ‘We’ll see. Take these two ends and pull. Oh, good gracious, girl, you haven’t the strength of a fly. Amelia, is that you?’ There had been a tap at the door. ‘Come and help this incompetent creature.’
    Amelia came bursting in, and promptly began to giggle.
    ‘There’s no need for impertinence, miss.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Mamma, but you do look funny. Do you really want these awfully tight? You know it makes your face flush.’
    ‘I shall have only six courses at dinner,’ said her mother. ‘Then I shall be perfectly comfortable. You know we have Sir Giles and Lady Mowatt coming.’
    ‘They’re so dreary,’ Amelia complained. ‘The governor of a prison. Uh!’
    ‘Sir Giles is a man of, importance. Your father likes him.’
    ‘Papa! But when is there going to be someone for me to like? Someone young. Doesn’t Papa realise I’m grown-up.’
    ‘Of course he realises it. Don’t be so stupid.’
    ‘He never seemed to notice Fanny was. He never did anything about her. And now she’s getting old.’
    ‘Dora,’ said Louisa, ‘give me the hairbrush. I shall do my own hair. Miss Amelia will help me. You may go.’
    Dora bobbed thankfully and withdrew. Louisa turned crossly to her daughter.
    ‘Haven’t I told you before not to discuss family affairs in front of the servants?’
    ‘Oh, Dora,’ said Amelia. ‘She won’t gossip because no one listens to her. And Mamma, it’s true what I said. Fanny has hardly ever met a young man, and now I’m seventeen I don’t intend that to happen to me.’
    Louisa surveyed her daughter with mingled indulgence and criticism. It was a pity she wasn’t ravishingly pretty. But her skin was good and she had animation. She would never be left sitting silent in a corner. Her fair hair tied in ringlets on either side of her face was quite charming. Being a little over-plump suited her style. She was a presentable daughter. There was only one trouble and that was one her father refused to admit or understand. Her looks faded to insignificance beside Fanny’s. Fanny, when her emotions were aroused, had a way of looking incandescent. She reduced Amelia’s chatter and smiles and fluttering lashes to the gauche tricks of a schoolgirl.
    It was all very well for Edgar, with his exaggerated sense of fairness and responsibility, to insist on the girls being treated like sisters. But Edgar was a man, and men were blind to the subtler points of feminine behaviour. He had to be made