Distant Choices by Brenda Jagger Read Free Book Online Page A

Saint-Charles?’ Oriel had quickly enquired, her voice expertly covering her mother’s in case anyone did feel obliged to take up the challenge.
    â€˜How do you do, Miss Blake.’ The voice was neutral and restrained, the handclasp brief and no warmer than politeness demanded, the eyes clear-sighted, she felt no doubt, but of a colour too nondescript – or too subtle, perhaps – to be remembered. Not a handsome young man by any standards having, indeed, the same elongated, over-bred greyhound look as the Reverend Saint-Charles, his father, and the four or five of his brothers she had already met. Although, unlike them, he was immaculate in every detail of his dress, a ‘laundress’s miracle’she knew Evangeline would call him, of starched white linen and dark-grey, vaguely clerical broadcloth.
    Did he intend, perhaps, to replace his reverend and somewhat ineffective father at the vicarage? But his ardent mother soon dispelled any notion of that.
    â€˜You will have heard,’ she told Evangeline, ‘of his honours degree from Cambridge and of all the high opinions – truly golden opinions – his tutors had of him? Yes, I know Matthew will have told you all about it. And of the letters I had, from Cambridge, telling me how they expect great things of him in the future – in absolutely any direction he might choose to apply himself. Such a true scholar, they said. A real academic yet with a flair for such things as mathematics and business – which so rarely go together …’
    â€˜Mother …’ Had Quentin Saint-Charles, in his attempt to restrain his parent, noticed the amusement in Evangeline? Or did he, perhaps, feel a shade uncomfortable about accepting Letty’s adoration in the presence of his brothers and sisters who, although sitting nearby, were as far removed from her attention as if they had been in Timbuctoo?
    â€˜Mother – I am sure Mrs Blake has no interest …’ But Letty, on this one topic, was well-nigh unmanageable.
    â€˜Of course she has – for she knew you as a baby when she was still living as companion to that old widow woman in Bishop Blaize Street – can it be twenty-four years ago? Indeed it must, since you will be twenty-five this month. And she must often have wondered how you were getting on. Have you not, Evangeline?’
    Evangeline, for a moment, had looked puzzled, as if at a loss to understand how Letty could suspect her of any such thing. And then – as an act of kindness, her manner implied – she nodded her head.
    â€˜Yes, Letty dear – so often.’
    Letty, despite her billowing, flowering skirts, her fringed shawl, her lace cap and mittens, her several dozen petticoats, had looked quite naked in her triumph.
    â€˜There you are, Quentin. He is always imagining people do not wish for news of him – when it is no such thing. A day never passes without somebody coming running to me to sing his praises. One could blush to hear it – except that it is all so true. So Mrs Blake will be very pleased to hear how well you are getting on with Mr Price. Titus Price, Evangeline – Matthew’s lawyer – you certainly know him. Quentin has quite taken over his practice …’
    â€˜Mother!’
    But Letty, swept on by this one passion of her life, this one devotion, was unabashed.
    â€˜But yes – you must allow me, Quentin dear, to be just a little better informed, sometimes, than you are yourself. And Mr Price is grateful to me, Evangeline – he said as much – for pointing Quentin in his direction. “Dear Mrs Saint-Charles, I only wonder how I ever managed without him …” – he said that to me only the other afternoon when I happened to meet him in Piece Hall Square. Sharp as a box of carving knives, he called you, Quentin – a phrase which even I, who had not heard it before, could easily understand to be a compliment. Since with