His One Woman by Paula Marshall Read Free Book Online Page B

wars,’ said Charles. He pulled out his watch. ‘My patron should be arriving any time now. Do you wish to remain here, or return to the stall?’
    â€˜If we all had our druthers—which is Deep South dialect for what we would rather do than what we ought to do—then I would prefer to stay here. But duty says that I ought to be helping Aunt Percival and Sophie to raise as much money as possible for poor children by selling baubles to rich women—an odd thought, that.’
    â€˜Ah, yes, duty,’ murmured Charles. ‘I can see why Alan likes you. He’s great on duty.’
    â€˜So, I suspect, is Jack. Is it an Australian trait, I wonder?’
    â€˜Perhaps. Many Yankees seem to share it, too. I must do mine and return you to your worthy Aunt Percival.’
    Marietta noticed that he did not mention Sophie although, once they were with her again, Charles’s manners to her were those of the perfect gentleman—which he obviously was, even though Sophie greeted Marietta with, ‘Whatever have you been doing to be away for so long? I have had a wretched time of it. Aunt Percival has left me to sell things and make change while she gossiped with all her old friends—and Jack still hasn’t turned up. If he doesn’t come, it will have been a totally wasted afternoon—I shouldn’t have allowed you and Aunt to persuade me to attend.’
    â€˜Now, Sophie, that’s no way to speak to Marietta—even if you are disappointed,’ said Aunt Percival. ‘Console yourself by knowing you have been doing your duty.’
    â€˜Oh, that!’ exclaimed Sophie, shrugging her shoulders and rolling her eyes at Charles. ‘Who cares about that? That’s for servants.’
    â€˜And English viscounts apparently, by what he said to me in the tea-room,’ Marietta was to tell Aunt Percival later that evening. ‘It’s a good thing that Sophie hasn’t set her sights on Charles—he thoroughly approves of people who do their duty.’
    Now she said nothing, other than, ‘Well, we can all console ourselves with the thought of duty well done, and have our immediate reward for, if I do not mistake matters, Jack and Alan have just arrived.’
    Sophie responded by jumping up and down again and beginning to semaphore in their direction—this time laughing and waving Aunt Percival’s tolled-up sunshade to be sure of attracting them to her side immediately.
    Both men responded by smiling at them before making their careful way through the crowd of women—few men were present—to Marietta’s now three-quarters-empty stall.
    â€˜I warned Alan,’ remarked Jack when the formalities were over, ‘that by the time we arrived we should find all the best bargains will have gone—and so they have. But that stern goddess Duty called us. Even if I might have frivolously declined to obey her on the grounds that I had a previous engagement,Alan, who is made of sterner stuff, would never have allowed such a consideration to move him.’
    Duty again—and from Jack this time! Sophie pouted at him, and it was left to Marietta to say to him, ‘I see that you think of duty as a woman, Jack. Do you have any authority for assuming any such thing?’
    Jack put on a puzzled face, and it was left to Aunt Percival to inform them, ‘Mr Jack, even if he does not know it, has the best authority for what he said—was it not Wordsworth who called duty, “stern daughter of the voice of God”?’
    â€˜Bravo!’ said the three men together, while Sophie stared at Aunt Percival. One might have guessed that she would remember such a useless piece of knowledge—and by boring old Wordsworth, too. She had unhappy memories of being asked to learn his Lucy poems by heart.
    She was about to say something when Alan leaned forward, looked into her eyes, and half-whispered to her, ‘I’m sure that Miss