The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston Read Free Book Online Page B

berths, stowing the bags they had brought with them before going up on deck to say farewell to the white cliffs. Gulls swooped above the boat, their mournful, eerie cries echoing in the women’s ears. The ropes were cast away, the sails filled, and the boat began to edge away from the shore.
    As the vessel moved past the bar of the harbour and hit the full force of the sea, Figgins announced that she would go below and get some sleep, if Mi…Mr. Hawkins had no objection, and she— he, she meant—ought to do the same, while she could.
    â€œAre you feeling unwell? Is it the seasickness?” Alethea enquired.
    No, it was not the seasickness, it was merely the sight of all that nasty grey water. If God had meant them to travel on the waves he would have given them fins, and since he had not, the best way for a Christian soul to endure the voyage was to shut oneself away and pretend one was somewhere else.
    Alethea remained on deck, revelling for a time in the rise and crash of the vessel, of the rattling of the halyards, the shriek of the rigging, the strong sounds of the sails. The white foam ran beneath her, the wind blew her cheeks into redness, the salt stung her eyes, and she felt a wild exaltation.
    She had done it. She had escaped from her cage, had left all that painful life behind her, as shut off from her present existence as though a door had slammed and locked it away. She was off on an adventure, into the unknown. and she was travelling, joy of joys, as a man, not a woman fettered by real or imagined frailty, long skirts and convention, but a creature fully in charge of her own fate.
    Then the motion of the boat became less agreeable, and her feelings took on a much more prosaic tone, as the first pangs of seasickness came over her.
    LETTER from Belinda Atcombe, in London, to her dear friend, Lady Hermione Wytton, in Venice:
    This is not written in return for yours, for it is now three weeks since I had any word from you. The delights of Venice must tempt you out morning and night, for you were not used to be such a wretched correspondent. However, perhaps you are laid low with a cold or some such affliction, as I have been this past week. It is better when I am within doors and increases whenever I venture forth, but what is one to do, stay indoors yawning one’s head off all day long? And this at the time of year when everyone who is anyone is in town and the list of gaieties is increasing every day.
    Last night I was at the Quintocks’. Louisa is grown vastly fat this winter, I suppose in emulation of Henry Quintock’s innamorata, and her posteriors are an astonishment to all. It will not do, though, for the innamorata is one of your ravishing sloe-eyed Latin beauties, whose amplitude of curves inspires universal admiration. Louisa merely resembles her overweight pug and her daughters are mighty cross with her for looking such a figure of fun.
    You ask how the Youdall marriage has turned out. I have to say that the bride is a young lady not improved by marriage, as blushing shyness has given way to a pert boldness; not that her husband seems to notice. He is a fool to be so under his mother’s iron control, and now he has two of them to please so that his manhood must quite wilt and droop under their powerful rule. This perhaps accounts for the still-slender figure of his bride, who shows no signs of producing the heir that Mrs. Youdall longs for.
    People say he should have married the Darcy girl he was so hot for, your daughter-in-law Camilla’s sister. She is something of a beauty; all those Darcy girls have good looks enough, but she made an ill choice when she took Norris Napier, handsome though he is. The on dit is that it is not a happy match. He has buried her away in the country, I hear no news of her being in the family way, and they say he makes her sing to him at all hours, even in the middle of the night.
    The Napiers are not a family I would care to have any