The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2 by Daniel A. Rabuzzi Read Free Book Online Page A

hold a small rout, an
assemblée
(doesn’t that sound more elegant in French!), on Thursday next to honour the McDoons upon your homecoming.
    You will have discovered already my main goal, which is of course to bring you to the attention of select and attractive young men, with whom you
might
—if the flint reveals its spark!—form a liaison that
might
in due course blossom into something more lasting.
    Don’t blush or protest! You left us a girl and you have returned a young woman, and must needs be brought into society as best we can—despite all the drawbacks of your temperament (you have too much spirit!) and your education (you have far too much for any one of our sex!). Since you will have to attend such routs and ridottos regardless, where your temperament will be judged wanting and your education will be either dismissed or bevelled down, then you might as well attend one at the instigation and in the embrace of your closest friends—where we who love you can protect and steer you at least some little bit.
    Besides, Sally dear, the best cover for your scholarly pursuits is that of an accommodating husband.
    Also, to speak directly, I do not understand the dalliance you seem to have established with this Mr. Bammary whom you met on your travels. I do not dispute his impeccable manners and his learning—how could I, given his degree from Oxford? All in all, he is a pleasant enough fellow, almost a gentleman. Yet—and please do not think me forward here, I only think of your welfare, Sally, and what others might say against your reputation—he has the look of an Egyptian or a Hindoo and in the end he is no more an Englishman than you are an Indian. We must respect each other, of course, but the darker races can never be united with ours through the most intimate of relations, if you take my meaning. Think on it, Sally, and do not create in Mr. Bammary—or leastwise your self—hopes that can only be dashed here in London.
    Returning to the party: who shall we have there? Your friends the Gardiners would make a suitable addition to the gathering, as well as those lively fellows from our mutual friends at Matchett & Frew—with their droll tales and maggots to match your own.
    Also, through my sister’s relation and Mr. Sedgewick’s connections there, we shall have many naval officers and admiralty officials present.
    Two in particular spring to mind, but I will not tell you their names, so as to tease you and arouse in you the intellectual curiosity for which you are best known, thus to lure you out of your books and to the party. One is a lieutenant who fought in Wellington’s Army of the Peninsula; frankly, he is a bit on the morose side, but could—I am quite sure—be tempted out of his lugubrious ways under steady feminine influence.
    The other is a most peculiar yet wholly charming individual, recently returned from Australia (of all places!), who is clerking for Mr. Sedgewick. He—the young man, not Mr. S.—is trim and well-made, cutting a fine figure and clever in his speech. Mr. S. tells me that there is more to this young man than meets the eye, a mystery of unbalanced ballast beneath his painted sails—if Mr. S. means to warn me off then his words have had the opposite effect.
    So, there is my plot revealed—mischief I am crafting to benefit my young friend, meaning you, Sally.
    Please accept this invitation, which I shall follow up tomorrow with a formal letter to your uncle and the rest of your household.
    I had a quote to share with you from a poem by the newcomer, Mr. Keats, but now it has gone straight out of my head, and they will collect the morning post at any second, so I must postpone our Keatsian conversation until later.
    In haste, your ever affectionate
—Shawdelia Sedgewick
    P.S. We have gotten a real pianoforte since you left. I will teach you all the new airs and melodies—it won’t do for you still to be singing “Lillibullero” and “Stepney Cakes and Ales” etc. from