The Poisonous Seed by Linda Stratmann Read Free Book Online Page B

her emotions, and neglected her duties, she would have despised herself, as being no more use than one of those elegant ladies who professed themselves exhausted after a little shopping, and called for a smelling bottle when in two minds over the best way to trim a hat.
    She reassured herself that it was not disrespectful to her brother’s memory to use his clothes for a masquerade to save the business from ruin. He would, she knew, have heartily approved. She had worn his clothing once before, some five years ago, as a delightful prank they had devised together. It was a Christmas entertainment, and they had copied some poems, jokes and comic dialogues from the newspapers and invited a modest audience to take tea. Some of the wittiest exchanges were between two gentlemen, and it had been Frederick’s idea for Frances to play the part of a young man, and he had helped to dress her in his suit. It was a little long in the leg and wide at the hip but a few pins corrected that, and he laughed at her efforts to swagger like a boy. ‘Now then, you must hold your body like this, and take a good long stride, not little trotting steps, and try and imagine yourself a fine fellow, a real roistering Jack, with all the girls sweet on you.’ They invited a neighbour, and their father’s sister Mrs Scorer, who had looked after Frances and Fredrick after their mother died, also their mother’s brother, Cornelius Martin. Mrs Scorer, the former Miss Maude Doughty, had managed the household until Frances was thirteen, when much to the disgust of William, who had thought that this useful and thrifty arrangement would last forever, she insisted at the age of forty-five on marrying the first man who asked her, a coal merchant twenty years her senior who died two years later, leaving her £4,000 the richer. Mrs Scorer was a calm, organising sort of woman who seemed to despise tender affection – at least, she had never shown any to her niece and nephew. She was neither harsh nor kind, but believed in attending to practical wants in the way of food and clothing, without thinking very much about the individual concerned. Frances was very fond of her Uncle Cornelius. She recalled gloomy visits that must have happened after her mother’s death, when he and her father had sat together for hours at a time and talked in low voices. As he departed, he had smiled at her and Frederick, and given them pennies and peppermints, so she thought he was not a sad person in himself, rather a man made sad by circumstances. Cornelius’ wife, Phoebe, had died some years ago. He often spoke of her with affection and said how much he missed her company, and how he regretted that they had had no family. Occasionally he had taken Frederick and Frances out for the day, excursions which she had always anticipated with great excitement. She had never been disappointed. Sometimes they had ridden in a carriage, sometimes they had gone to Paddington Station and taken a train, always they had explored places that seemed foreign and wonderful, and then they had had tea. Her father had grudgingly allowed these adventures on the condition that they were educational in nature, with admonitions to Cornelius not to allow the children too much freedom. Aunt Maude had never attempted to conceal the fact that she viewed the absence of her charges with some relief.
    At the Christmas of 1874, when Frances was fourteen and Frederick nineteen, their entertainment had been received politely. Uncle Cornelius had laughed at the jokes, and even her father had admitted that it was not without wit. It was their neighbour, an elderly, slightly deaf lady called Mrs Johnstone, a vision in yards of black bombazine wrapped in an Indian shawl, who concentrated most of her attention on the tea and sandwiches and asked afterwards who the ‘other boy’ had been.
    Five years later, the trousers that had been too long were, if anything, a little short in the leg, but no worse than Frances had