Free Michael Cox by The Glass of Time (mobi) Page B

to the glass and began absently tracing some pattern, or perhaps a sequence of letters, as she spoke.
After dinner, she asked me to read to her from another work by Phoebus Daunt, The Heir: A Romance of the Modern . *
‘Do you know it?’ she asked, handing the volume to me.
I told her that I had not yet had the pleasure of reading it.
‘Then this will please both of us,’ she said. ‘Shall we begin?’
I opened the book, and started to read.
Mr Daunt’s poetical gifts appeared to have found their natural expression in the epic form. I imagined that Paradise Lost , which I had known and admired since first being introduced to it by Mr Thornhaugh as a child, had been ever before him as the great model for his own essays in what might be called the poetry of magnitude. In Milton’s case, the description would signify the higher character of the subject-matter, as well as the sublime capabilities of the poet; in Mr Daunt’s, a narrower definition of ‘magnitude’ is required; for he appears to have believed that the more lines he wrote, the more impressive the effect would be. Consequently, an hour or more passed and I had barely reached halfway through the second of twelve books.
‘Does it tire you, Alice?’ asked Lady Tansor, hearing me stumble over a particularly inept couplet (the bard had rejected the sterner clarity of blank verse in favour of rhyming couplets, at some frequent cost to sense).
‘No, my Lady. I am very happy to continue for as long as you wish.’
‘No, no,’ she insisted, ‘you are tired. I can see it. I have kept you long enough. There! What a considerate mistress I am! You must not think, however, that I treat all my maids with such partiality, for I never have before.’
She was looking at me expectantly; but when I made no reply, she moved away from the window and stood staring into the fire.
‘No,’ she said, quietly, ‘I have not always been so partial. But you, Alice,’ looking now over her shoulder at me, ‘have qualities that set you apart. I saw them immediately.’
She paused, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to her.
‘Do you know, it now strikes me that your situation is not a little like Mrs Battersby’s.’
She saw the puzzled look on my face, and gave a little laugh.
‘I mean that, like you, she now occupies a station in life that is somewhat beneath the one in which she appears to have been brought up, although you, of course, seem to have enjoyed superior advantages to Mrs Battersby – a tutor, you now tell me! You speak French. You read novels and poetry. And I dare say that you can play and sing, draw and paint, and generally comport yourself like a lady. Indeed, I should say that you are a lady, by birth and education. Yet – a little like your clever Mr Thornhaugh, who sounds in every respect to be a gentleman – you have taken up a situation that is beneath both your abilities and your natural condition. Is that not a curious symmetry?’
‘You must remember, my Lady,’ I countered, nervous of her questioning expression, ‘that I had no choice in the matter. When Mrs Poynter died – the old friend of my mother’s, with whom I was then living in London – I had no means of supporting myself. I had only a small life-interest from my father, which was barely sufficient for my needs. As I did not wish to return to France, I went to an agency and was put forward for the position with Miss Gainsborough, which I was fortunate to secure.’
‘Fortunate indeed,’ she said. ‘For someone without previous experience of domestic service, one might have expected you to be put up for a petty place or two, perhaps with a clergyman, or some person in a small way of trade. But then I am not in the least surprised that you impressed Miss Gainsborough, who sounds a very sensible sort of person. I have no doubt that she was of the same mind as I myself. She must have seen, as I did, that you were exceptional, which is a rare quality in a servant.’
She had hardly