Free A Gentleman of Fortune by Anna Dean Page A

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    ‘Ah! She was full of tender feelings. For all they say of her being ill-tempered and illiberal, I know otherwise, Miss Kent, I know otherwise.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘Yes, I know that hers was a very sensitive soul. A large, sensitive soul. Love poems and romances! As soon as they were settled here, her nephew began to borrow books for her, and it was always love poems and romances. And the very last book which he took to her – not two days before the unfortunate lady died – was that greatest of all love stories: Romeo and Juliet .’
    ‘Indeed!’ Dido considered this. It was rather disturbing. In the weeks before she died, Mrs Lansdale had had romance on her mind. Had she been thinking only of fictional love…? Or did her view stretch further…? To Mr Henderson, perhaps…?
    Meanwhile, Miss Merryweather was becoming confiding. She leant across her table. ‘I, myself, do not spread gossip, Miss Kent,’ she said, ‘but I cannot help saying this – Mrs Lansdale had a larger, more sensitive soul than some of those persons that are now circulating rumours about her death.’
    ‘Indeed?’ Dido hesitated a moment – but decided that this was no time for excessive delicacy. ‘You are referring perhaps to Mrs Midgely?’ she said.
    Miss Merryweather nodded significantly.
    Dido was delighted. She too leant a little across the table. ‘And what,’ she asked very quietly, ‘do you know about Mrs Midgely’s soul?’
    Miss Merryweather glanced around her domain at the dozen or so ladies standing and sitting about. Satisfied that they were all busy either with books or gossip, or officers, she lowered her voice. ‘Mrs Midgely,’ she said, ‘no longer has a soul.’
    ‘Has she not? How very…unusual. And how do you deduce it?’
    ‘I deduce it from the fact, the palpable fact, that she no longer reads any books at all,’ whispered Miss Merryweather. ‘You see it used to be romances with her too. Not so many as Mrs Lansdale, but at least one a month. And then – after last November – nothing at all!’ Miss Merryweather threw her hands into the air and then brought them together in a decisive clap. ‘Nothing at all!’ she repeated.
    ‘That is very strange.’
    ‘I, myself, have never known anything like it, Miss Kent. Never! To give up books!’ She looked tenderly around her shelves, as if their occupants were innocent children, unaccountably spurned. ‘I cannot think well of a woman who could do such a thing.’
    ‘No,’ said Dido soothingly, ‘no, of course you cannot.’
    For a moment or two poor Miss Merryweather was so overcome by her feelings she could say no more. She took a very large reticule from under the table, produced from it a very small handkerchief and applied it dramatically to her eyes. Meanwhile, Dido was considering her second motive for coming into the library – the torn book and the name of the library which she had found upon it.
    ‘I wonder,’ she ventured, when the handkerchief had been returned to the reticule and Miss Merryweather seemed to have recovered some measure of composure, ‘what you would say about the other two ladies who live in Mrs Midgely’s house: her ward, Miss Bevan – and her boarder, Miss Prentice?’
    ‘Ah now!’ cried Miss Merryweather with a softened expression. ‘Miss Bevan is a nice girl. Very clever I think. We have not many books in French, but she has read every one of them. Every one! Apart from that, she is what I would, myself, call…straightforward. A very matter-of-fact young lady. No novels. She reads no novels at all. All very serious books.’ She put her thumb and forefinger to her brow as she considered. ‘Doctor Johnson’s essays…books on household management…travellers’ accounts of the lake country. That sort of thing.’
    ‘I see! How very interesting! And what,’ asked Dido eagerly, ‘what of Miss Prentice? What books does she read?’
    ‘Ah yes! Miss Prentice…Dugdale’s Baronage …Debrett’s Correct