Free A Quiet Adjustment by Benjamin Markovits

continued, as if to cut short her embarrassment. ‘I can imagine what a sad fist he made of it. Ralph, bless him, for all his good nature, is not the confessor a girl would choose for herself.’
    Nor was she, thought Annabella, bristling slightly, the kind of woman a brother would lightly confide in. Ralph, she suspected, would apply to his sister, whom he hardly pretended to trust, only under the influence of a grave and particular anxiety. ‘He knows me well enough, I believe,’ Annabella said, ‘to rely on his own understanding of my state of mind.’
    â€˜A faith in your father that does more credit to your sense of duty than to his penetration.’ Coffee came. Annabella sipped her cup, considering her aunt through the heat of it in her face. Then, to soften the briskness of her last remark, Lady Melbourne added, ‘No, I think it’s high time we took you in hand. You have been coldly breaking hearts long enough . . .’
    Perhaps George Eden has talked, was Annabella’s first thought, though it seemed unlike him. He had the kind of pride that would rather conceal than advertise the wounds it received. Of course, she could not keep from herself the flutter of a hope that Lord Byron had been intended by her aunt’s remark. Lady Melbourne was well known to be his confidante, and she was perfectly capable of intriguing on his behalf—even at the expense, events had proved, of her own son, whom Caroline had made to look very foolish. How little the discomfort of a brother would count for in her calculations—a reflection that led Annabella to guess the real source of Ralph’s anxiety. Her father wanted to know the state of her relations with Lord Byron. Annabella experienced the new and not unpleasant sensation of being the object (in prospect at least) of disapproval. It seemed to her delightful, from the security of her virtue, to know that someone suspected her of being, if nothing else, a prey to temptations.
    â€˜Her coldness,’ she said, intending to catch something of her aunt’s tone, ‘was so generally believed in that any man who put it to the test had only himself to blame for finding the rumour justified.’
    Lady Melbourne’s reply suggested to Annabella for the first time how little she had the measure of her aunt. Miss Milbanke felt in it the not unpleasant force of correction: a very hot dry wind against which she partly closed her eyes. ‘It isn’t only a question,’ Lady Melbourne began sensibly enough, ‘of what you might be blamed for. You have made a very good beginning. Anyone with your interests at heart will be concerned to see how you follow it up. Naturally, what we all desire for you now is a brilliant match. Naturally, what we ask ourselves is the manner of man who could, shall we say, justify your interest in him. I am trying to discover from you what the nature of that interest is? What the scope and depth of your ambitions are? Think for a minute, Annabella; I have no use for a half-cocked reply.’
    Annabella thought. As she thought, she looked round her, and the prospect from the window had the advantage of suggesting what the fruits of an ambitious match could be. A flagstoned promenade at the foot of the garden was bisected by an avenue of birch trees. These marched away towards the shimmering quiescence of a fountain—at such an angle that Annabella, from her vantage, fancied she could almost hear the military beat of guards parading up and down. Yes, there was an unmistakable air of protection, in no way diminished by the fact that wealth, that luxury, that beauty itself formed the shield to be reckoned with. The library in which they sat exceeded the comprehension of her view. There were corners and alleys in it, still to be discovered. She imagined the pleasure to be got from the possession of them; there was a scale of riches that could make, even of solitude, a continuing