Free A London Season by Anthea Bell

Elinor could not help exclaiming. The dazzling prospect so incredibly opening out before her of escape from her life at Cheltenham — not into the servitude of a governess ’ s lot, but to a London Season in the lively company of Miss Persephone Grafton — quite took her breath away. In a moment, however, she forced herself to say resolutely, “Only — only it won ’ t answer, sir, truly it won ’ t!” She took a deep breath, and continued, with some difficulty, “Didn ’ t you hear what Mr. Spalding was saying? About the impropriety of my applying for a governess ’ s post?”
    The visible effort it cost her to bring out these words was not lost on Sir Edmund. Naturally he had heard Mr. Spalding ’ s remarks, and had been first mildly intrigued and then, as the clergyman insisted on dwelling on what was plainly a painful subject, and he observed Miss Radley ’ s distress, decidedly indignant on her behalf. He therefore said lightly, “Yes, and I never heard such stuff in my life. The fellow talks fustian, and is very ill-bred too. I do beg, Cousin Elinor, that you won ’ t refine too much upon anything he may say!”
    But she persisted. “Sir Edmund, surely I must tell you what it was he meant! I do think perhaps — perhaps he might be wrong, even though he is a clergyman, and it was not after all so very bad — ”
    “Of course not!” said Sir Edmund briskly, notwithstanding his total ignorance of the supposedly reprehensible matter under discussion.
    “But you might not wish to employ me once ... once ...”
    “I do wish it, if employ is the right word, considering the favour you would be doing to my sister and myself.” Touched to see Miss Radley turn away to hide the tears that sprung to her eyes, he added, in a rallying tone, “Come, you don ’ t mean to tell me that whatever shocking indiscretion you committed in the schoolroom — ”
    “Only just out of it!” she said almost inaudibly.
    “ — makes you unfit to take charge of Persephone, when my very strait-laced Cousin Sophronia considered you a proper companion for herself and a suitable wife for that fellow Spalding?”
    “That ’ s it, you see!” she said, grasping at this straw. “Lady Emberley did say that — that her giving me a home restored me to respectability. No,” she added scrupulously, if with reluctance, “to a measure of respectability.”
    “Evidently she had a turn for fustian too. She was an old dragon when last I saw her, as well as clutch-fisted, and I can see she never changed to the day she died,” observed Sir Edmund. Lady Emberley, he deduced, had for her own ends browbeaten a young girl into a sense of disproportionate guilt over some youthful folly: this was the interpretation he was most inclined to put on what he had heard. He would have liked to know more, if only to reassure Miss Radley, for his judgment of character was in general sound, and he could not believe that her conscience was really burdened by anything but the mildest of peccadilloes. However, he sensed that the subject was best left alone just now, and moreover, at this moment Persephone burst into the room.
    She had apparently exhausted the music to be found in the piano stool, for she inquired, “Miss Radley, I suppose you have not got the music of Haydn ’ s Canzonets, have you? I heard them sung not long ago, and have wanted to try them myself, but I couldn ’ t obtain a copy in Bath.”
    “No, I ’ m afraid I haven ’ t one here either,” said Elinor, with an effort wrenching her mind away from the amazing vista of freedom before her. “But of course, you may easily obtain them in London.”
    “Good gracious, so I may!” It was obvious that this had not previously occurred to the single-minded Persephone. “Why, I may buy all the songs I want in London, mayn ’ t I ? ”
    “So long as you don ’ t squander all your wealth upon them!” said her guardian gravely.
    She now appeared to be feeling in perfect charity with