The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton EPUB & PDF
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: India Holton
- Language: English
- Genre: Victorian Historical Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
AN UNEXPECTED CALLER—THE PLIGHT OF THE AUK—
SEMANTICS—SEMANTICS—THE LEVEL MOON—NOT THE LEVEL
MOON—THE CALLER RETURNS—A DISCUSSION OF CHOLERA—
AN EXPLOSION—LUNCHEON IS SERVED
here was no possibility of walking to the library that day. Morning rain
had blanched the air, and Miss Darlington feared that if Cecilia ventured
out she would develop a cough and be dead within the week. Therefore
Cecilia was at home, sitting with her aunt in a room ten degrees colder than
the streets of London, and reading aloud The Song of Hiawatha by “that
American rogue, Mr. Longfellow,” when the strange gentleman knocked at
their door.
As the sound barged through the house, interrupting Cecilia’s recitation
mid-rhyme, she looked inquiringly at her aunt. But Miss Darlington’s own
gaze went to the mantel clock, which was ticking sedately toward a quarter to
one. The old lady frowned.
“It is an abomination the way people these days knock at any wild,
unseemly hour,” she said in much the same tone the prime minister had used
in Parliament recently to decry the London rioters. “I do declare—!”
Cecilia waited, but Miss Darlington’s only declaration came in the form of
sipping her tea pointedly, by which Cecilia understood that the abominable
caller was to be ignored. She returned to Hiawatha and had just begun
proceeding “toward the land of the Pearl-Feather” when the knocking came
again with increased force, silencing her and causing Miss Darlington to set
her teacup into its saucer with a clink. Tea splashed, and Cecilia hastily laid
down the poetry book before things really got out of hand.
“I shall see who it is,” she said, smoothing her dress as she rose and
touching the red-gold hair at her temples, although there was no crease in the
muslin nor a single strand out of place in her coiffure.
“Do be careful, dear,” Miss Darlington admonished. “Anyone attempting
to visit at this time of day is obviously some kind of hooligan.”
“Fear not, Aunty.” Cecilia took up a bone-handled letter opener from the
small table beside her chair. “They will not trouble me.”
Miss Darlington harrumphed. “We are buying no subscriptions today,”
she called out as Cecilia left the room.
In fact they had never bought subscriptions, so this was an unnecessary
injunction, although typical of Miss Darlington, who persisted in seeing her
ward as the reckless tomboy who had entered her care ten years before: prone
to climbing trees, fashioning cloaks from tablecloths, and making
unauthorized doorstep purchases whenever the fancy took her. But a decade’s
proper education had wrought wonders, and now Cecilia walked the hall
quite calmly, her French heels tapping against the polished marble floor, her
intentions aimed in no way toward the taking of a subscription. She opened
the door.
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