Embrace the Lonely Heart by Cathrine E Robinson EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Cathrine E Robinson
- Language: English
- Genre: Victorian Historical Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
May 22, 1867
The soft grey facade of Abbaye Du Coeur Brisè, located in the peaceful
French countryside, was reflected in the interior of the wall that surrounded
it. Early mornings were spent in prayer and reflection. Afterwards, the nuns
moved silently as they tended gardens of vegetables and herbs. The
students, quietly and with graceful deportment, attended their studies of
proper elocution, how to sit and how to stand. There were periods of study
in classical history and memorizing the current members of royalty, peerage
and gentry.
The proper management of a great house was reviewed. The hiring and
firing of household staff, the necessities of supplying the different areas of a
mansion where hired men and women would care for the expensive
furnishings, silver, china, and kitchen requirements. How to hostess a grand
party, pen the invitations, who should be allowed on the guest list and
where they would be placed at table. Most importantly, who belongs in
society and who does not.
One’s peerage was reviewed: exercise careful judgement in picking a
mate, on rising no higher than your station less you be judged inferior by
your new relatives, nor going below such station as to lessen your value. It
was advised that a wife should always concede to her husband, never argue
or complain.
Also, however seldom addressed, briefly and quickly, by a blushing,
stuttering nun, were the intricacies of married life. The conjugal
requirements, so to speak: never be unclothed in the presence of your
husband, and always be a morally pure lady. The relations between husband
and wife were to be performed under cover of darkness and purely for
procreational purposes. It was ground into the girls that a true lady would
hold to her own thoughts during this time and submit quietly and
grudgingly to the baser desires of her husband. Her job in society was to
provide an heir and be a perfect, socially accepted companion.
Later in the afternoon would be the more comfortable pursuits of
languages, music, painting and needlepoint. Thus were the preparations for
a life of entering into English high culture as a gracious and elegant
Victorian hostess.
After a late dinner, they were allowed a brief time to read letters from
home and write their own in return. Lauren did not send or receive mail as
there was no one to write to her or send a post in response. Since she had
been bustled off to France, no word had come from her solicitor nor her
husband. A generous allowance for her wants and needs arrived faithfully at
the beginning of every month. After paying the abbey for her board and
lessons and giving Ellie her wages, Lauren spent the remainder on the
clothes and accessories she would need if one day, she and Ellie were ever
summoned back to England. The little maid had pushed her to acquire a
sizeable trousseau, and Lauren had come to appreciate the fine clothes she
now wore compared to the rags she had owned as a child.
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