Read Online An Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan - Free Book Online

Not that I mind it, there is a sort of
interesting suspense in wondering when the next snap will come. I say you, because you are a woman of intelligence and learning, as is well known: a
genuinely accomplished woman. I have heard my uncle remark that you are the
cleverest woman in the county: though, to be sure, he adds “and she knows it”.
For my part, I am a great blockhead at learning, unless it be the very important
things like how to tie a cravat, but even I can tell that the Pump Room in June
is not the place for a lively mind.’
    ‘I confess I found it
somewhat insipid when last I went. My father decided to try the waters one year,
and we spent an intolerably long month there. Then, at least, I had my father’s
company; but otherwise, it was all so prosy — so bonnety — so whisty and
teacuppy — you see, the adjectives for it do not even exist, and I must invent
them.’
    ‘Well, here’s a real
one: dowdy. Brighton, now: that’s the place for fashion.’
    Not quite her point:
still there was relief in even beginning to make it.
    ‘Rack-punch!’ cried
George, suddenly. ‘Lyddie, it’s your last night with us, and we are at
Vauxhall, and so we must mark it with rack-punch. Hanley, call that waiter, if
you will be so good. Now, now, none of your faces. It must be rack-punch.’
    Rack-punch was another
Vauxhall tradition, but not as harmless as the rest. Plentiful sugar and lemon
could not mask the leer of potent spirits. The ancient waiter brought them the
bowl leaning backwards, as if hefting a full bath. George’s big-jawed face
beamed through the steam as he stirred.
    Lydia had a strong head
for liquor, and took a cup. Even as it went sulphurously down she knew it must
be her last. But it did ignite a final, definitive thought about Bath and Lady
Eastmond’s request. She resisted, she saw now, because she did not wish to be
recruited into a silly and sentimental novel, in which, while sweeping disdainfully
about Bath and advising her innocent young charge against all entanglements,
she was all unconsciously ready to be swept off her feet by imperious Lord
Wideacres who, not put off by her advancing years, was set upon curing her of
her bluestocking ways. Last chapter, double wedding of young charge and mature
bluestocking, both Brought To Self-knowledge by respective spouses.
Bluestocking softened, and reconciled to a lifetime of annual visits to, and
blissful mindless saunterings in, the Pump Room.
    Meanwhile George,
affectionate even when sober, drank several cups of the punch, and was soon
heartily shaking Hugh Hanley’s hand and embracing Susannah: an excellent
fellow, never more pleased than running into him tonight: the best of wives,
any man who found even half her equal could count himself the luckiest in
creation, and so on. Lydia’s turn must come. There was music about to begin in
the Rotunda, and she started to mention it, but George’s warm unsteady hand
seized hers.
    ‘Never mind that,
Lyddie: I know you don’t like to receive compliments, but I am in the chair,
and you must suffer it: you must let me say what I mean, and that is, you are
the best sister a man ever had: and look here, the kindest and warmest
likewise. All head and no heart, some might say — but if they do, they’ll have
me to deal with first, for I know better. All head and no heart? Not Lyddie.
Anyone who says that is only revealing their ignorance. Besides the fact that
I’ll fight them to the death. No, they don’t know Lyddie, if they say she’s all
head and no heart. You have to look beneath.’ Visibly, George entertained a
fleeting idea that he had dropped something, and began perseveringly to look
under the table for it. ‘Never mind what happened to poor old Cribs. I’m sorry
for him, but he wasn’t the right one. Ow. No, there is a right one, and we
simply haven’t found him yet. And he will be a lucky man, because it isn’t true
what they say — all head and no heart. It isn’t.’ George