Read Online An Embarrassment of Riches by Margaret Pemberton - Free Book Online

lined tops had replaced them. As the years had passed Lord Clanmar had found it increasingly incongruous to instruct his pupils from behind the formality of his desk. He had had a winged easy chair installed in the room for his own use, and two ladies’ upholstered chairs for Isabel and Maura. Quite often, as now, schoolroom lessons took the form of a comfortable, friendly discussion as they sat in a group at the open french windows, looking out over the riot of roses and the grazing horses beyond.
    â€˜I find it all too strange to comprehend,’ Isabel was saying, referring to Darwin’s Origin of Species open on her lap.
    The corners of Lord Clanmar’s mouth twitched in the suspicion of a smile. He, too, on his first reading of it, had found it almost too strange to comprehend.
    He said patiently, ‘What Darwin is saying, Isabel, is that among all animals there is a struggle for existence. The individuals who exhibit variations in height or colour that confer on them an advantage in hunting for food will be in Darwin’s phrase, “naturally selected”. That is, they will survive and breed and since offspring tend to resemble their parents, the parents’advantageous, adaptive variations will be transmitted from generation to generation. Those too weak to compete in the struggle for existence will die before being able to breed. As a result, over thousands of generations, a new species will be in the process of evolving.’
    â€˜I think I understand Mr Darwin’s reasoning,’ Maura said, brushing a windblown Rose de l’Isle petal from her skirt, ‘but I don’t agree at all with his conclusions.’
    Lord Clanmar settled himself more comfortably in his chair. He hadn’t for a moment thought that Maura would be in agreement with Charles Darwin. Although she had changed almost unrecognizably from the bare-foot urchin he had taken into his home nine years ago, one thing about her had never changed and that had been her loyalty to the faith she had been born into. Every Sunday morning, while he and Isabel attended morning service at the Anglican church in Rathdrum, Maura attended Mass at the local Catholic church.
    â€˜It isn’t enough to feel intuitively that Mr Darwin’s theory is incorrect,’ he criticized gently. ‘You have to be able to coherently argue against his theory.’
    Maura smiled affectionately at him. Over the years he had taught her to be an adept arguer for and against theories as varied as Plato’s Theory of Universals and Jeremy Bentham’s Theory of Utilitarianism.
    â€˜All right,’ she said agreeably. ‘First I would like to know where the missing links are between major groups of animals, say between birds and reptiles. How could entirely new features such as wings have evolved? How is it that man has been totally unable to breed a new species if it is possible for nature to breed one?’
    Isabel closed her book with a thud. ‘Enough! I know you two. You will be arguing the pros and cons of Mr Darwin’s wretched theory until the cows come home. Can’t we move on to something more interesting? The war in America, for instance?’
    Her grandfather relinquished the subject of Darwin’s revolutionary theories with regret. He and Maura enjoyed having argumentative discussions on nearly every subject under the sun, but though she was barely a year younger than Maura, Isabel’s interests were far more circumscribed. He wondered again about their respective futures. In another couple of years Isabel would no doubt spend a season in London under the care of her maternal grandmother, meet a suitable young man of her own class and marry. But there would be no such suitable marriage for a girl who was the illegitimate daughter of an Irish peasant.
    As he pondered the problem he felt a twinge of discomfort in the region of his heart. He had felt such twinges before and knew them for what they