Read Online Childish Loves by Benjamin Markovits - Free Book Online Page A

of us.’
    â€˜And I wonder what you mean by that,’ Mrs Pigot took her up. ‘He distinguished nobody so much as Lord Byron, which is just what he ought to have done.’
    â€˜Perhaps that’s just what I do mean,’ Elizabeth said. Her manner is pretty and arch, which conceals effectively the narrowness of her face and eyes – it is the Pigot face all over, stretched thin and dark. But she wears her brown curls low across the ears and cheeks, to fill them out.
    â€˜His lineage is poor,’ my mother broke in, understanding nothing but that the question of marriage had come up. ‘I have looked into the de Ruthyns and cannot find their title in the peerages of England, Ireland or Scotland. I suppose he is a new peer.’
    â€˜At least he has a handsome name. Lord Grey de Ruthyn sounds very well.’
    Our drawing room overlooks the Town Green, through two great French windows, against which my mother has placed a table each, with pots on top and flowers in them to receive the light. She now began to pull one of them aside to improve her vantage. Reverend Becher protested – he is perhaps becoming too much the clergyman. But Elizabeth assisted her and they pressed their noses to the glass.
    â€˜He is mounting his horse, the boy has given it him,’ Elizabeth said. ‘He believes he is observed – there, in a single great stride he is on. Shall he look up to make sure? He will. Oh, he has seen me.’ And then, with a giggle, ‘He has saluted. What a fine young man he appears, with the addition of a horse. It is a great shame, we have no such advantages to set us off.’
    â€˜Oh, you do very well, my dear, as it is,’ my mother said, sharply enough, and restoring the table to its place. ‘Perhaps you have made a conquest. A new peerage is better than none at all.’
    She fears very much I will marry Elizabeth, because we are so comfortable together. But I will never marry, I tell her, and least of all for comfort.
    *
    This journal, in fact, is a comfort to me and a great relief, for in it I may complain as much as I like about my mother. Even Elizabeth grows tired of the subject, especially as I admire so much her own. Mrs Pigot is kind, plain and sensible, whereas Kitty is only plain. ‘Why do you some times call your mother Kitty?’ Elizabeth asks me, and for the rest of the afternoon (as the weather is fine, we have decided to walk a part of the way to Newstead, upon the promise I have made her to return even before she absolutely demands it), I consider this question. ‘Because she is a widow, I suppose. It is what my father called her.’
    â€˜Do you remember your father?’
    â€˜He died before my third birthday.’
    â€˜But do you remember him?’
    â€˜He died in France. For a short time, I believe, he lived with us in Queen Street, in Aberdeen. And then he moved a little away from us, to the other end of Queen Street, before he moved away altogether.’
    â€˜But do you remember him?’
    â€˜Kitty says I mayn’t but I do. He used to kiss me on the – on my foot to make me laugh, so whenever he approached I sat down suddenly the better to lift my leg, and sometimes hurt myself and cried, which made him laugh.’
    â€˜Poor little Byron,’ Elizabeth said, ‘from Aberdeen.’
    â€˜I remember enough of both of them together to inherit a horror of matrimony.’
    The headmaster at my school, Dr Drury, has told me that I have a fine memory and might make a name for myself as an orator. My future, I am sure, lies in politics. Indeed, I have a great interest in histories of all kinds and wish to set down as distinctly as I may, merely from the recollection, a record of everything I have said and heard and felt. This seems to me an admirable plan. Novels I have read, too, for which I rather despise myself. It is quite a joke with the Pigots that I always have a book in hand, and Mrs Pigot