Read Online No Time For Love (Bantam Series No. 40) by Barbara Cartland - Free Book Online
Authors: Barbara Cartland
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and it was very unlikely that anyone would employ a woman when they could obtain the services of a man.
Restlessly she walked up to the Drawing-Room to look at her mother’s special treasures: the work-box of inlaid marquetry in which she had always kept her embroidery, the little French writing-desk between the windows on which stood photographs of her father and herself.
She touched the china ornaments on the mantelpiece which had been a present one Christmas and which her mother had loved because they were so pretty.
Looking at them Larina noticed that the china shepherdess’s hand was missing.
She felt angry that the tenants should have been so careless and had not even repaired the broken piece. Then she asked herself why should it matter?
Her mother would not know that the precious mementoes of her married life had been damaged, and in a few days she herself would not be there to see them either.
“What am I to do with all these things?” Larina asked herself in a sudden fright. “I cannot just die without telling someone I have no further use for them.”
She tried to think of a friend in whom she could confide. But while her father and mother had many acquaintances where they had been living in Sussex Gardens, she had, by usual convention, not been allowed to take part in the social entertaining given by her parents.
Being shy, she had not made friends with the few girls she had met. But her mother had always talked as if everything would alter when she was grown up.
“We must give a Ball for Larina,” she had said to her husband once. “You had better start saving, John, because when she is eighteen, I intend to be very extravagant about her clothes, especially her evening-gowns.”
“You will be saying next that you want to present her at Court!” Dr. Milton replied.
“Why not?” his wife asked. “I was presented when I was eighteen!”
“Your family lived in rather different circumstances,” the Doctor replied.
“All the Courtneys were presented,” her mother said with dignity, “and I would not feel I was doing my duty by Larina unless she went to Buckingham Palace to make her curtsey.” She smiled at her daughter as she spoke and said:
“If they do not think I am important enough to present you, my darling, I shall ask your godmother, Lady Sanderson. She has always sent you a present at Christmas. Although she lives in the country and we seldom meet, I know she is still the dear friend she always was.”
But Lady Sanderson had died the following year and her mother had wept at losing a friend who had meant a great deal to her, Larina gathered, in her childhood.
So there was no Lady Sanderson to whom she could turn now, and having been away for a year in Switzerland, and the year before that being in deep mourning, she found it was difficult even to remember the names of the people who had come to the house in Sussex Gardens.
“Besides,” Larina asked herself, “who wants to meet someone who merely seeks comfort because they are afraid of their approaching death?”
She knew that apart from anything else she would feel shy to talk about the fate which hung over her like the sword of Damocles.
‘I will keep it to myself,’ she thought with sudden pride. ‘I will not whine and complain as women used to do to Papa.’ She could remember her father saying once:
“I am fed up with grizzling women!”
“What do you mean, ‘grizzling women’?” her mother asked with a smile.
“The ones who have more aches and pains than anyone else! Needless to say, they are always the richest! The poor are concerned with the fundamentals such as being born, keeping alive and having the bravery to die, as one man said to me, ‘with his boots on’.”
“They have courage,” Mrs. Milton said softly.
“That is what I admire about them,” the Doctor said. “Many of them are bad, the reformers call them wicked, but at least they have guts! It is the other sort I cannot
Restlessly she walked up to the Drawing-Room to look at her mother’s special treasures: the work-box of inlaid marquetry in which she had always kept her embroidery, the little French writing-desk between the windows on which stood photographs of her father and herself.
She touched the china ornaments on the mantelpiece which had been a present one Christmas and which her mother had loved because they were so pretty.
Looking at them Larina noticed that the china shepherdess’s hand was missing.
She felt angry that the tenants should have been so careless and had not even repaired the broken piece. Then she asked herself why should it matter?
Her mother would not know that the precious mementoes of her married life had been damaged, and in a few days she herself would not be there to see them either.
“What am I to do with all these things?” Larina asked herself in a sudden fright. “I cannot just die without telling someone I have no further use for them.”
She tried to think of a friend in whom she could confide. But while her father and mother had many acquaintances where they had been living in Sussex Gardens, she had, by usual convention, not been allowed to take part in the social entertaining given by her parents.
Being shy, she had not made friends with the few girls she had met. But her mother had always talked as if everything would alter when she was grown up.
“We must give a Ball for Larina,” she had said to her husband once. “You had better start saving, John, because when she is eighteen, I intend to be very extravagant about her clothes, especially her evening-gowns.”
“You will be saying next that you want to present her at Court!” Dr. Milton replied.
“Why not?” his wife asked. “I was presented when I was eighteen!”
“Your family lived in rather different circumstances,” the Doctor replied.
“All the Courtneys were presented,” her mother said with dignity, “and I would not feel I was doing my duty by Larina unless she went to Buckingham Palace to make her curtsey.” She smiled at her daughter as she spoke and said:
“If they do not think I am important enough to present you, my darling, I shall ask your godmother, Lady Sanderson. She has always sent you a present at Christmas. Although she lives in the country and we seldom meet, I know she is still the dear friend she always was.”
But Lady Sanderson had died the following year and her mother had wept at losing a friend who had meant a great deal to her, Larina gathered, in her childhood.
So there was no Lady Sanderson to whom she could turn now, and having been away for a year in Switzerland, and the year before that being in deep mourning, she found it was difficult even to remember the names of the people who had come to the house in Sussex Gardens.
“Besides,” Larina asked herself, “who wants to meet someone who merely seeks comfort because they are afraid of their approaching death?”
She knew that apart from anything else she would feel shy to talk about the fate which hung over her like the sword of Damocles.
‘I will keep it to myself,’ she thought with sudden pride. ‘I will not whine and complain as women used to do to Papa.’ She could remember her father saying once:
“I am fed up with grizzling women!”
“What do you mean, ‘grizzling women’?” her mother asked with a smile.
“The ones who have more aches and pains than anyone else! Needless to say, they are always the richest! The poor are concerned with the fundamentals such as being born, keeping alive and having the bravery to die, as one man said to me, ‘with his boots on’.”
“They have courage,” Mrs. Milton said softly.
“That is what I admire about them,” the Doctor said. “Many of them are bad, the reformers call them wicked, but at least they have guts! It is the other sort I cannot
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