Read Online Cousin Cecilia by Joan Smith - Free Book Online

a great success. But as to his accepting an invitation, that is a cat of a different color. He calls on no one.”
    “He is calling on me today,” Cecilia announced, and received all the astonishment she could wish.
    “What, calling here?” the mother asked, and dropped her toast in shock. “You never mean it! Here, at my house.”
    “I hope you do not mind.”
    “Mind? It is famous.” She slapped her knee in glee. “He never goes anywhere but to Lowreys. How everyone will stare when I tell them. And here I sit like a moonling, when the whole room will have to be turned out.” She rose from her chair before anyone could stop her and sent a bevy of servants with beeswax and dust cloths, tea leaves and broom, to clean the immaculate Gold Saloon.
    “You have attached him, Cousin,” Martha marveled, and in her excitement her finger found its accustomed way to her mouth.
    “Which I never would have done had I chewed my fingernails to the quick.” Martha removed the finger and smiled an apology. “As to having attached him,” Cecilia continued, “it is no such a thing. Merely I am letting him call so that I may exercise a little influence on him, to detach him from your beaux.”
    “He must be sweet on you,” Alice insisted. “He never asked to call on any other girl. Sally Gardner was used to chase him dreadfully—well, she still does. Every time he rides into the village, she flings on her bonnet and pelisse and goes scrambling into the street after him, letting on she needs something in whatever shop he goes into, and accidentally dropping her bags at his feet, so he has to help her pick them up.”
    “Oh dear,” Cecilia laughed. “I hope he doesn’t think I was using her stunt Tuesday when the buttons fell.”
    “You only did it once,” Alice said forgivingly. “Sally does it all the time. You remember, Martha, when Lord Wickham’s housekeeper broke out into hives and he was several times at the chemist’s shop trying to find a remedy, Sally used to scoot into the chemists the minute she spotted him coming down the street. She used to get a teaspoon of clove oil at a time, and her mama didn’t have a toothache either because she would be out gallivanting herself the minute Lord Wickham was down the road.”
    Cecilia smiled ruefully at such gauche behavior, and as soon as Mrs. Meacham returned, she broached the London plan. It met with unanimous approval. When Cecilia asked if she could put a few guests up if they wished to come to the assembly, that, too, was agreed to. The house was the finest in the village, much larger than they needed, with ten bedrooms and two suites. Martha and Alice were thrown into a tizzy to hear that the guests were gentlemen and demanded an accounting of each. As Cecilia had no idea which of her friends would accept, however, she could not oblige them, and made it a mystery.
    Cecilia assumed her young cousins would be at home when Lord Wickham called and hoped to put Martha forward a little. She was thwarted in her scheme. Martha and Alice left for the vicarage right after breakfast, to discuss the assembly with Kate, but their mother would be at home.
    “He’ll come around eleven-thirty,” Mrs. Meacham said. “He usually rides into the village at eleven on Saturday morning to tend to any business or shopping or banking he may have before the weekend. After he is finished, he’ll stop here.”
    “You set me down a peg, ma’am,” Cecilia said. “I had thought he was making a special trip in to see me.”
    “So he would have done, had it been any day but Saturday, and he coming anyway. It must be nearly eleven. There goes Sally Gardner with her basket. She times her leaving the house to meet him. Yes, there he is. Why, he is in his phaeton; he usually rides his black horse. A fierce looking animal it is. The lads say it’s an Arabian.”
    “He does not mean to pay his call in riding clothes at least.” Her pride was assuaged to see that he had made this