A Precious Jewel Read Free Page B

Then she took her book and her embroidery downstairs to the girls’ parlor—the book to read if shecould, the embroidery to stitch on if some of the other girls were there and wished to talk.
    She would have liked to go out again to stroll in St. James’s Park and drink in the sight of all the spring flowers, but it was difficult to find any girl willing to go out walking on a cool day even though the air was invigorating. Sadie accompanied her on an early morning walk most days only because Miss Blythe had told her that she must keep her weight down if she hoped to remain in the house. Poor Sadie had been forbidden any sweets, except a few on Sundays.
    She missed the country, Priscilla thought, settling herself in the parlor and taking out her embroidery despite the fact that only Theresa was present. She was sleeping, her head thrown over the chair back, her mouth slightly open. Especially now that spring had come, Priscilla missed the country.
    And she missed her father. And Broderick. They had been a very close family after her mother’s death when she was ten. So close that she had been in no hurry at all to marry, even though she had had two quite eligible offers. She had had some notion that she would wait until she fell in love, until she met someone who measured up to her father or her brother.
    That time had still not come when she was twenty-two the previous autumn and her father had neglected a chill taken during a hunt and died of pneumonia, all within the span of three nightmare weeks. Broderick would provide for her, he hadassured her with almost his last breath. It had all been arranged a long time before. Broderick was in Italy at the time.
    He had been summoned in haste. But before the message of his father’s passing could possibly have reached him, the message of his own death of typhoid had reached Priscilla. And Broderick, only twenty-six years old at the time of his death, had left no will.
    Everything had passed to Priscilla’s cousin, Mr. Oswald Wentworth. Everything. Even those more valuable personal possessions of Priscilla’s own that her father had had in his own safekeeping. And Oswald and his wife had made her life miserable, treating her a little worse than they treated the servants. The servants at least earned their keep, Irene had been fond of saying.
    A difficult, near-impossible situation had finally become unbearable when Oswald had begun to treat her indeed like a servant—or as some gentlemen treated their female servants anyway. It had not been safe to be in a room alone with him, she had discovered, or to meet him in a deserted corridor. He had begun to touch her, to kiss her, to whisper lewdness in her ear.
    In the end there had seemed to be only one thing to do—leave. She had made hasty plans to join her former governess, with whom she regularly corresponded, in London. Miss Blythe would give her a position as a teacher or assistant in her finishingschool for young ladies, she was convinced. Or else Miss Blythe would use her influence to have Priscilla taken on at another school.
    If she left, Oswald had made quite clear and Irene had echoed, she must never expect to be welcomed home again. She must expect no further support from him. She had left.
    It was only when she had arrived unannounced on Miss Blythe’s doorstep and been shown into Miss Blythe’s sitting room that she had discovered that the finishing school her former governess’s letters had spoken of was in reality a whorehouse.
    Theresa snored suddenly and awoke with a start.
    “Oh, Prissy,” she said, stretching. “Are you busy again? You are always busy.”
    Priscilla smiled. “It is my way of relaxing,” she said. “Are you tired?”
    “Of living,” Theresa said. “How do you manage always to look so cheerful? Sometimes I think I might as well throw myself in the Thames.”
    “Don’t do that,” Priscilla said, leaning forward in her chair and looking at the other girl with some concern.