A Proper Education for Girls Read Free Page B

“It was his own fault.”
    “You're lucky he hasn't taken it out on you, Alice,” said Aunt Pendleton. “He might have locked you up!”
    “Ah, but you see I'm not likely to have the opportunity,” said Alice. “He told me so himself. Mainly because no man would want me—I'm too ugly.”
    “Oh no!” gasped the aunts.
    “Oh yes,” said Alice. She smiled at their horrified faces.
    “Oh, Alice!” But none of them looked her in the eye for they knew it was true. Where Lilian's skin was flawless and pale, Alice's was rough in texture and as dismal as whey. Lilian's hair was fine and soft, but although the same pale brown in color, Alice's was dull and wiry. And whereas Lilian's figure was slim and well proportioned, Alice's seemed angular—a breastless, waistless, and hipless body that no amount of corsetry and couture could mold or conceal.
    “Of course,” said Aunt Lambert, moving the subject on to spare Alice's feelings, “if your mother had been around, things might have been very different. She certainly wouldn't have senther daughter off with a missionary man. Poor Lilian. She didn't know any better.”
    Alice said nothing. Lilian, she knew, had always been fully aware of what she was doing, even when things did not turn out quite the way she had planned.
    “Still, I doubt she's enjoying being saddled with a husband,” added Aunt Statham. “She would have been better off without him. They can be so demanding. And in that heat too. Well, perhaps he'll slake his beastly appetites in the bazaar and leave Lilian in peace.”
    “Lydia, please,” murmured Mrs. Talbot. There was a silence, the only noise being the drip of water from somewhere deep within the foliage. The aunts exchanged glances. Alice felt the hot, moist air of the conservatory pressing against her face and neck like warm, sticky hands. Beside her, Aunt Rushton-Bell shuffled her playing cards uneasily.
    “I gave her my late husband's
topi
and his rifle before she left, you know,” said Aunt Lambert after a moment. “For all his faults Mr. Lambert was actually quite keen on women being able to look after themselves. Not that he had much choice in the matter. I've never been one to allow a man to speak for me, and I certainly never needed one to take care of me when we were in India. I'm sure Lilian will be the same.”
    Alice blinked, suddenly feeling tears pricking at her eyes. The passing of time had made the separation from her sister no easier to bear. The days were measured by those activities they had always undertaken together—watering the peach tree, tending to the orchids, supervising the cleaning of the Collection. Now, Alice performed these tasks alone and unaided, and she found that she did not have the stomach for any of them. The aunts might be sisters to one another, she reflected, but not one of them could know what it was like to have a sister who had shared
everything
—every moment of life, every pleasure, every disappointment, every unhappiness. It had seemed as though even their thoughts were alike, their feelings in sympathy at all times, often with hardly a word passing between them. But now Lilian had gone. She had made her decisionsand would have to live with the consequences, just as she, Alice, had to do.
    “Now then, my dear, where shall we put this Mr. Blake when he comes?” said Aunt Lambert brightly, patting Alice on the hand.
    “I wonder whether he'll play whist,” said Aunt Pendleton.
    “What about Lilian's room?” said Alice. “No one's been in it since she left. He could go in there.”
    “But what if she comes back?” said Old Mrs. Talbot.
    “She's not coming back,” said Aunt Lambert irritably. “You know that.”
    From beneath the iron grids in the floor came a dull throbbing sound, like the beating of an immense heart buried deep within the building.
    Alice rolled her sister's portrait into a tube. “I really must bleed those pipes,” she said.

T HE COACH DEPOSITED M R. B LAKE AT THE