Cousin Cecilia Read Free

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    In Kent, Miss Cummings read the letter, smiled and said pertly to Mrs. Dorman, “She has taken the hint. How glad I am I talked you into giving it. I was afraid I should be bored to flinders at home waiting for the Season to open, for I have got everyone there married off, you know, and shan’t have a thing to do till my cousin Jennie is old enough to need a husband.”
    “You could always look about for a match for yourself, Cecilia,” Mrs. Dorman suggested archly. “Going on three and twenty...”
    “I haven’t time for that,” Miss Cummings said airily. “I am too busy arranging matches for all my friends and relatives.”
    “It is odd, as you are such a friend to matrimony, that you avoid it yourself.”
    “Yes, it is strange, but the cobbler’s child always goes unshod, you know, and the matchmaker goes unmatched herself. I enjoy marriage only vicariously. I value my freedom more highly. Only think, I could not have come here to you had I been encumbered with a husband, and nor could I stop at Laycombe and make matches for my cousins there. It is fine for some, probably most, but I confess I have never met a gentleman worth giving up my freedom for.”
    “But have you never been in love?”
    Miss Cummings gave the question a moment’s consideration. “I have been temporarily infatuated. But it would be a sad mistake to marry while in love—unless the man was unexceptionable as to position and fortune and so on. Lovers are blind, they say, and there seems to be some truth in the matter. And the children can blind their parents, too. That is why I think it wise to have an objective third person involved in making the matches.”
    “So you say now, Cousin. I doubt you will remain so reasonable when Cupid points his arrow in your direction.”
    Miss Cummings smiled and paid no heed to the warning. It was old news to her, but she had no fear on that score. She had never loved an eligible parti and had had the wits not to marry any other sort. She was quite content that fate had chosen her to settle matches for others.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Mrs. Meacham’s hopes for seeing her daughters established had sunk low, but not so low that she intended admitting to a soul that she had sought outside help. Even her own daughters were to be kept in the dark, and she must therefore have a private coze with Miss Cummings as soon as she arrived. Miss Cummings’s letter said she would come at four. Mrs. Meacham told her girls she would not be arriving till evening, and she sent them off to the vicarage to visit Kate and take dinner there.
    Miss Cummings was a prompt visitor. At five minutes before four, she alighted from a very handsome traveling carriage with her abigail, a tall, fierce-looking dame who answered to the unflattering name of Miss Miser. Miss Cummings came tripping in, embraced her hostess as if they had been bosom bows forever, and said with no preamble, “Where are your girls, Cousin? I am dying to meet them.”
    Though she was top of the trees herself, Miss Cummings realized at a glance that her hostess was a deep-dyed provincial. The saloon, with every tabletop holding a gaudy assortment of bibelots, told her; Mrs. Meacham’s gown and coiffeur and manner told her. None of it mattered in the least. She had no doubt the prospective bridegrooms would be cut from the same bolt, and equality of position was the thing that insured at least a chance of happiness.
    Mrs. Meacham led her guest into the Gold Saloon and closed the door to disclose her business in private. As her eyes roamed over her husband’s second cousin once removed, she deeply regretted that so little of the family elegance had been transmitted to Henry’s daughters. Before her stood a tall, fashionable lady with smooth black hair, wide-set, heavily fringed gray eyes of unusual brilliance, and an enviable complexion. She looked a trifle willful about the mouth, but the voice that issued from the mouth was low pitched and pleasantly