Cousin Cecilia Read Free Page B

“Certainly not. The case may be difficult, but it is not impossible. Your daughters know the gentlemen, and the gentlemen know Lord Wickham. If something cannot be contrived to bring us all together, then I shall go riding up to the Abbey myself and ask an interview with him.”
    Mrs. Meacham’s face turned bright pink. “You must never think of such a thing!”
    “I have already thought of it, ma’am. Desperate cases require desperate remedies. That is not to say I shall be obvious. My carriage shall lose a wheel, or I shall be so foolish as to go gathering flowers when a storm is about to break, or do any of half a dozen things that will get me into the Abbey fast enough,” she explained nonchalantly.
    “But would you get out again unharmed?” Mrs. Meacham demanded, with a sage look.
    Again Miss Cummings looked surprised. “I thought the problem was that Lord Wickham had no interest in ladies. Do you mean he is a womanizer? That will require a different approach entirely.”
    “He has no interest in proper ladies; as to the other sort, he is a regular Don Juan.”
    “I see what it is,” Miss Cummings said, nodding her head. “He dislikes marriage. His wife’s running off on him would account for that. Having made a botch of it himself, he is determined to stamp out the institution. I doubt he would ban horse racing if he took one tumble. What an idiot the man must be.”
    “I have nothing against his not marrying, but why must he go sticking a spoke in Martha’s and Alice’s wheel?” the irate mother demanded.
    “I really must meet him to satisfy myself how to approach the matter,” Miss Cummings said. “Now, help me to decide how it is to be done.”
    “I fear it is impossible.”
    Miss Cummings realized that the meeting would have to be a highly irregular one, and said no more of it to her hostess. She inquired after the girls instead, and this formed their conversation till a bustle in the hall announced the daughters’ arrival in person.
    Cecilia observed them with the sharp eye of a horse trader. She saw at a glance that their charms were provincial charms, as she had anticipated. Martha, the elder, taller, and prettier of the two, was not an ill-formed girl. Her hair was sadly frizzed to be sure, and her gown not well chosen to compliment her pale complexion. A washed-out yellow gown never became anyone, and on a pale blonde it was a catastrophe. The blue eyes were fine, though, and but for an unfortunate tendency to bite her fingernails and speak very little, she would do well enough for a country buck.
    Alice was not so well built. She was of short and stocky proportions, with Martha’s blond hair shading into red. Worse, a smattering of freckles decked her snub nose. But her smile was sweet, and there was a certain gamine charm about her. Of the two, she had more liveliness, more conversation, more ease of manners. Strange that the prettier girl was less at ease. With the dowries their mother had mentioned, Cecilia thought the gentlemen must be hard cases, indeed, to be so dilatory in their courting.
    After answering the requisite inquiries about her trip and the recent wedding, Cecilia began an adroit quizzing about the girls’ beaux, to learn how they managed the situation.
    The names Henley Dallan and George Wideman were elicited with no difficulty, and from the blushes that accompanied the admissions, the girls’ state of infatuation was evident. This infatuation must be diluted a little, to let them see their gentlemen more objectively. Cecilia couched her questions in a manner that implied she took the gentlemen to be older, richer, more handsome, and in every respect more desirable than she knew them to be.
    “Only a small estate,” she said when Martha mentioned Mr. Dallan’s inheritance. “But then he is running so hard after you that you cannot escape him, I daresay,” she laughed lightly. “He will do well to get you. He is fortunate, indeed, that you, with fifteen