Talk of the Town Read Free Page B

you’re not using them. And I don’t go about enough to make it worth my while.”
    “Then why don’t you sell the carriage?” her niece asked.
    “Well, it is the carriage Standington gave me for a wedding present, and I wouldn’t like to part with it. I had the crest painted over, of course.”
    Daphne had to repress a sigh at this foolish streak of romanticism. Her aunt obviously needed the money, and she also felt that Effie would hire a team for the months of her visit if she could afford it. The quality of the wine had been inferior after the first night, and the general state of creeping decay in all the furnishings, such as drapes and carpets, was further evidence of a lack of funds.
    One day Daphne found her aunt in a little study—the one which held the memoirs, often dipped into to pass the time. She was frowning over a fistful of bills and shaking her head. “Bills,” she said in accents of loathing. “I’m sure I don’t know how I managed to eat up five guineas worth of meat in a month, but here is the bill from the butcher, and Cook confirms it. And look at this, Daphne, three guineas for candles, in spite of using tallow ones in the kitchen. I certainly didn’t used to spend so much for candles. And here are more bills just come. I don’t believe I’ll bother to open them.” Setting the bills aside she went on, “I’m sure they’re making the days shorter.”
    “That one doesn’t look like a bill,” Daphne said, pointing out an envelope of a superior quality.
    Effie eyed it suspiciously, but at last opened it and pulled out a letter. “It’s from a Mr. Henry Colburn,” she said. “I never heard of him. Who can he be?”
    “Read the letter and find out,” she was advised.
    "Good gracious me! Was there ever such nonsense? He wants me to write a book,” she said, laughing.
    This sounded such a bizarre request to come out of the blue that Daphne reached out her hand for the letter. It sounded less bizarre after she read the letter’s contents. Mr. Colburn knew Aunt Effie’s history and had suggested she write her reminiscences of the great people she had known. He mentioned her travels abroad, which were of interest to those who stayed at home.
    “It’s a stunning idea!” Daphne said, thinking of the revenue that might come from such a book. She also saw the editing of the memoirs as a useful and amusing occupation after she returned home and her aunt would be again alone. Effie would meet some new friends, have somewhere to go and someone to visit her.
    “It is not to be thought of,” the aunt said, setting the letter aside with the bills. “I’m sure I would never sink so low.”
    “There is that never again!” Daphne roasted. “It is not in the least low, Ma’am. Many of your reminiscences are unexceptionable. They show no one in a poor light. Your soliciting votes for Fox, for instance, would harm no one and be of interest to many. Your experience in France where you lost your diamond necklace and it turned up next day in the pot-au-feu, too, was most unusual and amusing. You would not, of course, put in those sections where certain people took advantage of you. No need to tell how many you helped with money only to be spurned when they were in a position to return the favour; and, of course, it wouldn’t do to brag how you had to fight off the men with a sledge hammer.”
    “But if it is announced that I am to write a book, people will expect to read about—you know, the divorce and all that. I would never—there I go again—but I never would write a word about that, and that is what people would expect: Scandal.”
    “Let them think what they like, Auntie, if it will make them buy the book. You needn’t fulfill their lurid expectations. Write about what you wish. There is enough material in your diaries to write a good long book without resorting to any shameful revelations to yourself or anyone else.”
    “James wouldn’t like it,” was the answer.
    “James