The Education of Portia Read Free Page A

most carefree, young man in it. He was then only a few years wed to the
beautiful Honoria Wickson, and the grace and gaiety with which he had danced with his
exquisite wife, and showered attentions upon her, had stayed with Portia in all the long years
since. Hidden in her subconscious yes, but nevertheless that vision had stayed with her.
    She had wanted, during that humiliating season, to be the lovely Mrs. Perrington, to be
the cynosure of all eyes, and the darling of a virile and attractive husband. She had dreamed
dreams then that she had long since dismissed and she had entertained fancies and fantasies that
even then she had known would not come true.
    No wonder the Perrington girls were handsome; their mother had been a beauty. She
remembered that lady's loveliness with a familiar wistful pang. She would not permit herself to
envy others' beauty, but she would always regret her own lack of comeliness.
    Her calm good sense reasserted itself and satisfaction with her current situation flooded
back. Her recent impressions of the viscount made nonsense of her former immature daydreams;
he was no longer her beau ideal . She could smile at her youthful self.
    "Miss Crossmichael?"
    "Ma'am?"
    She heard absently the interested query in the elder girls' voices, but it was Penelope's
impatient tug on her gown that finally caught her attention. That hasty pull at her plum-coloured
merino skirt which set her keys to jingling brought Portia back from her reflections to her own
parlour, in her own school, and to her prosaic life.
    "My dears! I was wool-gathering. You must forgive me." She waved the girls to seats
and took her own place behind the tea tray. "Now, how do you go on? Have you everything you
need? Do you miss your home and your papa?" She poured out for them, watching them
unobtrusively. They were consulting in unspoken language about their response. Young ladies,
in her experience, were remarkable communicators.
    Finally, Sabina spoke. "We do miss our home, ma'am, but we have come here precisely
so that we need not yearn for our father this winter."
    Portia was briefly at a loss. She passed her young guests the plate of raspberry tarts for
which her cook was rightly renowned, and assumed an enquiring air.
    "Papa ith an ornament to society. And a pillar of government," young Penelope
explained earnestly as she chose a sweet. Her gaze strayed to the cluster of suspended keys and
watch that included her etui at Portia's high waist.
    "Last winter, he left Stadley Place in October to attend at Parliament, and from then to
the end of May we saw him only at Christmas." Melicent frowned ferociously.
    "Lincolnshire is a vatht distance from London, Mith Crothmichael." Penelope was
possessed of an occasional lisp--caused by half-emerged front teeth--which disturbed her not at
all. It did not either interfere with her careful consumption of her chosen tart.
    The lisp bestowed a droll charm upon her words that made Portia wish to smile. But
anger with the viscount overrode all other emotions. How could he desert these delightful
children? An ornament to society, indeed! No doubt the viscount was in search of another wife,
for surely he would want a male heir. That would be the reason he had left his daughters in
Lincolnshire, so that he could search London unencumbered for a second lovely lady.
    "We asked if we might come, with Miss Thripton, to stay in our new Hill Street house,
but he refused us permission." The injustice of the viscount's prohibition evidently rankled with
Melicent. She broke her own tart into shards upon the fine china plate she held.
    "We thought all last winter that if only we were at least near London, we could see Papa
much more frequently. Attendance at a school seemed our best possibility for a removal from
Lincolnshire." Sabina took control of the conversation with a minatory look at her younger
sisters. "We heard of your school, Miss Crossmichael, from the cousin of one of my dearest
friends. She said