With This Ring Read Free

for punctuation.
    After a long pause, long enough for
Lydia to feel the familiar gnawing in her stomach, Mama nodded.
“Very well.” She smiled at her other daughter. “Kitty, love, be a
dear and step aside so Lydia can pick up the rest of your frocks
and return them to the dressing room. Sit here, my dear.” She
patted the cushion beside her. “I have something of interest for
you, and I suppose, for Lydia, too, if she can do two things at
once!”
    She and Kitty put their blond heads
together and laughed. Lydia knew better than to look at either of
them. That would only mean more laughter at her expense. It is one
of the seven wonders of the world that I have any pride left at
all, she thought as she carried the dresses into the next room
where Kitty’s maid cowered. “Best iron them quickly,” she whispered
as she shut the door.
    “ As I was walking this morning, I
overheard dear Lady Walsingham remark that it was all the rage for
young women of fashion and sense to go to St. Barnabas.”
    Kitty gave her a blank stare. “Mama,
it is not Sunday,” she said.
    Mama laughed and touched Kitty under
the chin. “You are so amusing!”
    Thank goodness I did not say that,
Lydia considered as she edged herself into a chair. Mama would have
called me a dolt and tugged at my hair.
    “ A number of wounded soldiers are
lodged there right now. Some battle or other ….”
    “ Toulouse, Mama,” Lydia said without
thinking. “It has been in all the papers, and now the war is ov—”
Mama glared at her, and she was silent.
    “ One battle is very much like
another, and it is amazingly ill-bred to claim knowledge of any of
them,” Mama declared, dismissing most of history in a single
sentence. “The import is this: The better sort are going to St.
Barnabas to minister to the soldiers.”
    “ Good God, Mama, you cannot be
serious!” Kitty exclaimed. “We have to touch them?”
    “ Oh, no, dear, no,” Mama soothed,
taking Kitty’s hands in hers to stop their agitated motion. “I
think you merely walk up and down and look sympathetic. Possibly
cluck your tongue, but surely nothing more. I have it on good
authority that it is the high kick of fashion right
now.”
    That will be onerous, indeed, Lydia
considered. No wonder Kitty is concerned. I do not think Kitty
understands the ramifications of sympathy, particularly since such
an emotion requires the acknowledgment of others.
    Kitty shuddered and drew closer into
the circle of her mother’s arms. “But, Mama, suppose one of them
reaches out to touch me?”
    They wouldn’t dare, Lydia thought,
then turned her head to cough so Mama would not see her
smile.
    Mama drew herself up straight again.
“My dearest, that is why nature intended for young ladies of
fashion to carry parasols. You can beat them off!”
    Oh, I like that, Lydia told herself.
So much philanthropy all at once must be nipped in the bud.
Probably it is a good thing that soldiers are used to harsh living,
particularly if they run afoul of the “better sort,” as Mama puts
it.
    “ But why, Mama, why do we have to do
this?” Kitty asked as the storm warnings rose in her eyes
again.
    Mama regarded Kitty sorrowfully.
“Because, my precious kitten, your father—drat his timid soul—never
could bring himself to visit London, or even pursue acquaintances
beyond the borders of our own district!” She rose suddenly and took
a turn about the room, her agitation unmistakable. “We have money
enough, but no one knows us! We are living in a rented house on the
fringe of the best area, and your father makes no push to renew old
friendships.”
    And if I have told him once I have
told him a thousand times, Kitty love, you are too beautiful to
waste on a red-faced squire’s son in Devon, Lydia thought as she
watched her mother take another turn about the room. Isn’t that
what you have always said next, Mama? See? I have memorized
it.
    She knew what would follow that
speech, so she tried to make herself