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СКАЧАТЬ Croscombe was so shocked she could hardly speak. “Do you mean that you are not to be painted with your mother and sisters and brother?”

      “Half sisters and half brother, as Mr. Partington is always so quick to point out. No, and don’t look so horrified, for I don’t give a button for being painted. I should very much prefer to be on the other side of the process, I do assure you.”

      Emily could see that her mother had a great deal more to say on the subject, so she intervened: “What is this painter’s name? When is he to come?”

      “He is called Henry Lisser, and he will arrive on Thursday se’ennight. By which time we will have another visitor, I forgot to mention that, because Mr. Lisser is so much more exciting.”

      “Not another clergyman?” said Emily.

      “No, not at all. It is my cousin Belle, Isabel Darcy. I have no recollection of her, although I know we met as children, when I visited Pemberley.”

      “So she is one of your cousin Mr. Darcy’s daughters,” said Mrs. Croscombe. “He has five, has he not? Isabel will be one of the younger ones, I think, for I am sure the older two are married.”

      “Yes, and her twin sister Georgina is lately married and gone to live in Paris. And, in the strictest confidence, although Mama won’t say anything, and Mr. Partington just tut-tuts and looks grave, I have a notion that she has been in some kind of a scrape, and that she is coming to Rosings to be out of the way and kept out of mischief.”

      “I would have thought Pemberley would keep her out of mischief.”

      “Oh, I believe her parents are abroad or some such thing, but do not want her to stay in London for the summer.”

      “She will be company for you, is she about your age?”

      “She is eighteen.”

      “What is she like?” Emily asked. “Is she pretty?”

      “I have no idea, but you may see for yourself, for she arrives tomorrow, so unless she is to be kept strictly within bounds, or cannot ride a horse, I shall bring her over to make your acquaintance.”

      Belle was no horsewoman, but the visit was paid nonetheless, Cassandra being allowed to take her cousin with her in the carriage. “Which,” she said to Emily as she jumped down outside the steps of Croscombe House, “shows you how rich and important Belle’s papa is, for you know how Mr. Partington hates to have the horses put to the carriage on my behalf.”

      Belle, angelically fair, with striking violet eyes, had a discontented expression on her pretty face as she stepped down from the carriage. She made no bones about telling Emily and Cassandra why she had been posted off to Rosings. “It is because I am in love with the most handsome, dashing man, my dearest Ferdie, only my family consider I am too young and too volatile in my affections to enter into an engagement.”

      Mrs. Croscombe had, through an intricate network of friends and acquaintances, found out more than this. When Emily told her at breakfast the next morning what Belle had said, and expressed her indignation at any family being so gothic as to stand between a girl and the object of her affections—“For he is a perfectly respectable parti, an eldest son, and very well-connected”—her mother thought it only right to say that this was the third young man within a year that Belle, “who is but eighteen, my dear,” had fallen in love with and wished to marry.

      Emily was much struck with this, and passed the information on to Cassandra, warning her not to reveal to Belle how much Mrs. Croscombe, who had a wide correspondence, and kept up with all the gossip of town, knew about her. Cassandra thought it a very good joke. “Perhaps she will next fall in love with one of Mr. Partington’s clerical protégés, or with one of your rejected beaux.”

      “I do not mind whom she falls in love with, so long as it is not my Charles,” said Emily.

      There was no danger of that. Charles Egerton, while appreciating Belle’s undoubted prettiness—although he was wise enough not to comment on that to Emily—had no time for such a flighty piece of perfection. “She is very silly,” he said disapprovingly. “She would drive any man of sense to distraction. Her father and mother are very right to remove her from London, for it will be much better for her to grow up and become more sensible before she marries any of her lovers.”

      Nor did any other of the young men of the district seem to take her fancy. “In fact,” Belle confided to Cassandra, with a prodigious yawn, “I do wish they had let me visit my sister in Paris. I have never been so bored in all my life. This is even worse than Pemberley, how do you stand it?”

      “I have plenty to occupy myself. You could do some sketching, if you choose, or there is the pianoforte, in tune, and very willing to be used.”

      “Oh, I never play the piano if I can help it. I leave all that to my younger sister, Alethea, who is a prodigiously fine musician. I play the harp, and my sister Georgina was used to sing with me, but now she is in Paris, and I have not brought my harp with me, and besides, what is the point of playing, if there are no young men to listen and applaud? And as for sketching, I have no talent in that direction, none at all.”

      “You could read. The library here is very good.”

      “I’ve looked, and it’s all fusty stuff. Nothing modern, does not your mama buy any novels?”

      “My stepfather does not approve of novels.”

      Belle stared. “You mean you do not read novels?”

      “I do, only without his permission. Emily lends me what I want, she and her mother are both great readers.”

      “Mrs. Croscombe is very learned, is not she? The books she reads must be very dull.”

      “Some of them are, but she enjoys novels as much as Emily does. When we next go over there, ask to borrow one.”

      Another yawn from Belle. “Why don’t you take my portrait?” she suggested, brightening up at the thought. “I would like to have my portrait painted, of me on my own, because whenever anyone has drawn or painted me, it has always been with my sister. If you take my likeness, I can smuggle it out to send to my dearest Ferdie, would not that be a very good plan?”

      Cassandra was always happy to have a new model, and Belle went off to change into her prettiest dress and a smart new bonnet, while Cassandra rang for Petifer and went up to her studio, which she had set up in one of the attics, as far away as possible from both the public rooms and the family rooms.

      Petifer had been detailed to look after Miss Darcy, once she reached an age to have her own maid, and she was kind, fierce, and devoted to Cassandra. Taking her side against Mr. Partington, whom she despised, Petifer aided and abetted Cassandra in her painting, even though she thought it a strange occupation for a lady, and she had become very handy with the paints and canvases. She also did Cassandra a further service, which her mistress knew nothing about, by keeping the servants from gossiping too much about the hours Miss Darcy spent up in her attic with all those odorous paints.

      Cassandra had never had a more chatty subject, for Belle wouldn’t stop talking.

      “My sister Camilla is lately married, to a very agreeable man, and he had her portrait painted, it is considered a very good likeness. She is wearing yellow, which is her favourite colour, and it makes her look СКАЧАТЬ