A School for Brides Read Online Free Page B

respectable marriage and home.
    Mr. Busby the surgeon and Dr. Haxhamptonshire the physician were united in the conviction that Mr. Arbuthnot must not stir abroad for some considerable period of time. A message had been sent to Lord Pauncefoot (the visitor had confirmed that he had indeed been on his way north toward Hurley Hall) not to expect his presence for the grouse-shooting season; now, all that was required was for the young ladies to don their prettiest muslins, practice their best pieces on the pianoforte, and wait to see which he would choose to honor with his attentions.
    â€œHe is probably already married,” pointed out Miss Evans.
    â€œHe doesn’t
look
married,” objected Miss Victor.
    â€œAnd how does a married man look, pray?”
    Miss Victor consulted the experience of her twelve years. “Married men are always either immensely fat or immensely old,” she said at last, “and Mr. Arbuthnot is neither.”
    â€œ
Ergo
, he is a single man,” pronounced Miss Asquith to general satisfaction.
    Excitement was at a fever pitch when at long last he was declared strong enough to join them for an hour in the afternoon. Miss Hopkins had found an invalid chair in her lumber room, left over from her late father’s final illness, and with his injured leg swathed in bandages and splinted both sides, Mr. Arbuthnot was wheeled out and installed in the front parlor, before a fire that had been lit for his benefit on this sultry August day.
    Though he was rather pale and thin, the lines of pain and tension as well as the bramble scratches had been largely erased from his face, and all present were in private agreement that he was a fine-looking man. (“Not more handsome than Robert, of course,” whispered Miss Asquith loyally in Miss Mainwaring’s ear, “but quite pleasing.”)
    â€œAh,
les demoiselles
,” said Mr. Arbuthnot, looking about himself with a smile. “And I had thought it was but a fever dream! However, here you are, as lovely as I recall, but also, thank goodness, as English as I am myself. I cannot tell you how alarmed I was when I heard you conversing in French! I quite thought myself demented.”
    A look of confusion crossed Miss Asquith’s pretty face.
“Ah, pardonnez-moi, Monsieur. Je ne comprends pas—”
    â€œMiss Asquith!”
cried several members of the company in unison.
    Mr. Arbuthnot had grown even more pale. “
Now
see what you’ve done,” murmured Miss Evans.
    â€œOur Miss Asquith has a rather
wry
sense of humor, I am afraid,” said Miss Hopkins, while Miss Winthrop looked daggers at the culprit. “That will be
quite
enough, Miss Asquith.”
    â€œJe suis désolée, Monsieur,”
murmured Miss Asquith, looking down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.
    Mr. Arbuthnot regarded her warily. “Er . . .
Ce n’est pas grave, Mademoiselle.
”
    â€œAnd now, please allow me to introduce you to the students at our school,” continued Miss Hopkins. “This young lady to my left is Miss Crump”—here she lowered her voice to a significant whisper—
“only child of Viscount Baggeshotte.”
    Mr. Arbuthnot turned to greet Miss Crump with an air of relief, which changed to consternation as he realized that he could see almost nothing of her face. He craned his neck this way and that, rather as if endeavoring to view someone who had had the misfortune to fall into a well. “Charmed, I am sure,” he said, attempting a sketchy bow from his seated position. Miss Crump shrank back into her corner as though he had struck her. Staring at the floor, she murmured something indistinguishable and began to twist and pluck at her handkerchief.
    Miss Winthrop sighed. It seemed dreadfully unfair that the most notable student in the school should be so timorous. Miss Winthrop was quite certain that, had
she
occupied Miss Crump’s position in