Indiscretion Read Online Free Page A

and concluded that, townbred as she was, a post in London would best suit her: that she would prefer older to younger children; and that if there were a fascinating elder son with the looks and wit of Byron ready to fall in love with her , she would have no strenuous objection. In other words, she would take what she could get.
    When her father was out of the way, she went to consult with her old nurse, a sensible woman and a valuable source of advice for a motherless girl. She was now settled at Marylebone as a poultry-keeper, Captain Fortune having sorrowfully dismissed her a few years since, when financial difficulties made it an impossible extravagance to keep a permanent female servant. (Marriner, of course, was a necessity, the Captain being particular about his coats.) Directed by her to the Petty Register Office where prospective governesses and employers were matched, and counselled not to tell too many fibs about her accomplishments — so that was the end of the fluent Russian and clarinet — Caroline was excited about her new undertaking, and only a little knocked back by the Office’s request for references.
    This was problematic. Her father’s circle of acquaintance, though it included a number of well-born swells and pinks of the ton, was more racy than respectable. The natural person was the proprietress of the Seminary in Chelsea, but the fact that that lady was among her father’s creditors cast an unpromising shadow over any application. However, Caroline concluded that the sooner she was helped to a remunerated position, the more chance there was of her father’s finances improving, and hence of the proprietress some day getting her money. Admittedly it was not a great chance even then. But she set herself at once to composing the most artful letter within her power, and had just despatched Marriner to the post-office with it when her father came home with news that changed everything.
    She could not read his face at first. By now he had accepted that there was no opening for him in the companies based in London, and he had spoken of trying the provinces, or even Dublin. But he had not done anything about it: he had begun to look chop-fallen again, and Caroline suspected his thoughts of turning riverward. He had taken in the last couple of days to lingering about his old haunts, Tattersall’s and Jackson’s and the Burlington Arcade, as if in wistful farewell. When he came in that afternoon, breathing hard from negotiating the steep, narrow stairs, and with a pained, wondering look about his brow, she supposed at first that he was sunk back into melancholy reflections, and that she would soon be called upon to perform her usual office of cheering him up. But he surprised her by refusing any liquor, by disdaining a wish for any particular delicacy for dinner, and by not wailing or declaring the world a vale of ashes and clinker.
    Instead he called her to sit down by him and, after studying her in the most dreamy and perplexing way for some minutes, said: ‘C aro, how would you like to be a rich woman?’
    Chapter II
    Mrs Catling: such was the name of the person who was to be the agent of this spectacular change in Caroline’s fortunes. ‘Miss-is Catling! ’ as the Captain impressively pronounced it, with such a mingling of respect, admiration, warmth, and sheer wonderment that Caroline felt almost shamed by her admission that she had never heard of her.
    ‘Mrs Catling,’ her father said, ‘is a splendid woman. Mrs Catling is all that is estimable. There is not, I think, a more excellent woman to be found in London — in the whole kingdom. I do not base this judgement upon personal acquaintance,’ he added, with a faintly superior look, as if that would be mere crudity. ‘I have never met her . But she is very familiar to me nonetheless. Her late husband was colonel of my regiment. You’ve heard me talk of old Devil’s-Eye Catling, perhaps? Magnificent fellow. Everyone was terrified of him.