Your doting brother,
Fred
P.S. I am also very much looking forward to assessing whether our dear uncle does, indeed, require surgical separation from the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, as you suggest.
‘Does he say when he’s coming?’ Josephine sniffed into a new copy ofPersuasion, which she’d found wedged behind a well-thumbedEncyclopaedia of Botanical Speciesin their uncle’s library.
‘I’m not sure what delights we’re supposed to show him – we haven’t exactly seen many ourselves!’ Phoebe muttered, looking over her brother’s typically short letter for anything she may have missed.
‘Oh, hush, Phoebe!’ Sophie scolded, too in love with her lace-trimmed Prussian-blue gown to find fault with anything.
‘There’s the Pump Room, The Royal Crescent, The Circus, Queen Square, Pulteney Street, The Guildhall, not to mention the Upper Assembly Rooms and Sydney Gardens of course…’
‘But those are all boring places! And we haven’t even been to the last two yet!’ Matilda grumbled.
‘Seconded,’ Phoebe nodded.
‘Yes well … that’s about to change this weekend, isn’t it?’ Sophie placated. ‘New dressesanda society picnic – even the viscount and his brother said they thought the Sydney Gardens picnic to be one of the more entertaining events of the Bath season!’
Phoebe shot her happy sister a swift glance. She hadn’t said much after their debacle of a visit to Madame Paragon’s, but she had the feeling the dancing-eyed captain had left almost as much of an impression as his brother – who appeared to have irritated every rational thought she ever possessed.
‘We should all be grateful, we could still be stuck in Devon with a new governess and the cross-stitch!’ Sophie added.
‘Actually, I quite like the cross-stitch,’ Matilda frowned, reaching for Sophie’s rouge.
Thoughtfully, Phoebe replaced Fred’s letter in her writing box, and stood up to smooth down her gown. Despite her entreaties for something plain and simple, her aunt insisted they all had two new dresses apiece. This one was cut from lavender-figured satin, with a festoon flounce caught up with rosettes, and sleeves made of fine net clasped all the way to the wrist. Phoebe surveyed herself critically; there was still no competition with Fred’s breeches, but there was something about the cut of the dress against her fair skin and burnished hair that made her feel grown-up. Almost.
‘You look different in that,’ Matilda added, with two bright pink cheeks, ‘like a lady … sort of … well, as much of a lady that you can look, anyway!’
‘Thank you – you look the least like a pirate you’ve ever looked, too!’ Phoebe retorted, bunching up a shawl and throwing it at her grinning younger sister.
‘Matilda!’ Sophie scolded, snatching back the rouge. ‘She’s right though,’ she added as Matilda grumbled. ‘I’ve never seen you look so ladylike, Phoebs! You make a very pretty debutante, the earl will have to watch his step!’
‘I don’t think the earl can see past his stomach to do that!’ Phoebe retorted, pushing out her own stomach, to ape the earl’s bulbous stoop. ‘Well, well, your brother could do with feeding you up a bit, but you’ll do … nothing worse than a skinny countess, I say,’she mimicked, strutting across the floor and waggling a finger at an enthralled Matilda, who dissolved again. ‘And as for Bath and its many delights…’ She straightened to pick up a fan and bring it to her face, her eyes rolling. ‘Well, it’s a step up from quadrilles and French, I’ll give you that!’
‘Now that I do agree with,’ Sophie smiled. ‘The Pump Room is a thousand times better than conjugatingÊtreandAvoiruntil one feels they couldn’t ever eat another croissant…’
‘I never feel like that,’ Matilda declared.
‘And yet, how I wish we could really enjoy everything without thinking of propriety or expectations,’ Phoebe added wistfully. ‘How gloriously free that sounds!’
‘Perhaps you should ask the captain to challenge the earl to a duel, on account of his onion-scented person, and release you from Thomas’s Monstrous Marriage Master Plan?’ Matilda suggested, scrubbing her cheeks with a cloth.
‘He is by far the more amiable of the brothers, it’s true!’ Sophie giggled. ‘Though perhaps the viscount would care to oblige, he did rescue you?—’
‘The viscount would sooner shoot me!’ Phoebe retorted swiftly.
‘Phoebe!’ Sophie objected.
‘Well, it’s true!’ Phoebe defended. ‘From the moment I made his acquaintance he has done nothing but mock and ridicule! He is the proudest and most insufferable kind of gentleman, who has made me realise that there are few things more precious in life than freedom from those who view females as chattels, or inferior beings, in every way!’
She paused to draw breath as Sophie regarded her curiously.
‘Well, if it’s a little freedom you want, perhaps Miss Phoebe Fairfax of Fairfax Theatrical Company could help?’
‘You want me toimaginemyself enjoying Bath without propriety or expectation?’ Phoebe frowned, feeling her sister might be underestimating her predicament just a little.
‘No, you ninnyhammer!’ Sophie exclaimed, much to Matilda’s delight. ‘I’m just saying that while you’re in Bath you can be whoever you want to be, whenever you want to be her…as long as you’re Phoebe when needed, too.’
