Read Before the Storm for Free Online

Clementine Garland.’ She looked down at the page she held in her hand. It was a short description of a piece of countryside and full of life and thoughtful, sensitive details.‘You are also a very talented writer. This is very good, you know.’
    Clementine stared at her. ‘It is?’ She shrugged a little. ‘Mama and Eliza don’t think much of my scribblings,’ she said. ‘They think it is a waste of time.’
    Sidonie carefully put down the paper and went to Clementine’s side. ‘First of all, this isn’t just scribblings, it is writing and secondly, well, you shouldn’t care so much about what other people think.’
    ‘That’s not what Mama says,’ Clementine said with a wry laugh. ‘Public opinion is like a religion to her. All she cares about is how we look and what people think about it.’ She pulled a face. ‘Heaven forfend that we should be seen to do anything that might hinder our chances of getting a husband.’
    Sidonie sighed. ‘Your mother is very keen that you should both marry well,’ she murmured.   ‘That’s understandable, you know. She’s your mother and wants the best for you.’
    Clementine sat down on her bed, pulling the soft pink counterpane over her knees. ‘It’s not everything though, is it?’ She gazed up at Sidonie with wide, huge eyes. ‘Marriage. It isn’t as important as Mama says is it?’ She moved across on the bed, silently indicating that Sidonie could sit beside her, which she duly did. ‘And perhaps Mama is wrong? Perhaps it isn’t always the best thing?’
    Sidonie hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘Perhaps not.’
    Clementine laughed. ‘I have decided that I don’t want to marry,’ she said with an impish grin. ‘I am going to be a rich man’s mistress instead. Venetia says that is a much better arrangement.’
    ‘Does she now?’ Sidonie hid a smile behind her hand. ‘Well, I think you will find being a rich man’s mistress just as tiresome as being his wife. Just think of all those hours of getting dressed only to get undressed all over again when you see him and taking the most exacting care of one’s appearance. Not to mention always having to hide bad moods and never be anything less than smiling and cheerful so that you don’t frighten him away.’
    There was a party that night at the Garland’s house. ‘Just a few friends,’ Mrs Garland assured Sidonie when she came up to Clementine’s room later on. ‘We don’t usually allow Clementine to come downstairs for our little soirées but I would like it if you accompanied her just for an hour or so.’ She smiled fondly at the glowering Clementine as though she was bestowing the most wondrous treat upon her. ‘After all, how else will she learn the proper way to behave in society?’
    ‘How indeed,’ agreed Sidonie with a sympathetic look at her pupil.
    She dressed carefully that evening in her best grey Spitalfields silk gown with a fine black lace fichu arranged around her shoulders and tied behind her back. Her room, at the very top of the Garlands’ town house was small but comfortable with cheerful floral wallpaper and a blue and pink patchwork counterpane on the narrow wooden bed. There was also an unexpected luxury: a tarnished upright mirror in the corner before which she could turn this way and that and smooth her bodice and long flowing skirt to her satisfaction.
    ‘Not too bad,’ she murmured with an approving smile as she dabbed a little orange blossom water behind her ears and patted her hair into place. ‘Perhaps I am not too old for a little vanity after all.’
    She fastened a thin strand of pearls, a gift from her grandmother who had brought them with her from France when she came to London many years ago, around her throat then with one final, smiling look at the mirror, she picked up her candle and went briskly downstairs to Clementine’s room. She found her pupil lying on the bed, engrossed in a book of poetry and nibbling on a precious violet cream that