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Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty
Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty
Chapter One
A Champagne Luncheon
“Well, my dear Annabel, very glad to see you. You don’t often give me a chance of entertaining you. Come and have some luncheon; one can’t talk business on an empty stomach.”
“You’re very good, Haredale. I wish my errand was a pleasanter one; but – ”
“Well, we’ll hear all about it directly. Champagne? Ladies always like champagne, so I provided some for you. – It’s very good, it won’t disagree with you.”
Miss Annabel Haredale did not like champagne in the middle of the day, and thought that it was sure to disagree with her; but she smiled at her brother and took it like a martyr.
The scene was a rather shabbily appointed set of rooms in Duke Street, Saint James’s; in one of which an elegant little luncheon was laid for two. The actors were a lady and gentleman, both some years past fifty, both tall, with large well-marked features, and reddish hair touched with grey. Both were unmistakably people of family and position, and to this air of his breeding the lady added that of personal worth. She looked like a good though not a clever woman; her brother, Lord Haredale, unfortunately, did not look like a good man. Their eyes, however, met with kindness, hers openly anxious, and his furtively so.
“And so you have given up the Twickenham villa and settled at Cleverley?” she said, after some surface conversation.
“Well, yes, – must economise, you know, and the old Admiral’s lease of the Hall being out, it seemed convenient. My lady doesn’t like it much; but she can leave the little girls down there, if she comes up to meet you and take out Amethyst. Of course she wants to present her; but it’s confoundedly inconvenient this year.”
“It is about Amethyst that I wish to speak to you,” said Miss Haredale, strenuously refusing more champagne, and showing unmistakably her desire to proceed to business.
“What! you haven’t found a chance already of settling her?”
“Oh no, no! she has seen no one. She has never been away from school. But, Haredale, a great misfortune has befallen me; so that I can no longer do by her as I could wish. I am a poor woman now, and it is for you to decide what you think right about her.”