Chapter 1Violet
London
June 29, 1885
It should be known from the beginning, I am no flibbertigibbet. Nor am I inclined to the sorts of vapors which often envelop my half sister Sephora and cause her to swoon—usually when there is an attractive young man in the vicinity to offer assistance.
No, I, Violet Manville, am levelheaded. Commonsensical. Well ordered of both habit and mind.
Perhaps that is why I felt especially vulnerable that particular morning standing in my aunt Adelia’s library, the inner sanctum I had never before been allowed to enter, scanning the labels written on the drawers of the filing cabinets in front of me.
Unfaithful Husbands
Comportment
Disrespectful Children
Mothers-in-Law
My heart beat double time. My jaw went slack. An instinct of self-preservation kicked in and I stepped back, putting distance between myself, those oak cabinets, and all I had just learned they meant.
It hardly helped. An invisible hand tightened around my throat and I gasped for air like a doomed sailor submerged in an icy sea. At that moment, every bit of wit abandoned me. But then, there was little room for it considering I was filled with trepidation.
“But, Aunt Adelia…” Drawn as a moth to flame yet fully aware of what happens to the unfortunate insect when it gets too close, I looked again to the cabinets. Their labels were written in a flamboyant, flowing hand that belied what I suspected was the serious nature of the contents of each drawer.
Manners
Morals
Mourning
“Aunt Adelia…” I gulped, a sound that betrayed my apprehension. “You must surely be mistaken. You cannot possibly think I could—”
“Of course you can.” My aunt bustled from desk to bookcase, from bookcase to armoire, from armoire to the desk again, retrieving a gold cigarette case, casting aside a pair of kid gloves and unwanted papers that fluttered to the floor like so many fallen flower petals.
She stopped her marauding long enough to offer a smile, but I wasn’t fooled by it for a second. Smile or no smile, I knew better than to imagine she’d ever change her mind. Adelia was a rock. A fixed force in a universe where the sun had been supplanted by Adelia Henrietta Georgina Tylney Manville and the planets revolved around her and her alone. As if to prove it, she lifted her chin. “I am never wrong, dear Violet. You should know that by now.”
“I do. But—”
“I decided. A year ago. Soon after you and Sephora came here to live with me. I suspected you were the right woman for the task all along, all those years we corresponded when you traveled with your father. I’d hoped to have time to gradually ease you into this new role I have prepared for you, but…” She rounded the desk to stand in front of me. Aunt Adelia is something of a nonpareil, matchless when it comes to her impeccable clothing. Unlike me, for I preferred understated styles in colors that were just as inconspicuous, Adela adored bright hues and hats adorned with feathers. That day, she was dressed in a traveling suit the color of plums. Her hat was on the desk, and she reached for it and perched it on her head at the precise angle to make the most of her chestnut hair, her slim nose, her wide eyes. “Hamish is an unpredictable sort. It is part of his charm. He did not propose this journey to me until last night and so you see, until then, I did not know I was leaving. And before you ask, no, I do not know when we might return. That is why I need you to be a dear and handle this for me. Do not be cross. There is no way I could have told you sooner. He’s waiting for me now outside in a hansom, the train leaves Charing Cross in just another hour, and I have every confidence in you.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. “You’ll do very well.”
Just a short time before, I had been sitting quietly at the table reading the morning’s newspaper while enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of perfectly crisped toast provided by Adelia’s incomparable housekeeper, Bunty, nothing more on my mind than a visit to the British Museum that afternoon. Now, here I stood, my world turned upside down by my charming, outspoken, incorrigible aunt and all she had planned for me. Can I be blamed for raising my voice and stomping my foot?
If nothing else, my fit of pique got my aunt’s attention. Already moving to the door at her usual cyclone’s pace, she whirled to face me.
I inched back my shoulders. I am not as tall as Adelia. I am not nearly as broad. As she is nearing forty, I am her junior by sixteen years. I had been raised better than to disrespect my elders, and I reminded myself of that fact while I struggled to make her listen to reason.
“Miss Hermione is the most celebrated agony aunt in all the Empire,” I said, my voice, too high-pitched, bouncing over the words. “She is talked about everywhere. Her wisdom to those who write to her for advice is admired and extolled. Her column in A Woman’s Place magazine is fabled.”
“Well, of course it is. Really, Violet, you don’t need to preach what I already know.” She turned again to the door, but I was not done.
“Her true identity has been a mystery all these years and now…” When I stepped forward, Adelia dropped her hand from the doorknob, but kept her back to me. “You cannot reveal to me that you are Miss Hermione at the same time you tell me you are leaving for the Continent for an undetermined amount of time and you want me to take over the writing of your column.”
Slowly, she pivoted to face me, her eyes wide, her lips pursed. The picture of innocence. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Copyright © 2023 by Connie Laux
