Page 110 of Dawnlands

Hester appeared in the hall behind her. “Oh yes, do come in, Cousin Matthew.”

Matthew hovered, torn between wanting to stay with his cousins and fear of intruding.

“I don’t—”

“She never comes down in the mornings,” Gabrielle told him. “It’s only Hester and her governess in the mornings. And he’s always out.”

Matthew grinned at her quickness in understanding him, pulled off his hat, and stepped into the hall.

“Come into the library,” Hester invited them.

The three visitors followed Hester down the hall to the large paneled room at the back of the house where tall windows overlooked the gardens. Matthew looked around, seeing the walls of books, the bright fire in the grate, the jug of lemon water, the biscuits, and the glasses. “This is nice,” he said.

“Better than your little crow’s nest?” Mia teased him. Turning to Hester, she said: “Matthew has a bedroom where he is supposed to study at the top of a winding stair at Lincoln’s Inn. He’s something between a clerk and a kestrel.”

“I wasn’t allowed in here at all till you two came,” Hester said.

“Why not?” Gabrielle asked.

Hester opened her mouth but could not embark on the lengthy explanation of why her mama did not want her educated beyond the limits of genteel ignorance. “There’s no point,” was all she said.

Matthew understood, but the Venice-born girls did not. “You need to be able to calculate at least,” said Gabrielle, the Venice trader’s daughter.

“And to read a map, and speak languages,” said Mia. “At least Italian and French.”

Hester flushed. “Mama says that elegant manners are more important than books,” she said. “And Miss Prynne teaches them in the parlor.”

“Oh stuff!” Mia said.

Matthew frowned at her. “That’s not elegant speech for a young lady.”

She gave him a cheeky smile. “I don’t want to be elegant; I want to be well read.”

He gestured to the heavy grandeur of the room. “But here, Mia… and with…” His gesture took in Hester. “…you have to…”

“Are you going to finish any of those sentences?” she challenged him.

“He means to say that you may not corrupt me with your careless speech when in my father’s library,” Hester said solemnly, causing them all to collapse into giggles, Mia clapping her hand over her mouth and Matthew waving his hands at them: “Hush! Hush!”

“Not corrupt!” Gabrielle hissed, catching her breath. “Not corrupt, Hester. That’s much worse. We’re just”—she looked for the words—“making you more commonplace,” she finished.

“Less ladylike and more sensible,” Mia added.

Matthew nodded. “And you shouldn’t,” he told the two older girls. “Hester here has been raised very carefully, as her father wants. You shouldn’t come in here and laugh at that.”

Hester flushed, looking up at him. “I’m not dull.”

She caught his attention. “I didn’t mean that! You’re not dull, Cousin Hester. Actually, you’re rather exquisite.”

She flushed a rosy red, and Gabrielle and Mia looked at her with new attention.

“Anyway, we don’t come in and laugh at ridiculous things, truly we don’t,” Mia assured Matthew. “We just do our lessons, and she likes that—don’t you, Hester? She was lonely in this big house with nobody but her governess to talk to—anybody would be—only seeing her ma in the afternoons, and her pa out with his patients all day. We’re company. And anyway, we’re family.”

Hester swallowed a rush of emotion. “I like them very much,” she assured Matthew. “And of course we’re all family. I’m going to ask my papa if I can visit the wharf. Would you take me to visit, sometimes?”

“I shouldn’t even be here,” Matthew said, more and more uncomfortable at these challenges to the silent authority of the house. “I’m only supposed to bring them to the door.”

“Are you going on to Lincoln’s Inn?” Gabrielle asked him. “Staying there tonight?”