Chapter One
Splashing about in the sea is for fish, not respectable young ladies.
—Mrs. Oliver’s Rules for Young Ladies
“I wish you wouldn’t go out today. I have a dreadful feeling that something bad will happen if you do.”
“I’ll be quite safe, Mama.” Sandrine Oliver adjusted the cushions behind her mother’s back and gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m only going to the bookshop and then to gather some lavender for your soothing compress.”
Her mother suffered from various unspecified and undiagnosed nervous ailments and rarely left their cottage except to attend church.
“The bookshop!” She pronounced the words as though Sandrine had announced she planned to visit the backroom of the Squalton Squire where the village men gathered to smoke, drink, and gamble. “Pray do not climb any of those ladders. Dangerous death traps! You’ll go crashing into a crumpled heap on the floor and suffer an agonizing demise. Or be crippled for life.”
“I shan’t climb the ladders.”
“Are your bonnet strings tied securely? Bend down, my dear, and let me see.”
Sandrine bent forward and her mother undid and retied her silk bonnet strings. “There, that’s secure now. I wouldn’t want your strings to come untied and be caught in a carriage wheel and have you dragged to your death.”
“I shall endeavor to avoid a tragic death by bonnet-string strangulation,” Sandrine promised, attempting to maintain a serious expression.
Mrs. Oliver clicked her tongue. “Are you making light of my motherly concern? Reverend Pilkington wouldn’t approve.”
The subject of what the town vicar approved and disapproved of was dear to her mother’s heart and made Sandrine want to scream. “Of course not, Mama.”
“Speaking of Mr. Pilkington, if you should happen to meet that most eligible of gentlemen on your perambulation you must smile prettily and be civil and make complimentary references to his address last Sunday.” Her mother was determined that her daughter would marry the vicar. Which also made Sandrine want to scream.
“I’ll be sure to smile,” she replied brightly.Right before I cross the street and hurry in the opposite direction.She was fervently hoping to avoid Mr. Ernest Pilkington and his admonishing lectures on the perils and punishments awaiting young ladies who strayed from the straight and narrow path of righteousness.
She heard more than enough about that from her mother.
Her mother’s life was ruled by fear. Every day, every hour, every minute contained the potential for calamity. Sandrine had been raised on harrowing tales of young girls who were seduced by handsome strangers and led into a life of degradation and destitution. Or stories about good, honest country-bred men who contracted unspeakable diseases while visiting that most vile and immoral of cities, London.
“And don’t walk too close to the sea on your way home. Remember the sudden wave that swept poor Miss Milburn to her death.”
How could she forget? She was reminded almost daily of the accident that had happened a decade before she was born. Her mother had a horror of sea bathing, and Sandrine was the only girl in the village who wasn’t allowed to go for a swim on a calm and sunny day such as today.
“I won’t venture too close to the water.”
“And keep your pelisse buttoned tightly, even if the sun grows hot. And keep your eyes modestly upon the ground if you should be approached by any man other than Mr. Pilkington. And heaven forbid you should speak with a stranger! A glimpse of unprotected throat, or an innocent smile, can transform a man into a ravening beast.”
“I shan’t invite any bestial ravishment,” Sandrine promised solemnly. “I should leave now. I want to see if the history book that I ordered has arrived. I’ll be back in an hour,” she called over her shoulder, making a hasty retreat before any more dire warnings could be issued.
As she left their little cottage and walked down the stone steps toward the village square, shepondered the necessity of her mother’s warnings. In Sandrine’s twenty years of life experience nothing shocking, or even particularly noteworthy, had ever happened in the sleepy village of Squalton-on-Sea.
She’d been keeping a list of unpredictable and thrilling occurrences in a journal since she was a small girl. The list was laughably short.
There’d been the one journey she’d taken to Brighton with her father before his death where she’d marveled at the magnificent Royal Pavilion built by the Prince of Wales as a discreet location in which to entertain his scandalous companion, Maria Fitzherbert.
And there’d been the time that the schoolmaster had accidentally set the schoolhouse on fire attempting to demonstrate a chemical reaction.
But lately the only entries were about an escaped bull overturning a vegetable cart (unpredictable but hardly thrilling) and the harrowing tale of Mrs. Harbottle’s cook attempting to retrieve a haunch of beef from cold storage only to have it fall upon her head, which everyone agreed could have proven fatal but which luckily resulted in only a small bruise and a faint ringing in her ears.
Not the stuff of which extraordinary adventures were made.
Though, there wasn’t much chance of anything too thrilling happening in a town called Squalton-on-Sea. The name Brighton called to mind sunshine sparkling on blue waters, while Squalton reminded one of squalls of wind, or ababy squalling, or squalor, none of which was likely to attract fashionable seaside revelers.
But worse than the unfortunate name were the abandoned and empty buildings. She looked back at the once grandiose and now decrepit Squalton Manor, its mullioned windows dark and sightless, chimneys crumbling, and doors choked by vines.