The Roswell Legacy by Frances Statham (parable of the sower read online .TXT) 📗

I was to be seated with the Lachlans and the Montgomerys.”

“So you probably are. But you’ll be bored to tears. Let me see what I can do.”

“Please,” Ginna called out. “I’ll be perfectly happy.…” Her voice trailed off. Peter Atwilder had already gone.

In consternation, Ginna walked across the room to where Morrow was still standing with Lila and her husband.

“How lovely you look this morning, Ginna. Pink is such a wonderful color for you. She looks delicious, don’t you think, Richard? Like a Watteau.”

“Absolutely.”

No, she wanted to cry out. If anything, I want to be a Fragonard. That’s how Jonathan had pictured her that day in the park. Instead, she merely said, “Thank you, Mrs. Montgomery.”

The signal that it was time to be seated was given. Some of the people went immediately to find their seats, while others lingered in small groups. Andrew struggled through the crowd to reach Morrow’s side. “I’m sorry, darling. I was waylaid and I couldn’t seem to break away.” He shook Richard’s hand and nodded to Lila. “Good morning. I trust you’ve gotten over your long trip?”

“Yes. We went to the exposition yesterday for the first time. Quite an experience, wasn’t it, Richard?”

He laughed and winked at Andrew. “It could have been an even more interesting experience, but Lila wouldn’t let me go into the sideshows.”

“Well, good for her, old boy.”

“Andrew, you’re supposed to take up for me. Not agree with her.”

Ginna stood, enjoying the easy camaraderie, content just to listen.

“Andrew, at which table are we sitting?” Morrow asked.

“Three, I believe.”

“So are we.” Richard spoke up.

“Then let’s go and find our seats. I expect Ginna is quite hungry,” Morrow said. “She took David for a long walk by the shore this morning, and she’s only had a cup of tea.”

“Which she won’t find here,” Andrew finished. “More like Chateau Leoville, sherry, Malaga, cognac, or Pommery sec. Or coffee,” he added.

“Or champagne,” Lila said. “After all, it’s supposed to be a champagne breakfast.”

“You mean we’ll have that many spirits for breakfast?” Ginna asked, surprised, remembering the disapproval of Miss Counts and Mrs. Beauchamp over Mr. Wells’s Madeira and waffles.

“You don’t have to take them all, darling,” Morrow said. “Or really any of them. Except that a mild beverage will probably be safer than the water served.”

As Andrew found the table and Ginna was ready to be seated, Peter came up to claim her. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lachlan, but there’s been a change in seating at the last minute. Miss Forsyte is to come with me.”

“Oh, how lovely,” Lila said. “She deserves to be with young people her own age. How kind of you.”

Ginna glared at Peter. He was not kind at all. Merely impertinent, as she had surmised the moment she laid eyes on him. Only to make a scene would embarrass everyone. So she allowed Peter to take her arm and guide her.

“I did some place-card switching,” he confided in her ear. “I’ve put us at an interesting table, away from all of the old fogies.”

Ginna said nothing. But Peter didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he ignored her silence and continued to guide her to the table ahead, where a group of young men and women was already assembled.

“Well, here we are,” Peter said to the group. “I told you I would bring the prettiest girl in the room with me—Miss Ginna Forsyte, a visitor in our fair white city. So everyone be nice to her.”

“Hello,” Ginna said, looking at the silent, hostile faces of the young women. They did not respond. Instead, they became preoccupied with taking their places, the young men holding out their gilt chairs.

Peter did not seem surprised at their behavior. “The whole bunch doesn’t have any manners, Ginna. Their fathers can’t afford to hire anybody to teach them.”

“Stop being so snide, Peter,” one of the young women complained. “My father can buy a whole school if he wants.”

“Whereas Margaret’s poor father has only made enough money to buy one chair,” another young man commented. “The medical chair at Northwestern,” he added, to the laughter of everyone.

“And where did you go to school, Miss Forsyte?” Henry Blakesley inquired.

“In London and Paris,” she answered.

“Oh, pardon me,” Margaret retaliated. “I should have known by your accent. They did a good job of changing it.”

“Not at all. I was born in England.”

“And where do you think this oyster was born?” Peter inquired, spearing it with his fork and letting it slide down his throat.

“Nantucket.”

“High Hampton.”

“No, Newport.”

Peter was the pied piper, lulling them all into laughter. Where he led, they followed. Except for Ginna. She felt completely out of place and wished she were at the table with Morrow instead.

But with the food being served, the hostility toward the outsider waned. And Ginna became fascinated with the menu—food that, except for the eggs served with rice, she had never equated with breakfast. Her plate was laden with woodchuck, cooked tomatoes with onion, veal chops in sauce, olives, and peppers. There was strawberry shortcake laced with kirsch awaiting as the final course.

And as to the spirits, Andrew was right. Every beverage he’d mentioned was there, with several others Ginna didn’t recognize.

“You’re not drinking your Chateau,” Peter chided.

“I think I’ll just have coffee,” Ginna said.

“But that would be an insult to the host,” Peter countered.

She took him seriously. “I really don’t mean it as such,” she said. “It’s only that I might not be able to walk across the room afterwards.”

“Well, my head is already buzzing like a saw,” Edward, seated across from her, said.

She smiled. “Then you would be no good at all helping me to navigate back to the Lachlans.”

“Is that who you’re visiting?” Margaret asked. “My mama said that, between Mrs. Lachlan and Mrs. Palmer going back and forth with all their charity work, they could easily start an epidemic in our own social group, with all the germs they bring home.”

Ginna grew angry with the slur against Morrow. But perhaps she would have remained silent if it had not been