Better Than Byron

Epilogue

Look at this, Dora," she said, holding out the newspaper with dignified disgust. It was one of those uneventful mornings in town when everyone acted as though it were a Sunday and their laziness was thus accounted for.

"What am I to look at?" she inquired, extracting the newspaper from her cousin's hand.

"The matrimony section."

"I say, Edgar has found himself yet another victim!" she chuckled, devouring the unfortunate young woman's name with surprise. "Do you know, Bella, I have heard of this lady before – from Lady Beatrice Gray. She spoke very disdainfully of her, which must mean that she is a force to be reckoned with. Beatrice would never have been so attentively spiteful to anyone below herself." Although Medora was talking with some sense, her cousin disclaimed the assertion with frigid nonchalance.

"How can Edgar attach himself sincerely to a woman? He is made of poison and pride, that one. It is chemically unattainable for him."

"Now don't be silly, Bella. Didn't you read his memoirs? He has been reformed, and repents even the crimes which he inflicted upon us – his little castaways."

"What crimes has he inflicted upon you, Dora, but of refusing your coarse advances?" she demanded scathingly as her daughter Augusta clawed at the hem of her gown. "Thank God she looks nothing like her father, or I would have sent her to live with the Rouen Ursulines until a proper suitor came along to claim her." Medora set aside this unintentionally heartless remark with a shrug, and then resumed the subject that had sprung out of reading the paper.

"I think this a very good thing for him, you know. I almost understand him now, though I always fancied him more complex than all the women I knew. Margaret Doria Vickers is an honest, hardworking sort of lady, and spending the rest of his days with her must be a great relief." When the butler brought in the tea things, she poured some of the steeped tea into two China teacups, which she and her cousin had daintily decorated in their leisure time – though, in truth, their leisure time had no beginning and no end.

"I cannot wait to see them at the start of the Season," she said as she settled back into her armchair and sipped on the creamy tea. "That will be a long-anticipated debut, I say. They must look perfectly charming after having toured the Continent. I heard that they camped out in the wilderness of the Pyrenees with nothing but a tent and some meagre farmer's food. How delightfully unrefined is that? Bella, you're not drinking your tea. I made it just for you, you know. It is a mark of your ungratefulness for you to neglect it – disdainful creature. It shall turn cold!" But Isabella did not care. She glanced sulkily at the newspaper, which Medora had spread across the table that was scattered with their knitting things, and then hoisted Augusta up on her lap, playing with her neat chestnut curls in abstracted discontent.

"Oh cheer up, Bella," Medora said, sinking heavily into her armchair with a lazy smile, balancing her teacup on her chest. "Though you may never hope to find a man like Edgar again, at least you have the comfort of knowing that his charms were not wasted on celibacy."

Isabella scoffed at her cousin's remark, nudging her daughter off and then storming out in anger. As Medora listened to the receding stamp of her cousin's furious feet, she turned to Augusta with a mischievous smile and murmured conspiratorially, "Don't worry, my dear. You will meet him someday. He might bite your hand off, but you will like him, I am certain of it."