AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ally, I’m still a lady of the peerage, and I shouldn’t be singing for an audience.”
“I agree,” Iris said. “Of course, if it were something you wanted to do, Sophie, I would support you. But as it’s not, I think, Ally, that we need to support Sophie’s decision.”
“Evan, you agree with me, don’t you?” Ally batted her eyes at her husband.
“I think Sophie would be wonderful, but I’m sorry, love. I have to agree with your mother that it’s her dec
ision. Not yours, and not mine.”
Sophie gulped. “Thank you, Evan.”
Ally pressed her napkin to her lips. “Sophie, you sit in the house all day. Don’t you want something more? Wouldn’t it bring joy into your life to know you are bringing joy into others’ lives with song?”
“Ally, I would faint away on that stage, and you know it. Performing is simply not in my nature.”
“You’re being silly. You made it through the audition, and Cameron said you were brilliant.”
“I nearly lost my breakfast during that audition,” Sophie said. “If I have to feel that way every time I get on stage, I may starve to death.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Ally said.
Sophie ignored her sister and continued with her dinner, saying little. Part of her—a part of her she hadn’t known existed until a few hours ago—longed to take the role. She had taken a risk this afternoon, and she had found pleasure unlike she’d ever imagined.
“Goodness, Sophie, you’re blushing,” Ally said. “What is there to be embarrassed about now? You got through the audition.”
Sophie locked her gaze on the second course the footman set in front of her—salmon croquettes, one of her favorites. Yet she had no desire to eat. The warmth in her cheeks rapidly spread to her neck.
“Leave her alone, Ally,” Evan scolded. “Let her eat in peace.”
Conversation rambled on around Sophie, but she didn’t join in. This day had turned into a conundrum. She’d auditioned for a musicale, gotten her first kiss from a man, and then let that same man molest her in broad daylight!
All very out of character for her. Who was Sophie now?
She did love singing, and if her voice could bring joy to others… But dear Lord, she would be ill every time she went on stage.
But being on stage… When she’d finally started singing, nearly forgetting anyone was watching her, and then the thunderous applause that followed—all of that had been truly heaven.
When supper had finally concluded, Sophie did not retire to the porch for tea with her mother and sister. Instead, she went back to the library. Surely she could find another book. Ally had told her of volumes that spoke of a woman’s sexual desire, and the book about the marriage bed certainly did no such thing.
Sophie slowly perused the books again, taking in each one in the sciences section. Finally, she found one with promise. Physiological Mysteries and Revelations in Love, Courtship, and Marriage by Eugène Becklard. Perhaps this would be more interesting. She grabbed the book off the shelf, nearly losing her footing once again, wrapped it tightly in her arms, and stole up the back stairway to her chamber.
She sat down on her bed, opened the book, and began to read.
Chapter One
Must man be born of a woman?
Indeed not. Adrastus contends that every living species the world contains has been from all eternity; and hence, that the time has never been when there was no man or woman; so that, according to his system, the human race cannot be the offspring of one general mother. And he further insists that the meanest reptile that crawls, is the representative of an equally everlasting line of ancestry. The last assumption, however has been set at nought by experiments in modern chemistry, though without showing the necessity of original parents for they not only argue that living animals of perfectly original construction may be produced at pleasure, and independent of the usual modes of generation; but they have actually so produced them.
That was about as clear as tar. And who was Adrastus? The author couldn’t be referring to the legendary king of Argos, could he?
Sophie flicked through the book quickly, looking for something, anything, to help her understand the physiology of men and women and their love. She stopped when the word “childbearing” caught her eye.
Period of Child-bearing.—Women may be ten, eleven, and even twelve months in a certain condition, the ignorance whereof, causes much domestic trouble, and has occasionally been the means of divorces. On the contrary, full grown children may be born in the seventh month after conception, and some say in the sixth, or even less, but I doubt them. At least, out of all my experience, I never had personal knowledge of a case of the sort, but one, and then I had my suspicions, grounded on various circumstances, apart from the main one, which were rather unfavorable to the lady's character. The law, which rarely, if ever, suffers itself to be guided by exceptions, holds it a proof of illegitimacy if the period of child birth is delayed until the tenth month after the husband and wife have lived together.
Even she wasn’t so naïve to think a human pregnancy lasted anything other than about nine months. Those who came early were most likely conceived out of wedlock, and those who came late were most likely the result of a feigned pregnancy.
Still no help. She continued leafing through the book.
