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“Confidence is generally considered to be a good trait in a builder,” said Viola.
“I have a long list of his transgressions to present to my brother Drew upon his return, chief amongst those being that Wright derided my dictionary.”
“Well then, that’s different,” said Isobel. “We can’t have males tearing down our achievements. What did he say?”
“He said that it wouldn’t be a financial success, and that not many people would want to read it.”
Her friends exchanged glances.
“He’s very wrong to have said it, I’m sure,” said Viola.
Beatrice studied her friends. “Wait. You don’t... Do you agree with him?”
“Darling, the merit of your dictionary has nothing to do with profit,” said Viola soothingly.
“Of course not,” said Isobel. “A very small and highly selective group of people will be ecstatic about your dictionary. I, for one, intend to purchase as many copies as I can get my hands on.”
Beatrice groaned. “You think it won’t be a success. That I’m laboring for nothing.”
“What, precisely, defines success?” asked Isobel. “If you’re proud of your work, then it’s successful.”
“I can’t believe this—my friends siding with an arrogant male.”
“I gather that Mr. Wright hurt your feelings,” said Isobel.
“He did more than that,” said Beatrice. “He made me think the most uncharacteristic thoughts.”
“What kind of thoughts?” asked Viola.
“Ninny-ish thoughts.”
“Define ninny-ish,” said Isobel.
Beatrice glanced at the footman standing by the door and lowered her voice. “I kissed him.”
“Youwhat?” exclaimed Isobel with a look of astonishment.
“Kissed him?” cried Viola at the same time.
“Hush, please,” said Beatrice. “That came out wrong. I didn’tactuallykiss him. I thought about it. I imagined a scenario in which I was the heroine of a Gothic novel and we met on a dark and stormy night in a haunted castle and I kissed him.”
“Well then,” laughed Viola. “That’s quite harmless. I kiss handsome men all the time in my mind. One in particular.” She blushed. “One whom I would never consider actually kissing. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means that I have a tragic flaw that I didn’t know about, but now I’m on guard against it ever happening again. I’ll never fall prey to such maudlin meanderings of the mind again.”
“Beatrice, just because you live most of your life inside your mind doesn’t mean that what happens there should be confused with reality,” said Isobel gently. “You’re so very intelligent and cerebral. Believe me, you haven’t committed any crime of character.”
Then why did Beatrice feel so shaken by her encounter with Wright? What had happened in the library was the antithesis of everything she believed herself to be: self-sufficient, independent, and impervious to sentimental longings and foolishness.
It was her childhood that had set her apart, molded her spine of steel and replaced her need for love with a craving for solitude and privacy.
Too many specialists and physicians in and out of her chambers with their ghoulish treatments, their supposed cures for her palsy.
She’d always known that she was different.
She’d never be her mother’s perfect little girl.
And so she’d given up trying to please her mother and had plotted a different course for her life, one that she’d thought out carefully and set in motion with great deliberation.
