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    The Winthrop Children Are Never Getting Married
    The Winthrop Children Are Never Getting Married
    The Winthrop Children Are Never Getting Married
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    The Winthrop Children Are Never Getting Married

    By Riley Smith

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    About this ebook

    Mrs. Winthrop has waited long enough for her five handsome, intelligent children to bring home new acquaintances and fall in love. The eldest three are old enough to be traveling, making friends, and turning one of those friends into a spouse. The fact that none of them seem to be interested in going any farther from home than the garden gate astounds and upsets her.
    One night, she positively scolds them, and in the ensuing argument, happens upon a lucky circumstance that at least sends her eldest son away to London on business. But before he leaves, he swears he will find no wife in London.
    It is always wise to be careful what you wish for, however, and as a cycle of happenstance draws each child away in turn and puts them in the way of love, their parents find their home growing empty and emptier. It all comes to a head when their daughter finds an utterly unsuitable object for her affection. Now it is up to Mrs. Winthrop to battle her way to the resort town of Bath and bring back her darlings, before they fall into what she would call the wrong hands.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Shorts
    Release dateSep 5, 2020
    ISBN9781094413402
    Author

    Riley Smith

    N/A

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      The Winthrop Children Are Never Getting Married - Riley Smith

      Chapter One: An Ominous Partridge

      Julia Winthrop knew something was very wrong when she sat down and saw her mother had served partridge at dinner instead of cold mutton. They had an excess of mutton, you see, having an innumerable amount of sheep on their lands, and it was her father’s favorite meal.

      Most nights, the family would simply sit down, have a few chomps of mutton, a few sips of ale or tea, depending on personal preference, and then they would depart for various after-dinner activities.

      For Mr. Alfred Winthrop, it was a good nap, or playing chess or cards with Julia and his eldest son, Also-Alfred (as Julia called him).

      For Mr. Also-Alfred Winthrop, it was reading the latest serial he had picked up from the village’s library subscription, or the aforementioned chess or cards. He would on occasion make use of the billiards table and slowly sip one glass of whiskey. His mother gave him up as a degenerate.

      Dr. Albert Winthrop, the second son, was only visiting temporarily, but he would pass his evenings in his filial home just as easily as he passed them in his own house three-quarters of an hour away in the little town of Stockton. He would read the latest medical journal he had managed to procure (which would invariably be at least two years old) or write letters to his friends from school. He also liked to chat peacefully with family and friends, but the Winthrops did not tend to do anything peacefully, so he often gave that up after a good try of ten or so minutes.

      The next child, Miss Alfreda Winthrop, who hated her name because it sounded so much like her father’s and older brother’s, was seventeen years old and so spent most of her evenings in a state of supreme emotional agitation. It was often released with much fury on the family’s pianoforte. Everyone knew when a concerto was being slammed into existence behind the parlor doors to not enter under any circumstances.

      After that was Miss Katherine Winthrop, sixteen, who would have gone by Kate but her mother forbade it. Miss Katherine was probably the only child who would actually avoid something if her mother forbade it, but she still signed her letters Kate when she thought her mother had no chance of seeing the missive. Miss Katherine spent her evenings reading improving books and did not even brag about it.

      Finally came young Miss Julia Winthrop, who quite liked her name because she felt it gave her an air of distinction, despite being only fourteen years old and therefore generally ignored by the world at large. However, Miss Julia (and her father) had a sneaking suspicion that she was indeed very important, and so in the evenings she would do what was proper of a heroine: sneak around and eavesdrop on conversations, join in on chess and billiards (entirely inappropriate for a young lady and utterly appropriate for a would-be heroine), and if she could ever catch hold of anything even remotely sword-shaped, she would play pirates for a while, though her mother said she was too old for that nonsense.

      Mrs. Winthrop was of the variety of person that claims to have a great nervousness and is in fact a steely, determined personage who gets their way through the power of their will. Her nervousness was simply the gentle agitation of not having her way in all things and not being able to achieve her purpose at all times . She was kind, considerate, and good at household management, but she often found the world a concerning, frightening place, since it dared to bend from her carefully laid plans. She was also a very sociable sort, so her evenings were usually spent trying to corral one of her brood for a lengthy conversation; failing that, she was excellent at needlepoint.

      So it was that when her eyes alighted on the partridge at dinner, Julia felt the poor bird only foreshadowed doom.

      She looked to see if any of her siblings had picked up on the bird’s appearance. Judging from their untouched plates, Dr. Albert and Katherine-not-Kate had. Also-Albert and Miss Alfreda were tucking into the meal with relish, and Julia shook her head at their blissful ignorance.

      Mr. Winthrop reached for his mug and took a gulp. What he found there caused him to sputter and nearly spit it back out. He looked into the mug with the glare of a monarch who had uncovered a treasonous plot.

      He said, This is not ale. This is wine! And wife, where is my mutton? Why have we this blasted tiny bird?

      Julia grimaced to Katherine-not-Kate, who shook her head, as if that would help her not be any part of this.

      Mrs. Winthrop said, I thought that I might display to our brood the kind of delicate fare we would be having, were any of them to ever invite a guest for dinner.

      Mr. Winthrop paused before gently asking, So this is a kind of test chicken? Because you want to have a dinner party?

      Mrs. Winthrop retorted, It is a partridge, and I do not think it unreasonably that of my four grown children, I might expect at least one of them to make a new acquaintance and bring them here. I have all this nice furniture, a great menu planned and ready at a moment’s notice, and we just redid the fireplace in the drawing room. Now every seat is pleasantly warm, I have tested it several nights in a row, but what good is having perfectly warmed seating for a group if there is never any group to visit?

      Also-Alfred rolled his eyes and groaned. "Mother, if you wanted to have a dinner party,

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