The Inimitable Miss Hartley: A Chronicle of Wit and Defiance

The Inimitable Miss Hartley: A Chronicle of Wit and Defiance

By Teresia Njeri

Chapter 1: The Unyielding Jewel of Ashcroft

Miss Evangeline Hartley of Ashcroft was a riddle few dared to solve. Her beauty—a blend of porcelain skin, storm-grey eyes, and ink-black tresses—was eclipsed only by her disdain for propriety. At eighteen, she had scandalised the county by refusing Lord Fenwick’s proposal with the quip, “I’d sooner debate Aristotle than mend your stockings.” Her late mother, a bluestocking heiress, had bequeathed her a library and a motto: “Why curtsey when you can conquer?” While matrons clucked over her hoydenish horseback rides and penchant for political pamphlets, Evangeline carved her own path, treating societal rules as faint chalk lines to be skipped over.

Chapter 2: The Pembrokes’ Ambiguous Assembly

The invitation from the Pembrokes arrived gilt-edged but reeking of ambition. Newly enriched by cotton mills, they hosted “salons” where poets collided with pork merchants. Evangeline accepted, smirking as she pinned up her hair. “Let them feast on their own absurdity,” she told her terrier, Balthazar. “Every circus needs its lion tamer.”

Chapter 3: A Grand Entrance, A Grander Reaction

Her arrival at Thornbrook Manor fractured the soirée’s fragile decorum. Gasps rippled as she swept through the doors in emerald sarcenet, her laugh cutting through the cloying lavender perfume. Miss Partridge, the rector’s daughter, dropped her fan. Sir Reginald Cox, mid-brag about his pheasant shoot, tripped over a footstool. Evangeline arched a brow at the ccurate,Mr. Alistair Graves—whose treatise on “ladylike silence” she’d publicly rebutted in The Ashcroft Gazette.

Chapter 4: The Mysterious Mr. Blackthorn

Near the marble hearth stood a stranger. Lucian Blackthorn, lately returned from Paris, leaned against a mantelpiece, his charcoal coat and sardonic half-smile marking him as an outsider. Whispers trailed him: a duel over a sonnet, a vanished fiancée, a rumoured translation of Voltaire. His gaze locked onto Evangeline. “The notorious Miss Hartley,” he mused to Mrs. Pembroke. “Does she duel with epigrams or actual pistols?”

Chapter 5: A Clash of Titans

Blackthorn intercepted her at the punch bowl. “They say you’ve read Wollstonecraft,” he ventured, offering a glass.

“And you,” she replied, “quote Byron to widows while secretly preferring botany. How tedious.”

His chuckle was low, conspiratorial. “Guilty. But is it not refreshing to meet someone who sees through the masquerade?”

“Masquerades bore me,” she said. “I prefer unmasked truths—however unflattering.”

Chapter 6: A Sonata of Rebellion

Coaxed to the harpsichord, Evangeline chose a Beethoven piece—allegro agitato. Her playing was a rebellion: staccato as gunfire, melodies twisting like debate. Blackthorn watched, arms folded, as pages fluttered to the floor. Later, he murmured, “You play as if the instrument wronged you.”

“All instruments do,” she said, “until they learn their place.”

Chapter 7: The Graceful Exit

By midnight, the air thickened with cigar smoke and sycophancy. Evangeline gestured for her cloak. Blackthorn materialized, blocking the doorway. “Leaving so soon? I’d hoped to lose an argument spectacularly.”

“Losing requires participation, sir,” she said, sweeping past. “Try again when your wit matches your waistcoat.”

Chapter 8: Schemes Scorned

Mrs. Pembroke cornered her in the portico. “Mr. Blackthorn’s estate brings five thousand a year! You could reform him—”

“Reform?” Evangeline snorted. “I’m no missionary for mediocre men. Redirect your zeal to improving the punch—it tastes like vinegar.”

Chapter 9: Starlit Sovereignty

Riding home sidesaddle (a concession to her maid’s nerves), Evangeline replayed the night. Blackthorn’s intellect had kindled something—not affection, but intrigue. A worthy adversary, she thought, grinning. Yet freedom, she knew, was sweeter than any man’s applause. She’d write her novel, breed roses, and let the world gossip.

Epilogue: The Authoress’ Triumph

Decades later, when A Woman Unshackled became the talk of London, a silver-haired gentleman sent a first edition to her cottage. The inscription read: “To E.H.—who taught me that equals need not kneel.” Evangeline smiled, tucked a dried rose into the pages, and returned to her writing.