Violet was waiting, with a sort of dreary fatalism, for Clarence to propose marriage to her. Or rather, to her money. The only question was on which day of the voyage Aunt Caroline’s unsubtle bullying of her only son would triumph over Clarence’s tendency to eye Violet as though she were a particularly unattractive vegetable that had uprooted itself from the garden and learned to talk. Given that Clarence bore more than a passing resemblance to a weedy parsnip himself, this was equal parts relieving and insulting. It wasn’t as though he was incapable of normal human lust, or of recognising an
...more
