Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

to marry with her head held high.”
    â€œMarry whom?”
    Miss Rose did not tell him at that moment but she already had someone in mind. It was Michael Steward, twenty-eight years old, an officer in the English fleet anchored in the port of Valparaíso. She had found out through her brother John that the sailor came from an old family. They would not look fondly on the marriage of their oldest son and only heir to a girl who had no name and no fortune and furthermore lived in some godforsaken country they had never heard of. It was indispensable for Eliza to be provided with an appealing dowry and for Jeremy to adopt her, that way at least the question of her origins would not stand in the way.
    Michael Steward had an athletic bearing, an innocent, blue-eyed gaze, blond sideburns and mustache, good teeth, and an aristocratic nose. The weak chin robbed him of perfection and Miss Rose hoped to speak to him in private and suggest that he disguise it by letting his beard grow. According to Captain Sommers, the youth was a model of morality and his impeccable service record guaranteed him a brilliant career in the navy. In Miss Rose’s eyes, the fact that he spent so much time at sea would be a great plus for whoever married him. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced she had found the ideal man, but she knew that given Eliza’s nature, she would not accept him for the sake of convenience, she would have to love him. There was hope: the man looked handsome in his uniform, and no one had yet seen him without it.
    â€œSteward is a dunce who happens to have good manners. Eliza would die of boredom married to him,” Captain John Sommers protested when Rose told him of her plans.
    â€œAll husbands are boring, John. No woman with an ounce of sense gets married to be entertained, she marries to be maintained.”
    Eliza still looked like a little girl, but her education was complete and soon she would be ready to marry. There was some time left, Miss Rose concluded, but she must act decisively so that a more quick-witted girl did not snatch away the candidate. Once her mind was made up, she concentrated on the task of attracting the officer, using every tactic she could imagine. She scheduled her musical gatherings to coincide with the dates of Michael Steward’s shore leaves, with no consideration for her other guests, who for years had saved Wednesday for that sacred engagement. Annoyed, some stopped coming. Which was precisely what Rose had hoped; she was able to transform the placid musicales into lively dancing and replenish the guest list to include young bachelors and marriageable girls from the foreign colony, replacing the tedious Ebelings, Scotts, and Appelgreens who were turning into fossils. The poetry and voice recitals gave way to parlor games, informal balls, contests of wit, and charades. She organized complex picnics and beach outings. They would set off in coaches, preceded at dawn by heavy carts with leather floors and straw canopies and carrying servants charged with setting out countless luncheon baskets beneath tents and parasols. Stretching before them were fertile valleys planted with fruit trees and grapes, wheat and corn fields, the steep coastline where the Pacific Ocean exploded into clouds of foam, and, in the distance, the snowy cordillera profiled starkly against the sky. Somehow Miss Rose would arrange things so Eliza and Steward traveled in the same carriage, sat together, and were partners in the ball games and pantomimes, but in cards and dominos she separated them because Eliza stoutly refused to let anyone beat her.
    â€œYou must allow the man to feel superior, child,” Miss Rose patiently explained.
    â€œThat is very difficult,” Eliza, unmoved, responded.
    Jeremy Sommers could do nothing to stop his sister’s sea swell of expenses. She bought fabrics wholesale and kept two of the maids sewing all day, copying the latest dresses from