Animating Maria (11 page)

‘You will find it an impossible task,’ said Maria in a low voice.

‘I don’t think so. I mean, they must be able to recognize ladylike qualities, else how did they manage to make such a good job of you?’

‘By beating me?’

‘All children are beaten. I must admit they carried it on a bit too long, but that dream-world you live in, Maria, can be infuriating. You must have had some eligible suitors in Bath, or were you determined to not even think of them because they were your parents’ choice?’

Maria hung her head.

Amy looked at her sympathetically. ‘There, now. Look your best for the ball, and for goodness’ sake, stop casting Berham in the role of villain!’

The couple, when they met on the eve of the ball, eyed each other with scarcely concealed dislike. Each was furious with the other for wanting to break the engagement. Each privately thought the other had no right to look so well. The duke was resplendent in black evening dress and a miracle of a cravat. His fair hair gleamed in the candlelight and his strange black eyes had a brooding look. Maria was wearing a pale-pink silk gown decorated with pearl embroidery. Pearls were wound through the thick tresses of her hair and a single row of pearls lay on her bosom.

Effy was wearing a girlish pale-blue muslin gown with a turban made out of swathed blue chiffon. Amy startled them all by appearing in a splendid scarlet velvet gown with long sleeves. It was her evening hat that almost made Effy groan with envy. It was of white satin with a high crown and narrow brim and lined with red satin. The red satin band round the crown was decorated with a crescent-shaped diamond brooch. That brooch sparkled and glittered like Effy’s jealous eyes. ‘Where did you get that expensive bauble, Amy?’ she demanded.

‘Mr Haddon sent it to me,’ said Amy with a radiant smile. Maria thought with surprise that Amy looked really handsome. The fact was that that glorious present had made Amy feel attractive and fascinating, and when a good-hearted woman feels attractive and fascinating, she quite often is.

‘Really,’ said Effy crossly, ‘I do not know what Mr Haddon is about. It is not at all the thing to send expensive presents to an unmarried lady, and so I shall tell him.’

‘Do that,’ said Amy with a sweet smile, ‘and I shall hang you by your garters.’

The duke looked pointedly at the clock. ‘We are already late. It is time to leave.’

‘I hear Mr Randolph and Mr Haddon arriving,’ said Effy. ‘
Now
we can go.’

Maria thought it ironic that the two elderly Tribble sisters should be setting out for the evening with their gallants, showing all the pleasure and excitement of young girls going to their first ball, while she simply wished the evening were over. Then she remembered Beau would be there and began to experience some pleasurable anticipation.

The duke began to feel a little sorry for Maria. She was a beautiful girl. Such a pity she should have such terrible parents attached to her like a ball and chain. He would pay her particular attention so that society would think, when the break came, that it was Maria who had left him rather than the other way around.

Maria had been looking forward to dancing with Beau and even hoping he might take her in for supper. She had forgotten she had made him promise to entertain Amy and so she had to be content with the Duke of Berham as a supper partner.

Effy was furious when Beau invited Amy to waltz and then took her in to supper. Really, it was too bad of Yvette to make that hat for Amy and not to dream up a similar creation for her, Effy. Mr Randolph waltzed with her before supper and then both Mr Haddon and Mr Randolph took Effy into the supper room. Normally Effy would have been preening herself at having the company of these two middle-aged beaux, but jealousy of Amy was making her sour and bitter.

Supper was served at long tables in the Marriots’ dining room. When Mr Randolph was engaged in talking to the lady on his other side, Effy said to Mr Haddon, ‘I am amazed you should send such an expensive gift to poor Amy. It has quite gone to her head.’

Mr Haddon looked across the room at Amy and replied mildly, ‘Yes, she is wearing it in her hat. A good idea.’

Effy fanned herself vigorously. ‘I only hope you know what you are doing. I ’member in ninety-two – or was it ninety-three – when Amy received a diamond bauble from Colonel Withers and was quite in alt. Of course, his motives were of the worst, and the work I had to do to avert scandal! But at least there was no child.’

‘Are you trying to tell me . . . ?’

‘My wicked tongue!’ cried Effy. ‘La, Mr Haddon, it is an old scandal and best forgot. Now do not breathe a word to dear Amy about what I have said.’

Mr Haddon did not reply but pushed his food about his plate with his fork.

‘Would you say you are a good landlord?’ Maria was asking the duke.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My estates are in good order. My tenants have nothing of which to complain. Why do you ask?’

‘I was in John Street the other day. You know, one of those narrow streets between the Strand and the river. A shocking place.’

‘There are many shocking places in that area. What took you there?’

‘I went for a little walk with Miss Sunningdale. What a horrible sight it was. Crumbling stonework, broken windows. That anyone could charge rent from the poor people staying in such a rat hole is beyond me.’

‘There is something pointed about the tone of your remarks, Miss Kendall. What has John Street to do with me?’

‘You own it.’

‘I do? Well, perhaps I do own it. I have a great deal of property.’

‘And not a care in the world either,’ said Maria. ‘
You
don’t have to live there. I don’t think a penny has been spent on the place in years.’

‘I leave such matters to my agents.’

‘Good landlords, your grace, never leave such matters to their agents.’

‘Your parents no doubt being prime landlords, for example.’

‘Yes, they are!’ said Maria in surprise. ‘Papa owns a street of houses in the poorer area of Bath and he makes sure the roofs are always in good repair and that the very poor are not pressed for rent.’ She felt a warm glow. She had, she realized, been bitterly ashamed of her parents. It was wonderful to discover virtues in them.

‘Then perhaps before tomorrow’s church service, you will do me the honour of directing me to this John Street so that I may examine this slum for myself.’

He had hoped to throw her, but she said calmly, ‘Gladly.’

He studied her profile in silence for a few moments while he wondered how best to irritate her. ‘You have not asked me about my visit to your parents,’ he said.

‘I hope you were tolerably entertained,’ retorted Maria, knowing he was trying to unsettle her and determined not to show it.

‘It was a strange meeting,’ he said reflectively. ‘There were a great many servants.’

‘We do not have many servants. The house is too small. They must have been hired.’

‘So I gather. I hope for your sake and for your parents’ sake that that slut of a parlourmaid was one of the rented ones.’

‘Our servants are all respectable. Who is this parlourmaid?’

‘A wanton called Sally.’

‘Hired.’

Her calm manner was beginning to nettle him. ‘Ten footmen of various sizes and different liveries had been engaged to line the steps and cheer on my arrival,’ he said. ‘An orchestra in some room upstairs played ‘‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’’.’

But Maria had fallen under the influence of Amy Tribble. She put her napkin to her face and snorted with laughter.

She looked up at him with dancing eyes and the duke’s normally severe face broke into a charming smile as he looked down at her. The laughter died from Maria’s eyes and she felt uncomfortable and short of breath.

‘Everyone’s behaving strangely,’ commented Beau to Miss Amy Tribble. ‘There’s Berham smiling at Miss Kendall and both seem in high spirits, just when I had begun to think they did not like each other. And now your Mr Haddon keeps looking in this direction and he is becoming angrier by the minute.’

‘He might have indigestion,’ said Amy anxiously. ‘The food is very rich.’

She looked across the room at Mr Haddon, who pointedly turned his head away and then began to talk to Effy with great animation. Effy’s blue eyes sparkled and she said something and rapped Mr Haddon playfully with her fan. ‘I’ll kill her,’ muttered Amy through her teeth.

‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Beau surprised.

‘Nothing,’ muttered Amy. ‘Pass the wine.’

There was one more waltz that evening. Beau managed to get Maria as a partner and Mr Haddon asked Amy to dance.

For a few blissful moments, Amy was happy. All her normal clumsiness fled and she floated round the room in Mr Haddon’s arms. ‘I am very proud of my brooch,’ said Amy.

‘Do believe me, Miss Amy,’ said Mr Haddon, ‘when I say it was merely a trinket given by one old friend to another.’

A shadow crossed Amy’s eyes. ‘I did not think it anything else,’ she said defensively and then stepped on his toes.

‘I was worried that your sad experience with Colonel Withers might have led you to think differently.’

‘Who is Colonel Withers?’

‘The man who gave you a diamond bauble in ninety-two or around then, and then . . . and then . . .’

‘And then
what
?’ demanded Amy, stopping still.

Mr Haddon looked this way and that, but Amy’s fine eyes were boring into him.

‘Why,’ he said disastrously, too nonplussed to choose his words, ‘Miss Effy said it was a mercy there was no baby.’

‘Hear this,’ grated Amy. ‘I never knew a Colonel Withers, nor would I dream of lying like a trull with any man outside marriage. Effy has been pouring poison in your ears and you think so little of me, so
very
little, that you believed her.’ With shaking fingers she unpinned the brooch. ‘Take it back. I don’t want it now.’

‘Miss Amy, I should not have listened to her. Forgive me.’

Amy pressed the brooch into his hand and turned and walked away, leaving him standing in the middle of the floor. Effy was talking to Mr Randolph. She saw Amy bearing down on her like an avenging fury and realized Mr Haddon must have relayed the lies she had told. She squeaked with fear and shoved little Mr Randolph in front of her. Amy picked up the startled Mr Randolph by the arms and lifted him to one side and then seized her sister by the shoulders and shook her till her teeth rattled. Effy began to scream like a banshee. The ladies stood around helplessly and several of the gentlemen were crying, ‘A mill! A mill!’ and rapidly placing bets on the outcome of the fight. Maria broke through the watching circle and hurled herself on Amy, shouting, ‘Behave yourself, Miss Amy. You are a disgrace!’

The sound of her voice made Amy stop hitting and shaking Effy and swing about. She saw the ring of staring faces, the ladies shocked and the men grinning. Effy had slumped to the floor and was crying helplessly. Only Amy knew her sister was as tough as old boots and barely hurt, but Effy looked a fragile and pathetic picture.

She helped Effy to her feet and into a chair. ‘Smile and talk, damn you, Effy,’ hissed Amy. ‘Look as if nothing has happened.’

Effy rallied amazingly. She raised her fan and waved it languidly. ‘The provocation was great, sister dear,’ she said. ‘But you must not go on so or you will set the fashion for ladies’ wrestling.’

Amy burst out laughing, although the effort it cost her to look merry was painful, and the crowd drifted away.

Maria stood before the sisters. ‘How are you going to school my poor parents if this is the way you go on?’ she demanded.

‘I am sorry, Maria,’ said Amy. ‘So very sorry. But we are famous for our eccentricity. When one is of the best
ton
, outrageous behaviour is considered eccentric. When one is not, one’s social life is ruined.’

Maria was claimed by her next partner and soon found out that what Amy had said was the truth. Everyone seemed to be laughing and joking about the Tribble sisters and saying weren’t they monstrous cards and one never knew what they would do next.

She began to look forward to the following morning. The proud and haughty Duke of Berham would no doubt simply stare at his horrible property and turn away. That was the moment when she would tell him the engagement was off.

Amy refused Mr Haddon’s escort on the road home, and Mr Randolph, unnerved by her cold behaviour, chattered feverishly to Effy. The duke then told Amy and Effy he would be calling at ten in the morning to take Maria for a drive.

‘What an odd time,’ commented Amy after they had said good night to the gentlemen.

‘I told him about that property of his in John Street,’ said Maria, ‘and he said he would go there with me and look at it.’

‘What is all this?’ demanded Effy sharply.

Amy ignored her. She rounded on Maria. ‘You surely did not tell him all that rubbish you told me.’

‘No,’ said Maria. ‘I merely told him his property was in disgraceful repair,’ She turned to Effy. ‘Berham owns some disgraceful rookery in John Street.’

Effy patted her hand. ‘All the nobility own disgraceful property somewhere or another. It is most unladylike to comment on it.’

‘You are no longer in a position to say what is or is not ladylike,’ said Amy.

‘I was only joking.’ Effy began to cry.

But for once Amy looked on her unmoved. ‘I shall never forgive you, Effy,’ she said.

She strode from the room. Maria ran after her and followed her up to her bedroom. ‘What has happened between you?’ she asked. ‘Why were you and Miss Effy fighting?’

‘The jealous cat told Mr Haddon that I had received a present from a fictitious Colonel Withers who then seduced me, and Mr Haddon believed her! I gave him back his diamond brooch.’

‘Miss Effy must have been so very jealous,’ said Maria quietly. ‘You looked magnificent this evening. And of course Mr Haddon would have been frightfully jealous also – jealous, I mean, of this so-called Colonel Withers. He is a very sensible man and could not have believed such a thing unless he was jealous, now could he?’

Hope and despair warred on Amy’s face. ‘You see,’ went on Maria, ‘Miss Effy is very dainty and pretty, quite like a piece of Dresden, and she does try so very hard, and yet it is you, Miss Amy, that the gentlemen appear to prefer. I think you should find it in your heart to be charitable and forgive your sister.’