Animating Maria (14 page)

She trailed back to her own room. Her eye fell on a prayer stool in the corner, seldom used. What could God do to help one silly ageing virgin? But surely, thought Amy, there was no harm in asking. Perhaps God answered all prayers but often the answer was no, which made people like herself think He had more important things to do. Praying that Maria might marry her duke after all was surely worldly vanity. But then, Maria’s happiness was not. Amy sank to her knees and bowed her head. She would pray for Maria’s happiness and forgiveness for her own folly and then just wait and hope.

The Kendalls were ready to leave by three in the afternoon. Their round little figures were still stiff with outrage as they came down the stairs, holding hands.

Harris, the Tribbles’ butler, held open the door. Amy and Effy dropped low curtsies. Then, as they all stood in silence, Maria came down the stairs, and Amy winced when she saw her reddened eyes. Obviously, Maria’s dreams had not been strong enough to keep grief away forever.

And then Harris looked out into the street where the footmen were strapping the Kendalls’ boxes and trunks onto the roof of their enormous travelling carriage when his jaw dropped. He turned and said in a croaking voice, ‘It’s His Royal Highness, ladies, and he is coming here.’

‘Slap me,’ said Mr Kendall faintly.

The Prince Regent had heard about the Tribbles’ fight at the ball and had laughed very much, and so that had led to more anecdotes about the Tribbles being poured into the royal ears. The prince had met the two sisters briefly in the past but he was now determined to call on these eccentric wonders.

He entered the hall and looked about him in great good humour. Effy and Amy sank into court curtsies, as did Maria. Mrs Kendall tried to copy them and ended up sitting down on the floor. Mr Kendall bowed lower and lower until he over toppled and stretched his length at the royal feet.

The prince roared with laughter. Stories about the Tribbles had recently become the fashion at elegant dinner tables, and he was delighted to think he would be able to come out with some really new adventures.

‘Please step this way, Your Royal Highness,’ said Amy. To the prince’s glee, Amy and Effy stepped over the fallen Mr Kendall as if he did not exist and led the way upstairs.

In the drawing room, seated in front of a cheerful fire and with a glass of the very best burgundy in his fat hand, the prince looked around him with pleasure. He was not interested in Maria; it had been a long time since young women had taken his fancy. For a long time now he had preferred women older than himself. The Kendalls had crept in and were standing, looking at him in awe.

Their dumbfounded admiration pleased this normally unpopular prince. ‘Who are these people?’ he asked.

The Kendalls moved closer together for comfort. Surely Amy Tribble was going to tell the Prince Regent of their vulgarity.

‘Miss Kendall is our latest charge,’ said Amy. ‘She is engaged to the Duke of Berham. Allow me to introduce her parents, Mr and Mrs Kendall of Bath. They are staying with us before the wedding to acquire some town bronze.’

‘Most important, hey?’ said the prince expansively. ‘Sit down by me, Kendall.’

Trembling, Mr Kendall released his wife’s hand and moved across the room gingerly as if walking on broken glass. He sat down in a chair next to the prince, his fat body shaking like a jelly.

‘So you run a sort of school for manners, Miss Effy?’ said the prince, casting an appreciative eye over Effy’s dainty figure and cloud of silver hair.

‘Yes, sire,’ said Effy. ‘We have been most successful.’

‘So I hear. None of our aristocracy will be safe from you. Damn me, if learning manners and bowing and scraping ain’t a harder thing to do than fight a war.’ The fat royal face clouded over. The prince had begged to lead his troops into battle and had not been allowed to go.

Mr Kendall found his voice. ‘But, sire, with your royal presence always before us in the country to set an example in manners and dress and decorum, it can only do good, bring a refining example into the coarsest bosom.’

‘You’re a fine fellow, Kendall,’ said the prince expansively. ‘I like your style but not your coat. Put yourself in these ladies’ hands and they’ll soon have you looking as fine as fivepence, hey?’ He turned his attention back to Effy. ‘But you are not leaving us? I saw a monstrous carriage outside with all sorts of bags.’

Effy looked wildly to Amy for help and Amy said smoothly, ‘Mr and Mrs Kendall are just arrived.’

‘Welcome to London,’ said the prince.

Mrs Kendall began to cry and he looked at her like a pouting baby. ‘What’s the matter with that woman?’

Mrs Kendall sank to her knees. ‘Oh, sire,’ she sobbed. ‘I am overcome with the honour. I shall treasure this moment until the day I die.’

The fat royal face cleared and the prince looked vastly pleased. He would talk about this at dinner. ‘Woman was so overcome by our presence, she fell on the floor and burst into tears,’ he would say.

He rose to his feet. ‘We wish you well, Miss Amy, Miss Effy. Make sure you do not refine Mr and Mrs Kendall too much. There is an honest simplicity in their manners which pleases us.’ He bowed to the company, squeezed Effy round the waist, patted Maria’s hand and wished her well in her forthcoming marriage, and took his leave.

Amy took a deep breath. ‘Harris,’ she said, ‘Mr and Mrs Kendall will be staying after all. Take the bags off the coach again.’

Effy waited nervously for the Kendalls to refuse. But they were still shaken and awestruck. Amy looked at Maria. But Maria’s eyes were still clouded with dreams and she did not seem to have heard.

Amy was to say afterwards that it was the first time the house in Holles Street had really been turned into a school. The carpets were rolled up in the drawing room, and every afternoon Effy would sit at the piano while Maria danced with her father and Mr Haddon danced with Mrs Kendall and Amy sat in front of them like a ballet master, rapping out the time with a long cane. ‘And
one
and
two
and . . . no, no,
no
, Mr Kendall,’ Amy would cry. ‘You bow with a flourish. Do show him, Mr Haddon.’

Maria was enjoying the change in her role with her parents. Now it was she who was passing on all her knowledge and training that she had learned from dancing masters and deportment mistresses and governesses. But deep inside her was a niggling sorrow that neither the duke nor Beau had called. Amy had not told her that all callers other than Mr Randolph or Mr Haddon had been refused admittance.

When the dancing was over, Mr Kendall received further instruction in important matters such as how to open a snuff-box with one hand, how to carry a quizzing-glass, how to hold a muff, how to make calls, how
not
to mention the price of everything, and how to remain silent on all subjects he knew nothing about. Mrs Kendall had to work on her curtsy, put most of her jewellery back in the jewel box, and learn the novelty of changing her linen at least once a week instead of once every three months. Amy found to her distress that she was beginning to like the Kendalls immensely and the fact that they trusted her to see that Maria did marry the duke after all felt like a heavy burden on her shoulders. She was so intent on schooling them that she did not have much time for Yvette and baby George.

Yvette was beginning to feel ill-used for the first time. Usually after she had remodelled the wardrobe of whatever charge the sisters had taken on, she could manage to take things easier. But now she had Mrs Kendall’s gowns to cope with and designing and stitching for a very large woman meant hours of sewing.

She would have found her life very hard indeed had not Mr and Mrs Kendall begun to find her little sewing room a refuge from the terrors of fashionable schooling. They were sorry for Yvette and adored her baby. Mr Kendall bought George a splendid baby carriage made of cane and lined with blue silk and he and Mrs Kendall delighted in taking the baby to the Park. In her way, it was Yvette who did more to encourage them to go on with their schooling than Amy or Effy. She would sit and stitch and say in her practical way that society was hard and one had to know the rules and play the game. It was of no use pointing out that Amy Tribble had a coarse tongue, for everyone knew the Tribbles were good
ton
and once you had become accepted, then nothing you could do could make you unacceptable unless of course you were a virgin who erred or a wife who paraded her affairs.

Slowly the schooling began to take effect. Although the Kendalls might still be coarse inside, they had quickly learned to remain silent. Mrs Kendall began to present a fashionable appearance, and when Mr Kendall’s new clothes arrived from the tailor, Amy decided it was time to break their seclusion.

Amy went out on calls around her friends looking for a suitable occasion to launch her new charges, an occasion where the duke would be present.

At last she arranged with Mrs Marriot that a
fête champêtre
in the Surrey fields would be just the thing, provided the recent good weather held. Amy decided to take a gamble and gave Mrs Marriot money towards the expense, enlisting that lady’s help in seeing that the Kendalls did not disgrace themselves.

Maria was more nervous than her parents when the day of the fête arrived. For the first time in her life, she was on easy terms with them. ‘Don’t know how you put up with all this, Maria,’ her father would groan after an exhausting afternoon in which Mr Randolph, who had been press-ganged into helping, had given him instruction of how to raise his hat, how to wear it at exactly the right angle, and how to carry a bicorne, that collapsible hat, under his arm when wearing full dress.

The day dawned sunny and pleasant, a rare occurrence as the freakish English weather seemed to delight in breaking on the very day some society hostess had planned an outdoor event.

They made their way to the Surrey side in open carriages. Mrs Kendall was glad she was allowed to wear one of the new Leghorn straw hats, for the Tribbles had forbidden her to carry a parasol until she learned the proper use of it. This quite bewildered Mrs Kendall, who had previously thought one used it simply to keep the sun off one’s face, but it now appeared it could be a deadly social weapon, lowered or dipped at just the right angle to depress the attentions of the pretentious or twirled occasionally to show off the silk covering. She was told to remember her fan must always be carried by the
end
, which had to be pinched between the fingers, and on no account to open it until such time as the sisters were able to teach her the intricate language of the fan.

‘Cannot I use it just to keep cool?’ Mrs Kendall had protested, but it seemed the fan was one of those originally useful things, like a quizzing-glass or walking-stick, that had acquired a whole list of dos and don’ts.

Maria was wearing a white muslin morning gown with a blue sprig and a pelisse of pale-blue sarsenet. Her wide-brimmed straw hat was lined with blue satin, and blue satin streamers fell from the crown and down her back. She kept wondering if the duke would be there and wondering nervously what he would think of her parents, yet she was determined to snub him should he show them any coldness. Mr and Mrs Kendall had been instructed to keep out of the duke’s way, should he put in an appearance, as much as possible. They were doing very nicely, Amy had said, but they had a long road to travel.

To Maria, they were still the old parents and she could not see much change in them apart from their new easy manner towards herself. But Mr Haddon, who was travelling with them, thought there was a marked change. Mrs Kendall in wine-coloured silk looked a plump and dignified figure, and Mr Kendall in a well-fitting coat, pantaloons and Hessian boots looked like a gentleman for the first time.

Maria’s dream lovers had come between her and the duke and she had almost forgotten what he looked like. When she set eyes on him as they alighted from the carriages she was startled to find he was so very handsome. For his part, the duke felt a lifting of his spirits when he saw Maria. At first he did not recognize the couple with her as the Kendalls of Bath, and when he did, he began to wonder if he had been too hard on them. They were so quiet, so sedate, and so impeccably dressed that he could not quite believe they were the same people.

He asked Maria to walk with him for a little. Maria glanced up at his profile and made up her mind. The engagement had to be broken. There was no point in playing silly games and waiting for him to show some softer feeling. He never would. She doubted if he would ever be capable of romantic feelings towards any woman.

‘I am glad of this opportunity to speak to you,’ said Maria.

‘You would have had plenty of opportunities to speak to me had you granted me audience,’ he said. ‘I became quite weary of being told that you were not at home.’

‘No one told me you had called.’

He looked down at her in surprise and was all at once furious with the Tribbles until he reminded himself that he had offered them money to turn Maria against him.

‘What is it you wish to say?’ he asked curiously.

‘If you will remember, I promised you that if you took my parents in dislike, then I would release you from the engagement.’

‘Yes, I do remember.’

‘Then you are free, sir. Perhaps your secretary would be so good as to send an announcement to the newspapers to the effect that the engagement has been ended.’

It was what he had wanted . . . was it not?

And yet he had so much to tell her. He had wanted to show her the architect’s plans for that village. He had wanted her to drive out with him and inspect the site. No one else was interested. His agent was sulky and his mother thought he was mad. His friends said that coddling the poor would start a revolution, and it was courting disaster not to keep them in their proper places.

‘I did not say I disliked your parents,’ he said stiffly.

‘But you implied you found your visit ridiculous.’

‘As you did when I told you of it.’ She looked cool and pretty. A warm breeze was blowing across the field. An errant tendril of hair blew across her cheek.