Taming of Annabelle (2 page)

But how could she even begin to plan to take Lord Sylvester’s affections away from Minerva, if Lord Sylvester himself were never present to be charmed?

Although the vicarage boasted a cook-housekeeper, a housemaid, an odd man, and a coachman, Annabelle was expected to help with the household chores. As these thoughts ran through her head, she
was engaged in removing grease spots from the plush upholstery of the dining chairs, a messy business which involved rubbing the stains gently with hot bread rolls.

Minerva and her mother were not expected home until the afternoon and Annabelle planned to put on her best dress just in case Lord Sylvester accompanied them.

She did not, therefore, even pause from her task at the sound of carriage wheels on the weedy gravel of the short drive outside, assuming her father had returned from his parish rounds.

Then she dropped the last roll in consternation as her mother’s plaintive voice sounded outside, saying, ‘Is there
no one
to welcome me?’

Annabelle ran to the window and looked out. If Lord Sylvester had arrived then she would escape to her room and prettify herself as fast as she could.

But there was only the small person of Mrs Armitage, who was languidly directing a brace of magnificent footmen to be careful with the baggage.

Lord Sylvester’s coach had arrived, but without either his lordship or Minerva.

Annabelle ran out and hugged her mother and planted a kiss on that lady’s withered cheek.

‘Mama! Where is Minerva? Why are you come alone?’

‘I feel monstrous travel sick,’ said Mrs Armitage faintly, disengaging herself from her daughter’s embrace. ‘Do not fuss so, child. I must lie down. I can feel one of my
Spasms coming on.’

But Annabelle, unlike Minerva, was not to be intimidated by her mother’s famous Spasms. ‘You
cannot
disappear to your room, Mama, without first giving me intelligence of your
visit. How do they live? Are they very grand?’

‘Oh, very well,’ sighed Mrs Armitage, capitulating. ‘But let me indoors to remove my bonnet and tell Mrs Hammer to fetch me a dish of tea.’ Mrs Hammer was the
cook-housekeeper.

Annabelle fled to the kitchen and was soon back to join her mother who was seated by the fire in the parlour.

It’s so
good
to be home,’ said Mrs Armitage. ‘The Duke and Duchess of Allsbury live in
such
a grand manner. And so many guests, coming and going! And the clothes,
my dear. The fashions! I felt quite the country dowd, although Minerva lent me some items from her wardrobe. It is as well that Lady Godolphin was so generous. Not that her grace is too high in the
instep. She gave me a good recipe for Shrewsbury cake which surpasses ours. And she . . .’

‘But what of
Minerva
?’ interrupted Annabelle impatiently.

‘Oh, Minerva seems quite accustomed to the grand life. I declare, you would think she had been bred to it. Not that Lady Godolphin could have taught her much in the way of decorum, for
that lady arrived when we were staying there and I was never more shocked. She dresses like laced mutton and mixes up all her words. Kept referring to dear Lord Sylvester as Minerva’s
“fancy”. I only realized after a time, she meant fiancé. The Duchess is to furnish the bride’s gown, which is a blessing. Thousands of guineas it must have cost.
Real Brussels lace over white satin and a vastly fetching cottage bonnet of Brussels lace with two feathers and . . .’

‘Mama!’ said Annabelle slowly and carefully. ‘
Where
is Minerva and why has she not returned?’

‘Because of
you
, my dear,’ exclaimed Mrs Armitage.

Annabelle suddenly blushed. Had Minerva discovered, somehow, her secret passion for Lord Sylvester?

In a daze, she heard her mother going on, ‘Minerva felt it would be a good opportunity for you to go on a visit to meet some suitable gentlemen and become accustomed to the ways of the
ton
since you are too young to make your come-out . . .’

‘I am seventeen!’ protested Annabelle, though her heart had begun to beat erratically. She would see
him
again.

‘To meet some young gentlemen,’ pursued Mrs Armitage. ‘The Duke’s servants are putting up at the inn and you are to travel tomorrow . . .’

‘Tomorrow! I have nothing to wear.’

‘Well, as to that. Lady Godolphin gave Minerva a most extensive wardrobe and you are of a size. Such a disgraceful old lady. She is only a distant relation of mine, some sort of cousin who
isn’t far enough removed. I must say there has always been bad blood in that family. Now, I am fatigued with the journey and there are your things to be packed. Tell Betty’ –
Betty was the housemaid – ‘she is to help you pack and prepare to travel with you, since you must have a maid. And put on your bonnet and go to Mr Macdonald’s shop and choose some
silk ribbons to trim your blue velvet gown which will be just the thing for travelling in this weather.’

Annabelle tried to find out more about the Duke’s residence, and who was staying there at present and who were these young men she was to meet, but Mrs Armitage only closed her eyes and
languidly complained of the headache and so Annabelle had to content herself with saving all her questions for the evening.

The day was steel grey and cold as she walked towards the village of Hopeworth. A faint powdering of snow dusted the thatch of the houses and lay on the frozen ruts in the road.

Annabelle’s brain was in a whirl. For the first time, her supreme self-confidence began to fail and she experienced a qualm of fright at the thought of meeting high society in the mass for
the first time. What vails did one give the servants, for example? And did one give them money when one arrived or when one left?

But Minerva would know, she thought with a sigh of relief. And straight after that pleasant thought came one of pure irritation that her sister, her rival, should know to a nicety as to how to
go on with members of the
ton
when she, Annabelle, did not.

The shop was fairly busy and Mr Macdonald’s young men were pivoting themselves over the counter with amazing ease, their faces shining and their coat tails flying. Farmers and country
people from the neighbourhood were standing around, sleeking down their hair, and glancing shyly about as they summoned up the courage to ask one of the smart young shop assistants to find them
some notion to take back to their wives or daughters.

Annabelle was turning over various colours of silk ribbons in a box when two young exquisites entered the store.

‘I know it’s all very rustic and these yokels do stare so, George,’ drawled one, ‘but a chap can find amazing bargains in these backwaters.’

‘If you say so, Cyril,’ said his companion with a little titter.

Annabelle studied them covertly. Both were slap up to the nines in blue swallowtail coats and Marseilles waistcoats. They smelled strongly of musk. Their hair was teased and curled and pomaded.
Although the one called George had brown hair, and his friend Cyril, black, they somehow looked remarkably alike. But one thing was evident to Annabelle, both were Pinks of the
ton
.

She decided to listen to their conversation to see if she could pick up some crumbs of fashionable speech to use on her visit.

‘How’s Barry?’ asked the one called George.

‘Oh, still at College. Got enough money to pay chummage though. Got two chums to rough it sleeping on the stairs. I told him not to play in that low dive. That Greek ivory turner used a
bale of bard cinque deuces on him so its all Dicky with poor Barry. He was in his altitudes at the time. Well, now he’s in the nask. See here, fellow, let me see a bale of that sea-green
silk.’

‘Sea green. Sea sick,’ laughed George.

Both took out long quizzing glasses and squinted at the material.

‘What you want it for?’ demanded George.

‘Coat . . . to wear at Almack’s next Season.’

‘No, no, no, dear chap!’ exclaimed Cyril, raising his white hands in horror. ‘They’ll think you’re Henry Cope. Can’t wear
green.
Definitely old hat,
dear boy.’

George let out an almost feminine scream of laughter. ‘Oh, let’s be on our journey. I do not know why you must stop in these dingy places.’

They drifted out, arm in arm, leaving a strong aroma of musk behind them.

‘It’s not my place to criticize my betters,’ said a burly coachman roundly. ‘But them back gammon players make me want to flash my hash. Oh, I
beg
your pardon,
Miss. I forgot you was there. I hope you didn’t understand what they were saying. Not for the ears of a lady.’

‘I didn’t hear a word,’ lied Annabelle sweetly.

‘That’s a mercy,’ said the coachman. ‘It’s all the fashion for them fribbles to talk coachee as they calls it, but there’s few of us would use that sort of
cant, ’specially when there’s ladies around.’

He moved away to buy green tea at the opposite counter and Annabelle turned over in her mind all the mysterious conversation she had heard.

She had heard that it was fashionable to use coachman’s slang and underworld cant. Now Minerva would
never
use a cant word but would not she, Annabelle, appear to advantage if she
mastered the art? The men had not been saying anything very bad, after all. They had been talking about some friend at college. And then they had said green was ‘old hat’. Well, that
obviously meant something that was no longer fashionable.

It is to be understood that Annabelle was suffering from a kind of mini-madness. She no longer paused to think much about the fact that plotting to take Lord Sylvester away from her sister was
wrong. Annabelle had always rather despised Minerva, much as she loved her. Minerva always seemed to be moralizing about something, and although much of the old priggish, martyred Minerva had
disappeared since her engagement, she had not been home much, and, in any case, Annabelle, blinded by jealousy, had noticed no change. The lovelight shining in Minerva’s eyes seemed to her
younger sister very much the manifestation of Minerva’s former do-goody fervour.

She did not think for one moment that Minerva was passionately in love with Lord Sylvester. Minerva had been sent to London to catch a rich husband so that the failing Armitage fortunes might be
saved. Had not papa told her she must be a martyr? And so Minerva had martyred herself. Now, should Lord Sylvester prefer the fair Annabelle, then there would be no harm done. The Comfrey money
would be kept in the family.

These cheerful thoughts occupied Annabelle’s mind after she had purchased the ribbons and was walking home towards the vicarage. At dinner that evening Mrs Armitage was irritatingly vague
about the Duke’s residence. Lord Sylvester had, of course, his own estate. The Allsbury mansion was called Haeter Abbey, Haeter being one of the family names. Yes, it was large. Yes, there
were a lot of servants. But although Annabelle’s four younger sisters, just back from school in nearby Hopeminster, also plied their mother with questions, none of them could gain a clear
picture of Haeter Abbey. The twins were in London, cramming for Eton at a preparatory school.

Then Annabelle noticed that fifteen-year-old Deirdre was wearing one of her best dresses and had put her red hair up.

‘How dare you!’ snapped Annabelle. ‘Sitting there like a guy. Do talk to her, mama. That is one of my gowns which Betty should have packed.’

‘It is very becoming with her unfortunate colour of hair,’ said Mrs Armitage. ‘Minerva will have many gowns for you, Annabelle. You should not grudge your little sister
one.’

‘Deirdre is thoroughly spoiled,’ sniffed Annabelle, who like most of the human race was quick to criticize her own faults in others. ‘Go upstairs this instant, miss, and take
it off.’

‘If you wish,’ whispered Deirdre, ‘but I shall tell papa that you are in love with Lord Sylvester.’

‘Hey, what’s that?’ demanded the vicar from the head of the table.

Annabelle felt her cheeks burning. ‘I was just telling Deirdre that she may keep my gown,’ she said.

‘Oh, hey! Women’s stuff,’ said the vicar. ‘Which reminds me, I’ll have a word with you after dinner, Bella.’

Annabelle eyed her father nervously. He was a thickset man with a round, ruddy face and small, twinkling shoe-button eyes. Although he appeared to give all his thoughts to his horses and his
pack, he sometimes had an uncanny knack of knowing exactly what one was up to.

And so it was with a certain feeling of trepidation that she followed him into the study after the meal was over.

The study was crammed with old game bags, muddy boots, stuffed foxes, guns and rods and whips. The vicar shoved aside the miscellaneous clutter on his desk and sat down.

‘Well, Annabelle,’ he said, turning in his chair and facing her. ‘Off to join the world, hey?’

‘Yes, papa.’

‘See here. You’re a trifle young to be thinking o’ marriage. But I was never one for lookin’ a gift horse in the mouth and that there Marquess of Brabington seemed to
have a liking for you.’

‘Indeed, papa?’ said Annabelle primly. ‘I had not noticed.’

‘No?’ The vicar’s gaze suddenly became very sharp. ‘You ain’t got any silly notions into that brain box o’ yours, hey? Ain’t formed a
tendre
for
Comfrey?’

‘Lord Sylvester? No,’ said Annabelle faintly, glad that she was not blushing.

‘If you say so. Gels at your age get these fancies for an older man sometimes. He’s thirty-four.’

‘He’s not too old for Minerva.’

‘No. Cos she’s matured and you ain’t. She spoiled you, you know. You were only sixteen when you were canoodling in the six-acre with Guy Wentwater. Aye, that brings you to the
blush. Didn’t know I knew about
that
!’

‘Mr Wentwater was merely expressing his affection, and, furthermore, I have not heard from him since.’

‘Nor are like to,’ said the vicar grimly.

‘You did something to frighten him away,’ exclaimed Annabelle.

‘Not I,’ said the vicar, looking the picture of innocence, and mentally reminding the Almighty that it was sometimes politic to lie.

‘Anyways,’ he went on severely, ‘I want you to behave yourself. No flashing your eyes and ogling the fellows, mind!’