Taming of Annabelle (21 page)

Up in the galleries footmen, tradesmen and sailors whistled and howled and cracked nuts while the ladies of the night plied their trade, selling themselves for a shilling and a glass of rum.

In the main body of the audience the candlelight winked from quizzing glasses and opera glasses as society studied each other and ignored what was going on on the stage.

And it is doubtful if Mozart would have recognized parts of his opera. From time to time, his beautiful music was interrupted by one of the characters bursting into a well-known English popular
song – wildly applauded by the audience – before returning to the theme of the opera.

But to Annabelle, it was magic. Eagerly she followed the complications of the plot, sympathizing with the sisters, Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Secretly she thought she would never forgive any man
for the sort of trick the sister’s fiancés played on them – pretending to be two other men to test their fidelity. But she sighed with pure happiness when the four lovers were at
last reunited.

She turned a radiant face to the Marquess. ‘Oh,
thank
you,’ she said simply.

‘I had more enjoyment, I confess, watching your face than the production,’ he said. For a moment she caught a glimpse of the old warmth and affection in his face and a hand seemed to
clutch her heart, followed by a yearning to keep him looking at her in just that way.

She fretted while he lingered, talking to various people on their road out of the opera house. Was it really necessary to spend so much time speaking to Lady Coombes?

At last they were in the carriage together, jogging through the streets, and Annabelle was glad to leave the world of society behind. She chattered on enthusiastically about the opera and he
smiled lazily and promised to take her as much as he could during the Season.

‘But we are not going home!’ exclaimed Annabelle, looking out of the window.

‘I must beg you to forgive me again,’ he said with no hint of apology in his voice. ‘We are continuing a musical evening by going on to a
musicale
at Lord and Lady
Brothers’. They are friends of Sylvester and also of mine.’

‘You are treating me like a child, Brabington,’ said Annabelle sharply. ‘I do not like to be dragged hither and thither without a by-your-leave.’

‘All these invitations are in the card rack in the drawing room,’ he replied equably. ‘Although they come addressed to me, it is your privilege to reject those you do not wish
to attend.’

Annabelle bit her lip, and then said in a milder voice, ‘Perhaps I should have realized that, but I am not yet accustomed to the ways of society, and do not know yet as to how to go
on.’

He took her hand and held it in a light clasp.

‘I am a monster of thoughtlessness, am I not? You are so beautiful and so
mondaine
, my sweeting, that I forget you are new to the world. I shall behave myself in future.’ He
raised her hand and kissed it, and Annabelle experienced a suffocating feeling that was part pleasure, part pain.

‘I am pleased you are wearing some of the jewels. What did you think of them?’ he asked. ‘The diamond tiara is rather fine. I thought you would have worn it.’

‘I did not look at the rest,’ said Annabelle. ‘My new maid, Holden, selected these.’

‘You did not look!’ he echoed. Then he smiled. ‘On second thought, her choice was wise.’

They rode on in a companionable silence. ‘If only the evening could go on like this,’ thought Annabelle. ‘If only he does not make one of his lightning changes of mood.’

Annabelle was surprised to find her father and Squire Radford present. Her father gave her a hearty greeting as they took their seats for the
musicale.
A rather shrill soprano began to
sing several arias. The vicar promptly fell asleep and snored loudly. Squire Radford nudged him and he came awake with a shout of, ‘There he goes. After him boys!’ which infuriated the
singer and convulsed the company.

Annabelle was not aware of the length of the concert or of the strident tones of the diva. Her husband was holding her hand and she felt she would be content to sit like this for a very long
time indeed.

Squire Radford looked at the couple’s joined hands and nudged the vicar again. ‘I’m not sleepin’,’ grumbled the vicar. The Squire pointed and the vicar looked at
the clasped hands of the Brabingtons, a slow smile spreading over his ruddy face. ‘Praise be, we can go home now, Jimmy, and leave this pesky city. All’s well, heh!’

Annabelle drifted through the evening in a happy daze, her tall husband always at her side. There was no Lady Coombes and no Sir Guy Wayne.

Dawn was pearling the sky when they at last headed homewards. She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes contentedly, feeling the warmth of his body next to hers in the swaying coach,
lulled by the rhythmic clip-clop of the horses’ hooves over the cobbles.

With an arm around her waist he led her into the house in Conduit Street, and so they mounted the stairs. He stopped outside her bedroom door and took her very gently in his arms, feeling the
way her body yielded against his and noticing the way she turned her lips up for his kiss.

‘Not yet,’ he said, half to himself. He bent his head and kissed her very softly on the lips.

‘Goodnight,’ he said huskily and turned away.

‘Peter,’ she whispered urgently, but either he did not hear or affected not to. She stayed for a few moments, a crease of worry between her eyes, looking down the blackness of the
corridor, and then she slowly opened the door of her bedroom and went inside.

The next few days passed in a whirl of outings and parties, paying calls, and visiting Madame Verné so that a court dress could be made as quickly as possible.

The Marquess was now to be seen everywhere with his wife. He even came to Madame Verné’s with her, and to the fashionable plumier, Carberry, since ladies to be presented at Court
were obliged to wear at least seven plumes. Beneath the plumes, Annabelle was to wear on her head a garland of white roses resting upon a circlet of pearls. The finishing touches to her headdress
were to be given by diamond buckles, a diamond comb, and tassels of white silk.

As the Court dress was built around her Annabelle began to wonder how any lady was expected to move in it. When the bodice of her dress was fitted on, an enormous hooped skirt, three ells long,
was laced to her waist.

The skirt was made of waxed calico stretched upon whalebone. Over this skirt went a satin skirt, and over the satin skirt went one of tulle, ornamented with a large furbelow of silver lace.

A fourth and shorter skirt, also of tulle with silver spangles, ornamented with a garland of flowers, was turned up so that the garland surmounted the skirt crosswise. The openings of the tucks
were ornamented with lace and surmounted with a large bouquet of flowers. The bottom of the white satin dress with its silver embroidery was turned up in loops and did not reach the bottom of the
skirt, such being the fashionable etiquette, since only the royal princesses were allowed to wear skirts that were not turned up.

Madame Verné told Annabelle that one must try to wear
all
the jewels from one’s jewel box about one’s person.

The style seemed over-ornate and fussy to a girl as young as Annabelle who had grown up with the uncluttered, simple Grecian lines which were still very much in vogue.

She was also expected to carry a large bouquet of flowers.

But somehow the long and tedious fittings were fun, for the Marquess was always with her, telling her amusing stories, teasing her, and assuring her she would be the most beautiful lady at
Court.

Although he kissed her lightly each night, he showed no signs of wanting any increased intimacy, and Annabelle found herself beginning to long to see passion flame in his eyes. He was
hers
, her husband. She wanted to feel secure. She did not want to have to worry about designing harpies like Lady Coombes luring him away.

As she finally stood being made ready by Holden for the Court Drawing Room, she could not help wondering if he still regarded her as a child. Her father had left for the country after the
evening of the
musicale
, clapping her affectionately on the shoulder and congratulating her on ‘becoming a woman at last’.

Annabelle sometimes wondered if the Marquess were waiting for some show of warmth on
her
side. She had considered several times in the past few days trying to explain away the use of
Sylvester’s name on her wedding night. But, on consideration, she decided that, on the one hand, she did not want to lie to him, and, on the other, she was sure the truth would be too
shocking. She must, somehow,
show
him that he had all her love.

And that, thought Annabelle with surprise, was that!

She loved him.

She did not just want him because he was her husband, her property. She wanted his love in return.

Perhaps she should tell him she loved him. Just like that. Before they left for the Queen’s House.

But she dreaded the idea of rejection.

Feeling very strange and heavy in her Court dress and with nine white feathers bobbing on her head and a tremendous weight of jewels hung about her person, Annabelle was assisted down the stairs
by her anxious maid and two footmen, despite her protests that she would have to manage on her own once she got there.

The Marquess was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. He, too, was in full Court dress and Annabelle thought he had never looked more magnificent.

He was wearing a purple velvet coat ornamented with silver embroidery. His breeches were of fine silk edged with silver lace and he wore black shoes with diamond buckles. He had his dress sword
with a jewelled hilt at his side and he carried his chapeau bras under his arm. His black hair was covered with a white wig and diamonds blazed all over his body.

He surveyed her in silence and then smiled. ‘You look as if you are arising from a bouquet of flowers,’ he said.

He leaned forwards and kissed her lightly on the nose. ‘It’s rather like leaning over a flower bed to kiss a maid at the cottage window,’ he laughed.

‘As you have no doubt done many times, sir,’ said Annabelle.

‘If I have, I forget. I can see only you,’ he replied, his eyes serious.

Annabelle tried to say she loved him, but the servants were waiting and somehow the words caught in her throat.

The Queen’s House, the former residence of the Duke of Buckingham, stood at the end of the Mall. Although they had to wait in a long line of carriages, there was plenty to look at. All the
carriages were glittering with new varnish, new hammer cloths, and with two or three liveried footmen on the back. The horses, all in prime condition, moved proudly under heavy emblazoned
harness.

Trumpets were sounding and the Park and Tower guns were firing.

The Mall was lined by ranks of cavalry in scarlet, with their bright helmets and jet-black horses, their gloves of white buckskin stiffened so that the cuffs reached half way up the elbow.

The waiting was not over after the palace, or the Queen’s House as it was called, was reached.

Hundreds were arriving at the same time as Annabelle and the Marquess, and hundreds who had already paid their respects were trying to get away.

At the first landing of the entrance hall the staircase branched off into two arms, one arm being used for those going up, and the other for those going down. Both staircases seemed made up of
waving columns of plumes. Some were sky blue, some were tinged with red. There was violet, yellow, and shades of green. In the main, the plumes were snow-white like those worn by Annabelle. Then
there were jewels of every description, flashing and winking, catching fire and flame as the ladies twisted this way and that on the staircase to manoeuvre their hoops.

The men seemed as if they were trying to outshine the ladies in magnificence. One man looked like a jewellers’ display case, he had so many gems laid out on his portly person.

The Exquisites flocked about, dressed in the ultrapitch of fashion, each collared like the leader of a four-horse team, pinched in the middle like an hourglass, with a neck as long as a goose
and a cravat as ample as a tablecloth. Quite a number of the men were rouged, and one elderly gentleman even wore patches. Some of the younger, more willowy Pinks of the
ton
had tinged the
palms of their hands with vermilion and had whitened the backs with enamel.

A young Merveilleux caused Annabelle to stare. He was so perfumed and wigged and corseted and painted that she wondered if anything could be left of the original man when he was dismantled by
his valet for the night.

But at least, Annabelle thought, there was one thing to be said for this preposterous style of dress as far as the female sex was concerned – at least one could distinguish the ladies.

This was not always the case with the usual mode of evening gown. One theatre tried to keep the Fashionable Impure from its doors by appointing two door-keepers for the purpose.

But this had to be stopped early in the evening since the two men had nearly conveyed a couple of ladies of very high degree to the watch-house. How could one tell the Cyprians from the ladies
of quality when both were dressed in a state of semi-nudity?