The Headstrong Ward

by Jane Ashford

  “Oh, look!” said Anne, leaning perilously far out the carriage window. “There is the London mail coach. With three passengers outside. I still think it would have been a splendid way to travel up to town, Bella.”

  “It would have been crowded and slow, and you would have tired of it after the first stage,” replied her friend calmly. “And anyway, Mama would never have consented.”

  Lady Anne pulled her head in, revealing a bonnet little improved by the wind, and turned to grin at her. “We need not have told her.”

  “Anne!”

  “Oh, I am only bamming you. You are such an easy mark, Bella. Perhaps that is why I like you so much.” Miss Castleton stuck out her tongue, and Anne laughed. “It is certainly no time to offend your mother,” she added, “as if I should ever wish to. I need her help far too much to indulge in any of what she calls my ‘distempered freaks.’”

  Arabella nodded. “But you know, Anne, I still think you should have written to your family and told them you mean to spend a few days with us in London before you go home. It seems wrong not to—”

  “They are not my family!” snapped the other.

  Miss Castleton shrank back a little.

  “I’m sorry. I did not mean to shout at you. But Charles and Laurence and Edward are not my family, Bella. Lady Wrenley was, but she is gone. I haven’t any family left.”

  “But, Anne…”

  “We have been over all of this before. None of the Debenhams, except Lady Wrenley, ever had the least affection for me. The boys mocked me and ignored me by turns. We did nothing but wrangle from the moment I could speak. And it is not as if we were at all related.”

  “But brothers and sisters often quarrel,” murmured Arabella diffidently. “My older sisters and I—”

  “They are not my brothers,” interrupted Lady Anne. “I don’t wish to talk of this, Bella. You are not going to change my opinion, as you must know by this time.”

  Recognizing her mood, Miss Castleton abandoned the subject. “Well, I do wish you might spend the season with us, then. It would be so much more comfortable.”

  Her eyes lighting mischievously, the older girl replied, “I wonder if your mother would think so.”

  “Mama is very fond of you!”

  “Oh, yes. But I am not certain she finds me ‘comfortable.’”

  Arabella started to protest again, then paused.

  “Exactly so!”

  She laughed. “Well, but the season! All those balls and evening parties and strangers to be faced. I should be more comfortable if you were beside me.”

  “Nonsense! You will be an instant success without any help whatsoever.”

  “I? Oh, no. If I can but get through the first days without stammering or saying something bird-witted, I shall be satisfied.”

  Smiling, Lady Anne surveyed her friend. Not for the first time, she wondered at Arabella’s low valuation of her own attractions, for Miss Castleton was a very pretty girl indeed. Though not tall, she carried herself well and had a lovely slim figure. Her deep brown hair showed red highlights, and her dark eyes were thickly lashed and expressive. Add to this a creamy skin, a perfectly sculpted pink mouth, and a shy smile that had already had a noticeable effect on more than one young gentleman in the streets of Bath, and it became hard to see how Arabella could be unaware of her own beauty. Anne laughed. “We shall see,” she said. “It is much more likely that you will be called upon to help me.”

  Miss Castleton opened her eyes very wide. “How?”

  “Goose. A season in London is not at all like being in school with a pack of simpering girls. I shan’t be able to dictate to the ton. Indeed, I doubt very much I shall ‘take.’ I am not pretty, you know. And my manners…” She grinned. “Well, even charitable people call them ‘original.’ You may have to push some of your unwanted admirers in my direction. Poor things!”

  “You are pretty! That is, not exactly pretty, but…”

  Anne grinned again. “Yes?”

  Arabella frowned. It was true that Anne did not fit the common ideal of beauty. She was far too tall, for one thing, and her thin figure did not show much feminine softness. She might have modified this physical impression by diffident behavior, but, of course, she did not. “You know you have beautiful hair,” she replied severely, “and eyes.”

  “Very good, Bella! You always find something to praise in the least attractive subject.” Lady Anne put a hand to her head. “My hair is all right, isn’t it? Though it looks dreadful in braids, of course.”

  Arabella nodded. It was true that Anne’s lovely red-gold mane lost much of its sparkle when confined in the flat braids favored by the Millington School. And the style did not flatter her thin face, either. Anne’s angular features needed softening. “But we shall get it cut as soon as we arrive in town,” maintained Arabella stoutly, “and then it will look splendid. And really, Anne, your eyes are wonderful.”

  The other focused these orbs on her friend. They were of a peculiar dark gray, shot through with hints of violet, and as changeable as her moods. “Oh, I think I will be well enough when I have the proper clothes and so on. Your mama has taught me some of the ways it may be done, and I mean to learn more before this week is out. It is all a great bore, but I shall make the effort. It is an effort for me, though, Bella, while you are lovely in rags.”

  Miss Castleton looked outraged for a moment, then shook her head and began to laugh. “Not rags.”

  Anne grinned. “Well, I have never seen you in rags, but I wager you would be. But you understand why I must go to London before I go home, Bella. I can’t return like this.” She grasped the sleeve of her unbecoming stuff gown. “I won’t. And if Charles heard I was going to town, he might forbid me, and then where should I be? I want to look…stunning when they first see me again.”

  “Would you have gone home if he did order it?” asked Arabella curiously.

  Anne frowned silently for a long moment. “We needn’t worry about that; he hasn’t.”

  “But he is your guardian, you know, and when you are home again, he will naturally order your routine.” This topic had been worrying Arabella for some weeks, and she was glad of an opportunity to bring it to Anne’s attention.

  Her friend’s frown deepened, but when she spoke, it was only to say, “I shall smarten myself up in London, and then I shall show him.”

  “You keep saying that,” responded Arabella uneasily, “but I can never discover what it means.”

  Anne stared out the window. She was not at all certain she knew the answer to this herself. “You must wait and see.”

  The carriage slowed. They had entered a small village, and the narrow streets made progress difficult. As they ponderously turned a corner and started along a row of little shops, Anne’s gray-violet eyes suddenly lit. “Stop!” she cried. “Driver, stop here.” She knocked on the roof of the chaise and repeated her order.

  With a jerk, the vehicle came to a halt, the driver peering down at them in perplexity. “Yes, just here,” approved Lady Anne, pushing open the carriage door and preparing to climb down. “I shan’t be a moment.”

  “Where are you going?” cried Arabella.

  “Into that shop. I’ll be right back, Bella. Wait here.”

  “I shall do no such thing.” Miss Castleton scrambled out behind her. “You cannot wander about a strange village alone.”

  “I’m not going to wander about.”

  “What are you going to do?” Long experience of Anne’s sudden impulses made Arabella frown up at her.

  Lady Anne gazed down; Arabella’s head barely reached her shoulder, but she could tell when argument was useless. “Oh, come along if you like, then.” She strode across the pavement and into the tiny shop she had seen from the chaise window. Arabella followed, mystified; she could see nothing of interest in the display. It appeared to be a secondhan
d-furniture shop.

  “I will give you a good price,” Anne was saying when her friend entered. “It is just what I want.”

  A gnarled old man stood behind the counter. He wore a neckerchief tied around his head and had somehow lost most of his teeth. He made Arabella think of pirates and other unsavory characters and, as usual, she wondered at her friend’s fearless assurance. “Hadn’t rightly considered selling,” the man replied. “But now’s you ask…” He looked toward the corner of the shop. “Five pounds.”

  “Five! Nonsense. I said a good price, not a ridiculous one. It is not worth ten shillings.” The man started to protest, and Anne added, “But I will give you a pound.”

  “Not a penny less than five,” growled the old man.

  Lady Anne shrugged. “Very well. I am on my way to London and can no doubt find what I want at a much lower price there. Good day.” She turned away.

  “Wait,” said the shopkeeper. “You can have ’im for a pound.”

  Smiling, Anne took a pound note from her reticule and laid it on the counter.

  “It’s highway robbery, mind,” added the man, walking around the counter to the front of the shop. “But you seem a nice lass. You’ll be good to ’im.”

  To Arabella’s horror, he reached up and detached a large cage from a hook on the wall. In it sat a red-and-blue parrot who looked rather the worse for wear and who eyed the girls with an intimidatingly crafty malevolence. “Here you be,” said the old man, handing the cage to Lady Anne.

  “Anne,” protested Arabella in a strangled voice.

  “Thank you,” said her friend, turning toward the door.

  Stunned, Arabella followed. In the doorway, Anne paused and looked back. “Does he swear?” she asked.

  “’Im?” The shopkeeper spread his hands and gazed at her with elaborately contrived innocence. “Pure as the driven snow, miss.”

  Anne eyed him for a moment, then grinned and nodded. “Splendid.” She climbed back into the chaise, ignoring the scandalized glances of the driver and the postboys, set the cage on the front seat, and gave Arabella a hand up. Waving the coach forward, she turned to survey her purchase. “Isn’t he wonderful, Bella?”

  Her friend stared. The chaise lurched forward, and the parrot, startled, ruffled his feathers and croaked, “Damn your eyes, ye heathen!”

  Lady Anne Tremayne fell back on the cushions in an ecstasy of laughter. “And won’t Charles adore him,” she added unevenly.

  Two

  A little more than a week later, Anne Tremayne was once again sitting in a post chaise traveling across the countryside. But in every other respect, save that the parrot’s cage again occupied the forward seat, her circumstances were greatly changed. She had used her time in London to advantage. In that short period, with the help of Arabella’s mother, she had acquired a new wardrobe, a fashionable haircut, and an experienced lady’s maid to help her take care of them.

  The latter was very necessary. Anne had never in her life paid much heed to her appearance. As a little girl, she had had no interest in the matter, and when she grew older, she found the effort involved in looking well irksome. She much preferred riding to hounds or a spirited walk to primping endlessly before the mirror. She had learned something of the principles of fashion at school, and her taste was good, but she was hopeless in practice. She had never minded the Millington School’s braids and stuff gowns, even though they became her so ill, because they meant that she need not waste thought on her dress.

  Now, however, her attitude had changed. She was determined to look as well as possible and to endure whatever tedium this required. Mrs. Castleton had thrown herself into the project. Not only had she been urging Anne in this direction for a year, she had already launched two daughters into society, and she knew all the tricks of fashion. And despite some friction over the unfortunate parrot, she had achieved marvels in the short period allowed her.

  The Anne who sat gazing out the chaise window today was very different from the angular schoolgirl who had driven to London so lately. Her magnificent red-gold hair had been cropped and dressed in a cloud of curls, showing its fullness to advantage and softening the lines of her face until she hardly recognized her reflection in a mirror. Indeed, her hair, which had been Anne’s despair since she was ten, always escaping the tightest bands and writhing wildly about her shoulders, was now her glory. She wore a new gown of pale primrose muslin sprigged with gold and violet flowers; it brought out the violet lights in her gray eyes, and the skillful modiste favored by Mrs. Castleton had cut it, and the five other dresses she and her staff had made up in record time, so as to de-emphasize Anne’s thinness and height. All in all, Lady Anne was very pleased, though she could not help thinking at intervals that she had been much more comfortable in her old, unbecoming gown.

  “How much farther is it now, my lady?” asked Crane.

  Anne turned to look at her new abigail. The woman was middle-aged, with gray hair and an awesome primness. Anne was almost afraid of her. “Not far now. Perhaps another half hour.”

  Crane nodded. “Wrenley is a fine old house, I understand. The viscount will be there, I suppose?”

  The girl nodded silently. She had no intention of talking about Charles. A sudden lurch threw her against the side panel of the chaise; it also rocked the parrot’s cage, and she reached across to steady it. The bird was by no means reconciled to the inconveniences of travel. He squawked harshly, “Blast ye! Devil take ye all!”

  Anne giggled. Crane, unable to draw herself up, since she was already sitting ramrod straight, made an outraged sound. “I cannot see, my lady,” she said, “what you want with that disgusting creature. It is a very improper pet for you.”

  The parrot, who had had several run-ins with Crane already, leered at her cordially. Anne struggled with her laughter.

  Goaded, Crane added, “We shall see what Lord Wrenley has to say about bringing that thing into his house.”

  Anne sobered immediately. “He will have nothing to say. Augustus is mine!”

  “Augustus,” sniffed the maid. But the flash of temper in Anne’s eyes kept her from continuing.

  Lady Anne sank back in her seat and, for the first time in days, allowed herself to consider what she would find when she arrived at Wrenley. She had not been to the home of her childhood in three years, and the last visit had been horribly melancholy and lonely, after the death of Lady Wrenley. Her memories of the place were ambivalent. She had had good times, racing headlong across the fields, surrounded by as many horses and dogs as even she could wish, and her adopted mother had been kind and, in her timid way, affectionate. But Anne had also often been unhappy, more sensitive than her active interests led anyone to believe, and desperately anxious to emulate and please her three “brothers,” whose constant teasing had many times sent her to her room for a solitary cry. No one saw it; she made sure of that. But it hurt nonetheless.

  Anne’s jaw tightened. Charles had always been the worst. He had never had time for a girl twelve years his junior, which was more or less understandable, but it seemed to Anne that he had also encouraged the others to mock her by his sarcastic example and then treated her with unforgivable harshness in the matter of school. She had begged him not to send her away. The thought of living among strangers had terrified her, and she had promised to become a model of meekness and decorum if allowed to remain. But he had brushed her aside, not even listening, so that she could not go on to tell him what she barely sensed herself—that the memory of abandonment somehow clung from her earliest years, and that this further exile was almost more than she could bear.

  Anne shuddered slightly. She would not think of her first year at Millington. It had been dreadful, but it was long over, and she had adjusted. With the death of Lady Wrenley, she had realized that she was alone in the world. None of the Debenhams could spare even a few hours for a visit. Well, let that be so, then. Sh
e had a tidy fortune, and she meant to order her own life at last. Charles must be shown this at once. He cared nothing for her, and, thus, he had no authority over her. She would come out—indeed, she was looking forward to the balls and parties—and then they would see.

  Anne tossed her red-gold head. The Debenham brothers needed a lesson, and she was determined to give it to them.

  “Is that the house, my lady?” asked Crane.

  Anne leaned forward. A gap in the trees along the lane opened a long vista to the east, and there, at the bottom of a hill, stood Wrenley, a jumble of gray stone with a host of windows glittering in the afternoon sun. To Anne’s astonishment, her throat grew tight and she felt tears start in her eyes. She nodded and furiously fought to control herself.

  “A fine edifice,” replied Crane, complacently. “I daresay there are twenty bedrooms.”

  “Into bed, lass,” squawked Augustus, inspired.

  Crane gasped. Anne choked and turned her head quickly away. “That bird must be disposed of,” said the maid in outraged accents.

  “No, no,” sputtered Anne. “He will be a…a model of propriety as soon as he is out of the carriage. He hates traveling.”

  “Hates…!” Crane sniffed and tossed her head indignantly.

  The chaise turned off the road and into the avenue that led to Wrenley. Anne saw no one near the lodge, but as they drove through the park, every tree and bush seemed familiar. She had not thought she would remember it so well. Soon they were pulling up before the tall double doors, which were flung open at once, and Anne was jumping down to hurl herself into the embrace of a stout elderly woman who stood on the threshold and crying, “Brigs!”

  Mrs. Brigham, housekeeper at Wrenley for the past twenty years, returned her hug. “Lady Anne. It’s good to have you home, my lady.”

  Anne turned to the tall thin figure beside them and held out a hand. “And how are you, Fallow?”