by M C Beaton
“What will you be wearing?” asked Mattie.
“Oh, I shall be very fine,” said Henrietta. “Henry has spared no expense on this occasion. Alice made a derisory remark about my dowdy gowns in his hearing. It was only meant to hurt me, of course, but it made Henry determined to dress me as richly as possible… if only for the ball. I turn back to a pumpkin when the dance is over. What am I wearing? Rose silk, my dear, cut dangerously low on the bosom but vastly pretty for all that I shall at least feel pretty.”
Miss Mattie hesitated and then said timidly, “I have noticed that when you are animated and your eyes sparkle… why I think you look very well indeed.”
Henrietta blinked in surprise. She was not accustomed to compliments even from her old friend. “Why, thank you, Mattie. I shall endeavour to sparkle to the best of my ability. Oh, I had almost forgot. A splendid piece of news. No less a personage than Beau Reckford is to attend. The Beldings are all a-flutter and hope for a match between Miss Alice and the Beau.”
“Who on earth is Beau Reckford? Is he a dandy?” asked Miss Mattie.
Henrietta laughed. “No. He is a Corinthian and a very Top of the Trees. He is an expert swordsman and pugilist and drives to an inch. He has broken more hearts than we have had hot dinners and is said to be prodigious handsome.”
Miss Mattie’s eyes misted over with emotion. “He sounds like the very man for you, my dear Henrietta.”
“Stuff!” retorted Henrietta. “He will not even notice me with Alice Belding around.”
“She is terribly pretty,” sighed Miss Mattie. “And the gentlemen never seem to notice what she is like underneath… spoiled and cruel. Surely she is too young, though. She is only eighteen and does not make her come-out till next Season.”
“That will not stop my lord and lady or their daughter,” said Henrietta. “The paragon is very rich as well.”
“How did you find out so much about him?” asked Mattie, carefully giving the fire its ration of one lump of coal.
“Oh, from Henry. He lives in the Beldings’ pockets, you know. What else do I know of the famous Beau? Let me see… he is nine-and-twenty, real name, Lord Guy Reckford, reputation… rake and sportsman.”
“Oh, if only he would fall in love with you,” twittered Miss Mattie, jumping to her feet and pacing up and down the room.
“And then,” smiled Henrietta, “he would immediately reform…”
“And give up his evil ways….” said Mattie.
“And all his opera dancers and gambling hells….”
“And you will have lots and lots of children and live happily ever after,” said Miss Mattie triumphantly, her ringlets bobbing and her face flushed.
“Really, Mattie,” protested Henrietta. “I think you half believe our fantasies.”
“And why not?” said the spinster defiantly. “I’m sure it only takes a bit of energy and courage to bring it about.”
“Well, all my energy and courage will go into simply enduring the evening,” said Henrietta and with that she took her leave.
***
The days before the ball were mercifully free of Henry’s pompous and overbearing presence. He had posted up to town to order a new suit of evening clothes from Stultz. He had confided to Henrietta that he had chosen blue silk as the most suitable material.
His sister had tried to point out that in view of her brother’s increasing age—he was nearing forty—and waistline, the current mode set by Mr. Brummell for severe black and white evening dress might be more suitable. Henry had merely pooh-poohed. “I do not follow the dictates of that popinjay Brummell. Why, I don’t believe the fellow even knows his own parents. Fellow asked him the other day about his parents and Brummell replied that it had been a long time since he had seen them but that he imagined that the worthy couple must have cut their throats by this time because when he last saw them they were eating peas with their knives! What d’ye think of that?”
Henrietta had merely smiled and commented that since George Brummell’s father had been able to place him in a most fashionable regiment, then he must be all that was respectable.
But on the evening of the ball, there was Henry, tight blue silk encasing his rotund form, and panting and gasping under the restriction of a pair of Cumberland corsets. A handsome powdered wig covered his sparse hair and his waistcoat rattled with fobs and seals of all kinds. The points of his cravat were so high that he could hardly turn his head.
His protruding eyes bulged even more as he surveyed his sister. The simple Empire lines of her rose silk gown were very flattering to her plump figure and showed her white arms and bosom to advantage. Her heavy blonde hair which was usually worn under a cap was dressed in one of the latest styles, rioting in a mass of loose curls confined with a rose silk ribbon.
“Well, well, I suppose you’ll do,” said the vicar in a dampening voice. “Remember to cultivate the friendship of Miss Belding. She is all gracious condecension.”
“Exactly,” remarked Henrietta. “I sometimes think that Alice seeks me out as a friend only to use me as a foil for her beauty.”
“Nonsense! How dare you speak like that! Miss Alice is an angel!” raged the vicar. “How dare you presume to be impertinent to me… me who has to share my daily bread with you because you have nothing of your own. Without me, you would be starving in the gutter.”
All animation drained from Henrietta’s face leaving the usual placid mask. “Yes, Henry,” she said in a deceptively mild voice.
“That’s better,” said her brother surveying her bowed head. “Miss Alice Belding, as I pointed out, is an angel. You agree?”
“Yes, Henry,” said Henrietta meekly with her outer voice while her inner voice raged. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about angels, you old hypocrite, and you’re not likely to find out in the after life because you will be burning in hell.”
Gathering up her reticule, fan and Norfolk shawl, Henrietta wondered for the hundredth time how there could be so little love between a brother and sister.
Their father, Sir James Sandford, had died after an accident on the hunting field; and their mother, Isabella, had died giving birth to Henrietta, a fact that her elder brother never let her forget. Since he did not mean to get married, Henry Sandford had long ago found out that Henrietta adequately accomplished the duties which were usually assigned to the vicar’s wife. With the exception of the aforementioned squire, he had discouraged all possible suitors and denied Henrietta a Season in London.
Henrietta assumed that they must have been left a comfortable income. The vicar’s clothes were so expensive and so dandified that several people in the town were apt to remark that his dress was unsuited to his calling. He had an excellent hardworking curate in an elderly man called John Symes who fulfilled most of the vicar’s ecclesiastical duties, leaving Henry free to toady to the Beldings.
There had been Beldings in Nethercote since the Norman Conquest Theirs was an ancient, if undistinguished, line, the ancestral Beldings having had a deft habit of changing their politics and religion to suit the current ruler. The present family followed in the pattern of their forebears, having a great deal of money, incredible arrogance and very little else worthy of comment.
***
When they arrived at Belding Court, Henrietta pasted a fixed social smile on her face and prepared to sit out the evening as she had done many times before. Alice Belding was wearing a slim white high-waisted dress which set off her blonde beauty to perfection. She was as fair as Henrietta but there the similarity ended. Where Henrietta was plump, Alice was slender, where Henrietta’s face was round and placid, Alice’s sparkled with animation, all wide blue eyes and dimples.
“You are looking very fine, Henrietta,” remarked Alice. “Although perhaps your hairstyle is a little bit too young for you. Turbans are quite suitable for a girl of your age, you know. I shall call on you tomorrow and we shall have a comfortable coze and I will tell you all about my admirers. I am sure it will be just like ha
ving them yourself. We are such dear friends.” She smiled brilliantly at the vicar who complimented her fulsomely on her appearance and then drew his infuriating sister aside.
“Why didn’t you reply when she said you were ‘such dear friends,’” he hissed, holding her above the elbow in a painful grip. “Such condecension!”
“Sorry, Henry,” said Henrietta quietly, smiling warmly at Alice Belding while her inner voice said caustically, “I wish, just once, that some man would see her for what she is… an empty-headed, cruel, vicious little….”
“Look!” exclaimed the vicar. “Beau Reckford has arrived.”
Henrietta looked across the room with interest. Her first emotion was one of surprise. Surely no one could consider the Beau handsome. His harsh aquiline features and light tawny eyes gave him a look of a bird of prey. He was very tall, well over six feet and impeccably dressed in black evening coat and knee breeches. His snowy cravat was tied in the Waterfall and he wore his black hair unpowdered. Then he smiled down at his hostess and his whole face was transformed. No woman could resist that smile, thought Henrietta, feeling a painful lurch inside her. Lady Belding was positively fluttering, the end of her high patrician nose turning absolutely pink with delight Alice was radiant She fluttered her long eyelashes demurely behind her fan. Feeling suddenly old and chubby, Henrietta trailed off miserably to take her usual place with the chaperones.
Lord Reckford led Alice out for the first dance and Henrietta stared down at her slippers and tried not to look. This is ridiculous, she chided herself. One just does not fall in love at first sight. “Oh, yes one does,” snarled her inner voice, “and you’ve just done it.”
She tried to concentrate on the conversation of the two elderly chaperones next to her. “I hear they are going to waltz this evening,” said one to the other. “I can’t help feeling that the waltz is… well… fast. Now, in our day, the minuet was all the rage. That really was dancing. One needed to have so much poise and grace. And we wore a special little lappet in our headdress to show that we could perform the minuet or was it to show that we meant to perform the minuet Oh, dear! I do forget things these days.” “It’s our age,” replied her companion. “But I do remember how much I loved watching the minuet performed. Now a gentleman had to have a very good leg for that! Legs are terribly important in a gentleman. They must be muscular but not too thick. And the ankle must be well-turned.”
Henrietta’s sense of the ridiculous was fairly tickled and her face lit up in a smile. Then to her confusion, she noticed Lord Reckford studying her from the other side of the floor and she began looking at her slippers again.
“Who is that pretty girl over there?” said Beau Reckford to Lady Belding. She and her daughter, Alice, looked across the floor in a bewildered way. “Over there,” repeated his lordship, waving his quizzing glass in the direction of Henrietta.
Lady Belding looked at him in pure amazement. “You can’t possibly mean Henrietta Sandford—the girl in the pink gown.”
“Yes,” said Lord Reckford, “I mean the girl in the pink gown.” Three pairs of eyes surveyed Henrietta who was now scowling horribly and staring at the floor. Beau Reckford would have left matters as they were because when he had first noticed Henrietta as she smiled at the conversation of the chaperones with her large hazel eyes twinkling, he had thought her an attractive girl. Now she simply seemed plain and plump. But Alice Belding was outraged.
“You are funning, of course! Henrietta pretty! She is a pleasant girl, I allow, but she is all of six-and-twenty and has no beaux.”
“Indeed! She is younger than I,” commented Lord Reckford. He considered Alice pretty but spiteful. He would dance with the girl in the pink gown after all. He turned to Lady Belding, “Please present me, madame.”
Henrietta looked up and blushed as she saw her hostess standing in front of her with Lord Reckford. With an icy glare, Lady Belding made the introductions and after the couple had murmured to each other that they were enjoying the dance, took hold of the gentleman’s arm to lead him back to her daughter. With horror, she heard his lordship asking Henrietta to stand up with him for the waltz. There was nothing she could do but return to her furious daughter. Alice had told the whole of Nethercote that she would dance the waltz with Beau Reckford and there went that dumpy little Henrietta, floating round in his lordship’s arms. He was laughing! What was Henrietta saying? Alice accepted a partner for the waltz with bad grace and nearly injured her neck by craning over her partner’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of the maddening couple.
Henrietta had never been happier in her life. After her initial shyness, she had found herself chatting quite easily with her formidable partner. For his part, the Beau gave the dazzled Henrietta the full benefit of his considerable charm.
“Where did you learn to waltz?” he asked.
She gave an infectious giggle. “I studied the steps by sitting watching the dancers at my last ball and then practised them with my old friend, Miss Scattersworth. She will be so pleased that I found a gentleman to waltz with!”
“I am sure many gentlemen would wish to waltz with such a charming partner,” he said gallantly.
“Very nicely put,” said Henrietta admiringly. “The next time I sit with the chaperones and wallflowers, I shall treasure your words.”
He looked down into the hazel eyes with a startled expression in his own. “If we go on like this,” he said lightly, “we shall make honesty positively fashionable. What an unusual girl you are!”
“Oh, I do so hope honesty never becomes the crack,” said his partner following a neatly executed turn with an expertise she would previously have thought impossible. “Cannot you imagine, my lord, what a flutter that would cause? ‘I am compelled to dance with you Miss X because my mama is interested in your fortune. But I would infinitely prefer to be dancing with the beautiful Miss Y.’”
His eyes held a mocking look. “Ah, but you see, Miss Sandford, honesty holds no pitfalls for me. I dance with exactly whom I please.”
“Gentlemen are indeed fortunate,” replied Henrietta. “Now ladies really have to accept anyone and with very good grace too. Of course, we have our little excuses. We can plead the headache or the vapors. But I am sure that has never happened to you.”
“No,” he said cynically. “Since we are both being so honest, I would hasten to point out that the ladies’ compliance is because of my fortune rather than my face or figure. Sometimes I feel like a great bag of sovereigns balanced on two legs.”
“Now that I would not mind in the least,” said Henrietta. “I adore dancing and should not care in the least for my partner’s motives provided I could dance all night!”
The waltz came to an end and Lord Reckford suddenly made up his mind. He would take Henrietta into supper. Little chits like Alice Belding were ten a penny, despite her looks, but this girl was really something different.
But Henry Sandford was waiting to accost them, his face crimson with fury and embarrassment He had just had his marching orders from Lady Belding in no uncertain terms.
“My dear vicar,” she had fluted, never taking her eyes from Henrietta or her partner for a minute, “I note that your sister is not in looks. In fact, she is decidedly peaked. You must take her home.”
“But Henrietta is never ill,” protested Henry.
Lady Belding gave him the full benefit of an icy glare. “I said take her home,” she said between her teeth. “You are not usually so obtuse regarding my wishes.”
Accordingly, Henry grasped his sister’s arm as Lord Reckford was in the middle of his invitation to supper.
“We must go home immediately,” said Henry. “I am not well.”
“You certainly look extremely red,” said Lord Reckford dryly. “Do you really need your sister’s help?”
“Yes,” snapped Henry. “I am afraid I might faint.”
“In that case,” said his lordship, “I shall escort you myself. You obviously need a man’s strong arm. You will want y
our sister to stay and enjoy the ball.”
“Yes… no… that is…,” Henry broke off and gave his sister a venomous look. Henrietta found she was receiving the same look from both Lady Belding and her daughter. Her face resumed its customary mask.
“Thank you, my lord, but your services will not be necessary. I understand exactly how to minister to my brother’s complaint.”
Had there been a trace of irony in her voice? But the hazel eyes were politely devoid of expression. “As you wish,” said his lordship, giving the pair a formal bow. He strode off to the other side of the room and took the whole of Henrietta’s heart with him.
Henrietta was to remember that terrible ride home with brother Henry to the end of her days. She had been presumptuous, said Henry. She knew how much his friendship with the Beldings meant to him and had deliberately gone out of her way to destroy it. If this was all the thanks be was to receive for years, of room and board and loving kindness, then she could go out and earn her own bread. She was not qualified for much except the post of paid companion. Yes, yes, that was it. He would consult Lady Belding on the morrow. And having successfully disposed of Henrietta’s future, he entered the house and took himself off to bed in a more tranquil frame of mind.
His sister cried herself to sleep. The future looked grim indeed. Paid companions led a life of genteel drudgery and although it would be much the same existence as she now had, there would be no more chance of dancing the waltz with handsome rakes like Lord Reckford.
Chapter Three
The morning dawned as gray and leaden as her spirits. There was a fine sprinkling of snow on the ground and the clouds above the square Norman tower of St. Anne’s beside the vicarage, were swollen and black with the threat of more to come. The vicarage emulated the style of a country house on a small scale. The public rooms were on the ground floor with the drawingroom to one side of the hallway and the diningroom on the other. The parlor, which had been on the first floor, had been redesigned by Henry into a master bedroom for himself.
