by M C Beaton
Annabelle felt obscurely that the woman was being impertinent but did not have the courage to protest any longer.
The Dowager Marchioness, Lady Emmeline, surveyed her goddaughter with pleasure. Those wide innocent blue eyes, combined with the daring sophistication of the dress, were alluring in the extreme, decided the old lady with satisfaction. No, Annabelle may not have a shawl. The lightest of gauze wraps was all that was necessary.
THE famous opera house was crowded. No one seemed to be paying much attention to the performance on stage as they whispered and shuffled and hopped from box to box. Lady Emmeline stared round the dimness of the house. “Can’t see the rascal,” she whispered to Annabelle. “But he’ll come … never fear.”
That’s just what I am afraid of, thought poor Annabelle. She dreaded the interval when the lights would be lit. Her entrance to the opera house had been enough. Every male eye had seemed to fasten on her bosom and shoulders, and everyone quite blatantly discussed her.
“That must be him,” said Lady Emmeline, hearing a sound at the back of the box. She twisted round. “Oh, it’s you, Varleigh. Where’s MacDonald?”
“He will be here directly,” said a light, amused voice. “He assured me he could hardly wait to meet Miss…”
“Miss Quennell,” snapped Lady Emmeline, ungraciously making the introductions. Annabelle quickly looked up into Lord Varleigh’s light gray eyes and then dropped her own in confusion. What a terrifying man!
Lady Emmeline was still attired in the damped pink muslin, but Annabelle’s sharp eyes had already noticed several other ladies just as daringly attired. Certainly they were younger and mostly in the lower boxes. She became aware that Lord Varleigh was speaking to her. “Miss Quennell,” came the light, pleasant voice from somewhere behind her, “when did you arrive in London?”
“This evening,” said Annabelle without turning her head.
“And where did you journey from?” pursued the voice.
“From Yorkshire, my lord.”
“Yorkshire! You must indeed be fatigued. But then, I gather you are anxious to meet Captain MacDonald.”
Annabelle was about to reply a dutiful “yes,” but the beginnings of a very tiny spark of rebellion stopped her.
“I do not know Captain MacDonald,” she said coldly. “He is a friend of my godmother.”
“Indeed!” mocked the voice as the house lights were lit for the interval. “Then you are in for a pleasant surprise. Here comes the Captain.”
Annabelle stared round the house and became aware of a terrific commotion in the boxes opposite. A young man in evening dress had jumped onto the ledge of a box and with unerring agility was making his way towards her by walking nimbly along the edges of the boxes. With a final leap he made the parapet of Annabelle’s box and stood looking down at her in open, if somewhat drunken, admiration. Annabelle felt herself engulfed by the blush of all time as the Captain climbed into the box and pulled up a chair beside her.
Then she became aware that several high-nosed ladies were staring at the Captain in open admiration. Annabelle shook her head slightly in amazement. It was her first lesson in the strange double standards of London society. The noisier and more vulgar the display, the more the man was considered no end of a young blood. Boorishness betokened masculinity and joie de vivre. But pity help any woman who dared to follow suit. She would be labelled “a sad romp,” a country bumpkin, no better than a washerwoman.
I must be too nice in my ideas—too countrified, thought poor Annabelle.
“Off with you, Varleigh,” the Captain was saying. “As you can see, I am well suited.”
Lady Emmeline had noticed the Captain’s admiration and Annabelle’s blush and was purring with contentment. “My lord,” she said, holding up a small plump hand. “We are having supper afterwards to welcome Annabelle to London. Please join us.”
Lord Varleigh hesitated. The warm charms of his mistress, Lady Jane Cherle, beckoned. But he was intrigued by this milk and water miss in the daring gown and murmured his acceptance. He bent punctiliously over Annabelle’s hand and allowed his hard gray eyes to stray insolently over her neck and bosom. Annabelle drew her gauze shawl tightly round her shoulders and stared back at him, her large eyes wide with shame. Lord Varleigh had a sudden feeling that he was behaving badly but after all, what else did the girl expect, dressed as she was?
The rest of the opera passed like a nightmare. The Captain had drawn his chair so close to Annabelle that his thigh was uncomfortably pressed against her own. She moved her chair several times, but each time the Captain pursued by moving his own chair.
Worse was to come when they returned to Lady Emmeline’s house in Berkeley Square. The only sober member of the party of gentlemen appeared to be Lord Varleigh. The Captain, his friend the Major, and a vacuous young gentleman rejoicing in the name of George Louch were definitely bowzy, thought Annabelle as she sat in her aunt’s drawing room, trembling with cold and fatigue. A cheerful fire was blazing up the chimney, but Annabelle had retreated to the chilly corner of the room in the hope of escaping attention.
With a sinking feeling she saw Lord Varleigh coming towards her. In the full blaze of candlelight she saw him to be a very tall man in faultless evening clothes who wore his thick fair hair unpowdered but in a longer style than the current fashion. He had a singular charm of manner of which he was aware. He turned the full impact of it on the bewildered Annabelle, extracting information on her home and family with expert ease. But to his surprise he noticed for once that his charm was not having its usual effect. The lady was staring into space, and it was with no little feeling of pique that he realised she was trying to stifle a yawn. He had an impulse to tease her, to rouse the sleeping beauty from her gently bred apathy.
He waved his quizzing glass towards the group at the fireplace who were surrounding the grotesquely giggling and coquetting Lady Emmeline. “It seems as if your Captain is about to favor us with a tune.”
Annabelle opened her mouth to protest that the gentleman was not her Captain, but Jimmy MacDonald had launched into song.
Holding onto the mantel and seemingly oblivious of the roaring fire scorching his knee breeches, he began to sing in a loud, penetrating bass voice:
Here’s a health to our Monarch and long may he reign,
The blessing of England, its boast and its pride;
May his Troops grace the land, and his Fleets rule the main,
And may Charlotte long sit on the throne at his side.
This was received with cheers and much clinking of glasses.
Much flushed with wine and with his powdered hair almost standing on end, Mr. George Louch protested, “I prefer the songs of wit rather than patriotism.” In a surprisingly soprano voice he began to sing:
’Tis said that our soldiers so lazy are grown,
With luxury, plenty and ease,
That they more for their carriage than courage are known.
And they scarce know the use of a piece.
Let them say what they will, since it nobody galls,
And exclaim still louder and louder,
But there ne’er was more money expended in balls,
Or a greater consumption of powder.
“I resent that,” said the Captain fiercely. “How dare you mock the soldiers of England, sirrah!” He staggered forward and raised his gloves to strike the startled Mr. Louch on the cheek; then he swayed ludicrously for a few moments, and obviously forgetting what he was about to do, collapsed into an armchair and fell sound asleep.
“What a man!” sighed Lady Emmeline. “Ah, if I were only a few years younger … You are a lucky girl, Annabelle.”
Lord Varleigh watched Annabelle’s expressive face. The proposed match obviously was not to her taste. So what was behind it all? The Captain had no money and neither had Miss Quennell. They were obviously not in love. Somehow, he decided, Lady Emmeline must be pulling the strings of her handsome puppets. It might prove to be a marionette show worth watching. The M
ajor and Mr. Louch were hauling the drunken Captain to his feet.
“I am sure you shall be all the rage, Annabelle,” went on Lady Emmeline. “We may even ask Mr. Brummell to dine.”
“Who is Mr. Brummell?” asked Annabelle, moving from her corner towards the fireplace.
“Why, you innocent,” laughed Lady Emmeline. “Mr. Brummell is the Leader of Fashion. It is to be hoped he will not give you one of his famous setdowns. If only he would come here. It is said he rarely dines at home.”
Annabelle felt tired and cold, and humiliated by the indecency of her gown. “Indeed!” she said sweetly. “Then it could be said that Mr. Brummell never opens his mouth except at the expense of another.”
Lord Varleigh put his hand to his mouth to hide a smile. So the milk and water miss had a tongue after all. He bowed gracefully and begged for permission to call.
“I suppose so,” said Lady Emmeline ungraciously. “But she’s spoken for—mind.”
After the gentlemen had left, Annabelle remembered to ask about the welfare of the Squire’s maid, Bessie.
“She is very well, I trust,” said Lady Emmeline with a sudden cavernous yawn. “She will, of course, return to Yorkshire as soon as the horses are rested. Do not trouble your pretty head over the affairs of rustic domestics, my dear. Tell me. Are you not pleased with the Captain? Is he not a fine and dashing man?”
“Yes, indeed,” faltered Annabelle. “I did promise my parents I would try to make an advantageous marriage.”
“Well, and so you shall,” snapped Lady Emmeline. “You will get my money if you marry the Captain as lord knows he has none of his own. If you do not—then you may find your way back to Yorkshire.”
She saw the alarm on the girl’s face and felt she had gone too far too soon. “I shall not press you, Annabelle,” added Lady Emmeline. “You shall have your Season and enjoy all the balls and parties. But you see, the Captain’s father was a great friend of mine, and I feel it my duty to keep an eye on his son. Jimmy MacDonald is undoubtably too wild, but he will soon settle down.”
“His manner is somewhat frightening,” said Annabelle, trying to choose her words carefully. “Lord Varleigh seems more, perhaps, the gentleman.”
“Varleigh!” sneered the Dowager Marchioness. “A bloodless aristocrat. I like a man with a bit of fire. The only thing to say in Varleigh’s favor is that he keeps Lady Jane Cherle as mistress, and he must have some stamina to mount that one.”
Annabelle felt suddenly immeasurably tired and sad.
Chapter Three
Annabelle was not to see either Lord Varleigh or Captain Jimmy MacDonald for the next two days. She had contracted a feverish cold and was obliged to keep to her bedchamber.
The Captain sent a whole hothouse of flowers to the invalid, but the effect of his generosity was somewhat marred by Lady Emmeline muttering under her breath about being dunned by the florist. Much more welcome was a present of Miss Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from Lord Varleigh. Annabelle had never read a novel in her life before, despite her mother’s conviction that she had somehow managed to obtain the forbidden volumes on the quiet. She turned to the opening page and plunged in headfirst. The sights and sounds of the square outside faded before the interesting present and magic of Elizabeth Bennet and the supercilious Mr. Darcy.
After two days, when her fever abated, she was allowed to transfer herself downstairs to a daybed by the window in the drawing room, where she could view the comings and goings of fashionable society in the square. She had finished the novel the previous day and passed the time by studying the passersby for that young man with the square tanned face who would rescue her from the prospect of marriage to the Captain.
But the bucks and bloods who promenaded the square were startling and frightening creatures to the country-bred Annabelle.
A young man of high society, if he were on his own, seemed to walk around the square with as much consequence as if the houses he passed all belonged to him. The idea also seemed to be to turn into Berkeley Square in such a hurry that the buck would have a chance of dashing himself against some well-dressed woman or elderly gentleman and hurling them into the filth of the kennel in the road. If raining, the sport seemed to be to dip your cane into a puddle and flick it under your arm so that if you did not blind the person behind you, you might at least have the satisfaction of flicking muddy water all over his clothes.
The most distressing thing they seemed to find to do, these swells of society and Pinks of the ton, was to make water in the most public place possible, especially if a party of young ladies happened to be passing.
Annabelle had mentioned her shock and dismay at the latter spectacle to her godmother, but Lady Emmeline had only given her terrible girlish laugh and pointed out that ladies could not be offended when they see—nothing. A well-bred gentlewoman was not, of course, aware of this necessary human function, so naturally nothing at all could have taken place.
All too soon her short period of convalescence was over. The Season had begun. Almack’s opening Wednesday was not due for another week. The Egremonts’ ball in Grosvenor Square was that evening, a sparkling social event. The Captain would be calling to escort Annabelle. The notice of her engagement had been posted in the Gazette so it would be quite the form for her to perform the waltz with her fiancé, said Lady Emmeline.
Annabelle rose trembling to her feet and held up her hand to stop this flow of news and instruction as Lady Emmeline happily rattled on. “I have not been properly consulted on the matter of my engagement, ma’am,” she said in a trembling voice. “I have not had a chance to become acquainted with Captain MacDonald and so far, what I have seen has not endeared him to me. I have not had time to consult my father on the matter, nor my feelings.”
“Pooh, fiddlesticks!” said Lady Emmeline, little knowing how much this small assertive effort had cost her young guest. “Don’t fret about it,” laughed Lady Emmeline, “you’ll come about. You’ll discover you are the envy of every girl in London. Mark my words!”
“But to announce my betrothal in such a hurly-burly fashion…,” began Annabelle.
Lady Emmeline surveyed the flushed and angry girl, and her eyes narrowed. “I should have thought that a girl reared in a rectory would have a better sense of duty,” she said. “I have gone to considerable expense to furnish you with an attractive wardrobe and to affiance you to one of the most dashing men in London, and you repay me by sulking like the veriest child!”
“Indeed, I am t-truly s-sorry, Godmother,” stammered Annabelle, near to tears. She was still too young to realise that doing one’s duty did not necessarily mean obeying every single dictate made by a more senior adult.
“There, there, we will say no more about it. Now I note you are wearing one of your old gowns. This will not do at all. I told Madame Croke to supply me with the dashingest wardrobe for you, and although I have not examined it myself, I am sure it would be a vast improvement on what you are wearing.”
Annabelle meekly said, “Yes, Godmother,” while her mind worked furiously. If her godmother had not seen the wardrobe, then it might be possible to make some discreet alterations. Annabelle was an excellent needlewoman.
“Oh, and while I remember,” went on Lady Emmeline, ‘it would be better if you called me ‘Emmeline.’ ‘Godmother’ is so aging. We are almost the same age after all.” And with that stunning remark Lady Emmeline took herself from the room.
DESPITE Annabelle’s fears the Captain did not seem to think it necessary to call on her during the day. She found an opportunity to ask Horley early in the afternoon which of her gowns she would be wearing to the Egremonts’ ball. The dress, when produced, looked deceptively simple. Of heavy white satin, it was high-waisted in the current mode and trimmed with tiny seed pearls and gold thread. Annabelle dismissed Horley and tried it on as soon as the lady’s maid’s footsteps had faded down the corridor. As she had suspected, the bosom was again too low, the combination of virginal white and sophist
icated cut making her appear shockingly fast. Madame Croke, the dressmaker, must indeed be a kind of depraved genius, thought Annabelle grimly, little realising that that was probably the first hard and uncharitable thought about anyone that had ever entered her young brain.
She pulled open the drawers, looking for some material. Her new undergarments frothed and foamed with white lace. Annabelle surveyed them for a few minutes and then carefully began to unpick some exquisite white lace from the leg of a pair of drawers. Then sitting beside the window to catch the best light, she began to stitch the lace into the bosom of her ball gown with nimble and expert fingers.
When Annabelle entered the drawing room that night, Lady Emmeline was fortunately too excited to notice that her young guest’s ball gown was strangely demure in style for one of Madame Croke’s creations.
“Only look, my dear,” she cried, holding out a piece of paper. “It is prodigious exciting. I have an unknown admirer.”
The paper contained a few short unsigned lines.
Please accept these flowers,
They come from one who loves you,
Be seated in Diana’s bower,
Until he comes.
“‘Diana’s bower,’” read Annabelle. “It doesn’t make much sense.”
“Oh, but it does,” giggled Lady Emmeline. “There is to be a classical theme in the decoration of the Egremonts’ ball. Gods and goddesses, you know. Ah! Diana—chaste and fair.” She pirouetted round the room in a girlish debutante dress of filmy white muslin embroidered with rosebuds which revealed all the charms of a black corset and little else underneath.
“And look at the flowers—lilies, I declare.”
Annabelle felt horribly embarrassed. Someone must be playing an unkind joke. But then she did not yet know London society. Perhaps elderly matrons with brassy curls were all the crack.
Captain MacDonald was announced, and Lady Emmeline delivered herself of a lame excuse and left them alone. The Captain was looking very handsome in black and white evening dress with a fine diamond pin winking at his stock. The pin was an engagement present from Lady Emmeline which she had given him with the curt reminder that it would be in the worst taste to take it immediately to the pawnbroker.
