by Lucy Worsley
Nevertheless, Fanny thought she saw Lord Smedley glancing back at Anna with something like interest.
‘I can indeed,’ said Mr Drummer. ‘That’s Lord Smedley, the viscount, isn’t it? I’ve heard of him. I believe that he’s known as The Comet, in London, for his habit of burning up his money.’
Despite having relaxed, Fanny’s gut contracted once again. So the man who’d turned her down was not only a lord, but a lord who was rich. She thanked Heaven that her mother wasn’t here, because Elizabeth would doubtless have caused a scene or made Fanny try again. She looked round furtively for her father, but Edward Austen was happily occupied in bellowing at some older ladies in the corner.
‘Rude!’ Anna was saying. ‘Abominably rude!’
Mr Drummer was looking at Anna with some amusement.
‘Well, you are a young lady with strong opinions,’ he said. ‘And this is reminding me of something I read recently, a most remarkable novel, called Pride and Prejudice, it was, about a young lady’s debut in society. It may be that The Comet has hidden qualities. It may be, of course, that he’s just shy.’
Fanny brightened at once.
‘Oh, I think I’ve read the very same novel!’ she cried. ‘It’s hilarious, isn’t it? And it all turns out so well in the end. You’re right, our lord over there does remind me of the prickly hero.’
Mr Drummer gave the broadest grin he’d yet achieved, and as he turned to her to enthuse about the book, she noticed that his eyes were brown and warm.
‘Mr Drummer, you are too charitable by far!’ Anna cut in on the conversation. ‘What do you think, Fan? Isn’t he too kind?’
Fanny’s head told her that Mr Drummer was right to be charitable, but her heart told her Anna was more likely to be correct. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it may be impolite of me, Mr Drummer, but the gentleman in question seems awfully rude. Quite unlike you.’
Mr Drummer smiled shyly back at Fanny. She began to feel that perhaps her first ball hadn’t been an entirely horrible experience after all.
Chapter 5
The breakfast table, Godmersham Park
The breakfast table the next morning was just as noisy and tea-slurpy and toast-crunchy as normal, but Fanny felt even less inclined than usual to join in the Austen family banter and shouting.
She’d come up from such a deep sleep after her late night that the familiar noises seemed to reach her ears belatedly, as if having travelled through deep water.
She sat quietly, crumbling a piece of bread between her fingers. She was wrapped up in her memories of the music, the coloured dresses, the heat.
After Mr Drummer had managed to cheer her up, they’d danced, and danced again, and before long the evening had picked up pace and begun to whizz past in a blur of partners … Anna’s smiling face being whisked across her vision … champagne ices to suck upon in a vain attempt to cool down … more dancing … Mr Drummer saying he thought her white gown quite the nicest in the room … how pleased he was to find a partner who loved reading as much as he did himself …
‘… and he owns a great estate, and eventually we danced, simply because I grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go until he did, and he was a great waltzer, and … and … and …!’
Fanny realised that Anna was regaling the whole family with her account of how she’d eventually forced a reluctant Lord Smedley to dance with her.
‘Drunk,’ explained Edward to Elizabeth. ‘He gave in and danced with her because he was putting away the old champagne, and he was drunk, and this miss here –’ he nodded at Anna – ‘went where others feared to tread! Went right up to him and insisted that he was going to dance, and he smiled stupidly, and didn’t have the wit to say no!’
‘Anna! You are so wicked!’
It was Marianne, all agog, clearly longing to be old enough and bold enough to dance with a nobleman herself.
Anna smiled complacently. ‘He’s called The Comet, you know,’ she said, ‘because he blazes through the ballrooms in town and sets hearts on fire!’
‘Oh! “In town”! Is that how we talk now?’ Lizzie was astringent. ‘We don’t say “up there in London” any more, do we, now that we’ve danced with a real live lord?’
Anna swatted her younger cousin with her napkin.
‘Well,’ said a soft, deep voice, ‘I counsel you, Anna, against comets. He sounds like an awful young man.’
‘Aunt Jane! Aunt Jane! Oh, but how can you say that about a lord!’ shouted Marianne.
‘Spoilsport,’ muttered Anna under her breath.
Aunt Jane had finally put down the newspaper which absorbed her each morning.
‘Oh pish, Jane,’ said Edward, ‘let the girls have some fun. I’m sure he won’t marry either of them anyway.’
Fanny winced as she noticed her mother’s quick frown. Of course, Elizabeth would dearly love to have a lord in the family.
‘Is it fun to dance with a drunken young man?’ Aunt Jane was asking Fanny’s father drily, looking at him over the tops of her spectacles. ‘Is it a good use of one’s time and talents? I think Fanny knows what I mean, doesn’t she?’
How had her aunt known that she hated the Lord Smedley with all her heart?
Fanny nodded quietly in agreement. Yes, she had been scorched by The Comet’s burning tail. Anna might flirt and dice with danger, but Fanny herself had no desire for the sport.
‘But a lord!’ It was Elizabeth. ‘Surely, Jane, you make an exception for the aristocracy? Sounds to me like Anna did very well.’
‘Well, doubtless the young man will be coming to call, then,’ Aunt Jane said. ‘What do you think, Anna, will he be paying your uncle a polite morning call today? To pursue the acquaintance?’
Anna looked at the tablecloth. In her heart, Fanny knew that he would not, and in fact might very well have a sore head this morning and possibly not even remember Anna’s name.
The silence which answered her aunt’s question told its own story.
‘The girls,’ said Aunt Jane authoritatively, having got the attention of the whole room, ‘are in training. They are in training to become heroines, like the heroines in stories and novels.’
‘Oh, Aunt Jane!’ Fanny burst out. She couldn’t help herself. ‘I’m nothing like a heroine. No one will ever write a story about my life. Anna, perhaps, but I’m very ordinary.’
But Aunt Jane just smiled at Fanny, otherwise ignoring her words.
‘My nieces can’t mess around with silly men, or unsuitable men, or bad men,’ Aunt Jane now said. ‘They need to hold out for someone extraordinary. If indeed they choose to give themselves in marriage at all.’
At that Elizabeth gave a loud tut and threw up her hands. But Aunt Jane was relentless.
‘How should a heroine act,’ she continued, ‘as she comes of age, like Fanny and Anna, and makes her entry into the world? No, be quiet, Marianne, let’s hear it from Fanny and Anna themselves.’
Aunt Jane didn’t often speak, but when she did the family generally listened. Even Edward, curious, shushed some of the children, and stopped crunching his toast.
Anna spoke first.
‘We should be bold,’ she said. ‘We must take our destiny into our own hands.’
There was silence. Everyone wanted to hear what judgement Aunt Jane would pass, but instead she silently swivelled her head to look at Fanny.
Fanny’s thoughts whirred as fast as one of her brothers’ spinning tops. Was there a right answer? What did she … really think?
‘I imagine …’ she began.
‘Well?’
Her aunt was waiting.
‘I imagine that we should be wise, in choosing who to dance with and so on.’
Aunt Jane smiled. ‘Be both bold and wise, girls. I knew that you two would know what to do and how to behave. I knew it. You have more power than you think. Spend it well.’
Fanny and Anna exchanged glances. It was rare to win the praise of Aunt Jane, but when it came it was always worth having.
But Lizzie groaned, and pushed back her chair in disgust.
‘You make it sound like a horse race, Aunt Jane,’ she complained, ‘with fences to jump. You make it sound like it’s really difficult to pick a husband. Surely girls should just take the first one who comes along? Then they can crow about being married.’
‘It is hard,’ Aunt Jane said quietly. But she’d retreated back behind her paper. She’d lost interest in the conversation.
‘Oh, what nonsense,’ said Fanny’s mother sharply, more sharply than she was accustomed to speak, even when the children did evil things. ‘A girl needs a husband. Ideally a lord, it’s true, but any gentleman of good birth and good fortune will do perfectly well.’
Aunt Jane’s intense silence might have signalled her disagreement.
The smaller girls, having received no attention for several minutes, again began to complain and spill their milk and generally act up.
‘Don’t fill their heads with such nonsense, Jane,’ Elizabeth said, in between dishing out admonitions to her offspring. ‘Fanny and Anna will marry very quickly, I’m sure, and will be off our hands before any of the other girls from Kent can catch up with them.’
‘Of course we will,’ said Anna stoutly.
But inside herself, Fanny did not feel so sure. It hadn’t been all that easy so far. And here was a new question popping into her mind. Why, for example, hadn’t Aunt Jane, who was so clever, got married herself? Had she somehow failed in boldness and wisdom? Hadn’t anybody wanted her? Or maybe the husbands on offer hadn’t been extraordinary enough for Fanny’s aunt?
One day, Fanny thought, I must ask her.
Chapter 6
Hurstbourne House
Aunt Jane disappeared off to her room after breakfast, to do whatever she did in there by herself, but Fanny couldn’t stop thinking over her aunt’s advice. It had been almost as if Aunt Jane wanted her and Anna to delay, to think carefully. Whereas everyone else seemed to want them married quick-sharp.
Aunt Jane does talk balderdash, Fanny said to herself, shaking her head. These were words she’d heard her mother say ever so often. She was bustling along towards the housekeeper’s room, a big pile of bed linen in her arms. Mama must surely be right, Fanny mused. If I don’t marry as soon as I can, I’ll be hanging around, and I’ll spoil the chances of Lizzie and Marianne when they come out in society. That wouldn’t be fair.
But what if the first man who asked her was awful? What then?
The sheets in Fanny’s arms had been shoved into the linen press any old how, and had come out with great jagged creases. She hoped that her mother would raise her eyebrows, and nod, and congratulate Fanny for having detected the mistake.
‘Quite the little housekeeper – I can rely on her’ was one of the things that her mother sometimes said about sensible Fanny, but never about her sisters.
But today in the housekeeper’s room the feeling was frosty.
‘Creased, are they?’ Fanny’s mother said over her shoulder. ‘Well, put them back in again, straight this time, Fanny, there’s a good girl.’
Fanny turned to leave, but Elizabeth’s hand had mysteriously appeared on her wrist.
‘Thank you for noticing,’ her mother said unexpectedly. ‘I know you always do it properly. And dance well tonight, Fanny! Don’t let Anna steal all your partners.’
Fanny went off back upstairs with a lighter step, even if the linen was growing heavy in her hands. Her mother had reminded her that whatever may have happened yesterday, tonight was a fresh beginning. There was another ball to come! Another chance!
As darkness fell, she and Anna were once again squished into the carriage, and then Fanny’s father was ushering them up the steps into Hurstbourne House. It was the home of their neighbours, the Hursts, who always hosted the second ball of the season.
Anna and her father were swept off into the drawing room, where the guests were gathering, but Fanny thought she might steady her nerves by taking a private peek into the room where the dancing was to be. Like a soldier assessing the field where a battle was to be fought.
The big dining room looked unusually empty because its table and carpet had been cleared away, and its chairs pushed back around the edge. And all at once, with a skip of her heart, Fanny saw Mr Drummer. He was talking to the musicians, trying to sing them a tune to see if they knew it. He had a clear, high voice, Fanny thought to herself, watching him throw back his shoulders and laugh at something the violinist said.
And then, as he turned his head towards her, she saw his face light up as he spotted her approaching nervously across the polished floor.
‘You look like a skater,’ he said, bowing and taking her hand, ‘sliding along like that!’
‘This floor is so slippery,’ she said. ‘It will be perfect for dancing.’
He smiled, and raised his arms as if to welcome her into them.
The violinist, seeing what Mr Drummer had in mind, struck up the elusive tune, or something like it. Fanny took to the floor with him in a delicious little private waltz of their own. She discovered that a huge ridiculous smile was plastered on her face.
A couple of hours later, though, Fanny was having much less fun. She was sitting on a chair in the corner of the same room, now so crammed full of the Hursts’ noisy friends that it was terribly hot, even though the tall windows were open to the black sky outside.
She’d danced with Christopher Hurst, and again with Mr Drummer, but it hadn’t been as magical as when they’d danced almost alone to the violin.
Fanny sighed, looking round for Anna. Anna too had danced with Mr Drummer before slipping out of Fanny’s sight. Although Fanny couldn’t see Anna, she now thought she could hear her cousin’s whoop. Her eyes followed Anna’s voice, and she saw that her cousin was in the arms – indeed, in the close embrace – of … was that? … Yes, it was! The haughty Lord Smedley. It certainly looked like him. It was him!
Fanny gave a nervous little gasp. Lord Smedley was looking down at Anna through his long eyelashes and the floppy golden fringe which grew across them. He’d even unbent enough to allow a half-smile to pass across his sullen face.
Fanny half rose to her feet, but sank back at once. The sight of Anna with such pink cheeks, laughing too loudly and clinging to the lord, made her stiff and tense. It was correct to have fun at balls, to show that you were willing, her mother had explained that. But Fanny had a prickling feeling this much fun was not something of which Elizabeth Austen would approve.
Her instinct was confirmed. Before Fanny could do anything else, she realised an older lady seated on the chair next to her was also staring at Anna.
And the lady was tapping the arm of her other-side neighbour and saying something. She was holding her fan before her mouth, but Fanny was close enough to hear the words.
‘Cavorting,’ her neighbour was saying under her breath. ‘Of course, he’ll never take a penniless girl like her. And I don’t think any of the other young men in Kent will take her either after this performance.’
Fanny sat up straight, pretending that she hadn’t heard a thing, cheeks ablaze. She had a plummeting sensation in her stomach on Anna’s behalf, and had to blink her eyes very hard.
It’s just the heat, she told herself. Her eyes were only watering because she was hot and tired. She got to her feet, to find her father, and to say that they must get Anna and go home.
The evening, which had started so beautifully, had been spoilt. Only two days in, and the husband hunt was already going very badly indeed.
Chapter 7
The dairy, Steventon Rectory
Fanny could see that Anna was frustrated enough almost to kick the pail right over. She kept giving it vicious little taps with her foot. It rocked, the milk in it sloshing from side to side.
‘It’s going to tip,’ Fanny warned.
Anna gave an exasperated growl.
‘Hampshire is soooo boring!’ she said.
Of course, it could be that spilling the milk mig
ht release some of the anger that Anna had been bottling up inside herself ever since they had left Godmersham and come here to Anna’s home at Steventon.
Fanny returned her attention to her cloth and to getting on with cleaning the tiled dairy counter. She’d clearly have to do all the jobs herself. Since Anna had danced, twice, with Lord Smedley, she’d been far too full of herself for anything like work.
Anna now nudged the bucket even harder, and a tide of milk frothed over its edge.
‘You’ll have to clear up that mess,’ Fanny warned her. ‘I’m not doing it.’ She was pushing her luck, she knew, by saying anything critical of Anna. Her cousin was just impossible when she got into a state like this.
Sighing again, more loudly than ever, Anna heaved up the pail and lugged it to the bench where the skimming dishes lay waiting for the milk. She got the big scoop. Moodily and badly, she began to fill the dishes.
Fanny, for her part, was enjoying the work in the dairy, even if most of it was just mopping up after Anna. If Fanny and her sisters ever went to the dairy at Godmersham Park it was just for fun. At Godmersham, the cream was destined for after-dinner ice cream, not just for boring old everyday butter. But it was butter that they were in the process of making here at Steventon, and Anna’s stepmother expected them to do it every single day.
The door opened, and in came Anna’s stepmother, Mary. Fanny called her ‘Aunt Mary’, for although she wasn’t a real aunt, she’d been married to Fanny’s uncle James since Anna had been tiny. Aunt Mary came stamping in, bringing with her the smell of the rain outside. Her broom was in her hands as usual. She was ‘capable’, was Aunt Mary. People always called her ‘that capable woman, James’s wife’.
‘Oh, Anna,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it finished? Daisy used to take half the time!’
Daisy was the dairymaid who’d recently disappeared from the rectory. Anna had told Fanny her private belief that Daisy had run off because she could no longer tolerate even one more day of Aunt Mary’s supervision.
‘Well, Daisy knew what she was doing!’ Anna cried. ‘She was a proper dairymaid! That was her job!’
