Minerva

by M C Beaton

  ‘“At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”’

  The vicar cast a reproachful look in the direction of Minerva who was sitting at the end of the Armitage family pew.

  Minerva!

  A shaft of sunlight was shining through the glass windows, lighting up Minerva’s enchanting face, wide gray eyes, and soft pink mouth, straight little nose, thin arched brows, long, long lashes.

  On her head she was wearing a close-fitting hat made of ribbons and flowers.

  The vicar saw her for the first time as many men would see her.

  That was it! Minerva!

  The tight-fitting Kerseymere wool gown under the jaunty little spencer showed a generous bosom and a trim waist. Her ankles, he remembered with awe, were quite beautiful.

  The Reverend Charles Armitage had a vision of heaven all in that moment. His daughter would marry a fortune, and his own days stretched out in front of him in a paradise of never-ending rainy Novembers where the scent was high and the hounds and horses fleet.

  ‘Hoic, holloa! Hoic, holloa! Hoic, holloa!’ yelled the vicar of St Charles and St Jude to the indifferent plaster cherubim at the roof.

  ‘Bedlam,’ hissed Lady Edwin to her husband. ‘Definitely Bedlam. I see no other future for him.’

  The vicar’s overworked curate, Mr Pettifor, took over as he had done so many Sundays before.

  The gentry tut-tutted in dismay. But the humbler folk of the village were moved. They thought the good vicar had really had a spiritual revelation, so transfigured had been his face.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It is a sad fact that many Cinderellas are self-made rather than born that way, and such was the case of Minerva Armitage. Had she let loose the reins of the household, then it is possible that her Mama would have been forced to rise from her semi-sickbed and take charge. Had she not volunteered to write her Papa’s sermons, then perhaps he would have studied his bible more and William Taplin’s The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository less.

  Minerva had a fine intelligence and insufficient education.

  She was energetic and restless, and unsatisfied with the dull country routine of a gentlewoman – and in order to offset this boredom, Minerva had set about devoting herself to her five sisters and two brothers.

  As she grew older, it was she who bathed their hot foreheads when they had the fever, it was she who bandaged cuts and grazes, and it was she who visited the parishioners and ran the household. Each month of each year brought her new, self-imposed duties, and, as she grew in beauty, so did she grow in long-suffering. For, in truth, the fair Minerva had become a trifle priggish and smug.

  Papa’s announcement at dinner that Sunday that Minerva was to make her come-out in London was met with shocked silence.

  Then Mrs Armitage had one of her Spasms and had to be brought round with the hartshorn and a quantity of feathers burnt under her nose. Annabelle, the nearest in age to Minerva, looked startled and then jealous. The boys looked surly and kicked the table legs and the other girls began to sob. Minerva had managed to spoil the whole family.

  ‘What will we do without Merva?’ wailed the younger ones. Merva was Minerva’s nursery name.

  ‘This is sudden and rather startling intelligence,’ said Minerva in a calm voice, although her heart was beating hard. ‘I have no reason to go to London. If you are thinking of marrying me off, I am young yet, and there are plenty of men in the county.’

  ‘None that are rich enough,’ said the vicar, taking a pinch of snuff. ‘Fact is, m’dear, we’ll all be in the River Tick if you don’t pull us out. All those bad harvests. The farms aren’t supplying enough. The only alternative is to retrench. And that means no school for you boys, no pretty dresses and gee-gaws and no,’ he added glaring at his wife, ‘no dosing yourself with all them patent medicines.’

  ‘Oh, will no one have pity on a poor, sick, old woman?’ wailed the vicar’s wife.

  The members of the Armitage brood began to look at their eldest sister thoughtfully. And the more they looked, the more Minerva faded from her dining chair to be replaced by a sack of golden guineas.

  ‘This is nonsense,’ said Minerva, with a sigh of relief. ‘Papa must be foxed!’ He was already broaching his second bottle of port. ‘Papa is funning. If we have no money, then we cannot possibly afford all the horrendous expense of a Season.’

  ‘I ain’t paying for it,’ said the vicar, fidgeting in his cavities with a goose quill. ‘Lady Godolphin will foot the bill, and she’ll get paid back every penny after you nail a rich husband.’

  ‘Lady Godolphin?’

  ‘She’s on your mama’s side, sort of cousin thirteen times removed. I ain’t seen her this age, but she always had a soft spot for me.’

  Minerva pushed back a stray black ringlet. ‘Annabelle,’ she. pleaded, turning to her sister, ‘you are much prettier than I. Would not you like to go instead?’

  Annabelle’s big blue eyes sparkled with excitement, but before she could open her mouth, the vicar said, ‘Won’t do. She’s got yaller hair and yaller hair ain’t the fashion. ’Sides, she’s too young. Dark beauties is what they want. Minerva’ll fetch ’em. And see here, Bella, if Minerva marries well, she’ll bring you out, and Mrs Armitage can go to all the fancy quacks in London, and the rest of you young ladies can eat all the sugar plums you want. Perry and James can go to Eton like they’ve always wanted and …’

  His voice trailed away. The vicar could be quite stupid on occasion. Yet when he had set his heart on something, he would put forward every argument he could think of until he had got it.

  ‘But I had not thought of getting married for some time,’ said Minerva. ‘If at all! I would like to stay here and be a support to you and Mama in your declining years.’

  ‘If you don’t get us some money,’ said the vicar reasonably, ‘our years are going to decline unnaterel fast.’

  An infuriating pious look appeared on Minerva’s pretty face. ‘Have you asked Him?’ she asked, pointing upward.

  ‘Yes, course I have,’ said the vicar cheerfully, ‘and you’re His answer. So there!’

  There was another silence while Minerva’s large gray eyes flew from face to face. The children were guiltily thinking of what life would be like without Minerva. No more parsimonious meals. No endless washing and scrubbing of hands and faces. No moral readings from Mr Porteous’s sermons at bedtime. Peregrine and James had wanted to hunt, but Minerva had stopped them, saying they were too young. But now …

  Annabelle was considering how she would shine as the prettiest girl in the county, with Minerva away. Perhaps she could flirt a little at the Hunt Ball without Minerva’s cold reproving eye on her.

  Mrs Armitage was lost in a rosy dream of London doctors and London chemists with their delicious bottles of medicine, glowing in the candlelit windows like all the jewels of Aladdin’s cave.

  The vicar craftily tapped in the last nail in Minerva’s coffin.

  ‘I know this is hard on you, Minerva,’ he said, ‘but you must sacrifice yourself for your family. You must martyr yourself. Ah, me! It is indeed asking too much.’

  Minerva’s eyes began to glow softly. She was needed by her family, as they had always needed her.

  ‘I shall go, Papa,’ she said, throwing back her head, as if being sent to the guillotine instead of a round of dissipated pleasure.

  ‘Good girl,’ said the vicar absent-mindedly. Having got what he wanted, he lost interest in Minerva. He would, of course, have to write that pesky letter to Lady Godolphin, but, after the reply, he could push his eldest out of the family nest in spring and wing her on her way to London.

  Minerva forced herself to go about her duties that evening as if nothing world-shattering had happened.

  The children wanted to use Minerva’s prospective come-out as an excuse to stay up late, but Minerva said firmly that they must go to bed at the usual time. As a treat, she would read a story, especially for the boys, and the youngest girls mig
ht listen if they wanted.

  The vicarage was a pleasant building with dining room, drawing room, parlour, and study on the ground floor, six bedrooms on the first, and the servants’ rooms in the attics at the top. There were not very many servants. There was a cook-housekeeper who held sway in the kitchen. There was a housemaid who doubled as a parlour maid when company called, an odd-job man who doubled as a butler on grand occasions, John Summer who acted as groom, coachman, kennel master and whipper-in, a small knife boy who was also pot boy and boot boy and page, when the occasion demanded, and a woman who came daily from the village to do the heavy work.

  The boys had a room to themselves. Mr and Mrs Armitage had separate rooms, and the six sisters shared the remaining three rooms, two sisters to each room.

  Apart from Annabelle, who considered herself too old at sixteen for bedtime stories, the other children all piled into the boys’ bedroom to hear Minerva’s reading, hoping that this time it might be something a little more jolly than usual.

  Their hopes were soon dashed as the tale began to unfold in Minerva’s soothing, mellow voice.

  It was a story about two schoolboys, one quiet and serious, who never told a lie, and the other one, tall and handsome, the scion of a noble house, good at games, dashing and handsome.

  The serious one was called Claud, and the dashing one, Guy. This was admittedly a promising start. The boys promptly vowed Guy no end of a good fellow, and the girls were delighted and surprised at having a handsome hero featured in one of Minerva’s bedtime tales.

  But, alas, for the dashing Guy. They might have known he was not to be the hero. While he won cricket matches for his school, while he was fawned on and admired, while the serious and lowly Claud was despised, it was soon to be revealed that this fine exterior was nothing more than a ‘whited sepulchre’.

  ‘What’s a whited … whatever you said?’ demanded Perry.

  ‘I know,’ said red-haired Deirdre, shyly. ‘It means someone is nice on the outside but all full of rotting, decaying things on the inside.’

  Minerva nodded, and the other girls shrieked in dismay.

  ‘Not Guy!’ they cried, having already begun to weave rosy fantasies about this storybook boy.

  ‘Listen!’ admonished Minerva, and read on.

  Guy had sent Claud to his room to fetch his cap, since he was in the habit of treating even his peers as servants. While he was searching for Guy’s hat, the meek Claud came across a Latin crib.

  Guy, it appeared, had been sailing through all his Latin exams, because, with the crib, he already knew the English translation for everything.

  ‘Well, I think he was jolly clever to memorize it all,’ said Perry hotly. There was a murmur of agreement.

  ‘So what was Claud to do?’ questioned Minerva, brightly ignoring the interruption.

  They all looked at her in a baffled way since it had never crossed their minds that Claud ought to do anything.

  Minerva shook her head in mock dismay and continued. Claud, it appeared, had done his duty by taking the crib directly to the headmaster and reporting that Guy had been cheating.

  Guy was expelled from the school, a broken reed, all flamboyance gone, while Claud studied his uneventful way to modest glory.

  ‘And the moral of that is,’ said Minerva, closing the book with a snap, ‘honesty is the best policy.’

  James, black-haired and blue-eyed like his twin, stared at Minerva, as if he could not believe his ears.

  ‘You look horrified, James,’ smiled Minerva. ‘What would you have done?’

  ‘I’d have taken that Claud-creature and drawn his cork,’ retorted James.

  ‘I will not have cant spoken in this house,’ said Minerva severely.

  But a chorus of young voices defended James.

  ‘Claud’s a sneak.’

  ‘Guy was a first-rater …’

  ‘I hope Guy joined the army and became a general and … and … killed Boney.’

  ‘Into bed all of you,’ said Minerva sternly. ‘How am I to leave for London with a quiet heart if I know that you are all not morally sound?’ She swept the girls out of the boys’ bedroom, but not before she heard Perry mutter, ‘She’s probably going to marry some wet fish like Claud – if she marries at all.’

  Minerva compressed her lips and did not deign to show that she had heard.

  When the younger girls were tucked up in bed, she went to join Annabelle with whom she shared a room.

  Annabelle was sitting at the toilet table, dreamily brushing out her long, golden hair.

  At her sister’s entrance, she paused with the brush in midair and studied her elder sister’s quiet face.

  ‘It’s such a waste,’ sighed Annabelle, and fell to brushing again.

  ‘What is?’ came Minerva’s voice from behind a lacquered screen. She would no more have dreamed of undressing in front of her sister than she would have dreamed of spitting in church.

  ‘Your going to London,’ said Annabelle. ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of men at all?’

  ‘In what way?’ came Minerva’s voice, muffled in cloth.

  ‘In a romantic way,’ said Annabelle, putting down the brush and swinging around.

  ‘Surely you don’t think of men in that way?’ came Minerva’s infuriatingly amused voice from behind the screen. ‘You are much too young.’

  ‘I am sixteen,’ flashed Annabelle. ‘And I may tell you I think of little else.’

  ‘Then you should be improving the moral tone of your mind to prepare yourself to be a good and modest wife.’

  ‘I don’t want to be married to the sort of man who wants a “good and modest wife,”’ said Annabelle. ‘I want a dashing and handsome Buck, a Fribble, a Corinthian, a Dandy. It’s a wonder you haven’t fallen for poor Mr Pettifor!’ Mr Pettifor was the curate.

  ‘It is indeed a wonder,’ said Minerva, appearing around the screen in her nightdress. ‘He is a fine young man, devoted to the duties of the parish.’

  ‘He has also a long red nose and a wet mouth and …’

  ‘Stop this instant,’ said Minerva. ‘What has come over you, Annabelle? You have not spoken thus before!’

  ‘London,’ said Annabelle dreamily. ‘The walks, the rides, the routs, the balls, the opera. Almack’s! How I should love it so! How I should like some beaux! It is so dull here. Nothing happens here and nothing ever will.

  ‘Because you will not be married, Minerva. That saintliness of yours will offset your looks. Why, it makes you positively repellent!’

  Large tears appeared in Minerva’s eyes and slowly slid, unchecked, down her cheeks.

  ‘Annabelle,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I was assured we loved each other. Can I be mistaken?’

  ‘No, no, Merva,’ sighed Annabelle. ‘I am a frightfully jealous cat, that is all. Please dry your eyes. We will say no more about it. I am quite fatigued. You do forgive me, don’t you?’

  And of course Minerva did. It was unthinkable she should do otherwise.

  But she lay in bed a very long time, staring up into the darkness, long after Annabelle had gone to sleep.

  Now that she was alone, or as alone as anyone could be who shares a bedroom, Minerva had to admit to herself that she was afraid. She knew that a heavy responsibility had been placed on her shoulders. She must marry, and marry well.

  She was perfectly prepared to sacrifice herself for her family’s happiness, since that was the only way she knew of being happy herself. Somewhere deep inside, Minerva did not really think much of herself, and so she needed to be needed. But she was sensible enough to realize that her appearance was not enough on its own to attract a suitable partner.

  Her cousins, Josephine and Emily, worked at nothing else but the art of attracting men. Minerva had rather pitied them for this. Now she was faced with hard reality.

  Surely she herself would now have to study those despised arts. Minerva wondered whether to pray for guidance, but her mind shrank from the idea almost as soon as
it was formed.

  Like quite a number of the human race, she prayed to a God in her own image. Since she was very hard on herself, she thought of God as a harsh judge, forever on the lookout to punish the slightest tottering step from the straight and narrow. He would surely not concern himself with the arts and foibles of the ballroom.

  But surely there must be a man somewhere in the whole of London – and that meant London from Kensington Palace to St James’s – who would have high standards, solid values, who would assist her in the delicate job of training up the minds of the younger Armitages.

  Before she finally fell asleep, she had conjured up just such a man in her imagination. He would not be particularly handsome, but of a serious and sober frame of mind.

  They would not dance much, but would prefer to sit quietly together, discussing weighty topics. Perhaps she might allow him to press her hand! But that delicious thought caused a wave of gooseflesh to run over Minerva’s body and her conscience told her her thoughts were taking a decidedly sinful turn.

  So she turned back to the serious discussion in the ballroom, and fell asleep, feeling more comfortable, than she had all evening.

  Morning brought even more comfortable, sobering thoughts. The Season was still a long way away. This was November. The Season did not begin until April. And her family still needed her.

  Perhaps Lady Godolphin would not want her. And then perhaps Papa might hit upon some other scheme for finding the Armitages money.

  The boys were taught their lessons by the curate, Mr Pettifor. The girls, with the exception of Annabelle, had to be made ready for school. They attended a seminary for young ladies in the nearby town of Hopeminster, and were conveyed each day, there and back, in the vicar’s elderly and creaking travelling carriage, pulled by two of the plough horses.

  Minerva hurried about, finding gloves and braiding hair, supervising the serving of breakfast, making sure the carriage had not been invaded by hens overnight, since the door of the carriage house was often left open by mistake, thereby allowing families of hens and geese to use the carriage as a sort of coop.