The whip twined itself around Sir Guy’s neck and sent him spinning into the mud.
‘Hold hard, Jimmy,’ called the vicar as the great horse reared and plunged and finally came to a halt. ‘Let hounds have ’im.’
‘Hounds?’ said the Squire breathlessly. ‘My good man, have you brought out your pack?’
‘Just them,’ said the vicar cheerfully. The Squire twisted and looked down.
The vicar had stood back and the village boys had plunged on the wriggling figure of Sir Guy. To cheers from the men and screams from the women, they tore off his trousers, held them aloft like a trophy, and then threw him into the village pond.
‘No,’ screamed Annabelle running forwards. ‘Stop them. Oh, stop them.’
The vicar put a comforting arm around his daughter’s shoulders. ‘Come along home, Bella,’ he said. ‘When you hear what I have to tell you, you’ll wish for him to be hanged instead.’
Annabelle sat in her father’s study and listened in horror as the story of Sir Guy’s perfidy unfolded.
‘And what makes it worse is that Brabington never even had a liaison with that Evans woman,’ finished the vicar.
‘I must go to him,’ cried Annabelle, leaping up. ‘What he must think of me!’
‘Now then, calmly,’ said the vicar. ‘I have written to him explaining the whole. It is for him to come to you. No use you running to his country place and finding he’s in London and running to London and finding he’s on his way here. My stars, you could chase each other all over England by the end o’ the week.’
‘I have behaved most wickedly,’ said Annabelle, sinking down in her chair again, ‘and God has punished me.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t say that,’ said the vicar. ‘I mean, you’ve punished yourself, so it’s no use blaming the Almighty.
‘See, look at it this way. You didn’t marry for love, you married to spite your sister. You start flirting about with a no-gooder like Sir Guy Wayne which, mark you, is a thing no virtuous female would ever consider, and so you reap the reward. All’s well that ends well. Your husband will be here in under a couple of days, or my name is not Charles Armitage.’
‘Am I such a bad person, papa?’ asked Annabelle anxiously.
‘Not you,’ said the vicar. ‘Not now. Time was when you had too much beauty and more hair than wit. But now I would say you’d definitely growed, Bella. Minerva spoiled you. She was always making excuses for your behaviour, you know. And me, I could never stand up to Minerva when she got that prissy look on her face.’
‘Have you heard from her?’ asked Annabelle.
‘Not since they left Dover, but she’ll be all right. She’s in good hands.’
‘Do you think he will really come?’
‘Brabington? Of course. Now off with you. I’m so weak I can hardly lift my glass.’
For the next few days Annabelle could not bear to leave the vicarage. She sat by the parlour window, looking across the rain-washed fields, waiting to see his carriage turn the bend in the road.
But the Marquess of Brabington did not come. The post boy would blow a triumphant blast on his horn and she could hardly wait until he opened his bag. There were letters from the twins, a letter from Lady Godolphin, one from an old friend of her mother, but no letter from the Marquess.
The girls were excited over the prospect of attending an assembly at the nearby town of Hopeminster on Friday evening.
Daphne and Deirdre were to be allowed to dance for the first time, Frederica and Diana were to be allowed to go, provided they promised to sit quietly and watch the dancing.
Holden had added to the excitement by refurbishing their party dresses into the latest London fashions and promising to do their hair.
The housekeeper complained she could not get the kitchen to herself for a moment, the girls were so busy making washes and pomatums.
Annabelle had not thought for a moment that she would be free to go. But as Friday approached and still her husband did not arrive, she gave in to her sisters’ urging and agreed to attend.
‘You can’t sit forever waiting for him, Bella,’ said Deirdre sympathetically. ‘Just think. He will probably ride into the ballroom on his charger, and sweep you away, like young Lochinvar.’
That made Annabelle smile, despite the strain that was beginning to show on her face. The vicar kept telling her cheerfully that she was a widgeon, a nodcock, he would come. But privately the vicar was beginning to entertain some doubts.
The Marquess’s estates lay two counties away to the south. In order to reach London he had to pass through Hopeminster. He could have made the journey with one long day’s hard riding. Now the vicar began to wonder if the man had taken his daughter in dislike and wanted no more to do with her despite that long letter of explanation.
It was up to Squire Radford to remind the vicar he had done all he could do and it was now in the hands of the Almighty.
But the vicar, after a long wrestle with his soul, decided this was not a very hopeful state of affairs. Had he not prayed and prayed for good hunting weather last winter, and had the Almighty not sent down one plaguey, frosty day after another?
It began to dawn on Annabelle’s sisters that matters stood very badly with her. The humiliation of Sir Guy for some terrible wrong he had done Annabelle, the absence of her husband, and her refusal to talk about London worried them.
Deirdre was of a highly romantic and optimistic nature. She told the others that these things happened. That Bella should never have married in the first place, and no doubt she would console herself with some devilishly handsome man at the Assembly.
The little girls happily accepted Deirdre’s explanation, and anytime Annabelle put forward a mild suggestion that she might forego the Assembly they shrieked with dismay and urged her to come. Someone would be waiting for her, they said mysteriously.
So insistent were they that Annabelle began to hope wildly her husband was going to be there, and that her family had planned it all as a secret surprise.
This hope was fuelled by a letter from the stern patronesses of Almack’s which had been forwarded to Annabelle from London. In it, they explained stiffly that the refusal of her vouchers had been a mistake which had been brought to their notice by the Marquess of Brabington. They had much pleasure therefore in enclosing her vouchers, and so Annabelle began to hope and dream of seeing her husband soon. The letter from the patronesses had shown that, despite his fury with her, he had kept his promise and he had arranged for her to attend.
The vicar would soon have disabused her of such wild hopes, but Annabelle was in the state of mind where any hope was better than none, and so she did not ask him.
The day of the Assembly was a bustle of activity. Holden ironed and pinned and frizzed hair and tied ribbons, her thin wiry figure darting upstairs and downstairs.
At last they were all jammed in the travelling carriage and the vicar riding on the box to make room.
It was a clear moonlit night, to everyone’s relief. A cloudy night would have meant their visit to the ball would have to be cancelled, for the roads were still muddy and treacherous after the recent rains.
Deirdre had pleaded in vain to be allowed to wear her hair up but had been greatly consoled by Holden who had brushed and wound her red hair into ringlets.
Annabelle was wearing a gown of silver gauze over a white slip. She wore a circlet of pearls on her blonde hair and a simple pearl necklace around her neck.
She could not help thinking that by rights she should have been making her come-out at Almack’s that very week on her husband’s arm.
London was lost to her. She often thought she would never see that city again, would never feel her husband’s arm under hers as he led her up the stairs to some ballroom or rout.
Her physical craving for him was immense. Deirdre kept teasing her on the road to the ball about the dark and handsome man who would be waiting for her, and Annabelle sat engulfed in a suffocating wave of hope.
&n
bsp; The Cock and Feathers was Hopeminster’s main hostelry. Assemblies were held in a banqueting hall at the back and the society of Berham county came from miles around.
Mrs Armitage moaned feebly every time the carriage jolted over a rut in the road and protested she would be too ill to endure the rigours of the evening. But as the carriage swung into the coachyard of the inn and faint sounds of music could be heard, even Mrs Armitage forgot to be ill in the bustle of finding fans and reticules.
They were a trifle late so the company was mostly assembled. The vicar was relieved to see how beautiful, almost radiant, Annabelle looked as she was immediately surrounded by a court of admirers.
He did not know that Annabelle was sure her husband would walk through the door at any moment and she wanted him to see her looking at her best. But as country dance followed reel, and galop followed minuet – for the minuet was still danced in these rustic areas – Annabelle’s spirits began to sink.
Pain throbbed behind her eyes. There seemed to be too much boisterous leaping and prancing. More than anything did she want to run away, to get home as fast as possible and bury her aching head under the pillows and have a good cry.
The Marquess of Brabington was tired and out of sorts. He had dealt firmly and well with the affairs of his estate. Now as he sat in the gloomy library of Brabington Court, he wondered what manner of man his predecessor had been.
He had met the late Marquess once many years ago and had only a hazy recollection of him. He must have been a curst dull stick, thought the Marquess, looking around the heavy gloomy furniture and rows and rows of dry books which had been bought from the bookseller by the yard and never opened.
Annabelle’s pretty figure danced at the edge of his thoughts but he kept banishing it. He felt he was now the misogynist – or Missing Jest – that Lady Godolphin had once claimed him to be. He longed to return to the wars. He had been kept on in London, first because of his marriage, secondly as a reward for his bravery, and third, because Horse Guards had had intelligence of a Bonapartist spy who was abroad in London society and wished the Marquess to smoke him out. But although the Marquess had questioned and listened and spent many weary hours drinking with suspects, he had not come across anyone who showed any signs of wishing to betray his country.
He was suddenly sick of his own company and resolved all at once to return to London.
He decided to ride rather than take his carriage. He would break his journey by staying with a friend on the far side of Hopeminster. And when he reached Hopeminster, he thought grimly, he would go on riding as hard as he could through the town in case unmanly weakness should drive him to take the road to Hopeworth.
He had searched the post every day, hoping for some letter from his wife. But nothing came. No one wrote at all. There had been some letter from Lady Godolphin but her servant had ridden hard through a deluge and when he had produced the letter it had been nothing more than a sopping bundle of parchment, the ink running in rivers and the writing quite obliterated. He assumed she had written to tell him of her forthcoming wedding.
He walked to the window and tugged aside the curtain. A small bright moon was riding high above the trees.
It was only eight o’clock. With luck he might reach his friend’s on the other side of Hopeminster by eleven. He would pack a change of linen and his evening clothes in his saddle bags and leave as soon as he could.
In half an hour’s time, he was riding down his drive and away from the great black bulk of Brabington Court. An ancient lodge keeper – all the servants were ancient – tottered out to swing open the gates.
The Marquess spurred his horse and rode off at full gallop.
But the hard exercise of riding would not banish his wife’s face from his mind. Rather, it seemed to grow clearer as the miles flew back under his horse’s thudding hooves.
By the time he reached the outskirts of Hopeminster and saw the white ribbon of the Hopeworth road branching off to his right, he found himself reining in his horse and sitting very still under the bright light of the moon.
She was so near, he could sense her presence. He remembered the way she had looked at him as she lay against his chest and almost groaned aloud.
‘She wants a separation,’ he muttered. ‘Be sensible.’
But it was with a great feeling of weariness and loss that he turned his horse’s head in the direction of Hopeminster.
There seemed to be some sort of gala affair going on at the Cock and Feathers. There were sounds of music and laughing voices and the inn yard was full of carriages of every description.
He was sick of his own company and decided to stop for a drink at the tap.
He tossed a coin to an ostler and swung himself down from the saddle.
Mr Boyse, the landlord, was crossing the small hall of the inn when the Marquess made his entrance.
‘Why, my lord,’ he beamed, helping the Marquess out of his benjamin. ‘We are mighty pleased to see you. And how goes Lord Sylvester? Well, you’ll be looking for a room to change your clothes for the dance, and you’re in luck, for one o’ the gennlmun decoided he don’t need it now, it bein’ full moon. Said he would roid home later. Now if you’ll . . .’
‘Stay,’ said the Marquess. ‘I have not come for any dance. I am simply stopping to have some refreshment before I proceed on my journey.’
The landlord looked puzzled, and then his face cleared. ‘You’ll be taking her ladyship with you, loik.’
‘No,’ said the Marquess. ‘Her ladyship is at Hopeworth.’
‘Don’t you know, my lord? Her ladyship be here!’
‘Here! Where?’
‘Whoy at dance, to be sure, with vicar and all.’
The Marquess stood staring into space until the landlord began to wonder if his lordship’s wits were wandering.
‘Ah, yes,’ said the Marquess at last. ‘Get a fellow to fetch my saddle bags. I will change directly.’
‘Very good, my lord,’ said Mr Boyse, looking at the Marquess curiously. ‘Your room’ll be number noin.’
‘I shall only need the use of the room for changing,’ said the Marquess. ‘I shall not be staying the night, nor shall I be staying long at the Assembly. Tell them to have my horse rubbed down, saddled and ready.’
The Marquess spent quite long over his toilet, arguing with his reflection in the dim looking glass. He owed it to himself, he thought savagely, to have one last word with her. He had sometimes dreamt that she was pining for him at the vicarage, realizing all she had so thoughtlessly, cruelly and carelessly thrown away.
But to find her at a ball! It was the outside of enough. He would give her a piece of his mind. Yes, and that conniving vicar as well.
When he entered the ballroom, the dance was in full progress. Hands across, down the middle flew the couples in a country dance.
And leading a set on the far side of the ballroom, partnered by a fresh-faced country gentleman, was his wife.
As he watched, she stumbled slightly and her partner laughed and caught her round the waist to steady her.
‘Good heavens!’ Annabelle’s partner said, as he joined hands with her, ‘Who is that handsome man glowering in the doorway like Satan himself?’
Annabelle’s head snapped round. It was almost as if she knew who it would be in that split second before she turned her head.
She stopped stock still. ‘Peter,’ she whispered.
The other dancers stumbled into her and past her, looking at her curiously.
Annabelle completely forgot about her partner. She forgot about the dance. She walked slowly towards the Marquess as if there were no one else in the room.
She held out her hands to him, and, despite his anger, he found himself taking them and holding them in a tight clasp.
‘You came after all, Peter,’ said Annabelle, her eyes bright with tears. ‘Deirdre hinted you would, but I had begun to lose hope.’
‘I came only by chance,’ he said coldly. ‘I decided to give myself
the luxury of telling you exactly what I think of you.’
Annabelle snatched her hands away. ‘Then you do not love me,’ she said. ‘Despite the fact that father explained about Miss Evans and Sir Guy and the trick they played on me. You do not love me. And I,’ her voice caught on a sob, ‘I love you so much.’
‘What?’
She made a move to turn away but he swung her around.
‘What did you say?’ he demanded.
‘You do not know?’ She looked at him. ‘Did you not get father’s letter?’
‘Not that,’ he said, his eyes searching her own. ‘Did you say you loved me?’
Annabelle hung her head, all pride gone.
‘Yes,’ she said miserably.
The vicar bowled in from the card room a minute later to find the ballroom in dead silence. It seemed as if the whole of Berham county was standing in frozen silence watching the Marquess of Brabington ruthlessly kissing his wife.
‘Here!’ yelled the vicar. ‘Is this a dance or a funeral? Come on, you fiddlers. Let’s have a lively jig. Gentlemen, ladies, to your places!’
The company came to life, the music struck up, Deirdre, Daphne, Diana and Frederica Armitage all dried sentimental tears from their eyes.
‘My children! cried Mrs Armitage, heading in Annabelle’s direction, trailing wisps of chiffon and lace.
‘Hey, leave ’em alone,’ growled the vicar, catching hold of his wife. ‘There’s been enough Haymarket scenes for one evening.’
‘Come away with me,’ said the Marquess to Annabelle. ‘Now! Let us spend the night together far away from this brood of Armitages.’
‘Oh, Peter,’ cried Annabelle, ‘only wait until I get my cloak!’
Soon they were jogging off through the night, an odd pair seated on one horse in all their ballroom finery.
Annabelle explained as they rode along about Sir Guy’s plot, and his subsequent humiliation at the hands of the vicar.
‘If he is still in town,’ said the Marquess, ‘I will call him out. But Annabelle, you do not know the worst of it. I am to leave for Portugal in a fortnight. I thought you were lost to me so I volunteered to rejoin my regiment.’
Taming of Annabelle Page 19
