by M C Beaton
“I think you look a trifle too modish and grand, Frederica,” said Mary, all her good intentions and feelings toward this youngest sister eradicated in a burst of jealousy. “The Crowns will think you are getting above your station.” Dr. Hadley gave a happy laugh, and Frederica looked at him anxiously, wondering if her father was drunk.
All she wanted to do was to get through this terrible evening ahead with as much dignity as possible.
Townley Hall was a blaze of lights from top to bottom as their old carriage, pulled by their old horse, moved slowly up the drive. Amy and Harriet began to shift and giggle nervously. “Do you think Lord Granton will dance with one of us?” asked Harriet.
“What does it matter if he does?” demanded Mary waspishly. “He will announce his engagement, and Annabelle will preen and smile and toss her head. She will be a viscountess, and her pride will be beyond bearing.”
“I am so looking forward to this evening,” said Dr. Hadley. “There will be no one there to match Frederica.”
“Papa, are you feeling quite the thing?” asked Frederica anxiously.
“Never better, my child.”
“You look very well, Frederica,” remarked Mrs. Hadley sharply. “You look like a lady for the first time. I beg of you, please behave like one.”
The carriage stopped at the entrance to the hall and they all alighted.
They walked up the main staircase, where the ladies made their curtsies to Sir Giles and Lady Crown, who were standing at the top to greet the guests.
Lady Crown’s eyes narrowed when she saw Frederica. “Dear me,” she said acidly, “how did you come by that gown? It is much too fine for a little girl of your social position.”
“We shall all pretend we did not hear that very rude remark,” said the rector. He urged his distressed wife forward. “Come, my dear.”
“Dr. Hadley, are you run mad?” wailed Mrs. Hadley. “She was furious.”
“And so am I,” said Dr. Hadley. “Irritating old hag.”
“Oh, you are drunk,” moaned Mrs. Hadley. “Pray guard your tongue and I will later see if I can repair the damage.” She pinned a social smile on her lips. She must apologize to Lady Crown at the earliest opportunity. And to think she had always wondered where Frederica got her sharp tongue and odd behavior from.
Frederica felt naked. Everyone seemed to be staring at her. And then Lord Granton came straight up to her and bowed low. “May I have the honor of this dance?”
“It is the waltz,” said Mrs. Hadley, flustered. “I do not think our little Frederica can… I mean, perhaps Mary here…”
But Frederica moved off with Lord Granton, and soon she was pirouetting in his arms.
“How could you?” demanded Frederica.
“How could I what?”
“You took her to my pool, and you held her hand, and now the place is contaminated.”
“Annabelle had her hand on my arm. I was not holding her hand. You look so beautiful, but you are being frightfully silly.”
And Frederica Hadley detached herself from him, drew back her hand, and slapped him full across the face.
Behind her, on the edge of the dance floor, Mrs. Hadley swooned. Frederica turned and ran.
Lord Granton stood for a moment looking after her fleeing figure and then he set out in pursuit.
Frederica ran straight out of the front door, past the staring footmen, and down the drive. She was halfway down it when he caught up with her and swung her around.
“What was all that about, you hellcat? How dare you strike me.”
“How dare you philander? How dare you lead me on? How dare you kiss me?”
“I kissed you because you asked me to!”
“You should have refused,” said Frederica, tears starting in her eyes.
The anger left his face and he said softly, “What a clumsy fool I have been. What an idiot. Did you never guess that I had fallen in love with you, Frederica?”
Her eyes were great pools in the dusk. “How can you say you love me?” she asked brokenly. “If you loved me, you would have courted me properly, but you did not consider me worth it. You would have spoken to my father….”
He gave her a little shake. “I have, I did. He says I can marry you.”
“Marry you?”
“Oh, Frederica, you must marry me. How was I to know I would finally fall in love? I should have asked you; I should have asked your father this age. Forgive me, sweeting, for I cannot take no for an answer.”
She wound her arms around his neck and said softly in a wondering voice, “Can this be true? You want me as your wife?”
“Oh, yes, my little love. But if you strike me again, I will strangle you and create even more of a scandal.”
She suddenly smiled. “Then kiss me instead, Rupert.”
He swept her into his arms and bent his dark head. His lips found hers. He pressed her to his body, and Frederica returned his passion until they were both breathing raggedly.
“Now, then,” he said at last, “we had better return so that I may make a respectable woman of you.” He tucked her hand into his arm.
Frederica began to laugh. “Poor Papa. That was why he was so rude to Lady Crown. After seeing me slap your face, he must be worried to death.”
Dr. Hadley, his shoulders stooped, stood humbly before Lady Crown. “I cannot apologize more for my daughter’s behavior,” he said.
“It is your own behavior which was every bit as reprehensible,” said Lady Crown awfully. “I said to Sir Giles that we cannot possibly entertain such a clergyman in our parish and he agreed.”
Dr. Hadley reflected dismally that after Frederica’s behavior there was no way Lord Granton would marry her, and no point in explaining to the dreadful Crowns that he had meant to do so. Mrs. Hadley, recovered from her swoon, was sobbing quietly beside him. “What will become of us?” she said in a choked voice.
“I neither know nor care,” said Lady Crown with every appearance of enjoyment. “We are furious that such a distinguished guest should be insulted in this way. Annabelle is sorely distressed. I would suggest that you leave our home and take your daughters with you, Dr. Hadley.”
Mrs. Hadley was only too glad to comply. But Harriet and Amy were dancing, and she would need to wait until the quadrille had finished before telling them they must leave.
Just as the dance finished, Frederica walked into the ballroom on the arm of Lord Granton. Lady Crown sailed forward majestically. Frederica Hadley deserved the public humiliation she was about to get.
“My dear Lord Granton,” she fluted, “let me take this rude and stupid girl to her parents so that she may go home and disgrace herself no longer.” The music had stopped. Everyone was listening. Amy, Harriet, and Mary, their faces scarlet with mortification, stood beside their tearful mother and a strained and worried Dr. Hadley.
“Miss Frederica Hadley was much provoked by me,” said Lord Granton loudly, “but our quarrel is over, and she has done me the great honor, the very great honor, of agreeing to become my wife.”
Annabelle stepped forward, the ostrich feathers on her head trembling, every flounce on her pink muslin gown seeming to bristle with outrage.
“This is some mad joke,” she declared shrilly. “You are to marry me! Me! You promised.”
“I promised nothing, nor did I pay you any particular attention,” said Lord Granton, putting an arm about Frederica’s shoulders.
Annabelle stamped her foot. “You said we should go to London for every Season when we were married. You said so. Just today.”
“I said nothing of the kind, Miss Crown. If I remember rightly, you said that one went to London for the Season, and I agreed as I assumed your parents would be taking you back for another Season.”
“But Frederica of all people!” shouted Annabelle. “You cannot want to marry Frederica. Why?”
“Because I love her.” Lord Granton smiled all around. “Wish me well. I am the luckiest man alive.”
The
Hadleys surged forward, Mrs. Hadley crying, “Oh, my bestest of daughters. But why did you not call? How could you have come to know Frederica?”
“Dr. Hadley will explain,” said Lord Granton. “I asked him permission to press my suit and he agreed.”
Sir Giles then joined them. “Lord Granton, you led my poor daughter on. I wish you to leave my house immediately.”
Dr. Hadley beamed. “We have room enough at the rectory, my lord.”
“Then take my future bride home, and Major Delisle and I will join you shortly.”
They were about to leave the ballroom when Annabelle approached them again. She looked only at the major. “A word with you, Major De-lisle,” she said.
“I really don’t think…” The major’s voice trailed away as he watched the retreating backs of the Hadleys, escorted by Lord Granton.
“I have decided to accept your offer of marriage,” said Annabelle. She smiled on him. “Ah, you look startled. But you shall have your reward.”
“You turned me down,” said the major. “I made a mistake. Let’s forget about the whole thing.” And with that, he hurried after Lord Granton.
The Hadley family seemed in a state of shock as they were driven homeward. Lord Granton and the major were to follow with their luggage. Mrs. Hadley kept exclaiming over and over again that Frederica, of all people, should become a viscountess. Then she began to worry about rooms to be prepared for these unexpected guests. A room would also have to be found for Gustave, Lord Granton’s man.
“It’s all very well for Frederica,” grumbled Amy. “But we are to be left here after you are wed, Frederica, to live with the Crowns’ wrath—that is, if they let Papa keep the living after this.”
“Lord Granton told me that as he is one of the richest men in England, I need no longer fear the Crowns,” said Dr. Hadley happily. “And he will see to it that the rest of my daughters make their come-out at the Season.”
“God is indeed good,” announced Mary, but Harriet and Amy let out squeals of delight and began to beg Frederica to tell them how on earth Lord Granton had come to know her so well as to want to marry her.
But Mrs. Hadley cut across their chatter by demanding of her husband, “Lord Granton had obviously asked your permission, Dr. Hadley. Why did you not warn me? Why did you say nothing?”
“He wanted it kept a secret,” said Dr. Hadley. “He wanted our little Frederica to have her moment of triumph after what he saw as our shabby treatment of her.”
“But we did not treat her shabbily,” wailed Mrs. Hadley. “Frederica, such was not the case. Oh, dear, with four daughters, what did he expect?”
But Frederica was in too happy a daze to go in for recriminations. Mrs. Hadley surveyed her, wondering if she had ever really known this strange daughter who had blossomed that evening into such unexpected beauty.
But the rectory was reached and the maids summoned, and all except Frederica, who retired to her room, ran about getting the bedchambers prepared.
Frederica sat by the window, her heart beating hard, wondering if it had all been a dream. She scarcely could take in that she would marry Rupert and spend the rest of her days with him, bear his children.
Amy’s petulant voice sounded along the corridor: “Is Frederica already too grand to help us?”
Frederica jolted herself out of her reverie and went to carry clean sheets to the little-used bedchambers. “And to think,” said her mother, “the number of times I have bemoaned that the rectory was too large for us. Dr. Hadley has the right of it. The Crowns can be as insulting as they like. We need not care about them any longer.”
“I wonder what they will do?” mused Frederica. “They are so very grand and proud. I do not think they will be able to stay away. If I am not mistaken, they will be rallying already and trying to persuade the guests that they knew of Lord Granton’s intentions toward me all along.”
“But how did you meet him?” demanded Mary, fussily arranging flowers beside the bed in which Lord Granton was to sleep. “He cannot have fallen in love with you simply after a few visits to the rectory where you were abominably rude to him.”
“We used to meet in the evenings and walk and talk,” said Frederica dreamily.
“But what was he about?” asked Mary. “Had he not proposed and had you been seen together, it would have been a great scandal, and no one would have wanted to marry you.”
“You had all led me to believe that no one would want to marry me anyway,” pointed out Frederica. “At first we were friends, that was all, and he taught me to dance.”
Mrs. Hadley looked at Frederica in horror. “You took a dangerous risk. Did you not think of his reputation?”
“There was nothing in his behavior to frighten or shock me. He looked on me as an amusing little girl, until…” Frederica broke off and smiled.
“Until?” prompted Amy eagerly.
But Frederica felt her mother would be far too shocked if she told them that it was until he had kissed her in the church, a kiss that she had begged for.
There was a rumble of carriage wheels outside. “They are come!” cried Mrs. Hadley.
As they stepped down from the carriage, Lord Granton drew the major aside. “Did I hear you right? You said Annabelle told you she would marry you after all and you refused her?”
“What would you?” said the major sadly. “She was burning up with humiliation and any man would do. I do not want her on those terms.”
“I should think if you had any pride, my friend, you would not want her on any terms.”
“I proposed to her twice,” said the major. “Twice! And twice she refused me.”
“You are too fine a fellow for her.”
The major wearily shook his head.
“Ah, here is our host,” said Lord Granton as the rector came out to meet them. “We must now cope with the inane chattering of my beloved’s sisters.”
“Welcome, welcome!” cried Dr. Hadley. “I beg you to join us for supper. Nothing as grand as you would get at the Hall, for we were not expecting to dine here tonight.”
Leaving the maids and Gustave to carry in their luggage, Lord Granton and the major followed Dr. Hadley into the drawing room.
He went immediately to sit next to Frederica while her three sisters, silent for once, gazed on them in awe.
Dr. Hadley produced two bottles of champagne and beamed all around. “I had been saving these for a special occasion. We will drink a toast to the happy couple.”
The major sat down on the sofa between Amy and Harriet. “I hope I am not crushing you, ladies,” he said, indicating his girth. “I am a trifle large.”
Amy giggled and flirted with her eyes over her fan. “Was I not saying, t’other day, Harriet, that Major Delisle was a fine figure of a man?”
“Oo, yes,” said Harriet. “Very fine.”
The major gave a sad little laugh. “I am not much of a ladies’ man.”
“And all the better for that,” declared Amy. “I do despise gentlemen who are so practiced in flirting that one is never able to believe a word they say.”
They all drank champagne and then moved through to the dining room to eat “a simple spread,” which consisted of the best of cold meats from the larder.
Amy, Harriet, and Mary were competing fiercely for the major’s attention, and Lord Granton no longer thought they were silly, tiresome girls as he saw his friend blossom under all the attention.
He murmured to Frederica under the cover of the babble, “Are we never going to be alone? We have so much to talk about.”
“The pool,” whispered Frederica, “after they have all gone to bed.”
“I could come to your room.”
“That would never do. One hears everything in this old house. It is only a wonder that I did not learn that I was not invited to the ball.”
“What! And yet you came.”
“The gracious Lady Crown changed her mind only today and relented. I did not want to go, for the lateness of
the invitation was a great insult, but Papa was frightened I would offend them.”
“My love, we do not need to run off to the woods any more. I will wait half an hour until everyone has retired and we can walk in the garden. We are a respectable couple now.”
But Frederica thought that night that no one was going to retire. Back in the drawing room after dinner, Amy, Harriet, and Mary tried to fascinate the major. Mrs. Hadley sat in a happy dream, and Dr. Hadley asked anxiously when the announcement would appear in the newspapers and, being told by his future son-in-law that it would appear as soon as possible, relapsed into the same happy state as his wife.
