Picture Perfect

Picture Per
fect

Chapter 1

‘
Henry, you must be there. You must absolutely promise! Then there will be one dance I won’t have to worry about,’ Annabel said breathlessly as she rushed into the parlour, thrusting aside her brother’s newspaper and waving the card which had just been delivered in front of him.

‘Where?’ Henry asked vaguely, and she could see his mind was still on the cricket fixtures coming up in two months time.

‘
The Lockton House ball. It’s the first one of the season, the first one of my season anyway, and you have to be there. I need you.’

‘When is it?’ Henry asked in reasonable tones, which none the less set Annabel’s teeth on edge.

‘The eighth,’ she said, and crossed her fingers behind her back hoping he wouldn’t say he was sailing by then.

Henry smiled, ‘Perfect,’ and then he grinned, leaving her on tenterhooks wondering whether he meant he had an iron-clad excuse for not attending the ball, or whether he planned to take pity on his little sister in her first London season and guarantee her at least one dance in which she would not be a wallflower. ‘I’m off tomorrow, but I’m due back on the fourth, I shall be delighted to come with you to the Lockton ball, it could be fun.’

‘Fun!’ echoed Annabel, thinking that was the last thing it would be. ‘What will be fun about being scrutinised by a hundred mothers and be found to be too forward or too retiring, or too pretty or not pretty enough? What could possibly be fun in waiting and wondering if I’ll be asked to dance, and then if I am asked, will he be clumsy, will he talk and will I be able to think of anything witty to say, whether he does or does not converse? It will be more like going into battle!’

‘True,’ Henry said, and she was sure he was laughing at her. ‘It will be just like going into battle, but it’s what you’ve been training for all these years, and you might find it quite exhilarating to be in the thick of it at last.’

‘Oh,’ said Annabel, and then a new thought struck her. ‘Is that what it’s like for you when you engage another ship?’

‘Well, yes.’ Henry looked a little uncomfortable as if he’d given away more than he meant to, but to his credit he continued. ‘It’s a little tense while we’re closing in, but as soon as the battle starts one forgets anything else and the fight’s the thing, at least in my experience,’ he added modestly.

‘
So I should think of myself as a Navy man,’ Annabel said and drew herself up to her full height of five foot three and saluted him.

Henry laughed. ‘Yes, you could do that, I suppose, but salute with the other hand next time.’

Annabel looked back at the card in her hand speculatively. It was thick and creamy, cut very nearly square and was addressed to the Black family without specifying individuals, which was a relief because she did not know what she would have done if Henry had been omitted, and due to the nature of his profession he had never been a regular at society functions. ‘Do you suppose our cousins have been invited?’ she asked.

‘Bound to be,’ Henry said casually. ‘Everyone gets invited to the Lockton House ball.’

‘How do you know?’ Annabel demanded. ‘Have you been before?’

Henry nodded, ‘Yes, last year in fact, and a couple of years before that. It was Madeline’s first ball too.’

‘So Madeline’s been there before?’ Annabel said eagerly. ‘She’ll be able to tell me everything I need to know… if she and Augusta have been invited.’

‘They are sure to be,’ Henry reiterated, refolding his paper in preparation for more reading. Annabel looked at him in frustration; did he really think they had concluded the topic? Then she gave herself a little shake, of course he did, he was a man.

‘I find I must see my cousins this very day,’ she announced, although she knew he was no longer really listening. ‘I shall send them a note immediately.’

She seated herself at the little writing desk, dipped her pen and pushed a strand of warm brown hair which had escaped from its pin away from her clear, oval face. As concisely as she could, she penned her intention to call upon her cousins that afternoon, then she folded the note and summoned her maid. ‘Wait for an answer, Mary,’ she said. ‘Insist upon it if you have to, but don’t return without a reply.’ Then she went to find her mother to tell her the news.

The reply came back in Madeline’s curvy script telling Annabel that her cousins and aunt would be delighted to receive her that afternoon, with Henry and Mrs Black too if they wished. Henry declined, clearly thinking the discussion would be devoted wholly to clothes and society, so at a quarter to four Mrs Black and her daughter set out to visit Madeline and Augusta. They decided to walk as the house was not far from their own and Mrs Black was a firm believer in light exercise.

‘After all,’ she said to Annabel, ‘if you wish to spend the season dancing the night away it is important to maintain your constitution.’ At four o’clock they knocked on the door and were ushered into the parlour where Annabel’s Aunt Delilah was waiting with her cousins Madeline and Augusta.

Annabel was never quite sure if she liked her aunt’s parlour. It was a large square room, filled with as many chairs and sofas as possible as if Aunt Delilah expected to be frequently inundated with large numbers of visitors. Three of the walls were cream, but one had been papered with a pattern in vivid red which almost matched the velvet curtains at the window and although the room suggested a vibrant social life, Annabel always felt crowded at the beginning of every visit.

‘We are in a little quandary,’ Madeline told Annabel as soon as her mother had ordered the tea.

‘Oh?’ said Annabel. Madeline, she thought, looked not the least perplexed, in fact as usual she was perfectly presented, with her pale blue dress falling over her knees without a wrinkle and her blonde hair piled firmly, if somewhat unimaginatively, on top of her head.

‘Yes,’ Madeline went on, leaning forward as if confiding in her cousin, and lowering her voice although not so much as to exclude anyone in the room from the conversation. ‘We have been invited to a ball at Lockton House, yet only three days later we have planned to hold a small musical evening of our own. I wondered if it might not be too much for Augusta at the beginning of her very first season, but one does so hate to let people down.’

‘How awkward for you,’ Annabel said innocently.

‘
Awkward?’ Madeline echoed in a much more ordinary tone of voice, clearly this was not the answer she had been expecting.

‘Yes, having to postpone your own soiree, I suppose you will have to write to everyone you have invited and explain, although I am sure they will understand.’

‘Not at all, not at all,’ Aunt Delilah cut in. ‘Augusta will simply have to bear up.’

‘And as we have not yet sent out any invitations we would not have the labour of rewriting them,’ Augusta added and Annabel caught a barely perceptible wink from her younger cousin.

‘I am delighted to hear that you are attending the Lockton House ball,’ Mrs Black said, managing somehow to give Annabel a reproving look and yet smile at everyone else, it was a knack her mother had and she used it to keep her various committees in order. Although she had practised in the looking glass, Annabel had not yet mastered the expression herself, but she supposed she would one day, perhaps when she had a daughter of her own. ‘If it is amenable to you, perhaps we can arrange to travel in convoy and arrive together. I am sure Annabel would appreciate the company of her cousins at her very first ball.’

‘Yes,’ said Augusta at once, ‘please, Mother, may we?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Aunt Delilah said. ‘After all it adds gravitas to be announced in a large party. Yes, let us do that. We are closer to Lockton House than you, Judith, perhaps you can call for us on the way.’

‘It will be my pleasure,’ Mrs Black said, smiling at her sister-in-law whom Annabel knew often irritated her, although her mother always hid it. ‘Now won’t you show me your most recent embroidery? You told me you had purchased some carmine silks and I am most anxious to see your work.’

Aunt Delilah lit up at this little attention and Annabel liked her aunt the better for it. Embroidery was her true passion, although launching first Madeline and now Augusta upon society seemed to run it a close second. ‘Come with me,’ she said to Mrs Black. ‘All my pieces are in my little sun room at present, I don’t want them cluttering up the parlour at this time of year.’

There was a little silence after the two older women left and Annabel had the odd feeling that Madeline had been hoping for such an opportunity so that she could say something that she perhaps wouldn’t say in the presence of their mothers. It seemed she was right. Madeline smiled a little condescendingly at her and said ‘You must have been quite relieved when your first invitation of the season arrived.’

‘
Relieved? To be invited to a private viewing at the Dulwich Picture Gallery?’ Annabel said, not sure what her cousin was driving at, but unable to resist dropping that in, especially when she saw from Madeline’s expression that no such invitation had arrived for her branch of the family.

Madeline raised one eyebrow archly, a mannerism Annabel had seen her developing for a year before she perfected it and which she found not in the least intimidating. ‘A small, private viewing hardly counts as society, my dear, I was referring to your invitation to Lockton House.’

Annabel shrugged. ‘Henry says it’s a very large affair and everyone gets invited. I’m sure he said he danced with you there in your first season.’ Henry had not actually told her that, but he was surprisingly fond of Madeline and he was bound to have asked her to dance.

Madeline ignored that. ‘But don’t you see? Now you have been invited to Lockton House, it ensures you will be invited to other gatherings which might be, shall we say, more select?’

‘
Such as small, private gallery viewings?’

Madeline tutted. ‘Uncle Thomas is known as an art collector, such circles will always be open to you. I was referring to invitations gained on your own merit.’

‘
Is this something which worried you overly much in your first season?’ Annabel asked, sure her cousin was trying to deliver some put down, but unable to fathom what it was.

Madeline laughed, a society tinkle she had cultivated, Annabel was sure. ‘Oh, no, of course not, but then my situation is quite different from yours.’

‘
What do you mean?’ Annabel said bluntly, suddenly tired of the game. Augusta, she noticed, was sitting on the edge of her seat, looking wide-eyed as if she knew Madeline was about to say something very potent indeed. Uneasiness stirred in her, but she had no wish to take back her question.

‘
What I mean is that your position is not as secure as mine or Augusta’s, since you are only adopted.’

Annabel stared at Madeline, she felt as though she had been hit hard in the stomach, rather like the time she had been winded falling off her pony as a child, but she could hear her breath coming in funny little gasps and she didn’t know what to say. Then the words came to her. ‘Adopted! What on earth do you mean, adopted?’

‘
Didn’t you know?’ Madeline seemed to half squirm in delight and half have the grace to look uncomfortable. Augusta, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, merely looked horrified. She rounded on her younger cousin.

‘
Do you know anything about this?’

It was Augusta’s hesitancy, more than what she said that convinced her of the truth of Madeline’s assertion. ‘I… I… I didn’t know Madeline planned to tell you!’

Annabel’s head reeled as she tried to take it in. Her beloved mother wasn’t really her mother, her father, who had spent so much time educating her in art wasn’t really her father? Was she just some stranger’s child he had taken pity on for all those hours then? Henry was not her brother, not connected to her in any way at all, and then she remembered his gentle teasing that morning when she pressed him about the Lockton House ball. Of course he was her brother, only a brother would speak to one like that. She stared proudly back at Madeline, although she could still feel her heart beating at double time, and said ‘I don’t see that it makes any difference.’

‘
Of course it makes a difference,’ Madeline said, clearly piqued at Annabel apparently recovering so quickly from the news. ‘Nobody knows who you are. You could be anyone, and many people would think twice about inviting just anyone into their social circles.’