Taming of Annabelle (3 page)

‘Papa!’

‘And you will mind Minerva at all times. She’s got her head screwed on the right way and you ain’t.’

‘Yes, papa,’ said Annabelle through thin lips.

‘And if you make any mischief, I shall get to hear of it and I’ll take the horsewhip to you which is a thing I’ve had a mind to do many’s a time, but Minerva always
stepped in an’ stopped me.’

‘You would not
dare
!’ gasped Annabelle. ‘I, sir, am a lady.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ said the vicar calmly. ‘I’m warning you, Annabelle, you keep your conversation civil and your manner modest.’

‘Very well, papa.’

‘“Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” Peter 1, Chapter 8, verse 11.’

‘
Yes
, papa.’

‘Now, here’s a purse for you. Pin money and money for the servants. Off to bed with you.’

Folding her lips into a mutinous line, Annabelle stalked up the stairs to her room.

Deirdre was sitting at the toilet table, trying various creams on her face.

Annabelle’s temper erupted and she ran at her younger sister and shook her till her teeth rattled.

‘Get to your own room,’ she hissed.

Deirdre wriggled out of Annabelle’s grasp and danced to the door. ‘You haven’t a hope of Lord Sylvester even
looking
at you, Bella. Fair-haired women aren’t
fashionable.’

‘Neither are carrot tops,’ screamed Annabelle. She seized a hair brush and threw it at her sister, but Deirdre quickly nipped around the door and was gone.

‘Spiteful little
cat
!’ muttered Annabelle, sitting down at the toilet table and anxiously studying her reflection in the glass. Anger had brought a flush to her cheeks and a
sparkle to her large blue eyes. Her blonde hair, which she still wore down, formed a golden aureole about her pretty face.

‘I’m beautiful,’ said Annabelle defiantly. ‘Much more beautiful than Minerva.’ Then suffocating excitement began to rise in her throat. Soon she would see Lord
Sylvester. She began to weave rosy fantasies of returning to the vicarage with a doting Lord Sylvester on her arm and savoured the thought of Deirdre’s consternation. ‘This is my little
sister,’ she would say, patting Deirdre’s hair. ‘We must do something to reform her, darling. So wild in her ways, she will
never
catch a beau.’

But it was a rather small and scared and schoolgirlish Annabelle who bade farewell to her parents and sisters on the following day. The girls had been kept from school
especially to say goodbye to her. The vicar promised to write to the twins that very day and tell them of Annabelle’s visit to the Duke of Allsbury.

The magnificent glass-wigged coachman, grander than an archbishop, cracked his whip. Annabelle leaned out of the carriage window, seeing her family through a blur of tears. Two tall footmen
jumped on the backstrap, the housemaid Betty clasped her hands in sheer ecstasy at the glory of the soft leather upholstery, the bearskin rugs, and the hot brick at her feet – and they were
off.

‘G-Goodbye,’ choked Annabelle, fluttering her handkerchief. ‘Oh, I
will
be good, papa.’

But the vicar’s startled shout of, ‘You weren’t setting out to be anything else, were you?’ was drowned in the rumble of the wheels.

Annabelle sat back in the corner and dried her streaming eyes. Was this how Minerva felt? she thought uneasily. Was this how she felt when she set out to London with instructions to find a
husband? And wasn’t it monstrous wicked even to think of depriving her of her catch?

The coach rumbled on down through the village, casting its reflection in the still waters of the village pond, the four great horses pulling it sending out snorts of smoky breath into the frigid
air.

Past the Six Jolly Beggarmen; past the wrinkled little figure of Squire Radford, who raised his hat.

And on past the gates of The Hall, home of Annabelle’s uncle, Sir Edwin Armitage. Sir Edwin, the vicar’s brother, and his wife, Lady Edwin, had had their noses quite put out of joint
by Minerva’s success on the marriage mart. Their conceited daughters, Emily and Josephine, had not taken at all, and were all set to try again at the next Season.

At the thought of Josephine and Emily, Annabelle’s uneasy conscience fled to be replaced by a rosy fantasy of presenting Lord Sylvester to them as
her
fiancé and watching the
look on their Friday-faces.

The carriage swayed over the hump-backed bridge that spanned the River Blyne, and sent echoes flying back from the high mossy walls around Lady Went-water’s estate.

By the time the coach had swung out on to the Hopeminster Road, Annabelle’s fantasy had faded, and once again she began worrying about how she would behave at the Duke of
Allsbury’s.

She tried to reassure herself by remembering that she had been on visits to their neighbour, Lord Osbadiston, who had lived in rather a grand style before his debts had caught up with him. But
she had gone there with her family, very much one of the children. Now, visiting a Duke was almost as good as visiting royalty. It was said the Duke and Duchess of Allsbury held very fashionable
house parties. Mrs Armitage would not have felt intimidated. She was so determined to prove that she was an ailing invalid that she did not really notice much of what was going on around her.
Minerva, with a London Season behind her, would be quite at ease, but here Annabelle frowned. If she were to impress and charm Lord Sylvester, then she did not want to hide behind her
sister’s skirts.

If only she did not have to meet these mysterious young men! And if Minerva found them suitable, they must be boring in the extreme, thought Annabelle, determined to hang on to the idea that
Minerva’s engagement to Lord Sylvester had been a result of a temporary mental aberration on the part of that gentleman.

‘Oh, Miss Bella,’ cried the maid, Betty, breaking in to her thoughts. ‘Ain’t it scary to be visiting a real live dook?’

‘You must learn to know your place, Betty,’ said Annabelle severely, ‘and call me Miss Annabelle from now on.

‘Yes’m,’ said Betty with a little toss of her head. It was Miss Bella who would soon find she didn’t know her place, thought Betty gleefully. And
that
would be fun
to watch. Too full of herself was our Miss Bella!

After two days of travelling, Annabelle arrived at Haeter Abbey on a cold grey morning, with black massed clouds threatening snow.

She had expected a palace like Blenheim and experienced a sharp pang of disappointment as Haeter Abbey hove into view. It seemed a large, rather ugly house set in a flat park. In 1758, the young
architect, Robert Adam, had designed the interiors, but by the time he had shown his plans for remodelling the outside of the building, the duke at that time had remarked curtly that he had spent
enough money, and so the dull bare brick front with its squat row of columns stayed as it was.

The inside was another story. But, at first at least, Annabelle did not even notice its magnificence.

She was ushered into a large hall and stood hesitantly on its broad expanse of black-and-white tile. Adam’s cool colours set off the Roman statuary which surrounded the room. At the end, a
double flight of stairs curved up to the state rooms on the first floor.

Annabelle saw none of this magnificence. She dimly saw Minerva, her arms stretched out in welcome. But clear and sharp, she saw the tall, elegant figure of Lord Sylvester and hurtled towards
it.

Throwing her arms around him, she turned her glowing face up to his. If ever a girl was waiting to be kissed, it was Annabelle.

Lord Sylvester Comfrey gave her cheek a careless flick of his hand and then gently disengaged himself.

‘Welcome, Miss Annabelle,’ he said. ‘Your sister is waiting to greet you.’

Annabelle flushed delicately, realizing her mistake. Of course dear Sylvester would not show any unnecessary warmth in front of Minerva.

‘I am
so
sorry, Lord Sylvester,’ she said. ‘You must think the long journey has addled my wits. I simply rushed into the arms of the first person I saw. Merva, it is
so
good to see you.’

She hugged and kissed her sister, noticing out of the corner of one blue eye that the rather blank look had left Lord Sylvester’s green eyes and he was surveying her approvingly.

As she drew back, Annabelle was still so intent on charming Lord Sylvester that she did not notice Minerva’s rather heightened colour.

‘Come and I will take you to your room, Annabelle,’ said Minerva, ‘and we can have a comfortable coze. Lord Sylvester will excuse us.’

She put her arm around Annabelle’s waist and led her up the stairs.

Annabelle was only dimly aware of a glory of rich colours and ornaments and paintings. She half turned on the landing and glanced down into the hall. A footman carrying a large candelabra was
crossing it, but, of Lord Sylvester, there was no sign.

The bedroom allotted to Annabelle had a sitting room leading from it and a powder closet which had been turned into a small dressing room. The rooms were decorated in rich golds and crimsons
with a seventeenth century tapestry depicting the death of Remus along one wall of the bedroom.

Annabelle rattled on breathlessly about the doings of the parish while Minerva helped Betty to unpack.

Then she changed out of her boots into a pair of beaded slippers and warmed her toes at the hearth. For the first time she looked fully at Minerva and felt a pang of sheer jealousy.

Minerva was wearing a classical, high-waisted, vertical gown with a high neck and deep muslin ruff in palest pink. The untrained skirt was ankle length with a slightly flared hem ornamented with
Spanish trimmings. The sleeves were long and close fitting, ending in a muslin wrist frill. Her black hair was dressed
à la Titus
, artistically dishevelled curls springing from a
centre parting. Her large grey eyes seemed almost silver and her cheeks were faintly flushed.

‘You make me feel like a yokel,’ said Annabelle with a rather shrill laugh. ‘Mama said you would lend me some gowns, Merva. Please let me look at your wardrobe. I must look my
best. And who are these gentlemen you wish me to meet?’

Minerva dismissed Betty to the servants’ quarters, softly closed the door behind the maid, and came and sat down opposite Annabelle, looking rather grave.

‘Yes, you may choose any of my dresses you please,’ said Minerva, ‘and I shall tell you about the other guests shortly. But first I must explain something to you. The ways of
the
haut ton
are not so very different from our ways. To be modest and pleasing at all times and not to talk too much are some necessary things to remember.’

Here Annabelle sighed loudly and tapped her foot impatiently on the fender.

‘Don’t prose so, Merva,’ said Annabelle.

‘Neither Mama nor Papa is here, so I stand in their place,’ said Minerva severely. ‘I must, therefore, tell you that your behaviour on arrival was disgraceful.’

‘You refine too much upon it,’ said Annabelle hotly. ‘I
explained.
I was delighted to have arrived safely after a tedious journey. Sylvester is to be my brother-in-law .
. .’

‘
Lord
Sylvester to you, miss.’

Annabelle suddenly grinned. ‘You’re jealous, Merva,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Minerva coldly, ‘you do me an injustice. Where Lord Sylvester is concerned, I have nothing to be jealous about.’

Minerva seemed so utterly sure of herself, so completely serene, that Annabelle experienced her first qualm of doubt. Could Lord Sylvester really love Minerva?

‘You are very young, Bella,’ said Minerva. ‘Perhaps I was wrong to arrange this invitation for you.’

‘No!’ exclaimed Annabelle breathlessly, realizing she had gone too far. Memory of the vicar’s threat of a horsewhipping came back. ‘I am really sorry I behaved in such a
hoydenish way, Merva. Please say you forgive me.’

Now, the old Minerva would promptly have looked noble and accepted the apology on the spot. But this new, poised, strangely different sister only replied, ‘Well, we shall see how you go
on. You wished to know about the young gentlemen. They are all a trifle too old for you, being in their twenties, but I thought it would be an opportunity for you to study how the other young
ladies behave.’

‘
Other young ladies?
’

‘Yes, we are not without competition,’ smiled Minerva. ‘I had better tell you the names of everyone you are to meet. There is, of course, the Duke and Duchess of Allsbury. Lord
Sylvester’s older brother, the Marquess, is travelling in Russia and will not be with us. Then there are two cousins, the Misses Margaret and Belinda Forbes-Jydes; Lady Godolphin, of whom you
have heard; Lady Coombes, a most elegant lady who is a relative; Sally and Betty Abernethy, Scotch ladies who are related to the Duchess’s family, and that makes up the female side of the
party.

‘The gentlemen consist of a Colonel Arthur Brian who is by way of being a friend of Lady Godolphin.’ Here Minerva’s lips pressed into a severe disapproving line and Annabelle
wondered why. ‘Then there is the Honourable Harry Comfrey with his brother, Charles, both cousins, Lord Paul Chester, a friend of Lord Sylvester, as is Mr John Frampton . . . oh, and I had
almost forgot, the most exciting guest of all arrives tomorrow.’