The Earl of Highmott Hall: A Regency Cinderella

by Nina Clare

  ‘I can hardly wait till midnight,’ Neville gloated. ‘The look on their faces when they realise we’ve played them like a fiddle!’ He slapped his cousin on the shoulder as they left the great hall, passing through the entrance hall on their way up to dress. ‘Cheer up, Marbury, this is a night we’ll tell stories about for years to come.’

  But Lord Marbury could not share his cousin’s glee. He was dreading midnight. He still did not know what he would do, but he felt that his honour as a gentleman, what little honour would be left after midnight, made him obliged to propose to Miss Asher.

  There was a rap at the front door at the other end of the hall. Neville had already bounded half way up the stairs to his rooms on the first floor, ‘Send up a couple of young fellows from your staff, Sweeting,’ he called down over the bannisters, as Sweeting crossed the entrance hall at that moment. ‘I might need some help with making my appearance tonight.’

  ‘Very good, sir. I will answer the door, then send Johnson and Bailey up.’

  Lord Marbury paused at the foot of the stairs, waiting to see who was at the door. It was too early for guests to begin arriving.

  ‘Lord Marbury?’ greeted the visitor, coming in and casting a light dusting of snow on the stone floor. Sweeting removed the visitor’s heavy travelling coat to reveal a wiry man with tawny waxed whiskers and a lawyer’s wig.

  ‘Yes?’ Lord Marbury had determined that from this day he was never going to be Mr Neville again. This must be one of the guests, arriving a full two hours early. Dressing as a lawyer was not terribly imaginative.

  ‘Mr Frank Foxley of Foxley, Fotheringhay, and Finch at your service, sir,’ said the man, bowing smartly. ‘I am come as witness. Have my colleagues arrived?’

  Lord Marbury was about to reply in the negative, but a sharp rap to the door soon revealed one Mr Fotheringhay, of Fotheringhay, Finch, and Foxley on the doorstep. No sooner had Mr Fotheringhay made his bow and his assertion that he was come as witness, than the short, round figure of Mr Finchley was at the door.

  ‘You are come as witnesses to the ball?’ Lord Marbury enquired.

  ‘As witness to the proposal,’ said Mr Finch. ‘To Miss Asher of Roseleat.’

  ‘By the last stroke of midnight,’ added Mr Foxley.

  ‘Followed by an acceptance,’ said Mr Fotheringhay.

  Lord Marbury suddenly felt very weary. ‘Sweeting, show these gentlemen to the saloon and supply them with refreshment. Gentlemen, excuse me. I must dress before my guests arrive.’

  The costume came wrapped in silver tissue under a linen cover. Morris had already removed the garments and laid them out, checking them for any mark or loose thread, and brushing the already spotless coat and breeches down lest any speck of dust remain.

  Lord Marbury looked at the white silk breeches, the sheer stockings, the long, collarless coat of matching white silk, silver frogging, and gold buttons. He looked down at the shirt of white lawn, with row on row on ruffles, the black velvet hat with the white ostrich plume, and he frowned. There was something familiar about these clothes. He had thought so at the tailor’s shop, but now he was sure of it. He spied the edge of a gilt frame, propped against the wall between his sitting room and dressing chamber. ‘What’s that?’ he said, crossing the room to see.

  ‘It came with the costume,’ said Morris. ‘The tailor was furnished with it that he might construct the design for your ensemble.’

  Lord Marbury knew immediately whose portrait it was. That direct gaze under those arched eyebrows. The suit of white silk and the ostrich plumed hat, held in one hand, for it was too large to fit over the curled wig. It was undoubtedly Lord Robert Marbury, the third earl of Highmott. He knew who it was without anyone telling him – for it was the man he had seen in the time-travelling vision.

  ‘The wig is magnificent,’ said Morris, tenderly lifting the copy of Robert Marbury’s wig from its stand. ‘You will wear the wig, my lord?’ he queried, his pleasure dimming for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lord Marbury distractedly, still musing over the portrait and the remembrance of that Christmas Eve ball a century ago.’

  ‘Excellent,’ sighed Morris reaching for the powder box.

  ‘How do I look, Mama?’ Lavinia fretted.

  ‘You look splendid, darling,’ Lady Asher assured her.

  ‘Oh, if only the dress was not green. Why could Lord Marbury not choose pink or white? They are my best colours.’

  ‘Do not pout, darling, it makes you look ill. And do not slouch. It is a pity the stays are so soft with that gown.’ Lady Asher always wore a full corset of whalebone to give her the straight back and statue-like pose she considered a necessary elegance.

  ‘Full corsets are quite out of fashion, Mama,’ Lavinia informed her. ‘All of real society wears the new style of stays and the high waisted gown. Some wear no stays at all.’

  ‘Real ladies wear stays and gowns that do not display all their charms,’ argued Lady Asher.

  ‘I wish I had some jewels,’ mourned Lavinia. ‘Amethysts would do so well against this green. Or even pearls.’

  ‘It’s a masque, Lavinia,’ Celia reminded her. ‘Princess Flora did not wear cut jewels. She wore a plain circlet of gold about her forehead, and that is all.’ Celia had tied a narrow golden ribbon around Lavinia’s forehead as a makeshift crown. ‘You ought not to have these curls. They did not own curling irons hundreds of years ago.’

  ‘She might have had naturally curly hair,’ said Lavinia. She patted her glossy ringlets. ‘Just because your book says she had a long braid hanging down her back, doesn’t mean it wasn’t curly. Pass me my domino. I wish I had some feathers,’ she said, looking at the white mask, ‘this is so very plain.’

  Celia was not going to waste her breath trying to persuade Lavinia to authenticity. What did she care how her hair was arranged? She was still annoyed that she could not go. The cut on her foot had not been as deep as was feared, and was healing over quickly; she could have worn those soft red slippers that night and danced a little with only a little discomfort.

  ‘Do cease sighing, Celia,’ her stepmother scolded. ‘That is the fourth one in the past five minutes.’

  ‘Is it?’ She hadn’t realised.

  ‘You should be pleased for me,’ said Lavinia, practising a few dance steps. ‘When I marry, we will be as rich as we could wish. I promise you can dance at my wedding, Celia. You can even make over this dress for it, for I shan’t want to wear such an unflattering colour ever again. I will even buy you a matching hat.’

  The Marbury carriage arrived amid a feathery-light fall of snow. Lady Asher had declared herself too old for costumes, so beneath the voluminous domino cloak she wore her best silk gown. Celia had been instructed to trim Lady Asher’s evening headdress with a jaunty sprig of holly. Her mask was black velvet, reaching to her forehead and resting over her long nose and rounding over her flat cheeks, so her whole face was covered bar her mouth and chin.

  Celia watched them leave with a feeling of mutiny in her heart, then sought out the warmth of the kitchen.

  Agnes was surveying her array of baked goods with satisfaction. Robin lay on the threadbare hearthrug, feeding his kittens scraps of bacon.

  ‘We are going to feast tomorrow,’ said Agnes, her eyes lit up with pleasure. ‘But why such a face, Miss Celia? You look as though you lost a sovereign and found a button.’

  Celia shrugged. ‘I would have liked to go to my first ball,’ she admitted, sinking down at the kitchen table and resting her chin on her hands. ‘I have not danced since Papa was well. Do you remember when he would invite our neighbours round? We would push all the furniture back in the drawing room and old Matthias Maker would bring his fiddle and we all danced reels and jigs till supper?’

  Agnes’ eyes grew misty as they always did when she thought of the past. Suddenly the big spread of food seemed paltry in comparison to the abundance they had once known. Agnes’ smile of satisfaction turned into pursed lips.

  ‘Oh,
I’m a selfish wretch!’ cried Celia, getting up to throw herself at Agnes in a hug. ‘You have made this wonder of a feast and I am too busy feeling sorry for myself because I cannot dress up and go dancing!’

  Agnes pushed Celia away, but seized her arm, a look of determination on her face. ‘Robin-me-lad, bring that lamp,’ she ordered. She snatched up her enormous bunch of house keys from their hook on the wall and marched Celia across the kitchen.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Celia.

  ‘Sending you to the ball.’

  19

  ‘It’s here somewhere.’ Agnes’ voice was muffled as her head disappeared into one of the dusty old chests in the attic. ‘Hold that lamp up, Robin-me-lad.’

  Celia shivered in the draughty attic. ‘What are you looking for?’ she asked for the third time. But Agnes was too engrossed in her search to answer.

  The attic was divided up into half a dozen rooms. Four of them had been bedrooms for the housemaids they had once employed, but now the rooms sat empty and damp. Two large rooms were used as storage for old furniture and unwanted or forgotten items. Both rooms had long since been emptied of anything of value, but a few old trunks and boxes remained.

  ‘Found it!’ cried Agnes, her triumphant smile looked eerie as shadows flickered over her face in the lamplight.

  Celia looked at the piles of old linen that Agnes clutched. ‘Carry it down,’ said Agnes, thrusting the pile into Celia’s arms. Agnes rummaged again and brought up another large bundle. ‘Give me that lamp, Robin-me-lad, you carry this instead.’

  ‘We’ll take it into Miss Lavinia’s room,’ Agnes called back, as they descended from the attic.

  Celia was glad to put down the weighty pile of discoloured linen onto a table in Lavinia’s room. She dropped it carelessly with a dull thud. Her nose wrinkled against the musty smell. ‘I hope you don’t have some mad idea about dressing me up in sheets?’ Celia said.

  ‘Gently!’ Agnes cried, hurrying to unwrap the folds of stained linen. ‘It’s as old as the hills, you can’t throw it about like that.’

  ‘Throw what? Oh, it’s a gown?’

  Agnes had reverently uncovered a mantua of brocaded silk. It must have been a bright scarlet once, but was now aged to a mellow, antique hue. Celia stared at it, wondering where she had seen such a gown before. The exact gown, but not as it was now. She had seen it fresh and new and gracing the tall figure of — ‘Lady Violet,’ she said in wonder. She saw again that proud, fierce expression of her ancestor, just as she had seen her in that strange vision she had shared with Mr Neville. ‘This is Lady Violet’s gown. How did you know it was there?’

  ‘I don’t know that it’s Lady Violet’s,’ said Agnes, stroking down the lace edgings, ‘I only know that the housemaids used to take old gowns and petticoats out of the boxes in the attics. They’d cut them up and make them over into clothes for themselves. But this gown was in a locked chest, and no one has touched it in decades, I’d say.’

  ‘In a hundred years, I would say,’ said Celia. ‘It has survived remarkably well.’

  ‘Remarkably,’ agreed Agnes. ‘Faded somewhat, and a shame we don’t have time to freshen it up, but needs must.’

  ‘Do you mean…?’ Celia stared at Agnes, her own mind busy with a new idea.

  ‘Stoke up that fire, Robin-me-lad,’ ordered Agnes. ‘Get behind that screen, Miss Celia, you are dressing for a ball.’

  The snow continued to fall intermittently, but it was light, and not enough to deter the guests. Lord Marbury took the precaution of sending out his manservants to clear the road and set lanterns to mark the paths. But everyone arrived without mishap.

  It was an odd way to meet his new neighbours, Lord Marbury considered, watching as his guests arrived hidden behind masks, with none of the usual greeting of the host, for the guests must wait till midnight to be unmasked. But there was an air of excitement and expectation of pleasure, and it gave Lord Marbury some means of much-needed distraction to watch how earnestly the guests looked about and speculated who among the men was the new earl they had been eager to meet.

  It was no difficulty to Lord Marbury to pick out Miss Lavinia Asher on her arrival. Her mother’s tall, statuesque figure could not be disguised by a mere mask, nor could Lavinia’s girlish voice fail to be heard as she declared that everything was simply divine. He pulled out his pocket watch: half past nine. Only two and a half hours until midnight. And where was Neville? He hadn’t seen him since they went up to dress.

  His eyes scanned the crowd, searching for his cousin. There was a Henry the Eighth stood with a buxom queen – hard to say which of his six queens it was – but it was too short a Henry to be Neville. Perhaps he was that harlequin holding a glass of punch in each hand and taking alternating swigs in the corner. But that couldn’t be Neville. He would not be found in a corner stiffening his nerves with drink.

  He nodded in greeting to those he passed by: Cupid, complete with bow and arrow nodded back, Cleopatra whose asp was thankfully made of felt bowed politely. He greeted three shepherdesses who were eyeing one another with disdain at so much competition, two cardinals, one bishop with a nun on his arm, a very dashing Sir Walter Raleigh in an enormous ruff, a winged hussar and a good number of generals varying in splendour and whisker. Admiral Nelson swept off his hat in greeting, attended by a sprinkling of milkmaids and followed by Red Riding Hood on the arm of a man draped in furs, presumably aspiring to wolfishness, but looking more like a moulting bear.

  He caught a glimpse of Mr Finch’s beady eyes observing his movements. He had better get on with it. The music had begun, and he made his way to the other side of the hall to ask Miss Asher for her hand for the first dance.

  It was clear that Miss Asher did not recognise him in his full wig and mask. ‘Ooh, are you the Sun King?’ she cried.

  ‘Nothing quite so grand, my lady,’ said Lord Marbury. ‘Only a courtier from another century.’

  ‘I think your coat is divine. Can you guess who I am?’

  ‘Perhaps…’ Lord Marbury examined the medieval style gown in a shade of forest green that did not suit Miss Asher’s colouring well. ‘Maid Marian?’

  Miss Asher giggled. ‘Well now I know you cannot be the earl, for he would know exactly who I am.’ She tried to peer at his eyes through the mask. ‘Are you Mr Neville? I am sure you are.’

  ‘You must wait till midnight to find out.’

  Miss Asher’s laughter was cut short as a loud noise sounded from the hallway, and shouts and cries brought the musicians to an abrupt halt.

  ‘What is that noise?’ cried Miss Asher. ‘It sounds like a horse!’

  Lord Marbury was thinking the exact same thing. It was as if some escaped horse was riding iron-shod hooves across the stone floor. He heard a shrill neigh, and stared in amazement as an enormous black horse thundered into the great hall with a man in black waving a pistol in the air.

  ‘Stand and deliver!’ bellowed the man in black, his horse rearing up, the guests fleeing out of reach with screams and shouts. Little Red Riding Hood had dropped her basket, and the hussar had lost his wings in his flight. ‘Your money or your life! You! Gent in white silk! Hand over your jewels, your silver, your gold!’

  The menacing masked man lowered his flintlock, pointing it directly at Lord Marbury, who stepped forward, wondering how far this ruse would go.

  The rider gave a shout, pulled the trigger, and a great bang resounded through the hall. Ladies screamed, gentleman shouted, the black horse reared and neighed, and the vicious, murdering gunman leaped from his saddle, threw the reins to a servant who appeared at that precise moment, and gave a triumphant laugh. ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ shouted the highwayman, waving his gun, ‘Welcome to Highmott Hall! Let the dancing begin!’

  Shock turned to laughter as the guests saw the highwayman toss his weapon aside, grab two cups of punch, and hand one to the gentleman in the white silk and impressive wig, and propose a toast to Christmas cheer.

  ‘It must be the
earl!’ was the general cry. ‘What a good joke!’

  ‘You are incorrigible,’ was Lord Marbury’s unsmiling verdict to the grinning highwayman. ‘That beast could have done harm.’

  ‘Not likely,’ cried the highwayman. ‘I’ve been training him all week for that stunt. He rears up magnificently, don’t he? Did you like the bang? Was it a good effect? I had Johnson whack that copper pan at my shout. Why isn’t the music playing?’

  ‘Because you scared the life out of the musicians. They took shelter under the trestles.’

  Sure enough, a quartet of musicians were now emerging on hands and knees from under a tablecloth.

  ‘Take a cup of punch, fellows!’ cried the highwayman, ‘then play us some jigs, who’s for dancing?’

  Celia kept her own linen shift on, and her stays were firmly laced up, and the hooped petticoat tied on. Robin ran heavy-footed up and down halls and stairs fetching everything his grandmother called for.

  The gown was slid on and pinned carefully to the stomacher, and the train looped up.

  ‘Well,’ said Agnes, ‘look at you.’

  Robin said she looked like the painting downstairs.

  Celia looked at herself in Lavinia’s mirror and was startled at the resemblance between herself and Lady Violet’s portrait. It was only a shame that even in soft candlelight, the fading and gentle fraying of the fabric could be seen.

  ‘My hair,’ she said, pulling out the pins she used to keep it in its practical knot at the nape of her neck. ‘What shall I do with my hair?’

  Agnes was already reaching for a comb. ‘Shame Lady Asher wore her wig tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m no lady’s maid, but I shall braid it best I can and pin it round like the painting of Lady Violet.’