Refining Felicity

by Beaton, M. C.

  At first he did not recognize Amy, who answered it. All he saw was a tall, raw-boned woman wearing an ugly cap and with a sacking apron tied over her gown.

  They stared at each other in silence. Amy saw a very tall, thin, slightly stooped man in a plain but expensive coat. His pepper-and-salt hair was combed back and tied in the old-fashioned manner at the nape of his neck with a ribbon.

  ‘Is your mistress at home?’ he asked. He held out his card.

  Amy read the inscription and then blushed. ‘It is I, Mr Haddon. Miss Amy Tribble. No wonder you did not recognize me. It is the servants’ day off. Come in, come in.’

  But I wouldn’t have known him, thought Amy. I remember him as he looked all those long years ago. He was kind, as I recall, and of good family, but quite poor.

  She ushered him into the drawing room, where Effy was sitting before the empty fireplace, wrapped in so many shawls that only the tip of her cold-reddened nose peeped out.

  ‘Effy, dear,’ said Amy. ‘This is Mr Benjamin Haddon. You remember? He went to India.’

  Effy shed several shawls and held out a hand for Mr Haddon to kiss. ‘Delighted,’ she murmured. ‘We last met at the Chumleys’ ball, as I recall. I was wearing a white slip with a gold key pattern, very fine, and I had, let me see, three plumes on my head.’

  ‘You have grown more beautiful, Miss Effy,’ he said gallantly, ‘while I have become stooped and quite yellow.’

  ‘How was India?’ asked Amy, wondering whether to go downstairs and decant the last precious bottle of port.

  He smiled. He still has his own teeth, thought Amy, as we have. How very odd. One does not often see people of our years with all their teeth, and yet here are three of us. ‘It was very hot,’ he said. ‘Colourful and violent. I dreamt so often of grey skies and soft rain, I am distressed to find I cannot get my bearings now I am back. That is why I came to see you. You were both kind to me when I was a penniless young man. But how do you go on? Is your father alive?’

  ‘No, Papa has been dead this age.’

  Effy cast a few more shawls and began to fan herself, her blue eyes flirting over the top. Amy thought sourly it was just like Effy to bring out a fan when the room was as cold as a tomb.

  Mr Haddon glanced about him. He noticed that there was very little furniture and no ornaments or knick-knacks whatsoever. There were cleaner squares on the dingy wallpaper showing where pictures had once hung.

  ‘I am become quite rich,’ he said abruptly. ‘You must let me help you.’

  Two pairs of shocked eyes stared at him. Both Tribbles were bound by the iron laws of convention. It was quite comme il faut to wait for an elderly relative to drop dead, or to marry someone one did not like in the slightest in order to get money – but accept charity? Never!

  ‘I am afraid we have given you a false impression,’ said Amy. ‘We are shortly to become working women, so you have no need to pity us.’

  ‘What kind of work?’

  Effy produced a folded and much-thumbed copy of The Morning Post and pointed silently to an advertisement. He took out his quizzing-glass and read it carefully.

  ‘And have you had any replies?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Amy, throwing Effy a warning look. They had had two replies, but the families who had called were patently put off by the cold rooms and lack of servants.

  ‘Let me think,’ he said. ‘I believe you have put in the wrong type of advertisement.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ cried Effy, forgetting to flirt.

  ‘In this age of sensibility,’ he said slowly, ‘parents often ruin their daughters by indulging their every whim. You have seen some of the difficult ones. They are so spoilt, so hoydenish, that they do not “take”. Now, if you were to advertise for difficult misses, parents who were absolutely desperate might reply . . . if you see what I mean.’ He coughed and added tactfully, ‘The middle classes are apt to equate riches with good ton. An aristocrat would not notice, provided he thought he was gaining the correct schooling for his daughter before the Season. After all, one of your favourite phrases used to be that you always made the best out of the worst.’

  There was a long silence. Effy looked at Amy, wide-eyed.

  ‘By Jove!’ said Amy suddenly. ‘I believe you have it.’ She rushed out of the room to return with pen and paper.

  ‘I will take it myself direct to the newspaper,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘At least let me do that for you.’

  The three of them worked busily, writing and scoring out and redrafting until they were satisfied.

  ‘That should fetch them,’ said Mr Haddon at last. They all looked at the finished result.

  If you have a Wild, Unruly, or Undisciplined Daughter, two Ladies of Genteel Birth offer to Bring Out said daughter, and Refine what may have seemed Unrefinable. Religious and Social Training. The Seeds of Decorum planted where the Ground was Once Considered Barren. We make the Best of the Worst.

  Direct to XYZ, Cruickshank’s Perfumier, 12, Haymarket.

  The perfumiers ran a letter collecting service for advertisers.

  ‘I shall take it away directly,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘We shall meet tomorrow.’

  After he had gone, Amy said dismally, ‘We shall have to tell him the truth. We can’t go on saying the servants have a day off.’

  ‘He is a fine-looking man,’ said Effy dreamily. ‘Did you notice the speaking look in his eye when he bent over my hand?’

  But, for once, Amy would not share in any romantic speculation. ‘I had better go down to the larder and see if I can scrape up something to eat,’ she said. ‘We go to Lady Rochester’s tomorrow. Be sure to eat as much as you can, Effy.’

  ‘Oh, I shall. But do not disgrace me again.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean, Amy. You scandalized the Petersons at their party by trying to stuff so much food into a reticule the size of a trunk and were caught. We were never asked back.’

  ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ said Amy sulkily.

  She spent an hour in the kitchen trying to coax scrag-end of mutton into a nourishing stew. A rumbling from the street outside made her leave the pot and go up the area steps. A coalman was bent over their coal-hole. Behind him stood his cart, laden with sacks of coal.

  ‘Leave that alone,’ said Amy sharply. ‘We did not order any coal.’

  ‘Mr Haddon ordered and paid for it,’ said the coalman crossly.

  ‘Very well,’ said Amy. ‘I had forgot.’ She ducked back down the area steps.

  There was a warm glow in her heart. Another man might have sent them flowers or chocolates. Only clever Mr Haddon would think of sending them coal. If he had asked if they would like any coal, the sisters would have refused. That would have been accepting charity. But this! This was a present.

  Amy went down to the empty cellar and stood with her hands clasped and her eyes shining, waiting for the avalanche of coal to descend down the chute from the street above.

  Two days later, in the county of Sussex, the Countess of Baronsheath sat at a pretty escritoire in her drawing room. She slid out a drawer and took out a copy of The Morning Post. She read the Tribbles’ advertisement over and over again. Could it be a joke? Were these self-styled Ladies of Genteel Birth really genteel? Could anyone in the whole wide world reform her daughter, Lady Felicity Vane?

  There were halloos and cheers from outside. She crammed the newspaper back in the drawer and went to the window. A party of young bloods on horseback, headed by the countess’s daughter, Lady Felicity, were riding through the rose garden. A Scottish gardener like an infuriated gnome was jumping up and down and howling at their disappearing backs in a fury.

  Lady Baronsheath sat down again, her legs trembling. What on earth was she to do? Felicity’s first coming-out ball was that very night, and instead of beautifying herself, she was tearing up the rose garden with the noisiest of the male house guests.

  It was all her husband’s fault, thought Lady Barons
heath bitterly. He had wanted a son, he had always wanted a son, and she had not been able to give him anything other than one girl. So he had proceeded to treat the girl as if she were a boy, and he had indulged her every whim. Now he was all set to sail to America for an extended visit, leaving his wife to take Lady Felicity up to London for her first Season.

  And there should be no need to do that at all, thought Lady Baronsheath crossly, with such a marital prize on the doorstep. The Marquess of Ravenswood, their neighbour, had recently returned from the wars. He was handsome, elegant, and rich. He was a trifle old, being in his thirties, and Felicity was nineteen, but surely an older man was what she needed to curb her. All Lady Baronsheath’s dreams of seeing her daughter engaged to the marquess on the night of the ball had long since vanished. The marquess had already met Lady Felicity and appeared to despise her, and his very presence always seemed to make Felicity worse.

  Sometimes the sheer exuberance of her husband and daughter made Lady Baronsheath feel faded and washed out. The house was an elegant one, quite modern, built in the Palladian style, with graceful wings springing out from either side of the classical main building. The rooms were light and beautifully furnished. But the whole place always smelled of damp clothes and horses and dogs. Felicity rode almost every day, always dressed in men’s clothes.

  The ball was to be held in the chain of state saloons that made up the first floor of the central building. Already from above came the faint strains of the orchestra, rehearsing a waltz. Lady Baronsheath tried to console herself with the thought that a Felicity in evening dress and with her hair up would perhaps appear enchanting in the marquess’s eyes and that, with luck, he had not heard of her reputation for being the hoyden of the hunting field.

  She did not think so, but she had to hang on to that hope to give her courage for the evening ahead.

  2

  And now the dreaded country first appears;

  With sighs unfeign’d, the dying noise she hears

  Of distant coaches fainter by degrees,

  Then starts and trembles at the sight of trees.

  Soames Jenkins, The Modern Fine Lady

  Lady Felicity Vane meant to behave well. She had noticed her mother’s anxious face, her worried looks, her nervousness over the success or failure of this ball. So Lady Felicity had made up her mind to look as beautiful as possible and to flirt and simper like the very best of daughters. She would charm this Marquess of Ravenswood and accept his hand in marriage. All young ladies tried to marry well; all good misses owed that much to their fond parents. Besides, if Lady Felicity married Ravenswood, then she would not be taken away from her beloved hunt. Priding herself on her practical mind and never pausing to think that the marquess might have other ideas, Lady Felicity, with unusual and alarming docility, allowed her maid, Wanstead, to prepare her for the ball.

  Wanstead had withstood Lady Felicity’s humours longer than most. She was a tough elderly country-woman with few graces and a hide like leather. In the past, nurses had come and gone, and then a succession of governesses, driven away by Lady Felicity’s practical jokes and wild behaviour, but Wanstead had remained for three years now. Her greatest asset was that she was hard of hearing. The noise of Felicity’s tantrums did not disturb her, and she had developed a bobbing, weaving motion from learning to avoid thrown hairbrushes, curling tongs, and other missiles.

  Felicity adored her father and tried very hard to behave like the young rip he would have liked for a son. She had once put on a very pretty gown with frills and lace to please her mother and her father had laughed and laughed and had said she looked like an organ-grinder’s monkey. This was the first time since that humiliating incident that Felicity was making any effort to look like a young lady.

  Patiently she sat before the toilet table while her hair was pomaded and curled, while she was scented and powdered.

  She was a tall girl with thick black hair, a thin, tanned face, and large greenish-grey eyes. She had a generous mouth and a deep bosom. She was not beautiful by fashionable standards, which demanded a plump, dainty figure, a dimpled face, and a tiny mouth. She had high cheekbones, a great disadvantage in an age where women wore wax pads inside their cheeks to achieve a Dutch-doll look. But with her black hair dressed in a Roman style and with her thin and athletic figure attired in floating white muslin, she managed to attain a certain regal air. Good health gave her skin a glow and made her hair shine with blue lights.

  Felicity had her instructions. She was to wait until the guests were assembled in the hall and then descend the staircase. The staircase was a double one and she was to walk down on the right-hand curve, one hand resting lightly on the banister, and with her head held high. A footman would follow her, holding a branch of candles. Felicity was now quite excited at the idea of making an entrance. And at the back of her mind, although she did not quite know yet what it was, was the hope that her father, seeing his daughter as an attractive young lady, would give up his longing for a son. Although he doted on Felicity, he always made her feel as if she had usurped the place of that dream-child.

  She had caught a glimpse of the Marquess of Ravenswood the day before, when she had been out riding. Some of his men had been digging a drainage ditch on Plump’s field on his property. As Felicity rode past, the marquess, who had been giving instructions, took off his coat and seized a spade and started digging himself. She noticed, not for the first time, that he was tall and powerfully built. A lord who was not too high in the instep to dig his own ditches would make an amiable husband. Felicity thought of a husband as being someone like her father, who would allow her free rein. She knew that romance did not enter into an aristocratic marriage. Their lands bordered the marquess’s. It would be a sensible business partnership.

  From downstairs came the strains of a waltz. Felicity felt a tremor of excitement and ran to the long looking-glass in her room and twisted this way and that to make sure the tapes of her gown were correctly tied.

  ‘’Bout time you started to care for your looks, my lady,’ grumbled Wanstead.

  ‘Must you always be complaining?’ snapped Felicity, colouring up.

  There was a scratching at the door. Wanstead opened it. The footman with the branch of candles. Time for Felicity’s grand entrance.

  Felicity walked out and along the corridor, followed by the footman. Behind the footman came Wanstead, calling out, ‘Short steps, my lady. Do not stride along like that. Mince, my lady. Mince!’

  At the top of the double staircase, Felicity paused and looked down. Faces were turned up to her: her mother’s, pale and anxious; her father’s, florid and amused. And then she saw the Marquess of Ravenswood. He was very handsome indeed, thought Felicity with a little stab of shock. She had not had a chance to see him in evening dress before. He had thick fair hair cut in a fashionable Brutus crop, a strong body, broad shoulders and slim hips and fine legs, all in the glory of Weston’s tailoring. His arrogant high-nosed face briefly turned up to where Felicity stood. Beside him was a beautiful diminutive blonde, all in pink. The marquess glanced up at Felicity with a look of amused contempt and then turned back to his companion, who was laughing up at him.

  Felicity thought the marquess’s glance of contempt was because she looked like a guy. Her pleasure in her appearance fled. She felt gawky and clumsy. The fact that the marquess might have heard of all her exploits and had taken her in dislike did not cross her mind. She felt it was just like that awful time when she had put on that pretty gown and her father had sneered at her. All of this took but a moment.

  Felicity swung a leg over the polished banister and slid down the staircase, vaulted over the polished carved heraldic beast on the bottom post and landed lightly in the hall, to cries of shock from the ladies and roars of noisy approval from the hunting crowd.

  The evening was a nightmare for Lady Barons-heath. Not once did the marquess ask Felicity to dance. He was flirting with Miss Betty Andrews, the lady in pink. He took Miss Andrews in to supper
, while Felicity was partnered by Tommy Lush, a hard-swearing, hard-drinking vicar who appeared to have forgotten that his wife was present.

  Felicity drank too much at supper. Her eyes were glittering and her thin cheeks flushed. She appeared to be having a marvellous time. It would have eased Lady Baronsheath’s distress had she known her daughter was feeling bewildered and miserable, but she did not. Felicity’s behaviour was so like the earl’s, the earl who was bawling with laughter and slapping everyone on the back and telling warm stories.

  The earl was to set out on the first stage of his journey to America in the morning. Lady Baronsheath would be left behind with the horrendous job of preparing Felicity for her London Season. She had prayed that Ravenswood might propose, that anyone might propose, so as to make such an ordeal unnecessary. But now she would have to go through with it.

  It was when a half-drunk Felicity started whooping her way like a Highland savage through a Scottish reel that Lady Baronsheath slipped away to the drawing room and took out the crumpled newspaper and smoothed out that advertisement. She sat down and began to write. One of the grooms would start out for London that very evening. Lady Baronsheath felt she needed all the help she could get.

  Amy was down in the dark pit of the kitchen, toasting cheese, when the letter arrived. A round of Cheshire cheese had been Mr Haddon’s latest present. It had arrived two days before, and already Amy and Effy were sick of cheese but felt, for reasons of economy, that they must try to eat it all.

  She heard the drawing-room bell jangle and looked up in irritation at the row of black bells on their wires over the kitchen door.

  It was typical of Effy to go on as if they still had a house full of servants.

  Amy climbed the stairs slowly. She was feeling very tired and her back hurt. That morning, when she had looked in her glass, she had found two large crow’s-feet stamped on the puffy flesh under her eyes. Amy needed spectacles, but felt that the getting of them would underline her age, and so she had sat up reading the night before, squinting at the pages of a romance by the light of one tallow candle. Hence the crow’s-feet.