Taming of Annabelle

by Beaton, M. C.

  She had been right! He had noticed her. His feelings towards her were warm or he would not have kissed her hand. She turned their conversation over and over in her mind, reading into every casual answer a double meaning, into every polite and bored gesture, hints of a growing passion being held well in check.

  At last, she returned dreamily to her room, building dream upon dream, fantasy upon fantasy, so that when Minerva and her maid eventually arrived with their arms full of dresses for her to choose from, Annabelle could only look at her sister with a sort of awkward pity, already imagining the engagement to be broken.

  Despite protests from Minerva that her choice of gown was ‘a trifle old’ for her, Annabelle insisted on wearing a gown of sage-green China crepe, brocaded in stripes. It had the fashionable high waist and low bosom. Her one piece of jewellery, a necklace of garnets, was clasped around her neck. Minerva had to admit the finished effect was breathtaking. But Minerva had always considered Annabelle to be the beauty of the family, unaware that her own appearance in a white slip covered with soft grey gauze and with a simple string of pearls around her neck made her the more elegant beauty of the two.

  The Armitage sisters caused a small sensation when they walked into the Long Gallery where all the other guests were already assembled.

  They were the last to arrive, Annabelle having changed her mind several times at the last minute over the choice of a fan.

  The Misses Margaret and Belinda Forbes-Jydes were, Annabelle was pleased to note, nothing out of the common way, being both very short and having an unfortunate colour of sandy hair. Sally and Betty Abernethy were more handsome, but Annabelle’s quick eyes at last remarked that Miss Sally had a slight cast in one eye, and that Miss Betty had a flat bosom. Lady Coombes was handsome in a severe way, with black and grey hair exquisitely dressed. The Duchess and Lady Godolphin were sitting chatting in a corner, Lady Godolphin wearing the most hideous turban Annabelle had ever seen.

  She tried hard not to stare at Lord Sylvester and studied the other gentlemen.

  The Duke of Allsbury, unlike his son, was short and tubby with a high, red colour and enormous cavalry whiskers. The other elderly gentleman with his face stained with walnut juice to a mahogany colour was Colonel Arthur Brian. The Honourable Harry Comfrey and his brother, Charles, were both stocky young men, both wearing cravats tied in the Oriental, which meant they could barely turn their heads. Lord Paul Chester was an elegantly dressed, vague young man with butter-coloured hair cut in a fashionable Brutus crop, and Mr John Frampton was a tall, handsome man with brown hair and twinkling blue eyes. Mindful that the two latter gentlemen were friends of Lord Sylvester, Annabelle set herself to please. This she did by asking a deal of intelligent questions, listening politely and carefully, and not talking over-much herself. After a few anxious moments, Minerva decided Annabelle was behaving very well indeed and went to join her fiancé.

  ‘Is not Annabelle in looks?’ she asked.

  Lord Sylvester put up his quizzing glass and studied Annabelle, who had managed to attract the four young gentlemen of the company to her side.

  ‘She is very beautiful,’ he said, letting his glass fall. ‘Unfortunately, that is a fact of which she is well aware.’

  ‘You are too harsh, my love. She is very young.’

  Lord Sylvester smiled down at Minerva. ‘When you call me “my love”, all I can think of is that it is too long since I held you in my arms.’

  ‘I kissed you last night,’ said Minerva blushing rosily.

  ‘I was thinking of something more intimate.’

  Minerva blushed deeper. ‘I feel what we did that night was a sin,’ she whispered. ‘The circumstances were strange, dear Sylvester. I thought you were to be killed in a duel or I would never have . . . never would . . .’

  ‘Oh, prim Minerva. Are you to keep me waiting until the wedding?’

  ‘Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know.’

  A sudden overloud burst of laughter from Annabelle made Minerva swing around anxiously.

  ‘That girl is quite uninhabited,’ commented Lady Godolphin from close by.

  At that moment, Annabelle caught her sister’s reproving gaze and once more became the picture of a modest miss. But although she had been charming her small court to perfection, she had eagerly watched the exchange between Lord Sylvester and her sister out of the corner of her eye. They did not look like a couple in love, thought Annabelle, not knowing that Lord Sylvester’s understated behaviour was, this time, very definitely covering the feelings of a man holding his passion in check.

  Annabelle found to her disappointment that she was not to be seated next to Lord Sylvester at dinner. In fact, as the least distinguished of the guests, she was placed between Mr Charles Comfrey and Mr John Frampton.

  But Mr Frampton was very handsome. Annabelle decided it would do no harm to see if she could make Lord Sylvester jealous. No allowance had been made for her youth and so wine had been put in front of her instead of lemonade.

  Annabelle had had occasional glasses of wine at high days and holidays, but this wine was heavily fortified with brandy. Added to that, the fatigue of her journey now hit her, and she began to feel very elated, very fascinating, and very beautiful. She basked in the warm admiration of Mr Frampton’s eyes and barely listened to what he was saying until something caught her attention. Mr Frampton was talking about his young brother at Cambridge who had done exceptionally well in his examinations.

  Here, Annabelle decided, was an opportunity to try out some of that delicious slang.

  ‘I have a friend at College,’ she said airily. ‘The nask, he calls it. He pays chummage, you know, so that he can get a room to himself. Not that he had much money. I told him not to play in that low dive. That Greek ivory turner used a bale of bard cinque deuces on him so it’s all Dicky with poor Barry.’

  There was a stunned silence. Mr Frampton took out a large pocket handkerchief and appeared to blow his nose. At last he emerged from behind it and said in a stifled voice, ‘Dear me, do you have many friends in prison, Miss Annabelle?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’. said Annabelle blankly.

  He looked down at her, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘Do you know what you have just said?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Well, let’s suppose you don’t. You said you have a friend who is in the nask, or College, which is underworld cant for prison. I assume he landed there by getting into debt after playing with loaded dice in a gambling hell. Paying chummage is the only way you can get a room to yourself in some prisons – that is you pay your two cell mates, or chums, a certain amount of money to sleep on the stairs. And as for saying it’s all Dicky – oh, Miss Armitage, I do hope you don’t know what that means but I can only beg you never to use that expression again.’

  He gave her a sympathetic smile and then turned to talk to Sally Abernethy on his other side.

  Annabelle sat very still, her face scarlet. It took her some time to realize that Mr Charles Comfrey on her other side had plunged into speech, but after a little while of appearing to listen to him, she managed to regain her composure.

  So well did she manage that when Mr Frampton turned back to her she was able to say with every appearance of ease, ‘You must excuse me, Mr Frampton. My wicked tongue does run away with me. I was merely funning. I do apologize.’

  ‘Your apology is accepted,’ he smiled. ‘I am really quite unshockable, you know. And you had me well and truly fooled for I thought you were in earnest. Never did I think to hear such words issuing from such a beautiful pair of lips.’

  ‘Mr Frampton!’ protested Annabelle, raising her fan and flirting with her large blue eyes over the top of it. ‘Now you shock me!’

  They settled down to a light flirtation which lasted so pleasantly throughout the rest of the meal that Annabelle drank a great deal more wine without being at all aware of what she was doing.

  From where she sat at the far end of the table, Minerva could not see her sister a
nd assumed all was well.

  When the ladies retired to the Long Gallery to leave the gentlemen to their wine, Annabelle wandered off by herself to study the family portraits, standing with her hands behind her back and looking so like a well-behaved child that Minerva settled down beside the Duchess, feeling quite at ease.

  It was only when the gentlemen joined the ladies that Minerva began to feel there was something amiss.

  Annabelle, not to put too fine a point on it, began to show off disgracefully. Minerva could not hear what she was saying because the Duchess was prosing on about curtain material, but she could tell by the sight of her sister’s waving arms and flushed face that Annabelle was getting above herself.

  She looked up and caught Lord Sylvester’s eye and gave a desperate little signal for help, nodding in Annabelle’s direction.

  Lord Sylvester strolled up to the group of four gentlemen and five ladies who were surrounding Annabelle.

  As he arrived, the Duchess finished talking, Minerva was watching Annabelle anxiously, and, in the silence, Mr Charles Comfrey said, ‘I say, do you think Brummell will approve of this green coat of mine if I sport it at Almack’s or will he give me one of his famous set-downs?’

  And clear as a bell, Annabelle’s overloud voice resounded around the Long Gallery. ‘Oh, you must be careful,’ she laughed. ‘No gentleman wears green any more. It is so terribly Old Hat.’

  There was a stunned silence.

  ‘DISgraceful!’ snapped Lady Coombes, turning on her heel and walking away.

  The young ladies looked blank. Mr Frampton turned away to hide his laughter, Mr Charles Comfrey looked stricken, Mr Harry Comfrey muttered, ‘Good Gad,’ Lord Paul Chester raised his quizzing glass and studied Annabelle curiously as if he had just discovered some rare type of cockroach, and Lord Sylvester walked forwards with his charming smile and said, ‘I think we should have some dancing to please the ladies. I have promised Miss Annabelle the first.’

  Annabelle gratefully took his arm. She was aware she had said something dreadfully wrong, but Lord Sylvester’s suggestion was immediately hailed by cries of pleasure from the ladies. His mother, explained Lord Sylvester, had hired musicians for the evening.

  At that moment, the musicians were ushered in through a door at the far end and soon everyone with the exception of Lady Godolphin and Minerva and Colonel Brian were busy performing a country dance.

  ‘What did my sister say that was so wrong?’ said Minerva to Lady Godolphin.

  ‘I ain’t telling you,’ said that lady roundly. ‘I wouldn’t soil my lips.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Minerva sadly.

  ‘Furthermore, she looks downright boosey to me,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘Better get her off to bed as soon as this set is over.’

  Minerva waited as patiently as she could. The dance was at last over and Annabelle sank in a deep curtsy in front of Lord Sylvester and then found she could not get up.

  He raised her to her feet and steadied her by putting an arm around her waist.

  ‘Bed for you, Miss Annabelle,’ he said.

  ‘I must speak to you. When shall I see you?’

  ‘Soon,’ he replied mockingly.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I shall know where to find you.’

  And to Annabelle’s tipsy mind that meant Lord Sylvester had as good as made an assignation. She meekly allowed Minerva to lead her from the room. He would come to her later. He had said so.

  Minerva looked at her sister’s flushed face and drowsy eyes and decided to leave all lectures until the morning. Together with the maid, Betty, she got Annabelle to bed, comfortably sure that that infuriating miss would be fast asleep as soon as ever she tiptoed from the room.

  But love is a wonderful thing. Tired as she was, tipsy as she was, no sooner had Minerva and the maid left than Annabelle sat up wide awake and trembling with anticipation and excitement.

  Dreams of love and romance made the time go quickly, and quite an hour had passed when she suddenly looked down at the schoolgirlish cut of her nightgown and frowned. He should not find her like this. She would creep along to Minerva’s room and choose a simply splendid nightgown. Minerva had already amassed most of her trousseau, or torso as that reprehensible old Mrs Malaprop, Lady Godolphin, had called it.

  Minerva’s room was situated some corridors away. Annabelle, not wanting to be found by the servants wandering about in her nightclothes, quietly put on a warm walking dress over her nightgown and made her way stealthily along to Minerva’s rooms. The faint sounds of music and voices filtered from downstairs.

  She went into Minerva’s bedroom and began to search through her chest of drawers for something suitable to wear.

  All at once, she heard voices in the corridor outside.

  She froze with her hands still buried among the silks and lace.

  Then to her horror, she heard the door of the sitting room next door opening and Minerva’s voice saying, ‘You may come in, but just for a moment, Sylvester. I must know what it was she said.’

  Heart beating hard, Annabelle moved swiftly behind the bedroom door which was standing open and found that by putting her eye to the hinge, she could see clearly into the lamplit sitting room next door.

  Lord Sylvester and Minerva were standing facing each other in front of the fireplace.

  ‘What did Annabelle say that was so wrong?’ asked Minerva plaintively.

  ‘Young Charles Comfrey was talking about that green coat of his and wondering whether he should sport it at Almack’s during the coming Season or whether it would bring down one of Brummell’s acid remarks on his head if he did so. Your sister said, if I remember aright, “No gentleman wears green any more. It is so terribly Old Hat.”’

  ‘Well,’ came Minerva’s puzzled voice. ‘Surely she meant that green coats are not fashionable any more.’

  ‘I am sure she did, my sweeting, but Old Hat is cant, and that is not what the expression means.’

  ‘Then what does it mean?’

  ‘To put it bluntly, it means a woman’s privities.’

  ‘A woman’s . . . but why Old Hat?’

  ‘Because both, my love, are frequently felt.’

  Minerva raised her hands to her suddenly scarlet cheeks, unaware that in the next room her sister was doing exactly the same thing.

  ‘I must speak to her, Sylvester,’ wailed Minerva. ‘Your mother does not approve of me and now what will she think.’

  ‘Minerva,’ said Lord Sylvester patiently, ‘You should know by now I do not give a rap what anyone thinks, least of all my mother. So kiss me, Minerva, and let’s forget about that tiresome child.’

  ‘But Sylvester, I . . .’

  In front of Annabelle’s horrified and humiliated eyes, Lord Sylvester bent his head and ruthlessly and savagely began to kiss Minerva.

  One little hope kept Annabelle rooted to the spot. The prim Minerva would surely cry out against such an embrace.

  Lord Sylvester finally drew back and smiled tenderly into Minerva’s eyes.

  ‘Well . . . ?’ he whispered.

  Hypnotized, Annabelle watched as Minerva’s little hands went up to Lord Sylvester’s cravat and slowly began to undo it.

  She gave a choked little sound, and, moving like a sleepwalker, she went to the door of the sitting room and gently let herself out and closed the door just as gently behind her. Moving one foot carefully in front of the other, feeling her way along like Madame Saqui ascending the slack-rope at Vauxhall Gardens, she finally gained the security of her own rooms. She laid herself carefully down on top of the bed, closed her eyes, and plunged immediately into sleep, putting away all the pain and humiliation till the morrow.

  THREE

  The morning dawned white and cold with snow waves covering the Park. Annabelle lay in bed, very still, staring up at the canopy. Her soul felt as white and numb and empty as the day outside. Somewhere at the very edges of her mind she knew that pain and humiliation were waiting to crowd in. But, for the
moment, all she wanted to do was lie very still and think of absolutely nothing.

  Betty came in with her morning chocolate and drew the curtains, filling the room with white light. Soon the fire was crackling in the hearth. Annabelle caught the look that Betty threw in her direction: sly, gleeful, full of recently relayed gossip.

  The maid went out and Annabelle wearily sat up. She felt she had not slept at all. Then it all came crushing back in a great red wave of pain.

  Minerva. Prim, staid, correct Minerva untying Lord Sylvester’s cravat. The passionate embrace. Clear as a bell, Lord Sylvester’s voice sounded in her brain: ‘So kiss me, Minerva, and let’s forget about that tiresome child.’

  Annabelle writhed in an agony of humiliation. She could not dress and go downstairs. How they would all laugh. How that terrible Duchess would gloat and tell everyone that the Armitage family was as common as a barber’s chair.

  But slowly, somewhere at the very depths of her misery, a little spark of anger took light and slowly grew into a flame. Minerva had always been the loved one, Minerva was always the good one. Oh, to steal some of Minerva’s thunder.

  There was a commotion below the windows and the sound of voices.

  Annabelle suddenly swung her legs over the bed, glancing as she did so at the clock on the mantel.

  Eleven o’clock!

  Shivering in the still chilly room although she was still wearing her dress over her nightgown, she looked out of the window.

  The Marquess of Brabington was being helped down from a travelling carriage by two strong footmen. Although she could see little more than the top of his hat, Annabelle knew it was he by his scarlet regimentals.

  A small knot of people, including Lord Sylvester, surrounded him and then he was helped into the house.

  Annabelle sat down on the edge of the bed and began to think furiously. The Marquess had shown more than a passing interest in her on the two occasions when he had called at the vicarage. He was a marquess, he was handsome, he was rich, and he was a hero. He was also Lord Sylvester’s best friend.