Taming of Annabelle

by Beaton, M. C.

  She fretted while he lingered, talking to various people on their road out of the opera house. Was it really necessary to spend so much time speaking to Lady Coombes?

  At last they were in the carriage together, jogging through the streets, and Annabelle was glad to leave the world of society behind. She chattered on enthusiastically about the opera and he smiled lazily and promised to take her as much as he could during the Season.

  ‘But we are not going home!’ exclaimed Annabelle, looking out of the window.

  ‘I must beg you to forgive me again,’ he said with no hint of apology in his voice. ‘We are continuing a musical evening by going on to a musicale at Lord and Lady Brothers’. They are friends of Sylvester and also of mine.’

  ‘You are treating me like a child, Brabington,’ said Annabelle sharply. ‘I do not like to be dragged hither and thither without a by-your-leave.’

  ‘All these invitations are in the card rack in the drawing room,’ he replied equably. ‘Although they come addressed to me, it is your privilege to reject those you do not wish to attend.’

  Annabelle bit her lip, and then said in a milder voice, ‘Perhaps I should have realized that, but I am not yet accustomed to the ways of society, and do not know yet as to how to go on.’

  He took her hand and held it in a light clasp.

  ‘I am a monster of thoughtlessness, am I not? You are so beautiful and so mondaine, my sweeting, that I forget you are new to the world. I shall behave myself in future.’ He raised her hand and kissed it, and Annabelle experienced a suffocating feeling that was part pleasure, part pain.

  ‘I am pleased you are wearing some of the jewels. What did you think of them?’ he asked. ‘The diamond tiara is rather fine. I thought you would have worn it.’

  ‘I did not look at the rest,’ said Annabelle. ‘My new maid, Holden, selected these.’

  ‘You did not look!’ he echoed. Then he smiled. ‘On second thought, her choice was wise.’

  They rode on in a companionable silence. ‘If only the evening could go on like this,’ thought Annabelle. ‘If only he does not make one of his lightning changes of mood.’

  Annabelle was surprised to find her father and Squire Radford present. Her father gave her a hearty greeting as they took their seats for the musicale. A rather shrill soprano began to sing several arias. The vicar promptly fell asleep and snored loudly. Squire Radford nudged him and he came awake with a shout of, ‘There he goes. After him boys!’ which infuriated the singer and convulsed the company.

  Annabelle was not aware of the length of the concert or of the strident tones of the diva. Her husband was holding her hand and she felt she would be content to sit like this for a very long time indeed.

  Squire Radford looked at the couple’s joined hands and nudged the vicar again. ‘I’m not sleepin’,’ grumbled the vicar. The Squire pointed and the vicar looked at the clasped hands of the Brabingtons, a slow smile spreading over his ruddy face. ‘Praise be, we can go home now, Jimmy, and leave this pesky city. All’s well, heh!’

  Annabelle drifted through the evening in a happy daze, her tall husband always at her side. There was no Lady Coombes and no Sir Guy Wayne.

  Dawn was pearling the sky when they at last headed homewards. She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes contentedly, feeling the warmth of his body next to hers in the swaying coach, lulled by the rhythmic clip-clop of the horses’ hooves over the cobbles.

  With an arm around her waist he led her into the house in Conduit Street, and so they mounted the stairs. He stopped outside her bedroom door and took her very gently in his arms, feeling the way her body yielded against his and noticing the way she turned her lips up for his kiss.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, half to himself. He bent his head and kissed her very softly on the lips.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said huskily and turned away.

  ‘Peter,’ she whispered urgently, but either he did not hear or affected not to. She stayed for a few moments, a crease of worry between her eyes, looking down the blackness of the corridor, and then she slowly opened the door of her bedroom and went inside.

  NINE

  The next few days passed in a whirl of outings and parties, paying calls, and visiting Madame Verné so that a court dress could be made as quickly as possible.

  The Marquess was now to be seen everywhere with his wife. He even came to Madame Verné’s with her, and to the fashionable plumier, Carberry, since ladies to be presented at Court were obliged to wear at least seven plumes. Beneath the plumes, Annabelle was to wear on her head a garland of white roses resting upon a circlet of pearls. The finishing touches to her headdress were to be given by diamond buckles, a diamond comb, and tassels of white silk.

  As the Court dress was built around her Annabelle began to wonder how any lady was expected to move in it. When the bodice of her dress was fitted on, an enormous hooped skirt, three ells long, was laced to her waist.

  The skirt was made of waxed calico stretched upon whalebone. Over this skirt went a satin skirt, and over the satin skirt went one of tulle, ornamented with a large furbelow of silver lace.

  A fourth and shorter skirt, also of tulle with silver spangles, ornamented with a garland of flowers, was turned up so that the garland surmounted the skirt crosswise. The openings of the tucks were ornamented with lace and surmounted with a large bouquet of flowers. The bottom of the white satin dress with its silver embroidery was turned up in loops and did not reach the bottom of the skirt, such being the fashionable etiquette, since only the royal princesses were allowed to wear skirts that were not turned up.

  Madame Verné told Annabelle that one must try to wear all the jewels from one’s jewel box about one’s person.

  The style seemed over-ornate and fussy to a girl as young as Annabelle who had grown up with the uncluttered, simple Grecian lines which were still very much in vogue.

  She was also expected to carry a large bouquet of flowers.

  But somehow the long and tedious fittings were fun, for the Marquess was always with her, telling her amusing stories, teasing her, and assuring her she would be the most beautiful lady at Court.

  Although he kissed her lightly each night, he showed no signs of wanting any increased intimacy, and Annabelle found herself beginning to long to see passion flame in his eyes. He was hers, her husband. She wanted to feel secure. She did not want to have to worry about designing harpies like Lady Coombes luring him away.

  As she finally stood being made ready by Holden for the Court Drawing Room, she could not help wondering if he still regarded her as a child. Her father had left for the country after the evening of the musicale, clapping her affectionately on the shoulder and congratulating her on ‘becoming a woman at last’.

  Annabelle sometimes wondered if the Marquess were waiting for some show of warmth on her side. She had considered several times in the past few days trying to explain away the use of Sylvester’s name on her wedding night. But, on consideration, she decided that, on the one hand, she did not want to lie to him, and, on the other, she was sure the truth would be too shocking. She must, somehow, show him that he had all her love.

  And that, thought Annabelle with surprise, was that!

  She loved him.

  She did not just want him because he was her husband, her property. She wanted his love in return.

  Perhaps she should tell him she loved him. Just like that. Before they left for the Queen’s House.

  But she dreaded the idea of rejection.

  Feeling very strange and heavy in her Court dress and with nine white feathers bobbing on her head and a tremendous weight of jewels hung about her person, Annabelle was assisted down the stairs by her anxious maid and two footmen, despite her protests that she would have to manage on her own once she got there.

  The Marquess was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. He, too, was in full Court dress and Annabelle thought he had never looked more magnificent.

  He was wearing a purple
velvet coat ornamented with silver embroidery. His breeches were of fine silk edged with silver lace and he wore black shoes with diamond buckles. He had his dress sword with a jewelled hilt at his side and he carried his chapeau bras under his arm. His black hair was covered with a white wig and diamonds blazed all over his body.

  He surveyed her in silence and then smiled. ‘You look as if you are arising from a bouquet of flowers,’ he said.

  He leaned forwards and kissed her lightly on the nose. ‘It’s rather like leaning over a flower bed to kiss a maid at the cottage window,’ he laughed.

  ‘As you have no doubt done many times, sir,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘If I have, I forget. I can see only you,’ he replied, his eyes serious.

  Annabelle tried to say she loved him, but the servants were waiting and somehow the words caught in her throat.

  The Queen’s House, the former residence of the Duke of Buckingham, stood at the end of the Mall. Although they had to wait in a long line of carriages, there was plenty to look at. All the carriages were glittering with new varnish, new hammer cloths, and with two or three liveried footmen on the back. The horses, all in prime condition, moved proudly under heavy emblazoned harness.

  Trumpets were sounding and the Park and Tower guns were firing.

  The Mall was lined by ranks of cavalry in scarlet, with their bright helmets and jet-black horses, their gloves of white buckskin stiffened so that the cuffs reached half way up the elbow.

  The waiting was not over after the palace, or the Queen’s House as it was called, was reached.

  Hundreds were arriving at the same time as Annabelle and the Marquess, and hundreds who had already paid their respects were trying to get away.

  At the first landing of the entrance hall the staircase branched off into two arms, one arm being used for those going up, and the other for those going down. Both staircases seemed made up of waving columns of plumes. Some were sky blue, some were tinged with red. There was violet, yellow, and shades of green. In the main, the plumes were snow-white like those worn by Annabelle. Then there were jewels of every description, flashing and winking, catching fire and flame as the ladies twisted this way and that on the staircase to manoeuvre their hoops.

  The men seemed as if they were trying to outshine the ladies in magnificence. One man looked like a jewellers’ display case, he had so many gems laid out on his portly person.

  The Exquisites flocked about, dressed in the ultrapitch of fashion, each collared like the leader of a four-horse team, pinched in the middle like an hourglass, with a neck as long as a goose and a cravat as ample as a tablecloth. Quite a number of the men were rouged, and one elderly gentleman even wore patches. Some of the younger, more willowy Pinks of the ton had tinged the palms of their hands with vermilion and had whitened the backs with enamel.

  A young Merveilleux caused Annabelle to stare. He was so perfumed and wigged and corseted and painted that she wondered if anything could be left of the original man when he was dismantled by his valet for the night.

  But at least, Annabelle thought, there was one thing to be said for this preposterous style of dress as far as the female sex was concerned – at least one could distinguish the ladies.

  This was not always the case with the usual mode of evening gown. One theatre tried to keep the Fashionable Impure from its doors by appointing two door-keepers for the purpose.

  But this had to be stopped early in the evening since the two men had nearly conveyed a couple of ladies of very high degree to the watch-house. How could one tell the Cyprians from the ladies of quality when both were dressed in a state of semi-nudity?

  There was also a refreshing return of formal manners. In many cases, brutal manners towards the female had taken the place of the last century’s ceremonious demeanour and good breeding.

  After three-quarters of an hour of swaying backwards and forwards in the press from step to step, Annabelle at last found herself in the presence of Queen Charlotte.

  King George, of course, was not present, and never would be again. It was feared his madness showed no sign of abating.

  His madness had been ignored as long as possible but when he at last descended from his carriage and shook hands heartily with the branches of a tree, under the impression that he was paying his respects to the King of Prussia, it was decided his malady had gone too far. Lord Sheffield reported that the King could still be quite cheerful. ‘The King’s illness is not melancholy or mischievous,’ he reported. ‘At times it is rather gay. He fancies London is drowned and orders his yacht to go there. In one of his soliloquies, he said, “I hate nobody, why should anyone hate me?” Recollecting a little, he added, “I beg pardon, I do hate the Marquis of Buckingham.”’

  Annabelle had heard many stories of this little martinet Queen who ruled her court in the stiff and formal manner of the German courts.

  Annabelle was led forwards and made her curtsy to the Queen and to the royal princesses. Queen Charlotte looked sourly at her, took snuff, said gruffly to the Marquess, ‘How d’ye do?’ and then turned her attention to the next in line.

  Annabelle was glad to escape. But another threequarters of an hour passed before they could get down the stairs, another hour waiting for their carriage, and an hour and a half to get down the Mall.

  ‘I shall be glad to get home,’ yawned Annabelle. ‘I want to slouch. I feel as if I am on show in a flowered cage.’

  ‘We shall have a simple supper first,’ said the Marquess. ‘All that confounded bowing and scraping gives me an appetite.’

  The ‘simple supper’ turned out to consist of soup, fish, fricassee of chicken, cutlets, venison, veal, hare, vegetables of all kinds, tart, melon, pineapple, grapes, peaches and nectarines.

  They were waited on by six servants, a butler and a gentleman-in-waiting. The gentleman-in-waiting was an indispensable part of every gentleman’s retinue. At house parties, you were expected to bring your gentleman-in-waiting to stand behind your chair during dinner, ready to shovel you off the floor when you fell down drunk.

  Annabelle had quickly learned to consume quite a large quantity of wine without feeling dizzy. Champagne, she had also quickly learned, was ‘vulgar’. Claret went with the meat and tokay with the pudding. Hock, sherry and port or port-and-water could be served throughout the meal, although Brummell kept trying to insist that port – ‘a hot, intoxicating liquor so much drunk by the lower orders’ – should wait for the cheese.

  Relaxed and happy, Annabelle began to amuse the Marquess with stories of her home life, of her frequent feuds with Deirdre, and how Minerva would always be called in to be the peacemaker.

  ‘You miss your sister, do you not?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Annabelle. ‘I do wish she could see me in my Court dress.’

  ‘I thought, my love, at one time that you were jealous of Minerva. That you wanted the . . . er . . . things that she had.’

  ‘I had a silly bout of jealousy,’ said Annabelle with lowered eyes and lowered voice. ‘But that is gone.’

  There was a silence. The candle flame burned clear and bright. The servants had retired. The fire crackled and hissed on the hearth.

  ‘And Sylvester?’ he asked softly.

  ‘I had not yet grown up,’ replied Annabelle, praying that he would understand.

  ‘And now that you have?’

  She raised her eyes to his, anxious, pleading. She wanted to say, ‘Now, I love you as a woman should love a man.’ But the words would not come. Suppose he laughed at her?

  He gave a little sigh and began to talk of their plans for the morrow. He had military duties to attend to, he said, but he would be free in the evening to squire her to the opera.

  Annabelle answered in monosyllables, her eyes fixed on her plate, cursing herself for her lack of courage, knowing that the moment to say something had passed.

  She suddenly felt infinitely weary and infinitely young and helpless.

  The days of this non-marriage
seemed to stretch in front of her endlessly, days when she would worry and watch for the time when he would decide to console himself with another woman.

  At last, he suggested that they retire. She was still wearing her finery and he courteously helped her to mount the stairs to her room.

  She waited with downcast eyes for his usual brief goodnight embrace but he surprised her by holding open the door to her bedroom and following her inside.

  Holden, who had been asleep beside the fire with some sewing on her lap, leapt to her feet.

  ‘You may leave us, Holden,’ said the Marquess, and Annabelle stood stiffly and awkwardly in the centre of the room until the maid had left.

  ‘I am very afraid, Peter,’ said Annabelle, ‘and I do not know what I should do.’

  The Marquess of Brabington moved towards her.

  ‘Come, my sweeting,’ he said, ‘and let me show you.’

  It had all been remarkably easy, thought Annabelle, some time later, as she lay with her head pillowed on his naked chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart.

  An all-consuming passion had swept her along, teaching her to respond to him, casting out fear.

  She stirred lazily in his arms and he whispered, ‘Not asleep? I will love you again, if you are not careful.’

  She laughed and turned against him and he pulled her naked body tightly against his own, his hands stroking and caressing her back and buttocks, until he heard her breathing quickening and felt her lips desperately seeking his own.

  He made love to her very slowly this time, letting his hands and lips wander and trace patterns on her body, until she suddenly leapt alive like a wild animal, raking his back with her nails, begging and pleading and making odd little noises until he took her again.

  And so they passed the night and the morning, buried in each other, sleeping and waking, and waking each time to find the lovemaking had become more intense.