Animating Maria

by Beaton, M. C.

  He smiled at the whist players and said, ‘Pray go on with your game while I talk to Miss Kendall.’ Amy and Effy gladly agreed. They had had an exhausting day and did not wish to be bored further with the duke’s philanthropy.

  The duke had brought a block of drawing paper. He sat down on the sofa in front of the fire and Maria sat next to him. ‘This,’ he said, sketching rapidly, ‘is the outline of a house I own in Gloucester, a country mansion which I seldom use. Now the women and children could be housed there and that radical of a schoolteacher can be put in as overseer. Left to their own devices, I am sure those women would drink themselves to death and so they need to be apprenticed to a trade and earn their living. To that end, I will install weaving machines and they will be taught to make cloth. For the first year, they will be given low wages but will be well housed and well fed. If, by the end of the year, they have proved themselves reformed and responsible, then all the money they get from the sale of the cloth they may keep, or rather, will be kept for them, and a fund will be set up for the children.’

  ‘But some of them are so thin and ill, could they not have a period of rest until they are restored to health?’

  ‘The old schoolteacher, Hart, will see to it that no one is put to work who is unfit. He dislikes me and all I stand for intensely, and yet he will prove to be honest and kind.’

  ‘Do you own more property in London like John Street?’

  ‘I fear so. I can hardly go about moving wagonloads of paupers all over the country, so this is what I plan. Some of the property is on the point of falling down. So’ – he ripped off a page and began to sketch again – ‘I plan to build a whole village, say, or suburb, on the outskirts of London, with good solid houses and gardens to where the deserving cases can be moved.’

  ‘They could be built around a village green,’ said Maria, peering over his arm. ‘The children could play there. And you must remember shops. It will be of no use if they have to walk miles and miles to the nearest shops.’

  He laughed, put an arm around her and hugged her. ‘I see you are out to ruin me,’ he said.

  Maria blushed furiously and he quickly took his arm away. He looked across at the whist players but their heads were bent over their cards and they had seen nothing.

  Maria could almost feel herself being pulled towards his body as though by a magnetic field. Something made her say quickly, ‘Is it not delightful? The Misses Tribble have invited my parents to London.’

  ‘Yes, delightful,’ he said in a colourless voice. After a few moments, he took his leave. He hoped the Tribbles would get Maria to break the engagement soon. Her parents were unbearable.

  Beau seemed very much taken with Maria. Perhaps he would not mind her awful parents. Now the duke came to think of it, Maria seemed to be attracted by Beau. He experienced a sudden stabbing pain over his right eye. It had been a long day. He thought of Maria in Beau’s arms. They would make a handsome couple. And he would be free.

  Free from what? demanded a nasty little voice in his head. Harris, the butler, patiently held his greatcoat and the duke stood staring into space. Oh dear, thought the duke. I will not fall in love with Maria Kendall. It just won’t do.

  Maria went up to speak to Yvette and to play with baby George. For the first time it struck her that the dressmaker was surely in a painful situation. Yvette was quick and intelligent and a genius of a dressmaker. And yet because she was an unmarried mother, she would now be chained to the Tribbles for life and would be expected to be humbly grateful to them.

  She told Yvette of the adventures of the day. Yvette was the first to show enthusiasm over the idea of training the women to be weavers. ‘It is most important for their dignity that they earn a wage,’ she said.

  ‘As you do,’ pointed out Maria.

  ‘My wage is a home for my baby and myself, and my food,’ said Yvette.

  Maria looked at her round-eyed. ‘But surely they pay you a wage?’

  Yvette gave a Gallic shrug. ‘They once paid me a little, but now I think they forget. But I lack nothing. Miss Amy and Miss Effy, when they buy cloth, they tell me, make yourself something as well, Yvette. The best of food from the kitchens comes to me and George. George will have a good education and will be loved. I do not need money. I have nowhere to go.’

  ‘If you did have money,’ asked Maria, ‘what would you really like to do?’

  Yvette had been stitching a lace collar onto one of Effy’s gowns. She stopped sewing and let her normally busy hands rest on her lap. ‘I should open a little shop in the West End,’ she said. ‘I should create such fine fashions that royalty would send for me. I should be rich. I would have a fine travelling carriage lined with silk and I would go to Paris and find that wretch who ruined me and I would spit in his face.’

  The anger and animation left her face as quickly as it had arisen and she began to sew busily, her smooth head bent over her work.

  ‘My parents are arriving on a visit,’ said Maria after an awkward pause.

  ‘That is nice.’

  ‘Well, not exactly. You see, they are very vulgar people and Miss Amy and Miss Effy plan to refine them.’

  Yvette looked amused. ‘Miss Effy, yes, but Miss Amy’s speech is that of a sailor.’

  ‘Only when she is very angry. I do not think it will work. I think my parents will be furious.’

  ‘And you, mademoiselle, do you think your own parents vulgar?’

  Maria blushed. ‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I am a great disappointment to them and they are a great disappointment to me. They brought me up to be a fine lady and did not think to refine themselves.’

  ‘I am sure Miss Amy and Miss Effy will think of something,’ said Yvette, straightening out a seam. ‘They shake people up and then something always happens. But they should be proud of you, your parents, I mean. You are to marry a duke.’

  ‘After he met them, I do not think he wanted to marry me any more,’ said Maria.

  ‘Then you are better off without him,’ said Yvette firmly. But Maria found that remark very cold comfort indeed.

  6

  By God! you never saw such a figure in your life as he is [the Prince Regent]. Then he speaks and swears so like old Falstaff, that damn me if I was not ashamed to walk into a room with him.

  The Duke of Wellington

  The arrival of Mr and Mrs Kendall threw the Tribble household into disarray. Trunks and trunks were loaded into the hall and up the stairs. Mr Kendall’s butler, Butterworth, resolved not to be done out of a trip to London, had changed himself into his master’s valet for the occasion, and, determined not to be intimidated by any grand London servants, stood ordering them about in a way that Effy was sure would soon prompt a revolution in the servants’ hall.

  The Tribbles had planned to wait a few days until the Kendalls had settled in before dropping their bombshell, but Amy said they would not have a servant left unless she and Effy laid down the law as soon as possible.

  But they bided their time until after dinner. Mrs Kendall kept exclaiming that Maria’s gowns looked odd and what had happened to all those pretty gowns she had brought to London? Amy, very stiffly on her stiffs, said haughtily that Maria’s wardrobe had been too provincial and had had to be altered. This led to an altercation in which both Kendalls told the Tribbles exactly how much each item they had bought for Maria had cost.

  When dinner was over, Amy sent Maria to her room and then settled down to brave the Kendalls.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Kendall,’ she began, ‘what I have to say may distress you, but I want you to consider my remarks carefully – where are you going, Effy?’

  ‘I am just going to my room to get a clean handkerchief,’ said Effy weakly.

  ‘Sit down,’ commanded Amy. ‘The maid can get it. Now, Mr and Mrs Kendall, after his visit to you, the Duke of Berham decided he could not marry Maria and so he gave signs he wishes to cry off!’

  ‘Why?’ demanded both Mr and Mrs Kendall in unison.

&n
bsp; ‘He does not want you for in-laws,’ said Amy bluntly. ‘He thinks you are too vulgar.’

  ‘And after all the money we spent on him!’ raged Mr Kendall. ‘That jackanapes is not getting out of this engagement or I’ll have him dragged before every judge in the land. He shall not break my child’s heart.’

  ‘Your child is not in love with him. In fact, she was so sure he would regret the engagement after he had seen you that she promised to let him off the hook should that be the case. So far, he has obviously not reminded her of her promise. Instead, he has offered to pay us a handsome sum should we be able to help him get free.’

  ‘I don’t believe a word of this,’ said Mrs Kendall. ‘Lor! The lies Maria do tell.’

  ‘In this case, she is not lying. We invited you to London because we feel somehow that Maria and Berham are in their way well matched. It is not Maria who needs schooling,’ said Amy roundly while Effy moaned faintly in the background, ‘it is you yourselves.’

  ‘How dare you, you frazzled old hen,’ cried Mr Kendall. ‘I could buy and sell you.’

  ‘You cannot buy or sell the manners of a gentleman,’ said Amy, losing her temper. ‘If I am a frazzled old hen, then you, sir, are a fat, grunting porker, sweating in your stays, and stinking abominably of musk and unwashed arse.’

  Mr Kendall rose to his feet and then went and helped his fat wife out of her chair. Holding Mrs Kendall’s hand, he turned to face the sisters.

  ‘We shall leave in the morning,’ he said, ‘and we shall take Maria with us, and you two will return every penny I’ve paid you or I will sue you, so help me.’

  There was a long silence after they had left. Then, ‘How could you, Amy?’ demanded Effy. ‘Such vulgarity on your part, and such cruelty. You should have used finesse, delicacy.’

  ‘A fat lot of good you were,’ said Amy. ‘You left me to do the dirty work. Never mind, Berham will pay up. We shan’t lose.’

  ‘We will lose our successful reputation,’ said Effy tearfully. ‘I do not believe for a minute that Maria promised to release the duke. She made that up.’

  ‘I don’t think she did. She hadn’t that dreamy look in her eye when she told me. Look, Effy, it was all doomed to disaster anyway. Maria don’t want Berham and he don’t want her.’

  ‘But she won’t want to go home either,’ said Effy quietly. ‘She is probably crying her eyes out.’

  But upstairs, Maria was still elated after her first successful battle ever with her parents. They had come to tell her to pack and leave. They had tried to berate her but with less than their usual force, for Yvette’s creation of a gown lent Maria dignity and poise. So Maria with flashing eyes told them she had never wanted the duke but that when she returned to Bath, things were going to be different in the Kendall household.

  It was only long after they had gone that Maria began to feel very low. The duke would hear of her leaving and of the end of the engagement from the Tribbles. She would never see him again. She would never have a chance to watch the building of that model village. She began to retreat back into dreams. These were not her real parents. Her real parents were a foreign prince and princess who had smuggled her out of their country for fear she would be assassinated. She would be parading in the Pump Room in Bath among the querulous invalids when a group of exotically dressed warriors would burst in headed by the man she had been betrothed to in her cradle, Duke Ivan. He would ride his horse straight into the Pump Room and bend down and lift her up beside him and they would ride off, scattering invalids to right and left. ‘And a very thoughtless and cruel thing that would be, too,’ said the voice of Maria’s conscience, but the hurting side of Maria who lived on dreams shouted back, ‘Shut up,’ and went on to embroider the dream that might keep reality at bay for a little longer.

  It was a gloomy morning for Amy Tribble. She rose early. She heard Maria moving about her room and went to talk to her, but Maria had a dreamy look in her eyes and barely seemed to hear her. ‘My wretched tongue,’ thought Amy miserably. Her back ached and she could feel one of those dreadful waves of heat beginning to engulf her body. She wanted to hug Maria and beg her forgiveness, but whatever dream encased Maria kept Amy at bay.

  She trailed back to her own room. Her eye fell on a prayer stool in the corner, seldom used. What could God do to help one silly ageing virgin? But surely, thought Amy, there was no harm in asking. Perhaps God answered all prayers but often the answer was no, which made people like herself think He had more important things to do. Praying that Maria might marry her duke after all was surely worldly vanity. But then, Maria’s happiness was not. Amy sank to her knees and bowed her head. She would pray for Maria’s happiness and forgiveness for her own folly and then just wait and hope.

  The Kendalls were ready to leave by three in the afternoon. Their round little figures were still stiff with outrage as they came down the stairs, holding hands.

  Harris, the Tribbles’ butler, held open the door. Amy and Effy dropped low curtsies. Then, as they all stood in silence, Maria came down the stairs, and Amy winced when she saw her reddened eyes. Obviously, Maria’s dreams had not been strong enough to keep grief away forever.

  And then Harris looked out into the street where the footmen were strapping the Kendalls’ boxes and trunks onto the roof of their enormous travelling carriage when his jaw dropped. He turned and said in a croaking voice, ‘It’s His Royal Highness, ladies, and he is coming here.’

  ‘Slap me,’ said Mr Kendall faintly.

  The Prince Regent had heard about the Tribbles’ fight at the ball and had laughed very much, and so that had led to more anecdotes about the Tribbles being poured into the royal ears. The prince had met the two sisters briefly in the past but he was now determined to call on these eccentric wonders.

  He entered the hall and looked about him in great good humour. Effy and Amy sank into court curtsies, as did Maria. Mrs Kendall tried to copy them and ended up sitting down on the floor. Mr Kendall bowed lower and lower until he over toppled and stretched his length at the royal feet.

  The prince roared with laughter. Stories about the Tribbles had recently become the fashion at elegant dinner tables, and he was delighted to think he would be able to come out with some really new adventures.

  ‘Please step this way, Your Royal Highness,’ said Amy. To the prince’s glee, Amy and Effy stepped over the fallen Mr Kendall as if he did not exist and led the way upstairs.

  In the drawing room, seated in front of a cheerful fire and with a glass of the very best burgundy in his fat hand, the prince looked around him with pleasure. He was not interested in Maria; it had been a long time since young women had taken his fancy. For a long time now he had preferred women older than himself. The Kendalls had crept in and were standing, looking at him in awe.

  Their dumbfounded admiration pleased this normally unpopular prince. ‘Who are these people?’ he asked.

  The Kendalls moved closer together for comfort. Surely Amy Tribble was going to tell the Prince Regent of their vulgarity.

  ‘Miss Kendall is our latest charge,’ said Amy. ‘She is engaged to the Duke of Berham. Allow me to introduce her parents, Mr and Mrs Kendall of Bath. They are staying with us before the wedding to acquire some town bronze.’

  ‘Most important, hey?’ said the prince expansively. ‘Sit down by me, Kendall.’

  Trembling, Mr Kendall released his wife’s hand and moved across the room gingerly as if walking on broken glass. He sat down in a chair next to the prince, his fat body shaking like a jelly.

  ‘So you run a sort of school for manners, Miss Effy?’ said the prince, casting an appreciative eye over Effy’s dainty figure and cloud of silver hair.

  ‘Yes, sire,’ said Effy. ‘We have been most successful.’

  ‘So I hear. None of our aristocracy will be safe from you. Damn me, if learning manners and bowing and scraping ain’t a harder thing to do than fight a war.’ The fat royal face clouded over. The prince had begged to lead his troops into battle a
nd had not been allowed to go.

  Mr Kendall found his voice. ‘But, sire, with your royal presence always before us in the country to set an example in manners and dress and decorum, it can only do good, bring a refining example into the coarsest bosom.’

  ‘You’re a fine fellow, Kendall,’ said the prince expansively. ‘I like your style but not your coat. Put yourself in these ladies’ hands and they’ll soon have you looking as fine as fivepence, hey?’ He turned his attention back to Effy. ‘But you are not leaving us? I saw a monstrous carriage outside with all sorts of bags.’

  Effy looked wildly to Amy for help and Amy said smoothly, ‘Mr and Mrs Kendall are just arrived.’

  ‘Welcome to London,’ said the prince.

  Mrs Kendall began to cry and he looked at her like a pouting baby. ‘What’s the matter with that woman?’

  Mrs Kendall sank to her knees. ‘Oh, sire,’ she sobbed. ‘I am overcome with the honour. I shall treasure this moment until the day I die.’

  The fat royal face cleared and the prince looked vastly pleased. He would talk about this at dinner. ‘Woman was so overcome by our presence, she fell on the floor and burst into tears,’ he would say.

  He rose to his feet. ‘We wish you well, Miss Amy, Miss Effy. Make sure you do not refine Mr and Mrs Kendall too much. There is an honest simplicity in their manners which pleases us.’ He bowed to the company, squeezed Effy round the waist, patted Maria’s hand and wished her well in her forthcoming marriage, and took his leave.

  Amy took a deep breath. ‘Harris,’ she said, ‘Mr and Mrs Kendall will be staying after all. Take the bags off the coach again.’

  Effy waited nervously for the Kendalls to refuse. But they were still shaken and awestruck. Amy looked at Maria. But Maria’s eyes were still clouded with dreams and she did not seem to have heard.

  Amy was to say afterwards that it was the first time the house in Holles Street had really been turned into a school. The carpets were rolled up in the drawing room, and every afternoon Effy would sit at the piano while Maria danced with her father and Mr Haddon danced with Mrs Kendall and Amy sat in front of them like a ballet master, rapping out the time with a long cane. ‘And one and two and . . . no, no, no, Mr Kendall,’ Amy would cry. ‘You bow with a flourish. Do show him, Mr Haddon.’