Henrietta (2 page)

“D
EAR
H
ENRIETTA
, I
FEEL
you should pay a call on Miss Scattersworth,” said the vicar of St Anne’s, Mr. Henry Sandford. “I myself will call on Lord and Lady Belding.”

Miss Henrietta Sandford twitched the curtains and stared out at the rain which was blanketing the county town of Nethercote. “You will be taking the carriage then,” she remarked in her placid voice.

“Of course,” remarked the vicar, preening himself in the looking glass and straightening his cravat. “One must keep up appearances. But you will find the walk to Miss Scattersworth’s invigorating. We should not put off our calls simply because one of our parishioners lives in the poorer section of the town.”

Henrietta reflected that her brother, the vicar, did not at any time feel obliged to put his glossy hessians inside the door of any low class house. He left that duty to his sister. But she was fond of Miss Mattie Scattersworth who was an elderly spinster of the parish and one of her few close friends. She made a move to leave the room.

But her brother was not finished with her. He felt irritated that Henrietta had accepted the duty of a walk in the rain without fuss. He racked his brain for some way to annoy her.

“It is very gracious of the Beldings to include you in their invitation to the ball. It promises to be a very grand affair. Ah! If only you were as beautiful as Miss Alice Belding, we should have you married to some fine London Lord.”

Miss Henrietta Sandford’s one claim to beauty lay in a pair of magnificent hazel eyes. And with them, she surveyed her plump and pompous brother with an unfathomable expression. “Well, Henry, since I am six and twenty and practically an ape leader, you should realize that there is no hope for me,” she finally remarked with an edge to her voice.

“And whose fault is that?” said her brother, turning an unflattering shade of red. “You could have been married to the squire had you not been so stubborn.” The squire, Sir Arthur Cromer, was a widower of fifty-eight with daughters as old as Henrietta herself. It was an old argument and Henrietta decided to make her escape. She was entirely dependent on her brother for the roof over her head and the clothes on her back and he unfortunately topped every argument by reminding her of that unpleasant fact.

Henrietta escaped up the stairs to her room and began to prepare for the wet walk ahead. She pulled the heavy wooden pattens over her shoes and put that dowdy piece of headgear called a calash over her bonnet to protect her from the elements, reflecting that it would have cost her brother very little to allow her to hire a chair. But Henry delighted in penny-pinching—as far as his sister was concerned. His own clothes-leaned almost to dandyism and would not have disgraced a Bond Street beau.

The town of Nethercote was considered by the few visitors from London to be a charming seventeenth-century village and by its residents as a bustling metropolis. Most of the town was centered round the central market square with its Assembly Rooms and posting house, The George and Dragon. Why go to London when the shops of Nethercote had everything there was to buy from the best of plain English fare to a real French dressmaker, Madame Aimée? The fact that Madame Aimée was once a Clapham seamstress called Bertha Battersby had been long forgotten and the townspeople did as much to foster her French image as Madame Aimée did herself.

Aristocracy was in residence just outside the town in the shape of the Beldings; and & Arthur Cromer, Henrietta’s rejected squire, lived in a brand new cottage
ornée
to remind the sophisticates of Nethercote of the simple joys of country life despite the fact that his vast thatched-roofed residence could have housed a whole army of tenant farmers and their laborers.

Henrietta picked her way across the slippery cobbles of the market square, with the heavy ring on the soles of her pattens making an ugly clanking sound and the rain beginning to trickle down her neck.

The visit to Mrs. Tankerton seemed to be a long, long way away. She had told no one of her visit, not even Miss Scattersworth. Miss Mattie Scattersworth would have thought her mad for not trying to ingratiate herself into the rich lady’s graces.

Miss Scattersworth lived above the bakery at the corner of the square. She was one of Nethercote’s many indigent gentlewomen, keeping the body and soul together by sharing each other’s modest tea trays, and perpetually living in the grim and awful shadow of the poorhouse.

As she climbed the stairs to Miss Scattersworth’s lodgings, Henrietta composed her features into their usual outward calm.

“My dear Henrietta!” gasped Miss Scattersworth, “So delighted! But in this terrible weather. You must be chilled to the bone.”

“I am,” said Henrietta matter-of-factly. “Do let me in, Mattie.”

Miss Scattersworth stood aside with profuse apologies and followed her young friend into the tiny parlor where a meager fire fought a losing battle with the all-pervading chill of the bleak November day.

Henrietta placed a basket of victuals tactfully on a small table but Miss Mattie’s quick eyes had caught the action and filled with grateful tears. “So good of your dear brother,” she said in a choked voice.

“Fustian!” said Henrietta sharply. “You know he would not even give you a piece of bread. I stole these from the kitchens.”

Only in front of her elderly friend did Henrietta put off her carefully cultivated social mask. Miss Mattie gave a delighted gasp and covered her mouth with her long, bony freckled fingers.

A lifetime of genteel poverty had not dimmed Miss Mattie’s spirit for adventure. A thin angular female of sixty-two with thick grey hair in neat bunches of ringlets under a modest cap, she had never given up hoping that something exciting would happen to change her drab life. She was an avid reader of novels and Henrietta thought that her friend lived more between the pages of her favorite romances than in the real world.

When they were both seated in front of the fire, Mattie leaned forward and grasped Henrietta’s hand. “Now tell me all about your going to the Beldings’ ball. What are you going to wear? Do you think you are going to fall in love? I can see it all. He will cover your face with impassioned kisses and…”

“And throw me across his saddle-bow,” grinned Henrietta. “And of course Miss Alice Belding will be so madly jealous that she will…”

“Take poison and in a fit of remorse for all the bad things she has said to you, will leave you all her money in her will and…” cried Mattie.

“And,” interrupted Henrietta, “we will both go to London for the Season where we will dazzle all the gentlemen with our unique beauty and…”

“I shall marry an Earl and you a Duke,” finished Mattie triumphantly.

Both burst out laughing. Then Henrietta shook her head. “You know what it will be like, Mattie. I shall sit in the corner with the chaperones and occasionally be singled out by Alice who will deign to drop a few crumbs of gossip to me from her lofty height.”

“What will you be wearing?” asked Mattie.

“Oh, I shall be very fine,” said Henrietta. “Henry has spared no expense on this occasion. Alice made a derisory remark about my dowdy gowns in his hearing. It was only meant to hurt me, of course, but it made Henry determined to dress me as richly as possible…if only for the ball. I turn back to a pumpkin when the dance is over. What am I wearing? Rose silk, my dear, cut dangerously low on the bosom but vastly pretty for all that I shall at least
feel
pretty.”

Miss Mattie hesitated and then said timidly, “I have noticed that when you are animated and your eyes sparkle…why I think you look very well indeed.”

Henrietta blinked in surprise. She was not accustomed to compliments even from her old friend. “Why, thank you, Mattie. I shall endeavour to sparkle to the best of my ability. Oh, I had almost forgot. A splendid piece of news. No less a personage than Beau Reckford is to attend. The Beldings are all a-flutter and hope for a match between Miss Alice and the Beau.”

“Who on earth is Beau Reckford? Is he a dandy?” asked Miss Mattie.

Henrietta laughed. “No. He is a Corinthian and a very Top of the Trees. He is an expert swordsman and pugilist and drives to an inch. He has broken more hearts than we have had hot dinners and is said to be prodigious handsome.”

Miss Mattie’s eyes misted over with emotion. “He sounds like the very man for
you
, my dear Henrietta.”

“Stuff!” retorted Henrietta. “He will not even notice me with Alice Belding around.”

“She
is
terribly pretty,” sighed Miss Mattie. “And the gentlemen never seem to notice what she is like underneath… spoiled and cruel. Surely she is too young, though. She is only eighteen and does not make her come-out till next Season.”

“
That
will not stop my lord and lady or their daughter,” said Henrietta. “The paragon is very rich as well.”

“How did you find out so much about him?” asked Mattie, carefully giving the fire its ration of one lump of coal.

“Oh, from Henry. He lives in the Beldings’ pockets, you know. What else do I know of the famous Beau? Let me see… he is nine-and-twenty, real name, Lord Guy Reckford, reputation… rake and sportsman.”

“Oh, if only he would fall in love with you,” twittered Miss Mattie, jumping to her feet and pacing up and down the room.

“And
then,
” smiled Henrietta, “he would immediately reform…”

“And give up his evil ways….” said Mattie.

“And all his opera dancers and gambling hells….”

“And you will have lots and lots of children and live happily ever after,” said Miss Mattie triumphantly, her ringlets bobbing and her face flushed.

“Really, Mattie,” protested Henrietta. “I think you half believe our fantasies.”

“And why not?” said the spinster defiantly. “I’m sure it only takes a bit of energy and courage to bring it about.”

“Well, all my energy and courage will go into simply enduring the evening,” said Henrietta and with that she took her leave.

The days before the ball were mercifully free of Henry’s pompous and overbearing presence. He had posted up to town to order a new suit of evening clothes from Stultz. He had confided to Henrietta that he had chosen blue silk as the most suitable material.

His sister had tried to point out that in view of her brother’s increasing age—he was nearing forty—and waistline, the current mode set by Mr. Brummell for severe black and white evening dress might be more suitable. Henry had merely pooh-poohed. “I do not follow the dictates of that popinjay Brummell. Why, I don’t believe the fellow even knows his own parents. Fellow asked him the other day about his parents and Brummell replied that it had been a long time since he had seen them but that he imagined that the worthy couple must have cut their throats by this time because when he last saw them they were eating peas with their knives! What d’ye think of that?”

Henrietta had merely smiled and commented that since George Brummell’s father had been able to place him in a most fashionable regiment, then he must be all that was respectable.

But on the evening of the ball, there was Henry, tight blue silk encasing his rotund form, and panting and gasping under the restriction of a pair of Cumberland corsets. A handsome powdered wig covered his sparse hair and his waistcoat rattled with fobs and seals of all kinds. The points of his cravat were so high that he could hardly turn his head.

His protruding eyes bulged even more as he surveyed his sister. The simple Empire lines of her rose silk gown were very flattering to her plump figure and showed her white arms and bosom to advantage. Her heavy blonde hair which was usually worn under a cap was dressed in one of the latest styles, rioting in a mass of loose curls confined with a rose silk ribbon.

“Well, well, I suppose you’ll do,” said the vicar in a dampening voice. “Remember to cultivate the friendship of Miss Belding. She is all gracious condecension.”

“Exactly,” remarked Henrietta. “I sometimes think that Alice seeks me out as a friend only to use me as a foil for her beauty.”

“Nonsense! How dare you speak like that! Miss Alice is an angel!” raged the vicar. “How dare you presume to be impertinent to me… me who has to share my daily bread with you because you have nothing of your own. Without me, you would be starving in the gutter.”

All animation drained from Henrietta’s face leaving the usual placid mask. “Yes, Henry,” she said in a deceptively mild voice.

“That’s better,” said her brother surveying her bowed head. “Miss Alice Belding, as I pointed out, is an angel. You agree?”

“Yes, Henry,” said Henrietta meekly with her outer voice while her inner voice raged. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about angels, you old hypocrite, and you’re not likely to find out in the after life because you will be burning in hell.”

Gathering up her reticule, fan and Norfolk shawl, Henrietta wondered for the hundredth time how there could be so little love between a brother and sister.

Their father, Sir James Sandford, had died after an accident on the hunting field; and their mother, Isabella, had died giving birth to Henrietta, a fact that her elder brother never let her forget. Since he did not mean to get married, Henry Sandford had long ago found out that Henrietta adequately accomplished the duties which were usually assigned to the vicar’s wife. With the exception of the aforementioned squire, he had discouraged all possible suitors and denied Henrietta a Season in London.

Henrietta assumed that they must have been left a comfortable income. The vicar’s clothes were so expensive and so dandified that several people in the town were apt to remark that his dress was unsuited to his calling. He had an excellent hardworking curate in an elderly man called John Symes who fulfilled most of the vicar’s ecclesiastical duties, leaving Henry free to toady to the Beldings.

There had been Beldings in Nethercote since the Norman Conquest Theirs was an ancient, if undistinguished, line, the ancestral Beldings having had a deft habit of changing their politics and religion to suit the current ruler. The present family followed in the pattern of their forebears, having a great deal of money, incredible arrogance and very little else worthy of comment.