Henrietta (6 page)

Henrietta looked at her in consternation. “You, Mattie!”

“Yes, me!” said Miss Mattie, tearfully and defiantly. “I do not
feel
old, you know, and I thought that there might be some elderly gentleman who would…well…feel the same as I.”

“Oh, Mattie, I’m sure there is,” said Henrietta soothingly.

She broke off in confusion as the butler announced, “Lady Courtney.”

Both women jumped to their feet and had only a second to exchange surprised glances as Lady Courtney came into the room. Henrietta’s heart missed a beat as she saw Lord Reckford’s features set oddly on the small, plump figure of Lady Courtney.

Lady Courtney quickly took in the details of Henrietta’s appearance and liked what she saw. The girl was no beauty but she looked a gentlewoman. “I believe you have met my brother, Lord Reckford. He told me you were in town for the Season and begged me to call. He will be calling himself on the morrow but I heard such good reports of you, I was anxious to make your acquaintance.”

Henrietta would normally have been too shy to say more than “yes” or “no” but pity for Miss Mattie made her bold. She sat down beside her visitor and began to eagerly ply her with questions about the London Season.

“We shall be meeting at the opening ball at Almack’s, no doubt,” said Ann Courtney eventually.

Henrietta flushed. “I must confess that I have been too timid to apply for vouchers for fear of a rebuff.”

Lady Courtney decided that Henrietta had been much maligned. She was obviously a pleasant girl with an open friendly manner.

“I think I can secure the necessary vouchers for you,” said Lady Courtney, after a little hesitation. “I am acquainted with several of the patronesses.”

“But Lady Belding has put it about that…” Henrietta began to stammer.

Lady Courtney held up her hand. “My social power is infinitely greater than Lady Belding’s,” she said imperiously. Henrietta thanked her warmly and Lady Courtney rose to her feet thinking that her brother could do worse than marry such a charming, guileless girl. Unfortunately, before she reached the door of the morningroom, Miss Mattie woke from her happy dream.

“Oh, Henrietta,” she cried. “It’s just like a novel. He has rescued you from social ruin. You will be lifted up into his strong arms and carried to the altar.”

Henrietta winced and blushed furiously. The warmth fled from Lady Courtney’s face and she made a chilly
adieux.

Ann Courtney went straight to her brother’s house. “Well, I have done my duty. At first she seemed a pleasant, likeable girl and then, just after I had promised to get her vouchers for Almack’s, that peculiar female she lives with blurted out something about you bearing Henrietta off in your strong arms to the altar.”

“In that case, I’d better forget about the whole thing,” said her brother.

Ann Courtney sat bolt upright. “Oh, no you don’t. You shall call tomorrow as I promised. It would be shabby indeed to raise the girl’s hopes and then dash them. Besides—I have been thinking. Perhaps all this business of her wanting to marry you is sheer fantasy on the part of that elderly companion of hers.”

“Well, well,” said her brother reluctantly. “We have set the wheels in motion and may as well go along with it. I shall see for myself.”

For Henrietta, the day of surprises was not over. No sooner had Lady Courtney left and she had turned to remonstrate with Miss Mattie than another visitor arrived. “Mr. Edmund Ralston,” the butler announced. Both ladies turned round as the most exquisite young man they had ever seen was ushered into the room. His slender figure was encased in a tight-waisted coat worn over skin-tight pantaloons and the whole embellished with a cravat which must at least have been a foot high. His golden curls were combed into a riot of fashionable disorder and topped a thin, white, painted face. His light green eyes had extremely thick curling lashes which gave his face a look of vicious femininity.

Mr. Ralston made a magnificent flourishing bow and stood leaning on his tall cane and surveying Henrietta with interest.

“So you are the young lady who took my fortune away from me.” He glided forward with a slow dancing step and to her extreme embarrassment, pirouetted round her.

“Not at all bad,” he murmured half to himself. “You could have been infinitely worse. I am decided. We shall be married.”

Henrietta nervously stretched her hand towards the bell rope. “Come now,” said Mr. Ralston, neatly depositing his elegant being into a small hard-backed chair, “you would not dismiss your own flesh and blood.”

Finding her voice at last, Henrietta demanded, “You must immediately introduce yourself, sir, and explain your business.”

He slowly took out a small Sēvres box and delicately inhaled a pinch of snuff, keeping his light green eyes steadily fixed on her. “I shall explain. Mrs. Hester Tankerton was a distant relative of mine—very distant. I will not bore you with the genealogy but up till her death I was sure I was her only relative—with the exception of your so dear brother whom I discounted. Mrs. Tankerton had long ago taken a dislike to him. I expected no competition from that quarter.

“I danced attendance on Mrs. Tankerton constantly on the understanding that I was to inherit her great fortune. Imagine my distress”—he waved a gossamer wisp of handkerchief in Henrietta’s direction—“when I was apprised that Henry Sandford had a sister and that that sister inherited all.”

He held up a thin, white hand with polished nails as Henrietta would have spoken.

“Now what did you do for the old lady? Nothing. While I ran and fetched and carried for her. So you must make restitution and that you can do by marrying me.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Henrietta roundly. “I am sorry that you have been disappointed in your expectations. Perhaps you are in need of immediate funds….”

Mr. Ralston rose to his feet with a sinuous movement. “No. I am tolerably well in funds at present. I merely wish to claim that which is mine with the least possible fuss.” He moved to the looking glass to inspect his cravat. “I am not ill-looking, you will allow,” he said over his shoulder. “
You
should be flattered.”

Henrietta felt an insane desire to giggle. Her practical common sense fortunately took over.

“I must answer ‘no’ to your absurd proposal and”—she tugged the bell rope violently—“bid you good day.”

“So be it,” said Mr. Ralston indifferently. “Obviously you are overwhelmed. I am, after all, something out of the common way.”

He made a courtly bow and glided from the room, leaving both ladies to stare at each other in dismay.

Miss Mattie put her hands to her mouth and stared wide-eyed at Henrietta. “He is a villain, I declare. You must be on the watch. He will snatch you up and bear you off to some remote abbey where he will have you in his power.”

Henrietta sat down, hardly listening to her friend’s wild flight of fantasy. Her everyday world seemed to have slipped out of focus and everything in the room suddenly looked two dimensional. She felt as though she had just taken part in some bizarre play or that Mr. Ralston had been the figment of a laudenam-induced dream. Suddenly she brought the ordinary world back into focus with a determined blink.

“Mattie, we must learn to deal with strange callers,” she said with a worried frown. “Until this morning, no one
at all
has called on us so I simply gave Hobbard instructions to admit everyone. Now, I feel, I should perhaps tell him that we are not at home to Mr. Ralston.”

“He frightens me,” said Miss Mattie forthrightly. “He reminds me of a serpent.”

Henrietta got to her feet. “Let us take the air, clear our brains and think of more cheerful topics. If Lady Courtney manages to arrange vouchers for Almack’s, we shall indeed begin our debut in style. I know, we shall go to Gunter’s for some splendid ices and forget about the whole confusing business.”

“Including my Lord Reckford?” queried Miss Mattie with a sly look.

“Especially Lord Reckford,” said Henrietta. “Perhaps he will forget to call. I do not mean to fret myself to flinders. I shall not trouble myself at all over his proposed visit.”

But it was a very nervous and anxious Henrietta who woke the following morn. She had relegated the Beau to the back of her mind along with her other dream lovers. Now she was to see him again, and actually talk to him! Her heart beat fast as she removed her curl papers with trembling fingers and then realized with a sigh of relief that she had now a maid to cope with the tedious job of hairdressing. She could eat no breakfast and her nervousness communicated itself to Miss Mattie who trembled and twittered and knocked over the coffee pot.

By eleven o’clock, both ladies were still seated in the drawingroom where they had been waiting a good two hours. Henrietta’s face was at its most expressionless, a sure sign of extreme nervousness. But Miss Mattie reflected that her friend had never looked better. Henrietta’s fair curls were confined by a pretty ribbon tied in a bow over her left ear. Her sky-blue dress of jonquil muslin trimmed with lace accentuated her excellent shoulders and bosom and flattered her plump figure.

“Oh, Mattie, if only he would come,” Henrietta burst out. “If something would only happen to break the monotony of our existence, then I swear I would become as slim as a sylph.”

Miss Mattie looked down complacently at her own bony figure. “You must avoid eating potatoes,” she advised. “They are served with
everything,
I declare, and not just with the roast as we had in Nethercote. I heard a lady at Gunter’s yesterday holding forth on the matter. She declared that the potato made one
swell
.”

“I’m not swelling, Mattie,” said Henrietta. “I’m just the same round person I was in Nethercote.”

Both heard the sound of a carriage coming to a stop outside the house. Although both had spent all morning running to the window at the least sound, by an unspoken consent, they remained seated, staring at each other anxiously.

There was a murmur of voices in the hall, Hobbard’s familiar tread followed by a firm step. “Lord Reckford,” announced Hobbard with the suspicion of a twinkle in his august eye. He was fond of his young mistress and had often confided below-stairs that it was a crying shame that a lady as amiable as Miss Henrietta should have no
beaux.

Henrietta rose to meet Lord Reckford with a social smile fixed on her round face. He appeared even taller than before and very remote and elegant. He made a very correct bow.

“Pup-p-lease sit down,” stammered Henrietta.

“I beg your pardon?” remarked the Beau politely.

“
I said,
‘
Sit down
,’” shouted Henrietta and then blushed miserably.

He still stood.

“Is anything the matter?” faltered Henrietta.

“You are supposed to sit down first you know,” he said kindly, drawing forward a chair. Henrietta perched primly on the very edge and stared at her smart kid half boots as if they were her only consolation in a wicked world.

“My sister tells me she is to procure vouchers for Almack’s for you,” remarked Lord Reckford in his pleasant husky voice.

“Oh,
so
kind,” bubbled Miss Mattie. “We are indeed saved from social ruin.”

“Please, Mattie,” begged Henrietta. “Do not be so dramatic.”

“Oh, I think Miss Scattersworth has the right of it,” said the Beau languidly but with a gleam of mischief in his eyes. “You must give credit where credit is due, Miss Sandford. Had I not ridden to the rescue, you would have been socially spurned.”

“Sneered at by all and ground to social dust,” breathed Miss Mattie, her curls bobbing energetically.

“Every elegant back in London turned against you,” agreed Lord Reckford.

“We may have had to resort to the demi-monde,” whispered Miss Mattie.

“And we would wear a lot of paint and talk in terribly loud voices to show that we did not mind in the least,” said Henrietta with a laugh, beginning to enjoy the joke.

Lord Reckford began to believe that the rumor that Henrietta wished to marry him was part of her companion’s imaginings and prepared to enjoy himself.

“You are looking very
tonnish
since I saw you last, Miss Sandford,” he commented, admiring her dress appreciatively.

“I am glad I complement your lordship’s elegance,” said Henrietta with the mischievous twinkle in her eye that he remembered.

“And I notice your wrists are so
clean
. Alas! My heart is broken. You were only funning when you said you would never wash it again.”

“Ah!” teased Henrietta with a boldness that amazed herself, “I had faith, you see, that I might perhaps soon have another.”

He rose to his feet to bend over her hand, looking mockingly into her eyes. “Then such faith shall be rewarded,” he teased.

Miss Mattie suddenly wagged a roguish finger at the pair of them. “Young love,” she sighed. “Will it be a social wedding do you think? Or will you ride madly to Gretna Green one dark moonless night?”

Both stared at her in consternation.

“Lady Belding and Miss Belding,” announced Hobbard.

Alice drifted up to Henrietta and kissed her sorrowfully on the cheek. “My poor dear friend,” she sighed. “Oh! Lord Reckford!” All fluttering eyelashes and swirling skirts, she dropped Lord Reckford her best curtsy.

“I am surprised to see you here, Reckford,” snapped Lady Belding. Her high patrician nose turned in Henrietta’s direction. “As for you, miss, you are to cease this nonsense and return to Nethercote immediately. Your brother agrees with me that you have proved yourself unable to handle your fortune.”

“I am not a child, Lady Belding,” retorted Henrietta. “You may tell my brother from me that I shall
visit
him when the Season is over.”

“Season! What Season?” snorted Lady Belding. “There will be no Season for you, my presumptuous miss. No lady of the ton would be seen in your company.”

The Beau got lazily to his feet. “I really must protest, Lady Belding, but it is the first time that anyone has suggested that my sister does not belong to the first circles. Ann has already called on Miss Sandford and will be seeing a good deal of her in the coming weeks.”