Animating Maria (6 page)

The Duke of Berham entered. His glance rested briefly on Amy and slid away.

‘Please be seated, your grace,’ said Amy.

‘No, thank you,’ said the duke haughtily. ‘I shall wait until your mistress arrives.’

His gaze contemptuously took in the scarf and apron.

Amy blushed furiously. ‘I am Miss Amy Tribble,’ she said crossly.

‘Indeed!’ The duke sat down. ‘I had hoped to see Miss Kendall.’

‘Miss Kendall is out driving. I was not aware you were acquainted with her.’

The duke looked silently at Amy. If Miss Kendall had not troubled to tell this odd chaperone of the unfortunate happenings at the inn, then perhaps he should let sleeping dogs lie. He was not interested in Miss Kendall, and to pursue the matter might raise false hopes. The duke was used to being pursued.

He rose and bowed. ‘I am sure Miss Kendall will not remember me. I should not have called. Please do not tell her of my visit. It is of no consequence.’

His glacial manner, his air of consequence, and the lurking contempt in those eyes of his made Amy hate him with a passion.

‘I am sure you can see yourself out,’ she said, and before he had even left the room, she had seized a feather duster and was busily cleaning gleaming furniture without a single speck of dust on it.

Amy decided to put the duke’s visit out of her mind. Maria Kendall was of too low an order to aspire to a duke.

After Amy had finished cleaning, she decided to go for a ride in the Park and went and changed into her riding costume.

She was cantering through the Park when she saw the duke approaching in his carriage. Feeling she had not behaved very well, and, after all, a duke was a duke, Amy decided to speak to him. She moved alongside his carriage and cried, ‘Good day.’

It never dawned on Amy that the duke would not recognize her, that Yvette’s creation of smart blue velvet riding dress and blue velvet hat would make her look a different person entirely from the angry woman with her hair tied up in a scarf. The duke was used to being hailed by encroaching people to whom he had not even been introduced. He slightly raised his thin eyebrows, clicked his tongue at his horses, and bowled away at a smart pace. It was the cut direct. Amy’s face flamed.

The Tribbles, even in their poorest days, had never been cut by anyone. They were
bon ton
.

Amy was furious. She returned to Holles Street, now determined to find out what Maria knew of the duke.

Effy had gone to lie down. Amy found Maria in her room. She was sitting in a chair by the window, dreamily staring at nothing.

‘The Duke of Berham called when you were out,’ said Amy.

To her surprise, tears started to Maria’s eyes and she covered her face with her hands. ‘Dreadful man,’ she mumbled incoherently. ‘I could kill him!’

Amy snatched Maria’s hands away from her face and demanded, ‘What is the matter? What has he done?’

Maria controlled herself with an effort. The duke may have behaved badly, but she felt sure she had brought some of the trouble on herself by her own behaviour. She was not afraid of Amy, cleverly recognizing the sympathetic and soft-hearted soul which lurked under Amy’s hard mannish exterior. And so she told her everything. About the kiss, about the ball, about her own fantasy of humiliating him and her lie about her fiancé, about how Lord Beaumont had been told by the duke that she had already lost her virginity. ‘I even told him my fiancé, Captain Jack Freemantle, would call him out,’ said Maria.

It was an age when not very many women survived into their fifties and there was no one to tell Amy that occasionally in the lives of women of a certain age, there could be times when they were not quite sane. Amy had been completely thrown off balance by what she saw as Mr Haddon’s rejection of her. The duke’s snub had added fuel to her temporary insanity. She forgot about Maria’s fantasizing and did not realize that here was surely a good opportunity to point out the folly of living in a dream-world. She merely patted Maria on the hand and said, ‘Leave things to me. You shall have your revenge.’

Maria, who was impressed by Amy’s bold manner and standing in London society, assumed Amy would send for the duke and read him the lecture he deserved. Had she known what Amy was planning, she would have been horrified.

Amy was going to challenge the duke to a duel.

The fact that she had once masqueraded as a man to break up a duel between Mr Haddon and a fribble called Callaghan, and had been instantly recognized as Miss Amy Tribble by Mr Haddon, did not deter her. She simply thought that on that occasion she had not taken enough pains over her disguise.

The following day, she went to a naval outfitters and ordered a sea captain’s uniform. She told them it was for a fancy dress ball and urged them to make haste. She then sent for the hairdresser and told him she wanted one of the new fashionable crops and felt quite weepy as her heavy iron-grey locks were shorn, since Amy considered her long hair the only feminine attribute she had possessed. While Amy plotted and planned, Effy and Maria went on calls, went shopping, went to Gunter’s for ices, and remained unaware of the volcano of revenge that was smouldering inside Miss Amy Tribble.

Maria was to make her début in two weeks’ time at a grand ball given by Lord and Lady Livingstone. Amy knew the social calendar inside out and knew at which functions before then she would be likely to meet the Duke of Berham. There was to be a concert given at the home of Mrs Darby, and all the cream of society was expected to be there. Amy called on Mrs Darby and told her that a dashing and handsome sea captain, a Mr Jack Freemantle, who was distantly related to her, would be in London and longed for the civilizing sounds of good music. Much intrigued, Mrs Darby offered an invitation to the captain. Amy said that neither she nor Effy could attend because they had to school their latest charge and bring her up to the mark for her début.

With the invitation secure in her reticule, she next called again on the outfitters for a final fitting. The naval costume would be ready in time for Mrs Darby’s concert.

The naval outfitters had been told no expense was to be spared, and thinking that the captain’s costume was meant for a fancy dress ball, they had added a great deal more gold embellishment to it than a sea captain would ever dare to wear.

Amy’s next worry was how to make her escape from home dressed as a naval captain on the eve of the concert. She hired a dancing master to come round that evening to instruct Maria in the steps of the waltz, although Maria protested she knew the steps very well. Amy then pleaded the headache and begged Effy to play the piano for the dancing lesson. As soon as she heard the first chord of the waltz sounding from below, Amy locked herself in her room and pomaded and powdered her new short hair. Then she donned the naval uniform: short blue dress jacket with brass buttons and gold epaulettes, and medal ribbons worn over a white waistcoat. White knee breeches, white silk stockings and black leather slippers completed the ensemble. She looked doubtfully at the hat before putting it on. It was surely an admiral’s hat. She shrugged. She would not be wearing it when she challenged the duke to a duel.

She tugged down her dress jacket and looked at herself in the mirror. A distinguished tall slim naval man with a harsh face stared back. Amy blinked away sudden tears. She had always longed to be a pretty woman, but her mirror showed her it would have been better for her to have been born a man. She then picked up a small trunk into which she had packed the masculine clothes for previous masquerades and fancy dress parties, hoisted it onto her shoulder, and crept quietly down the stairs and let herself out, after leaving a note on the hall table in which she said she had gone off to visit a friend in the country. She then took a hack to Limmer’s Hotel, where she had already booked a room under the name of Captain Free-mantle. It was traditional for seconds in a duel to call and try to talk the antagonist out of it, and she could hardly have them calling at Holles Street. Not once did she stop to think that perhaps she might have run mad. Amy felt she had a purpose in life. It was not only the duke she would be getting even with but all the world of men who made life so hard and lonely for unwanted spinsters.

When she arrived at Mrs Darby’s concert, she was glad she had told that lady that the captain was a relative of the Tribbles, for Mrs Darby kept exclaiming over the captain’s resemblance to Miss Amy.

The duke was not there. Amy’s heart sank. She sat as wooden-faced as any sailor while the concert went on and on. At last it was over and supper was announced. Amy rose and turned about, and then she saw the duke standing at the back of the concert room talking to a handsome man.

Amy took a deep breath and drew off her gloves. Eyes fixed on the duke and ignoring everyone else, she marched up to him.

She struck him sharply across the cheek with her gloves and said in a harsh voice, ‘I am Captain Jack Freemantle of His Majesty’s Navy. You insulted my fiancée and I demand satisfaction. Name your seconds.’

And as she looked into the Duke of Berham’s cold eyes, Amy realized for the first time that he would probably kill her.

Mr Haddon was not usually given over to self-pity. But he felt neglected and unloved. Any time he had been indisposed before, the Tribble sisters had sent messages and baskets of fruit. Not even a letter had arrived. He felt hot and feverish and could not sleep. It was two nights after Mrs Darby’s party. He had been invited but had been too unwell to go. He had read an item in his newspaper that morning that a sensation had been caused at the concert by a certain captain who had challenged the Duke of B. to a duel. Mr Haddon was not interested enough to wonder which duke this could be. At last, he fell into an uneasy sleep from which he wakened at dawn, feeling weak but much better. His fever had abated. He heard a horse’s hooves in the street below. Someone had reined in at his door. He looked at the clock. Five-thirty in the morning. He climbed from bed, went to the window and leaned out. A tall figure in naval dress was stooping to slide a letter under his door. The figure straightened up and mounted the horse. Mr Haddon stared. There was something in the manner and bearing that reminded him forcibly of Amy.

He went downstairs, picked up the letter and opened it. In the pale dawn light coming through the fanlight over the door he read the first line – ‘Last Will and Testament of Amy Tribble.’

It all rushed into his mind at once – the naval captain who looked so much like Amy, that duel at the concert, how Amy had once before dressed up as a man.

His heart began to hammer. He shouted and shouted for his servants while all the while he wondered where the duel would be. Chalk Farm? Parliament Hill Fields? Hyde Park?

By the time he had mounted his horse, he had decided Chalk Farm was the safest bet.

Amy’s seconds were two noisy bucks from Limmer’s Hotel who had readily agreed to stand for her. Amy had already received visits from the duke’s seconds, Lord Alistair Beaumont and a Mr Henry Wainwright. Beau had explained how the duke had made the mistake about Miss Kendall’s reputation and had begged the ‘captain’ to call off the duel. But the madness was still in Amy and she was determined to go through with it.

But it was a very shaky and feminine and weak Amy who stood on Parliament Hill Fields as the sun rose and the sleepy birds began to twitter in the trees. The first buds were just beginning to uncurl and the air was sweet and fresh. It was a morning to be alive – to stay alive, thought Amy gloomily.

But she really felt she had nothing to live for. Mr Haddon had deserted her, as so many men had deserted her in the past. Her love for him had enveloped her like a warm blanket. Now it had been snatched away, leaving her soul shivering and naked in a hostile world, a world which many of her friends had already left.

The duke arrived. He was dressed in black, with the lapels of his coat folded over his cravat so as to leave the least target for his opponent. Amy was still wearing that naval dress and her brass buttons winked in the sunlight.

The surgeon arrived and took up his position. The antagonists each selected a long duelling pistol.

Then the duke and Amy stood back to back and began to pace away from each other.

Mr Haddon, having found no sign of a duel at Chalk Farm, was now riding hell for leather to Parliament Hill Fields.

The Duke of Berham felt highly annoyed by the whole proceedings. He wondered which part of the captain’s anatomy he should put a ball through. He was an expert shot. He hoped vaguely the captain was not equally good but did not feel very much concerned. The London Season had proved a monstrous bore and this duel was an added irritation.

‘Ten,’ he counted and swung about and took careful aim.

Mr Haddon rode onto the duelling field at the same time as the shots were fired and saw the captain fall like a stone.

The duke turned away and handed his pistol to Beau and said, ‘Breakfast, I think. I am sharp set.’

‘What about the other fellow?’ demanded Beau hotly. ‘You’ve killed him.’

‘Not I. I carefully put a ball through the fleshy part of his arm.’

‘You’re a cold devil,’ said Beau. ‘I’m going to make sure just the same.’

Mr Wainwright and Amy’s seconds were hotly arguing over bets in a corner of the field.

‘Is she dead?’ whispered Mr Haddon, kneeling beside the surgeon. The surgeon was cutting away Amy’s jacket. ‘She?’ he asked. ‘You mean he, sir.’ Then his eyebrows rose in amazement as his probing fingers felt the softness of Amy’s bosom.

The duke was just strolling away, arm in arm with Beau, when the surgeon’s shout stopped him. ‘This is a woman, your grace.’

‘Will she live?’ cried Mr Haddon.

‘Yes, yes,’ said the surgeon testily. ‘The ball went clean through the fleshy part of her arm.’

‘What is all this?’ snapped the duke. ‘What do you mean, a woman?’

‘I fear you have shot Miss Amy Tribble,’ said Mr Haddon. The surgeon was efficiently binding up the wound. Mr Haddon took out a flask of brandy and forced it between Amy’s pale lips.

‘What’s she doing masquerading as a captain and challenging me to a duel?’ demanded the duke. ‘Will no one answer me?’