Frederica in Fashion (4 page)

‘I’m off,’ yelled the vicar, seizing his sopping hat from Rose’s nerveless fingers and cramming it about his ears.

Sarah Millet looked around her with bold,
triumphant
eyes. She would move into the best bedroom that very night. And the next day she would send a card over to the Wentwater mansion and she would ask that handsome Mr Wentwater to tea.

Frederica found her life at Hatton Abbey quite pleasant. The chambermaid, Mary, with whom she worked was a cheerful country girl. She had a squashed sort of face as if someone had pressed down hard on the top of her head when she was a baby. Her mouth was very long and large and she had unruly masses of coarse brown hair. The other servants were efficient and hard-working. It was a whole separate world belowstairs with a rigid class system all of its own. Lowly female servants such as chambermaids were only allowed in the housekeeper’s parlour on the day of their arrival or the day of their dismissal.

The only servant Frederica did not like was Mr Smiles. He was a fat, pompous man, very proud of his livery and his tall staff of office.

He would appear in the rooms where Frederica and Mary were working, don a pair of white kid gloves, and run his fingers carefully along the ledges, looking for dust.

‘At least he can’t find anything to complain about,’ said Frederica to Mary. ‘The rooms are spotless.’

‘It’ll be different when the guests arrive,’ said Mary. ‘I hear tell there’ll be so much work, it’s nigh impossible to do it proper. The beds are supposed to be aired in the morning, but how can you air them when the ladies won’t get up until the afternoon? Mr Anderson says as how that Lady James what’s coming is always picking on us.’

‘Who is Lady James?’ asked Frederica. She had
given up trying to talk like a servant. Now that she was very much part of the staff nobody seemed to notice.

‘She’s his grace’s fancy piece.’

‘Oh.’ Frederica was deeply shocked and tried hard not to show it. She had almost begun to think of herself as belonging to the servant class and
cheerfully
listened to all the gossip about her ‘betters’, but so far no gossip had touched the magnificent and sinister duke who seemed to be held in awe by everyone, including Mr Smiles.

‘Of course, we all thought that was over,’ said Mary, pummelling a pillow energetically. ‘And good riddance. Mr Anderson says as how he’d rather have old Lady Godolphin any day for all her weird ways.’

‘Lady Godolphin,’ gasped Frederica. ‘Lady
Godolphin
does not come here, does she?’

‘Evidently she came once a long time ago and his grace said “never again”.’

Frederica heaved a sigh of relief.

‘But for some reason he’s asked her back. This is to be her room.’

‘But his grace cannot … I mean, Lady Godolphin is quite
old
.’

‘So you know her?’

‘She was a friend of my late mistress,’ said Frederica, bending over the fireplace and buffing up the grate to hide the tell-tale blush on her cheeks.

‘Well,
of course
, the duke don’t fancy Lady
Godolphin
. He likes high-flyers like Lady James.’

‘But surely only common women … I mean, Lady James has a title.’

‘Don’t make her respectable, do it? Her late husband was only a “sir”. I tell you, I seen quality ladies with no more manners ’n’ a pig.’

Frederica thought furiously. Lady Godolphin would recognize her. She had seen her only a month before at Diana’s wedding. But there were ways of hiding without actually disappearing. And Lady Godolphin would not be expecting to see her. When she did, Frederica would merely be another
anonymous
servant, opening the shutters. But there was Lady Godolphin’s lady’s maid. Wait a bit. Something had been said at Diana’s wedding about Lady Godolphin having a new maid. Yes, that was it! Someone had complimented Lady Godolphin on her looks and she had said her new maid was a paragroin.

‘I thought people called his grace the Wicked Duke because he had been wild in his youth,’ said Frederica.

‘Oh, he was,’ said Mary. ‘Mr Anderson said the parties he used to have! Cyprians and lightskirts running screaming through the rooms and every rake-helly gentleman from London after them. But then, his grace settled down amazing. He has mistresses, but one after the other, and he don’t keep any of them long.’

‘That sounds very wicked to me,’ said Frederica sadly.

‘You’re not sweet on his grace yourself?’ Mary laughed.

Frederica shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly, Mary. He’s much too old.’

‘He’s a man in his prime. The way you talk, you’d think him sixty instead o’ thirty. Here, give me a hand with this bed. There was a chambermaid here last year and she was nutty about him, ever so spoony she was. Moped around the passages, hoping he’d notice her.’

‘And what happened to her?’

‘Well, she wasn’t doing her work so Mr Smiles sent her packing.’

Frederica felt a pang of sympathy for the lovelorn maid. She had begun to discover how very lucky she had been to find work so quickly.

‘The duke’s a good master,’ said Mary. ‘Oh, you must remember, Sarah, that some of the ladies brings their own linen, and if it don’t have a monogram on it, it’s easy lost, so we embroider a little sort of sign for each lady. As I was saying about the duke, he takes care of everyone. There’s new folk at an inn called
The Magpie
a bit away from here but still on the duke’s land. Well, he often goes down there to eat so’s to encourage trade for the new landlord. That’s finished. Come along. We’d best get as much sleep as we can tonight because the guests arrive tomorrow and, after that, there’ll be precious little rest.’

But that night Frederica found, she could not sleep. She wished she had brought some of her precious books with her. She tossed and turned on the bed she shared with Mary. Mary moaned and grumbled in her sleep and then turned on her back and began to snore.

The duke had gone visiting and was not expected back until the small hours. Frederica decided to creep down from her attic and borrow a book from the library.

The great house was still and silent as she made her way downstairs, shielding her candle in its flat stick.

Painted eyes stared down at her from portraits on the walls. A jade Buddha seemed to leap at her out of a corner. Frederica wished herself back in bed. The ghost of a man in black was said to haunt the Long Gallery. But she was still enjoying the novelty of being Brave Frederica, and she knew that she would never forgive herself if she turned about and went back to bed.

A gleaming white statue looked as if it were coyly beckoning from a landing. Her candle flame threw weird shadows up to the painted ceiling as she reached the hall. Mrs Bradley had taken her on a tour of the house so that she would know where all the rooms were in case she had to double as a housemaid when the guests arrived.

She quietly opened the door of the library and went inside. Row upon row of books climbed up to the ceiling behind their glass doors.

Frederica let out a squeak of terror as she saw a ghostly face staring at her from the bookshelves, and, after an agonizing moment, realised she was looking at her own reflection, the white of her nightgown, wrapper and night-cap making her seem like a ghost.

Holding her candle high, Frederica saw a pile of
books lying on a console table. Quickly, she looked through them. There was Fanny Burney’s
Evelina
in two slim volumes. She picked up the first volume and tucked it under her arm.

There was a crash from the great hall outside as the entrance door to the Abbey opened and closed.

Frederica looked wildly about. There was a
high-backed
chair beside the fire. She blew out her candle, darted behind it, and crouched down.

To her horror, the library door opened and she heard the duke’s voice. ‘No, Anderson. I am quite capable of looking after myself. Go back to bed.’

The duke walked into the library. Frederica clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering.

There was the scratching of a tinder box and then the sound of crackling sticks. The duke had lit the fire. Then a soft golden glow spread over the room. He had lit two oil lamps which stood on tables on both sides of the fire. A clink of decanter against glass. Oh, dear, he was pouring himself a glass of wine. He would be here for
hours
!

‘Whoever it is crouching behind my chair,’ said the duke, ‘may as well come out now. I can see you reflected in the glass of the bookcases.’

‘Woooo,’ wailed Frederica. ‘Woooo. Woooo.
Woooooo!
’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said the duke. ‘I do not believe in ghosts.’

Miserably, Frederica got to her feet.

‘That’s better. Now come round here where I can see you.’

Frederica shuffled round to stand in front of him.

He was attired in severe black evening dress. His face looked hard and wicked above the foaming white cascade of his cravat. One large emerald winked and gleamed among its snowy folds. He was wearing knee breeches and his long muscular legs were encased in white silk stockings with gold clocks.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘Sarah Millet, chambermaid to your grace,’ said Frederica miserably.

‘And what are you doing in my library, Sarah Millet, chambermaid?’

‘I thought I saw a cobweb on the table over there,’ said Frederica wildly, ‘so I came to clear it away.’

‘Were you going to wipe it off with that book which you are so ineffectually trying to hide under your wrapper?’

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Frederica. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Give me the book.’ He held out his hand. Frederica handed it over.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘The excellent Miss Burney, or Mrs D’Arblay as she is now. I met her once. She was enchanting.’

‘May I go now, your grace?’ asked Frederica.

‘No, you may not. You bear a remarkable
resemblance
to a seminary miss I met a few days ago. Not only that, your speech is refined and that night attire is of the finest India muslin.’

‘I was very lucky in my last post,’ said Frederica,
coarsening her vowels. ‘Missus gave me ever so many things.’

‘Including a taste for novels?’

‘Yes, your grace, an it please your grace.’

Frederica shivered under his hard stare. The firelight was shining on his face and two little red flames seemed to dance in his black eyes.

‘You are little more than a child,’ he said, half to himself. ‘Off to bed with you, and do not trespass in my library again without my permission. You may take Miss Burney with you.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ gasped Frederica. She took the book and then picked up her candle.

‘Light it,’ he said brusquely. Frederica lit the candle at the fire.

‘Will … will Mr Smiles hear of this, your grace?’ she asked.

‘Not this time,’ he said.

Frederica smiled suddenly, that bewitching,
enchanting
smile. Then she turned away and flitted from the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

‘So I have a runaway on my hands,’ thought the duke gloomily. ‘What is her name, I wonder? First Armitage, now Millet. I had better see Smiles in the morning and get her sent home.’

But the next day his guests began to arrive and the duke, for the time being, forgot about Miss
Millet-Armitage
.

‘Gone!’ exclaimed the Reverend Charles Armitage. ‘My Frederica gone? But I did not send any letter.’

‘But she showed it to me,’ said Miss Grunton. ‘She said it was enclosed with one from Mr Radford. I was to hire a po’ chaise and send her immediately.’

‘You hen-witted female,’ raged the vicar. ‘Did ye not think to wonder why I should expect mine own daughter to rent a chaise? To leave without a maid?’

‘Enough of this,’ said Lord Sylvester curtly. ‘From where did you rent this chaise, Miss Grunton?’

‘John’s Livery,’ said Miss Grunton. ‘I cannot be blamed, my lord. If Miss Armitage has taken to forging letters, she certainly did not learn it here!’ She glared venomously at the vicar.

‘Come along, Mr Armitage,’ said Lord Sylvester. ‘We will find where this chaise took her. Did Frederica have any beaux, Miss Grunton?’

‘Oh, no, my lord. We do not allow that sort of thing here. We are a very select seminary.’

John’s Livery vouchsafed the information that miss had asked to be set down at
The Magpie
, saying as how her father was going to fetch her.

The vicar began to feel more cheerful. Frederica had obviously decided to give them all a fright, and then make her way home.

But at
The Magpie
they learned that Frederica had gone out walking several days before and had not returned. The trunks that she had left behind were brought up from the cellar.

Mr Armitage was by now badly frightened. He also felt guilty. He did not really want to marry Sarah, and now he was trapped and his daughter had been driven into exile like the thingummies.

He sank down on a hard chair in the hall of the inn and burst into tears.

‘Come, Mr Armitage,’ admonished his son-in-law. ‘At least we have evidence that she is alive.’ He turned to the landlord, Mr Gilpin. ‘Was there any search for her?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Gilpin. ‘We told parish constable and some o’ the men from the village went all about, but no lady had been seen on the roads around here that day. Only a servant girl and an old woman.’

‘Did Miss Armitage meet any gentlemen at the inn?’

‘No one, my lord. Leastways, only the Duke of Pembury. They were chatting in the garden, like. His grace often comes here.’

‘Where does Pembury live? It is quite near here, I think.’

‘Hatton Abbey. Down the road a bit.’

‘In that case, I think we should call on Pembury.’

Mr Gilpin bristled. ‘Don’t you go thinking a fine gentleman like his grace would have aught to do with the young lady’s disappearance. Why, as fine a man never—’

‘Nonetheless, we shall call.’

Much to the worried Lord Sylvester’s annoyance, his volatile father-in-law sobbed and groaned all the way to Hatton Abbey. He had heard tell of this duke, the vicar wailed. Black as sin. No morals. His Frederica was ruined.