Frederica in Fashion (5 page)

‘Pembury was wild in his youth. ’Tis said he has reformed,’ said Lord Sylvester repressively. ‘All I
want to do is find Frederica and get her safely out of whatever mess she is in before Minerva hears of it.’

Frederica was bone-weary. She had been nervous and excited when she got back to her room and decided to read herself to sleep. Once she had started on the book, she found she could not put it down. So she had read until the candle had guttered out.

Now the bells were ringing, ringing, ringing. The ladies wanted chocolate, the ladies wanted tea, the ladies wanted cans of hot water, the ladies wanted their own linen put on the bed immediately – and Lady James simply wanted to torment.

She complained of this, she complained of that. The water was not hot enough nor the fire large enough.

In all the running up and down stairs, Frederica could only be thankful that the one lady who did not seem to want anything was Lady Godolphin.

The sheer selfishness of the treatment handed out to servants amazed Frederica. These ladies had all brought their personal maids but it seemed that the bell must be rung so that the over-worked
chambermaid
should climb the stairs to open a window or make up a fire.

‘It’s a wonder they don’t lose the use of their limbs,’ thought Frederica as she piled coal on the fire in Lady James’s bedchamber.

Lady James was wearing her undress, a scanty petticoat covered with a frilly negligée. She was a
buxom blonde who reminded Frederica of Sarah, although where Sarah’s movements were sharp and brisk, Lady James’s every gesture was slow and languid. But she had the same bold coarseness about her.

‘I must have a buffer for my nails,’ drawled Lady James. ‘Leave the fire alone and go to that Lady Godolphin female and ask her for one.’

Frederica bobbed a curtsy and went out into the passage and along to Lady Godolphin’s bedchamber and scratched on the door. She was so tired, she no longer cared whether Lady Godolphin recognized her or not.

‘Come in,’ called a hoarse voice.

Frederica went into the room.

The shutters were closed and Lady Godolphin’s heavy bulldog face seemed to swim in the gloom. Frederica remembered nervously that Lady Godolphin had a very high-handed way with servants.

Frederica gave a little cough.

‘An it please your ladyship, Lady James is desirous of borrowing a buffer for her fingernails.’

‘She’s here, is she?’ demanded Lady Godolphin. ‘Thought a man of Pembury’s taste would have tired of that coarse jade by now. Well, she can’t have it. I’m not having anything of mine polited by that whore of Babbyling, and so you may tell her.’

‘Very good, my lady.’

Frederica had learned that it was a servant’s business to relay messages with as much accuracy as was politely possible.

With a wooden face, she said to Lady James, ‘Lady
Godolphin refuses to lend you her buffer. Lady Godolphin says you might polite it.’

‘I suppose the old Malaprop means pollute. Tell her from me, I made a mistake. I do not wish to handle anything belonging to her. I have no wish to entertain her lice.’

‘Very good, my lady.’

Back went Frederica.

‘Lady James begs to inform Lady Godolphin that she has made a mistake and wishes nothing
belonging
to your ladyship as she does not wish to entertain your ladyship’s lice.’

‘I ain’t lousy, but if I were, it’s better than having the pox.’

Frederica blinked.

‘Well, go and tell her that, girl.’

Back in Lady James’s room, Frederica looked at the cornice and said, ‘Lady Godolphin’s
compliments
and she is not lousy, but she would
nonetheless
prefer to have lice than the pox.’

‘Tell her from me, if she wonders why that tottering old fool of a Colonel Brian has not led her to the altar yet, it is because he has found a younger piece of mutton.’

Frederica trailed miserably back to Lady
Godolphin
and relayed the message.

‘Follicles!’ screamed Lady Godolphin. She seized a large hat pin and marched to the door. ‘Follow me, girl,’ she said over her shoulder.

Frederica followed the waddling figure of Lady Godolphin.

Lady Godolphin wrenched open the door of Lady James’s bedchamber and charged in, holding the gleaming hat pin in her hand. Lady James shot out a foot. Lady Godolphin tripped over it and crashed on to the floor, screaming like a banshee as she went. She twisted about and sank her teeth, or what was left of them, into Lady James’s ankle. Now Lady James began to scream and soon the passageway outside was jammed with curious guests and nervous servants.

Then the crowd parted and the tall figure of the Duke of Pembury shouldered his way into the room. ‘What is the meaning of this caterwauling?’ he snapped.

Lady Godolphin sat up. ‘That piece of laced mutton insulted me,’ she said, straightening her bright red wig. ‘Why don’t you send her packing back to Seven Dials where you found her?’

Seven Dials was London’s most notorious slum and famous for its prostitutes.

Lady James turned tear-drenched blue eyes to the duke. ‘She insulted me and encouraged this servant girl to be impertinent.’

The duke’s black eyes surveyed Frederica thoughtfully.

Mr Smiles oiled his way into the centre of the group. ‘One of my servants being impertinent? Dear me, we can’t have that. Sarah is a new girl on trial. If she has given offence, I shall send her packing.’

‘I only carried messages from one to the other,’ said Frederica desperately.

‘And she’s probably a thief too,’ sniffed Lady James. ‘That’s a book she has in her pocket.’

‘A
book
,’ said Mr Smiles awfully. ‘Give it here.’

Frederica pulled out the volume of
Evelina
. Lady James dabbed at her tears with a tiny scrap of cambric. ‘Since she obviously cannot read,’ she said, ‘she no doubt planned to sell it.’

‘I lent it to her,’ said the duke and Lady Godolphin in unison. Lady Godolphin had risen to her feet and was staring at Frederica.

‘You
what
?’ demanded Lady James.

‘I lent it to her,’ said the duke patiently. ‘What I want to know is this, Lady James, am I to expect a continuation of this vulgar behaviour during your stay?’

‘Here!’ said Lady Godolphin, seizing Frederica’s arm. ‘Out of here, quick. I want a word with you.’

She propelled the bewildered and shaken Frederica through the watching group of guests and servants and did not release her firm grip on her until they were safely in her room.

‘Now …’ said Lady Godolphin, kicking the door shut behind them. ‘What is the meaning of all this … Frederica Armitage?’

Rose slammed the tea tray down on the table in the parlour and stalked out, her back rigid with
disapproval
.

‘Uppity servants,’ said Guy Wentwater languidly.

‘Mrs Armitage spoilt them,’ said Sarah airily. ‘I shall fire them
all
,’ she said, raising her voice, ‘Just as soon as I am married.’

‘Bravo!’ Mr Wentwater grinned, leaning back in his chair with his thumbs in his waistcoat and putting one booted foot up on the other. ‘When did you say you were to be married?’

‘After I chaperone Frederica at her come-out,’ said Sarah proudly. She was wearing one of Miss Annabelle’s old silk gowns, the former Annabelle Armitage, now the Marchioness of Brabington. She felt it became her much better than it ever did Annabelle. Gone was her cap and apron. Sarah Millet was determined never to wear them again.

Guy Wentwater was highly amused. He had heard all the gossip from his own servants. He knew Sarah was a servant herself, and he thought it a fine joke that the vicar actually meant to marry her, diamond of the first water though she might be. He was also amused at the idea of being entertained in the vicar’s home, that clergyman who had once driven him out of Berham County. During all his time in America, Mr Wentwater had promised himself revenge. He once had had hopes of marrying Annabelle, but the vicar had effectively stopped that. Then Deirdre Armitage had made a fool of him. Yes,
all
the Armitages had a lot to answer for. This silly maid might supply him with the means.

He sipped the tea Sarah had poured him and made a face. ‘Have you nothing stronger, my lovely?’ he said.

‘Certainly,’ said Sarah grandly, ringing the bell. But though she rang and rang, no one answered its summons. All the servants had in fact gone to the
church to meet Mr Pettifor, the curate, to hold a council of war.

Sarah eventually went off to the kitchens to find them deserted and so was forced to fetch and serve the brandy herself.

‘So it seems we are all alone,’ said Mr Wentwater, pouring a generous measure of brandy for Sarah.

Sarah shrugged. ‘I hear you are courting Miss Emily up at the Hall,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t believe all you hear. Now
I
heard
you
were a servant.’

‘Would I be entertaining you in the middle of the afternoon if I were?’ countered Sarah.

‘I was only funning,’ said Mr Wentwater. ‘You are much too pretty to be anything other than a lady. Your hands are so soft.’

He took one of Sarah’s dimpled little hands in his own and ran his thumb along the palm.

‘Don’t do that,’ said Sarah, giggling and snatching her hand away. ‘What if Mr Armitage was to walk in?’

‘But he isn’t likely to, is he?’ said Mr Wentwater in a caressing voice and retrieving the hand again.

As the afternoon wore on and the shadows lengthened and the brandy sank lower in the bottle, Sarah progressed on to Mr Wentwater’s lap, and after that, it seemed only natural that he should pick her up in his arms and carry her up to the bedroom upstairs.

Such a wild and energetic episode followed that neither of them heard the footsteps on the stairs and
neither of them was even aware anyone had entered the house until the bedroom door burst open.

They were all there – Mr Pettifor, Mrs Hammer, John Summer, Harry Tring, Herbert, the knife boy, Rose, and, worst of all, Miss Emily Armitage, who let out a great shriek and dropped into a swoon.

‘You’ve done it now, girl,’ said John Summer with great satisfaction. ‘Turn us all off, would you? And you in master’s bed wi’ master’s worst enemy.’

Sarah turned her face into the pillow and began to cry.

‘Emily,’ wheedled Guy Wentwater, ‘do not judge by appearances.’ But Emily was being helped to her feet by Rose and Mrs Hammer who led her off down the stairs, making clucking noises of sympathy.

Mr Pettifor stood as if turned to stone, an ugly blush staining his thin cheeks.

‘Come along, Mr Pettifor, sir,’ said John Summer, putting a comforting arm about the curate’s
shoulders
. ‘Such sights are not for the likes of you.’

But Mr Pettifor, staring at Sarah’s tumbled golden hair and naked bosom, thought he had never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

FOUR

‘And so that is why I decided to run away, Lady Godolphin,’ finished Frederica.

‘You should never have been sent to that
sinny-rammy
in the first place,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘I don’t hold with education for gels.’

‘It wasn’t precisely anything to do with learning,’ said Frederica. ‘Just bits of everything. A little bit of Italian, a little bit of music, a little bit of drawing, and so on.’

‘A girl should be taught to write her name and that’s all,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘Well, you can’t stay here. I’m not staying under the same roof as that James creature. You’d best come back to London with me. Minerva’s poorly after her last and the only reason she’s in town is so’s to be ready for your come-out. A bit of country air would do her good. The rest of your sisters say they won’t be doing the
Season. Going to be in the country. Even
Annabelle’s
gone rusty.’

‘Rustic?’

‘That’s what I said. Now, I found them all husbands and I’ll find you one.’

‘I don’t want one,’ said Frederica quickly. ‘Men are all philanderers.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ said Lady Godolphin gloomily. ‘Ah, well, sweet are the uses of amnesia, as the Bard says. We must struggle to find the best. You can’t say any of your sisters married a philanthropist.’

But Frederica was thinking of the duke.

‘Don’t look so sad,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘Minerva ain’t up to puffing you off, so I’ll do it.’

‘It is very kind of you, but …’

‘Of course, you could return to your pa,’ said Lady Godolphin with a wicked gleam in her eye.

‘No,’ said Frederica. ‘Can’t I just go on working here?’

‘Of course not. Pembury wouldn’t allow it, for a start.’

Mary came bouncing in. ‘Sarah, I mean, Miss Millet, I mean, your pa is below and he’s in a taking.’

Frederica turned white. She was afraid of her father’s rages.

‘Tell the reverend we’ll be down as soon as we’re ready,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘Ring for my maid.’

‘You might have told me you was the Quality,’ mumbled Mary as Lady Godolphin was swept off to the dressing room by her maid.

‘I thought I no longer was,’ said Frederica sadly. ‘I
did not think anyone would find me. My real name is Frederica Armitage. Now I am to go to London and have a Season.’

‘Oh!’ Mary clasped her work-reddened hands. ‘I’ve never seen London. Just think o’ the shops and parties and theatres.’

Frederica gave her a watery smile. She had become very fond of Mary.

‘I’ll take you with me,’ said Frederica suddenly. ‘I’ll make you my lady’s maid.’

‘I dunno,’ said Mary doubtfully. ‘I don’t know laces or jewellery or French or …’

‘I could teach you.’

‘But her ladyship won’t like it.’

‘She won’t mind,’ said Frederica. ‘
Please
, Mary.’

‘If I do,’ said Mary severely, ‘you’ll need to know your place and not be so friendly-like. And you can’t go downstairs in your cap and apron. Let me fetch that dress you come in, and while I get you ready, you can tell me how you come to be working here under another name.’

Frederica was made ready in a very short time indeed but it was a full hour before Lady Godolphin considered herself ‘finished’ enough to go down. She was wearing a red-and-white-striped merino gown, cut low on the bosom and disgracefully short about the ankle. Over her fat shoulders she wore a fine Paisley shawl. Round her neck she wore a rope of pearls, and on her head a turban of gold gauze embellished with two tall osprey feathers.

The Duke of Pembury had never really liked Lady
Godolphin until that moment when she erupted into his library with Frederica in tow. She blasted the vicar with a long tirade about his loose morals with all the zeal of a Methodist, leaving the poor vicar, who had been about to castigate his daughter, speechless.

At last, Lord Sylvester interrupted her. ‘I am anxious to return to my wife, Lady Godolphin. I think it would be best if I took Frederica with me.’

‘Minerva ain’t up to a Season,’ said Lady
Godolphin
. ‘I’ll take her myself. She can stay with me until things at that vicarage have been made respectable again.’

‘And what do you have to say to that, Freddie?’ asked Lord Sylvester. His voice was kind. Apart from his wife, Lord Sylvester liked Frederica the best of all the Armitage sisters.

Frederica turned to Lady Godolphin. ‘Can I take Mary with me?’

‘Who’s Mary?’

‘The chambermaid with whom I worked.’

‘I have plenty of chambermaids.’

‘I wanted to take her as my lady’s maid.’

‘You can’t turn a chambermaid into a lady’s maid. My Martha is the
making
of me,’ said Lady
Godolphin
, revolving slowly so that her charms might be viewed to their fullest.

Frederica gulped. ‘I could train her. I really could.’

‘Well, I ain’t paying her wages,’ said Lady Godolphin.

‘I will,’ said Lord Sylvester. ‘You may have your maid, Freddie.’

Frederica hurtled across the room, and, reaching up, hugged as much of her brother-in-law as she could. The Duke of Pembury was amused. He wondered what the members of the London
ton
who were so in awe of the formidably elegant Lord Sylvester would think if they could see him at that moment.

When the vicar had arrived with Lord Sylvester demanding his daughter Frederica Armitage, and implying that he, the duke, had abducted her, it had given the duke great pleasure to take the wind out of the vicar’s sails by telling him he believed the runaway daughter to be masquerading as a
chambermaid
in the household.

‘Lady Godolphin,’ said the duke, ‘since Lord Sylvester is anxious to return to his wife and since Mr Armitage has … er … affairs to deal with at home, why do you not stay here with Miss Armitage? My guests will only be with me for two weeks. After that, I will be travelling to London myself and can escort you.’

‘Charmed,’ murmured Lady Godolphin, throwing him a languishing look. The effect was rather marred by one of her false eyebrows which had slipped down over her right eye.

‘See here,’ spluttered the vicar, ‘I ain’t leaving a girl of tender years
here
.’

‘Better here than there,’ snapped Lady Godolphin. ‘Pembury ain’t a saint, but he don’t throw his leg over the servant girls.’

‘Who says I bedded Sarah?’ demanded the vicar.

‘I should think everyone between Hopeworth and Hopeminster by now,’ flashed Lady Godolphin.

The vicar began hotly to protest his innocence. Frederica stood, dazed and bewildered. She would rather have gone to London with Lord Sylvester and stayed with Minerva. But Minerva needed rest. And Freddie, for all her timid nature, was no longer afraid of Lady Godolphin. It was very hard to be afraid of a lady who was championing one so fiercely. Also, she did not know what to make of the duke’s unexpected generosity. She only knew that under all her jumbled thoughts, she felt a warm glow.

The duke did not know what to make of his generosity himself. As Lady Godolphin and Mr Armitage battled away, he glanced at the small, shrinking figure of Frederica and wondered what had possessed him to offer his home and his escort to a schoolgirl and to that outrageous Malaprop.

Frederica felt very much a child, standing looking on while the grown-ups battled savagely over affairs that were still beyond her innocent comprehension. But she did not want Sarah as a stepmother.

‘I must ask you to restrain yourselves,’ said the duke at last, his cold voice cutting across the squabble.

The vicar and Lady Godolphin fell silent.

‘I would like matters to be settled in some way,’ said Lord Sylvester. ‘I have already been away from my wife for too long. Frederica. What do you think? Do you wish to remain here?’

Frederica looked at the duke. But he was not
looking at her. He was standing with his arm along the marble mantel, gazing into the fire. If she returned with Lord Sylvester, surely she could be of help in taking care of Minerva. On the other hand, Lord Sylvester and Minerva were so very much in love that any third person seemed like an intruder. The duke looked up at Frederica, and smiled, his eyes holding her own for a brief moment.

‘Yes,’ said Frederica breathlessly. ‘Yes, I will stay with Lady Godolphin.’

‘I think you may safely leave matters to me,’ said the Duke of Pembury. ‘Miss Armitage will come to no harm in my care.’

Black eyes met green in a steady stare as the duke and Lord Sylvester took each other’s measure. Then Lord Sylvester suddenly smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I
do
think it safe to leave Frederica with you.’

Lady Caroline James was in a very bad temper indeed. Without precisely asking her to leave, the duke had pointedly remarked that her invitation had been a mistake and that he was sure she would not have accepted had she known.

Nonetheless, she had great hopes of reanimating the duke’s affections, but Lady Godolphin had made her continued stay impossible with her loud, vulgar remarks.

Then there was that wispy Frederica-thing. Lady James hated Frederica Armitage and blamed her for her own enforced leave-taking. That girl had
masqueraded
as a chambermaid under another name,
and when she had been unmasked, instead of being packed off in disgrace, she had aroused knight-errant feelings in the Duke of Pembury that no one had hitherto suspected existed.

Had the duke not decided to try to pretend to be a saint in front of the colourless Miss Armitage then he would surely have looked once again on her own undoubted charms with affection.

But Lady James was clever enough not to stay in a place where she was being shown to increasing disadvantage. She made a graceful and affectionate leavetaking, and did it so well that the duke had smiled at her for the first time and had said very warmly that he hoped to call on her in town.

Lady James’s ego had, however, been sadly bruised. Only now was she realizing how much the end of her lucrative affair with the Duke of Pembury had hurt her. While she had been his mistress, society had fawned on her and courted her. Once the affair was over, it became all too clear that she was regarded, despite her title, as a member of the Fashionable Impure. Lady James now craved
respectability
almost as much as she craved money and jewels. When the invitation to Hatton Abbey had arrived, she had hoped he not only meant to renew the affair but perhaps to propose marriage as well. Before her affair with the duke, Lady James had always been the one to terminate the affair, enjoying the white-faced misery of her rejected lovers. She had not wanted to marry again. Now, she longed for marriage.

She took out her temper on the servants at the posting house where she had decided to break her journey on the road back to London.

She raged when she found there was no private parlour available. She stormed that she would not eat in the common dining room. While she berated the poor landlord, the noise of her tirade through the open door of her bedchamber attracted the attention of a tall gentleman who was making his way along the passage.

He stepped into the room. ‘May I be of service, ma’am?’ he asked. ‘I have a private parlour. You are welcome to it, or, better still, I would esteem it a great honour if you would be my guest for dinner.’

Lady James smiled, a wide cat-like smile. The man was handsome and well-dressed, and she badly needed proof that her charms were still as potent as ever.

‘I should be delighted … Mr …?’

‘Wentwater,’ said the man. ‘Guy Wentwater, at your service.’

Perhaps the vicar of St Charles and St Jude, the Reverend Charles Armitage, felt his fall from
respectability
as keenly as Lady James.

Frederica had given him a rather scared little ‘goodbye’ and had made it quite obvious she preferred to stay in a houseful of strangers rather than return to Hopeworth with her father.

When Mrs Armitage had been alive, the vicar’s affairs had been brief and discreet. But Sarah’s lusty
youth and blooming looks had made him throw discretion to the winds.

Since he had travelled to Hatton Abbey in Lord Sylvester’s carriage, John Summer had had to drive over in the vicarage carriage to bring the reverend home.

The vicar heard the tale of Sarah’s unfaithfulness with a mixture of relief and anger. He was relieved that he now had a perfect excuse for getting rid of Sarah. He was furious that that old thorn in the flesh of the Armitages, Guy Wentwater, had had the nerve to come back.

Guy Wentwater had been courting Annabelle, but when the Armitages found he was a slave trader, they had forbidden him to call, and the vicar had subsequently hounded him out of the country. He had returned to try his luck with Deirdre, but had failed. Deirdre had made a fool of him. He had then gone to America after shooting his partner in crime, Silas Dubois, through the head. Since Dubois had been about to be accused of attempted murder, it was understood that Wentwater had shot him in
self-defence
, and so Wentwater had left for America a hero. The vicar now heard with grim satisfaction the end of Wentwater’s hopes of marriage to Emily. Sir Edwin had for a long time turned a deaf ear to his brother’s complaints about Guy Wentwater. He would need to pay heed now.