Minerva Read online

  Minerva let out a sigh of pure pleasure, her pain and humiliation momentarily forgotten. What a letter she would have to write home.

  Home!

  All at once she remembered the purpose of her Season and a shadow crossed her face.

  A tall gentleman came up to claim her hand for the next dance. Out of the corner of her eye, Minerva saw Lord Sylvester asking another of those mature, handsome women to dance. She gave a little toss of her head and set herself to enchant her partner.

  Lady Godolphin watched Minerva’s progress with amazement and delight.

  ‘That’s young Chester she’s dancing with,’ she said to Colonel Brian. ‘He’s got quite a fortune. Who would have thought our prim Minerva would turn out so ravished?’

  ‘Ravishing,’ corrected Colonel Brian. ‘Just like you, fair lady.’

  Minerva danced and danced until her feet hurt and her ankles ached. She danced until the rosy dawn dimmed the light from the lamps. Not once did Lord Sylvester come near her. But he would surely call. One’s partners were supposed to call to present their compliments the day after the ball.

  But after the Aubryns ball he had simply sent a card by his servant. One did not need to call in person. So perhaps he might not. And she did not care.

  Lord Sylvester was still angry with himself and with Minerva. He had been rude to that idiot, Mrs Dattrey, and he had not meant to give that irritating lady such a set down. He was angry with Minerva for having walked away.

  Finally his anger cooled. He decided to go and be as pleasant as possible to Mrs Dattrey. And if it annoyed Minerva, then perhaps he could hope. Hope for what? demanded a startled little voice in his brain. He hesitated, shrugged, and made his way towards Mrs Dattrey.

  Minerva saw him and could only be glad that Lady Godolphin had decided that they must leave.

  Lady Godolphin was quite tipsy but full of praise for Minerva. ‘I declare you are a good girl and a virtuous one,’ she said warmly. ‘You may read to me every night before I sleep.’

  A little of the pain at Minerva’s heart eased at her words. Lord Sylvester had been wrong about Lady Godolphin. She was merely eccentric and not the wicked rip that Lord Sylvester had claimed her to be.

  Lady Godolphin said ‘goodnight’ as soon as they reached home but declared herself too excited to sleep a wink although it was already six-thirty in the morning.

  After Minerva had been made ready for bed by Lady Godolphin’s maid, she found herself too upset to sleep. She tossed and turned for about an hour, listening to the sounds of the waking streets.

  She decided it would perhaps be a good idea if she went to Lady Godolphin’s chamber and, if that lady were awake, she would read to her, and that would soothe them both.

  Picking up a book of poems, Minerva pulled on her wrapper, and quietly made her way along to Lady Godolphin’s rooms. She hesitated outside the door, listening. There was the sound of Lady Godolphin’s voice coming faintly through the panels.

  Minerva smiled. Poor, funny, old thing, talking to herself. She scratched gently at the panels of the door.

  ‘Who is it?’ screamed Lady Godolphin.

  ‘It is I! Minerva.’

  ‘Go away!’

  ‘Now I know what is best for you,’ said Minerva in governessy tones. ‘I will enter and I will read to you until you sleep.’

  ‘No …’ began Lady Godolphin, but Minerva pushed open the door.

  There seemed to be a great thrashing and heaving of blankets.

  Minerva lit a candle on the toilet table and carried it over to the bed.

  Lady Godolphin stared at her wildly. The bedclothes were heaped up around her in an untidy mountain.

  ‘Go away,’ said Lady Godolphin firmly. ‘Leave me alone, Minerva.’

  ‘Now, now,’ chided Minerva, pulling a chair up next to her. ‘I often read to Mama or my sisters when they cannot sleep. There is some very fine poetry in this volume. Now I shall begin:

  “‘Hark! forward away, my brave boys to the chase.

  To the joys that sweet exercise yields;

  The bright ruddy morning breaks on us apace …”’

  Here Lady Godolphin let out a wild giggle and slapped at the bedclothes.

  ‘Let me arrange your bedclothes for you,’ said Minerva, standing up.

  ‘No!’ screamed Lady Godolphin.

  ‘Very well,’ said Minerva, sitting down again.

  “‘And invites to the sports of the field.

  Hark! forward’s the cry, and cheerful …”’

  ‘Your whole family would appear to be obsessed with hunting. Go away, Minerva. I am sleepy,’ said Lady Godolphin in a very angry voice.

  Minerva looked at her doubtfully. Lady Godolphin’s eyes were bulging and a thin film of perspiration covered her face.

  ‘If you are sure you are feeling the thing, ma’am,’ she said, reluctantly closing the book. ‘You appear to have a fever.’

  ‘In which case I am better left alone,’ snapped Lady Godolphin. ‘If you do not leave this instant, Minerva, I shall throw the chamber pot at your head.’

  ‘Forgive me, my lady,’ said Minerva apologetically. ‘I would not have upset you for the world. It was just …’

  ‘Please go away,’ moaned Lady Godolphin.

  Minerva blew out the candle and tiptoed to the door. The sun was shining brightly outside but the room was mostly in darkness because of the thick curtains and shutters at the windows.

  She closed the door gently behind her and stood irresolute. Perhaps she should not have left. Lady Godolphin had looked strained and ill.

  Perhaps she should send for the physician?

  Minerva very gently opened the door a little to reassure herself. And nearly died of shock.

  Colonel Brian’s gray head was emerging from under the bedclothes.

  ‘By Jove!’ he said. ‘I thought to have died of suffocation.’

  ‘And I thought to have died of embarrassment,’ replied Lady Godolphin. ‘Could you not have kept your hands still until she left? Crawling all over my body like that. If that missish miss thought I had had carnival knowledge of you, she would have fainted on the spot.’

  ‘If you mean carnal knowledge, I ain’t had it yet. Come here and kiss me, you delicious creature.’

  There came a great deal of sucking noise, rather like a drain being unstopped.

  Stricken, Minerva closed the door very, very gently. Very quietly she crept back to her own room and buried her burning face in the pillow. She could never bear to look at Lady Godolphin again. She must leave. Papa would not let her stay in such a household.

  How could anyone, let alone a woman of Lady Godolphin’s years …?

  Unbidden, the thought of Lord Sylvester’s hard body pressed against her own flew into her mind.

  And quite suddenly, Minerva began to cry.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The clear light of a new day did little to alter the plots and schemes of Minerva’s ill-wishers. Mr Fresne was burning with humiliation over the blow he had received from Lord Sylvester, and he used this resentment to rouse his friends, Yarwood and Barding, to further plans for Minerva’s humiliation.

  The company of four were urged on in their plots by the energetic Mr Silas Dubois. Mr Dubois really now wanted revenge on Lord Sylvester more than Minerva, but he kept this fact to himself. Lord Sylvester was everything that Mr Dubois longed to be and could not achieve. He was popular, a first class sportsman, and a prime favourite with the ladies. To humiliate and disgrace Minerva, Mr Dubois felt sure, would upset the elegant Lord Sylvester since that gentleman had seen fit to appoint himself a sort of guardian to Minerva.

  The seven called in person at Hanover Square to present their compliments, the three Dandies attired in very sober clothes, only to find that Minerva had gone out walking with Lord Sylvester.

  All began to wonder if Lord Sylvester might be considering marriage for the first time in his life.

  It says a great deal for the anguish of Miner
va’s mind that she had accepted Lord Sylvester’s invitation. She had only slept a few hours and had awoken with a miserable feeling of isolation and doom. She was deeply shocked by Lady Godolphin’s conduct and felt she could never face her again. And as for Lord Sylvester, he was all part and parcel of this wicked immoral London society. Had he not admitted to consorting with harlots? Had his kiss which had so delighted and seduced her senses meant nothing more than a pleasant game to him?

  She had dressed, and was just about to sit down and pen a letter to Lady Godolphin and to order the servants to pack her trunks when Mice, the butler, told her Lord Sylvester had called.

  Lonely and despairing, Minerva forgot that only a moment before she had been castigating him in her mind as a rake, and immediately thought of him as her only friend in a wicked world.

  She had burst into tears at the sight of him, saying she could not stay in this evil house a moment longer. He had told her quietly and firmly to fetch her mantle and bonnet and then had led her from the house.

  He had driven her to the gates of Hyde Park and had told his tiger to guard the horses while he helped Minerva to descend.

  ‘A walk is just the thing for you,’ he said.

  The day was a sort of uniform grey; a typically English day. A soft grey sky stretched over the Park and a damp, humid wind ruffled the grey waters of the Serpentine.

  At last he drew her down beside him on a bench and took her hands in his.

  ‘Now,’ he said.

  Minerva tried to talk but began to cry instead. He sat quietly until she had recovered, removing the small damp wisp of lace which served as a handkerchief and replacing it with a more serviceable one of his own.

  After a few hiccups, Minerva choked out the tale of Lady Godolphin’s wickedness.

  Lord Sylvester bit his lips to repress a smile.

  ‘And Colonel Brian is married,’ wailed Minerva. ‘She is committing adultery.’

  ‘Well, it is all very bad,’ he said. ‘The thing that amazes me is that her ladyship should not be more careful. I mean, to calmly let you observe …’

  ‘Oh, she didn’t.’ And Minerva with many blushes told him of reading to Lady Godolphin while Colonel Brian was hidden under the bedclothes.

  Lord Sylvester put up a long hand to cover his face. He tried to stifle his laughter, but found he could not. At last he gave up the struggle, and simply roared with laughter, declaring through gasps that it was better than a farce.

  Minerva’s distress and embarrassment melted before a sudden burst of fury.

  ‘You are all just as bad,’ she raged. ‘Immoral, sinful, licentious …’

  ‘Stop!’ said Lord Sylvester, mopping his eyes with another handkerchief which he dug out of the pocket in the tails of his coat.

  ‘Look, my love, you will understand these things when you are older. Lady Godolphin is very kind to make the effort to bring you out this Season. Her morals are bad … but yours are not. Quite a lot of ladies behave so and nobody minds so long as they are discreet. Don’t glare at me. Is Lady Godolphin unkind? Does she beat her servants? No. You cannot change other people, Minerva. Try for a little more tolerance. I shall return with you, so that when you face Lady Godolphin you will have me to support you. It is best to ignore the whole thing.’

  ‘I never thought I would miss Hopeworth so much,’ said Minerva in a low voice.

  ‘But you are newly come to town. Is it not too early to feel homesick? A young lady like yourself has so many amusements in town compared to the quiet life of the country.’

  ‘London shocks me,’ said Minerva slowly. ‘Oh, I am not going to moralize. But I had always pictured London as a sort of Camelot – all towers and spires floating in the light of a clear day. Courtesy, honour and wit. I find a great many of the members of society downright boorish. And the very air! I can hardly breathe in the close atmosphere and the sewers smell so very horrible. The bread is sour, the meat is tough, the water is filthy and the milk is blue. We have our amusements at Hopeworth. We make the very most of local events you know; sheep-washing and sheep-shearing, throwing a big old tree, the village club feast, harvest home, and the burning of a big bacon pig …’

  ‘The what?’

  Minerva smiled. ‘How rustic I must sound. We have a village pig-burner, old Mr Toms, who takes a big pig of about twenty score and with the aid of layers of straw, he singes all the hair off the dead pig without scorching its hide and turns it out like a beautifully coloured meerschaum.’

  ‘You have no theatre, no opera?’

  ‘We have the mummers at Christmas. There’s always St George, with a real sword, the King of Egypt, whom he slays, and the Doctor who cures everything. I believe the plays are very old. And I feel needed there. I could help people.’

  ‘You cannot live through other people all your life,’ said Lord Sylvester.

  Minerva wanted to reply, ‘I don’t know what you mean. One is supposed to live for others,’ but instead she found herself asking, ‘Was it you who sent me that poem, and the flowers?’

  ‘It is the change from country to city that has shaken

  you,’ he said, gazing out over the green expanse of the Park to where a herd of cows grazed peacefully, and seeming not to have heard her question. ‘After some time here, you will find the country very flat.’

  ‘Then I should have lost my values.’

  ‘And gained some honesty. It is all very well thinking what you ought to think, but that only carries you along for a certain length of time. It is good for the soul to be honest with yourself.’ His green eyes were now glinting down at her. ‘Now, would it not be terrible if you were in love with me and your intellect told you to repulse me?’

  ‘No, it would not be so very terrible at all. Especially after last night, my lord, when you declared you found your pleasures with harlots.’

  ‘Yes, I was very rude and did not mean a word of it. Mrs Dattrey annoyed me excessively. My soul was full of romance and moonlight and the memory of a warm pair of lips…’

  ‘I would like to go home, my lord,’ said Minerva, rising quickly to her feet and brushing down the folds of her gown.

  ‘You must learn to counter such remarks if they embarrass you and not run away,’ he said severely. ‘If you do not like the gentleman who is paying you compliments or reminding you of something you would rather forget, then you simply change the subject.’

  ‘As you did when I asked you if you had sent the poem and the flowers?’ said Minerva, looking down at him.

  He rose to his feet. ‘Since you are standing, I must stand also. If, on the other hand, you are attracted to the gentleman who is paying you compliments but feel his conversation to be a trifle too warm, you blush and hang your head and flutter your fan, and say, “Oh, please don’t,” in a sort of breathless voice. It’s all part of a game. You do want to be married, do you not?’

  ‘I want to save my family from the debtors’ prison,’ exclaimed Minerva, throwing her head and staring nobly into the middle distance.

  ‘Such nobility! Such sacrifice,’ mocked his lordship.

  ‘Something which you, my lord, certainly don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh, but I do … when it is the genuine article. Come along, Minerva, let us go and confront Lady Godolphin. Tell me about these brothers and sisters of yours as we go along.’

  Minerva bit her lip, but the temptation to talk about her beloved family was too strong.

  ‘Well, they are marvellous children and I love them dearly. Of course, Annabelle cannot be considered a child any longer for she is turned sixteen.’ Unselfconsciously, Minerva took Lord Sylvester’s arm. ‘Annabelle is very pretty. Papa said that fair girls were not the crack, but she would have had better success in London than I. She flirts very prettily.’

  ‘And with whom has the fair Annabelle been flirting?’

  A shadow crossed Minerva’s expressive little face. ‘Oh, but it was all rather dreadful. It appeared she was to be affianced to Lady Wentwater�
�s nephew – Lady Wentwater being our neighbour, you know – but it turned out he was a slave trader.’

  ‘Ah, so you had an opportunity to see her flirt. Did the good vicar ban the marriage?’

  ‘Oh, it never got to that. We all just cringed from Mr Wentwater, including Annabelle. After we heard of his trade, there was no question of marriage.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Then there’s Deirdre who is fourteen. She is very naughty and clever – always dressing up. Very intelligent and mischievous. Then there is Daphne and after her, Diana, and then little Frederica. The boys, Peregrine and James, are splendid little fellows. They are identical twins and I declare I am the only one who can tell them apart …’

  And so Minerva chattered on, hanging on to Lord Sylvester’s arm and turning her glowing face up to his.

  Mr Silas Dubois moved slightly behind a tree trunk and studied the pair as they strolled towards the gates of the Park. He was overcome by such a hatred of Lord Sylvester that he quite shook, and his lordship slightly turned his head in Mr Dubois’ direction as if he had picked up the antagonistic waves sent out towards him.

  Minerva had never had such a good listener in her life before. Talking about her family restored her confidence and made her feel as if she might be able to cope with this wicked world. And when she entered the Green Saloon and found Lady Godolphin looking quite normal – if Lady Godolphin could ever be said to look normal – she was able to greet her with an aplomb which surprised herself.

  Lady Godolphin was full of the British success in taking Ciudad Rodrigo, praising Wellington to the skies, and hoping the Whigs were squirming. The Whigs had received a crushing blow when the Prince of Wales was appointed Regent the previous year. They presumed he had supported them in their belief that Wellington was a stupid blunderer and the war against Napoleon a waste of time. The Prince Regent in his opening speech had praised Wellington and damned the French.