Minerva Read online

  ‘But I did!’

  ‘Why? Not, why did you say it, but why do you want to marry me?’

  ‘It is my duty.’

  ‘In what way?’ said Lord Sylvester, wriggling his broad shoulders slightly against the pillows to make himself more comfortable.

  ‘Because I have compromised you.’

  ‘Dear me. You know, Miss Armitage, you wouldn’t keep falling down on things and people if you tried keeping your eyes open and looking straight in front of you. That’s better. Now, the gentleman, may I remind you, is usually the one who is considered to have compromised the lady, for the simple reason that loss of virginity in a man is a duty not a disaster. “Get rid of it,” my father said to me when I was only sixteen and hardly knew I had got it, if you take my meaning. Extraordinary when you come to think of it … education.’ Lord Sylvester yawned delicately and stretched, his unwinking green eyes now wide open and fixed on Minerva’s face. ‘You’ve got to learn to shoot well, hunt well, and drive to an inch, not to mention fencing and dancing.

  ‘And then when you’ve mastered all that, they start pestering you to lose your virginity. You have no idea how lucky you are to be a lady, Miss Armitage. So you see you cannot possibly have compromised me.’

  ‘I was trying to be polite,’ said Minerva in a stifled voice. ‘The fact is, sir, I agree with you. I am the one who had been compromised.’

  ‘Not unless someone saw you visiting my room. Did they?’

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘Well, there you are. Nothing to worry about.’ Again he stretched and his heavy eyelids began to fall.

  Minerva watched him in furious silence.

  ‘You are surely not going to sleep?’

  ‘Why not?’ he mumbled. ‘It’s my bed and my room and my fatigue. Of course, if you would like me to kiss you again, I shall wake up like a shot.’

  ‘I most certainly do not!’

  ‘Then there you are,’ he mumbled. ‘Good night.’

  ‘You might at least help me with my trunk,’ said Minerva, picking it up and walking to the door.

  ‘If I helped you with your trunk, we might be seen together, tramping around the corridor of this inn in our nightrail. And I really don’t want to get married, you know. I have managed this three and thirty years quite comfortably without it.’

  ‘No one asked you, my lord,’ snapped Minerva.

  ‘Dear me. And I thought I had just received a proposal.’

  ‘Oooooh!’

  Minerva marched out and stopped herself from violently slamming the door behind just at the last minute.

  The wavering, treacherous candle now revealed that the room she had just quit was indeed number nine. Number six was located after much searching and Minerva was finally able to settle down to sleep.

  It was a silent journey back to the vicarage in the morning. A fine powdery snow was beginning to fall and the journey took longer with only one horse to pull the vicar’s curricle.

  Try as she would, Minerva could not quite banish the irritating Lord Sylvester from her mind. She had hoped to see him before they left in the morning so that she could treat him with all the contempt he deserved, but of his lazy lordship there was no sign.

  At last she asked her father if he had enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

  ‘Excellent,’ said the vicar without a blush. ‘Always sleep better away from home.’

  Minerva had not the courage to tell him that she had found him out. Would her husband become like that once they were married? Were all men like that? Would Lord Sylvester …? Oh, forget the man!

  An excited Annabelle was awaiting them when they arrived, bursting with news. She could hardly wait until Minerva had delivered the packages to Mrs Armitage, before dragging her off to their bedroom to pour out the news of Lady Wentwater’s handsome nephew.

  ‘And he is to leave next week because he has business in Bristol,’ gasped Annabelle, hopping with excitement. ‘Mama met him and is quite épris. She was doubtful at first since it appeared he was in trade. But it seems he is in collecting of some sort and has many ships. Black ivory! That’s what he collects. In Africa! Is it not exciting?’

  Minerva listened patiently to the outpourings, frowned slightly when she learned Lady Wentwater had given her sister a novel to read, promised to smile on Mr Wentwater when he came to call. All the while her busy mind was wondering whether Annabelle might be the one, after all, to save the family fortunes, thereby saving her, Minerva, from going to London.

  At last Annabelle demanded news of Hopeminster and her eyes grew rounder when Minerva said that they had taken dinner with Lord Sylvester Comfrey and that Papa had sold him one of the bays.

  ‘Even I know of Lord Sylvester,’ said Annabelle. ‘Josephine and Emily saw him when they were last in London and could talk of nothing else. He is accounted very handsome.’

  ‘He is a fop,’ said Minerva coldly. ‘He cares nothing for anything or anyone. He is engrossed entirely in his own foppery.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Annabelle, disappointed. ‘And he did not pay you any particular attention?’

  Minerva dropped her eyes. She did not wish to lie. Then she realized Lord Sylvester had been obliged to pay her attention simply because she had entered his room by mistake.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘And I am glad of it.’

  Her conscience gave a nasty little twinge but for once Minerva firmly ignored it.

  ‘Tell me more about Mr Wentwater,’ she said.

  And Annabelle needed no second bidding.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mr Wentwater came to call quite often and put the Armitage family in a fever of hope and excitement. His carriage and horses were of the first stare, his clothes denoted the rich young man. Even Mrs Armitage roused herself from her sick bed to take over the reins of the household and to take Annabelle into Hopeminster to buy her jaconet muslin for a new gown.

  Minerva would have liked to press Lady Wentwater for a few more details about her nephew, but Annabelle became quite hysterical when Minerva offered to continue the reading to Lady Wentwater, not wishing to lose a minute of Guy Wentwater’s company.

  The vicar pronounced him a fine young man and, after a successful day’s hunting in his company, declared him to be an excellent fellow, an out-and-outer, with a beautiful seat on a horse.

  Minerva could not help contrasting Mr Wentwater’s easy and open manners with the studied, aloof elegance of Lord Sylvester and almost envied her sister her good fortune in finding such an eligible suitor without having to go through any of the agonies of a Season.

  At last, as the term of his stay with his aunt drew to a close, the vicar formally invited him for dinner, and the vicarage was thrown into an uproar for quite two days before. The odd-man, Harry Tring, had put on weight and his butler’s livery had to be let out, John Summer, coachman, groom, kennel master and whipper-in had the duties of footman added to his list and one of father’s old plush game coats had to be refurbished with gold braid, his bald head had to be covered with the vicar’s second-best wig, Minerva had to lend him a pair of her best flesh-coloured stockings since the footman’s stockings would show and hers would not.

  Mr Wentwater was expected to propose that very evening and the family were warned to give Annabelle and Mr Wentwater every opportunity of conversation together.

  The couple were placed next each other at dinner and it was soon to be seen they were quite eager with each other. Minerva watched Guy’s handsome face and the way his pale blue eyes lit up when they rested on Annabelle’s face and admitted to a pang of pure jealousy.

  But at least it seemed as if she would no longer have to go to London.

  Her father had called her into his study that afternoon. ‘See here, Minerva,’ he had said. ‘It looks as if this Wentwater is going to pop the question. He has led me to believe he has quite a fortune in his ivory business. It’s no use me asking that old woman, Lady Wentwater. She won’t tell anyone a thing. But it means if Annabelle is fir
st to go, there will be no need for you to go to London. I ain’t a greedy man and one fortune in the family is enough. We can wait until the other girls grow up if you want to stay here.’

  Minerva found herself a prey to mixed feelings. She would have sworn a minute ago that the whole idea of London was repugnant to her, but now, now that it seemed to be sliding away, she felt a recurrence of that old, stifling boredom.

  ‘It’s a pity Comfrey didn’t take a fancy to you,’ sighed the vicar. ‘But that would be flying too high.’

  ‘Perhaps his affections were otherwise engaged,’ ventured Minerva. ‘When I first saw him he was with two other gentlemen and two exceedingly elegant ladies. Perhaps one of them … ?’

  ‘Oh, them,’ said the vicar. ‘Amaryllis Wadham and Jennie Delisle – two of the highest-flyers in Town. Very expensive.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Yes. But I shouldn’t be talking to you about it. Ladies like you shouldn’t know that women like that exist.’

  ‘But they were so grand, so haughty, so well-dressed!’

  ‘Your Duchesses don’t come any grander than a high-class Cyprian,’ said the vicar sourly. ‘I should know, I …

  ‘Here! Off with you. Those type o’ lightskirts’ll ruin a man more than gambling or drink. “Which hast devoured thy living with harlots.” Luke, chapter thirteen, verse thirty. So there!’

  Now Minerva, watching the happy couple across the table, could not help wondering why she did not feel relieved that her proposed Season in London was being put aside. She was now free to devote herself to good works and the welfare of her family.

  Well, she may as well start by paying attention to the conversation.

  ‘This mining business of yours in Africa,’ the vicar was saying. ‘I believe you told Annabelle it was to do with ivory.’

  ‘Black ivory, Mr Armitage,’ said Guy Wentwater, toying with the stem of his wineglass, his eyes veiled in a secret smile.

  The vicar’s face turned quite purple and for one awful moment Minerva thought he was going to have an apoplexy.

  Then he went white as he had been puce a moment before and said in measured tones, ‘I do not like your trade, sir!’

  Mr Wentwater gave an infinitesimal shrug as if he had heard it all before.

  Daphne, the thirteen year old of the Armitage brood who had startled her family by putting her hair up and assuming the airs of a dowager, said primly, ‘I do not see what is the matter, papa. We have to have black ivory or how else would we have black keys on the pianoforte?’

  ‘Silence!’ roared the vicar. ‘Mr Wentwater means slaves. The trade in black ivory is the trade in human souls and human bodies. So many Jimmys to be branded and flogged out in the West Indies.’

  Mr Wentwater raised a lace handkerchief to his lips to hide a smile. It was perhaps to be expected that the vicar as a member of the Church of England should feel obliged to put on some sort of show, but he felt sure his family would not share his views.

  He was unfortunate, however, in that the Armitages took a highly personal view of the whole of the slave trade.

  The Earl of Osbadiston had a black butler called Jimmy whom the Armitages all knew and met on their infrequent visits. Jimmy was a sort of god to the young Armitages. He could make catapults, manufacture dolls out of practically nothing, and even counsel Mrs Armitage wisely on her various imagined ailments. Added to that, a year before the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807 the Armitage family had travelled to Bristol to stay with a richer branch of the family, their mother’s cousin. They had heard horrible tales of death and suffering among the negroes who were transported across the world, packed worse than cattle.

  And so they were unusual in condemning a trade that most English people were unaware of, or, if they knew about it, did not care either way the slightest.

  The vicar was a simple countryman and not a very good prelate. But he was loyal to his friends and had taken an immense liking to the Osbadiston butler. And so for him, the slave traders were sending so many wise and wonderful Jimmys away from their native land to serfdom in the Indies.

  To Guy Wentwater, it seemed as if one minute he was the adored centre of attention, and the next, left in a cold, isolated place on the other side of a vast gulf where the Armitage family huddled together, looking at him with accusing eyes. Although the slave trade was officially abolished, it was well-known that many adventurers such as Wentwater continued to supply slaves to America and the West Indies and no one thought the worse of them for it, apart from a few cantankerous reformers.

  ‘I must plead my case, I see,’ he said with a light laugh.

  ‘I would like to talk about something else,’ said the vicar, and proceeded to give a very long and boring dissertation on hunting which took the party through the meal to the port and walnuts stage, when the vicar terminated his lecture by saying he was too fatigued to stay awake a minute longer and it was ‘high time the children were abed’.

  The evening abruptly broke up with embarrassment on the side of the Armitages and growing fury on the side of Guy Wentwater.

  He was allowed no time alone with the fair Annabelle and, in fact, she was the first to quit the room.

  By the time he had reached his aunt’s mansion, Guy Wentwater’s anger had purged all softer feelings for Annabelle Armitage from his mind.

  He had made a mistake, that was all. He should never have bestowed his distinguished attention on a member of a lowly and queerly religious country family.

  As for Annabelle? Minerva sadly pushed open the door of the bedroom, expecting to find that young lady in tears.

  But Annabelle was brushing her hair as usual, all unconcern.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bella,’ said Minerva softly. ‘I hope it is not too great a blow.’

  ‘Pooh!’ said Annabelle carelessly. ‘I am relieved. It was as good an excuse as any. He frightened me. His caresses were becoming too intimate.’

  ‘Annabelle!’ shrieked Minerva. ‘He never …?’

  ‘No, he never. Just kisses and things. But he did pant a bit, Merva,’ giggled Annabelle. ‘Do you think all men are like that?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said Minerva primly. ‘Say your prayers, Annabelle, and pray let us forget about Mr Wentwater.’

  ‘Oh, Merva, you are so prim! Don’t look so cross. It was fun for a while. I felt quite the heroine when I thought I would be saving the family. But, ah me! a slave trader, of all disgusting things.’ She giggled again. ‘He looked quite taken aback. You must admit, Merva, it does come as rather a surprise when Papa turns out to have principles! He is the most unusual clergyman, and really only quotes his Bible when he can’t think of anything else to say.’

  ‘“Honour thy father and thy mother.” Remember the fifth commandment,’ said Minerva severely.

  ‘Oh, you’re just as bad,’ laughed Annabelle. ‘One of these days that prim façade of yours is going to crack, Minerva, and then what a shock you will give us all. Ah, well, it seems you must go to London after all!’

  ‘So I must,’ said Minerva, looking startled. Then she wondered why the idea of a London Season, which had filled her with dread such a short time ago, should now produce such a pleasurable mixture of anticipation and elation.

  In the short winter days and long winter nights that followed, Minerva found to her horror that the image of Lord Sylvester became stronger rather than fading. She was tormented with dreams from which she awoke with the pressure of his lips still on her mouth.

  Before, she had enjoyed a fairly comfortable conscience. Sin was something to be combatted in everyone else, not in her own chaste bosom.

  She could not confide in Annabelle for fear of sullying that young lady’s pure mind. Minerva would have been alarmed had she guessed how sullied Annabelle’s mind really was. Annabelle’s remarks about Mr Wentwater’s intimate caresses, Minerva had firmly decided, were mere imagination. Perhaps Mr Wentwater had forgot himself so far as to press Annabelle’s hand more warmly than he shoul
d, but no gentleman would go further.

  Her conscience told her to excuse Lord Sylvester for kissing her, for she had literally thrown herself at his head.

  At last, unable to bear her evil thoughts any further, she decided to confess all to her father.

  The vicar was at first too taken aback at the idea of his daughter having visited his room in the small hours and finding him absent to pay much attention to what she was saying.

  When he finally grasped that she had leapt into Lord Sylvester’s bed, he gazed at his blushing and trembling daughter in amazement and asked her brutally if his lordship had ‘got his leg over’.

  ‘Over what, Papa?’ was Minerva’s answer.

  ‘Look here,’ said the sweating vicar. ‘Begin at the beginning and tell me all he did. Think of me as your confessor rather than your father.’

  And so in a halting voice, with many stops and starts, Minerva told of that kiss and the subsequent conversation.

  The vicar’s high colour slowly ebbed. ‘By Jove, Comfrey’s a gentleman!’ he exclaimed. ‘Such restraint! Such thoughtfulness! But if he didn’t do anything and he ain’t going to say anything, what ails you, Minerva?’

  Minerva hung her head, her black glossy curls hiding her face.

  ‘I have lustful dreams, Papa,’ she whispered.

  The vicar’s face brightened. ‘Do you, b’Jove?’ he said, cheerfully, rubbing his hands. He had long thought his eldest a cold fish and was beginning to despair of her ‘taking’ during her forthcoming Season. But she was his daughter and he knew she would never forgive him if he tried to reassure her. If Comfrey had sparked those feelings in her, it augured well for the success of her London debut. On the other hand, although it was good to know these very human feelings were there, one could not risk encouraging them in case the girl did anything silly.

  ‘I am afraid those feelings must be purged, Minerva,’ he said severely. ‘Much as it goes against me to punish you, I think you will realize I am only doing it for your own good. Now, those hounds of mine are growing fat and lazy on account o’ all the frost and they sore need exercise. John Summer has enough to do. So you go along to the kennels, and take the fattest and laziest out for a walk. Tell John, Warrior, Wonder and Rambler are most needy. Take them as far as Highcap Hill and back. You won’t have time for any thoughts but sleep after that.’