Minerva Read online

  Highcap Hill was a good ten miles away across country.

  He never expected Minerva to actually walk twenty miles, but he had not allowed for the streak of martyrdom in his daughter. Minerva felt the punishment did indeed fit the crime and she was too exhausted even to eat by the time she arrived back home.

  The vicar decided to keep her at it. He did not want Minerva getting frisky in the springtime and running off with some unsuitable farmer. Better to keep her cold till he got her to London. Then her blood could run as high as it liked.

  He had worries enough himself. The Bishop of Berham had been making rumbling noises, indicating he thought the vicar of St Charles and St Jude spent too much time on the hunting field.

  If only the American colonies had not separated from Britain, thought the vicar sourly. Virginia would have been the place to go. Evidently the revolution had rather spoiled things there. In the old days, when the vicar was a boy and Virginia was British, that colony abounded with hunting parsons who went at their pursuits energetically. ‘The race must end in a dinner, and the dinner must end under the table.’

  The vicar admired General Washington, not as a military leader, but as a huntsman. Up until 1774, Washington had spent most of his time on the hunting field, often with his wife, Martha, riding at his side, and Thomas Jefferson ‘as eager after the fox as Washington himself’. He had built his kennels a hundred yards from the family vault, simply because that location had a good spring of running water.

  The vicar’s meditation on past glories was interrupted by the arrival of the post boy, bearing a crested letter, afixed with a heavy seal.

  It was from Lady Godolphin, saying she would be delighted to bring out Minerva provided the girl married well enough to reimburse her ladyship all expenses accruing therefrom.

  So that was one thing settled, thought the vicar with a sigh. There was nothing else he could do but stave off his creditors and hope for a happy outcome.

  Meanwhile Minerva plodded the long miles across country in all weathers, the hounds at her heels. The gruelling exercise had the desired effect. By the end of the day, she was too tired to even remember what Lord Sylvester looked like. The news of Lady Godolphin’s invitation left her indifferent.

  It was only at the end of March that the Reverend Charles Armitage, preaching his daughter’s sermon from the pulpit, realized that daffodils were blowing among the tussocky grass around the gravestones and that his eldest daughter’s face was unfashionably windblown.

  In a bare two weeks time, Minerva must leave for London.

  At dinner, he berated his wife for having neglected the girl’s appearance with the result that Mama had one of her Spasms and took to her bed.

  All at once, Minerva was thrown into a fever of anxiety. The long, hard exercise which had drugged her mind was stopped. Old fashion magazines were studied and hands raised in despair over the expense of the toilettes portrayed therein.

  How the hours flew, the days flew. One minute London and its Season and its fashionable world seemed such a long way away, and the next, it was rushing upon her, hurtling towards her in clouds of bonnets and gloves and stockings and cosmetics and fans and reticules.

  Lady Godolphin had promised to furnish a wardrobe, and Minerva’s detailed measurements had been sent to London. But she would need to arrive looking bang up to the nines. How the Armitage girls stitched and sewed! Even lazy Annabelle did her best. She had grown very quiet since the departure of Mr Wentwater, and Minerva often wondered uneasily whether Annabelle ever thought of him.

  Their cousins, Josephine and Emily, were to be in London as well, and tormented the vicarage girls by dropping in at all hours, arrayed in quite delicious gowns.

  As the hour for departure approached, Minerva became ill with apprehension and misery. She felt very young and defenceless. She was being torn away from everything that gave her life purpose and meaning and maturity. Here at home, she was virtually head of the Armitage household. In London, she would be just another hopeful debutante.

  If only women did not have to marry!

  But there was nothing else for a well-brought up girl to do except to find a husband. Minerva, although she could supervise and choose a menu, had never been taught to cook. She knew nothing about politics and was only vaguely conscious of the war that was raging in the Peninsula. She spoke indifferent French and worse Italian, played the piano competently and sang rather well.

  She knew that when she arrived in London life would be centred around men. She knew that if a girl danced prettily, had good manners, listened well and had a talent for ‘making the agreeable’, then she should be able to secure a husband.

  But there was no one she could really consult about the sudden return of those embarrassing emotions. Emotions were things we all suffered from, inflicted on us since the Fall, but not to be encouraged or indulged. Any excess of emotion was vulgar in the extreme.

  Her face had become tanned with all the exposure to wind and weather, and Josephine and Emily reported to Lady Edwin with great glee that ‘dear Minerva had sadly gone off in looks’.

  Spring had crept across the Berham countryside. Great fleecy clouds trailed their shadows over the greening fields. The crimson catkins of the black poplar swung in the wind, violets and primroses and snowdrops starred the grassy banks beside the Hopeminster Road.

  And then two days before Minerva was due to leave for London, a violent snowstorm swept in from the East, plunging the members of the vicarage into despair. Mrs Armitage, who had grown quite animated over all the feminine preparations, promptly took to her bed, school was cancelled, and nervous tempers ran high. The vicar was locked in his study, trying to compose his sermon, longing to ask Minerva to write it for him, and then deciding he had better get used to doing it himself.

  But the very next day, a thaw set in. Pale yellow sunlight flooded the countryside, and once again birds sang among the delicate green tracery of the spring leaves.

  The vicar’s travelling carriage had been revarnished and the rents in the upholstery repaired. John Summer was to act as coachman and the odd-man as groom. Betty, the housemaid, had been bought a new print gown and told she was to travel as far as London with Miss Armitage and return with the carriage.

  The vicar emerged from his study to ask Minerva if she would like to ‘say goodbye’ to the dogs she had exercised, and was mortally offended when she said she had no affection for them at all.

  Like many country squires, the vicar was inordinately proud of his personal hunt, and loved all his hounds as if they were family pets. He muttered that Minerva had something up with her brain box but did not press the matter.

  Minerva resented the hunt, the hunters, the hounds, and the whole horrendous expense that went on keeping them. She was now thoroughly frightened of the unknown London that lay waiting for her, and felt that Papa might have made shift to retrench, instead of putting her on the marriage market as if he were leading a bull to the fair at Hopeminster.

  The county of Berham lay comfortably close to London and the journey could be accomplished in two days, in easy stages.

  All at once it was the morning of Minerva’s departure.

  The day was perfect, a sky of egg-shell blue stretched overhead, unbroken by a single cloud.

  Minerva was wearing a plain cambric morning dress, made high in the neck and with a short train, and let in around the bottom with two rows of worked trimming. Over it, she wore a pelisse of green sarsnet trimmed round with a narrow fancy trimming and pinned with a gold brooch. On her head, she sported a Lavinia unbleached chip hat, tied down with a broad white sarsnet ribbon, and she wore a small white cap underneath with an artificial rose pinned on the front. A plaid parasol, York tan gloves and green silk sandals completed the outfit.

  Even Annabelle was taken aback by the transformation of her elder sister. ‘Oh, do marry someone rich, and soon, Merva,’ she begged, ‘so that I may have pretty gowns as well.’

  The boys reminded Miner
va that their future schooling lay in her hands, Mrs Armitage had a long list of patent medicines as a farewell present, and the remaining four little girls clung pathetically to her skirts and cried their eyes out.

  Lady Wentwater had sent around a copy of Mr Porteous’s sermons with a sour inscription on the fly-leaf saying she would not be needing it any more and had had enough of ‘improving’ books.

  Josephine and Emily, who were not to leave for London until the following week, arrived to say goodbye, and with many glances and titters tried to convey to Minerva that she looked the veriest dowd, but their jealousy was fortunately plain enough to be quite heart-warming.

  And then Minerva was in the carriage with the sunlight glinting bravely on the new coat of varnish and the final hen feather plucked from the squabs. Betty, the housemaid, was crimson with excitement, and the other servants began to wonder of the mistress’s Spasms were infectious.

  John Summer cracked his whip. The two plough horses strained at the traces.

  And they were off!

  Minerva felt a lump rising in her throat as the little party on the steps of the vicarage grew smaller and smaller and then was suddenly lost to view as the heavy coach rumbled around a bend in the road.

  The gold thatch of the cottages clustered around the village green shone like new-minted guineas. Ducks bobbed on the silky waters of the village pond. A swan sailed majestically across, leaving a broad V in its wake. Smoke climbed up from chimneys. The squat majesty of St Charles and St Jude began to recede. A crowd of locals outside the Six Jolly Beggarmen sent up a rusty cheer.

  Past the ornamental gates of the Hall rumbled the ancient Armitage coach, over the hump-backed bridge which spanned the River Blyne, around past the weedy estate of Lady Wentwater with primroses peeping from cracks in the mossy walls. A sharp right turn at the gibbet, and out onto the drying mud of the Hopeminster Road.

  Soon dust began to rise from the road, so Minerva put the glasses up, and sat very straight, frightened to lean back in case she crushed her bonnet.

  After some time, the town of Hopeminster came into view.

  The sun was blotted out as the coach trundled under the overhanging eaves of the Tudor buildings.

  Past the Cock and Feathers. Minerva’s heart gave a painful lurch. A tall man in curly brimmed beaver and blue coat was standing at the entrance to the inn courtyard. As the coach passed, he turned, as if aware of her gaze. He had a thin foxy face and pale eyes.

  But memories of Lord Sylvester came rushing back. Minerva decided that Lord Sylvester must be a sort of devil to conjure up such sinful feelings in her breast. She took out her Bible and began to read, her eyes wandering among the begats until she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lady Godolphin lived in great style in Hanover Square. At first Minerva had been startled at the expensive address, thinking that her patroness rented a floor from another family. She had naturally assumed that anyone who was in need to be paid back for the expense of a Season must surely be in difficult circumstances.

  But it appeared that the whole vast residence was the property of Lady Godolphin.

  They had broken their journey at a posting house on the outskirts of the city and Minerva had insisted that they start as early as six, fondly imagining everyone in London kept country hours.

  An imposing butler informed Miss Armitage in hushed tones that my lady was yet abed and not likely to quit it until noon, and had left strict orders she was not to be disturbed.

  A stern housekeeper showed her to a pretty suite of rooms on the second floor.

  ‘It’s like Kensington Palace,’ breathed Betty the maid, looking about her in awe.

  ‘You may start unpacking my trunks,’ said Minerva rather severely to cover up for the fact that she was as awed as the maid.

  The sitting room was decorated in Nile green and gold and contained some very fine pieces of furniture. A William and Mary chest of drawers in oyster veneer stood against one wall, and a Louis XVI writing table at the other. There were portraits by Zoffany, Reynolds and Lely.

  The bedroom boasted a modern shell-shaped bed which had been designed to go with a set of shell-shaped chairs from the last century. The bed looked decadent to Minerva’s prim eye, with its supports of mermaids and dolphins and its total absence of canopy and curtains. There was a painting by one of the Italian masters above the bed, Presentation of the Virgin, with everyone concerned wearing very blue robes and very gold halos.

  Fine oriental rugs covered the floor and heavy damask curtains of green and gold hung at the windows which overlooked the square.

  There was a powder closet and a dressing room off the bedroom. Minerva realized she was looking at all this magnificence with her mouth open, and set herself to help the maid unpack.

  There was a great noise and shouting below the windows. She crossed the room and looked out. A noisy party of bloods were roistering their way around the square, faces swollen and flushed with wine.

  Minerva drew back quickly. By the end of the Season would she be married to one of them?

  She resumed her unpacking and was grateful for the arrival of a tea tray.

  When the pretty gilt clock on the mantel chimed one o’clock, Minerva was wondering whether she should venture out into the streets. It did not look as if she would ever see her hostess. The carriage and Betty were to start the long journey back to Hopeworth as soon as possible, but she felt timid, and did not want to send the maid, her last link with home, away.

  At last, a gigantic footman in green and gold livery scratched at the door and informed her that Lady Godolphin was awake and anxious to see Miss Armitage.

  Minerva felt at liberty to dismiss her maid and a very tearful farewell she made of it. She pressed a guinea into Betty’s hand, thereby depleting her pin money by a tenth, and then followed the stately footman down the stairs to a suite of rooms on the first floor.

  Already in her mind, she pictured Lady Godolphin as a stern aristocrat, and all Minerva hoped was that she could curtsy low enough without disgracing herself by falling on the floor.

  Lady Godolphin was seated by the fire in her sitting room when Minerva was ushered in.

  She was like none of the pictures that Minerva had conjured up in her mind.

  Lady Godolphin must have been, at least, in her late fifties. She was round-shouldered and had a heavy bulldog face. She had small, pale-blue eyes under wrinkled lids, and her sparse grey hair was covered by an enormous turban of ruby velvet.

  Her morning gown of velvet was cut very low, exposing a generous, if flabby bosom. Her muscular arms were very freckled. Her figure was tough and stocky. In fact, in shape, she was surprisingly like the vicar. But it was not that which shocked Minerva. It was the fact that my lady was thickly painted. Her face and bosom were covered in white enamel and her cheeks were brightly rouged. Her large mouth was painted crimson, and her stubby eyelashes were covered in a thick coating of lamp black. When she moved, long ripples of old flesh strained under the confines of the paint on her bosom making her look like a badly stretched canvas.

  And worst of all, she had a moustache, bristling with white paint, above her upper lip.

  She bounced to her feet at Minerva’s entrance and rushed to kiss her, and Minerva contrived not to recoil before the barrage of peculiar scents that assailed her nostrils, from lead paint to a perfume called ‘Miss In Her Teens’, brandy, rose water, and sour sweat.

  ‘Faith, but you are pretty enough to turn heads, Miss Armitage. I had not much hope of any beauties coming out of the Armitage stable though your Mama was quite a belle in her youth,’ said Lady Godolphin with a surprisingly charming girlish laugh.

  ‘We shall be the succès fou of the Season. For I tell you I am wearied of the single state and mean to find a husband for myself. The first of your gowns should arrive this afternoon, and Monsieur Lognon himself is to give you a delicious coiffure. We are to the Aubryns this evening. They are monstrous fashionable and although ’tis
not yet the Season, we can study the market, for everyone who is anyone goes.’

  ‘This evening?’ whispered Minerva. In Hopeworth, anyone who had made a journey even to Hopeminster was expected to rest for a day after at least.

  ‘Yes, is it not exciting? Now, how old would you say I was?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said Minerva tactfully.

  ‘No,’ crowed Lady Godolphin. ‘For you expected to find an old quiz and not a young matron like myself. My hair is grey, ’tis the only disadvantage, but that shall be changed this very afternoon. How is your papa?’

  ‘Very well, I thank you, my lady, and sends his …’

  ‘And the gown you are to wear to the ball is ravissante,’ said Lady Godolphin, who rarely listened to a word anyone else said.

  ‘I had not thought to go out this evening,’ ventured Minerva. ‘I am a trifle fatigued …’

  ‘But your hair is not fashionable. All off! It must all come off!’

  ‘I do not believe in improving overmuch on what the good Lord has seen fit to give me,’ said Minerva primly.

  This time Lady Godolphin heard her and looked at her in some dismay. Then she brightened. ‘Well, I suppose you can be trusted not to prose on like that in the ballroom.’

  As the day hurtled past in a welter of fittings and pinnings and parcels and hair clipping, Minerva began to feel sure she had been sent to London for some Divine purpose. It was obvious Lady Godolphin was a brand to be saved from the burning. It was disgraceful that a woman of her years should consider herself a young miss, should paint like a Cyprian, and talk like a groom. For as the agitation of preparation went on, Lady Godolphin’s speech became as broad as the language of the hunting field, and was saved from ultimate coarseness by her lack of education and frequent malapropisms.