Marrying Harriet (3 page)

The bustle and roar and noise of London pressed in on her, making her feel small and lost and homesick. Neither Effy Tribble nor Amy seemed to be brands to be saved from the burning. Both looked eminently respectable. So, as she could not escape her dismal thoughts by concentrating on possible good works, Harriet reflected instead on the fashionable man who had rescued the cat. Now there was the sort of man she would never dream of marrying, although she sensibly told herself that she was the sort of female who could never in a hundred years attract such an Exquisite. And yet, he had climbed that tree so easily. And he could not surely be so very bad to go to such an effort for a mere cat. Thinking about Lord Charles effectively lifted Harriet’s gloom. Why be afraid of London society when the Tribbles had proved to be sensible and kind women? And if such a fop as Lord Charles Marsham could put off his selfish, dissipated indolence to rescue a cat, then it followed that people here were like people in Scarborough, decent and honest.

They arrived at Holles Street, where Harriet was shown up to a pleasant bedroom. Maids unpacked her trunk and the Tribbles’ lady’s maid, Baxter, called to say she would dress her hair in a new style on the following day. There were flowers in vases and new novels on a table by the bed. A fire crackled on the hearth. A footman brought in tea and biscuits and informed Miss Brown she was to rest and then join the Misses Tribble in the drawing room before dinner.

Left alone at last, Harriet gave way to weakness and broke down and cried. Never before had anyone thought of her comfort in any way. Her father had expected her to clean the house and make the meals and do the shopping and help in the parish work because that was her duty as his daughter and her role as a mere female. Although she did not yet know it, because of his severe, unbending morality, the Browns’ visits to the parishioners were tolerated rather than welcomed. No one considered Harriet had a hard time of it. Severe Methodists were expected to enjoy a certain amount of martyrdom.

At last Harriet knelt down and prayed for God to bless the Tribbles. They were being paid to look after her, yes, but they did not need to be kind, that much she knew. For all these little thoughtful acts of kindness, she would find some way to repay them.

Baxter returned to help her dress for dinner, choosing, after much head shaking, a plain grey silk dress with black velvet bands that Harriet had bought second-hand. She dressed Harriet’s hair simply, saying that perhaps, as she had so much hair, a professional hairdresser should be summoned to cut a little of it.

Harriet was not used to dealing with servants. A scrubbing woman had come in to do the heavier chores at home once a week and the rest she had done herself. So she treated Baxter and the rest of the servants with unsophisticated gratitude that went right to their hearts. Had her father been with her, uttering his usual stern proverbs, then Harriet would have been treated with cold disdain. Unlike her father, she had a genuine belief in the goodness of people, and so the servants behaved their best towards this shabby young lady and did not despise her for her clothes or for her lack of sophistication.

As the butler, Harris, said in the servants’ hall later, it was a vast pity Miss Brown had to be ‘refined’; in his opinion, she was much better off the way she was.

When Harriet went down to the drawing room, she was surprised to find two gentlemen present along with Effy and Amy. One, tall and thin and slightly old-fashioned in his dress, was introduced as Mr Haddon, and a smaller man, fashionably if almost foppishly attired, as Mr Randolph.

Harriet curtsied to both and then turned and thanked the sisters for all their kindness. Amy flushed and said gruffly it was nothing, and Effy smiled and patted Harriet’s hand and said she would need to have a good night’s sleep, for her lessons would begin in the morning.

‘We have been studying lists of eligibles for you, Miss Brown,’ said Effy over dinner. ‘London is quite thin of suitable men. The prize would appear to be one Lord Charles Marsham, but we have decided he is not for you.’

Harriet looked surprised. ‘I met Lord Charles on my road south,’ she said. ‘He is an elegant and lethargic gentleman who nonetheless climbed a tree at my request to rescue a cat.’

Pressed for details, she told the whole story while Effy looked at Amy in a speculative way and Amy’s eyelid drooped in a wink.

‘I think it is rather sad, this marriage business,’ said Mr Haddon.

Harriet sensed a certain sudden rigidity in Amy Tribble and then saw that her sister was looking at her with a tinge of malice in her eyes.

‘How so?’ demanded Amy.

‘Young ladies are brought to London under the horrendous pressure of having to marry,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘If they do not find husbands, they are made to feel like failures and no doubt have to listen to lectures on how much money has been wasted. If they do not “take”, they are often shipped off to India, where the competition is not so strong, in the hope of catching the eye of some homesick soldier or member of the East India Company. I myself was constantly being besieged in my younger days in India by matchmaking mothers.’

‘I too,’ said Mr Randolph with a smile. ‘But we are both such hardened bachelors that all their wiles were to no avail.’

Now there was tension emanating from Effy Tribble. ‘I suppose all females want to get married some time or another,’ said Amy gruffly.

Mr Haddon leaned back in his chair and examined the colour of the wine in his glass. ‘I think in most cases they are driven by ambitious parents and by financial necessity. Now, both you ladies have found a way of making an income, and I admire you for it. No weakness there. No longing for a strong shoulder.’

Harriet sensed, rather than saw, that the Tribble sisters were very angry indeed. Effy’s colour was high and her voice rather shrill as she quite deliberately changed the subject.

‘Did you go to assemblies in Scarborough, Miss Brown?’

‘No, ma’am,’ said Harriet. ‘My life was taken up with working for the poor and helping my father in his duties. My father believed dancing to be sinful.’

‘It’s an enjoyable exercise,’ said Amy, ‘and I am sure the Good Lord did not put on us this earth to be miserable. How is your knowledge of music?’

‘I know many hymns. Papa used to say—’

‘I should not really worry about what your father used to say,’ said Effy gently. ‘The views of a Methodist minister are not suitable views for London society. You are going to be trained to be a fashionable young lady, and there is nothing sinful about that.’

‘Although I sometimes wonder . . .’ began Mr Haddon, but then broke off with a yelp of pain as Amy kicked him viciously under the table.

After dinner, the gentlemen and the Tribbles played whist while Harriet was told to sit by the fire and study her list of educational duties.

It was a heavy schedule: dancing master and Italian teacher in the morning, water-colour artist and deportment and manners taught by the Tribbles in the afternoon, ‘calls permitting’. Harriet was not daunted, only relieved that her days were not going to be idle. Her eyes strayed from the page to where the sisters sat, heads bent over their cards. Amy’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

Harriet suddenly thought, Good heavens! Of course! They are old, but they still hope to marry, and they would like to shake some sense into the gentlemen’s heads.

She remembered an elderly widow, a Mrs Butter-field, who lived in Scarborough. She had an elderly widower friend who came to call. It was obvious to Harriet that Mrs Butterfield hoped for marriage but that the gentleman was unaware of it. Taking her courage in both hands, Harriet had pointed out to the gentleman the benefits of marriage. And so Mrs Butterfield was happily married. Not that either of the pair had given Harriet any credit, she thought with a sigh, not knowing her father had disapproved of the match and tried to interfere, which was why Mrs Butterfield had become unfriendly towards her. But one should always do a good deed without any hope of thanks. Rather than risk any embarrassment, Harriet decided to study the gentlemen and decide what, in this case, would be the best approach.

Later that evening, unaware that their new charge was already dreaming up matchmaking plans for
them
, Amy and Effy discussed Harriet’s prospects.

‘Such a good girl,’ said Effy.

‘Not a girl,’ pointed out Amy. ‘Twenty-five is old enough for a matron. What think you of her meeting with Marsham?’

‘Interesting that he should go to such an effort to please her,’ replied Effy. ‘Perhaps when he comes to London, we should send him a card and give him an opportunity to further his acquaintance. I have told Baxter to make sure Harriet puts cream on her hands and sleeps in cotton gloves. They are quite red, and the nails are too short.’ Effy looked complacently at her own long and polished nails.

‘At first I was disappointed in her,’ said Amy. ‘Now I begin to see a lot of possibilities. Her hair is magnificent and her eyes very fine and her figure is good. Damn Yvette. Why did she have to leave us?’

Yvette, a French dressmaker, had been until recently the Tribbles’ private property, living in Holles Street and designing gowns and mantles and bonnets for the sisters and their charges, which were the envy of the
ton
. Now Yvette had her own workshop and salon, having gone into business for herself. The sisters not only missed Yvette’s skill but Yvette herself and her illegitimate baby, George, a chubby, happy creature who had brought life into the house.

‘We’d better send for Yvette and get her started on Harriet right away,’ said Effy. ‘No need to go into full mourning. Black does not become her. Nor do I see her in pastels. She is old enough to wear something a bit more vivid. Such pretty gratitude! I declare I was quite moved.’

‘We’ll do the best for her,’ said Amy. ‘There should be no trouble in schooling her. Intelligent creature.’

But by the end of the following day the sisters were plunged into gloom. Harriet could read Latin and Greek classics in the original and had a surprisingly unfeminine knowledge of mathematics and science. But her singing voice proved her to be tone-deaf, and she could not learn to dance; her attempts were clumsy and wooden. The French dancing master was bewildered. Perhaps, he suggested tactfully, it was not that ‘mees’ lacked the aptitude, it was simply that he believed people in the north of England were addicted to leaping about in wooden clogs. Nor did her drawing and water-colour painting fare any better. She had no idea of perspective and her sky did not meet the ground but stayed stuck at the top of the picture, the way a child draws it.

The sisters took over from the hired teachers in the afternoon and began to initiate Harriet into the mysteries of all the dos and don’ts of society etiquette. Never let your back touch the back of the chair. Never look round before you sit down. A footman should always be there to provide a chair. Never open a door yourself. Never sit down on a chair still warm from a gentleman’s bottom. Never use your hands to do anything a servant can do for you. Always remember to cut a tiny piece of everything on your plate and put it all on your fork at once. Never offer your whole hand to a social inferior in shaking hands. An offer of one or two fingers is enough. Never curtsy to an inferior. A nod of the head will suffice. Never give a full court curtsy to a social equal. Court curtsies are reserved for royalty or royal dukes. Of course, it was quite correct to drop a full curtsy when one was being sarcastic and trying to drive home the point that although the recipient of the curtsy was one’s social equal, one still despised them and thought them inferior. Never carry a fan by the handle, but always by the end when closed, pinched between the fingers. In receiving an overwarm compliment, look flustered and distressed in a maidenly way if the compliment comes from a young man. If from an old man, appear to be deaf.

Never discuss politics or religion or the poor. Read the gossip columns and listen carefully to the other ladies’ gossip and pass it on. Gentlemen like to be consulted on points of dress and would rather advise a lady on the best place to buy gloves than to listen to her boring on about politics. Above all, learn to listen with grave admiration at all times. Women are stupid and weak-headed. (No, dear, we know they are not, but that is the way of the world.)

Do not, when trying to entrap some gentleman, be obvious. Finesse is the thing. The lowered eyelashes, the slight blush, the graceful movement of the arms and the pliant movement of the body. Attitudes were a very useful accomplishment and showed off the figure.

‘What are Attitudes?’ asked Harriet, bewildered by this flow of advice. ‘I have read in the papers, you know, that Miss So-and-so struck some very fine Attitudes, and it always made it sound as if she had flown into a passion.’

‘No, no,’ said Amy. ‘An Attitude can be anything so long as it is classical or vaguely so. Let me see if I can strike an Attitude for you.’

She suddenly balanced on one great flat foot and lifted her other leg up at the back, shielded her eyes with her hand and glared into the middle distance.

Something happened inside Harriet. She could feel laughter bubbling up inside and bit her lips to stop it escaping and ended up letting out a great snort.

‘Ridiculous, ain’t it?’ said Amy with a grin. ‘But take a guess. Who am I?’

‘I r-really d-don’t know,’ giggled Harriet.

‘I’m Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus,’ said Amy. ‘Or you could be a nymph startled by whoever. Nymphs were always getting startled by someone or other.’ She suddenly stood stock-still, her eyes rolling wildly, one shoulder up and both arms out to the side as if to ward off an attacker.

Harriet gave up trying to control herself and laughed until the tears rolled down her face. ‘I could never bring myself to do anything like that,’ she said when she had recovered.

‘It is not very important,’ said Effy. ‘But you must never laugh like that in company, my dear. Do not show any excess of emotion. Gentle tears coursing down the cheeks are all very well and show a nice sensibility. But never roar or bawl. Now put those books over on that table on your head and learn to walk up and down, curtsy, and sit down without letting them fall.’