The First Snowdrop

Chapter 12

Forty people sat down to a very early dinner that evening, the performance of She Stoops To Conquer having been set for eight o'clock. The male actors left the dining room with the ladies, so that they might be ready in their costumes by the time the dinner guests had drunk their tea and port, and the outside guests had arrived. Claude had to ask his actors what the main course at dinner had been; he could not for the life of him remember. No one answered him.

Hortense was the first to be ready in her maid's outfit. She went to help Anne dress in the elaborate lady's outfit that she was to wear for the first part of the play until she changed into the housemaid's dress that her father in the play preferred. Bella had been loaned to some of the guests from town who had come without their own maids, though she would be in Anne's room after the play to help her dress for the ball.

"I am more than ever glad that Grandmamma saw fit to give me a small part," Hortense said. "Are you not positively petrified, Anne? Has your mind not gone totally blank?"

"Don't," Anne said. "I refuse to believe that I have forgotten my part, and I have no intention now of trying to recall lines, just in case I might find that you are right. Do help me with these buttons, Hortense. There must be at least two dozen of them down the back."

The peacock-blue gown was soon in place, the panniers evenly arranged over her hips and the bow neatly centered at the back. Anne tugged ineffectually at the bodice to try to cover her breasts more completely.

"Do you think I should wear some insert here?" she asked Hortense, gazing anxiously into a mirror.

"Definitely not," the girl replied. "You look quite ravishing, Anne. All the men will be ogling you."

"Oh, dear," said Anne.

The wig came next. Hortense helped her adjust it snugly over her own curls and then carefully powdered it before inserting the plumes so that they stood proudly above her head. Anne hesitated over the patch box. Was it really necessary to wear a patch? It would be hardly visible to the audience, anyway. However, she finally found herself placing the heart shape beside her mouth again and turned away from the mirror before she should lose her spirit and peel it away. She caught up the peacock-feather fan that the duchess had brought to her the day before after finding out that Anne was to wear her old blue gown, and was ready to go. Her stomach felt rather as if the arms of a windmill had got inside it and were turning. She still dared not try to remember any of her lines.

All the actors were assembled behind the stage that had been set up at one end of the small ballroom, except Freddie. Peregrine announced that he was still undecided about which waistcoat he should wear. Sarah had found him a white one to wear beneath the plain black coat that he must have as the servant Diggory, but Freddie felt that his costume was too plain. He had been wearing the canary one when Peregrine had gone to accompany him downstairs, but even Freddie had realized that that particular waistcoat was unsuited to a servant. He had been considering a lime-green one when his cousin had lost patience and come downstairs without him.

"Alex," Claude said with ominous calm, "go upstairs and find that nincompoop without delay. Tell him that I want him here inside the white waistcoat within two minutes, or within five minutes he will be wearing-it inside his throat."

Merrick grinned and left.

The ballroom was filling up with chattering, gorgeously clad ladies and gentlemen. Anne sat bolt upright on a chair. She dared not lean back for fear of crushing her bustle, and she dared not move her head lest plumes or wig or both come tumbling down about her face. She would be able to relax more, she felt, once her first two scenes were over and she could change into the plainer but by far more comfortable housemaid's dress. She looked about her. Everyone did indeed look quite splendid clothed in the fashion of half a century before. There seemed to be something so much more stately about those earlier styles.

Alexander had left the room, having gone in search of poor Freddie. But Anne had noticed every detail of his appearance in the few minutes during which they had been in the room together. She had always considered that his thick dark hair contributed largely to his handsome appearance. But tonight she found his powdered wig, tied at the neck with a black ribbon, quite suffocatingly charming, especially when he had carelessly put the black tricorne on his head while helping Martin rearrange his neckcloth. His long brocaded waistcoat beneath a well-fitting skirted frock coat also suited his tall, well-built figure to perfection. Had she not loved him before, she would surely have fallen in love with him tonight, she thought with disgust.

"Aunt Jemima and Uncle Roderick have just made a grand entrance," Claude announced, blanching noticeably. "We should be ready to begin in five minutes' time."

And they all became aware of the hush that had begun to descend beyond the curtains that divided the stage from the rest of the small ballroom. Merrick reentered the room with Freddie in tow almost at the same moment. Freddie was wearing a white waistcoat.

"Oh, you do look distinguished, Freddie," Anne said.

Freddie beamed and both Merrick and Jack grinned. Martin and Maud stepped onto the stage and took up their positions for the opening scene.

Freddie had been quite right. The performance proceeded quite flawlessly if one ignored the fact that Freddie, Hortense, and Constance, who were supposed to be caught in a fit of the giggles when Mr. Hardcastle mentioned one of his old jokes, really did become hysterical and laughed for much longer than the script called for. Freddie said afterward with some indignation that he could have remained perfectly serious if the audience had not laughed so loudly and destroyed his control.

The members of the audience had come out for an unusually festive evening. Many of them had attended a lavish dinner earlier and ail of them would be attending a large and elaborate ball later. It was a special treat, even for those who had come from the busy social life of town, to be entertained with a full-length and well-known drama between the two events. No one had come prepared to be overly critical. The humor was laughed at, the romance smiled at. The fact that the hero and heroine were a husband and wife who had never been seen together before ensured that extra attention was paid to the main romantic scenes, and several people actually applauded when Merrick caught his wife around the waist and planted a kiss on her lips when the character he played mistook her character for a maid in the Hardcastle house.

But it was Peregrine who stole the show. Everyone took one curtain call at the end. Merrick and Anne and Maud took two, and Peregrine three. The audience had roared with laughter at his treatment of the scene in which Tony Lumpkin takes his mother by night in a wide circle around the house while she believes that she is thirty miles from home on Crackskull Common surrounded by highwaymen. At his third curtain call, Peregrine sang again a raucous and rather vulgar song that he had sung at the Three Jolly Pigeons inn during the play.

It made a fitting ending to what had really been a very jolly middle part of the evening. Claude declared after the curtain had been closed for the final time and the stage was suddenly strewn with wigs and fans and buckled shoes that had proved too tight for the wearers, that the duchess had actually had tears in her eyes at the end of it all and that even the duke had looked suspiciously bright-eyed.

"And so they should," Jack said. "Shedding a few tears is the least the old tyrants can do after ruining a perfectly decent couple of weeks for us all. The next time I am invited down here for an anniversary I shall remember a quite pressing previous engagement."

"Oh, nonsense, Jack," Hortense said. "You know you have loved every minute of it. And tonight you were positively basking in the glory of being so much in the limelight. You know very well that all the ladies will be falling over themselves to dance with you later on, now that they have seen how dashing you looked on the stage."

"Sisters!" Jack said, his eyes turned skyward.

The duke and duchess came through the doorway, the former supporting himself very heavily on an ivory-handled cane. "You were all quite wonderful!" the duchess said. "In fact, I do not know quite how we got out of the habit of gathering here every Christmas and having theatrics. We really must start again."

"Grandmamma," Jack said, "I have no wish to be rude, but if you wish us to be present to see you and Grandpapa open the ball, you must allow us to go upstairs to dress."

"Are you really going to dance with Great-aunt Jemima?" Prudence asked the duke, saucer-eyed.

"You think I am incapable of doing so?" the duke barked, glaring at his grand-niece.

She laughed and hugged him as she followed her cousins and other relatives from the room.

Merrick was in the main ballroom long before most of the other actors and actresses put in an appearance. He was dressed in a black, closely fitting evening coat and knee breeches, looking quite conspicuous among the brightly colored clothes of most of the other men present. Only the vivid whiteness of his lace cuffs, silk stockings, starched shirt points, and elaborately tied neckcloth relieved the severity of his outfit. But there was nothing dull about his appearance, if the many glances he was receiving from a large number of ladies were any indication.

The duke and duchess were still in the receiving line. The dancing had not yet begun, though the hour was well advanced. Merrick spoke to a large number of acquaintances, but he waited impatiently for the arrival of his wife. He had thought of going to her room so that he might accompany her downstairs, but he found himself unaccountably shy of doing so. They did not yet have a normal husband-and-wife relationship, despite the fact that they had shared a bed for the past two weeks. He could not bring himself to walk into her dressing room, where her maid would probably be fussing over her. So he had come down alone to await her in the ballroom.

He felt restless and strangely excited. He wanted her with him as he talked to acquaintances. He wanted people to see them together; he wanted everyone to know that he claimed her as his wife. He had found more and more in the last few days that his eyes followed her whenever she was in his view and that he had a greater awareness of her presence in a room than of anyone else's. When he had become conscious of the fact, he had asked himself why it was, and the answer had fascinated him. He found her beautiful, desirable, charming.

He was proud of her, proud that she belonged to him. He had noticed with the pride of possession that the other members of his family liked and even admired her. And he had seen the reason why. Anne was a kind and warmhearted person, a fact that was not immediately evident because she was quiet and unassuming. But Freddie responded to her, and the children were constantly hanging about her skirts when they were not confined to the schoolroom. Jack treated her with noticeably more respect and less flirtatiousness than he had at first. And the rest of the family appeared to accept her and love her as if she had always been one of their number.

Merrick had decided two days before that he would keep his wife with him and make a proper marriage of their relationship. He had not yet told her. He planned to do so this evening. It would be a fitting occasion on which to pledge themselves to a new life together. She was planning to return to Redlands the next day and talked of it quite freely to other family members. He had kept to himself the knowledge that he would be able to hand her a last-minute reprieve. She did not know that she would be spending the rest of the spring in London, tasting all the delights that the Season had to offer. She did not know that he planned to lavish his money on her, buying her clothes and jewels and anything else that her heart desired. Perhaps when the Season was over he would travel with her and show her places and treasures that she had only dreamed of seeing.

He could hardly wait. Merrick smiled and bowed toward a couple of dowagers, who had found themselves comfortable chairs against the wall and were obviously settled for a comfortable coze, probably at the expense of many of the guests present. He had been looking forward to this part of the evening even before the discovery he had made earlier in the evening. He supposed it was Freddie who had caused it all. Anne's comment on his white waistcoat when he had entered the room had been so obviously calculated to make the poor man feel good about his costume that Merrick had had to smile. But looking at Anne, sitting in such a stately fashion on the edge of her chair, her back ramrod-straight, her wig and plumes looking so delightfully elegant, the black patch close to her mouth so provocative, he had been surprised by a totally unexpected rush of tenderness. How utterly sweet she was. And how he loved her!

The feeling of wonder had stayed with him throughout the play. As he acted out his part, he had fallen in love with Anne as surely as Charles Marlow had fallen in love with Kate Hardcastle. Of course he wanted her with him after this night was over. And of course he would want her after the Season was over. He would want her for the rest of his life. And so he waited for her arrival in the ballroom with impatience, longing to see her, to touch her, dance with her, talk to her, and eventually to tell her the truth. Finally he would be able to treat her without the cruelty that had plagued his relationship with her. He had it in his power to make her happy, to make amends for the past. Through his own fault, she had lived a dreary and a lonely life for more than a year. He would see to it that she had everything that money could buy and love offer for the rest of her life.

Anne, meanwhile, was ready and excited. She had been to some parties and balls on a small scale as a young girl. But she had never prepared for anything on such a lavish scale as this. She had been busy and preoccupied with the play all day, but even so, she had been aware of the fevered activities going on in the house in preparation for the ball that evening. She had been passing through the downstairs hall at the same moment in the day as a seemingly endless string of footmen were carrying huge armfuls of flowers in the direction of the ballroom, and she had peeped into the room on her way upstairs after tea to find that it was transformed into a magnificent garden that quite took her breath away.

Until the play was over, she had not had much time to think about the ball itself, but now she found herself somewhat nervous. It was several years since she had danced, and she had really not had much practice at any but country dances. She had never danced or even seen the waltz, which she heard was now all the rage. She hoped that she would not make a cake of herself by tripping all over her own or her partners' feet-if she had any partners, that was. She hoped that at least a few of the gentlemen would ask her to dance. Freddie surely would, and Stanley and probably Claude and Jack.

It seemed likely that Alexander would dance with her once, for form's sake. She hoped so. She was going to need all the memories she could collect after tomorrow. All that was left was this evening and the night. And the night would be short, with the ball beginning so late. It would be dawn, probably, before they went to bed. Their final night of love. Perhaps there would never be another. Anne gulped down a feeling of panic and won for herself a tut of disapproval from Bella, who was trying to clasp together a stubborn string of pearls around her neck.

Perhaps the whole evening would be a disaster, Anne thought. Perhaps Alexander would take no notice of her at all. She recalled the moment of alarm she had felt during the afternoon when he had been introducing her to a bewildering array of strangers. She had been feeling shy but happy to be on his arm, being presented to people who knew him well. But as soon as he had introduced her to Lady Lorraine Walsh and her new husband, she had been jolted. The very lovely, poised young lady before her was the girl to whom Alexander had been betrothed when he married her. Sonia had told her that. And she was in the house at this very moment and would be present at the ball. Perhaps Alexander would be paying her lavish attention. Perhaps she would see beyond any doubt that he still loved the girl. How would she be able to live with that knowledge afterward? The recollection of that would blot out all the other lovely memories with which she was to brighten the days and years ahead.

The reflected image of Bella was staring at her, eyebrows raised. Anne got to her feet and crossed to a long mirror, in which she could see the full effect of her gown. Yes, Bella had been right, as she usually was. The sea-green lace overdress over the royal-blue silk gown looked quite stunning. The lace had been caught up with small bows at intervals around the hem, to show the rich color of the underdress. She wore very little else to ornament her person. Blue slippers, a blue ribbon threaded through her hair, her pearls, and long white gloves completed the outfit. Anne stared at herself with satisfaction. She still had not got over the novelty of being slim. The high-waisted style of the dress, with its short, puffed sleeves and low neckline, made her feel positively dainty.

Anne slipped past the receiving line and entered the ballroom feeling nervous and conspicuous. Familiar faces from across the room immediately beamed at her, and an elegant exquisite, dressed all in gold, bowed in front of her and complimented her on her acting ability. And then Alexander was at her side and she smiled up at him with the sheer relief of no longer feeling completely isolated. He was smiling back, and her heart did a somersault.

"I hope you have reserved the first set for me," he said, taking her hand and laying it on his sleeve. "How beautiful you look, Anne. You quite put into the shade all these ladies in their insipid pastel shades."

She hardly had time to look up at him in surprise before the orchestra could be heard tuning up in the minstrel gallery and the duke and duchess appeared in the ballroom.

"Is Grandpapa really going to dance?" Anne asked. "Surely he will never be able to do so."

"Grandpapa has a will far stronger than any bodily ailment," Merrick said dryly. "I'll wager that he will dance the whole set before collapsing for the rest of the night. You and I will be expected to dance in their set, too, my dear. I am Grandpapa's heir, you know."

"Oh, no," Anne said, shrinking back. "I am not a dancer, Alexander. I shall not be able to remember the steps, especially if I know that we are the focus of everyone's attention. It would be far better if you led out Aunt Maud or Aunt Sarah or one of your cousins."

"Nonsense!" Merrick replied. "I will be expected to dance the opening set with my wife. And Grandmamma has instructed the orchestra to choose a tune that is not excessively lively so that Grandpapa will not find it too great a strain. It will be slow enough to give you time to remember the steps. Keep your eyes on Grandmamma and follow what she does. I shall help you, too."

Anne followed him apprehensively to the center of the floor, aware of eyes directed at them and aware that her husband had claimed this first dance only because it was what was expected of him.