Marrying Miss Hemingford. Mary Nichols
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was what Grandfather had said, when leaving her that bequest. ‘My granddaughter has made a great sacrifice to stay and see me comfortably to my end and nothing I give can recompense her for that,’ he had dictated to the family lawyer, who read it aloud to the company after the funeral. ‘I do not want her to grieve for me. I command her to be happy in any way she can and if this bequest can bring that about, then I hope she will make good use of it.’
She had cried then; only the second time she had shed tears since his death. The first had been when the doctor had pronounced life extinct and closed the old man’s eyes. She had been unable to hold back her grief and stood encircled in her brother’s arms, soaking his coat with her tears. The weeping was done now and she was going to do her best to obey his dying command. A few weeks in Brighton with her aunt and then she would think of her future.
They set off for London by post chaise, accompanied by Susan, Aunt Bartrum’s maid, and Anne’s middle-aged companion cum maid, Amelia Parker. They stayed at the Hemingford town house to do some shopping and completed their journey two days later, arriving in Brighton early on a Wednesday afternoon in late August.
The house they had taken was on the west side of the old town, in an area which had not so many years before been open fields, but since Brighton had become fashionable it was being developed at a frantic pace to keep up with the demands of the people who wanted to come and stay. Now there were elegant terraces of tall narrow buildings with biscuit-coloured façades and cast-iron balustrades. The one Mrs Bartrum had taken had a staircase that wound up from an entrance hall in decreasing squares to the upper rooms and which, viewed from the ground floor, reminded Anne of a dimly lit tower. But the rooms that led from it were light and airy with balconied windows at the front, which afforded a view of the sea, calm and sparkling on the afternoon they arrived.
‘First things first,’ Mrs Bartrum said when they had chosen their rooms and left the maids to unpack. ‘We will have some refreshments, give instructions to the servants about how we like them to go on and then we will go and announce our arrival.’
‘Announce it?’ Anne queried, laughing. ‘Are you going to send out the town crier?’
‘No, you foolish girl. We go to Baker’s library and sign the visitors’ book and while we are there we will read the names of those who have preceded us. After that, home for dinner and then we shall see what tomorrow brings.’
Baker’s library was on The Steine at the bottom of St James’s Street and they decided to walk. Putting a light shawl over her lilac silk gown, Anne slipped her arm through her aunt’s and they stepped out briskly along the sea front. Anne had never known such a dazzling light. It glittered on the sea, shone on the pastel stucco of the buildings, reflected in the windows and picked out the colours of other strollers’ clothes like an artist’s palette. And the air was so clear, they felt almost giddy with it.
‘Shall you bathe in the sea?’ Anne asked her aunt, noticing the row of huts on wheels that stood along the water’s edge and the women standing beside them holding armfuls of cotton garments for bathers to change into.
‘Why not?’ her aunt said. ‘There is no sense in coming to the seaside if you do not take a dip, is there?’
Anne smiled. Her aunt was game for anything. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘We’ll go one morning very early before anyone is about, then if we find we do not like it, we can come out and no one the wiser.’
‘What else have you in mind for us to do?’
‘That depends on the Master of Ceremonies. He will advise us what is going on and what is most suitable for us. That is why we sign the visitors’ book: it tells him we are here.’
Anne found herself laughing. ‘You mean he is a kind of matchmaker?’
‘Not at all.’ She paused. ‘Unless you want him to be, then of course he will make sure you are introduced to the right people.’
‘I positively forbid you to speak of me, Aunt. I will not be paraded like a seventeen-year-old newly escaped from the schoolroom.’
‘I would not dream of it, my dear. There is no need.’
Anne looked sideways at her. Her aunt was looking decidedly complacent and she wondered just what she was up to. She felt no alarm; let the dear lady have her fun, for that was all it was. A diversion, wasn’t that what she had said?
Even in the old part of town, there were new houses interspersed with old and Anne began to wonder what the original fishing village had been like fifty years before and what had become of its inhabitants. There must still be fishermen, because their nets were laid out to dry on a wide grassy bank next to the sea and one or two boats were pulled up at the water’s edge, but of their owners there was no sign. She supposed they set out very early in the morning and, once their catch had been landed and sold and the nets put out to dry, disappeared for a well-earned rest.
They picked their way over the nets and found the library where Mrs Bartrum spent some time perusing the visitors’ book and making notes, while Anne borrowed two books, then they set off to explore a little further. They wandered up Old Steine, looked at the house where Mrs Fitzherbert, the Regent’s mistress, lived and a little further on came to the Pavilion, his seaside home. It had begun as an ordinary villa and had been extended and glorified over the last twenty years until it looked like an Eastern palace, with white painted domes and colonnades, and it was still being altered and embellished. ‘At least, it gives work to the people of the town,’ Anne said, as they moved away.
They returned home by way of North Street and Western Road and sat down to a dinner of fillets of turbot, saddle of lamb and quince tart. Mrs Carter, their cook, was a find, but then the agent had only to mention the Earl’s name and the best was forthcoming, be it house, servants or horses. They had hardly finished their meal and settled in the drawing room with the tea tray when the Master of Ceremonies was announced.
Dressed very correctly in dark breeches and white stockings, long tail coat and starched muslin cravat, he came in, bowed and was offered tea, before anything was said of the purpose of his visit. Anne suppressed her curiosity and waited.
‘Now, madam,’ he said at last, producing a sheaf of papers from a bag he carried. ‘I have here a list of next week’s events. There is a ball at the Castle Inn Assembly Rooms on Monday and a concert on Tuesday. The Old Ship has a ball every Thursday, and there are several lectures and, of course, the usual games of whist in the afternoons. But I see you are in mourning, so perhaps…’
‘I am, sir,’ Mrs Bartrum said. ‘And shall be until the end of my days when I shall hope to join my dear husband in heaven, but that is nothing to the point. My duty is clear to me and that is to put aside my grief…’ she dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief ‘…for the sake of my niece. She is my only consideration. We intend to join in with whatever activities you deem suitable. My niece, as no doubt you have realised, is unmarried.’
Anne thought she was long past blushing, but this statement sent the colour racing to her face and she gave her aunt a disapproving look, before she set him straight by saying. ‘But not, sir, in need of a husband.’
‘I understand,’ he said, looking at Anne and smiling knowingly, which made her squirm, though she held her tongue for the sake of her aunt.
He stayed long enough to go through other events on offer and ticked off those they decided to attend, then took his leave.
‘Aunt, I am very displeased,’ Anne said as soon as they were alone again. ‘I asked you not to make an issue of my being unmarried. Now he thinks you want him to find a match for me.’
‘I simply stated that you were single,’ her aunt said. ‘Besides, we can find our own company. I saw Lady Mancroft’s name is in the visitors’ book; she is an old friend of mine and knows simply everybody worth knowing.’ She rose from her chair. ‘Now I think I shall go to bed. The sea air has made me quite sleepy.’
Anne followed her a few minutes later and went to her own room,