The Regency (88 page)

She left Hill to get on with the job, but saw to it that a
steady stream of visitors to the bedchamber kept Flaminia's spirits up, and prevented Hill from bullying her. Lucy came
in, still in her riding habit, her cheeks bright from a pleasant
canter round the Park in Major Wiske's company, her curly
crop tousled. Minnie was still in her underwear. Lucy
surveyed her daughter with unusual benevolence.

‘
It's a lovely day, Minnie, and I'm sure everything will go
well. You're marrying well, bringing credit to your family, so
you've everything to be proud of. Hold your head up in
church, and make the responses firmly, as though you mean
them. There's nothing worse than a bride who mumbles.'

‘Yes, Mama,' Minnie whispered.

‘
Your father would have been proud of you,' Lucy went on,
and then couldn't think of anything else one ought to say to a
daughter about to be married. She glanced at the maid.
'Don't draw Lady Flaminia's stays so tight, Hill. We don't
want her fainting.'

‘
Yes, my lady. No, my lady.' Hill said meekly. She knew
her match when she met it.

Miss Trotton, hinted in by Docwra a while later, kissed
Minnie's cheek, and told her she was a credit to her. She
chatted for a few moments, and was about to take her leave,
when she paused doubtfully, for there had been something on
her mind all day. 'Minnie dear, has your mother spoken to you
about marriage?' she asked.

Minnie looked bewildered. 'What do you mean, Trot?' Hill's eyes bulged, and Miss Trotton looked ever more
hesitant.

‘
About being married, dear. About men, and what to
expect.’

Minnie's round green eyes were innocent as young leaves.
'I don't understand,' she said, and then offered helpfully,
'Mama said I must speak up in church, and not mumble.'

‘
If you'll excuse me, Miss,' Hill said, trying to edge her
away, with all the hostility lady's maids always feel for govern
esses, 'I must get my lady dressed. Now is not the time for
such talk, if you don't mind.'

‘
You're quite right, Hill,' Miss Trotton said thoughtfully.
'Don't worry, Minnie dear, it was nothing important.’

Outside, Miss Trotton sought out Docwra and put the
question to her. 'I quite thought her ladyship would have
broached the subject, but it seems not. What do you think we
ought to do, Docwra? Is it too late? It seems dreadful that she
should approach the matter wholly unprepared. Should you
perhaps have a little chat with her — though I suppose it
ought really to be a married woman's task?’

Docwra raised an eyebrow at the thought that she, as a
spinster, didn't know enough to have a 'little chat' with
Flaminia, but she said comfortably, 'No, no, miss, it's by far
too late now. In any case, there are some creatures in the world
that knowledge only confuses them. Miss Minnie'll be all
right. She'll come out of her weddin' bed as innocent as she
went in, and if I know men, which I do, that one'll know how
to handle her so she doesn't break. It'll all seem like a dream
to her, and she'll forget it from one occasion to the next.’

Miss Trotton was deeply tempted to ask how Docwra knew
that, but the conversation was already making her cheeks
warm, and she resisted. She considered that the maid's experi
ences since she had come into Lucy's service must have been
as varied and pungent as those she had endured in famine-
haunted Ireland beforehand. Nothing Miss Trotton had
absorbed from the classics about the curious proclivities of
gods and heroes could compare with that.

When she judged that Minnie would be at the stage of
having her hair dressed, Docwra sent Polly in to visit her. Polly
was already dressed in her bridesmaid's gown of pale prim
rose jaconet, and her exquisite, porcelain beauty seemed more
breathtaking than ever. Minnie, looking at that perfect face
in the mirror beside her own, felt humbled, dull, inadequate;
and then when Polly smiled at her, she felt all her good fortune
at having such a dear, good friend.

‘
Oh Polly,' she cried, 'I'm so glad you're going to be with
me today. I couldn't bear it if you weren't here. And you will
stay with me afterwards, won't you? Not just for the honey
moon, but after that as well?’

Polly didn't answer at once. Since the announcement of the
engagement, Sale had treated her with perfect propriety. His
calm, gentlemanly good manners, and nice blend of friendly
affection, were such as any man might shew towards a girl he had danced with once or twice, and who was his bride-to-be's
cousin. He had treated Minnie, too, as if she had been his own
choice, and Polly was grateful for that, both on Minnie's
behalf, and for herself, since it was essential that no-one
should ever guess that she had thought him fond of her. His
behaviour was so circumspect that she began now to doubt
whether he had ever favoured her, or whether it had all been
her imagination. Easier in many ways to believe it had. She
couldn't now remember the look in his eyes which had made her feel so happy and confused; perhaps it had never existed.

Minnie, waiting anxiously for the answer, could not know
the substance of her cousin's thoughts, and went on, 'It won't
be dull for you, I promise. We'll go to all the balls and parties,
and you'll soon be married too. I expect Lord Harvey has lots
of friends, and if they visit us, they'll all fall in love with you,
and you'll have your pick. I'm sure no-one,' she added inno
cently, 'could be in the same room with you and not fall in
love. So you will stay with me, won't you, Polly?'

‘
Minnie, dear,' Polly began, and her tone so evidently
preceded some kind of negative that Minnie's eyes filled with
tears.

‘
I'm scared, Polly,' she whispered. 'I don't want to be
married without you.'

‘
You won't be,' Polly said quickly, a shade impatiently. 'I'll
be at your wedding, won't I? And I've promised to be your
bride-guest on your honeymoon, haven't I? And I'll stay with
you afterwards for a little while, but you won't want me by
then.'

‘I will!'

‘No you won't, Minnie, believe me. Anyway, we'll see.’

Minnie clutched at that, as she so often had through her
life. Putting things off was always best, in her view. Some
times you never had to cope with them at all. 'Yes, we'll see,'
she said.

At eleven o'clock a ribbon-bedecked carriage deposited
Minnie and her second-cousin Mr Cavendish, who as her
other trustee had the agreeable duty of giving her away, at the door of the Abbey. The bridal party was waiting there,
three bridesmaids in pale primrose jaconet to walk behind the
bride and carry her train, and little Thalia Hampton, Lady
Greyshott's eight-year-old daughter, in pale pink, with a
basket, to walk before the bride and scatter rose-petals in her
path.

Inside, the Abbey was respectably populated, though nowhere near full, with around five hundred guests; an
orchestra was tuning up, ready to augment the organ, half a
dozen trumpeters were preparing to play the fanfares, and the
choir was assembled in full voice for the anthem; and the
archbishop was waiting at the altar, with his attendant
satellites, to conduct the service.

In the front pew, Lucy sat with Major Wiske, Thomas, and
Roland, feeling more than a little bemused. It seemed like
only a few years ago that she had walked down the aisle to her
own wedding: she didn't feel anywhere near old enough to be
marrying off a daughter. Wiske, beside her, rather hoped
Lucy would shew some proper feminine weakness and cry, so
that he could offer her his handkerchief, but he rather
doubted she would oblige him. He also hoped that the example
of Flaminia's wedding would inspire her to agree to marry
him before he went back to the Peninsula. It was becoming
more difficult all the time to control himself when he was
alone with her, and he felt sure she was feeling the same sort
of needs herself. Of course, a gentleman never would lapse,
but it was a strain on the nerves, as well as being, to his view,
rather pointless.

The fanfare echoed brazenly around the fan-vaulted ceiling,
everyone stood up, and nearly everyone turned round to look
as the bridal procession entered the church. Minnie looked
as beautiful as she was ever likely to, in a three-quarter
slit tunic of ivory Mechlin lace over a gown of white satin,
with a long train sewn all over with little silk knots. On her
glossy auburn hair she wore a little satin cap sewn with pearls,
from which hung a froth of gauze veiling; pearls trimmed the
neckline of her gown, and there were pearls at her throat and
in her ears. She carried a white doeskin prayer-book and a
bouquet of orange-blossom and white and yellow roses; and
on this one day, the happiest day — everyone had told her,
and so she believed them — of her life, she walked proudly
with her head up, and heard the murmur as she passed which
told her she was as lovely as every bride had the right to be.

At the altar ahead of her stood Lord Harvey Sale with his
brother beside him as groomsman. As she drew near, Lord
Harvey, too, turned to look, and she saw he was surprised. I
am
beautiful, Minnie thought triumphantly, and gave him a
smile which completed, though she didn't know it, the image
the gown and the day had begun.

Even Lucy, seeing that smile, was almost in need of the
assistance Danby Wiske so longed to give. As Flaminia came
to rest beside him, Sale looked down at her and smiled in
return, and Polly, seeing them together, felt that she had
certainly been mistaken, that he didn't care for her and never
had, and that Flaminia was going to be truly happy with her
new lord.

An hour later Minnie returned the way she came, now
bearing a new name and a diamond-studded gold ring on her
wedding-finger, leaning on the arm of the man who from now
on had absolute power over her person, her body, and her
fortune. The Abbey bells began to ring a long change, and the
carriages were drawn up in order to take the guests back to
Grosvenor Square for the wedding-breakfast. From there, in
four hours time, a post-chaise would convey the happy couple
and the bride-guest to Isleworth Spa, where tonight Minnie
would pass through those mysterious portals of knowledge no-
one had prepared her for, and keep her innocence if she
could.