Never Laugh at Love Read online

  When Maria showed a dress and coat of cream satin with appliqué work of green velvet leaves, she said,

  “I have worn that ensemble twice at Carlton House and the Prince Regent admired it enormously, so he will not wish to mention it another time!”

  There were ball gowns and complete toilettes for the afternoon, for the morning and for travelling.

  There were high crowned bonnets to go with them festooned with feathers, flowers and ribbons.

  There were reticules to match the gowns and slippers dyed to the same colour, which fortunately fitted Anthea, being only just a trifle larger than her own.

  She lost count of how many different garments Maria brought from the wardrobes and from another room and yet there still seemed to be a multitude left.

  All the clothes she was given, Anthea realised, were in the hues that suited the Countess best – greens to match her eyes, jonquil yellow and gold to bring out the lights of her hair, deep blue to accentuate the white of her skin.

  There were also a number of white gowns that, as her Godmother pointed out, were extremely suitable for a debutante.

  Anthea was too overwhelmed to realise that very many of the gowns she was given were really too sophisticated and too elaborate for a young girl.

  But even when she thought later that some of them were a trifle overwhelming, they were certainly preferable to the plain muslins she had made herself.

  Muslin, she learnt from Maria, was a material that had gone out of fashion since the war ended.

  Some of the coats were trimmed with bands of expensive furs like ermine and sable. But when Anthea suggested humbly that she should cut them off, the Countess held up her hands in horror.

  “You must not alter the style, child!” she cried. “Besides, what would I do with the strips of ermine or the lengths of sable except throw them in the waste-paper basket!”

  Anthea shuddered at such extravagance.

  Yet while occasionally she protested that her Godmother was giving her too much, she could not help realising that she now had enough clothes not only to dress herself but also Thais and Chloe.

  “How can I ever thank you?” she asked.

  But she understood perfectly what her Godmother meant when she replied,

  “You can thank me, Anthea, by being my loyal friend, as your mother was when we were young together.”

  “I should be honoured,” Anthea managed to declare politely.

  At the same time she could not help wishing that the Countess had not supposed that her silence must be bought.

  *

  In the days that followed Anthea found that her Godmother had arranged in an extremely efficient manner that she was seldom in Sheldon House.

  There were several ladies, two of whom were related to the Earl, who were introducing their own daughters to Society.

  They had apparently been coerced into including Anthea in the parties, the expeditions and the balls to which they took their own progeny.

  It was after a week of being passed from hand to hand and of associating with girls of her own age that Anthea decided that she much preferred the fascinating Social figures who made up her Godmother’s particular circle.

  She went with the Countess to a dinner party, which was very like the one that had taken place on the night of her arrival.

  Now that she had found her feet and was not so bewildered, Anthea found the conversation exciting, witty and informative.

  It was very unlike the inanities and incessant giggling that she had to endure from the other debutantes.

  What was more, she found it a delight to look at the gentlemen in her Godmother’s parties and the beardless youths who partnered the young were, she found, so half-witted that she had to force herself to be polite to them.

  Fortunately, even though she dined with her young acquaintances, they afterwards attended the balls given by the great political or Social hostesses.

  There Anthea invariably found the Marquis of Chale.

  “I have something amusing to tell you, Miss Forthingdale,” he would say as soon as she appeared.

  At the first opportunity she would sit beside him, listening to his anecdotes and to his often spiteful but invariably amusing tales about the people in the ballroom.

  “I cannot think why you waste your time with that old gossip,” one of the Dowagers who was chaperoning Anthea said to her.

  She would not have understood if Anthea had replied that it was the Marquis’s conversation which made her letters to Yorkshire sparkle as brightly as the diamonds round her Godmother’s neck.

  As the Countess rose late and Anthea, however late she went to bed, could not get out of her country habit of waking early, a day seldom passed without a fat envelope being placed on the hall table for the butler to frank.

  Determined that her sisters should feel that they were a part of her own experiences, Anthea not only described all that she saw, she also drew sketches of the people she met.

  She of course made no mention of the Duke’s special place in her Godmother’s life, but she related that she had met him and drew a picture of him looking extremely disdainful and very autocratic.

  She could not help feeling shy and tense when they met, even though he behaved towards her with the same polite indifference he had shown the night of her arrival.

  She told herself that he had probably never given another thought to her stupidity in not understanding why he had called at Sheldon House in the middle of the night.

  But even to think of how obtuse and foolish she had been was to bring the colour to her cheeks and to increase her dislike of the Duke for having inadvertently placed her in such a humiliating position.

  She learnt that he was much younger than her Godmother and in fact had only just passed his twenty-eighth birthday.

  But this, she felt, did not excuse the fact that he was behaving extremely reprehensibly in pursuing another man’s wife and actually making love to her in her husband’s house.

  There was, however, no doubt that, as the elderly Marquis had said, the Countess was a ‘devilishly pretty woman’.

  Anthea watched her enticing manner as she looked at the Duke from under her long mascaraed eyelashes and the way in which she touched him with her soft white hands whilst smiling provocatively with her pouting red lips.

  She was not surprised that he could not resist such blandishments and learnt in other houses that her Godmother had in fact succeeded in capturing a citadel, which had resisted many other attacks upon it.

  “I always thought that Axminster would marry the Duke of Brockenhurst’s daughter,” one dowager remarked to another in Anthea’s hearing.

  “So did the Duchess!” the other replied. “But he was far too wily. They have all tried to catch him, but he confines himself to women who are already married.”

  “He never leaves Delphine Sheldon’s side,” the first Dowager commented tartly.

  “Are you surprised?” was the reply. “She is certainly good-looking, and she might as well make the most of what is left of her youth.”

  “You are too charitable, my love! Personally it would give me a great deal of pleasure to see His Grace marched down the aisle by some determined young female. He has been a disturbing influence in the Social world for far too long!”

  “All handsome, wealthy Dukes are that!” her friend laughed. “It will have to be a very early bird who finally catches Axminster!”

  Because the Duke was constantly in her mind, Anthea knew without even seeing him that he was always in Sheldon House.

  She longed to discuss him with the Marquis, but she realised that would be disloyal to her Godmother and with difficulty she contained her curiosity.

  The two new gowns, which the Countess had ordered for her in Bond Street, were pink and therefore very becoming to Anthea’s dark hair.

  She wore them for all really important parties and the more elaborate of them to Carlton House when she was presented to the Prince Regent.


  When she rose from a deep curtsey he informed her with the charm for which he was renowned that she was ‘pretty, very pretty indeed,’ but added that he doubted if she would ever eclipse her cousin, Delphine.

  “I would not presume to attempt such a thing, Sire,” Anthea replied.

  She found to her surprise that she was not at all nervous and that in fact the Prince Regent was not half so awe-inspiring in person as he appeared in his pictures and caricatures.

  “All women want attention,” he answered, “and they all wish to compete with their own sex.”

  “Only in an effort to capture the attention of gentlemen, who are exceedingly fastidious and critical, like yourself, Sire,” Anthea answered.

  The Prince Regent chuckled in delight at what she had been half-afraid he would think impertinence.

  But he had taken it as a compliment and later in the evening he singled Anthea out to show her a new picture he had recently acquired.

  “You were a success with His Royal Highness,” the Countess said when they were driving home. “It is a pity it was the last party he will give. He is leaving London for Brighton next Friday.”

  “Does that mean it is the end of the Season?” Anthea asked.

  “I am afraid so,” the Countess replied with a note of regret in her voice.

  “Then I – shall have to – go home.”

  “There is no hurry, my dear.”

  But three days later a letter from the Earl made it clear to his wife that he was aware of the Prince Regent’s plans and that it was time for her to join him to the country.

  “Nothing can save us now,” the Countess said miserably to the Duke.

  *

  Anthea descended from the stagecoach at the crossroads to find Thais and Chloe waiting for her with Dobbin.

  As she walked towards them, whilst the guard on the stagecoach began to unload half-a-dozen large leather trunks, they stared at her too astonished for the moment to say anything.

  “I am home!” Anthea cried, “and oh, how thrilled I am to see you!”

  Her voice was the same, there was still the same sparkle in her eyes, the same dimples in her cheeks, but otherwise it was hard to recognise the Anthea who had gone away from them.

  This was someone they had never seen before, in an emerald green travelling gown and coat to match with a high-brimmed bonnet trimmed with emerald green ostrich feathers.

  “Anthea! Can it really be you?” Chloe exclaimed.

  “I have never seen anything so smart, so absolutely breath-taking!” Thais cried.

  The guard from the stagecoach set the trunks down on the roadside, then accepting the tip Anthea handed him, touched his high hat respectfully and climbed back onto the box.

  The stagecoach rumbled off and Chloe climbed from the carriage to ask excitedly,

  “What is in those trunks? What have you brought, Anthea?”

  “Clothes,” Anthea answered. “Gowns, all like the one I am wearing! There are dozens of them – dozens and dozens!”

  “I cannot believe it!" Thais cried. “How can you have got them? Where did they come from?”

  “Godmama gave them to me,” Anthea explained. “But I have something far more important to tell you than that!”

  “What is it?” Thais asked.

  “We are rich!”

  “Rich?”

  The girls gasped and Anthea said,

  “I cannot wait to tell you everything! But first let’s find someone to help us with these trunks. I dare not try to lift them myself or I shall split the sleeves of my gown.”

  “No, no! Don’t touch them!” Thais said quickly.

  Several small boys were summoned and for two pennies lifted the trunks onto the carriage.

  Thais turned Dobbin’s head homeward and they set off moving slowly because it was quite a load for the old horse.

  “What do you mean – you are rich?” Chloe asked.

  “I have discovered how to make money,” Anthea replied. “Oh, girls, it’s so exciting] I have so much to tell you that I felt as if I should never get here. Even her Ladyship’s carriage in which she sent me to Eaton Socon seemed to crawl, though it was drawn by four horses. Think of that!”

  “Tell us about the money,” Chloe pleaded. “Have you won a lottery or been gambling? I cannot think – ”

  She stopped suddenly and said with a different note in her voice,

  “You don’t mean you are engaged to be married, Anthea?”

  “No, no, of course not!” Anthea said. “It is something much more exciting!”

  “How could it be?” Thais asked.

  “It is,” Anthea answered, “because I can make money myself – and what is more, I can make as much as I want, as much as we need!”

  “But how? How?” Thais screamed.

  “By selling my sketches!”

  It took Anthea some time to explain what had happened only a week before she was due to return home.

  It was after her visit to Carlton House that she realised that while she had greatly enjoyed her time in London and it had been an experience that she felt had in some ways changed her outlook on life, she had not achieved what she had set out to do.

  She had not found herself a husband!

  Many of her partners had paid her compliments and several had flirted with her in a manner that made her think their intentions might be serious.

  But she had not received a single offer of marriage.

  There was no doubt that after she was dressed in the latest fashion and, on her Godmother’s insistence, Maria had added a touch of cosmetics to the clearness of her skin, she received quite a lot of attention.

  She was never without partners at any of the balls and two gentlemen went so far as to try to kiss her in the garden between dances.

  But while they declared that their hearts were irretrievably lost, she learnt from her friend, the Marquis of Chale, that both would be obliged to marry wealthy wives if their estates were to remain intact.

  “The men who are wealthy enough to choose a wife without any other assets than a pretty face are few and far between,” the Marquis informed her.

  Anthea was well aware that he was warning her not to be too cast down at not receiving an offer.

  “Besides most of them, like Axminster,” he went on, “have a very inflated idea of their own importance.”

  Anthea could not help feeling dispirited when she realised that, when the Season was over, her hour of glory would be over too.

  She must return to Yorkshire, go back to scrimping and saving for the family, making one penny do the work of two, looking forward to nothing more thrilling than the local Hunt Ball in December.

  Then fate took an interest in her predicament.

  She was waiting for her Godmother the next morning and as usual the Countess was late.

  She had a habit, Anthea discovered, of getting completely dressed in one expensive and fascinating ensemble, then deciding she would wear something quite different and changing everything from her bonnet down to her slippers.

  The carriage was outside the door and Anthea had waited for over twenty minutes in the hall, when feeling restless, she entered a room she had not seen since she had arrived at Sheldon House.

  It was, she knew, the Earl’s special sanctum and it made her think of her father because she was certain it was the sort of room he would have liked – if he could have afforded it.

  There was a deep comfortable leather sofa and armchairs to match, a huge writing desk, and against one wall there stood a large Chippendale bookcase with dozens of beautifully bound books behind the glass.

  Anthea moved towards them, feeling she had been somewhat remiss in not discovering them before.

  Then, on the other walls of the room, she noticed a number of framed caricatures and cartoons, which she saw had been done by the famous satirical artists, James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson.

  She had heard these often referred to in conversation and she had learnt that eve
ryone found most amusing those that had been published recently by a third cartoonist called George Cruikshank.

  She stood staring at the drawings, seeing that they were extremely clever and that she could easily recognise the better known figures in them.

  There was no mistaking the Prince Regent and the ample proportions of Lady Hertford.

  There were a large number of wartime cartoons depicting Napoleon in various guises. In one by James Gillray, he was shown as Belshazzar, seeing the writing on the wall.

  They fascinated Anthea and she went from picture to picture.

  She was just feeling disappointed because there were no more to see, when she found a portfolio lying on a table and realised it contained dozens of unframed sketches.

  The one on the top was a sarcastic reference to the payment of £35,000 for the Elgin marbles when John Bull and his numerous family required bread.

  ‘This is brilliant! Really brilliant!’ Anthea said to herself and turning over the cartoons found herself laughing first at one, then at another.

  Quite suddenly she realised that some of them were not unlike the sketches she herself had drawn for the girls!

  ʽI am sure,’ she thought, ʽI can learn a great deal from studying Gillray, Rowlandson and Cruikshank.’

  Rowlandson, she could see, used a reed pen to lay washes of brilliant colour. His crowds, his absurd men, his plump women showing their legs, were slightly coarse. At the same time Anthea thought that there was a rollicking zest about his cartoons that made them very funny.

  She heard her Godmother calling her and hurried into the hall to find the Countess descending the staircase looking quite dazzling in a daffodil-coloured gown, her long white neck encircled with topazes and with feathers to match in her enormous bonnet.

  “What are you doing in his Lordship’s room?” she asked.

  “I hope it was not wrong of me, Cousin Delphine, but I was looking at the cartoons,” Anthea replied.

  “Oh, the Earl collects them all! Personally I find them very tiresome and so exaggerated that it is difficult to recognise anybody.”

  Anthea knew that this was untrue.