The Husband Hunters

Chapter One 1816-2

“That is true,” Sharon agreed, “and the most important thing, far more important than anything else, is for us to get into Almack’s!”

“What is Almack’s?” Cheryl asked.

Both sisters looked at Sharon who, although she was only just over seventeen, always had more knowledge of the fashionable world than either of them.

“Almack’s,” she replied, “is the most exclusive and the most important supper and dancing Club in the whole of London.”

“Tell us about it,” Cheryl begged.

“I have read all about it,” Sharon answered, “and it is ruled by a group of patronesses such as Lady Jersey, Lady Castlereagh, Lady Cowper, the Princess de Lieven and several others.”

She paused to look at her two sisters and added dramatically,

“If one does not get on the list and receive a voucher-invitation issued by one of the patronesses, then you cannot visit Almack’s and you are a complete social outcast!”

“It sounds very snobby!” Andrina remarked.

“That is what they want it to be,” Sharon answered.

She rose from the table.

“I will read you a poem, I found it in one of the magazines last year. I know where it is.”

She ran from the room and Andrina looked at Cheryl.

She looked exquisitely beautiful in the spring sunshine coming through the window, which had just touched her hair and turned it into living gold.

Andrina bent forward, a smile on her lips, to say,

“You cannot stay here, Cheryl, dearest, meeting no one and seeing no one but Hugo Renton.”

“But I like Hugo,” Cheryl protested.

“He is a very nice young man,” Andrina agreed, “but you know as well as I do that he has no money of his own and his father would put every obstacle in the way of your marrying him. Besides, Hugo is of little importance except here in Cheshire and there are all sorts of exciting young men waiting for you in London.”

“Perhaps they will frighten me,” Cheryl suggested.

“They will admire you!” Andrina said firmly.

She looked a little apprehensively at her sister as she spoke.

Cheryl was easily frightened by people and on any social occasion Andrina was always very careful to keep beside her and prevent her from being upset.

Cheryl was extremely sensitive and if one of the local Dowagers was rather brusque she would feel that she was being snubbed and would want to creep away from the party unnoticed.

“You are going to be a success in London,” Andrina said now, “a big success, Cheryl! You will be the belle of every ball, feted and acclaimed! Every man you meet will want to lay his heart, his name and his fortune at your feet!”

Cheryl did not answer, she merely looked rather anxious and Andrina was glad when Sharon returned with a copy of The Ladies’ Magazine in her hand.

She threw herself down in her seat at the table.

“Listen to this,” she said. “It is written by Henry Luttrell,

“All on that magic LIST depends,

Fame, fortune, fashion, lovers, friends,

’Tis that which gratifies or vexes

All ranks, all ages, and both sexes.

If once to Almack’s you belong,

Like monarchs, you can do no wrong,

But banished thence on Wednesday night,

By Jove, you can do nothing right.”

There was silence for a moment after she had finished.

“Supposing we are banished?” Cheryl asked in a trembling voice.

“We will not be,” Andrina replied positively. “If the Duke of Broxbourne cannot get us invited to Almack’s who can?”

“I hope you are right,” Sharon said, “but, as I have already said, it depends entirely on the patronesses and whatever the Duke does or does not do, we will have to have a chaperone.”

“I have thought of that,” Andrina replied. “That is something else the Duke will have to provide for us.”

“Will we have to pay her?” Sharon asked.

Andrina was still for a moment.

“I hope not,” she said at length. “That is something I did not take into consideration.”

“But there should be enough money when we have sold the necklace. Where is it?”

“It is in Mama’s bedroom where I looked at it last night,” Andrina answered. “I knew where she had hidden it and I left it there after she died just in case Papa should take it into his head to lay his hands on it.”

She met Sharon’s eyes, but neither of them said anything.

They both knew that their father in the last years of his life had been increasingly querulous and resentful of the poverty that prevented his enjoying many of the luxuries that he began to crave.

He wanted food such as could not be bought in their small village and anyhow if they had shopped in Chester it would have been much too expensive.

He demanded the best wine and the only port and claret he considered worth drinking were well beyond their means.

Andrina pandered to him, coaxed him and performed miracles with what little money she had to spend on the housekeeping.

It meant that she and her sisters went without new gowns or made their own out of the cheapest materials and could seldom afford even pretty ribbons with which to trim what they had made.

It meant too that they had to take turns in riding the only horse they could now keep in the stable.

It was an animal that also had to pull the carriage if their father wished to go driving, or the gig, which was more convenient for them to use themselves.

The garden was sadly neglected and they were fortunate in having old Sarah, who had been with them since their childhood, to cook and do the rough work in the house.

The rest they shared amongst themselves.

Now it seemed to Andrina as if the gloom of those last years of her father’s life was moving away from the house like a dark cloud that had encompassed them for far too long.

Even now she would sometimes wake in the night thinking that she heard her father’s hoarse voice calling her, demanding things she could not provide and finding fault with everything she did or tried to do for him.

“There is only one thing,” Sharon said suddenly as they went up the stairs towards their mother’s bedroom.

“What is that?” Andrina asked.

“Do you not think people in London will expect us to be in mourning? We have not been wearing black because we could not afford new clothes and who is to see us living here except a few neighbours who understood our circumstances? But in London – ?”

“I have thought of that,” Andrina answered. “Who is to know in London when Papa died? If anyone asks us, we will say that he died a year ago and you know he would be the last person to expect us to walk about looking like black crows!”

“It is not so much a matter of what we look like,” Sharon said. “But if we were to go to balls wearing mourning, people would think it very reprehensible.”

“Then they must not know that we are in mourning,” Andrina said. “It’s as easy as that and, Cheryl, do remember what I told you. Papa died last February, not this.”

“I will remember,” Cheryl promised, but Andrina knew that she would have to remind her not once but a dozen times.

It was always difficult to know what Cheryl was thinking about. She was so quiet, sweet and amenable and she seemed to live in a fantasy world of her own that had little or no contact with everyday life.

She looked so lovely that it was hard for people, once they had met her, to realise that she made little contribution to the conversation or that nothing she said, if she did speak, was worth remembering.

Now, as she moved across the bedroom at the front of the house, which had been their mother’s, she looked like an angel who had dropped out of Heaven by mistake.

Andrina took a chair and standing on it put up her hand to the top of the wardrobe.

“So that is where Mama hid the necklace!” Sharon exclaimed.

“It was quite safe there,” Andrina answered. “Papa was not well enough during the last years of his life to climb up on a chair and Sarah is too old to dust so high.”

She lifted down a leather box as she spoke and taking it to the window opened it so that the sunshine would glitter and shimmer on a necklace that was Indian in design.

The filigree gold was very intricate and it was set with small rubies and a number of pearls, which ornamented it like a fringe and in the centre of the necklace there was a large emerald flanked by two smaller ones.

“It’s very pretty,” Sharon said, “but somewhat barbaric-looking!”

“That is why Mama never wore it,” Andrina replied. “Papa brought it back with him from India where he had served under General Wellesley, who later became the Duke of Wellington.”

She looked at the necklace and smiled.

“It was so like Papa to bring home something that was really quite useless. Mama told me once that she tried it with all sorts of gowns, but it looked out of place and she did not like to offend Papa by saying so.”

“Papa liked everything that was exotic,” Sharon said and her voice did not make it sound very complimentary.

“I think really he liked things that were spectacular and unusual,” Andrina explained. “That is what he wanted to be himself and it was very frustrating for him to have no money and to have to settle down here.”

“Why did it have to be Cheshire?” Cheryl asked.

Andrina smiled.

“You must know the answer to that, Cheryl, you have heard it often enough. Papa had won this house on the turn of a card and when he gambled away his fortune, this was the only possession he had left.”

“I had forgotten,” Cheryl replied indifferently.

“But we have been happy here,” Andrina said in a voice that made it sound as if she was trying to convince herself. “We have all been together and it is only the last few years after Mama died that things have been so different.”

“Because of Papa!” Sharon remarked. “I cannot pretend that I am not glad it is over.”

“Nor can I,” Andrina agreed, “but I feel rather guilty. We ought to be mourning him and feeling unhappy.”

“There is no point in pretending to each other,” Sharon said briskly.

Andrina closed the lid of the jewel box.

“Now are we agreed that I should go to London immediately, find the Duke and see what arrangement I can make with him?”

“Of course,” Sharon agreed, “but can we not come with you?”

“I did think at first that we should all go together,” Andrina answered. “Then I realised that would cost a great deal of money and we simply cannot afford it, at least not at the moment when we still owe for Papa’s funeral.”

“No, I understand,” Sharon sighed.

“I suppose I could sit outside the coach,” Andrina said doubtfully, “which only costs threepence a mile instead of fivepence. But it would be very cold and, if I arrived red-nosed and snuffling, the Duke might take a dislike to me.”

“Oh, of course, you must sit inside,” Sharon cried. “And I believe you are expected to tip the coachman a shilling and the guard, if he is going the whole way, will want half a crown!”

“It’s not going to be cheap,” Andrina said with a little sigh, “and I think we may have to sell something out of the house, although I don’t wish to do that until we absolutely are obliged to do so.”

“Hugo said the other day,” Cheryl interrupted unexpectedly, “that his father would like to buy the picture of the horse in Papa’s study.”

“Cheryl! You have not been telling Hugo how hard up we are?” Andrina asked sharply.

Cheryl looked guilty and then her blue eyes filled with tears.

“Of course it does not matter what you say to Hugo,” Andrina said quickly before her sister could reply. “He naturally knows of our circumstances, just as I am sure everyone in the neighbourhood realises that we are penniless.”

She did not speak bitterly, she merely stated a fact.

“Was it wrong of me, Andrina?” Cheryl asked.

“No, of course not, dearest!” Andrina said putting an arm around her shoulders.

“You are not angry?” Cheryl enquired.

“I am never angry with you!”

Andrina kissed her sister and then to change the subject she said,

“Come and help me pack, girls. There is a stagecoach passing through the village tomorrow that goes direct from Chester to London in twenty-eight hours. The sooner I see the Duke the better!”

“You are very brave!” Cheryl said admiringly. “I am glad you don’t want me to go with you.”

“Supposing he says ‘no’?” Sharon asked.

‘Then I shall have to think of another plan,” Andrina answered firmly.

Her soft mouth was for the moment set in a hard line. She was more determined than she had ever been about anything in her whole life that Cheryl and Sharon should have a chance to shine in London.