Chapter 8
ANNABEL SAT AT THE SATINWOOD DESK THE NEXT MORNING IN A summer shift and ballet flats, pen poised to write a note to “Lady Gidding-Wedmore” to accept the impromptu invitation to that night’s ball, when she realized she wouldn’t know what to do with it once she had.
She’d been swept up in the moment, everyone saying their farewells before they climbed into their carriages, and didn’t think to ask.
The details seemed assumed by all. It wouldn’t be hard to go to Bunty, though, who’d have a phone number at least, maybe even “ring her up” on Annabel’s behalf.
It seemed their local Regency Society was happy to have a visiting member, “Mrs. Lackington” aside.
Meanwhile, the instructions from Fanny had been simple enough: Write Mother a note in the morning to let us know whether we can expect you, and if so, she’ll send James around to collect you.
Because Fanny had said it in character, Annabel took it that she should respond the same way.
The house was still and quiet. She imagined Billy was the type to sleep in; Cassie always had been.
Noon, she thought, was a civilized time to get up.
Annabel was the cheerful early riser, which irritated her sister no end.
Today, she wanted to be up and ready for Mr. Patterson from Sotheby’s.
She might even catch a ride into town with him, pop in on Bunty, secure the makings of a good English breakfast, and get back, maybe even before Cassie and Billy were up.
Annabel wrote the note anyway, saying the last of it aloud, to hear how it sounded: “. . . obliged to accept your kind offer of a carriage for this evening’s ball. A. Blake, Kidlington House.”
She looked at it, pleased, when the high-pitched pull of a hedge trimmer shredded the quiet. Annabel looked out to see the gardener back at his battle station, this time fighting the overgrown boxwood.
“How come the English name their houses, anyway?”
Annabel startled to see her sister’s sleepy head pop up over the back of the couch facing the hearth, eye mask pushed up on her head.
“Cassie! Why did you sleep there?”
“Seriously. It’s so pretentious.”
“They name them because a family might live in a house for years and years, generations even . . .”
As usual, the sisters spoke less to each other, than around.
Cassie yawned and stretched. “That bed upstairs, I think it’s from that other century.”
Annabel gestured around, on a roll. “It’s not just walls and windows. It’s a place imbued with a sense of time, history, tradition. A house has personality and gravitas!”
“How come you with the word gene don’t understand a rhetorical question?”
The doorbell buzzed with a jarring jangle through the house. Cassie covered her ears as Annabel padded toward the foyer, slipping the note to “Lady Gidding-Wedmore” into her dress pocket. Cassie wrapped the coverlet she’d brought from upstairs around her shoulders and trailed her younger sister.
Annabel was still making her point. “A house is like a part of them, who they are . . .” She turned just before she reached the door to end with a flourish. “A reflection of everything they believe is beautiful and good!”
“Oh, puh-lease.” Cassie’s eyes fluttered upward; it was too early for a proper eye roll.
Annabel tugged on the door until it opened to a reed-thin, prematurely balding man in a tattersall shirt, navy suit, no tie. (It was Saturday, after all.) He had a look of perpetual surprise, exacerbated by the sight of a scantily clothed young woman.
“Now I get it,” said Cassie. “Kind of like guys name their penises.”
The man blushed magenta and stuttered. “Oh my—”
“I didn’t mean you name yours.” Cassie stepped beside her sister. “I mean, maybe you do.” She looked him over. “But really, what would be the point?”
On cue, Billy was plodding down the stairs in boxers and a T-shirt, hair sticking out in all directions. “Mine’s named Mr. Doofus.”
They all looked at him.
“Don’t ask,” Billy said. “Painful memory.”
The man cleared his throat and offered a calling card. “Mr. P-P-Patterson?” he said. “From Sotheby’s? Seems I’ve come at a bad time.”
Annabel took his card and stuck out her hand. “Not at all. I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Patterson. Don’t mind them. I’m Annabel.”
He shook her hand, looking terribly relieved, his complexion shading back toward pale. “I’ve come to inventory the Hepplewhites, and anything else I ought to have a look at.”
Annabel stepped aside. “Of course. Please, come in.”
Patterson stepped in, trying to avert his eyes from the half-naked members of their party and keep them trained on the house itself.
“Isn’t this a charming old pile.”
Annabel stood next to him and sighed in sympathy. “Isn’t it, though?”
Billy looked at Cassie like are they for real? Cassie nodded.
“I’ve been through the whole downstairs,” Annabel told him. “I used blue sticky notes for the Hepplewhites, purple for anything else that might be valuable—for you to decide—and pink for the things that should definitely stay.” She put a hand on her heart. “Sentimental value.”
“Well, look how organized you are,” said Patterson. “That’ll make my job easier. You know your Hepplewhites, do you?”
Annabel led him to the entrance of the drawing room and gestured with open arms toward the Hepplewhite suite.
“Will you look at that?” said Patterson. “Don’t usually find a suite intact like this.”
“Apparently, the settee had a sister once,” said Annabel.
“Hard to keep sisters together all that time,” he said, walking in and running his hand over the back of one of the chairs. “Wood’s seen better days, but we have a wonderful restorer a few villages down the road.”
Cassie followed them into the room. “Just don’t take the entertainment center.” She opened the armoire to reveal a big-screen TV.
Patterson leaned in. “I don’t believe Hepplewhite made an entertainment center,” he said, honking at his own joke.
Annabel laughed too.
“Funny,” Cassie said with a snort. “You two are a riot.”
Patterson went crimson again. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just have a quick look-see around, do some rough measurements, figure out what sort of vehicle we’ll need.”
“Be my guest,” said Annabel. “I don’t think there’s anything in the bedrooms upstairs, though you’re welcome to look. But these here, a couple of things in the library, the dining room, two doors down—oh my god, a double demilune dining table and complete set of chairs!”
“Splendid,” said Patterson, rubbing his hands together. “Why don’t I start there?” He walked around Billy, giving him a wide berth, and came face-to-face with the tall longcase clock, a pink sticky note on its front.
“Oh. Look at this. A John Wood of Grantham. Brilliant example. I’m guessing late 1790s.”
Annabel joined him. “Apparently, it hasn’t worked for years. Since their clock man passed.”
“Hard to come by a clock man, these days,” said Patterson. “What a shame. The quarter hour chimes are a carillon of eight of the most charming little bells.” He patted his heart. “Pink sticky note. Of course.”
“Get a room, why don’t you two?” Cassie was right behind them.
Patterson turned, desperate to flee. He pulled a tape measure from his pocket and pointed down the hall. “Dining room this way, you said?”
Annabel nodded.
He started off, walking backward, nearly tripping on his own feet. “Once I get the lie of the land I’ll alert my men. Be back this afternoon?”
“Even if we’re not here, I don’t lock it,” said Annabel.
“Toodle-oo,” said Cassie, waving her fingers.
Annabel gave Cassie a look. “Really?” she whispered. “You had to embarrass him like that?”
“Sorry, Annabel, but that guy is definitely the weakest link.”
“He probably read Classics at Oxford!”
“Yeah, bet that’s useful,” said Billy with a guffaw.
Annabel walked back into the drawing room and sat on the settee, running her hand along the fabric worn in places down to the old muslin underneath.
She’d seen museum pieces, reproductions, loads of pictures in books from the library, but never the real thing.
She’d only just arrived, and now they were being taken away. Some part of her missed them already.
When she looked up, Cassie and Billy were staring at her with zero sympathy.
“It’s sad. I mean, they are Hepplewhites.”
Billy looked at Cassie. “Annabel moment?”
“Off the charts.”
Cassie plopped on one of the sagging slipcovered sofas and shrugged off the coverlet. Billy took the other sofa and pulled out his phone.
“Just checking. Any chance of a matcha?” Cassie said to Annabel.
“There’s makings for tea. English Breakfast.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
Annabel stood. “Well, I’m going to town. I guess I could look for matcha.”
“Slay!” said Cassie. “Or maybe a solo grande easy vanilla latte extra foam?”
Billy raised his hand. “Triple espresso no bullshit.”
“Um, I’m not sure there’s an espresso place.”
“Every town has an espresso place,” said Cassie. “Never mind, I’ll go with you. Lemme throw on some clothes.” She started for the foyer. “How far is it?”
“Maybe two miles?”
“So, pretty close,” said Cassie, starting up the stairs.
“About forty minutes,” said Annabel. “Each way.”
Cassie retreated down the stairs. “By car?”
“No, silly. I don’t have a car. On foot.”
“Okay, now I’m panicking. You don’t have a car, and town is a forty-minute walk?”
“If you take the shortcut, out back.”
“Well, how far’s the nearest pub?” asked Billy.
“Same, I think,” said Annabel.
“Man, that is some brutal news this early in the morning.”
Cassie lumbered back and stretched out on the couch, picking up an old copy of British Vogue. “I think I’ll chill here.”
Annabel stepped into the foyer and turned. “I’ll tell Mr. Patterson he can show himself out when he’s done. And come back whenever they need to. Please, Cassie, don’t be mean to him.”
“Fine,” said Cassie.
Annabel tossed her sweater around her shoulders and slipped her handwritten note from her pocket. “Last chance to change your mind about the ball tonight?”
They both looked at her from their posts. Cassie’s glare and Billy’s grimace were answer enough.
“Fine,” said Annabel.
***
At Bunty’s Books & Bobs, Annabel was surprised to see the proprietor herself looking befuddled, turning the note in her hand. A few customers sorted through remainder books, admired the jewelry, perused the postcard rack. Two of them wore matching T-shirts in different pastels: I ?? Jane Austen.
“Lady Gidding-Wedmore?” said Bunty. “I’ve never heard of the woman.”
“I assume it’s her Regency Society name. She certainly seemed like a regular. Like one of the main people.”
“We don’t really have main people.” Bunty handed back Annabel’s note. “It’s all a bit more egalitarian these days. We try, anyway. And go by our own names. It would be so confusing otherwise, don’t you think?”
“Oh,” said Annabel, now perplexed herself.
“You say you met this Gidding-Wedmore woman last night?
“At the ball. I looked for you.”
“But there was no ball last night.”
“At the assembly rooms?” Annabel wondered if Bunty was at that age when the memory starts to go.
“Not the Wakefield Assembly Rooms?”
“I think so.”
“It can’t be.”
“That’s what the invitation said.”
“Invitation?” said Bunty.
“The one you left me. In the desk.”
“I didn’t leave you an invitation.”
“Well, someone did.”
“Hm. All right, then. Let me deal with these lovelies here.” Bunty pointed to the straggling customers. “I’ll put a sign on the door, and we’ll pop down the way. I could use a change of scene.”
***
They didn’t linger long at the front of the old building, not anything like Annabel remembered.
It was disorienting, seeing it so neglected and sad, a shadow of its Regency grandeur.
Bunty took her hand and led her gingerly inside, past scaffolding, a couple of buckets catching water, random chunks of fallen plaster.
When they reached the once-splendid ballroom, Annabel stopped short.
A thick stratum of dust covered every surface.
The tall windows were dingy, the cornices gone, chandelier bagged.
Decades of wax dulled the wood floors. In the place of its beautiful robin’s-egg blue were remnants of various wallpapers, now peeling in layers.
“I head the committee for refurbishment, so as you can see, we’ve a bit of work to do,” said Bunty. “We don’t have our own balls here. Obviously.”
“But I know it was here.” Annabel pointed to the balcony on the right, now leaning perilously to one side. “The musicians’ gallery was there.” She pointed left. “And that’s where we stood to people watch. Fanny and I.”
“Fanny?”
“She was playing the well-to-do, bored-of-it-all daughter of Lady Gidding-Wedmore. She’s the one who said her mother would send a carriage for me tonight, if I got them a note.”
“A carriage?” said Bunty. “That’s quite a fancy thing for any Regency Society. We have the parade once a year, but carriages aren’t generally what’s done. Not by us.”
“The coachman was named James. He had a missing tooth?”
“Actually, I do know a James with a missing tooth!” said Bunty. “But he’s not a member at all. In fact, he’s not James. He’s a George.” Bunty pinched the point of her chin. “Hm. And I don’t know a thing about a ball tonight.”
“For the officers of the regiment?”
“I do begin to wonder if I’ve neglected to pay my dues. They’re quite strict, you know.”
Annabel looked at the note in her hand, confused by the whole affair, when Bunty’s face flickered with an idea.
“Although . . . every Regency town has its own assembly rooms, all quite alike. So we borrow and share. Perhaps you were in Great Gidding, or Blandford—whose rooms are the envy of all Sussex!”
“Maybe,” said Annabel. “It’s true, the town didn’t really look like Wakefield, but the light was dimming, and I couldn’t see well. I guess I just assumed I was here.” Her hand, still gripping the note, dropped heavy at her side.
“I do hate to disappoint,” said Bunty. “But I’m not sure where to point you, at least not by tonight. And our ball is Thursday next. I checked the schedule.”
“It’s okay,” said Annabel. “I’m sure I just got it wrong.”