Henrietta Read Free

victuals tactfully on a small table but Miss Mattie’s quick eyes had caught the action and filled with grateful tears. “So good of your dear brother,” she said in a choked voice.
    “Fustian!” said Henrietta sharply. “You know he would not even give you a piece of bread. I stole these from the kitchens.”
    Only in front of her elderly friend did Henrietta put off her carefully cultivated social mask. Miss Mattie gave a delighted gasp and covered her mouth with her long, bony freckled fingers.
    A lifetime of genteel poverty had not dimmed Miss Mattie’s spirit for adventure. A thin angular female of sixty-two with thick grey hair in neat bunches of ringlets under a modest cap, she had never given up hoping that something exciting would happen to change her drab life. She was an avid reader of novels and Henrietta thought that her friend lived more between the pages of her favorite romances than in the real world.
    When they were both seated in front of the fire, Mattie leaned forward and grasped Henrietta’s hand. “Now tell me all about your going to the Beldings’ ball. What are you going to wear? Do you think you are going to fall in love? I can see it all. He will cover your face with impassioned kisses and…”
    “And throw me across his saddle-bow,” grinned Henrietta. “And of course Miss Alice Belding will be so madly jealous that she will…”
    “Take poison and in a fit of remorse for all the bad things she has said to you, will leave you all her money in her will and…” cried Mattie.
    “And,” interrupted Henrietta, “we will both go to London for the Season where we will dazzle all the gentlemen with our unique beauty and…”
    “I shall marry an Earl and you a Duke,” finished Mattie triumphantly.
    Both burst out laughing. Then Henrietta shook her head. “You know what it will be like, Mattie. I shall sit in the corner with the chaperones and occasionally be singled out by Alice who will deign to drop a few crumbs of gossip to me from her lofty height.”
    “What will you be wearing?” asked Mattie.
    “Oh, I shall be very fine,” said Henrietta. “Henry has spared no expense on this occasion. Alice made a derisory remark about my dowdy gowns in his hearing. It was only meant to hurt me, of course, but it made Henry determined to dress me as richly as possible…if only for the ball. I turn back to a pumpkin when the dance is over. What am I wearing? Rose silk, my dear, cut dangerously low on the bosom but vastly pretty for all that I shall at least
feel
pretty.”
    Miss Mattie hesitated and then said timidly, “I have noticed that when you are animated and your eyes sparkle…why I think you look very well indeed.”
    Henrietta blinked in surprise. She was not accustomed to compliments even from her old friend. “Why, thank you, Mattie. I shall endeavour to sparkle to the best of my ability. Oh, I had almost forgot. A splendid piece of news. No less a personage than Beau Reckford is to attend. The Beldings are all a-flutter and hope for a match between Miss Alice and the Beau.”
    “Who on earth is Beau Reckford? Is he a dandy?” asked Miss Mattie.
    Henrietta laughed. “No. He is a Corinthian and a very Top of the Trees. He is an expert swordsman and pugilist and drives to an inch. He has broken more hearts than we have had hot dinners and is said to be prodigious handsome.”
    Miss Mattie’s eyes misted over with emotion. “He sounds like the very man for
you
, my dear Henrietta.”
    “Stuff!” retorted Henrietta. “He will not even notice me with Alice Belding around.”
    “She
is
terribly pretty,” sighed Miss Mattie. “And the gentlemen never seem to notice what she is like underneath… spoiled and cruel. Surely she is too young, though. She is only eighteen and does not make her come-out till next Season.”
    “
That
will not stop my lord and lady or their daughter,” said Henrietta. “The paragon is very rich as well.”
    “How did you find out so much