Annabelle Read Online Free PDF

a hurly-burly fashion…,” began Annabelle.
    Lady Emmeline surveyed the flushed and angry girl, and her eyes narrowed. “I should have thought that a girl reared in a rectory would have a better sense of duty,” she said. “I have gone to considerable expense to furnish you with an attractive wardrobe and to affiance you to one of the most dashing men in London, and you repay me by
sulking
like the veriest child!”
    “Indeed, I am t-truly s-sorry, Godmother,” stammered Annabelle, near to tears. She was still too young to realise that doing one’s duty did not necessarily mean obeying every single dictate made by a more senior adult.
    “There, there, we will say no more about it. Now I note you are wearing one of your old gowns. This will not do
at all
. I told Madame Croke to supply me with the
dashingest
wardrobe for you, and although I have not examined it myself, I am sure it would be a vast improvement on what you are wearing.”
    Annabelle meekly said, “Yes, Godmother,” while her mind worked furiously. If her godmother had not seen the wardrobe, then it might be possible to make some discreet alterations. Annabelle was an excellent needlewoman.
    “Oh, and while I remember,” went on Lady Emmeline,‘it would be better if you called me ‘Emmeline.’ ‘Godmother’ is
so
aging. We are almost the same age after all.” And with that stunning remark Lady Emmeline took herself from the room.
    D ESPITE Annabelle’s fears the Captain did not seem to think it necessary to call on her during the day. She found an opportunity to ask Horley early in the afternoon which of her gowns she would be wearing to the Egremonts’ ball. The dress, when produced, looked deceptively simple. Of heavy white satin, it was high-waisted in the current mode and trimmed with tiny seed pearls and gold thread. Annabelle dismissed Horley and tried it on as soon as the lady’s maid’s footsteps had faded down the corridor. As she had suspected, the bosom was again too low, the combination of virginal white and sophisticated cut making her appear shockingly
fast
. Madame Croke, the dressmaker, must indeed be a kind of depraved genius, thought Annabelle grimly, little realising that that was probably the first hard and uncharitable thought about anyone that had ever entered her young brain.
    She pulled open the drawers, looking for some material. Her new undergarments frothed and foamed with white lace. Annabelle surveyed them for a few minutes and then carefully began to unpick some exquisite white lace from the leg of a pair of drawers. Then sitting beside the window to catch the best light, she began to stitch the lace into the bosom of her ball gown with nimble and expert fingers.
    When Annabelle entered the drawing room that night, Lady Emmeline was fortunately too excited to notice that her young guest’s ball gown was strangely demure in style for one of Madame Croke’s creations.
    “Only look, my dear,” she cried, holding out a pieceof paper. “It is prodigious exciting. I have an unknown admirer.”
    The paper contained a few short unsigned lines.
    Please accept these flowers,
They come from one who loves you,
Be seated in Diana’s bower,
Until he comes.
    “‘Diana’s bower,’” read Annabelle. “It doesn’t make much sense.”
    “Oh, but it does,” giggled Lady Emmeline. “There is to be a classical theme in the decoration of the Egremonts’ ball. Gods and goddesses, you know. Ah! Diana—chaste and fair.” She pirouetted round the room in a girlish debutante dress of filmy white muslin embroidered with rosebuds which revealed all the charms of a black corset and little else underneath.
    “And look at the flowers—lilies, I declare.”
    Annabelle felt horribly embarrassed. Someone must be playing an unkind joke. But then she did not yet know London society. Perhaps elderly matrons with brassy curls were all the crack.
    Captain MacDonald was announced, and Lady Emmeline delivered herself of a lame excuse