Frederica in Fashion Read Online Free Page B

Such a young lady should not be left to her own devices, especially since she had shown an alarming tendency to drink too much and become over-familiar with strangers.
    Then he shrugged. Miss Armitage appeared well able, nonetheless, to look after herself. And it was highly unlikely he would ever see her again.
     
    The next day, Frederica Armitage, leaving behind her trunks, except for one small one containing two dresses and two pairs of plain shoes and some underwear, set out from the inn.
    She was wearing a plain grey gown with a black spencer. She had taken the flowers and ribbons off one of her oldest straw bonnets and crushed it into a suitably meek and unmodish shape.
    The weather had turned grey and overcast. Frederica did not ask for directions to Hatton Abbey until she had walked several miles from the inn.
    She was relieved to find that she had only two more miles to walk until she came to the west lodge, for the sky was growing blacker and the wind was rising.
    Her courage was beginning to fail, dropping from her shoulders like a cloak. But the thought of the miles she would have to trudge back to the inn if she changed her mind, and of how she would chastise herself for her lack of spirit, drove her on.
    At last she reached the west lodge. An elderly lodge keeper came out and looked at her suspiciously through the tall iron gates.
    Frederica took a deep breath and dropped him a curtsy.
    ‘I’ve come about a job, sir,’ she said.
    ‘Expecting you, is they?’ demanded the lodge keeper.
    ‘Yes, sir,’ said Frederica meekly.
    ‘Well, come through the little gate at the side. Don’t expect me to open they gurt gates for you.’
    Frederica saw a little gate at the side of the great crested iron ones and let herself through.
    She could feel the eyes of the lodge keeper boring suspiciously into her back as she walked up the drive, her trunk banging against her legs.
    The drive seemed even longer than the walk from the inn. It ran through fields where cattle grazed, then tall, dark woods where deer flitted silently through the trees, and then finally arrived at acres of green lawn which stretched forward to the abbey walls.
    Frederica gulped when she saw Hatton Abbey. Her sisters all had grand country houses, Minerva’s in-laws lived in a huge place, but never had she seen such a formidable place as Hatton Abbey.
    The south front was baroque but the west front was Gothic. Frederica was to discover later that the east was classical and the north, Tudor. But the mixture of architectural styles added to, rather than detracted from, the magnificence of the building.
    The drive was ornamented on both sides with tall marble statues on plinths. The gleaming white gigantic figures formed a strange sort of guard of honour for the small figure of Frederica as she walked between them under the darkening sky, dragging her trunk.
    By the time she had reached the Abbey, she had forgotten that servants do not enter by the main door.
    The door stood open and so she walked into the hall. The hall was a miracle of stone, wood and marble. Paintings, tapestries, carved wood and a painted ceiling made Frederica stare in awe.
    Mr Anderson, the butler, emerged into the hall from the nether regions. He scrutinized the small figure standing beside the battered trunk. Despite the shabby hat and lack of maid, his practised eye was not deceived. He recognized expensive dressmaking when he saw it.
    ‘May I be of assistance, miss?’ he asked.
    Frederica started and looked up into Anderson’s face. He was not fat and ponderous like most butlers, but slim, wiry and sallow.
    ‘I am come to ask if you need a chambermaid, sir,’ said Frederica.
    Anderson’s mouth tightened. ‘Come with me before anyone sees you,’ he scolded. ‘Walking in the front door as bold as brass and wearing fine clothes. No better than you should be, probably. We’ll see what Mrs Bradley has to say to this.’
    Frederica decided she could not go through withit.