Deirdre and Desire (15 page)

The vicar stood, puffing and panting, his eyes starting from his head, his hand on his heart.

Deirdre walked past him and quietly closed the door of the library behind her.

Squire Radford was a very unhappy and lonely man. The long days had passed without gossip or bustle or incident. He had a bad conscience. He had accused his friend, the vicar,
of having no faith to lose, and, furthermore, he had insulted his personal appearance.

The sad fact was that life without even a puffed-up posturing vicar was deadly dull. Assailed with nervous boredom for almost the first time in his life and plagued with many of the irritating
little pains and stiffnesses of old age, the squire began gloomily to wonder how much longer he could be expected to live. One thing was sure. He must make his peace with his old friend.

But the vicar was in London. The squire had been invited to the wedding, but all of a sudden, he decided he could not wait until then to present his humble apologies to Charles Armitage. He
would leave for Town that very afternoon and seek him out.

The gates at the end of his drive creaked loudly on their hinges. He stood up and went to the window.

Muffled up against the cold in a many-taped greatcoat, the Reverend Charles Armitage was riding slowly up the drive.

Excitedly, the squire rang the bell and told his servant the vicar was to be ushered into the library immediately and one of the best bottles of port brought up from the cellar.

Then he scuttled quickly to answer the door himself. The stable boy was leading the vicar’s horse away towards the back of the house.

The vicar stood on the doorstep, his shovel hat in his hand. He raised a pair of eyes swimming with tears to the squire’s face, and blurted out, ‘I need your help, Jimmy. I’m
in sore pain.’

‘Come in, Charles!’ cried the squire, much alarmed.

He tugged his friend’s heavy cloak from his shoulders, and with urgent murmurs of comfort and little pushes in the back propelled the vicar into his old seat in front of the fire.

The squire sat down opposite and leaned forward.

‘I have missed you, Charles,’ he said. ‘But I have only myself to blame. I cannot forgive myself for my harsh words to you.’

‘Oh,
don’t
!’ wailed the vicar, completely overset. He knuckled his eyes with his chubby hands and cried and cried. Finally, he took out a huge, red, belcher handkerchief
and blew his nose with a sound like the last trump and then mopped his streaming eyes.

‘Tsk! Tsk!’ said the poor squire, now thoroughly alarmed, despite the comforting glow that was spreading through his old frame. Charles was in trouble and had come to him for advice
as he had come so many times before.

‘We have had our troubles in the past, Charles,’ said the squire earnestly, ‘and together we have managed to solve all problems.’

‘Ah, Ram. Leave the bottle and glasses on the little table and place it between us and then leave us. Now, Charles. Drink a glass of this and tell me your troubles.’

The vicar hiccuped dismally, but nonetheless managed to toss back a full glass of port without pausing for breath. His face lightened and he promptly helped himself to another.

‘I’m that ashamed,’ he said, his face puckering up like that of a hurt baby. ‘“Woe, woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a
cart rope.” Isaiah, Chapter Four, Verse 18.’

‘Dear me!’ exclaimed the squire, becoming more alarmed by the minute.

‘Yes,’ said the vicar, heaving a gusty sigh. ‘Vanity. That was my downfall.’

The squire noticed that the vicar’s face was free of paint and that his ample figure was no longer confined by a corset.

‘Now my own daughter spits in my eye. I have nourished a viper in my bosom!’ moaned the vicar, putting out a feeble hand for the bottle of port and helping himself to yet another
glass.

‘Deirdre?’ asked the squire.

‘Yes, her,’ said the vicar. ‘Not my fault. Told me she wanted to marry Desire.
I
didn’t force her into it. But she says she’s marrying him because all men
are the same and I’m the most disgusting of the lot. She . . . she called me “a selfish, painted, posturing boor”. And, oh, it’s true. After she said that I went upstairs
and looked at myself in the long glass. The scales were dropped from mine eyes and I saw this awful little painted caper-merchant staring back at me.’

‘Now, now,’ said the squire soothingly. ‘You see the problem is that when you are yourself, Charles, and attired in your usual country good taste, why, you look a very fine
figure of a man. With your paint and . . . er . . . other embellishments, it was like meeting a stranger, and very upsetting it was, too. Only remember how cruel I was to you? It was very harsh and
impudent of Deirdre to say such things, but I am sure they were prompted by love . . . as my remarks were.’

‘Aye, you’re right,’ said the vicar. ‘But Deirdre is dreadfully unhappy about something. She’s not the same girl, not by a long chalk.’

‘I accused you quite wrongly of lack of faith,’ said the squire tentatively. ‘Have you thought of placing your daughter in God’s hands?’

‘Turn my will over to Him? Oh, I find that mortal hard. I tell ’ee, Jimmy, my prayers are like those coloured soap bubbles. I send ’em up to Heaven, saying, “Here it is,
Thy will be done”, but afore they can get very high, I say, “Hey, wait a bit. I’ll do it my way”, and I stick up my finger and pop the bubble before it rises any
higher.’

There was a long silence.

A few tiny snowflakes began to spatter against the glass and bounce about the lawn outside. The wind gave a sudden howl in the chimney and great yellow and red flames shot up with a roar, and
then died down, leaving a small heaven of red stars burning in the sooty back wall of the fireplace.

‘There is a mystery here and I think it concerns Miss Deirdre,’ said the squire.

‘It was the night you put out the alarm she was missing. I was about to tell you what I knew but by the time I found my coat and boots, a village boy came rushing up to tell me she had
been found.’ He went on to relate how he had seen a young woman like Deirdre carrying two bandboxes, hurrying along the far side of the pond, and how later, at dawn, he had seen Lord Harry
returning with two bandboxes.

The vicar sat up straight, his lips moving soundlessly as he tried to work something out.

‘Wentwater,’ he said at last, while the squire looked at him with bright eyes. ‘By all that’s unholy. She tried to go to Wentwater so as to escape the marriage and Desire
found out. So why does Desire want to marry her, heh? What do I know of this Lord Harry? Heh? Seemed an amiable enough clod. Where’s Wentwater?’

‘Gone. He left the morning after Deirdre went missing.’

‘Oho! I wonder if I can get anything out of Lady Wentwater. No. Waste of time.’ He settled back comfortably in his chair, looking so much like his old self that the squire felt
sentimental tears pricking at his eyes.

The wine sank lower in the bottle and the day darkened outside as the vicar sat and thought.

‘Deirdre was always a strong-willed girl,’ he said. ‘She didn’t want none of Lord Harry, not a bit of it. Then she suddenly changes her mind, and, while he’s at the
vicarage, although she’s a bit rude with him and off-hand, like, she still has a glow about her. Then when she comes back with him that night, she’s gone all hard and cold and bitter.
Now she’s even more bitter, and demme if I don’t think she’s frightened of Lord Harry. See here, Lord Harry found out something about her that night and is making her marry
him.’

‘Dear me,’ said the squire. ‘I wonder what it was? You do not think, do you, that there was any . . . well . . . foul play on the part of Wentwater?’

‘No,’ said the vicar slowly. ‘He was chasing after Emily. But no one saw him near Deirdre. Lord Harry’s the problem, mark you. It must be something awful bad for her not
to have told Minerva and Annabelle. I asked both of ’em before I left Town but they seemed to find nothing amiss. O’ course, Annabelle’s so full of all them adventures she had at
the wars, and Minerva’s so taken up with Julian – my grandchild,’ he explained unnecessarily and puffing out his chest, ‘that they wouldn’t notice anything.

‘I’m going back to Town to find out all about it. I’ll study them both and think of something to stop the wedding.

‘For mark my words, Jimmy, that wedding is not going to take place or my name’s not Charles Armitage.’

‘Minerva!’

‘My love?’

Lady Sylvester put down her sewing and smiled on her lord.

Lord Sylvester stretched his elegant legs in front of him and studied the gold tassels of his hessian boots.

‘I am a trifle concerned over that sister of yours.’

‘Deirdre? But why? She is to be married to a very suitable young man.’

‘But I don’t think she wants to get married,’ said Lord Sylvester, his green eyes meeting those of his wife in an unblinking cat-like stare. ‘I think your wretched Papa
was groping around to find money while we were absent. Lady Godolphin confessed
he
proposed to Harry Desire.’

Minerva threw back her head. ‘My sister shall not be constrained to marry
anyone.
I will talk to Papa.’

‘No, my crusading love, there is no need to do that. See that Deirdre and Desire are kept apart as much as possible. If Deirdre seems glad to be kept away from him, then you will have the
truth of the matter. It is all very simple. Weddings can always be cancelled, you know.’

Annabelle patted her sunny ringlets in front of the glass and blew a kiss in the direction of her husband. ‘Why so solemn?’ she laughed.

‘Deirdre,’ said the Marquess of Brabington, ‘is scared to death of marrying Harry Desire.’

‘Oh,
Deirdre
,’ shrugged Annabelle. ‘Fustian! She’s always play-acting.’

‘But, my sweeting, I can assure you . . .’

‘You can assure me of a kiss right this minute, Peter, or I shall scream.’

Half an hour later Annabelle murmured lazily, ‘What were you saying about Deirdre?’

‘What?’ said the Marquess of Brabington, running a hand slowly over his wife’s hip. ‘Oh, nothing. ’Twas nothing at all.’

SEVEN

Deirdre let herself quietly out of her sister Minerva’s town house in St James’s Square and took a deep breath.

A light powdering of snow lay on the ground. The day was cold and damp with heavy, lowering clouds above, promising more snow to come.

She had passed a puzzling week. No longer did she have to plot to avoid Lord Harry’s company. She had hardly had a chance to see him at all. Minerva took her everywhere, often on the
flimsiest of excuses. And then the night before, Lord Sylvester and Minerva had taken her to the opera and Lord Harry was not of the party but two most eligible young men were. When Deirdre had
asked the whereabouts of her fiancé, Minerva had replied, with uncharacteristic vagueness, that she had forgotten to invite him.

Then if it was not Minerva who was on hand to keep her out of her fiancé’s way, it was her father and Squire Radford. The vicar, looking very much like his normal self, showed a
sudden enthusiasm for seeing all the warehouses and shops in London, insisting that she must need extra ribbons and lace for her trousseau. Deirdre found her father’s new quiet demeanour more
acceptable although she still disliked him, but the squire was, as usual, the complete gentleman, and Deirdre enjoyed his company immensely.

Once, when she was strolling along Bond Street with the squire and her father, Deirdre had seen Lord Harry approaching and had told her father. He and the squire had then behaved most oddly.
They had seized her arms and hustled her quickly into the nearest shop.

Then there were the odd conversations. Minerva told of tragic marriages where the couples had been most unsuited; the vicar told her of instances where marriages had been called off at the last
moment and the parties concerned had been grateful ever afterwards.

Obviously everyone concerned had gathered she did not really want to marry Lord Harry and was encouraging her with heavy-handed tact to break the engagement.

But if she told Lord Harry the wedding was off, then he would probably be absolutely furious and might even follow through his threat and sue her for breach of promise.

But yet, the prison gates seemed to be opening. Surely Lord Harry would not care to make a cake of himself in the courts by suing her!

But now that she was kept away from her fiancé, Deirdre became filled with a paradoxical longing to see him, if just for a little.

At times, he had been very pleasant company indeed. He was not intelligent, but his manners were beautiful. Ladies seemed fascinated by his beauty, and Deirdre was feminine enough to enjoy their
jealousy. And she had recently been introduced to a very intelligent member of the House of Lords who was supposed to be famous for his wit. But he had patronized Deirdre quite dreadfully, a thing
Lord Harry would never dream of doing.

When she had been escorted by her tall and handsome fiancé, yes, she had to admit it was pleasurable to be looked on with envy. Now, with the Armitage family closing tightly about her
again, Deirdre felt as if she were being driven slowly back to the nursery.