Deirdre and Desire (6 page)

She had moved onto a lively dissertation on her Haricot Veins when the door opened and Miss Deirdre Armitage came in.

Lady Godolphin sprang from her chair with amazing alacrity. The vicar uttered a loud oath which caused a shocked murmur of old voices and a fluttering of feathers.

‘I’ll pretend she’s someone else,’ thought Lady Godolphin, speeding across the room, ‘and get her upstairs and into her wig as soon as possible.’

But right behind Deirdre, Colonel Arthur Brian made his appearance.

Lady Godolphin blushed like a schoolgirl under her paint. She opened and shut her mouth but no sound emerged.

Deirdre smiled benignly on the company, made her curtsy, and walked in the direction of a single chair placed in the farthest corner of the room.

‘Hey!’ said the vicar, blocking her way. His little shoe-button eyes gleamed as hard as jet but he forced a jovial smile on his face. ‘Come along, my girl. There’s a
handsome gentleman dying to make your acquaintance.’

‘Delighted, Papa,’ said Deirdre demurely, deliberately sinking in a low obeisance in front of an antediluvian gentleman by the name of Mr Sothers.

‘Not him, you buffle-headed jade,’ howled her father. There was a stunned silence and the vicar looked around wildly. ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ he said, baring his teeth in an awful grin. ‘We will have our little family jokes. My Deirdre is a
naughty puss.’ He took his daughter firmly by the upper arm as if he were arresting her, and marched her over to Lord Harry.

Lord Harry Desire uncoiled himself from the depths of the sofa and stood up and made a magnificent bow.

Deirdre studied him from under her lashes with great amusement. This was going to be
much
easier than she had thought. He was a very handsome man, she reflected, but the sheer stupidity
of his expression robbed him of any attraction he might otherwise have had.

He stood smiling down at her in a vacant, amiable manner.

‘Sit down, sit down!’ said the vicar heartily.

He gave his infuriating daughter a mighty push and she collapsed on to the sofa. Lord Harry sat down gracefully next to her and looked at her with a polite, social expression.

Deirdre played with the sticks of her fan.

‘I went to the play the other night,’ began Lord Harry amiably. ‘Saw Mrs Siddons as Queen Catherine.’

There was a silence.

The vicar, hovering on Deirdre’s other side, hissed, ‘Well,
stoopid
, ask him how he liked it!’

‘How did you like the play, my lord?’ asked Deirdre dutifully.

‘Very much,’ said his lordship after a great deal of serious thought. ‘I was wearing my cravat in a new style, entirely my own. Petersham said it looked like a frozen
waterfall. But although I confess I was pleased at the compliment, I did not find it very apt. Sculptured snow would have been better, don’t you think?’

‘No,’ said Deirdre. ‘I have no interest in fashions whatsoever. My mind would have been on the play.’

A look of almost hellish glee lit up Lord Harry’s lovely features but when Deirdre looked up to study the effect of her rudeness, his face was once more a correct and social blank.

‘Do you know why you are here?’ asked Lord Harry, as the vicar gave a great shrug and moved out of earshot.

‘Yes,’ said Deirdre. ‘I am here to meet you.’

‘Do you know
why
it is important you should meet me?’

‘I believe my father has marriage in mind,’ said Deirdre forthrightly. ‘But, of course, as you can see, we should not suit at all.’

‘Why, pray?’

Well, the answer to that one was, ‘Because you are a stupid lummox and I am not,’ but Deirdre felt she had already been rude enough.

She gave a little laugh. ‘For a start, you may have noticed I have red hair. My father tells me you can’t abide red hair.’

‘Did I say that?’ exclaimed Lord Harry. ‘By Jove, that’s right, I did. You see, red hair in a lady has a terrible effect on me. I fall in love with ladies with red hair .
. . well, almost on sight.’

‘Then it is as well that I am reputed to be something of a blue-stocking,’ said Deirdre quickly. ‘For that will surely give you a disgust of me.’

‘It certainly would if it were true,’ said Lord Harry earnestly. ‘But you may be easy on that score, Miss Deirdre, for I do not find you intelligent
at all.
’

Deirdre let out an outraged gasp but the angry retort died on her lips, for the soprano had commenced to sing.

Her name was Madame Vallini. She was possessed of a loud and piercing voice, the delight of the back rows of the gallery who could proudly claim to hear every note.

In a private drawing-room the effect was quite horrendous.

Under Deirdre’s fascinated gaze, Lord Harry produced a snuff box from the tails of his morning coat. He flicked it open and took out a small white ball of wax. Then he produced a penknife from another pocket, neatly cut the wax in two, rolled each half in his fingers, and then solemnly popped the resultant wax plugs in each ear. He leaned back at his
ease, half closed his eyes, and, it appeared, sent his mind off on a holiday.

‘How Guy will laugh when I tell him about this coxcomb,’ thought Deirdre with amusement.

Then a great wave of sadness engulfed her.

Guy.

Oh, to be back in Hopeworth, walking along the country lanes under the clean, windy country sky, listening to the sound of his voice.

Papa would
not
understand, she realized. How could someone as earthy as her father grasp the spirituality of the meeting and joining of two souls. Guy had talked to her of the army, or
the great Battle of, Waterloo. He had treated her as an equal.

Two large tears trembled on the edge of Deirdre’s long lashes.

Through a hazy blur, she saw with surprise that her indolent companion was holding out a large serviceable pocket handkerchief.

She flushed, but took it, and dabbed at her eyes. He would presume she was affected by the music, thought Deirdre.

She knew that at some period when the singing was over, the vicar and Lady Godolphin would contrive to leave her alone with Lord Harry.

She must try to impress on him the downright unsuitability of this proposed alliance.

Then all at once Deirdre suddenly felt as if Guy were with her in the room, as if he were communicating with her in some way.

She smiled to herself. She knew, in a flash, where he was. He was sitting in the old little-used library in Lady Wentwater’s dark mansion. He was leaning his chin on his hand, looking out
over the shabby lawns, thinking of her.

All her loneliness and distress fled and she felt loved and comforted and sustained.

Not very far away, right at that moment, Guy Wentwater stretched his booted feet in the sawdust of Humbold’s Coffee House and smiled at his companion, Silas Dubois.

He was not paying much attention to Mr Dubois. The only reason he was enduring his company was because it had been thrust upon him and Mr Dubois had paid for the wine. Guy’s thoughts were
firmly focused on the black curls and white bosom of a girl who was strolling up and down the pavement outside.

He was just considering whether to leave abruptly and try his luck with her when a gentleman came up and bowed to the saucy girl and they walked off arm in arm.

Guy sighed regretfully. He would have liked to warm his bed with something like that.

He became aware that Mr Dubois was asking him a question. ‘Ever see anything of the Armitage family?’ Dubois was asking, his small eyes squinting over the promontory of his large nose.

‘No,’ said Guy Wentwater. ‘The vicar and I had a certain argument once. I am not on calling terms. Not that it matters. A very provincial family.’

‘And yet one that has done remarkably well in the marriage mart,’ said Mr Dubois slowly.

‘So I gather,’ yawned Mr Wentwater. ‘I hear he is going to marry Miss Deirdre off to Lord Desire.’

‘So I hear in the clubs,’ said Mr Dubois. ‘That must mean the dear vicar is in low funds again.’

‘Yes, the reverend has a good number of daughters in the bank, however.’

‘Is this Deirdre as fair as Minerva and Annabelle Armitage?’

‘Not really,’ shrugged Guy. ‘Foxy little thing with terribly red hair.’

‘I wonder,’ mused Mr Dubois, rubbing his one hand with the other. ‘Would you say Minerva is particularly fond of this sister, Deirdre?’

‘What a fascination the Armitage family does have for you,’ sneered Guy. ‘Minerva The Good is devoted to the whole pack o’ them.’

‘And she would be monstrous upset should anything go wrong?’

Guy looked at Silas Dubois narrowly.

‘Oho!’ he said. ‘Now I begin to remember. Rumour had it that you fought Lord Sylvester in a duel over the fair Minerva and that Lord Sylvester shot the pistol clean out of your
hand.’

‘A trick, a fluke,’ said Mr Dubois. ‘He ruined my aim. I was the best shot in England before then.’ He nursed his right hand.

‘And you want revenge?’

‘Why not?’

Guy Wentwater grinned. ‘Then perhaps you might be interested in a little proposition which would serve both our ends. I, too, wish revenge on the Armitage family. Lean forwards and listen
very carefully, very carefully indeed . . .’

The soprano hit her last high note. There was an arthritic spattering of applause, and then the company began to rise, preparatory to moving to the dining-room.

‘What is Arthur doing here?’ demanded Lady Godolphin of the vicar.

Mr Armitage threw her a distracted look. ‘I talked him into coming,’ he said. ‘You can’t really be interested in that popinjay, Anstey.’

‘I don’t need to stand here and listen to your muddleactions,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘I’ll speak to you about it later. What we’ve got to do at the moment is
to get the guests into the dining-room and make sure Deirdre and Desire stay in this one. See?’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ growled the vicar. ‘Better leave it to me. I’ll do it tactfully.’

Lady Godolphin looked at him doubtfully, but dutifully waddled off and soon her voice could be heard urging her guests to take a glass of ‘Cannery of My-dearer.’

The vicar advanced on Deirdre and Lord Harry, who had risen to their feet.

‘If you two are going to make up your minds about anything,’ he said, ‘you’d better start now.’

And with that, he turned round and shooed the remaining guests in front of him. Lord Harry tried to follow but the vicar stopped that by firmly closing the doors of the drawing-room right in his
face, and firmly locking them on the other side.

‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Lord Harry. ‘I am so very hungry.’

‘You had better propose to me and be refused and that way we can get the whole silly business over with,’ said Deirdre.

He took out his quizzing glass, polished it carefully, raised it to one eye and studied Deirdre carefully from head to foot.

‘I
do
apologize,’ said Deirdre, becoming flustered. ‘I am very embarrassed, you see. I do not want to be married.’

‘To me? Or to anyone?’

He had dropped the quizzing glass and his gaze was very level and kind.

It is not that,’ said Deirdre desperately. ‘It’s just . . . oh well, it’s just that I would like to become wed to a man of my choice.’

‘That’s natural,’ he said equably. ‘Now, I hate being forced to do anything. My nurse used to tell me to eat boiled cabbage because it was good for me and I’ve
detested it ever since. You’ve been told this marriage is a good thing and so you detest the whole idea. You look on me and you see boiled cabbage.’

‘Not quite,’ giggled Deirdre nervously. He was standing very close to her. There was a disturbing, almost decadent aura of sensuality about him. She was all too aware of the firmness
of his mouth and the breadth of his shoulders.

She wondered idiotically if they were padded. The rest of him was so slim. Except his legs, of course. One could not help noticing his legs since his trousers were so extremely close fitting.
Perhaps he wore false calves. But when he moved, one could distinctly observe the hard ripple of muscle under the cloth . . .

Deirdre blushed so violently, she turned almost as red as her hair.

‘I have to get married, you know,’ sighed Lord Harry. ‘Well, I do not really
have
to, but I’m an expensive creature, you see, and uncle has bags and bags of money.
Trouble is, I’m too lazy to run about the salons of London courting females. I thought this arrangement of your father’s would save me a great deal of unnecessary effort.’

There was a gentle click from the door.

‘The vicar has decided we have had time enough.’

‘What shall I do?’ asked Deirdre. ‘I do so want to go home. I
hate
London. There is nothing for me here. If I say to Papa that we shall not suit, he will make me stay in
London in the hope that something will eventually come of it.’

‘And you would love me more were I able to persuade the vicar to take you away to Hopeworth, say, tomorrow?’

‘Oh, I would be most grateful.’

‘Then it shall be arranged,’ said Lord Harry comfortably. ‘Let us go and join the other guests.’

Deirdre was only too glad to escape from him.

The elderly guests were piling plates high with delicacies from a buffet which had been set up in the dining-room. Lady Godolphin was having a bitter row in the corner with Colonel Brian and
seemed unaware that Mr Anstey was paying assiduous court to Lady Chester.

Lord Harry began talking to the soprano. He seemed to have forgotten Deirdre Armitage’s very existence. Deirdre saw her father bearing down on her and hurriedly engaged in conversation with the aged Earl of Derham.

Foiled of his prey, the vicar turned his beady gaze on Lord Harry who had just turned away from the
diva.

While chatting to Lord Derham about the efficacy of vinegar and water to clean the spleen, Deirdre saw Lord Harry put his handsome head slightly on one side as he listened to whatever her father
was saying. Then Lord Harry smiled and said a few words. The vicar looked delighted, clapped him on the shoulder and wrung his hand.

‘Heavens!’ thought Deirdre in dismay. ‘That great fool has probably told Papa we are to be married. Nothing else would make Papa look so delighted.’