Daphne (16 page)

‘You
can’t
know. He died of the fever. There’s no proof.’ Mr Archer was white to the lips.

‘No, but there is the weapon of gossip and I will not hesitate to use it against you if you are still in London in the next two hours. I have told your servants you are leaving. Your trunks are packed.’

‘I will go. I will go. Don’t hit me again,’ babbled Mr Archer.

‘Very well. Tell me, Archer, why did a creature such as you wish to marry?’

Mr Archer hung his head. A large tear plopped onto the wooden boards at his feet.

Mr Garfield was seized with an awful pity. ‘Just be sure you are not here tomorrow,’ he said quietly. ‘There is no foundation for the scurrilous tale about Mr Armitage you threatened to put about, so you have no weapons left.’

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room and down the stairs.

Out in the street, he was met by a solid wall of greyish-black fog.

Holding a handkerchief up to his mouth, Mr Garfield picked his way carefully along the street, while upstairs in the room above Mr Archer sat and shivered, holding his body tightly in his arms, and listening to the footsteps dying away in the night.

EIGHT

Mr Simon Garfield wandered on through the fog until he found himself turning in at Hanover Square. It was past midnight but carriages still crawled through the fog. He rapped loudly at the door, and waited. He had to see Daphne and tell her that all was well.

After some time, he heard the sound of bolts being drawn back and Mice’s large white moon of a face peered cautiously around the door.

‘Oh, Mr Garfield, sir,’ he said. ‘The ladies are abed. Miss Daphne arrived home not a half hour before in the company of Lord and Lady Sylvester. Lady Sylvester saw her put to bed and then left.’

Mr Garfield fished in his pocket and drew out a gold coin. ‘Do you think, Mice,’ he said, ‘that you could ask Miss Daphne to step downstairs?’

Mice looked doubtfully at the money. A guinea
now might mean no job on the morrow. On the other hand, Lady Godolphin was not likely to stir out of bed, not now she had company in it.

‘Very well, sir,’ he said, cautiously pocketing the money.

Mr Garfield was led into the Green Saloon. Mice busied himself lighting the fire and then left.

The clocks ticked sonorously. The fire crackled in the hearth. Mr Garfield began to think she would not come.

And then the doors were opened and Daphne entered the room and smiled at him shyly.

‘I came to tell you, Miss Daphne,’ said Mr Garfield, feeling stiff and pompous, ‘that I have constrained Mr Archer to flee the country. He will not trouble you again.’

‘Thank you,’ said Daphne. ‘Oh, thank you so much. Lord Brabington assured me you would deal with the matter.’

‘You have seen him? Ah, then you know the mystery of the baby. I can find it in my heart to be sorry for your father. Why is it such a beautiful innocent as yourself could believe something so vile?’

‘So many vile things happen,’ said Daphne, blushing, ‘and everyone in London society whispers about them and pretends to be shocked although they are not in the least. There are so many things I do not understand. All is rigid propriety and manners on the surface, and underneath …’ She gave a shudder.

He turned away a little and Daphne studied him anxiously. Had he
only
come to tell her about Mr Archer? He looked so handsome with his thick copper hair gleaming in the light and his
heavy-lidded
eyes surveying her so strangely.

‘We have had a very informal introduction to each other, Miss Daphne,’ he said at last. ‘I confess I have not behaved very well towards you … not in the way I should have
liked
to behave.’

So he had not wanted to kiss her. Overwrought and tired, Daphne began to feel angry.

‘I am not in the way,’ he went on, ‘of mauling gently bred ladies in Hyde Park nor for that matter do I often kiss strange country wenches by the roadside.’

‘It is very late,’ said Daphne crossly. ‘I am exceeding grateful to you for having rid me of Mr Archer and I would like to stand here and listen to a catalogue of your virtues all night, but I confess I am monstrous tired.’

He looked at her with irritation. ‘Miss Daphne, I was about to explain my honourable intentions of courting you at length so that we might get to know each other better. My thoughts of you are of the purest.’

For one brief moment, it seemed as if Annabelle had taken over Daphne, as she tossed her head and replied without a blush, ‘How very disappointing.’

He made an exasperated noise and walked up to her and pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her breathless.

‘You are a shameless baggage,’ he said at last, giving her a little shake. ‘If you say such bold things to me, you are not to be trusted. I always thought you should have a keeper. You are going to marry me soon.’

‘Yes, Simon,’ said Daphne Armitage demurely. ‘Kiss me again.’

He smiled down at her, and this time drew her very gently against him and slowly bent his lips to hers, brushing her mouth softly with his own, then deepening the caress as he felt her begin to quiver in his arms.

She seemed to turn to fire and flame and he lifted her into his arms, carried her to a chair by the fire where he set her on his knees, and then began to make love to every part of her that he could decently reach.

His senses soared and rocketed, the chair creaked and protested under their frenzied writhings, and just as Mr Garfield had boldly moved from the decent to the indecent, just as his mouth was lovingly
beginning
to trace the contours of one bared breast, a screech like an apoplectic parrot stopped him dead.

Lady Godolphin stood in the doorway, a candle in one hand.

‘Upstairs to your bed, miss,’ she said sternly to Daphne, ‘and I will have a word with you later. To think a gently reared girl like yourself should allow any gentleman to see her in such des-habillies. Go!’

Daphne straightened her gown and looked shyly up at Mr Garfield.

He took her hand in a firm clasp. ‘We are to be married, Lady Godolphin.’

‘Oh.’ A smile of pleasure and relief spread across Lady Godolphin’s features. ‘Nonetheless,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to leave carryings-on like that until after the wedding. I was never more shocked.’

‘How is Colonel Brian?’ asked Daphne sweetly.

‘Oh, ah,’ said Lady Godolphin, turning pink. ‘He has decided to stay with us for a little.’

‘I shall go to Hopeworth tomorrow,’ said Mr Garfield, ‘and obtain Mr Armitage’s permission to pay my addresses to Daphne.’

‘We’ll all go,’ said Lady Godolphin. Better to get Arthur away from the fleshpots and temptations of London, she thought. He wouldn’t find anything else to do in Hopeworth except pay attention to herself.

Squire Radford stood in the shelter of the hedge at the bottom of the garden and watched the squat figure of the vicar going about his parish rounds.

His horses and hounds were to be put up for sale at Hopeminster the following week.

The vicar had not resigned his living. He had not gone to see the bishop. Instead he had returned to Hopeworth, set Betty, her husband and baby up in style in a trim cottage, and then proceeded to try to turn himself into a saint.

From matins to evensong, the church was open seven days a week. The parishioners were visited by their vicar as they had never been visited before. The poor of the parish were taken care of as they had
never been taken care of before. The vicar
counselled
, advised, helped and preached.

He was more unpopular than he had ever been in his life before.

His congregation quailed before his ranting
sermons
. They were tired of being harangued into atoning for their sins.

Villagers hid behind their furniture and pretended to be out when they saw his shovel hat bobbing past their cottage windows. Mothers began to threaten their children with, ‘If you ain’t good, the Reverend Armitage’ll come and get you.

Squire Radford sighed. Charles was dismal
company
. There were no more friendly suppers and sharing a bottle beside the library fire. The vicar no longer drank anything stronger than lemonade. He was even running an anti-tea campaign.

The Squire noticed the vicar was on his way to the Hall to pay a visit to his brother, Sir Edwin Armitage. Well, it couldn’t happen to a better fellow.

Sir Edwin quailed when he heard his brother had come visiting. Lady Armitage promptly declared she had the headache and Josephine and Emily refused to accompany him downstairs. Josephine had at last become affianced to a middle-aged squire over in Hopeminster and Sir Edwin was only too glad to have one of his daughters finally engaged. He blamed the Armitage girls at the vicarage for having enticed away all the best beaux, forgetting that they had found their husbands in London and not in the neighbourhood. It was only a small consolation to
him that Daphne was marrying someone very ordinary in the person of Mr Archer.

Sir Edwin minced into the drawing room and looked nervously at the squat figure of his brother. Sir Edwin was dressed as usual in the height of fashion, his clothes more suited to a Bond Street lounger than to a middle-aged country baronet.

The vicar greeted him with, ‘“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”’

Sir Edwin polished his quizzing glass on his sleeve and then surveyed his brother. ‘You sound like a demned radical,’ he said.

Undeterred, the vicar ploughed on. ‘“To obey is better than sacrifice”,’ he said conversationally, ‘“and to hearken than the fat of rams …”’

‘What the dooce are you on about?’ demanded Sir Edwin crossly. ‘Been at the communion wine?’

‘No, I have not,’ said the vicar wrathfully. ‘I shun all liquor. I abominate tea.’

‘Splendid,’ said Sir Edwin maliciously, ‘for I have just received a pipe of very rare port from town and was going to offer you some, but now I don’t need to.’

The vicar’s left eyelid twitched.

‘Got Josephine pushed off onto a squire, then,’ he remarked with somewhat of his old manner.

‘Ah, yes, a most estimable man. The sale of your pack and your horses has caused great excitement in
the county, Charles. I wonder you bear to part with them. Do you not feel you are taking all this religion rather seriously?’

‘It’s my job to take it seriously,’ snapped the vicar. ‘I’m a man ’o God.’

‘And to what do we owe the pleasure of this second coming?’ demanded Sir Edwin.

‘Your daughters have not been to confession.’

‘Oh, tut! Tut! Really, Charles, you go too far. They will go to confession if they wish. We have all been doing very nicely under the gentle and
undemanding
care of Mr Pettifor, your curate. We are not used in Hopeworth to having to suffer under the tongue lash of a Methodist.’

‘I ain’t no Methody,’ howled the vicar, ‘and if I weren’t such a good man, I’d call you out for that.’

‘Oh, call yourself out of my house,’ said his brother wearily, ‘and come back when your fevered brain has cooled down.’

The vicar stomped out of the Hall and made his way home. He intended to spend the rest of the afternoon studying his Bible. Soon he was cosily ensconced in his study, reading St Mark, scowling horribly and moving his lips as he followed the words, ‘For from within out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders
, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these things come from within and defile the man.’

‘True. Terribly true,’ muttered the vicar with gloomy satisfaction.

His study door crashed open and his daughter
Diana stood on the threshold. Her wild mane of hair was windblown and her eyes large, sparkling and defiant in her thin, high-cheekboned face.

‘Has Daphne said anything to you?’ she
demanded
.

‘No, my love,’ said the vicar sweetly.

‘Then there’s no hope,’ said Diana, wearily
slumping
down into a battered leather armchair on the other side of the desk. ‘Funny. Daphne was always the meek one and yet I thought she’d somehow make you change your mind.’

‘About what?’

‘About me going hunting.’

‘Alas, my poor child. I have brought you up in sin and wickedness. I am to sell that terrible indulgence of mine.’

‘Stop this rubbish!’ screamed Diana. ‘Stop it, I say. Do you know what cant you are talking? Do you know what you are doing? You are selling off piecemeal one of the best packs in England. You are terrifying the parishioners with your ranting ways. You are driving people away from the church.’

She lowered her voice and leaned one elbow on the desk, fixing her father with bright, wild eyes. ‘Listen, Father. One day you let me go with you a little way, up on the rise above Hopeworth. Do you remember? It was two years ago. We trotted up that deep-rutted lane with the day breaking from purple to gold; we looked down on the farms and the mist-coiled river. Do you remember the golden
beech woods in the early sunshine, all those drifts of yellow leaves falling about the mossy roots? And the excitement! The tension building up. Do you
remember
John Summer’s cry, “Gone away”?’

‘Stop!’ said the vicar, putting his hands over his ears.

‘No, I will not stop,’ said Diana. She stood up and leaned over her father as he sat with his head bowed. ‘I suggest you go straight to church now and ask the good Lord to take your addled brains out and tuck them back the right way again.’

She slammed out, crashing the door behind her with such force that the whole vicarage rocked.

The Reverend Armitage sat there for a long time. Then he put on his hat and wearily went out and along to the church. He entered by the side door and sat down in one of the pews, enjoying the novelty of looking up at the pulpit instead of looking down from it.

Mr Garfield’s expert was doing very well. Now gold leaf glinted on the wings of the cherubim up on the roof, and already the worm-eaten pews at the back had been replaced with new oak ones.

He bent his head in prayer. It was a muddled half-formed prayer for guidance. Before he had prayed on his knees, ferociously and earnestly promising to atone for his sins. Now he asked for help in a friendly way, rather as if he were talking to Squire Radford.