Daphne (4 page)

By the vicar’s very guilt and denials, he felt he had come at the truth which was that the vicar had had a hole dug in the road to effect some repairs and then had gone off and carelessly left it. For which he heartily deserved to be punished. He was not like a vicar at all. But what were vicars supposed to be like? There were so many of these ‘squarsons’ around, so called because they were more squire than parson and cared more for hunting than they did for their parish duties.

Daphne lowered her eyes over the sewing in her
lap, her heart beating hard. She had not realized Mr Garfield was so very imposing. He was impeccably dressed in a blue swallowtail coat with a high velvet collar. His biscuit-colour pantaloons were moulded to a pair of powerful thighs and his hessian boots shone like black glass.

A quizzing glass was dangling from his lapel.

‘What is your name, my child?’ he asked gently.

‘Daphne Armitage,’ answered Daphne, thinking hard of something really mad to say.

‘Is your mother at home?’

‘Mother approaches. Hark!’ said Daphne, putting one delicate little hand to her ear. She had just heard the heavy approaching tread of Lady Godolphin. Mrs Armitage was still prostrate abovestairs. The fact that she, Daphne, obviously did not know her own mother would surely confuse Mr Garfield and then convince him that she was truly mad.

Lady Godolphin came waddling in. She stopped short at the sight of Mr Garfield, her bulging eyes fastening almost greedily on his legs.

‘I’m glad to see you’re recovered,’ she said. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’

‘If you mean, am I the gentleman who was so very nearly killed by Mr Armitage’s carelessness, then I am that gentleman.’

‘You’ve cleaned up a treat,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘Don’t you think so, Daphne?’

‘Who is a treat?’ asked Daphne vaguely. Then she began to hum to herself, rocking backwards and forwards slightly on her chair.

‘Mrs Armitage …’ began Mr Garfield sternly.

‘Don’t Mrs Armitage me,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘When I think of the sheer folly. Purging herself. Trying to clean her bowls with an excess of rhubarb pills. Follicles! She won’t say so but she’s trying to get thinner. Thin isn’t fashionable, and so I told her. I’ve always been a good armful.’ A wistful look crossed Lady Godolphin’s face. ‘My Arthur, that’s Colonel Arthur Brian with whom I had an understanding but he ran off and left me for some Cit, well, he used to say it was as comforting as holding a feather pillow on a winter’s night. He was always a bit of a poet, Arthur was.’

‘Madame,’ said Mr Garfield, putting up his glass. ‘Am I to understand you are
not
Mrs Armitage?’

‘Her name is Lady Godolphin,’ said Daphne in a thin, high voice. She then looked sideways at Mr Garfield and rolled her eyes insanely, stuck her fingers in the corners of her mouth and pulled a horrible grimace.

Mr Garfield hurriedly averted his eyes.
Godolphin
, he thought. Of course! And Armitage. Now he remembered. This was the famous vicar who had successfully married off three beautiful daughters.

He felt suddenly dizzy and with a murmur of apology he sat down.

The physician had strongly advised him to rest in bed for three more days in order to recover fully from his concussion. But Mr Garfield had been so enraged at his treatment at the hands of the vicar, who he had damned as a cunning yokel, that he had
been determined to leave. His head began to clear and he admitted ruefully to himself that part of his rage had been caused by loss of dignity.

Although he did not venture out much in society, Mr Garfield had already seen the three married Armitage sisters since they were invited everywhere.

While he recovered, Lady Godolphin studied him with interest. She had seen him before, of that she was sure.

‘You have not introduced yourself, young man,’ she said at last. ‘But I am sure we have already met.’

‘We did meet some time ago,’ said Mr Garfield, searching his memory. Lady Godolphin. At last he remembered. She was much more subdued than the last time he had seen her when she had been wearing so much paint she had looked like a particularly noisy sunset. She was accounted something of an eccentric, but definitely not insane. ‘It was at the Courtlands’, eight years ago,’ he said. ‘I came with Tommy Mercer. My name is Simon Garfield.’

How delighted Charles will be, thought Lady Godolphin cynically. That man does have the luck of the devil.

Probably singled him out for Daphne already. Garfield is as rich as Golden Ball. Richer! And a fine old family. One of those old families too grand to even bother to stoop to curry favour with royalty in order to get a title. But what on earth had come over Daphne? She looked half-witted.

Daphne had extracted some silks from her
work-basket
and was busily weaving the threads in her hair.

‘Don’t do that, Daphne,’ said Lady Godolphin sharply. ‘Anyone would think you was crazy.’

‘Shall you be returning to town soon, my lady?’ asked Mr Garfield, who thought Lady Godolphin a very cruel sort of person. There was no need to point out the girl was crazy when it was all too evident.

‘I have only just arrived,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘I’m rustyfacting.’

‘Rusticating.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Creditors?’ suggested Mr Garfield tactfully.

‘No, men.’ Lady Godolphin sighed gustily. ‘After me like wops round a honey pot. But I’ve given ’em up for Lent.’

‘But Lent was some time ago.’

‘Odso! But I am a very persistent person.’

Lady Godolphin sighed again and cast a roguish look at Mr Garfield’s legs.

‘I have perhaps been too harsh on Mr Armitage,’ said Mr Garfield. ‘I threatened to take him to court for his carelessness but I have decided to forget the matter. It will, however, suit me very well if I never see him again.’

At that moment he looked across at Daphne and surprised a look of distinctly intelligent relief on that young lady’s face.

Becoming aware of his gaze, Daphne immediately assumed an imbecilic look and started to weave the threads in her hair again. Lady Godolphin began to gossip about the thinness of company in London out of Season and the appalling condition of the drains.
Mr Garfield listened and nodded while all the time his mind was busy. He had a feeling Daphne was acting. If so, why? But she had seemed so crazed, taking him for the bishop and asking for his blessing.

‘Bishop,’ he said suddenly. ‘Miss Armitage
mentioned
a bishop. What bishop?’

Daphne began to sing very loudly indeed. ‘Stop that row,’ said Lady Godolphin, turning red. ‘I’m surprised Charles told you, Mr Garfield, for he made us all swear to tell you you had imagined the whole thing.’

‘What bishop?’ repeated Mr Garfield.

‘Why, the Bishop of Berham to be sure,’
exclaimed
Lady Godolphin. ‘Stop winking like that, Daphne. Charles was told the bishop was calling to tell him to give up his pack, it not being a spiritual sport, so, as Charles told you, he went out and dug that pit in the road.’

Mr Garfield felt himself becoming very angry again. ‘Do you mean to say that irresponsible vicar dug a pit to stop his bishop’s visit?’

‘Oh, you
didn’t
know,’ said Lady Godolphin sadly, ‘And now I’ve let the pig out of the poke. Charles
will
be mad.’

‘I think you are
all
mad. Where is the vicar?’

‘Gone to call on Squire Radford.’

Mr Garfield turned his yellow gaze on Daphne. ‘I think I will wait until he gets back,’ he said evenly.

A flicker of panic darted through Daphne’s wide eyes, and then it was gone. She decided to escape and rose to her feet.

‘Please tell Miss Armitage I would be delighted to enjoy the pleasure of her company until her father returns,’ said Mr Garfield.

A predatory gleam appeared in Lady Godolphin’s eyes. That Cyril Archer Daphne wished to wed was nothing more than a man-milliner. But this Mr Garfield, this
rich
Mr Garfield, had legs on him like an Adonis.

Lady Godolphin nodded. ‘Sit down, Daphne,’ she ordered, and Daphne, hearing the note of steel in her voice, miserably sat down.

‘To say I am surprised and shocked would be to understate the matter,’ said Squire Radford.

The Reverend Charles Armitage burrowed deeper into the depths of the comfortable armchair on one side of the squire’s library fireplace, and mumbled, ‘I’m leaving if you’re going to jaw on and on.’ It had been a relief to unburden himself to his old friend and he did not want to have to endure the subsequent lecture.

‘Well, I’ve told you it all,’ went on the vicar, reaching out an arm and helping himself to another glass of port from the decanter on the table at his elbow. ‘What stabs me is that this great pile o’ moneybags is sittin’ in my house. As sweet a windfall from the Marriage Mart as ever I did see. And there’s my Daphne, the most beautiful girl in England. And this Garfield starts jawin’ and sayin’ he’ll take me to court and instead of getting Daphne to soothe him down I called him a coxcomb. He probably didn’t
mean he would take me to court. Probably got a nasty knock on his cockloft that addled his wits.’

Squire Radford sighed. ‘Charles,’ he said in his high precise voice, ‘you will need to face facts and the facts are as follows. Firstly, you cannot stop the bishop from visiting you by trying to murder him. Secondly, this Garfield is at outs with you. You must apologize most sincerely to him and tell him the
truth
. If you put your mind above mercenary motives, Charles, then things will come about.’

The vicar eyed his friend somewhat sourly. The squire was sitting in a high-backed chair facing him. He was a slight, elderly man, so small in stature that his old-fashioned buckled shoes barely touched the floor. He wore a bag wig, a black coat and black knee breeches. The vicar was very fond of Squire Jimmy Radford but at times found him too unworldly.

‘You’re right,’ said the vicar at last. ‘Tell you what … we’ll
both
go back and apologize to him.’

‘But, my very dear Charles,
I
have nothing for which to apologize.’

‘Just to help me, I meant. Sort of stand there
with
me while I say I’m sorry.’

The squire reluctantly agreed.

‘That’s noble of you, Jimmy,’ said the vicar struggling out of the armchair. ‘If we look penitent enough, mayhap he might decide to stay on and then he can marry Daphne.’

‘Oh, Charles, you must make your apology sincere.’

‘I will,’ said the vicar. ‘I sincerely want the Garfield
money in the family so my ’pology will be the sincerest you’ve ever heard.’

The two friends decided to walk. The squire’s pretty thatched cottage
ornée
stood on the far side of the village pond.

‘Perhaps he will have left,’ suggested the squire gently. ‘I do not wish to admonish you, Charles, but …’

‘Then don’t,’ said the vicar rudely.

The squire glanced at him sideways. The vicar’s face was crumpled up in deep thought. Unlike Charles to be so mercenary when he was in funds, thought the squire. But the by-now famous marriages of his three eldest daughters had turned his head and he obviously thirsted to add another prize to that illustrious list he kept in the front of the family Bible.

Yellowhammers were calling from the hedgerows, ‘A-little-bit-of-bread-and-
no
-cheese.’ Starlings sent down their mocking, piping calls, and up on a chimney pot on the roof of The Six Jolly Beggarmen a blackbird launched into a rich melody. A slight breeze ruffled the water of the pond and farm labourers were beginning to come home from the fields.

The little squire felt uneasily that he should not have said he would accompany his friend. There was something so beautiful and tranquil and spiritual about the peace of the evening, it seemed a pity to spoil it by becoming embroiled in the machinations of the earthy vicar.

The churchyard cross stood sharply up against the
pale sky, a reminder of the good old days before gravestones when one memorial covered all the dead and a belief in eternal life with God was rather more important than the desire to be remembered in the sight of men.

The squire shivered. Sometimes death felt very close. He would like his name writ large on his tombstone. It was only human to dread disappearing from the world without having left even one little mark on it. Perhaps, mused the squire, the attraction that Charles Armitage held for him was because the vicar was so ebullient, so attached to the earth and fields, so very much part of the living.

But unknown to the squire, the peace of the evening had touched the vicar. He, Charles
Armitage
, was about to do a very noble thing. All at once he decided he did not care one way or the other for the rich Mr Garfield. As they turned into the lane leading to the vicarage, Mr Armitage promised his God that he would no longer think of money where his daughters were concerned. If this Cyril Archer were at all possible as a husband then Daphne could have him.

The vicar turned his calm face up to the sky and for him the angels sang.

Then he lowered his eyes and saw a strange carriage standing outside the vicarage and he knew in his bones that while he had been talking to Jimmy Radford, the bishop had arrived. The bishop had tricked him with tales of gout and was now waiting to demand that the vicar’s hunting days be over.

‘Rot him!’ said the vicar passionately.

‘Who!’ exclaimed the squire.

‘Dr Philpotts, that’s who. Can’t be anyone else.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said the squire soothingly. ‘Perhaps one of your daughters has travelled to …’

‘Not in any antiquated old carriage like that,’ grumbled the vicar. ‘Only a cheese-paring,
clutch-fisted
, port-hoarding curmudgeon like Philpotts would own a carriage like that.’

With a groan, the vicar led the way into the vicarage. It was as he feared.

Dr Philpotts was sitting in the parlour, sipping wine and eating biscuits. Mrs Armitage had
recovered
from her latest Spasm and looked well on the way to having another. She was drooping on the sofa with a vinaigrette in one hand and a
handkerchief
in the other. Lady Godolphin was rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. Daphne was bent over her sewing, and Mr Garfield was leaning back in his chair, his hands thrust in his breeches pockets, and looking thoughtfully at Daphne’s bent head.