Daphne

by Beaton, M. C.

  ‘I am truly sorry,’ he said abruptly. ‘I did not mean to subject you to such behaviour. I had rather too much wine at luncheon and that combined with the sight of your beauty went to my head. Please forgive me and forget the whole distasteful episode. Come! Smile at me Daphne. I will dance at your wedding to Mr Archer.’

  Daphne smiled weakly and mumbled that she forgave him. She felt very depressed and miserable and cold. She wanted to lie down at home in bed and pull the covers over her head and never, ever emerge until it was time to return to Hopeworth. Covered in rivulets of mud though they were, both had now become very chilly and formal.

  So he took her home and left her on the step, bowing very stiffly to her before striding off into the rain.

  Daphne went slowly into the house.

  It was only when she got to her room that she realized she still had his jacket about her shoulders.

  The Reverend Charles Armitage was a very depressed man. He had had high hopes of Mr Garfield. His wife had told him that a marriage with Daphne was definitely on the cards. And now the dratted man was nowhere to be found.

  A week had passed since that day in the Park, the Armitage family had trotted Daphne to every event that off-Season London had to offer, but although Mr Archer seemed to be everywhere, Mr Garfield was not.

  Daphne appeared perfectly comfortable with Mr Archer and had returned to her old glass-faced perfection. At long last the vicar remembered his prayer and decided to give Daphne his blessing.

  The harvest had been excellent. He was comfortably off. If Mr Archer was what Daphne wanted, then Daphne should have him. Mr Armitage did not like Mr Archer, but, nonetheless, considered him harmless. Perhaps if Squire Radford had been present, he might have advised the vicar to wait until the following year. But the vicar, although mercenary, had always a very guilty conscience about this his main character defect, and letting Daphne marry whom she pleased seemed a splendid way of placating that very terrible God Who sat in the clouds somewhere above the vicar’s head.

  There was only a very thin coating of civilization over the vicar’s primitive soul, and so deep down he believed – when he believed in anything – in a God of wrath who needed burnt offerings and sacrifices: at times the vicar considered Him a very odd God indeed, since He did not seem in the least to appreciate the periodic offering up of various dead foxes.

  Accordingly, as a week without Mr Garfield moved into yet another week without any sign of that gentleman, the vicar sent for Daphne and told that very surprised young lady that she might feel free to name the day any time she chose.

  Then he sat and watched Daphne’s face, reflecting it had never looked so beautiful or so blank.

  Daphne had received a shock. A Mr Archer who was forbidden fruit held all sorts of exciting charms. A Mr Archer who was accepted by the family was another matter. On the other hand, Mr Simon Garfield had kissed and run.

  Mr Garfield was insultingly absent. Daphne had heard several on dits about Mr Garfield. It seemed he was a confirmed bachelor but that had not stopped ‘several silly misses from quite breaking their hearts over him’. Therefore an engagement to Mr Archer would show that chilly man that he had meant nothing to her. Which was true, thought Daphne savagely. On the other hand, if she married Mr Archer then she would never have a Season with all its balls and parties and pretty gowns. She would be an old married woman, sitting in the chimney corner, listening to her husband digress intelligently on the best way to remove wine stains from silk.

  Aloud Daphne said, ‘Thank you, Papa. Mama and Annabelle will be quite cast down. They quite pined to see me wed Mr Garfield.’

  ‘Unlike them to take an interest,’ pointed out the vicar.

  ‘Well, if you cannot wed someone yourself, the next best thing is to get him in the family,’ said Daphne with rare malice. ‘Mama was so outrageous, I had fears of you calling on Mr Garfield and challenging him to a duel.’

  ‘What!’ The startled anger on the vicar’s face quickly fled before an enormous grin. ‘Wicked puss. Your mama has never looked at any man with interest in the whole of her born life – and that includes me.’

  ‘Oh, it had to be seen to be believed,’ said Daphne sweetly, ‘and Annabelle all but came out and begged him to take her to the Park too. Of course, Mama had just tried the same thing, but Annabelle is another matter. She is still young, although some people think twenty-one is fast approaching middle-age, and she has gone off in looks, so to see her making a cake of herself over another man was quite sad.’

  Daphne lowered her eyelashes and pleated a fold of her skirt.

  The vicar studied his beautiful daughter intently. ‘Never knew you to tell fibs before, Daphne. Annabelle’s in love with that husband of hers. She’s got a new baby …’

  ‘She dotes on the baby.’ Daphne’s better self rose above her unrecognized jealousy and she said impulsively, ‘Oh, Papa, Annabelle is so very unhappy, and Brabington too. Something is badly wrong. Pray go and see her.’

  ‘I will, I will,’ said the vicar. ‘Hey, you ain’t thanked me.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For saying you can marry that caper-merchant, Archer.’

  ‘Why are you so anxious to marry me off if you do not like the gentleman? It’s not as if he is rich.’

  ‘Women!’ groaned the vicar. ‘Well, if you don’t want him, stop encouraging him.’

  ‘But I do want him!’

  ‘Don’t sound like it to me,’ said Mr Armitage, becoming suddenly suspicious. ‘Nothing to do with Garfield, I trust?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘There’s a story going round the clubs about the day of the Review. Seems some member of the ton was lying in the mud kissing some young miss. You came home covered in mud. Wasn’t you by any chance?’

  ‘Papa!’

  ‘No, I thought not.’

  The door opened and the butler came in with the post. The vicar idly ruffled through the letters and cards. ‘Here’s one from Minerva.’ He broke open the seal and scanned the contents. ‘Seems she is staying on in Brighton. Deirdre and Harry have taken off for France. France! Pah. What’s in France you can’t get in England?’

  ‘Good cooking and good clothes.’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent. Let’s see what else she says. Baby Julian is well. Peregrine and James are well. Mmm. Oh, she wonders if you would like to join her for a few days before returning to Hopeworth.’

  Daphne thought of escaping from London. No more listening to Mr Archer worrying about the set of his cravat, no more entering some salon half-dreading, half-hoping the irritating Mr Garfield would be there.

  ‘I should like to go very much.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Mrs Armitage. Be off with you. I’ll call on Annabelle and see what I can do.’

  The vicar was relieved to find Annabelle very much restored to her former beauty although her face was a trifle too thin and there were shadows under her eyes. He was irritated to find Mr Archer very much present in Annabelle’s drawing room. Annabelle had always been a flirt, reflected the vicar sourly, but she was going much too far with Mr Archer.

  The vicar turned a fulminating gaze on that exquisite young man.

  ‘See here,’ he growled, ‘I want to have a word in private with my daughter, so …’

  ‘But I am come to take Lady Brabington driving!’

  ‘Got the wrong daughter, haven’t you?’

  ‘Mr Armitage, Daphne’s sisters are as dear to me as she is herself.’

  ‘Miss Daphne to you,’ snapped the vicar. ‘Oh, very well. Be a good chap and wait in your carriage.’

  Mr Archer gave a magnificent leg and sauntered out.

  ‘What are you up to?’ asked the vicar.

  Annabelle fanned herself. ‘Nothing,’ she said airily. ‘I am bored, that is all, and I find Mr Archer a most undemanding young man.’

  Mr Archer, standing in the hall, pulling on his gloves, heard the sound of his own name and decided to eavesdrop:

 
‘I told Daphne she could marry him if she wants,’ he heard the vicar say. Mr Archer smiled complaisantly. Annabelle’s reply was indistinct.

  ‘Strange,’ came the vicar’s voice again, ‘for I could have sworn she was slightly taken with Garfield. Now, what’s this I hear about you? Daphne would have it you were making sheep’s eyes at Garfield.’

  ‘Jealous cat,’ said Annabelle. ‘It was quite the other way around. Mr Garfield could not take his eyes off me. You know how gentlemen are, Papa.’

  ‘You’re well enough, I grant you that,’ said the vicar brutally, ‘but no man in his right mind is going to look at a married woman with a squalling baby when there’s a diamond of the first water like Daphne in the same room.’

  ‘I am accounted the beauty of the family,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Yes, but that was before Daphne began to outshine you. Never mind all this. What I want to know is why you and Brabington have quarrelled and why you are so unhappy.’

  ‘It’s a silly marital squabble,’ said Annabelle. ‘I am unhappy because I am bored.’

  ‘You are bored!’ the vicar’s angry voice came quite clearly through the door panels to Mr Archer’s listening ears. ‘You are a spoilt brat and I wish you would tell the truth. I know what ails Brabington. It’s because I was able to give you a child and he cannot! So you’ll just need to talk him round.’

  Mr Archer stood very still, his eyes wide with shock. Then he quickly scampered from the house and sat in his carriage his heart beating hard. Here was startling news!

  Incest!

  London would have heard nothing like it since the Byron scandal.

  Mr Archer forced himself to relax. This piece of information could prove useful. He was anxious to wed Daphne Armitage because he sensed in her a sexual coldness and purity which appealed to him vastly. The Armitage family had become famous in society by virtue of Daphne’s elder three sisters’ dazzling marriages. Daphne’s brothers-in-law were all very rich men. Although Daphne could not be expected to bring any very great dowry to the marriage, she was well enough connected to ensure that Mr Archer could spend a long life of ease staying with his various in-laws. Mr Archer did not want children. He certainly did not want to go about begetting them. But there were still some rumours circulating about London which he wished to quash and this he could do by marrying Daphne Armitage. It was important to secure Daphne before she made her come-out when the competition would be fierce.

  In Daphne, he would have a beautiful piece of porcelain for a wife. Recently, when Simon Garfield had appeared on the scene, he had been afraid that Daphne might turn out as other women, but then Mr Garfield had disappeared and Daphne was once more her usual, beautiful, calm, aloof self.

  No other woman would do. No other woman would fit the bill so exactly. But Mr Archer saw a few rocks and shoals ahead. Now he had this fascinating bit of gossip which would ruin the Armitages for life.

  He would hug it close and use it carefully if the necessity arose.

  The door opened and Annabelle came out. She was much flushed. Her squat and burly father stood glowering on the doorstep. Mr Archer allowed himself a delicate shudder. How could Lady Brabington possibly …?

  And he had once been called decadent!

  His beautiful mouth curved in its classical smile and he set himself out to be as charming as possible to Annabelle.

  He had always been somewhat afraid of the vicar but now he felt a glorious sensation of power. He waved cheerfully to Mr Armitage and set his team in motion.

  Annabelle’s better self had taken over. She was feeling guilty, she was missing her husband badly, and the only thing she found to comfort her was Mr Archer’s infectious high spirits.

  He must be in love, thought Annabelle. Perhaps Daphne has made a wise choice.

  Mrs Armitage appeared to have lost all her interest in Daphne’s affairs. After seeming very cast down at the news that Daphne was to marry Mr Archer, Mrs Armitage had once more resorted to her patent medicines and her bed.

  On hearing that Daphne was to set out for Brighton, Diana and Frederica begged to be allowed to return to Hopeworth and Mrs Armitage said faintly she would be glad to return to the country. Mr Armitage could escort Daphne if he wished and the maid, Betty, could go also.

  Daphne was glad to escape London. The weather was once more hot and close. As the carriage bowled through the early morning streets she could not help glancing out, just to see if there might be a glimpse of a tall man with copper hair and two foxhounds.

  The air of Brighton was bracing and the sea was as blue as the almost-forgotten Mr Archer’s eyes.

  Brighton had been discovered by the young Prince of Wales in 1783 when he had been told to try sea-bathing to cure the swollen glands in his neck. He bought a farmhouse and set about redesigning it. The final result was the Pavilion, the splendour of its rooms making even the jewelled splendour of his guests’ clothes appear insignificant. It was one of the wonders of the age, its walls decorated with mandarins and fluted yellow draperies to resemble the tents of the Chinese, its peach-blossom ceilings and canopies of tassels and bells, its imperial five-clawed dragons darting from every chandelier and overmantel.

  Daphne thought it a fairy palace and wondered at the scorn of the critics. One wrote:

  … A China view

  Where neither genius, taste, nor fancy dwells:

  Monkeys, mandarins, a motley crew,

  Bridges, pagodas, swings and tinkling bells.

  And that wit, Sydney Smith, had said acidly, it looked ‘as if St Paul’s had gone to the sea and pupped’.

  Its domes sparkled in the sunlight as the Reverend Armitage drove his daughter past, enjoying her awe. Although the vicar outwardly joined the fashionable in condemning the Pavilion, he privately thought it ‘a deuced fine show’ and, in truth, secretly considered most things regarded as good taste as deadly dull.

  Daphne was a most rewarding audience. She found her first view of the ocean thrilling in the extreme. Her eyes travelled from the stately houses glittering with fresh paint in the sunlight to the colourful ranks of bathing boxes on the long line of rock and shingle.

  Everything seemed to flutter and dance in the bright light, from the skirts of the ladies’ muslin gowns to the sails of the yachts bobbing on that incredible expanse of blue water.

  The pier with its wooden deck balanced on ranks of elegant slender piles had the spindly elegance of a heron, treading delicately out to sea.

  The very air was an aphrodisiac, although Daphne did not understand this, and therefore did not understand why Mr Garfield’s hard face seemed to rise up in her mind to blot out the bright scene.

  She was not all that far removed from the schoolroom, and, very much like a child, she begged her father, ‘Oh, please. Will I be able to bathe?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the vicar indulgently. ‘Might have a go myself.’ He was glad the male bathers were far enough removed from his daughter’s wide innocent gaze, however, since no man in his right mind wore anything at all when going for a swim, unlike the ladies who had to be covered from head to foot in flannel.

  Minerva’s house faced the sea, a tall white building with green shutters and black iron balconies.

  It was a relief to Daphne to find Minerva much the same as ever. She and her husband appeared to be very much in love and Minerva confided shyly she was expecting her second child.

  Julian was a chubby, sturdy little boy, extremely good-natured. He adored his young uncles, the twins Peregrine and James, who dropped their newly acquired lordly manners and rolled about the floor entertaining Julian and behaving very much like the schoolboys that they were.

  There was something so bright and cheerful and normal about Minerva’s household that Daphne felt all her worries begin to fade. It was like being a child again with Minerva on hand to fuss and lecture. The old moralizing Minerva had largely gone although enough of her original character remained to make her appear a safe rock in a sea of frivolous fashion.<
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  When Daphne’s things were unpacked, Minerva was delighted to find an excuse to give her beloved son an airing and agreed to Daphne’s suggestion that they should go for a walk. Little Julian was tucked up in his small carriage, his eyes, large and green and unwavering like his father’s, placidly surveying the summer scene.

  Daphne attracted a good deal of attention from the strolling bucks and bloods. ‘We will have you married before you even leave Brighton,’ teased Minerva.

  ‘I have already found the man I am going to marry,’ said Daphne, wondering why as she said it the summer scene seemed to lose a lot of its sparkle.

  Minerva eagerly began to ply her sister with questions, becoming increasingly anxious over Daphne’s very evident lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Daphne, dear,’ said Minerva hesitatingly. ‘Papa is often a great deal too managing. You must not let him thrust you into a marriage you do not want. If it all becomes too much for you, then you may make your home with me.’

  ‘Oh, I want to marry Mr Archer,’ said Daphne in a dreary little voice. ‘Papa was quite against the match but then he changed his mind.’

  ‘Perhaps you are fatigued after your journey?’ suggested Minerva. ‘You do not seem at all excited by the prospect of your engagement. Perhaps you should wait until you have had your Season. You are very young and cannot have met very many eligible men.’

  ‘I do not think Mr Archer wishes to wait that long.’

  ‘I am not surprised,’ said Minerva drily. ‘You are a very attractive girl and he must know you will command a lot of attention when you make your come-out. Also, it is not just a question of Papa’s approval. Sylvester and your other brothers-in-law have promised to add considerably to your dowry, and they will all naturally expect to approve of your future husband.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Daphne meekly.

  Minerva glanced at her younger sister with surprise mixed with amusement. ‘Do not tell me Papa has at last found a meek and biddable daughter.’