Deirdre and Desire

by Beaton, M. C.

  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.’

  She hurriedly ended the conversation with the earl and edged cautiously in her father’s direction. He saw her coming and beamed on her.

  ‘You’re a sensible girl,’ he said fondly. ‘I always knew you had a shrewd head on your shoulders. When Desire told me this idea of yours that he should travel with us to Hopeworth on the morrow and stay
with us until you both get better acquainted, I was fair flummoxed. I didn’t expect you to be so sensible about the whole thing and that’s a fact.

  ‘“Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry,”’ quoted the vicar gleefully, reaching past Deirdre to grab a plate. ‘I was that worrit, I been fair starving myself. But today I shall break my fast.’

  Deirdre turned away to hide the blind fury of her face. ‘The great fool!’ she raged inwardly, cursing Lord Harry.

  ‘But at least I shall be back home, and Guy will only need to see this idiot once to know that he must rescue me.

  ‘Why, this Lord Harry is such a great ox, such a lumpkin, that he doesn’t even realize I don’t want to become better acquainted!

  ‘Was there ever such a fool!’

  FOUR

  The vicarage had never seemed so small before. The arrival of Lord Harry seemed to reduce it, although it was a pleasant building with dining-room, drawing-room, parlour and study on the ground floor, six bedrooms on the first and the attics on the top. Deirdre and Daphne once more had to share a room to allow bedroom space for Lord Harry since the dressing-room which had been the boys’ bedroom was allocated to him for his personal use. The servants had to double up in the attics to make room for his Swiss.

  Then there was the supremely elegant Lord Harry in residence. It was rather like buying a splendid new piece of furniture and noticing that the curtains were faded and the carpet worn.

  To Deirdre, he made her home seem shabby and dark and poky.

  She had carefully avoided being alone with him. Sir Edwin and his wife, learning of his presence, and, ever-anxious to secure a suitable parti for one of their daughters, and hearing that there had, as yet, been no mention of any official engagement to Miss Deirdre Armitage, had asked the whole family to a garden party by way of securing the attendance of Lord Harry. Deirdre had been praying for rain. She did not like her uncle or his cold wife, or their silly, malicious daughters.

  But then she overheard her father grumbling to his curate, Mr Pettifor, that Mr Wentwater was to be one of the guests, and, from that moment on, Deirdre could hardly wait for the Saturday of the garden party to arrive.

  They had arrived from London on Wednesday morning. Already, it was Friday evening, and so far Deirdre had heard or seen nothing of Guy Wentwater.

  She had sat Wednesday and Thursday evening by the window, looking out over the vicarage garden in the hope of seeing him walking in the lane.

  She did not know he had been in London at the same time as she, for that vision of him sitting in the library, dreaming of her, was fixed in her mind. Besides, she had prayed to God for guidance, and although He had dealt her an unexpected blow by allowing Lord Harry to come on a visit, she was still sure He meant her to elope with Guy.

  The vicarage was in a great bustle with preparations for the garden party. It was difficult to know what to wear. The Almanac promised a fine day. Should one freeze fashionably in muslin? Or be comfortable in wool?

  Daphne would, of course, freeze. No sacrifice was too great. Fashion was all.

  Had Minerva still been substitute mother, then they would all have had to dress sensibly. But Minerva was married. Minerva was in Paris, and Mrs Armitage had discovered a new and delicate complaint and had as little interest in what her daughters did, or did not do, as she always had evinced.

  Deirdre heartily wished the elegant Lord Harry in hell.

  He was too much of a favourite with her family for her comfort and they all seemed to see the marriage as good as arranged. In the parlour that evening, after supper, Lord Harry had been playing a noisy game of spillikins with Deirdre and Diana, recklessly gambling away his whole fortune and threatening to go out in the garden and shoot himself, much to Frederica’s delight.

  ‘This is worse than Waterloo,’ he laughed, tugging Frederica’s hair.

  ‘How would you know?’ asked Deirdre rudely.

  There was a shocked silence.

  ‘Deirdre!’ said her father. ‘I would see you in my study.’

  Deirdre folded her lips in a mutinous line. Lord Harry’s light husky voice was describing the typhoon which would surely strike the garden party tomorrow and even Daphne was giggling helplessly at the mad descriptions he was drawing.

  The whole vicarage seemed too full of Lord Harry Desire, thought Deirdre crossly, as she followed her father across the hall to his study.

  She had secretly hoped her family would take a dislike to this indolent, silly lord.

  ‘Shut the door,’ snapped her father, breaking into her thoughts. ‘What was the meaning of that remark, miss?’

  ‘What remark, Papa?’ asked Deirdre sweetly.

  ‘About Lord Harry not knowin’ anything about Waterloo?’

  ‘I thought it a just observation, Papa. There are many fine and brave men who fought at Waterloo. He should not dare even to suggest in a joke that he was one of them.’

  ‘And why not? When he most certainly was.’

  ‘You must be . . .’

  ‘See here, my girl, I had it from Lord Brothers that Harry Desire was one of the most courageous officers on the field. Just because the man don’t preen and brag, don’t mean he ain’t brave.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ said Deirdre meekly, although privately she hated Lord Harry the more for having made her look like a fool.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve got in that brain-box of yourn,’ went on the vicar. ‘If there was another fellow in your life, I could understand it. Desire is an amiable chap. He’s not too bright, I’ll grant you that. He seems nearer Frederica’s age than your own half the time. He listened to the belling of my hounds and he said, “The bass is a trifle flat. You should have that animal tuned, don’t you think?”

  ‘But intelligence ain’t fashionable and never was. He’s a gentleman, and your true gentleman is stupid.’

  ‘Would you describe yourself so?’ asked Deirdre maliciously.

  ‘Oh, I ain’t stupid,’ said the vicar seriously, ‘but I’ve got the wit to hide the fact. Now, I’ve had letters from Minerva and Annabelle. Seems they think your come-out is to be next year. But we can’t afford to wait.’

  Deirdre clasped her hands and looked at her father with her strange green eyes. ‘Papa, if I were to wed a man who had a great deal of money, you would surely not care what type of man he was?’

  She looked at her father anxiously, Guy’s name trembling on her lips.

  ‘Course I would,’ said the vicar stoutly. ‘Imagine if our Bella were to have married that Guy Wentwater. He’s to be at Edwin’s garden party. I told Edwin, I did, “you ain’t got any standards”. Edwin says Wentwater ain’t slave trading and has a mort o’ money and he’s thinking of him for Josephine or Emily, but I says to him, I’d rather we all starved than let that beast near the vicarage.’

  All her new-found hate for her father burned twice as fiercely in Deirdre’s bosom.

  ‘I must write to Minerva and tell her of your plans, Papa,’ she said.

  The vicar looked at her narrowly, then he realized he had remembered to bribe the postboy. ‘Very well,’ he said with deceptive mildness. ‘She’s a sensible girl and would approve of my choice. I’ve been trying to leave you and Lord Harry alone together, but you always seem to make some excuse.

  ‘Now he was brought here, I was told, so that the pair of you should get better acquainted. And you are going to get better acquainted, Deirdre Armitage.

  ‘And that’s an order!’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ sighed Deirdre.

  ‘It’s a stupid idea of Edwin’s, this here garden party. Whoever heard of a garden party nearly at the end of October? But the grounds of the Hall are pretty enough, and you make sure you and Lord Harry wander off somewhere.’

  ‘Common, disgusting, vulgar man,’ thought Deirdre, meaning the vicar.

  Aloud she said, ‘Yes,’ now only wanting to escape.

  ‘So go back in there,’ said the vi
car, ‘and let’s have no more rudeness from you, miss.’

  There was no more rudeness from Deirdre because she did not address one remark to Lord Harry for the rest of the evening. At last, it was time for bed.

  Once, again, Deirdre sat by the window, watching to see if Guy would walk in the lane, waiting impatiently for Daphne to complete her lengthy bedtime toilet and go to sleep.

  Daphne was fortunately too self-absorbed to wonder why her sister spent so much time sitting by the window instead of preparing for bed.

  At last Daphne fell asleep, her head full of curl papers gleaming in the darkness.

  And then the faint red glow of a cheroot stabbed the darkness of the lane. Deirdre stifled a gasp as she rubbed the pane of the window and peered out. There was the tall figure, there was the familiar gleam of his white stock in the darkness.

  She pulled on her cloak and scampered out of the vicarage, too excited even to try to be quiet.

  White frost was gleaming on the grass and bushes of the garden. From the kennels, a hound sent up a melancholy howl to the moon. Stars burned in the black night sky.

  Deirdre tugged open the gate and darted out into the lane.

  At first she thought he had gone, and then she saw that red firefly of the lit end of the cheroot dancing at the turn in the road.

  She scampered breathlessly along the lane and turned the corner. Nothing in front of her except the moon shining on the frost-white pebbles of the road.

  Beyond the stile to the right, the little, tantalizing firefly of light danced across the fields.

  Frightened to call out in case anyone heard her, Deirdre hitched up her skirt and climbed over the stile and then sped across the frost-hard rutted earth of the field until the tall, dark figure of a man loomed large at the edge of the woods. A cloud had crossed the moon, and she could only make out his silhouette.

  ‘Wait!’ she called breathlessly. ‘Oh, please wait.’

  He threw away the cheroot and turned to face her.

  Filled with love and longing, she hurtled towards him and cannoned against his chest.