Second Course
Snow balls
Fish pond
Roast Woodcocks
Pistachio Cream
Rocky Island
Pheasant
Crow fish in Savory Jelly
Pickl’d Smelts
Marbl’d Veal
Mince Pies
Stew’d cardoons
Pompadore Cream
Transparent pudding
cover’d with a silver web
Maccaroni
Stew’d Mushrooms
Crocant with Hot pippins
Collar’d Rig
Pott’d Lampreys
Snipes in savory Jelly
Roast’d Hare
Moonshine
Globes of gold web
with mottes in them
Pea chick with
Asparagus
Floating Island
Burnt Cream
The wines consisted of Lisbon, vintage Rhenish, champagne, claret (Chateau Margaux, Lafite, Pontack), old burgundy, port and sherry.
By the time the tablecloth was removed and the port and sherry, walnuts and sweetmeats stood reflected in the polished wood of the table, everyone was slightly tipsy in a silent and surly way.
‘Well, it seems as if Lord Harry is not coming. Waste o’ money,’ grumbled Lady Godolphin who had been coerced into holding the dinner so that Deirdre could resume her acquaintanceship with Desire. Of course, she had taken the opportunity to renew her own acquaintance with Mr Anstey, fondly picturing that young man spurning Lady Chester and darting to her side.
But Lady Godolphin was clutch-fisted and Lady Chester was not, and so out of sheer pride Lady Godolphin was forced to favour her former beau, Colonel Brian, with her attentions.
Mr Anstey fingered the new ruby pin in his stock and smiled fondly on Lady Chester.
The evening was bad, but worse was to follow. No sooner had they all been set down at the opera than a stern matron descended on their party.
‘Oh lor’,’ muttered the vicar to Deirdre. ‘’Tis Lady Mason, Lady Chester’s daughter.’
‘Mama,’ said Lady Mason awfully, ‘what is this I hear? Is this the famous Mr Anstey of whom I have heard so much? Is this the ne’er-do-well who preys on elderly ladies for their money? You are the laughing stock of London society.’
‘’Pon rep,’ bleated Mr Anstey, falling back before the venom in Lady Mason’s bulging eyes, ‘I dote on your Mama.’
‘Fustian, you mountebank, you man-milliner, you counter jumper!’ hissed Lady Mason. ‘Mason!’ she called over her shoulder. Her thick-set, brutish husband came ambling up. ‘Mason, this is the creature who has been battening on Mama like a leech.’
‘Oh, it is, is it?’ said Lord Mason with an awful glare and fingering his dress sword.
Mr Anstey looked to his party for help. Mr Armitage and Squire Radford seemed completely absorbed in watching the passing crowd outside the opera. Lady Godolphin was clutching tightly on to Colonel Brian’s arm and staring straight ahead.
Lady Chester looked terrified of her daughter.
‘I say,’ bleated Mr Anstey, ‘you musn’t say things like that.’
‘What are you going to do about it, hey?’ sneered Lord Mason. He stripped off one glove and smacked Mr Anstey across the face with it.
‘Name your seconds,’ he growled.
‘I won’t!’ screeched Mr Anstey, and he turned and fled into the crowd as fast as his spindly legs would carry him.
Lady Chester began to cry but was strong-armed off by her daughter and son-in-law.
The depleted party made their way silently to Lady Godolphin’s box.
The opera was Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice. Watching and listening, at first, more for Lord Harry’s arrival than anything to do with what was going on on the stage, Deirdre at last became caught up in the story and the music.
And when Orpheus clasped the dead Eurydice in his arms and broke into that famous lament, ‘Che faro senza Eurydice’ (I have lost my Eurydice), tears poured unchecked down Deirdre’s cheeks as the beautiful music rose and fell in the hushed opera house.
And then a hand appeared in front of her nose holding a large pocket handkerchief. She took it gratefully, and, only as the last note of the famous aria died away, did she remember the last time a hand had reached in front of her with a handkerchief. She twisted her head and looked up into the clear blue eyes of Lord Harry Desire who was standing behind her chair.
On stage, Eurydice was restored to life by Amor, and Deirdre was brought back to the present world by the light touch of Lord Harry’s hand on her shoulder.
After the opera was finished, Lord Harry made his apologies to Lady Godolphin. ‘You didn’t miss anything,’ said her ladyship, ‘except a lot of curst scenes and historicals. That old trout, Lady Chester, was arrested by her daughter, Lady Mason.
‘Mason himself challenges Anstey to a duel and Anstey runs away like the arrant, useless coward he is. My Arthur would never have behaved so cravenishly.’ She pressed the Colonel’s hand. Colonel Brian glowed with pleasure and murmured, ‘Dear lady,’ in a deprecating way.
Lord Harry took his hand from Deirdre’s shoulder and she gave a shiver, as if suddenly cold.
When she thought he was not looking, Deirdre glanced up at Lord Harry. He immediately turned and looked full at her. She dropped her eyes and blushed painfully. A terrible blush. She could feel it beginning somewhere around the soles of her feet and coursing in a red tide right to the top of her head.
Inwardly, she cursed the glaring lights of the opera house. Eyes seemed to stare at her curiously from all sides. Through an embarrassed red mist, she dimly saw Lord Harry turn away and say something to Colonel Brian.
At last, they all battled down the stairs in the press of people.
‘No one ever wants to sit quietly in their box until everyone else has gone,’ thought Deirdre crossly. ‘Being tonnish seems to involve a sad degree of crushing.’
Then the press of the crowd thrust her against Lord Harry, who put a protective arm about her, and Deirdre promptly forgot about everything and everyone else.
He would not hold her so if he did not care!
But her heart plummeted as she saw that his other arm was around Lady Godolphin’s shoulder to protect her, Colonel Brian having been thrust back into the crowd.
But she would have an opportunity to talk a little to Lord Harry at Lady Godolphin’s – for surely he would come back with them for wine and cakes – and then she might be able to judge if he had any warm feelings towards her.
But no sooner were they all in Lady Godolphin’s carriage and Lord Harry had left in his own than it transpired they were all to go on to a rout at a Mr South’s.
There was a little comfort in the fact that Lord Harry was to join them there.
And so after an hour of waiting in a line of other carriages, they alighted at Mr South’s mansion and pushed and shoved until they had reached the top of the stairs. Lord Harry was already there, and talking to a dashing matron nearly as tall as himself. She had red hair.
Wedged in a press of bodies with a glass of wine in one hand and a biscuit in the other, Deirdre at last found herself trapped in one of those ‘interesting’ conversations of which she had dreamed. An intense young man, jammed up against her, subjected her to a strong lecture on the disgraceful state of the economy, the miserable harvests, the sheer ingratitude of the Luddites, and the deviousness and stupidity of the Prime Minister.
In her dreams, she had always replied wittily and intelligently, but she found herself mumbling, ‘Indeed,’ and ‘How true,’ while all the while her green eyes kept straying across to where she could see Lord Harry’s handsome head.
He was looking down at his companion with a lazy, seducdive, slightly predatory expression.
‘And as for Napoleon,’ Deirdre’s companion was saying. ‘He should have been beheaded on Tower Hill. Do you know he lives like a king on St Helena? Do you know . . . ?’
‘I don�
�t care,’ said Deirdre rudely, ‘whether he is surrounded with a harem of dancing girls and eats from gold plates. He is locked away and will never frighten the world again.’
‘Good Gad,’ said the young man, trying to raise his quizzing glass but finding his arms jammed to his side. ‘You are a blue-stocking.’
‘I am not a blue-stocking,’ said Deirdre crossly. ‘I have said nothing to give anyone that idea.’
‘Young ladies,’ said the young man firmly, ‘should not have views on anything. Their role is to listen to men since their minds are of the inferior variety.’
‘They can become bored just like any man. Oh, do excuse me,’ said Deirdre, her voice rising on a note of agony as she saw Lord Harry evidently moving off with the redhead. What if he left with her? What if he married her?
She elbowed her way frantically through the crowd and came up against him all at once. Of his companion, there was no sign.
‘You look as if you are fleeing from wolves,’ said Lord Harry. ‘I will find us a quiet corner.’
Magically, the crowd parted to let them through and they were soon ensconced in two chairs in a corner, half hidden from the room by a carved screen.
‘Someone was talking at me,’ said Deirdre, ‘and I felt suffocated.’
‘A rout must be a crush to be a success,’ he laughed. ‘You are not fashionable, Miss Deirdre, unless you enjoy having sharp elbows rammed in your side, and someone jumping on your feet. Why are you in London? You will become worn to a frazzle with all this junketing back and forth.’
‘Papa found out about . . . about Mr Wentwater. He means to hunt him down.’
‘If anyone can find Mr Wentwater, Mr Armitage can. Is it so important? He behaved badly, but you did throw yourself at him, and, I think, you have had your revenge.’
Deirdre grasped her fan very tightly. He could not know of that second elopement. Papa had not time to tell him. Did he know everything?
To change the subject she said lightly, ‘Are you still of a mind to wave your uncle’s fortune goodbye?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said seriously. ‘I have to get married sometime, don’t I?’
‘Why?’
‘Among other things, I would like a son.’
‘Oh.’
‘Would you like to have children?’
Deirdre knit her brows. Children. How did one have them? She had studied the women of the village and knew now that the baby was obviously carried inside the belly.
But how did it get out? She had some idea that perhaps the navel widened into a sort of door from which the baby would spring fully-clothed like Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus.
It would be all very simple if one could pull babies out of one’s head.
Did having them have anything to do with all those warm sensations inside her body when Lord Harry kissed her? Like cheese being churned. Did babies solidify inside one after a certain amount of the right kind of kissing? And was that why one was never supposed to let a gentleman do more than press one’s hand?
‘You have not answered my question,’ pointed out Lord Harry with an amused look at her troubled face.
‘Of course I would like to have children,’ said Deirdre.
‘How many?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ asked Deirdre naively.
‘Perhaps. My uncle is anxious for me to have children since no one else in my family shows any signs of becoming wed,’ said Lord Harry. ‘Of course, Silas may marry someone just to pip me at the post.’
‘Silas?’
‘Silas Dubois – my rival for uncle’s fortune.’
‘How very odd,’ said Deirdre. ‘I know I have heard that name before. I was passing the morning room when I was staying at Minerva’s one time, and she was talking to her husband and I heard her say, “Do you ever hear anything of that dreadful Mr Dubois? I confess I sometimes still have nightmares when I think of him.” I did not want to stay and eavesdrop on their conversation, so I heard no more.’
Indeed!’ Lord Harry looked curious. ‘Silas has an unforgettable appearance. He is all nose with little beady eyes and he walks like a crab.’
‘Why! A man just like that stopped right in front of me one day and looked into my face. Then I thought he was following me and I confess I was afraid.’
‘When was this?’ he asked sharply.
‘Why, it was the morning when . . .’ Deirdre broke off and bit her lip, remembering it was the morning she had met Guy in the park. ‘I forget,’ she added lamely.
‘There would appear to be some connection with your family,’ said Lord Harry thoughtfully. ‘I shall ask Lady Sylvester.’
Deirdre realized she had not yet tried to impress him with her new-found knowledge, and launched into her speech about the latest iniquities of the Prince Regent.
‘Poor Prinny,’ said Lord Harry with amusement, although Deirdre had a feeling he was more amused at her lecture than he was at the antics of the Prince Regent.
‘But why should he suddenly fall in love with the Stuarts?’ demanded Deirdre, narrowing her eyes in what she hoped was a penetrating and intelligent look.
‘He is wretched because of his own unpopularity. He is, I think, fascinated by the Stuarts because they have become such a romantic legend, and he would so much like to become a romantic legend himself. And then, the more unpopular he gets, the more determined he seems, in some perverse way, to cultivate more unpopularity.’
At that moment, Lady Godolphin came puffing up to say they were leaving.
Somehow, by the time they had all struggled down the stairs again and were waiting on the step for their carriage to be brought round, Lord Harry had disappeared. Lady Godolphin said he would not be joining them for supper, and Deirdre could not help asking, ‘Did he say anything about seeing us again?’ to which Lady Godolphin said crossly, ‘If you mean you, miss, no he did not and I can’t say I blame him.’
Deirdre flushed and hung her head.
But when they were at Lady Godolphin’s and Deirdre had retired with Lady Godolphin to her boudoir where they planned to repair their appearance, Deirdre remembered about babies and about her ignorance of how they came to be conceived.
She waited impatiently until the maid had left the room. Lady Godolphin was the very person to ask. There was something so inhibiting about putting delicate questions to Minerva or Annabelle.
As soon as the door had closed behind the maid, Deirdre took a deep breath and said, ‘Lady Godolphin, how does a lady have babies? I mean, how does she get them?’
Lady Godolphin looked at Deirdre’s red face with indulgent amusement. ‘And you a country girl,’ she laughed. ‘Well, I belong to the old school and go in for plain speaking. I don’t believe in gels being kept in ignorants, so I’ll tell you direct. Now, sit down and listen.’
Deirdre sat down and leaned forward. Lady Godolphin looked quickly around as if expecting shocked matrons to leap out from behind the curtains.
‘See here,’ she said hoarsely. ‘The man takes out his pinnace and puts it into her virginal and after a bit of fiddley-diddley, a baby is started.’
Deirdre looked blank.
Lady Godolphin groaned.
‘I’ll try again. The man, see, he takes his Shaftsbury and puts it in her private.’
‘Private what?’ asked Deirdre.
The maid came back into the room with a warming pan.
‘Well, there you are,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘I’m glad you asked me. I’m good at explaining delicate matters. In such intimate things, I don’t believe anything should be left to the imagination.’
Deirdre was just as baffled as ever.
After she had returned to Minerva’s and was lying in bed, still struggling with the problem, Deirdre felt she had to know.
Betty would know. Betty, the maid, had been present at the birth of Mrs Armstrong’s boy in the village last autumn.
Deirdre decided to go to Betty’s room and ask her. It did not seem quite right to ring the bell
at this hour of the night or morning, thought Deirdre with a fretful glance at the clock – but if she, Deirdre, just crept into her room and asked her softly, well, then she would know and then she could sleep.
Carrying a candle in its flat stick, she cautiously and quietly made her silent way to the maid’s room, and gently pushed open the door.
She gave a gasp and the candle dropped from her hand, but there was still enough light from the rushlight beside the bed to show Miss Deirdre Armitage the splendid vista of John Summer’s bare backside and Betty’s startled face peering over his shoulder.
Deirdre picked up the candle and hurried off to her own room.
She fell immediately asleep, because, all at once, she did not want to think of anything at all.
TEN
Deirdre was feeling very tired. Her father was making return-to-Hopeworth noises. Her sister Annabelle had scooped her up early in the day – eleven o’clock was early by tonnish standards – and had taken her on a shopping expedition.
Annabelle still had all her old love of new gowns and ribbons and gewgaws. They had spent at least two hours in Harding, Hoswell & Co.’s premises in Schoenberg House in Pall Mall. Unflagging, Annabelle had moved on to Bond Street, very much a masculine preserve with its hotels and apartments, tailors, wigmakers and bookshops, although it had lately become quite comme il faut for a lady to shop there. Annabelle had also spent quite a deal of time at Jane Taylor & Son, ‘China and Glass Sellers to His Royal Highness ye Prince of Wales’ at the Feathers, Pall Mall, which sold ‘all sorts of China ware, Cutt and Plain Glass’, although she had so far bought nothing at all, and seemed to have endless reserves of energy left to explore Bond Street.
Past the Clarendon Hotel they trudged with Annabelle’s maid in stolid attendance. The Clarendon Hotel, famed for its enormously expensive dinners, was run by Monsieur Jacquier, who had been chef to Louis XVIII. It was in the narrow part of the street, known as the Bond Street Straits, and it was there both ladies met Lord Harry Desire, ambling towards them in a leisurely way.
Deirdre had never noticed before her sister’s infuriating propensity to flirt with any handsome man she met. Annabelle chattered on breathlessly and Deirdre reflected that she was too forward by half. Of course, Lord Harry was only being polite to pay such complete attention to Annabelle’s prattle, but Deirdre cold not help wishing her sister’s hair was not quite so golden or her eyes quite so blue.
Deirdre and Desire Page 17