by M C Beaton
Soon everyone had managed to find a seat at table and the air rang with conversation. “Dash, I’ve dropped my fork!—Fanny, you’ve dropped preserve on your dress, you stoopid thing!—Frost tonight, old man. No hunting tomorrow. Ground’s too hard for the hounds’ paws.—You may think her very fine, Cressida, but mark my words her gloves are sadly ball-soiled!—I take wine with you, sir.—The scent was good and I thought it prudent to leave the cover and try my fortune in the open.—Cut him quite dead, my love. Annihilated him!—Waiter, bring a clean glass!—Oh, do be careful, mama is watching.—Have you heard? They say she murdered her husband and there she sits as cool as cucumbers!”
The last remark rang out in a temporary lull in the buzz of voices. Everyone looked startled and then hurriedly began to chatter again.
Lord Philip and Amaryllis sat side by side, eating little and drinking quite a lot.
Rattling and prattling, jabbering and tattling, the supper went its merry way. Lord Philip talked quietly to Amaryllis about what he had found out about the estates from Mr. Worthy and added that he had not gone on Foster’s tour of the house with the others but he had gathered from Agatha that Foster was better than Garrick.
“Really!” Amaryllis was surprised. “There’s perhaps more to Foster than meets the eye.”
“I believe you have some fine pictures in the Long Gallery.”
“Yes,” replied Amaryllis, aware of his eyes on her mouth and hoping he could not see the slight trembling she felt.
“Although I quite forget what most of them are. I hardly ever walk in the gallery now. It is always full of visitors. Do but look! That fat lady over there keeps staring at me quite horribly.”
Lord Philip took out his quizzing glass and leveled it at the staring lady, who flushed and looked away.
Amaryllis giggled. “You can be very stiffly on your stiffs when you feel like it.”
“I wish I could make love when I feel like it.”
“Well… well… I am sure there are plenty of ladies willing to oblige.”
Lord Philip took her hand under the table and began to gently rub his thumb backward and forward against the palm of her hand. His eyes looked intensely down into hers and all at once they were alone, the chatter and hum and hubbub of conversation rising and falling about them like the sea, the elaborate silks and satins of the guests and their eating, chattering faces moving far, far away until they whirled and merged into one blur of color.
At last, Amaryllis found herself overcome with such waves of physical longing for him that she gently withdrew her hand and drank a brimmer of champagne without pausing for breath.
“Speech! Speech!” several voices called, and Sir Peregrine rose to his feet. His speech was brief but his toasts were many. They were exhorted to toast the King, the Prince of Wales, their sweethearts, “success to fox hunting,” the army, the navy, Lady Russell, and “confusion to Napoleon.”
Then Mr. O’Brien rose to give thanks to Sir Peregrine and urged the guests to toast their Master of Ceremonies, then his good wife, then each other, then their horses, the hounds, and even the fox.
Amaryllis began to feel quite dizzy with wine and excess of emotion. The ladies were already retreating and leaving the gentlemen to their songs and stories and bottles.
Lord Philip assisted Amaryllis from her seat and drew her arm through his. “We will go home together, I think,” he said.
“What of my guests?”
“Rot the guests,” said Lord Philip cheerfully. “My beloved Amaryllis, you are staggering.”
Amaryllis had been going to protest that she did not want to be alone with him, but with that “beloved Amaryllis” ringing in her ears, she seemed to float along beside him as he made their adieux. Several of the women looked at her quite oddly and one seemed to hiss, “murderess!” but that could not possibly be so. Amaryllis smiled on everyone in a bemused way, curtsied right and curtsied left, and then somehow she had found her cloak. Miss Wilkins was saying something with a half-anxious, half-tender smile about my lady obviously not needing her and then she too melted into the background.
Outside, under the myriad lamps slung through the evergreens, the snow sparkled and glittered and shone. A few perfect snow crystals drifted lazily down on the still air.
All Amaryllis could think of was the enclosed darkness of the carriage and being alone with Lord Philip. Would he kiss her? she wondered dreamily. Snowflakes shone in the aureole of her hair as she stood outside on Lord Philip’s arm, waiting for the carriage to be brought around.
The coach rolled to a stop, the Lovelace arms shining on the varnished panels. Lord Philip smiled down into her eyes as the footman lowered the steps.
“Coo-eee!”
Reality came rushing back.
Amaryllis found that she was standing in the cold outside a country mansion in the falling snow and that Agatha Jordan and Harry Bagshot were bearing down on her.
“We thought we would come too,” said Agatha brightly. “So wowdy and wuff. I hate hunt balls.”
“There is another carriage, you know,” said Lord Philip. “There is no need for us all to cram into this one.”
“Oh, but there’s simply masses of room,” said Agatha, pushing forward so that Amaryllis and Lord Philip, before they quite knew what was happening, had stepped aside and allowed her to scamper quickly into the carriage.
Lord Philip cast a look on his friend Harry which spoke volumes.
Agatha lisped and prattled merrily on the road home. Harry seemed completely épris and Amaryllis could only wonder at his penchant for falling in love with quite dreadful females. In the light from the carriage lamps, Agatha’s eyes glowed as they looked at Lord Philip.
Amaryllis felt she should be glad of her chaperones. She had been about to allow this man to make love to her, this man who did not love her at all. But oh! how she wanted him, and oh! how she hated Agatha.
The journey home seemed endless but at last they were there. Agatha made jolly suggestions that they should send for the tea tray and chat around the fire but Amaryllis dully pleaded fatigue and escaped to her room as quickly as possible.
Her maid, Simpson, was waiting up for her, and soon Amaryllis was in her nightgown and wrapper before the fire while the maid brushed her hair.
There was a scratching at the door and Amaryllis called, “Come in,” her heart beating hard. But it was only a housemaid with a glass of warm milk.
Wearily Amaryllis dismissed both housemaid and lady’s maid and sat in front of the fire, sipping her milk and trying not to think.
She sat for a long time while the fire burned clear and bright, throwing the corners of the room into black oblongs of shadow.
The door opened and Lord Philip walked in. He was still in his evening clothes. He knelt down beside her as she sat in the chair and put his hands on her waist.
Amaryllis’s lips trembled. She wanted to tell him to go, she felt she should tell him to go, but her head seemed to be so heavy that it leaned toward him of its own accord until her lips met his. He gathered her in his arms and drew her gently down onto the floor in front of the fire.
Sometime during the night, a little part of Amaryllis seemed to stand outside herself, looking down in horror at the naked Amaryllis, twisting and turning and writhing and groaning in an utter abandonment of love; at the man who held her in his arms, whose hard, muscled body, glowing red in the light of the dying fire, seemed able to drive her to heights of passion she never knew existed.
As the red light of dawn crept through the curtains, Amaryllis awoke shivering with cold, still lying on the floor in Lord Philip’s arms in front of the now-dead fire.
He awoke too and smiled down at her lazily and then, scooping her up in his arms, carried her to the bed.
“I feel quite wide-awake now,” yawned Amaryllis.
“You won’t feel wide-awake for much longer, my sweeting,” he said, sliding beneath the covers and pulling her against the length of his naked body.
Seven
When Amaryllis awoke again, she had some confused idea it was still night. The room seemed very dark. She stretched languorously and turned her head to the pillow next to her own. Empty.
She slowly climbed down from the bed and went across the room and pulled back the heavy curtains. A faint glimmer at the edge of a black cloud was the last sign of the fast-disappearing sun. There were frost flowers on the lower panes and the room was icy cold.
She rang the bell for her maid, who quickly arrived with two housemaids, and together they began to relight the fire, lay out Amaryllis’s clothes, and prepare her ladyship for another day.
Amaryllis wanted to ask where Philip was but somehow found she could not. She had slept so deeply that she had not been aware of his leaving.
Simpson, the lady’s maid, was lighting the candles on the toilet table, for the day was now very dark indeed.
“My lady!” she said. “I cannot find the diamond-and-ruby necklace we wore last night.”
“It must be there somewhere,” said Amaryllis. “I left it on the toilet table.”
“Well, it’s gone, my lady.”
Amaryllis felt a clutch of fear at her stomach. Could Philip have taken it? Then she relaxed. Surely he had heard Belinda saying that the jewels were paste. On the other hand, at that moment he had seemed to be deep in his own thoughts and it was possible he had not heard.
She could not wait to get downstairs and find him.
The guests had already breakfasted but were all still in the dining room, mulling over the events of the ball, when she entered.
Her eyes flew from face to face. No Philip.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down next to Freddie Jackson. Her guests seemed struck dumb. Miss Wilkins was obviously still in her room but the rest were all present.
“Where is Lord Philip?” asked Amaryllis.
Foster walked forward. “He has left, my lady.”
“Gone!” Amaryllis stared wildly around at all the faces. “He can’t have gone.”
Had his pleasure, taken your necklace, and fled, mocked a voice in her brain.
“P’raps he was frightened you would put poison in his coffee,” giggled Agatha. There was a shocked silence, and then everyone began to talk loudly and incoherently about the weather.
Amaryllis stood up and put her fists on the table and leaned forward so that her face was almost touching Agatha’s.
“Just what was the meaning of that last remark?”
Agatha blushed.
“I’m surprised at you, Mrs. Jordan,” said Harry Bagshot severely.
“Well,” said Agatha defiantly, “I was only joking because I thought it was funny, and nobody believes a word of it. Lord Philip looked a bit green about the gills when we told him but the rest of us thought someone must be funning.”
“Explain!” grated Amaryllis.
Harry Bagshot looked uncomfortable. “Well, there were these two old trouts at the ball last night. A Mrs. Benson and a Miss Apple. They was saying as how the reason Lord Lovelace’s ghost walked the Long Gallery was ’cos he had been murdered.”
“I shall sue both of them,” said Amaryllis sitting down suddenly. “What a farrago of lies! As for you, Mrs. Jordan, I find you malicious and unpleasant. Foster, see that Mrs. Jordan’s trunks are corded immediately and put in the carriage. She will be leaving this morning.”
“Oh, I say,” mumbled Harry Bagshot miserably. “It’s just her kittenish sense of humor.”
“Cattish sense of humor, you mean,” snapped Amaryllis.
Agatha Jordan pushed back her chair. Somehow she had lost her babyish lisp and her eyes were as hard as sapphires.
“Will you escort me to London, Harry?”
“To the ends of the earth, an you will,” said Harry gallantly.
“I would just like to say you have behaved abominably, Agatha,” put in Colonel Freddie. “There always was a vicious streak in you.”
“Yes, indeed,” put in Priscilla Armitage, furious because Harry was obviously smitten with Agatha.
“Why am I the one who’s in disgrace?” screamed Agatha, while the Fang family murmured, “Tsk! Tsk!”
“I’ll tell you who’s a disgrace. She’s a disgrace,” and she pointed at Lady Lovelace.
“First of all we are told that her marriage with Lord Philip was in name only and that they are soon to get a divorce and yet they go around smelling of April and May and he visited her bedchamber last night. I’m beginning to wonder if she did poison Lord Lovelace!”
“Jealous cat,” said Belinda gleefully.
Agatha burst into tears and fled from the room, to be followed almost immediately by Harry Bagshot.
“I shall get to the bottom of this murder business,” said Amaryllis grimly. “Foster, find me the direction of the two ladies, Benson and Apple, and I shall ride over to wherever they live and confront them.”
Foster had turned quite white. “If you please, my lady,” he said. “I would beg a word with you in private.”
“Very well, Foster,” said Amaryllis. “Let us hope what you have to say can throw some light on this matter.”
There was a silence after she had left. Mrs. Fang rose to her feet. “Come, Belinda,” she said. “The sooner we quit this house the better. The whole visit has been a disaster.”
“Exactly,” pointed out Mr. Fang. “You’ll never get this sort of Gothic business in the City. At least, with my friends, I know when a man is married or not.”
“Want to stay here and finish breakfast,” mumbled Belinda, casting down her eyes and fiddling with a piece of red herring on her plate.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Fang. “But don’t be long. We have packing to attend to.”
“What a morning!” exclaimed Priscilla when the Fangs had left.
Neither Colonel Freddie Jackson nor Miss Belinda Fang answered her. They were both sitting, quite still, looking at the table cover, Belinda emanating an atmosphere which positively screamed that she wanted to be alone with Freddie.
Priscilla shrugged and got up from the table. She felt she had had enough. First Harry and that horrible Agatha and now Belinda and the Colonel. Perhaps she would just go in search of that nice Mr. Worthy. He had seemed quite enchanted with her beauty the other day but she had not encouraged him because he was, after all, a mere steward. But now he began to take on new glamour. Priscilla left the dining room and walked with rapid little steps in the direction of the estates office.
There was a long silence after she had left. Outside, snow had started to fall from the darkening sky. Both Belinda and the Colonel watched it dancing and eddying over the lawns.
The Colonel cleared his throat. “Pretty, ain’t it? Snow, I mean.”
“Hoffly nice.” Belinda appeared to retreat back into her former quiet self.
Freddie stuck his eyeglass in one eye and looked at Belinda’s bent head. “Well, now, you seem to me like an intelligent gel. What do you think about this murder business?”
“Fustian,” whispered Belinda, head still bent. “Couldn’t murder anyone. Lady Lovelace, that is.”
“Knew’d you was bright, the moment I set eyes on you,” beamed Freddie. “Hey, what d’ye think of Philip’s marriage? Don’t still want to marry him, I hope?”
“Oh, no.”
“Then what d’ye think? Think they’ll stay married?”
“Yes. In love. Always know,” said Belinda, blushing furiously.
“Lay you a monkey you don’t always know,” teased the Colonel. “Now take me, for instance. What d’ye make of me?”
“Hoffly nice.”
“I mean, now, would you say I was in love?”
“Don’t know,” said Belinda, blushing so hard that the tip of her nose turned bright red.
“Ah, aha! There you are! I am in love. And do you know who it is I love?”
“No,” said Belinda, wriggling in her seat.
/> “Well, I’ll tell you. I’m in love with that beautiful cold game pie in the middle of the table. Love game pie. Can’t get enough of it. Now, I’ll bet I’ve said something to make you laugh.”
The blood fled from Belinda’s cheeks. She looked straight at the Colonel. She looked exactly like a Pekingese viewing the kitchen cat.
She stood up, picked up the game pie, and rammed the whole dish upside down on the Colonel’s head.
“I hope you will be very happy together,” said Belinda, and marched from the room.
Meanwhile, Priscilla had finally found the estates office at the end of the west wing.
It had a glass door through which she could see Mr. Worthy bent over his books. All he needed was a little encouragement, thought Priscilla. He would naturally be overwhelmed that a lady such as herself should show an interest in him. The dear man was so shy.
Mr. Worthy was trying to work out the immense advantages of buying a threshing machine, and setting against it the immense disadvantages of having so many men deprived of winter work. Threshing was a job which kept the men busy in the barn all winter. He finally decided that, for the moment, the threshing machine must be put aside.
Amaryllis did not approve of employing casual labor. Casual workers were uncertain of their employment and therefore unreliable. Mr. Worthy agreed with her. He was old enough to remember the riots of 1796 caused by bad harvests and subsequent starvation. Good harvest or bad harvest, the workers must not starve. Beaton Malden must run like a well-oiled machine.
He became aware that he was not alone and looked up. Priscilla was standing smiling at him, standing with her toes turned in and the tip of her thumbnail between her teeth. It was her ingénue pose.
He rose to his feet and bowed. “How can I be of assistance, Miss Armitage?”
She did not reply, merely giggled and twinkled her eyes at him.
It did not occur to Mr. Worthy for a moment that Priscilla might be flirting with him. What did occur to him, however, was that she had been drinking and was in a shocking condition for a young girl. He touched the bell beside his desk.