Daisy (13 page)

“Never!” said Daisy with a shudder. “Sir James seemed so elegant and poised that I thought…”

“You thought that he would make love in a cool and sophisticated manner… like this…”

He gently took her chin in his long fingers and placed a fleeting kiss on her lips. Daisy felt strangely breathless and dizzy. The effects of the champagne seemed to be coming back.

“Oh, you are always laughing at me,” said Daisy. “You like to control the situation. I would love to see you being controlled for a change.” She suddenly grinned mischievously, “What if
I
should suddenly begin to make love to
you
?” She wound her arms around his neck and leaned against him with a mock sigh. He closed his arms around her and looked down at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

“I should have thought this evening would have taught you not to play with fire, Daisy Chatterton.”

“Oh, pooh!” laughed Daisy. “I’m only playing with my old Uncle Toby.”

His grip tightened and he bent his head. His lips came down hard on hers and Daisy closed her eyes. The world spun away in a mixture of champagne bubbles and moonlight. She felt as if every bone in her body were melting.

His breathing was slightly ragged as he abruptly put her away from him. “There you are,” he said in a husky voice. “Don’t ever play with old Uncle Toby.”

Whatever she was to reply, he would never know, for the carriage had come to a halt in front of the manor. The Duke swung off his evening cloak and placed it around Daisy’s shoulders as they stood together in the driveway. He bent and kissed her forehead and led her into the house.

Harry Trenton was lounging under the horse’s head and got to his feet when they came in. “So you escaped the long arm of the law,” he laughed. “I gather the rest have been released and are on the road home.”

“What on earth were you playing at, Harry, running off like that and leaving your guests stranded?” demanded the Duke.

Harry gave an enormous shrug. “Oh, Mother forgot all about a dinner engagement until the last minute. She thought you’d all be able to amuse yourselves pretty well but she forgot to give the cellar keys to Beskins.” Beskins was the butler. “She has the long-standing belief that Beskins is a drunk although the poor old boy never touches the stuff. And when she remembered that you lot were boozeless, she merely pointed out that you’d all guzzled too much champers on the train anyway. Seemed to amuse her—the idea of you all being sober, I mean. Never thought you’d leg it for the nearest hostelry and start breakin’ the place up.

“Fancy a game of billiards before turning in, Toby?”

“All right, Harry. Run along to bed, Daisy. Get a good night’s sleep.”

Daisy paused at the foot of the staircase and looked back at the Duke. But he had turned away laughing, his arm around Harry Trenton’s shoulders. Obviously their kisses had meant nothing to him at all.

Amy was waiting in the bedroom and exclaimed with horror over the wreck of Daisy’s gown. Unlike the Duke, she did not take Daisy’s adventure lightly. “We’ve got to leave, Dais’. You can’t meet him tomorrow.”

Daisy sighed. “Oh, the Duke says it happens all the time.”

“I don’t like this here kind of society,” said Amy roundly. “It’s bad for you, Dais’. Why, in Upper Featherington, he would have had to marry you.”

“Well, thank God we aren’t in Upper Featherington,” said Daisy. “Maybe the Duke is right. Maybe love doesn’t exist.”

“Yes, it does,” said Amy, jerking the pins from Daisy’s hair. “But it’s based on respect and trust and having a bit of fun together. You ask for too much, Dais’. It’s all them novels you read.”

Amy paused and looked at the childish face in the mirror. “Just have a bit of common sense. Don’t get yourself alone with any chap until you’ve got the ring on your finger.” She slipped Daisy’s nightdress over her head and then leaned forward to blow out the candles.

“Leave them, Amy,” said Daisy. “I want to think for a bit.”

After she had gone, Daisy sat in an armchair by the window, turning over the events of the evening in her mind. The episode of Sir James Ffoulkes had been a disaster. She heard the noises of the returning guests and then doors slamming along the corridor as they returned to their rooms.

She rose wearily and crossed to the window. The leaves blew back like a curtain exposing a moonlit square of garden. A couple stood clasped in each other’s arms—the Duke and Mrs. Phillips. Then the leaves blew back over the window again.

Daisy had a sudden desire to cry.

In the garden below, the Duke of Oxenden deliberately unwound Mrs. Phillips’s arms from his neck. “Go to bed, Jo,” he said kindly. “You’re squiffy.”

“No man pushes me away I—like that,” hiccupped Jo Phillips. “I’ll make you pay.” She stumbled into the hall and nearly collided with Sir James Ffoulkes. “Want to get even with Oxenden?” he said. “I have a little plan that may interest you. Come to bed and I’ll tell you all about it…”

Daisy struggled in the throes of a nightmare. She was strapped to a table and Mrs. Phillips was pouring champagne over her. No matter how she twisted and turned, the liquid kept pouring down on her face in a steady stream.

She awoke with a start and thought for one horrible minute that her dream had come to life. A steady stream of water was trickling down through the ceiling. She jumped out of bed and stood shivering on the rug. Trickles of water ran through the leaves outside and down the tiny mullioned panes of the window. Water descended on the roof with a steady roar.

Daisy tugged at the bell rope which came away in her hand. Amy came bustling into the room followed by a diminutive maid bearing cans of hot water.

“Get some footmen here to move the bed,” ordered Amy after a quick look around. “Look Daisy. I actually found some dry wood. We’ll have a fire going in no time. Lor’ you should see the place. Water dripping everywhere. Evidently my lady spent a mint recently getting the outside cleaned and forgot to tell them to fix the roof. I heard her this morning saying to Lord Harry, ‘Really, the way you all go on about a little water. When you come into your inheritance, dear boy, you can patch it up. I have spent enough.’ And then she gives that horse laugh of hers.”

She helped Daisy into a warm, blue-velvet dress and jacket and stood back looking pleased with the effect. “Now, you look more like your old self and less like a floozy.”

“Really, Amy…”

“It’s true. You looked a real tart in that red thing though I didn’t like to say so at the time. Fact is Daisy, you need a mum… or a good strong husband.”

“At the rate I’m going, it certainly looks as if I’m not going to find a suitable man. Let’s go to France, Amy.”

“Ask the Duke about it,” was all Amy would say.

Daisy went down to look for the Duke of Oxenden. He at least could supply her with her father’s address. She paused on the center of the oaken staircase and looked down into the gloomy hall. Footmen were placing more buckets under the leaks and carrying away ones that were already full. Bertie Burke clattered down behind her, seemingly none the worse for last night’s roistering and carrying a large, black-silk umbrella over his head. “Like to share my brolly, Daisy?” he said cheerfully. “Honestly, new leaks keep springing up the whole time. That’s a very fetching outfit.”

Daisy smiled and thanked him. He had a pleasant round face with a slightly receding chin and small weak eyes which blinked at the world with unshakable good humor. “Perhaps I’ll join you later,” said Daisy. “At the moment I’m looking for the Duke.”

“Good luck to you,” said Bertie amiably. “I keep out of Oxenden’s road myself. The day’s chilly enough without having to endure that cold yellow stare. Wouldn’t mind his money though. ’Cept I wouldn’t like to work as hard as he does. He’s keen on agriculture and all sorts of worthy stuff like that. Harry Trenton swears that he even works in the fields come harvest time. Now that’s carrying democracy too far.

“Anyway, I’ll see you later. Going to make some cocktails tonight if our horsey hostess can part with the keys. What’s a cocktail? It’s a superduper American invention. Super drinkies. Lift the top right off your pretty head. Toodle-oo.”

He ambled off in the direction of the billiard room, waving his umbrella and dodging the drips.

Sir James and Jo Phillips were sitting together at the breakfast table. As Daisy entered the room Mrs. Phillips said something to Sir James and both burst out laughing. Daisy was surprised. She had thought Sir James would be too ashamed of his behavior of the previous night to put in an appearance. A slow blush crept up her face and she was the most embarrassed of the three.

She retreated quickly from the breakfast room and collided with the Duke of Oxenden who had just come down the stairs.

“Oh, Toby, may I have a word with you in private?”

“Certainly. I gather from the look on your face that you have just met James Ffoulkes.” Daisy nodded mutely.

“And I also gather,” he said leading her into the library and neatly sidestepping several buckets and ewers, “that he seemed quite unconcerned about the whole affair?” Again Daisy nodded. “Feel assured he has been in similar circumstances before,” said the Duke. “Now, what is it that you want to see me about?”

Daisy sat down on a hard chair by the window. The upholstered ones looked too damp. “Please… could you give me my father’s address in France? I think perhaps I might be able to travel soon to see him. I have the money from the sale of The Pines—Miss Jenkins’s house—and also a small amount I have managed to save from my allowance.”

The Duke sat down at a desk and started scribbling on a blotter with his back to her. What on earth could he say! He realized he had scribbled “ffinish Ffoulkes” over and over again and hurriedly scored it out.

He turned around slowly. “I feel that perhaps your father should invite you first, Daisy. And he did say that he would shortly be returning to England. I would need to write to my secretary. I do not have your father’s address with me. You really cannot go traveling through France by yourself, you know.”

“Amy has promised to go with me.”

“Amy would not really be enough. You need a man to go with you. Perhaps that true love you’re always talking about will come along.”

Daisy’s face closed up and the Duke cursed himself for the careless remark.

“Perhaps,” said Daisy getting to her feet. She felt angry with him and disappointed. She felt obscurely that he should have offered to accompany her to France.

“Have you had breakfast?” asked the Duke abruptly.

“I didn’t feel like any,” said Daisy. “The sight of James and Jo Phillips with their heads together quite put me off.”

“Probably plotting your downfall… Oh, don’t look so surprised. But be on your guard. They will probably just try to play some embarrassing practical joke. Come, now. I hear the others coming downstairs. We shall go together and eat something… provided, that is, that the breakfast room is not under water.”

Daisy was still smarting from his remark about “true love.” But the thought of facing the others on her own was too daunting. The struggle was evident on her face and she saw the Duke regarding her with some amusement.

“Oh, my lord Duke!” cried Daisy, stamping her foot. “How I would love to see you making a fool of yourself… just once.”

“Should that ever happen,” he said lightly, “I will send for you posthaste.”

The atmosphere in the breakfast room was electric. The Countess was in full voice, berating the guests for their “libertine” behavior in The Prince of Wales Feathers. The young members of the party were glaring at her sulkily, feeling trapped. The deluge had washed away part of the railway line and no one knew when it would be repaired. Escape seemed impossible.

If I were on a desert island, these are not the people I would choose to be marooned with
, thought Daisy.

The faces, united and anonymous in the hectic drinking of the night before, had resolved into separate faces and identities.

There was a young woman in her early twenties called Ann Gore-Brookes who tittered a lot. She was the only person Daisy had ever known who actually said “tee-hee” when she laughed. She had a long indeterminate nose, eyes set close together, and an abundance of improbable red hair. She had attached herself to the Honorable Clive Fraser, a young man with luxuriant mustaches, a natty line in waistcoats, and large, wet eyes. A young debutante of Daisy’s age who also had a long nose and close eyes but a head of sandy hair, so sparse that the pads showed through, turned out to be Lady Cynthia Wampers. She was accompanied by her brother, Lord Albert, who wore a large paintbrush mustache, a lot of oil on his hair, and who was marked by a lugubrious air of hangover and general defeat. Apart from the Trenton family, the Duke, Sir James, Jo Phillips and Bertie Burke, the remaining member of the party was a Miss Thomasina Forbes-Bennet, who had the same foxlike appearance as her two friends, Lady Cynthia and Ann Gore-Brookes, with ginger hair, a long nose, and closely set eyes. Colonel Witherspoon had left for his own home which was close by.

At that moment every shawl draped around the Countess seemed to be bristling with fury, and the more she berated her young guests, the sulkier they became until her son, Lord Harry Trenton, cut through her complaints with “Look, mother. Put the stopper on it right now. It was all our fault for beetling off and leaving them to their own devices on the first night. So give your tongue a rest.”

Everyone looked at the formidable Countess in surprise, expecting another outburst, but she suddenly smiled weakly, picked up the morning paper, and barricaded herself behind it.

The rain continued to pour down outside in a steady stream. A footman came in followed by a small boy carrying a basket of logs and soon there was a fine blaze crackling up the chimney.

Huge puddles were forming outside on the lawns and the ancient Sussex trees that always looked wet anyway, their trunks being coated in damp green slime, gleamed with sheets of rainwater as though frozen in ice. Black and purple clouds tumbled over the sky driven by some wind, high and faraway above the motionless bushes and trees of the estate.