Daphne (7 page)

But Lord Brothers shook his head and said that even that device had failed to tempt the Regent into the saddle of late since he had left off his stays and
was become Falstaffian in bulk and language. ‘He told me t’other day when I was at Brighton,’ confided Lord Brothers, ‘that even the fineness of weather does not tempt him abroad. His great size and weight make him nervous and he is afraid to ride. He says, “Why should I? I never had better spirits, appetite and health than when I stay within, and I am not so well when I go abroad.”’

Mrs Nash, who was of a sour disposition, said that the Regent was entirely given over to pleasure and idleness and spent most of his days shut up with his tailors examining different patterns of uniforms.

Colonel Cartwright said acidly that the whole conversation smacked of sedition and for his part he had found the Regent to be very hard-working. Since he glared quite ferociously around the room as he said this, it had the effect of causing an awkward silence.

Then Lady Godolphin weighed in with, ‘I
do
think His Highness’s idea of throwing open
all
the prisons and asylums next Sunday is such a
good
and humane idea. Do you think it will work out?’

The shocked babble and exclamations that greeted this whopping lie had the desired effect of getting everyone to talk again.

And then, above the noise, the butler announced loudly and clearly, ‘Mr Garfield.’

Daphne found her heart beginning to beat very hard and moved very close to Mr Archer. Her father glared at her furiously but she pretended not to notice.

Mr Archer began to murmur fretfully in Daphne’s ear, ‘I wonder where he got that waistcoat. White piqué! But don’t you find it a trifle severe?’

Daphne did not appear to have heard him. She was watching Simon Garfield as he moved from group to group until at last he stood before her.

‘Miss Daphne,’ he murmured, ‘how very beautiful you look. And with all your wits about you which most definitely adds to your charm.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Daphne calmly, not one flicker of expression marring the smooth oval of her face.

Mr Garfield’s gaze dropped for a second to her bosom and a strange yellow light turned his eyes to topaz. Then his eyes returned to Daphne’s bland face and he gave a little sigh as if something had disappointed him.

The vicar was standing behind Mr Garfield, hopping from foot to foot in his impatience. He wanted Daphne to rouse herself and do something to attract Mr Garfield. He also wanted to remind Mr Garfield about his promise of one thousand guineas.

At last Mr Garfield turned around and surveyed the little vicar. ‘I have asked my secretary to find an expert to restore your church, Mr Armitage,’ he said.

‘No need for that, don’t you see,’ pointed out the vicar eagerly. ‘We have local craftsmen a-plenty.’

‘No doubt,’ said Mr Garfield. ‘But they will need someone to direct them. You amaze me, reverend. I would have supposed you delighted not only to have
the money but to have the organization of the matter taken out of your hands.’

‘Oh, well,’ muttered the vicar. ‘Very kind of you, I’m sure.’

Mr Garfield bowed before his baffled look and made his way towards his hostess.

‘Very pleased you could honour us,’ said Lady Godolphin and then spoiled her courteous remark by adding sourly, ‘It weren’t for want o’ trying. I sent card after card.’

‘The honour is mine,’ said Mr Garfield. ‘I am amazed you went to so much trouble to ensure my presence.’

‘Nagged into it, and that’s a fact.’

‘Indeed. By whom?’

‘Oh, never mind,’ said Lady Godolphin, cursing her own loose tongue. She rang the bell. What on earth had happened to dinner?

Her worry grew as her butler, Mice, failed to answer the summons. Footmen were circulating with glasses of wine, lemonade and ratafia. ‘If this evening is successful,’ thought Lady Godolphin, ‘then I shall charge the lot to Charles.’

Mindful of her promise to help the Armitages, she turned back to Mr Garfield.

‘Miss Daphne is in looks, would you say?’ she asked.

‘Very much so,’ remarked Mr Garfield with pleasant indifference.

‘Not gettin’ married?’ pursued Lady Godolphin.

‘I am a happy bachelor, my lady, I have no ambitions in that direction. Have you?’

Lady Godolphin blinked, and then realised he had probably a right to be equally personal. ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘I have decided to remain chased and unsulkied. Drat that man. Mice.’

‘Some gentleman is responsible for a plague of mice?’

‘No, no, my butler, Mice. What ails the man?’

Mr Garfield helped himself to another glass of madeira and watched with amusement as Lady Godolphin’s angry eyes looked pointedly at his glass and then pointedly at the vicar as if hammering home how much it was all costing.

Mr Garfield glanced at Mr Archer and he
wondered
if Daphne knew what she was about in that direction. Did she think Mr Archer really the beautiful, rather effeminate man he seemed?
Probably
she did. There had been a few unsavoury stories about him but they were not in general circulation.

Perhaps they deserved each other. It was a pity that such a beautiful girl should turn out to be so insipid. Mr Archer bent his head and said
something
. Daphne caught Mr Garfield’s watching eye and, yes, she definitely simpered.

The double doors leading to the saloon opened and the butler appeared, hurriedly straightening his striped waist-coat.

‘Dinner is served,’ he said in a strangled falsetto.

‘Been at the port again,’ mumbled Lady
Godolphin
.

The party filed across the hall to the dining room in order of precedence.

Daphne had the honour of being seated next to Mr Garfield at dinner.

She had caught his fleeting look of disgust when she had quite deliberately simpered in that silly way and so decided to be as missish as possible.

The first course was green pea soup removed by a haunch of lamb, larded and glazed with cucumber sauce.

Lady Godolphin did not believe in the
new-fangled
affectation of having footmen serve the guests with everything. She preferred the dishes to be left on the table and the guests to help themselves.

When the tepid pea soup had been drunk, she accordingly asked that the haunch of lamb be placed in front of Mr Garfield for that gentleman to carve.

Mice removed the silver cover from the dish. Mr Garfield picked up the carving knife and fork. Then his eyes narrowed and he gently poked at the joint and turned it over. Someone appeared to have chewed a large mouthful out of the underside.

‘I am afraid I cannot serve this, Lady Godolphin,’ he said.

‘Whyever not?’ demanded Lady Godolphin, who was at the far end of the table, her view of the haunch being blocked by a silver épergne which depicted Wolfe scaling the heights of Quebec. It was an enormous épergne covered in nasty little silver figures doing quite awful things to each other.

‘Because,’ said Mr Garfield, putting down his knife and fork, ‘someone has already been eating this.’

‘Mice!’ said Lady Godolphin awfully.

The butler laid his fat white head down on the sideboard behind Lady Godolphin and burst into tears. It was more than flesh and blood could stand, he moaned. He had been hired to buttle. He was not a kennel master. There were hell-hounds loose in the kitchens and the world was coming at an end.

‘Pull yourself together,’ snapped Lady Godolphin. ‘I will speak to you later. Take away the haunch and serve the next course.’

Still weeping, the butler removed the haunch and snapped his fingers for his retinue of footmen to follow him.

Lady Godolphin mentally ticked off the dishes in the following course: harricot of mutton, breast of veal with stewed peas, raised pie
à la française
, fricassée of chicken, neck of venison, beef olives and sauce piquant, fish removed with rump of beef
á la Mantua
.

Daphne had been working up courage to ask Mr Garfield about Bellsire and Thunderer. She dreaded hearing that they had been flogged to death or sold to another buyer or all sorts of horrible things. But he was talking to Lady Brothers who was seated on his other side. Daphne was not used to being ignored by any gentleman. She had never had to strain herself to think of anything interesting to say because the gentlemen seemed quite happy just to look at her. She was beginning to have a peculiar feeling that she had nothing at all to fear from the enigmatic Mr Garfield and that she bored him to tears.

The doors to the dining room swung open. Mice,
much recovered, stood aside to let the retinue of footmen carrying heavy silver dishes file past.

Then an almost comical look of horror crossed his face and the first footman cast an anguished look of terror over his shoulder.

There was the sound of deep barking. The vicar’s mouth fell open. There was the thud and scrabble of paws on the tiled floor of the hall and then shouts and curses from the footmen as they slid and staggered and then went down like ninepins amid an avalanche of hot dishes.

Bellsire and Thunderer erupted into the room.

Bellsire sniffed the air and launched himself at Mr Archer, who was seated near the vicar, getting the wrong quarry in his excitement.

Mr Archer glared in amazement at the mark of one large gravy-stained paw on his pantaloons, seized his table knife and tried to run Bellsire through the ribs.

‘No you shall not!’ screamed Daphne Armitage. She hurtled to her knees and grabbed wriggling armfuls of delighted dog.

‘Who has been ill-treating these animals!’ she cried, bosom heaving and eyes flashing.

The dogs licked her face. Her hair had tumbled down about her shoulders.

Mr Garfield’s voice cut across the noise. ‘I am afraid I am to blame,’ he said. ‘These are
my
hounds. They did not wish to leave my company, but rather than inflict them on your dinner party, my lady, I asked that they be confined to the kitchens.’

‘Where they created terror and confusion,’ sobbed Mice brokenly. ‘Mr Garfield said we was not to tie them up and they were to be treated kind. They ran out the kitchen door fighting over that haunch of lamb.’

‘Which you retrieved and nonetheless served up to the table,’ pointed out Mr Garfield.

‘What was I to do?’ screamed the anguished butler to the gods. ‘My lady would’ve have taken that haunch out of my wages.’

Daphne was muttering soothing things into the animals’ floppy ears, occasionally flashing a
glittering
glance around the company as if daring anyone to harm a hair of their heads.

‘Why aren’t these dogs with Mr Apsley?’
demanded
Daphne.

‘He turned out not to have a sympathetic
approach
to animals,’ said Mr Garfield, admiring the quick rise and fall of Daphne’s bosom. ‘So I took it upon myself to rescue them.’

‘Oh, that was
very
good of you,’ said Daphne warmly. ‘I would not have thought you to be so considerate.’

‘I did it all for you, Miss Daphne,’ mocked Mr Garfield.

Daphne quickly turned her head away.

‘Here boys,’ called the vicar and the dogs ran up to him. ‘Now sit!’ he commanded. Bellsire and Thunderer lay quietly down at his feet.

‘There you are,’ said the vicar cheerfully. ‘
Well-trained
beasts. The servants were probably teasing them something awful.’

‘My dinner party is ruined,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘The whole place smells of dog. Take them away. Take everything away. I’m ravished and there’s nothing to eat.’

Daphne rose to her feet. ‘Nonsense!’ she said. ‘I shall prepare you all something to eat. Mama will help me.’

‘Daphne!’ screamed that lady, clutching her heart. ‘I could not. Every Sensibility would be affected. I feel a Spasm coming on.’

‘Sit down, girl,’ said Mrs Nash. ‘You cannot go cavorting around the kitchens.’

‘I am perfectly capable of cooking dinner,’ said Daphne firmly.

‘I’ve got a cook to do that,’ pointed out Lady Godolphin.

‘Cook’s given notice,’ said Mice with gloomy relish.

‘On second thought,’ smirked Mrs Nash, ‘since Miss Armitage seems so determined to feed us, I suggest we let her try.’

‘What do I care?’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘I’ve never seen such chassis in all my life. Take that mess away, Mice.’

The footmen were rapidly scooping up broken food back onto the dishes. Maids came in with mops and brushes. Daphne quietly left the room.

‘Perhaps we should all go home,’ suggested Lady Brothers.

‘Fustian,’ said Colonel Cartwright unexpectedly. ‘I don’t hold with this business of modern gels lettin’
the servants do everything. In my day, a gently bred miss knew the kitchen and still room better than the housekeeper.’

‘Can Daphne cook?’ asked Lady Godolphin in an undertone to the vicar.

The vicar sadly shook his head. ‘You know no one at the vicarage can cook, least of all Daphne. Pass around the wine and get ’em all in their altitudes. Then they won’t notice. It’s goodbye to Garfield.’

‘I don’t know,’ muttered Lady Godolphin. ‘If he took those dogs and made pets o’ them, stands to reason he must have been trying to compress Daphne.’

An hour passed during which time the guests consumed a considerable amount of wine. Mrs Nash became quite flirtatious and kept rapping the vicar on the hand with the sticks of her fan.

Mr Archer was the only one apart from Mr Garfield who did not seem elated by the amount of wine. He was moodily bathing the stain on his pantaloons with soda water and salt.

Then the doors opened and two footmen came in bearing a huge raised pie.

It proved to contain a most peculiar mixture of viands, but the company were too hungry to care.

Only Mr Garfield had a shrewd suspicion that the enterprising Daphne had, he hoped, rinsed
everything
that had fallen on the floor under the tap, arranged it all in an enormous pie dish, and covered it with pastry. Certainly, it was the first time he had
had fish, mutton, veal, chicken, neck of venison and beef olives all in the one dish.