Deirdre and Desire (21 page)

‘They have not succeeded yet and he is surely about thirty years old.’

‘But he was at the wars for years and years,’ said the vicar. ‘No one had a chance to get hold of him.’

‘Well, I think we should wait, nonetheless. But to return to Guy Wentwater. It is passing strange that he should even go near Miss Deirdre. I really think we perhaps might return to
London, just for a day or two, and call on Lord Harry and ask him to tell us what exactly happened when he went to pick up the bandboxes and whether he threatened Deirdre in any way.’

‘She says she asked
him
to marry her.’

‘I think it is no use speculating about it until we find out a little more. I’ve never been much worried about Guy Wentwater, strangely enough, although I fear he is a shiftless and
vicious young man. I always thought him too much of a coward.’

‘We could maybe start by paying a call on Lady Wentwater,’ said the vicar.

Lady Wentwater was at home, as she nearly always was, sitting alone in the dingy, dark drawing-room with its cheap tallow candles, reading a novel.

‘My daughters won’t be reading to you again,’ began the vicar, without preamble, ‘on account o’ that there nephew o’ yours.’

‘What’s up with him?’ asked Lady Wentwater, ‘apart from your unusual views on the slave traffic.’

‘He’s been trying to ruin one of my daughters again,’ said the vicar crossly, ‘and I may tell you, my lady, that I’m going up to London to hunt him down and make
sure he don’t put foot in this village again.’

‘Guy is always more sinned against than sinning,’ said Lady Wentwater, beginning to show rare signs of animation. ‘If your girls will throw themselves at him, what else do you
expect him to do?’

‘Look here, I’ll tell you what happened,’ said the vicar, ‘and if you breathe a word of it, it’ll be the worse for your nephew.’

Lady Wentwater listened to the tale of the abortive elopement with her large head on one side, while the ivy leaves rattled against the windows and sent fluttering shadows dancing about the
room.

‘Just as I thought,’ she commented when the vicar had finished. ‘More sinned against than sinning. If I have it right, your daughter threw herself at him, begging him to elope
with her because you were forcing her into marriage to a man she did not like. He decides not to go through with it. She turns up here. He has been drinking heavily with two friends. He teases her
a little to bring her to her senses, and his friends, being bosky, try to make sport so she runs away. My poor Guy then fancies himself in love with her and waylays her in London. Again, she begs
him to elope with her, but then changes her mind and does not even send him a note to say so. Now, what is so evil and terrible about that? I would not like to be an unescorted female chancing upon
you, reverend, when you are in your altitudes.’

The vicar turned red. All at once he remembered when he was much younger, drinking at a wayside inn with two of his friends. A woman had come in and quietly ordered a meal. They had all paid her
broad and warm compliments until she had run out of the inn.

It had transpired later that she was a gentlewoman whose maid had fallen sick on the road and whose carriage had then broken down.

The landlord had berated the vicar most roundly and called him an insult to the cloth.

‘But I don’t think for a minute he’s in love with her,’ he howled. ‘Demme, I swear he’s out to get revenge.’

‘That’s the sort of thing you would do, vicar,’ said Lady Wentwater blandly, ‘but you must not judge others by yourself. Guy is a sweet and pretty young man who would not
harm a fly.’

‘Who was your husband, ma’am?’ asked the vicar abruptly.

There was a little silence. The asthmatic clock in the corner wheezed preparatory to striking the hour.

‘Sir William Wentwater,’ she said finally. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Never heard o’ him,’ said the vicar rudely.

‘No, why should you? He has been dead for a long time.’

The vicar rolled his eyes in the squire’s direction.

The squire coughed gently. ‘Perhaps you might furnish us with Mr Wentwater’s direction? We are going to London and would like to call on him.’

‘I don’t know where he’s staying,’ said Lady Wentwater. ‘Try Long’s or Limmer’s.’

Both men rose to take their leave.

‘But if you find him, give him my love,’ said Lady Wentwater. Then she picked up her book and appeared to forget their existence.

When both gentlemen had walked a little way down the road, the vicar burst out with, ‘I don’t like it. Don’t like it at all.’

‘But the way Lady Wentwater put it, well, it does rather seem as if we are imagining Haymarket villains when they don’t exist,’ suggested the squire.

‘No, no, it stinks,’ said the vicar. ‘Everytime I look at that old bat, I see custom-house goods.’

‘Custom-house goods, Charles?’

‘Oh, I was talkin’ cant,’ said the vicar. ‘Custom-house goods is the stock and trade of a prostitute, because fairly entered, don’t you see.’

‘Charles, you shock me.’

‘There’s something about her,’ said the vicar, paying no heed to his friend, ‘that calls to mind that Covent Garden abbess, Peggy Jones.’ He gave a rich chuckle.
‘There was a one. The things that woman could do with a feather duster . . .’

‘
Charles!
Enough! Remember your calling. What if one of your parishioners should hear you talk like this?’

‘Sorry,’ mumbled the vicar. ‘Plaguey frost. Do you think it’ll be the same tomorrow? Is spring never going to come?’

‘If you are longing to go hunting, you had best dream about next season,’ said the squire severely. ‘I, for one, do not want my spring crops ruined by your hunt.’

‘Oh, Gad!’ screamed the vicar suddenly. ‘Look at that!’

They were passing a thick thorn hedge which bordered part of the Hall’s estates. There was a small gap in it. On the other side of the gap sat a fox, studying them with yellow-eyed
insolence.

‘You see it, too, don’t you, Jimmy?’ pleaded the vicar.

‘Yes,’ said the squire, staring at the fox in amazement. ‘I swear that animal knows we cannot reach it because of the thorns.’

‘Oh, can’t we!’ yelled the vicar. He threw himself like a maniac at the gap in the hedge, cursing and shouting as the thorns stabbed his face and hands.

The fox put its head on one side and looked at him curiously.

‘I’ll get hounds,’ gasped the vicar, reeling back defeated. ‘I’ll
have
that beast, pads and mask and brush.’

‘No, no,’ said the squire. ‘You cannot take hounds out in such a frost. The ground is too hard. It will cut their paws.’

‘Then I’ll
strangle
that Reynard myself!’ howled the vicar, tears of frustration starting to his eyes.

Before the squire could stop him, he was off down the road and in at the gates of the Hall. He doubled back along the other side of the hedge.

The fox studied his approach, and then, with a flick of its brush, it was gone.

The vicar blundered through the woods, shouting and hallooing and cursing fit to wake the dead.

He was nearly shot by one of his brother’s gamekeepers, and by the time the squire caught up with him, he seemed fit to die of an apoplexy.

‘You see, I can’t leave Hopeworth now,’ moaned the vicar. ‘Not with that gurt beast mocking and sneering at me.’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ said the squire. ‘Here’s Edwin.’

The vicar’s brother, Sir Edwin, made his leisurely way towards them through the trees. He was formally dressed as usual, a contrast to his stocky brother. He raised his quizzing glass and
surveyed the mess that was the vicar: bleeding hands, scratched face, dirty clothes.

‘Well, Charles,’ said Sir Edwin, ‘I see you have returned to all your formal glory of dress.’ He tittered. ‘Quite reassuring to see you looking your old self. May I
ask what you are doing cursing and screaming about my property?’

‘It’s that fox,’ babbled the vicar. ‘It’s in your grounds.’

‘Well, I’m sure one of my men will shoot it.’

The vicar reeled with shock. ‘Shoot it! You’re talking like a coxcomb! Shoot the fox. Did you hear that, Jimmy? The man’s insane.
Shoot
a fox!’

‘It’s my property and I can do what I like, demme,’ said Sir Edwin, turning puce. ‘I will not have you riding over my grounds and ruining my game, Charles, and if I have
to arm men at the gates to keep you out, I will.’

‘You are not a Christian. You will go to hell and fry for this wickedness,’ howled the vicar, jumping up and down with rage.

‘Come along, please,’ said the squire, tugging the vicar’s sleeve. ‘No hunting can be done in such weather anyway. Come along, Charles. Calm yourself.’

The vicar allowed himself to be led away.

Squire Radford accepted an invitation to dinner at the vicarage, although he would have much preferred the comfort of his own home and the vicarage was hardly famous for its cuisine.

The vicar sat like a man who has sustained a severe shock. He mumbled to himself about the wickedness of his brother. He barely touched his food.

‘If we are going to London tomorrow,’ said the squire at last, ‘I must be off home and get an early night’s sleep.’

‘Oh, ah,’ said the vicar dismally. ‘Ain’t any hope of a thaw, think you, Jimmy?’

The squire shook his head.

‘London!’ Deirdre’s green eyes lit up. ‘Oh, Papa, take me with you.’

‘Oh, very well,’ grumbled the vicar.

‘But . . .’ began Squire Radford, and then broke off, feeling it would be bad manners to tell the company at large why Deirdre should not go.

‘I really feel this is too much,’ said Mrs Armitage crossly. ‘Betty must go with her, and now that you do not have the benefit of dear Lord Sylvester’s carriage, then you
needs must take John as well. Faith, why don’t you take cook?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said her husband rudely. ‘The only decent thing about going to London is getting away from her cooking.’

‘That is not fair, Mr Armitage,’ said Mrs Armitage, turning an alarming colour. ‘Mrs Hammer does very well, very well indeed, on the miserly allowance you give her!’

The vicar looked as if he were about to launch into battle, but Mrs Armitage settled the score by throwing one of her Spasms. Squire Radford crept off and Deirdre went up to her room to
dream.

Visions of the old Deirdre running down the lane in search of Guy, meeting him in the churchyard, hating her father, flitted through her brain. It was like looking at the strange antics of
another person.

A new Deirdre would go back to London, taking with her her new-found love. She did not know if it would be accepted.

But at least she could try.

‘You have done very well indeed,’ said Silas Dubois.

Guy Wentwater smirked modestly.

‘Blewett’s money should be coming to me soon,’ went on Silas, rubbing his hands. ‘He is vastly annoyed that Desire is not to be wed, and furthermore has not had the
courtesy to visit him. When I saw the notice in the newspapers that the engagement was broken, I knew it was your work. How on earth did you do it?’

‘I told her I loved her,’ said Guy, ‘and she believed me.’

Both men were sitting in Humbold’s coffee house. It had been Guy’s first visit to that establishment for some time. He had been hiding out, picturing his reputation in shreds. Only
by chance, since he hardly ever read the newspapers, did he learn about the broken engagement. So his reputation was safe, and, not only that, Silas believed him to have been instrumental in the
ending of it.

‘Well, I certainly must do something to repay you,’ smirked Silas.

‘I have money enough,’ said Guy.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean money. I feel I owe it to you to give you the news that the dear vicar and that ancient squire from Hopeworth are searching all the clubs and taverns and coffee
houses for you. The vicar is crying for your blood. Dear, dear,’ chortled Silas, in high good humour, ‘you really must have upset the apple cart.’

Guy turned pale. He had carefully kept to places where he would not be likely to come across Lord Harry Desire. But now the hunting vicar was after him, nowhere was safe.

‘I must leave,’ he said, looking wildly about as if expecting to hear the vicar’s halloo and see him charging through St James’s with his pack of hellhounds streaming out
in front of him.

He would rusticate somewhere in the country far from Hopeworth. But one day he would return and get his revenge on the whole Armitage family, Deirdre in particular.

A Deirdre trembling with sweet love was one thing; a Deirdre so much in love with another man that she did not even seem to be aware of his presence was another.

He wanted to inflict all sorts of nasty humiliations on her. If he could only lure her as far as Bristol, there was a bawdy house he knew of where the abbess was skilled in training and breaking
down the most God-fearing girl into the tricks of the trade.

A shadow fell across the doorway and Guy started from his seat like a rocketing pheasant. It turned out to be a man he had never seen before, but the shock left him trembling.

He muttered a hurried goodbye to the grinning and malicious Silas and darted out of the coffee house.

Silas ordered another bottle of wine. He had never felt better. He could imagine stiff-necked Minerva wringing her hands over Deirdre’s disgrace, for Silas was quite sure Guy had done
something awful. And what made the joke so rich was that none of the Armitages knew of his involvement.

Perhaps, had Deirdre Armitage been asked, she would have said that Lady Godolphin’s dinner party was the most awful thing that had, as yet, happened to her.

Lady Godolphin was giving a dinner and taking the guests to the opera afterwards.

Deirdre had looked forward to it with trembling excitement, for Lord Harry had said he
might
attend but had sent a note to Lady Godolphin, saying if he was not present by six, not to wait
for him.

But Deirdre had been so sure he would come. His empty place next to her mocked her dismal eyes.

Although she had not had much time to improve her education, Deirdre had read all the newspapers she could get her hands on and had rehearsed conversation with Lord Harry Desire in which she
would dazzle him with her knowledge of contemporary affairs. And she would really like to know what Lord Harry thought of the Prince Regent’s latest madness. He had infuriated the Whigs by
having it announced in Parliament that he was going to erect a monument in Rome, designed by . . . Casanova? No, that was not right. Canova! That was it. This was to be in memory of the Stuarts.
The Whigs were boiling over with rage at this glorification of the Stuarts, a family that might seem glamorous to Highland Tories and Walter Scott but did not inspire any nostalgic affection among
English Whigs. Perhaps she would never have a chance to discuss it with him. Perhaps Lord Harry did not want to see her again.