Daphne (6 page)

He made his way into the Green Park where he spread the package of dog’s meat out on the grass. ‘I should have it cooked,’ he said, ‘but you are probably hungry enough to eat it raw.’

The dogs fell on the meat while Mr Garfield settled himself on an iron park bench and fished his cheroot box out of his pocket. The two dogs finished their meal in record time and then lay panting in the sun, their tongues lolling out.

Mr Garfield sat and smoked and wondered whether he should risk enduring an evening at Lady Godolphin’s. There was no real reason to believe that Daphne Armitage would be in town. But he had expressed an interest in furthering his acquaintance with her and that should be enough to spur on any parent, particularly one as avaricious as he had sensed the vicar to be. Mr Garfield had been hunted down by ambitious parents from the day he had come into his inheritance. He had summed up the reverend as being an extremely mercenary man. Poor Daphne was probably hustled off to London the day after his departure.

Daphne, who would by now have been made aware of his power and fortune, would no longer fascinate him by pretending to be mad but would simper and giggle and flirt like all the other girls who had bored him so much in the past.

Everything in London seemed to be exhausted by the long drought of summer. He could not even remember when it had last rained. The grass was parched and dusty and the leaves of the trees rustled metallically in the dry breeze. There was to be a Grand Review of Volunteers in Hyde Park on the morrow. Perhaps he might invite Miss Armitage, if Miss Armitage did not prove as tedious as he was sure she would turn out to be.

At last he rose and collected his charges and made his leisurely way home with the happy dogs, full of food, stumbling at his heels.

He would have banished them to the kitchens but
they looked so cowed and terrified that he
impatiently
ordered his servants to let them stay.

At last he stepped out into the hot, still evening, dressed in his best. He wore a severely cut black dress coat with silver buttons over a white piqué waistcoat. His pantaloons of fawn stockinette fitted his legs like a second skin.

His copper hair was cut
à la Titus
and he wore his cravat in the Osbaldiston. Although he was often pointed out as a notable Corinthian because of his expertise at all sorts of sport, Mr Garfield did not affect the Tom and Jerry fashions of the other Corinthians who seemed determined to look as if they had just left the stables.

He stood calmly waiting for his carriage and trying to ignore the howls of canine anguish which were filling the house behind him.

He was not a hunting man and began to worry whether foxhounds were more sensitive than other breeds. He wondered insanely whether they might go into a decline.

What if Miss Armitage should prove that
wonderful
being for whom he had searched so long – a woman who would not bore him after ten minutes? And what if she asked after those wretched beasts and he had to confess they had died of broken hearts?

His carriage arrived and two of his footmen marched forwards to let down the steps and open the door.

‘James,’ said Mr Garfield, drawing on his gloves,
‘pray go into the house and fetch the dogs. I am taking them with me.’

James cast an eloquent look at the carriage, which was an open barouche.

‘Very good, sir,’ he said woodenly.

Mr Garfield settled himself in the carriage and sighed.

The door of the house opened and Thunderer and Bellsire streaked out, tugging the helpless footman after them.

‘Sit!’ commanded Mr Garfield awfully. The dogs climbed up on the seat next to him and sat up very straight, looking around them eagerly, their pink tongues lolling out.

‘I say,’ said Lord Hazleton anxiously to his friend the Honourable John Jakes. ‘Ain’t that Garfield, and ain’t he got two foxhounds?’

Mr Jakes tried not to stare. ‘Pon rep,’ he giggled. ‘You are not up to the mark. Foxhounds is In. Everybody takes a couple around.’

Each man strolled on, privately wondering how soon they could find a couple to rival Mr Garfield.

The Reverend Charles Armitage was a most
discontented
man. He had brought Daphne to London shortly after Mr Garfield’s visit with all the speed of a man long-accustomed to rushing his daughters up and down to town in pursuit of various marriageable beaux. He had been astounded by the fact that Mrs Armitage had briefly emerged into the real world to show some animation at the prospect of Daphne’s
alliance with Mr Garfield and had announced her intention of coming to London as well. Minerva was still in Brighton giving her two-year-old son, Julian, the benefit of the sea air, and so the Armitage family were making use of her husband Lord Sylvester Comfrey’s town house.

Diana was sulking and pining and complaining that she did not like life in town and London smelled abominably.

Little Frederica seemed to have her nose in some book or other and could rarely be persuaded to step out of doors.

The vicar had strolled past Mr Garfield’s house from time to time in the hope of seeing some sign that that gentleman had returned, but to date he seemed noticeably absent.

Annabelle showed little interest in the prospect of Daphne making a rich marriage. She played all day long with baby Charles and did not seem to pay much attention to her husband.

And then there was the beautiful Mr Archer. The vicar had dropped several very large hints in that exquisite young man’s shell-like ear that he would not be a welcome addition to the Armitage family, but Mr Archer had just smiled sweetly at the vicar and had said something quite inane which showed he had not been paying the slightest attention whatsoever.

Then there was Daphne herself. Never had she looked more beautiful or had she appeared more lifeless. Which all went to show, thought the vicar
savagely, that Cyril Archer was doing nothing to raise her spirits at all. She most certainly was not in love with the man.

In that, he was wrong. For Daphne had persuaded herself she was in love with Mr Archer; persuaded herself with such intensity that it was almost the same as the real thing. Once again, however, she carefully controlled her manner and expression. If she just went doggedly on with the goal of marriage to Mr Archer in mind, neither looking to the right nor the left, then things would work out. She and Mr Archer could set up house somewhere pretty and admire each other at length. Mr Archer did not expect her to think very deeply on any subject and would have been quite alarmed if Daphne had shown any signs of animation or intelligence. Deep down Daphne sensed this, and since she herself found Mr Archer’s calm and beautiful stupidity an attraction, she was well able to appreciate the value of her own attraction for him and take pains not to do anything to mar it.

She was glad the irritating and upsetting Mr Garfield had stayed away. From time to time she worried about Bellsire and Thunderer, imagining them being ill-treated, cursed and beaten.
Sometimes
she even fantasized finding out the direction of Mr Apsley’s kennels and rescuing the hounds on a dark moonless night.

Mr Archer had called on her that very afternoon and had taken her for a drive in the park. Her father had been absent and Mrs Armitage could find
nothing amiss in allowing the seemingly innocuous Mr Archer to squire her daughter. It had been a pleasant and undemanding outing and they had excited a great deal of admiration. Mr Archer was divinely fair with white gold curls falling over a broad marble brow. His eyes were of a deep and intense blue and his mouth was beautifully shaped and perpetually curled in one of those smiles you see on classical statues – which is really what it was in a way, Mr Archer having practised that smile before the looking glass until he had it quite perfect.

He had rather curved elongated lids as well which added to his classical appearance. His only fault was that he was rather hollow-chested but that had been rectified by buckram wadding, and, since Daphne had never seen him without his coat, she was unaware of this defect.

Lady Godolphin had been thrown into a flurry by the arrival of Mr Garfield’s footman for she
had
found a substitute for him to make up her dinner table, that substitute being the fair Mr Archer. She knew Mr Armitage would be annoyed but she had always considered Mr Archer merely as a decoration and no threat at all.

In despair, Lady Godolphin had sent a note to Mr Archer’s lodgings, telling him that unfortunately his presence would mean she would be seating thirteen and she did so hope he would not consider it inconvenient to consider his invitation null and void.

Mr Archer had sent a note by return saying, yes, he did find it inconvenient and looked forward to her
dinner party prodigiously, which made Lady
Godolphin
so incensed she damned him as having a hide as thick as a runningsoris.

But at least Lady Godolphin had the pleasure of letting Mr Armitage know that the prey in the form of Mr Garfield was shortly to enter the net.

The vicar’s spirits soared again but caution
prevented
him from telling Daphne that Mr Garfield was to be one of the guests.

Daphne knew that Archer was to be at Lady Godolphin’s and so Daphne would no doubt be looking her most beautiful.

Daphne did look exquisite as the Armitage party set out for Lady Godolphin’s. Only Daphne, Mr and Mrs Armitage were to attend. Diana and Frederica, to their great relief, were to be left behind. Daphne was wearing a white muslin gown with a thin gold stripe, each stripe having been delicately
embroidered
onto the fine fabric. The dress had a very high waist and a very low bodice. The bodice was unlined and the thin material exposed more of Daphne’s charms to the public gaze than the vicar thought seemly.

The trouble was he only noticed the scantiness of her gown when they arrived at Lady Godolphin’s. He also noticed that the gown opened all the way down the back to reveal a pink scanty petticoat which managed to create the fleeting illusion that Daphne was wearing nothing underneath.

The vicar’s conscience told him he should ask Lady Godolphin to lend Daphne a shawl. But the
other Mr Armitage fought stoutly with the niggling voice of conscience – and won. Girls were fit for nothing better in life than to get married and rear children, and if you were going to bait the man-trap, then it argued that the bait should be as attractive as possible.

Daphne had chosen the dress some time ago from a fashion plate in
La Belle Assemblée
. She was not in the slightest aware that it was daring; only that it felt cool and comfortable and that the gold and white nicely set off the blackness of her hair and the whiteness of her skin.

She was completely unaware of the sexual
attractions
of her body; she was only conscious of the beauty of her face.

In Mr Archer’s inclusion in the dinner party, Daphne saw great hope. Her father’s moods were as variable as the winds of Heaven, and given that the wind was blowing in the right direction at the right time, then it was quite possible that she would be able to marry Mr Archer and live placidly ever after.

It was not until the company was gathered in Lady Godolphin’s Green Saloon that Mrs Armitage let the cat out of the bag. She tweaked Daphne’s dress at the back to straighten the fall of the delicate muslin and murmured, ‘I am glad you are in looks, my pet. Mr Garfield is a very great catch.’

‘Oh, mama, Mr Garfield is not here,’ pointed out Daphne, smiling in an unruffled way in the direction of Mr Archer.

‘But he is expected!’ said Mrs Armitage.

A tide of colour rushed into Daphne’s face. She remembered Mr Garfield’s hard mouth, hard body, and strange yellow eyes. All at once she felt her security threatened and instinctively moved to Mr Archer’s side.

‘Your dress is beautiful, Miss Daphne,’ said that gentleman. ‘I must copy that idea for a waistcoat – gold stripes on white muslin.’

‘Do but listen!’ hissed Daphne. ‘Mr Simon
Garfield
is shortly to arrive and Papa wishes me to marry him.’

‘But you cannot,’ said Mr Archer simply, ‘for
we
are to be married – to each other.’

Daphne felt let down. If this was a proposal of marriage, it was not the sort of proposal of which she had dreamt.

‘
Are
we to be married?’ she whispered, but Mr Archer had found a loose thread in the discreet length of striped stocking which was peeping below his left pantaloon leg and that seemed to be absorbing all his attention, as in fact it was. He was wondering whether to boldly demand a pair of scissors to snip off the offending thread, or whether to make an excuse and retire to his lodgings and do it there, or whether his nails were sharp enough to slice it off, or whether, if he tugged it, the whole stocking would bunch up into an unseemly knot.

There was no one of very great moment at the dinner party – for alas poor Brummell, fled to the Continent before his baying creditors – and London was thin of company. Mr Archer had now heard Mr
Garfield was to be of the party but was not impressed. Any man who did not cultivate the good will of the
ton
was beyond his understanding and no one had ever seen Mr Garfield trying to impress anyone.

It showed Lady Godolphin’s current lack of spirit in that the guests, other than the three Armitages, Mr Archer, and the still absent Mr Garfield, were all comparatively young, Lady Godolphin normally liking to surround herself with septuagenarians so that she might feel young herself. There were three married couples, Lord and Lady Brothers, the Honourable Peter and Mrs Nash, and Colonel and Mrs Cartwright, all of unimpeachable social
standing
, all thirtyish, and all infernally dull.

Conversation turned on the enormous size of the Prince Regent which had prompted a solemn article in
The Times
about how he contrived to mount a horse.

‘An inclined plane,’ that august newspaper had reported, ‘was constructed, rising to the height of two feet and a half, at the upper end of which was a platform. His Royal Highness was placed on a chair on rollers, which was then raised by screws high enough to let the horse pass under; and finally, his Royal Highness was let gently down into the saddle. By these means the Regent was undoubtedly able to enjoy in some degree the benefit of air and exercise …’