Deirdre and Desire (10 page)

A frown settled on his forehead. He suddenly urged his team forward so that they passed the vicarage carriage and then, once in front of it, he slowed his team to a halt and waved his arm to
signal to the vicarage carriage to stop also. He jumped lightly down and stood, holding his horses, while the vicar ambled up to him.

‘I’m afraid you will have to take Miss Daphne. One of my traces is in danger of breaking,’ he said. ‘I can fix it given some time and I will follow you into
Hopeminster.’

Normally, the vicar would have demanded to see the trace and would have offered all sorts of suggestions but Deirdre and his money problems were weighing heavy on his mind. Daphne was only too
glad to get into the closed carriage so that she could study her face in her pocket glass and repair the damage done to her hair by the wind.

Promising to see them all at the inn at Hopeminster, Lord Harry waved them all a cheerful goodbye. He stood in the middle of the road until the lumbering carriage had turned a bend and was
hidden from view.

Then he led his team back to the crossroads and looked about. Over the fields and far away, a little figure with two bandboxes was climbing over a stile. A gust of wind whipped the
figure’s hat off and sent it bowling across the fields. Sunlight shone on a flash of red hair.

He looked from the distant figure to the Hopeworth–Hopeminster crossroads and quietly led his team a little away and into a field. He unhitched his horses, setting them free to graze
before he left the field, carefully shutting the gate behind him.

There was a stand of alders a short way from the crossroads, set on a mound. He strolled into it. It afforded an excellent view of the crossroads and the surrounding fields.

He leaned his back against the sun-warmed trunk of a tree and studied the little figure, laboriously crossing the fields. The figure grew larger and finally resolved itself into that of a dusty
and dishevelled Deirdre Armitage.

She had lost her hat and the wind was whipping her red hair about her face and she kept impatiently setting down the bandboxes and trying to pin it up.

Deirdre finally reached the crossroads and sat wearily down on a milestone.

Gradually the wind died and the sun grew warmer, and Deirdre Armitage waited patiently; hidden in his stand of alder trees, Lord Harry Desire waited patiently as well.

The minutes grew into quarter-hours, half-hours, and then hours. As the sun sank lower on the horizon the little figure on the milestone grew more and more hunched and forlorn.

Lord Harry straightened up and walked back to where his horses were quietly grazing. He hitched his team up to the phaeton again and led them out of the field towards where Deirdre sat patiently
on the milestone.

She did not even look up as he approached, but she must have sensed his presence for all she said in a dull voice was, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

‘I had a minor accident to my phaeton,’ said Lord Harry cheerfully. ‘Are you waiting for anyone? Or can I take you anywhere?’

‘No, I’m not waiting for anyone. That is, I’m waiting to see if my father will return from Hopeminster and take me home. I am so very tired, you see.’ Tears started to
her eyes and she brushed them away with an impatient hand.

‘You would have a long wait,’ he said gently. ‘Your father spoke of taking supper at the Cock and Feathers before returning. Come and I will take you to join them.’

‘Only if I can return to the vicarage first,’ said Deirdre, thinking of that incriminating letter pinned to the pincushion. ‘I am such a mess. I was feeling so much better and
decided to walk. I had these clothes, you see, to take to the poor of Hopeminster. But perhaps I should show them to my mother first.’

‘Of course,’ he said soothingly. ‘We will go to the vicarage first, and then we will go to Hopeminster.’

Deirdre was too tired and miserable and humiliated to protest. He drove at a spanking pace, and, in no time at all, she was back home.

Betty looked relieved to see her, and Deirdre dully wondered if the maid had begun to suspect anything. But Betty had obviously not been in her bedroom. Deirdre tore up the letter addressed to
her mother, bathed her face, burst into tears, bathed her face again, changed her gown, and found a smart bonnet, and went wearily down the stairs to join Lord Harry.

To her relief, he did not seem inclined to talk, his horses eating up the miles to Hopeworth and then to Hopeminster at a tremendous pace.

The Armitage family was just sitting down to supper in a private parlour.

Deirdre sent up a prayer that somehow Lord Harry would not mention finding her sitting on the milestone at the crossroads with two bandboxes.
He
was so stupid, he had easily accepted her
story. But her father, she was sure, would not believe such a tale. Desperately she wished she had cautioned Lord Harry not to say anything. And what if Betty talked? But that wouldn’t be so
bad. She could simply add on yet another lie and say she was sure Lady Edwin wanted old clothes. ‘But what old clothes have you got that would fill two whole bandboxes?’ her mother was
sure to ask.

So busy was she in forming lies and excuses, and so subsequently relieved was she when Lord Harry let everyone assume he had collected her from the vicarage that it was some time before the
whole weight of depression and humiliation returned.

The vicar saw the look of pain on Deirdre’s face and became more than ever resolved to take Lord Harry aside and tell him there was no hope.

He felt quite virtuous at having come at last to this very definite resolve instead of the half-hearted promise he had made to himself the night before. He would tell Jimmy Radford all about it,
and impress his old friend with his, the vicar’s, nobility of soul.

But every time the vicar looked at Lord Harry’s handsome profile, he was reminded of all the couples of hounds he could have bought if the deal had only worked.

The vicar of Chalton St Ann’s, six miles on the other side of Hopeworth, was selling his hounds, or about to sell them in order to retrench. Now, they would need to go to some other lucky
huntsman.

The vicar heaved a great sigh. God moved in mischievous ways, as Lady Godolphin would put it, his wonders to perform.

Deirdre let out a dry sob which she tried ineffectually to change to a sneeze. The vicar sighed again. The sooner he told her not to worry about the engagement, the better.

‘The town’s full of Armitages,’ said the vicar, realizing he had been sitting silent for some time, and feeling obliged to add his mite of conversation to the company.

‘Edwin and those poxy daughters of his were walking past when we arrived. I mentioned earlier we were going so they probably set out to hunt us down.’

‘Why?’ asked Lord Harry.

The vicar took a pinch of snuff while he debated his reply. The truth, as he knew very well, was that his pesky brother was still trying to capture Lord Harry for one of his daughters. But if
Deirdre would not have the Desire fortune – or rather the fortune he would gain when his uncle kicked the bucket – then the vicar was damned if Josephine or Emily were going to get
their claws on it. What a repulsive pair of antidotes they were, thought the vicar. And what truly dreadful fashions they always wore. It was amazing their mother did not know how to guide them
since she was a bit of a fashion plate herself, if you didn’t notice her pale cold eyes and her pursed-up mouth and . . .

‘Why?’ asked Lord Harry again.

‘Oh, ah,’ said the vicar. ‘Er . . . well, because I’m such a fashionable fellow, and Edwin’s a bit of an old stick. He likes to imitate me, don’t you
see.’

‘Not quite,’ replied Lord Harry in a puzzled way. His gaze was kind and bland but somehow the vicar felt uncomfortable under that childlike stare and tugged at the points of his
waistcoat which had ridden up over his middle to expose several bulging inches of shirt.

‘Never mind,’ said the vicar hurriedly.

Meanwhile, Deirdre had found she was surprisingly hungry. Despite the fact she had had nothing to eat since breakfast, she was quite sure tragedy had robbed her of her appetite. But by the time
she had discussed a generous helping of grouse pie, several slices of ham, some smelts and the inevitable potatoes which accompanied every dish, she began to feel as if she might live through the
night to come after all. Several glasses of strong wine brought a little spark of hope which gradually grew to a flame.

How could she have been so disloyal in her thoughts of Guy? Of course, something really serious must have prevented him from coming. What if he were ill?

Her colour returned as her fatigue and despair fled.

With the resilience of youth, she shot from hopelessness to the heights of dizzy optimism. Poor Guy. How worried he must be. How his heart must be aching for her.

The ladies were invited to join the gentlemen for port and nuts, the little girls taking theirs with hot water.

Deirdre began to feel sleepy and content. The world had miraculously righted itself.

By the time they were ready to leave, Deirdre accepted the suggestion she should travel home with Lord Desire without demur, although this time the suggestion came from Mrs Armitage, not the
vicar.

Deirdre was being helped up into Lord Harry’s phaeton by her father when she suddenly stopped short and nearly fell backwards. Two spots of colour burned on her cheeks.

For out of the inn behind them came Sir Edwin, Lady Edwin and their two daughters – and Guy Wentwater. They had obviously just eaten supper as well.

Guy was holding Emily’s hand and whispering in her ear and she was giggling and wriggling while her parents looked on with indulgent smiles, and Josephine pouted.

Then Sir Edwin’s party saw the vicarage party. The vicar walked forward.

Deirdre took her seat next to Lord Harry and stared straight ahead. Her father said some words to Sir Edwin, Sir Edwin waved a hand to indicate the presence of Guy Wentwater. The little vicar
puffed out his chest and raked Mr Wentwater with a beady look from head to foot, then, ignoring his outstretched hand, turned on his heel and walked back to his own carriage.

‘Dear me,’ murmured Lord Harry. ‘The cut direct.’

‘Drive on, my lord,’ said Deirdre in a harsh voice.

How
could
he? she thought with anguish. What
was
Guy doing, fit and well, and paying court to that awful Emily?

Her thoughts churned and burned all the way to the vicarage. From time to time Lord Harry essayed a few remarks but Deirdre was deaf to everything but the voices clamouring in her own head.

She gave Lord Harry a curt goodnight and escaped to her room.

When Daphne arrived, Deirdre was lying fully dressed on the bed, staring sightlessly up at the canopy.

‘We sat and talked downstairs for
hours
,’ said Daphne sleepily. ‘I wanted to fetch you but Papa told me to leave you alone which is most odd since he has been throwing
you at Lord Harry these past few days.’

Deirdre twisted her head and looked at the clock on the mantel. Midnight! And she had arrived home at ten. So absorbed had she been in trying to find a loophole out of her humiliation that she
had not noticed the time passing.

‘Are you feeling better?’ asked Daphne solicitously.

Deirdre nodded.

‘Papa is in a high rage,’ went on Daphne, sitting down at the dimity flounced toilet table and picking up a hairbrush. ‘He says that Wentwater is a vulgar adventurer and that
no man would be attracted to Emily unless he had a mercenary motive.’

‘That’s rich,’ said Deirdre, twisting on to her side. ‘When has marriage meant anything to Papa other than a means to get more money for those smelly hounds of his?’

Daphne at last focused on her pretty reflection in the glass. She thought she saw a pimple and leaned forward, holding the candle so close to her face she almost set her dark hair on fire.

Deirdre lay and thought and thought. Daphne eventually appeared on the other side of the bed in her nightgown and begged Deirdre to move so that she could get under the covers.

Rising as jerkily as a martinet, Deirdre moved to her favourite seat by the window and looked out. A small snore from the bed behind her told her Daphne had fallen immediately asleep.

All at once, Deirdre was sure Guy was calling her. She heard his voice inside her brain.

The pain at her heart lessened. This magical communion between their minds was an incredible and beautiful thing. He seemed to be telling her that he had been unable to get away, but had joined
Sir Edwin’s party to Hopeminster in the hopes of seeing her.

Tired as she was, Deirdre knew all at once she must go to him.

FIVE

Squire Radford was unable to sleep. A particularly painful twinge of rheumatism stabbed down his left leg. At last, he gave up the battle and climbed out of bed, wrapping
himself up in a greatcoat with a blanket over his shoulders.

A breath of air in the garden was just what he needed.

He shuffled out in his slippers across the lawn and stood by the tall hedge, looking through a small gap in it to where the moonlight turned the village pond to a sheet of silver.