Deirdre and Desire (24 page)

Deirdre gave a little sigh. That must be it. Mrs Armitage was always saying, ‘Only very common people do that,’ referring to everything from eating peas with your knife to crossing
your legs. Therefore, it followed that perhaps one went about having babies in a more genteel way.

Lady Godolphin’s lecture had been worse than useless. Her many malapropisms made her quite unintelligible at the best of times.

Then, take the stately Minerva for instance. And her supremely cool and elegant husband. They could
never . . .
No, it must be something else.

With a little sigh, Deirdre rose and went to Minerva’s boudoir, absent-mindedly forgetting to scratch at the door first.

Minerva was locked in her husband’s arms. He was only in his breeches and Minerva was clad in the scantiest of petticoats. Her hair was tumbled about her flushed face. Lord Sylvester was
kissing her with single-minded passion. Both were completely unaware they were observed.

Deirdre closed the door and stood gasping. She felt as if she had just been slapped in the face.

So it was all the same for everybody!

She went slowly back to her room and mumbled to Betty to fetch the mask ‘but not now, later.’

By the time she was to go downstairs and meet Lord Harry, Deirdre was in a strung-up, excited state. Her eyes shone green in her pointed face. Her brushed and pomaded hair flamed above her
delicately flushed features.

Erotic visions danced through her brain making her go hot and cold by turns.

She fervently hoped Lord Harry would not read her mind as he seemed able to do from time to time.

Grateful for Minerva’s blue velvet mask, Deirdre entered the drawing-room to find Lord Harry being entertained by her father and the squire.

The vicar was in high good humour, quite obviously seeing a new fortune about to join the Armitage family.

Lord Harry was wearing a black velvet mask with a black silk domino slung over his shoulders. He no longer looked easy and amiable but quite Satanic. His breeches were moulded to his thighs.

He really had very good legs, thought Deirdre, studying them carefully. Would his bare bottom be as huge and round as John’s, or would it . . . ?’

Shocked rigid by her thoughts, Deirdre blushed so much that her sympathetic father helped her solicitously to a chair, convinced her garters had fallen down. In the vicar’s great
experience, that was the only thing that made a girl blush when no one had said a word to embarrass her.

Minerva entered the room on her husband’s arm and poor Deirdre blushed again.

Before they were about to leave, Minerva drew Deirdre a little away from the others.

‘It seems you do not hold Lord Harry in dislike,’ she whispered.

Deirdre shyly shook her head.

‘Then remember to be modest and well-behaved,’ said Minerva. ‘Gentlemen do not like
fast
young misses, nor do they like girls who encourage liberties.’

‘Oh, really,’ rejoined Deirdre sarcastically. ‘I shall behave just like you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Minerva simply, failing to notice the sarcasm in her sister’s voice. ‘I hope I set a good example.’

Lord Harry strolled up to say they were leaving.

‘The Jamesons are a rather wild couple,’ cautioned Lord Sylvester. ‘I believe the company is to be of the most select, but I do not need to tell you, Deirdre, that the most
respectable people can behave in the oddest manner when they are in costume.’

‘Then there will be nothing in either my dress or Miss Deirdre’s to incite us to wild behaviour,’ laughed Lord Harry, ‘for our only concession to fancy dress is our masks
and dominoes.’

It showed the low state of Lady Godolphin’s mind that she, too, was wearing ordinary evening dress and carrying a mask on a cane in front of her face, for usually, Lady Godolphin dearly
loved fancy dress. Colonel Brian had not even a mask, and from the way the elderly pair were glaring at each other it looked as if they had been rowing quite ferociously before Lord Harry and
Deirdre arrived.

It transpired, however, when they arrived at the Jamesons’ in Soho that the rest of the guests were less inhibited. A duke was dressed as an Hungarian Hussar, a knight as a double-man,
half-miller, half-chimney sweep. A captain went as a gamester with cards sewn all over his clothes; a countess was an Indian Sultana with one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds on her
head-dress; one duchess appeared as a running footman and another as the Witch of Endor.

But there never was a masquerade without its sensation and this time a certain Major Humphries of the Guards provided it. His effort was received with much disapproval. As the
Gentleman’s Magazine
later reported: ‘A figure of Adam, the unavoidable indelicacy of the dress, flesh-coloured silk with an apron of fig leaves worked in it, fitting the body to
the utmost nicety, rendered it the contempt of the whole company.’

Or as one wit described it:

But although the company pretended to be shocked the Major’s scandalous costume seemed to spice the ball with an air of licence. The guests drank quantities of wine more
quickly than usual; they flirted and ogled through the slits of their masks with gay abandon.

One gentleman had arrived dressed as a thatched cottage complete with the insurance company’s badge on the front which prompted one noisy parry to set it on fire ‘since it was
covered’ and it was fortunately put out with several bottles of champagne before the poor inhabitant of the cottage was incinerated.

Lord Harry twice had to rescue Deirdre from a dancing partner who had become overwarm in his attentions.

‘I really should not have brought you,’ he said. ‘Now, I have lost Lady Godolphin.’

‘No matter,’ said Deirdre, delighted to have him by her side again. ‘Perhaps, my lord, if it should please you, we could move a little way away from the press of
dancers.’

‘By all means. There is an empty box over in that corner. If we are very quick, we shall reach it before anyone else decides to take it up.’

The ballroom was formed by a chain of saloons. Round the edge of each saloon boxes had been erected, made of flimsy garlanded lattice work.

Lord Harry helped her into the vacant box and then said he would fetch them some refreshment. The arrangement of the garlands, which were made of silk flowers, afforded a certain shelter from
the eyes of the dancers at the ball.

Some couples were making the most of the semi-privacy and were cavorting about in such a manner as to leave Deirdre in little doubt as to how the aristocracy made love.

A young man vaulted into her box and swept her into his arms.

Deirdre let out a scream and tried to push him away but her scream was drowned in all the noise.

His mouth was about to descend on her own, twist her head as she might, when, suddenly, she was free.

Lord Harry lifted the young man bodily out of the chair next to Deirdre and flung him on to the dance floor.

‘And I didn’t spill a drop,’ he said cheerfully, placing a bottle and two glasses on the little table in front of them.

‘It is very strange,’ said Deirdre, looking about her, ‘that one should receive so many lectures about how to go on in society, and then to have to look at . . . all
this.’

‘Society is very two-faced,’ said Lord Harry. ‘I was amazed to find you returning to Town so quickly.’

‘Papa would have me go with him.’

‘Ah, you must be his favourite daughter.’

His newest marriageable daughter, thought Deirdre. ‘He is fond of us all, I think,’ she said aloud.

‘Do you wish me to volunteer to return with you to Hopeworth on a visit so that you may escape Town? I fear Mr Armitage still views me in the light of a future son-in-law.’

‘No, we shall be returning in a few days’ time, perhaps.’

She felt uneasy with him. His masked face turned him into a stranger. She was painfully aware of his closeness.

He was looking about him, his eyes glittering through the slits of his mask. ‘I think I should take you away from here,’ he said. ‘Things are liable to get out of hand.
Goodness knows what has happened to Lady Godolphin. If I leave you to go in search of her, I may find you being attacked when I return. And if we
both
look for Lady Godolphin, we shall be
sadly jostled in the press.

‘Then it is not exactly
convenable
to escort you back in a closed carriage without a chaperone, but I feel your family would not like to see you here in such surroundings. So I
think escaping with me is the better of two evils.’

‘Do let us go,’ said Deirdre who did not like to confess the behaviour of the guests shocked her in case she seemed too unsophisticated, and was glad to think she should be alone
with him, away from this riot, if only for a short space of time.

As they threaded their way through the saloons Deirdre suddenly saw Lady Godolphin, sitting in a box with Colonel Brian. They seemed to be having a heated argument. Her step faltered.

‘What is it?’ asked Lord Harry, looking down at her. ‘Have you seen Lady Godolphin?’

‘No,’ lied Deirdre, turning her head determinedly in the wrong direction.

Once alone with him in the darkness of the carriage, Deirdre found his silence almost unbearable.

All at once, she was afraid she was going to be handed over to Minerva while the night was still young.

And perhaps, after that, she might not see him again.

‘It is only eleven o’clock,’ she ventured. She gave a little laugh which sounded false in her own ears. ‘It is very early to be thinking of going to bed.’

‘I agree,’ said Lord Harry, ‘but since
I
have now become your chaperone, ’twould be best if I took you straight to Lady Sylvester.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘In lodgings, in Bond Street, near where I met you.’

‘Are you comfortable there?’

‘Very comfortable.’ His voice sounded amused.

‘I would like to visit them one day.’

‘Gladly.’

‘I could visit them
now.
’

‘You shock me, Miss Deirdre. You cannot be contemplating visiting my bachelor lodgings at this time of night.’

‘No one would know, except your servants. I do not want to go to bed so early.’

‘Now, when do you go to bed when you are at home?’

‘Hopeworth? About nine o’clock in the winter, later in the summer.’

‘Then it is already long past your bedtime.’

‘But no one goes to bed here before dawn, no one in the whole world,’ said Deirdre, meaning the world bounded by St James’s Square and Grosvenor Square.

‘Are you not afraid of what might happen to you were you to be alone with me in my lodgings?’

‘I am sure you would behave like a gentleman.’

‘I might be tempted to kiss you, Deirdre.’

‘Well,’ faltered Deirdre, ‘that would not do at all since we are not to be wed.’

‘No. On the other hand, I really should like to marry
someone
, you know, and, as I told you, I am very lazy. The thought of pursuing females and meeting their families exhausts me.
I have already met
your
family and you have met mine. What a pity we cannot get married. It would save a great deal of trouble, although this time I don’t think anyone would accept the
invitation or send us a present. They would say it is all a hum.’

‘Yes,’ said Deirdre.

The coach stopped outside the Comfreys’ residence in St James’s Square. The tall house was in darkness. Deirdre peered out. ‘I cannot even ask you to accompany me
inside,’ she said sadly. It appears everyone has gone to bed.’

A footman opened the carriage door.

‘Close it,’ said Lord Harry lazily. ‘We are not yet ready to get down.’

The servant closed the door.

‘Where were we?’ said Lord Harry. ‘Ah, we were talking of marriage. Of course, I was quite cast down when your father and Lord Sylvester pointed out you were afraid of me. Now,
I ask you, what is there to be afraid of? I am clean, house-trained, have all my own teeth, and am in good coat.’

‘It is very hard to explain . . .’

‘Do try. My
amour propre
was quite ruined.’

‘I found your attentions . . . you treated me to an excess of civility.’

‘So I did. Do you still sleep-walk?’

‘No.’

‘Pity. I like it when you walk in your sleep. Very well, I did kiss you. Was that so very frightening? The last time I did so you did not even struggle.’

‘My own feelings frightened me, my lord,’ said Deirdre.

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, I cannot
explain
,’ said Deirdre, exasperated. ‘Besides,’ she added primly, ‘I have forgotten.’

‘That is easily remedied. Now if I take you in my arms, like this, and kiss you, like this, what do you feel?’

‘Breathless and shaken.’

‘That sounds unpleasant, perhaps we had better try again . . .’

Although they were sitting side by side, it was odd how he seemed to manage to get most of her body pressed against his own, how every rushing emotion seemed to be centred in her lips. But if
she married him, she would need to lie naked with him in that peculiar way that John was behaving with Betty and she could not.

He felt her body go rigid and quickly released her.

‘You
are
frightened of me,’ he said gently. ‘What is it?’

Overset by all her emotions, Deirdre blurted out a disjointed, rambling, tearful explanation about John and Betty and she could not do
that
, and if
that
was part of marriage then
she would die an old maid.

Lord Harry rapped on the roof with his cane. ‘Home!’ he called up to the coachman.

‘Then I will not touch you again,’ he said firmly. ‘My servants are very discreet so you may examine my lodgings and then I will return you here.’

So that was that, thought Deirdre. How irrational her feelings were! All she now wanted was him to take her in his arms again and kiss away all her fears.