Enlightening Delilah (6 page)

‘I shall be glad to do such a trifling service for you.’

After he had left, Mrs Cavendish thought about Sir Charles and Miss Wraxall. She felt they were eminently suitable. Both had more than their fair share of good looks, both appeared to hold strong views on various subjects. Both belonged to the village, and Mrs Cavendish felt that people from the village should stay together and not waste their time bringing in foreign blood – by which she meant unknown people from London. Sir Charles would be understandably annoyed with her to find Delilah in residence with the Tribbles, but then, by the time he called, he might be glad to see a familiar face. He was a gentleman and had promised her a letter describing this Miss Amy Tribble, and no matter how high his irritation might be, Mrs Cavendish knew he would still send that letter. She rose and bent to collect the tea-things. Having only the one maid meant that you had to do a great deal of things yourself. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she bent over the table. How fat I am become, she thought in dismay. I must start to go for long walks again and not eat so much. Gentlemen like plump ladies, but not when they are so very fat as I!

Delilah and her father set out for London on another beautiful morning. The mist was just rising off the fields so that it was like looking at the landscape through gauze. Red and gold leaves fluttered down on the roof of their carriage as the squire’s travelling coach bowled through the country lanes to join the London road.

It was a long, easy, golden day of travel. Delilah had brought a novel to read, but the book lay unheeded on her lap as she looked out with pleasure at the glory of the countryside. They stopped for the night at a posting-house and went to bed, planning to set out as early as possible.

In the morning, the waiter banged at the door of Delilah’s room and called, ‘Seven o’clock.’

Delilah struggled awake and drew back the bed-hangings. The room was so cold and dark, she thought the waiter must have made a mistake. It felt like midnight. A little chambermaid scratched at the door and then scurried in and began to make up the fire.

‘Very cold, mum,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Frost’s something bad.’

‘Frost?’ said Delilah sleepily. ‘But it was so beautiful yesterday.’

‘Well, that’s the English weather, mum,’ said the girl, as if instructing a foreigner. ‘No good will come of all this sunshine so late in the year. That’s what my father said. He do say his big toe had been aching something awful and that allus means a change in the weather.’

When Delilah and her father climbed back into their carriage, the bleak aspect of the countryside bore witness to the infallibility of the chambermaid’s father’s big toe. Everything was chilly and white under a lowering sky. There was not even a breath of wind, and smoke from cottage chimneys rose straight up in long lines to the sky. The starlings piped with that dismal descending note they have on cold mornings and the carriage bumped and swayed over the frozen ruts in the road.

They planned to arrive in London by early afternoon. Delilah had imagined a sunny London, a London of fluttering flags and pretty dresses and open carriages. But as they drove silently through the suburbs, the day became darker and darker.

‘Fog’s coming down,’ said the squire. ‘Look, Delilah. Over there! That’s St Paul’s Cathedral.’

Delilah looked out of the window. A small red sun shone down on the cupola of St Paul’s. But, as she watched, great wreaths of yellow-greyish fog closed down over the famous cathedral. and blotted out the sun. Link boys darted here and there through the gloom of the street like fireflies. Fog penetrated the carriage. The squire lit the carriage lamps inside the coach and the fog lay in long bands in front of their faces.

Now the streets were full of clamour and noise. Unseen beings called their wares, black shapes of carriages lurched through the fog like ships on a dreadful sea, and the cold became more intense.

‘I’ll need to get out and walk and lead the horses,’ said the squire. ‘Jack-Coachman’ll get lost in this.’

So Delilah was left alone with her thoughts. She wrapped the bearskin rug more tightly about her knees. Behind her she had left a sunny, happy world. Why had she agreed to come to London? She hated it already. It would have been fun to stay and demonstrate to the haughty Sir Charles how little she cared for him, how little she had ever cared for him.

Now, it was too late. By the time she returned, he would probably be engaged to someone like Bessie Bellamy. Delilah briefly thought of how Bessie would queen it over everyone else should such a thing happen, and then fell to wondering again about Miss Amy Tribble and whether her father could be thinking of marrying again.

Of all the torments, all the cares,
With which our lives are cursed;
Of all the plagues a lover bears,
Sure, rivals are the worst!
By partners in each other kind,
Affections easier grow;
In love alone we hate to find
Companions of our woe.

William Walsh

Delilah was long to remember that last stage of the journey to Holles Street. The carriage inched forward through the suffocating gloom. Occasionally the fog would thin slightly to show the blurred yellow light of a shop window with black silhouettes of people standing in front of it.

She began to feel apprehensive. As the squire’s daughter, she had been queen of the little community in Kent. Now she was just a provincial being slowly swallowed up into the vast gloom of London.

She began to hope that her father had lost the way. They would put up at some hotel where she could persuade him to take her back home in the morning.

Then, after a longer stop than usual, her father opened the carriage door and said, ‘We are arrived, Delilah.’

She climbed down stiffly. Her father took her arm and led her up the steps of a mansion.

There was a very grand liveried butler holding open the door.

He bowed and said, ‘The Misses Tribble are awaiting you in the drawing room. Please follow me.’

Harris, the Tribbles’ butler, led the way up a curved staircase to a room at the top on the first floor. He threw open the double doors and announced, ‘Mr Wraxall and Miss Wraxall.’

The squire and Delilah entered. Two ladies rose to meet them. Delilah’s eyes flicked over the tall flat figure of Amy and came to rest on Effy. Effy’s white hair gleamed like silver. She was wearing a lilac silk gown covered with a gauze scarf of deeper lilac. Her face had a delicate faded prettiness. In her hand she held a painted fan which she raised to her face and batted her eyelashes at the squire over the edge.

‘We have not met,’ said Effy. ‘I am Miss Effy Tribble. You have, I believe, already met my sister, Miss Amy.’

Delilah concealed her surprise. So the other one was Miss Amy. Amy was wearing a scarlet merino gown, beautifully cut. On her head was a scarlet velvet cap trimmed with gold. She had the face of a rather sad, tired horse.

‘This is my daughter, Delilah,’ said the squire. Delilah curtsied. ‘Come and sit by the fire,’ said Effy. ‘You both must be frozen. We were going to offer you champagne before that freezing fog came down, but I think a bowl of punch will be more the thing.’

Two footmen came in with a punch-bowl and all the ingredients and placed them on a table. Amy set about making the punch. ‘Always do it myself,’ she said with a grin at Delilah. ‘Servants never make it strong enough.’

That grin altered Amy’s face. Delilah’s heart sank. Miss Amy Tribble had a certain direct charm. But she also looked formidable, the sort of stepmother who would not appreciate having another woman running the household.

‘Sit down by me, Mr Wraxall,’ cooed Effy, ‘and tell me all about your journey.’

Amy glared at her sister and poured a whole bottle of brandy into the punch-bowl. Amy knew Effy had a weak head for spirits.

The squire was not at ease with Effy. Her flutterings and sly glances made him feel hot and awkward and miserably aware that the linen of his cravat was speckled with soot.

Amy poured glasses of punch and a footman took them round. Delilah nearly choked over hers, it was so strong, but soon the punch began to spread a warm glow throughout her body.

‘I hope you plan to spend a few days in Town, Mr Wraxall,’ said Amy, sitting down on the other side of him from Effy.

‘I plan to leave the day after tomorrow,’ said the squire.

‘Have you ever been to Astley’s Amphitheatre?’ asked Amy.

‘Terrible place,’ interrupted Effy with a delicate shudder. ‘I detest circuses. Full of low people.’

‘I have never been,’ said the squire, ‘but I’ve always longed to go.’ He looked apologetically at Effy. ‘I fear I do not have very sophisticated tastes, as Miss Amy well knows.’

‘I took the liberty of getting us tickets for tomorrow night,’ said Amy cheerfully. ‘That is, if you would care to accompany me, Mr Wraxall.’

The squire’s blue eyes lit up. ‘I should be honoured and delighted to go, Miss Amy.’

‘Amy!’ said Effy sternly. ‘You are surely not thinking of starting Miss Wraxall’s début in London at Astley’s!’

‘Not I,’ said Amy. ‘I only bought two tickets. I have the same unsophisticated tastes as Mr Wraxall.’

Effy drank another glass of punch. ‘And what am I supposed to do with Miss Wraxall?’

‘Begin her education, if you like,’ said Amy and then coloured as the squire flashed her a warning look.

‘What education?’ demanded Delilah. ‘I am long out of the schoolroom.’

‘But you have not been in London before,’ said Effy. ‘You need town bronze.’

‘We have many notables who attend our local parties and assemblies in the winter,’ said Delilah. ‘I know very well how to go on.’

‘We shall shee,’ said Effy, and then looked in a surprised way at her glass as if it had slurred rather than herself.

‘Sush a pity Mr Haddon is not here,’ went on Effy. She turned to Delilah. ‘My shishter is monshtroushly taken with Mr Haddon.’

‘I think you have had too much punch,’ said Amy crossly. ‘You’re making noises like a crossing sweeper’s brush.’

‘Who is Mr Haddon?’ asked the squire hurriedly.

‘An old friend of ours,’ said Amy. ‘Effy hopes to marry him.’

‘I do not,’ said Effy. ‘You are the one who ish always making a cake of yourshelf over him. You–’

‘Oh, do shut up, Effy,’ said Amy. ‘You’re drunk!’

Effy burst into tears while the squire and his daughter exchanged looks of acute embarrassment. Amy rang the bell and a stern-faced maid answered it. ‘Baxter,’ said Amy, ‘Miss Effy is a trifle overcome. Take her to her room.

Baxter looked at the punch-bowl and then went and helped the sobbing Effy to her feet.

There was a long silence after they had left the room. Then Amy said, ‘You must have supper. Did you dine on the road?’

‘We had quite a large dinner at four,’ said the squire. He felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but he could hardly abandon Delilah so quickly. He was regretting his decision to turn her over to the Tribbles.

Amy read that indecision in his face and set herself to please. The Wraxalls were conducted upstairs to wash and change.

The supper was excellent and Amy encouraged the squire to talk. Delilah had never heard her father chatter on so much to any lady. Usually he was silent and let his daughter make most of the conversation.

Delilah had sensed earlier that her father was in two minds about leaving her. But by the end of the supper party, she knew he was once more happy with Miss Amy Tribble.

She felt gauche and ill at ease. In the village, everyone had deferred to her, even Lady Framley and her daughter. But she knew that in Amy’s eyes, she was important only because she was the daughter of a handsome widower. Neither Amy nor Effy had remarked on her beauty, and Delilah, who thought she did not care for perpetual compliments on her appearance, now sorely missed the lack of them.

She clung to her father as he stood in the hall, taking his leave.

When he had left, Amy turned Delilah over to Baxter, the lady’s maid, who took her up to her room and prepared her for bed. Delilah was not used to the services of a lady’s maid, a luxury she could easily have afforded but had not considered important, and found it pleasant to have her hair brushed and a glass of hot milk handed to her, and to have all her fog-soiled clothes taken away to be sponged and pressed.

Delilah awoke next day to the sounds of a furious altercation coming from somewhere belowstairs. Then she heard Amy shout, ‘A pox on you and your humours, Effy. It is your own fault if you cannot hold your drink!’

What an odd pair, thought Delilah, bewildered. Is this how London society goes on?

A chambermaid came in and drew the curtains back. ‘Fog’s gone, miss,’ she said. ‘It’s a lovely day.’ Sunlight streamed into the room.

The chambermaid left after lighting the fire and was shortly followed by Baxter, who began to look through the contents of Delilah’s wardrobe. She examined the boning in Delilah’s dresses and shook her head. ‘I’ll need to get that Frenchie dressmaker to look at these, miss,’ said Baxter. ‘No one wears them like this any more. Unnatural the way they push up the breasts so.’