Daphne

by Beaton, M. C.

  There was a silence as Lady Godolphin’s carriage rolled on.

  ‘Did you see him?’ asked Lady Godolphin at length.

  ‘Mr Garfield? No,’ said Daphne.

  ‘Now why should I be talkin’ about Garfield?’ exclaimed Lady Godolphin. ‘I mean Arthur. Colonel Brian.’

  ‘No,’ said Daphne. She walked in a dark world of her own misery and hardly ever looked outside.

  ‘A fine figure of a man,’ sighed Lady Godolphin. ‘I do not understand men. Just when you expect them to chase you and ask you what the matter is – well, that’s the time they goes off on their lone as if they didn’t care tuppence.’

  ‘I think if anyone was really in love then they would ask what the matter was,’ said Daphne, showing more animation than she had done since her engagement.

  ‘Not if they thought they had been sponged,’ said Lady Godolphin gloomily. ‘The gentlemen do so hate to be sponged. Hell hath no fury like …’

  ‘Scorned?’

  ‘I said that. A pox on all men. Great lot o’ follicles. Here we are arrived. Put on that pretty silver ballgown, Daphne, and for heaven’s sake, do loosen yourself a bit.’

  ‘I do not wear stays, my lady.’

  ‘Only on your soul,’ said Lady Godolphin tartly. ‘Or are you really as empty as you appear?’

  All Daphne’s defences rose at the insult and she turned a perfectly blank face on Lady Godolphin. ‘I do not know what you mean,’ she said.

  But Lady Godolphin did notice when they set out later that Daphne’s hair was dressed in a looser, prettier and less fashionable style with only a single red silk rose against the black of her hair as an ornament. She was not wearing her silver ballgown, but a simple sprigged muslin embellished with cherry ribbons.

  This was not due to any ‘loosening’ on Daphne’s part, but rather to the absence of the maid, Betty. A chambermaid had helped prepare Daphne for the rout, but she was reluctant to summon further help from the servants in preparing her for the ball in case Lady Godolphin should come to hear of Betty’s neglect of her duties. Betty had been missing for at least two days and Daphne had put it down to a fit of the sulks, imagining Betty remaining belowstairs. To complain to Mice and demand Betty’s presence would also mean Lady Godolphin would learn of it. Daphne felt a close loyalty to the maid from the vicarage and knew that Lady Godolphin could have a very sharp tongue when it came to dealing with lax servants.

  Daphne could see no escape from her own misery. It seemed to her that nothing could be done and that she must bear the burden of the terrible secret alone. If she confided in her elder sisters, then they would promptly tell their husbands, and the secret might come leaping out all over town. She could not even sit down and face the matter calmly and reasonably, for it would mean facing up to all sorts of horrors from which her virginal mind shrank. She felt perpetually tired, but always forced herself to look her best, feeling sure that if she looked beautiful, then people would leave her alone. She was so worried and so deeply depressed, she could not even summon up any hate for Mr Archer.

  When they reached the ball she meant to dance every dance so that she would be exhausted enough by the time they returned home to fall into a dreamless sleep.

  There was still enough of the bewildered child in Daphne to make her feel responsible for her father’s evil. If only she had been a better daughter then perhaps Papa might not … But the mind could not even begin to picture what Papa had done.

  She retreated very much into herself as she faced the glare of light from hundreds of wax candles and mounted the stairs with Lady Godolphin.

  Lady Godolphin was once more resplendent in full war-paint. Her bosom and face was covered with a thick white coat of blanc and two flaming circles of rouge stood out bravely on her cheeks. She had put kohl around her eyes and covered herself in a whole deluge of Miss In Her Teens.

  Daphne demurely entered the ballroom, large eyes carefully devoid of expression glancing around.

  Then she clutched Lady Godolphin’s fat arm so hard that her ladyship startled the listening company by shrieking, ‘God’s Hounds!’

  Her pale eyes darted about the ballroom, trying to find out what had caused the normally placid Daphne such alarm.

  Annabelle was there, a radiant and beautiful Annabelle, flirting quite outrageously, and seemingly totally unaware of the fact that her husband, the Marquess of Brabington, had just entered by the opposite door. Then there was that Mr Garfield. He was staring at Daphne with a rather fixed look.

  And over by one of the long windows, engaged in conversation with the Duchess of Ruthfords, was Colonel Arthur Brian. Lady Godolphin decided Daphne’s alarm had been caused by a spasm of fellow feeling at the sight of the colonel.

  ‘Pretend you haven’t seen him,’ hissed Lady Godolphin, and Daphne, thinking she meant Mr Garfield, followed her advice and looked the other way.

  Never had Daphne or Lady Godolphin been more energetic than they were at that ball. Lady Godolphin had always been a prime favourite and Daphne sparkled and laughed and flirted as she had never done before. Her calm mask had slipped and she looked alive and radiant, although it was really just another kind of mask to show Mr Garfield that she did not care, and to avoid even thinking about Annabelle.

  The evening wore on through supper, through quadrilles and waltzes, Scotch reels and gallops.

  Not once did Colonel Brian ask Lady Godolphin to dance and not once did Mr Garfield approach Daphne.

  Suddenly it was five in the morning and Daphne and Lady Godolphin, meeting at a corner of the ballroom after a very energetic country dance, realized that neither Mr Garfield nor the colonel was anywhere to be seen.

  ‘I am totally eshausticuted,’ said Lady Godolphin, fanning herself wearily. ‘Do you wish to go home, Daphne?’

  ‘Please,’ said Daphne. She felt exhausted and miserable and very disappointed.

  They trailed wearily out to the carriage.

  ‘Well, my heart is broke,’ sighed Lady Godolphin. ‘I hope you never know what it is, Daphne, to pine and pine for a fellow and have that fellow look at you as if you was the wall.’

  A stifled sob escaped Daphne and Lady Godolphin gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Something’s eatin’ away at you, Daphne, and I never noticed it before. You can tell me.’

  ‘I can’t,’ wailed Daphne.

  ‘Try.’

  Daphne decided to voice at least one of the evils plaguing her.

  ‘I cannot bear the sight of Mr Archer,’ she wailed.

  ‘Ah!’ said Lady Godolphin with deep satisfaction. ‘That I can understand. You’ve no need to worry. I shall give him his quittance.’

  ‘No!’ shrieked Daphne. ‘He will talk and …’

  She bit her lip.

  ‘Wait until we get home,’ said Lady Godolphin, beginning to look very worried indeed. ‘Not another word. I mean to get to the bottom o’ this.’

  Daphne sat trembling. She could not tell Lady Godolphin, but, yet, the temptation was very great. One could not imagine anything shocking such a reprehensible old sinner.

  On their arrival at Hanover Square, Lady Godolphin marched Daphne into the Green Saloon, poured out two viciously large bumpers of brandy, insisted that Daphne drink hers ‘all down’ and then demanded to be told everything.

  Overcome by strong drink and the desire to unburden herself of her terrible secret, Daphne started to talk and Lady Godolphin listened amazed.

  ‘Not your father,’ said Lady Godolphin at last. ‘He don’t need to tool his own daughter – saving your vaginal ears, Daphne – for he don’t have to. Always got someone when the fancy took him. He ain’t a saint and no one’s sayin’ he’s been faithful to your mother, but can you blame the man? You can’t cuddle up to a Spasm.’

  ‘But incest!’ wailed Daphne. ‘What if it’s true? The only thing that gives me any hope that the baby might not be Annabelle’s is the fact that she was amazing secret about her pregnancy.’

  ‘I’ve never had a prope
r look at that baby,’ said Lady Godolphin, getting to her feet. ‘We’ll go and have a close look at it now.’

  ‘We can’t go calling this time of night,’ protested Daphne.

  ‘It’s nigh six in the morning,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘The chambermaids will be about. We’ll tell ’em we have a surprise of a present for baby Charles and wants to leave it at the foot of his bed. Now what will we take? I know. Just the thing.’

  She rang the bell and waited impatiently until the long-suffering Mice appeared, half in and half out of his livery.

  ‘Wrap that up,’ said Lady Godolphin, waving a hand towards a picture on the wall of a ferocious-looking lion devouring its bloody prey – just the sort of thing to give any child the horrors for life.

  ‘And have the carriage brought round,’ added Lady Godolphin.

  Mice sent a speaking glance at the brandy bottle but did as he was bid.

  ‘I do hope we are not caught,’ whispered Daphne as a startled chambermaid led them into the hall of the tall house in Conduit Street and led the way up the stairs.

  Lady Godolphin and Daphne followed, carrying the picture between them, having dissuaded the maid from rousing any of the other servants to help them.

  ‘Why is nurseries always at the top o’ the house?’ moaned Lady Godolphin.

  At last they reached the nursery door. Lady Godolphin dismissed the maid with a jerk of her head. They quietly pushed open the door and crept inside.

  The fire still shone with a faint red glow and the rushlight in its pierced canister beside the cradle sent little dots of light dancing over the ceiling.

  They put the picture down, Lady Godolphin leaving a note she had scribbled pinned to the wrapping.

  ‘Now, find me a candle,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to take a good look at this babe.’

  Daphne lit a candle in a flat stick and handed it to Lady Godolphin, who held it up high and bent over the cradle. Daphne stared down as well and her heart sank. The round, red, angry face of the baby, even in sleep, the thick black hair, the chubby fists, all reminded her of her father.

  Lady Godolphin nodded her head a couple of times and blew out the candle.

  Crooking her finger, she signalled Daphne to follow her from the room. They made their way softly down the stairs. They had just gained the second landing when a door opened along the corridor to the left.

  ‘Lawks!’ muttered Lady Godolphin. She looked wildly around, opened the door of a large closet, and pulled Daphne in behind her.

  ‘So you have finally decided to return home, my lady wife,’ came the Marquess of Brabington’s voice.

  ‘Oh, Peter,’ they heard Annabelle yawn. ‘I am so very tired, and how was I to know you were returned to town? And how was I to know you would storm out of the ball in a fit of the sulks?’

  ‘Because you might think of me for a change,’ said the marquess, ‘instead of your silly, self-centred, egotistical self. I can just about bear being neglected for that ugly brat of a baby, but to have to stand at a ball and watch my wife flirting with a lot of Bond Street fribbles is something I will not countenance.’

  ‘Tol rol,’ laughed Annabelle. ‘I shall do as I please.’

  ‘Not you. Not this night, my lady. Before I leave you, you will have something to think about.’

  ‘Peter! You ripped my gown!’

  There came stifled scuffling noises and then a long silence followed by the protesting creak of a bed which sounded as if a body had just been thrown down on it from the far side of the room.

  ‘Let us go,’ muttered Lady Godolphin.

  They inched their way cautiously down the stairs. When they reached the hall, a high keening wail sounded from above.

  ‘He is murdering her,’ gasped Daphne, turning to run back up the stairs again to her sister’s defence.

  ‘Not he,’ grinned Lady Godolphin. ‘Everything will be all right now.’

  They made their way out to the carriage.

  ‘But the baby,’ wailed Daphne. ‘I never noticed before how much it looks like Father!’

  ‘Tish,’ said Lady Godolphin comfortably. ‘Don’t look a bit like Charles. I remember your father as a young man, see. You wouldn’t believe it, Daphne, but he was wonderfully slim with a dreamy sort of face and curly hair. A little pocket Adonis, he was. Peregrine and James favour him. They didn’t look nothing like that baby when they was in their cradles, now did they?’

  ‘No-o-o,’ said Daphne slowly, ‘but I am persuaded the baby can’t be theirs. Annabelle put on such airs all the nine months but she never seemed to put on any weight. Lord Brabington is a fine man and would never ignore a son of his own in the way he ignores Charles.’

  ‘I agree with you. But Annabelle desperately wanted a baby and somehow your father managed to supply her with one. We’ll need to go cautiously until we find a way to silence Mr Archer. Now I never thought of him as a lady’s man. How does he kiss you?’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ said Daphne, startled. ‘Well … he does. Here.’ She pointed to her brow.

  ‘Aha! Seems to me he wanted a bit o’ decoration to get wed so he could seem like a real man. Didn’t say anything ’cos you looked as if you were happy to be marrying a wax dummy, and, if you will forgive the observatory, you looked like one yourself.’

  ‘I am so worried. What am I to do?’

  ‘Uglify yourself for a start,’ said Lady Godolphin, ‘and we’ll begin by taking Mr Archer to all the unfashionable places we can think of. That way he’ll start to get a disgust of you. I’ll write to Charles and summon him to London. The minute we find out where that baby comes from, we can give Archer his marching orders. But if we do anything now, he’ll spread that filthy story, and although that baby ain’t your father’s – how could you believe such a thing? – you young gels have minds like cesspools – it would make a stink. Anyways, we’d best find out from him where the baby comes from.’

  ‘But I am so afraid of him …’

  ‘Afraid of that man-milliner? Pooh!’ Lady Godolphin put an arm about Daphne’s shoulders. ‘I will take care of everything. Poor child. You have nothing to worry about now.’

  Daphne quite suddenly put her head on Lady Godolphin’s shoulder, gave a little smile, and fell fast asleep.

  ‘Dear me,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘You never know what goes on under a body’s face. I don’t know what to do until I talk to Charles. Incest, indeed! One would think the Reverend Charles Armitage was that Edith’s Puss!’

  Lady Godolphin’s eyes began to droop and soon she was asleep as well.

  The vicar of St Charles and St Jude was feeling at peace with the world as he stood on the step of Squire Radford’s cottage ornée and said goodnight to his old friend.

  Mr Armitage had enjoyed an excellent dinner and an excellent conscience. The squire had praised him warmly for putting aside mercenary considerations and allowing Daphne’s engagement to go ahead. Mr Garfield’s expert was doing a splendid job of restoring the church and the vicar quite forgot that he had once planned to pocket the thousand guineas himself.

  The air was cold and crisp with no sign of ground frost. It promised to be an excellent hunting day on the morrow and several of the local farmers were joining the vicar and his pack in one more attempt to hunt the old dog fox down.

  ‘Goodnight and thankee, Jimmy,’ said the vicar, cramming on his shovel hat. ‘I cannot recall when I enjoyed a meal more.’ He buttoned his coat as he spoke. One middle button found the strain across the vicar’s stomach too much and popped off onto the ground.

  With a muttered exclamation the vicar bent to pick it up, and, at that precise moment, a ball whistled over the top of his head, missed the startled squire by inches, and buried itself in the half-open door.

  The vicar straightened up and wheeled about. He saw a rustling in the bushes by the gate.

  Despite the squire’s cry of warning, the vicar moved with quite amazing speed for such a small, fat man. He plunged into the bushes while the squire calle
d to his servants for help. There was a scream and a scuffle and the vicar emerged from the bushes, dragging a female figure behind him.

  ‘In there,’ he said, thrusting a woman roughly before him into the hall of the cottage.

  The squire gazed in amazement at the sullen tear-streaked face of the maid, Betty.

  ‘You’ll hang for this Betty Simpson,’ growled the vicar. ‘A murdering criminal, that’s what you are. And ungrateful too! Trying to shoot the hand what feeds you.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ sobbed Betty. ‘I ain’t got nothing to live for. Not since you took my baby away.’

  ‘Charles!’

  The squire started in such shock that his powdered wig fell over one eye.

  All the vicar’s blustering anger fled and he looked as sulky and sullen as the maid.

  The squire stared wildly about at his avidly listening servants and took a firm grip on himself.

  ‘Ram,’ he ordered his Indian servant, ‘take everyone away and impress on them that they heard and saw nothing this evening or they will lose their employ. Charles, bring Betty into the library.’

  ‘No need,’ said the vicar hurriedly. ‘I …’

  ‘Charles,’ said the squire sternly, walking to the library door and holding it open.

  The vicar shuffled miserably in with Betty after him.

  ‘Sit down both of you,’ ordered the squire. He turned to Betty. ‘Now, my dear,’ he said gently, ‘no one is going to hurt you if you tell the truth. What is this about your baby?’

  ‘Don’t,’ pleaded the vicar.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Betty wearily. ‘John Summer and me made a baby so’s the master would let us marry. But that Miss Annabelle, her what’s Lady Brabington now, was always going on about wanting the baby she couldn’t have. My John had got into sore debt over in Hopeminster with gambling at the cockpit. Master says to John, he says, that if we give the baby to Miss Annabelle, then the debts will be paid, and a sum of money given to John besides. They both badgered me wicked, the master and John. Said my child would grow up to be a lord or a lady. Said I was selfish and unfeeling. They never let me be until I agreed. I was sent away until I had the baby and it was took from me and given to Miss Annabelle – I mean, Lady Brabington. I had to watch her trying to be a mother and not knowing how, and my boy crying and crying. Lord Brabington hated my boy. I could see that. I got so’s I didn’t want to live, but I thought before I went, I’d give the master the fright of his life for all the sorrow he’s caused me. I never fired a gun afore and I was sure the ball wouldn’t go near him.