Before Lunch

by Angela Thirkell

  But before she could finish, Betty Dean, deserting her other partner, Mr Leslie, leant over to young Mr Bond and said, ‘I say, C.W., did you know your father means to announce it when he gives his Agricultural Toasts? It’s a bit shame-making, but I don’t like to spoil his fun.’

  ‘Good girl, Betty,’ said young Mr Bond, patting her on the arm. ‘Please excuse me,’ he continued to Daphne, ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter a bit,’ said the stranger with icy politeness. ‘I never noticed you doing anything particular. I really wasn’t thinking about it. I just thought you might like to know that I am engaged to Alister Cameron. It’s a secret, at least it was, but we’re going to have it in The Times at once, so I thought I’d tell you.’

  Young Mr Bond went perfectly white and said he congratulated her with all his heart and Cameron too.

  ‘Thanks awfully,’ said the stranger. ‘I expect we’ll be married almost at once, even before you are.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean, Daphne?’ said young Mr Bond. ‘You are mad, or I am. Why should I get married? You know perfectly well —’

  But here he was interrupted by a genteel banging of spoons or handles of dessert knives on the table. It was Lord Bond’s very embarrassing annual custom to give a few healths at the dinner after the Skeynes Agricultural Show and make a little speech. Much as his wife detested this outburst she was for once powerless to check him. Luckily most of the guests were old friends who were used to their host’s mild form of eccentricity, and Lady Bond had to conceal her disapproval as best she could, drawing but faint comfort from the knowledge that Spencer was the only person who fully shared her feelings. In fact every year Spencer determined to give notice after the dinner, but realizing what he owed to himself, he always thought better of it next day.

  Holding a small piece of paper on which he had made some illegible notes, Lord Bond ran through practically the whole list of prize winners and gave an historical survey of the Agricultural Show from its inception in 1890 to the present day, reminded his hearers after a little calculation that the fiftieth anniversary would shortly be upon them, regretted the absence of Lord Pomfret, applauded the presence of Lord Stoke, Mr Palmer and Mr Middleton, thought of making a joke about the Dean being a kind of shepherd himself but suddenly felt it might be in bad taste or at any rate more applicable to a Bishop than to a Dean, and so floundered happily through nearly twenty minutes of intolerably dull and sometimes, when he had to look very closely at his notes, almost inaudible oratory. Young Mr Bond tried hard to get Daphne’s attention, but with averted head she took an apparently absorbing interest in what his father was saying.

  When he suddenly found himself at an end of what he had to say Lord Bond raised his glass.

  ‘I will now give you our usual toast, the Skeynes Agricultural Show,’ he said, ‘but before we drink it I want to tell you all a delightful piece of news. Miss Betty Dean, our old friend Palmer’s charming niece, has allowed me to congratulate her publicly on her engagement.’

  He ceremoniously bowed to Betty and sat down.

  ‘You didn’t say who to, Lord Bond,’ said Betty in her usual commanding tones.

  ‘Bless my heart, no more I did,’ said Lord Bond. ‘What is his name, my dear? I know he’s a friend of C.W.’s but for the life of me I can’t remember it.’

  ‘Woolcott Jefferson van Dryven, father,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘One of the nicest fellows in New York.’

  Betty’s health was politely drunk by the company, who were only too thankful for a change from the Agricultural, and a buzz of congratulations surrounded her. With a smile of gracious exasperation Lady Bond rose and led her ladies from the room. As young Mr Bond held back Daphne’s chair for her to go out she looked at him with such a piteous plea for forgiveness in her eyes that he nearly kissed her on the spot, and if he refrained it was not so much from fear of what anyone, even his mother, would say, as the knowledge that a girl who has just told you she is engaged to another man is not the person you honourably ought to kiss.

  Daphne toyed for a moment with the idea of suicide as the ladies made their progress to the long drawing-room, but it all seemed too difficult, so she did the next best thing, planted herself firmly by Betty Dean and said how awfully glad she was about the engagement.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Betty. ‘It will be in The Times to-morrow, but Lord Bond wanted to tell people to-night, and it is always a mistake to thwart people’s impulses, even at his age. You never know what kind of complex you may be creating.’

  Miss Starter, settling herself in an uncomfortable chair with her back extremely straight, added her congratulations to Daphne’s and said she had known Mr van Dryven’s father when he was American Minister at the Grand Ducal court of Schauer-Antlitz.

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Betty. ‘He got a lot of inhibitions in the diplomatic service and when he tried to get rid of them in America it was too much for him. Woolcott is quite different. He has had every inhibition psychoed and is perfectly free. You’d like him.’

  ‘And what does he do?’ enquired Miss Starter, with the gracious temporary interest of fallen royalty.

  ‘He looks after his money, and does a spot of archaeology. He took a Classical Excavation Diploma at Pittsburgh. Of course it doesn’t carry the same weight as a First in Greats,’ said Betty, who never under-estimated her own achievements, ‘but it’s pretty good to get that Diploma in three months.’

  ‘His father was a really scholarly man,’ said Miss Starter severely. ‘And where will you be married?’

  ‘Oh somewhere,’ said Betty. ‘Marriage is doomed as an institution of course, but one might as well please one’s parents. St Margaret’s, I suppose.’

  ‘It makes me feel quite young to hear you say that,’ said Miss Starter. ‘My dear father did not believe in marriage at all, which was quite advanced in those days. It is quite amusing to hear you young people still holding those views. He was married three times, first at St George’s, Hanover Square, then at St Peter’s, Eaton Square, and finally, to please my dear mother, at St Jude’s in Collingham Road. I am sure you will be very happy. You must bring Mr van Dryven to see me in Ebury Street, number two hundred and three, the top floor.’

  This invitation was so clearly in the nature of a royal congé that Betty, who had meant to pulverize Miss Starter, found herself to her great surprise getting up and going away.

  ‘Cutsam Porck van Dryven would certainly not have liked her as a daughter-in-law,’ said Miss Starter, surveying Betty’s departing form dispassionately. ‘Now tell me about yourself. I have always been so grateful to your delightful aunt Mrs Middleton for finding out about Kornog bread for me. Are you staying here long?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Daphne, and then said desperately, ‘You see I’m engaged too, to Alister Cameron, and we might get married quite soon. I don’t want to leave the White House, but I suppose if one is going to be married one might as well get it over, don’t you think?’

  ‘Or break it off,’ said Miss Starter, looking at nothing in particular.

  ‘Oh, but one couldn’t,’ said Daphne, too surprised and too wretched to resent this advice. ‘I mean if one is engaged to someone awfully nice and one is very fond of, even if one finds someone else one thought was engaged to someone else really isn’t, one can’t exactly back out.’

  ‘I think I understand you,’ said Miss Starter. ‘I have eyes in my head and I have seen a good deal of life. You wouldn’t do badly at Staple Park.’

  Upon this paralysing remark she got up and joined the elder ladies, leaving Daphne a prey to conflicting emotions. She knew now so fatally what she wanted and what she didn’t want that it was quite unbearable. Suicide being out of the question she felt that even at the cost of being rude she must get away and if possible get home. Her stepmother was now deeply engaged in talk with Mrs Crawley and Daphne thought if she went round the other way, by the room with all the musical boxes in it, she could find Spencer and as
k him to tell Pollett that she wanted to go home at once and send a message to her stepmother that her cold was coming on again and apologize next day to Lady Bond. It was a very muddled, ill-conceived scheme, but all she could think of for the moment. It was dusk outside and only a few lights were turned on, so Daphne was able to slip away unnoticed, and make her way to the yellow satin room, from which she knew she could get hold of one of the footmen by the little stone passage that led to the servants’ quarters. In the room was young Mr Bond.

  ‘Hullo,’ said he. ‘Father wants to show the Dean the Marie Antoinette box and I’m not sure which it is; the one with the bird that flaps and twitters when you press the spring. Do you know which case it’s in?’

  ‘I must go home,’ said Daphne. ‘I can’t tell you why, but I must.’

  ‘I’ll drive you, if it’s important,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘Only please tell me first that I didn’t hear you properly. You aren’t really engaged to Cameron, are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Daphne, ‘and it’s too awful, because I do think he is the nicest person almost I ever met, but I thought you were engaged to Betty Dean and I hated her, and I thought if I got engaged to Alister it would stop me minding, but it made it much worse, and I do think he is so very nice, but then you weren’t engaged to Betty and it was all too ghastly, and I wish I was dead. I think the Marie Antoinette box is in the table with the glass top and the red plush lining.’

  ‘Oh, damn the box and the table,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘You aren’t going to marry Cameron and you are going to marry me. Is that clear? Besides you haven’t even got an engagement ring. It’s all nonsense.’

  ‘I didn’t want a ring,’ said Daphne. ‘I thought it wouldn’t seem like being really engaged so long as I didn’t have a ring and didn’t have it in The Times.’

  ‘Then it isn’t an engagement at all,’ said young Mr Bond.

  And at that moment the door opened and Mr Cameron, who had a passion for musical boxes and thought he might play with some quietly while the others discussed cows, came in and looked piercingly at the guilty couple.

  ‘It isn’t Cedric’s fault, Alister, it truly isn’t,’ cried Daphne, with visions of a duel.

  ‘What isn’t?’ said Mr Cameron.

  ‘I do really think you are the nicest person I have ever known, Alister,’ said Daphne, ‘and I am terribly fond of you, but it was so awful and I always thought Cedric was engaged to Betty.’

  Mr Cameron was not surprised. He understood Daphne’s incoherent words quite well. Lou’s indiscretion had only been the last eye-opener and he knew he had known from the beginning that the whole thing was a mistake. Not unnaturally he experienced for a moment a pang of intense mortification, but even as that subsided a hope rose to fill its place.

  ‘If you would like our engagement to come to an end, Daphne,’ he said, ‘it can do so this very minute.’

  ‘Alister, darling,’ cried Daphne, flinging her arms round his neck and embracing him heartily.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ said young Mr Bond.

  ‘To be perfectly truthful, though I am very, very fond of Daphne, I was never so relieved in my life,’ said Mr Cameron.

  Then he and young Mr Bond shook hands and began to laugh so much that Daphne had to join them, though she didn’t quite know what it was about, and as they were laughing Lord Bond came in.

  ‘Well, amusing yourself, young people?’ he said benignantly. ‘Can’t you find the Marie Antoinette box, C.W.? I do want Crawley to see it.’

  ‘It’s in the glass table, Lord Bond,’ said Daphne, lifting the lid and taking out the little chased golden box with its royal monogram.

  ‘Good girl. You know the place better than I do,’ said Lord Bond.

  ‘Oh, father,’ said young Mr Bond, ‘Daphne and I are engaged if that’s all right.’

  ‘Bless my soul! And on the Agricultural night too,’ said Lord Bond. ‘Well, I couldn’t have been more pleased if I’d got every first prize at the Show. She’s a treasure, C.W. A girl that can get the better of Spencer will do anything. But what about your mother, my boy?’

  ‘I think, father,’ said young Mr Bond, ‘that if I didn’t tell her till to-morrow I’d feel stronger then. Could we have it for a secret to-night?’

  Lord Bond kissed Daphne warmly and said they would say nothing till next day and he must get back to the dining-room or the Dean would be wondering where he was.

  ‘And I’ll get back too,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘I suppose no one else is to know till to-morrow? What about Lilian?’

  ‘Oh I’ll tell her, of course, and Denis when we get home,’ said Daphne. ‘And it will be lovely to tell Uncle Jack and Catherine to-morrow, and Palfrey and Mrs Pucken. Oh —!’ she added with a kind of shriek.

  ‘What?’ said young Mr Bond.

  ‘I’ve just remembered Pucken said Lily would probably have her calf to-night,’ said Daphne. ‘Oh, Cedric, do you think anyone would notice very much if we drove back to see? I do adore new calves.’

  ‘I should think they’d notice like anything,’ said young Mr Bond, ‘but we may as well be hanged for a calf as a lamb. Come on. Cameron, you can make some excuses, can’t you?’

  He swept Daphne away, leaving Mr Cameron with his shattered romance and much happier than he had been since the dreadful day among the pea-sticks. He went back to the dining-room and took a pleasant part in the conversation, though occasionally embarrassed by the looks of complicity that Lord Bond cast in his direction. When the men joined the ladies Mr Cameron mentioned to Miss Starter, who would, he thought, spread the news as well as anyone else, that Daphne and young Mr Bond had gone over to Laverings to enquire about a calf.

  ‘A good thing too,’ said Miss Starter, eyeing Mr Cameron in a way that made him jump, so clearly did it tell him that she knew exactly what was going on.

  But apparently no one else did, and on such an Agricultural evening it seemed perfectly natural that two of the party should drive five miles each way on a rainy night to make enquiries after a cow.

  The Leslies, who were the first to leave, offered to drop Mrs Stonor and Denis at the White House, an offer they gladly accepted, as the Middletons showed no sign of moving. Lord Bond, who had immensely enjoyed being host at so pleasant a gathering, came to see them off.

  ‘One minute,’ he said, detaining Denis. ‘Can you come up and see me to-morrow morning? Come when your sister comes. We’ll have a little talk about music. Don’t forget.’

  Denis, pleased to give pleasure, and feeling that anything would be better than being at home, where Lilian’s keen sense would detect that he was troubled, said he would certainly come up, and so went off with his stepmother and the Leslies.

  When the Laverings party got back Mr Cameron, who had controlled himself heroically all the evening, said he would just see if Daphne had come home, and went across to the White House. Mrs Stonor and Denis were in the drawing-room and almost at the same moment Daphne burst in, followed by young Mr Bond.

  ‘Lilian darling,’ she shrieked, hugging her stepmother violently, ‘it’s a divine calf and I’m engaged to Cedric. Oh, Denis,’ she continued, hurling herself at her brother, ‘isn’t it heavenly? Pucken says it’s the nicest little heifer calf he ever saw and he’s going to call it Daphne if Uncle Jack doesn’t mind.’

  There was a perfect welter of joyful congratulations, much better ones, Mr Cameron sardonically reflected, than his ill-starred news had produced.

  ‘Well, I must get back,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘I suppose you’ll be coming up to-morrow, Daphne, as usual. I’ll come and fetch you. You have kissed everyone except me to-night, Daphne. It’s unreasonable.’

  Daphne checked a gigantic yawn, kissed everyone with great impartiality, including her betrothed, and fled upstairs to bed.

  ‘Do I have to ask anyone’s permission?’ said young Mr Bond.

  ‘Technically, no,’ said Denis, ‘as Daphne is twenty-one and no one has ever attempted to control her. But Lilian
and I, unofficially, are enchanted, and if she shows any signs of backing out, rely on us to bring her up to the scratch.’

  Young Mr Bond thanked them cordially and went away.

  ‘Is it all right, Alister?’ said Denis, looking over the stairs on his way up to bed.

  ‘I’ve not felt so happy since I can’t think when,’ said Mr Cameron.

  ‘Good,’ said Denis, disappearing.

  ‘Good night,’ said Mr Cameron to Mrs Stonor.

  ‘Is it really all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Really. And more than ever right if you will forgive me for anything and everything,’ said Mr Cameron.

  ‘If you are really content, that is perfect,’ said Mrs Stonor, giving him her hand.

  He went back to Laverings, and Mrs Stonor remained quite still till she had heard both the garden gates click.

  After midnight the wind fell, the clouds shredded and melted, the stars were seen again. In the hush after the storm, in the grey hours before the summer dawn, Mrs Middleton was able to tell herself how glad she was that she had had no further opportunity of speech with Denis that evening. Denis waking again and again in panic from nightmare dreams was able to point out to himself, with all the coolness and detachment suitable to the hour, how it was really for the best that he had been unable to exchange so much as a look with Mrs Middleton during the dinner party. Nothing could have been more calming and satisfactory for both of them.