Amaryllis

by M C Beaton

  Amaryllis found herself next to Lord Donnelly with Mr. Giles-Denton on her other side.

  Amaryllis was at first startled and then amused by Lord Donnelly’s tremendous enthusiasm for eating. He managed to devour great helpings of everything from the thick grouse soup removed by crimped cod and oyster sauce, through the lark puddings and cold game pie, into the partridges removed by plum pudding, and was still going strong when it came to snipe removed by charlotte glacée.

  Most of her conversation was with Mr. Giles-Denton, since Lord Donnelly was obviously too busy to talk. At last, even Lord Donnelly’s appetite began to show signs of flagging, and he ate only two apricot tartlets and a bowl of champagne jelly to finish up the meal.

  “That’s better,” sighed Lord Donnelly. “There’s nothing better than a fine woman at one’s side and a fine meal inside.”

  Amaryllis stole a glance at the flatness of Lord Donnelly’s waistcoat. Where did he put such masses of food?

  Trained in the fasthanded ways of the Warburton household, Amaryllis had eaten sparingly. She knew the dishes would be taken away to the kitchens to be refurbished and disguised so that they might be served up again at the next meal.

  In every other household that Amaryllis had known, the servants ate the same food as then-masters. But the Warburtons made the servants cook and eat plain fare.

  “The gentlemen are thinking of going out with the hunt tomorrow, Miss Duvane,” said Lord Donnelly. “But I’m not a hunting man,” he lied, “Come driving with me.”

  “Yes,” said Amaryllis, and then immediately wondered why she had accepted.

  “You make me the happiest of men.”

  “You will find me very tiresome company,” said Amaryllis firmly. “I feel perhaps I should not go driving with you tomorrow. I have a great deal of work to do. Cissie’s ballgown must be ready in time.”

  “Faith, with all the money the Warburtons have, you’d think they would be able to order one from town,” said Lord Donnelly loudly.

  Lady Warburton caught that remark but pretended not to hear.

  “And what will you be wearing yourself, Miss Duvane?” asked Lord Donnelly. “Or is that by way of being a state secret?”

  “No secret at all, my lord,” Amaryllis privately wondered whether she was going to be allowed to attend the ball. Then she wondered whether the Marquess meant to stay for it.

  “Then what is it to be?”

  “Oh, my gown? I really do not know. It is not a secret. Simply that I have not made up my mind,” said Amaryllis, wrenching her attention back to Lord Donnelly with an effort.

  Lord Donnelly sighed. He had always prided himself on his charm. It seemed to have very little effect on Amaryllis.

  Lady Warburton rose as a signal that the ladies were to retire.

  No sooner were they in the drawing room than she called Amaryllis aside.

  This is it, thought Amaryllis. The lecture begins.

  But Lady Warburton seemed in an abstracted mood and began quite mildly by telling Amaryllis that one of her husband’s young relatives was coming to stay. “You remember her?” said Lady Warburton. “Felicia Gaskell. Plain little thing with no conversation.”

  “Did not she marry?” asked Amaryllis.

  “She was engaged to Mr. Leigh, a rich City man, but she cried off.”

  “Miss Gaskell must be only twenty-two,” said Amaryllis. “I think we last saw her when she came on a visit six years ago.” She remembered Miss Gaskell as a quiet, mousy little girl, scared of her own shadow.

  “I wish you to take care of her,” said Lady Warburton. “She is very shy. It is understandable why she has not yet married. Even although she has a good dowry, her looks are obviously not enough to attract a desirable parti.”

  Lady Warburton moved away to talk to Lady Evans. Amaryllis found she was looking forward to the idea of taking care of Felicia Gaskell. Perhaps they might become friends. A shy, modest girl would be a pleasant change after the brash spite of the Warburton girls.

  The gentlemen entered the room. Lord Donnelly immediately suggested cards, received an enigmatic look from Lady Warburton, muttered, “I forgot,” and came to sit next to Amaryllis.

  Oho! thought Amaryllis suddenly. He is being brought to heel. Lord Donnelly has been ordered to flirt with me. Now, why? Merechester, of course. Lady Warburton is frightened that he pays me too much attention. She has no need. Only see how taken he appears to be with Cissie.

  But after talking to Cissie for only a few moments, the Marquess wandered over toward where Amaryllis sat with Lord Donnelly.

  Lord Donnelly rolled his eyes in mock resignation.

  “Just when I think I’ve got the fairest lady that ever was all to myself, sure, if there isn’t some other fellow promptly arrives on the scene and tries to take her away from me.”

  Amaryllis reflected that Lord Donnelly adopted an Irish brogue only when he was at his most insincere.

  “I merely wanted to ascertain that Miss Duvane had fully recovered from her accident,” said the Marquess, very stiffly on his stiffs.

  “Yes, thank you, my lord.”

  The Marquess sat down on the other side of Amaryllis and frowned at the work spread out on her lap.

  “Must you always sew?” he demanded. “Does not this house have a seamstress?”

  “I do not mind being thus employed,” said Amaryllis. “Time would lie heavy on my hands had I nothing to do.”

  “And this is something you are making for yourself?”

  “No, my lord, it is a ballgown for Miss Cissie.”

  The Marquess opened his mouth to say he would not be present at the ball, that he was leaving in the morning. He felt strangely reluctant to do so and wondered why. He stared down while he pondered the question, and his eye noticed Lord Donnelly’s small foot moving gently toward Amaryllis’s foot. He could surely not. . . but he did!

  Under the Marquess’s cold, blue, accusing stare, Lord Donnelly gently pressed Amaryllis’s foot. She started and firmly drew her foot away.

  The Marquess took out his quizzing glass, carefully polished it, and put it to his eye and stared at Lord Donnelly.

  “I fear Miss Duvane has suffered enough torments today,” he said acidly, “without having her foot trodden on.”

  “Did I do that?” Lord Donnelly raised his hands in mock horror. “You should have said something, Miss Duvane. What must you think of me? Sure, I never could sit still. Always shuffling my feet, I am.”

  “It does not matter,” said Amaryllis in a stifled voice.

  “Ammy!” Cissie came up and stood looking daggers at her. “Run up to my room and fetch my vinaigrette. I feel faint.”

  The Marquess signaled to a footman. “Give your orders to a servant, Miss Cissie,” he said. “Miss Duvane is in no condition after her accident to go running about the house.”

  Cissie pouted. “But Ammy always fetches things for me. She knows just where to find them.”

  “We’ll see if this footman cannot find it just as well.” The Marquess sent the footman off to look for the vinaigrette. He rose politely to his feet, as did Lord Donnelly, for Cissie remained standing in front of them, shifting restlessly from foot to foot.

  “I’m bored,” she said petulantly. “Come and walk with me, Lord Merechester.”

  “Alas, I cannot,” he smiled. “I have injured my back. Now Donnelly here would be delighted to escort so fair a lady.”

  He cocked an eye at Lord Donnelly, who smiled engagingly back. “Now if aches and pains aren’t in the wind. Here’s my poor old foot got a twinge of the gout.”

  Amaryllis flushed miserably. There was a looking glass opposite, mirroring the scene.

  Cissie, in blue silk, looked enchanting, if bad-tempered; the Marquess, elegant and handsome; Lord Donnelly, charming in a wicked kind of way. And then there she was in the middle, subdued and drab, and stuck with two gentlemen who did not want to leave her side, Lord Donnelly because, she was firmly convinced he was being paid t
o pay court to her, and Lord Merechester out of sheer contrariness.

  “I will walk with you, Cissie,” said Amaryllis quietly. She put aside her work. Cissie looked mutinous, but she took Amaryllis’s arm and contented herself by pinching her hard on the back of her hand.

  “Oooh!” whispered Cissie. “If Mama had not told Agatha and me to leave you alone for a bit, I would take you outside and pull your hair, you trollop. Since you are not marriageable, these gentlemen must have decided you are fast. I declare I am ashamed of you, Ammy,” said Cissie, fanning herself vigorously. “The way you are throwing yourself at Merechester’s head is disgusting, and so I shall tell Mama.”

  “Don’t clutch my arm, Cissie, and stop talking fustian,” said Amaryllis in a low voice. “You are jealous.”

  “Of a dowdy like you?”

  “Of a dowdy like me,” repeated Amaryllis firmly. “And you have no reason. The gentlemen were paying attention to me only to make you jealous.” Amaryllis had become expert over the years at placating Cissie.

  Cissie looked young and uncertain and almost likable. “Do you think so? Oh, Ammy, how clever of you to think of that. Of course, no man would look at you with me and Agatha about.” This last was actually said with such cheerful sincerity that it almost robbed the remark of its insult.

  Agatha came sauntering up. “Why are you so cozy with Ammy all of a sudden? She has been attracting all the men. It must be because—”

  “It’s because they’re trying to make us jealous!” said Cissie triumphantly. Agatha went off into giggles and flashed a killing look at Mr. Chalmers, who was talking to Mrs. Giles-Denton. “Send Ammy back to her sewing then,” laughed Agatha. “Now I know what they are up to, it doesn’t matter one whit.”

  Amaryllis sat down again and picked up her sewing. “Now what did you say, I wonder,” mused the Marquess, “to put those young ladies in such high spirits?”

  “Faith, Miss Duvane could put anyone in high spirits,” said Lord Donnelly with heavy gallantry.

  “Gentlemen, I have the headache, and I see everyone is getting ready to play cards. If you will excuse me. I find I cannot carry on a conversation this evening. Perhaps if I could concentrate on my work,” pleaded Amaryllis.

  The Marquess gave Amaryllis a look of outrage which would have been amusing had she not been in love with him. He had come to know his worth since he had added money to his peerage. He was used to being fawned on. No female had ever sent him away.

  “Well, that’s it, Merechester.” Lord Donnelly got to his feet. “We’ve got our marching orders.” He strolled toward the card table with a gleam in his eye. A frozen look from Lady Warburton stopped him in his tracks, and he cast a quizzical look over his shoulder.

  The Marquess of Merechester had not moved. He was still sitting beside Amaryllis, his long legs stretched out in front of him, playing with the lid of his snuffbox.

  “You are forgetting your duties, Donnelly,” hissed Lady Warburton.

  “Not I.” Lord Donnelly’s hands twitched as he saw the packs of cards. “In fact, I’m making great progress. Miss Duvane has promised to go driving with me tomorrow. She says she wants me to keep her away from Merechester. I thought I would leave them alone for a bit, for Merechester is making himself obnoxious and it will give the dear lady a true disgust of him.”

  “Very well,” said Lady Warburton. “But remember our arrangement.”

  “What arrangement, Mama?” cried Cissie in a loud voice.

  Her mother quelled her with a glance. “Lord Donnelly is to give your papa the benefit of his advice. We intend purchasing new horses.”

  “There is no need to keep me company,” Amaryllis was saying to Lord Merechester. “I think the others expect you to join them.”

  “Chalmers is there,” he said. “He can suffer for me. I am leaving on the morrow.”

  Amaryllis’s heart took a steep plunge. She carefully threaded a length of silk.

  “I wish you a safe journey, my lord, and Godspeed.”

  “Before I go,” he said, turning his gaze to her, “I wish to make sure that you do not intend to go on being Cinderella to the Warburtons’ ugly sisters.”

  “Hardly ugly, my lord.”

  “Their souls are ugly.”

  “As I told you,” said Amaryllis, “I plan to advertise for a position. I think I look the part of governess more than I did before.”

  “You most certainly do. Are you to be allowed to dance at this ball?”

  “Yes, I think so. If anyone asks me.”

  “If you continue to uglify yourself, then the matter is in doubt.”

  “You presume too much on our former acquaintance, my lord. I am not in the way of receiving insults from gentlemen, despite my hag-ridden appearance.”

  “I am sorry,” he said stiffly. “But you are infuriating. I do not like to see you thus . . . cringing and beaten and cowed by a pair of silly, selfish girls.”

  “You seem to have persuaded Lady Evans,” said Amaryllis evenly, “that the Warburtons would not dare throw me out if I make a stand. I believed it when she spoke to me. But it is very hard to be bold and brave when you are a woman and have no money. I am a parasite. I depend on them for my food and board. I am quite well able to deal with the girls. Your constant close scrutiny of my behavior embarrasses me.”

  “Do you have any feeling for me at all?” he asked harshly.

  The truthful answer to that, thought Amaryllis sadly, was, “I never stopped loving you.”

  Instead, she heard herself say, “We have not had much time to renew our acquaintance, my lord. I had quite forgotten you until your arrival.”

  There it was, thought the Marquess grimly. He had vowed he would not give her the chance to hurt him, and yet she had just done so. And why should this drab, this nobody, this antidote that was Amaryllis Duvane have the power to hurt him?

  “Considering I held you in my arms and kissed your not unwilling lips this very afternoon, I thought you might have formed some sort of opinion of me,” he said, studying her face.

  “The circumstances were not ordinary. It was cold. I’m afraid under such conditions I might have let anyone kiss me.”

  “Donnelly?”

  “Yes, even Lord Donnelly.”

  “If you were not so prim and spinsterish-looking,” he said, getting to his feet, “I would say you had the soul of a Cyprian. Fortunately, your appearance will protect you from any further excesses of civility.”

  Amaryliss watched him go, a lump in her throat and tears sparkling on the edge of her long eyelashes.

  Now all she wanted was to see the last of him. All the hurts and insults the Warburtons could think up were as nothing to the hurt she was enduring.

  Chapter Five

  Next morning, Amaryllis had made up her mind to stay in her room until the Marquess had left. By eleven o’clock, she decided it safe to go down to the dining room in search of breakfast.

  Snow was beginning to fall outside; lazy, big, lacy flakes, dropping down from a leaden sky. There was not even a breath of wind, and the large flakes sometimes seemed to hang motionless in the frigid air.

  Outside in the park, the deer were nuzzling at the bales of hay, put down for their winter fodder.

  Amaryllis hesitated outside the dining room, listening intently for the sound of voices, but the door was very thick.

  She pushed it open and went in. Her heart sank. The Marquess and Mr. Chalmers, Lady Evans and Sir Gareth, Lady Warburton and Cissie were all eating away busily.

  For a man about to take his leave, the Marquess looked remarkably unhurried. At least Lord Donnelly was obviously still in his bed, and Amaryllis was glad to be spared his brand of forced gallantry.

  Amaryllis walked over to the sideboard, which was laden with cold joints, collared and potted meats, cold game, veal and ham pies, game and rumpsteak pies, and dishes of mackerel, whiting, herring, dried haddock, mutton chops, rump steak, broiled sheep’s kidneys, sausages, bacon, and eggs. She select
ed a mutton chop and an egg, and went to sit quietly next to Lady Evans.

  “I am trying to persuade Sir Gareth to leave directly after the ball,” said Lady Evans to Amaryllis. “I do not find this a very comfortable establishment. I wonder you continue to live here, Miss Duvane. You are not very well treated.”

  Amaryllis gave a little sigh. “What alternative would you suggest?”

  “Oh, you must get married,” said Lady Evans comfortably. “There is no other career for a woman. Sir Gareth is my third husband.”

  Amaryllis wondered whether to point out that most ladies with large dowries seemed to be able to marry as many times as they wished, but decided at the last moment that it would sound vulgar and would also imply that Lady Evans’s sole attraction was her wealth.

  “Now Lord Donnelly seemed quite taken with you,” went on Lady Evans. “I really do not know what is so awful about being an Irish peer.”

  Because they are famous for their lack of money, thought Amaryllis. Money, money, money. ’Tis money makes the world go round. Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels and have not money, I am become as sounding brass. I sometimes wake up in the night, dear Lady Evans—so ran Amaryllis’s thoughts—and think of bags and bags of money. Money seems to mean everything in this society; love and laughter and freedom.

  Aloud she said, “Lord Donnelly appeared to win a great deal at cards.”

  “Yes, my poor husband was complaining bitterly of being fleeced, but you know how men are. If they are winning, then they persuade themselves it is because of their great intelligence and skill; if they are losing, they start muttering suspiciously that their opponent’s luck is deuced odd.”

  “There’s a carriage drawing up,” said Amaryllis, looking out the window to where a handsome equipage could be seen rolling to a stop at the front of the house. “That must be Miss Gaskell, a young relative on Lord Warburton’s side of the family. I have not seen her this age.”

  “Is she like Cissie and Agatha?”

  “No. As I remember, she is very quiet and shy.”

  “Well, that’s a mercy,” said Lady Evans, spearing a kidney. “I think a touch of the birch rod when they were younger might have cured Cissie and Agatha of their insolence. They have been sadly indulged.”