Enlightening Delilah (3 page)

There was a fallen log beside the path and Delilah sat down on it. The pain of that rejection came back to her with all the misery of that original blow. Men, she had decided then, and was still convinced, did not have hearts. She would like to think she had inflicted on some of the monsters a little of the pain she had endured, but she knew that any pain would be fleeting. Only women were tender and bruised easily. Although she loved her father dearly, she did not even notice that her flirtatious behaviour was causing him pain.

She glanced at the watch pinned to her bosom. Quarter to three! She would need to return and change. She had promised to take tea with Mrs Cavendish. Mrs Cavendish was a widow who lived on the outskirts of the village. She had very little money, but her afternoon tea parties were popular. Everyone delicately tried to increase her larder by bringing along practical presents like tea and coffee.

Delilah hurried home, her skirts flying. She did not have a lady’s maid, contenting herself with calling on one of the housemaids for help if she needed the tapes of her gown tied. She put on a muslin gown of apple green and added a new leghorn trimmed with apple blossom on her head. The wide brim shaded her face from the sun. Long gloves of white kid, flat white kid sandals and a parasol of apple-green silk completed the ensemble. Mrs Cavendish was one of the few ladies Delilah really liked and so she always dressed in her best when going to visit her. She tucked a packet of the finest tea in her reticule and got the groom to load a basket of apples into the gig.

It was a real Indian summer’s day. The summer itself had been quite dreadful, rainy and cold. The leaves were just beginning to turn from green to pale gold and hips and haws shone in the hedgerows like jewels.

Mrs Cavendish had been widowed for some ten years. Her husband had been a gentleman of private means, but on his death, it was discovered that those means had been largely dissipated in gambling. Mrs Cavendish had sold the large house in which she had spent most of her married life and had moved into a small cottage. She had only one maid of all work and a man who came round twice a week to do the garden.

She was a pleasant motherly woman shaped like a cottage loaf. She was a very good cook and was able to conjure up amazing little delicacies out of remarkably little.

She came to the door herself to greet Delilah. ‘Tea . . . and apples!’ she cried. ‘You do spoil me. Come into the parlour, Miss Wraxall. The Bellamy sisters are already here, and Patricia, Lady Framley’s daughter, and the Misses Peterson. A full house and full of excitement!’

‘What is the excitement?’ asked Delilah, stopping outside the cottage door to admire the rambling roses which were still blooming at the entrance.

‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Mrs Cavendish with a laugh. ‘Sir Charles Digby is returned, and, my dear, what a fuss. All these young ladies have descended on me in the hope Sir Charles will visit too. As you know, he was always a regular visitor in the past.’

She saw a shadow cross Delilah’s eyes, but the next minute it had gone and Delilah was saying merrily, ‘I shall not stay long, so that will leave at least one space in your parlour.’

Mrs Cavendish remembered there had once been rumours that Digby was going to marry Delilah. But nothing had come of it and Delilah certainly did not seem to have even noticed his going off.

The Bellamy sisters, Ellen and Bessie, did not look at all pleased to see Delilah. Nor did the Honourable Patricia Framley or Agnes and Josephine Peterson. All the ladies were in their best gowns. The parlour was very small and stuffy, despite the open window.

‘So hot in here, my dears,’ said Mrs Cavendish. ‘Let us all carry our chairs into the garden at the back.’

There was a great fuss and bustle as the ladies edged out of the back door, carrying chairs. It was a real cottage garden, a riot of late flowers. Mrs Cavendish was amused to note that the young ladies, with the exception of Delilah, took up Attitudes. Miss Agnes Peterson was sitting with her hands folded on the back of the chair, gazing sternly into space. Miss Ellen Bellamy was standing with hands outspread gazing rapturously up at an apple tree and the rest were in various Attitudes – Virgin Surprised, Spring Awakening, and Stern Minerva. But it is very hard to hold an Attitude for a gentleman who does not appear. Delilah was getting the best of the delicacies, so the other ladies reluctantly abandoned their various poses and joined in the tea party.

At last, Delilah rose to leave. The other ladies looked relieved. And then Mrs Cavendish’s little maid said squeakily from the door to the garden, ‘Sir Charles Digby, mum.’

Delilah turned around so that her back was to him. That one glimpse of him had been a shock. He was as handsome as she remembered him to be, but much harder. There were new lines in his face and that face was brown from the sun.

Sir Charles Digby was a tall man with a high-nosed face and the odd combination of very thick fair hair and deep-black eyes set under heavy lids. His figure was hard and athletic, his skin unmarked, and his legs good. The fashion for skin-tight breeches and trousers had made every female, however modest, an expert on the beauty of masculine legs.

‘You have been away at the wars so long, Sir Charles,’ said Mrs Cavendish, ‘that I fear I must introduce you to these ladies all over again. Some of them would have been in the schoolroom when you left.’ She led him around the circle and then said, ‘Oh, and Miss Wraxall, of course.’

Delilah swung around and curtsied low. He remembered Delilah as being pretty in a plump, puppyish way. But this was an enchantress who faced him, an enchantress whose large hazel eyes looked green under the shade of a modish hat. She was slim and pliant and deep-bosomed. He realized he was staring, and bowed.

‘It is a pleasure to meet you again, Miss Wraxall,’ he said.

‘If only for a fleeting moment,’ laughed Delilah. ‘I really must go, Mrs Cavendish. I have important things to attend to. Goodbye, Sir Charles. Delightful to see you again. Ladies . . . your servant.’ She swept another curtsy and walked out, with Mrs Cavendish bustling behind her, pleading, ‘Cannot you stay for just a little longer?’

Delilah smiled but refused. She climbed into the gig and unfurled her parasol and told the groom to drive on. ‘Well, that wasn’t too bad,’ she said.

‘Beg pardon, miss?’ said the groom.

‘Nothing. Nothing at all,’ said Delilah Wraxall.

Mr Haddon was not a vain man. It never crossed his mind that either of the Tribble twins viewed him in the light of a prospective husband. But he could not help noticing that Miss Effy was not giving him her usual flattering attention. She kept fidgeting unnecessarily with the tea-things.

The nabob had known Effy and Amy Tribble in the days when both were shy young débutantes and he a young man of good family but of very slender means. He had gone to India and made his fortune. But London had changed during the long years of his absence. Only the Tribble sisters appeared to be the same. He did not see any difference in them. To him, they were still the girls who had once been kind to him and who were kind still.

‘And you say Miss Amy has gone off with this squire?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Effy irritably. ‘Amy, I regret to say, is a sad flirt.’

Mr Haddon blinked. He could not imagine the forthright Amy flirting with anyone.

‘So silly to be over-familiar with clients,’ complained Effy. ‘Familiarity can breed contempt. Look at the clock! Where can they have gone?’

‘Perhaps he brought his daughter to London and Miss Amy has gone to talk to her,’ suggested Mr Haddon.

‘Then she should have done no such thing!’ said Effy. ‘She should have sent for me.’

‘I am surprised Miss Amy did not summon you to the interview in the first place,’ said Mr Haddon.

This was where Effy should have explained that she had told Amy to handle it alone, but she did not. Instead she said, ‘Oh, that’s Amy for you. Secretive to a fault.’

‘I should have thought a tendency to too much frankness was perhaps more a fault of Miss Amy’s.’

‘You don’t know her like I do,’ said Effy darkly.

‘I think I hear her now,’ said Mr Haddon. Effy flew to the mirror and patted her white hair and bit her lips to bring a little colour into them.

The door opened and Amy slouched in alone.

Effy pouted in disappointment and went back to her chair. ‘Where is Mr Wraxall?’ she asked.

‘Gone back to his hotel,’ said Amy, slumping down onto the sofa. ‘What a time we had!’

‘Where did you go?’ asked Effy.

‘He wanted to see the beasts at Exeter Change.’

Effy fanned herself vigorously. ‘How provincial.’

‘Amazing how all the things damned as provincial are the mostest fun,’ said Amy. ‘I had a famous time. Squire Wraxall is a delightful gentleman.’

‘You really should have called me down,’ said Effy sulkily. ‘It’s too bad of you, Amy.’

‘Saw him from the window, did you?’ Amy grinned. ‘I heard you screaming but thought you deserved to be ignored. You know you left me to interview him on my own because you thought a mere squire beneath you.’

‘That is not true,’ said Effy, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Mr Haddon! I appeal to you. Would I do such a thing?’

‘Now, how can he answer that when he wasn’t there to hear you,’ said Amy reasonably. ‘Do you want to hear about his daughter or not?’

Effy turned her head away and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

‘Please tell us,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘What is the difficulty with Miss Wraxall?’

‘She’s a flirt.’

‘Oh, dear, are you sure?’ asked Effy, forgetting to be cross.

‘Yes. He says some local worthy called Sir Charles Digby raised her hopes a long time ago and then went off to the wars without saying goodbye. After that she went around breaking hearts like a mad thing.’

‘She must be told that it is not at all the thing to play fast and loose with gentlemen’s affections,’ said Mr Haddon.

‘Doesn’t seem to me that a mere lecture would work,’ said Amy. ‘I mean a lot of women would play fast and loose if they thought they were beautiful enough to get away with it.’

‘Not I,’ said Effy, tossing her head.

‘Of course not,’ said Amy cheerfully. ‘You never was beautiful enough, so you never even had a chance to try.’

‘Liar!’ screamed Effy, beside herself with rage.

Distressed and embarrassed, Mr Haddon got to his feet. Both ladies immediately remembered their manners and begged him to stay.

When everything was calm again, Amy went on. ‘We’ll just need to wait and see how she goes on. She can’t be all that bad. The father is delightful.’

‘When does Miss Wraxall come to us?’ asked Effy.

‘Next week.’

‘So soon? I trust the squire is prepared to pay our usual fee.’

‘All signed and sealed,’ said Amy. ‘He’s awfully rich, and,’ she added with a sly look at Effy, ‘he’s a widower.’

At this, Mr Haddon insisted on taking his leave. He was afraid the ladies were about to quarrel again. He felt quite upset and huffy and did not know why.

. . . I went to London, there to study its language and its people. The deuce take the people and their language too!

Heinrich Heine

As the squire approached his home, he was stopped several times on the way by various people and told that Sir Charles Digby had returned. This served to harden his decision. All the way from London, he had been dreading breaking the news to Delilah that he had made arrangements for her to be ‘schooled’. What if she refused to go? He could hardly force her.

Now with Sir Charles back on the scene, it was imperative that Delilah should leave. He was driving through the outskirts of the village when he saw Mrs Cavendish working in her garden and called to the coachman to stop. He jumped down and walked back.

Mrs Cavendish pressed him to enter her cottage and take tea. The squire felt, on the one hand, that he should return home as soon as possible and get the nasty business of breaking the news to Delilah over and done with, and, on the other hand, he longed for a sympathetic ear. He had always been shy and awkward in Mrs Cavendish’s company, but somehow, his outing with Miss Amy Tribble had removed some of his fear of women.

He soon found himself in her front parlour, sipping excellent tea and munching feather-light cakes.

‘And was your business in London successful?’ asked Mrs Cavendish after she had given him the latest village gossip.

Mr Wraxall carefully put down his teacup and looked at her with worried eyes. ‘Very successful, ma’am.’

‘But something is troubling you? Sir Charles Digby is returned and he came here when your daughter was visiting.’

‘The deuce!’

‘Miss Wraxall did not seem in the slightest affected by his presence,’ said Mrs Cavendish. ‘There was a rumour, you know, that perhaps they might marry. That was a long time ago. Could it be that Miss Wraxall refused his suit? She has refused so many others.’

‘No, she did not refuse him. He, in a way, refused her,’ said the squire.

‘Oh, dear, dear, dear,’ said Mrs Cavendish. ‘Have some more tea. Very comforting thing, tea.’