Читать книгу The Devil And Drusilla - Paula Marshall - Страница 11

‘How good of you, my dear Mrs Faulkner, to allow your beautiful grounds to be invaded by so many. Even for such a good cause as the poor children of the parish it is most magnanimous of you.’

Mr Williams, the incumbent at Tresham Magna, a portly middle-aged man, beamed kindly at Drusilla and wished that he were twenty years younger and unmarried that he might offer for such a treasure.

He turned to Devenish who had just strolled over to them, Robert walking at his rear, and said, ‘I do not know, m’lord, whether you have had the honour to be presented to our hostess yet, but if not—’

Devenish cut him short. ‘Oh, but we have met already, quite informally, so it is, unfortunately, too late for all the usual niceties, as I am sure Mrs Faulkner will agree.’

Drusilla had already been busily admiring m’lord’s splendour. Beside him everyone looked provincial, or as though they were striving to appear as fine as he did—but had failed. Only Robert in his sensible countryman’s clothing had not sought to compete with his friend and master.

Devenish was turned out so as to emphasise that even an event as small as this was worthy of his full attention. His bottle-green coat, his cream-coloured breeches, his perfect boots, his splendid cravat—a waterfall, no less—and his carefully dressed hair, gave him the air of just having sat either for a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, or for a fashion plate designed to sell a Bond Street tailor’s wares.

Now she smiled at him and the parson, saying in her quiet, pleasant voice, ‘Since we have met, m’lord, allow me to present to you one of our guests—that is, if you have not already met him informally. I mean Mr Leander Harrington.’

She gestured at that gentleman who had just walked up to them.

‘No, indeed,’ said Devenish languidly, ‘I have not yet had the honour.’

‘No introductions needed,’ interjected Mr Harrington before Drusilla could speak. ‘I do not subscribe to the pantomimes of an outworn society, you understand, Devenish. And since we each know to whom we are speaking, that is enough. We are men together, no more and no less.’

‘Well, we are certainly not women,’ drawled Devenish, ‘so I must agree with you in that, if nothing else. On the other hand, if Mrs Faulkner had not mentioned your name beforehand I would have been reduced to asking my good friend Stammers here who the devil you were!’

Several of the bystanders, previous victims of Mr Harrington’s Radical views, sniggered behind their hands at this put down.

Nothing ever put Leander Harrington down, though. He smiled. ‘Remiss of me, I suppose, not to mention that I am Harrington of Marsham Abbey—for what such titles are worth. I am but a citizen of the great world, and proud to take that name after Earl Stanhope’s great example.’

‘Ah,’ said Devenish, and to Drusilla’s fascination, his drawl was longer than ever, ‘you are, I see, of the Jacobinical persuasion—as Citizen Stanhope was. Pray inform me, sir—as Stanhope, despite his desire to be at one with all men, threw away his title, but retained his estates and his wealth—I suppose that you have followed his example there as well and retained yours?’

Great men, like Devenish, could say what they pleased, Drusilla knew. What she also knew was that she had long considered Leander Harrington to be a fraud, and it was a pleasure to hear him called one so gravely and apparently politely.

Leander, though, was never bested in an argument. He ignored protocol and all the uses of polite society to clap Devenish on the back. ‘Why, Devenish, until the great day comes when we are all equal in every way in the eyes of the law as well as God, I must sacrifice myself and husband what my ancestors have left me so that it may, at the last, be put into the pool for the common good.

‘I bid you do the same, brother Devenish—and cleanse your soul.’

Behind Devenish, Robert made a choking noise. Those before him waited to see what riposte m’lord might make to that. His smile was enigmatic. ‘Since I possess no soul to cleanse, that might be difficult, but I accept your suggestion in the spirit in which it was offered.’

Drusilla heard Miss Faulkner gasp behind her. She found that she had the most overwhelming desire to laugh, but dare not, for the bewildered parson was staring, mumchance, at the patron who had given him his living.

‘You cannot mean that, m’lord,’ he managed at last.

‘At your pleasure, sir, and at both our leisures we must discuss my soul later,’ said Devenish. ‘Here and now is not the time. Mrs Faulkner, I would ask you to be my guide on this fine afternoon.’ He bowed to Leander Harrington and said indifferently, ‘Your servant, sir, and you will excuse us. Later you might care to visit the Hall and we can have a discussion on whatever subject you please.’

‘Oh, very fine,’ said Drusilla softly to Devenish. He had taken her arm and was walking her away. ‘I compliment you, m’lord. Not many men could be as exquisitely rude and as exquisitely polite in two succeeding sentences as you have just been.’

Devenish looked down at her. Demure-looking she might be, but there was much more to her than that. He half thought that she was playing his own game with him by making cutting remarks in a pleasant but indifferent voice.

He briefly considered echoing her comment by saying, Not many women have made half so observant a remark to me, and in such a manner that I am not sure that you actually meant to compliment me.

Instead he merely offered, ‘I trust that your brother has recovered from his fall.’

Drusilla looked up at him. For a moment she had wondered whether he would answer her in his most two-edged fashion. Since he had not, she was as coolly pleasant as he.

‘Oh, very much so. I am fearful of what he might next wish to get up to—and what it might involve me in.’

‘He is present this afternoon, then?’

‘Oh, yes. I had thought that he might have tried to find you before now. He wishes to thank you for coming to his aid so promptly.’

‘But I did very little for him.’

‘Only because there was little to do. The thought was there, m’lord.’

Yes, there was more to her than he might have guessed.

Devenish looked around him at the house standing before them: a handsome, classically styled building in warm stone, a gentleman’s residence, not too large and not too small. Over the front door was a stone shield with a falcon trailing its jesses on it: the Faulkners’, or the Falconers’, punning coat of arms. At the back of the house were three lawns, all at different levels on a slope running down to a wide stream.

Tents and tables had been erected on them. On the top lawn a target had been set up and a group of gaily dressed women were engaged in an archery competition. Their male escorts were standing about, keeping score, and urging them on before they took part themselves later.

‘I must not monopolise you,’ he said, abruptly for him, for his speech was usually measured. ‘You have your duty to do to others.’

‘Oh, m’lord,’ Drusilla spoke softly, but firmly. ‘My biggest duty is to see that you are introduced to most of your neighbours—if you will so allow.’

Oh, yes, he would allow. In the normal course of events he would not have permitted himself to be bored by making the acquaintance of a pack of nobodies, but he had given Sidmouth his word that he would try to discover what was going awry around his home, and he would do his best to be successful. Mrs Faulkner was going to save him the trouble of spending several weeks discovering who was who around Tresham Magna and Minor.

Noblesse oblige then—and perhaps it would do him good not to be selfish for once, and stifle his sharp tongue! As if to aid him in this decision Giles Faulkner hobbled up to him, full of a goodwill which it would be wrong to mock.

‘Dru said that you might honour us with your presence, m’lord, and so you have. Now I may thank you properly for your consideration when I played the fool and received my proper payment by falling off my horse.’

He caught Devenish’s sardonic eye and added ruefully, ‘Oh, I see what you are about to say! That I didn’t receive my proper payment for it because I didn’t break my neck!’

‘Well anticipated,’ offered Devenish, ‘except that I was only thinking it—not about to utter such a home truth aloud.’

This honesty pleased Giles immensely. He smiled and began to pull at Drusilla’s sleeve.

‘I say, Dru,’ he exclaimed, ‘you aren’t going to tire my saviour out by dragging him round to introduce him to all the old bores of the district, are you? Much better if you went in for the archery competition, sir—if you can shoot, that is.’

‘Giles, Giles,’ reproved Drusilla, ‘you mustn’t run on so! Whatever will m’lord make of your manners? And do address him by his proper title. He will think you ignorant of the world’s usages.’ Giles thought this pomposity unworthy of his sister and was about to say so. Devenish forestalled him.

‘Sir will do, my dear Mrs Faulkner. I am m’lorded quite enough as it is. I would be even happier if you were to address me as Devenish. You are my nearest neighbour, after all.’

He had no idea what made him come out with this unheard-of piece of condescension, but was left with no time to theorise as to the origin of it. Drusilla was surprised by it, but had little time to ponder on it because they were rapidly being approached by all those who wished to meet the great man who had avoided meeting them for ten long years.

Devenish knew Parson Williams because he had interviewed him in London when he had granted him his living, but he had never met Williams’s junior fellow at Tresham Minor, George Lawson, having allowed Rob Stammers to make the appointment in his absence.

Lawson was the first to reach Drusilla and he made a low bow to his patron, murmuring, ‘Too great an honour, m’lord, too great,’ when Devenish, remembering his resolution to be pleasant to everyone, said he would be happy to entertain him to dinner in the near future.

He was a handsome young fellow in his mid-twenties, short rather than tall, dark in colouring, with an easy insinuating manner which Devenish instantly, and instinctively, disliked. He disliked most of all the expression on the fellow’s face when he spoke to Drusilla, and the way in which he fawned on her, holding her hand a little too long after she had offered it to him.

He thought the dislike didn’t show, but Drusilla registered it immediately. To her surprise, and much to her shock, she found that she was beginning to read Devenish’s mind.

She smiled a little to herself, when, in swift succession, Devenish made further invitations to dinner to John Squires of Burnside, Peter Clifton of Clifton Manor, and a series of minor gentlemen. When Leander Harrington returned to ask m’lord to dine at the Abbey in the near future, he invited him as well.

‘And you, too, Mrs Faulkner,’ he added, ‘and Master Giles. He is quite old enough at eighteen to join us and it is time he made his entry into the polite world.’

It was a pity, Drusilla thought, that she had always held Mr Harrington in dislike, for he was one of the few men who behaved to Giles as though he were a normally healthy person. For some reason which she could not explain, however, he made her flesh creep.

She would have been astonished to learn that Devenish was—to his surprise—registering her concealed dislike of the man. He thought that it showed her acumen as well as her good taste.

He had not expected to discover anything about the missing men and women on an occasion such as this. He moved about the grounds of Lyford House, being bowed to and responding with his most pleasant smile, his cutting tongue for once not in evidence. He was thinking, not for the first time, of the vast difference in life between the few fortunate men and women who surrounded him, and the vast mass of people at the bottom of the social heap.

Men—and women like the missing girls.

Here food was piled up in plenty on beautifully set tables. Elegantly dressed men and women talked and laughed in the orange light of the late afternoon’s sun.

For the unlucky in their wretched homes a meagre ration was laid out on rough boards in conditions so vile that the workers on his estate would not have housed pigs in them. Their clothes were ragged, and the men and women who wore them were stunted and twisted.

Devenish shivered. He thought of Rob Stammers’s surprise when he had ordered that the cottages on his estate should be rebuilt and the men’s wages increased so that they might live above the near-starvation level which was common in the English countryside.

It was when he was in this dark mood which sometimes visited him at inconvenient times that John Squires approached him and asked diffidently, ‘If I could have a serious word with you for a moment, m’lord, I should be most grateful.’

‘As many serious words as you like,’ he responded. ‘But what troubles you, that you wish to be serious on a fête day?’

Squires coloured. He was a heavyset fellow in early middle age, ruddy of face, a country gentleman who was also a working farmer.

‘It’s this business of the missing wenches, m’lord, but if you prefer not to talk about it here, we could perhaps speak later—’

‘No, speak to me now. I have had one conversation about a missing wench since I arrived in the district, and another will not bore me.’

‘Very well, m’lord,’ and he launched into a lengthy story of the miller’s daughter in Burnside village who had disappeared six months ago.

‘A good girl, her father said, until a few weeks before her disappearance, when she became cheeky and restless, and not hide nor hair of her seen since. Just walked out one evening—and never came home.’

His words echoed those of Hooby. Devenish decided to test him.

‘And why should you—or I—trouble ourselves about missing girls?’

Squires stared at him as though he were an insect, lord though he might be.

‘They are God’s creatures, m’lord, and I have learned this afternoon that others are missing. It troubles me, particularly since one of them, Kate Hooby, was the miller’s daughter’s best friend.’

‘Strange, very strange,’ Devenish remarked, as though he were hearing that there was more than one lost girl for the first time. ‘I share your worries about this. They cannot all have decided to run away to London to make their fortune on the streets.’

John Squires decided that he might have been mistaken in his first judgement of m’lord. ‘Then you will cause an enquiry to be made, m’lord.’

‘Indeed, I shall ask Mr Stammers to make a point of it.’

‘My thanks then. The miller is a good man, and what troubles him must trouble me.’

Devenish watched him walk away, and decided that since the matter had been raised now by two others he might safely speak of it without any suspicions being aroused as to why he was doing so. He looked around for Drusilla and found her immediately. Despite the fact that she was carrying a fat baby boy, he decided to make a beginning.

‘You are encumbered,’ he drawled. ‘Pray sit down, the child is too heavy for you, and sitting will be easier than walking.’

He waved her to one of the stone benches which stood about the lawns, and saw her settled before he sat down beside her.

‘You know,’ Drusilla observed quietly, watching him as she spoke, ‘you are quite the last person, m’lord, whom I would have thought would wish to sit next to a woman holding a baby boy dribbling because he is teething. It only goes to show how mistaken one can be and should teach us all not to jump to over-hasty conclusions!’

‘If you did not look as demure as a Quaker saint, I would think that you were bamming me, Mrs Faulkner.’

‘Oh, dear, no, m’lord, just wondering what you have to say to me that is so urgent that you cannot wait until I shed my burden. And, by the by, do the Quakers have saints? I rather thought that they didn’t.’

Robert, watching them from a little distance while he talked to Miss Faulkner, was surprised to hear Devenish’s shout of laughter and wondered what Mrs Faulkner could have said to cause him to behave so informally.

‘If they didn’t, they ought to have,’ Devenish finally riposted. ‘I never thought that I should have to come into the wilds of the country in order to find a woman who would give me a taste of my own verbal medicine.

‘Let me confess that I do have an ulterior motive in sitting by you. John Squires has just been telling me the surprising story that several of the local wenches have disappeared mysteriously. Have you mislaid any? Or is the Faulkner estate so considerately managed that no one from it has absconded to London to make their fortune?’

‘Now, m’lord,’ responded Drusilla seriously, wiping the little boy’s dribbling mouth with her lace-edged linen handkerchief, ‘this is not a matter for levity. The parents of the girls are most distressed, and no, none of my people has disappeared.’

‘I stand corrected, or rather, I sit so. I see by your reply that I must take this matter seriously. Does that child have an endless supply of water in his mouth? Both you and he will be wet through if he continues to dribble at this rate.’

As though he knew that Devenish was referring to him, the little boy leaned forward, put out a wet and sticky hand, and ran it down the lapel of his beautiful coat before either he or Drusilla could stop him.

‘Oh, dear!’ Drusilla pulled him back with one hand and put the other over her mouth. ‘I should never have consented to sit by you whilst I held Jackie. He is quite the liveliest child in the Milners’ family, and I have been looking after him to give his poor mama a little rest.’

And then, without having meant to, quite the contrary, she began to laugh as Devenish fished out his beautiful handkerchief and started to repair the damage, his face an impassive mask—although his mouth twitched a little.

‘I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I shouldn’t laugh, but, oh, dear—your face.’

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ said Devenish agreeably. ‘But then, as you have just rightly pointed out, I am responsible for my ruined coat by having first waylaid you and then allowed you both to sit by me. You do realise that he’s about to be sick all down you at any moment?’

‘No!’ Drusilla leapt to her feet and, quite instinctively, thrust Jackie at Devenish so that she might begin to mop herself.

Devenish didn’t need to mop himself because, having caught Jackie, he dextrously up-ended him and held him at arm’s length so that he christened the grass instead of his already ruined jacket.

‘Goodness me!’ Drusilla exclaimed, scrubbing herself. ‘I might have guessed that your invention would be as sharp as your tongue.’

The fascinated spectators to this unusual scene included a startled Robert and Miss Faulkner who stood aghast, her mouth open in shock, as that aloof Lord of Creation, Henry Alexander Devenish, Fourth Earl of Devenish and Innescourt, turned the squalling Jackie right side up and began to wipe him clean with his handkerchief.

Jackie, who had started to cry when subjected to this briskly sensible treatment, ceased his roaring immediately when Devenish told him sharply, ‘Now, my man, stop that at once, or I shall be very cross.’

Drusilla said faintly, ‘How in the world did you manage that? No one has ever been able to quieten him before once he has begun to cry. You really ought to offer yourself to the Milners to replace the nursemaid they have just lost. She was fit for Bedlam, she said, if she did not resign on the instant.’

Devenish, who had pulled his gold watch from his pocket with his right hand whilst he held Jackie in the crook of his left arm, and was circling it above his absorbed face, said abstractedly, ‘I had a baby brother once.’

The Milners, who had just been informed of the brouhaha which their infant had caused, arrived on the scene to find their usually rampant offspring blowing bubbles of delight at Devenish as he tried to grasp the swinging watch.

‘Oh, m’lord,’ gasped Mrs. Milner. ‘Oh, your beautiful coat, you shouldn’t, you really shouldn’t—’

‘Not at all,’ remarked Devenish coolly. ‘Since I have been informed that this is the first time today that he has behaved himself, I think that I really should, don’t you? For all our sakes.’

And since the Lord of All, as Drusilla privately called him, made such a statement, no one present dared to contradict him.

For some reason poor Miss Faulkner was the most disturbed by Devenish’s behaviour. Later, her niece could only think that she had the absurd notion that it brought dishonour on the Faulkner name that he had arrived at such an unlikely pass.

She said sharply to Drusilla, ‘My dear, I told you no good would come of your assisting the Milners’ monstrous child. Look at you both! Your dress is ruined, and as for Lord Devenish’s coat—’

‘Very helpful of you,’ remarked Devenish smoothly, ‘to be so wise both before and after the event. You are quite right. Both Mrs Faulkner and I will be happy to be relieved of continuing to look after the incubus, and I’m sure that you will be delighted to care for him instead, seeing that his poor mama is already in the boughs over him—or so I am informed,’ and he thrust Jackie into the astounded Miss Faulkner’s arms.

‘You may borrow my watch if he starts to cry again,’ he offered helpfully. ‘It seems to do the trick.’

‘Oh, Devenish, you really are the outside of enough,’ gasped Drusilla through laughing sobs. ‘Give him to me, Cordelia, he cannot ruin my dress any further and I’ll return him to his mama when she feels able to look after him.’

Mrs Milner had, indeed, sunk on to the stone bench where Drusilla and Devenish had been sitting, and was moaning gently while being comforted by her husband.

‘She is increasing, you know,’ Drusilla informed Devenish severely, in as low a voice as she could manage, ‘and she needs a rest from him every now and then.’

‘Really,’ returned Devenish, quite unruffled by the commotion which he had created. ‘I should have thought everyone needs a rest from him all the time. Pity we don’t sacrifice to Moloch any more.’

‘Devenish!’ Drusilla and Robert exclaimed reproachfully together, whilst Cordelia Faulkner asked faintly, ‘Why Moloch?’

And then, ‘Oh, the God to whom they sacrificed children. Oh, Lord Devenish, you surely cannot mean that.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Drusilla and Robert together, and ‘Yes, I do,’ drawled Devenish, but he winked at Drusilla to show her that he was not serious.

She responded by kissing Jackie to show that she loved him if no one else did, and shaking her head at Devenish to reprove him for being flighty.

Giles, a fascinated spectator of the antics of his elders, said, ‘I think babies are disgusting. If they ain’t dribbling from one end, they’re hard at it from the other. Can’t think why anyone wants them.’

‘Well, someone wanted you,’ drawled Devenish. ‘A bit of a mistake, d’you think?’

Drusilla said, ‘I think it’s time everyone behaved themselves. You know, Devenish, you’re a really bad influence on us all. I quite agree with what you said earlier, you have no soul.’

But she was laughing when she said it. Giles looked after her as she removed Jackie from Devenish’s corrupting presence by handing him to his now recovered mama and escorting them into the house where they might be private, and Drusilla might change her dress.

He said confidentially to Devenish and Robert—Miss Faulkner was panting in Drusilla’s ear—‘You know, sir, I don’t think you’re a bad influence on us at all. Why, since poor Jeremy died I haven’t heard Dru laugh like that once!’

It was Robert who laughed at this artless remark and not Devenish, who said, as grave as any judge, ‘Might you not consider that to make your sister laugh like that confirmed my bad influence on her rather than refuted it?’

‘Not at all, sir.’ Giles’s response was as serious sounding as Devenish’s. ‘Why, when Jeremy was alive, she used to laugh all the time.’

He paused, a puzzled look crossing his open, handsome face. ‘Except,’ he said slowly, ‘during the last few months before Jeremy was killed. She grew uncommon moody, as I recall. Jeremy told me that it was because she was unhappy at not providing him with an heir—although judging by the way that most babies behave, I can’t understand why that should make her sad.’

‘You will,’ said Devenish, filing away Giles’s strange piece of information in his retentive memory, ‘until then, I shouldn’t worry. You’ll want your own heir one day.’

‘I shall?’ This seemed such an unlikely remark that Giles decided to ignore it. After all, Devenish didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to provide an heir for himself, but he wisely decided not to say so.

Instead, he invited him to take part in the archery competition—’all the gentleman are expected to do so, and the prize is a silver medal which Dru will present at the end of the day.’

‘I shall be delighted,’ Devenish told him, which had Robert saying to him in the carriage on the way home, ‘You were in an uncommon good mood today, Hal. I would have thought that it might be the kind of bread-and-butter occasion which would have brought out the acid in your speech.

‘And, forgive me for asking, what was that about your having a baby brother? I always supposed you to be an only child. At least, your grandfather always spoke as though you were.’

‘So he did, Rob, but then, seeing that he was invariably wrong in all his judgements, it’s not surprising that he was wrong in that, too.’

He made no attempt to speak further on the matter, leaving Robert to expand instead on the charms of Mrs Drusilla Faulkner and the surprising fact that it had been Devenish to whom she had presented the silver medal for winning the archery competition.

‘Another thing I didn’t know about you—that you were a fine shot with a bow, except—’ and he looked sideways at Devenish ‘—that you seem to excel at everything you do, however unlikely.’

‘Don’t flatter me, Rob, it doesn’t become you,’ Devenish returned shortly. ‘Any success I may have is only because I choose never to do anything at which I don’t excel.’

He seemed to be in an odder mood than usual so Robert remained silent for the rest of the short drive back to Tresham Hall. Something, he was sure, had occurred, or been said, that had set Devenish thinking, and thinking hard.

His face had taken on an expression which he had not seen since the days of their adventures on the Continent, and it was one which had only appeared in times of trial and danger.

Which was passing strange, because what times of trial and danger could there possibly be in sleepy Surrey?