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response. And when he rang the bell it was one of the
chambermaids, a cheeky girl by the name of Gladys, or
it might have been Daisy, who popped her head round
the door.
“No, I haven’t seen Woodcock, sir,” she responded
in answer to his inquiry. “But I’ll have a look and send
him right up.”
“No need,” said Dickie. Feeling abandoned on all
sides and heartily sorry for himself, he descended half
an hour later to the dining room, where he found his
parents sitting in state at the long table with their
breakfast of bacon, kidneys, and fried mushrooms on
their plates.
“Your father is in one of his moods and I can’t get
out of him what’s the matter,” said Mrs. Ambleforth as
Dickie, after an unenthusiastic glance at the dishes set
out on the sideboard, took his seat.
“Not keen on some of our guests.” Mr. Ambleforth
glowered at his wife.
“So you keep saying, dear,” his wife buttered a slice
of toast, “but that’s not very specific, is it?”
“Well, I’m not talking about Foof. Like that girl,
always have. Dickie’s lucky to get her, and I won’t
stand
for
your
becoming
the
heavy-handed
mother-in-law, Alice.”
Before Mrs. Ambleforth could respond to this
admonition the door opened and George Stodders
slunk into the room. From his unearthly pallor, Dickie
concluded that his friend had a devil of a hangover,
and this was borne out when George collapsed into a
chair and gripped the table edge as if in hope he could
stop it from spinning.
“Is there any black coffee?” he asked in a croak
and, when Dickie obliged by fetching him a cup, said,
95
“I don’t know whether to drink this or drown myself in
it.”
“It looks to me,” said Mrs. Ambleforth in her
deceptively cozy voice, “that you stayed up till all
hours, George, playing cards and drinking more than
was good for you.”
“Spot on!”
“Oh, I’m late again!” bleated a voice from the
doorway, and Madge blundered into the room—all
elbows and darting eyes. “May I sit next to you, Dickie, since Foof
isn’t here?”
“Delighted.”
No sooner was Madge in her seat than the door
opened again to admit Mrs. Bagworthy, and coming in
right behind her was Foof, looking so desperately pale
that Dickie did not need to hear her whisper his name
to leap to his feet and follow her out into the hall.
“Not here.” She gripped his arm so tightly that her
nails dug through his jacket sleeve. “Come into the
library, where no one can hear us. And don’t you dare
say anything,” she told him through quivering lips
when they entered that room and she had closed the
door as if bolting them in against an enemy army. “Not
a word, Dickie, until I’m finished talking, unless ...”
tears spilled down Foof’s cheek, “you can find it in
your heart to tell me you still love me.”
“Of course I do. Always have and always will.”
Dickie’s voice sounded ludicrously high-pitched, but it
was necessary to speak up in order to be heard over
the pounding of his heart. “Don’t cry, you silly goose.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her fiercely.
“You had me worried yesterday, but I needed to be
brought to my senses. Woodcock said as much. And
he was right, as he almost always is. I haven’t let you
know, not properly,” he kissed her again, “that I’m
absolutely nuts about you, Foof. And my mother can
go to perdition if she doesn’t like it.”
“I’ll make her like me, I’ll do anything, Dickie! Oh,
if ever a girl was born a fool, it was me! It’s true I
wanted to shake you up, darling. Make you jealous. As
if it wasn’t enough to know you’re the dearest man
alive. Well, I’ve been punished.” Foof stepped back
from him and pressed her hands to her throat in an
attempt to hold back a sob. “He has to be the most evil
creature alive ...”
“Did he,” Dickie strove for some measure of
96
control, because the last thing his beloved needed was
for him to go to pieces, “did Lord Dunstairs ... ?”
“No,” said Foof, “he didn’t take advantage of me, at
least not in the way you mean. But oh, it was horrible.
I got up early, you see, and went out into the garden. I
had to clear my head after not sleeping hardly at all for
wishing I hadn’t been so silly—letting him kiss me after
talking to him for five minutes, and then talking all that rubbish to
you about being in love with him. He is handsome and—I’ll admit
it, Dickie—I did get in a bit of a flutter over him at first. But at
dinner I realized I didn’t like him at all, and when I saw him in the
garden this morning, I felt sick remembering I’d let him kiss me
like that. I kept thinking about what he’d said about being a
Bluebeard and burying numerous wives in the cellar. And perhaps
he read all that in my face, because ...”
“Because what, Foof darling?”
She shuddered and clung to him for a moment
before straightening up. “It was as though he’d
finished playing one game and had started on another. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]