‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ he said, putting his hands round her pink cummerbund.
‘Sukey’s leaving,’ said Daisy with a sob. ‘She’s just told me the good news that you’re having another baby, and you’ve both been trying for ages, and you’re going to find me a “super chap” and you gave her
‘It was the tape you gave me,’ explained Drew, taking her hands. ‘It was the only way I could get it into the house and play it non-stop. Look, I’ll come and see you tomorrow. Meet me on the north side of Eldercombe woods at ten thirty.’
Daisy glanced into the study which now contained the bride and bridegroom locked in each other’s arms.
‘No, it’s no good. I can’t cope with half measures any more,’ she sobbed.
Fighting her way through a hall full of people eating plates of chicken, she passed Janey Lloyd-Foxe telephoning through her copy: ‘Rupert said: Open quotes: bugger off; close quotes.’
Daisy opened a side door and went out on to the terrace. It was bitterly cold and snowing steadily. The magnolia on the lawn buckled under its weight of whiteness. The valley stretched out through the blizzard, shadowed electric blue and darkly furred with woods. Daisy gave a gasp as a ghostly figure rose up from a bench. His face was deathly pale, his hair, his eyebrows and the shoulders of his morning coat were covered in snowflakes. Only his hollowed eyes were as black as whirlpools. He was like some doomed figure in a black-and-white Russian film.
‘I hate weddings,’ wept Daisy.
‘So do I,’ said Ricky.
‘You must be frozen.’ Daisy dabbed her eyes with the base-smeared Kleenex. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Trying not to be a spectre at the feast. Thought I’d try out a wedding to see if I was cured. Now I know I’m not. I should be over her. It’s three and a half years.’
‘Not at times like this,’ comforted Daisy. ‘Weddings are killers. Christmas is a killer, not being able to drink doesn’t help, and seeing people as blissful as Rupert and Taggie is worst of all. You’ve got all four.’
‘Chessie looked like an angel as a bride,’ said Ricky. ‘Her hair was filled with spring flowers. I thought I’d arrived in heaven. I loved her so much, but I couldn’t show it. She found me utterly uncommunicative.’
‘I showed it too much,’ said Daisy sadly. ‘Hamish found me utterly claustrophobic. You can’t win really.’
‘You don’t want me, but you want me to go on wanting you,’ sang the bandleader.
‘I wish I wasn’t so attractive to birds,’ sighed Dancer, seeking refuge in the pantry.
‘You wouldn’t be so rich if you weren’t,’ said Bas, who was already very drunk.
Dancer had seen Ricky go on to the terrace. It broke his heart to see him so miserable. ‘We’ve got to do somefink positive about Ricky.’
‘You’ve done a helluva lot,’ protested Bas. ‘You’ve financed the bugger and put up with his moods. But I tell you he’ll never win his beloved Gold Cup or get to ten with the present team.’
‘You think I ought to stand down and be a non-playing patron?’ said Dancer stoically. ‘You gotta level with me.’
‘Christ, no. It’s me who should,’ said Bas. ‘I’ve got far too many business commitments to play high goal, and next year I’m going to be run off my feet with Venturer. We start transmitting at the beginning of the following year, and Rupert and I are planning to revive the Westchester in the States in September.’
Dancer, who’d been arranging his tangled curls in the reflection of the window, swung round.
‘But the Westchester’s Ricky’s Holy Grail,’ he said excitedly. ‘You’re not having me on? You fink you could?’
‘Sure,’ said Bas, topping up both their glasses. ‘There’s been such a polo explosion, particularly in America. Rupert’s mad about the idea, and he never gets involved with anything that doesn’t mean big bucks.’
Dancer shook his head. ‘We’ll miss you on the team. You give us class.’
‘And a lot of headaches. You need a seriously good defensive back.’
‘Who d’you suggest? Money no object.’
‘Alejandro Mendoza’s the best,’ said Bas, ‘but he’d rip you off and he’s not allowed in. Ben Napier’s a bastard, and wouldn’t even charm you while he ripped you off. Shark Nelligan’s an animal.’
‘You know anything about Luke Alderton?’
‘That’s an idea,’ admitted Bas. ‘You’d like him. He’s playing brilliantly at the moment – scored two penalties from beyond the half-way line in the American Open – and he’s got this amazing grey – Fantasma. He’s rock solid and he’d be brilliant at defusing Perdita and Ricky.’
‘I’ll ring him tomorrow.’ Dancer was really happy now. ‘And I’m knocked out about the Westchester. Is there anyfing I can do for Venturer?’
‘I expect so,’ said Bas. ‘Hullo, Janey darling.’ Slowly he undid the buttons of her bright blue suit and did them up again correctly.
‘Where’s Ricky? I can’t find him anywhere,’ said Janey fretfully. ‘It’s absolutely infuriating. I’ve just filed copy only to find Rupert’s father has suddenly proposed again to Rupert’s mother with nine other wives and husbands to be taken into consideration. I wonder if the
‘Anyone seen Rupert and Taggie?’ Patrick O’Hara put his head round the door. ‘We must get them to cut the cake or my father’ll be too drunk to make his speech. He’s been rehearsing snatches of Yeats all week.’
‘So many loved Rupert’s moments of glad disgrace,’ said Janey drily. ‘I hope Declan’s not going to quote Yeats at those Philistines. They know far more about snatches.’
‘Not the Irish,’ said Patrick.
Rupert and Taggie, who’d escaped upstairs, gazed over the white valley.
‘It’s all yours now,’ he murmured, removing her veil and her tiara and ruffling her long, dark hair. ‘If I really told you how much I loved you, you’d be still here gathering dust and cobwebs in a hundred years. D’you know, I feel faint.’
‘Oh, darling,’ interrupted Taggie, all concern. ‘I bet you haven’t eaten since yesterday.’
‘Faint with longing,’ went on Rupert. ‘I’m fed up with all these people.’
‘Shall we go?’
‘But we haven’t cut the cake,’ said Rupert, shocked. ‘And I’m supposed to thank your parents.’
‘For letting you pay for the entire wedding?’
‘Declan wants to make his speech.’
‘He’ll make it whether we’re here or not.’
‘We ought to stay,’ said Rupert doubtfully. ‘It’s your big day.’
‘Only because I married you. I’d much rather we were alone.’
‘What is life to me without you?’ said Rupert, dropping a kiss on her forehead. ‘Go and change.’
Declan quite understood their leaving early. Maud, who was pathologically jealous of her daughter, chuntered with disapproval, but was secretly relieved. Only a few guests, realizing they were going, fought their way through the snowstorm like arctic explorers to wave them off.
‘No, you can’t go too,’ Caitlin O’Hara told Gertrude who was whining irritably, ‘or you’d have to spend six months in quarantine on the way home.’
As Rupert, now in a dark suit, did a last-minute check of the helicopter, Taggie came out of a side door. Wearing a scarlet wool coat over shiny black boots, with her long hair lifting in the wind, she made a brilliant splash of colour.
‘Have my bouquet,’ she said shyly, throwing it to Daisy. ‘Rupert’s so thrilled with your painting of Rocky. It’s his best present.’
As Rupert was about to help Taggie into the helicopter, Tabitha hurled herself on her new stepmother.
‘I want to go on the honeymoon,’ she sobbed.
‘She could really,’ said Taggie, looking up at Rupert, ‘You both could,’ she added taking Marcus’s hand.
‘No, they bloody couldn’t,’ said Rupert.
‘Throw some confetti,’ said Billy Lloyd-Foxe, giving Tabitha a huge handful to distract her. But as she flung it, most of the pink-and-blue circles were caught up in the whirling blizzard and swept away.
‘Where are Taggie and Rupert?’ demanded Rupert’s mother, from the warmth of the drawing room.
