“A dull meal,” Theo remarked. “I hope he at least impressed the archbishop with his Christian humility.”
“He might have done so,” she conceded, “had the dish in question not been a platter of ruffs and reeves.”
Theo let out a long, low whistle.
“Oh, you know what they are, then? I did not, until Mama told me.”
“They’re shore birds—male and female of the same species. I believe they are considered a delicacy.”
“Yes, so Mama said. They were also,” she said pointedly, “a particular favorite of the archbishop.”
“Of course they were,” Theo said in a flat voice.
“You can guess the result. A young man’s very natural reluctance to put himself forward in such company was taken instead for gluttony, and selfishness, and pride, and just about every other vice one can imagine.” She shrugged. “And that was the end of Mr. Nutley’s clerical career. A family connection—an uncle, I believe, or some such relation—managed to procure for him a position as a curate, but from there he could rise no further. No letter of recommendation, whatever its source, had the power to overcome that disastrous first impression.”
“But—but no one should have to suffer forever just because they did something stupid when they were young!” protested Theo, recalling with shame more than a few stupid actions of his own, committed not so very long ago and with far less cause.
“No,” Daphne agreed sadly. “But what can one do?”
Theo, remembering several letters endorsing various curates for a vacant living which was within the Duke of Reddington’s gift, thought that, however powerless Daphne and the other residents of the boardinghouse might be, he was in a position to do quite a bit. Aloud, he merely said, “I see I shall have to express my regrets to Mr. Nutley for having missed his sermon. I did so at nuncheon, of course, but it appears something more is in order. Should I say I’d heard it was—what? Comforting? Challenging? What the deuce does one say about a sermon, anyway?”
Daphne considered the matter. “Tell him you heard it was very thought-provoking,” she suggested at last. In fact, she had not been able to concentrate on the sermon as the middle-aged curate deserved; she had been too aware of her old friend Kitty, now Lady Dandridge, seated in the box pew across the aisle with her fashionable new clothes and her aristocratic husband.
“I shall do so,” Theo promised. “Now, having taken care of Mr. Nutley, let us turn our attention to you. I know your concern for Mr. Nutley is sincere, but I don’t think that’s what drove you from the house as soon as nuncheon was over.”
“Oh, that,” said Daphne, affecting a careless little laugh that didn’t deceive Theo for a moment. “It is the stupidest thing, really. An old friend of mine was at church this morning, one whom I hadn’t seen in several years. I knew her as Kitty Morecombe, only she is Lady Dandridge now, for she is married, and—oh, bother!” She broke off abruptly as hot tears blurred her vision.
“And you—you had hoped to marry Lord Dandridge yourself?” Theo asked, feeling suddenly as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He was a little acquainted with Lord Dandridge—a good enough sort, in his way, and an excellent fellow in the hunt. But not at all a proper husband for Daphne, although he could not have said exactly why this was so.
“No, of course not! That is, he seemed like a very amiable man—he even suggested that I might come to London and stay with them awhile.”
“Well then, I think—I think you should go,” Theo said, all the while selfishly hoping the proposed visit would not take place until after he was free to leave the boardinghouse.
“So I might have done, but Kitty pointed out that I haven’t any proper clothes for such a visit, and—and would only look like a dowd.”
“Well, I’m dashed!” Theo exclaimed indignantly. “Of all the rag-mannered—”
“She was quite right,” Daphne put in quickly. “I don’t have any proper clothes, and I would not want to embarrass them. I know they couldn’t have sponsored me for the Season or anything of that nature, but it would have been rather nice to see St. Paul’s, or go to the theatre, or watch the equestrian performers at Astley’s Amphitheatre.”
“You wouldn’t have liked Astley’s at all,” Theo assured her with, perhaps, less than perfect truth. “You’d no doubt have found yourself rubbing shoulders with a bunch of mushrooms.”
She regarded him with some amusement. “It may have escaped your notice, Mr. Tisdale, but I am a mushroom.”
He could only stare at her. Was she serious? Any fool with eyes in his head could see that Miss Drinkard was a lady! And yet, he remembered his first night at the boardinghouse, and his sentiments upon sitting down to dinner with, as he had thought of them, a bunch of shabby-genteel mushrooms. “I—I like mushrooms,” he found himself saying.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I like mushrooms,” he said again, with more conviction in his voice. “Especially if they’re cooked in a wine sauce and served over chicken. Without them, it’s just a bird, but with the mushrooms—well, let’s just say that if they’d been an option at Mr. Nutley’s dinner party, the archbishop would have forgotten all about those deuced ruffs and reeves.”
This won a reluctant smile from Daphne, and so Theo was inspired to enlarge upon this theme. She did not believe him for one minute, of course. Still, she was glad he had not attempted to placate her with false assurances that she was not a mushroom. No, I like mushrooms, he’d said, and suddenly a mushroom had seemed a very excellent thing to be.
That night, alone in her tiny bedchamber, she took out the writing pad she kept tucked away beneath her mattress and began to write:
I know a lad with golden hair,
And leaf-green eyes, and courtly air . . .
The
