Bath Encounters

31

Bath Encounters

    The first event that week was the arrival of General Sir Francis Kernohan. They were expecting him but were not quite sure when, and on this particular day, which was fine but chilly with a brisk wind, Hildy was coming downstairs in her violet outfit with the black fur trim, drawing her gloves on, when the butler came out into the hall and, bowing, said: “Mrs Kernohan desires you would step into the small sitting-room for a moment before you leave, Miss Hildy: General Sir Francis Kernohan has arrived.”

    “So I see!” said Hildy with an excited laugh, looking at the boxes and trunks in the hall.

    “Yes, Miss: he has been with the Army of Occupation, and then in London, and has come straight down,” said the butler.

    “I see.” She removed her gloves, looking at the boxes with renewed interest: no doubt they had accompanied him on his campaigns!

    The butler immediately led the way to the sitting-room with his stately tread and bowed her in.

    Hildy nearly passed out: General Sir Francis Kernohan, though his handsome head was silver and his high-cheekboned face more lined, was the image of Hilary Parkinson!

    “Yes,” said Mrs Kernohan with a little laugh: “he is the most like me of all my children! And very like Hilary, too, of course.”

    The General was not in uniform, but buckskins, boots and a heavy black coat of the sort Hildy was accustomed to see her brother Hal in, though of rather smarter cut. He came forward smiling. “Mamma tells me you have greatly brightened the Bath scene for her this autumn, Miss Hildegarde!”

    “How do you do, Sir Francis?” returned Hildy weakly. “I—I have been very happy with your mamma.”

    “I’m glad,” he said simply. “She gets bored, y’know: doesn’t have much in common with the rest of us—simple lot, y’know!” He laughed cheerfully.

   Hildy perceived that his was a rather bluff personality, very unlike Hilary Parkinson’s. It was so eerie, to see those same fine bones and almond-shaped eyes, and that same tender mouth...

    “You’re gaping, chit,” said the old lady drily. “Fine figure of a man, ain’t he?”

    Hildy gulped. “I beg your pardon, sir. –The thing is,” she confided to Mrs Kernohan in a rush: “I had a mental image of him as being exactly like General Lowell!”

    The old lady choked.

    “Eh?” cried the General indignantly. “Now, look here, Mamma, have you been telling her some Banbury story?”

    “No, it was all in my own stupid mind!” said Hildy hurriedly.

    “Old Lowell’s been—er—favouring her with his attentions,” said Mrs Kernohan drily. “According to Aurry I should have stopped him, but frankly, Francis, I’d as soon try and hold back the tide.”

    “Yes,” said Hildy, gulping. “He’s like the car of Juggernaut.”

    “Is he, by Jove?” said General Kernohan on a grim note. “When does this—er—gallantry take place, if I may ask, Miss Hildegarde?”

    Hildy swallowed.

    “Every time we meet him,” noted Mrs Kernohan, drier than ever.

    “Um—yes. He is always at the Pump Room, so it is largely there,” she explained weakly.

    “Good, I’ll come with you. Been today, yet?”

    “We did not go today, sir, it is too cold and windy for your mamma to venture out.”

    “I’ll come with you tomorrow, in that case,” he promised grimly.

    “It’ll be a replay of Waterloo,” noted Mrs Kernohan to her guest. “Old Lowell in the role of Bonaparte, of course. Land, now I do wonder if he wore a corset?”

    Hildy dissolved in a gale of giggles.

    Her elders regarded her indulgently. In the General’s case, very probably the fetching violet outfit might have been a factor, here: he was not a silly old would-be buck like General Lowell, but that did not mean he was immune.

    Hildy left them shortly afterwards, as she felt the General no doubt would wish to be alone with his mother, if he had not seen her for a while.

    Francis Kernohan wandered over to the fireplace and said, kicking at a log with his boot: “Why the Devil did not Aurry rout that filthy old fellow?”

    “Don’t do that! You are not in some Spanish hovel now! And it ruins your boots as well as my fire! Well,” she said, making a face, as he raised an eyebrow at her, “to say truth, I think he could not be bothered.”

    “Damn,” he muttered.

    “He is really very much better,” she murmured.

    The General sniffed.

    Mrs Kernohan sighed. “These things take time. And at least he has roused himself enough to give Dorian and that idiot child, Roly, a run for their money!”

    “Oh?”

    She shook her head. “There is nothing in it, my dear. It is too soon.”

    “Pity. Pretty little thing, ain’t she? And if she’s bright, too, as you said... Oh, well.”

    His mother sighed. “Mm. Mind you, she can be wilful, and after Madeleine, I would not say that that is what Aurry needs.”

    He grunted.

    His mother looked at him a trifle anxiously, and changed the subject.

    General Kernohan was as good as his word, and accompanied the ladies to the Pump Room next day. He was very neat and gentleman-like in a plain black coat and grey pantaloons strapped under the boots. It was perhaps unfair to compare him to General Lowell, for he had a tall, slim figure very like his nephew Hilary’s, if a trifle gaunter: doubtless the sort of constitution which does not put on weight in middle age. Nevertheless Hildy could not refrain from the comparison.

    At the Pump Room Dorian and Roly very soon came up to them and greeted their uncle with pleasure, Dorian then promising him some fine sport as a stout blue-coated figure hove in sight. He was rewarded for his pains with a very frosty glare. Dorian, as might have been expected, only laughed cheerfully.

    “Uncle Francis, do but observe the yellowness of the pantaloons!” choked Poly as General Lowell, seeming even from a distance to brighten at the sight of their party, began to make his way towards them through the throng.

    “Aye, they are almost as yaller as yours,” he replied coldly and not wholly fairly.

    “I told you they was unspeakable, dear boy!” choked Dorian.

    “Ignore him, Mr Roly, you look very smart,” said Hildy kindly—though privately she thought he looked a guy and if he had not been such a handsome young man would in fact have been nothing short of ludicrous, with his collar so high he could not turn his head, and a monstrous wadding of a neckcloth.

    “At least your nosegay’s smaller than old Lowell’s!” hissed Dorian as the old fellow came up to them.

    Roly was sporting only one small flower in his buttonhole and he gave him a very justified glare.

    Hildy was today in her bronzy-green outfit: even though she did not have a tippet to go with it, it was very warm. Once he had greeted Mrs Kernohan and her son appropriately and bowed very stiffly to the boys—they responding with sweeping bows which earned them a glare from their uncle—General Lowell turned to her and said: “Dearest Miss Hildegarde! Today you are like an autumn nymph in our orisons! Ah: ‘Sweet Auburn’!”

    While General Kernohan was still getting his breath—he had not realized it would be quite this florid—and Roly and Dorian were trying not to choke, Hildy noted detachedly: “If that is Mr Goldsmith, sir, as I suspect it is, I do not know that I care to be compared to a dying village, where the brook is choked with sedges, and ‘in shapeless ruin all’.”

    The Kernohan brothers shouted with laughter, and old Mrs Kernohan gave a delighted crow.

    General Lowell was thrown out of his stride, but only for a moment: “Ah: the sprightly wit that we so much admire, divine Miss Hildegarde!” He waggled a fat finger at her. “So young and yet so witty! Dare I say it? ‘My weary soul you seem to sooth, And redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring.’”

    Hildy’s jaw dropped.

    “Apparently you do dare say it, sir, but I take leave to tell you,” said General Sir Francis in an icy voice: “that your quotations are as misplaced as your gallantry undesired.”

    There was a horrid silence. General Lowell’s large face, normally pretty much on the puce side, turned a frightening shade of purple, and he made a spluttering noise, drawing himself up indignantly.

    General Kernohan looked down his elegant nose at him. “Miss Hildegarde has so far lacked a protector in Bath, it would seem.”—Dorian and Roly both cringed.—“Let me assure you, she is not now without one.”

    “Very well, very well, sir!” he spluttered.—General Sir Francis continued to look down his nose at him.—“If that is your attitude, sir, I shall take my leave! –Good-day, madam,” he said coldly to Mrs Kernohan, bowing very slightly and walking away as fast as his yellow legs would carry him.

    “Oh, help,” said Hildy very faintly.

    “A rout, indeed,” said Mrs Kernohan at her driest. “Do we congratulate you, Francis?”

    “It needed to be done. I did it,” he said flatly.

    “Sir, I perceive that you are ruthless in battle,” said Hildy weakly. “Now that it is done, I cannot help feeling sorry for him. But I do sincerely thank you, for—for to say truth, he was become most embarrassing.”

    “Aye, and even your sprightly wit could not— Oh, I’m mum!” Dorian assured his uncle.

    “Miss Hildy, he—he was comparing you to an Eton Colleger, was he not?” said Roly numbly.

    Hildy shot him a mocking look. “Indeed. Regardless of his doom, the little victim played. Well, large victim.”

    Roly gulped. “Aye. –It was misapplied, all right and tight, sir,” he said numbly to his uncle.

    “Quite. –Perhaps you would now care to offer an explanation, Dorian, of why you did not spring to Miss Hildegarde’s defence?” he inquired coldly.

    “Oh, I’m not in your class, sir!” said Dorian brazenly.

    “General, really—really I am most grateful, but—but pray do not reproach them. You see,” said Hildy, suddenly blushing and smiling: “lesser men could not do it!”

    “No, well, the old fellow scares me stiff,” admitted Dorian.

    “I see,” the General said to Hildy, his face relaxing somewhat.

    “Mm. Well, at least you got rid of him, Francis. Now, perhaps someone would procure me a glass of that poison, since we are come for that purpose as well?” said Mrs Kernohan.

    Her two grandsons hurried to obey.

    “Fribbles,” said the General, scowling horribly. “Dorian is setting that boy a bad example, Mamma, said I not it would be so?”

    “Speak to Henry, not to me, dear boy,” replied his mother, shrugging.

    “Sir, they—they are not so very bad, surely?” ventured Hildy. “I—I find them both quite charming.”

    “Charming and spineless,” he said grimly.

    “My love, I vow I near to died when you told him he was comparing you to a dying village and—and what was it? A choked brook!” said the old lady, her face breaking out into smiles. “You must find me that poem the instant we return home!*

    “It was a dreadfully silly choice of poem. But then, I suppose there are few poems that mention ‘auburn’.”

    “Well, that makes two,” she noted.

    Hildy went into a spluttering fit.

    “Now what are you on about, Mamma?” asked General Kernohan in a tolerant voice.

    “Roland has become a poet since you were gone to the wars, dear boy. He has writ a sonnet to Hildy rhyming ‘spurn’, ‘yearn’, ‘auburn’ and— What was the other, Hildy?”

    “‘Burn’!” she choked, and they both dissolved in laughter.

    General Kernohan, however glared in the direction whither Roly’s slender back had disappeared and made a noise that could only have been described as “Faugh!”

    Aurry did not put in an appearance at the Pump Room that day and the General remarked upon it to his mother when they were alone. Mrs Kernohan, as he might have expected, only shrugged.

    However, the General had the opportunity to observe Hildy with Aurry the next evening at dinner at his brother’s house. The children of the house were all present, including both the married sisters and their husbands, so it was quite a crowded table. Hildy had been placed between Aurry and Dorian, perhaps because, it being a family party, she was the only young lady guest. At all events, no-one at the table was deceived into thinking it was because the Romantically-minded Mrs Henry particularly desired it. Miss Tarragona, temporarily liberated from the schoolroom with strict instructions to be on her best behaviour, for it was not to be supposed that her Uncle Francis would care for simpering Misses who put themselves forward unbecomingly, was placed between Miss Kernohan and Miss Ariadne, a position guaranteed to cow all but the most hardened spirits. True, the fact that the General was clearly very fond of his youngest niece and, quite apart from having brought a charming little locket for her (where he had not bothered to favour any other of the girls), treated her in the kindliest manner imaginable, did mitigate somewhat against this relegation.

    Of those present at the Henry Kernohans’ board that evening, probably only old Mrs Kernohan and perhaps Aurry were cynical enough to reflect that it was altogether possible that Mrs Henry had generously allowed Tarragona this immense favour in order to reinforce in Miss Hildegarde Maddern’s mind the notion that this was not a grown-up dinner party at which young ladies might be encouraged to encourage young gentlemen, but a purely cosy, domestic affair. Mrs Kernohan’s mind, at least, then took the further step of noting that the very cosy domesticity of the scene could also have the opposite effect, and encourage the only young lady present who was not a member of the family to believe that she was being welcomed into it. But Henry’s wife had always been a fool.

    Hildy was looking more fairylike than ever in her amethyst gauze with the deep amethyst ribbons on which Amabel had sewn the tiny spangles—Mrs Maddern having declared that she might as well wear it out in Bath, for she would have all new for London next year—so it was scarcely to be wondered at that both Dorian and Aurry were very attentive to her. In fact, since Dorian had Angelica on his other side and Aurry Hortensia, Mrs Yelden, on his, they were very attentive to her for most of the meal. One consequence of which was that Angie, thinking of poor Miss Hawkins who had not even been invited, lapsed into pouting sulks.

    Old Mrs Kernohan had very kindly presented Hildy with one of her own shawls to wear with this gown, for, she had said with a smile, she had many more than she knew what to do with, and this one had just those shades in it! Yes, of course, for you to keep, my dear. Hildy had been very overcome, for it was the sort of expensive Cashmere shawl that she was used to see Lady Charleson draped in. When the ladies rose this shawl was perceived to have slipped off Hildy’s chair, and there was quite a scrimmage as both Aurry and Dorian dived for it.

    “Oh!” said Hildy, quite flustered. “How—how silly of me! It is so very warm and comfortable in your mamma’s dining-room that I must have— Oh, thank you, Major,” she said weakly as Aurry, having more or less wrested the shawl off Dorian, proceeded to wrap her in it.

    “It may be warm in here but that corridor is dashed draughty,” noted Dorian anxiously. “Keep it well round you, Miss Hildy, will you not?”

    “I shall be sure to; I should hate to have another dose of the influenza!” said Hildy with a laugh, having recovered from her mixture of strange sensations, not the least strange having been that of being wrapped up warmly by Major Kernohan.

    “Aye, it is a nasty thing,” agreed Dorian, still anxious.

    “Do not fear for me, I am really very strong and wiry, you know!” said Hildy, smiling.

    “Then one can only say, Miss Hildegarde, that your looks bely you,” said Aurry with a twinkle in his dark eyes

    “The implication being,” said Dorian smoothly, taking her elbow, “that you look feeble and sickly: what a fellow he is, to be sure!”

    Hildy gave a gurgle of laughter: she was under no misapprehension that the Major had meant that! “There, Major Kernohan, you may retire in good order!”

    “I see I shall have to,” agreed Aurry gravely, though with a lurking twinkle. He stood back and bowed, and let Dorian conduct her to the door and bow her out.

    Miss Tarragona had stood back politely for them—Proserpine did not even have to retain her forcibly. However, she could not forbear to stare, and when she and her oldest sister were following the rest of the ladies along to the drawing-room, she said in a low voice: “Prosy, did you ever see the boys make such cakes of themselves?”

    Miss Kernohan took a deep breath.

    “Sorry, I know that is not a ladylike expression!” she said quickly. “But did you?”

    Miss Kernohan took another breath. “I do not propose to discuss the matter with a little girl, Tarragona.”—Tarry’s face fell.—“But let me just say this,” said Miss Kernohan weightily: “I had thought Aurelius, at least, had had better sense. At his age.”

    “Yes, he is quite old,” she agreed innocently.

    “That is not what I—” Proserpine broke off. “You are quite correct,” she said grimly: “he is old enough to behave like a sensible man.”

    Tarry looked at her nervously. “Yes. Um—Miss Hildegarde is very pretty,” she ventured.

    “That will do, thank you, Tarragona,” said Proserpine, frowning horribly.

    Tarry lapsed into silence.

    It was natural that Mr Henry Kernohan, who had not seen his brother for many months, should be anxious to draw him out about all his doings since the last time they had met, which had been only a few months after Waterloo. Though the young men listened politely to their elders’ talk as the port circulated, it was soon plain to the amused Henry Kernohan that his two younger sons, at least, were chafing to be off. Finally he took pity on them—well, we had all been young once, and little Miss Hildy was a dainty piece!—and rose, saying with a smile: “Well, shall we adjourn to the study, Francis, and blow a cloud in peace? These youngsters may go and entertain the ladies, eh?”

    “Very well,” said the General with an answering twinkle in his almond eyes. “—No, stay, Aurry, just a word, if you please,” he said as the eldest son of the house prepared to depart arm-in-arm with Mr Groot.

    “Go on ahead, Algy,” he said, patting his brother-in-law’s back. “I will give you a black for speed, but I shall never concede that it will beat a grey for or stamina when it comes to the push, you know!”

    Mr Groot, who was a thin, nervous-looking man who had very clearly never had to call upon his horse’s stamina in all his ordered existence, went out, looking very pleased, and Aurry turned to his uncle politely. “Yes, sir?”

    Mr Henry looked at the pair of them nervously: it would be just like Francis to give the lad a scold, when it was barely his first day amongst them, the fellow never had had an ounce of tact! And Aurry would not take it well, he had been managing his own affairs for many years now, he was too old to relish being treated like a boy, and would probably be dash stiff-necked about it and hurt old Francis’s feelings. Henry Kernohan swallowed a sigh.

    Francis Kernohan frowned. He waited until the door had closed behind Roly, and then said: “What is all this your grandmother was telling me, about you refusing to send that damned impertinent old Lowell about his business when he was making himself damned unpleasant to little Miss Hildegarde?”

    Aurry’s lean cheeks flushed a little, but he said steadily: “Possibly you are a little mistaken as to the quality of Miss Hildegarde’s temperament, sir. It did not appear to me that she was in need of rescuing.”

    The General’s colour rose alarmingly, and Henry Kernohan shut his eyes for a moment, wincing.

    “Did it not, by gad, sir? Then I take leave to tell you you are a damned impertinent whipster, and no gentleman, by God!”

    “I beg your pardon, Uncle Francis; I did not mean to be impertinent,” said Aurry steadily, though his mouth had thinned.

    “Did you not, sir?” he said, giving him an icy look down his elegant nose.

    “No,” said Aurry, looking at him steadily. Henry Kernohan winced again.

    The General took a deep breath. “Well, I dare say you did not. But permit me to point out to you, Aurelius,”—here Henry barely suppressed a groan, Francis only called the boy by his ridiculous given name when he was really upon his high horse—“that whether or not it appeared to you that Miss Hildegarde was capable of handling that foul old demi-beau”—Henry had to swallow—“it was your duty as a gentleman to intercede! –And the poor little thing told me herself,” he said indignantly, suddenly adopting a rather less lofty tone, “that his attentions had become most embarrassing!”

    Aurry swallowed. “I see. I can only say that I apologize, sir, and—and had I realized how far it had gone, I—I would have done my best to do something about it.”

    The General sniffed. “I should hope so.”

    Silence fell.

    Aurry bit his lip. “Sir, I did gain the impression, from what Dorian had said—well, it is he and Roly who are given to haunting the Pump Room, you know, I have not seen so much of old Lowell—er, that his attentions were merely ridiculous and were not causing Miss Hildegarde any—any anxiety.”

    A cloud gathered upon the General’s fine brow again, but Mr Henry at that came forward quickly and said, putting a firm hand upon his tall son’s shoulder: “I think we all understand that, Aurry; Dorian is a young fool, of course. Let us consider that subject closed, shall we?” –With a hard look at Francis.

    “Very well,” said his brother, still frowning.

    “Come along, my boy, you had best join the others,” Mr Henry added, turning Aurry gently towards the door. “It will not do to let Dorian and Roly have it all their own way with pretty little Miss Hildy, you know!”

    “No, indeed,” agreed Aurry with a forced smile.

    His father accompanied him to the door and said in a low voice as he opened it for him: “Dear lad, is that damned arm playing up again?”

    Aurry flushed. “No. I am perfectly well, Papa, thank you.”

    Henry Kernohan didn’t think so: for one thing, there was a dashed chilly east wind blowing today, calculated to cause anyone a few twinges, let alone someone with a badly shattered elbow like that; and for another, Aurry, though he had difficulty in performing such simple actions, had let his father open the door for him, which he would not normally do. “I see,” he said sadly. “Well, trot along, dear lad.”

    He closed the door slowly after him and said with a sigh to his brother: “The damned arm is playing him up—thought it was.”

    General Sir Francis frowned. “The fellow is a soldier, Henry, he should not complain about a few aches and pains.”

    “He don’t complain, you idiot, that is the point,” said Henry tiredly.

    “Oh,” said the General, disconcerted.

    Henry sighed. “You was a bit hard on him, old boy.”

    “Aye. Well, I would have been a damned sight harder on Dorian, had I but thought it would do a mite of good!” he said grimly. “That boy is naught but a dashed fribble! Said I not it would be so, if you did not set him to some useful occupation?”

    Henry said nothing to this. He let him rave on for a while: he was aware that Francis’s grumpy preoccupation with the iniquities of his three sons was because he had lost his own two.

    Finally he said peaceably: “Yes, I can see the justice in what you are saying, dear old boy: but if it is their natures, you know, I doubt there is much I can do about it. And mayhap when Dorian realizes he is one day to be head of our little family, he will settle down a little. And he is but young, yet: once he finds a sensible girl, that will no doubt be the making of him!”

    The General sniffed.

    Henry took his arm. “Come along, dear old fellow: if we are to smoke those cigars you brought in peace, we had best get started, before they are callin’ upon us to listen to piano tinklings, or some such!”

    His brother smiled a little and allowed himself to be led away, saying as they went: “Does Miss Hildy play?”

    “No: one blessing,” he noted drily. “Here, do you recall that damned tallow-faced bosom-bow of Angie’s? Miss Hawkins? –No? Lucky man,” he noted. “Well, she is one as plays a harp, dear boy!” He shuddered all over.

    The General gave a shout of laughter, and Mr Henry, grinning, led him into the study and allowed him to light up for both of them.

    In the drawing-room, once the ladies were seated, Mrs Henry had graciously ascertained that it was, as she had thought, Hildy’s last week amongst them. She then very kindly reminded her that they would expect to see her at her sister-in-law Maria Clyffe’s little dinner two days hence. Hildy smiled and said that would be most agreeable indeed, if it would not be too many late nights for dear Mrs Kernohan? Mrs Kernohan assured her instantly that she was not an invalid, and a couple of nights out at family parties would hardly hurt her. However, Mrs Henry looked at her worriedly and did not appear reassured. Proserpine then helpfully reminded them all that there was a bitter east wind blowing today, which never had agreed with grandmamma’s constitution. Hildy said quickly that if the weather was disagreeable, of course they would not go. Mrs Kernohan was about to dispute the point but Hortensia Yelden, who was a plump, smiling, good-natured young woman, immediately offered Hildy a place in their carriage. Which they did not often have out, but on evenings such as this, dear Mr Yelden insisted! –Hildy had already remarked she was one of those young women who seldom referred to her husband by his given name, but as Tarragona had innocently revealed that this was Augustus, perhaps this was not to be wondered at.

    Old Mrs Kernohan noted drily that there was no need: Francis could escort Hildy, since he was so fond of ordering up carriages, and Mrs Yelden cried that of course dearest Uncle Francis must ride with them, too! And grandmamma, if she felt strong enough to go! Which seemed to settle the matter. Though Miss Tarragona did point out that as Horty lived very close to Aunt Maria’s, this would mean the carriage would have to make a considerable detour—but was frowned down by her mamma, ably seconded by Miss Kernohan and Miss Ariadne.

    When the gentlemen came in, Miss Angelica had been persuaded to play a little and was doing so, very tepidly.

    Mrs Henry had ascertained on an earlier occasion that Hildy did not play, but this did not prevent her from saying: “You play, of course, dear Miss Hildegarde? –Oh: no; I had forgot, how silly of me!” She was a pretty woman, but Hildy at this point reflected glumly that she was not unlike Lady Overton from their home parish, or the dread Mrs Purdue of Dittersford. And shrank into her shell, rather.

    The kind-hearted Horty Yelden saw this and came to join her on her sofa, chatting amiably about her two little boys and their exploits. Hildy had already met these infants: the younger was only just walking but nevertheless Mrs Yelden was very fond of taking them about with her, always dressed exactly alike. In the warmer weather, Mrs Yelden had already informed her, darling Freddy and sweet little Peterkin would wear matching little sailor-suits, in which they looked adorable. Hildy had no doubt they would, poor little objects. She had not yet found an opportunity to tell her of Marybelle’s and Floss’s utter refusal to be dressed alike from the time Marybelle had been about eight, but the more she saw of the amiable Hortensia the more, regrettably, she longed for an opportunity to do so.

    Hortensia was a fair woman, indeed not unlike Roly, and the little boys were fair, too, and she had lately conceived the notion of dressing them alike in blue velvet suits! Now! What did Miss Hildy think of that, was it not the cunningest idea? Hildy agreed weakly it was.

    Mrs Yelden chattered on cheerfully throughout her sister’s playing but Hildy could not find it in her heart to blame her for that.

    “Yes: very nice, my dear,” said Mrs Henry at long last. “Now, perhaps Ariadne might care to favour us with a piece.”

    “Yes, Mamma,” said Miss Ariadne obediently, rising, and Mr Faulkener, who by virtue of being her affianced, had been admitted to the select party, now hurried to the instrument in order to turn for her.

    Where Angelica’s playing was of the tepid variety, Ariadne’s was rather of the tempestuous. Though to Hildy’s ear, about as unmusical. Everyone perforce sat through two pieces in silence, but then Mrs Henry thanked her and said, with an exceeding firm smile, that now the ice was broken, she thought Tarragona might sing one or two of her songs for them.

    Tarragona looked as if she wished she could die.

    Violetta Groot, a pale, pretty girl, then rose and said: “Yes, come along, Tarry, dear. I shall accompany you. Perhaps we could try those pretty Scottish songs we were practising last week?”

    “Do I have to?” said Tarry in a strangled whisper.

    Mrs Groot, who had a very gentle nature, rather like her Cousin Dorothea’s, looked at her with considerable sympathy but said: “Why, yes, dearest, I think so. And we are but a family party, you know. –Algernon will turn for us, I am sure.”

    Mr Groot, who had been sitting on a sofa near to Hildy’s, discussing horses with Aurry, though not when Ariadne was playing, at this rose and assured the ladies, with a bow to Miss Tarry, that he should be only too glad.

    “That’s right, Tarry: try your wings,” said Dorian kindly. He had inserted himself on the sofa at Hildy’s other side: now he murmured: “She will make a mull of it, but we shall all clap, eh?”

    Hildy and Mrs Yelden nodded, though the latter also frowned at him.

    Aurry had risen when Mr Groot had. He now came up behind Hildy’s sofa and said to Mrs Yelden in a whisper: “Horty, it is too cruel. Can we not stop them?”

    Mrs Yelden bit her lip but shook her head and murmured: “She must start some time, my dear.”

    At the pianoforte Violetta Groot was sorting music and Mr Groot was sorting it after her, reading out the names of the pieces. Tarry, very red, was declaring as he did so that they were all too hard and she had not practised enough. At the opposite side of the room, her mamma, though chatting determinedly with Mrs Kernohan and Proserpine, was starting to look annoyed.

    Suddenly Hildy got up and said to Mrs Yelden: “If you will excuse me?” She went over to the pianoforte and said quickly, before she could lose her nerve: “Tarry, of course I am not as musical as you, but I do know one or two of those little Scottish songs, and—and perhaps we could sing the first one together?”

    “A duet! Splendid!” said Mrs Groot in great relief.

    “But I cannot do parts,” muttered Tarry.

    “Nor can I,” said Hildy cheerfully. “But I dare say it will sound like parts, as I have a very deep voice—as perhaps you may have remarked!” she added with a twinkle.

   Tarry blushed: it was the one point about her idol on which she was not quite reconciled.

    “Why, you must be a contralto, then, dear Miss Hildy!” said Violetta, greatly intrigued. “We are largely feeble sopranos, in the family, I fear: unfit to be heard in company. Tarry has much the best voice of us.”

    “Yes, she sings very prettily,” said Mr Groot kindly.

    “Algy, I cannot!” she hissed.

    “Nonsense, dear child,” said her sister: “Miss Hildy will sing along with you.”

    “Yes. If the song is ruined it will be all my blame, I can assure you!” said Hildy. “I have never really sung in company before, for I have had scarcely any proper lessons!”—The Groots and Tarry looked shocked at this revelation.—“It had best be My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,” she added to Mrs Groot, “for that is the only one I really know.”

    “Perfect: Tarry sings that one very well. I tell you what I shall do,” said the kindly Violetta: “I shall play one verse entire, and then when I nod, you may start the song proper.”

    Hildy found that Tarry had gripped her hand. She smiled at her encouragingly and tried to tell herself that she did not care if she did make a mull of it, and it was far worse for little Tarry than it was for her.

    Both voices started off a little wobbly, but Hildy found to her relief that Tarry’s was quite a strong soprano—she had been afraid of drowning her. They finished the song in good heart.

    Everyone clapped, smiling encouragingly, and Dorian then got up, still clapping, and said, coming over to the piano: “That was something like! Well done, both! They will be hiring you for the opera, next, Tarry! I say, Miss Hildegarde, you have been hiding your light under a bushel, you know! That was positively ravishing!”

    “It was lovely,” agreed Violetta, smiling. “Her voice is much finer than that of Miss Nelligan, do you not find, Dorian?”

    Hildy blushed and protested: Miss Nelligan was a professional singer whom they had heard at the first concert she had attended in Bath.

    “She may be a professional singer, Miss Hildy,” replied Dorian enthusiastically, “but her contralto is not a patch on yours! Why, it is like a midnight blue velvet, in sound!”

    Hildy smiled and said: “You are flattering me, I fear. Now, Tarry, do you feel brave enough to sing by yourself? Because that has exhausted my party repertoire!”

    She returned to her seat on the sofa and Mrs Yelden immediately squeezed her hand and said: “Well done, my dear!” Hortensia could scarce have been more than twenty-eight, but from her matronly manner you would have said she was twice that age.

    “Yes,” said Aurry’s deep voice from behind the sofa: “It was very well done of you, indeed.”

    Hildy flushed, and murmured: “It was nothing. –Ssh, I think she is going to start.”

    Tarry duly sang some more short songs, and though there was a little wobbling, and at one point Aurry muttered: “That thing is pitched too high for her: Vi has no ear,” on the whole she came off very well. In fact her mamma arose and embraced her.

    “Poor little soul,” concluded Dorian, sotto voce.

    “No, she is flushed with her triumph: it has done her good!” said Mrs Yelden with a kindly laugh. “Tarry, dearest, come and sit with us!” she called. “That was lovely,” she said as the girl came up to them, very flushed.

    “Yes, it was,” agreed Hildy. “What a talented family is yours, Tarry!”

    “Oh, I am not a patch on Roly or Aurry,” she said, face all smiles. She drew up a little footstool and perched on it at their feet and so was happily unaware of the extraordinary expression that had appeared on her sister’s face.

    “Yes,” said Mrs Yelden in a shaking voice. “Roly sings beautifully.”

    “I know, I have heard him,” agreed Hildy, wondering what on earth could be wrong.

    “Well, if you like the fellow’s caterwauling,” said Dorian, bounding up with what struck the puzzled Hildy as unseemly haste, “I shall force him to perform for you!” He hurried off and was soon to be seen shepherding Roly to the piano.

    Hildy looked dubiously at Mrs Yelden.

    “I used to play,” said Aurry abruptly in a harsh voice.

    Mrs Yelden’s lips trembled and she pressed her hands tightly together in her lap.

    “You must miss it,” said Hildy simply.

    “Yes. However, I am lucky in that I can still sing. Though Mamma does not care for me to do so in her drawing-room,” he added.

     Hildy twisted her head and looked up at him in astonishment.

    “I am even deeper and—er—louder than you, Miss Hildegarde. I am a bass-baritone, not a nice light drawing-room tenor like Roly,” he said with a sardonic look in his eye.

    “I’m afraid I was too loud. I have not learnt to modulate my voice,” replied Hildy simply.

    At this Tarry looked said quickly: “You were not too loud!”

    “In that you also were too loud for that song, Miss, that is true,” returned her brother calmly, and Hildy had to bite her lip.

    “Aurry, that was most unkind!” said Mrs Yelden crossly. “It was terribly sweet, my dears: ignore him. –He is jealous, I expect,” she added on a desperate note.

    “He gets plenty of chances to sing, though: he sings with the Abbey choir,” explained Tarry.

    “Do you, sir? Living in Bath must be a great solace for you, then!” said Hildy, smiling up at him.

    “Yes, Miss Hildegarde,” he said, looking down at her with a funny little grimace: “I suppose it is.”

    “There is no great church edifice precisely near your home, is there?” said Miss Tarragona to Hildy.

    “There is very little of anything precisely near my home, Tarry: we are a very isolated little community.”

    “Dorothea says it is very pretty, though. And she says Cousin Hilary has a pretty little vicarage, only it is so funny, he has no drawing-room, only a parlour!”

    “Er—yes. Ssh, Tarry, Mr Roly is about to sing.”

    Roly sang several songs in his pretty drawing-room tenor. Hildy didn’t listen, she had heard him before. Instead she sat very still, wondering very much what Major Aurelius Kernohan’s bass-baritone was like and whether it would be possible to find out if there was going to be a sung Evensong or suchlike that she might attend before she left Bath.

    Mr Roland’s performance concluded the impromptu concert—if impromptu it could have been said to be, with Mrs Henry in charge of it. Mrs Henry then graciously permitted the young people to play at lottery tickets just until the tea-tray. For which Tarragona could remain, but she was to retire straight afterwards.

    By now Mr Henry and General Sir Francis had rejoined them, and Mr Groot and Mr Yelden encouraged the General to tell some more of his experiences of the Continent. These were necessarily somewhat military in nature and Henry Kernohan was not altogether surprized when Aurry elected to join the lottery tickets party.

    As their little group adjourned to the adjoining salon, Tarry volunteered the information that the reason Dorian had not played his flute was that Aurry was unable to accompany him and he maintained that the others were not— She broke off, looking confused.

    “Good enough for him,” finished Aurry drily. “Nor they are.”

    “Um—no!” gasped Tarry.

    “However that may be, I beg you will not repeat any of Dorian’s precise comments on their talent to Miss Hildegarde.”

    “I was not going to!” she assured him quickly.

    “No,” he said with a little smile. “I am glad to hear it.”

    “Come and sit between me and Miss Hildy, Aurry, and I will help you with the fish,” his young sister then said, moving up a place.

    Aurry did so, saying to Hildy’s flushed face: “She is young enough to be a realist still, you know.”

    “Yes. My two younger sisters are very like that,” replied Hildy in some relief.

    “Mm. –It can be a dashed nuisance, I was used to play piquet, and though Dorian has a mind like a flea, he has not a bad head for cards,” he said with a lurking twinkle.

    “But—but surely—” faltered Hildy.

    Tarry pointed out kindly: “You might hold the cards in your other hand, Aurry.”

    “Oh, certainly. But I cannot shuffle any more,” he said loudly, as Dorian came up to them, “and I would not trust that fellow to do it—er—conscientiously.”

    “Major!” protested Hildy, trying not to laugh.

    “Here, is he takin’ my name in vain again?” asked Dorian with a grin.

    “You could say so,” said Hildy in a strangled voice. “But truly, Mr Dorian, it serves you right for paying me a compliment over my very inadequate voice, as if you were General Lowell in person! Whilst your brother, sir,” she said with a naughty twinkle in her eye: “merely informed me I was too loud!”

    “Yes, he was very rude, and you were not too loud, dear Miss Hildy!” contributed Tarragona.

    Dorian had looked a trifle stunned but at this he rallied and protested: “But dearest Miss Hildy, I swear, it is like a midnight-blue velvet in sound!”

    “Blue? With Miss Hildegarde’s colouring? Miss Hildegarde, I can only apologize for him!” said the Major.

    “Yes, he is apparently colour-blind as well as tone-deaf: its is very sad!” she choked.

    “These elderly military men, when they do not go the other way entirely, like poor old Lowell,” retorted Dorian immediately, “get like that, y’know. Crusty.”

    “So I have perceived!” said Hildy with a giggle.

    “If they don’t get unwontedly stiff,” he said on a glum note. “Like dashed Uncle Francis. We are all—er—lesser men, are we not, Miss Hildy?”

    “Um—yes,” she admitted, biting her lip.

    Under the table Aurry had clenched his good hand on his knee. He said nothing.

    “It was most gallant of General Kernohan, really,” added Hildy faintly, “but I had no idea he would become so—so…” she gulped.

    “Awful,” said Dorian simply.

    “Yes—well, in the truest sense of the word, Mr Dorian!”

    “Aye,” said Dorian. eyeing his brother warily. Fellow had gone all granite-faced; well, perhaps it was the arm. “But—but you were not as upset as all that by old Lowell, were you, Miss Hildy?”

    “Well,” said Hildy, biting her lip, “I wished he would stop. But I did not wish your uncle to be so—so brutal.”

    “He was ever a bull at a gate,” said Aurry in a hard voice. “Lost half a regiment, once: hurled them at the guns in an impossible position.”

    “At least he never got his army separated from his supply train and had ’em starve to death in a Canadian blizzard, like old Lowell!” said Dorian with feeling.

    “Did he?” gasped Tarry, staring.

    “Good gracious: really?” said Hildy.

    “Yes. Why he was on half-pay for years before he retired. If he’d been of lower rank they’d have kicked him out,” said Dorian frankly. “Look, Miss, they are ready at last,” he said to his little sister. “It will be your turn in a moment.”

    They turned their attention—very thankfully, as far the three older persons were concerned—to the game.

    Hildy felt rather overset by—well, everything. And wished very much that she had been able to stop General Sir Francis. Though she could not see how. She played so ineptly that soon Dorian was assisting her almost as much as Tarry was assisting Aurry. Dorian also attempted brazenly to cheat—he would not, of course, take the game seriously—and Tarry was forced more than once to cry shame. As was Roly, seated opposite them, helping Violetta. Miss Ariadne, who apparently took even lottery tickets seriously, became quite annoyed with him.

    Aurry just lounged back in his chair, letting Tarry play for him. He made little further attempt to address Hildy. She didn’t know whether to be sorry or relieved. Was he cross with her? She could not tell, but she thought he might be. Though she could not see why.

    Aurry was, of course, considerably annoyed with his Uncle Francis for having read him a lesson and with himself for having been in the wrong over old Lowell. Rather naturally as a consequence of this, he had also begun to feel somewhat disgruntled with Miss Hildegarde. He recognized this in himself, but was not driven to do anything specific about it. Though the number of times she allowed his brother to take her hand in order to help her play might have had something to do with this.

    Mrs Kernohan noticed as the young people returned to the drawing-room for the tea-tray that Hildy was looking a little tired: she called her over to her and suggested. patting the place beside her on the sofa, that they go straight after the tea-tray. Not unnaturally Hildy assumed that the old lady herself was tired, and assented willingly to this proposition.

    Roly and Dorian expressed great disappointment as the two took their leave of the family, but Aurry, though he bowed politely to Miss Hildegarde, did not voice any such sentiment. Indeed, his mother was encouraged to express her relief to her spouse on the point, once most of the party had retired. Mr Henry merely looked dry: Aurry’s behaviour was beginning to induce in him precisely the opposite opinion.

    The General, who had stayed on with the express intention of chewing the fat with his brother, and also of stretching his legs and walking back to his mother’s, having had enough of being swaddled in carriages for one day, came over to them at this point and Mrs Henry eagerly appealed to him. He returned unencouragingly that there appeared to be nothing to choose between the three of ’em: they were making as great cakes of themselves over her as had old Lowell. Mr Henry had to cough suddenly.

    The two brothers then retired to the study to talk over their plans for Aurry and Dorian, and Mrs Henry went upstairs, reflecting that it was just as well that her sister-in-law Maria Clyffe had invited some other young people for her party two days hence, for it meant that Miss Hildegarde Maddern would not have it all her own way! And feeling very thankful indeed that this was her last week in Bath.

    The next day dawned even colder, with more east wind and a look of rain in the air. Hildy had made an appointment to go to the Circulating Library with Mrs Groot, who was a great reader, but before she even had her pelisse on, a footman arrived with a note to say that Mrs Groot was sorry but she did not think it advisable that she should venture out in this weather. Violetta was increasing, so this was a sensible decision, they agreed.

    “Well,” said Hildy: “it is no matter. I shall go by myself. I feel in need of some fresh air.”

    General Sir Francis, who had been deep in the Morning Post, at this looked up sharply. “What? Nonsense, my dear, you shall not walk! And you must certainly not go unescorted: Mamma, what are you about to let her suggest it?”

    “Francis, my dear boy, you are living in the Middle Ages,” said his mother wearily. “A short walk to the library is no great matter. And she is right, the air will do her good.”

    Regardless of his own stated opinion on fresh air and stretching of the legs as lately as last night, he cried: “Nonsense! She will catch her death!”

    “I shall wrap up very warm, General, I promise you,” said Hildy. “At home, you know, I am used to range all over the woods and fields. I miss the exercise.”

    “Aye, she is getting her strength back,” said the old lady placidly. “And it is but a step.”

    After some more argument, the General finally decided that he would accompany her, and if she insisted on walking she should borrow a fur wrap of his mamma’s.

    Hildy duly went up to get changed. She chose the violet outfit, it was warmest, and besides, it was her favourite: the black fur tippet that went with it was very, very soft. –Lapin. Dyed. Mrs Henry had already noticed this, and she had also noticed that Miss Hildegarde possessed three modish pelisses! Really! And the family reputedly as poor as church mice!

    The General was waiting for her in the hall with the furs when she came downstairs. Hildy had to swallow: they were very grand. “There! Now you shall be cosy!” he said, draping them round her.

    “Yes,” she said weakly—though not unconscious of the utter niceness of having a lovely older man, one who was so very handsome, too, take such good care of one. “Indeed I shall.”

    So Hildy set forth on the General’s arm draped in a set of silver fox of Mrs Kernohan’s over the violet pelisse. The picture they presented was that of a doating elderly husband and his unsuitably young wife, a fact of which she was somewhat awkwardly aware. Though the furs were wonderfully warm.

    It was, indeed, little more than a step to the library, but short though the walk was they both thoroughly enjoyed it. Hildy asked him questions about his Peninsula experiences and he responded in a no-nonsense manner, if as from a very much older man to a young girl. Hildy was not looking for a successor to Sir Edward Jubb: she was very content indeed to let the handsome general treat her rather as if she had been his granddaughter. And the General, who had been a widower for some fifteen years, had no thought in his head that little Miss Hildy might form a suitable bride for his elderly self. He was pleased that she was, as his mother had indicated to him, an intelligent girl with a few ideas in her head. And he was not at all displeased by Hildy’s little teasing manner. They entered the library very pleased with each other.

    The General had been quite prepared to have Miss Hildegarde ask eagerly for the latest novels, but he was taken aback after that to see her look with interest at some of the foreign journals and then go off to look at some shelves of the Classics.

    “I say, this is dull stuff, is it not?” he said with a smile.

    “Yes, indeed, General, but then, I am one of your Mamma’s bespectacled. chinless bluestockings so well known in the family!” said Hildy naughtily, peeping at him.

    The General laughed very much, told her she was a minx, and kindly relieved her of the furs, still laughing.

    It was at this moment that Major Kernohan entered the library. His saturnine face darkened. Perhaps he would have turned on his heel, but his uncle spotted him and called out cheerfully: “Why, there is Aurry! Good-day, my dear boy! Here is Miss Hildegarde come out in all this weather, just in quest of a few dull books!”

    “So I perceive,” he said, coming over to them. “Good morning, Miss Hildegarde. I trust you were not too tired after last night’s party?”

    “Good morning, Major. I was not tired at all, thank you. Bath has done me so much good!” said Hildy. smiling. “Though l would not venture to maintain it is the waters that have worked the cure!”

    “No—vile,” agreed the General, making a face. “And how are you feeling, my boy?”

    “Very well, thank you, Uncle Francis,” he returned colourlessly.

    General Kernohan perceived that the young man was still annoyed with him, and his heart sank, rather. He and Henry had been hoping to broach the matter of Aurry’s becoming his heir later today. It did not seem as if it would be a propitious time.

    “Well, I am glad to hear it!” he said heartily, trying to ignore the fact that the Major was giving him a sardonic look. “And now that you are here, you may help Miss Hildy choose something interesting to read, y’know! For I am of little help, Mamma is right in that!” he said, smiling at her.

    “I do not think I am well enough acquainted with Miss Hildegarde’s tastes to be of much assistance,” said Aurry politely.

    “Well, no,” owned Hildy. “And I must confess, Major Kernohan, that I am one of those dreadful persons who on being assured they will adore such and such a volume will not then open it if their lives depend on it!”

    Suddenly he laughed. “Are you, indeed? Well, so am I!”

    At this General Sir Francis beamed upon them and, saying he would just cast his eye over the papers, ambled off.

    Hildy picked up a volume rather uncertainly, feeling suddenly shy.

    Aurry looked over her shoulder. “Er, would you not prefer a translation?” he said weakly.

    “No. I have read a translation, but it did not capture the spirit of the original.”

    Aurry looked at her limply.

    “I was just telling your uncle that I am one of your grandmamma’s bluestockings,” she offered weakly, for obscure reasons no longer daring to make a joke of it.

    “I see.”

    There was a short silence. Hildy looked at the books. Aurry pretended to look at the books, and fidgeted.

    Finally she said: “I see your brothers are not with you this morning. sir?”

    “No. Dorian’s gone off to the Pump Room, I cannot imagine why,” he said, eyeing her drily—Hildy blushed—“and Roly is at home by the fire, er—possessed, I think is the word—yes, possessed, of a roundelay.”

    She gulped. “I see. You—you do not mean a rondeau, do you, Major?”

    “Er—very possibly. In his hands, it will be all the same, however.”

    Hildy swallowed. “Yes.”

    “I assure you, Miss Hildegarde, none of us is responsible for imbuing him with the idea that he has talent,” he said in a colourless voice.

    She looked up swiftly. “Oh! You are so cruel!” she choked.

    The Major’s long mouth twitched. “Grandmamma told me that you nigh to laughed yourself into a fit over that sonnet.”

    “So did she!” she said indignantly.

    The Major threw back his head and laughed. “Aye! She has never enjoyed a guest more!” he gasped.

    “Did she say so?” said Hildy, very pink.

    “Certainly, Miss Hildegarde.”

    “Well,” she said with a naughty twinkle, “a man who would tell me to my face that mv voice is merely deep and loud. would not lie on such a matter, I suppose. But I am very glad of it. I have only once enjoyed a visit as much, though that was very different.”

    “Oh?—No, wait: I think it must have been to the old lady who is the nabob’s widow?” he said, smiling.

    “Yes, indeed!” Hildy paused. “Major, you—you should not have let me run on, so, about the Hindoo pantheon that time,” she said in a stifled voice. “I fear you must have been very bored.”

    “I would not have stopped you for the world: I was greatly enjoying it, Miss Hildegarde!” he protested in a voice of injured innocence.

    “I know you were, you—you monster!” she said, trying to scowl and failing.

    Aurry Kernohan gave a smile of pure pleasure, took the volume she was now clutching from her with his left hand and said: “Miss Hildegarde, believe me when I say Petronius is highly unsuitable for any young woman. Bluestocking or no. I would scarce recommend him even to Grandmamma.”

    “Oh. I have never read him,” she said uncertainly.

    “You relieve my mind immensely.” He picked up another volume. “Try this.”

    “Major,” said Hildy, trying not to laugh, “I am very well acquainted with the works of Horace, I do assure you.”

    He set it down and picked up another volume. “Do not tell me you cut your teeth on the Gallic Wars, for did not we all? But try reading it as a record of a great man’s campaigns: it is fascinating stuff.”

    “I shall try, if you say so,” she said dubiously.

    “No, no, I am not saying you will adore it!” he said in horror.

    “What—?” she began. “Oh! You are the most—”

    “Monstrous fellow. Yes, l know.”

    Hildy smiled.

    By the time they were ready to leave the library and had liberated the General from the papers and the company of a Mr Peabody, who as an old acquaintance of his mother’s appeared to feel himself entitled to wring every last drop of reminiscence of Waterloo out of him, they were both feeling rather pleased with themselves and each other’s company.

    “I am on my way to the Abbey,” admitted Aurry, “but I shall walk you back, if I may.”

    “Choir practice, eh?” said his uncle. “We shall come with you, my boy! What say you to that, Miss Hildy? It will not be too cold for you?”

    “No, not in these lovely furs,” replied Hildy, smiling up at him. “And the exercise will do me good!”

    “Sir, I do not think we should keep Miss Hildegarde standing around in the draughty Abbey on a day like this,” said the Major in a low voice.

    “No; you are right, there, my boy. Very well: we shall just pop in and hear you sing a bit, y’know, and then we shall come straight on home. And Miss Hildy may have a chair!” he said, smiling at her.

    Hildy perceived it would be best not to argue. And she was delighted at the opportunity to hear the Major sing. So they all set off together, the General offering her his arm, and the Major tucking their books under his good arm and walking on her other side. It must be admitted that Hildy experienced a very warm and happy sensation, which had little to do with Mrs Kernohan’s furs, but rather more to do with being thus escorted by two handsome military gentlemen.

    At the Abbey there was not a crowd: not all of the choristers, just the organist, the choirmaster, and half a dozen boys.

    Aurry consulted with the choirmaster and came over to where his uncle and Hildy had seated themselves near the choir stalls. “We had in mind to go over several pieces today. There is a madrigal—I do not think it is in the form of a rondeau, Miss Hildegarde,”—Hildy choked—“and one or two pieces for solo voices. Burnaby suggests we have a go at the madrigal to warm our voices up, and then I shall sing a German piece, if you should care for it.”

    “Hah! Bach?” asked his uncle, beaming.

    “Yes, indeed, sir.”

    “Good. –Old Burnaby, you say? I must have a word with him!” He went over to the choirmaster, beaming. Hildy was put strongly in mind of Sir Lionel Dewesbury: she bit her lip. Finally she asked in a strangled voice: “Does your uncle sing, sir?”

    “No, he has no voice at all,” said Aurry with a smile. “But he enjoys music.”

    “Yes: some of us must make up the audience, after all!” replied Hildy happily.

    Aurry hesitated, then said stiltedly: “Your voice is naturally lovely. It would repay training.”

    “Oh. Thank you,” said Hildy weakly.

    “It is a pity to waste a talent, if one is lucky enough to have been given it.”

    “Yes,” she agreed faintly, thinking of his own inability to play any longer and feeling quite dreadful.

    “Though in your isolated little community it is understandable that you should not have found a teacher.”

    “The village music teacher has lately given me some lessons,” Hildy offered on a dubious note. “She could not answer everything I asked her. Though I have found that generally to be the case, with anyone who has ever tried to teach me anything—except for Dr Rogers. Discovering him was—was like entering into a new world!” she finished with a laugh.

    Aurry looked at her shining eyes and croaked: “Oh?”

    “He was the vicar before your cousin Mr Parkinson, sir. It was he who was responsible for my learning to read Classical literature.”

    “I see. And where is he now?”

    “Dead,” said Hildy flatly.

    “I am very sorry,” he said, very taken aback.

    She sighed. “Well, he was very old. And had been an eminent scholar in his time: I was very lucky to know him at all. He was the sort of man who would not toe the ecclesiastical line, so—so I think really he was relegated to our little backwater, sir.”

    “I see,” said Aurry, not admitting to himself the flood of relief that was filling him at the news that Miss Hildegarde’s late admired preceptor had been an old buffer.

    The madrigal was very pretty, though Aurry did not have much to do in it: his deep voice formed a sort of continuo, at least to Hildy’s ear. Then the organist seated himself, tested a few stops, and he and Aurry broke into— Hildy did not recognize it, but it was the nearest thing she had experienced to Paradise. She listened to the Major sing Bach’s Schlummert-ein with her mouth open and her cheeks bright pink. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks, but she was quite unaware of them.

    Silently the General passed her his handkerchief at the end of it.

    Hildy jumped, mopped her eyes and blew her nose. “Oh!” she breathed.

    “One of my favourites,” he said, smiling at her. “And he sings it not badly.”

    “Not badly! Oh, sir, it was—it was—”

    “Most of it was Bach, not he,” said the General in some amusement. “But he has a pleasant voice.”

    Hildy gulped. “Sir, it is more than that! His tone echoed the words so exactly at times that I—I thought my heart would burst!”

    General Sir Francis swallowed. “Speak German, do you, then?”

    “I did not realise I did,” she admitted. “I was taught to read it, but I have never really spoken it. However, I understood that easily enough.”

    “Mm. You should come over next Easter, Miss Hildy: old Burnaby tells me they are planning the St John Passion, now that is quite something out of the usual run!”

    Hildy bit her lip. “It—it is too far, and we have no carriage, sir.”

    “Oh,” he said blankly. “Uh—no, well, look, tell you what, Mamma may send the carriage for you, you know, that is no problem!”

    “I could not impose,” she said, cheeks aglow.

    The General patted her knee. “Pooh, she will love to have you. Won’t have gone off to London for the Season or any such dashed nonsense by then, will you?”

    “Well... I am not perfectly sure. I don’t think Mamma means to leave until the end of April. But—but one of my sisters will be getting married around then, I think.”

    “Pity to miss it, one does not often hear the St John, you know. –Ah, here he is! That was very well done, my boy!”

    “A few rusty patches, I think,” replied Aurry, smiling.

    Hildy got up on knees that shook. “Major Kernohan, it—it—”

    “Bawled all through, never saw anyone so enthralled,” explained the General kindly.

    Aurry looked at her doubtfully, but he could see she had, indeed, been crying. “Well, I am very glad if you enjoyed it, Miss Hildegarde. It is certainly one of my favourite pieces.”

    “Oh, yes!” said Hildy fervently, holding out her hand to him. “Thank you so much, Major Kernohan, it was—it was wonderful!”

    Aurry laughed a little and murmured: “It was my privilege.” He did bow, but did not take her hand to bow over it.

    Abruptly Hildy realised she had done the wrong thing. Normally he hid the stiffness of his right arm very well: he could manage to drive, holding the reins in his left hand, of course, and more or less dispensing with a whip, and though she had not seen him on a horse, apparently he did still ride. Though Roly had reported mournfully he wouldn’t hunt, and Hildy, though not liking to ask, had assumed it must be because of the arm, and that it was “couldn’t”, not “wouldn’t”. But he did not perform such ordinary tasks as taking tea very well, though the members of his family were always careful to see he was provided with a small table on which to rest the saucer while he picked the cup up with his left hand. To say truth, Hildy was not at all sure how much mobility he had in the arm. But come to think of it, at table he held his wine glass in his left hand, too—so it was to be presumed he could certainly not raise his right hand as far as his lips.

    “Well, come along, you must not hang round in this draughty old place!” said General Kernohan briskly.

    “No, indeed,” Aurry agreed. They began to stroll towards the door. “Will you still be with us on Sunday, Miss Hildy? There is to be sung Evensong: perhaps Uncle Francis might bring you?”

    “Aye, delighted!” he said heartily.

    “I should love it of all things!” said Hildy fervently. “I do not leave until the Tuesday morning, sir: my cousins are to travel over and we shall go back the next day to their home, which is near Dittersford.”

    “Dittersford?” he said. “God bless my soul!”

    “Er—Mrs O’Flynn and Mrs Parkinson stayed with us there, sir: it is Ainsley Manor,” explained Hildy shyly.

    “Aye, I know it well! Stay, then you must have been to service at Ditterminster Cathedral?” he said eagerly.

    Oh, dear: very like Sir Lionel! thought Hildy, hoping she was not going to laugh. “We did go, sir, but only twice. It is quite a drive, from the Manor. My sister Amabel, however, was so fortunate as to hear sung Evensong there.”

    “Aye, well, they ain’t a patch on Aurry’s lot, of course!” he said with a laugh.

    “So I believe,” she agreed.

    “Well, well, well, fancy you knowing Dittersford! Have you been out the other side of Ditterminster, over towards Lower Daynesfold, at all?”

    “No, I haven’t been in that direction I think we passed the turnoff to Lower Daynesfold as we came home.”

    “Aye, you would have. I have a rackety old place over that way, you see, Miss Hildy. In shocking condition: it was left me by an old uncle.”

    “It is quite good land,” said Aurry suddenly, “but greatly in want of good management.”

    “I see. Is it swampy, sir? The Marquis of Rockingham has been doing much draining and dyking in the swampier parts of his estate, I believe.”

    “No,” said the General cheerfully: “don’t have that problem over Lower Daynesfold way. Nor the rocky outcrops they get up towards Upper Daynesfold—not bad country for sheep, but not much use for anything else.”

    “I expect it has always been sheep country,” said Hildy thoughtfully: “that is where the ‘fold’ in the name must come from.”

    “That is what I have always thought,” agreed Aurry.

    “Eh? Well, very like,” said the General blankly. “But it is all arable land round Lower Daynesfold.”

    “Does not old Fanshawe still run sheep, sir?” asked Aurry in some surprise.

    “Eh? Well, dare say he may do, but the man has always had a bee in his bonnet. But we are boring Miss Hildy!”

    “No, indeed. Is it not a coincidence?” she said happily. “How strange that Dorothea never mentioned you live there, sir!”

    “No, it ain’t. Don’t live there,” he grunted.

    Hildy looked at him doubtfully.

    “When he said the place was in shocking condition, Miss Hildegarde,” explained Aurry, “he was not joking. My cousins live with a maternal aunt in Surrey. The house at Lower Daynesfold has not been occupied for many years.”

    “But what a waste!” said Hildy in some horror.

    “Well, it was not in good condition when I inherited it, and then my wife did not care for the place; and I was always away—she would have pined there,” explained the General. “Thinking of putting it in order, though. Making it habitable!”

    “But sir, did you not say you would be at the Horse Guards from now on?” ventured Aurry.

    “Eh? Well, yes—talk about it later, dear boy!” he said, patting his back. “Now, come along, Miss Hildy, we have stood around long enough!” He shepherded her out before Hildy could gather her wits to reiterate her gratitude to the Major.

    General Kernohan was clearly a man who could procure a lady a chair in inclement weather, and speedily did so. Hildy cuddled into it in the furs. Reflecting—base though she knew the reflexion to be—that it would be very pleasant to be a married lady who could legitimately wear such furs. And also to have a caring husband like the General. The thought had never precisely occurred to her before in such a form. It did not indicate she was in the least in love with General Sir Francis But it certainly did indicate a rather changed attitude towards capable and caring gentlemen, more specifically, and more generally the institution of marriage, in Miss Hildegarde Maddern.

    They had nearly reached the house when she peeped out and said: “Sir?”

    “Yes, my dear?” he said with a smile.

    “I—I am afraid I must have embarrassed your nephew by holding out my hand for—for him to bow over,” faltered Hildy, very flushed.

    “Eh? Oh, don’t regard it, Miss Hildy! Happens all the time! The fellow ain’t a tender plant, y’know! He has knocked around a bit!”

    Yes, and been knocked around a bit, thought Hildy. “It was thoughtless of me.”

    “Nonsense, my dear!” He gave her a sharp look. “He did not take your hand, hey?”

    “No,” said Hildy, swallowing. “He merely bowed, sir.”

    “Aye, well, Henry tells me he cannot control the motion, at all. At times the fingers will not close and other times they will grip too tight. And he cannot raise the arm above waist height. But that is a mere nothing: he is lucky not to have lost it.”

    “Yes,” she said faintly.

    The General hesitated; but after all, she was an intelligent young woman; so he said: “A wound like that, though it knocks a man back a bit, is not the sort of thing that may change his character for life. I have seen some strange and bitter things when it is the loss of a limb in question. But in other cases, the fellow will recover his spirits amazingly. It is all a matter of the individual temperament, I suppose.’’

    “Yes. I am very glad,” said Hildy faintly, “that Major Kernohan was not more badly wounded.”

    “Aye; so are we all, my dear: so are we all!” he said cheerily.

    Hildy sank back into the chair. She was beginning to perceive that Major Kernohan’s temperament might tend towards the melancholic, and that whatever his hearty uncle might say, the crippled arm and its consequences had perhaps knocked him back more than “a bit.”