Contretemps

6

Contretemps

    Hildy had not been back to Old Tom’s hut since the old man had been taken to the workhouse, but now, since her mother seemed determined on taking an inventory of everything the girls owned before they packed for London, she bethought her of her gold bracelet. She more or less knew where she had lost it: she had felt it catch in the Vicar’s coat sleeve as she had run away from him. So it had either dropped at the doorstep or some way further into the forest. She had not stopped running until she had reached the old ash, and there she had verified that the bracelet was no longer on her wrist.

    Hildy got up very early, crept down the back stairs, waited until Berthe’s broad back was turned in the kitchen, slid past the open kitchen door, and ran out of the back door and away.

    The bracelet was nowhere to be found. She searched every inch of the way several times over, getting more and more desperate. She was not in very good odour at home in the wake of the visit to Tunbridge Wells, especially as she had  injudiciously made her indifference to her mother’s dinner party clear, and with the hour fast approaching Mrs Maddern, determined to show Mrs Shallcrass how a lady gave a dinner party, was in an extremely wrought-up state.

    The sun was now quite high in the sky. Having worked her way back and forth to the old ash more than once, largely on her hands and knees in the grass, Hildy returned to the hut, sat down in the sunshine on the worn stone that did duty for a front step, and buried her head in her hands. Old Tom had been in no fit state to venture out and find the bracelet, so… Ugh, probably a jackdaw had seized on it and taken it to its nest. Mamma would be furious. What lie could she possibly tell to get out of it? ...None, really. However she said it had happened, she would still have to admit it was lost. A tear of exhaustion trickled down her cheek. She sniffed hard but more tears followed it. If only Old Tom was here! He’d know what to do, he was as cunning—

    “Miss Hildegarde!” said a startled voice.

    Hildy raised a grimy, tear-stained face. “What are you doing here?” she said aggressively.

    Hilary saw she was very distressed. He forget his own shyness, and went down on one knee beside her, regardless of the fact that the grass by the step was long and damp and would undoubtedly stain the knee of his good pantaloons. “I am on my way to pay a call on your mamma,” he said gently. “I often walk in the woods, and I was very early, so I thought I would make a detour. What’s the matter, Miss Hildegarde? Is it Old Tom?”

    “No,” she said, sniffing defiantly. “It isn’t. And don’t tell me he’s gone to a better place: I don’t believe that for a moment!”

    “No,” he said with the ghost of smile: “I suppose he was what the world would have called an unrepentant old sinner.”

    Hildy looked up at him suspiciously. “Don’t you?”

    “No.” Hilary produced his handkerchief. “I don’t think that we can judge our fellow creatures in that way. Tom was indifferent to the rules of society, but in the eyes of his Maker, would that have made him an evil man?”

    “I don’t know,” she said, sniffing.

    Hilary put the handkerchief into her hand and, since she just let it lie there, closed her fingers gently over it. Hildy looked up into his face in a bewildered way. “Wipe your eyes,” he said, flushing a little. “I do not know, either, I do not presume to put myself in our Saviour’s place; but I do know that Tom loved birds and animals, did he not?”

    “Yes,” said Hildy. She blew her nose. “He mended a squirrel’s leg, once. It used to come for food all the time, after that. I said why didn’t he keep it as a pet but he said how would I like to be shut up in a cage!” She smiled at him.

    Hilary’s heart beat very fast. “I see,” he agreed.

    She wiped her eyes and gave him back the handkerchief. “I wasn’t really crying about him. He was old and sick. I wouldn’t have wanted him to live on like that. Only I sort of sat down and—and—”

    “It all came over you?”

    “Yes. I’m going to be in awful trouble at home,” she revealed glumly.

    “Why?” asked Hilary gently.

    “Well, in the first place Mamma’s furious with me anyway because we were visiting your mamma and Dorothea, and the Marquis of Cara— I mean the Marquis of Rockingham!” she gulped, “and his friend Sir Julian Naseby came to call and—and I was sitting on the floor and I didn’t get up. We were playing with Baby!” she explained desperately.

    “I understand.”

    “And Mamma says I am older than Gaetana and I should have set her an example, and instead I—I led her on.” she explained gloomily.

    “Did you?”

    “Um, not deliberately. Well, I did stick up for her when the Marquis was horrid to her. But Mamma says I was appallingly rude and a lady never makes remarks about a gentleman’s apparel.” She swallowed. “However odd it may be.”

    “What was he wearing?” asked Hilary in amaze.

    Hildy replied eagerly: “A very silly striped blue and yellow waistcoat and a spotted hanker at his neck: you never saw such a guy, Mr Parkinson! And I would truly not have breathed a word, only he made a personal remark about Gaetana’s old pelisse and she was very embarrassed!”

    “I see,” he said, biting his lip.

    “Why are you laughing?” she asked suspiciously.

    “Was he also wearing a—a nosegay in his buttonhole?”

    “Yes, how on earth did you—”

    “That is the insignia of the Four Horse Club, a very famous gentlemen’s group of—of fine drivers.”

    “Oh. Yes, come to think of it, Gaetana and I went out to the carriage to say good-bye to little Rommie Naseby and he did have four horses. Well, I don’t see that makes any difference, sir: he still looked very silly! And he made the first personal remark, not I!”

    “I quite understand. But do you not think...” He hesitated. She looked at him sulkily. “Well,” said Hilary, experiencing a strong desire to tug at his neat neckcloth, “to say truth, Miss Hildegarde, I do not in my heart of hearts hold any more brief for many of our rules of society than do you or”—his tender mouth twitched just a little—“Old Tom.”

    Hildy eyed him suspiciously.

    “But do you not feel,” he said a trifle awkwardly, “that when one is in the company of persons to whom such things matter very much, it is best to conform to the social forms, if we can do so without compromising our principles, in order not to hurt these persons’ feelings?”

    Hildy thought it over, frowning. “I see what you mean. But does that not make us hypocrites, sir?”

    Hilary looked into the big frank grey-green eyes. “I do not believe so. Not as long as we are aware of why we are doing it and of—of the true value of such social forms.”

    “I see,” she said thoughtfully.

    The Vicar hesitated. “I am aware that—that perhaps particularly to a young woman in your situation, Miss Hildegarde, it must seem as though such conformity means that—that large stretches of one’s life are without real meaning.”

    “Yes!” she said eagerly, looking up at him. “Mamma thinks I should do nothing but take tea and go to silly parties and be pleasant to silly young gentlemen!”

    “Yes. But this is but a stage in life,” he said gently. “It will pass.”

    Hildy looked glum. “I have to go to London and go to silly London parties, next.”

    “I know,” said the Vicar with difficulty.

    “I’ve never been away from home, before. I can’t imagine life without all this,” she said, looking around them at the big old trees. “Unless it’s very, very cold and wet I walk in the woods every day. Well, sometimes Mamma doesn’t know. I often get up very early,” she admitted.

    “I believe Hyde Park is very pleasant. And—and then I imagine you will be very busy,” he said stiltedly.

    “Huh!”

    The Vicar was silent, looking down at his feet.

    Hildy looked at him dubiously. “Anyway, the real reason why I was crying was entirely trivial, so—so no doubt you will think I am just a person who is only fit to conform to silly social norms, sir!” she finished with a mad little laugh.

    “I would never think that, Miss Hildegarde,” he said, looking into her face. She went very red and looked away. “What is the trouble?” he asked.

    “Th-that other time—” she stuttered.

    “Mm? Oh—yes: when we bumped into each other!” he said with a smile.

    “Yes. I lost my bracelet. Great-Uncle Hildebrand gave it to me. Mamma believes he will leave me his entire fortune, but I do not. Only I suppose I should respect her hopes,” she said glumly. “But I fear I am more afraid of incurring her anger than of hurting her feelings in this particular instance, sir!” She smiled timidly at him.

    “Yes,” he said in a strange voice.

    Hildy saw he was very much flushed. “What have I said?” she asked uncertainly.

    “Nothing.” He felt in his inside breast pocket. “I feel I am very much to blame in this particular instance, my dear Miss Hildegarde. But I—I suppose I did not think—” He withdrew a small package from his pocket. “Here. I saw that the catch was broken, so I sent it up to London to be mended,” he said lamely.

    “WHAT?” shouted Hildy, turning very red and snatching it off him. She tore the paper off with trembling fingers. “You stupid man!” she shouted. “Why didn’t you TELL me you had it?”

    “I—” Hilary had no excuse. Except that it was something of hers and he had been unable to let it out of his possession for quite some time. Having the catch mended was only a pretext. He had finally forced himself to take it up to London and have it mended when he’d come to the realization that he’d held onto it for far too long. But he could scarcely tell her that. “I’m sorry, I suppose I’ve been busy,” he said lamely.

    “BUSY! I’ve been sitting here in fear and trembling, afraid to go home!” shouted Hildy. “So much for principles! And look at this dress, I’ve ruined it, crawling in the grass!” She grabbed up her grass-stained skirt and ran off as if the hounds of Hell were at her heels.

    Hilary sat down numbly on the warm stone doorstep and burled his face in his hands.

    He did not call on Mrs Maddern that day, after all.

    “Miss Christa!” gasped the elderly Bateson, bursting into the dining-room without ceremony. “It’s two gentlemen come a-calling, what shall I do?”

    “Oh, Heavens,” said Miss Maddern in a hollow voice, looking down at her heavy baize apron and her gloved hands that had been helping polish the silver for the morrow’s dinner party.

    “Tell them to go away: Mamma is laid down with the headache and we’re far too busy for any stupid gentlemen,” said Hildy.

    “Who are they, Bateson?” asked Amabel, untying her apron.

    “Well, one is Mr O’Flynn, the gentleman that’s Miss Dorothea’s—I mean Mrs O’Flynn’s—uncle. And the other is a Sir, Miss Amabel!” she gasped.

    “A sir?” said Amabel blankly.

    “Are you sure he isn’t a Marquis of Carabas, Bateson?” asked Hildy drily.

    “It must be his friend,” said Gaetana.

    “I don’t know about any Markisses of Crabapple, Miss, but it’s definitely a Sir!” she gulped.

    “Sir Julian Naseby?” asked Miss Maddern.

    “I’m sure I couldn’t tell, you, Miss Christa, I’m that flustered, and Berthe she says the lobster will never go round and he’s already crawled out of the pantry five times and he’s bit Mrs Spofford, and that Bunch, she brought the parrot down and it—”

    Hildy said in a determined voice: “Until that lobster is wanted, I think the best place for it will be the dairy. I’ll come downstairs, Bateson.”

    “Yes, good girl,” agreed Amabel . “And I shall see the gentlemen, Christa: I think my dress is the neatest.”

    Miss Maddern looked down at her own apron and very, very old stuff gown that was quite indecently tight in the bodice. “Thank you, dearest, if you would not mind,” she said faintly.

    “I put them in the front parlour, Miss Amabel, and Mr Paul said he would go in and talk to them, only he don’t know them!” gulped Bateson.

    “No. Shall I come, Amabel?” asked Gaetana.

    “Yes, do, Gaetana,” agreed Miss Maddern. “And Hildy, when you have sorted out the lobster, would you join them? Without the apron, dear.”

    Hildy made a face but said: “Oh, very well. Come on, then, Bateson.”

    They hurried out. Amabel and Gaetana adjusted their hair hastily before the big mirror over the sideboard, and followed them.

    Miss Maddern looked at the array of silverware spread all over the dining table, and sighed.

    “Miss Hildegarde!” gasped Sir Julian, bounding up. “You should not be carrying that! Pray allow me!’

    Panting a little, Hildy let him take the heavy silver tea-tray. “Thank you very much, Sir Julian. I confess I had no idea how heavy the service is when it is full! I don’t know how poor Bateson manages!”

    “No, indeed,” he agreed sympathetically, neither knowing nor caring who Bateson was. “Shall I put it here?”

    Amabel rose and helped him adjust the table for the tea. “Dearest, where is Bateson?” she asked her sister cautiously.

    Hildy replied even more cautiously: “Well, she is very occupied just now, and I knew you would probably care for tea, so I said I would bring it. –How are you, Mr O’Flynn?”

    Mr O’Flynn had risen politely on her entrance. He bowed, smiling. “I’m very well, Miss Hildegarde, and I trust you are, too? But I fear we have called at an inconvenient moment.”

    “Well, we are very busy today, because of the dinner party tomorrow. But then we have been busy all week, and tomorrow will be much, much worse!” she assured him with a twinkle.

    Sir Julian at this laughed and said: “Aye, it’s fortunate we didn’t pick tomorrow, O’Flynn! But pray sit down, Miss Hildegarde!” He helped her to a chair. She sat down rather uncertainly, with a shy smile.

    Unaware that she was thinking about social forms and wondering if he knew he looked ridiculous helping an able-bodied young woman considerably his junior to a chair, Sir Julian beamed upon her.

    “You have been to call on Mrs O’Flynn and Mrs Parkinson, have you, sir?” she said politely.

    “Well, that was my intention. But I bumped into O’Flynn, here, on their doorstep, and he informed me the ladies had driven out. So we thought we might tool over here, take in a little of the countryside, and see how you and your cousin and sisters are going on, Miss Hildegarde!”

    “I see. I suppose it is a pretty drive,” said Hildy dubiously.

    “Yes, indeed!” agreed Mr O’Flynn. “The hedgerows are charming at this time of year!”

    “Lovely. The rambling roses are beginning to show,” agreed Amabel.

    “No. Amabel, it’s too early for the roses. It’s the brambles that are in flower,” said Hildy.

    “Sí: the countryside of England is lovely; now I begin to understand why my father raves about it! And about English roses!” added Paul with a little laugh in his voice.

    Gaetana said with a twinkle: “Milk and roses, was it not, Paul?”

    “Yes. And I trust you are taking Madre’s advice and drinking plenty of the good English milk?” he said, straight-faced.

    She gave a smothered giggle and nodded hard.

    Amabel had begun to pour the tea when Miss Maddern entered, looking rather flushed but in a clean gown and with her hair neatly combed. She greeted the two gentlemen politely and allowed Paul to help her to a chair. He handed her a cup and pulled up his own chair rather close to hers.

    “Mamma sends her apologies,” she said to the visitors: “she is not feeling quite the thing. And she particularly charged me, Sir Julian, to ask you, if you will be in the neighbourhood tomorrow, whether you would care to join us: we are having a small party of friends tomorrow evening.”

    Sir Julian’s blue eyes lit up but he replied politely: “So Miss Hildegarde informed us. I should like it of all things, Miss Maddern, if it would not throw your Mamma’s numbers out?”

    “No, you can be Pamela Shallcrass’s partner, we were wondering how on earth to balance the numbers,” said Hildy with a sigh of relief.

    “Hildy, Sir Julian does not know Miss Shallcrass,” said Miss Maddern repressively. “But Hildy is perfectly right, sir, you would be doing us a favour!” she added with a little laugh.

    “Does Mrs O’Flynn still say she will come, sir?” Amabel then asked Mr O’Flynn on an anxious note.

    “Yes: when I saw her and her mamma the day before yesterday, she was quite determined. She will not dance, of course.”

    “No. I hope she— Well, it will be the first time she has dined out, sir.”

    “Indeed, except for a very quiet evening at my home with two old friends from Tunbridge Wells,” he agreed.

    “Mrs Delaney and Miss Hunt?” cried Hildy unguardedly. “You could certainly not count that, sir, it would be as exciting as dining with—with Mrs Spofford and one of Amabel’s doves!”

    “Less!” choked Paul. “For there would always be the hope that Mrs Spofford would eat the dove!”

    “Quite,” said Miss Maddern with a tremor in her voice. “But that was not a very delicate comparison, Hildy, dear.”

    “I didn’t mean to insult your hospitality or anything,” Hildy said earnestly to Mr O’Flynn. “I think it was the ideal way to start Dorothea off on dining out: no-one could possibly be more harmless than old Mrs Delaney and her sister.”

    “Quite,” he said, smiling gamely but looking rather puzzled.

    Sir Julian was more forthright. “Who on earth is Mrs Spofford and why would she eat a dove?” he demanded.

    “She’s a cat,” said Hildy in a small voice. “It was not at all clear, was it?”

    “No!” he choked delightedly. “But that certainly explains Mr Ainsley’s reference!”

    “Yes,” said Miss Maddern in a strangled voice. Paul smiled into her eyes, his own dark ones dancing, and she blushed brightly and offered cake in a disjointed manner.

    “Mrs Spofford’s pretty harmless, is she?” said Sir Julian to Hildy with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

    “Well, no, she’s a very good mouser. It was a stupid image, I suppose. But she is a very comfortable-looking cat, sir, and old Mrs Delaney does resemble her greatly.”

    Sir Julian had to put his cake down hurriedly.

    “I must admit there is some justice in Miss Hildy’s comparison,” agreed Mr O’Flynn gamely.

    “Yes; dear Dorothea could not possibly feel shy of Mrs Delaney or Miss Hunt,” added Amabel.

    “No,” he said, smiling gratefully at her. “It was why I invited them. And to say truth we had a most agreeable evening, and played a little at lottery tickets. I suppose it was not precisely stimulating, but—”

    “No, but just what Dorothea needs, sir!” she said warmly, smiling at him.

    “Thank you, Miss Amabel,” he said gratefully.

    “Will you have your dress-clothes with you, though, sir?” Hildy demanded abruptly of Sir Julian.

    Not revealing that his trip to Tunbridge Wells had not been merely in order to ask after Mrs O’Flynn and her mamma, but rather a preliminary scouting expedition, so to speak, that would allow him to call on Miss Hildegarde herself, he replied easily: “Well, yes, Miss Hildegarde. I don’t intend to dash through the night with a four-in-hand like Rockingham! It was my intention to put up in Tunbridge Wells and dine at an inn—but Mr O’Flynn has been so kind as to invite me to his home.”

    “I trust your previous journey did not overtire little Rommie, sir?” said Miss Maddern politely. “It must have been past four when you left us.”

    “No, no: we racked up at an inn and she fell asleep after we’d got a bite of dinner inside her!” he said with a laugh. “Not that the journey was tiring her, y’know, ma’am, she’s a tough little character! No, but I think she was wearing Giles out!”

    “Yes, children can be very wearing, especially if you are not used to them,” owned Miss Maddern.

    Paul bent forward gracefully and picked up the teapot, regardless of the fact that gentlemen didn’t pour. “Yes, and even if you are. Let me freshen your cup, dear Cousin.”

    “Thank you. Well, at least Miss Morton is back with us,” she said with a little sigh.

    “Yes. –The children have been wearing Christa out,” Hildy informed Sir Julian.

    “Indeed?”

    “Yes. Marybelle and Floss can be bad enough—they are our two younger sisters, sir—but now we have Bungo and Bunch and Maria as well. Though Maria is very good, of course.”

    “Oh, yes: the one that wants to be a nun, eh?” he said with a chuckle.

    Miss Maddern looked at him anxiously, thinking that he might not like to have this subject brought up again, but he appeared entirely cheerful.

    “Yes,” said Hildy calmly. “It is unfortunate that her piety frequently takes the form of telling tales on the younger ones, though. For it means that then Christa has to do something about it “

    “Well, now that I am back from London,” said Paul in a very firm voice, “Christa does not have to do anything about it, I can assure you!”

    “No. He spanked Bunch yesterday until she howled for mercy!” Hildy informed the company pleasedly.

    “By Jove, that’s the ticket,” responded Sir Julian dazedly, what time Mr O’Flynn looked frankly horrified.

    Paul’s dark eyes twinkled. “She’s ten years old, more than old enough to know right from wrong. On this particular occasion she suborned the garden boy to go eeling and they put the results in my aunt’s invaluable maid’s washbasin. Mason’s screams, I assure you, rent the air.”

    “Yes: and Berthe started screaming ‘Fire’,” added Gaetana.

    “Only fortunately it was in Flemish, so no-one understood,” said Hildy.

    Sir Julian broke down and laughed helplessly. Mr O’Flynn chuckled weakly.

    “Malice aforethought, eh?” choked the baronet. “I will say this for Rommie: her sins are more of omission than anything!”

    “How is she, sir?” asked Hildy eagerly.

    Sir Julian responded with even more eagerness. Both Amabel and Miss Maddern noted that the eagerness was due rather to the questioner, not the topic, though he was quite evidently very fond of his daughter.

    Soon after that, Mr O’Flynn suggesting they should take their leave, Sir Julian agreed, though with evident reluctance; and the two gentlemen departed with assurances of seeing the company again on the morrow.

    When the noise of the carriage on the gravel had died away Miss Maddern flopped back in her chair and frankly groaned.

    “At least you had time to change,” said Hildy.

    Christabel did not reply.

    “I didn’t misbehave, did I?” asked Hildy in alarm.

    “No, no! Hush: your sister is in a state of prostration,” said Paul, smiling. “Dear Cousin, pray let me revive you: more tea?”

    Miss Maddern waved it away with her eyes closed.

    “Dearest, it was most noble of you to come to our aid, but we were managing,” said Amabel gently.

    “You do not understand, Amabel!” said Miss Maddern with her eyes shut.

    Paul got up and went over to the sideboard. “I apprehend,” he said, pouring a small portion of brandy into a glass, “that your mamma was threatening to descend in person if Miss Maddern did not. Is that not so, Cousin?” He went over to her with the glass.

    “Yes,” said Christabel with a sigh, opening her eyes. “It was dreadful: once she knew it was Sir Julian, she— It would have looked so particular! As it was, I scarcely knew where to— Well, I will not refine on it,” she said, swallowing and blushing, as she recalled that she was addressing one who was not as nearly related to Mrs Maddern as she herself.

    “Drink this,” said Paul simply.

    “I— What is it? No, I could not drink spirits, Cousin!” she gasped.

    “Nonsense, querida, it is precisely what you need, your English roses have quite vanished,” he said, lips twitching.

    “What?” said Miss Maddern faintly.

    Gaetana came over to her. “Stop teasing, Paul!” she ordered. “Yes: drink it, Christa, it will make you feel much more the thing! And I don’t think you should do any more of that horrid silver, the smell of the polish is enough to turn anyone queasy. –She has already had one dizzy fit,” she said to Paul

    “What? Then she is certainly not going to do any more today!” Christabel still had not taken the glass: Paul went down on one knee beside her chair, looking very determined. “Drink this or I shall spank you till you howl for mercy!”

    “Silly,” said Miss Maddern faintly.

    He picked up her hand, placed the glass in it, and closed his hand over hers. “Drink. And then you must lie down.”

    “But there is far too much to do!” she cried distractedly.

    “Nonsense. The girls and I will cope. Gaetana will tell you I am an excellent silver-polisher!” he said gaily.

    “¡Sí, sí!” agreed Gaetana, giggling.

    “I do not believe it for one moment,” said Miss Maddern weakly.

    “No, no, of course you do not. Drink.” Paul guided the glass to her lips.

     She sipped, perforce. “Oh! It’s so strong!” she gasped. “How can gentlemen drink such stuff?”

    “I know not, I assure you,” he said gravely.

    Miss Maddern bit her lip and smothered a giggle.

    “That’s better!” he said. “Come—finish it!”

    “Yes, drink it, Christa dear, the girls and I will manage,” agreed Amabel in a very pleased voice. “Come along, girls!” She swept them out—though Gaetana did pause in the doorway and say naughtily over her shoulder: “I perceive the English roses are returning, Paul!”

    “What is all this nonsense about roses?” said Miss Maddern faintly, struggling to sit upright.

    “Nothing.” Paul got up smoothly and put his hand under her arm. “Come along, querida, you will now have a lovely lie-down!”

    “Rubbish,” said Miss Maddern faintly.

    Paul ignored this. He helped her up and steered her to the door. “Why did you not say that you had felt faint?”

    “It was nothing—it was the silver polish: I omitted to open the windows wide.”

    “I see. Well, once we are in the town house you will never have to smell the horrid stuff again! Come along—upstairs!”

    He led her to the staircase and to Miss Maddern’s utter consternation put his arm round her waist as they went up.

    “Cousin—what are you doing?” she said faintly.

    “Helping you upstairs,” he replied soothingly.

    “I am persuaded this is not—not comme il faut!” said Miss Maddern faintly.

    “Hush, querida, you are talking nonsense,” he said soothingly.

    “Mr Ainsley, you forget I am not one of your sisters!” she said desperately.

    Paul’s lips twitched. “I assure you I do not forget anything of the sort.”

    “Oh,” said Miss Maddern numbly.

    Her cousin led her over to her bedroom and opened the door. “Take off that gown and lie down,” he said sternly.

    Christabel goggled at him.

    “Go on,” he said, folding his arms. “Do not imagine that I trust you not to sneak downstairs to the silver polish the minute my back is turned!”

    “Cousin, you cannot stand there while I undress!” she gasped.

    “Of course I can. But if you insist I shall turn my back.”

    “Cousin Paul, this is most unseemly!” hissed Miss Maddern.

    “Rubbish, querida. I do not know how many times I have dressed and undressed Gaetana and Maria. And aided Madre,” he added reflectively. “Stays are the Devil, are they not?”

    Miss Maddern clapped her hands over her ears.

    Smiling, Paul said: “Very well, I shall turn my back. But I shall not leave until I am quite sure you are laid down upon that bed and resting.”

    She watched incredulously as he then turned his back. “Go away!” she hissed.

    “No. And hurry up, or your mamma will wonder what all this hissing is for,” he said, shoulders shaking.

    Miss Maddern removed her dress with trembling fingers, huddled herself in a shawl, removed her shoes, and laid herself down upon her bed. “I am laid down,” she said faintly.

    “Good.”

    She watched wide-eyed as he drew the curtains and came over to the bed. “Now, if you are not asleep in twenty minutes, I shall definitely spank you until you howl for mercy!”

    “Yes—I mean no,” whispered Miss Maddern.

    Paul saw in horror that a tear was slipping down her cheek. He took her hand. “My dearest Christabel, I was only teasing you: surely you did not take me seriously?”

    “You—made—me—undress!” she sobbed.

    “Sí, but—” He cast an uneasy glance at the door. “I was not aware it was causing you true suffering, dearest Cousin,” he said in a low voice.

    “It—was!” sobbed Miss Maddern.

    Paul swore under his breath in Spanish. He kissed her hand gently and said softly: “I am truly very, very sorry. You must remember I am just a mad foreigner, mm?”

    “Mm!” sniffed Miss Maddern.

    “Here,” he said, giving her his handkerchief.

    Miss Maddern blew her nose hard.

    “Forgive me?” he said.

    “Very well,” she replied in a stifled voice.

    Paul bit his lip. “I was unkind. I would not for the world have offended your sensibilities. Madre has often said that I carry my funning too far, and—and now I see that she was right.”

    “Yes. We’re very different,” she said faintly.

     Paul had gone rather pale. “You and I?”

    “Yes,” said Miss Maddern, sniffing.

    He made a hideous face and swore to himself again.

    “Do not be cross, Cousin,” she said stiltedly, “but you should not be in this room.”

    “What? No, no: I am only cross with myself, dearest Cousin Christa!” He gave a rather forced smile. “Have a little sleep. Then I think you feel more the thing.”

    “Very well,” she said faintly.

    Paul went out quickly, frowning.

    Gaetana’s reaction to his report was frank horror.

    They were standing on the little terrace at the side of the house: he drew her further outside. “She—she makes me aware of how totally inadequate I am... And it’s true what Harry said about milk and roses: she— Well, I suppose she has bowled me over. Only we’re—we’re so different,” he said in a shaking voice.

    “Ye-es... She’s so proper,” agreed Gaetana in an unenthusiastic tone.

    “And so she should be!” he said angrily. “I’m a crass fool! Naturally a sheltered young woman would be shocked! I’m unworthy of her in that way as in all else!”

    “Unworthy?” echoed his sister dazedly.

    “¡Sí!” he said fiercely. “Because look at the two of us!”

    Gaetana stared at him blankly.

    “You do not imagine, do you,” he said, lowering his voice—though there was no need to, they were both speaking in Spanish—“that it is our aunt who runs this household? It is very clear that it is Christabel who shoulders most of the responsibility! Why, even Bateson looks to her in a crisis, you must have seen that! And the children: it seems to me that she manages them whether or not Miss Morton is present, the only difference being that when she is present it is she who gives them their formal lessons, and not our poor cousin!”

    “Um—yes, that’s certainly true.”

    “And she still finds time to perform charitable acts in the village and—and so on!”

    “I know that, Paul,” said Gaetana anxiously, taking his arm. “But most of the English ladies do.”

    “She is not an English lady: she is a girl only a few years older than you!” he said through his teeth.

    “No, she’s lots older,” said Gaetana in surprize.

    Paul wrenched his arm away and walked down the terrace.

    Gaetana bit her lip. She looked after him uncertainly. After some hesitation she went up to him and said: “Don’t be cross. I admire her, too.”

    “Sí,” he said in a stifled voice.

    Gaetana gulped. “Are you crying?” she whispered.

    “No,” he lied, sniffing.

    “Don’t cry, querido,” she said softly, taking his arm.

    Paul sniffed hard. “I miss Madre,” he admitted.

    “So do I,” agreed Gaetana, hugging his arm tightly.

    “And I’m sure she would say I behaved in a manner unworthy of a gentleman,” he said glumly.

    Gaetana thought it far more likely that Marinela would laugh. But she only hugged his arm and said: “Sí, sí. But no one can be perfect, Madre would say that, too.”

    “Sí... But—but look at me, querida. What have I ever done?”

    Gaetana thought about it. “Well, you fought at Waterloo.”

    Paul gave a scornful laugh.

    “You are looking after us,” she ventured.

    “Yes! Now!” he said bitterly. “But she has been doing it for years! And without thanks!”

    “Yes, perhaps... Though she is much admired by all who know her. And I think my aunt appreciates her. But you’re not to blame for your circumstances, Paul. You’ve never been called on to—take responsibility for anyone until now.”

    “No. Now that I look back… I blush to think that when Harry was away I was content to leave everything to Jake and Madre,” he said in a low voice.

    “You were only a boy. After all, Christa’s three years older than you.”

    “Oblige me by not referring to that fact in my presence again, Gaetana,” he said in a cold voice, pulling his arm away.

    “Paul!” she gasped.

    “I’m ashamed of you; I thought you had been more large-minded,” he said bitterly. “Were she ten years my elder I would still admire her as much as I do now!”

    “Well, you had better offer for her, then,” she said in a shaking voice.

    “Don’t joke,” said Paul through his teeth.

    “I’m not joking, only I don’t know what you expect me to SAY!” cried Gaetana desperately.

    “I’m sorry, little sister,” he said, putting his arm round her.

    Suddenly Gaetana gave a choked sob.

    “Don’t cry,” said Paul in horror. “Just because you have a great imbecile for a brother is no reason to cry!”

    “I’m not!” she choked. “It’s just— I hate England, and everything’s different, and I don’t want you to change!”

    He sighed a little and kissed her curls. “I don’t want to change, particularly, little kitten. But Harry sent me over here to learn responsibility and although I—I did not take him seriously at the time, I see now that he was right and—and I have everything to learn in that regard.”

    After a moment Gaetana said dubiously: “Maybe if you were to marry Christa, she could help you.”

    “I am very sure she could. But I wish to be—to be worthy of her respect, not to be yet another burden for her to shoulder. And at the moment,” he said, lapsing into gloom again, “I rather think she despises me.”

    “No, I expect she’s just embarrassed,” said Gaetana comfortingly.

    “Mm,” said Paul dubiously, not convinced.

    They were silent for some time.

    Finally Paul said, staring out across the garden: “It’s a very odd feeling to—to find out things about oneself one never knew. I suppose I must like strong-natured older women,” he admitted with a wry little smile.

    “Only ones with skin like milk and wild roses!” she choked.

    “Sí...” he sighed.

    “Paul, I’m afraid Tia Patty intends her to marry that Mr O’Flynn,” she warned.

    “True, but Mrs Parkinson intends her poor little daughter to have him: I believe they have a prior claim!”

    “Yes. What a pity Marybelle’s theory did not hold water and the Marquis of Crabapple does not appear attracted to Mrs O’Flynn after all,” she said carelessly, watching him out of the corner of her eye.

    Paul sniggered. “Was that her theory?”

    “Yes. Well, one of her theories. She has about fourteen different ones, the funniest being that Mrs Parkinson should become the Marchioness of Crabapple!” she choked.

    Paul fell all over the terrace laughing helplessly. True, he had not seen the Marquis and Mrs Parkinson together, but then he did not need to.

    Gaetana grinned, but also shivered a little.

    “Come on, let’s go inside, you’re cold. I’m sorry, mi querida, making you shiver in the English weather while I bore you with my idiocies!”

    “No, if you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to?” she said seriously.

    “Sí.” He put his arm around her and they went back inside.

    It was after this evening—though neither of them realized it—that Gaetana’s and Paul’s relationship began subtly to change. Gaetana began to picture him less as a permanency in her life and, indeed, to conceive of her life as not something fixed and immutable wherein she was just one of the Ainsley children, but as something that itself could change. And the idea of Paul’s being someone else’s property, once implanted, very gradually began—although it would not have been true to say that she consciously thought about the matter in these terms—to seem less improbable to her. Marinela, who was a wise woman, would have said her little kitten was beginning to grow up. Paul, being after all a mere man, only remarked in the weeks that followed that Gaetana seemed to draw closer to Cousin Hildy, and was very glad of it, because after Christabel, Hildy was definitely the best of their cousins. And he also would remark, as spring grew into summer, that the English milk seemed to be working!

    “Love and stuff,” concluded Bunch Ainsley glumly, withdrawing most of her torso from the dormer window that overlooked the terrace.

    “Told you,” said Bungo.

    “If Paul marries Christa it’ll be dreadful: she’ll make us mind our manners and eat bread and milk every morning!” she predicted with gloomy relish.

    “Was that what he was telling Gaetana? That he wants to marry Christa?” said Bungo without much interest, glancing up from his book.

    “Um, yes. Sort of. Well, it was obvious that’s what he meant. I really hate English bread and milk,” sighed Bunch.

    “Me, too. Well, it might not be bad if they gave you more sugar on it. But at least Christa’s sensible. If Paul married Amabel we’d have to spend every school holidays listening to her read soppy poems and stuff!”

    “Ugh, yes,” realized Bunch. “And tinkle on that beastly spinet, and caterwaul!”

    “And caterwaul,” agreed Bungo solemnly.

    Bunch thought it over. “I’d rather put up with the bread and milk. –Christa said she’d teach me to drive the trap!”

    “She never!”

    “Yes, she did! Well, she did say I had to write one good page of English first, only I thought,” she said, giving him a melting look, “that maybe I could copy a page of yours?”

    “What’ll you give me for it?” replied Bungo tersely.

    “Um... I haven’t got anything,” said Bunch sadly. “I was going to stuff that dove, only Hildy stopped me.”

    “I’ll have your snake,” he offered.

    “No, it’s worth much more, I wouldn’t give it up for twenty pages of English and—and learning to drive a four-in-hand like the Marquis of Crabapple!”

    A cunning look came into Bungo’s dark eye.

    “What?” she said eagerly.

    “You know the Vicar? –Holy Hilary,” he added in English.

    Bunch nodded.

    “Get me one of his cucumbers out of his cucumber frame.”

    Bunch thought it over. “Is it a mortal sin, stealing from an English vicar?”

    “No idea. I shouldn’t think so, though.”

    “Oh,” she said sadly. “Never mind, I’ll do it anyway! One cucumber for one page, all right?”

    “Yes. Only it’s got to be a good, well-grown one. I’m going to have a week of cucumber with vinegar and salt for breakfast!”

    “It’ll go soft.”

    “All right, two days.”

    “It’s your stomach,” decided Bunch.

    “Remember those radis noirs we used to get in Brussels?” he said reminiscently.

    Bunch sighed. “I’ve never even seen one here.”

    “No.”

    “I’ll take a look round Holy Hilary’s garden, while I’m at it,” she decided.

    “He won’t have any. But he might have those little red ones, they’re not bad with salt and fresh butter.”

    Bunch patted her stomach. “Mm-mm!”

    “Go tomorrow,” he suggested.

    “Well, have you got a page of English I could copy?” she demanded.

    “Over there,” said Bungo, returning to his book.

    Bunch scrambled over to the little table where Bungo kept his treasures. And unfortunately the everlasting devoirs that Christabel forced him to do every evening in order to get his English up to scratch for Winchester. She came back looking puzzled. “I can’t understand this.”

    “No,” said Bungo into his book.

    “What’s it about?”

    “It’s out of the newspaper,” he said, not looking up.

    “But she won’t let you copy,” she said blankly.

    “No! Idiot! I read the thing in the paper, see, and then I wrote that! And Christa said it was good! And if you copy that, she’ll know you copied it, nyah!” he said, momentarily forgetting about the cucumber.

    “Well, what’s it about?” wailed Bunch.

    “Try reading it.”

    “It’s too hard!”

    Bungo ignored her.

    She muttered to herself. “Ballon,” she said finally.

    “‘Balloon!’“ he said scornfully in English.

    “Is this about a balloon ascension?” she screeched indignantly.

    “Yes.”

    “Bungo! Why didn’t you read it to ME?” she shouted.

    “Ssh! Someone’ll hear you!”

    “Sí: Amabel, she’ll come and caterwaul!” she hissed, giggling.

    “Poor darling dead kitty,” warbled Bungo in his piercing soprano.

    “Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!” squeaked Bunch ecstatically, pretending she was playing the spinet.

    “Drowned in a tub of goldfishes, poor darling dead goldfishes,” warbled Bungo.

    “Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, you’ve got that wrong!” squeaked Bunch.

    “Never—tinkle—mind—poor darling dead kitties and goldfishes and darling dead white dove!” warbled Bungo.

    Bunch collapsed in giggles. Bungo, overcome by the combination of his own wit and its effect on his twin, also collapsed in giggles.

    The door opened.

    “¡Ay de mi!” gasped Bunch, making a bolt into bed.

    “Sí, ay de mi. What are you two doing up at this hour?” said Paul grimly.

    “We thought you were downstairs,” gulped Bungo, shoving his book under the covers.

    “That’s self-evident.” He wrenched back the covers. “What’s this?” He peered at it by the light of Bungo’s illicit candle. “The Monk?” he croaked.

    “It’s good. It’s hard, though.”

    Paul just looked at him.

    “And Christa lent it to me, so it must be all right!” he said desperately.

    “Liar,” said Paul automatically. He opened the book. “¡Madre de Dios!”

    “See!” cried Bungo, as Paul stared at their cousin’s name on the flyleaf.

    “I’ll verify this,” decided Paul grimly, tucking it under his arm.

    “All right: you win. I borrowed it from her room. Only she wouldn’t read anything bad!” said Bungo defiantly.

    “It might not be bad, but that doesn’t mean you’re old enough to read it,” said Paul. “Um—well, I’ll ask her,” he decided weakly.

    “It is improving my English,” said Bungo, even more weakly.

    “Mm. Maybe. –I’ll take this,” he added, gathering up the candle.

    “Oh! Pau-aul!” wailed Bunch.

    “It’s time to go to sleep.” He went over to the door. “But if you must have light, open your curtains, there’s a moon: you could try caterwauling at that.” He went out.

    There was dead silence in the twins’ room.

    Finally Bunch hissed: “Do you think he heard about the cucumber?”

   Bungo brightened. “No, because he’d have told us off. You can get it tomorrow morning!”

    “Gotcha, you little varmint!” panted Old Jeremy.

    “OW!” screamed Bunch as he grabbed her ungently by the skirts.

    “What are you up to, eh, amongst Reverend Parkinson’s cucumber frames?” he asked grimly.

    Bunch was about to say it was self-evident, but thought better of it. “Comment?” she replied, assuming the face of a simpleton of approximately three years of age.

    “None of that,” he grunted. “I knows you, Miss Varmint, and I knows you can talk the hind leg off a donkey—aye, and what’s more not in no furrin talk, neither!”

    “Je ne vous comprend pas, monsieur,” said Bunch without conviction.

    “Right, then: we’ll see whether you’ll have the cheek to speak furrin to Reverend Parkinson!” he said loudly, dragging her towards the house. “And what’s more he can speak furrin hisself, so don’t think you’re off scot-free, Miss Cheek!”

    Hilary rose early but it was so very early that he was only in his dressing-gown and was very surprized indeed by Mrs Meek’s urgent summons to come down and settle the young varmint that Jeremy had caught amongst his cucumber frames.

    “Very well, if you think I should, Mrs Meek.”

    “That I do, Vicar! It’s that young niece of Mrs Maddern’s, the one that’s been running wild all over the country, scaring the living daylights out of poor Mr Jenkins’s cows and—and rampaging up and down like a heathen, sir!”

    “I don’t think the Ainsley children are used to country life,” he said mildly, gesturing her to precede him. “And after all, Jenkins explained, did he not, that chasing the cows is not good for the milk?”

    “Aye, the first time!” she said darkly, nodding significantly.

    “Oh,” said Hilary weakly. “Er—in here, are they?”

    “No, indeed, sir!” said Mrs Meek as he paused with his hand on the parlour door. “I hope I know what’s what in a gentleman’s house by now!”

    Hilary repressed a sigh. He had recently represented to Mrs Meek that as he generally dined alone it might be easier for both of them if he just ate off a tray in his study, rather than in solitary state at the head of his dining table—a heavy blackened oak thing which was apparently the property of the parish. But evidently trays in studies were not what was what in a gentleman’s house.

    Mrs Meek, not without a passing reference to the state of Old Jeremy’s boots, led the way to the kitchen. Old Jeremy was standing on a piece of newspaper.

    “She were stealing our cucumbers, sir,” he said without preamble.

    “Good gracious: why?” responded Hilary.

    Bunch merely scowled but Old Jeremy burst out: “Because there ain’t much else to steal—aye, an’ iffen there was she’da had that, too, Mrs Hodges saw the pair of ’em stealing baby carrots out of Widow Pruitt’s cottage garden last Friday morning as ever was, and Jim Bottle, he reckons it was them what had the last of Mr Shallcrass’s fine cabbages as he were savin’ for—”

    “Possibly, but this is hearsay, Jeremy,” said Hilary firmly.

    “’Earsay, is it, Vicar?” he retorted grimly. “Well, I dunno as to ’earsay, but I do know as some varmint done wrote ‘E,A’ with a burnt stick on every single one of young Mrs Lobben’s sheets last washday! And I’ve yet to hear that the boy’s name starts with E,” he added grimly.

    Young Mrs Lobben took in washing. “Oh, dear,” said Hilary.

    Bunch endeavoured to look angelic.

    “What is your name?” he asked.

    “Je ne vous comprend pas, mon père,” said Bunch, looking angelic.

    Hilary replied drily: “En Angleterre on ne dit pas ‘mon père’, tu n’es plus en Belgie, tu sais. Que t’appelles-tu?”

    “Elinor,” she said sulkily.

    “Aye: that’ll be her name, sir!” said Old Jeremy encouragingly.

    Mrs Meek sniffed loudly.

    “And were you stealing my cucumbers?” asked Hilary, not looking as if he was about to believe either a denial or any further pretence at linguistic ignorance.

    Bunch looked sulky.

    “Outa course she were!” gasped Old Jeremy. “She had it in ’er ’and when I caught ’er, sir!” With his free hand he brandished a very small cucumber.

    “I see. You may release her, I think, Jeremy.”

    “Release this one, Mr Parkinson?” he gasped. “She’s as slippery as a h’eel! Jim Bottle was telling me that Mrs Shallcrass’s cook’s back weren’t turned no more than an instant and she’s in through the pantry window, grabs up a pot of jelly, and out the door afore anyone can so much as draw breath!”

    “I’ll guard the door, sir!” gasped the scullery maid eagerly.

    “You will do no such thing, Betsy Bottle, and get on with those vegetables,” said Mrs Meek grimly.

    Betsy returned glumly to the chopping of vegetables for soup.

    “You haven’t answered me, Elinor,” said Hilary mildly.

    Bunch replied soulfully: “It was for my brother, sir. His stomach’s suffering something dreadful from the English food.”

    Mrs Meek gave an indignant gasp.

    “That’ll be a lie, Reverend,” advised Old Jeremy.

    “Er—no doubt. Thank you very much, Jeremy, I think I can deal with this. –Come along, Elinor, you may come and share my breakfast,”—Mrs Meek gave another indignant gasp—“and explain why you and your brother find it necessary to—er—rampage over the countryside, stealing food. And then we’ll think of some fitting punishment. –Is that cucumber fit to eat?” he asked the indignant gardener.

    “That is ain’t, sir, and you won’t find no cucumber in these parts what is!”

    “No, no, I wasn’t criticizing your expertise, Jeremy. I merely thought that if it were, we might deprive Master Ainsley of it. Well, you had better put it in the rubbish, I suppose.”

    Old Jeremy looked at it sadly. “It can go on the compost. And a right waste it is, sir!”

    “Yes, indeed!” agreed Mrs Meek with feeling. “And you’ll excuse me, sir, but are you really intending to waste a decent breakfast on this little—”

    “Yes,” said Hilary hurriedly. “Please bring— Well, whatever you think would be suitable,” he ended on a weak note.

    “Couldn’t I have the same as you?” asked Bunch with a melting look.

    “Very well.” Hilary took her hand, but to Bunch’s astonishment in a grip of steel. “I’ve got her, you may safely release her, Jeremy.”

    Reluctantly Jeremy did so.

    “Come along, Elinor,” said the Vicar.

    “Soft,” concluded Old Jeremy as they exited, shaking his head in disgust.

    This was precisely Mrs Meek’s opinion, but she rubbished it briskly, shooed him out of the kitchen, and reproved Betsy Bottle for standing there like a great gawk with her mouth at half-cock. And get on with them vegetables, or Mr Parkinson would be wondering where his soup was, come dinner-time!

    “You may sit there,” said the Reverend Hilary firmly in the little dining parlour, closing the door.

    Bunch looked round the room carefully but the Vicar was between her and the door, and the windows were shut. She sat down at the table.

    Hilary sat down facing her. “How would you define basic honesty, Elinor?”

    Bunch pouted. “Telling the truth, I suppose.”

    “Possibly.”

    She looked at him warily.

    “I would say, rather, it is behaving at all times towards others as we would wish them to behave towards us.”

    Bunch glared. “That isn’t honesty!”

    “Yes, it is. Think about it.”

    Bunch thought about it, scowling.

    “What if it were your cucumber?” he said.

    “But you have lots of cucumbers and Bungo only wanted one!” she said, endeavouring to give him a melting look.

    “True. I phrased that rather badly. It wasn’t myself I meant. Put yourself in Old Jeremy’s place. He has worked very hard to raise those cucumbers, in especial as spring has been unusually cold, this year.”

    Bunch pouted.

    “And young Mrs Lobben rises before dawn on washday to do all those sheets: she is a widow, with seven children, and takes in washing to support them,” he said in a detached voice.

    Bunch went very red and glared.

    Hilary waited for a few moments. Then he said: “However delightful the sensation of pride in one’s own daring may be”—she glared again—“I find it hard to believe that an underlying consciousness of guilt does not spoil it somewhat.”

    After a moment she muttered: “So what?”

    “Well, would it not be more enjoyable to find some exploits that would not involve harming the welfare or property of others?”

    “But it’s boring here! There’s nothing to do!” she cried.

    Hilary didn’t ask what she and her brother had found in European city life to allay their boredom: apart from the fact that she wouldn’t have told him the truth he had a fair idea that they must have got up to very similar mischief. “What would you like to do?”

    After a moment Bunch admitted unwillingly: “Christa said she would teach me to drive the trap. –Only I have to write a page of stupid English first and I can’t, it’s too hard!” she cried.

    “I see. But if you succeed, you would earn your driving lessons, would you not?”

    “Yes,” she conceded, scowling.

    “Is there anyone who could help you with your English?” he asked.

    “Maria says if she helps me it won’t be my work!”

    “She is correct in that. I didn’t mean do it for you, Elinor, I meant help you to practise.”

    “They’re all busy with stupid dressmakers and hats and stuff!” she cried.

    “Yes, I suppose this is a very busy time for your relatives,” he said with a little sigh. “But perhaps Miss Marybelle might help you?”

    “No. Her and Maria are hand-in-glove,” she said, pouting.

    “Then the youngest one? Floss?”

    “Floss can’t write all that good. Christa said she was nearly as bad as me,” she admitted. “And she can’t read hard words, either.”

    The Vicar hesitated. “When do you all remove to London, Elinor?”

    Bunch sighed. “Not for another sixteen days.”

    “I see,” he said in some amusement. “Then I shall ask your aunt if you and your brother may come to me for some coaching.” She scowled but he added: “If Miss Morton would not feel insulted to have two of her pupils removed: what do you think?”

    “Me?” she said, goggling at him.

    “Yes. What do you think?” repeated the Vicar tranquilly.

    “Um— Well,” she gulped, “I heard her telling Christa that she couldn’t cope with us on top of Floss and Marybelle, and it wasn’t what she’d been hired for!”

    “In that case I shall walk back with you after breakfast and put it to Mrs Maddern immediately.”

    Bunch looked at him uncertainly. “Bungo has to do hard sums,” she warned.

    “I can do hard sums.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Can you do that ‘mensa, a table’ stuff?”

    The Vicar declined mensa, a table, though with a distinct twinkle in his eye.

    “Good,” she said with a sigh. “Bungo says it’s hard. Hildy was trying to teach him, only she said his skull was so thick she’d have more effect if she hit it with the mensa rather than trying to get it in through his ears!”

    The Vicar had to bite his lip. “I see. Er, does Miss Hildy read Latin, then?”

    “I thought it was Greek? Yes, she knows all those. Bungo said if only he could pack her in a bag and take her to Winchester with him, he’d never have to mug the stuff up again!”

    The Vicar bit his lip again. “I see. Er—where did Miss Hildy learn her Greek and Latin, Elinor?”

    Bunch saw nothing odd in this insistence on the theme of Hildy and was merely glad that the theme of cucumbers seemed to have been dropped. So she returned readily: “She learnt it off the last Father, I mean vicar: the old man that died. She was going for a walk the other day and me and Bungo went with her, because Miss Morton said she couldn’t stand another min— Um, never mind that. Only where she was going was the graveyard and when she got there she cried. Bungo said if God was any good He’d make you go away and bring the old vicar back,”—she eyed him warily—“but Hildy said that was—um... some hard word. She meant he shouldn’t have said it.”

    “Blasphemous?”

    “It could have been. She said that in the Christian faith,”—she eyed him warily again—“only Jésus-Christ rose again.”

    “Yes. If I thought my going away could make Miss Hildegarde happy I should go, believe me,” he said glumly.

    “I like Hildy,” agreed Bunch simply.

    The Vicar reddened. “Well, some concentrated coaching for the next sixteen days had better be your punishment, I think, Elinor.”

     Bunch sighed. “All right. Only not on Sundays, I suppose?”

    “No, I am normally rather occupied on Sundays,” he agreed with a twinkle.

    Suddenly she confided: “Père Boniface said that Jean-Paul de Breuil would be damned forever because he stole some of the—the wine—du sacrement, vous savez?”

    “Yes, the communion wine. I can see that to Père Boniface that must have been a grave sin,” he agreed.

    Bunch looked disconcerted. “Sí...”

    Hilary hesitated. Then he said: “God gives us rules for our conduct, Elinor, both in order to help us know how to behave and in order to protect our fellow human beings. But that does not mean that He is not a forgiving God.”

    “Ye-es... So maybe Jean-Paul won’t be damned after all?”

    “I would doubt it. Of course,” he said with a lurking twinkle, aware that she was trying not to look vastly disappointed, “possibly if he were a hopeless recidivist—I’m sorry, Elinor, that means if he was a backslider who sinned again and again, knowing he was doing wrong—then possibly he would be damned.”

    “Yes,” agreed Bunch, cheering up visibly. “Possibly he would be! –You can call me Bunch,” she added.

    Hilary was aware that an honour was being conferred on him. “Thank you, Bunch, I should like to. Ah, here is Mrs Meek with a delicious breakfast!” he added gaily, smiling at his grim-faced handmaiden.

    Mrs Meek merely looked grimmer than ever.

    “Du jambon!” gasped Bunch ecstatically.

    “Yes, indeed: Mrs Meek frequently gives me ham for my breakfast: she knows it’s a weakness of mine. And wonderful hot rolls and fresh butter.”

    “For-mi-dable!” gasped Bunch.

    “Yes. But we shall not start without saying grace, of course.”

    “What?” she said blankly.

     Mrs Meek shut her eyes for a moment—not for the grace.

    Hilary translated.

    “Oh,” she said in a puzzled voice. “Comme les moines, en effet.”

    “Yes. I also am in Holy Orders.”

    “Yes, I was forgetting,” she agreed cheerfully.

    Mrs Meek drew a deep breath. “Will that be all, Vicar?”

    “Yes: thank you very much, Mrs Meek.”

     Mrs Meek bowed slightly and withdrew.

    “Do I have to kneel?” asked Bunch.

    “No, just bow your head.”

    She bowed her head but looked fixedly at the ham.

    Hilary reflected that in his Saviour’s eyes the child’s gratitude for the ham was undoubtedly more blessed than any false piety, so he smiled a little and recited a very short grace.

    “Thank you!” she breathed as he put some generous slices of ham on her plate. “Which do you like best, ham or rosbif?”

    Hilary considered this seriously. “Do you know, it’s very hard to say. When I feel like ham I would have to say ham. But when I feel like roast beef I would definitely say roast beef. I suppose I like them both equally.”

    “Me, too!” She ate hungrily but after a moment said: “Say a person stole something, only not something holy like the wine, would he be damned?”

    “No. I think you refine too much upon the idea of damnation, Bunch. God is a forgiving God. If the person truly repented then he would not be damned. And in any case I doubt that God would damn a person merely for stealing.”

    “Oh. –Can I have some coffee?”

    “‘May I have some coffee, please?’”

    Bunch said quickly: “May I have some coffee, please?”

    “Yes, certainly. Use one of the cups in that sideboard,” he said, nodding at it,

    She drank the rather milky, sugary cup he poured for her eagerly. “Ooh, lovely! Thank you, Vicar! –Bateson says Roman Catholics are damned,” she offered abruptly.

    “But Bateson is not, I believe, a clergyman of the Church of England?”

    “No, she’s only a maid. And Maria says that Protestants are damned.”

    “If God is love, can that be so? Would He damn anyone merely for having been born in a Catholic or a Protestant country?”

    “Well, Bungo and me don’t think so. And Hildy said the whole idea made nonsense of Christian theo-something.”

    “Theology. I would tend to agree with her.”

    “Yes,” said Bunch with a sigh. “I never thought about religion before.”

    “No. It’s difficult, isn’t it?”

    “It can’t be difficult for you!” she gasped, staring at him.

    “Yes, of course it is. Such things are difficult for everybody who thinks seriously about them.”

    “I’ll tell Hildy,” she said determinedly.

    “Why?” he asked, blushing, and looking down at his coffee.

    “She said it was no use talking to you about God because you wouldn’t have an open mind. She said only old Dr—the old man that died—he was the only one with an open mind and that he was a raree.”

    Hilary had to swallow.

    “No, I think I mean a rarity.”

    “Yes,” he said, swallowing again. “A rarity. I wish very much that I had known him.”

    “Yes. –Hildy says girls have got as much brains as boys.”

    “Yes, indeed. The sex a person is born with has nothing whatever to do with their brains.”

    “Yes, I think so, too. Only if you’re a girl you have to do really boring things!”

    Hilary looked at her with great sympathy. “I see. Well, I shall try not to make lessons boring over the next sixteen days, Bunch, and in between the lessons—provided you work hard at them,” he added with a lurking twinkle—“we could drive my trap and perhaps ride my hack. Do you ride?”

    “Sort of. Your horse is black, isn’t he?”

    “Yes, with a white blaze on his nose.”

    Bunch nodded. “He’s big, isn’t he?”

    Hilary replied calmly: “Very big. But you could come up before me.”

    “Yes!” she said, beaming. “Bungo can’t ride good, either.”

    “Then he shall come up before me, as well. You may take it in turns. And when you’re both used to Lightning, then you can sit on him by yourselves while I lead him. That’s how I learned. My papa taught me.”

    “Pa said he’d beat us if he caught us anywhere near his horses. Only I must admit that was after Bungo fell off old Brun. –If you’re hungry at Tia Patty’s house they always say to fill up on bread and milk, only it isn’t tasty,” she said as he carved more ham for her and gave her the last roll. She ate hungrily. “Have you ever had lobster?”

    “Certainly. It’s very agreeable. Though a delicacy, of course. And I believe some people suffer from a horrid allergy to it: it brings them out in spots.”

    “Good, then I hope they’ll all come out in spots!”

    “Who?”

    Bunch scowled. “All the people at the beastly party. Well, not you,” she added generously.

    “Isn’t that a bit hard?” he said mildly.

    “Well, they wouldn’t be having lobster at all if it wasn’t for me: it was me that caught him, he’d have crawled out the kitchen door if I hadn’t grabbed him. Betsy Bottle was there but she screamed and jumped on a chair, Bateson said she was useless and she’d better watch out or she’d send her home to her mother! And Berthe says there won’t be any left for me.”

    The Vicar’s eyes sparkled. “I see. That does sound a bit hard. The labourer must always be worthy of his—or her—hire.”

    “Yes. I’ve never had it,” she revealed glumly.

    Hilary smiled at her. “Then you cannot know you would like it.”

   “No. Hildy hasn’t had it, either, only she says it probably won’t be like it’s cracked up to be, it’ll be like red wine.”

    “Like red wine?” said Hilary rather weakly, hoping that Bunch wasn’t going to confess to having joined Master Jean-Paul de Breuil in the communion wine.

    “Yes. When I was little I begged to have it because everyone else did. And Pa did say I wouldn’t like it, not even watered with some sugar. And then he let me taste his and it was horrible. And Hildy says when she was little she drank some that was left after a dinner party and it was horrid, too.”

    “I see. Wine is an acquired taste. I have to admit that I liked lobster immediately, though!” he said, grinning.

    “I knew it,” stated Bunch glumly. “Well, just wait until I’m grown up, I’m going to marry a very rich man and have a horse of my own and a trap and eat lobster and ham and rosbif every day!”

    “A worthy ambition,” noted the Vicar drily.

    She scowled.

    “Well, you did not have to say it, did you?” he said mildly.

    Suddenly she grinned. “No. I must admit it was stupid of me!”

    … “You were wrong, he’s all right,” she said firmly to Hildy as the latter brushed out the tangles in her hair while the Vicar spoke to Mrs Maddern in the parlour. “Ow!”

    “Sorry. –What do you mean, all right?”

    “He talks to me as if I’m a real person.”

    “Oh. Um—yes, he was very kind to Marybelle and Floss,” said Hildy uncertainly.

    “Not kind!” she said scornfully. “Ow-oow!”

    “Sorry: it’s full of knots.”

    “I wish I was a boy. –He said religious things are difficult for everybody who thinks seriously about them. Even him. And he wasn’t being kind!” she added loudly.

    “I see. You mean he took you seriously?” said Hildy, ceasing to brush.

    Bunch nodded hard. “Yes. Like you said your vicar did!”

    “Yes,” said Hildy in an uncertain voice.

    “And he didn’t preach. And he says a person wouldn’t be damned just for being born in a Roman Catholic country!”

    “Really?” she said weakly.

    “Yes, so you were wrong about that, too! He has got an open mind!”

    “He must have,” said Hildy in a shaken voice. “Bunch, you—you are sure that you’re not reading more than he meant into what he said?”

    “’Course I’m not! I’m not stupid!”

    Hildy knew now that she wasn’t—in fact, even though Bungo was getting on much faster with English, she knew that Bunch was really much brighter than he. However, Bunch was after all only ten, and it was highly unlikely that she would be capable of reading more into the Vicar’s words than he had meant.

    “He let me eat lots of ham!” she added eagerly.

    “Yes, you said,” agreed Hildy weakly. “That doesn’t prove he’s got an open mind on religion, Bunch.”

    “I know that! I’m not STUPID!” she shouted angrily.

    “No. I’m sorry, Bunch, I was talking down to you.”

    Bunch looked mollified. “He didn’t.”

    “So I gather.”

    “He never said it was a sin to steal the cucumber, either.”

    “What?” said Hildy weakly.

    Bunch reddened and shuffled her feet. “Um—well, that was why I was there... Well, he’s got lots and lots! Only I see what he means, that silly Old Jeremy was proud of the beastly things,” she said glumly.

    “I see,” said Hildy, staring at her. “Um—are you ready?”

    “I suppose I’d better wear a bonnet,” she admitted glumly

    “Oh—yes.” Hildy found her bonnet and tied its strings for her.

    “Tia Patty will let us, won’t she?”

    “Well, she’s afraid it might be an imposition: Vicars have to do parish visits and things. But I should think she will, though.”

    “Good!”

    They went downstairs together smiling. However, at the foot of the stairs Hildy took Bunch’s hand very tightly.

    “I’m not scared!” she said in astonishment.

    “No,” agreed Hildy, going very red. “You’re not—no.”

    Bunch goggled at her. “You don’t have to be afraid of him! He’s not like Père Boniface!”

    “Er—no.”

    “If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone, ’specially not Christa?”

    “Um—well, it’s not something bad, is it?”

    “No. Well—only a bit rude. Want to hear it?” Hildy nodded. Bunch tugged at her hand. She bent down and Bunch hissed in her ear: “Me and Bungo call him ‘Holy Hilary’!”

    Hildy released her hand and went into a strangled paroxysm, ending up having to hang onto the newel post.

    “Ssh!” hissed Bunch, jumping up and down. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

    “Perfect! Oh dear, he is awfully—um—good, isn’t he?”

    Bunch nodded fervently.

    “I suppose vicars have to be,” admitted Hildy, blowing her nose. “Oh, dear,” she added, looking at the closed parlour door.

    “Don’t be afraid, Hildy, I’m with you!” Bunch took her hand very firmly and led her shrinking form into the parlour.

    Mrs Maddern beamed upon the sight of Paul politely asking his Cousin Amabel to dance. She did not remark that Mr Liam O’Flynn at this precise moment was making strainedly polite conversation with Mrs Parkinson whilst unable to take his eyes from Amabel, nor that her eldest daughter, who was seated at her side, had clenched her hands on her fan until her knuckles showed white.

    “He is a most pretty-behaved young man,” she sighed. “A credit to dear Marinela!”

    “Yes, Mamma.”

    “Of course,” she said, patting Christabel’s arm but not looking at her, “he had to invite you first, my love, it would not have been proper otherwise, with you being the eldest daughter of the house!”

    “No, Mamma,” said Christabel in a colourless voice. This point had already occurred to her. Nevertheless she went very pale as her mother made it.

    “I did fear,” said Mrs Maddern, lowering her voice, “that that tiresome young R.S.”—she nodded significantly, though still not looking round from the gratifying sight of Amabel and Paul dancing gracefully together—“might monopolize your sister, certainly in the wake of what I do not scruple to call his most particular attentions at Mrs S.’s last little supper dance,”—she nodded graciously across the room; Mrs Shallcrass inclined the ostrich-feather headdress majestically in return—“but fortunately dear little Gaetana has quite captivated him!” She gave a pleased trill of laughter.

    “Yes, Mamma,” said Miss Maddern dully. At the occasion of what her mother had then referred to as Mrs Shallcrass’s ball, Mrs Maddern had been in seventh heaven at the sight of Robert Shallcrass inviting Amabel to dance a second time. Christabel did not now remind her of this fact, however.

    ... “Dearest Amabel is in such glowing spirits tonight,” approved Mrs Parkinson.

    “Yes, indeed, Mamma: that jonquil shade does so become her!” agreed Dorothea eagerly.

    Mrs Parkinson did not glance at her daughter being wasted in black silk because to say truth at this precise moment she could not have supported the sight with fortitude. “Indeed,” she allowed. “But one does not often see her in such high spirits.”

    “Anything Miss Amabel does must become her,” said Mr O’Flynn in a very low voice.

    “Oh, yes, indeed, Mr O’Flynn!” agreed Dorothea eagerly.

    “Most certainly: naturally I did not mean to imply the least criticism! Only, dear Amabel is not always so—well, so animated as we see her tonight,” ended Mrs Parkinson, a trifle lamely.

    “No. I think she has been rather worried— Well, she has expressed concern to me that her mamma was not able to bring Hildy out last year,” admitted Dorothea.

    “That is so very like her! Always thinking of others,” approved Mr O’Flynn eagerly.

    “She is the best-natured young woman alive, I am sure,” said Mrs Parkinson in an absent voice, eyeing Sir Julian Naseby across the room. Was he about to approach? –No, bother! He was asking that awful Shallcrass girl to dance!

    ... “In that mauve Thing?” said Mrs Maddern awfully as Miss Shallcrass, all coy giggles, rose eagerly.

    Miss Maddern replied in a tired voice: “Sir Julian has perfect manners, Mamma. I do not think he is the kind of gentleman who would neglect any young lady. Mauve or not.”

    “With primrose ribbons?” asked Mrs Maddern deeply.

    Miss Maddern repressed a wince.

    “That Woman,” pronounced Mrs Maddern, “has no taste! The girl looks disastrous. And remark,” she said with a stifled giggle, “the ribbons do not match the curls! Oh, here is dear Mr O’Flynn, my love. Now, I am sure—”

    Christabel suffered herself to be led into the dance by Mr O’Flynn. Soon she found she was agreeing with him that Amabel looked charmingly tonight and appeared in the best of spirits. At least Amabel wasn’t dancing with Paul again at this precise moment, she reflected dully. But Paul, quite obviously, was far too well-mannered to ask any young lady for a second dance when there were other young ladies present whom he had not favoured. She did not notice that Mr O’Flynn’s agreement with her colourless remark that Amabel and young Mr Overton made a charming couple was equally colourless.

    ... “Yes, come and sit by us for a little, dearest,” approved Mrs Parkinson.

    Hilary sank onto a chair beside his mamma.

    “It is a very pleasant party, is it not?” she said.

    “Oh—certainly, Mamma,” he agreed with an effort.

    “You do not remark on your sister’s looks, dear one,” she said on an anxious note.

    Hilary smiled his lovely smile. Not for the first or even the five hundredth time Mrs Parkinson reflected that if only, only, only Dorothea had been as good-looking, of course in a more feminine way, as Hilary, then there would have been no saying— Why, she would have had the Marquis of Rockingham, to name but one, at her feet in a trice! A trice. How totally unfair it was! Not that dearest Dorothea was not a pretty girl, but even a mother’s heart had to admit that next to her brother…

    Unaware of the thoughts going through his mother’s head, not to say of her traitorous mother’s heart, Hilary said: “Indeed, I am very pleased to see you looking in such spirits, dear sister.”

    Dorothea replied with her shy smile: “Mamma and Uncle O’Flynn were quite right to urge me to come. It is so lovely, with all the young people dancing! I declare I feel quite taken out of myself.”

    “Yes, and very soon—well, at the proper time, of course,” said Mrs Parkinson hurriedly, recollecting that dear Hilary as a man of the cloth might take a fairly severe view of the matter: “you will be able to put off your mourning and dance again yourself!”

    “Not soon, Mamma,” she said in a tiny voice.

    “Er—no. It would not be suitable, Mamma,” said Hilary on an anxious note.

    “No,” replied his mother grimly. “You are perfectly right, of course, dear boy.”

    Dorothea looked at her anxiously, but said only: “But you do not dance yourself, Hilary? I am sure it would not be inappropriate.”

    “No, exactly. Though whom you might dance with!” said Mrs Parkinson with a cross little shrug.

    “Mamma,” murmured Dorothea reproachfully, flushing.

    Mrs Parkinson, still sounding cross, replied in a very lowered voice: “My dear, we know the Maddern girls are charming creatures, but they will have nothing, you know!”

    “That is scarcely worthy of you, Mamma,” said Hilary, going very white.

    “Very well, then: ask them to dance while your sister sits here like a—a bump on a log, I am sure I do not care!”

    “Dearest Mamma, hush,” said Dorothea, laying a hand gently on her mamma’s impressive black and purple silk knee.—Mrs Parkinson had gone into half-mourning, and if Hilary was to breathe a word she had every intention of favouring him with her opinion of the late Captain. Because frankly, she had suffered enough!—“I am perfectly happy.”

    “Well, so am not I!” said Mrs Parkinson, blinking furiously.

    Hilary picked up the plump, beringed hand that was nearest his own and kissed it. “I shall not ask any young lady to dance: I do not feel that a man of the cloth should disport himself in such a manner. And all these young people are very much my junior, you know.”

    Mrs Parkinson did an immediate about-face. “Nonsense, my dear! You are but a boy, still!”

    Hilary was almost thirty. “Hardly that,” he noted. “You can scarcely compare me to young Shallcrass, for example!” he said with a little smile as Robert and Gaetana twirled past them.

    “Nonsense, you are ten times better looking than he, my love!” she protested desperately.

    Hilary opened his perfect mouth.

    “And do not tell me I am worldly, I do not care! If someone in this family has not the sense to be worldly, what will come to us all?”

    “Hush. I am very glad you have the sense to be worldly,” he said, kissing her hand again. “But I do not care to dance with any of these children, and I am persuaded it would not be fitting in me to do so. However,” he said with a meaningful twinkle, “should a more mature lady of great charm—not to say worldly good sense—care to honour me—?”

    “Ridiculous boy!” she cried with a trill of laughter. “Why, I am wearing a train! Besides, I am in half-mourning,” she added hurriedly.

    “Well, I am vastly disappointed and—and will sit here with my arms crossed, scowling, throughout the evening, as Lord Byron is reputed to do!” he said with a laugh.

    “Truly?” gasped Dorothea.

    Hilary nodded, eyes sparkling. “So I am informed.”

    “Good gracious, what an odd appearance it must present!” wondered Mrs Parkinson. “And him a lord!”

    “Who told you, Hilary?” asked Dorothea.

    “Oh, an impeccable source!” he said, smiling gaily.

    “Oh; was it Sir Julian?”

    Hilary’s smile faded. “No. It was not he,” he said shortly.

   ... Lady Overton nodded significantly. Mrs Shallcrass inclined the ostrich feathers in majestic agreement. Lady Overton permitted herself a slight sniff.

    Mrs Shallcrass then said in a careless voice: “Foreign, of course, my dear.”

    “Quite.”

    After a moment Mrs Shallcrass added, glancing at Mrs Maddern, who was beaming fondly upon the spectacle of her foreign niece’s flirting unrestrainedly with Mr Robert Shallcrass: “Of course, one might expect no less from that direction.”

    “No, indeed.”

    “I am only glad,” said Mrs Shallcrass airily, with a twitch of the headdress, “that the elder son is not present—his attentions to Pamela last summer really became far too particular!” She gave an annoyed little laugh. “And of course it would not do!”

    Lady Overton was under the impression that, on the contrary, Hal Maddern had demonstrated only the most fleeting interest in Miss Shallcrass; but she nodded understandingly and said: “Oh, quite. And even though he is the elder son—” She shrugged a little.

    “Well, precisely! My dear, do you know that foreign woman cooked the dinner this evening? She has not even hired another cook since her woman left her flat!”

    Lady Overton sniffed slightly, as of one who was not surprised. “A decent enough family, I suppose, on the father’s side, but then every question,”—she looked hard at Paul—“must still hover over that side!”

    The heir to Ainsley Manor had abandoned his earlier flirtation with his Cousin Amabel and was now sitting attentively by the widowed Mrs O’Flynn and her relatives. He had danced only one dance with Pamela Shallcrass.

    “Absolutely!” agreed Mrs Shallcrass with an annoyed tinkle of laughter.

    ... “How glad I am that I decided to allow the young people to dance!” declared Mrs Maddern.

    Christabel was again at her mamma’s side. “Yes, Mamma.”

    “Dear Amabel is—is positively glowing tonight: do you not think, dearest?”

    “Yes, Mamma.” Miss Maddern rose. “I think, if you should not object, I shall take Miss Morton’s place at the instrument for a little.”

    “Very well, my dear, just for a little.” Mrs Maddern tugged at her gown urgently. Christabel looked down at her in some surprize. “But if Sir Julian should ask you to dance, my love, you are to resign your place to Miss Morton immediately!” she hissed.

    “I dare say he will not,” she noted drily. “But very well, Mamma, I shall if you wish it.”

    She went off before Mrs Maddern could say of course she wished it: what was wrong with dear Christa tonight?

    ... Lady Overton eyed the spectacle of Mrs Maddern’s third daughter once again encouraging Sir Julian Naseby to flirt outrageously with her. “And one hesitates to ask it, but where on earth did she”—she did not mean Hildegarde—“meet Sir Julian Naseby, one wonders?”

    Mrs Shallcrass lowered her voice confidentially. “My dear, the merest chance encounter at Mrs Parkinson’s house, I gather! A bare acquaintanceship! And when he chanced to call in the company of Mr O’Flynn, she immediately—”

    Lady Overton’s already significant bosom swelled portentously. “Say no more, I beg,” she begged her.

    Mrs Shallcrass inclined the headdress, in full sympathy with her sentiments.

    ... “I am persuaded you ought not to ask me for another dance, Sir Julian!” said Hildy with a giggle, very flown on compliments and party.

    “You cannot be so cruel! When I have dashed desperately across the dusty plains in order to prevent your untimely escape, too!” he protested, waving at the crowded two rooms thrown into one where the party was taking place.

    Hildy giggled again. “I was only going to— Um, well, do you promise you will not tell?”

    Sir Julian laid his hand on his heart. “Not though they endeavour to drag it from me with red-hot irons, Miss Hildegarde! Of course, a plateful of your mamma’s delicious lobster patties would be a different matter!” he owned with a twinkle.

    “Yes, well, that is exactly it!” confided Hildy. “I have stolen three lobster patties for the twins!”

    Julian’s shoulders shook. “Oh, I say: there’ll be a scrimmage: two into three don’t go, y’know!”

    “No,” said Hildy with an ecstatic giggle, “but three will go very nicely into two, sir!”

    He gave a shout of delighted laughter. One or two heads turned. Especially the one with the ostrich-feather plumes.

    “Ssh! I am very sure they are sitting on the stairs, so I thought I would just creep up and—”

    “Say no more!” He ceased barring her passage and instead bowed her out.

    “Go away, you shouldn’t be following me!” she said in horror.

    “But I’m the most harmless fellow alive, Miss Hildegarde!” he protested, laying his hand on his heart again. “Ask anyone! Ask—er—well, Giles is not here, poor fellow, but—”

    “No, there is no-one here who knows you, so you are pretty safe in saying that!” she said severely.

    Sir Julian chuckled. “Piqued and repiqued, eh? By Jove, remind me not to play cards with you, Miss Hildy! But don’t I look a harmless fellow?”

    “No. And do not call me that, Lady Overton gave you a most peculiar look when you said it in front of her.”

    He returned with a very naughty twinkle in his eye: “I am persuaded that any peculiar look of Lady Overton’s is not due to anything I may unwittingly have said.”

    Hildy gave a whoop and clapped a hand over her mouth.

    “Come along, lead me to these twins!” he said with a laugh.

    “Oh—well, I suppose they are about your little Ermy’s age,” admitted Hildy. “It is a harmless expedition, after all.” She began to mount the stairs.

    “Er—yes,” he said, very dashed. “I—er—I’ll try to support my feeble limbs up the stairs unassisted, shall I?”

    “Yes,” said Hildy in a vague voice, “only I do not think you will have to support them far— Ssh!” she hissed as the twins came flying down from the landing in their night-gear.

    “Oh, Lord, they’re not much like their brother and sister, are they?” he said weakly.

    “No, they’ve got the red hair of Mamma’s side of the family,” said Hildy on a glum note.

    “Dearest Miss Hildegarde! Yours is the most glorious auburn!” he protested.

    “Don’t be silly,” she said in a stifled voice.

    “No, I protest! The purest glow of a copper beech in summer!”

    Hildy’s face was now about the shade of the twins’ carrots. She ignored him and produced the lobster patties.

    Bunch competently divided the third one into two. “You did not bring us anything, did you, sir?” she said with a melting look.

    “You’re right, I didn’t. –By Jove, don’t she remind you of Rommie?” he said with feeling.

    “Er—yes. They are both rather forthright. –Bunch, that was not a polite enquiry.”

    “No, but it was a logical one,” said Bungo thickly. “What about puddin’, dearest Hildy?”

    “It was all trifles and Spanish creams and such like. I’m sorry, but it was too squashy for my reticule. And I didn’t get a meringue,” she said sadly.

    “Eh? I got three!” protested Sir Julian.

    “Yes, but you were at the head of the table with the nobs!”

    “Are you a nob?” asked Bunch immediately.

    “Help,” said Hildy limply.

    “Aye: little pitchers, eh? Yes, I am a nob all right, Miss,” he said to her.

    “Fine as fivepence,” agreed Bungo. “See those boots?” he said to his sister.

    “Shoes. What about them?”

    “See your face in them,” he reported.

    Bunch bent interestedly over Sir Julian’s feet and Hildy went into a strangled fit of hysterics.

    “It—ain’t—kind—laugh at—rustics, idiots, and children!” he gasped.

    “Hah, hah,” noted Bunch, unmoved. “I can’t,” she reported.

    “No, you’re in your own light,” said her brother. “But I can. –Look out!” he hissed as the drawing-room door opened.

    “Scarper,” agreed Sir Julian drily. Though there was no need to: the two of them had scarpered.

    “I suppose we had best go back,” said Hildy.

    “Alas, yes,” he agreed, drooping.

    “You’re being absurd, Sir Julian!” she said with a loud giggle. –She had now perceived that the person who had caused the twins to scarper was Mr Parkinson.

    Hilary came slowly to the foot of the stairs. “Indeed, it would be best to go back, Miss Hildegarde,” he said in a voice that held a tremble of anger.

    Hildy stuck her nose in the air. “I do not believe you have the right to reprove me, sir.”

    “As your pastor—” he said in a low voice.

    “Pooh! When you have the age and wisdom of Dr Rogers you may perhaps be justified in calling yourself so, sir! It is a perfectly harmless expedition and if you stoop to think otherwise, then it is you who deserves reproof, not I!”

    “It was a sortie to relieve the beleaguered troops with lobster patties, sir!” said Sir Julian with his pleasant laugh, leaning over the banister.

    “Yes!” agreed Hildy with a loud giggle.

    “You choose to laugh, Sir Julian, but I take leave to tell you that you at least should be aware that such an expedition with a young lady of Miss Hildegarde’s age and—and inexperience is scarcely the thing.”

    “Yes, you do take leave, rather,” he noted drily, descending the stairs.

    “Yes: you are being absurd, Mr Parkinson!” said Hildy, a flush of anger rising to her cheeks.

    “Am I? Perhaps you may choose not to believe me, but your absence from the drawing-room with this gentleman,” said Hilary through his teeth, “has already been remarked by more than one!”

    “More than one Mrs Shallcrass? Indeed? I was persuaded she was unique,” said Hildy coldly. Sir Julian gave a muffled choke of laughter which he tried unsuccessfully to turn into a cough. Greatly encouraged, Hildy continued: “Surely you cannot mean more than one Lady Overton, sir? Now, she is not only unique, she is a collector’s item!”

    “Just so!” gasped Sir Julian.

    “Sir, this is not a fit subject for pleasantry,” said Hilary stiffly.

    Sir Julian eyed him drily: it was quite evident to him that Mr Parkinson’s interest in Miss Hildegarde Maddern was not that of her pastor. However, he said nicely: “Er—all joking apart, possibly Mr Parkinson has a point.”

    “Then the two of you,” said Hildy on a sharp note, “may return together!”

    “I doubt if that would do, you know,” he murmured.

    “Miss Hildegarde will accompany me back to the drawing-room, Sir Julian,” said the Vicar grimly. “You may return at your leisure. I suggest, however, that you take a turn in the garden and return another way.”

    “This is ridiculous!” cried Hildy.

    “I am sure you do not truly intend to cause your mamma pain, Miss Hildegarde,” said Hilary with difficulty.

   Hildy had opened her mouth. She glared, and closed it. After a frowning moment she said: “Very well. But this whole thing is absurd. –Don’t go out, it will be freezing in the garden at this hour,” she advised Sir Julian.

    “Er—quite. I’ll just dally a bit. –If I may?”

    “Do as you please, sir,” said Hilary, to whom this not wholly serious query had been addressed. He offered his arm to Hildy. “Come along.”

    Hildegarde looked at the arm as if it were a particularly unpleasant piece of detritus and swept past him. Hilary hastened to open the door for her.

    “Do not speak to me,” she said through her teeth.

    “Miss Hildegarde, I assure you I meant to cast no slur on you—”

    “Rhodomontade,” returned Hildy with satisfaction. She walked past him and went over to the far side of the room where Miss Morton was once again at the spinet.

    The Vicar, very white, retired to a seat near his mother.

    ... “I believe we have already danced one dance, Cousin Paul,” said Miss Maddern stiffly, denying to herself the eager thumping of her heart.

    Paul gave her a melting look that was worthy of Bunch Ainsley. “That was hours since, dear Cousin! I am persuaded a second could not possibly be thought improper, even by the high sticklers!”

    She bit her lip. “Where did you get that phrase from, you absurd creature?”

    Paul’s dark eyes danced. “From Harry. Is it not choice? I had thought he was joking me, but now that I have been privileged to meet these high sticklers,”—he glanced over at Mrs Shallcrass and Lady Overton—“I see that he was perfectly serious: issuing a serious warning, en effet!”

    “Indeed,” agreed Miss Maddern weakly. “Er—I do not think you should dance a second dance with me, Cousin, when there are many other, younger ladies present.”

    Paul got rather close to her and hissed: “But they are a parcel of provincial dowds, my dear! And so boring, tu sais?”

    “Ne me tutoyez pas!” hissed Miss Maddern, turning puce.

    “It slipped out,” he said in horror.

    “You are the most complete—” Miss Maddern took a deep breath.

    “Please dance with me, dearest Christa; I have been so very, very bored,” he said plaintively.

    “Liar,” said Christabel calmly.

    Paul’s shoulders shook. “You sound every inch an Ainsley when you say that, do you know?”

    “I do not!” she gasped in horror.

    “Liar.”

    Miss Maddern gulped.

    “See? We need to stick together,” he said plaintively.

    “I fear you are a shocking flirt, Cousin Paul,” said Miss Maddern repressively, swallowing.

    “But surely you cannot think I am flirting with you?” he said, very low.

    She went very red and looked away.

    “Have you still not forgiven me for yesterday?”

    “Pray don’t refer to that episode; I have forgot it,” she said stiffly.

    “Liar,” returned Paul calmly.

    “You are the most—” Miss Maddern broke off. “Why do you not dance instead with Amabel?” she said with difficulty.

    “Because, fond though I am of your sweet sister,” said Paul, possessing himself firmly of her hand, “she is the most boring of them all, I am terribly sorry to have to tell you.”

    “Stop kissing my hand this instant,” she said faintly.

    “Then dance with me, and stop telling me to do silly things like dancing with your little sister. Look at her, she’s gratifying poor Mr O’Flynn at last, he looks as if he’s in Heaven!” he said with a little choke of laughter.

    “Well, I suppose it is his turn: she has just danced with Sir James Overton,” allowed Miss Maddern.

    Paul had perceived that Mr O’Flynn was not in this class at all. His shoulders shook but he unkindly didn’t enlighten her: he was enjoying himself too much. “Come and dance, then, or I shall kiss your hand all night!”

    “A fate worse than death,” said Miss Maddern faintly. “Oh—very well.”

    “‘Thank you, Cousin Paul, I should be delighted’,” he corrected solemnly, leading her onto the floor.

    “Do not chance your luck,” warned Miss Maddern, ignoring the beating of her heart.

    ... Mrs Shallcrass sniffed.

    “I suppose we could have expected that,” agreed Lady Overton.

    “Quite. That young woman is flirting with him,” stated Mrs Shallcrass grimly.

    Lady Overton had recourse to her lorgnette. “Really! At her age, too!”

    “I dare say she feels she has to make a push. And he is the heir.”

    “Quite.”

    “One might have known that That Woman would leave no stone unturned to keep him in the family,” stated Pamela’s mother grimly.

    Lady Overton’s next daughter was not yet of marriageable age, so she might have been supposed to have had no stake in the matter. Nevertheless she agreed grimly: “Quite.”

    “What—went—wrong?” sobbed Mrs Maddern, collapsed on her bed.

    “Mamma, pray calm yourself. Nothing went wrong,” said Christabel unconvincingly.

    “Every—thing—went—wrong!” she hiccoughed.

    “The lobster patties were delicious,” said Hildy anxiously.

    “Get out of my—sight!” she sobbed.

    “Sí, sí, come to bed, dearest Hildy,” said Gaetana.

    “I shall—never—be able—Mrs—Shallcrass—eye!” sobbed Mrs Maddern.

    Hildy began furiously: “Who would want to look her in her horrid old she-cat eye—” but Gaetana dragged her hurriedly from the room.

    “All—went—wrong!” sobbed Mrs Maddern.

    “Mamma, pray, pray!” begged Amabel distressfully.

    “How—could—you—Amabel?” she sobbed.

    “Mamma, I did nothing!” she said desperately.

    “Last—dance!” hiccoughed Mrs Maddern.

    Amabel went very red. “Mamma, Mr O’Flynn asked me for the last dance; I could hardly refuse him.”

    “Of course you could, he’s an old man!” she screamed.

    “We shall leave you: I shall send Mason to you,” said Miss Maddern hurriedly.

    “Not you!” gasped Mrs Maddern, collapsing into a fresh storm of tears.

    Amabel handed Christabel the smelling-salts, looking helpless.

    “Thank you,” said Christabel weakly. “Do—do send Mason, Amabel, there’s a dear. I had hoped not to disturb her so late, but—”

    “Hildy has dis-dis-disgraced us!” sobbed Mrs Maddern.

    “Nonsense, ma’am, she is but a child, as every person of sense in that room tonight saw very clearly,” said Christabel grimly. “And I do not scruple to tell you, Mamma, that I do not include such cats as Mrs Shallcrass and Lady Overton in that category; and I for one am vastly relieved that after we leave for London we need not set eyes on them again!”

    Mrs Maddern sniffed dolefully. “No.”

    “No, nor Pamela Shallcrass,” agreed Amabel.

    This was a mistake. “That jonquil gown was wasted on you, Amabel: you might just as well have made a guy of yourself in mauve and primrose like Pamela, and I am sure I would not care if you did! How could you be so unfee-hee-ling?” wailed Mrs Maddern.

    Amabel hurried over to the door. “I’ll send Mason along.”

    “Yes. And you had best not come back, dearest,” agreed Christabel.

    “TRAITOR!” screamed Mrs Maddern as her second daughter disappeared.

    Christabel handed her the smelling-salts and waited while Mrs Maddern choked over them. “Mamma, you must calm down. Poor Amabel has done nothing to betray you,” she said firmly.

    “Yes, but it is hardly her fault, for you were monopolizing your cousin!” she said sharply.

     Christabel went very red. “I could not refuse him a second dance, when he— And I begged him to dance with Amabel, but—um…”

    “She wasted two dances on that horrid old Mr O’Flynn! TWO DANCES!” she shouted. “With Paul and Sir Julian and Robert Shallcrass right there in the room! Is the girl MAD?”

    “Mamma, pray! You are driving yourself distraught!”

    Mrs Maddern had recourse to the smelling-salts. “You did not notice,” she said in a trembling voice, “for you were monopolizing your cousin in a corner at the time!”

    “Please do not, Mamma,” she said faintly.

    “Mr Parkinson,” said Mrs Maddern in a trembling voice, “came up and asked Hildy for the last dance when she was sitting with me. In the most humble— No, he positively begged, Christabel, there is no other word to describe it! And I am sure I know not what Hildy had said earlier to upset him so but it must have been something dreadful—dreadful! –Where was I? Do not speak,” she said terribly as poor Miss Maddern opened her mouth. “Oh—yes: I vow and declare I thought he was going to go down on his knees, and he was as white as the very cloth at his neck—my dear: always so point de vice, you would not think he was a vicar at all if you did not— Never mind that!” she said, bosom heaving in a trembling breath.

    Christabel was now nearly in tears herself. “Pray, pray, Mamma, you are disturbing yourself unnecessarily: whatever foolish mistakes Hildy may have made, it was her first party, and—”

    “FOOLISH MISTAKES!” she shouted. “The best-looking man in two counties, no, I declare, in the whole of England, and a more than respectable fortune, too, if he is a clergyman, begs her—yes, BEGS her—to favour his unworthy person with a dance and she—SHE—!” She broke off, trembling and panting.

    “Now, never you mind all that. Miss Patty, you just come here to old Mason!” panted a third voice; and Mrs Maddern’s invaluable elderly Mason, who had been with her since her girlhood, hurried in, with an admonishing look at Christabel. “Miss Christa, you should have sent for me immediate!” she reproved her, gathering her mistress’s ample form to her scrawny bosom.

    “No, wait!” gasped Mrs Maddern, as her daughter went over to the door.

    “Miss Patty, now calm down.”

    “I must and will be heard! Your sister,” she said terribly to Christabel, “informed the Vicar to his very face—aye, and as I sat there too, her own mother—”

    “Now, Miss Patty—”

    “Informed the Vicar that she would not dance with him if it was the last dance before the Last Trump!” wailed Mrs Maddern.

    Alas, Miss Maddern, who after all had had an emotionally tiring evening too, not to say week, not to say several weeks, thereupon disgraced herself by clapping her hand to her mouth and rushing from her mother’s bedroom with a strangled squawk.