Newcomers

19

Newcomers

    The cool summer wore on, with endless visits, showers of joyful tears, and interminable sheet-hemming sessions.

    At first Mrs Maddern was so very, very occupied with Christabel, who overnight had become, it was not to be wondered at, the apple of her eye, that she had little time for the other girls. Except to veto absolutely and with terrifying finality the very idea of Marybelle’s being a bridesmaid in pink. No, not Florabelle either and if she heard a second suggestion half so tasteless she would disown the pair of them! This was a terrible threat that had never been used before, and Marybelle for one felt quite wounded, and went away and brooded over it for some time. Floss did not care a fig and said so, but this possibly proved, as Marybelle retorted, that she was only a silly little girl, still. And to go away and LEAVE HER ALONE! Floss passed a cutting remark linking the concepts of red hair, freckles, and Eric Charleson, which proved she was neither blind nor stupid, if young, and went.

    However, by the end of July, after such minor contretemps as Bungo’s eyebrows being completely singed off on the night—by coincidence—that the Marquis had the fireworks on his estate for the country people; Bunch’s falling in the stream in her best dress which she was wearing in the expectation of being taken to pay a call on Mrs Knowles, who had expressed a desire to meet the “sweet twins” (deluded woman, the family concluded automatically); a fire in the chimney of one of the unused bedrooms which was being aired in case it might be needed for guests when they had the engagement party; Floss’s becoming completely covered in the plaster the men were using to repoint the stable block and needing to have a major portion of her curls cut off; Marybelle’s foot swelling up enormously after a bee-sting received in the orchard; and Maria’s coming down with a mysterious rash which Mrs Maddern was terrified was the measles but which was finally traced to the illicit consumption of half a pound of ripe gooseberries; after, then, such minor and indeed everyday incidents as these, Mrs Maddern’s eye turned at last to the younger ladies present at the Manor.

    What she saw did not entirely please her. True, Amabel and Dorothea were quiet and industrious. However, Amabel was by far too quiet and had made not the least push even to speak to the Messrs Knowles on the occasion of a recent courtesy call. And if it was true that Mr Charleson was her junior, still it was not near so much as the gap between dearest Christa and Paul, and it was not at all like Amabel to answer her mamma back in such a fashion: she was surprized at her! She was even more surprized when Amabel burst into noisy tears and ran from the room.

    As for Hildegarde and Gaetana! After much deep thought, Mrs Maddern made up her mind she would speak to the ringleader.

    “Sit down, Hildegarde,” she said in a steely voice.

    Looking sulky, Hildy sat down on a small gilt chair in the boudoir.

    “I had hoped,” said Mrs Maddern, drawing a deep breath, “that you girls had now all reached an age where you had learned responsibility and might be trusted to behave in a ladylike manner befitting your ages and stations, whilst I was occupied elsewhere.”

    Hildy said nothing.

    “It has come to my ears,” said Mrs Maddern awfully, “that Ramón and Elinor were not alone on the occasion of the Marquis of Rockingham’s birthday fireworks. And before you say a word, Hildegarde Maddern, I do not mean Florabelle!” she snapped.

    “They were going anyway, so I went to keep an eye on them,” she said, sticking out her pointed chin.

    “In BREECHES?” screamed Mrs Maddern.

     “Nobody recognised me. And it was not my idea, it was—” She broke off.

    “I am aware of whose idea it was, thank you, Hildegarde, and that has nothing to do with the case. Paul is speaking to her this minute. And you are the elder, it was your responsibility to put a stop to such an indelicate expedition!”

    “I do not think the adjective ‘indelicate’ can apply to the substantive ‘expedition’,” said Hildy thoughtfully.

    “Hildegarde Maddern! How dare you speak to me like that?” screamed her mother.

    “I apologize, Mamma,” said Hildy without interest.

    Mrs Maddern could not object to this: it was, after all, an apology. And it was impossible to express convincingly that an apology made without interest was not worth the breath with which it was spoken. She glared.

    “And if it was Bunch who told, merely because I would not let her ride in the punt,” said Hildy evilly, “she will never ride in it again!”

    “It was not her, you tiresome little creature! It was poor Ned Adams, and very proper in him it was, too! And the poor man was at his wits’ end once he had recognized the two of you, and spent the whole night keeping an eye on you, and I dare say had not a moment’s pleasure out of the entire evening!” she cried.

    “Oh,” said Hildy„ disconcerted. “Well, I shall apologize to him, if that is what you wish, Mamma.”

    “I—” Mrs Maddern’s mouth opened and shut. “Well, it is not what I wished to say, but you may certainly apologize to him,” she said on a weak note.

    “Very well, I will.”

    Mrs Maddern took a deep breath. “You are more than old enough to realize that your heedless behaviour may impinge on the—the lives and convenience of others!”

    “Yes,” said Hildy, pouting.

    “And if I ever hear of you putting on men’s garb again,” said her mother, drawing a painful breath, “I will send you straight off to old Cousin Sibylla Maddern in Norfolk, to be her companion! She is for ever writing me on the subject, and though normally I should not dream of condemning a daughter of mine to such a thankless existence…” She eyed her threateningly.

    Hildy had gone very white. Cousin Sibylla was widely reputed in the Maddern family to live on water-biscuits, keep a pug which bit and which had to be walked every day, and send her household to bed at sundown in order to save on candles.

    “I only did it because it was at night and I thought no-one would see,” she said at last.

    “No doubt,” said Mrs Maddern grimly.

    “I will not do anything so unladylike again,” said Hildy in a very low voice.

    “No, because you will not be given the opportunity! I shall not send you back to the schoolroom, because I have no intention of inflicting such a sore trial on poor Miss Morton! But I shall most certainly be keeping a strict eye on you myself. And one more escapade, and you may forget all thoughts of a London Season next year!”

    “Mamma, I do not wish for a London Season!” said Hildy desperately. ”Could I not just stay at home and—and study?”

    “NO!” she shouted. “What is wrong with you, Hildegarde? What sort of life do you imagine lies before a girl who stays at home and studies? Do not imagine that your brother Harold will wish to support you all your life, for I am very sure he will not, even if he could afford it! You will be lucky to see yourself end up as unpaid drudge to Miss Daws’s children!”

    Hildy was again very pale. “I had thought I might be Tom’s housekeeper,” she said in a tiny voice.

    “Tom!” she scoffed.

    Hildy gulped. “Yuh-yes.”

    Mrs Maddern looked at her hard. After a moment she said in a kinder voice: “Hildy, can you not see the way Tom behaves in the company of such girls as Muzzie Charleson or Carolyn Girardon belies what he may say he feels about them?”

    Hildy looked at her in a startled way.

    “Yes,” she said, nodding grimly: “I dare swear within a very few months of his taking Orders we shall see him tie himself up to some giggly little Miss on the strength of her big blue eyes! It may well not be either of them—for frankly, I would say they are both by far too ambitious to wish to settle down as a country parson’s wife. But it will be something of the sort, mark my words! Now that he has started to socialize with us, why, he cannot keep away from the young women!”

    “You are right,” said Hildy, biting her lip. “I hadn’t thought— He does flirt with them, doesn’t he?”

    “Yes. And it is not just funning, as it is with Paul. Well, why should not a young man be attracted to young women, it is natural, after all. –Now, do not cry, Hildy,” she said with a sigh. “We cannot wish a life of crusty bachelordom upon your brother, you know.”

    “No,” she said, sniffing and failing to find her mother’s choice of phrase in the least amusing.

    Mrs Maddern looked at her, and sighed again. “Look at your hair... Oh, my love, why cannot you enjoy being a young lady?”

    “I don’t know,” said Hildy, lips trembling. “I just cannot.”

    “No. Well, I am sure you may read as many books as you please while you are at home,” said Mrs Maddern with another sigh, “so long as you do not do it when you should be driving out to pay a call, or—or accompanying your sisters to some suitable gathering.”

    “No, Mamma. Thank you,” said Hildy, beginning to cry.

    Mrs Maddern got up slowly and patted her shoulder. “It is nothing to cry over, my dear. Just try to enjoy it. And we shall not say any more about Cousin Sibylla.”

    “No,” said Hildy in a stifled voice.

    “Go along, my dear,” said Mrs Maddern sadly.

    Sniffing, Hildy went out, head bowed.

    Mrs Maddern sat down heavily. “I shall never be able to understand her, not if I live for an hundred years!” she lamented. “Oh, Mr Maddern, why did you have to go and die and leave me to cope with her alone!” She cried quietly into her handkerchief for quite some time, not ringing the bell for Mason, or otherwise indulging herself in her usual half-hysteria at all.

    “And to think,” she said, blowing her nose at the end of it and sitting up very straight: “that she was the easiest borned of them all! Nature,” she said on a cross note, “is very odd indeed!”

    “Aye…” said Mrs Urqhart thoughtfully at the conclusion of Hildy’s narrative.

    The two girls looked at her hopefully.

    “And what did you get, me dear?” she said, passing Gaetana the dish of nuts. “A scold, too?”

    “Well, not precisely. And I think a scold would have been easier to bear,” Gaetana admitted, sighing. “Paul got very sad, and blamed himself.”

    “Oh, dear: that do be very hard to take!” she said sympathetically. “Now, don’t go to crying, me lovey, you’ll choke on these here nuts! Hazels, they be: you don’t get ’em out in India, but Bapsee has done ’em like the nuts they call cashoos in India. Do you like ’em?”

    “Yes,” said Gaetana, swallowing and coughing. “Is it—is it black pepper, Mrs Urqhart?”

    “Aye: you frizzles the nuts up in very hot oil, me dears, and then you rolls ’em in coarse-ground black pepper and salt. And you can eat ’em hot or cold, and they do be splendid hot! But also quite nice cold,” she allowed, passing the dish to Hildy.

    “They are odd, but very nice indeed,” Hildy agreed, taking some more.

    “Aye. In especial when you is slightly peckish but it ain’t time for dinner.”

    Gaetana nodded agreement, but added glumly. “I might have thought Paul was shamming it, Mrs Urqhart, only not when he said that Christa is very capable and—and wholly admirable, and that he wishes he were more worthy of her.”

    “Yes, she is,” said Hildy gloomily.

    There was a short pause.

    “How do you get to be like that?” cried Hildy in anguish.

    “We-ell... What was she like when you was littler, Hildy, me dear?” asked Mrs Urqhart shrewdly.

    “Um… Well, she is seven years older than I, you know, Mrs Urqhart... Um, well, to tell you the truth she has always appeared responsible and—and managing, to me!”

    “There you are,” said Mrs Urqhart, eating a nut.

    The girls goggled at her. Finally Hildy said in a hollow voice: “Help, do you mean there is no hope for us?”

    The old lady twinkled at her. “Well, I wouldn’t say that, entirely. No, you is a different type, my dears. And it stands to reason, you won’t go her way, not if it was ever so. Nor you won’t want a gent like him, neither, black eyes and all!” she chuckled.

    The girls looked at each other a trifle exasperatedly. They did not want a gentleman at all: why could older persons not grasp that?

    Mrs Urqhart eyed them tolerantly, having much ado not to laugh herself silly: two funny little slips of things they were, so earnest and all, too, side-by-side in their pretty little print gowns on a sofa; the pair of ’em between ’em hadn’t half as much up top as she had had at the age of sixteen! Two half-fledged lambkins, they were, and the minute they had homes and husbands of their own they would forget all this nonsense about not wanting to be ladies—no, the minute a gentleman as they fancied offered for ’em!

    Kindly she said: “Well, now, I can see as your ma—and your aunty, me dear—must be very pushed at the moment, what with the big party coming up and all, so why do not I write her a note to invite the two of you to stay with me for a little?”

    “Really?” gasped Hildy.

    “Oh, Mrs Urqhart!” cried Gaetana. “Would you?"

    She looked at them in amusement. “We don’t lead an excitin’ life at The Towers, mind. No parties, and that.”

    “We do not want parties!” cried Hildy.

    “No, well, you won’t get ’em. And most afternoons me and Bapsee just dozes, we don’t pay fashionable calls or drive off to old ruins or that!”

    “No,” they agreed, smiling.

    “We shall be able to read in the afternoons!” added Hildy ecstatically.

    “Mr Urqhart’s library!” agreed Gaetana excitedly.

    “Aye, well, it do be full of the dullest stuff imaginable, but Pumps liked to bury his nose in a book of an evening, bless him,” said Mrs Urqhart tolerantly. “And the boys ain’t here, now, you know,” she warned.

    “No; and if they were, Mamma would be sure to say it was improper!” said Hildy with feeling. “But since they have gone— Oh, it is the most ideal opportunity! Oh, thank you, Mrs Urqhart!” She got up and embraced her. Gaetana followed suit.

    “There, there,” she said, patting their slender backs. “It ain’t by no means settled, you know.”

    “I am sure she will let us! She will be glad to be rid of us!” cried Hildy.

    Mrs Urqhart was pretty sure she would, indeed. Nevertheless she phrased her note very carefully, and it took her three re-writings before she was satisfied with it.

    Mrs Maddern was very surprized to find that Mrs Urqhart could write such an understanding, cultured letter, and for a moment had the unworthy thought that someone might have written it for her. She was more than satisfied with Mrs Urqhart’s assurances that Bapsee and she were used to looking after young girls, and that, the Indian tradition being even stricter than the English, she could rely on Bapsee not to let them out of her sight, and that they would not be offered any entertainments that were not suited to very young girls just out. And since she already knew that Sir Noël and Lord Lucas had gone, she gave her consent.

    It was Timothy Urqhart’s opinion that his mother had run mad, and he did not hesitate to express it to her. Mrs Urqhart just chuckled richly.

    “But Mother! Two young girls whom you hardly know—and at your time of life! Why, you should be putting your feet up, not bothering yourself with a pair of schoolroom Misses!”

    “They is not schoolroom Misses, you fool, and I ain’t in my dotage yet!” she gasped, shaking all over.

    Tim eyed her resignedly. “No, but Mother, you must not overdo it.”

    “Lordy, I shan’t overdo it! Yesterday—now, that was the first full day I had ’em—do you know what they does all day?”

    “No,” he said as patiently as he could, quite sure it would be something along the lines of stitchery in the morning, stroll in the shrubbery in the afternoon (or vice versa: what did he know of young ladies, after all, curse it) and genteel tinklings on the pianoforte later. Which, now he came to think of it, was sadly out of tune, and he must have it seen to immediately, because four solid evenings listening to a pair of Misses tinkle on an out-of-tune instrument—!

    He listened tolerantly as his mother recounted the girls’ first day with relish—it incorporated a breakfast of kitcheree and curried kidneys (their choice, apparently), walks in the garden and to the village, and the rest of the time spent with their noses in books. Bluestockings, he concluded drily, though kindly not saying so aloud.

    “You and Ned is staying until Monday, is you not, me love?” she asked at the end of the recital.

    “Well, Ned has to get back first thing on Monday—but I thought I might leave early on Tuesday, if that’s all right?”

    “All right?” she beamed. “Give us a kiss, you great loon!”

    Timothy rose and kissed her.

    “Er—did Ned say anything to you, my lovey?” she said on an anxious note, grasping his arms and looking up into his face.

    “Eh? What about?”

    “Um... Ladies,” said Mrs Urqhart finally.

    “Ladies? Ned? Not a word! Look, Mother, are you plotting something?” he said uneasily.

    “Lord, no, me love! Um, just that I warned him the district is overrun with ’em, these days! What with all these invites I’m a-getting, now that Patty Ainsley Maddern has took me up!” She laughed.

    “It’s about time,” said her son grimly. “Maddern, did you say?”

    “Yes, my lovey; why?”

    “Oh—there was a Maddern at school, a few years behind me. Boxed. I suppose it could be the same family.”

    “Yes, the oldest boy would be around twenty-five. Well, you will soon see if he remembers you, my dear, they is all coming over for their dinners on Sunday!”

    “He may not remember me, but he may remember my cane!” said Tim with a laugh, going off to change for dinner.

   Mrs Urqhart shook her head. “Aye, well. I suppose it’s all for the best...” she murmured.

    What she meant was not at all clear. Though it could have had something to do with the fact that after Harrow Timothy Urqhart, at his own insistence, had gone into the family import-export business, whereas Hal Maddern had gone up to the university and then become a gentleman of leisure.

    The girls had already gone up to dress by the time Mrs Urqhart’s son and his business partner arrived, so they had not been able to form an opinion of the gentlemen. This was a pity, for it might have helped solve the problem of what to wear. If they wore their party dresses and their jewellery, they would run the risk of seeming overdressed and embarrassing two simple merchants. But on the other hand, if they wore their simplest muslins, would they not seem to be dressing down and thus to be patronising the gentlemen?

    Neither of them was aware that to almost any male eye, there was little to choose between the simple white muslins and the grander party dresses they had with them—in Hildy’s case a white gauze with deep amethyst ribbons, and in Gaetana’s a very pale green muslin with a coral ribbon sash. After much heart-searching they decided the simple white gowns would be preferable, because after all there was Mrs Urqhart’s dinner party later, for which they really should be more dressed up.

    “Lawks, my dears, you have scarce a bit of colour about you!” said Mrs Urqhart as they came into the drawing-room, Hildy in lemon-sashed white muslin and Gaetana in pale green-sashed ditto.

    The heavy-set, handsome gentleman in his mid-years who was standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece in rather proprietorial fashion at this laughed and came forward, saying: “Nonsense, Betsy, my dear: with hair like that they don’t need any more colour, it would detract from it! It has the patina of old mahogany, did you ever see anything like it?”

    “I told you they was something out of the ordinary,” said Mrs Urqhart smugly. “Now, my dear girls, this is Ned Jubb, as is my Timmy’s partner—aye, and was Pumps’s before him, and a better partner no man could ever hope for! –Sir Edward Jubb, my dears.”

    Hildy had been about to say: “How do you do, Mr Jubb.” She gave a strangled cough.

    “This is Miss Hildy Maddern and this is Miss Ainsley, but her name be Gaetana, which is Spanish, acos her ma is a Spanish lady, which you might see from them eyes of hers, and you had best call ’em Hildy and Gaetana, Ned, for after all you is old enough to be their pa!” added Mrs Urqhart. She panted and beamed.

    The burly, handsome Sir Edward bowed over Hildy’s hand. “How do you do, Miss Hildy?”

    “How do you do, Sir Edward; I’m very pleased to meet you, I’ve been looking forward to it,” said Hildy.

    “You flatter me,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

    “No, she don’t, Ned,” said Mrs Urqhart instantly: “she has asked me I dare say above ten thousand questions about the India import-export business, and whilst I could answer the ones about India, the ones about the economics of it was beyond me, I can tell you!”

    “The economics of it?” he said, wide mouth twitching.

    Hildy looked up into his handsome, heavy face and said: “Yes, indeed. What sort of capital would you have to have in order to start such a venture, for instance? And how many seasons would it be until you could expect a return on your money? Then there is the question of the fluctuations in the prices of goods: can they be—”

    “There, see!” cried Mrs Urqhart triumphantly. “Only don’t ask him now, me love, it ain’t quite the occasion.”

    “No,” admitted Hildy with her urchin grin. “It was only a for instance. But if you should care to discuss it later on, Sir Edward, I should be most interested to hear anything you may have to say.”

    “I’d be pleased to!” he said with a laugh. “A young lady who can use the terms ‘capital’ and ‘return’ correctly is quite a new experience, for me!”

    “Well, a be-knighted India merchant is definitely a new experience for me!” returned Hildy with a naughty twinkle in her eye.

    At this Sir Edward gave a shout of laughter, kissed her hand lightly and said: “I foresee that we are going to deal extremely, Miss Hildy!”

    “Aye, I said as she were a One, and he did not believe me,” explained Mrs Urqhart. “And this is Gaetana, Ned: make your bow like a gent, now, do!”

     He turned to Gaetana with a teasing look in his deep blue eyes, bowed, and said: “How do you do, Miss Ainsley? I should warn you, if you also utter the words ‘capital’ and ‘return’, I shall have to be revived with burnt feathers!”

    “How do you do, Sir Edward? I am quite sure that is a bouncer!” replied Gaetana gaily. “Actually, I would like very much to ask you about something quite different, if you would not think it an impertinence in me.”

    “Him!” cried Mrs Urqhart, chuckling very much. “If I was to tell you where Ned Jubb— Well, there, never mind, he has done incredible well for himself, that he has, and it’s naught but a credit to him!”

    The handsome Sir Edward ignored this speech and said, smiling down into Gaetana’s eyes: “Ask away—and ready the burnt feathers!”

    “Well, it is about the ‘sir’. It is a knighthood, is that correct?”

    “Ah! This is to be an enquiry as to my political affiliations!” he joked.

    “Yes,” said Gaetana simply.

    Sir Edward gulped.

    “Lord save us, the fellow’s a Whig, my dear, and my Pumps would not have gone into business with him lessen he was, for a Tory was what he never could abide!” cried Mrs Urqhart, thus revealing she knew rather more of politics than she had hitherto indicated to either of the young ladies. “And if you was going to ask him how he got hisself knighted, me love—”

    “No!” gasped Gaetana, cheeks very pink. “Only about the process, in the most general terms!”

    “One goes to Court and bends the knee,” he said, straight-faced.

    “Aye; and the poor King bashes you on the shoulder with a sword, if he is not in one of his mad fits,” added Mrs Urqhart helpfully.

    “I dare say you wear knee-breeches, too,” said Hildy drily.

    “Out of course, my dear,” the old lady agreed innocently.

    Sir Edward grinned. “Well, the first necessity, Miss Ainsley, is, er, worldly success of one sort or another; though that is scarcely enough if one is not well-born.”

    “Yes, look at Sir Joseph Banks,” said Hildy on a cross note.

    “¡Querida,” cried Gaetana, “you said yourself he had done invaluable botanical work!”

    “Yes, but was it he who navigated that little ship all around the world and discovered and mapped new lands?” retorted Hildy crossly. “No, it was not! And because James Cook was nothing but a commoner, what recognition did he get? None!”

    “Apart from his name in the history books,” noted Sir Edward.

    “Well, that is true enough, and of course such trivialities as honours conferred by governments of the day are mere nothings in the greater scheme of things. However, in my opinion, to ignore such a man because he was not born a gentleman speaks very ill indeed of the country on whose behalf such great efforts were made!” finished Hildy, very cross and flushed.

    “Bravo, Miss Hildy; I entirely agree!” applauded Sir Edward.

    Hildy swallowed. “Oh, help, I’m afraid I—”

    “Not at all,” he said courteously. “Indeed, I was just about to explain to Miss Ainsley that honest worth and worldly success are not enough: one must also endow charitable works extensively and make large contributions to the coffers of the political party enjoying power at the time.”

    “I thought it had been something like that,” said Gaetana pleasedly.

    “Them statues as he give to that museum didn’t go amiss, neither,” noted Mrs Urqhart drily.

    “Statues? Were they Indian ones, sir?” asked Gaetana with interest.

    “Yes. You young ladies would find them very bizarre, I think. But they are considered quite fine of their kind.”

    “Quite fine! They is worth a Rajah’s ransom!” cried Mrs Urqhart crossly. “There is one all in gold, my dears, with umpteen arms, the goddess Kalee, and a bad lot she were, by all accounts!”

    “Only in one of her aspects, surely?” said Hildy eagerly. “I have been reading a book about the Hindoo pantheon,” she said to Sir Edward, “and it is the most fascinating thing! Of course one is tempted to draw parallels with the Greeks, but I do not think they are valid.”

    “Well, it is true Alexander the Great was in India,” he said dubiously.

    “Sikander,” agreed Mrs Urqhart. “Bapsee will tell you the stories of Sikander, if you ask her, Hildy, me dear.”

    “Yes,” said Sir Edward, nodding, as Hildy looked to him for confirmation: “he has become almost a legendary figure in India. It is quite fascinating to relate those stories to what has come down to us from other sources.”

    “Good gracious!” she cried, laying a hand to her bosom. “What an odd shivery feeling it gives one!”

    “Yes, indeed: it makes Alexander seem oddly more real and much nearer to us in time, I have always felt.”

    “Oh, exactly!” cried Hildy eagerly.

    “We had a gardener once was called Sikander,” added Mrs Urqhart, “and Pumps found it a great joke, for he was a little runt of a man, no-one in their senses could have called him ‘Great’. And then Pumps made Ayah tell the children the stories of Sikander, explaining to them who he was, you see, my dears. Only I fear as the little ones got some funny notion into their heads as our little Sikander were the one in the stories!” she ended with a laugh.

    “Oh, certainly: for years I expected him to appear at the head of his troops on an elephant!” agreed Timothy, coming into the room smiling. “Kitty and I were quite sure he led a double life!”

    If Hildy and Gaetana had been taken aback to find “Ned Jubb” a worldly, cultured man with a knighthood into the bargain, they were almost equally so to find the scion of Pumps and Betsy Urqhart to be not a spindle-shanks, like his papa when young, nor a balloon like the erstwhile Ensign in later life; and most certainly in appearance nothing like his flamboyant mamma, but a quiet-mannered, good-looking young man of middle height, with pleasant brown eyes and brown curls, and dressed with just as much elegant propriety as was his partner. He professed himself very pleased to meet them, and hoped smilingly that they had not let his mother force any searing Indian turkarries or vindaloos upon them.

    ... “Sweet, ain’t they, Tim?” concluded his partner with a grin as they smoked a last cigar in the study before retiring.

    “Yes, and that reminds me,” said Tim on a grim note. He went over to the desk and produced a bunch of keys from it. Sir Edward watched in some astonishment as he then went up to a tall mahogany cabinet and carefully tried and locked its many small drawers. “I knew she wouldn’t have thought to lock them!” he said, half pleased with himself, half cross.

    “Good God, Pumps’s dirty pictures?” choked Sir Edward. “I say, dear lad, do you still have the one that shows a gentleman pleasuring three ladies simultaneously whilst—”

    “Yes!” said Timothy loudly.

    Sir Edward grinned.

    “Well, I dare say it is in there somewhere: I haven’t looked at them since I was a boy of seventeen or so!” he added crossly.

    “I’ll take ’em off your hands, dear lad. Of course, in order to offer you a fair price, I shall have to examine ’em closely!” he said with a chuckle.

    “Good Lord, Ned, if you wish for them, have them!” said Tim in astonishment.

    “Tim, dear boy, they are extremely fine examples of the Indian miniature technique, in fact it is quite an unique collection. I wouldn’t dream of offering you a penny less than the market price.”

    “Rubbish,” said Timothy, going very red. “I can imagine what Papa would say, if I let you do any such thing! And if you say another word,” he added with a grin, “I’ll ask Mother whether or no I should take your money off you!”

    “I can’t imagine where you learnt such mean and underhand bargaining techniques! But seriously, are you quite sure?”

    “Yes, of course I’m sure! I know almost nothing about art, and as for the subject matter—!”

    “Oh, I intend to spend my declinin’ years slavering over ’em!” Ned assured him.

    “Very funny,” returned Tim, reddening.

    The older man smiled a little, but did not press the point. “At all events, I doubt that the two young ladies would go searching in the study drawers, Tim, you needn’t have worried.”

    “They might not mean to, no, but Miss Hildy in quest of information on the Hindoo pantheon or the fluctuations in the market strikes me as unstoppable!”

    Sir Ned chuckled. “Ain’t she delightful? Never knew young ladies could have brains, before this day! And Miss Ainsley’s as bright as her cousin. They are quite irresistible! –I’m surprized you don’t find ’em so, dear boy,” he added quizzically.

    Tim frowned a little. “I like them, certainly. They’re pretty and intelligent.”

    “But very unexpected?” said Ned Jubb, twinkling at him and wondering for about the five millionth time where on earth Tim Urqhart had got his conventional streak.

    The next day, the young ladies having gone for a brisk walk over the hills accompanied doggedly by James, the footman appointed to what was now clearly an onerous task rather than the sinecure the unfortunate young man had assumed it would be, Ned reported cheerfully to Betsy as they took tea cosily together in the small sitting-room: “Well, you don’t need to fear for him, my dear!”

    “Well, I didn’t think as he would fancy either on ’em, for you and I knows, dear though he is to me, that he is a bit of a stuffed shirt at heart, Ned. Only you never can tell, and there be no denying, Hildy in especial is a most incorrigible little flirt!” She chuckled fatly.

    “Isn’t she, though?” he said with a little smile.

    “Lawks-a-mercy, don’t you go falling for her!” she cried.

    “I think I already have done; as far as a man of my advanced years might,” he said lightly.

    Mrs Urqhart looked at him uncertainly.

    “Never fear me, Betsy, my dear, she’s a darling, but there’s thirty years between us!” he said, laughing and patting her hand.

    “Aye, well, be sure you remembers it, that is all! For there is no denying as you has a way with you, Ned Jubb.”

    “I’m flattered,” he bowed.

    “And that’s enough of that, too!” she cried, bashing him with her furled fan. “Now listen: did you get my note, all right and tight?”

     He nodded.

    “Well, will you?” she said eagerly,

    “I would if there were any need. But hasn’t Noël gone home? Isn’t all danger past?” he said with a twinkle.

    “No, it ain’t, for he be a-comin’ back within the month! You knows as well as I he cannot abide his house with his ma in it, poor boy. And for all his sisters has said they will help him to persuade her to remove to the dower house, you know what she is! She says the house needs a mistress whilst he is still unmarried, and goes on a-setting there like a—a spider in its web!” she said crossly.

    Sir Noël’s mother was in fact still a very pretty woman, most unlike the grim picture Mrs Urqhart was painting. Ned Jubb knew, however, that in essence the shrewd old lady was not wrong. The woman would do it with sighs and tears, resorts to the vinaigrette, and alarums over fainting fits, but she would certainly do it.

    He did not argue the point, but merely replied with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes: “Perhaps he had best marry this Lady Whatsername and let them fight it out over who is to be mistress of his house.”

    “Aye, and it would be a right battle of female elephants with their tusks a-locked to the death, too!” she cried. “For she is just such an one as the other! Cut from the same piece of cloth! You never seen such niminy-piminy, die-away airs, and all the time she is hard as nails underneath it: she means to grab my Noël!”

    “Calm down, my love, we’ll scotch the creature’s schemes,” he said, taking her hand in a comforting grasp.

    “I would not mind,” said Mrs Urqhart, sniffing and gulping: “only she is ten years and more older than him, and with a grown-up family, to boot!”

    “Mm. Well, I’d better meet her.”

    Mrs Urqhart smiled evilly. “That is all arranged. For since she has got the point that Patty Ainsley Maddern has took me up, she has been all smarms and sweetness! Aye, and I dare swear she would not turn up her nose at my Timmy’s fortune, neither, could she but succeed in throwing that little bit of a daughter of hers at him, so we had better watch out for that, too! Once she heard the Madderns and Mr Ainsley were a-comin’ over for dinner this Sunday, out of course when I said would Muzzie—that is the brat, my dear, and if ever there was a Miss that needed its bottom smacked, it is that one! –Now, where was I? Yes: I said would Muzzie be permitted to come, like to keep the girls company, and I would not make so bold as to suggest her ma come too, only it would be of all things the most delightful.”—She rolled her eyes madly.—“Well, out of course she ups and says she would be only too delighted.”

    “Good,” he said simply.

    “I like him,” decided Hildy, lying on her back with her fingers laced under her head, gazing up into an old tree in Mrs Urqhart’s orchard.

    “Yes, so do I,” agreed Gaetana, yawning.

    “He is amazing, for a man who was raised in an orphanage. Why, he taught himself to read when he was thirteen, can you imagine it, Gaetana?”

    “No, indeed. It makes one ashamed of one’s advantages,” said Gaetana seriously.

    “Yes. He knows a lot about art. Not so much about European art, which is perhaps understandable, but very much about Indian and Persian art. I would so like to see his private collection: the carpets alone sound wonderful,” sighed Hildy.

    “Well, possibly if you drop him a hint,” Gaetana suggested, her dark eyes twinkling so that the resemblance to Paul became very noticeable, “he will not be averse to showing you, dear Hildy!”

    “No: I asked him straight out and he said it wouldn’t be suitable for a bachelor to invite a young lady to visit his establishment,” she said with a sigh.

    “Don’t you mean his humble establishment?” said Gaetana with a smothered giggle.

    “Of course: his humble establishment! –Gaetana, did you not think it was odd, the way he asked us all those questions about Lady Charleson and Muzzie?”

    “No, for it is obvious he means to buy Willow Court, drain it and turn it into a spice plantation!”

    “Idiot!” cried Hildy, sitting up and throwing a leaf at her.

    “Sorry! No, you are right: it was very strange... No, I have it, he means to rescue Sir Noël from Lady Charleson’s clutches!” she gurgled.

    “What: by the sacrifice of his person, or by strangling the woman?” replied Hildy, staring at her.

    “Either would do, I am not particular!”

    “Perhaps he was only trying to find out if Muzzie would be suitable for Mr Urqhart?” she said dubiously.

    “I cannot think of the proper Timothy as Mr Urqhart,” sighed Gaetana, getting side-tracked in the Ainsley fashion.

    “No, he seems an unlikely successor to the glorious Pumps, famed in deed and story,” agreed Hildy glumly. “I was so looking forward to meeting him, too!”

    “Pooh, you were hoping he would be an extraordinary cit in a green velvet coat and a purple satin waistcoat!”

    “Well, I would not actually have wished Mrs Urqhart to have a guy for a son, only if he had turned out to be so, it would have been... the hand of Providence,” she decided.

    “Hildy, it is just as well you decided you and Mr Parkinson should not suit,” said Gaetana in mock-hollow tones.

    Hildy scowled. “I thought we had a pact that we would not mention gentlemen?”

    “I’m sorry. Though Mr Urqhart is very much the gentleman.”

    Hildy groaned and put her arm over her eyes.

    “I suppose I had best not mention Sir Edward, either. Though I must just say he is clearly one of your greatest admirers!”

    “Not enough to invite me to his bachelor establishment, though,” she reminded her.

    “True. --How many years has he been a widower, did Mrs Urqhart say?”

    “She did not: in fact she has been remarkably silent on the subject, and it is my opinion,” said Hildy, sitting up, eyes sparkling: “that he was married to an Indian lady!”

    “Ooh, perhaps he still is, and has a family of fifteen hopeful little brown children over there!” gurgled Gaetana.

    “And four wives!” she choked.

    “Oh, do not leave it at that!” returned Gaetana merrily. “Four wives and a houseful of concubines: after all, let us not forget he is a confirmed nabob!”

    And they both collapsed in helpless giggles.

    Although she did not put it so crudely, Lady Charleson’s expectations of Mrs Urqhart’s latest guest were not so very far removed from the opinion funningly expressed by the girls. She had no great hopes of the dinner at The Towers, and so she endeavoured to make clear to Mrs Purdue—without, at the same time, making it clear that she was making it clear. Not altogether an easy matter; though her Ladyship was not inexperienced in such social contortionism.

    “Try this, my dear Mrs Purdue,” she sighed, pouring tea for her. “I shall be most interested to have your opinion of it: I had it off that Urqhart woman. I should rather say, she forced it upon me. I suppose I should only be thankful it was not a jewelled ivory peacock full three foot high, or some such!”

    Mrs Purdue sipped cautiously. “Very fine,” she admitted reluctantly.

    Lady Charleson gave a very slight shrug. “Indeed, I thought so, but I am very far from a connoisseur, as you know. Her family is in the import-export business: one must suppose she gets it wholesale.”

    “Undoubtedly. So the son will be there also?”

    “Yes,” she sighed.

    Mrs Purdue gave her a warning look.

    To which Lady Charleson responded: “Mrs Maddern has assured me that he was at Harrow with young Mr Maddern, so one must conclude he is not a total hobbledehoy. But you are quite right, of course, my dear: I shall be on my guard every instant. And I am determined that if there is to be any dancing—which she has not mentioned, but with that sort of person one never knows—Millicent shall not participate.”

    “Very wise, my dear,” she approved, sipping tea. “Tell me, does not Mr Ainsley have a younger brother? Older than the little boy, I mean.”

    How this point had come to Mrs Purdue’s ears Lady Charleson did not bother to enquire: every point of interest that arose in the genteel houses of Dittersford, Daynesford and even as far abroad as Chipping Ditter and Ditterminster, inevitably did. It might have helped that Mrs Purdue’s brother was the Bishop of Ditterminster, that her sister was married to the Dean, and that her youngest brother was a rural dean, residing at Chipping Ditter.

    “Yes, but I believe he is in Spain with the parents,” she sighed.

    “Oh?”

    “He will inherit his mother’s property,” said Lady Charleson on a discontented note, twitching at her shawl.

    “Indeed?” she said with interest.

    Lady Charleson pouted. “It cannot signify.”

    Mrs Purdue sipped tea thoughtfully. “Perhaps not... This Sir Edward Judd is not married, I believe?”

    “Jubb,” corrected Lady Charleson. “No, he is a widower, or so Mrs Maddern was saying. Though I dare swear her information may be all wrong!” she added, pouting.

    “Mm... The late Mr Urqhart’s partner, I think you said?”

    Lady Charleson quite understood that this was a probe as to Sir Edward’s age. Well, not only as to Sir Edward’s age, as to her own feelings and intentions in the matter as well. She shrugged. “So I am told. But at least Mr Urqhart was a gentleman, whereas this man—!”

    “Mm...” murmured Mrs Purdue, very thoughtfully indeed.

    Lady Charleson experienced a strong desire to leap up and seize her old crony by her scrawny throat, shortly thereafter throttling the life out of her. This sort of emotion was not an infrequent one in Mrs Purdue’s acquaintance—though it was true to say, the two ladies generally being in sympathy over most matters, that Lady Charleson had not so far been on the receiving end of Mrs Purdue’s more thoughtful “Mms.” She fought the feeling down, not allowing it to show, and merely gave another very slight shrug.

    Mrs Purdue sipped tea slowly and accepted a deliciously crisp biscuit. These biscuits were the triumph of Lady Charleson’s kitchen but her Ladyship did not expect a favourable comment on them today from her caller, for they had turned out perfect. And indeed, Mrs Purdue did not mention the biscuits but said, swallowing: “Does he have children, my dear?”

    Lady Charleson set her cup down with the tiniest of clinks, which did not go unnoticed by Mrs Purdue. “I dare say he may have as many as five dozen: all as black as a boot,” she said on a dry note. “But as to any he may have by an English wife, I really have no notion. And I am very sure that knighthood or not, and partnership or not, they at least will not have been at Harrow!” She paused delicately. “Or indeed, Eton or Rugby, come to that,” she said in a kind voice.

    Thanks to the plaintively pretty Evangeline’s influence with her late husband’s uncles, Eric Charleson had been sent to Eton. Mr John Purdue, who was a year or two his elder, had been at Rugby. “Quite,” agreed Mrs Purdue coldly.

    “And how is dear John?” asked Lady Charleson kindly.

    It was scarcely the ambition of Mrs Purdue’s life to see her John tied up to Evangeline Charleson’s only daughter. “He is very well, thank you, my dear, and writes he may spend the rest of the summer with the Alingtons, for they have been so kind as to press him to extend his stay.”

    Though the name was almost incessantly on Mrs Purdue’s lips Lady Charleson had not been privileged to meet these Alingtons, who were distant connections of Mrs Purdue through her mother. The Alingtons, it was understood in the neighbourhood of Dittersford, were by far too high in the instep to descend to visits to a country backwater. Had it not been for the fact that Mrs Purdue and the various members of her family vanished from time to time Alington-wards, to return with circumstantial tales of large dinner parties and delightful walks in the grounds of the Alingtons’ country estate, the less charitable of the Purdues’ acquaintance—of whom Lady Charleson was most undoubtedly one—would have voiced the thought that the whole family was a fiction dreamed up by Mrs Purdue’s imagination.

    “How delightful for him: though you will miss him sadly, of course,” said her Ladyship smoothly. This was a doubly barbed remark, in that that it betrayed no chagrin over the likelihood of his coming within Muzzle’s vicinity this summer, whilst underlining the point that, as the whole neighbourhood knew, Mr John Purdue did not get on at all well with his mamma.

    Mrs Purdue, concealing her inner rage, inclined her head graciously. A little later, however, as she rose to go, she said with a light laugh: “Well, my dear! You will not need to waste your delicious silver-blue on this dinner, at all events!”

    Although Lady Charleson had been expecting something of the sort, Mrs Purdue’s visits generally holding a sting in their tails, she scarce refrained from grinding her teeth. How the woman had got hold of the fact that she had worn her best evening gown to that dreadful little hop at the Manor—!

    With a little light laugh she returned: “What, not that old blue thing of mine? Why, it is quite two Seasons old, I am merely wearing it out this year, you know! Well, to say truth I had thought it would be good enough, but Muzzie has condemned it, and urged that we should be dressed alike!” Another light laugh. “I had to convince her that that would be most ineligible. And whilst I do not deny that in my girlhood, palest blue was ever my colour,”—she flicked a glance at Mrs Purdue’s yellowish complexion—“for women of our age, my dear, it is scarcely the thing!”

    “No, indeed,” agreed Mrs Purdue grimly. She paused. Lady Charleson braced herself. “One gathers that the Urqhart creature has at least not put herself forward so far as to issue an invitation to the Place?”

    Lady Charleson produced the long, tinkling, bell-like trill of laughter which was her specialty when she was concerned to hide a welling fury. “I would not imagine so! But then, I scarcely know the Marquis—though of course when my dear husband was alive he did us the honour of dining in this house once or twice, but those were mainly political dinners, and my poor head could not follow even a tenth of the conversation! But possibly you are better informed than I, my dear Mrs Purdue?”

    Mrs Purdue replied on a very dry note: “Oh, I hardly think so, my dear.” And departed, reasonably well satisfied with herself. It was not until she was nearly home that it dawned that Evangeline Charleson had not advanced her knowledge of the late nabob’s partner one iota and that she still had as little notion as she had had upon leaving her own gate whether or no Lord Rockingham was destined to dine in Evangeline Charleson’s company at The Towers.

    “You must admit,” said Mrs Parkinson in a very low voice: “that that is delicious!”

    Mrs Maddern looked with loathing at Lady Charleson entirely dressed in drifting cloud-grey chiffon. Even to the turban, with an ostrich feather which was black-tipped, shading out to the very same cloud-grey. And apart from the pearls, which, though not, of course, nearly in the same class as Mrs Urqhart’s stupendous rope, looked enchantingly round the pretty, fair Evangeline’s throat. “Yes. Well, at least it is suitable,” she conceded grimly.

    “Artful, I would say,” corrected Mrs Parkinson grimly.

    Mrs Maddern took another look. “You are entirely right, my dear. I shall never again claim that grey is ageing on a fair woman.”

    “Precisely.’

    The two ladies looked bitterly across Mrs Urqhart’s drawing-room.

    “At all events, Sir Edward and Lord Rockingham do not appear to think so,” added Mrs Maddern tightly.

    “Quite.”

    Sir Edward Jubb, with even more experience of life than Mrs Urqhart’s to his credit, and without the disadvantage of being a middle-aged female anxious to keep a young man of her family safe from a predatory and unsuitable older woman, was able to see Lady Charleson with a more unprejudiced eye than that of his old partner’s widow. He had perceived almost at once that Evangeline Charleson, though undoubtedly just as silly as Mrs Urqhart had described her, was not, given her looks, her class, her age and the fact that she was condemned by her circumstances to inhabit an isolated country backwater, so very dreadful after all. He had no doubt that if she could hook Sir Noël Amory, she would. But he also had little doubt that her schemes would not go very much further than exerting herself to smother Amory in sighing charm, with perhaps the addition—for Sir Edward was neither naïve nor a boy—of just enough touching and kissing to get the young man thoroughly heated up, without yet going so far as to be scandalously beyond the pale. He noted with an amusement that was not without a tinge of pity her Ladyship’s  fluttering attempts to monopolize Lord Rockingham and his Lordship’s utter indifference to these attempts.

    Rockingham had accepted the invitation not merely because he had conceived a great liking for Mrs Urqhart, but also in the hope of seeing Gaetana. He had not planned exactly what to say when he saw her—or, rather, he had planned a thousand things, none of which seemed possible once he was actually arrived on the scene. It had not dawned on the kind-hearted old lady that his Lordship was interested in Gaetana, or she would have taken care to seat them together at dinner, unsuitable though that would have been. Instead, she put his Lordship at her own right hand with, after some thought, the strong-minded Miss Maddern on his right. Mrs Maddern was at Tim’s right and Lady Charleson, oddly enough, between Tim and Ned Jubb. This meant that Lady Charleson was at a far remove from Lord Rockingham throughout the dinner, but to do her justice this thought had not occurred to Mrs Urqhart until they actually sat down to dine. At which point, also to do her justice, she became vastly amused by it and in fact had a coughing fit, from which she unceremoniously gasped that the Marquis should recover her by bashing her on the back. Rockingham obligingly did so.

    Both Rockingham and Gaetana, by the end of the evening, had decided that it must rank as one of the most miserable they had ever spent. Very naturally his Lordship had found himself absorbed into a male group composed largely of Sir Edward and Mr Urqhart, with some support from Mr Ainsley, talking mostly of their interests in the City and of politics, though not without some reference to the charities through which his Lordship and the nabob already knew each other slightly. The Marquis reconfirmed an impression that Sir Ned was a decent fellow with a damned good head on him and Ned Jubb an impression that Lord Rockingham, in spite of his grim manner, not to say his position in society, was a man of genuine probity and great good sense. Once they discovered a common interest in art there was no holding them and they spent a good deal of the evening in close converse on a sofa, oblivious to Lady Charleson’s fluttering eyelashes and pouting attempts to join in the conversation.

    Art or no art, however, the Marquis ended the evening as heart-sore as he had begun it. He had barely had a chance to exchange half a dozen words with Gaetana. From her blushes as he did so he had ascertained that she was scarcely as indifferent to him as her conventional greeting had proclaimed her to be. And though his heart had beat very fast at this discovery—well, what sort of encouragement was that for a man who had hoped... God knew what, from the evening! He did not address a word to poor Carolyn all the way home in the carriage.

    Gaetana was equally miserable, in fact more so, for where the Marquis had at least decided on a course of action—if he did not yet know how to carry it through—she had decided that self-sacrifice was the only course open to her. And to find herself treated by the company as little more than a child, relegated to the companionship of such as Eric and Muzzie Charleson, whilst Rockingham and Sir Edward talked about really interesting things, had been a most humiliating experience indeed.

    She went to bed after the party without a word, not even to Hildy. Once the house was silent, she put her head under a pillow and cried and cried.

    “Ho!” said Mrs Urqhart next morning as a grinning Ned Jubb appeared at her bedside with her breakfast tray. “It’s you, is it?”

    “I thought you might have a bone to pick with me,” he said meekly, drawing up a small chair for himself and sitting down beside the bed.

    “Did you, just? I cain’t imagine why!” She poured herself a cup of coffee and, ignoring the fact that there were two cups on the tray, sipped it, glaring at him.

    “Coffee?” he queried with a laugh. “What will that do to our China trade?”

    Nobly refraining from mentioning the experiments with tea, so far unsuccessful, that the firm was carrying out in the foothills of the Himalayas near Darjeeling, she replied: “Well, Pumps would be cross with me, but he ain’t here, bless him.” She gave a little sigh, but added: “They is not up yet, I s’pose?”

    “No,” he agreed, taking one of her bread rolls. “Not even Tim.”

    “No,” she said on a glum note. “Didn’t seem real struck by none of ’em, did he?”

    “No. Well, at least we know now whom to rule out, Betsy.”

    “Oh, shut your big mouth, you is neither use nor ornament!”

    “I could scarcely put my hand up the Charleson woman’s skirt in your drawing-room, my dear.”

    Mrs Urqhart sniffed angrily.

    “Could I?” he said plaintively.

    “No, but you could at least have encouraged her!” she said crossly.

    Sir Ned smiled slowly. “I did encourage her, dearest Betsy: you obviously didn’t appreciate the delicacy of my tactics.”

    “Huh!”

    “No, truly!” he said, grinning. “First I let her get it out of me that I was a lonely man with only my art collection to console me, sorry, I mean my priceless art collection—”

    Mrs Urqhart choked on a crumb and had to be bashed on the back. “You is incorrigible!” she gasped.

    “I thought that was what you wanted? Anyway, then I dropped a hint or two about that suggestion that I should go into politics.”

    “You said yourself a man would die of boredom in the House after the City!” she gasped.

    “True; but there was no need to convey that to her, and the offer at least was perfectly genuine on the Party’s part.”

    “Perfectly genuinely after your fortune!” she corrected scornfully.

    “Oh, absolutely,” he replied mildly. “Where was I?”

    “Delicately encouraging of Lady C.,” said Mrs Urqhart in a rude voice.

    He winked. “Yes. She was exceeding pleased to hear I was thinking of taking up anything so respectable as her late husband’s occupation, and told me I would find it a lonely life, though a man in politics with the proper wife could accomplish much.”—Mrs Urqhart could not restrain a gulp.—“Then I complained of my cook.”

    “Ned Jubb!” she gasped. “You bare-faced liar!”

    “Thus allowing her to tell me of both the prowess of her own cook and the difficulties a widow-woman of straightened means has in holding staff.”

    “Aye, well: when she complains of ’em without scarcely drawing breath and near starves ’em to death and don’t pay ’em more than a groat a week, I dare say she may have difficulties!”

    “So I should imagine. Then she mentioned casually that she was thinking of inviting you to a little dinner, though of course her hospitality couldn’t hope to compare with yours—I didn’t tell her I agreed with her there, was I not tactful?—and asked whether I would still be here a week from Tuesday. So I said I wouldn’t.” He looked blandly at her.

    “What use was that, you great noddy?” she cried.

    “Dearest Betsy, I was giving her the illusion that she had to pursue me: it wouldn’t have done to seem over-eager.”

    “I can’t see why not!” she said huffily.

    “Pursuit will make her that much hotter,” he said blandly.

    “Eh?”

    “Not in that sense,” said Ned Jubb, heavy, handsome face all twinkles, “though I dare say that may come into it, too! No, she’s the sort that needs to do the chasing. And if she’s very busy working out schemes to catch the nabob,”—he looked at her drily—“she won’t have much time or energy left over to waste on young Noël.”

    Mrs Urqhart looked at him uncertainly. “Well, was that all?”

    “Oh, Lor’, no! She was at pains to explain to me how young she had married,”—Mrs Urqhart snorted richly—“and the trouble it was to her, imposing discipline on the children when she was little more than a girl herself, and widowed so early.”

    “No more than five years since, I’ll bet my pearls!” she cried.

    “As long as that?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “You do surprize me.”

    Mrs Urqhart grinned, and bit hungrily into a roll. “Well, go on,” she said, more or less through it.

    “I let her know that I’d be back within the month, though I couldn’t say when. So she promised me a dinner party then, and told me all about some ruin the children had visited and gave me some rigmarole as to why she had missed it. I didn’t favour her with the story of what English ruins are likely to do to my gammy leg, I didn’t think she’d appreciate it. I said I was much interested in Mediaeval architecture and if she and little Muzzie cared to see the ruin in my company, I would be happy to accompany them.”

    “If this is the priory, you has seen it I know not a-many times!” she said, goggling at him.

    “Well, she don’t know that, Betsy,” he said with a wink.

    “You is a complete hand, Ned Jubb! Well, I might have known I could rely on you! And she bit, out of course?”

    “Certainly. She pressed my hand in a most speaking way,” he said with a naughty twinkle, “and revealed that it was she knew not how long since anyone had expressed a desire to do anything for her pleasure as opposed to that of her children. Though she supposed that sacrifice was a mother’s lot, and a woman of her age could not hope for less. I think she meant ‘more’, but she was carried away by the affecting picture she was presenting.”

    “The bare-faced— Why, she is a woman as has never been known to put herself out for a soul, my love, child or not, and so the whole neighbourhood will tell you!”

    “So I gathered. And she is not precisely bare-faced,” he murmured.

    After a moment Mrs Urqhart spluttered into her coffee and put the cup down hurriedly.

    “Though it’s the most delicate paint job I’ve ever laid eyes on. Well, short of an actual Gainsborough,” said Ned Jubb, grinning.

    “What, the fellow what painted that yaller lady as you has in your own room?”

    “She is not yellow. Primrose,” he said firmly.

    “Yes, well. –I has to admit, I never spotted it, only my eyes ain’t what they was.”

    “I think you would have in daylight,” he murmured.

    “Well, when I was a girl everyone painted and no-one didn’t think no worse of you for it. Ain’t it funny how times does change?” she sighed.

    “Indeed,” said Ned Jubb, picking up her hand and kissing it.

    Mrs Urqhart sighed and sniffed a little, and patted his grizzled curls, and told him not to be a fool, he’d have her bawling next thing they knew. “So she is fairly hooked?” she added hopefully.

    “I think so, without flattering myself. My subsequent failure to hang on her every word piqued her, you know.”

    “Not enough to put her off your fortune, I’ll be bound!”

    “Oh, I shouldn’t think so, at all. –I must be off, Betsy, I’m expected back in town,” he said, getting up. “Oh, and by the way, when I do come down again, may I bring little Johanna?”

    Mrs Urqhart’s round, red face lit up. “Out o’ course you may, you great fool!” she cried. “Never tell me that aunty of hers in Scotland is letting her come to you, at the last?”

    “Aye: her poor Aunt Margaret has not been very well this past year. And Johanna is seventeen, now, you know.”

    “She cain’t be!” she gasped.

    “Yes, work it out: she was born about two years before you left India, my dear.”

    “Ned Jubb, if you had only breathed a word, I could have had the child any time this past twelvemonth!” she cried indignantly.

    “Well, that is very kind, Betsy, my dear,” he said, taking her hand, “but she was finishing her schooling, you know. But from now on, she will be with me permanently. Of course we originally intended that Margaret would come south to chaperon her, but—” He made a face. “I fear she is grown near as frail as my poor dear Fanny.”

    Mrs Urqhart’s high colour faded. “Dearest Ned, is the child quite stout?” she faltered.

    “Lor’, yes! Never had a day’s illness in her life apart from the odd measle or so! No, never fret, she has my constitution,” he said, kissing her hand.

    “That is a great consolation, Ned,” said Mrs Urqhart solemnly.

    “Yes, it is. Well, we shall see you very soon; and I shall duly lead the Charleson woman on, never fear! Oh, and I’ll let Jo in on it, but don’t fear her: she’ll think it a huge joke!”

    “Good! I can hardly wait, ain’t it exciting! Is she growed much, Ned?”

    He laughed. “You would not know her at all! She is as tall as that charming Miss Maddern, now, and with a very similar figure!”

    “Land save us.”

    “Er—and before you get any silly ideas into that noddle of yours, last time she saw Tim she said he’d grown into a prosy bore,” he said drily.

    “Girls does exaggerate,” she returned dubiously.

    He laughed. “My Jo don’t! Well, I’ll see you very soon, my dear!” He bent and kissed her cheek, and went out.

    Mrs Urqhart leaned back upon her pillows, her fertile brain revolving many schemes. Some old, some new. And some new-old, in spite of the “prosy bore” bit.

    Rockingham blew his nose. “Alternatively, you could go to Lavinia for the rest of the summer,” he noted.

    “No!” cried Carolyn tearfully.

    “She is coming at the end of the week, at all events. Don’t look at me like that: you don’t imagine I invited her, do you?”

    Carolyn bit her lip. “No.”

    “Well, which is it to be?” said Rockingham wearily. He sneezed, muttered: “Damn!” and blew his nose again.

    “Giles, I think you had best go to bed,” she said timidly. “I’m sure Mamma would say that a cold like that needs taking care of.”

    Rockingham passed a hand across his hot and aching forehead. “Very well. And if you know of any remède that Mamma uses for headaches, I shall not stop you forcing it upon me,” he added sourly.

    Carolyn frowned anxiously, chewing her lip.

    “But decide first, or I’ll be lying upon my bed of pain all of a doo-dah,” said her brother sardonically.

    “Um—well, I do like Dezzie, very much, only…” She gulped.

    “Aye: she’s mad,” said Lady Desdemona’s brother simply. “Well, I’m sorry, Carolyn, but it’s her or dump you on Lavinia full-time.” He sneezed again, groaned and blew his nose. “Margaret’s busy with her young family, and Fenella expects to be confined any week now, if I’ve got it right. Anyway, she’s a flea-brain: wouldn’t entrust a cat to her care, let alone a human being.”

    Carolyn gulped again. “No, but… Um, the thing is, Giles,” she burst out as he cocked an eyebrow at her enquiringly: “will Dezzie know—know the right things?”

    The Marquis considered it briefly. “Probably not,” he conceded. “Well, she was brought up to be a lady, y’know,” he added dubiously.

    “Ye-es... I cannot imagine how a daughter of Mamma’s could—could—”

    “Grow up mad as a hatter?”

    “She is not mad, I wish you would stop saying that!” she cried.

    “Well, she’s Papa’s child, too,” he said with a sigh.

    Carolyn looked at him nervously.

    “I grant you she don’t drink,” he acknowledged. “Never been known to beat anyone, either, that I ever heard of.”

    “No, of course not!” she cried. “What a terrible thing to say!”

    “No, it ain’t, I said she didn’t, not that she did. –All right, all right, she’s not mad, she’s just damned eccentric. What are these things she won’t know about, then? Or are they too delicate to mention?” he added drily.

    “No!” she cried, very red. “No, um—dresses and—and that sort of thing, Giles,” she said, looking at him plaintively.

    Giles sighed. “It will have to be Lavinia, in that case.”

    “I could not bear it!”

    “Understandable,” he muttered. “Well, will it do you irreparable damage to have Dezzie inflicted on you for the rest of the year? Lavinia’ll take care of you next year during the Season, you know. She’s been making noises about holding the ball to end all balls at Hammond House for you,” he added sourly.

    Carolyn’s face lit up magically. “Really? Oh, how splendid! In the big ballroom?”

    “Dare say,” he said morosely, blowing his nose and feeling his forehead. “God, I feel...”

    Carolyn got up. “You must go to bed at once,” she said firmly.

    Giles goggled at her.

    “I will have Dezzie, she will be better than no chaperone at all. And the local people must know her, after all. And I shall write her a note myself, Giles, you need not worry about it, I shall explain everything. And I suppose I had better drop a line to Aunt Lavinia, too, or she will say we do not keep her informed.”

    “Uh—yes,” he said, still goggling. “Just give ’em to Hollings when you’ve wr— No, stay, I’ll need to frank ’em for you.”

    “Never mind that. Go up to bed immediately, and I’ll bring you a tisane,” said his little sister firmly.

    “Eh?” he said, hauling himself to his feet.

    “It is not a receet of Mamma’s, it is a very old one of Tante Elisabeth’s, and guaranteed to sweat the fever out of your bones. And don’t tell me it’s only a cold, if it is neglected it may very likely develop into something much worse!”

    “I wasn’t going to tell you any such thing, I feel like death,” he groaned.

    “Yes. Off you go!” said Carolyn cheerfully.

    The Marquis dragged himself out of the room. As he neglected to close the door after him he heard Carolyn saying to herself: “Comme tous les hommes: une fois enrhumés, ils se croient moribonds!”

    His Lordship dragged himself up to bed with a twisted grin on his saturnine face. He was not, after all this, terribly surprized when she did appear at his bedside, swathed in an huge apron, and stood over him while he gulped down some nauseating brew.

    Carolyn was just reaching the foot of the stairs, empty glass in hand, when the front door opened and Sir Julian and his three little girls came in, all in riding dress.

    “How far did you get?” she cried.

    Rommie began sadly: “Not very far, because Papa—”

    Sir Julian sneezed explosively.

    “You have not got it, too!” cried Carolyn in dismay.

    “Looks like it,” he said glumly, blowing his nose. “What a dashed thing, eh? In midsummer, too!”

    “Just be thankful,” said Carolyn on a sour note, “that it was not you who was forced to miss the fireworks because of it!”

    “Yes,” he said with a grin. “Hell!” he gasped, sneezing again

    “Go up to bed. I shall be up directly.”

    “Uh—yes.” He went up a couple of steps. “Um—look, Carolyn, is this the thing?” he said feebly.

    Mlle Girardon gave him a look of withering scorn. “The thing! When you are as sick as a dog?”

    “Uh—not that that bad.” He sneezed again. “God,” he muttered glumly.

    Carolyn took a deep breath. “Julian Naseby: if you do not go off to your bed this instant, I will ring for the footmen to carry you up!”

    “I’m going, I’m going,” he said hurriedly. He started up, grinning, but after only four steps had a terrific sneezing fit. He finished the trip with his handkerchief ready in his hand, looking very hangdog indeed.

    Carolyn rolled her eyes wildly and bustled off to the kitchen.

    “Encore un,” she said to M. Foulet.

    “Qui ça, mademoiselle?”

    “Sir Julian.”

    The chef threw his hands in the air and explained at length that this was the worst possible scenario, two gentleman both believing themselves to be at death’s door when it was only la grippe, and he had said all along that it was a mistake to have Mademoiselle Heather here, for the last time she had come not only his Lordship but also Mr Sweet and Sir Lionel Dewesbury had been infected— Et tout et tout.

    Carolyn wasn’t in the least surprized. Inviting the woman back to his house after such an episode was precisely what you might have expected from a mere man. She made up a second dose of tisane competently, and, taking it up to Sir Julian’s room herself, duly stood over him while he choked it down.

    Her mother would have been proud of her.

    “Mamma would be proud of you,” noted her half-sister two days later, grinning. –Carolyn had not merely sent her a letter, she had very sensibly sent the carriage, in the case Dezzie should feel like coming immediately. Which Lady Desdemona, who in spite of her independent ways was not immune to the call of family duty, of course had.

    “Well, somebody had to cope, Dezzie! And Giles will not take the least bit of notice of poor Mrs Freeman!”

    “No, he’s a half-wit,” agreed his older sister calmly. “Well, I’m not much good at sick-bed stuff: you might as well carry on. I mean, I can do the practical nursing and so on, only I can’t emanate womanly sympathy!” she added with a grin that made her look very like her brother in one of his better moods.

    “Womanly sympathy?” cried Carolyn. “It isn’t that which that pair of sillies need, I can tell you!”

    “What is it, then?” asked Dezzie, grinning.

    “Managing,” said Carolyn grimly.

    “Mm. Well, I’m no good at that, either: can’t stand people that won’t behave like rational adults. –’Ve you had it?

    “Yes, last month: I missed Giles’s fireworks. But after that Cousin Eunice Heather came down with another one, and I think it’s that that Giles and Sir Julian have caught.”

    ‘‘Typical. The woman’s a menace,” she said sympathetically. “It wouldn’t be time for luncheon, would it?” she added hopefully.

    “We-ell... It is a little early. But you are the lady of the house: you could order it up,” said Carolyn.

    “Never tell me Eunice Heather ordered up luncheon at the drop of a hat in Giles’s house!” she croaked.

    “Eugh... It was more bowls of gruel and—and such like, Dezzie,” she admitted.

    “I see. He’d have liked that.”

    “Yes, and then she would refuse to eat her dinner, and he got so angry with her!” she burst out.

    “Mm. Well, if a man invites a pest into his house he must expect to be bothered,” she noted drily.

    “Yes. She was really terribly irritating... Only it is a very big house, and many servants, it was not as if—” Carolyn broke off.

    “No. But he’d have been determined to suffer.”

    “Yes,” she said.

    Dezzie looked at her uncertainly. Her lower lip was wobbling. “Look, don’t bawl,” she said uneasily.

    “I’m not. Only— He is much, much worse when Mamma is not here!” she burst out.

    “I know,” said Dezzie simply.

    Carolyn gulped.

    “Mamma’s the only person he loves,” said her older sister detachedly.

    “Ye-es. Well, I think he does love Sir Julian and his little girls, too.”

    “You astound me.”

    “No, truly, Dezzie!”

    “Well, I’m very glad to hear it.”

    “It has been better since they came. But they’ve been here for scarce three weeks: they only arrived the day before his birthday.”

    “About the time you came down with the cold?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

    Carolyn smiled reluctantly. “Yes. So I really have not seen very much of them. And Rommie spends a lot of time practising her music.”

    “I see. So what have you been doing with yourself?” she asked kindly.

    Carolyn flushed. “Not very much, I suppose. Miss Maddern frequently invites me to go out riding, only now that she and Mr Ainsley are engaged, I do not feel I should always be intruding on them!” she revealed.

    “Maddern? New people in the neighbourhood, are they?”

    “Well... not precisely. Mr Ainsley is—is at the Manor,” she fumbled, unable to explain it clearly.

    “Oh, yes. So they’re back, hey?”

    “Yes, Mr Ainsley and several of his brothers and sisters are there. Well, it is just the one brother, he is only a little boy. And the Madderns are staying with them, for they are their cousins. But Sir Harry and Lady Ainsley are living in Spain, for she is a Spanish lady.”

    “I see,” said Dezzie mildly.

    “Giles likes them,” she offered timidly.

    “Eh?”

    “No, truly, Dezzie!” she cried.

    “All right, I’ll take your word for it. Hang on, one of these sisters or cousins or whatever wouldn’t be a thirteen-stone beauty with flashing black eyes and a mass of greasy black ringlets, would she?”

    “No! What on earth do you mean?” she gasped in amaze.

    Dezzie gave a faint sniff. “Just remembering some of the Spanish so-called beauties we saw in the Peninsula, that’s all. Not to mention the Portuguese dashers.”

    Carolyn looked at her with respect. “Yes.” Lady Desdemona Hammond had married young, to the astonishment of her entire family, all of whom had believed that Dezzie, much though they loved her, was born to be a spinster. She was tall and at the age of eighteen had had a rangy, undeveloped figure which did not look its best accompanied by silks, curls, large hats and parasols. Nevertheless she had very soon after her come-out contracted an engagement with one, Captain Frederick Hobbs of a foot regiment, and once they were married had determinedly followed the drum.

    “Hobbie” as his friends all called him, was a cheery, amiable, plumpish young man whom on first sight no-one would have taken for the determined and capable officer that he was. Perhaps Dezzie had seen there was more to Hobbie than met the eye: who could tell? And perhaps Hobbie, who was as popular with the ladies as he was with his comrades, had seen beneath the surface to Dezzie’s faithful heart and dauntless courage. They had certainly been an extremely contented couple. They had had three children, of whom they not seen very much in their formative years, Dezzie having decided that the life of a serving soldier’s wife was not entirely suited to the bringing up of small children, and having therefore left them with her mother-in-law, who was as amiable as her son. The eldest, Freddy, was now twenty-one years of age, and in the Navy. His younger brother, Ninian, was at Cambridge and had already decided to take Holy Orders. And Anna, who was as unlike her Mamma as could possibly be imagined, being at nearly eighteen short, plump, brown-haired and of a very domestic turn of mind, had elected to accompany her mother to the Place in order to keep Carolyn company. Though at this precise moment, having been rather knocked up by the journey, she was laid down upon her bed.

    Lady Desdemona, at thirty-nine, had developed into a handsome, wide-shouldered, deep-bosomed woman, with very dark, thick, waving hair, much like her brother’s. Just as her gentle mamma had predicted, she had “grown into” her face. It was a strong, dark face, again very like Giles’s. It was not a face that everyone would have admired, for the vigorous determination that characterized her was writ large in it. But so, had anyone cared to look for it, was the wide charity of her generous mind. It would not have been true to say that Dezzie never criticized anybody, for she was a forthright person. But she never did so with malice, and was as willing to live and let live as any creature on earth.

    Such, then, was the Lady Desdemona Hobbs in the summer of her fortieth year. She had now been a widow for some years, Hobbie having been killed in the bloody slaughter at Badajos. Though he knew they’d fight like cat and dog, the Marquis had urged her at that time to take up permanent residence at the Place, but Dezzie had preferred an independent life in the tiny house not very far from her mother-in-law’s in a small seaside town in the west of England. If she had missed Hobble dreadfully during the first years of her widowhood, no-one knew it but herself—though her kindly mamma-in-law had guessed it.

    After the first few months of finding herself very much with her occupation gone, Dezzie had taken up gardening, and now spent more than half the daylight hours either in her garden or planning for the garden with the elderly man she hired to do the rough work. The which was rather loosely defined, for Dezzie Hobbs was as capable as he of felling a tree or digging over an asparagus bed.

    “Well,” she now said to her half-sister, patting her hand with her own strong brown one, “Anna will be company for you. Though she can’t ride for toffee, mind,” she warned.

    “I don’t mind, Rommie will usually ride out with me. But it has been quite boring during—during the day, you know,” she said, reddening.

    “Yes. Do you like reading?” asked Dezzie kindly.

    “Not very much,” she faltered, blushing. “Aunt Lavinia says that every well brought up young woman... Only those political things in the Morning Post are very hard, Dezzie!” she burst out.

    Dezzie looked at her not unkindly. Her own daughter’s similar inclinations had been rather a disappointment to her, though her sturdy common sense had told her loud and clear that in the nature of things Anna was likely to do a lot better for herself if she was entirely brainless and interested only in learning about preserves, needlework and keeping house from Grandmamma Hobbs. “Yes. Well, not everybody has a political brain,” she admitted cheerfully. “Can you do stitchery and stuff?”

    “Ye-es... Mamma and I usually do that sort of thing together.”

    “That’s good, because Anna and her grandmamma usually do it together, too, and I’ve been wondering how she’d go on with no-one to encourage her: she ain’t got much initiative, you see,” said Anna’s mother cheerfully.

    “Um—I see. Does Anna still live with Mrs Hobbs?” she ventured.

    Dezzie replied cheerfully: “Yes, of course, there’s nothing for the poor girl to do at my place! And Mother Hobbs’s house is right in the town, you know: Anna likes dawdling round the shops, and so forth.”

    “Yes, so do I. We live quite near to Ostend,” said Carolyn on a wistful note.

    “Well, we’ll have to see about poling up the barouche and letting the pair of you trot in to Ditterminster, mm?”

    “Oh, yes!” she cried. Then her face fell. “Giles will not let us, alone.”

    “I dare say I could force myself,” said Dezzie with a grin.

    “Oh, thank you, Dezzie!” cried Carolyn, bouncing up and embracing her fervently.

    Dezzie withstood this assault with remarkable fortitude, merely patting her on the back and saying placidly: “That’s all right. No need to bawl.”

    Hildy reddened, and retreated. “Lawks!”

    Gaetana had also seen Paul and Christabel in the little sitting-room, he with his head in her lap, she motionless with a hand in his black curls. She swallowed. “I suppose engaged people are like that,” she muttered.

    Hildy nodded, and drew her into the morning-room.

    “Oh, help,” said Gaetana, collapsing all of a heap onto a sofa.

    “I said we should not have come home,” Hildy reminded her glumly.

    “Sí, and you were right. Only we could scarcely have stayed on, with the two gentlemen returning to The Towers,” she said sadly.

    “No. And the Jubbs. I wonder what Johanna Jubb will be like?”

    “I can’t imagine him with a daughter,” said Gaetana, frowning.

    “No,” agreed Hildy, pinkening.

    “You have fallen for him!” she gasped.

    “I have NOT!” shouted Hildy. “Just because I like him and enjoyed his company—! Besides, you did, too!”

    “Sí, but I do not think I blush at the mention of his name.”

    “That’s a horrid thing to say!” she cried.

    “I’m sorry, querida, but you were. I—I cannot help feeling anxious about you, Hildy, dear.”

    “I’m not in love with Sir Edward Jubb, what a silly idea: he must be in his fifties,” said Hildy, scowling horribly.

    “You said yourself he was the most intelligent and interesting person you had met this twelvem— Hildy!” she gasped, as Hildy burst into tears. “Oh, querida, don’t!” she said, jumping up and, putting her arm around her, leading her to the sofa.

    Hildy suffered herself to be sat down and hugged.

    When the tears had abated somewhat Gaetana said anxiously: “Are you?”

    “I don’t know. I just like him. If only he was younger I would be!” she said, lips trembling.

    “Sí, sí; don’t cry again, dear one.”

    “I wish silly men had never been invented!” declared Hildy.

    “Sí,” agreed Gaetana glumly, thinking of them in their male clique the night of Mrs Urqhart’s dinner party: “they are more trouble than they are worth.”

    “Yes. And anyway, she is near as old as I,” said Hildy, pouting.

    “Who? Oh, Miss Jubb! Yes, she is less than a year younger than me, from what Mrs Urqhart said.”

    “Yes,” she said dully.

    Gaetana squeezed her shoulders. “Shall we go for a walk? Or a drive?”

    “Yes,” said Hildy, blowing her nose in a determined way. “Let us take the trap out: we both need the practice. We could go to Dittersford, there’s plenty of room to turn once you’re on the far side of the village.”

    “Sí,” agreed Gaetana, not taking this last personally. She got up, twinkling at her. “And if on the way we should chance to meet a waggon laden with carpets—”

    “Don’t!” warned Hildy, smiling. “I never wish to hear that word again!’

    “I fear your wish will not be granted! But I was only going to say that if we should, I shall buy you anything your heart desires from the village shop!” she said with a gurgle.

    “It will be a toss-up between a brass coal scuttle and five ells of grass-green ribbon!” said Hildy, getting up with a smile.

    Gaetana laughed, put her arm round her cousin’s waist and led her out. But underneath the smiles she was very worried about Hildy. She did not think that brooding over Ned Jubb, who was most certainly as old as her own papa, if not more, was an healthy occupation for a young lady of barely twenty summers. Why had wretched Sir Julian not come to call? Well, curse all men!

    “Well, now, that is a sight for sore eyes!” said Major Grey with a chuckle.

    Lord Lucas flushed up a little, for the phrase could not but recall to him that scene he and the Marquis had witnessed in Mrs Urqhart’s garden during his previous visit to The Towers. However, he smiled and agreed, as the trap with the two pretty girls in it drove slowly into the village and drew up outside a little shop.

    “You said there was no hope for poor old Amory, there, I believe?” said Major Grey in his friend’s ear. –Sir Noël had paused a little way behind them to buy a crumpled-looking nosegay off a very small girl. On the principle of encouraging local enterprise, he had explained.

    “Well, no,” admitted Lord Lucas uneasily. “I gather she—well, she more or less warned him off.”

    “Will she take Rockingham, then, do you think?” he said on a dry note.

    Lord Lucas replied in considerable surprize: “I should think there is very little likelihood of that. He may have been pursuing her, earlier in the year, but I don’t think she appeared to affect him, did she?”

    “Maybe not. But reflect on this, old chap,” said Major Grey, taking his arm: “she did appear to affect quite a few other fellows, none more than another and none more nor less than poor old Noël!”

    “Eh? Oh, I see what you mean... No, that don’t make sense, Grey, if the girl has a fancy to be a marchioness, why the Devil didn’t she encourage him?”

    “Well, if she don’t have a fancy to be a marchioness, why the Devil didn’t she encourage Noël?” he returned airily.

    After a moment Lord Lucas said uncertainly: “That don’t necessarily follow.”

    Major Grey’s wide mouth twitched a little. “No. Well, shall we go and pay our respects, old man?”

    “I suppose we shall have to.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “I don’t think he’s all that keen on meeting Miss A. again.”

    “Understandable. Well, he will just have to brace himself,” he said, not unkindly. “After all, if he is to spend time in the neighbourhood—!”

    The two gentlemen followed the young ladies into the little shop, and duly paid their respects. Sir Noël then coming in, Major Grey very soon afterwards went out again, for with three large military gentlemen as well as the young ladies and two plump village women, the little shop was really quite overcrowded.

    The Major lounged idly on the pavement, feeling rather bored, and wondering why, really, he had come. Old Noël was a good fellow, of course, and Lucas, if a bit of a stuffed shirt, was not such a bad old stick—and Mrs Urqhart was a damn’ good sort, and a wonderful hostess, and one could be utterly at ease in her house. Only... Well, little Miss Amabel had not really seemed all that keen during the Season, and he had been wondering ever since if it was worth pursuing her. In between wondering whether to sell out: the Army was dashed flat, half of his friends had left the service, and indeed there was far less need for officers and far less likelihood of seeing action or promotion, than there had been within—well, really, what with the wars in the Americas as well as the Peninsula campaign, his lifetime. There was always India, of course, and he supposed if the worst came to the worst he could transfer, but— Well, it sounded a damned hot, filthy, uncomfortable place from Mrs Urqhart’s account, and was it, in the long run, worth it? Well, a fellow had to do something with his life; only...

    His eye brightened. There she was, just coming down the other side of the street, dressed in a flowered yellow print gown, with a chip hat on her head and a basket on her arm! Adorable! He took a step forward, than stopped. Who the Devil—? A gentleman had just come up to Miss Amabel, bowed very low, sweeping off his hat to reveal cropped fawnish hair with a gleam of silver in it, been greeted with evident rapture by her, and was now being favoured with the basket! Major Grey stepped back, glaring.

    The pair seemed to be in no hurry, for they had halted outside a little shop—was it an ironmonger’s? Well, no matter. Miss Amabel was laughing and he could swear she was blushing. As he watched, feeling very disgruntled, for had he not come all the way to Dittersford express to see her, the door of the shop opened, a portly shop-fellow appeared, bowing, and a girl in blue, also with a chip hat, and also with a basket on her arm, came out. Major Grey stared as the fellow who had been talking to Miss Amabel also took this lady’s basket . That left him with a basket on each arm, and no arm to give to either of the young ladies, what a gudgeon!

    Suddenly Major Grey squared his military shoulders, took a deep breath, and strode into the fray.

    “Major Grey!” faltered Amabel, blushing deeply. “How—how very pleasant to see you again, sir! Er—you do not know Mr O’Flynn, I believe? And this is Miss Charleson, she is his distant cousin. This is Major Grey, Muzzie—Mr O’Flynn.”

    Mr O’Flynn bowed stiffly, not failing to take in either Miss Amabel’s blushes, which he totally misinterpreted, or the Major’s fine shoulders.

    Muzzie, very pink, curtseyed deeply. She was still quite unused to meeting gentlemen. Especially very tall ones with military titles, who were a lot older than Eric or even Mr Ainsley. And who did not immediately make some funning remark in order to put her at her ease.

    “Mr O’Flynn is a connection of a dear friend of mine, sir,” explained Amabel, still terribly flustered. Although the Major had threatened to visit them in the country, of course she had never dreamed that he really would: oh, dear, had she given him too much encouragement in town? But she had truly never meant to!

    “I see. You live locally, do you, sir?” he said politely, aware that the “sir” was underlining the fellow’s age. He must be considerably more than ten years older than Major Grey was himself, and therefore by far too old for Miss Amabel! In fact it was a damned liberty for the fellow to be looking at her at all. A damned liberty!

    “No, but my cousins do, Major: a happy coincidence for me, you see, for now I am able to visit two sets of dear friends at once.”

    The Major was barely able to restrain a glare. “I see. Very convenient, yes.”

    “We do not live in the village, but rather to the west of Ainsley Manor,” explained Muzzie. Major Grey very naturally looked at her as she spoke and she blushed very much and suddenly tucked her hand into Amabel’s arm. –Being rather preoccupied with their own thoughts and feelings, neither of the persons present who were acquainted with Muzzie realized that she was failing entirely to speak baby-talk to this large new acquaintance.

    “Oh, yes? Would that be nearer Lower Dittersford, Miss Charleson? I’m staying near there at the moment with some friends,” he explained.

    “It is a little nearer, cross-country,” allowed Muzzie, blushing again. “We are rather isolated, at Willow Court, Mamma always says.”

    Although the young men had only arrived at The Towers the previous day, Mrs Urqhart had not failed to regale Major with a vivid description of the chatelaine of Willow Court—rather naturally, when Sir Noël had been out of the room, though she had not gone so far as to mention her fears for her nephew to his friend.

    He had to swallow. “Indeed? Low-lying there, are you not? Or so they tell me.”

    “Yes, but Mamma’s agent says our land will be much improved now that Lord Rockingham is draining and dyking at the rear of it,” said Muzzie, again neglecting her usual style. And unconsciously betraying the fact that she understood rather more of his Lordship’s operations in the swampy area than she had hitherto let become apparent.

    “Oh, absolutely. My parents’ place is in the fen country, where they have just the same sort of problem,” he said, smiling at the funny, pretty little thing.

    Muzzie nodded. “Yes, only much worse, I believe.”

    “Yes, indeed: a couple of years back our whole village was flooded when one of the dykes gave way, and the people had to take shelter in the church, which is up on the highest ground, y’see.”

    “How dreadful!” she gasped.

    “Indeed, the poor cottagers! Did they lose very much, Major?” asked Amabel.

    Major Grey offered her his arm, as the gudgeon was still standing there with his two baskets. “Very much indeed, it was a terrible year for them. Not merely their personal possessions, but such things as stores of potatoes and grain. And many animals were drowned.”

    “Oh: horrible!” said Amabel with a shudder.

    “Yes. Only it is better than the people being drowned,” said Muzzie stoutly.

    “Very true, my dear,” agreed Mr O’Flynn kindly.

    “Aye, but all the same, the animals were a large part of their livelihood in many cases. So Papa instituted emergency measures which he hopes may save the situation, in the next flood. But the difficulty is in getting the people to learn and practise them!”

    “Oh, indeed, one can imagine,” agreed Amabel sympathetically.

    “Yes,” said Mr O’Flynn: “they are incapable of seeing ahead, in so many cases, are they not? Well, it is not to be wondered at when the lower classes so sadly lack education.”

    “No,” agreed Muzzie in a very small voice, thinking of her own education and wondering for the first time if there had been something lacking in it, too. “I do not think I could bear it if Tweetie were to be drowned. –That is my bird, sir!” she gasped, turning very red, as the Major looked at her again.

    “It would be dreadful, indeed. Though you could open his cage door and he could fly away to safety,” said Amabel gently. “But shall we change the subject, Major? The topic is a little distressing, I fear. I collect it must be Mrs Urqhart with whom you are staying?”

    “Yes, indeed. Does your mamma permit you to know her, then?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

    Poor Amabel blushed painfully. In spite of her charitable heart she could not but find much of Mrs Urqhart’s conversation very shocking, and whenever she called at The Towers with Mamma or her sisters would wish herself—though she knew it to be unworthy and unchristian—quite elsewhere. “Yes, indeed; we are all very fond of Mrs Urqhart,” she said stiffly.

    Mr O’Flynn and Muzzie had driven over to Dittersford in the pony-cart, so they duly returned that way. The encounter with Amabel in the village had been a piece of pure good fortune—or so Mr O’Flynn had thought, prior to meeting Major Grey. It was a bonus that Miss Amabel accepted gratefully his offer of a ride home, as her sister and cousin were intending to drive out a little further.

    But it was definitely not a bonus that Major Grey, with the brazen declaration of wishing to see a bit more of the geography of the district, elected to ride alongside the pony-cart as far as the Manor.

    During the ride, however, Amabel favoured them with the latest news, or lack of it, in the ongoing story of the long-promised but still not eventuated Spanish carpets, so Mr O’Flynn, who was very up in this vexed affair, was able to feel quite superior to the Major, and Major Grey began to feel quite irritated with Miss Amabel: could she be doing it on purpose to make him feel a damned interloper? True, it was not very like her, but with women, you never knew. And he certainly did feel like a damned interloper! The little fair girl also appeared quite au fait with the damned carpet story, but he fancied he caught her looking at him sympathetically once or twice, so perhaps she was as about as interested in the damned things as he was!

    By the time they reached the Manor gates he was feeling really quite out of charity with Miss Amabel, and when Miss Charleson looked up the drive and said with a giggle: “Well, I do not see any waggons today, I fear Lady Ainsley’s Spanish carpets have not come yet!” he laughed rather more than the remark deserved, and gave her a wink. Which was not quite the thing, and he would have been quite annoyed if a fellow had given his sisters such a wink, only he was really fed up.

    Muzzie gave a startled giggle, and blushed.

    “I hope we shall see you at The Towers some time soon, Miss Charleson?” he said. “And if your mamma will permit you to dance, perhaps I might solicit the honour?”

    “N— I mean she— I mean, thank you very much, Major Grey!” she gasped.

    The Major gave a little laugh and said: “It will be my pleasure, Miss Charleson! –I think you do not need an escort up the drive, Miss Amabel, if there are no wild Spanish carpets lurking in the undergrowth? I had best take my leave, or Mrs Urqhart will be thinking I have got lost!”

    Amabel laughed a little, and said how pleasant it had been to see him again, and—very disjointedly—that the family would be so pleased if he should care to call; and he duly bade them all farewell and rode off. Rather fast.

    As Mrs Maddern and Mrs Parkinson had been taking a little turn in the grounds and were standing by the front steps when the pony-cart reached the top of the drive, there was little left for Mr O’Flynn to do than take his leave. The more so as Mrs Maddern, without greeting either him or Muzzie, exclaimed immediately: “Amabel, where on earth have you been? Maria and Marybelle have been looking for you this age: surely you did not forget you promised them another tatting lesson this afternoon?”

    “I—I was delayed in the village, Mamma,” she faltered.

    “So I see,” said Mrs Maddern grimly. “Well, come along, child, hurry along inside!”

    Amabel thanked Mr O’Flynn for the ride in a very squashed voice and hurried in, head bowed.

    “We shall not delay you, Mr O’Flynn,” said Mrs Maddern majestically. “For I am sure Lady Charleson is expecting you.”

    “Indeed. We also delayed longer than we expected to in the village, did we not, Muzzle?” he said weakly.

    “Yes,” said Muzzie in a tiny voice.

    Mr O’Flynn mounted into the cart again, took his hat off to the ladies, replaced it, took the reins from Muzzie, and drove away.

    For once Muzzie did not say that she could drive and why did he not let her. They were quite some distance west of the Manor before she said: “I suppose that was one of the gentlemen she met in London.”

    “Undoubtedly,” said Mr O’Flynn grimly.

    Muzzie was silent for a while. “He is very tall,” she said in a tiny voice.

    “Yes.”

    “Taller than Sir Noël or Lord—the other gentleman.”

    “Lord Lucas; his father is an earl, Muzzie,” he said wearily.

    “Yes,” said Muzzie in a squashed voice: “I do know, really.”

    They drove on.

    “I suppose he is quite old,” she said in a tiny voice.

    “Who?” replied Mr O’Flynn, frowning.

    Muzzie swallowed. “Major Grey,” she said, very pink.

    “Old? Nonsense, child, he cannot be more than two-and-thirty!” he said crossly.

    Muzzie’s blue eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she whispered.

    “I’m sorry, little Muzzie, I— There is no reason to be cross with you because I am out of sorts,” he said stiffly, patting her knee. “Forgive me.”

    “Yes, Uncky Cousin,” said Muzzie, blinking a lot. “Of course.”

    Mr O’Flynn sighed. After a little Muzzie slipped her hand into his, and he grasped it tightly. Nothing more was said by either party, all the way to Willow Court.

    “My dear boy,” admitted Mrs Parkinson three days later when the carpets from Spain still had not come: “I really think that this situation must be resolved one way or another or we shall all become distracted!”

    Paul grimaced wryly. His Tia Patty already was. All that had come was an invitation from Lady Lavinia, just arrived at the Place, to dine there. Normally Mrs Maddern would have been aux anges. As it was she had hurled the invitation to the floor, screamed that she would not be patronised by that man’s relations, not if it was ever so, and rushed off to her boudoir in a storm of sobs.

    He rose, and placed a chair for Mrs Parkinson next to his desk. He had taken to escaping more and more to his study. He did not hide from himself that what he was doing was escaping. Nor did he object on the occasions when Marybelle, Maria, Hildy or Gaetana crept in there quietly, too.

    “I agree, Mrs Parkinson, only what can I do? I have offered to escort Tia Patty to London to purchase new carpets, but she declares we do not need them if we are to have Marinela’s carpets. Er, and when I try to explain that one can never reply on Harry’s promises, um…” He bit his lip.

    “I think you must insist,” she said.

    Paul swallowed.

    Mrs Parkinson frowned. “Or if not that... I am just trying to remember how dear Mr Maddern managed her—for there is no denying, dear Paul, that manage her he did!” she said with a little laugh. “Patty has never been an easy woman, precisely... I am sure you will not mind my plain speaking, dear boy!” she added with an anxious look.

    “Dearest Mrs Parkinson, on the contrary, I am terribly grateful for it!” he said fervently.

    She smiled a little. “It is the temperament that goes with the red hair, of course... Well,” she said, taking a breath, “as far as I can recall, in similar situations Mr Maddern would persuade her that—that the matter was upsetting him even more than it was her. Of course I do not mean to imply,” she added hurriedly, “that he was not truly upset, but—”

    Paul smiled. “I think I understand.” He rose, and bent to kiss her large cheek gently.

    Mrs Parkinson flushed, but smiled at him.

    “I shall cast myself on her bosom, and weep copiously!” he promised.

    “It will have to be genuine,” she warned.

    “It will be—entirely—genuine!” choked Paul. “For I am at my wits’ end!”

    Mrs Parkinson smiled. “Good,” she said simply.

    Paul was quite prepared to carry this project through, but in the event he did not have to. On the following morning all the younger members of the house party were standing on the front steps, waiting for the horses and ponies to be brought round, when there was a rumbling of wheels and an huge waggon appeared, accompanied by a dusty post-chaise.

    “Thank God!” said Miss Maddern fervently.

    “Oh! The carpets!” said Amabel, putting a hand on her bosom and swaying like a leaf in the wind.

    Paul put his hand quickly under her elbow. “It had better be. ¡Madre de Dios!” he gasped, as the chaise door swung open and, before even the steps could be lowered, a tall, slender, dark-haired figure that was certainly not Harry Ainsley’s sprang out.

    “¡LUIS!” screamed his three sisters, throwing themselves down the front steps and, hurling themselves upon him, kissing him madly.

    “¡Luís! ¡Querido!” cried Paul, throwing himself down the front steps and, hurling himself upon him, kissing his brother madly.

    “Dagoes,” said Bungo glumly to his transfixed cousins

    Abruptly the Miss Madderns, the Messrs Maddern and Mrs Dorothea O’Flynn went into choking hysterics upon the front steps of Ainsley Manor. Unseemly though this conduct might have seemed, it must be admitted that there was some excuse for them: the affair of the Spanish carpets had been going on for a very, very long time.