Play On

9

Play On

    In her heart of hearts Gaetana had not really expected the Marquis of Rockingham to remember his offer to take her for a drive, let alone the suggestion about the Royal Mint, and although she had dutifully told Tia Patty of the invitation and was dressed and ready, she was very taken aback when he did arrive at the appointed hour.

    Florabelle and Pierrot, who were mysteriously present in the small morning room at the time, had to be presented at his Lordship’s insistence—Mrs Maddern visibly suffering through the process. It did not, somehow, seem possible to explain to a marquis that although Paul had found the children an excellent dame school for the duration of their stay in London, Floss had a slight sore throat today.

    “How d’ja do?” said his Lordship to Floss. “Salut, Pierrot, vive l’empereur!” he added to the parrot.

    “Salut, Pierrot! Salut, Pierrot! Vive l’empereur!” he croaked in his strong Parrot accent.

    “By gad, it’s true,” said the Marquis, dumbfounded.

    “Who told you?” gasped Gaetana.

    “Julian. Been telling everyone. Thinks it’s the joke of the century. –Come along, Pierrot: God save the King!”

    “Vive l’empereur! Tue le serpent!” he screeched.

    “He’s getting excited,” said Gaetana weakly.

    “Forgets his English under such circumstances, does he?” he said drily.

    “More or less—yes.”

    “He said it the other day,” said Floss stoutly. “For a piece of macaroon.”

    “Not a strongly principled bird,” he noted.

    “No!” choked Gaetana.

    “No—um—run along upstairs, dear, and take Pierrot with you,” said Mrs Maddern weakly.

    Floss went sadly over to the door. “He really can say God save the King,” she assured his Lordship.

    “Well, the day I hear him say it, I’ll— What would you like?”

    “That can be fatal!” warned Gaetana.

    “Rubbish. Dare say she’s a sensible girl.—Looks a sensible girl.—What would you like that would be within my powers and that would be worth hearing a Froggy parrot say God save the King?” he demanded of Floss.

    Mrs Maddern cowered.

    Floss’s eyes narrowed. “Within your powers?”

    The Marquis nodded.

    “Dearest, his Lordship is jesting!” quavered Mrs Maddern.

    “I never jest, ma’am. Speak, Miss Florabelle!”

    “Girls are not allowed to do it,” she warned.

    The Marquis raised his eyebrows very high at Gaetana. She bit her lip and looked away.

    “I would like to drive your horses, sir!” Floss burst out.

    “My God, why did I speak?” he groaned.

    “Florabelle, that would be quite—quite inappropriate!” gasped Mrs Maddern.

    “But Mamma, it is within his powers!”

    “A little girl could not control his Lordship’s horses, and in any case,” she said desperately, “it is quite out of the question!”

    “Besides,” drawled the Marquis, “Pierrot has yet to fulfil his part of the bargain.”

    “He will,” said Floss determinedly. “May I?”

    “Er—a pair?”

    “No!” she cried scornfully. “A four-in-hand, like what you drove to Tunbridge Wells!”

    “I was afraid of this,” he said to Gaetana.

    “You have condemned yourself out of your own mouth, I think!” she replied delightedly.

    “True. Er, what would constitute driving my team, in your opinion, Miss Florabelle?”

    “Well,” she said with an uneasy glance at her mamma, “I am not altogether stupid, sir, of course I realise it would be risky for me to drive them alone. But if I could sit beside you and—and really hold the ribbons, while we go down the street!”

    “Very well,” said the Marquis briskly, “it’s a bargain. But he must say it in front of me, mind!”

    “He shall!” said Floss determinedly. She opened the door but turned and said: “You are a sportsman, sir!”

    “Florabelle Maddern, where did you get that expression from?” gasped her mother.

    “From Hal. And Paul said it, too.”

    “Naturally,” agreed Rockingham.

    “Is it rude?” she asked.

    “No. Accurate,” he said with a grin. “You’re pretty much of a sportsman yourself, Miss Florabelle!”

    Mrs Maddern closed her eyes.

    Florabelle beamed and curtseyed carefully. The Marquis bowed gravely.

    “Dis au revoir!” she said brightly to Pierrot.

    “Vive l’empereur!”

    Floss went out hurriedly.

    The Marquis’s broad shoulders shook.

    “My Lord, I can only apologize,” said Mrs Maddern weakly.

    “No apology is needed, Mrs Maddern, I envy you your family,” he said in a harsh voice. He bowed over her hand, said: “I shall have her back in good time. Come along, Miss Ainsley. –Good-day, ma’am.” And was gone, while Mrs Maddern was still gaping at the spot where he’d stood.

    “Did you mean what you said just then?” asked Gaetana weakly once he had installed her in the curricle.

    “Mm? Oh, certainly. One should not lie to children. Or is that a maxim they do not have on the Continent?”

    “Not about driving your horses, sir. Though I am very glad you meant it, I am very sure Floss will spend every waking minute teaching Pierrot ‘God save the King.’ No, what you said to Tia Patty about envying her her family.” She looked up at him doubtfully.

    Rockingham’s attention was on his horses. “Certainly,” he said in a bored voice. “Why should you doubt it?”

    Gaetana replied dubiously: “Naturally we are all very fond of the children, sir.”

    “Naturally,” he replied in an unencouraging tone. “Left or right, here, Cummins?” he said over his shoulder as they reached the end of the street.

    “Left, my Lord,” replied his middle-aged groom in a voice of doom.

    The Marquis turned left.

    “Where are we going?” asked Gaetana in bewilderment.

    “Well, not the Park, at all events.”

    “No.”

    He glanced down at her, his face expressionless. “We are going to the Royal Mint, as per instructions, Miss Ainsley.”

    “But—” she gasped.

    “Oh, no, of course, I forgot: it was all my own idea,” he said.

    Cummins coughed.

    “That will do,” he said over his shoulder. “And do not lose that map, on pain of death.”

    “No, my Lord.”

    Gaetana said weakly: “It is very kind of you.”

    “Either that or I have run mad, aye.”

    Cummins coughed again but his Lordship ignored him.

    “We do not have to go if you should not desire it, sir!” Gaetana burst out, very flushed.

    “Of course we have to go, Miss Ainsley,” he said, raising his eyebrows very high. “It is all arranged. I dare say they are laying out the red carpet for us as we speak.”

    “Oh, rubbish!” said Gaetana crossly.

    “Not at all, you are very welcome,” he replied smoothly.

    “I—” She chewed her lip. “Well, thank you,” she said after a moment. “I am afraid you are doing something you—you do not wish to do, though.”

    “Not at all,” he replied colourlessly. “Your slightest wish is my command, Miss Ainsley.”

    Gaetana chewed her lip again.

    “What’s the matter, lost your bottle?” he said, looking down her with raised eyebrows.

    “My what?” she replied in astonishment.

    “Oh—er—my apologies, Miss Ainsley. I lapsed into the vernacular for a moment—under the excitement of the coming treat, y’know. It means courage. And pray do not repeat it in front of your aunt—or if you do, do not say you had it from me.”

    “I am not afraid!” said Gaetana crossly.

    His lordship’s lips twitched. “I think you are. Or is it merely shyness?”

    “No!”

    “Have you never driven out with a gentleman before?” he asked politely.

    She took a deep breath. “I have never driven out alone with a nobleman, no, sir.”

    “Ouch. What a facer,” said the Marquis mildly.

    “If that is another piece of the vernacular, pray do not bother to translate, sir,” said Miss Ainsley, putting her nose in the air.

    “A piece of boxing cant, ma’am.”

    Gaetana did not respond.

    “A pity your brother does not box. But I am looking forward to a few rounds with the foils.”

    “He is an excellent—I have forgot the stupid English word.”

    The Marquis smiled. “Fencer. –The excitement of the promised treat, no doubt?”

    “Why are you deliberately making it all horrid?” shouted Gaetana.

    There was a short silence. “I beg your pardon,” he said in a shaken voice.

    “It—it could have been so pleasant: you knew I wanted to see the Royal Mint, and—and— You have a very strange nature, Lord Rockingham!” declared Gaetana in a shaking voice.

    “You are doubtless correct in that observation,” he replied harshly.

    “I—I was delighted, when you said— And now it is all spoiled!” she gulped.

    “Missy,” burst out Cummins, unable to contain himself: “he was really keen to go! He’s had the whole household in a turmoil and his secretary writing notes and drawing up maps for the past week!”

    Gaetana looked over her shoulder, sniffing. “Truly?”

    “Aye, true as I live and breathe. Uh—sorry, my Lord!” he gulped.

    She looked up doubtfully at the Marquis’s dark face.

    “Well, Cummins has well and truly given me away,” he said without emotion.

    “Then why have you been so strange?” she gasped.

    “Well, possibly, Miss Ainsley,” he replied with a little twist of the lips, “I was afraid you might not care for the treat, after all.”

    “But you knew I wished for it,” she said dazedly.

    “He’s always been like that, from a child, Missy!” burst out the groom. “Would barely go near his first pony the first week he had it, it were like he were afraid it might melt if he let on he loved it!”

    “I see,” she said slowly, looking at Rockingham, who was now rather red.

    “Cummins has been with the family all his life,” he said with a forced smile. “Though that situation may terminate rather soon!” he added loudly.

    Cummins merely sniffed.

    Gaetana twisted round and smiled at him. “Were you Lord Rockingham’s groom when he was a little boy, Cummins?”

    “Yes, indeed, Miss!” beamed the burly middle-aged groom. “It were a big step up for me, I was naught but a stablehand. Had sole charge of his first pony—aye, and taught him to ride! Took to it like a duck to water—great seats, all the Hammonds.”

    “I see. You know him very well, then.”

    “That I do, Missy,” he said sturdily.

    Gaetana turned back and said with a twinkle to the Marquis: “I dare say he would give all your awful secrets away, if I asked him!”

    “I dare say he would very soon find himself in need of employment, in that case,” he replied unemotionally.

    “Pooh! You would never sack him: it would be like sacking Jake!”

    “Er—I am sure.”

   Gaetana touched his knee fleetingly. “Jake has been with my papa ever since they were young, and Harry sent him home to England with us to keep an eye on Paul. He grew up at Ainsley Manor, and now he is going to be Paul’s agent.”

    “I see. Well, he cannot make a greater hash of it than the last agent.”

    Cummins made a growly noise indicative of agreement.

    “I am very glad we are going to the Royal Mint, sir!” said Gaetana softly, smiling up at him.

    Rockingham flushed darkly and replied shortly, not looking at her: “Good.”

    She touched his knee gently again but did not speak again.

    Eventually Rockingham said: “What is it, Miss Ainsley?’

    Gaetana had been thinking over some of the things that Madre had said to her about men. Although she had certainly experienced a great and for her unusual sensation of shyness at first finding herself alone with a large gentleman in his carriage, and was still not entirely free of it, Cummins’s remarks had revealed to her that Rockingham was not merely that strange and unknowable quantity, A Gentleman, compound of command and capability, he was just as vulnerable and subject to emotion as any creature of flesh and blood. She had been thinking about the little boy overcome with the possession of his first pony, and about the man setting his household in a flurry to make appointments at the Royal Mint.

    She looked up at him with big, serious dark eyes and said: “I am sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

    “You did not,” he said, reddening.

    “I think I did.” She frowned a little. “I wish I could think of a treat to give you in return, sir!”

    “Miss Ainsley, your company is the only treat I desire.” He had said it very unemotionally: Gaetana looked at him uncertainly.

    “He likes to look at paintings, Miss,” said Cummins helpfully.

    Rockingham winced.

    “Then perhaps we could go to the Royal Academy, next time!” cried Gaetana delightedly.

    “I am sure we could. It has the added advantage that Cummins and the horses know the way to it blindfold. –Where the Devil are we?” he added over his shoulder.

    “Um—you had best pull over, Master Giles—my Lord, I should say,” admitted Cummins in a sheepish voice.

    “Giles,” said Gaetana thoughtfully as the Marquis endeavoured to pull out of the stream of assorted vehicles.

    “Yes?”

    “I was not addressing you, sir!” she said, going very red. “I was wondering if that is the same as the French Gilles.”

    “It can’t be, Missy, Hammonds has been English since before the Conqueror!” said Cummins earnestly. “And there’s always been a Giles in the family, somewhere!”

    “Depuis Guillaume de Normandie,” elaborated the Marquis helpfully.

    “Oui, je sais. Ça doit être le même nom.”

    “Évidemment; mais lui, il est convaincu que nous sommes tous des Saxons. Les paysans anglais n’aiment pas les Français, et n’admettent jamais qu’ils sont moitié français eux-mêmes,” he said drily.

    Gaetana looked round at Cummins’ square, blond, Saxon face and smiled. “Quelques-uns d’entre eux, peut-être! –Be careful, sir: there is a large—er—cart behind us.”

    “Dray. I see it.” He backed up carefully.

    “I cannot make horses go backwards,” admitted Gaetana sadly.

    “I could teach you, Missy!” volunteered Cummins.

    “Although that is undoubtedly true,” noted the Marquis, drawing the horses to a halt, “I beg you will overlook the fact that I have the worst trained servants in the British Isles, ma’am.”

    “Pray do not call me that, it makes me look round for the lady!” said Gaetana with a giggle. “And I would dispute that last, in any case, for you have not yet met Francisco, The Singing Valet!”

    “My Lord, we could pole up a quiet pair, and go to the Park early, should Miss like to learn!” suggested Cummins eagerly.

    “There, Mis Ainsley, your social calendar is quite arranged for you,” said the Marquis calmly.

    Gaetana swallowed. “It would be an imposition. You must be very busy, Lord Rockingham.”

    “Oh, pray do not regard me, ma’am! It is clearly Cummins’ social calendar that we must arrange to coincide with yours! –Would you care to?” he said with a smile, seeing she was blushing and beginning to look distressed.

    “Yes, if you truly would not find it an imposition?”

    “No. Well, to say truth I have never taught anyone, Miss Ainsley. However, I am more than willing to escort you and Cummins.”

    “Pray stop funning and be serious about it!” retorted Gaetana crossly. “What if we start and you find you are ferociously bored?”

    “I am more like to be ferociously amused. –No, I have stopped funning. Shall we ask your aunt when we get back?”

    “Ye-es... I don’t think she will let me, I have a doomed feeling that it will be one more of those things that young ladies may not do.”

    “Many ladies drive; I think it will be quite acceptable. Of course, I shall not ask you to make yourself particular with a team, à la Miss Florabelle!”

    “No,” she said with a smile. “I think from what Sir Julian Naseby has told us about your teams, that in any case I could never hold them, sir. I would truly love to learn: thank you very much. And thank you, Cummins!” she added, turning and beaming at him before the Marquis could open his mouth to tell her not to thank him, to thank Cummins.

    “That’ll be my pleasure, Missy!” he beamed.

    “Look, forget the polite nothings, man, and work out where we ARE!” said his master loudly.

    “Yes, my Lord.” Cummins looked at his map.

    “Well?” said the Marquis.

    “I think we took a wrong turn, my Lord.”

    “Fancy.”

    “Um—if we go back to that last square... Aye, that’ll be it, we turned off at the wrong road, there.”

    “Splendid. Now, if you will explain how I may turn the pair in this street, we shall go back!” he said on an acid note.

    “Oh, you’ll manage it, my Lord!” said Cummins with a chuckle.

    The Marquis did manage it but Gaetana had to shut her eyes several times and by the time the team was turned there was quite a crowd in the street, comprising the driver of the dray, a burly man in a leather apron who was full of loud advice and possibly of some more material substance, several women with shopping baskets, a clutch of clerks, a man in a tilbury who had drawn up at an unflatteringly cautious distance, a flower seller, a chimney sweep and his boy, and approximately fifteen other small boys. And several dogs.

    “Des violettes,”  noted Gaetana, looking at the flower seller, as they were about to set off again.

    Rockingham groaned, produced a coin from his pocket and tossed it to the groom. “Get her a posy,” he sighed.

    “Yes, my Lord!” Cummins jumped down, grinning, and procured a posy of violets. Judging by the subsequent bobbing from the seller, the coin was a lot more than the asking price.

    Gaetana sniffed the violets rapturously as they drove off. “Thank you so much, Marquis!” she beamed.

    The Marquis perceived, rather shaken, that the violets were as much of a treat to her as the trip to the Mint or the promised driving lessons. “Not at all,” he said weakly.

    She sniffed again. “Mmm... I don’t know the English name of these flowers,” she discovered.

    “Violets. Cummins would tell you it is a good old English name.”

    Gaetana rolled her lips very tightly together.

    “Aye, aren’t they nice, Missy? Late, they’ll be. They was over in the hedgerows round Daynesford last time we was at the Place.”

    “Yes, but our English violets at Daynesford,” said his Lordship in a pointed voice—Gaetana’s lips remained tightly rolled together—“are always extraordinarily early.”

    “That they be. Very sheltered, it is, round our way,” said Cummins complacently.

    After quite some time Gaetana said in a wobbly voice: “Daynesford, sir?”

    “D,A,Y,N,E,S,F,O,R,D,” he spelled kindly. “Though its derivation is precisely as you have gathered, Miss Ainsley.”

    Gaetana made a choked sound.

    He smiled a little. “The story goes that the ford was as far as the Danes penetrated in England. Daynesford is the name of the village and Daynesford Place is my principal seat. –There have always been Hammonds at Daynesford, have there not, Cummins?”

    “Aye, there have that. ‘Danes may come and Danes may go, but Hammonds will bide at Daynesford,’” he recited complacently. “The country folk say that, Miss Ainsley.”

    “I see,” said Gaetana weakly.

    “Your folks would be from Ainsley Manor, would they, Miss?”

    “Yes. It—it is not far from his Lordship’s seat, I believe.”

    “Well, the Place is extensive, Miss!” he said with a laugh. “But the Manor be on our western boundary, true enough. Nearer to Dittersford than Daynesford, though.”

    “There are many streams in the neighbourhood,” said his Lordship smoothly.

    “I see.”

    “The Ditter, it do join the—” Cummins plunged into an explication of the geography of the district. Gaetana responded politely, though evidently not understanding a single reference. Rockingham eyed her from time to time in amusement, not attempting to interrupt or to reprove his garrulous henchman.

    When Cummins had eventually run down and Gaetana was looking around her at the buildings with interest, he said: “I think you mentioned Julian Naseby a little earlier, Miss Ainsley? Er—that he had spoken of my teams.”

    “Yes, he said they were ferocious beasts!” she said with a laugh.

    “Mm. Er—have you and your cousins seen a little of him, then, since you have been in London?”

    “Yes, he has paid three calls, and once he took Hildy for a drive in his phaeton,” replied Gaetana sunnily. “And we saw him at the Grahames’ ball: he tells us he very much likes to dance; and he is certainly an excellent dancer. Very—very... I think the word is nimble.”

    “Aye, nimble!” he said, shoulders shaking. “Nimble Naseby, we call him in Society!”

    “It’s the wrong word,” said Gaetana glumly.

    “No, no, Miss Ainsley, but somehow it conjures up quite the wrong image! Well, talking of conjuring, you would call a juggler or a tumbler nimble, I suppose.”

    “Oh. But not a gentleman?”

    “No. And definitely not a lady. Ladies,” said his Lordship primly, “are never nimble.”

    “I seed a lady onct nipped across the road in front of his horses: now, she were nimble!” remarked Cummins.

    “She were very nearly dead, stupid female!” retorted his Lordship.

    Cummins sniffed.

    “Well, should I say Sir Julian is a—an elegant dancer?” said Gaetana.

    “Elegant would do. Or graceful.”

    “Graceful! That is a pretty word! Yes, he is a graceful dancer!”

    “I’ll tell him that Nimble Naseby one, next time we sees him!” volunteered Cummins.

    “You will not! –For I intend saving it for an appropriate moment,” admitted the Marquis.

    Cummins emitted a series of choked noises, and Gaetana smiled up at Rockingham.

    He blinked a little. “Er—am I basking in the sun of your approval, Miss Ainsley? I do not understand quite why.”

    “Because you love your groom, of course,” she replied simply.

    His Lordship went dark red. So, behind them, did Cummins.

    “Does one not mention that sort of thing in Society?” she asked, wrinkling her brow.

    “No,” he said in a strangled voice.

    “Then Society is stupid!” declared Gaetana loudly.

    “Mm. Er—well, I was asking you about Julian,” he said weakly.

    “Oh—yes. We think he rather admires my cousin Hildy. But possibly that is just our partiality,” she said dubiously.

    “No: I certainly had that impression, too, at the opera,” he admitted.

    “Does it displease you?” she said timidly, seeing he was frowning. “I know Sir Julian is really quite a—a grand gentleman, and our two families are not, of course.”

    “No,” he said, scowling terrifically. “It does not displease me. At least— Your cousin is very young, is she not? Younger than the blonde one, I think?”

    “Yes. Amabel is twenty—nearly twenty-one, sir, and Hildy is nineteen.”

    “She would not have had time to form a prior attachment, then?”

    Hildy had as yet said nothing to Gaetana of the turbulent feelings the beauteous Hilary Parkinson aroused in her breast, and rather naturally, since the Vicar had paid her no attentions at all, neither Christabel nor Amabel had breathed a word on the subject to their cousin. So Gaetana replied: “No: not that I know of, my Lord.”

    “Good,” he said, still scowling horribly.

    “What is it?”

    “Julian—” He broke off.

    “En français, si vous voulez,” said Gaetana.

    “Oh—no: Cummins knows as much of Julian as I do myself.”

    Gaetana evinced no surprize at this avowal. “Is it not suitable for my ears? I am very open-minded,” she ventured.

    He smiled a little. “I’m quite sure of it. No, it is suitable for anyone’s ears, but I am wondering if I have the right to tell you of it.”

    “If you don’t, Master Giles, I’m sure I don’t know who does!” said the sturdy voice from behind them.

    “Well, Julian himself. –He mentioned in Tunbridge Wells, or at least Romula did, if I remember rightly, that his wife left him to become a lay sister.”

    “Yes.”

    “Possibly that does not mean so much to you, who have lived largely in Catholic countries, but here it—it was a shocking thing to happen.”

    “Ye-es...”

    Rockingham bit his lip.

    “Sir Julian, he was real rocked. And then when young Lady Naseby died, he was overset. Like as if... I dunno,” admitted Cummins. “But it were the last straw. Like as if he’d held out that long and then suddenly he tumbled down with all the stuffing gone out of him.”

    “I see,” said Gaetana gently.

    “We was afraid he was a-going to top himself—I beg pardon, Miss, suicide himself. Only me and his Lordship, we went along with the team and bundled him into the carriage willy-nilly and took him off to the yacht!” he said proudly.

    Gaetana glanced up anxiously at the Marquis’s face. “Yes, I see. But I am afraid this is distressing his Lordship, Cummins.”

    “It’s all right,” said Rockingham stiffly. “Julian’s over it now. But… I don’t know that I can make clear to you the effect it had on—on his confidence in himself.”

    “Overset, he were,” added Cummins anxiously.

    “I think I understand,” said Gaetana slowly.

    “It was not a love match,” said Rockingham abruptly. “He married to oblige his family, when he was only a stripling.”

    “Oh? But even so... It must have made him doubt his ability to attract and hold a lady; is that what you are trying to say?”

    “Yes. Thank God you’re not a mealy-mouthed Miss! That’s exactly it,” he said with a sigh.

    They drove on in silence for a little, Gaetana thinking it over. “I see. If he should fall in love with Hildy and she should not reciprocate his feelings, you are afraid it would overset him once more.”

    “Yes. Don’t let her encourage him if she can’t care for him,” he said in a harsh voice.

    She touched his knee gently with her little gloved hand. “Hildy would never deliberately hurt a living soul, sir. But of course it is true that any girl may be flattered by the attentions of an attractive gentleman. I shall make sure she understands.”

    “Thank you,” he said with a sigh.

    “Miss Rommie, she was real struck by your cousin, Missy,” said Cummins.

    “Be silent!” snapped Rockingham.

    “I see what he means. Of course the approval of his little girls must count for something when he looks for another lady to marry. But I do not think it could be a deciding factor.”

    “No.

    They drove on.

    “Hildy despises rank and possessions, sir.”

    “Then she must be an unique young lady,” he said sourly.

    “She is,” replied Gaetana seriously. “To say truth, although my cousins and Tia Patty have all been very kind, I do not think I would have found England at all bearable without Hildy’s unique mind. She thinks very deeply about things.”

    Rockingham sighed. “I doubt if she will suit Julian, then. I did wonder, when he carried on about highly intelligent young women who read Latin and Greek… Oh, well. He’s a good-hearted fellow, but not the brightest of the bright,” he said heavily.

    “One cannot force people to—to have a preference where we think they should, or not to where we think they should not,” she said anxiously.

    “Very true,” he agreed with a sigh.

    Gaetana was silent. She could not help wondering if the Marquis had invited her out merely to speak to her about his friend.

     Rockingham for his part felt he had said too much and quite probably hurt her feelings by implying that her cousin was not the right girl for Julian. Added to which, he was extremely shaken by how much he seemed to have revealed of himself during the course of the drive—not least thanks to Cummins’s helpful interpolations. He had intended the visit to be merely some sort of avuncular treat for the girl and had had no intention of indicating that he felt more deeply about the matter than that.

    As to why he had let himself embark on the expedition at all— The Most Noble the Marquis of Rockingham, though he was an intelligent and level-headed man, not particularly given to embarking on any exploit without thinking about it first, could not have said.

    The Royal Mint did indeed escort genteel persons on occasional tours of its new facility on Tower Hill, but it was not every week that they received a note advising them that such an exalted personage as a marquis would care for a tour in person! Indeed, it had first been assumed that perhaps the note related to a group such as the visiting diplomats from the Continent who had very recently been shown round, and it was only on further enquiry from Mr David Wetherby, the Marquis’s secretary, that it had been ascertained that indeed it was the Marquis of Rockingham himself, accompanied by a lady, who wished for the tour!

    This latter fact had caused much speculation amongst the less exalted ranks at the Mint, not least amongst Mr Percy Quimper, Mr Royston Finn, young Mr Adrian Biggs, and the even younger Mr Dominique de la Salle, who had been jointly deputed to look after the actual arrangements. The last-named being the son of French émigrés, who had got his position, as he frankly confessed, through influence. There had been deep suspicion of Mr de la Salle at first, but he had soon shewn himself to be the sort of cheerful young man who did not in the least mind being addressed as “Sally” by his workmates in the clerks’ office, who could sink a pint of porter with the best of them, and who was not above accepting an invitation home to meet Mr Adrian Biggs’s Ma, Pa and sister Mary Anne and there to partake of a hot sausage and Mr Biggs, Senior’s, special spiced ale.

    Mr Biggs, Junior, an eager young man, had suggested that perhaps the lady was a very young lady and perhaps it might even be the lady that the Marquis might intend to marry! For it did not seem at all likely that it was his wife, or his secretary surely would have said so.

    Mr Quimper himself, being an older gentleman of a more placid disposition, had supposed that the lady might very well be his Lordship’s mamma. In the which case they must be very sure there were no loose corners of carpet and must plan the tour to go at a steady pace. And one or two extra comfortable chairs in the corridors would not come amiss, in the case her Ladyship might need to sit down and rest.

    Mr Royston Finn, being somewhat older than Mr Biggs and of a more equable temperament into the bargain, had advanced the theory that it was his sister.

    “Well,” said Mr de la Salle happily: “it does not matter whether she is his mamma, his sister or his lady-love, in any case she must have a bouquet!”

    Mr Quimper was about to dismiss this suggestion as mere Froggy nonsense, and quite possibly to remind Mr de la Salle who had won at Waterloo, when he recalled the time—well before Mr de la Salle’s day or even Mr Finn’s, in fact in the time of the old Mint, before they moved to the new building at Tower Hill—when a duchess and her party had visited. For although a marquis was a very high-up lord, as he had explained carefully to Mr de la Salle, a foreigner not being expected to know such things, you could not, of course, compare his visit to a Royal Visit, when they had the red carpet out and a band. But the duchess had certainly had a bouquet.

    “N’est-ce pas?” added Mr de la Salle gaily, watching his face.

    “That’ll be enough of that Froggy talk here, this is the Royal Mint,” replied Mr Quimper repressively.

    “But I am right, am I not?”

    “I think it would be the thing, Quimpy,” said Mr Finn, ceasing to suck the head of his cane.

    “That’ll be quite enough h’out of you. And put that stick in the corner, you’ll put someone’s eye out! In my day, the members of the Clerks’ Room did not get themselves h’up,” he said awfully, “like Bond Street beaux!”

    Mr Finn put his cane in the corner.

    “If she is his mamma, she’ll definitely expect a bouquet,” stated Mr Biggs.

    “You, h’out of course, being on nodding acquaintance with many a marchioness,” said Mr Quimper awfully. –Here Mr de la Salle opened his mouth, but thought better of it.

    Mr Quimper frowned over the matter. Finally he pronounced: “I shall consult Sir John’s Secretary!”

    There was an awed silence.

    Mr Quimper having duly consulted Sir John’s Secretary, it had been decided that a bouquet would be entirely suitable. Sir John’s Secretary subsequently represented it to Sir John as his own suggestion but Mr Quimper, though he was not aware of this, would not have been surprized by it. However, the problem immediately arose, who was to present the bouquet? Sir John’s Secretary had brusquely ruled out Mr Quimper’s suggestion that Sir John himself might care to. The Secretary, though he did not express it in such terms to Mr Quimper, did not want to risk making a fool of himself by performing the office, either. Persons such as Mr Quimper himself or the other members of the clerks’ office were very naturally never considered, though the Secretary did say that that Mr—Mr— whatever his name was, the French boy, had an elegant appearance, he might do. If all else failed. The Secretary’s little niece was put forward respectfully by Mr Quimper. This provoked a thoughtful silence. But on the whole, although theoretically the proposal was entirely acceptable, the Secretary could not see young Dora, last seen screaming blue murder with her head jammed between the area railings of the parental home, in the rôle. Besides, if anything, it was his sister and brother-in-law who owed him a favour, and not vice versa. Desperately Mr Quimper, bowing almost as low as if Sir John were in the room, suggested that possibly Sir John’s little granddaughter—? Ideal! Not that the Secretary conceded this: he dismissed Mr Quimper with a promise to think it over and a threatening word or two on the subjects of suitable refreshments for ladies, Sir John’s own china which lived in the cupboard in his (the Secretary’s) office, and Brasswork.

    It was amazing, on the morning of The Visit, how many members of the Clerks’ Room (which of course was not going to be Visited) managed to have business in, or through, the main hall of the offices of the Mint just at the moment the carriage drew up outside.

    “Voilà: il y a quatre chevaux!” reported Mr de la Salle, who being of an athletic disposition had stationed himself elsewhere.

    “Hey?” replied Mr Biggs, also leaning out of an upper window as far as was humanly possible.

    “Four horses. You owe me a sixpence.”

    In spite of losing this bet, his comrade responded eagerly: “Aye! They look like great goers, too! Perfectly matched, see?”

    “Yes, indeed! –Look: she is a young lady!” he hissed.

    “I can’t see, because of the bonnet,” said Mr Biggs sadly.

    “It is most definitely a young lady’s bonnet, Biggsy!” Mr de la Salle assured him with a giggle.

    “I dare say, but— Bother, they’re going in.”

    “Never mind, mon ami, I have a strong feeling that once they have seen the workings—the big stone-flagged room with all the strong fellows and the big—eugh—machins, and so forth, you know—then we shall receive a pressing message to be present in the corridor leading to the Board Room. At about the time they are due to take tea,” he explained airily, dusting himself down.

    “You wouldn’t dare!” gasped Mr Biggs.

    “Certainly I would dare. They will not like to reprove us in front of the Visitors and by the time it is all over they will have forgotten us entirely!” he said merrily.

    “Us?” replied Mr Biggs nervously.

    “Certainly, us! Allez, hop!”

    Gaetana was quite overcome at being presented with a bouquet. It was a trifle awkward in that she was still holding the posy of violets, but the Marquis silently took this from her. She smiled at the little girl and asked her in a shy voice how old she was, and the little girl responded in an even shyer voice: “Four,” and ran and hid her face in her mamma’s skirts. –Rather naturally Sir John’s daughter had not been entirely averse to being presented to the Marquis of Rockingham.

    Gaetana was even more overcome, however, by the obsequious way in which Sir John and his quite large party treated the Marquis. She had had no real grasp, no doubt because of his Lordship’s unassuming, not to say curt, manners, of just what sort of a position he must hold. But Sir John, not a young man, and quite evidently a very important personage, was almost falling over himself, with continual bows and “Your Lordship, this” and “Your Lordship, that” and “As your Lordship may see, it is here that we—” She would not have been entirely surprized if the Royal Mint had struck a medal to mark the occasion—though Sir John did not actually go that far.

    She tried to tell herself silently she was not impressed, it was only because Rockingham possessed rank and wealth that were not of his own making and for which he could not take credit, but in fact she felt quite horribly overawed and found it very difficult to think of him any more as the flesh-and-blood man of complex feeling she had just begun to discover him to be.

    Although genuinely interested, and asking several very intelligent questions which rather startled Sir John, she felt a trifle dazed by the end of the tour proper and was very glad to sit down in the Board Room and take tea. –Quite unaware that the somewhat dazed but polite smile she had directed at the two busy-looking young men with papers in their hands and pens behind their ears whom they had just passed in the corridor had brightened the lives of Messrs Biggs and de la Salle and indeed installed a new deity in Mr Biggs’s heart in the place of Miss Eliza O’Neill of The Fatal Marriage fame.

    Sir John explained that his tea-set was one of the new Wedgwood designs and earnestly begged to be favoured with the Marquis’s opinion of it.

    “Very pretty; is it not, Miss Ainsley?” said Rockingham.

    “Yes, it is lovely,” agreed Gaetana, smiling shyly at Sir John. “I have never seen anything like it on the Continent. It is just like appliquéd lace, is it not?”

    “Very fine,” agreed the Marquis, setting down the blue and white cup he had been looking at narrowly. “As is the tea. A blend that reminds me very much of one of Lord Petersham’s, sir,” he said politely to Sir John.

    Sir John was quite overcome that the Marquis should have compared his humble tea to one of the great connoisseur’s! Gaetana listened numbly. She had not heretofore realized that tea was anything more than a warm and to say truth not particularly palatable beverage. Blends? Oolongs and—and Lap-sangs and Boheas? Help!

    “Did it come up to expectations?” said Rockingham neutrally as they drove away, Gaetana with the lap-robe tucked tightly round her.

    “Yes, it was fascinating, and most informative. Thank you very much, sir.”

    “I’m glad you liked it. –Toad-eater, wasn’t he?” he added drily.

    “I suppose he was,” said Gaetana in a tiny voice.

    “What is it? Are you tired? Cold?”

    “No, I am perfectly comfortable, thank you, Lord Rockingham.”

    He looked at her with a little frown but said no more on the subject.

    “I think you are tired,” he said, as he assisted her to alight at her door.

    “Perhaps a little. It took longer than I had anticipated,” she admitted.

    “Yes,” he said with a grimace. “Perhaps I should have alerted you to the fact that the formalities might be tedious; David did warn me that they’d roll out the red carpet for us. Did you remark the number of clerks and so forth in the entrance hall?”

    “No,” said Gaetana in a puzzled voice.

    He smiled a little but did not press the point. “If you are serious about wishing to improve your driving, I shall collect you; would the day after tomorrow be convenient?”

    “Yes—no; I mean,” said Gaetana, going very red: “I would not like to impose, Lord Rockingham!”

    “I think I have already said it would not be an imposition.” He looked at her face. “What is it? Have I said something to offend you?” he said in a low voice.

    “No,” said Gaetana with tears in her eyes. “You have been everything of the—the most considerable.”

    “I think you mean considerate,” he said, lips twitching. “You are forgetting your English, like Pierrot!” Gaetana didn’t smile and he added stiffly: “If you should not wish to come driving with Cummins and me, naturally I shall not press the point. You may ignore anything he may have said,” he added.

    “It is just—you have a great position, Lord Rockingham, and—and you must be a busy man,” she whispered.

    “Toad-eaters,” diagnosed his Lordship with a groan.

    “Not really. I did not realise…”

    “Miss Ainsley, if I had the choice between being toad-eaten by Sir John and his ilk, and being shot at by a scruffy young rascal in an ill-fitting pair of breeches in a scruffy inn at Ostend, do you imagine for one moment I would choose Sir John?”

    “Don’t be silly. No-one would wish to be shot at!”

    “That’s better!” He smiled, but took her hand and said seriously: “If I were Mr Brown of nowhere in particular, would you hesitate to come and take driving lessons with me?”

    “No,” said Gaetana frankly.

    “I see.”

    “In—in view of my papa’s history, Lord Rockingham, I cannot but see that it would not be suitable for you to associate yourself too much with our family.”

    “Rubbish. Wellington himself admits the man rendered him signal service: what more do you need?”

    “An invitation from the Duke for Harry to return to England would not come amiss, sir!” said Gaetana firmly, looking him in the eye.

    “If I can overlook that, cannot you?”

    “I do not think I ought. I am sorry, Lord Rockingham,” said Gaetana, taking a deep breath, “but I feel it would be best if—if I refused your very kind offer to improve my driving. And—and please tell Cummins that I’m very sorry!” she added, tears starting to her eyes. She perceived that Deering, having opened the door in person, was standing at the top of the steps regarding her and the Marquis with a sort of benign sympathy. “Thank you for a lovely day,” she said hoarsely. She pulled her hand out of his, turned, and ran indoors.

    Rockingham returned to his curricle, scowling. “Get up!” he said irritably to Cummins, at the horses’ heads.

    “Lordy, never tell me she turned you down flat!” he gasped in amazement.

    “Will you bite your tongue, sir!”

    “Master Giles, I thought little Missy favoured you for sure! Why, she was all smiles—and I never seen a young lady so overcome merely to get a bit of a posy!”

    “That’s enough.”

    Cummins looked at him in consternation. “Won’t she come a-driving with us, then?”

    “No,” he said through his teeth. “Get up behind, or I’ll leave you here!”

    The groom scrambled to get up as Rockingham urged the team forward. But he went on: “Nor to see the pictures at the Royal Academy, neither?”

    “What? NO!” he shouted.

    “It’s your temper, that’s what it is,” said his henchman. “What on earth did you go and say to her?”

    “I said nothing to her.”

    Cummins just waited.

    “She—she’s got some damned idea in her head after the cursed toad-eaters at the cursed Mint that I’m too far above her, or some such nonsense!” he admitted angrily.

    “Eh?”

    “You may well gape!” he said bitterly.

    “Aye, well, there’s been Ainsleys at the Manor as long as there’s been Hammonds at Daynesford! –Well, almost.”

    “A pity you did not stress that point,” replied Rockingham acidly.

    There was a short pause. “It’ll be that pa of hers,” said the groom knowingly.

    They drove on.

    “Master Giles, surely you didn’t go and let yourself be argyfied down by a little bitty thing like her?”

    Rockingham was very white. “She refused to come driving with me; what else could I do?”

    Cummins tipped his hat back and scratched his grizzled head. “We-ell... I don’t rightly know, seeing as how I’m not a gentleman. But seems to me you could have done something!”

    “Short of resigning the title, I fail to see what,” he said acidly.

    “You’ll just have to wait until she comes round. Send her posies and that,” he said hopefully.

    “Be silent,” said Rockingham wearily.

    Cummins lapsed into gloomy silence.

    When they reached home the butler took one horrified look at his master’s face and didn’t ask him how the visit to the Mint had gone.

    “Brandy. In my study,” said Rockingham.

    “Yes, my Lord.”

    The butler went off and got the brandy. He put it on a tray and got as far as the study door, where his nerve failed him. He returned to the hall. “Frederick,” he said to the nearest footman, “you may take this in to his Lordship.”

    “Mr Hayes,” returned the footman frankly, “I wouldn’t take that brandy into his Lordship looking like he was just now, not if my post depended on it.”

    Mr Hayes was a fair man. He didn’t tell him, as many a butler in his place would have done, that his post did depend on it. He simply gritted his teeth and went back to the study.

    Frederick looked at him nervously on his return.

    Mr Hayes just shook his head very, very slowly.

    “What can of gorn wrong, Mr Hayes? Why, this morning he was humming!”

    “It is not your place to inquire into such things, my lad,” replied the butler heavily.

    “Well, she must be a strange young lady, if she won’t have his Lordship!” declared Frederick boldly.

    Mr Hayes just shook his head very, very slowly.