The Marquis of Carabas

 3

The Marquis Of Carabas

    The Marquis of Rockingham—or, as it were, Carabas—was not at the best of times a patient man and, having reasons of his own which had nothing to do with his immediate errand for feeling considerably disgruntled with his world, was not best pleased to walk into the private parlour he had hired at a reputable posting-house in Ostend to find Carolyn, flushed and pouting, with a hand laid on the bosom of her pale blue pelisse in affected fright, and a young bantam of an unknown ruffling up in her defence. He glared at the young bantam.

    “Sir! I must have speech with you regarding this young lady!” declaimed the young bantam. –He had an odd accent. Some sort of lesser breed without the law, no doubt: the Continent was teeming with ’em in the wake of Waterloo and the Occupation.

    “This young lady is no concern of yours,” replied Rockingham grimly.

    “Au contraire, monsieur,” he said—his French accent was odd, too—“I take leave to make her evident distress my affair. I demand that you release her into my custody this instant!”

    “Or?”

    “Or you shall answer to me, sir!” he cried, very red.

    “Really? How shall I do that? Shall you point a gun at my head? What if I call for old Boucher?”

    “I shall explain to him that you are abducting this young lady against her will and forcing her to accompany you aboard your yacht, sir,” he said with dignity. “An honest innkeeper cannot fail to be moved by her plight.”

    “Abducting her against her will? How singularly amusing,” he drawled.

    “You are! You are a beast, sir!” panted Carolyn affectingly.

    “And you’re an idiot,” he returned cordially. “And you, sir, appear to have got your notions of conduct from a low farce,” he added witheringly to the young man. “Get out of my sight before I’m tempted to punish you for your damned impertinence.”

    “No! You shall not abduct me!” panted Carolyn, bosom heaving, blue eyes flashing.

    “No,” agreed the bantam, going rather pale—greenish, actually, with that yellow complexion of his—and moving a hand towards his coat pocket.

    Rockingham’s own left hand was just above the pocket where his pistol lay snug and he said through his teeth: “Move that hand one fraction of an inch more and you’re a dead man, bantam.”

    “No: you are. Stand still!” said a voice from the window.

    Rockingham winced as a slender, youthful figure in an ill-fitting jacket and a hat that seemed too large for it levelled a pistol at his head through the open window.

    “I told you to keep out of it!” gasped the bantam.

    “Ta gueule. I warned you he’d have a pistol. It’s in his left coat pocket: get it. And don’t get between me and him!” the figure at the window said loudly.

    The bantam circled Rockingham warily and withdrew the pistol from his pocket.

    “Now what?” said Rockingham sardonically.

    “The best thing would be to shoot him,” the conspirator in the window said thoughtfully.

    Carolyn gave a gasp of horror.

    “No, the landlord would come,” objected the bantam.

    “Yes. What a pity. Keep that pistol trained on him, I’m coming in.” The figure at the window swung a leg up—the breeches didn’t fit any better than the coat did—and the bantam glanced that way.

    Instantly Rockingham’s arm went up, knocking the pistol up, and he flung himself aside as the other pistol went off with a deafening report.

    Carolyn immediately went into hysterics.

    “¡Madre de Dios, you’ve hit him!” gasped the bantam.

    “Good, I wish I’d killed him, sacré ravisseur!”

    Rockingham picked himself up carefully off the floor, clutching his right arm with his left hand, wincing. “She’s my sister, you pair of hot-headed young fools. –You’re a damned rotten shot,” he noted by the way.

    Before anyone could say or do anything else the door was flung open and M. Boucher, closely followed by a gaggle of waiters, serving wenches and assorted guests of the auberge, burst into the room.

    The bantam was very pale. So was his co-conspirator. White as a sheet, in fact, but declaring loudly: “Ce monsieur est un ravisseur!” Fortunately this accusation went unnoticed in the general hubbub. Rockingham finally silenced the lot of them by yelling very loudly: “SILENCE! FOUTEZ-MOI LA PAIX, BON DIEU!”

    There was a stunned silence. M. Boucher bowed deeply and apologized profusely but nevertheless required to know whether there was trouble, monseigneur.

    “Monseigneur”, unimpressed by his elevation to the strawberry leaves, replied shortly that there was no trouble: his young friends had been testing his pistols, one of them had misfired—and he’d take them back, by the way. The two pale-faced conspirators glared but gave up the pistols without a word. And if Mme Boucher could see her way fit to bandaging his arm, he’d be extremely grateful.

    M. Boucher shooed out the crowd and assured monseigneur that Mme Boucher would be with him directly and should he send for a doctor? Rockingham declared it was just a scratch and got rid of him.

    There was silence in the private parlour of L’Auberge Boucher. Even Carolyn had ceased having hysterics, since no-one had taken any notice of them.

    Finally Rockingham said unpleasantly to the second conspirator: “Are you deaf? I say the girl’s my sister and you start howling accusations, do you want to end in gaol? –Or the madhouse,” he added by the way.

    “You’re a liar as well as an abductor, why should I believe you?”

    “Possibly because I’m a rational man, and THAT,” he shouted, “is an IDIOT!”—Carolyn burst into tears.—“And take off that DAMNED HAT, you’re not fooling me for an instant, girl!” he shouted.

    After a moment of scowling silence Gaetana removed her hat and threw it on the floor.

    “I told you to keep out of it,” Paul said in Spanish.

    “Yes, you were making such a good job of it, of course!” she responded in the same language.

    “Be quiet,” said Rockingham carefully in that language. They stared at him in astonishment. “Explain who I am before I put you over my knee,” he said grimly to Carolyn.

    Pouting, she declared: “Well, he is my brother, at least my half-brother, but nevertheless it is true that he is abducting me, and I do not wish to go to England and marry a horrid lord and never see my dear M. de Lavalle again!” –More tears.

    “M. de Lavalle is an adventurer,” said Rockingham through his teeth.

    “He is NOT! And you are a BEAST, Giles!”

    “I think he must be her brother. She sounds like Bunch in a temper,” said Gaetana glumly to her brother in Spanish.

    Paul was now very red. “Sí. –Madam,” he said loudly to the sobbing young lady: “am I to apprehend that in fact you are in no danger from this gentleman?”

    “No! Only I do not wish to go to England. Oh, please help me, dear sir!” she sobbed.

    “In case you’re wondering, I’m not the feather-witted creature’s legal guardian. Her father and mother should be with us within the hour. We are to eat here before catching the tide. And had it not been for a certain dilatoriness in the matter of trunks and hat-boxes,” said the Marquis in a grim voice, eyeing the culprit in a manner that boded her no good, “we should have sailed yesterday, and you, young woman, would not have been put to the trouble of putting a bullet through me!”

    “Does it hurt?” said Gaetana abruptly.

    Rockingham replied somewhat loudly: “Yes, it hurts, holes ripped of a sudden in the flesh are apt to do so, but of course you would not be aware of that fact!”

    “Yes, I am. We were with Blücher at Waterloo. –I think you’d better sit down, sir,” she added as he staggered a little and gaped at her.

    “I think I had better! With Blücher at Waterloo?” he croaked, lowering himself into a chair by the fire.

    “I thought you promised Pa not to refer to that ever again?” said the boy.

    “I forgot. Never mind, this man doesn’t know us and we don’t him! Though I must admit there is something oddly familiar about his looks,” she said, staring at him in a puzzled way.

    There was something oddly familiar about hers, too.

    “Idiot: it’s him,” said the boy in Spanish. “You know: the naked viscount encounter!”

    “No, he was a tall, fair man, and thinner, I think.”

    The boy replied heatedly in Spanish: “Not the naked viscount, you blind fool! No, it must be the Marquis, look at the set of his shoulders!”

    Gaetana stared at the Marquis. “I think it is his voice,” she agreed in Spanish.

    Rockingham had gone very pale, even though he had been almost sure the minute she’d taken off the absurd hat that it was the pale, pointed face glimpsed in a shaft of moonlight by the stream outside Brussels. But it had seemed an impossible coincidence that the face that had haunted his dreams should suddenly reappear in his life.

    “What are they saying? Why is everyone ignoring me?” wailed Carolyn. “I’m so unhappy, oh, oh, oh!”

    “Good,” said her brother brutally. “—Yes, of course it is I, you pair of damned young hot-heads,” he said to them. “Is she your sister?” he added abruptly to the boy.

    “Yes, my Lord,” he said, flushing.

    “Then it’s a great pity you haven’t learned to control her,” he said drily.

    The boy went redder than ever but the girl cried: “He? What about you? This stupid girl had us persuaded she was the victim of an abduction! At least I never talked anyone into almost committing murder on my behalf!”

    Carolyn burst into renewed sobs.

    “Be QUIET!” shouted her brother. “Stop that damned caterwauling! –Oh: merci mille fois, madame,” he said weakly as Mme Boucher came in looking distressed  with a boxful of unguents.

    Madame clucked and exclaimed but cleaned and trussed the wound skilfully enough.

    “It’s nothing,” said Gaetana in some relief as the landlady withdrew. “Just a flesh wound.”

    “Yes,” he said, wincing, as he drew the torn shirtsleeve back up over the bandage.

    “Of course if it turns septic and you die, your sister will only have herself to blame,” she noted.

    Carolyn cried loudly: “Me? I did not shoot poor Giles, you horrid girl!”

    “Rubbish: the whole thing’s your fault, you must have a brain the size of a pea rattling in that yellow head of yours!” she returned with scorn.

    “I had rather have a yellow head than horrid red hair and dress in nasty boy’s breeches!” she cried.

    “Sí: go and change, Gaetana,” said her brother in a stifled voice. “Old Berthe will have ten fits if she sees you like that.”

    “She’s already had ten fits at the price they charged for the rooms at that other inn.”

    “Hurry up, she’ll be here before long, complete with the brats.”

    “Oh, very well.” She went slowly over to the door. “Sir, my brother acted in good faith and with the—the noblest of motives!” she burst out.

    “Oh, quite, ma’am. The best of us may be misled by a fool of a woman.”

    “Yes. –I told you English girls were fools as well as horse-faces!” she said to her brother triumphantly in Spanish, going out.

     Paul bit his lip. “Milord, I cannot apologize enough.”

    “Oh, don’t apologize: I enjoyed it.” drawled Rockingham. “What the Devil were you and your sister doing that night in Brussels by the stream?”

    “Oh—that,” said Paul, flushing. “I assure you neither of us spread the story, milord!”

    “No: I imagine I have Truscott to thank for that. –Well?”

    “We had been to a party given by—by the relations of our neighbour, sir. And Gaetana insisted on riding home.”

    “Oh? Possibly my eyes deceived me,” he said politely: “there was only the moon to see by, and I was somewhat occupied at the time—but was she actually riding astride in a muslin gown?”

    “Yes. Well, she had a pair of breeches on as well.”

    Rockingham’s heavy shoulders shook.

    “See! She is a horrid girl!” cried Carolyn.

    “Be quiet, pea-brain,” returned Rockingham pleasedly. “A girl of enterprise, rather,” he murmured

    Paul swallowed. “Yes. Well, she’s very young. And—and I am taking her to our relatives in England in the hopes that—that when she can lead a normal girl’s life she—she will settle down.” He swallowed.

    “That would be a pity,” stated the Marquis drily. “May I enquire your name, or is that destined to remain forever a mystery?”

    “I beg your pardon, my Lord! Ainsley: Paul Ainsley.”

    “Ah. I’m Rockingham, but I gather you know that. The pea-brain is Carolyn Girardon: Mamma married a second time.” He frowned a little. “I think you must be Harry Ainsley’s boy, then, is that correct?”

    “Yes, milord.” Paul swallowed. “My father speaks of you with great respect, sir.”

    “Does he? He drank me under the table the last couple of times we met,” he said detachedly. “So he has been in Brussels?”

    “Yes, for some time, but he and Madre are removing to Spain. And I am escorting the younger children to England. Pa wishes me to open up the Manor.”

    “Good. Pity to see a decent house like that wasted on a damned cit like—whatever the fellow’s name was.”

    “Harry agrees the tenant of the Manor was a cit, but I think that weighed less with him in his decision not to review the fellow’s lease than the news the man wouldn’t pay to have the roof fixed,” he said, looking sideways at the Englishman from under his thick, black lashes.

    Rockingham grinned. “Expected him to pay for the roof, did he? That sounds like Harry!”

    Twinkling, Paul agreed: “Yes, my Lord.”

    There was a short silence. Carolyn sat down on a chair at some remove from the fire and sulked. Paul remained politely standing. Rockingham stretched his booted legs out before him and stared in front of him, frowning.

    At last he looked up and said: “How old is your sister?”

    Paul replied in some surprize: “She’s seventeen, sir. She’ll be eighteen very soon, and our parents wish her to make her come-out in England. –Though I can’t help wondering if she will be received,” he said uneasily.

    The Marquis’s colour had faded. His fists clenched and he threw back his heavy head and glared up at the cracked, dark ceiling of the old inn.

    “Are you in pain, milord?” ventured Paul. “May I ring for something for you? A brandy?”

    “What? Oh—yes, perhaps I will have a brandy. Don’t worry that your sister won’t be received. My aunt, Lady Lavinia Dewesbury, is to bring Carolyn out: I’ll see she takes your sister under her wing.”

    “You are too good, milord,” said Paul in bewilderment. “I’m sure I don’t know why you should show us such kindness, especially after Gaetana put a hole in your arm!”

    “No, nor I, indeed!” agreed Carolyn on a spiteful note.

    “No, I’m aware of that, Mr Ainsley,” he said with a twisted little smile. “Put it down to a whim.” He shrugged, winced, and said: “Do ring for that brandy. –And you can go and wash your face, Miss. I don’t wish Mamma to see you’ve been making another exhibition of yourself,” he added evilly.

    Carolyn went slowly over to the door, pouting.

    “But first you can apologize to Mr Ainsley for telling him a string of lies.”

    Pouting, she said: “Very well, I apologize. –Only he WAS abducting me!” she added loudly.

    “Get out,” said Rockingham with a sigh.

    Pouting, Carolyn flounced out.

    “I apologize for her. She’s an idiot. Spoiled rotten. Child of my mother’s middle age. Her father’s just as bad—worse: fifty-odd when she was born. Besotted with the creature.”

    Paul smiled a little. “She is not so very bad, milord. Only rather—if I may say so—silly.”

    “Brainless, you mean,” he muttered.

    “Er—well, she is very pretty,” he murmured.

    “Don’t like ’em brainless, eh?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

    “No,” admitted Paul, lips twitching.

    “Nor I.” He sighed a little.

    Paul looked at him anxiously. “Milord, are you sure you don’t want a doctor?”

    “No, it’s nothing. And let me give you a word of advice: don’t call me ‘milord’, it makes you sound like a damned waiter.”

    Paul replied simply: “I’m sorry, my Lord: the truth is, I never met a marquis before.”

    “‘Sir’ will do,” he drawled.

    “Thank you; I’ll remember that, sir.”

    Rockingham looked at him with a sort of wry interest. “Damned odd life you must have led.”

    “Yes,” the young man said, flushing.

    “It wasn’t a criticism, boy, merely a remark. I envy you: my own life’s been so damned... circumscribed.”

    “That isn’t how my father remembers you, sir,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

    “Eh? Oh! That episode! Greatest fun I ever had in my life,” he said with a sigh. “How is your mother, by the way?”

    “Oh, splendidly well, thank you! And very excited to be going back to Spain!”

    “Mm. Removing there permanently, is he? –Ah, oui: du cognac, et vite,” he said as a waiter came in.

    The man bowed, looked curiously at the pair of them and avidly at Rockingham’s arm, and withdrew.

    “Er—yes,” said Paul. “Pa and Madre plan to settle permanently on her estates in Spain.”

    “I see,” he said on a dry note. “—Sit down, for the Lord’s sake, lad!”

    Paul sat down opposite him. “Pa went to see Lord Wellington when his Lordship was in Brussels.”

    “Did he, by God?”

    “Sí,” he said, flushing. “His Lordship was—was most gracious, and he told Harry that although it would be perfectly acceptable for him to visit England it would be advisable not to think of settling there himself.”

    Rockingham grimaced. “It must have been a merry interview.”

    “Sí,” said Paul in a low voice.

    The Marquis looked at him tolerantly. “He’s had a damn’ good run for his money, y’know. Could have been shot out of hand by any of a dozen nations these past twenty-five years, and with good reason!”

    “He doesn’t discuss his private business with us, but I’m sure you’re right.”

    “Cheer up,” said Rockingham as the waiter returned with the cognac. “If Wellington said that, it’s the next best thing to a Royal Pardon, y’know!”

    “So I would gather,” Paul agreed with a twisted smile, as the waiter served them both and withdrew, giving his Lordship’s arm one last avid glance.

    “May they all rot in Hell,” noted Rockingham, raising his glass.

    “Who?” gasped Paul.

    “Well—not in preferred order—most of my damned relatives, all of polite society, the nosy inhabitants of Ostend, and stupid women!”

    Paul looked at him nervously and saw his hard grey eyes were twinkling a little. “Sí, sí!” he said with a laugh. “Most of all stupid women!”

    “Aye.” Rockingham sipped his cognac and said wryly: “The damned hen’s convinced I’m going to marry her off to a lord.”

    “Are you?” he asked simply.

    “No. Well, I would if l could, but I don’t know one that’d be stupid enough to take her! Apart from Welling, of course, but she’s twenty years too young for his taste.”

    Paul had to bite his lip.

    “How old are you, Mr Ainsley?” he asked abruptly.

    “Twenty-three, sir.”

    “Older than I had thought,” he murmured. “But young enough.”

    Paul flushed and said awkwardly: “It was stupid of me to believe Miss Girardon without proof.”

    “Mm? Oh—that! Forget it. Carolyn can be cursed convincing, and she’s been playing off her damned tricks on the beleaguered male half of humanity since before she could walk! Er, no: I suppose I was trying to offer some explanation of that damned scene in Brussels,” he said, shrugging and wincing once more. “Welling is both extremely young and extremely foolish.”

    “You don’t need to explain to me, Lord Rockingham!” he said quickly. “They say the Lady Violet is enough to turn any man’s head.”

    “Let alone any boy’s—oh, quite. Well, I’ve sent him back to England,” he said with a sigh, “but I have no expectation of his attaining sense there.”

    “Was he not with the Army, then?”

    “Oh, Lord, no! Welling—fight? No: you could soil your coat that way. No: came over like the rest us to enjoy the gaiety of Brussels and entertain our shallow brains with the thought that we might possibly be within a hundred leagues of actual danger.”

    “Many of the English ladies and gentleman rendered most signal service to the wounded, sir,” the young man said, swallowing.

    “And many of ’em ran like rabbits. Should have seen the faces the night of the Richmond ball when it began to dawn that the dandy officers were slipping away to their regiments.”

    Paul looked at him dubiously. The dark, harsh-featured face was expressionless. He drained his glass and held it out. “Would you mind?”

    When Paul had refilled it he demanded: “How the Devil did your sister come to be mixed up in the fighting? Never tell me Harry permitted it! He may be full of crazy schemes, but he ain’t a lunatic, or not that I’ve heard.”

    “No, sir, of course he— And Madre still has not the least notion! Well, she—she was filled with—with feverish excitement for weeks before the battle, but we never dreamed... If she had been a boy one would have expected a desire to join the fighting, of course, but—” He bit his lip. “She has always believed that she could do anything her brothers were capable of, sir. It appears that as soon as she learned that I had gone, she took a horse from the stable and stole some of my clothes, and—and set off to join me.”

    “And when she did, you did not, of course, dream of taking her straight home,” he drawled.

    “Yes, I did, sir! But I argued with her so long that the militia had long since gone ahead of us and the roads were choked. We tried to go cross-country but got hopelessly lost. And then we came across the Prussians and recognized their colours, and, well, I had met some of the officers on a previous occasion. –They didn’t realize she was a girl, sir!” he added hurriedly. “And then—um—”

    “Lost your head, eh?”

    “Sí,” he said miserably. “Everything happened very fast and we charged, and—and—”

    “Well, no-one’s very wise at twenty-three, Mr Ainsley,” said the older man drily.

    “No. But I am blaming myself bitterly ever since, sir,” he said clasping his hands tightly on his knees and not looking at the older man.

    “‘I have blamed’.”

    Paul looked up, startled.

    “‘I have blamed myself bitterly ever since,’ not ‘I am blaming myself’.”

    “Oh: thank you, sir.”

    “I don’t say you shouldn’t blame yourself, but don’t refine too much upon it: it sounds as if the Duke himself couldn’t have stopped her!” he said with the ghost of a laugh.

    “The Duke? Oh: Wellington! Yes, one must learn to say that, now. I’m very sure he could, sir! But I’ll admit there may be few other men who could. But—but she has  learned a lesson,” he said in a low voice.

    “Oh?”

    “She helped with the wounded on the field, and then after I had got her back to Brussels and she had had a good rest, she insisted on going with Madre and Mme de Breuil—our neighbour—to help with the nursing. It—it was a sobering experience for us all, sir,” he said, swallowing.

    Rockingham gathered from this speech that the modest Paul had also helped with the wounded. He had, himself, but did not mention this, merely saying: “Yes. War is never pleasant.”

    “No. It cured us both.”

    “I’m very glad to hear it, Mr Ainsley. More especially since your father’s neglected acres await you at home. His man of business will fall on your neck and weep, I should think. If you seriously mean to put the place in order, that is.”

    “Yes, I do, but is it in such bad case?” he asked, startled.

    “Mm. The western border of my principal seat marches with your lands. My man informs me Sir Harry’s agent is a screw—and my head gamekeeper’s animadversions on the way the preserves have been let go are quite unrepeatable!” He laughed a little.

    “Oh, dear!” said Paul in dismay.

    “You’ll have your work cut out for you,” noted Rockingham drily. “I’d fire the damned agent first thing, if I were you.”

    “Thank you. I’ll certainly look into it,” Paul agreed in a shaken voice.

    Rockingham eyed him drily. “I was very much younger than you when I succeeded to my father’s shoes.”

    “Indeed, sir? But you had no doubt been bred to the life.”

    “Yes. May I ask what you have been bred to?”

    “Piquet for high stakes, mostly: Harry’s motto is ‘sufficient unto the day,’” said a clear young voice; and Gaetana, clad in an old-fashioned pelisse of a particularly unflattering shade of brown, came into the room. “Don’t get up, that’s absurd, when I’ve just shot you!” she said as Rockingham made to rise.

    “Isn’t it?” he agreed, remaining seated. “Pray join us, Miss Ainsley.”

    Paul got up and brought her a chair to the fire. She sat down but said suspiciously: “Where’s that girl?”

    “His Lordship’s sister,” said Paul pointedly, “has retired to wash her face.”

    “Yes: I expect Mamma at any moment and I’d really rather Carolyn’s farewell performance went unappreciated,” he drawled.

    Gaetana frowned. “I see: you don’t like her, do you?” She didn’t wait for a reply to this but said: “I think we’d better go, I don’t want to meet your mother after I shot you, even if it wasn’t my fault. Come on, Paul, we don’t have to eat at this place.”

    “But Berthe’s taken a dislike to the other place,” he objected.

    “Only because their coffee isn’t as good as her own. And she said the bed was lumpy. But with Bunch kicking her all night I don’t see that it would have made much difference whether it was lumpy or not.”

    “She said the fish last night was overdone.”

    “That was because she’s convinced no-one can cook fish but her. Come on, there must be other places, even if the town is filled to bursting with—” She broke off. “English persons,” she finished on a weak note.

    “Sacrés Anglais,” agreed Rockingham smoothly.

    “I was going to say that, but you cannot accuse me of doing so!”

    “No, indeed, Miss Ainsley. But won’t you and your family join my party?”

    “Horrors, no!” she gasped.

    “I see,” he said drily.

    “She means the twins,” said Paul quickly. “You wouldn’t enjoy their company, I promise you, sir. –Gaetana, mind your manners!” he said in Spanish,

    Gaetana replied seriously in English: “A marquis is only a man. Some of us were brought up to have republican principles, but I do realize that such notions may be strange to a person born and bred in England.”

    “Oh, entirely, ma’am,” drawled his Lordship. “Do you know, I had fancied that you would have been brought up to have—er—Imperialist principles; now where could I have got that notion?”

    “I dare say the last time you saw him Harry was full of enthusiasm for l’Empereur. But it wore off.”

    Paul got up hurriedly. “I think we should relieve you of our presences, sir. Gaetana, make your curtsey!” he said loudly.

    Gaetana replied composedly: “No. If Madre were here of course I would, in order not to hurt her feelings. But she isn’t, and we’re not in England yet, so I won’t.”

    “Very succinct,” noted the Marquis.

    “I’m sorry I shot you,” she said, holding out her hand as if to shake his, like a man.

    “Well, fortunately you got my right arm: I’m left-handed,” he said, getting up. “This one will have to do.” He took her hand in his left one and raised it briefly to his lips.

    Gaetana went scarlet and snatched it back.

    “It’s been a pleasure, Miss Ainsley,” he said.

    “Rubbish!” she retorted crossly. “What a lie!”

    The Marquis’s shoulders shook. “No, I assure you! May I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you in town?”

    “In London? Well, it’s polite of you to say so, but you don’t need to pretend it would be a pleasure. I wouldn’t want to meet a person who had shot me, I can tell you! But if you go to stupid balls and boring parties we might meet, only I don’t think Tia Patty is very fashionable, actually, so probably we won’t.”

    “Ah, but my Aunt Lavinia is extremely fashionable, and I shall solicit her interest on your behalf, Miss Ainsley.”

    “Why?” she demanded baldly, staring at him.

    “Er—call it a whim. Besides, your father’s my only living relative apart from my mother whom I can actually stand.”

    Paul took her arm firmly. “Venga.” He took a deep breath. “Lord Rockingham—”

    “No, spare me the apologies, Ainsley. Make it up to me by getting those preserves in order. Oh—and if you find out which of your tenants owns a spotted brute of a dog that runs as wild amongst my pheasants as it does amongst yours, shoot it.”

    “Yes, sir!” he gasped, laughing. “I promise!”

    “Don’t get your sister to do the job,” Rockingham advised, walking over to the door with them: “do it yourself. There may be some chance of the brute’s actually winding up dead.”

    “Hah, hah! You should be glad I’m not a very good shot, otherwise you’d be dead!” said Gaetana crossly.

    “Very true, Miss Ainsley. Adios—but let us hope it’s merely au revoir,” he said, bowing as she passed him.

    “Adios, señor,” she said, smiling at him.

    For a man of thirty-seven to feel as if the sun had come out at that precise moment was ridiculous. He bowed, unaware that he was frowning, and closed the door after them.

    “He’s cross,” deduced Gaetana in the passage.

    “So would I be if you’d shot me in the arm, you great imbecile!” gasped Paul in Spanish.

    “I am NOT an imbecile! And if he had been abducting that stupid girl, how would you have fared without me?” she shouted in the same language.

    “Badly, badly, I admit it,” he admitted, grinning. “I must say, I’ve never felt such a damned fool in my life.”

    “Me, too. What a pity Luís isn’t here.”

    “Er—so as he could see what a pair of prize idiots we are, or so as he could make a third?”

    “What? No! She’s just his type!”

    “Ooh, yes,” said Paul slowly.

    “A total pea-brain in an empty blonde head, and a figure like a little plump pigeon!” squeaked Gaetana, falling all over the passage laughing herself silly.

    Paul also fell all over the passage laughing himself silly. Out of relief that the Marquis had been so forbearing, more than anything, really.

    “Darling,” said Mme Girardon some little time later: “that was a charming young couple we saw as we came in. Spanish, I think. Did you notice them?”

    “Yes. Not a couple, he’s her brother,” Rockingham replied shortly.

    His mamma looked at him in some astonishment. “I see,” she murmured. “Giles—is there something wrong?”

    “No, what should be wrong, ma’am?” he replied, frowning.

    “I know Carolyn is a bother, Giles, dear, but she’ll be off your hands the moment you reach Lavinia’s.”

    “Yes—not her,” he said with a sigh. He got up and, wincing a little, went over to the window. “Feeling my age, I suppose,” he said sourly.

    M. Girardon had paused to have a word with M. Boucher but he now bustled over to the fire and said cheerily: “Your age! My dear boy, but you are a chicken of the spring as yet!”

    Giles smiled a little and politely switched to French. “You flatter me, Jean-Pierre. Compared to that young couple you saw just now, I’m an old man.”

    “Who are they, darling?” asked his mother.

    “Oh—odd coincidence. Do you remember Harry Ainsley, Mamma? And old Sir George?”

    “Yes, of course. –Never tell me they’re Harry Ainsley’s children!” she cried.

    “Mm. Odd feeling, isn’t it? Tempus fugit,” he said, making a face.

    “But who is this Harry Ainsley?” asked M. Girardon with interest.

    “Oh, some sort of a cousin, isn’t he, Mamma?”

    “Yes. Our mothers were second cousins—oh, dear: do I mean second cousins?”

    M. Girardon immediately explained what a second cousin was.

    “Thank you, my dear, that’s exactly it!” said Anne Girardon pleasedly.

    Her son eyed her drily. Why on earth Mamma had fallen for the complacent little Belgian—! Still, he was a decent fellow. and devoted to his wife, which was far more than could ever have been said of the late marquis.

    Mme Girardon began to tell Harry Ainsley’s story. M. Girardon listened with great interest and asked a string of questions. She broke down when she got to the reasons why Harry had never returned to England.

    “D’abord républicain, ensuite napoléoniste, maintenant royaliste,” said Rockingham very sourly indeed.

    “Comme nous tous,” agreed the Belgian smoothly. His shrewd little blue eyes twinkled at his stepson out of his round, pink, cheerful face.

    Rockingham burst out laughing. M. Girardon beamed at the success of his effort.

    “Oh, dear: yes, I’m afraid that’s Harry Ainsley, all right,” agreed Anne Girardon, smiling and sighing. “But what of the children, Giles?”

    “Well, I gather Wellington more or less warned Harry off England, but the offspring seem to have been granted a Royal Pardon. –Not literally, sir!” he said hurriedly to his step-papa. “They’re going home to open up the Manor—bring the girl out and so on.”

    Mme Girardon expressed great pleasure at this news. Giles didn’t argue.

    Later, when they had lunched and M. Girardon and his daughter had gone for a little stroll, she said: “Why didn’t you ask the Ainsley children to stay and be introduced, Giles? I would so love to have met them.”

    “Oh—uh—well, they were in a hurry: meeting their young brothers and sisters. Mamma,” he said lamely.

    “You mean the whole family’s here?” she cried on an indignant note.

    “No. Just the boy and girl and the younger ones, I gather.”

    “Giles, you’re impossible!”

    “Gaetana assured me she felt only horror at the thought of our encountering the twins, Mamma,” he said neutrally.

    “Don’t be absurd!—Twins, fancy!—So that is her name: isn’t it pretty!”

    “Yes,” he said shortly.

    “What’s she like, Giles?” she asked curiously.

    “Oh—well, she has the Ainsley hair, as you saw, Mamma. Not Harry’s flaming red—wasn’t there a sister or cousin or some such with that dark auburn shade?”

    “Yes: his cousin Patty: she was brought up with him. A nice enough woman, but without the air of distinction that that little girl has. I suppose that’s the mother,” she said, smiling. “A very old Spanish family, I believe.”

    “No doubt,” he said in a bored voice.

    “But did you like her, Giles?”

    He shrugged. “I suppose. Considering she’s twenty years my junior.”

    His mother eyed him narrowly but did not pursue that line. Instead she said: “Well, my dear, if you and Carolyn meet them in London I hope you will show them every courtesy, for poor dear Harry’s sake. I think I might drop Lavinia a line,” she said thoughtfully.

    “Good idea,” he agreed stiffly.

    “What is the boy like?”

    The Marquis replied with some feeling: “A dashed sight too intelligent to find Carolyn to his taste, Mamma, so stop considering it!”

    “My dear,” she said with a rueful little smile, “Harry may have—er—blotted his copybook, but one has heard no ill of the son. And if the Duke encouraged him to remove to England, what better recommendation could he desire? I’m afraid he will be looking rather higher for a wife than my poor little Caro!”

    “Carolyn will have enough,” he said, frowning.

    “Yes, my dear, and Jean-Pierre and I are everlastingly grateful to you, you know that! But she is not, after all, a Hammond.”

    They were seated by the fire. Rockingham got up abruptly and went to the window. “Lucky girl,” he said drily.

    “My dearest boy, stop comparing yourself with your father,” she said with a sigh.

    “You once said to me,” he said, looking out into the busy street, “that a Hammond can care for no-one but another Hammond. I think it must be true: I certainly can’t care for either Welling or Carolyn.”

    “Well, she’s not a bright girl: she could never be a companion to you,” said their mother cheerfully. “But when she grows up a little, she will make some nice boy a comfortable enough wife: she’s very good-natured, and really quite sensible, under that surface silliness. Her Papa spoils her, that’s the trouble.”

    “Fancy,” he said sardonically.

    There was a short pause. Anne looked thoughtfully at the back of her son’s dark head.

    “In general the Hammond temperament is intelligent but unsympathetic. You’re the exception, dear boy!” she said gaily.

    Rockingham came over to her, kissed her hand briefly, and sat down opposite her. “Only in your besotted eyes, my dear.”

    “No, no: you have at least one another fervent admirer!” she said with a chuckle.

    Rockingham stared at her.

    “I received a letter only this morning from young Mrs O’Flynn’s mother, Mrs Parkinson. She speaks most highly of you,” she said, primming up her mouth. “Most highly. Indeed, she informs me that I have a son to be proud of!”

    “Rubbish,” he said, goggling at her.

    “No: true!” she replied with a giggle.

    “I suggest you disabuse her: write and tell her how you dragooned me into agreeing to take that miserable girl on the yacht.”

    “And the baby: don’t forget the baby!” she gurgled.

    “And the howling brat: yes,” he said grimly.

    “I think she was cutting a tooth,” she said thoughtfully.

    “I’m dashed sure of it, ma’am!” he returned acidly.

    “Did she grizzle all the way across, Giles?” she asked, shoulders shaking.

    “No. I gave her some milk with brandy in it.”

    “Giles! You didn’t? You could have poisoned the little thing!” she gasped.

    “Nonsense, it was a few drops only. And it did the trick. Slept like a—er—a babe, after that.”

    “What on earth was Mrs O’Flynn thinking of, to let you?” she said faintly.

    Rockingham replied grimly: “Her stomach, ma’am.”

    “Oh dear! Poor Giles!” she gurgled. “You must have had a merry trip!”

    “Indeed.”

    Anne’s eyes twinkled but she said: “Well, my dear, I really think that you should call on Mrs Parkinson and Mrs O’Flynn when you reach England.”

    “Tunbridge Wells being on my direct route to London—yes,” he drawled.

    “Well, no—but after you have dropped Carolyn off with Lavinia, dear. l am sure Mrs Parkinson would appreciate the gesture.”

    “Being such a great admirer of mine—yes. Are you really telling me to drive all the way to Tunbridge Wells to be toad-eaten, Mamma?”

    “I thought you said she seemed a pleasant enough woman?” she replied doubtfully.

    He shrugged.

    “You could at least show some interest in poor little Mrs O’Flynn’s welfare!” she said indignantly.

    “Mamma, she’s your protégée, not mine. Didn’t her mother give you news of her?”

    “She said she seems very listless.”

    The Marquis raised his eyebrows. “After being half-starved for six months or so, that’s hardly surprizing.”

    “Giles!”

    He sighed. “Very well, Mamma. I shall drive all the way to Tunbridge Wells—in the pouring rain, I feel in my bones it will rain—in order to be toad-eaten by Mrs Parkinson and embarrass Mrs O’Flynn by my—er—rank and wealth, I presume. –Well,” he said impatiently, as his mother stared at him: “she spent the whole journey in an agony of embarrassment; I can only imagine it was because of that!”

    “Don’t be absurd,” she said weakly. “It was her situation that was embarrassing her.”

    “Oh, yes. Alone on a yacht with me, her brat, Captain Richards, a dozen members of his crew, that nurse you foisted on us—she was sicker than Mrs O’Flynn, need I add?—plus Sweet and Cummins!”

    “Precisely,” agreed Anne firmly, but with a twinkle in her eye. “Any young woman of sensibility must have felt it, dear.”

    The Marquis made a rude noise.

    “Which reminds me, how is poor Cummins’s knee?”

    “I haven’t asked him. He’s aboard as we speak, go down to the quay and enquire, if the welfare of my groom is of such importance to you.”

    “That’s not funny, Giles,” his mother reproved him.

    “I apologize, Mamma. But Cummins appears perfectly healthy—and he wouldn’t thank me for enquiring tenderly after his knee, l can tell you!”

    “Men are so silly,” said Mme Girardon placidly.

    Her son groaned.

    She looked at him with affection, but said a trifle anxiously: “Well, do not go if you feel it would embarrass Mrs O’Flynn, my dear. Naturally I shall write to Mrs Parkinson—”

    “No: I’ll go, I’ll go.” he said, groaning.

    “Are you sure, Giles?”

    “I’m sure it would be the lesser of the two evils, yes!” He got up again and strode over to the window.

    After he’d peered into the street for quite some time his mother said: “I’m sure they will be back directly, dear.”

    “No, I think they went off to another—” He broke off.

    “Jean-Pierre wouldn’t go far: he knows you don’t want to miss the tide.”

    “No,” he said lamely.

    “Come and sit down in the warm, Giles.”

    He obeyed, but said glumly: “Are you sure you cannot persuade Jean-Pierre to remove to England?”

    Anne gave him a tenderly mocking look. “So as to hang on your sleeve?”

    “Better you and he than Welling!” he said with feeling. “No, I know he won’t agree to it, don’t tell me again.”

    “Besides, you don’t want your mamma around you all the time, Giles.”

    “Yes, I do, you’re the only woman in the world I can talk to,” he grumbled.

    “You could talk to Lavinia, she is an intelligent woman, dear.”

    “Lionel Dewesbury’s a damned Tory! Every time I see her we have a stand-up fight!” he replied in tones of great indignation.

    “Whose fault can that be, I wonder?” she murmured.

    The Marquis said impatiently: “I dare say we are equally to blame. Be that as it may, I will grant you that Lavinia has considerable intelligence and even more force of character, but I tell you frankly you have the best of it, being merely her correspondent, ma’am!”

    “She writes an excellent letter,” she said with a smile. “Though of course I am so out of touch with all the personalities, these days... But if not Lavinia, then... Well, there must be some witty and entertaining lady in your circle, dearest! Lady Jersey?”

    “What, Silence? Yes, very witty and entertaining, chatters on like a dashed parrot! In fact none of the patronesses of Almack’s appeal to me, and Almack’s don’t appeal to me, and—” He broke off.

    “l wasn’t going to suggest any of the patronesses of Almack’s. Well, not besides Sally Jersey. But—well—what about your cousin Susan—or her friends?”

    “I’m not interested in the infantry, Mamma. And, leaving aside the fact that she's too nearly related to me, Susan can’t say boo to a goose.”

    “I see,” she sighed.

    “Give up, Mamma. I’m a lost cause,” he said drily.

    “You are not, my dear! You’re still a relatively young man! –And I should so hate to see the title go to Vernon Standish!”

    “Well, in the nature of things you probably won’t,” he said shortly. He got up. frowning, and strode over to the window again.

    “You know what l mean,” she murmured.

    “Yes, I know precisely what you mean, and I don’t mean to marry to please either you or Lavinia!” he said angrily. “Good God, ma’am, do you want to see me make some poor devil of a girl as unhappy as Father made you?”

    “No, darling, but I keep telling you, you mustn’t compare yourself with your father, you’re really most unlike him in everything but features,” she said anxiously.

    “And my cursed temper,” he said with a scowl.

    “Yes, but— Oh, here they are at last!” she said with a smile, as Jean-Pierre and his daughter came in. Carolyn was carrying a small package and Jean-Pierre was carrying several larger packages but neither of their relatives was surprized: M. Girardon was incapable of going anywhere near a shop without buying something for his daughter: she didn’t even have to be there.

    “We saw that horrid girl and her brother again. They were getting on the packet,” she said to Giles, pouting defiantly.

    “That would be a necessary pre-requisite to going to England, yes,” he agreed.

    “That will do,” said Anne, getting up hurriedly. “I think we had best make a move: if the passengers are boarding the packet the tide must be nearly on the turn.”

    Giles got out his watch. “Yes, we’d better go. –If there’s any livestock in those packages, you can leave ’em behind,” he added grimly.

    “No, there is not!” said Carolyn indignantly. “And you are a horrid beast, not letting me bring my dear little Purr-Purr!”

    “We see a joli perroquet, only I theenk this is wrong idea, no?” said Jean-Pierre cheerfully.

    “A very wrong idea,” agreed Giles, shuddering.

    “It was a lovely parrot, and the man said it would not swear!” squeaked Carolyn, pouting.

    “l expect it would: all parrots do,” said Mme Girardon placidly. “Come along, then, are we ready? –Give some of those packages to Giles, my dear.” she added in French to her husband, taking her son’s right arm. “What is it, Giles?” she said in alarm, as he gave a little gasp.

    “Nothing. A scratch on my arm. Take my other arm, Mamma. You’ll have to manage those packages by yourself, I’m afraid, Jean Pierre. And come on, if we miss the tide a second time Captain Richards will kill me. But not before I’ve wrung Carolyn’s neck, of course,” he added affably.

    Carolyn duly cried out indignantly and her father shushed her, assuring her that Giles hadn’t meant it, and they all exited rather noisily.

    Nevertheless the tactic hadn’t worked—though the Marquis hadn’t really expected it to—and his mother interrogated him narrowly as to the “scratch” on his arm all the way to where the yacht was moored.

    “¡Olé! !Olé!” cried Bungo as the big yacht flew past the packet like a white bird.

    “Speak English,” said Paul tiredly. “Sorry: scream English,” he corrected himself.

    Gaetana giggled and hugged his arm tightly, eyes sparkling and cheeks glowing bright in the sea breeze. “Isn’t this fun?”

    “Sí, sí,” he said with a grin. “Or it would be, without these two!” he added, hastily grabbing Bungo by the seat of his breeches.

    “I wish I had a yacht,” sighed Bunch, leaning right over the rail to get a better view of the fast-disappearing vessel.

    Gaetana grabbed her hurriedly by the skirts. “Only very rich people have yachts.”

    “C’était pour de vrai un marquis?” she asked.

    “Oui, pourquoi pas? Un marquis, ce n’ est qu’un homme, après tout!” said Gaetana on a scornful note, forgetting to speak English.

    “Inglés,” groaned Paul.

    “Oh—yes.”

    “C’est quoi, un marquis?” asked Bungo.

    Berthe puffed up to them, beaming. “La petite s’est endormie,” she informed them. “Comme elle a pleuré; ah, elle est d’une tendresse, la petite Maria!”

    “Oui, oui,” said Paul hurriedly. There was no point in telling poor old Berthe to speak English, and how on earth she was going to manage—!

    Gaetana asked (in French) if Maria was feeling sea-sick, but Berthe assured them she wasn’t. Francisco, however— Everybody sighed. Francisco got sick on everything that moved. He had been known to get sick on a horse. True, the horse at the time had been crossing the Pyrenees, but also true, no-one else present at the time had got horse-sick.

    “C’est quoi, un marquis?” Bungo repeated, hanging right over the rail—with Paul still grasping the seat of his breeches—in an effort to get the last glimpse of the flying yacht.

    “Mais c’est un grand milord, mon chou!” cried Berthe in astonishment. “Tu sais, mon petit: l’histoire du Chat botté et du Marquis de Carabas!”

    “Ouais, je sais, mais quelle sorte de ci-devant milord?”

    Weakly Paul told him not to say that. Berthe explained eagerly that a marquis was almost as great as a duke. Gaetana sighed loudly. Bungo remarked that in the Terror the Marquis de Carabas would have had his head cut off and Bunch tried to argue that he couldn’t have had: in the first place he was only a character in a story and in the second place the Chat botté would undoubtedly have rescued him by some fiendishly cunning trick. Everyone had to concede weakly that she was right in this last.

    Except Bungo: he cried scornfully: “Non, pas lui, imbécile! Ce marquis-là!”

    “Speak English,” said Paul tiredly. “And he wouldn’t have been sent to the guillotine, he’s an Englishman.”

    “Non, c’est le Marquis de Carabas!” squeaked Bunch, giggling madly. She gave Bungo a push.

    “Oui, c’est le Marquis de Carabas!” gurgled Bungo, punching her a bit.

    Bunch punched him back. “Marquis de Carabas!” she squealed.

    “Marquis de Carabas!” chortled Bungo.

    “He’s not the Marquis de Carabas!” shouted Paul, more or less bilingually.

    “Yes, he is,” said Gaetana on a pleased note. “If the Chat botté had been there, you don’t think he’d have let me shoot him, do you? I think the Marquis de Carabas is pretty helpless, really—almost as bad as the real Marquis de Carabas!”

    “You only got him by accident!” shouted Paul.

    But too late, Gaetana and the twins were dancing round the deck, regardless of the fact that it was swaying and bucking considerably, as the packet was going at a fair rate, chanting: “Mar-quis de Ca-ra-bas! Mar-quis de Ca-ra-bas! Mar-quis de Ca-ra-bas!”