The Ainsleys At Home

Part I. Home Life: Pastoral, Comical

1

The Ainsleys At Home

    Eight months after Waterloo. Grass had grown where formerly there had been a sea of churned mud, the indefatigable Belgians had replanted crops where formerly there had been a sea of churned mud, and even the souvenir-hunters had all but disappeared in the frosty weather. Apart from the indefatigable local small boys, of course. And Sir Harry Ainsley, having rendered what he himself considered to have been signal service to Lord Wellington, had decided that now was the time to send his offspring home to England.

    “WHAT?” screamed Gaetana in horror.

    Paul fell around their mother’s front parlour, laughing himself silly.

    “Mm. Me cousin’ll do the stuff—bring you out, so forth,” said the genial Sir Harry breezily.

    “We—never knew—you had—any—cousins, Harry!” gasped Paul, still laughing himself silly.

    “Eh? ’Course you did!” returned his parent in astonishment.

    “But of course he hath a couthin. She grow up weeth heem, no? Her madre, she dieth, you see. We sending her an invitation to our wedding but she ith not come. I think she not pleathe Harry marries a Spanish lady, no?” said the children’s mother with the utmost placidity.

    “Rubbish. Didn’t come because she didn’t want to cross the Channel. Always was a rotten sailor,” said Sir Harry breezily.

    “Didn’t want to— Pa, wasn’t there the slight matter of the storming of the Bastille at the time?” gulped Paul.

    Harry did arithmetic on his fingers, muttering to himself. “Could have been, mm. Er—1789, eh?” he said to his spouse.

    Marinela responded placidly: “You know I never to understand the Engleesh numberth, mi querido.”

    “1789,” he said in Spanish.

    “Sí, sí. 1789. –We got married in 1789,” she said to her children in Spanish, beaming. “On my father’s estates. No-one in those parts had ever seen a man with red hair before: how the peasants stared! Your papa was so handsome, in his new suit!”

    “Sí, sí, we’ve heard it all before: don’t tell us,” sighed Paul in Spanish.

    Gaetana was not normally so easily diverted from the subject in hand as the rest of her flibbertigibbet family. Besides, she had a stake in the matter. So she said loudly—in English: “Never mind all that! Madre, tell him I won’t go!”

    Marinela replied mildly: “Your father would like you to go, my darling. Possibly you will find an English milord to marry!” She beamed at her.

    “Yes. on a dowry of a bent Belgian franc and a musket wad from Waterloo!” choked Paul ecstatically.

    To this Marinela returned with what was for her real energy: “Nonsense, Paul! She will have a nice dowry from my estates, of course.”

    “Eh?” he said weakly.

    “Certainly. My brother Don Pedro—your Tio Pedro, my darlings,” she informed them, smiling, “has lately written to say that all that silly business at the Court is long since forgotten, and the estates are doing very well under his management, and your father and I may return to Spain any time we please!”

    “Marinela, you insulted the Queen’s lover—the most powerful man in Spain—in public!” her son croaked. “The Spaniards have forgotten that?”

    “Well, it was a very long time ago. Besides, we shall not waste our time leading the life of the silly Court, you can be sure!” She beamed at him.

    “Pa, you’re not really going, are you?” he croaked—in English, though Harry’s Spanish was excellent.

    “Eh?” Sir Harry had lost interest in the conversation and was peering hopefully between the curtains of the front parlour at the unexciting view of a respectable street in Brussels. The Ainsleys were by far the most exciting thing that had happened in this street within living memory. Even during the late battle the only noteworthy incident had been the overturning of a donkey-cart. Most of the inhabitants had earlier removed themselves and the more portable of their valuables to safer ground. Though professing undying faith in Lord Wellington and his army when the town was filled with soldiers and gaiety and touring English and balls, of course.

    “Uh—oh. Yes, thought we might. Take another look at the old place, eh?” he said to his eldest son, beaming.

    “Harry, isn’t the political situation—uh—rather uneasy?” said Paul, casting an anxious look at his mother.

    “Oh, no need to worry about all that! We won’t get mixed up in any of that!” Sir Harry assured him. “Anyway, Pedro says it’s perfectly safe. Wouldn’t have asked us to come back, otherwise—got a sound head on his shoulders, y’know. Eh, Marinela?”

    “Yes,” agreed Marinela placidly (in Spanish, though she had, as her reply would indicate, understood this last speech perfectly.) “He is the most sensible of my brothers. Also he wishes Gaetana to marry his third son, Alfonso. But I do not think this would be a very good idea.”

    “No. One more reason why we’re sending you to Cousin Patty. –You can call her Tia Patty, she wrote us reminding me she always wanted to want to be an aunt when we was brats,” he said to his eldest daughter.

    Gaetana glared.

    “What’s wrong with him, Pa?” asked Paul, immediately diverted from the subject in hand.

    “Eh? Oh—young Alfonso! Um—well, your mother says he sounds too biddable.”

    Paul had a coughing fit.

    “Very FUNNY!” shouted Gaetana, for once diverted from the subject in hand.

    “His mother says he’s a very gentle boy,” reported Marinela in tones of great approval. “So I think he would be all wrong for Gaetana. Besides, he has no money of his own.”

    “That’ll be why Tio Pedro’s been cultivating Madre’s estates so assiduously!” Paul noted to his sister with a wild look in his eve.

    “Very probably,” she agreed grimly. “Harry, I’m not going to England!” she said loudly.

    Sir Harry was looking out of the window again. “Mm?—Looks like rain.—Yes, you are, my kitten. I’ve decided,” he said mildly.

    Gaetana glared. “I’m NOT! And don’t call me kitten!”

    “It will be for the best, mi querida,” said her mother placidly.

    “Madre, it won’t! Don’t let him!” she cried. In Spanish. Otherwise Marinela might have had an excuse not to listen.

    “I think it’s a very good idea, Gaetana. Besides, if you come to Spain with us you’ll have to marry Alfonso. And that would be very boring.”

    Gaetana had gone very red. “I wouldn’t have to!” she choked.

    “Sí. Your Tio Pedro would insist. Besides, it is time you were thinking of marriage and settling down, my dearest.”

    “Madre! You were twenty-five before you married Harry!” she cried indignantly.

    “Yes. But I was engaged at sixteen. It wasn’t my fault that my fiancé died before we could marry.”

    “No: only your fault that you slapped the Queen’s lover’s face at Court and got relegated to your father’s estates for life!” choked Paul ecstatically.

    “Yes. He was a horrid man. And I would have been ruined anyway. Though I must admit,” she said calmly, rearranging the Cashmere shawl round her shoulders: “that that thought did not occur to me at the time.”

    “No.” Sir Harry came over to her chair and dropped a kiss vaguely in the direction of the charming wisp of lace and ribbon that did duty for a cap on Lady Ainsley’s handsome silvering head. “Oy—you. In my study,” he said to his eldest daughter.

    Scowling, Gaetana accompanied him in silence.

    “Sit,” he said when they were in there. The small, dark room was nominally the library as well as Sir Harry’s “study.” He rarely used it for anything except smoking the cigars that Marinela wouldn’t let him smoke anywhere else in the house, or bawling out his children. The former event a frequent one and the latter remarkably rare: Sir Harry was an indulgent father. Or, more accurately, he was an eccentric one. But also indulgent. However, he knew how to put his foot down when it needed putting down.

    Gaetana sat, looking sulky.

    “You,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “are going to England.” He sat down at his desk and absent-mindedly opened the box in which he kept his cigars. “Uh—yes,” he said, closing it again. “Or else.”

    “Or else what?” she said, sticking out her lower lip.

    “Or else I’ll tell your mother how you came by that damned scratch on your leg!” he said, flushing angrily.

    Gaetana’s hand went automatically to her left thigh. She glared.

    “Never heard of such a thing! Girl of your age, runnin’ all over the countryside, getting mixed up in a dashed battle, like a boy! Could have been killed! Then what would your mother have done?”

    This was old ground. Gaetana replied without animus: “Madre would have been a lot more upset if Paul had been killed, you know he’s her favourite. And you didn’t say anything when he went with the local militia. Why should I be left out all the time, just because I’m a stupid girl?”

    “In the first place Paul’s twenty-three and you’re seventeen! And in the second— Why am I arguing?” he gasped. “You’re a GIRL, and you’ll do what I SAY, Missy!”

    “I won’t! I wasn’t even wounded properly: only a bit of a cut!”

    “Look, you’re damned lucky it was only a scratch from a Froggy sabre instead of some hulking great dragoon pulling you into a hedge and raping you, my girl!” he shouted, turning bright red.

    “Ssh, Madre’ll hear you! –I know that,” said Gaetana, flushing.

    “Do you, just? Well, you didn’t act like it!”

    “No,” she said swallowing. “I’d sort of forgotten… Well, when we were with Ney,”—Sir Harry twitched nervously—“I was too young to realize. Only when it was just me and poor Brun and all those soldiers—”

    “Aye: and the guns going off! And that was a dashed good horse you lost, there, too, poor old Brun!” he said with feeling.

    “I know: I said I was sorry... But I liked the guns and the actual battle. I mean, I was scared but it was thrilling, too.”

    Sir Harry sighed heavily and passed a hand over his face.

    “You said Marengo was a thrilling victory,” she reminded him.

    He winced again. “Uh—yes. Possibly.” He rallied. “Well, I was a dashed fool if I said that! Never saw me getting meself mixed up in any damned battles after that, did you?”

    Gaetana thought about it. “No... I was at school, part of the time, though.”

    Her beleaguered parent sighed again. “So you were. Pity the nuns didn’t manage to knock some sense into that head of yours while they were at it!”

    “They taught me how to do sums. And geography and things.”

    He took a deep breath. “Never mind that. What I’m saying is, you’re going to England, to Patty, where you can be kept out of mischief. Unless you want to marry this idiot cousin of yours?”

    “No. –Is he an idiot?”

    He shrugged. “Possibly not within the meaning of the word. Dim-witted, though. One of Marinela’s other brothers has a brat that’s the same, too—uh, little Juanito, that’s it!” he recalled pleasedly. “Uh—never mind that. Your ma’s sure you wouldn’t like this Alfonso. Mind you, old Pedro’s not upset that he’s too dim to be interested in politics. Well, what with Carlos—!”

    “Yes. Pa, will it really be safe for you and Madre to go back to Spain?”

    “Oh, safe as houses! I never stuck me nose into Spanish affairs, y’know!”

    “Not under the name of Ainsley, no,” she said pointedly.

    Sir Harry glared. “Who told you that story, Missy?”

    “Um—Paul, I think. No, Jake. No, both of them. Anyway, what I was going to say before was, you don’t have to send me off to England because of Waterloo. It’s cured me. Helping with the wounded afterwards was really dreadful. I mean, it had to be done, only...” Her voice trailed off.

    There was a little silence in the chilly, dim little room.

    “Yes, no honour and glory in watching men die, eh?” he said in a hard voice, all his geniality vanished.

    Gaetana gulped. “No,” she whispered.

    Sir Harry sighed faintly. “That’s what war’s really like, my kitten.”

    “Yes. I know, now.”

    He saw her lips were trembling. He got up and patted her shoulder, saying in a vague voice: “Well, all over and done with, eh? We won’t mention it again. But you’ve got to go to England. Give yourself a chance at a decent life. Respectable. Learn what it’s like to be a woman, eh?”

    “Tatting and samplers and putting up preserves?” she replied, rolling her eyes.

    His eyes twinkled but he merely patted her shoulder and said: “Now, now. Don’t see your madre foolin’ around with all that nonsense, do you? –Come on, dashed chilly in here.”

    “I am sorry about going off to fight,” she said, getting up. “And I will go to England, if the alternative’s marrying this idiot of an Alfonso. But you needn’t expect me to like it!” she added fiercely.

    Sir Harry’s lips twitched. He held the door open for her politely. “No, I won’t expect that.” he agreed. “Go on.”

    Gaetana went out. Grinning, Sir Harry whanged her bottom amiably as she passed him. As she squeaked and giggled explosively, he ambled after her, still grinning, but inwardly hugely relieved that she hadn’t really made a fight of it. Because, though he wouldn’t have admitted it aloud, he hadn’t been too sure he could make her see reason. Dashed stubborn streak in her. Lord knew where she got it from, either. Nothing like that in him or Marinela!

    He ambled back into his front parlour and stood in front of the fire, holding his coat-tails up, warming his backside at the cheerful blaze, blissfully overlooking the involved history of unmitigated stubbornness that had got both himself and his charming wife where they were today.

    Harry Ainsley had been a wild youth and, after a terrific row with his father over an unsuitable engagement contracted at the age of twenty without Sir George Ainsley’s permission, had rushed off to France, regardless of the fact that the situation there was hardly either stable or favourable to the reception of wandering Englishmen. After several inglorious minor episodes during the couple of years that followed, he had found himself in the wilds of Spain with a lame ankle and a lame horse. There he had encountered, out riding on a horse of her father’s that she wasn’t supposed to use, Doña Marinela Fernández de Velasco. Banished to her father’s estates and stubbornly refusing for the last three years to redeem herself by offering an apology to either the Queen or the Queen’s lover for slapping the latter’s face in public. Marinela had decided to marry Harry on first setting eyes on him.

    The Fernández de Velasco were a proud old family who had never expected to attain to such notoriety as was theirs in the wake of their beautiful daughter’s unrestrained behaviour at Court. Don Luís, Marinela’s father, had given up hope of ever achieving a respectable match for her, but that hadn’t meant he wanted to give her to some wandering Englishman. Marinela had dug her toes in. After six months during which his daughter had cried her eyes out every day—her temperament was different from Gaetana’s but in her way she was just as stubborn—Don Luís had given in. Besides, by that time his contacts had found out for him that Harry was of a respectable lineage and in line for the baronetcy. So the marriage had taken place.

    Harry had stuck it out on his father-in-law’s estates in the wilds of Spain for three years. Then he’d vanished overnight. Marinela had refused to say where to, though the whole family was aware she knew—she wasn’t bawling her eyes out. Two years later he’d reappeared complete with a retinue of servants, packed his wife, their little son, and his wife’s portable belongings into the large coach he’d brought, and vanished with the lot of them. Don Luís, though he hadn’t admitted it, had been exceedingly relieved to see the back of them.

    At some time—no-one was quite sure when, but it was certainly before the birth of his second child, Luís, and his third, Gaetana—Harry Ainsley had thrown in his lot with Napoleon Buonaparte. Certain vaguely Republican principles he’d once cherished had been swamped in the excitement of the petit caporal’s growing reputation.

    The rest was—more or less—history. At one period Sir Harry had, indeed, been with Ney. Doing what, he had not spelled out to his family. He had not been with the Grande Armée to Russia, however, having, as he’d said himself, too much dashed sense to put his head in a noose of the Tsar’s choosing. It had been at the time of the disastrous retreat from Moscow that Harry’s political sympathies had first publicly... wavered, was perhaps the best word. Certainly he had been heard at this period to express tempered approval of Lord Wellington’s exploits in the Peninsula and of Lord Nelson’s on the high seas. By the time of the escape from Elba and the glorious return to France, he was firmly on the side of the Allies.

    But now, several months after Waterloo, his three eldest children had begun to wonder if perhaps Pa had been playing a double game all along. Spying for Wellington whilst cosying up to Ney? Heaven alone knew. Anything was possible, with Sir Harry. Perhaps his wife had been able to penetrate that air of bumbling geniality to discover the real man’s thoughts and desires, but his children, as they freely admitted to one another, never had. And they doubted if any man alive had. No, well, possibly Wellington. After his interview with Old Hooky in the wake of Waterloo Sir Harry had returned to the respectable little house in Brussels in a very silent, introspective mood indeed and had shut himself away in his study, smoking, for six solid hours.

    “Well?” said Paul in a bored voice, as his father continued to warm his behind whilst rocking up and down on his toes, smiling vaguely.

    “Hey? Oh: talked her into it. Well, told her it was that or marriage to this Alfonso idiot.”

    “Not an idiot, darling. Just very biddable,” said Marinela mildly in Spanish.

    “Sí, sí. –Patty’s all right, you’ll like her,” he said to his daughter. “I think.”

    Gaetana had sat down opposite her mother. She glared at him and didn’t respond.

    “Also she has daughters: they’ll be company for you and Maria, darling. Two of around your own age, isn’t that right, Harry?” said Marinela.

    “Uh—think so, mm. Something like that.”

    Gaetana scowled.

    “And two grown-up sons, also. Perhaps you can marry one of them. Patty’s a widow, of course, and they don’t have much—but there’s always their old uncle!” she said hopefully.

    Gaetana looked bored. Sir Harry gave a faint snort.

    “But even if you shouldn’t fancy them, my dearest, it won’t matter. Patty will bring you out with her third daughter, won’t that be lovely?”

    Gaetana got up abruptly and walked over to the window, where she glared out at the unexciting view of the respectable little street under a leaden sky.

    “And of course they’ll be company for Paul, they’re about his age!” finished Marinela happily.

    After a stunned moment Paul gasped: “What?”

    Gaetana also gasped. Then she fell around their mamma’s front parlour, laughing herself silly.

    “Stop it! Be quiet!” shouted Paul, very red. “It isn’t funny! Madre, you didn’t mean it, did you?” he cried desperately over his sister’s ecstatic shrieks.

    “Sí, sí, mi hijo. I thought Harry explained? We wouldn’t dream of sending Gaetana and the little ones by themselves. Of course you must go, to escort them. And to take your place in English Society, of course!”

    “Me? English Society?” he croaked. “Marinela! You must be joking!”

    “That’ll do. Don’t talk to your mamma like that,” said Sir Harry, but with complete placidity.

    “No, really, Harry! Me? Amongst the respectable squires and milords of Old England?”

    “Why not? Once upon a day you shall to be the most rethpectable baronet amongtht them, my darling one,” said Marinela. She lapsed back into Spanish and added in congratulatory tones: “And isn’t it fortunate that you chose the right side at Waterloo! They’ll welcome you with open arms!”

    “Who will? The stupid young officers that he fleeced for three months solid before the battle?” choked Gaetana.

    “That’ll be enough out of you, Missy,” said her father firmly. “You can open up the old place. Air it a bit and so forth,” he said breezily to his son.

    “Yes. Also the town house,” agreed Marinela. While her offspring were still gaping she added: “Harry he writes to Patty to say of course she ith to uthe the house. Why did we not to tell her that before, mi querido?” she said to him.

    “Mm? Oh, m’father was still alive, back then.”

    “No. After that,” she said firmly in Spanish.

    “Eh? Oh, then! Uh—let it to those Whatsernames, didn’t we?”

    “Oh, sí. The people with the funny name.”

    “Parkinson. Aren’t they still renting it, Pa?” said Paul weakly.

    —Once again the family had side-tracked itself. Gaetana, used though she was to them, looked from one to the other of them with a certain desperation in her eye.

    “Mm? No, no. Old Parkinson popped off. The widow went off to—uh—Bath, I think. Some damned watering spot. Er—Tunbridge Wells?”

    “What did he say?” asked Marinela plaintively of her daughter.

    Gaetana sighed but translated politely: “He said that the Parkinson man died and that his widow went to some place with a funny name, Madre.”

    “You know—take the waters, all that rubbish,” said Sir Harry impatiently to his spouse in English. “Fellow that was renting Ainsley Manor’s given it up, too,” he said to his son.

    “Why?”

    “Told him he could fix the roof. Dug his toes in,” he grunted.

    Paul rolled his eyes. “Possibly because it wasn’t his roof?”

    Sir Harry sniffed. “Been living in the place for the best part of twenty years, hadn’t he? ’Bout time he paid his share. –No, well, after that he wouldn’t renew the lease. But mind you, I wouldn’t have renewed it if he’d begged me. Damned cit.”

    “The neighbourhood will be so relieved to have me in his stead,” noted Paul.

    “Why shouldn’t they?” retorted Sir Harry huffily. “You’re an Ainsley, ain’t you? Rightful place, and all that!”

    “Rightful place under a leaky roof,” noted Gaetana.

    “Well, he can fix it!” said Sir Harry immediately.

    “Er—what with, Harry?” he drawled.

    “Those English guineas you fleeced the stupid young officers out of!” choked Gaetana, falling around their mamma’s front parlour, laughing herself silly.

    “Querida, a lady doeth not to talk of a gentleman’th gambling,” noted her mother.

    The family stared at her.

    “Truly,” she said, nodding. “Also in España. But very much in England.”

    “Yes, well, never mind that,” said Sir Harry, somewhat weakly. “There’ll be plenty of money. See my bankers in London. Well, I’ll give you a letter and so forth,” he said to his goggling son. “The funds have been piling up, y’see. Couldn’t—uh,”—he coughed—“get money out of England during the late—er—disagreement, y’know.”

    “Yours or King George’s, Harry?” croaked his son.

    Sir Harry sniffed faintly. “Bit of both, actually.”

    “You don’t say!” gasped Paul, falling back with a hand to his heart.

    “Yes, well, never mind that,” he said firmly. “Plenty of money there. Enough to do the place up and give Gaetana a decent come-out. And send the twins to school, of course.”

    Paul winced.

    “If they come with us instead—” said their mother tentatively.

    Sir Harry rejoined firmly—in Spanish, so as she’d know not to argue with him: “No. My mind’s made up. Those brats are running wild. Ramón can go to Winchester, same as I did—you can see about that, old fellow,” he added to his eldest son—“and Elinor can go with Maria to that place Patty wrote us about for Gaetana that time. Where she sent her eldest girls. –You remember, darling, that the old uncle actually coughed up for!” he said to her little frown.

    “Sí, sí, I’m just trying to remember... Meess Blake’th!” she said triumphantly.

    “Mm. Something like that.” He waited for her to argue that the brats would be better off in Spain with them, but she didn’t: she knew that when Harry referred to Bungo and Bunch as Ramón and Elinor, he was in his firmest mood. Or furious with them, of course. But as they hadn’t done anything remarkably wicked lately, it couldn’t be the latter.

    “Winchester?” croaked Paul to his sister. Gaetana stuck her tongue out at him.

    “That’ll do,” said her father mildly. “That’s another thing that ladies don’t do. English or Spanish,” he added, straight-faced, as Marinela nodded pleasedly, and Paul choked. “Yes, Winchester. You can go and see the headmaster about Bungo. Do you good: learn to take a bit of responsibility,” he said to his heir.

    “Pa—”

    “Shut up. You’re going.”

    Paul groaned. “I’ll be utterly at sea amongst the stuffy English squires and milords, Harry!”

    “Yes, and the naked viscounts!” squeaked Gaetana, giggling madly.

    “That’ll be enough out of you.” Sir Harry ambled across and joined her at the window. He patted her bottom absently whilst peering out at the street. “Raining—said it was going to,” he reported. “Still no sign of those brats.”

    “Maria’s with them,” said Gaetana.

    Marinela sighed faintly.

    Sir Harry had been about to say that the twins wouldn’t take a blind bit of notice of Maria, she was too milk-and-water. He turned it into a strangled cough just in time and said peaceably: “Yes, well, so’s old Berthe. She won’t let ’em get up to mischief. –Sending her with you, by the way,” he added to his son, giving up on Gaetana’s bottom and turning round.

    “What? Oh, Pa! The poor old thing!” he cried. “She barely speaks a word of English!”

    “Only living being that’s ever been able to control that pair,” he noted grimly. “And you can have Jake, as well. He’s seen as much of Spain as he ever wants to, poor old chap. Think he’d like to see a bit of his family, back home. Anyway, I’m sending him. Francisco, too, keep his neck out of the noose,” he added by the way.

    “A retinue, en effet,” concluded Paul faintly.

    “Yes. Come into my study,” said Sir Harry.

    Paul groaned, but followed him meekly enough.

    There was a short silence in the front parlour.

    “Are they coming, querida?” asked Marinela.

    “No.” Gaetana released the curtain and turned reluctantly. “Are you warm enough, Madre?” she asked, as Marinela shivered a little and huddled into her shawl .

    “Oh, yes: fine, my dearest! Well, perhaps one more log? –Gracias, mi hija,” she said weakly as Gaetana, instead of ringing for Jake, their invaluable factotum, at present in the rather unconvincing rôle of footman, made up the fire herself. “Brussels is so damp,” she murmured.

    “Yes. They say England’s as bad,” agreed Gaetana, sitting down on the hearthrug and hugging her knees.

    “Sí, sí. But you have the so-white skin of my darling Harry, little kitten: I think the climate will not worry you. Whereas in our Spanish summers, you would burn up!” she said, laughing.

    “Ye-es,” said Gaetana uncertainly, touching her own cheek and frowning a little.

    “Maria would be all right, she’s dark-complexioned, like me,” said her mother placidly. “But I wish her to go with you. I think, with her serious disposition, if she came to Spain the priests would get hold of her. and that would not be good, you know?”

    “No. Good idea,” she said gruffly.

    “In England she can attend the... Whatever its name is: I forget. English Church?” said Marinela placidly. “Very boring, but Harry says the English ladies take flowers to the church and that in England one can even marry a priest!”

    “Um—yes. Not a celibate clergy, Mamma,” she murmured.

    “Is that what they say? You’re so clever, all you children, always reading such big books!” she beamed. “Well, I have decided that that would be best for Maria!”

    After a dazed moment Gaetana croaked: “To marry an English priest, you mean?”

    “Yes. When she is a little older, of course: fifteen is far too young. But Patty writes that she has a governess for her younger children. And I have found out,” she said impressively, leaning forward: “that this Meess Morr-ton, she is a very religious lady and she has a brother who is a priest! One of the not—not—what you said, the ones that can marry! What a good contact she will be!”

    Gaetana’s jaw dropped. “How did you find out?” she managed at last.

    “Ah-hah! Of course, your father is so anti-clerical, he wouldn’t approve of the idea of Maria’s marrying any clergyman, not even an English one.”—Gaetana nodded seriously.—“But what I say is, it’s better than becoming a nun!” said Marinela strongly.—Gaetana nodded fervently.—“Sí. Of course I couldn’t ask Harry to write about these things to Patty, he would have laughed, you know what darling Harry is! So I wrote it myself!” She nodded triumphantly, beaming.

    “Not in English, surely?” asked Gaetana dazedly.

    “No, no, silly child!” she said with a trill of laughter. “Of course I wrote it in Spanish! And then I got Jake to translate it for me!” She beamed at her.

    “Can he?” returned Gaetana numbly.

    “Certainly. He told me all about his life. I never dreamed, really: he is the most devoted fellow, querida! He followed your father to France, did you know? They’re almost the same age, of course, and Jake grew up on your papa’s papa’s estates. When Harry ran away to France he followed him and found him, all by himself, imagine that!”

    “I expect he wanted the adventure,” said Gaetana weakly. “I always thought they came together.”

    Marinela shook her head. “No, not at all. He said that all the peasants on the estates loved Harry. And I’m sure I’m not surprized!”

    “No. Um, Madre, I don’t think they call them peasants in  England, do they?”

    “Don’t they? But it’s the same thing, mi querida,” she said vaguely. “Jake was a clever boy, you know: his father was only a stable-hand, but Jake went to the village school and did very well indeed. The schoolmaster thought he could become an architect. And Sir George was very generous: he sent him to—to do the training—whatever it is they do. But Jake gave it all up to follow your father!”

    “I see. Um, Madre,” she said, swallowing, “have you ever thought that he might be Pa’s brother?”

    “Oh, many times, querida, many times!” she said happily. “The very dark red hair—exactly like yours, isn’t it! Whilst Harry’s was so bright and shiny, like bright copper, when he was a young man!” she said with a reminiscent smile. “A flame in the sun! He took off his hat and bowed when he saw me on Father’s El Negro. And that was what I thought: His hair’s like a flame in the sun! I knew then that I would marry him.”

    “Yes, I know, Madre,” she said patiently. “Um—so Jake is Harry’s brother, then?”

    “Oh, no, dearest! No, didn’t I explain? I asked him—well, he was telling me everything, you see—and he said no, it was old Sir Vyvyan, your father’s grandfather, who was his mother’s father!” She nodded brightly.

    “I see,” she said weakly.

    “Yes. So after that,” finished Marinela with superb illogic, “of course I saw that the poor fellow must be sent home to England with you children!” She patted her shoulder. “Maria will do very well with an English priest. Patty has assured me she is quite in sympathy with my feelings on the matter. Quite in sympathy!”

    “Sí. Madre,” she said, swallowing: “what about Luís?”

    Marinela rearranged her shawl and replied composedly: “Ah. Now, you may think that taking him to Spain will be even worse than taking Maria.”

    “Yes,” said Gaetana immediately. “Harry won’t take him, surely?”

    “Your father understands less than nothing of the matter, dearest one: men never do,” said Marinela airily. She patted at her lace cap.

    Gaetana looked up at her uncertainly. “No-o...”

    “Goodness, querida, he’s only turned to the horrid priests because Harry hasn’t had the sense to make contacts amongst the nice people, where we could have found him a cosy little wife!” she cried.

    “Yes, but Marinela, there are more priests in Spain!” said Gaetana urgently.

    “True. But Luís will inherit my Spanish estates and I have no intention,” said his mother grimly, “of seeing him throw his life away by entering the Church. Your Tia Ana and I have had a long correspondence on the subject, little kitten, and Ana has found half a dozen nice, plump girls who will be just right for Luís. –You remember how silly he went over that fat little Whatsername that time we were in Amsterdam,” she added.

    “Yes: Marie-Louise. Only she was blonde, Mamma,” she said uneasily. “And Luís was only sixteen.”

    “Yes. But what about Berthe’s little niece?” she retorted triumphantly.

    Gaetana had been labouring under the delusion that her mother hadn’t known about Luís’s fancy for Berthe’s plump niece. She gulped.

    “It was after your father sent her back to the farm that Luís got so keen on all this religious nonsense!”

    “Ye-es...”

    Marinela gave a little giggle. “Querida, Harry was just the same at that age! Don’t you know that that Jane person he got himself engaged to was a farmer’s daughter? A roly-poly little thing—probably the size of a house by now,” she added complacently.

    “I knew she was a farmer’s daughter... Did he tell you she was a roly-poly little person, Madre?”

    “Oh, yes. He was so furious with Luís; I couldn’t understand why, after all Luís was only just nineteen, and every boy takes a silly fancy to some unsuitable girl, it’s like being cross because the sun rises in the east! So I sort of… probed, you know! And suddenly he came out with it all! He said she was a scheming minx, just like the Jane girl! His father had said the girl was only trying to entrap him into marriage by withholding her favours and he’d long since realized he was right. –Men are such simpletons, aren’t they?”

    “Um—yes.”

    “Of course I didn’t say the Jane person would be the size of a house by now, that would have made him cross with me,” said Marinela, smiling. “Men never like it if you criticise the women in their past—though of course they can criticize them all they like! No, I just said it was a lucky thing for Luís that Harry had had the sense to send the girl packing, because look at old Berthe, she’s as wide as she is long! And he looked very thoughtful, all of a sudden, and said ‘Bay Jove, yes!’” She gave a loud giggle.

    Gaetana also giggled. But she then looked at her mother in some awe and said: “Madre, you’re awfully clever.”

    “Oh, no, dear. But I always have known how to manage men. Except that Pig, of course, no-one could have managed him, he was less than human.”

    Gaetana understood this reference was to the Spanish Queen’s lover: she nodded understandingly.

    “So I shall take Luís to Spain, and Ana will insist he comes to nice parties with us, and then we shall see! And of course I said to her, if there should be a nice plump little virgin of a serving girl, and if Luís’s eye should alight on her—!” She giggled.

    “Madre, you’re terrible!” said Gaetana in awe. “What did Tia Ana say?”

    “Oh, she perfectly understood me; we Spaniards are very practical women, you know! –Naturally the family would see the girl was well taken care of.”

    “Yes,” said Gaetana weakly. “Um—he’s gone awfully prudish, though. Do you think he would?”

    Marinela gave a gurgle. “In the heat of a Spanish summer? Darling child, I can guarantee it! Those long, hot days and the languid nights that never end…!”

    “Well, poor old Luís, his fate’s sealed!” said his sister with a choke of laughter.

    “Sí. No son of mine is going to fall into the claws of the priests,” she said through her teeth.

    Gaetana looked at her, frowning a little. Sir Harry was so rabidly anti-clerical that for most of her short life she’d taken it for granted that Marinela should loathe the priests, too; but now, for the first time, she was beginning to see her mother as a separate person, with her own hopes and beliefs and way of thinking, and she said a little awkwardly: “Madre, you must have been brought up as a good Catholic girl. Why do you hate the priests so much? I know it’s a—a very narrow sort of creed. but... Well, the nuns at school were good women, you know. Not all of it can be bad,” she fumbled.

    “No,” said Marinela with a little sigh, patting her shoulder. “Not all of it, mi querida. They do good work, those cloistered women... No. Harry knows, but I’ve never told anyone else. If I’d told Father, there’d have been murder done!” she said with a wry little laugh. “My father confessor advised me to give in to the Queen’s lover, querida: to sacrifice myself for the sake of my family’s advancement.”

    “Madre! That’s disgusting!” she gasped.

    “Sí, that’s what I thought. My father would have killed the priest, and my older brothers would have killed the Queen’s lover, and that would have been that. As it was, it was all Father could do to persuade Pedro and Fernando to keep their hands off the creature’s throat,” she said wryly. “Anyway, that’s the priests for you. How did Harry put it? Oh, sí: politics before principles.” She made a face.

    “Ugh,” agreed Gaetana.

    “Yes. We must keep our darlings out of their clutches,” she said, patting her shoulder again.

    “Mm...”

    There was a long silence in the boring, neat little room of the house in Brussels they’d rented furnished. Marinela hugged her shawl more tightly round her, though she was not physically cold, and thought of the Spanish summer and the dry hills under a heat-white sky and the smell of her father’s orange groves… And of the old house that stood on the part of the estates that was hers, now, and how they’d have a fountain in the little tiled courtyard and Harry could have his big chair out there and smoke to his heart’s content, and she’d plant lemon trees and hundreds of roses and have flowering vines climbing the columns of the arcade...

    “Madre—”

    “¿Si, mi vida?”

    “How do you get to be so—womanly?” she gulped.

    Marinela put a hand gently on her shoulder. “When I was your age, little kitten, I was just such a wild little kitten as you.”

    “You can’t have been,” she said painfully, biting her lip.

    “Sí, sí, I assure you... Though of course I wasn’t nearly so free as you, girls are very closely guarded in Spain. But I did everything I could that I was told not to!” she said with a laugh. “I refused to sew my samplers, and I rode my father’s horses, and I played with my brothers’ swords—oh, yes, querida, I could fence as well as any boy when I was sixteen!” she said with a little laugh to her daughter’s amazed face. “And of course I ran wild all over the estates, little villain that I was! That was my father’s name for me: little villain,” she said, smiling and sighing.

    “Well—well, what...”

    “Changed me?” said Marinela, raising her eyebrows with a twinkle.

    Gaetana nodded mutely.

    “I think it was just loving Harry. And finding that he... relied on me,” she said slowly.

    “Relied on you?”

    “Yes. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Because he’s always been the self-confident one with the head full of ideas, even though he plays this silly game of being just a bluff English squire!” she said with a little laugh.

    “Yes. He’s very clever, underneath,” said Gaetana, nodding.

    “Oh, very much so, mi querida! And... I’m not sure if I’m putting this right, Gaetana: I’m not an educated woman: reading my schoolbooks was another thing that they could never force me to do!” she said with a wry little smile. “But—underneath that manner, Harry’s quite frighteningly disillusioned, you know.”

    “Mm,” said Gaetana, gnawing at her lip. “He gave me a poem to read once.. It was horrid. About death, and princes and peasants ending the same. He said that was what life was really like and to always remember that I only had the one chance at it.”

    “A man like that is not very easy to live with, querida. It took me some time to realise it... I very nearly left him, you know, when you were three years old.”

    “Really?”

    “Yes. I think I would have, only Maria was a babe in arms, and it was all too difficult. We were in Vienna, and Spain was a long way off. But we had a terrible fight, and Harry flung out of the house. And then he was very bad for months... Finally he came to me and—and well, you’re too young to understand the details, I think, my little kitten. I was very angry with him. Only then I saw—I don’t know how or why, my dearest, so I can’t explain—but I suddenly saw that underneath he was only a frightened, unhappy boy, like Paul or Luís when they’d fallen over and skinned their knees and were sure the whole of the world had gone wrong!” She smiled a little. “And I realized that if I wasn’t there for him, then no-one would be. So I stopped trying to... I don’t know, exactly. Not trying to make him do what he didn’t want to: I’d known from the first that no-one could do that, with Harry. No... Stopped putting myself and my feelings first, I suppose.”

    Gaetana was chalk-white. “That’s dreadful, Madre,” she whispered.

    “You mean because I was subordinating my will to his?” she said with a gurgle.

    Gaetana looked up at her, swallowing. “Yes. Not just your will. but... subordinating your whole self to him. How could you, Madre? The girl who’d stood up to the priests and slapped the Queen’s lover’s face for him... How could you?”

    Marinela laughed. “Darling silly one, do I look like a woman who’s lost her self?”

    “Don’t tell me there’s fulfilment in self-abnegation, Madre!” she cried sharply. “The nuns tried to tell me that, and I didn’t believe them, and I won’t believe you!”

    Marinela didn’t understand that word but she understood what Gaetana meant. “No, I’m not trying to tell you that, at all. Harry isn’t Jesus Christ!” she said with a giggle.

    “No,” said Gaetana weakly.

    “No. –I knew I was too stupid to explain,” she said sadly.

    Gaetana went very red. “You’re not!” she cried.

    “Si, si, mi hija… I was happy once I’d decided to—to accept things the way they were and to forgive Harry for doing the stupid things he couldn’t help. And the funny thing was, once I’d started to forgive him and had stopped looking up to him and expecting him to be a big, strong man who must be better than me simply because he was a man, we were much, much happier than we ever had been, and he was never really naughty again!”

    “You— But Madre, that means you were treating him as if he was your son, not your husband, surely?” she gasped.

    “Oh, yes; I expect it does. But men are like that. Just silly boys. They might be big, brave important things out in the world and run their silly politics and their silly wars and so on like the lords of creation, but at home they’re just silly boys. All they want is love and forgiveness,” she said serenely.

    “What about a—a rational relationship between equals who respect each other?” cried Gaetana furiously.

    “I’ve never heard of one of those.”

    “That isn’t funny!” she cried.

    “I wasn’t joking, querida. I’ve known marriages where the man bullies the woman, and many marriages where the woman bullies the man—oh, yes. little kitten, that happens very, very often. Well. look at Madame and Monsieur de Breuil, next-door.”—Gaetana gulped.—“Yes,” said Marinela placidly. “And of course in many marriages there is simply indifference on both sides, because there was never love in the first place. But I’ve never heard of one of those rational things. I think it sounds very boring, actually!” she added with a giggle.

    “Go on, laugh!” Gaetana cried bitterly. “I was trying to talk seriously! I might have known all you’d do was giggle!”

     Marinela looked at her anxiously. “Well, I’ve always been a giggler. But think over what I’ve said, Gaetana. I was a wild little tomboy, too, but when I married Harry I changed. Not just because I had to, but... I suppose,” she said, wrinkling her high ivory brow in thought, “because I grew up. Perhaps that’s what I’m trying to say to you, querida. Women grow up when they marry. Men never do.”

    “Well, I don’t want to marry a man who won’t grow up, I don’t care if he is an English milord!” cried Gaetana. bouncing up.

    “Querida—”

    But Gaetana had rushed out of the room.

    In his study Harry had said without preamble: “What the Devil does your sister know about that naked viscount tale? Thought you was somewhere on the outskirts of the town that night?”

    Not unnaturally, Paul was expecting him to broach another topic altogether, and he gulped. “Uh—”

    “Well, out with it!” he said angrily.

    Paul licked his lips and admitted: “Well, she was with me.”

    “WHAT?” he roared.

    “You remember, Harry, it was the night the de Breuils took me and Gaetana to dine with those dashed boring cousins of theirs. It was a hot night, and she insisted on riding back. Well, I didn’t see any harm in it. M. and Mme de Breuil never knew, of course: they stayed the night.”

    “Dare I ask what she wore to ride back? Pray correct me if I’m wrong,” he said with awful civility, “but I was under the impression that she left this roof in a muslin dress. Not to mention the carriage!” he added, getting rather louder and distinctly less civil.

    “Yes.” Paul coughed uneasily. “Well, I had my riding breeches and old Brun, and—”

    “She wore your breeches and you wore your dress clothes.” he groaned.

    “Mm. I borrowed a horse from the cousins—said old Brun had gone a bit a lame and he was fit to walk home but not to be ridden. And Jake drove the carriage back empty.”

    “I’ll be having a word with Master Jake in the very near future,” he promised grimly. “Well?”

    “There was nothing in it, Harry. We were riding down near a stream where it was cool, under the trees, for a bit, and we heard voices and laughing, and so on—English voices—and I thought I’d better ride on a bit, just in case. So I told her to stay where she was, but of course she followed me. And—uh—there they were.”

    “Who, precisely? And doing what?” he enquired coldly.

    “Oh, not doing anything, sir!” Paul replied quickly. “I mean—well, stark bollock naked, yes. They’d all been in the water. Four of ’em, there were. Two females, and young Viscount Welling, with that stupid friend of his, Truscott, the one who thought he could play piquet until I disabused— Uh, might have been about to do something, I will say that,” he said weakly under his father’s awful eye, “only Gaetana never realised, if y’know what I mean!” He gave an awkward laugh.

    “Go on,” said Sir Harry through his teeth.

    “Well, it was at that point that Lady Violet’s husband and young Welling’s guardian arrived,” said Paul weakly.

   Sir Harry’s eyes stood out on stalks. “You’re not telling me that Rockingham actually caught the stupid young devil in flagrante?”

    “Yes. Knocked him for six! Never saw such a smashing left in your life, Pa! And young Welling’s no lightweight!” he said eagerly.

    “Go on! They say the Marquis boxes at Jackson’s, y’know!”

    “Er—yes,” agreed Paul blankly.

    “Never mind,” he sighed. “What about Lady Violet’s husband? He do anything? Or just stand there like the complacent cocu he is?”

    “Cunninghame? He just stood there, it was Rockingham that was in a flaming rage. Dare say Cunninghame would have been content enough to let it go on, so’s he could hang on Welling’s sleeve,” he said with a distasteful grimace.

    Sir Harry grunted. “Be about right, from all I’ve heard of him. Well, that was it, then?”

    Paul’s mouth twitched. “Mm. More or less. Except that once he’d floored young Welling, the noble Marquis told Lady Violet what he thought of her! God, I almost burst, trying not to laugh! –Don’t know that Gaetana understood more than one word in ten,” he added reflectively. “Rockingham has a splendid flow, when he lets himself go! Well, frankly Pa, there were words I’d never heard; never even heard you use!” he said with a choke of laughter.

    “Never!” said Sir Harry, grinning. “Uh—just as well Gaetana didn’t understand,” he added, failing to regain his earlier morally superior stance.

    “Oh, quite. Well, understood enough to figure out the lady wasn’t young Welling’s wife and she was old enough to be his mother, and that the noble Marquis don’t approve of painted ladies who seduce unfledged young chickens!” His shoulders shook.

    “He say that?” asked Sir Harry with interest.

    “Mm. Well, ‘painted bitches’ was his exact term, if I remember rightly.”

    “By Jove, I wish I’d been with you!” he said with feeling, forgetting all about the moral stance.

    “So do I: you—could—have—translated!” gasped Paul, falling all over the study.

    “Hah, hah,” said Sir Harry, smiling weakly.

    “Anyway, I don’t think it did Gaetana any harm,” he said, recovering himself.

    “No,” admitted Sir Harry. “Well, might have put her off stupid young fools like Welling—good thing, on the whole. Might have some hope of recognizing a sensible man, if she meets one. –Here, wasn’t you who spread the story all over town, was it?” he asked, frowning.

    “Harry! You misjudge me! No, I believe it was Truscott who had the honour. Too good to keep to himself. Nice friend to have, eh?

    “Aye. Well, you can see Cunninghame wouldn’t have, he didn’t come out of it too well.”

    Paul shrugged. “Quite. And it wasn’t Gaetana: I had to explain to her who the personalities were!”

    “Had to, did you?” he said grimly.

    “Uh—well, you can see it made it better, sir.”

    “Look, she’s a seventeen-year-old girl!” he shouted.

    “I’m sorry, Pa, but you’ve brought her up not to be mealy-mouthed— Look. honestly, sir, if I’d had the least idea you’d object—”

    “No. It’s all right,” he said, frowning. “Rockingham’s a distant relation, that’s all. Dashed decent fellow—younger than me, of course. Only a boy when I left England. But I’ve bumped into him once or twice. Well, if you must have it,” he said to the goggling Paul, who hadn’t asked a thing: “it was him who brought me the news of my father’s death.”

    “While the English were hard at it fighting the French, if my memory serves me rightly.”

    “Memory! You were only— Yes, well, sorry, old fellow. Turned up bold as brass in the Froggy camp disguised as some sort of a Dutch war correspondent! Shortened my life by ten years or so, I can tell you! Recognized him straight off, the dead spit of his father, the old— Yes, well, never mind that. Said he’d thought someone had better bring me the news, and there was no-one on m’father’s side of the family that seemed inclined—well, could’ve guessed that, of course: lot of old women! Brought me m’father’s seal ring,” he said, looking down at it and adjusting it on his finger.

    “Yes. Well, I’m sorry, Harry,” said Paul lamely. “I’d no idea. But he came out of the episode with nothing but credit, I can assure you.”

    Sir Harry grunted. After a minute he said: “Pity about the boy. Weak.”

    “Mm? Oh—young Welling? Yes. Is he Rockingham’s heir as well as his ward, then?”

    Sir Harry rubbed his chin. “Think he might be. Um, through the female line, I think. The Hammonds—that’s the family, y’know—the Hammonds have had nothing but one son to a parcel of daughters for a couple of generations back. Um—no... Now, wait a bit! Yes, look, this is how it was! Welling’s great-grandfather was a Hammond. But he took the name when he married the last of the Wellings. She had the title in her own right—don’t get many of those, y’know, in England! Yes, young Welling could well be the heir.”

    “I see. Unless Lord Rockingham marries, of course. What would he be now? Fortyish?”

    “Doubt if he will,” he said, shaking his head.

    Paul goggled at him.

    “Eh? Dash it, no, boy: where are your eyes?” he said testily. “With a left like that? No, some story of a female that jilted him. Soured, or something.”

    “I see. How romantic, sir.”

    “That’ll do,” said Sir Harry, grinning. “Now, what the Devil did I want to speak to you about?”

    “Alors, that wasn’t it?” he drawled. He went over to the fireplace and kicked the dead ashes in it.

    “No.” Sir Harry frowned at the fireplace. He marched over to the door, wrenched it open and roared: “OY! JAKE! GET IN HERE! Uh—no. What the Devil was it?”

    Paul leaned his slender shoulders against the mantelpiece. “Possibly something to do with England, perchance? Could you have been about to explain why, though eight months since you were very keen on going home yourself, suddenly it’s ho for sunny Spain, and poor old Paul for the freezing grey shores of la perfide Albion?”

    “No, I could not have been!” he retorted, glaring.

    “No, he couldn’t have been,” agreed his henchman, appearing in the doorway. “It don’t redound to his credit. –Did you bellow, sir?” he added.

    “Light that fire, you impertinent bastard,” said Sir Harry, grinning.

    Paul moved aside politely and Jake knelt by the fire.

    “And when you’ve done that,” said Sir Harry with a sigh, sinking into his fireside chair, “you might as well pour us all a brandy and sit down. I suppose he’s old enough to hear it all.”

    “If he ain’t now, he never will be,” grunted Jake.

    “Quite,” said Sir Harry glumly.

    When Sir Harry was sipping brandy sitting in his big chair, and Jake was sipping brandy sitting in another big chair opposite him, and Paul was between them in the desk chair that he’d hauled round to face the fire, also sipping brandy, and the fire was blazing nicely, Sir Harry came clean.

    That was, as much as one of his temperament could. Both his devoted retainer and his heir eyed him in some fascination and wondered just how much of the truth they were actually hearing.

    The truth—according to Sir Harry—was that, although he’d gone slightly astray in his youth (length of time not specified) he’d long since seen the light of reason, and for quite some time (length of time not specified) when the damned Frogs had believed he was working for them, he’d actually been spying for Wellington! Yes, well. You could believe as much or as little of that as you liked. To Jake’s certain knowledge at one time Harry Ainsley had been in the employ of the Austrians. And Paul was pretty sure that at another time, much more recent, he’d been a welcome visitor at the Court of Orange. But before that... Paul could remember a house in Paris that they’d lived in for what had seemed to him, as a little boy, a very long time. And after that... Was that the time they’d all been packed up and dragged off to Florence at ten minutes’ notice? Or had that been Venice? No: Venice had been after the twins had been born. The twins were now ten. Yes, well.

    Anyway, according to Sir Harry, when he’d been to see Wellington the great general had welcomed him with open arms. Weil, figuratively speakin’: old Hooky wasn’t one for the sentimental stuff the Froggies went in for, he said impatiently as their jaws sagged.

    “So we’d heard, sir,” said Paul weakly. “And—er?”

    Glaring, Sir Harry explained that although Wellington had said it would be perfectly all right—perfectly all right—for him to visit England with his wife and children whenever he wished, he wouldn’t advise him to think of permanent residence.

    Paul whistled.

    “That’ll be ENOUGH!” his father shouted.

    “Aye: I’d like to see you manage, cast adrift in a strange country where you didn’t even speak the lingo,” growled Jake.

    “Cast adrift? He rushed off in a flaming temper!” gasped Paul.

    “Aye, well. But old Sir George never sent him a penny, you know.”

    “I never wanted his pennies, dashed stiff-necked old— Never mind that,” said Sir Harry on a weary note. “Anyhow, that’s how it is, old son. Wellington don’t mince words, I’ll say that for him,” he added glumly.

    Paul and Jake exchanged glances, and were silent.

    “But you can go over and open up the house and so on and settle there, y’know!” said Sir Harry, cheering up. “Marinela and I’ll pop over to visit you. In the summers. probably. Well, she’d never have been able to take the English winters, y’know! Mopes her head off here, as it is. And neither of us is getting any younger! No, we’ll do very nicely in Spain, the pair of us. ’Course, she goes on about the summers there, but she’s forgotten what they’re really like,” he said, shaking his head. “She’ll be only too glad to escape from the heat and pop over to see her grandchildren!” He beamed at his heir.

    “Eh?” said Paul weakly.

    “Why do you think I’m sending you home?” demanded his progenitor crossly.

    “To produce grandchildren, apparently,” he said drily. “Er, don’t it take two, sir?”

    “Yes, and that reminds me—”

   Paul and Jake sat patiently through Sir Harry’s speech on a gentleman’s withdrawing before—y’know—in order to ensure his wife didn’t have a brat every year. They’d both heard it all before. Many times.

    Eventually Paul said politely: “Thank you, Harry.”

    “Aye, I’ll remember that,” agreed the burly, grizzled Jake.

    “Can’t always work, though,” noted Paul.

    “How do you make that out, Master Paul?” asked his father’s devoted henchman.

    “Look at the twins!” he choked.

    Above their shouts of laughter Sir Harry bellowed: “SHE WANTED THEM!”

    “Impossible, sir!” gasped Paul. –Fresh paroxysms.

    When these had died away Sir Harry said crossly: “Of course she didn’t want a pair! I didn’t mean that!”

    “No,” agreed Paul weakly.

    “Get us another, for the Lord’s sake,” he said with a sigh, holding out his glass to Jake.

    Paul got up quickly. “Let me. –Jake?”

    “Aye, I will that. I need it, after that.”

    “Mm,” he said drily, taking his glass. He went over to the sideboard. “Tell us, Harry: have you given Bungo this piece of necessary advice?”

    “What? No! The brat’s too young!” he spluttered.

    “He’s pulling your leg, Sir Harry,” noted Jake. “Ignore him.”

    “Look, I’m SERIOUS!” he bellowed.

    “We know that, Father,” agreed Paul “It’s just that you have mentioned it before.”

    “Once or twice,” muttered Jake.

    “Told the girls yet?” asked Paul airily.

    “WHAT? NO!” he bellowed.

    “What?” said Paul, catching sight of Jake’s face.

    “Their ma has,” he admitted. “When was it—couple of summers back. One very hot day: old Berthe didn’t fancy the stairs so I took a tray of lemonade up for her. They were all in her Ladyship’s boudoir,” he explained. “She was telling ’em! Good thing I overheard enough not to go in at the crucial moment!”

    “Merde,” said Paul in awe, shoulders shaking.

    “Why shouldn’t she?” said Sir Harry huffily. “Sort of thing every young woman should know! Be a lot fewer unwanted brats in the world if they all knew it,” he muttered.

    “Aye: and if every lad could manage it,” agreed Jake.

    “True,” noted Paul. “Was young Bunch there?” he asked.

    “Oh, aye. All three of ’em. In fact Bunch said she’d seen a horse do that once—”

    “Eh?” croaked Sir Harry.

    “Aye; and Gaetana, she ups and says it was an accident and the man with the horse was furious with it and said it was a useless so-and-so!” He chuckled richly.

    “Merde,” said Sir Harry in awe.

    “Well, I’m dashed glad she’s told ’em,” admitted Paul, handing the older men their second brandies and sitting down again.

    Sir Harry grunted agreement.

    “Aye. Stood me in good stead these last thirty years,” grunted Jake.

    “See?” his lord and master said immediately.

    “Yes. Any more advice to the lovelorn, Pa?” drawled Paul

    “Stay away from—”

    “Whorehouses and used goods: yes, Harry,” he sighed.

    “I MEAN IT!” he bellowed.

    “He’s serious, too,” said Paul to Jake.

    The older man’s long grey-green eyes twinkled but he said: “Aye, and it’s good advice, too, Master Paul.”

    “Yes. Don’t want a dose of clap,” said Sir Harry shortly. “Only piece of good advice m’grandfather ever gave me,” he noted.

    There was an awed silence while the company thought of Sir Vyvyan.

    Paul broke it first by saying to Jake: “What is all this ‘Master Paul’ stuff?”

    “Told him to,” grunted Sir Harry. “For England.”

    “Sir, Jake’s more or less my uncle!” he protested.

    “No.—Your ma got the whole thing out of the poor fellow just a little while back, would you believe it?—He’s m’cousin, so can’t be your uncle.”

    “I refuse to have my first cousin once removed, whom I look upon in the light of an uncle, call me Master Paul,” said Paul lightly.

    “Señor Pablo?” suggested Jake drily.

    “No! Look, Harry—” he said, leaning forward earnestly.

    “Well, of course he don’t have to call you that in private, he’s doing it to annoy,” he said, scowling at him. Jake grinned.

    “No, but in public. Got to do the right thing,” said Sir Harry, frowning.

    “Merde,” muttered Paul, pulling a face.

    “Yes, and that’s another thing,” he said, pointing a finger at him. “No foreign swearing.”

    “What?” he choked.

    “Gentry won’t like it,” drawled Jake.

    “¡Madre de Dios!” he gasped, rolling his eyes.

    “Looks like a damned Dago, too,” noted Sir Harry, frowning.

    “Oh, well, that’s easily solved! Cut off my head, sir!”

    Sir Harry glared at his glossy black locks and muttered: “Damned young idiot.”

    “Never mind, Harry: the ladies’ll like him,” said Jake comfortably.

    Sir Harry gave his son’s slender, graceful figure, handsome oval, olive face and mocking dark eyes a jaundiced look. “When didn’t they?” he grunted.

    Ignoring this, Paul said: “Oh, by the way, Harry, do you want me to take Luís to England?”

    “I do, but y’don’t imagine it’s up to me, do you?” he said, rolling his eyes.

    “Oh,” said Paul. lips twitching. “I see, sir.”

    “Young puppy,” he muttered.

    “Harry, you’re overdoing the rôle of the bluff country squire,” he warned.

    Sir Harry glared.

    “It’ll be the thought of Old England,” noted Jake. He put his glass down and got up. “I’ll get back to it, if you don’t want me for anything. Francisco’s having hysterics. I’m trying to get it into his thick head that England’s better than the end of a Spanish rope. And that there are señoritas in England, and one or two of ‘em might be willing, even for a forty-five-year-old Spaniard what looks like a dyspeptic monkey.” He went out without waiting for any response from his employer.

    “Is he forty-five?” asked Paul, immediately diverted from the subject in hand.

    “Mm? Oh—lessee. He was your Ma’s servant originally. Just a lad when he came with us. Um—no, he’d be fortyish. Ought to find himself a wife,” he grunted.

    “Sir, your style of life over the last twenty-five years has hardly been conducive to the members of your retinue finding themselves wives and settling down!” he gasped.

    “No. Well, now’s the time, eh?” He looked hard at him.

    Paul groaned. “The English are all such horse-faces, Harry!”

    “Rubbish. Some lovely girls. Skin like milk.”

    “I hate milk,” he muttered, pouting.

    “Nonsense. Look around you: you’ll see. Give it one Season. Um—say until the summer after next.”

    “After next?” he gasped. “I make that two Seasons, sir!”

    “You’ll barely have got there for this one, can’t count it. Summer after next. This coming summer you can get the place in order,” he added by the by. “Then, if you haven’t found yourself a nice English girl, your Mother and your Tia Ana will jack you up a nice Spanish piece!” He beamed at him complacently.

    Paul looked at his father’s shining morning face. Harry was irrepressible, you could say that for the old fellow. No doubt why he’d come through this last blow as well as he had. One disappointment would be sure to be followed by a dozen new schemes for the advancement of the Ainsley family. It had always been like that.

    “Lovely,” he said politely.

    Sir Harry looked at him suspiciously, but Paul’s handsome oval face expressed nothing but polite docility. He grunted, and held out his glass.

    Paul got up obediently. “One more. You do want to be awake when Madre breaks the news to the twins, don’t you?”

    Sir Harry shuddered, but didn’t actually say he didn’t.

    Paul’s lips twitched. He got him a third brandy without further comment.

    “No, no, NO!” screamed Elinor Inez Marinela Ainsley, flinging herself onto the excellent Belgian carpet of the front parlour and kicking her legs furiously in a froth of pantalettes and muddied petticoats.

    “I won’t GO!” shouted Ramón Vyvyan Pedro Severiano Ainsley, bright red in the face, stamping his foot furiously on the excellent Belgian carpet of the front parlour.

    “You’ll GO!” shouted Sir Harry, bright red in the face and refraining with an effort from stamping his foot furiously on the excellent Belgian carpet.

    Maria sniffled dolefully into her handkerchief.

    “You’re all going, my angels,” said Marinela in Spanish, not raising her voice. “But Luís is coming with his mamma!” She smiled at him.

    Luís was very pale. He gave her a forced smile in return.

    “SHUT UP!” bellowed Sir Harry as Bunch’s screams rose in both in volume and pitch and Bungo began to shout: “I WON’T! I WON’T!”

    Looking grim, Paul marched over to the screaming, kicking female twin and hauled her up unceremoniously. He was a slight young man, but very wiry. But Bunch was no lightweight, so he panted a little. Then he hauled her over to a chair—still screaming—sat down, dumped her over his knee, and belted her hard.

    “Damn’ good idea.” Sir Harry grabbed Bungo, sat down in the nearest chair regardless of the fact that it held Maria’s bonnet, and belted him hard.

    Maria continued to sniffle dolefully, but over the handkerchief she watched the fate of her bonnet with bulging eyes.

    “Querido, you have thit on Maria’s bonnet,” noted her mother.

    “‘Sat’,” corrected Sir Harry. He hauled the corpse out from under his not insubstantial form.

    “You have sat,” agreed Marinela.

    “She’ll have forgotten it by suppertime,” he noted to his heir.

    “Yes. –Shut it, Bungo!” said Paul loudly across the room. “If you bawl like that at school, the other boys’ll think you’re a—qu’est-qu’on dit?” he said to his father.

    “Nancy boy. And speak English.”

    “Oh, yes, or the other boys will think I’m a Dago,” he agreed, straight-faced.

    Bungo, still prone across his father’s knee, turned a red-eyed, red face towards his brother and said suspiciously, sniffing juicily: “School?”

    “Sí. Father’s old school,” Paul explained in Spanish. He gave Bunch his handkerchief but she went on sobbing noisily. “Where he went when he was a boy. You should be able to start quite soon,” he said across the room above the sobs.

    “Winchester?” he asked suspiciously.

    “Sí.”

    Bungo’s freckled face broke into a beam. “Can I join the Army after that, Pa?” he gasped.

    “NO!” he shouted terribly.

    The family was silenced, though Bunch’s sobs and Maria’s sniffling might still have been heard.

    “No son of mine is going to become a damned soldier and get himself killed for some damned hunk of land some sacré roi has decided without rhyme, reason or justification he wants to take off some other sacré roi!” declared Sir Harry, lapsing rather towards the Dago side.

    “No, it’s stupid,” agreed Gaetana, very pale but determined.

    “But I want to join the Army and go to India!” he wailed.

    “India is even hotter than Spain, mi querido,” said his mother in Spanish.

    Bungo had never been to Spain. “I don’t care!” he wailed.

    “If you want to go to India you can join the East India Company,” announced Sir Harry.

    “And become a damned cit,” murmured Paul to himself.

    Bungo didn’t understand this last, so he ignored it. “Really, Pa?” he gasped.

    “Why not? But first,” he said grimly: “you have to go to Winchester. They don’t take just anyone in the East India Company, y’know. You have to sit examinations, and so forth. Have to go to school for that!”

    “Ye-es... Well, I don’t mind school if it’s Winchester,” he admitted.

    Sir Harry righted him and in an absent-minded way pulled him down to sit on his knee. “No. It’s a damn’ good school. Well, I had a damn’ good time there.”

    “It’s not FAIR!” screeched Bunch from her prone position across Paul’s knee.

    “You can— SHUT IT!” shouted Sir Harry. When the room had stopped ringing and only Bunch’s and Maria’s sniffling was to be heard, he said: “You can go to India with him: be his housekeeper or something.”

    “Ooh, really, Pa?” she gasped.

    “Yes,” he lied, frowning at his wife, who’d opened her mouth. “If y’like. Only first y’have to go to a decent girls’ school. Learn—um, useful stuff.”

    “Geography,” said Gaetana helpfully.

    “That’s the ticket!” he agreed pleasedly. “Geography!”

    Paul’s shoulders quivered but he said to the body across his knee: “All right?”

    “Yes,” she said, sniffing. “Only not a convent!”

    “No,” he said, righting her and pulling her down to sit on his knee. “They don’t have convents in England, mi querida!” He gave her a smacking kiss.

    “Muy buen, I go!” she said, bilingually.

    “Yes. And in the holidays—you will have holidays all summer, querida, you know—you shall come and live with me in Pa’s big house!” he said, kissing her again.

    “Really?” she gasped. “Has Harry got a house?”

    “Yes. In the country.”

    “Ooh: a hacienda!” she gasped.

    “Manor. It’s, um, Jacobean, Elizabethan something like that,” said its owner carelessly. “M’grandfather modernised it a bit.”

    “Busy man, wasn’t he, sir?” said Paul courteously.—Sir Harry glared.—“You’ll like that, Bunch,” he said, hugging her.

    “Yes. Bungo, too?”

    “Of course. Boys’ schools have holidays in the summer, too.”

    “What about me?” said Maria in a small voice.

    “Well, dearest—come and sit on your Madre’s knee, my little lamb—well, dearest,” explained Marinela in Spanish as Maria came and sat on her knee, “my little lamb could go to school for a year, maybe. Only wouldn’t it be nicer to live with your Tia Patty and Gaetana and do some lessons with this nice Meess Morr-ton whose brother is a priest?”

    “WHAT?” shouted Sir Harry.

    “A vicar, sir, I think she means,” said Paul quickly.

    “Oh,” he said, looking suspiciously at his wife.

    “And you could ride in the park in the mornings with Gaetana before your lessons!” she said, hugging her.

    “Could I have a horse of my own?” gasped Maria, forgetting less worldly ambitions for the nonce.

    Above her head Marinela rolled an enquiring eye at her spouse.

    “Yes. Certainly; Paul’ll buy you one. –Tattersall’s. Remind me,” he said to his heir.

    “Yes, sir,” agreed Paul weakly.

    “Goody,” said Maria. There was a short pause. “Madre, this Meess Morr-ton, is she a Protestant?”

    “Goodness, querida, how would I know?” she replied with an airy laugh.

    “Protestants are the spawn of the Devil,” said Maria piously.

    “Goddammit, girl, I’M a Protestant!” shouted Sir Harry furiously.

    “Are you, sir?” said Paul with a laugh in his voice.

    Sir Harry withered him with a look. Or he would have, if Paul had been witherable.

    “Sí, sí, never mind all that,” said Marinela quickly. “Come along, my lambkins, it’s time for luncheon!”

    “It had better be,” muttered Sir Harry. He strode to the door, wrenched it open and bellowed: “BERTHE! OU EST LE DEJEUNER?”

    “J’arrive, j’arrive, Señor ’Arry!” panted a voice, more or less bilingually, and fat, beaming old Berthe emerged from the nether regions with a large platter of cold meat in her hands.

    “Good—ham,” said Sir Harry simply.

    “Oui, oui, Señor ’Arry, un bon jambon de Westphalie!”  She broke off to scream in Flemish—she was a native Belgian, collected by a much younger Harry and Marinela on the occasion of their very first visit—at the servant girl who’d followed her.

    The girl bobbed, looking scared, and hurried into the dining-room.

    “Good. Come along, then, what are we waiting for?” said Sir Harry to the assembled company, his not insubstantial form entirely blocking the doorway.

    Marinela slid Maria off her knee and got up, taking her hand. “Come along, my lambkin. And after our déjeuner, you must remind Madre to make a list of the clothes you will need for England!”

    “Madre, I don’t need clothes,” she said in a pious voice.

    “Nonsense! –New shoes,” she said to herself. She pulled Maria over to the door. “¡Gracias, mi vida!” she said, smiling up at her spouse as he politely stood aside for her.

    Sir Harry followed them out closely. He was in a much better mood now that the twins had been settled and the food was on his table, so he whanged both of their bottoms amiably. They both squeaked and giggled explosively, so in Harry Ainsley’s considered opinion—and there was no doubting he was a man of experience in such matters—Maria wasn’t about to become a dashed nun yet awhile.

    “Come on,” said Gaetana kindly to Luís as the twins rushed out.

    “I’ll be all by myself with Pa and Madre,” he said sadly.

    “And Tia Ana and her family, and Tio Pedro and his family, and all the other aunts and uncles and cousins,” she reminded him kindly.

    “They’ll all be strangers.”

    Paul came and put an arm round his shoulders. Luís was taller than he, so he had to reach up. “Never mind, old fellow, Harry’ll bring the lot of you over to visit us in the summers, he’s promised.”

    “Next summer?” he said hopefully,

    “Um—probably not, no,” he said, wondering why Gaetana looked all of a sudden as if she was going to burst. “The year after.”

    “That’s ages!” croaked Luís tearfully.

    “Mm. Well, it’ll be a trial for you to bear in patience, old fellow,” he said with malice aforethought.

    Luís squared his handsome shoulders. “Yes. I’ll try.”

    “Good,” said Paul gamely. He clapped him on the back and released him. “Off you go, or Harry and Bungo’ll get down on the ham.”

    Luís hurried out, and Gaetana immediately had a choking fit.

    “What?” demanded Paul suspiciously.

    “Madre’s got plans—for him—this summer!” she choked.

    “Don’t tell me, I’m too young to hear that sort of thing,” he said drily.

    “Yes!” she choked. “You are!”

     Paul smiled a little. He put his arm round her. “Come on.”

    “Ooh, look: he’s left his breviary behind!” she gasped.

    So he had. It lay on the chair. Paul was very tempted to throw it on the fire, but Luís would only get another. So he merely said: “That bodes well, anyway.”

    “Yes! The call of ham is stronger than that of God!”

    “Mm.” Paul eyed her narrowly. She was a bit red-eyed. “All right?”

    “Yes. I’m sort of reconciled to it, if you’re coming, too.” Gaetana looked down at her flattish front. “Madre says they have excellent milk and butter in England and it may help me to develop,” she reported glumly.

    Paul’s shoulders shook but he agreed kindly: “Sí.” He propelled her towards the door.

    “I’ll have to wear a horrid corset every day,” she said sourly.

    “You will if you develop, certainly!” he gasped.

    Gaetana looked up at him and smiled. “Madre said she was very underdeveloped until she was seventeen: so there’s hope for me, don’t you think?”

    “¡Sí!” he choked. Marinela was anything but underdeveloped in her present state.

    Gaetana nodded pleasedly.

    Paul smiled, laid his cheek gently on her dark auburn head and said: “I’m glad you’re not going to be married off to a horrid Spanish Don Something-o.”

    “So’m I. Only Madre says a man like Pa would be quite wrong for me, so perhaps I’ll never find the right sort of man in England, either. And I don’t want to marry some stuffy English squire,” she said mournfully.

    “No. Well, I don’t want to marry a horse-faced English girl!”

    “Who?” asked Gaetana after some puzzled frowning.

    “Ouais, ouais, calme-toi, on arrive!” he said to the hovering Berthe, who was making shooing motions in the hall. “No-one in particular, Gaetana. But Harry wants me to marry one.”

    “They can’t all be horse-faced. That Lady Violet was quite pretty.”

    “What we saw of her—oh, quite.”—Gaetana choked.—“Ouais, ouais, t’en fais pas, nous mangeons tout de suite,” he said to the agitated Berthe. “You’re going to have to behave yourself in England, you know.”

    “Have to? I won’t have a chance to do anything else, it sounds the most boring place on earth!” she cried.

    “Fair chance of its being that—yes,” he acknowledged.

    They sighed, squared their shoulders, and went on into the dining-room.

    Paul was wondering silently how she would cope: she’d never really been exposed to English people or English manners before, and living with a pack of genteel cousins was going to be a considerable shock to her system after the laissez-faire household of Harry and Marinela.

    Gaetana was wondering silently how on earth Paul would manage with the horrible, cold English people—not having correlated this image with the perceived behaviour of viscounts and Lady Violets and such. He’d be much happier in warm Spain with their mother’s people: he looked very like Marinela, for one thing, with her oval face, big dark eyes and riotous black curls. But she was selfishly glad that he was coming to England: life with stuffy old Tia Patty was going to be unbearable, and Paul’s being there would make it just less than utterly unbearable.

    Fat old Berthe fussed in their wake, grumbling audibly, and wondering silently how on earth her lambkins were going to manage in horrid, cold England with all those foreigners that didn’t even speak a Christian language! Because, quite apart from all other considerations, the preceding conversation, but for Paul’s asides to her, Berthe, had been entirely in Spanish.