From Bad To Worse

29

From Bad to Worse

    During that December and January the Earl made several attempts to see Miss Burden but, one way or another, these were all foiled.

    “Aunt Caroline reports,” reported Lady Judith, coming over to the fire on an icy December day, “that Jarvis has tried to see Millicent.”

    “And?” returned the Dean.

    “Apparently she has told poor little old Hawkins to say she is not at home.”

    “You mean to say the fellow let that frumpish little dried-up stick of a parlourmaid stop him?” he said with a heartless laugh.

    His wife returned in a steely voice: “Yes, he did, for he, I am glad to say, has the instincts of a gentleman.”

    “Look, it ain’t my fault I can’t think of a living for that fellow upon whom Miss Waldgrave’s roving fancy has—”

    “That is not amusing, Dean. I fear you are becoming heartless in your old age.”  Forthwith she turned on her heel and left him.

    “Lor’: heartless and lacking the instincts of a gentleman, both?” said the Dean heartlessly to the fire.

    A fierce wind blew a few last remnants of leaves down Cherry Tree Lane and the scrawny hedgerows were bowed before it. Jarvis took a deep breath, and knocked.

    “Good afternoon, Miss Amanda,” he said with considerable relief as Miss Burden’s visitor’s plump form was revealed.

    “Oh! Lord Sleyven! How delightful!” she gasped. “Do, pray, step in!”

    Jarvis stepped in, even although he fancied there was a calculating gleam in Miss Amanda’s round blue eye.

    Sure enough, when he was shown into the front parlour Miss Burden, who was sitting by the fire sewing, went as red as the thing she was stitching and dropped it on the rug.

    “Here is Lord Sleyven come to see you, dear Miss Burden, and I know not what this mysterious package he is carrying can be, but I confess myself to be vastly intrigued by it!” fluted the traitress, not meeting anyone’s eye.

    “Amanda, perhaps I did not make it clear to you earlier: I am not at home to his Lordship,” said Miss Burden grimly, rising.

    “Allow me,” said Jarvis, setting his package on a chair and retrieving the scarlet thing.

    “It is a Christmas muffler for Timmy: she has knitted it, you see, and now she is stitching some holly leaves upon it!” said Amanda brightly.

    “A work of supererogation, Miss Burden: eleven-year-old boys do not wear embroidered mufflers. Unless they have changed vastly in the last forty years.”

    “Lord Sleyven, please go. We have nothing to say to one another,” said Midge grimly.

    “On the contrary. I have to say to you that this box contains a large fruit-cake which appears to be extra to the requirements of the Maunsleigh kitchens. Or so at least Mrs Fendlesham and Fermour have, severally and collectively, assured me.”

    “Oh, delightful! A Maunsleigh fruit-cake!” cried Amanda, clasping her hands.

    “I am glad to see it will be appreciated. But since you do not wish for my company, Miss Burden, I shall spare you it. I shall hope to find you at home another time,” he said grimly, reflecting there was little use in attempting to speak to her with Miss Amanda present.

    “Oh, but Lord Sleyven! It is such a ride from Maunsleigh, and the weather is so bitter!” cried Amanda immediately, clasping her hands again. “Will you not at least stay for a cup of tea?”

    Jarvis took another look at Miss Burden’s face. “I think not.”

    “For a person used to long rides, it is scarcely a distance at all,” said Midge grimly.

    “Exactly,” he agreed mildly, going over to the door. “Good-day, ladies.”

    “Please convey my thanks to M. Fermour and Mrs Fendlesham for the cake,” said Midge in a strangled voice.

    “Thank you, I shall.” Jarvis went out. To his astonishment, Miss Amanda bustled after him, carefully closing the parlour door behind her, and breathed, clasping the hands to the bosom: “My Lord, rest assured that we are all on your side!”

    “Thank you, Miss Amanda. I concede that you certainly did your best,” he said drily.

    She blushed, dimpled, and batted her eyelashes furiously. “Oh, not at all! And if there is anything—anything at all!—that I might do, poor though my efforts may be?”

    “Er—well, thank you. I confess I cannot think of anything just at the minute,” he said limply, opening the front door.

    “She will come round, we are all absolutely persuaded of it, dear sir: one must not lose heart!” she breathed.

    “No, quite,” agreed Jarvis drily. “‘Good-day.”

    Miss Amanda curtseyed, and stood in the doorway, waving, while he got on his horse. Jarvis could not persuade himself that he saw the parlour curtain twitch behind her, unfortunately.

    “Dear Papa-in-law, could not you speak to Aunty Midge?” pleaded Polly.

    Not unaware of his elder son’s sardonic eye upon him, the Dean cleared his throat. “Er—if I believed I could do any good, Polly, my dear, of course I should. But one cannot interfere in the private affairs of two grown persons.”

    “One cannot see why,” murmured Arthur.

    The Dean now realised that, from the blank look which had just come over his little daughter-in-law’s face. “Er—well, what I mean is, my dear, attempts to interfere, in such cases—however well-meaning,” he added hastily, “er—generally come to no good. The persons concerned must be left to work it out for themselves.”

    “Yes, but every time he calls, she makes him go away again!” she cried.

    “Er—mm,” agreed Dean Golightly uncomfortably, avoiding his son’s eye. “Well—we—we did invite your Aunty Midge to dine, you know, my dear, and somehow or another she suspected it was an attempt to get her and Sleyven together—”

    “You admitted as much, you mean,” said his wife sourly.

    “I could hardly lie,” replied the Dean with dignity.

    “I cannot see why. And do not dare to cite the sanctity of your cloth, David: that excuse is wearing very thin.”

    There was a short silence. Lady Judith’s face was very red but her mouth and chin were very obstinate. Polly’s face was also very red and she was looking from her husband to her parents-in-law in undisguised dismay.

    “Judith is very upset by it all,” murmured the Dean, as mildly as he could, in view of what Judith had just said.

    “I think they should be given time,” contributed Arthur.

    “Oh, pooh!” cried Polly crossly.

    “And left to work it out,” he added on a firmer note.

    “Rubbish, Arthur! They have had at least three months in which to work it out, and nothing has come of it!”

    “They have had three months with well-meaning idiots interfering in their affairs,” corrected Arthur drily. “Possibly if they are left to themselves they may make a better fist at sorting things out.”

    “Oh, rubbish!” cried Polly loudly. At the same time his mother cried bitterly: “Are you implying that I am one of the idiots? I swear I could not make such a mull of it as Aunt Caroline appears to have done!”

    The Dean waited until the echoes had ceased ringing before noting mildly: “Corinna is to visit, some time after the New Year. Possibly she will be able to suggest a solution.”

    Forthwith his female belongings turned on him and rent him limb from limb; judging from the sardonic expression on Arthur’s face he had realised that it had been his father’s intention to draw them off himself; but he refrained from comment.

    “It’s Polly’s condition. Makes them fractious. Your mother was frightful when you were on the way,” noted the Dean mildly once the two were alone.

    “Mm, I do realise that.”

    “Don't make it any easier to bear, though, do it?” said the Dean sapiently.

    Arthur laughed sheepishly. “No; you are so right, Father!”

    The wind howled fiercely around the ornate façade of Maunsleigh, and there was a hint of snow in the air. There was also a hint of mud upon Mr Hutton’s boots: the Earl repressed a sigh. “If you are come to tell me that the waits are intending to visit—”

    “No, I ain’t. Well, I would, only Mr Bates, he says ’e already done it,” replied Mr Hutton on an aggrieved note.

    “Mm. He is a native of these parts, after all. What is it, then?”

    “Well, that’s partly it,” he owned on a cautious note.

    “Hutton, the kitchen has been told to prepare copious draughts of this, that and t’other for the waits, and mountains of damned mince pies, and—”

    “No! Not that!”

    “What?” he shouted.

    “Natives. What you said.”

   Jarvis looked blankly at him.

    Clearing his throat, Hutton said: “Tonkins.”

    “Hutton, what the Devil are you maundering on about?” he said unpleasantly.

    “Well, ’e ain’t, is ’e? Will ’e know how to go on, is what I’m saying.”

    “Hutton, are you asking me whether you ought tactfully to drop a hint in Tonkins’s ear as to the social niceties of the festive season in Merrie England?”

    “Well—uh—something like that,” he said defiantly.

    “He was here last— You were both here last— Oh, get out!”

    “You might at least give a fellow a ’earing, Colonel! Your Lordship," he amended glumly.

    “A fellow might at least try not to maunder! What?”

    “It’s that Rosie Watts. You won’t know ’er,” he acknowledged, “but she’s Fred and Mrs Fred’s third— I tell a lie, fourth. She is a bit young for ’im, you might say, if so be as these social niceties was h’exercising of yer mind—”

    “Hutton, I warn you, do not attempt irony with me.”

    “Nossir!” he said, coming smartly to attention.

    “Are you trying to tell me that Tonkins is courting?”

    “Sort of. Mrs Fred, she thinks Rosie’s too young for ’im. Only she’s said he can come to them on burra din, to eat his Christmas dinner.”

    “I was under the impression that his table manners were not only better than yours, they were better than my own and indeed those of the entire chummery?”

    “Not that! Nor he won’t squat, neither, he ain’t doolally.”

    “And?”

    “Colonel, sir— Beg pardon, my Lord. It’s them neckcloths!”

    “Oh. His best ones?”

    “Aye,” he said glumly.

    Jarvis cleared his throat. “You have a point.”

    “Not but what nothing wouldn’t make him not look yeller as a pi dog, but the Fred Wattses don’t mind that. Only… Dunno. They make ’im look right-down feringhee, Colonel, sir, and that’s a fact.”

    Jarvis did not smile. “Mm. If I give him some new ones for burra din, perhaps?”

    “Colonel, sir, the very thing! Why didn't I think of that?” he said with horrible artlessness.

    “Get out,” groaned Jarvis.

    “Yessir! –Only that ain’t all.”

    “Oh?”

    Mr Hutton cleared his throat and produced from the recesses of his person a very much folded note.

    The Earl opened it slowly.

    “Would there be a reply, my Lord?” he said respectfully.

    “Get out, Hutton, before you feel the weight of my boot,” said Jarvis coldly.

    Mr Hutton managed to exit without quite saluting.

    Jarvis looked wanly at the note. It began: “Miss Burden conveys her compliments to Lord Sleyven”, the which did not look promising.

    … “Hé bien, Mistair ’Utton?” said M. Fermour eagerly.

    “La demoiselle du patron,” replied Mr Hutton insouciantly in his much-accented Jersey French, “lui demande une faveur, à la part d’une certaine personne.”

    “Wot?” said M. Fermour feebly in his native accents.

    Superbly ignoring the fact that the footmen, Timothy and Frederick, had collapsed in muffled sniggers, Mr Hutton replied calmly: “It were from the chota memsahib, I’m not denying it, but it weren’t no khubber to get excited about. Miss Janey let on that it were only asking if he knew of a place for Miss W.’s intended.”

    The chef’s face fell.

    Mr Hutton looked hungrily at the trays of refreshment already set out for the waits. “Shall I take a couple of these dollees through to the burra hall?”

    “No, that’s all right, Mr ’Utton!” gasped Frederick, suddenly recalled to his duty. “Mr Bates wouldn’t like it if you was to be waiting on.”

    “No,” he said glumly. “Don’t s’pose ’e would.”

    “That Mr Partridge, ’e never touched his bird t’other night, and it were a beautiful breast of duck, too,” Frederick hinted kindly.

    Mr Hutton looked more hopeful. “So, what you giving ’em tonight, M. Fermour?”

    M. Fermour replied with superb control: “Partridge, Mr Hutton, but no-one believes he’ll eat it on that account. Picky, is the only word for that gentleman.”

    “Finicky, M. Fermour?” suggested Frederick respectfully.

    M. Fermour inclined his head. “I stand corrected. Finicky, indeed.”

    “Well, if it should happen to be going begging—” suggested Mr Hutton.

    “We did eat the duck, eh, Fred?” admitted Timothy.

    The kitchen agreed that Mr Hutton could have Mr Partridge’s partridge.

    “Is Miss Burden at home? I have called to discuss the request she recently made of me,” said Jarvis without much hope to the bobbing Hawkins.

    “I’ll see, me Lard.” Hawkins hesitated visibly. “If your Lardship would care to wait in the hall?”

    Since it was a wintry day with gusts of sleet and a dark grey, lowering sky, Jarvis did not sacrifice himself and his nagging hip-joint for Hawkins, but basely came in and waited in the tiny front hall.

    After a moment the maid reappeared, accompanied by Miss Lattersby. “Good morning, Lord Sleyven,” said this young person cheerfully. “If you’d like to come through to the back parlour, Miss Burden will join us in a moment,”

    Jarvis responded appropriately, and accompanied her.

    The fire was not lit in the back parlour, though there were indications it had recently been so; Miss Janey unaffectedly fell to her knees and got it going again.

    “And how are you, Miss Lattersby?”

    “I am very well, thank you.” Janey blew energetically on her fire. “Ah!”

    “And your friends?”

    “What? Oh, the Waldgraves!” she said, scrambling up. “Well, Amanda is bearing up, but I’m afraid poor Miss Waldgrave is very down. She had a note from her friend Miss Carewe but there was nothing enclosed from the brother, and while admitting that it was very proper in him not to write her, she was clearly very dashed.”

    “Proper but entirely lacking in enterprise, or even normal gumption, surely? The fellow must be a stick,” said Jarvis with a frown.

    “Well, so many fellows are, are they not?” replied Miss Lattersby with huge affability.

    The Earl was still wondering precisely how to take that, when Miss Burden came in.

    “Good morning, Lord Sleyven. I collect you are come about my note? That is very good of you,” she said with complete composure.

    “Not at all, Miss Burden. There is a living in Kent vacant. Quite small, but there is a pretty little vicarage: your sister-in-law may remember it, it is in the village near the house where she and Charles spent their honeymoon.”

    “Oh,” said Midge, rather disconcerted. “Yes.”

    “Possibly I had best write to this fellow—or should I visit him, do you think?”

    “I don’t know,” said Midge limply.

    “For myself—though of course I am not a belted earl, dear sir—but were I in your place, I would not dream of offering a living to a person on whom I had never even laid eyes; though of course, one knows it is how these things are done,” said Miss Lattersby dulcetly.

    “Janey, my dear, I think that will do,” said Midge limply.

    “But perhaps Miss Janey is in the right of it. Do I owe it to the parishioners, do you think, Miss Burden, to look this fellow over before I put their spiritual well-being in his hands?”

    Miss Burden took a deep breath. “I am very, very sure that a man whom Miss Waldgrave wishes to marry must be of the highest character. I am sure that in this particular case you may offer him the living with a clear conscience, my Lord.”

    “But does this truly affect the moral point at issue?” worried Janey.

    “Janey, I think I said that was enough.”

    “Oh! Am I putting myself forward unduly?” she gasped. “Dear Miss Burden, I shall leave the room immediately!”

    “You will do no such thing!” snapped Midge.

    Janey gave a naughty gurgle. “It almost worked!” she said brightly to Jarvis.

    “Mm, did it not?” he murmured drily.

    Miss Burden, her colour now very much heightened, said firmly, holding her chin up defiantly: “You are very good, Lord Sleyven. May I call Miss Waldgrave, then?”

    “Uh—oh, is she in?” he said lamely. “Er—well, yes, I— But do you not wish to give her the khubber yourself? I’m sorry: the news.”

    “I know what—” Midge broke off. “Certainly not, sir. It is you who are her benefactor.

    Miss Waldgrave was duly summoned, and Jarvis was duly thanked, and did not get a single second alone with Miss Burden, and whether that had been the object of the exercise was impossible to tell. For certainly Miss Waldgrave had expressed her pleasure at being given the opportunity to thank him in person… No, it had been deliberate from beginning to end!

    Well, it was all of a piece, and she was the most maddening woman that ever walked!

    “The fellow is as close as an oyster!” reported the Colonel aggrievedly.

    December had blown itself out into an icy January, the lanes thick with slush. Every time the Colonel called at Maunsleigh he seemed to return in a worse mood than he had the time before. Lettice was almost at the point of telling him to cease calling on his old friend, for the nonce. She repressed a sigh. “What has he been keeping from you now?”

    The Earl, it appeared, had let Leonard Cornwallis have the lease of Dinsley House. Lettice looked at him limply. “Charles, you knew Lord Sleyven had acquired the house. He could hardly offer it to Captain Cornwallis before the engagement had been announced. It would not have been seemly.”

    The Colonel muttered under his breath for a while, finally revealing aggrievedly: “He might have told me!”

    Lettice thought so, too. She nodded silently.

    Charles sat down and leaned back in his big chair with a sigh. “At least that has turned out well. –And Midge has not ended up with another sulking maiden on her hands!” he added with a sidelong smile.

    “No, indeed,” agreed Lettice, ringing the bell. “Bring in some hot mulled wine for the Colonel, please, Albert.”

    The Colonel blinked, and sat up. “No, no, Albert, don’t do any such thing, there’s a good fellow!”

    “My dear, it would be just the thing,” murmured Mrs Langford.

    “Mm? Oh, of course it would, me dear!“ He gave Albert detailed instructions. Mrs Langford watched with a certain resignation the subsequent addition of spices to the large pewter jug, the insertion of the poker into first the flames and then the jug, the hissing and sputtering which accompanied this part of the operation, and the spattering of the rug which customarily accompanied Charles’s withdrawing and replacing of the poker. She had put the darkest rug they owned in front of the fire, but of course Charles had never noticed the change, or asked why it had been instituted.

    “That ain’t all,” he warned, the first glassful having been consumed.

    “Oh? Has Simon Golightly changed his mind about farming out beyond Turpen’s Way?”

    “No, he hasn’t, actually, though it wouldn't have surprised me,” owned the Colonel, re-filling the glass.

    “Mm,” murmured Lettice, eyeing the rug.

    “Moved in, actually,” he said, taking a deep draught. “Aah!”

    “Good gracious! When?” she cried.

    “Er—t’other week, I think. Well, Jarvis did not say. Just said he had moved in, with a few bits and bobs.”

    “In this weather! And it is so isolated, he has virtually no neighbours! We must ask him over to dine, Charles!”

    “Mm, of course. Well, old Garrity is quite near to him. Dare say young Simon may not feel as strongly as Midge does on the subject of enclosing woods and rights of way, and so forth.”

    “No,” admitted Mrs Langford with a reluctant smile. “Well, it is very good news that he has moved in, and has not changed his mind about farming!”

    “Mm. Let’s hope he sticks to it. –Garrity has daughters, y’know.”

    “Charles, little Miss Garrity is but sixteen!”

    “Oh, is she? Never mind, dare say Simon might like ’em young.”

    “Really!” said Lettice trying not to laugh.

    “Have a glass of this, old girl. It’s damned good.”

    Lettice duly spurned this offer, but said kindly: “Well, that is not so very bad.”

    “Mm? Oh—young Simon. No, but that ain’t what I was going to say,” he said, frowning. “You know Jarvis has been doing up Oak Ring House? Well, virtually re-built the place,” he muttered.

   “Yes?”

    “It appears he has Walter Renwick in mind for it.”

    Mrs Langford looked blank, so he said: “Little Janey’s one! I've told you about him!”

    “Oh, yes. He was in the regiment.”

    “The old regiment,” said the Colonel, straight-faced.

    “Yes!” agreed Lettice with a laugh. “The man you said is a major now, but has… Is it a bad leg, dearest?”

    “Yes. Invalided out. Lucky not to lose the foot. Very decent fellow.”

     “Yes. Er—is Lord Sleyven afraid he may not want the house now?”

    “No, it ain’t that. Seems to have decided to get on with it—y’know? Well, when a fellow’s career is suddenly lost, it sometimes takes him a while to set his feet firmly on a path in life,” he explained.

    Lettice nodded silently.

    “But he’s been doing it up for months and never breathed— Well, it’s all of a piece,” he concluded sourly.

    “Oh, dear. I think I see. Simon Golightly might have had Oak Ring House and Major Renwick been nearer to us?”

    The Colonel pulled his ear, looking sheepish. “Well—why not?”

    “I think that Lord Sleyven would wish a friend from the regiment to have the larger house, my dear.”

    “Oh. Aye, mm. –Dammit, he could have told me!” he burst out.

    “Yes. Have some more mulled wine, Charles,” said Lettice resignedly.

    Another vile day. The majestic Bates had tried to persuade his Lordship to take the carriage instead of riding out. Cousin Myrtle had tried to persuade Jarvis ditto, even bringing Brother into the subsequent near-contretemps. Mr Hutton, who should have been over at the far eastern side of the property with Shelby, had mysteriously appeared just as he was setting his foot in the stirrup and represented that the burra sahib should not be riding in such bad weather, with his hip.

    He dismounted at Miss Burden’s gate, unaware that he was frowning horribly.

    “He looks so grim!” shivered Miss Amanda, at the parlour window.

    “Come away from that window, Amanda,” said Midge tightly. “The visitor will have the idea that we are interested in him.”

    Amanda produced an exceedingly irritating trill of laughter. “But dearest Miss Burden, I venture to represent that one is!”

    “This one is not,” said Midge grimly.

    Amanda merely gave another irritating laugh and bustled off to the front door, whence she could be heard loftily informing Hawkins that she would see to it. The note of thankfulness in Hawkins’s voice as she consented to this proposition was evident to all in the parlour.

    “We are just having a cosy time, as you see!” said Amanda brightly, showing him in.

    Miss Waldgrave looked cosy enough, in fact her face was positively flushed and she positively leapt to her feet at the sight of him. Miss Lattersby, who had been curled on the rug in front of the fire but very properly scrambled up at the sight of him, also looked cosy. Miss Burden, however, could only in all justice have been described as grim. Though “forbidding” might also have done, at a pinch. Jarvis swallowed a sigh.

    Mr Carewe had received his Lordship’s most gratifying— Etcetera. Jarvis sustained Miss Waldgrave’s thanks with fortitude, unaware that her traitress of a sister was using this interval to shoot out to the kitchen, force Hawkins into her best broderie Anglaise trimmed cap and apron (with the black ribbons), and serve up the remains of the Maunsleigh fruit-cake on Miss Burden’s best china.

    … “Well done, Amanda!” concluded Janey, laughing, as, very pink, she returned at long last from showing the visitor out.

    “One does one’s modest best," she replied, positively smirking.

    “You are all in league against me!” cried Midge bitterly.

    “But of course, dearest Miss Burden,” returned Janey mildly.

    “Indeed!” agreed Amanda, giggling.

    “I am afraid that that is so, dear Miss Burden,” murmured Eugenia.

    “He is such a pleasant gentleman,” sighed Amanda, the hands clasped to the bosom. “But I fear his hip is nagging him in this dreadful weather!”

    “What do you know of his hip?” said Midge unguardedly, staring.

    “Oh, the good Hutton has told me all about it,” she assured her. “The injury was sustained when he was a very young man, you know. Such a Romantick tale!”—At this point Miss Burden should of course have walked away in a dignified manner. Certain persons, though listening avidly, reflected that the fact that she did not was a very good sign.—“The regiment had been assigned to the mofussil—possibly you do not know the expression, dear Miss Burden,” she said artlessly, “but it means in the depths of the provinces, where conditions are of the most primitive! Some of the younger officers were out on a little hunting expedition—one is told that game positively abounds,” she said, opening her eyes very wide, ”in the mofussil. And down by a river, they came across the most terrifying scene: a young donkey had been taken by a crocodile! And its owner and its mother were screaming—”

    “Not its mother, surely?” said Janey in spite of herself.

    “Well, yes, my dear, it appears that the poor little jenny was in the greatest distress, and the noise could only have been described as a scream.”

    “The poor little creature!” shuddered Miss Waldgrave.

    “Indeed: shocking,” said Amanda with relish. “The officers then perceiving that the misguided owner was about to rush into the water to try to rescue the little victim—too late, alas—they set their horses at the stream, and prepared to fly to the rescue!”

    “Oh. The scene was on the other bank?” said Janey limply.

    “Oh, quite, my dear. The river was quite wide, though nothing like the immense stretches of watery terrain which characterise many of the great Indian waterways,” she noted complacently, “but not too wide for a capable horse and rider. But his Lordship was riding a dreadfully obstinate brute of a thing, and at the very last second, it jibbed, and the poor Colonel—his Lordship, one should say!” she amended with a titter—“was thrown over its head and landed most awkwardly, in the most dreadful agony!”

    “Which no doubt he bore with the noblest of demeanours,” noted Miss Burden sourly, rising. “Landed most awkwardly on his head in the water, one must conclude.”

    Janey choked, in spite of herself.

    “What? No, no, my dear Miss Burden, you have not grasped the precise—”

    But Miss Burden, scowling horribly, had picked up the tea-tray and walked out.

    “—precise nature of the terrain,” finished Amanda limply.

    “Never mind, at least she could not bear to walk away until the end!” said Janey on a pleased note.

    “That is true,” she agreed with a reluctant smile.

    “Did the crocodile eat it?” added Janey avidly.

    Miss Waldgrave shuddered and clapped her hands over her ears.

    “Oh, yes,” said Amanda blithely. “The good Hutton says they snap and gulp, you know!”

    Janey nodded, a twinkle her eye which the innocent Amanda did not perceive.

    Lady Judith had descended to interrogating Miss Humphreys. Who had been terrifically fluttered, not to say flattered, to be invited to take tea at the Deanery. Not to say, to have the Deanery carriage sent to fetch her. What with the profuse thanks for this munificence and for the fur-lined rug and hot brick which had accompanied it, not to say what with tea having to be served, it was quite some time before her Ladyship managed to get to the point at issue.

    “I was there, one day, when Lord Sleyven called,” Miss Humphreys admitted.

    “And—er—” Lady Judith fumbled, rather, but fortunately Miss Humphreys accepted her curiosity as perfectly natural.

    “It is distressful to have to say it, but she was so cold to the poor gentleman! The girls insisted that he must come in, you know, though I fear that left to herself, Miss Burden would have, er, refused him the house,” she said apologetically.

    “Yes,” agreed Lady Judith grimly.

    “And it was such a cold day, and she did not show herself to be in the least solicitous when dear Amanda inquired about his hip!” she lamented.

    “Er—no. I see.” Lady Judith ate a sandwich angrily. “May I ask whether you are aware if he has managed to see her alone, at all, Miss Humphreys?”

    “Not at all, Lady Judith,” she replied, shaking her head sadly. “I know it for a fact, for Hawkins let slip that when he did call on a day on which the young ladies were out, she would not have him admitted.”

    “Oh! It is so— He has made such a mull of it!” she cried angrily.

    Miss Humphreys looked dully into her cup. “One cannot but agree, Lady Judith. One would have thought that a gentleman—well, would be more—more capable," she floundered.

    Lady Judith gave a hard laugh. “Would one? In my experience, capable in the last word which might be applied to any of them, Miss Humphreys!”

    Miss Humphreys was about to object to this, but began to think about it, and did not.

    “They may be capable enough,” said her Ladyship bitterly, freshening her visitor’s cup, “in the spheres for which their education has suited them—I dare say that Sir William runs his lands and looks to his poultry and his hounds well enough, for instance. And David is well enough when it comes to Church matters,” she noted sourly. Miss Humphreys blinked, rather, but nodded meekly. “But in any sphere impinging, however lightly, on matters of the emotions, they are as broken reeds or—or mewling infants!”

    “Well, yes,” said Miss Humphreys, a trifle limply. “One fears one has to agree. Though—though dear Colonel Langford managed everything splendidly.”

    “My dear, he had no opposition!” she cried, throwing up her hands. “The moment everything does not fall out precisely as their rigid, stultified, inflexible male minds have conceived it should, they go to pieces utterly!”

    Their eyes met.

    “Yes, indeed, Lady Judith,” conceded Miss Humphreys with some feeling. “I must admit, you are precisely right!”

    “It’s going from bad to worse,” summed up Colonel Langford sourly. “He’s sulking because he can’t get near her, and this last time he called her the most maddening woman that ever walked. Not a good sign. –Don’t say that every man thinks that at some time of his mate, for she ain’t, yet, that’s the damned point!” he noted irritably.

    Lettice merely nodded.

    “And she’s gone into a positive brood. Hutton took them over a brace of partridge t’other day—well, nobody asked where they came from,” he noted charitably; “and Miss Amanda superintended the cooking, so Hawkins managed not to turn out something that tasted like very old leather. But Midge is reported scarcely to have touched it. And apparently Amanda did a chestnut purée to go with ’em. Hawkins appears to have spent her entire autumn gathering and preserving chestnuts, or whatever it is one does with the things, so the house is bulging with ’em. And Midge said that they were tainted!”

    “What?” she said limply.

    “Tainted Maunsleigh chestnuts, Lettice!”

    “Great Heavens,” she said faintly. “Er—Lady Caroline Grey called while you were out, my dear.”

    “Good grief. What did she want?”

    “I think she was merely sounding out my opinion on how Midge was doing. I had to admit that in your own phrase, things seem to be going from bad to worse. Though she did not entirely agree.”

    “She’s getting old,” he replied sourly.

    Lettice sighed. “I fear that was my conclusion also. For with two such obstinate persons, what can one do?”

    “What, indeed?” he agreed sourly.

Next chapter:

https://thepatchworkparasol.blogspot.com/2022/11/corinna-steps-in.html