28
In A Drear-Nighted December
Miss Burden had had every intention of informing Lord Sleyven no later than the date of the visit to Gratton Hall that she had no intention of marrying him and had never had any such intention. But they were kept so busy that she had had no opportunity to do so: the morning stroll during which he had expressed his appreciation of her Byronic effusion was the longest period they managed alone together.
The journey home to Maunsleigh took three days, for Lady Caroline, as usual, did not desire to travel ventre à terre. They approached Maunsleigh from the west, rather than coming up through Nettleford, and the carriage was about to swing in through the high wrought-iron gates when Midge managed to say in a tiny voice: “Please—”
Lady Caroline, of course, was aware that there was something very wrong with Millicent. “What is it, my dear?”
“Please,” whispered Midge with tears in her eyes: “might I go home instead, Lady Caroline?”
“Oh, but my dear!” cried Miss Partridge, throwing up her hands. “There will be no fires lit! And your bedlinen will not be aired!”
“That is enough, thank you, Myrtle,” said Lady Caroline calmly.
Miss Partridge cringed, and was utterly silent.
Lady Caroline pulled the carriage string. “Most certainly we shall take you home to your little cottage, Millicent, my dear, if that is your wish.”
Very close to tears, Midge nodded inarticulately.
Lady Caroline glanced at the Earl, but his face was impassive. Calmly she ordered the carriage to turn for Lower Nettlefold.
“Land save us! Miss Burden!” cried Hawkins, running down the path ere the carriage steps had scarce been let down, her cap all awry.
“Oh, Hawkins! I’m so pleased to see you!” cried Midge, springing down without benefit of the Earl’s outstretched hand and throwing herself into the elderly maid’s arms.
Over her shoulder Hawkins gave Lady Caroline a startled look.
“Thank you,” said her Ladyship to the Earl, who was assisting her to alight. “Take Miss Burden inside, Hawkins, if you please.”
“Yes. my Lady!” Hawkins hustled the sniffling Midge indoors.
“I shall not stay,” said Lady Caroline, following them up the little path. “You have enough firewood, and something to give Miss Burden for her supper, have you, Hawkins?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, my Lady! –My Lady, is something wrong?” she asked fearfully as Miss Burden sank onto the sofa and buried her face in her handkerchief.
“I do not think so. The visits have been a strain for her, that is all: a great many people whom she had never met before, some of them living in circumstances of the greatest formality.”
“Yes, indeed, my lady! She writ me from Gratton ’All!” breathed Hawkins.
“Did she? I am glad to hear it,” said Lady Caroline with a smile.
“Are her cats all right?” asked Jarvis abruptly.
Hawkins bobbed. “Oh, yes, indeed, my Lard! Thank you, my Lard! ’Ale and ’earty, if I may make so bold!”
“I recommend bed immediately, and perhaps a bowl of soup,” decreed Lady Caroline kindly. “We shall see you very soon, Millicent, my dear. –Come, Jarvis.”
“Miss Burden, is there anything I can do?” he said, going slowly over to the door in his aunt’s wake.
“No. Thank you. Go away,” said Midge hoarsely, blowing her nose and not looking at him.
“Miss Burden—”
“Come, Jarvis.”
“Very well, then. I shall see you very soon, Miss Burden.”
She did not reply, and he went out silently.
On the front path he took a deep breath. “In the case you were thinking that that was all due to Cousin Myrtle and Brother—”
“I am not such a fool.”
“No. Um—I had best tell you the whole.”
“Yes. You may come to my room this evening, Jarvis.”
Glumly Jarvis agreed.
… “I thought I would bring you this myself,” he said meekly, entering her room with a laden tray.
Lady Caroline was sitting up in bed, swathed in a lacy wrapper. “Thank you, my dear. It looks delicious.”
“Er—yes; Bates in person has assured me that there is nothing in it but good English cockerel and fresh vegetables and herbs from our own gardens.”
“I am glad to hear it.—Dried herbs, I think, at this time of year.—Sit down, Jarvis.”
Jarvis sank down onto a small chair at her bedside and watched glumly as Lady Caroline tasted the soup. “That is a very fetching lacy thing, ma’am,” he said at last.
“Thank you. Alphonsine makes my wrappers. My daughters tell me that pale green silk is scarcely suitable for a woman of my age, but then, I feel that my age gives me the privilege of choosing for myself. And it is fully interlined with very warm flannel,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
“Oh. I like the way the ribbons—uh—go in and out.”
“Insertion lace: yes.”
“Oh? I thought it was what was called broderie Anglaise?”
A lesser woman would have attempted to explain. Her Ladyship merely said calmly: “No, that is something else. I shall request Alphonsine to make some wrappers for Millicent, and to teach May the trick of them.”
“Er—thank you.”
Lady Caroline drank soup composedly. The Earl fidgeted.
“What have you done?” she said at last.
“Piled Pelion upon Ossa, I think,” he admitted glumly.
“Go on.”
“Er—do not tell me I have behaved ungentlemanly, please, Aunt Caroline. Or that I have been a fool. I fully recognise how much I am at fault. But— Well, I found out that Millicent suggested the whole scheme of visits to town without an actual engagement in order to—er—teach me a lesson for the—er—damned impertinence of the manner of my offer.”
Lady Caroline looked straight in front of her. Jarvis watched her uneasily.
“That could certainly explain why we have had the impression that you were on trial.”
“Yes, couldn’t it?”
“My dear man, this does not in the least mean that she does not with to marry you,” she said briskly.
“Er—well, I had hoped… But I think I’ve put my foot in it. Cousin Myrtle was the last straw,” said Jarvis with a grimace.
“She or Mr Partridge: yes, that is very probable. But do, pray, explain the whole to me. And please do not leave anything out, however trivial, if you would be so good.”
“Very well.” Jarvis explained. It took some time. Especially since Lady Caroline made quite certain that she had plumbed the full depths of his utter fatuity.
“What do you intend to do?” she said at last.
“Admit that I know the whole, I suppose. And—er—throw myself upon her mercy.”
“It may answer.”
“What do you mean?” he cried, flushing up.
“Millicent will not feel it would be honourable to hold you to any sort of promise of marriage, Jarvis.”
“But—”
“I think you must see that she will feel she tricked you into believing that she fully intended to go through with the marriage. The fact that you subsequently found out her deception will not weigh with her.”
“No,” he said, frowning over it. “I see. Well—what is the alternative? To let her break it off and say nothing?”
Lady Caroline thought it over. “That might work... You could then wait a little, and press your suit—say, later next year.”
He sighed. “She may still refuse me.”
“Yes. In that event, I shall speak to her, if you wish me to do so, but I must say, I think it is entirely up to you, Jarvis.”
“Mm,” he said, biting his lip.
Her eyes narrowed. “There is, of course, no necessity to let her know you ever found her out.”
“What?” said Jarvis limply.
She shrugged slightly. “Let her attempt to break with you, weep over her—er—cruel treatment of you, and then—”
“And then magnanimously offer her my hand and heart?” he cried, turning purple. “I could not stomach to do so! Poor little Midge!”
Lady Caroline’s shrewd eyes twinkled. “Oh, it would be for the greater good, Jarvis. A small deception, which would see you both happy—”
But the Earl, choking had marched out.
“—for the rest of your lives,” finished the old lady with a little shrug. “Dear me.”
“I am glad you have come to call, Lord Sleyven,” said Midge, holding her chin up very high, “for I have something urgent to say to you.”
“Yes, so have I,” he agreed evenly. “May we sit down?”
“Oh—yes, please do,” she said lamely.
He sat down on the little sofa. Midge perched nervously on the edge of a chair.
“Please,” he said courteously.
She swallowed hard. “I—um—I have to thank you for your generous offer, my Lord, and—and I am fully appreciative of your relatives’ goodness to me over these last months. But I cannot marry you.”
“Why not?” he said calmly.
Reddening, and reflecting that she might have known, Miss Burden replied stiffly: “I am persuaded we should not suit, and that I am not a proper sort of lady for a countess. I—I hope we may part amicably.”
“I hope we may not part at all,” he said coolly.
“Lord Sleyven, you don’t understand!” she cried agitatedly. “I never had any intention of accepting your offer!”
“I know,” he agreed calmly.
She stared at him. “Sir, I think you have misunderstood, or—or misheard me, perhaps.”
“I’m not going deaf in my old age. Why do you imagine I inflicted poor old Cousin Myrtle and Brother on you for two months?”
“Infl— Um, to—to help me ladify myself,” said Midge feebly, goggling at him.
“Not at all. I did it to pay you out for the lesson you were—very understandably—attempting to teach me.”
“Lord Sleyven, I do not understand you.”
“No. Let me explain. I admit I was very annoyed with you, and I did it—well, not to put too fine a point upon it, to pay you back in your own coin. I found out that you had no intention of marrying me and that that was why you had insisted we should not become officially engaged.”
“Yes, and I am trying to tell you that it would be most unsuitable and—and is not to be considered!” she cried loudly, jumping up.
“Rubbish. Please come and sit down again: this will take some time.”
“No, it will not, because whatever you may imagine, sir, I deceived you most unkindly and—and took unfair advantage of what I now see was a quite—quite natural desire to—to marry someone suitable, who would not put unsuitable ladies and gentleman next to each other at dinner and—”
“Will you listen, you maddening creature!” he cried.
Very flushed, Miss Burden sat down. “Very well, I am listening,”
Jarvis of course had been prepared to plead his case most eloquently, but he was now considerably flustered and did not make much of a fist of his confession.
Midge stared at him. “Roland Lefayne is Mr Bottomley-Pugh’s brother?”
“Er—yes. That is hardly the crucial point.”
“And Katerina’s uncle?”
“Er—obviously. Miss Burden, can we not—”
“But why on earth did they do it?”
“I collect Mr Bottomley-Pugh initiated it for your sake; did I not make that clear?”
“No,” she said, staring at him.
“He would not care for me to have told you, I am sure.”
After a moment she said in dismay: “Oh, dear! You mean it was like the blue-legged hens?”
“Precisely,” said Jarvis with a sigh.
“Yes, but— Oh,” said Midge, going very red.
“Yes. Apparently Bottomley-Pugh had conceived of the notion that Mrs Marsh’s—er—bothering me would also bother you. He wished to leave you a clear field.”
Midge was very flushed. She gnawed on her lip. After a moment she said: “That is absurd.”
“He did not think so, apparently. And it is not as if he did not have the truth, for Janey told Katerina everything of your plot to punish my presumption, and she told her father.”
She swallowed loudly.
“In case I did not make it clear before, I apologise deeply for it.”
“You were not at fault,” said Midge, gnawing on her lip again. “You were perfectly correct, and these past few months have shown me that you were. And—and I hope you will see that you were very mistaken in my character.”
“I certainly had no notion it could be quite so devious. Or so determined.”
“I know I should have ended it months ago, but there never seemed to be an opportunity to do so! We were always surrounded by them!”
“Oh, quite.”
“In any case,” she said, taking a deep breath and rising, “I am ending it now. And—and while I can see that—that it is a most flattering offer, I think it must be clear to you that I am not the right lady at all. In fact, I am not a lady. Thank you for calling, and—”
Jarvis got up hurriedly. “I have been trying to tell you that I do not wish for a lady, I wish for you!”
“That is not true, Lord Sleyven,” said Midge, holding her chin up very high once more, “or you would never have made your offer in the way you did. Please do not let us discuss it. I apologise for behaving like a hoyden. And—and I hope you will find a very well-behaved lady from the right sort of family.”
“You are not listening. I do not want that sort of lady.”
“You do not need to say so, sir. There is no obligation on your part,” she said with a wan smile.
“For the Lord’s sake!” Jarvis ran his hand over his forehead and took several desperate strides around the room. “What can I say to convince you?”
“There is nothing to say. I am the wrong person for you. That must be very clear.”
“It is not clear, you exasperating woman!”
“See?”
“Look, I made that ridiculous proposal because I—because I couldn’t admit to myself how much I wanted you!” said Jarvis loudly and angrily. “I suppose I seized upon the idea of getting you to ladify yourself as—as— I don’t know why, and in any case the whole damned thing’s irrelevant!”
“Yes, it certainly is,” said Midge grimly, very flushed. “There is no need to be gallant or to feel that you have raised expectations. My conduct must surely absolve you of all obligation.”
“I do not feel any obligation, and if you use the word once more, I’ll strangle you!” he shouted.
The little front parlour rang with silence.
“There you are, you see? I have entirely the wrong effect on you.”
“Look, for God’s sake, Midge, will you marry me?” he shouted.
“No. I am a country nobody,” said Miss Burden grimly. “You will very speedily come to see that you are well rid of me. And—and oblige me by leaving.”
“I shall come back in a day or two: we cannot leave it at this. You must give yourself time to think it all over.”
“There is nothing to think over. I have had several months to think everything over and a match between us is not to be thought of.”
“This is ridiculous!”
She went over to the door and opened it. “Please go.”
“I shall be back,” he said grimly, marching out.
Midge sank down onto the sofa, trembling. It had been very much harder than she had imagined, and only his shouting at her had given her sufficient resolve to go through with it. But she was convinced she was right: he was a Wynton, with all those horrible family connections, and a great name to maintain, and she was a nobody, who could do him no credit in the world that must be his. She had realised quite clearly during their sojourn in London that he was not altogether happy as the Earl of Sleyven; but he was, of course, still getting used to his new life. Marrying her obscure self could do nothing to help him.
… “We must give her a little time,” said Lady Caroline slowly.
Jarvis gave a hard laugh. “Time to become even more resolved?”
“Mm… Hers is certainly a most determined character.”
“Yes. Pray excuse me,” he said grimly, going out.
“Hm,” said Lady Caroline.
Colonel Langford got the whole story out of him over the port. Jarvis was clearly in no mood to be reasoned with, and not in any mood to listen to words of comfort, either. And for the moment the Colonel could not think of any. But the following day a great light dawned, and he laughed, and hurried out of his study to go in quest of Lettice.
Mrs Langford was sitting in the morning-room with some sewing, but she was not doing it, just staring glumly at the fire.
“Lettice, if you are brooding over Midge and Jarvis, you may stop!” he said gaily.
Jumping, his wife protested: “I was just thinking that Baby will soon be out of the small size, you know how fast they grow; so perhaps I should make this little coat a bigger size.”
“Yes, of course. But listen, Lettice, it has just occurred to me: Midge has spent around three months in Jarvis’s pocket—”
“If you are going to say she will miss the fashionable life—”
“No! Though she may well miss the food, Polly tells me Hawkins’s cooking leaves almost everything to be desired. No, what she will miss,” said the Colonel twinkling all over his pleasant face, “is, not to put too fine point on it, having a man of her own!”
“Having— Really, Charles!”
“No: think about it!” he urged, laughing a little.
Mrs Langford did think about it,
“See?” he cried.
“Er—you certainly have a point,” she said weakly. “But darling, she is so very obdurate.”
“Pooh! I’ll tell him to hold off until after Christmas. That’ll give her time for it to dawn. Er—’fraid it won’t improve the festive season all that much, in the meantime.”
“No, well, Polly and I had determined on a quiet Christmas in any case. I—I do hope you are right.”
“You’ll see!” he said confidently.
Mrs Langford smiled weakly. She could see that he had a point, and if any other lady had been in question, she would have conceded it without hesitation. But Midge? Once she had made her mind up on anything, she was so very determined. Well, they must wait and hope.
Midge had been doing some commissions in the village, and was startled on her return to be met at the front door by an agitated Hawkins.
“Miss Burden, it’s Miss Waldgrave and Miss Amanda, a-waiting in the front parlour, and there’s something up!” she gasped.
“Not illness, I hope?”
Hawkins did not think so, for she had seen Mrs Waldgrave’s cook only yester afternoon, and the Vicar’s household had been reported to be blooming. “But they’ve both been a-bawling, Miss Burden!” she hissed.
“Er—both? You do not mean— Oh, I see: you mean it is Miss Portia and Miss Amanda?”
“No, it’s Miss Waldgrave, Miss, with eyes as red as lobsters!” she hissed.
Midge hurried into the parlour. Hawkins was right: it was Miss Waldgrave, and she was very red-eyed. Miss Amanda was in even worse case: she was sniffling into what was evidently a very soggy handkerchief.
“My dears—” she began.
“Miss Burden, pray forgive this unwarrantable intrusion,” said Miss Waldgrave stiffly, making to rise.
“No, please, Miss Waldgrave, sit down,” said Midge, drawing up a chair for herself and handing Amanda a clean handkerchief. “May I ask what is the matter?”
Miss Waldgrave was plainly at a loss for words. She looked helplessly at her sister.
Amanda blew her nose hard. “Mamma is being very cruel, and—and Papa will not support us, Miss Burden. And—and we could not think what to do, and Portia is being horridly prim and sanctimonious, and if she thinks that is the way to get that crimson velvet out of Mamma, she is wrong!”
“Hush, Amanda, that is beside the point,” said Miss Waldgrave dully.
“It will make her complexion look horridly sallow, for it is not at all her colour, and so I have always maintained!” said Amanda angrily. “And Mr Golightly will not look twice at her, crimson velvet pelisse or no, but I am sure I do not care, for I do not wuh-want him and she may have him!” she ended in a wail, bursting into sobs.
Midge looked enquiringly at Miss Waldgrave.
“He has asked Papa if he may pay his addresses to Amanda,” she said grimly.
“I duh-don’t want him, and my huh-huh-heart is bruh-broken!” sobbed Amanda.
“Possibly you will say the human heart is a tougher organ than that,” said Miss Waldgrave on an angry note to Miss Burden, “but—”
“No, no! Dear Miss Waldgrave, surely your mamma will not force Amanda to take Mr Golightly if she cannot care for him?”
Two bright and angry spots flowered on Miss Waldgrave’s sallow cheeks. “She is forcing me to take Mr Butterworth!”
Midge’s mouth sagged open in dismay.
“And I know you cannot help us, but Amanda would have it that we must try; and— Please forgive us,” she said tightly.
Midge sat forward and timidly put a hand on her black woollen knee. “I am glad you both felt you could come to me, Eugenia,” she said gently.
Forthwith Miss Waldgrave burst into snorting sobs.
It took Midge quite some time, hindered rather than helped by Hawkins’s rushing in with offers of burnt feathers, to get the two of them to the point where they could sit up, drink tea, and tell her the whole.
Janey’s cousin, Mr d’Annunzio, had offered for Amanda. Very properly, he had spoken to her father, not to Amanda herself. Even though he had said that he would be happy to be received into the Church of England before the nuptials, Mrs Waldgrave had insisted it was not to be thought of: the family was in trade, and Robert d’Annunzio worked in the shop! Both sisters were convinced that, left to himself, the Vicar would have given in once the theological question had been resolved. Amanda might never have known of the offer, had not Mrs Waldgrave, losing her temper on her youngest daughter’s refusing utterly to receive Mr Golightly, informed her that if she hoped to marry “that Italian person”, she would hope in vain—at which point the whole thing had come out.
As for Mr Butterworth’s offer for Eugenia: the story that the Bottomley-Pughs had relayed to Midge during the visit to Captain Cornwallis’s sister’s house was true enough, as far as it went; Midge reflected that perhaps she should have listened, when young Mr Vaughan had murmured that they had not heard that the lady had accepted the gentleman: there was, perhaps, a little more to Mr Vaughan than met the eye. Apparently the offer had been made on Miss Waldgrave’s return from Oxford: Mrs Waldgrave had still been in London but had positively flown home on hearing of it, only to be met with the information that Eugenia could not care for him.
“Mr Carewe would marry her tomorrow!” said Amanda angrily, sniffing.
“Hush. It is not to be thought of: he has nothing,” said Miss Waldgrave, very red.
“It is true that he is only a don, but he could take up a curacy; everyone has to start somewhere!” added her sister with some vigour.
Midge’s brow furrowed in thought. The Waldgraves sipped tea and watched her hopefully. Eventually she said: “May I know if, in the case it were possible, you and Mr Carewe might think of marrying, Miss Waldgrave?”
Miss Waldgrave revealed that they might, and that Sophia Carewe would of course come to share their house.
“And everything could be so cosy and perfect!” burst out Amanda angrily.
“Hush, my dear,” said Miss Waldgrave dully, blowing her nose.
Midge took a deep breath. “He is in Holy Orders?”
“Oh, yes, you have to be, to a be don!” said Amanda earnestly.
Midge was not sure of this, but she merely replied: “Then possibly I might speak to Dean Golightly. He may know of a curacy.”
Miss Waldgrave expressed her fervent thanks, but it seemed to Midge that they were both still looking at her hopefully. She did not see that, apart from expressing her deepest sympathy with Amanda, the which she had already done, there was anything she could do with regard to Mr d’Annunzio, so why— Oh.
“I believe that there may be a—a living within Lord Sleyven’s gift,” she said hoarsely. “Should you care for me to speak to him on your behalf, Eugenia?”
At this Miss Waldgrave practically went down on her knees in gratitude to her, so Midge concluded that that was why they had come. Oh, dear.
After that she thought they might go, but Hawkins bustled in with a plate of muffins, so there was a slight hiatus, during which Miss Waldgrave ate hungrily: the poor creature must have been moping this past month and more, thought Midge.
Amanda took a muffin, but not with her usual interest. Eventually Midge realised that she was looking at her hopefully again. Help.
“Amanda, my dear, possibly when your mamma—er—calms down and sees that you cannot care for Mr Golightly, pleasant though he is, she will allow Mr d’Annunzio to speak to you.”
Miss Waldgrave nodded round her muffin.
“Yes, but—but in the meantime,” said Amanda, blushing, “I am over twenty-one years of age, you know.”
She was twenty-three, if Miss Burden’s arithmetic was correct. “Er—that is true. Um—were you thinking you might go to a relative?’
Miss Waldgrave swallowed muffin. “A woman has no rights,” she said bitterly.
A married woman certainly had none, for all her property became her husband’s. In the circumstances, Miss Burden did not make this point. “No, very true,” she said soothingly, passing the muffins again.
“Not a relative, precisely. Legally, I could go out as a governess, or as a companion to a lady,” said Miss Amanda, fixing her large, slightly protuberant, pale blue eyes hopefully on Miss Burden.
“Yes,” said Midge in a hollow voice. “Er—Lady Ventnor has found a governess, now, for the little ones.”
“Yes. And although of course I am very fond of children, I am not sure I could teach them anything. But—um—dear Miss Burden, could I be your companion?” she burst out.
“I have said,” said Eugenia, hastily swallowing muffin, “that it would place you in an untenable position, Miss Burden, and it is not to be thought of.”
“I— Well, my sympathies are all with you, Amanda, and although I like Mr Golightly and do not know Mr d’Annunzio, I think from what Janey has said of him and his family that there is every possibility he could make you very happy. Of course I should not care for a breach with your parents: they have both been very good to me,” she said, thinking guiltily of Mr Waldgrave spending nights in his study concocting stories in order to make Timmy’s Latin more interesting, and Mrs Waldgrave conscientiously bringing her baskets of comforts when she had had her bad cold. “But I admit that that would not weigh with me, when a young woman is clearly unhappy in her home. However, I should be very reluctant to encourage you to fly in the face of your parents’ express wishes, Amanda, whether or not you are of age.”
“But we have tried everything, Miss Burden! And Aunt Catherine has written to say that although it is a great pity he is in trade, forcing young persons against their inclination never did any good! And Mamma must be aware of it, for look at the sad, sad case of Cousin Elizabeth Walker!”
“She was a Gratton-Gordon,” said Miss Waldgrave. “It did not turn out well.”
Midge had not heard of this particular cousin, so she could only conclude that it must have been a very sad case indeed; she nodded kindly.
Both Waldgraves looked at her hopefully once more. Midge looked at the plump Miss Amanda and wondered involuntarily how much she ate in a fortnight. Oh, dear. Her own little income was adequate, just, for herself and Hawkins and the two cats, but once the rent had been paid—unreasonably low though it was—there was very little left over. But on the other hand, it would be so unkind to make the creature return home, and perhaps after a cooling-off period things would settle down at the vicarage. She drew a deep breath. “I am not in the position of being able to afford a companion, but perhaps you would care to come and stay with me for a little?” She took another look at Miss Waldgrave’s thin, miserable face. “Both of you, of course,” she said bravely.
There was much demurring, especially on Miss Waldgrave’s part—it was very evident that Amanda’s was but a mere form—but eventually they both agreed.
Determinedly Midge put on her bonnet and set off with them to speak to their parents.
Mrs Waldgrave was discovered in the front parlour, as red-eyed as her daughters. There was no sign of the Vicar, and on Miss Waldgrave’s saying on a defiant note that Miss Burden had kindly invited them to stay, her driven mother burst out: “They are both in a plot against me, and I had thought you had more sense than to support them, Miss Burden! And Septimus is a broken reed!”
“He has gone out, has he?” said Midge neutrally.
“Of course he has gone out, Miss Burden: men do!”
“I have noticed that, especially over these last few months. London under Lady Caroline’s tutelage was quite a revelation,” said Midge calmly.
Mrs Waldgrave gave a rather shaken laugh and said: “Well, yes! –Oh, dear, what you must think— Do, pray, sit down, Miss Burden! And Eugenia, ring for tea, if you please!”
Midge did sit down, realising for the very first time that Mrs Waldgrave was not a young woman: she had always hitherto seemed so energetic and managing, but now she seemed quite drawn and old. “I would like a cup of tea, but I should also like a word alone with you, if I may, Mrs Waldgrave.”
Amanda began: “But—”
“Run along, Amanda, if you please. You know my sentiments,” said Midge in a very firm voice.
“Come, Amanda,” said Miss Waldgrave, pulling her from the room.
“I know they have talked you round, but I warn you, I am obdurate!” snapped their mother.
Midge sincerely doubted that anyone that red-eyed was either obdurate or convinced of the rightness of her position. She said gently: “They have not precisely talked me round. I can see both sides of the story, and I admit that good sense and what is due to your family’s position are all on your side. Were I a mother, I should feel as you do,” she added mendaciously. “I did not come here to plead their cause, dear ma’am, but merely to ask if they may stay with me for a little.”
Mrs Waldgrave looked very slightly mollified. “Well, if you wish to have them, I own, it would be a relief. I collect they have told you the whole?
Midge agreed and added that she could see that in spite of his family’s wealth, Mr d’Annunzio was not a suitable choice for Amanda. Forthwith Mrs Waldgrave burst out with all of it in great detail, barely pausing as her little maid brought the tea-tray in.
“I expected it of Amanda, though I blush to confess it; but Eugenia is being so obstinate!” she concluded, blowing her nose angrily.
“I see. Dear Mrs Waldgrave, I know that Mr Butterworth would make an unexceptionable match, and—and he must be thought suitable in every way, but if Miss Waldgrave cannot care for him?”
“She should be past the age of wishing to care!”
Midge could think of nothing to say to that.
“Mr Carewe has nothing, and he is a confirmed old bachelor besides, and any woman of sense would sooner marry my old cat!” revealed Eugenia’s mother angrily.
“I see. You are implying, I collect, that it—it might not be the most passionate of unions,” said Midge, clearing her throat desperately, “but—but then, I have seen that sort of match work very well, and if the two parties find themselves suited, that must count for—for very much, I think.”
Mrs Waldgrave blew her nose again. “Very possibly. I would not object to his being an old woman—well, I would, of course, Miss Burden, I think any mother would! But in principle, I would not object, but he has nothing: he is one of the younger brothers in a household of seventeen children: Septimus knows the family slightly. And he supports himself and a spinster sister. I cannot see how he could possibly support a wife and family.”
“I think it might be possible to find him a living, or at the least a curacy to start with. I shall speak to Dean Golightly, with your permission, ma’am.”
Mrs Waldgrave sighed. “Thank you. But the livings are not in his gift, and you know he and the Bishop do not get on.”
“One can certainly not imagine the Bishop ousting a nephew of his own for anyone recommended by the Dean,” said Midge, allowing a twinkle to creep into her eye.
”Or his supporters,” acknowledged Mr Waldgrave’s spouse, sighing. “Well, nothing would induce me to crawl to That Woman,” she admitted.
Midge was aware that this meant the Bishop’s lady: she nodded.
“I suppose Dean Golightly might have connections elsewhere,” said Mrs Waldgrave on a dubious note.
“Why, yes, I think so!” agreed Midge, trying to be bright but not over-bright.
“Thank you; it is very kind of you, Miss Burden,” she said, looking at her hopefully.
Midge took a deep breath. “I know that Lord Sleyven has several livings in his gift. I shall speak to him.”
At this Mrs Waldgrave went very red and said: “It was not right in Eugenia to ask it of you.”
“She did not ask, I offered,” replied Midge firmly.
Mrs Waldgrave appeared to cheer up slightly, urged more tea on Miss Burden, took some more herself and finally admitted that if only a suitable position could be found for Mr Carewe she would be relieved to get Eugenia off her hands. But as to Amanda! Miss Burden was not to utter a word: she did not care if the fellow were rich as Croesus, he worked in the shop! And when Mr Golightly was ready to offer!
Midge did not argue: there was plenty of time; from what Janey had said of her d’Annunzio cousins, Robert did not sound like the sort of young man to get as far as making an offer and then change his mind. And as for Amanda herself, twenty-three was not so very old, after all.
… And then, the phrase “rich as Croesus”, she had to admit, did seem to indicate that all hope was not yet lost!
Midge came in from the garden and stopped short at the sight of very unexpected visitors in the parlour.
Major Lattersby got up with a wry look on his lean, attractive face. “I’ve brought you this bad penny for Christmas, Miss Burden, if you can bear it.”
“Why, of course! How lovely to see you!” she gasped in some amaze, as Janey leapt up, very smart in dark green with a tippet and muff in what Miss Burden’s autumn Season strongly suggested to her was something extravagant that her papa had purchased for her. She hugged her warmly: Miss Lattersby forthwith burst into a storm of tears on the astonished Miss Burden’s shoulder.
The sympathetic Amanda, all bulging eyes, having removed Miss Lattersby to her old room to take off her bonnet and pelisse, lie down under a pink coverlet which she, Amanda, had brought from her very own bed, and recover, the Major collapsed onto Miss Burden’s small sofa and confessed with a rueful look: “Damned Renwick. Told her to her face she was giving young Henri-Louis false hopes which his family would not allow to be fulfilled even in the case that she cared a snap of her cruel little fingers for him.”
Midge sat down limply. “Help.”
“Aye. Well, it’s clear he’s fallen for her. But telling her her faults never was the way to win my Janey over,” he said, shaking his head. “Ring for a tray of tea, shall I?”
‘Er—yes!” said Midge with a limp laugh. “Please do, Major.”
“You’ll be a merry crew,” he owned when she had admitted that both Amanda and Miss Waldgrave—just now in the village improving upon Hawkins’s notion of shopping—were in residence, and why. “I’ll take my one away again, if you like.”
“No, no: of course she must stay if she wishes to! But—er—are not Sir Neville and Lady Lattersby expecting you for Christmas?’
“She won’t go. Said she’d go off to my brother-in-law’s if I wouldn’t let her come to you—not that Umberto would take her side in any such damned nonsense; but I dare say Rosa would. But the thing is, they’re all at sixes and sevens because of—er—” He jerked his head in the direction of the ceiling.
Midge blenched. “Amanda?” she hissed.
“Mm. Umberto’s furious. Don’t think it’s the religion thing—well, they didn’t kick up too much when Janey’s mother married me. Er—no: think it’s that he’s afraid Miss A.,” he said in a lowered voice, and pulling a lugubrious face, “is too full of ladylike whims and fancies to make Bob a sensible wife.”
Midge considered it seriously, unaware that the Major was watching her do so in considerable appreciation. “I think that is very largely manner; underneath it she is quite a capable person: an excellent seamstress, and would take over many of her mother’s household duties if she were permitted to do so. Mrs Waldgrave is one of those women who blame their daughters bitterly for never lending a hand in the house, the meanwhile never delegating the meanest task to them.”
Major Lattersby nodded, a twinkle in the clever hazel eyes which were so like Janey’s.
“May I ask whether you think Janey’s affections are seriously engaged, Major?”
He rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure. She’s miffed—yes. But then, she’s used to winding us poor males round her clever little finger. This is the first time one hasn’t—er—sat up and begged, so to speak, at her command. She’s certainly suffering very much in her amour propre. I think it may be more than that, but I’m not at all sure how deep it goes.”
Midge nodded slowly. “I think she liked him from the moment of first setting eyes on him—but then, he was older, a little different, and rather a Romantick figure, with that limp, and the loss of his career… Perhaps she is too young as yet to form a definite preference.”
“Aye, well, in the case you were going to say that if she were older she’d have the sense to treat him better, don’t. You haven’t met my sister Amy—she lives in Scotland, married a damned Scots vicar in the end, some sort of Knoxite, I think the fellow is—but she led a round dozen other fellows a very merry dance indeed for over a decade: she was married initially at eighteen, but the first husband died after half a dozen years—she led him a merry dance, too. Our mother gave her up as a bad job in the end: said she’d never re-marry, she was too much of a little cat. Well—pretty and bright, you know: very like Janey.”
“And she married a Scottish vicar?”
“Mm, but she was all of thirty-nine when he deigned to take her, Miss Burden. They’re happy enough, I gather, but after she’d met him and fallen for him, Amy spent several very miserable years during which the damned fellow made her—well, perhaps not say her prayers and do penance, exactly, but demonstrate that she could behave like a sensible woman who knew her own mind.”
Midge’s jaw had sagged.
“I can see Renwick doing very much the same thing. Stiff-necked fellow, ain’t he? Not that he ain’t right about Janey: told her meself to leave poor young H.-L. alone.”
Midge nodded numbly.
“Er—sure you can put up with her?”
“Yes, of course!’ she said warmly.
Major Lattersby expressed his fervent thanks. And mentioned by the by that he’d be in the district for the New Year: they had called first at Maunsleigh, in quest of her, and Sleyven had invited him.
She smiled weakly, and nodded. In spite of his open, friendly, manner she knew that Major Lattersby’s mind was every bit as devious as his little daughter’s—and considerably more mature. Had that story of his sister’s advanced age not having of itself made a woman of sense out of her had more reference than just to his little daughter? Somewhat grimly Miss Burden decided not to consider the point. Added to which, it could hardly be relevant, as anyone who knew the true facts of the case must be aware.
Colonel Langford came in on a gust of cold wind, rubbing his hands briskly. “Brr-rr! Setting in to be a chilly winter! Well, I called at Maunsleigh, and then rode over to Bluebell Dell, as ordered: want my report now, do you?”
“Oh, I think we shall allow you to sit down and have some rations, Corporal!” replied his wife with a laugh.
Grinning, the Colonel sat down and accepted a cup of tea, noting by the way to his son-in-law: “If you was to run away to the games room, Arthur, it would not be considered a positive retreat, more a tactical withdrawal.”
“Don’t be silly, Step-papa,” said Mrs Golightly tranquilly. “Of course Arthur wants to hear how Aunty Midge is going on.”
The Colonel pulled his ear. “Hard to tell, really. Surrounded by moping girls—anyone would look cheery by comparison.”
“Charles!” gasped Mrs Langford, dropping her work.
“Well, for God’s sake! Miss W.’s going round with a face like a fiddle under the impression that it ain’t a fiddle, it’s a brave face on it—Miss Amanda’s very phrase,” he warned sternly; Mrs Langford, accepting her work back from her son-in-law with a word of thanks, had to bite her lip—“and Miss A. herself has apparently decided that the way of duty lies in offering what poor comfort she may—her very phrase,” he warned—“to those more unhappily circumstanced than her fortunate self; her very—”
“Do not dare to say it,” said Mrs Langford unsteadily.
“Very well, I shall merely tell it as it was told me. Where was I? Oh, yes: young Janey is alternating between a somewhat febrile and forced gaiety which her friends understand is of course not a true representation of her feeling heart,”—Dr Golightly had a coughing fit—“and ’orrible attacks of the mops and maws, what not a dish of fried chicken with the liver all dished up nice as pry nor even a marrer bone itself could make ’er the better for.”
“Oh, rubbish, Charles!”
“I do think that is an exaggeration,” admitted Polly unsteadily; “for Hawkins may be—um—”
”Idiosyncratic,” said Dr Golightly kindly.
“Y— Um, yes, I think that’s what I mean. But she is not illogical! She would not say the chicken liver would make her the better for the mopes, you know.”
“Oh, is that what they were?” said the Colonel innocently.
At this Polly, sad to relate, broke down in helpless splutters. Though admitting, after recourse to Arthur’s handkerchief: “It is not truly funny.”
“No, it is not, Charles, and you should be ashamed of yourself,” said Mrs Langford severely.
The Colonel looked unrepentant and took a slice of cake. “Oh—Miss Amanda’s baking, by the by.”
“Help,” said Polly in a hollow voice.
“No, no, me dear, you have it all wrong! She does not claim to be expert in the culinary arts, but she admits to some poor prowess in the homely domestic task of preparing the simpler household confectioneries.”
“Even Amanda Waldgrave cannot have said that, Arthur: he is being deliberately provoking,” warned Lettice, as Dr Golightly frowned.
“Is that a plural?” he replied abruptly.
The Colonel merely looked bland. Suddenly Dr Golightly got up and hurried out.
“What on earth is he up to?” said Polly blankly.
Her mother replied on a cross note; “I collect he has gone to consult the big dictionary in Charles’s study: you are too irritating, Charles!”
Looking bland, the Colonel replied: “We’ll wait, shall we?”
Soon Dr Golightly was back.
“Well?” said the Colonel blandly.
His son-in-law sat down, frowning. Suddenly Polly went into a tremendous giggling fit.
Lettice sighed. “Now that you have ruined Polly’s and Arthur’s domestic harmony—”
“No, truly, dear Mamma-in-law,” said Dr Golightly with a reluctant smile.
“He is so—naughty!” gasped Polly through the giggles.
“Yes, indeed he is,” said Lettice severely. “You may tell us instantly how Janey is, if you please, Charles.”
The Colonel admitted on a rueful note, pulling at his ear with his good hand; “I couldn’t absolutely tell. She don’t wear her heart on her sleeve. Um—quite bright on the surface. But—er—I thought some of her jokes had a bitter tinge.”
“Oh, dear!” cried Polly.
“At all events,” said the Colonel, taking another slice of cake, “Miss Amanda’s cake was excellent. Almost as good as Cook’s.”
“Charles, you are going too far,” warned Lettice.
He sighed. “My observations confirmed they are all very much as we expected, my dear.”
“I am sure Papa-in-law will do his very best to find a place for Miss Waldgrave’s Mr Carewe!” said Polly eagerly.
“Er—yes,” agreed Lettice, eyeing the Colonel uneasily. ”Um—has Midge asked Lord Sleyven yet, my dear?”
“Which of ’em were you thinking I should have interrogated on that ticklish point, Letty?”
“Er—well, him, I suppose,” said Lettice limply.
“Mm. Well, I did. Told me he didn’t know what I was talking about and although he was obliged for my concern, he would be gratified if I’d mind my own business.”
“What?” cried Lettice.
“Oh, dear!” gasped Polly.
“In so many words?” asked Arthur cautiously.
The Colonel gave him a sour look. “Aye.”
“Do not attempt to say anything comforting, Arthur,” warned his wife.
“Er—no, my dear,” he agreed a trifle limply.
Polly blew her nose angrily. “Somebody will have to do something, that is all!”
Her family looked at her kindly and did not say: “Who?”
Next chapter:
https://thepatchworkparasol.blogspot.com/2022/11/from-bad-to-worse.html
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