Country Diversions

2

Country Diversions

    “Do you hunt, my Lord?” asked Mr Shelby respectfully.

    There was a strange silence. Mr Shelby looked at the Earl in some surprise. It had been a perfectly conventional enquiry.

    Lord Sleyven replied evenly: “When required to do so, certainly.”

    “Oh,” said Mr Shelby, very weakly indeed. “Er—I am sure Sir William Ventnor will be glad to hear it, my Lord. He is the local Master.”

    “Yes, I remember Sir William,” said the Earl evenly.

    “Indeed, my Lord?” replied Mr Shelby limply.

    The Earl got up, picked up the large volume of accounts they had been studying, and returned it to its appointed place on the agent’s office shelves. Mr Shelby had much ado to keep his jaw from sagging at this act: the Earl’s predecessor had never so much as— Well, when he had looked at the accounts—which was mighty seldom: he had generally required a summary only—he had barely so much as turned a page! True, the present Lord Sleyven was a military man, used to a practical life, but... He goggled as the military man’s straight back bent to the shelves again, and withdrew the next volume.

    “I think we have time to start on this one before the midday meal,” he said calmly.

    “Certainly, my Lord. As your Lordship pleases, of course,” said the agent quickly. Oh, dear, Selina would have to wait the meal for him, if they embarked on another volume: Lord Sleyven was going meticulously over every figure. At first Mr Shelby had silently wondered if he was grasping anything: for two days he had barely asked a question. On the third day it had become quite glaringly apparent that he had taken in everything he had read. Had Mr Shelby not been an honest man he would have been quaking in his boots.

    The Earl opened the volume, unsmiling. “You must stay to eat, if you would care to.”

    “Er—well, thank you, my Lord. But—well, that is very kind of your Lordship!” he gulped.

    “Not at all. You will no doubt wish to send a message to your wife,” he said ringing the bell for the footman. Limply Mr Shelby gave the man the message.

    “Oh, there is just one more thing,” said the Earl, picking up a pen.

    “Yes, my Lord?”

    “That is it.” He favoured him with his cool smile. “I would very much prefer it if you could manage to call me ‘sir’.”

    “Y—yes, sir, of course!” he gasped.

    “Good. Shall we get on with it?” He made a note on the sheet of writing paper before him.

    Limply Mr Shelby got on with it. Should he tell Sir William that the Earl would be glad to come out with his pack, or—or not?

    “Certainly I called,” said Mr Patterson on a weary note. “Since you desired me to do so. He was very gracious to me. Which I collect must be due to the manners his mother taught him in childhood, for he never had that from the Wynton side! And what is more, I could see perfectly well that he was extremely busy and my visit had interrupted him.”

    “Busy?” replied Mrs Patterson, opening her large blue eyes very wide. “What can you mean, Percival?”

    Percival Patterson replied with some satisfaction: “I concede that the word strikes oddly as applied to a Wynton. Nevertheless the man was busy.”

    “Good gracious,” she said limply. After some moments’ thought she added: “Is he a bourgeois, Percival?”

    “No!” he snapped. “He is a Wynton!”

    “There is no need for that tone, I think,” she said coldly.

    “I beg your pardon, Winifred. But I would rather have liked to have been busy myself, this morning.”

    “You are too provoking! What is he like?”

    Percival Patterson rubbed his chin. “Well, he is every inch a Wynton, you need have no fear he won’t do the county credit, m’dear. Not at all like the last man, in looks; but do you remember the old earl, his father? Very, very like him. Especially from the back.”

    “The back?” said Mrs Patterson feebly.

    “Mm. I cannot tell what it be, precisely: the set of shoulders, mayhap...” He shrugged his own shoulders.

    After a baffled moment Mrs Patterson said: “That is well and good, and at least he is presentable. But—er—”

    “Fifty.”

    “I am aware of that, thank you, Percival. Er...”

    “No!” said Percival Patterson with a sudden laugh. “He is every inch a man! –By God, I wouldn’t like to run up against him in an alley on a dark night if he’d conceived of a grudge against me!—No, well, in a different walk of life, my dear.—Very masculine, you will find.”

    “Good.”

    “Winifred, he will not look twice at your sister Nettie,” he warned.

    Winifred reddened. “Nettie is a most ladylike, attractive woman, if not in the first blush.”

    Percival Patterson gave a grin which those less biased towards him than his wife was at this particular instant might have recognised was a very masculine grin. “Nettie is an old maid, m’dear. Sleyven won’t look twice at her.”

    Mrs Patterson was very flushed. “Well, at least he is presentable,” she managed.

    “Very,” said Mr Patterson drily.

    Ignoring this, Mrs Patterson said determinedly: “An al fresco breakfast! The very thing: informal, but not too... I shall draw up a list immediately.”

    “Mrs Cartwright,” he drawled.

    Mrs Patterson glared.

    “That horsey bore, Ventnor,” he drawled.

    Mrs Patterson continued to glare.

    “That parson fellow.”

    “I thought you approved of him!” she snapped.

    “No, no. T’other fellow. The hunting parson.”

    “Certainly not!” she snapped.

    “If you invite Waldgrave it won’t do to overlook t’other one,” he drawled. “Oh, and don’t forget all the Miss Waldgraves: Sleyven will be fallin’ over himself at the sight of Miss Waldgrave’s red nose and prunes and prisms, Miss Whatsername’s buck teeth, and t’other one’s damned bows.”

    “Percival, you are being deliberately provoking!”

    “Yes, I am. I hate damned al fresco anythings. –And Sleyven must be nominally still in mourning, it can be scarce nine months since the last man died.” He went out on this note.

    Mrs Patterson’s already firm jaw firmed still further. “Nigh on a year. And there will  certainly not be any dancing,” she said grimly. She rang the bell. “Send Miss Charlotte and Miss Rosalind to me at once, if you please,” she said to the footman.

    Charlotte, Miss Patterson, and her next sister, Miss Rosalind Patterson, duly presented themselves. They were aged twenty-eight and twenty-seven respectively and in spite of their several London Seasons neither had fixed the interest of a suitable gentleman. Which possibly accounted for Mrs Patterson’s wish to give an al fresco entertainment. Not to say for the relief in regard to Lord Sleyven‘s masculinity.

    “I thought, a jolly little dinner!” said Sir William happily.

    Lady Ventnor dropped the sweetmeat she had just picked up. Fortunately back into the box, not on the carpet. “For an earl?” she said faintly.

    “Why not? Fellow must eat his dinner at some stage in the day, y’know!”

    Lady Ventnor winced.

    “Dare say half the neighbourhood would be glad to be invited,” he said expansively.

    “I dare say they would, indeed! What makes you imagine Lord Sleyven would be glad to meet them? And whom, exactly, were you proposing, William?”

    “Er—well, the usual folk, y’know, my dear! They are always grateful to be invited to eat their mutton at your board, y’know,” he said on an anxious note.

    “Miss Humphreys, I dare say? The Waldgrave woman with those daughters of hers? I swear if Amanda Waldgrave puts on one more bow she will sink under the weight of them! And if she imagines that they make her look a day under five and twenty, she is very much out.”

    “Uh—thought she were the youngest?” he said foggily.

    Lady Ventnor sniffed slightly and ate a sweetmeat.

    “Um—well, the boys are comin’ down, y’know!”

    These were his nephews, and Lady Ventnor was already well aware that they were due. “Yes. And what young ladies do you wish me to introduce to them, William?” she said with a sigh. “Miss Waldgrave, perchance?”

    “No! Um—well, what about the little Burden girl? Pretty little chit.”

    “Very well, Polly Burden,” she said with a sigh. “That means Mrs Burden, of course—well, she is presentable, though that grey silk of hers is showing its age—and I suppose, Miss Burden as well.”

    “Quite a takin’ little thing,” he said vaguely.

    Lady Ventnor reddened. “Rubbish, William, last time she was here her manner towards your Cousin Figge was very odd—very odd indeed!”

    “Old Figge is very odd, too, me dear, wouldn’t let that worry me.”

    “Precisely. She was encouraging him,” she said grimly.

    “Oh. Uh—well, he won’t be here, y’know! Now, think of some other pretty faces!”

    “Miss Somerton, I suppose.”

    “There you are, then! Lively little gal, ain’t she? Just the thing!” he said, rubbing his hands.

    Lady Ventnor sighed.

    “Now, Patterson is a good fellow,” he said on a hopeful note. “Gets out with us quite regularly.”

    Lady Ventnor sighed again. “We scarcely know them. I dare say I have set foot in Mrs Patterson’s house twice in the last twelvemonth.’

    “Very well connected. They would do, y’know, for his Lordship.”

    “Mm. Very well, then, the Pattersons. That means the Miss Pattersons, as well. Where are we going to find sufficient gentlemen to balance this table, William?”

    “Uh—the boys.”

    “Two,” sighed Lady Ventnor.

    “I’ll get the Dean and his sons,” he decided.

    Lady Ventnor’s jaw dropped. “Wuh-well, most certainly, if Dean Golightly—”

    “And you can’t say he ain’t well connected!”

    “No. –William, it would be ideal! And both the sons!”

    “Ave, balance it up nicely, hey? Well, pair o’ sticks, dare say. Never mind, the Patterson gals can have ’em!”

    “Yes, but my love, I scarce know Lady Judith Golightly!”

    “I do. Always used to get out with us, in m’father’s day.”

    Her face lit up. “She must be Sleyven’s cousin: of course!”

    “There you are, then, ideal! Man’s own cousin!”

    “Y— Um, William,” she said in a hollow voice: “there has been no sort of breach between the two branches of the family, has there?”

    “No, no, m’dear, nothing like that! Now, you write ’em a nice note and I’ll ride over with it meself! –Ducks,” he add thoughtfully. “The Dean appreciates a nice fat duck.”

    “Yes, of course we could have duck—”

    The squire was famed in the district for his poultry “No, no, I’ll take him a couple!” He strolled off, whistling. Lady Ventnor looked after him limply. Her table seemed to be set.

    “You are not having a waltzing ball, and that is final!” said Mr Somerton irritably. He strode out.

    Mrs Somerton’s small mouth tightened. She rang the bell and asked for Cook to be sent up.

    “Boiled mutton tonight, please, Cook. Cancel my previous order.”

    “But madam, the master don’t like—”

    “Boiled mutton,” said Mrs Somerton grimly.

    “Yes, madam.” Cook bobbed and went out. In the kitchen she reported sapiently to Penny Pyke and William Watts: “Madam’s out to get ’er own way again. Dunno what it be this toime, but ’e’ll be on the boiled mutton until she gets it!”

    “Ooh! It’ll be the waltzing ball Miss Lacey was tellin’ me about!” squeaked Penny.

    “Dessay. That reminds me, Penny: nip up and lock the stillroom and bring us the key afore she tells us to.”

    Grinning, Penny nipped.

    Cook sighed. Still, he brung it all on hisself, acos if he weren’t such a grump, Mistress wouldn’t have to do it!

    “What are all these?” asked Lord Sleyven as his butler, his face carefully expressionless, proffered a salver of letters.

    Bates’s face remained expressionless. “I could not say for sure, my Lord, but I would venture to suggest they may be invitations.”

    Lord Sleyven concealed a wince. Or fancied he did: he was entirely transparent to the Maunsleigh butler. “Mm. Thank you, you may leave them with me. –It appears I am in need of a social secretary into the bargain,” he murmured.

    Possibly this remark did not require an answer but Bates replied anyway: “It would certainly appear so, my Lord.” And exited, majestically impassive.

    Alone in his dark, panelled, and as to its furnishings and appurtenances, quite hideously Rococo study, Lord Sleyven looked grimly at the sealed letters and permitted himself a grimace. Then he went through them steadily. Dinner with the Bishop of Winnsby and Nettle: that would mean a two-hour drive, at the very least: there and back. An al fresco breakfast at the Pattersons’: it would undoubtedly rain. An immense wax seal? He sighed, and slid his knife under it. The Mayor and Mayoress of Nettleford would be honoured by the attendance of the Most Honourable the Earl of Sleyven at a Municipal Dinner and Grand Ball to be given on the occasion of the opening of the Wynton Memorial Theatre— Hell, no getting out of that one! Mr and Mrs Somerton of Plumbways—oh, yes: rather a pleasant Jacobean house, about two miles on the far side of Lower Nettlefold village—offered, ye gods, a waltzing ball. At his age? The Earl swallowed another sigh. Lord and Lady Fitz-Brereton—

    The Earl paused. He was visited by a sudden vision of his mamma, when he was aged about—seventeen? Something like that, it was just before he went into the Army—crying her eyes out in her little house in Kensington because the Lady Fitz-Brereton of the day had—he could not remember: cut his sister Maggie dead at Almack’s or refused to let her son dance with his sister Maggie, or— Some such social tragedy, at any event. His hand clenched for a moment. Then he passed quietly on to the next envelope.

    The squire and his lady offered a dinner. Oh, well. Another wax seal: Dean Golightly and his second cousin, Judith. Dinner. No doubt an effort to heal the breach between the two branches of the family: Christian of them. Either that or Lady Judith had a quiverful of daughters whom she was hoping to marry off to his distant cousin Josiah Wynton’s boys, the eldest of whom was his heir.

    The last missive was very heavy cream with deckled gold edges. And a large wax seal. A Mr and Mrs Bottomley-Pugh of—Nettleford House? Lord Sleyven looked at the invitation in a puzzled way. He was acquainted with some Brinsley-Pughs. Though he did not know them well: they were not the sorts of persons to extend warm invitations to an obscure Colonel Wynton of an obscure regiment of the Indian Army. The which Jarvis Paul Cresswell Froissart Wynton had been, for the most of his adult life.

    Jarvis was an old Wynton family name: his mother had given it him in defiance of her husband’s horrible cousins. Likewise the “Froissart”, normally the appellation of the son and heir of the senior branch, the honorary title of the heir being Viscount Froissart, pronounced “Freshet.” The Honourable Charles Wynton had not objected: he had been a mild-mannered man with no interest whatsoever in his noble relatives. It had, of course, never seriously been envisaged that Jarvis would inherit: the third Earl of Sleyven, who had been Jarvis’s father’s first cousin, had had four sons. Three younger brothers, however, had died without male issue: one in childhood, one in the Army during the Americas campaigns, and the third at the Battle of the Nile. The fourth Earl, Jarvis’s second cousin, had had one son and four daughters. Viscount Froissart had gone into the Navy against his father’s express wishes, risen to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, and been killed at Trafalgar in ’05. His little son had outlived him by three years. There were no male heirs left on that side of the family: the title reverted to the line of the first Earl’s second son, Jarvis’s grandfather. Jarvis Wynton had been wryly glad that his mother had lived to see her unlikely hopes for her son more or less fulfilled, if not to see him actually inherit: she had died, alas, some six years previously.

    After murmuring to himself: “Bottomley-Pugh? Nettleford House?” the fifth Earl of Sleyven raised his eyebrows a little and rang for his butler.

    In answer to his master’s mild enquiry the already large and florid Bates swelled horrifically, taking on the approximate appearance of a bullfrog about to utter a mating call. “If I may be permitted the expression, my Lord, the man is a parvenu.”

    “Ah.”

    “And the name is Bottomley,” added the butler grimly.

    “Oh?”

    “The Pugh and the hyphen were produced from I know not where, my Lord, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say it was from Mrs Bottomley’s imagination.”

    He smiled very, very faintly. “I see.”

    “You need not accept that one, my Lord,” said the butler confidently.

    Lord Sleyven picked up the invitation. “When I was a mere Colonel Wynton I was not favoured with many invitations,” he said in a musing tone.

    Bates was too well trained to look as he if wanted to sink through the floor, but that was certainly his predominant emotion. He said nothing.

    “Must I shun poor Mr and Mrs Bottomley Hyphen Pugh because they are parvenus?” he said musingly.

    The butler took a deep breath. “My Lord, attentions in that direction will not be well received in the county, if I may say so.”

    Jarvis swallowed a sigh and replied evenly: “You may certainly say so, Bates, and I would take it as a personal favour if you were to refrain from qualifying any opinion you may care to express to me with the phrase.”

    “Certainly, my Lord.”

    “I shall refuse this if you think I owe it to my position to do so,” he added on a grim note, “but the Bottomley-Pughs will be first on the list for any appropriate entertainment at Maunsleigh. Something on the lines of that appalling dinner in the formal dining hall that my late cousin held for me, five years back,” he added wryly. “Would that be appropriate?”

    The butler met his eyes steadily. “Most certainly, my Lord, so long as such persons as the Mayor of Nettleford and so on are also invited.”

    “Good. Pray ask someone to start a list, then,” he said drily.

    The butler bowed slightly.

    “Er—Bates,” said the Earl as he was about to depart.

    “My Lord?”

    “Nettleford House?” he murmured, raising his eyebrows slightly.

    “A name chosen by Mrs Bottomley, I apprehend. It is that large new house about five miles on this side of Nettleford, my Lord.”

    “I do not know it.”

    “You would not, my Lord, it was not there five years since.”

    “In that case I shall give myself the pleasure of riding out that way. –Incognito, of course,” he added drily.

    Bates merely bowed, and withdrew silently.

    The Earl smiled slightly. He put the invitation from Nettleford House aside. Frowning, he put the one from Lord and Lad Fitz-Brereton with it. Then he frowned again, stretched out a long, hard hand, and crumpled the Fitz-Brereton invitation into a ball. “Poor Mamma,” he said under his breath. “There is a limit, dammit!”

    The crumpled invitation was found in the wastepaper basket that evening.

    “Mr Bates, did this ought to be thrown out?” asked the footman numbly.

    “If his Lordship threw it away, my lad, that is good enough for me, certainly.”

    “Yes, Mr Bates!” Frederick was about to throw it on the fire but the butler held out a majestic hand. Nervously Frederick put the crumpled invitation into it.

    Bates read it expressionlessly. Frederick watched him uneasily. “Ah,” said the butler. He handed it back to the footman. Frederick looked at him limply.

    “Fire, my boy,” he said genially.

    “Yes, Mr Bates!” Frederick shot over to the fire.

    The butler, though perhaps it was not strictly his function to do so, then adjusted the pens infinitesimally on his Lordship’s desk, and trod out of the study at a measured pace, humming under his breath.

    “Lumme,” said Frederick numbly to himself. “That went over a treat!”

    “Al fresco? At this time of year? The woman must be demented,” said Mrs Cartwright acidly.

    Mrs Burden put Mrs Patterson’s invitation back on Mrs Cartwright’s hideous green marble mantel with a sigh. “Mm.”

    “I do wish we were invited. I would love to see the grounds of Verne Lea,” sighed Polly on a wistful note.

    “In the rain. Yes,” agreed Mrs Cartwright, very acid indeed.

    Miss Burden and the majestic Mrs Cartwright looked at each other, and smiled a little.

    … “Three!” reported Lacey ecstatically. “Do but look!”

    Polly looked at the invitations enviously. “Three! We have only had two.”

    “Oh,” said Lacey, somewhat disconcerted.

    “‘An al fresco breakfast,’” read Polly enviously from Mrs Patterson’s invitation. “How delightful. –I suppose she has never heard of us,” she admitted gloomily.

    “Um—no,” murmured Lacey uneasily.

    “Verne Lea is that big white house off the road to Maunsleigh, is it not?” continued Polly wistfully. “Said to have wonderful strawberry gardens.”

    “Yes. Well, it is too early for strawberries. And I dare say it will rain,” she added, in the vague hope of comforting her less fortunate friend.

    Polly just sighed, and read the invitation over again. “I have never been to an al fresco anything.”

    … “Is it not exciting?” gasped Miss Humphreys.

    Miss Burden put Lady Ventnor’s invitation back on the mantel in Miss Humphreys’s shabby, dim little front parlour and smiled at her. “Very exciting. We are so looking forward to it. But—um—have you thought how we are all to get there, Miss Humphreys? It is quite a walk, to Nettlefold Hall. Though not an impossible one, I suppose.”

    “Oh, but dear Sir William is to send his carriage!” she squeaked

    “Is he?” said Midge limply. There had been no suggestion that he send it for them. And two miles in the mud in their party dresses, hems pinned up or no?

    Miss Humphreys began to tell Miss Burden excitedly about the new gown she was to have: for two elegant entertainments coming up at the once, you know—! And dear Powell had insisted.

    Midge listened politely, but with something of a sinking feeling. For even if Sir William extended his kind offer of the carriage to themselves—and there was no doubt he would, one would only need to drop a hint, though the necessity of doing so could not but be embarrassing—well, then, even if he did, that was but the one problem solved: there remained the question of how on earth they were to get to the Somertons’ waltzing ball, for Plumbways was two miles in the opposite direction. Not to say the question of what on earth they were to wear to meet the heir to Maunsleigh!

    Mrs Fendlesham had hesitated. But she was not entirely sure that the new Lord Sleyven would, as his predecessor had done, wish all matters to do with the obscurer members of the great household to be settled without his knowledge. So she went along to his study, and tapped.

    To her relief, he was not poring over papers but sitting by the fire, reading a book.

    “Good evening, Mrs Fendlesham,” he said politely, laying down the book and rising.

    “Good evening, my Lord. Please don’t get up,” said his housekeeper numbly. She could not remember when a male Wynton had last risen in her presence.

    The Earl ignored this. He gave her his cool smile—the smile that reminded Mrs Fendlesham, who had been in service at Maunsleigh all her life, quite horridly of the third Earl—and said: “Please, come by the fire.”

    He ushered her to a seat. Numbly Mrs Fendlesham sat.

    “What is it?” he said, sitting down opposite her.

    “My Lord, I would hesitate to bother you with such a matter, but—but the household has no mistress and—and—”

    “Oh,” he said calmly. “I see. One of the maidservants has got herself into trouble, is that it?”

    “Well, yes, my Lord, that is precisely it.”

    “By?” he asked calmly.

    Mrs Fendlesham blinked. “Er—it is Hemmings, the head groom, I’m afraid, my Lord, which is why I thought your Lordship might wish to— He is a married man, and—and the girl has no family but a widowed mother.”

    “I see. What sort of a girl is she?”

    “She has always been a very good girl—though of course, it is not always easy to say how a girl may behave when with a man,” she said on an uneasy note, “but in this case, I am very sure she did not give him undue encouragement.”

    After a moment he said with a frown: “Are you saying the man forced himself on her?”

    “No, my Lord. Not—not that, either.”

    The cold, closed face with the large Wynton nose expressed nothing. He stared into the fire. Eventually he said: “Do I have this right? You have determined—and I grant you the truth is very hard to get at in such cases—that the girl did not give the man undue encouragement, but that she did encourage him sufficiently for, let us say, the pair of them to allow themselves to get carried away.”

    “Yes, that’s it, exactly!” Mrs Fendlesham agreed, sagging in relief.

    “Mm. Have you spoken to the vicar’s wife? Or—or the squire’s lady?” he said dubiously.

    “Well, no, my Lord. It would be Mrs Vicar, normally, only in this particular instance the girl’s mother is—is very out of favour with Mrs Waldgrave.”

    “Oh?”

    Mrs Fendlesham went very red. “Mrs Waldgrave discovered that the mother had—I suppose one would have to say, sold her favours, my Lord, to the Waldgraves’ eldest son.” She swallowed. “He is still at school, my Lord.”

    “Indeed? An enterprising young gentleman,” he said drily. “Did the mother do so from choice or necessity?”

    Mrs Fendlesham met his eye. “I think there was an element of both. The boy is a very pretty lad, but on the other hand, Mrs Waldgrave had lately sacked Betty Watts—that is her name—from her position as washerwoman, because of a—a burnt nightgown.”

    “Necessity and spite, then.”

    Mrs Fendlesham swallowed. “Well, yes. But good gracious, if I sacked every silly maid who had left an iron—” She broke off. “I thought the action rather unjust, my Lord,” she said stiffly.

    Lord Sleyven smiled at her suddenly. The housekeeper blinked: it was not at all the cold, don’t-touch-me Wynton smile he had used before. And good Heavens, he had dimples in his cheeks!

    “You did very right to come to me. Hemmings must be reprimanded. You may leave that side of it entirely in my hands. As for the girl...” He paused. “I think I must see her myself—in your presence, of course, ma’am. But if it be as you say, then...” He grimaced slightly. “I am not personally acquaint with the Marquis of Rockingham, but I believe he has founded some boys’ homes; however, I have not heard of a similar home for girls.

    “My Lord, the Vicar might find her a place in the workhouse if the request was known to come from you.”

    According to Shelby’s report the workhouse would not be a pleasant option, and in fact, though the facility was not his responsibility, Jarvis had made a note to see if something could be done to improve it. “I am sure. But I will write the Marquis—I am very sure he has a secretary who deals with such matters,” he murmured half to himself—“and if he cannot help me, then he will be able to put me onto the right person. You may bring the girl to me whenever you wish. –What is her name?”

    “Mary, my Lord. Mary Watts.”

    Mary Watts was duly seen. And duly wept all over his Lordship’s study. Jarvis Paul Cresswell Froissart Wynton had dealt with all imaginable varieties of girl, young and not-so-young, pretty and not-so-pretty, who had got themselves into trouble with his officers or men: this girl did not make the slightest attempt to give him the eye or indicate that she thought him a pretty fine figure of a man. So he was pretty sure she was genuine. He did not reveal to Mrs Fendlesham that even had she not been, he was not prepared to condemn her for a human failing which neither her background nor her education had ever encouraged her to resist.

    Hemmings was another matter. A man of forty-odd, with a wife and family?

    The Earl stood before his study fire and looked him up and down expressionlessly.

    Finally the suspense was too much and Hemmings burst out: “My Lord, I never done nothing like it before! I dunno what come over me!”

    There was a pause. Hemmings looked at him desperately.

    “Before I say anything,” said his Lordship calmly: “I want to hear your side of it.”

    What he wanted to hear was how self-exculpatory the man got. Because in his experience, the more self-exculpatory they got, the more thoroughly deserving of blame they were. Apart from the few, very cunning ones, who were merely quietly and humbly remorseful.

    Hemmings was about average.

    “Hm. I gather from the prevalence of the Wynton nose in these parts,” said his Lordship briskly—Hemmings goggled at his—“that it has been the practice of those living at Maunsleigh to put it about pretty freely.” He paused.

    “Ye— Um—” Hemmings’s jaw had dropped. “I suppose it has, my Lord,” he said, turning purple.

    “This practice will cease,” said his Lordship grimly.

    “Yes, my Lord!” he gasped.

    “Women, of whatever degree, and however undeserving of respect, are not prey, Hemmings. Do you understand?”

    “Yes, my Lord. –My Lord, on me honour, it weren’t loike that!” he gasped.

    “How long have you been married?” said his Lordship.

    “Twenty-eight year come Michaelmas.” he revealed gloomily.

    Lord Sleyven barely repressed a wince. “And you married at what age?”

    “I were turned seventeen, my Lord.”

    “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “There is some slight excuse for you, then.”

    Hemmings, perhaps not unnaturally, had thought he was going to say there was no excuse for him, then. He stared at him.

    “There is nothing that can be done to mend the situation. However, a sum will be stopped out of your wages from now until the infant is grown, for its support.”

    Hemmings’s jaw sagged.

    “You are at liberty to repeat this to any other of the Maunsleigh servants you please.”

    “Ye— But my Lord, I got twelve of me own!” he gasped.

    “And you are equally responsible for this one. Mary will be sent away. I think for your wife’s sake you had best not see her or the child. That is all.”

    “Thank you, my Lord,” he said numbly, bowing and going over to the door.

    “Oh—Hemmings,” said his Lordship.

    “Yes, my Lord?”

    “You are a man of mature years, not an irresponsible boy. If this happens again you will lose your position. Is that clear?”

    “Yes, my Lord!” he gasped, turning purple again.

    “Good. You may go.”

    “I nevair ’eard of such a thing!” gasped M. Fermour.

    The Maunsleigh chef had certainly done his training under a Frenchman; but he hailed, in fact, from Tunbridge Wells. Mr Bates eyed him blandly.

    “Docking his wages for the next— Why, it could be the next fifteen years, Mr Bates!”

    “True.”

    “Nevair tell us you approve!” gasped the chef.

    The butler removed the bottle of port just as M. Fermour’s hand was reaching for it. “Very well, I shan’t,” he said blandly.

    “There is but one thing for it.” said Mrs Burden with huge determination. “We shall have to sell the pig.”

    Miss Burden swallowed. “Dearest, you mean sell Ronald.”

    “I cannot face telling them,” admitted Lettice.

    Midge Burden sighed. “I’ll do it.”

    … “It is decided,” she repeated grimly. “We need the money that Ronald will fetch.”

    The ten-year-old Timmy burst into tears.

    “Nobody NEEDS a stupid old dress!” shouted George.

    “George, that will do. Twelve years of age is too old to behave like that,” said his aunt grimly.

    “Dress is frivolous, Mr Waldgrave said so in church!” cried William angrily.

    William was fourteen and thus possibly of an age to indulge in rational argument, rather than irrational. His aunt pointed this out to him.

    William turned puce and shouted: “It is NOT FAIR!”

    “That pig represents money. I’d kill him with my own hands if it would get your mother something of what she has given up in the last ten years for you ungrateful brats,” said Midge. She turned on her heel and stalked out.

    Mr Lumley of Nettlebend Farm having agreed cheerfully to send Ronald to market in the charge of his Billy, a report was duly made to Lettice. Timmy, apparently over his distress, volunteered to accompany Billy Lumley. This was conceded to, on condition he could get himself up at four in the morning.

    “One cannot imagine,” said Midge dreamily, “the scene when the creature falls under the hammer.”

    Mrs Burden looked at her in horror.

    “Er—no, my love, the auctioneer’s hammer!” said Miss Burden with a laugh.

    “Oh! Er—what do you mean, Midge?”

    “Will Timmy sob his heart out as Ronald is carted off to his fate, or will he, on the contrary, shake hands with Billy Lumley while they congratulate themselves on a deal well done?”

    Mrs Burden bit her lip.

    “He is ten: it could go either way,” she mused.

    “Stop it, Midge,” said Lettice faintly.

    Miss Burden smiled a little, but desisted.

    “What the—?” said Lord Sleyven. coming over the brow of a slight rise and reining in the knock-kneed creature from his late cousin’s stables.

    A donkey-cart stood abandoned in the road and a furious figure was chasing three smaller figures—no, make that three boys and a—a dog?—through the green standing crop of some unfortunate’s wheat field. Some unfortunate tenant of his own, no doubt.

    Lord Sleyven urged his mount on down the slope. The donkey brayed, the horse jibbed, and his Lordship, nearly unseated, swore loudly.

    “Grab ’im!” shouted the yokel in pursuit of— Pig, not dog. Burra shikar! His Lordship kicked his mount into action. A breathless pursuit ensued. The pig was now squealing shrilly and the donkey continued to bray. The horse obeyed its rider’s commands, but not fast and not willingly. Not reliable under fire, very evidently.

    “HAH!” shouted his Lordship as the pig swerved away from him just when he thought it cornered. He clapped his heels into his mount’s flank.

    “’Ead ’im orf!” shouted the yokel.

    “I am trying to,” said his Lordship through his teeth. “But this bone-shaker is no polo pony! –Will you get UP!”

    The horse galloped in pursuit of the pig. The yokel, panting loudly, attempted an encircling movement. The Earl had a horrid moment in which he foresaw that his fate would be to hurl himself from his mount and onto the pig.

    “Mut karo!” he cried, forgetting what country he was in, as the yokel drove the pig straight at him. “Jao!” he gasped, clapping his heels into the nag’s flanks again.

    The horse charged the pig: the pig charged the horse—

    The pig squealed and swerved, the yokel flung himself triumphantly upon it, and it was all over bar the squealing.

    Lord Sleyven reined in, grinning. “Burra shikar, hey?” he panted. “Want me to—hey?” He fingered the large knife he wore strapped, to the Maunsleigh servants’ dismay, to his right thigh.

    “No, sir. I gotta sell ’un for Miss Burden!” gasped the yokel, lying on the pig, panting.

    “Pity,” said his Lordship, grinning. His shoulders shook slightly.

    “Thanks, Mister,” said the yokel, recovering himself somewhat.

    “Not at all. How did it get loose, or should I not ask?”

    “It were all a trick, sir!” he said resentfully. “It were them Burden boys! That Timmy, he come along with me to market, and I thought it were acos ’e wanted to see Ronald orf!”

    “Ronald?” said his Lordship faintly.

    “The pig, sir! The varmints done named ’im Ronald, and now that their ma and aunty says ’e ’as to go, they won’t give ’im up. That Timmy, he unties ’im, and them other two, they bust out onto the road a-wavin’ at my Jenny and throwin’ a scare into ’er, poor lass, and orf goes Ronald loike the wind afore I can ’ardly blink!”

    “Never mind, it was burra— Great sport,” said Jarvis Wynton, grinning very much. “And you have him back, no harm done.”

    “Ar. Thanks to you, sir.”

    “Er—shall I hold the donkey’s head, while you load Ronald up again?”

    The yokel acceding to this offer with heartfelt thanks, the Earl looped the reins of his sluggish mount over one arm and stood at the little donkey’s head, stroking her nose.

    “If I was you I would advise those boys’ father that a good beating is in order,” he said as the yokel clambered up and took the reins.

    “Ar, but that be it, sir, they don’t got no father! Runnin’ woild, they be! Their ma, she lets ’em get away with murder. And their aunty, she does ’er best, but you knows what lads is.”

    “Indeed.” The Earl reflected with a certain resignation that he had best speak to the vicar on the subject. “They are Lower Nettlefold boys, are they?” he added without hope.

    “Ar. That they be, sir.”

    Quite. “Burden, did you say?”

    “Ar, that be roight, sir.”

    “Mm. Well, good luck with Ronald!” said his Lordship with a laugh, waving him off. He rode on slowly, smiling a little. It had been burra shikar. Though he supposed he should speak to the vicar—damn.

    It had been a gloriously fine morning for the Pattersons’ al fresco breakfast; but not all of those who had not been privileged to attend were left with the feeling that there was great matter for rejoicing in that. Though it was not that there were not enough reports.

    “For myself, I incline to the opinion that Mrs Patterson is a most prodigious amiable lady; most prodigious amiable, dear Miss Burden!” sighed Miss Amanda Waldgrave.

    “Indeed?” said Midge politely, passing the sandwiches. Not in the hope that they would stifle Amanda’s long-winded rhapsodies, however.

    “And her dress could scarcely fail to please!” sighed Amanda. She stemmed the flow temporarily with a watercress sandwich. Miss Burden watched it disappear with mixed feelings: that was the last of the cress. And it was far too early in the season yet for cucumbers. They could only hope that in the interval between cress and cucumber they were to receive no more afternoon callers.

    “Do tell us, Miss Amanda,” smiled Mrs Burden.

    “Apricot,” said Miss Portia before her sister could swallow.

    “Apricot?” said Mrs Burden, rather taken aback. “I had gained the impression that she was an older lady?”

    “Certainly. I would say she is Mamma’s age,” said Miss Waldgrave instantly.

    Limply Mrs Burden passed her the sponge cake. “Do try some of this. Miss Waldgrave; it is a receet in my husband’s family which they call Surprise Cake.’

    “The Surprise is merely that the outside is covered with chocolate but the inside is plain sponge,” said Midge kindly as Miss Waldgrave looked warily at the cake.

    “Oh, I see! A quaint notion; I shall tell Mamma. –Well, I must admit, dear Mrs Burden, that I did not myself consider the shade wholly suitable.”

    “Oh, pooh, Eugenia!” cried Portia crossly. “It was delightful!”

    “In itself, yes,” said Miss Waldgrave judiciously.

    “For myself, I would not describe the style as precisely girlish,” said Miss Amanda, hurriedly swallowing the remains of her sandwich. “In fact, I would venture to opine that upon Mrs Patterson the effect was positively queenly.”

    “Indeed?” returned Mrs Burden, somewhat limply. She avoided Midge’s eye.

    “She is a tall woman, with presence,” allowed Miss Waldgrave.

    “And she had a very pretty chip hat!” beamed Miss Portia, the teeth well in evidence.

    “Bergère,” said Miss Waldgrave, without approval.

    “Very suitable for an al fresco entertainment,” said Midge on a brisk note of finality.

    Unfortunately her niece did not grasp the point: she pursued: “And what stuff was the apricot dress of, Amanda?”

    “I would incline to the opinion that it was a poplin, Polly, dear. A very fine poplin.”

    “Quite a plain style,” admitted Miss Waldgrave.

    “Oh, indeed,” she agreed. “Would you call it smart, Eugenia? For myself, I incline to the opinion that it was a smart style.”

    “It had a satin sash of the most unusual soft golden-brown, and the ribbons on the hat matched,” said Miss Portia, taking a slice of cake.

    “That does sound very smart indeed,” smiled Mrs Burden. Portia nodded solemnly round the cake. Mrs Burden freshened Miss Waldgrave’s cup. “And do tell us, Miss Waldgrave, did you meet Lord Sleyven?”

    “I was presented to him, certainly.”

    There was a blank silence.

    “But what was he like, Miss Waldgrave?” urged Polly.

    “Most amiable,” she said firmly.

    There was another blank silence.

    “One would hope he would be, at an al fresco breakfast given expressly for his entertainment,” said Midge smoothly, determinedly avoiding her sister-in-law’s glance, “but can you enlighten us as to his physical appearance, perhaps?”

    Miss Waldgrave sipped tea. “He presented a most gentlemanlike appearance, I thought.”

    “He is quite old, of course,” said Miss Portia sadly. “His neckcloth was not very high. But then, I suppose a gentleman of advanced years does not wish to be accused of dandyism.”

    Midge went on avoiding her sister-in-law’s eye. She had a feeling that from an expression of reproof it might have changed to one of “I told you so.”

    When at long last the visitors gathered up their wraps and departed, the Burdens just sat limply in their front parlour and looked at one another.

    “Amiable,” groaned Mrs Burden at last.

    “Most gentlemanlike!” retorted Miss Burden swiftly.

    “Portia did say he was quite old!” said Polly defiantly.

    Midge replied flatly: “‘His neckcloth was not very high.’”

    Polly gulped.

    “I suppose we shall just have to wait and see,” concluded Mrs Burden limply.

    “Or at the least, find some person who combines attendance at the Pattersons’ breakfast with a power of description bettering that of a five-year-old and a mind capable of rising above apricot poplin!” retorted Midge with feeling.

    Mrs Burden looked at her wryly.

    “No, you are right: there is not an one!” she said with a laugh.

    “I had thought of pink,” said Polly sadly.

    Her mother repressed a wince. Not with those yellow curls. “I’m sorry, my dear, but for a very young girl, even at a ball, it must be white muslin, with your white silk underdress. And blue ribbons, I think, my darling, they bring out the lovely colour of your eyes.”

    Polly sighed. “Very well, Mamma. But I am sure the Miss Pattersons will be in silk!”

    “They are of the age to support it,” said Miss Burden solemnly.

    Mrs Burden bit her lip. “Now, Midgey, dearest—”

    “No.”

    “Midge, you absolutely must have a new gown!”

    “I am not a belle. I do not need a new gown,” said Midge firmly.

    “Aunty Midge, you cannot go on wearing that dreadful brown silk forever!” cried Polly.

    “Pooh, I am of the age to support it,” said Midge mildly. “And a new gown would be the most shocking waste of money.”

    “No, it wouldn’t, Aunty Midge, it would be—it would be letting down the family not to!” she cried in anguish.

    Midge paused. “Well—maybe. But only after we have chosen something delicious and irresistible for your mother.”

    “Nonsense, my dear. A nice grey silk—”

    “Mamma, you will absolutely not replace your old grey silk with another grey silk!” cried Polly in horror.

    “A black silk is always service—”

    “NO!” they both cried.

    “—serviceable,” ended Mrs Burden sadly.

    “Lilac,” decided Polly. “A very pale, silvery lilac!”

    “Yes,” agreed Midge. “Don’t argue, Letty: it is decided. You are to have lilac silk, Polly is to have white muslin with blue ribbons, and—um—if there’s anything left over I suppose we can throw it away on something for me. Something that I can get some wear out of.”

    “A deep violet, with that hair...” Lettice gave a deep sigh. “Silk taffety. Your late Aunt Mary had just such a gown when I first knew the family.”

    “Oh, yes?” said Midge indifferently. “But I don’t much care for purple.”

    “Not purple! Violet!” they both cried.

    Midge replied amiably: “Very well, violet.” Quite, quite sure that the silk warehouse in Nettleford which her sister-in-law intended patronising would not have any such thing.

    And so, indeed, it proved. And in fact Ronald, once Polly’s muslin and ribands had been safely purchased, ran only to a bare length of the pale silvery lilac for Lettice. It would have to be a very simple style.

    “There is a little money left,” reported Mrs Burden, peering into her purse on the pavement, “but I am afraid it will not be enough for a new parasol to replace yours, Midgey.”

    Midge gripped her patched parasol fiercely, though no-one was proposing actually wrenching it off her at this moment. “No matter, I do not need one: this is perfectly good, still. It is so cunning, the way Polly stitched on the patches of the other material to make a pattern. It has a whole new parasol’s worth of life left in it yet!”

    Polly smiled but said: “It is terribly faded, Aunty Midge.”

    “If you must throw money away, Letty,” said Midge with a sigh, “could you not throw it away in the direction of the ordinary at the Wynton Arms? I am positively famished.”

    Mrs Burden hesitated. “Oh, why not! Yes, let it be the ordinary!”

    The ladies duly repaired to this most respectable of the Nettleford hostelries. As it was not market day, the inn was not very full and the waiter, apparently very pleased to have three ladies to serve, bustled about finding them a nice table by the window.

    They had finished the roast mutton and potatoes and, having valiantly tackled the treacle tart, were toying with the cheese, when Midge, who was seated facing the street, suddenly went very pale.

    “Dearest, what is it? A tooth?” gasped Mrs Burden.

    “No,” said Midge faintly. “The most ridiculous—” She swallowed. Her colour came back in a rush. “It was just a—a gentleman’s back view,” she said shakily.

    “Ooh: the Earl?” cried Polly.

    “No. I would not know him from Adam,” said Midge with a sigh. “No-one, Polly.”

    Polly began to insist, but caught her mother’s eye, and fell silent.

    After a moment Mrs Burden said: “Mayhap he lives in Nettleford, Midge.”

    “Mm. –Oh, how silly, do not let us discuss it!” Briskly she turned the subject. She was not unaware, however, as she chatted cheerfully, that from time to time her sister-in-law gave her an anxious look.

    Midge swung down a country lane at a good pace, her patchwork parasol, in her usual style when completely alone and untrammelled, slung over her shoulder in a carefree manner.

    It was a lovely morning: a pale forget-me-not sky with a little high cloud and a brisk breeze. Miss Burden had taken Mrs Fred Watts’s advice, and had found a lot of mushrooms up in Seven Acre Field. Strictly speaking they were probably the Earl of Sleyven’s mushrooms, but who cared? Midge swung along, smiling. She rounded a corner.

    The breeze freshened, grabbed her parasol, and whisked it away into a tree.

    “Help!” she gasped.

    As usual at such moments, no help presented itself.

    Miss Burden looked up at the tree with a sinking feeling. Certainly it was leaning over a stone wall, the which could probably be climbed. But as it was part of the stone wall which bordered both the grounds of Maunsleigh proper and of Home Farm—to which Seven Acre Field belonged—it was quite a high wall. And Miss Burden, it might be remembered, was short enough and had sufficient dislike of heights to have experienced a wish to be tall enough not to have to mount those last few rungs to reach Timmy’s ball.

    She swallowed hard. After the fuss she’d made about keeping her old parasol, it would be too silly to go home without it. And too silly, in any case, to return home like a silly Miss!

    She took a deep breath, laid her basket of mushrooms at the foot of the wall, and began carefully to climb.

    Half an hour later she was still up there. It was partly that her foot was wedged, and every time she pulled at it she felt the stones in the wall wobble horridly—not under the one, but under both feet; and partly that every time she glanced down she near to died of fear. What an imbecile! Oh, if only someone would come!

    Someone did come.

    Hooves clattered in the road. Then a voice said with a laugh in it: “I see! That thing in the tree’s a parasol!”

    “Stuck,” said Midge in an anguished voice with her eyes shut.

    “Oh, but how unromantic! Should it not be, from that elevation, ‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore are thou, Romeo?’”

    Miss Burden turned her head in astonished indignation and glared at him.

    The man on the horse grinned and removed his hat. He was not young: more than old enough to know better than to quote Shakespeare at a person stuck on a wall clinging to a tree for dear life. In fact he was bald. Well, what hair he had was grey and worn shaven very short. In spite of this, one could not fail to be struck by his looks. Though Miss Burden did not know that she would have called him handsome. It was a hard, lean face, with a strong nose, a wide mouth, a winged jaw and high cheekbones. He was not in the least like the unlamented Captain Swann, but— Miss Burden swallowed convulsively.

    “It’s all right, lass. I’ll get you down,” he said, very mildly.

    Some dignified reproof, as to both this last mode of address and the previous impertinent Shakespearean reference, was clearly in order.

    “My foot’s stuck,” said Miss Burden in a strangled voice.

    “Ah.” He rode up very close. “The higher foot?”

    Midge nodded, making an inarticulate noise.

    He stood up in the stirrups—Miss Burden gaped in horror: standing up on a horse?—and investigated her right foot. “Hold very tight,” he said.

    “I am!” she said through gritted teeth.

    The man pulled gently at her foot.

    “I’m going to fall!” wailed Miss Burden, very high.

    “So it is vertigo as well as a stuck foot,” he said: not sympathetically, which might just have been acceptable, but with considerable amusement, and merely to himself. “You are not going to fall,” he added calmly. “This foot is not wedged tightly: wait.”

    Midge gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and clung to the branch for dear life. She felt his hand at her foot again: the loose rock shifted and she gasped.

    “You’re freed,” he said in a dispassionate tone.

    She swallowed loudly.

    “You know, the simplest thing would be for you to sit on my shoulders,” he said thoughtfully.

    Miss Burden did not reply.

    “We may try it, as a last resort!” he added with that laugh still there.

    There was a moment’s pause: then a warm, solid form came up alongside Midge’s on the wall, far too close. Without any scrabbling or panting which shorter and more female persons had recourse to at such moments.

    “I’ve got you, lass,” he said mildly, putting an arm very tight round her waist. “Let go of that branch.”

    Miss Burden did not release the branch.

    “You will not be hurt. Let GO!”

    Miss Burden did not release the branch.

    “Listen to me, you silly lass. You cannot possibly fall: I have you fast. At the moment you are scarce five foot off the ground. You can make it down in three steps.”

    Miss Burden said nothing. She did not release the branch.

    He sighed, and shifted position. Miss Burden would not have thought it possible within Sir Isaac Newton’s laws for another material being to get any closer to her than he was already, but the man managed it. She could not have said precisely what he did, but she was aware that his entire body was covering hers, pressing her to the wall. Her bonnet was knocked over her eyes but as they were shut anyway, this hardly signified. Before she could utter more than a muffled sound he released her waist, closed his hand on her arm, and wrenched her hand off the branch. Immediately his arm pinioned hers against her side, and encircled her waist again.

    “Good,” he said calmly. “I am now going to lift you down. If you resist, you risk causing us both to fall: do you understand?”

    “Mm,” she said faintly.

    Forthwith he pulled her off the wall.

    It was very quick: at one moment she was stuck five feet up there, at the next— She was aware of a few heart-stopping instants of panic as her feet met nothing: then they were on the ground.

    Miss Burden had just the time to realise that strictly speaking, he was on the ground and she was being held several inches off the ground by a very hard arm; then her feet touched terra firma.

    “All right?” he said. Not even panting.

    “Yes. Thank you,” replied Miss Burden faintly, becoming aware, as she opened her eyes, that her straw bonnet was crushed over her face. She pushed it back.

    “Well!” he said with a laugh as the bonnet’s strings gave way, the bonnet fell off, and a great flood of deep auburn hair rippled down around the rescued maiden’s shoulders.

    He took her gently by the upper-arms and turned her to face him. “That is almost sufficient reward in itself,” he said, smiling.

    Miss Burden made a distracted movement, raising her hands to her head.

    The man bent and put his lips to hers.

    The long, hard-looking mouth was soft and warm. Miss Burden’s heart did something very odd in her breast. Then she wrenched herself free with an indignant gasp.

    “Don’t be frightened, lass,” he said, very dry. “I’ve no intention of exercising—er—droit de seigneur. –You’re quite safe from me,” he elaborated. “But I think I deserved one kiss!”

    Miss Burden’s bosom swelled indignantly.

    “If you are quite recovered,” he said with an ironic look. “I’ll be on my way.”

    Miss Burden took a very deep breath, remembered in time that—whatever her ungentlemanly rescuer might have assumed to the contrary—she was a lady; and said through her teeth: “Quite.”

    He gave a rueful smile, the tiniest of shrugs, and picked up the hat he had lain on the grass. Then he turned away to mount his horse.

    Ali the colour drained from Midge’s cheeks: that very straight back and the firm set of the shoulders— It was quite undoubtedly the gentleman seen crossing a street in Nettleford all of five years ago, and glimpsed again only three days since.

    “Are you all right, lass?” he said with a searching look from his horse’s back.

    “Yes. Go away,” said Midge faintly.

    The long mouth twitched. “I can take you up before me, if you like.”

    “No!” she snapped.

    Grinning, he touched a finger to the brim of his hat, wheeled the horse, and galloped away.

    Miss Burden sagged against the wall.

    “Dearest, is anything wrong?” asked Mrs Burden, as she trudged in quite some time later and set her basket down. “You look disturbed.”

    “No,” said Midge tightly. “I—I lost my parasol, that’s all.”

    “Lost it?”

    “It blew away and—and an impertinent man came along while I was attempting to rescue it. It was nothing.”

    “An impertinent man? Who was he? Not one of the local farm labourers, surely?”

    “No. He was what might loosely be characterized as a gentleman,” said Midge through her teeth.

    Mrs Burden had now had time to take in the very crushed state of the bonnet. True, it had not been in good order to start with, being Midge’s oldest bonnet and the one she customarily wore on expeditions after mushrooms, blackberries, rosehips and the like, but—

    “Midgey, are you sure you are all right? If this man approached you in an unpleasant way, then we should inform someone. Sir William, perhaps; after all, he is a magistrate.”

    “It was nothing like that, Letty, in fact it was not worth mentioning. Please could you give the mushrooms to Cook? I had best change out of this old gown.”

    Mrs Burden watched uncertainly as Midge went out, looking very grim. An impertinent man who was apparently a gentleman? Who earth could it have been? They knew all the gentlemen in these parts Unless—well, mayhap it had been a visitor at Verne Lea, come down for the Pattersons’ al fresco breakfast, and rid out to see something of the countryside.

    She attempted to question her sister-in-law further, later in the day, but Midge, apparently herself again, only said with shrug: “He took me for a country lass and spoke rather freely, that is all. I suppose it serves me out for walking along a public highway in that faded old print gown and my old bonnet.”

    “I took the liberty,” said Colonel Langford, grinning all over his lean face. “Thought your Lordship would not mind.”

    The Earl jumped up with his hand held out. “My God, it’s good to see you, Charles!”

    “How are you, Jarvis, you old fraud?” replied Colonel Langford, laughing.

    He grimaced slightly. “Oh—bearing up. –Come over to the fire, Charles.”

    Colonel Langford came over to the fire, rubbing his hands. “I had forgot how damned cold England is, in April!”

    “The Himalayas in winter are not cold, of course,” he said ironically.

    “Never mind that: how are you managing, as burra-sahib?”

    “I said.” He met his old friend’s eye. “Er—well, my agent is a sound enough fellow.”

    Colonel Langford sank into a chair, stretching out his boots to the blaze. “I see: surrounded by apkee-wastees.”

    Lord Sleyven rang the bell, and sat down opposite him, biting his lip slightly. “Something very like that. Apkee-wastees and sakht burra mems. There is a Mrs Cartwright, in particular, to whom I must not neglect to introduce you.”

    Colonel Langford shook all over.

    “Which reminds me,” Jarvis added: “you may come with me to a damned waltzing ball at—not the squire’s, that is to be a dinner. Forget. But you may definitely come.”

    “I’d love to!” he said, laughing. “Lots of pretty girls hereabouts, are there?”

    “No. Well, one or two young enough to be our granddaughters, certainly. And the rest as I said: tough as a dak-bungalow chicken.”

    “But I have come home to England in search of pretty girls! This is grossly letting me down, Jarvis!”

    The Earl looked at him drily and merely said: “How is the shoulder, anyway?”

    “It’ll do.”

    “Raise your arm,” he drawled.

    The Colonel reddened. “You know I cannot, so drop it, Jarvis.”

    Apparently unmoved, his old friend replied: “I trust you can raise it sufficiently to hold a lady’s waist in the waltz.”

    “A sakht burra mem’s waist, to hear you talk! Yes, I can. But tell me about the zemindaree, dear boy! Is it in good heart?”

    “Good enough. As I said, the agent is a sound fellow. But my late cousin’s practice seems to have been to screw every groat out of the tenant farmers without regard to the fact that this generally results in the farmers’ screwing every last groat out of the land. –Shockingly overgrazed. And the arable lands are as ba—” He broke off as a footman came in. “Colonel Langford will be staying for a while. See that his bags are taken up, please. And bring in—” He glanced at Charles’s drawn face. “A bowl of  punch, if you please.”

    “Punch, my Lord. Yes, my Lord.”

    “And dinner in—half an hour suit you, Charles?”—The Colonel smiled and nodded.—“Dinner in half an hour, please.”

    “Yes, my Lord.” The footman bowed impassively and went out. Wondering what minion he could possibly depute to inform M. Fermour, a man of excitable temperament at the best of times, that dinner was to be put forward an hour.

    “It’ll be sudden death, judging by the boiled-cod look on that footman’s face,” noted the Colonel, grinning.

    “Mm? Oh!” he said with a laugh. “Talking of dak-bungalow chickens, yes! Er—I would not mind if it were: the chef serves up elaborate sauces and innumerable damn’ side-dishes.”

    “Jarvis,” said his friend with a twinkle in his eyes, “you are the burra-sahib in these parts: tell ’em if you don’t like what they serve up to you!”

    He sighed. “I am working up to it. One cannot change everything at once: one’s people resent it.”

    “What else are you plannin’ to change?” asked the Colonel, grinning.

    “The arable land is yielding far less than it ought: I may introduce the system of crop rotation they are using with success in Norfolk. Possibly if the others see it working at Home Farm they will be encouraged to follow suit. As to the over-stocking...” He frowned. “Fortunately most of the leases are not long-term. I shall renew them at a lower rate providing that they reduce the number of cattle and sheep they run.”

    “Won’t they see their profit going down the drain”

    “Not if the rent is lower. –Don’t worry, the leases will spell the conditions out.”

    “I foresee there will be some vacant farms hereabouts before long! That is, if you manage successfully to count every beast on every man’s land.”

    “That will not be impossible,” said the Earl levelly.

    Charles Langford looked at his grim mouth and felt a certain sympathy for the tenants of the Wynton estate. “Mm. Well, what else shall you change?”

    “The horseflesh!” he said with a sudden laugh.

    “My God, Jarvis, you did not leave your horses in India?”

    “Well, old Porky Patterson—oh, I have discovered he is relative of a man who lives hereabouts, by the way—old Porky offered me a damn’ good price for the hacks. Well, it was that or expose the poor brutes to the rigours of a long sea voyage.” He shrugged a little.

    “You never let Grey Shadow go to Porky Patterson?” gasped his friend.

    “No,” he said heavily. “I let him go to young Fiennes.”

    There was a short silence.

    “Er—I know I’m speakin’ out of order here, dear man,” said the Colonel cautiously.

    “Don’t be an idiot.”

    Smiling a little, Charles Langford continued: “But there is nothing absolutely forcing you to live in this great mausoleum—or to stay in England. Well, once you are sure the place is being run properly. –No. Sorry I spoke,” he said with a sigh as Jarvis just looked at him.

    After a moment he said stiffly: “In any case, I have sold out: there is nothing for me to do, in India.”

    “True,” agreed the Colonel on a wry note.

    “Why not find yourself a pleasant country house and—well, settle down with one of those pretty English girls, Charles?”

    “Mm. It is not a bad scheme, in principle. –Find the girl first,” he muttered.

    Lord Sleyven looked at him with a certain sympathy: he himself was a bachelor, but Charles Langford was a widower. His wife had died some nine years back: Charles was now forty-seven, a few years Jarvis’s junior. The wife had been an English belle: very pretty, very silly, very spoilt, and quite, quite unsuited to the life of a serving officer’s wife—particularly in India, where in the hotter weather it had become the custom for those wives who stayed out there with their husbands, and these were in the minority, to be dispatched to hill stations while their husbands all too frequently remained on duty in the sweltering plains. Madeleine Langford had been one of those wives who considered that their “grass-widow” status entitled them to play delightful games with any young officers on furlough who might present themselves. She had had four little girls in rapid succession. only the first of whom had been Charles’s. When all four were carried off in a cholera epidemic, Madeleine, though she had never seemed to any of their acquaintance to be even an interested, let alone a doating mother, had declared that enough was enough, and had gone back to England. On the boat she had met a gentleman who had persuaded her that a life on the fringes of society with himself would be preferable to being sequestered in a small village near Bristol with Charles’s elderly mother. She had had nearly three years with him, and had then caught the eye of a very much wealthier gentleman, and gone off with him. Her enraged lover had come after them with a pistol. There were no eye-witnesses, but certainly all three of them had ended up dead. True, Madeleine had been dead to Charles Langford for some time, but it had been a nasty shock for him, nonetheless.

    He had not so far cared to remarry, though there had been sisters, cousins, and even daughters a-plenty of the married ladies who knew him in India who would have been very happy to oblige. Charles was not precisely handsome, but he was not bad-looking: a slender man of medium height, with a pleasant, if rather crooked face and a head of light brown curls, no less attractive for being now a little receded and silvering.

    The punch being brought in, the gentlemen began to chat of old times, and it was not until they were back in the salon after dinner, sipping brandy, that Charles cleared his throat and said: “Er—Mrs Marsh is a widow now, y’know, Jarvis.”

    “So I had heard,” he said evenly.

    The Colonel swallowed. “Er—it was eight years or so, dear boy: I mean...”

    “It was eight years of a relationship which both of us desired equally, and which the lady, not to put too fine a point upon it, initiated. –Old Marsh was very much alive and kicking at the time, if you recall,” he added drily. “If not precisely kickin’ up.”

    Charles Langford bit his lip. “No.”

    The Earl of Sleyven took a deep breath. “Pray believe me when I say that I do not wish to suggest any invidious comparison, Charles. But pretty ladies in hill stations who—er—let us say, take advantage of circumstances, are not, however charming, the type with whom one would envisage spending one’s declining years. Not to say, whom one would envisage as the mother of one’s children.”

    “No,” he said limply. “But—uh—she had some excuse, dear boy. Old Marsh must have been more than thirty years her senior!’

    “Well, she was older than she looked, y’know. But getting on for thirty. On the other hand, she married him for his money.”

    After a moment Charles said limply: “Never tell me she admitted as much to you!”

    “Mm. Well, over eight years, even if one does not see the other person very frequently... She got careless,” he said with a shrug. “Admitted it after a bottle of champagne and—forget what she insisted on eating. Something damned inappropriate that she made her unfortunate cook get up and fry up in the middle of the... night,” he ended with a sheepish grin. “Er—yes. Let us just say the relationship was convenient to both parties at the time.”

    “Mm. Uh—heard she was comin’ home, y’know,” he said uncomfortably.

    Jarvis Wynton shrugged again.

    “So—uh—you don’t affect her, Jarvis?” he said cautiously.

    “No.” His lip curled slightly. “Not any more.”

     Charles hesitated, but then did not speak after all.

    “Should a woman of suitable breeding and background, and of suitable age and temperament present herself, I may consider marriage,” said the fifth Earl of Sleyven grimly.

    “Since I don’t ask, y’mean?” said Charles, raising a mobile eyebrow at him.

    “Quite. However, I have no real expectation of one’s doing so.”

    “No-o... They will be after you for the sake of your position, y’know.”

    He shrugged. “I am aware of that. I don’t think I mind. I should require that she comport herself as a lady should and that she should be capable of managing my household quietly and competently.”

    Charles sipped brandy. After a moment he said: “Jarvis, you don’t seriously see that as the picture of wedded bliss, do you?”

    “What?” he replied blankly.

    “Well, for the Lord’s sake, dear old fellow! You have painted a pretty cold damned picture, there! A woman of suitable breeding what conducts herself lake a lady and manages your household competently?”

    He raised his eyebrows a little. “I am no longer a boy, Charles.”

    “No, but all the same—! I’d sooner condemn meself to prison for life!”

    After a moment the Earl said flatly: “I suppose we need see very little of each other, if we find we do not suit.”

    “After she’s presented you with an heir, you mean?” said Charles baldly.

    “Er—that is the usual custom, is it not?”

    “It may well be, if you can bring yourself to do it!” he retorted loudly and angrily. “But I’m damn’ sure I could not be that cold-blooded!”

    “But then, you have always known I was cold-blooded,” he murmured.

    The affaire with Mrs Marsh, certainly at first, had been what might fairly have been called tempestuous. Therefore his old friend retorted loudly: “Rubbish, Jarvis!”

    “Well, I dare say it will not come to that,” he said on a weary note. “I doubt that a suitable woman will present herself.”

    Charles Langford gave him an exasperated look. The Earl ignored it and said smoothly: “But I have not told you of the sport hereabouts.”

    The Colonel gave him an ironic look. “Humbug country, I’m reliably informed.”

    “No, no, we have a keen M.F.H., and they get out very regularly!”

    “Foxes? You?” croaked the Colonel.

    The long mouth twitched. “Every male I have met, at least from about the status of my head gamekeeper up, has asked me if I hunt.”

    Charles choked into his Cognac. “Tell ’em about that man-eater what you dispatched with a damned pistol two seconds before it would have dispatched that idiot subadar!”

    “It was old and mangy and had lost half its teeth.”

    Colonel Langford merely eyed him tolerantly, and said: “I suppose if nothing else is offering you can hunt foxes. Ain’t such good sport as sambar.”

    “Depends how you go about it.” he drawled. “Remember that time we were up the country with little McIntosh? –Good God, and old Timmy Urqhart, have not given him a thought in years! And that friend of his from Calcutta. D—uh—Durward? Something like that. Anyway, there was us, and little McIntosh, of course, and—”

    “Good God, yes! Lytton-Howe, with his damned elephant!”

    “Mm. Never saw a man hunt sambar from an elephant, before.”

    “No, exact! Nor since! I say, remember that tea-set he had?”

    “Famille verte,” said the Earl dreamily, nodding. His rather slanted, sherry-coloured eyes glinted.

    “So it were,” recalled Charles in awe.

    “Keepin’ up standards,” said the Earl sternly.

    “By Jove, yes!”

    They laughed.

    “Lytton-Howe went home, of course,” Charles recalled. “Well, the old man were already dyin’, back then, remember? I did hear as he tacked himself onto Wellington’s staff at Waterloo. Often wondered if he favoured Old Hooky with the famille verte tea-set.”

    Jarvis nodded, twinkling.

    “Remember that sister of his?” said Charles reminiscently.

    “Oh, yes: Lady Mary Spottiswoode! Face like a ferret,” he said, shuddering.

    “Mm. They tell me she married a cousin of the Prince of Orange, in the end. Well,. met him when Lytton-Howe—Spotton, I suppose one should say now—was with—”

    “Wellington! Of course!” said Jarvis, laughing. “But good gad, by that time Lady Mary must have been—”

    “Forty if a day!” agreed Charles cheerfully. “I say, what an opportunity you have missed there, old son! Suitable breeding—indeed, your equal in rank! And comportment to match. Stiff as a stick. And at your age you could overlook the ferret bit.”

    “Indeed,” he agreed smoothly. “But I have not told you the best of the sport hereabouts, dear fellow,” he added with a glint in his eye that the Colonel missed. “It is not merely foxes, by any means.”

    “Oh—they course hares?”

    “No. Well, they may do. No: pig-sticking,” he said blandly.

    He waited while the Colonel choked into his Cognac again, and then told him the absurd story of the yokel, the boys and the pig. Colonel Langford laughed very much. But then he said curiously: “And did you follow it up?”

    “I did just mention it to Jeffson, the fellow at Home Farm. According to him the victim was Mr Lumley’s Billy, and the boys are widely considered in the neighbourhood to be in want of a strong hand. The mother is a widow.”

    “And?”

    “I was very tempted to call on the Masters Burden and deal out punishment myself.”

    “I would have!” said Charles Langford with a laugh.

    “So would I, a year back,” he said levelly.

    “Oh—I see,” said Charles, biting on his lip. “Yes. Damned awkward. Be a bit like having God Almighty descend upon you with His ridin’ crop in His hand, hey?”

    “Something of the sort. Or damned Lytton-Howe, in his District.”

     Charles laughed but looked at his old friend with considerable sympathy.

    “However, Jeffson assures me that Lumley will mete out justice.”

    “Glad to hear it.”

    Jarvis smiled, and changed the subject back to more talk of old India days.

    … “I suppose you have Tonkins with you?” said Charles, yawning, as the candles guttered.

    “Yes: he refused to be left behind. Well, I’m glad of it: best syce I ever had.”

    “Aye, but what do the Maunsleigh servants make of him, Jarvis? That burra khitmagar of yours don’t look like the type to welcome a servant what is twelve annas to the rupee.”

    “Bates? You would be surprised. But Tonkins is a wily bird: he keeps his head well down.”

    “Mm. And what of Hutton?” Hutton had been Colonel Wynton’s batman for many years.

    “Honourably discharged, retired to live with that sister on Jersey what we always thought was a figment of his imagination!” said the Earl with a chuckle.

    “Good gad! So the story of her shootin’ one of Boney’s spies is true, too?”

    “Well, probably not,” he admitted, twinkling.

    “So—er—what are you doing for a valet, old fellow?”

    “Nothing,” he said tranquilly.

    “Here, that won’t do!” gasped the Colonel, scandalized. “You owe it to your consequence, great zemindar, huzzoor—” He broke off, coughing, as the stately Bates trod in.

    “My Lord, you asked me to remind you that tomorrow morning you are meeting with Mr Shelby and the tenant farmers from Jefford Slough.”

    “Oh, yes. Thank you, Bates. –Come along, Charles, bedtime.”

     Charles considerately waited until the butler had gone out before saying: “So the great zemindar is holding a durbar for the local mulaquati, is he?”

    “It will not be quite that,” said the Earl levelly.

    “Pooh! Why, Jarvis, it is the same all over the world! Zan, zar, zamin!” he said, in the language of the Northwest Frontier.

    “Women, gold and land? I hardly think so.”

    “Want the support of this humble one who is as dust beneath the sahib’s feet, huzzoor?”

    “You may come if you like, but you’ll be bored. What I do want,” he admitted with a sigh, leading him out to the hall and lighting a candle for him, “is a reliable secretary.”

    “Oh. Er—well, I could put you in the way of one, I think,” said Charles, pulling at his ear with his good hand. “You could try him out, at all events. My sister Agatha’s boy.”

    “Eh? Didn’t he go into John Company?”

    “Oh, not Aloysius, dear boy! Yes, of course he did, he is in the mofussil as we speak. No, one of his younger brothers. He’s a decent young fellow, serious-minded, worked hard at Oxford. He has political ambitions; at least, ambitions to work for a member of the Cabinet.”

    “Then he need not apply here!” he said in horror.

    “No, no, these are eventual ambitions! He needs experience. Besides, you will be taking your seat, won’t you? Noblesse oblige,” he said meanly.

    “Pity there ain’t a bit less of that and a bit more of the droit de seigneur,” he muttered.

    “Hey?” said the Colonel, his jaw dropping.

    “Er—not really.”

    “It’s the loneliness of the burra-sahib gettin’ to you,” he said meanly, recovering himself.

    “Mm. Well, I hope you mean to remedy that,” said the Earl with a sudden smile.

    “Only on condition you accept all invitations to waltzing balls!”

    “Oh, God, don’t remind me!”

    The friends linked arms, and went slowly upstairs together, grinning.

    “So, of what like is he?” demanded M. Fermour eagerly.

    Mr Bates poured a judicious measure of port for both of them and returned the bottle to a position very close to his own elbow. “A very pleasant gentleman indeed.”

    M. Fermour gave him a baffled stare. After a moment he said: “He did not bring any servants, I note. No valet. Sans doute that is better than a yellow valet.”

    Mr Bates rose, grasping the port. “As far as I am concerned, M. Fermour, Colonel Langford is welcome to come without servants or with a train of sky-blue-pink servants, if so be as his coming has the result it has done.’

    The chef looked blank. “What?”

    Mr Bates opened the cupboard where he kept the port. He put the bottle back. Since they were in the butler’s very pantry, M. Fermour had no choice but to rise, at this point. He looked at Bates’s broad back resentfully.

    The butler closed the cupboard and turned slowly.

    “What result?” said the chef crossly.

    “The result of cheering his Lordship up,” said Bates. “Goodnight, M. Fermour.”

    Charles Langford woke early the next morning. The shattered shoulder was nagging him a little: he got out of bed, rubbing it with his other hand, and went over to the window. A light ground mist was rising from the smooth green acres of Maunsleigh: it looked set to be a lovely clear day. As he gazed idly at this tranquil, very English scene, a rider emerged onto the gravelled sweep, mounted on a bony brown hack. Colonel Langford’s old friend’s straight back and firm shoulders were unmistakable. The Colonel watched as Jarvis galloped the bony brute across the lawn, jumped the low wall that separated the upper lawn from the lower, and headed away from the house at good pace. After a little two gardeners appeared and began meticulously repairing the divots his Lordship’s mount had kicked from the front lawn.

    “I suppose,” said the Colonel to himself with a sigh, “he’ll find it necessary to apologize to those mali fellows for that. Noblesse oblige.” After a moment he added: “But droit de seigneur? Lord, I only wish you would let yourself go to that extent, for once in your life, dear old boy! –No,” he concluded, “damned waltzing balls and pig-stickin’ will be the extent of our country diversions at Maunsleigh, I fear!”

Next chapter:

https://thepatchworkparasol.blogspot.com/2022/12/vanitas-vanitatum.html