Part II. THE RUSSIAN INTRIGUE
12
Schemes And Stratagems
It was a mild day in early May. The sun was shining, though there was much high cloud, the garden at Bluebell Dell, thanks to the continuing efforts of Mr Hutton, was doing splendidly, Mr Jeffson from Home Farm had unexpectedly sent a dressed side of lamb, and Major Lattersby’s man of business had arrived from London with a large sum of money for Miss Burden and profuse apologies from the Major. He had been up the country, or whatever it was called in Brazil, which was why the funds had been delayed. Miss Burden had just had a pleasant lesson with Miss Somerton, Miss Amanda Waldgrave, Miss Bottomley-Pugh, Miss Marsh and Miss Lattersby, in which all the young ladies had performed creditably. In fact everything in the garden ought to have been rosy, and Janey, chatting happily about Lacey’s new outfit, an exceeding smart yellow gown with a trim of black and white ribbon, more of the latter appearing on the new straw bonnet, was thus very startled indeed when Miss Burden burst into snorting sobs.
“My dearest Miss Burden!” she cried, jumping up and taking her hands. “What is it?”
“I—don’t—know!” gasped Miss Burden, sobbing. “Lacey’s—outfit!”
“Yes, um, very smart, but, um— Dear Miss Burden, don’t cry! I shall buy you a new dress out of the money Papa has sent, and you will never have to wear this horrid old black thing again!”
“No—silly!” gasped Miss Burden, sobbing.
It was some considerable time before Janey got her calmed down. “I’m sorry,” she said, blowing her nose and attempting to smile. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Lacey’s gown is very smart. And so is the bonnet,” said Janey dubiously.
“Mm. She looked so grown-up,” said Midge in limp explanation.
“Um—yes. I tell you what: in addition to a new morning gown, you must have the other two lengths of silk that Aunt Cartwright gave you made up!”
Miss Burden blew her nose. “The dark green is not quite suitable: we are still in mourning.”
“Yes, but the grey and white stripes will be perfect for a promenade gown, and you may wear it when next you take tea at the Deanery, and not be put to the blush!” she cried.
Smiling wanly, Miss Burden replied: “Was I put to the blush the other day? Well, I must admit all the other ladies were very fine.”
“Pooh, they were all old and ugly!” said Janey ferociously.
None of them, except Polly, had been very pretty or very young, that was true. Miss Burden smiled weakly. “Mm. –Polly did not come,” she noted mournfully.
“Yes, she did, dear Miss Burden!” protested Janey in astonishment.
“What? No, I mean today.”
“Oh. No. Um—I think,” said Janey, reddening, “she has given up her French.”
“In anticipation of matrimony: yes,” said Midge with a sigh. “Personally I don’t think the state is a justification for neglecting one’s mind.”
“No. Um—in many cases, if not a justification, it certainly seems to be a reason,” said Janey cautiously.
Midge looked at her and smiled wryly. “How true! Oh, well,” she added with a sigh, “Polly is very busy with bride-clothes and so forth. And she’s spending a lot of time with Cook.”
Janey nodded, and patted her hand comfortingly.
“It’s just... Everything has changed so much,” said Miss Burden dully.
Janey bit her lip. Tears prickled her eyelids. She could not think of anything to do or say, however, except to squeeze Miss Burden’s hand again and agree huskily: “I know.”
... “I see,” said Katerina slowly.
The friends strolled on down Cherry Tree Lane, arms linked.
“Possibly that new violet outfit of mine did not help. I did say to Pa, was it not over-smart for a French lesson, but he said that clothes were for wearing.”
Janey declared loyally that of course Mr Bottomley-Pugh had been quite correct, and Katerina had looked lovely in it, it just set off the deep blue of her eyes to perfection, and she only wished she could wear such shades! And the white trim on the flounce and the cuffs had been an inspiration!
Katerina smiled. “Well, dear Great-Aunt Cumbridge must take the credit, not I.”
“The old lady?” gulped Janey.
“Yes, she has exquisite taste, but she does not expend any of it on her own gowns!” said Katerina with a gurgle.
“No,” agreed Janey limply.
“Janey, did you say that Miss Burden was upset that everything had changed so much?” she asked thoughtfully.
“Why, yes. That is what she said. And of course it is true. Her life has changed very much over the past year, even though she is now back at Bluebell Dell.”
“Ye-es... You are right, of course, but then again, perhaps things have not changed enough,” said Katerina slowly.
Janey went very pink. “If you mean the Earl, she never mentions his name!”
“That could indicate she affects him, not the reverse.”
“Yes, well, it might help a little if the stupid man came back from London!”
“He will: the session of Parliament is nearly ended, don’t you read the papers that Pa sends over to Miss Burden?”
“No: they’re boring and political,” said Janey blithely. “I intend,” she said, primming up her mouth, “to be like Polly Burden, and once I have caught a man, to give up education entirely.”
“Mm, well, not reading the papers is certainly excellent practice for that!”
Janey laughed and hugged her arm, but then she said: “Katerina, I think Miss Burden is very upset that Mrs Marsh is come to live in the district.”
“Yes.”
Janey bit her lip. “Every time we see the awful woman in church, she is wearing a different outfit, each one smarter than the last!”
“No wonder poor Miss Burden cried over Lacey’s walking-dress.”
“I’m going to burn that old straw bonnet!” declared Janey, scowling.
“Well, it cannot do any harm, but I think,” said Katerina, a frown on her flower-like face, “that more drastic measures are needed.”
Janey looked at her doubtfully, but Miss Bottomley-Pugh did not elaborate.
“So she’s still there, eh?” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh, scratching his expanse of chins.
“Large as loife and twice as nat’ral,” returned Mrs Newbiggin grimly. “Doined with the Bishop at the Palace only last Tuesday.”
Mr Bottomley Pugh sniffed slightly, and appeared to ponder the point.
Mr Vaughan Bottomley-Pugh began excitedly: “We could—”
“’Old your noise,” said his father without interest.
Mr Vaughan subsided, flushing.
“His last inspiration was that we could pay a couple of stout fellers to kidnap ’er,” Aunt Cumbridge explained drily to Mrs Newbiggin.
“Lard!” she gasped, goggling at Mr Vaughan. “That would never do, lad: whoy, if it ain’t a hanging offence, it’d be transportation, for sure! And then, ’oo would these stout fellers be, eh? They’d have a hold over you for loife, me deary!”
“Some of us told ’im that,” noted Aunt Cumbridge.
Mr Vaughan glared.
“I thought his other suggestion—um—had some merit,” said Katerina kindly.
“Now that,” said Aunt Cumbridge with relish, “were a good one. You’ll remember Joe’s brother, Sid, what broke ’is poor mother’s ’eart and went on the stage?”
“St— Oh, yes: theatrics,” said Mrs Newbiggin limply, realising that no vehicular conveyance was in question.
“’E never broke Ma’s heart, Aunt Cumbridge: that was just some nonsense dreamed up by my poor Maggie and that sister of ’ers,” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh, suddenly coming out of his cloud of abstraction. “So as no-one in the family wouldn’t never talk of ’im, theatricals not being ’oighly desirable connections.”
“I see,” said Mrs Newbiggin, faint but pursuing.
Mr Bottomley-Pugh nodded graciously and retired into his cloud again.
“Anyroad,” said Aunt Cumbridge, “Sid’s done all roight. And ’e changed ’is name in any case, so I never saw what Maggie had to kick up about. Calls ’imself Roland Lefayne. L,E,F,A,Y,N,E. –It ain’t a name, don’t tell me,” she added drily.
“No, but it strikes more mellow on the ear than Sid Bottomley, I’ll grant you that,” returned Mrs Newbiggin, her shrewd blue eyes twinkling.
Aunt Cumbridge shook slightly, wheezed slightly, and nodded hard.
“So what were the idea, Kate, me deary?” asked Mrs Newbiggin.
“He thought that we might have Uncle Sid down and—um—”
“Sic ’im onto ’er,” said Mrs Cumbridge succinctly. “Only Lard bless us, if she’s chasin’ the loikes o’ Lard Sleyven ’imself, she won’t look twice at no actor feller!”
“He’s very handsome and charming,” said Katerina in a small voice, glancing apologetically at her brother.
“Yes!” he burst out. “And to hear him tell it, the ladies in London all swoon at his feet, so I thought, why shouldn’t she?”
“Too ’ard,” said Mrs Newbiggin, shaking her head. Today in a bright pink silk bonnet with a profusion of ostrich feathers upon it. “When a female loike ’er makes up ’er moind to settle for no less than a belted earl, she won’t look twice at no actor, deary. –No matter if she falls for ’im or not,” she clarified.
“Oh,” said Mr Vaughan, looking very puzzled.
“Aye,” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh, coming down out of his cloud with a great sigh. “But ’e were more or less on the right track, after all.”
“Me?” said Mr Vaughan in confusion.
“Aye. Now, listen ’ere! And moind: not a word of this is to get out of this room!” he warned.
They all nodded obediently, and Mr Bottomley-Pugh proceeded to unfold his plot.
When Aunt Cumbridge was over the alarming wheezing fit and appropriate refreshment had been called for, Katerina pointed out in a wobbly voice: “You’ll have to get to know her first, Pa.”
“Well, that’s easy enough, me love! Acos you already know little Miss Marsh, don’t you?”
“Mm. –Oh, dear, but if it works, what will happen to them?” she gasped.
Mr Bottomley-Pugh looked slightly disconcerted for a moment. “Uh—well, nothing very much, I dare say. Uh—well, they got relatives, don’t they?”
“Ye-es... But what will it do to the girls’ expectations of forming eligible connections, Pa?”
“There!” he said, looking at her proudly. “Talks like a book, don’t she? Must ’a’ been some good in that there Miss Elder, after all!”
“The sentiment does ’er credit, too,” noted Aunt Cumbridge, extra-dry. “Listen ’ere, Miss,” she said sternly to her great-niece: “if that’s the sort of family what they come from, they don’t got no right to these ’ere eligible connections: see?”
Katerina looked very distressed.
“Marry Miss M. off first?” suggested Mrs Newbiggin kindly.
“’Oo to?” retorted the old lady.
“What about young Vaughan, here?” replied Mrs Newbiggin with a twinkle in her eye.
“Me?” he gasped in horror.
“She’s a lovely person!” cried Katerina.
“But I don’t wish to marry her!” he gasped.
“Hold your noise, Vaughan,” said his father tolerantly. “When you’re old enough to get married, I’ll tell you.”—Aunt Cumbridge went into another wheezing fit.—“There must be some lad in the district as she fancies, Kate!” he said bracingly.
Poor Katerina just looked at him helplessly.
“Well, we’ll see,” he said in a kindly tone. “And if the worst comes to the worst, dessay she could come and stay here with you for a bit—hey?”
“Thank you, Pa.”
“Dessay the Lard could take the sister in,” noted Aunt Cumbridge, horridly dry.
Mrs Newbiggin at this laughed so much she choked, and had to have Katerina pat her on the back, and Vaughan offer her a glass of brandy. The which she graciously accepted, even though it was not widely recognized as a remedy for choking.
“Well?” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh when the company had refreshed itself. “Are we all agreed?”
They were all agreed.
“And no backsliding!” he ordered, fixing his heir with a steely glare.
They all agreed, even Mr Vaughan, that there would be no backsliding.
... “Hm,” said Mrs Newbiggin to herself as the barouche jogged slowly back towards Nettleford. “It moight work, or it moight not. Too fancy by ’alf, if you asks me. But I own I’d loike to see ’im troy!” she gasped, breaking down and laughing helplessly, now that the Bottomley-Pugh household could not see her do it. “Though where that leaves Joe Bottomley-Pugh,” she concluded, blowing her nose hard and sitting up very straight, “I’m dashed if I see. Out in the cold, dunnit? Well, dare say ’e never did ’ave any ’opes, bluestocking ’ens or not. And ’e always were a generous feller.”
“Bottomley-Pugh?” said Kitty Marsh, holding the two cards with the very tips of her fingers.
“Miss Bottomley-Pugh comes to Miss Burden’s conversation classes, Mamma,” said Susi-Anna in a small voice.
“Er—oh. The cit from that white monstrosity near Nettleford.”
“You said it was a very fine house,” Miss Harrod reminded her. Kitty withered her with a look.
“He is quite respectable, Mamma. Though of course not a gentleman,” said Susi-Anna in a small voice.
“Hm. And what is Mrs Bottomley-Pugh like, or do I not dare ask?”
“She’s dead, Mamma. She died last summer, buh-but she was from a tradesman’s family, too.”
“Hm.” Mrs Marsh looked thoughtfully at the cards. “And who is this Mrs Cumbridge?”
“She is Miss Bottomley-Pugh’s great-aunt. I am afraid I do not know which side.”
“I see.”
There was a short silence.
“Young Mr Bottomley-Pugh presents quite a gentleman-like appearance!” said Miss Harrod brightly.
“Oh? How old is he?”
Miss Harrod was not absolutely sure, but she thought he was around dear Teddy’s age.
Young Mr Marsh had not so far spoken, but at this he volunteered: “Rides a bruising brute of a black. I would not care to put my leg across him, but old Ventnor-says he has a natural seat.”
“Thank you, Teddy.”
Mr Marsh subsided.
Major Harrod had been assiduously giving the appearance of one buried in his paper, but at this he said into it: “He’d do for little Jenny; dare say the family would overlook you-know-what.”
“Your opinion was not requested, George. Possibly if Jenny’s looks improve we may not have to fall back upon the son of a cit for her,” noted her mother acidly.
“Son of a rich cit,” corrected Major Harrod into the paper.
“That’s enough. At least the man has made an effort to move into decent society.”—Behind his paper Major Harrod raised his eyebrows very high.—“I shall give orders that they be admitted, if they call.”
“Oh, thank you, Mamma!” breathed Miss Marsh. “I—I think you will find Katerina Bottomley-Pugh is quite unexceptionable.”
“I am sure, my love,” she said sweetly.
... “And I’m damned sure,” concluded Major Harrod, when she had rustled out, “that if this cit’s rich enough, she’ll have the pair of you married off to the son and daughter before you can turn round!”
... “So I was wondering,” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh with a respectful look on his florid face, “if so be as you might have heard of any houses to let in the neighbourhood, ma’am.”
“For a Russian prince?” gasped Miss Harrod. “How thrilling!”
“We-ell,” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh, scratching his chins above his amazingly elaborate neckcloth, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say the feller actually is, Miss Harrod. You know what these foreigners are. Only, the man what came to inquire if I knew of any houses in the district to let, ’e kept saying ‘His Highness.’ Dessay it don’t mean much.”
“No, quite: they say that so-called princes are two a penny in Russia,” agreed Kitty smoothly. “Do you not recall, Addie? Prince Nicolas Che—Cheyev—well, some unpronounceable name!” she said with a light laugh. “Certainly he moved in the highest circles in Calcutta, but I had it from Lord Lytton-Howe himself—the Earl of Spotton, as he is now,” she explained graciously, “that Prince Nicolas’s estates approximated more nearly to what we would expect of a baron, in England, than to those of a prince.”
“Cheyevsky?” suggested Miss Harrod dubiously. “Rather an insignificant-looking little man, Mr Bottomley-Pugh, ” she added on a glum note.
“No. well, there you are, then!” he said cheerfully. “These foreign titles don’t mean nothing compared to our English ones, do they? But as I say: if so be as you might have heard of a place to let, Mrs Marsh?”
“Er... Well, I think that Kendlewood Place was the last house of any substance available in the neighbourhood,” she admitted regretfully.
“No, dear! What about Dinsley Airs?” cried Miss Harrod.
Mr Bottomley-Pugh had a fair idea that Mrs Marsh had been waiting fur her sister to make just this suggestion: she certainly had the look of a hungry trout snapping up a fly as she said airily: “Oh, of course! How silly of me! –Yes, the lease is very lately come on the market,” she explained graciously. “The new owner is a very young man, so the house and grounds are to be let for a year or so.”
“Hm.” Mr Bottomley-Pugh scratched his chins again. “Now, if l can remember where I put that card that that feller left, dessay as I could put him onto it,” he acknowledged.
The puce-faced Mr Vaughan Bottomley-Pugh at this put in hoarsely: “You put it on the mantelpiece in your study, sir.”
“Eh? Did I? Bless the boy, I think ’e’s roight!” he said with a cheery laugh.
Everybody smiled and nodded, and Miss Harrod noted how thrilling it would be, to have a real Russian prince next-door, even if the title was not like our English titles, and eventually the Bottomley-Pughs were able to take their leave. Mr Bottomley-Pugh thanking Mrs Marsh for her kind inquiries about Mrs Cumbridge and explaining she didn’t get out much, these days.
“And it’s to be ’oped,” he noted heavily, as the barouche headed cautiously down the rutted country road towards Dinsley Airs, “that she don’t wonder why you was sittin’ there with your face loike a lobster the ’ole toime, boy!”
“I wasn’t!” he cried.
“Just you say a prayer of thanks to the Almighty as your circumstances ’aven’t never required as you take to the stage, Vaughan,” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh heavily. “Acos convincing, you were not!”
“Pa, all he had to do was sit there and— Um, well, I am sure she could not have suspected a thing,” finished Katerina limply.
Mr Bottomley-Pugh patted her hand. “No. I got no doubt she’s cunning as a waggonload of monkeys, but no-one wouldn’t never suspect nothing that fantastical!” He chuckled richly, doing the neckcloth considerable damage, and added kindly: “And as we owes the inspiration to you, Vaughan, me boy, you can cheer up! And once the Prince ’as done with ’is fine roiding ’acks, dessay as you might hang on to ’em!”
Mr Vaughan grinned gratefully. “I say, thanks, Pa!”
“Cheyevsky is a very Russian name,” ventured Katerina as the barouche rolled on to Dinsley Airs.
“Aye, but I wouldn’t worry none about that! –This is it. Stop ’ere, Thwaites!” her father called loudly.
The barouche drew up, and Mr Bottomley-Pugh looked interestedly through the gates. “It do look to be the twin of the house we ’ad,” he conceded.
“Yes, but Miss Somerton tells me it is not as pretty inside as Dinsley House,” said Katerina.
“Is that so? Well, I dessay the Prince won’t object. And ’e can ’ave his Russian bits and bobs about ’im!” he said, suddenly going into a wheezing fit worthy of Aunt Cumbridge.
His children smiled, and looked eagerly at Dinsley Airs.
“Ar. Well, get on, Thwaites!” ordered his master loudly.
The barouche went on its way.
After a moment Mr Vaughan noted: “Aunt Cumbridge will be a bit cut up to have missed it, Pa.”
“Yes, she would have loved it!” agreed Katerina. “Why did you not let her come, Pa?”
Mr Bottomley-Pugh closed one eye, very slowly. “I got plans for ’er.”
“Ooh: tell!” urged Katerina.
Mr Bottomley-Pugh eyed Thwaites’s back. “Later.”
Katerina nodded excitedly. But it must be admitted that when her Pa later disclosed his plans, her jaw dropped.
“She won’t have to talk.”
“But Pa—!”
“And ’e’ll need someone to keep an eye on ’im.”
“Weil, she’ll do that, all right,” conceded Vaughan.
“That’s roight,” he said smugly.
His two children eyed him in mingled fascination and horror, but did not dare to raise any more objections. For Pa had the bit between his teeth, and no mistake!
Miss Jenny Marsh was the first of the neighbourhood to catch sight of the Prince. Or at least of some of the members of his household. She had ridden her pony up onto the hilly ground overlooking the twin houses and thus had a splendid view of the waggons arriving and being unloaded.
“Chests of golden treasure!” she reported with relish.
“Rubbish,” said her mother coldly.
“There were,” replied Jenny grimly, her jaw hardening. “I am not a liar. And rolls and rolls of splendid carpets from the exotic East!” She glared pugnaciously.
Every time Mrs Marsh set eyes on Jenny’s face, these days, it seemed to remind her more and more of Jarvis Wynton’s. And it was to be hoped that nose did not grow any more, for if it got to be as large as his they would never marry the girl off! “Persian, I collect,” she said coldly.
“I’m not very sure,” said Jenny honestly. “But they were splendid and colourful. The men dropped a whole lot on the sweep and an old lady in black came out and shouted at them.”
‘Shouted in Russian?” gasped Miss Harrod.
“I was too far away to hear the words,” she admitted regretfully. “But only guess: there were cages of parrots!” she added excitedly.
“Rubbish,” said Mrs Marsh. “Go and change out of that habit.”
Jenny’s mouth tightened, but she went over to the door obediently. “There were parrots!” she said loudly, going out.
“We shall have to do something about that girl,” noted Mrs Marsh grimly.
“Well—um—perhaps dear Mrs Somerton could recommend a governess,” quavered Miss Harrod.
“It is a complete and utter waste of money: you and Susie between you should be able to control her.”
Miss Marsh said in a shaking voice: “She is not a naughty girl, Mamma.”
“The fact that you evidently believe that, Susannah, is a measure of your abysmal standards of discipline. I shall investigate schools.” She swept out.
A tear slipped down Miss Marsh’s cheek.
“Dearest Susi-Anna, you—you must remember that when you marry you will be separated from your little sister anyway,” quavered Miss Harrod.
“I shall not marry,” said Miss Marsh, sniffing very hard. “For if Mamma cannot see it, I can: our neighbours do not like her. And they will not want me to marry their sons. And if you call me Susi-Anna, dear Aunt Addie, she will be very cross.”
Miss Harrod scowled. “I do not care!”
“You will not LURK!” shouted Kitty, cheeks puce.
Miss Harrod had merely driven the trap down as far as Dinsley Airs’ gates. There had been no lurking involved. “But I—”
“If you cannot maintain a ladylike standard of behaviour you may LEAVE!” she shouted.
“Yes, Kitty, dear. I’m sorry,” said Miss Harrod miserably.
... “What did you see?” urged Jenny.
Miss Marsh was holding their aunt’s hand tightly. “Ssh, Jenny, dearest.”
Miss Harrod sniffed dolefully. “There was a coach and six.”
“Ooh! Did it have a crest on it?”
“Um... It was very dusty. Yes, I think there was a crest. And there was a great deal of baggage on the roof, and two footmen up behind.”
“So who got off, Aunt Addie?” asked Susi-Anna, squeezing her hand.
“Several servants,” said Miss Harrod. “At least... odd-looking persons,” she murmured.
“Russian servants!” cried Jenny.
“Ye-es... Well, I am sure you are right.”
Jenny’s eyes narrowed. “Did the coach go round to the stables?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“Bother,” she muttered. “If it had gone down to the Pig and Whistle at Dinsley Dell I could have—” She got up. “Never mind!” she said with great determination.
“Where are you going?” gulped Miss Marsh.
Jenny eyed her blandly. “You have not asked, I have not told you, and you are utterly blameless in the matter.” She went out, grinning.
“Oh, dear; oh, dear; oh, dear!” lamented Miss Harrod. “Next Kitty will accuse her of lurking!”
The May days had lengthened, the sky was a pure blue, and Miss Somerton had already mooted with the other young ladies of the French and Italian conversation classes the idea of a summer holiday. Vetoed crossly by Janey and Katerina, for what would that do to Miss Burden’s income? Miss Amanda had looked sad, but agreed with them, and Miss Marsh, blushing fierily, had not said anything and most especially not that if it was a matter of expense she thought her mamma would prefer her to have a summer holiday.
“So the Lard’s back, eh, Kate?” said Mr Bottomley-Pugh.
“Yes,” she agreed. “He dined at Kendlewood Place last night.”
“Ar. And did Miss Burden go, me dear?”
“No,” said Katerina, biting her lip. “Though she was asked.”
Mr Bottomley-Pugh scratched his chins. “Ar. She’ll still be woild with ’im over Mrs M. Never you fret, me love: she’ll be better once the woman ain’t roight there, a-rubbin’ salt in the wound.”
“Pa.” said Katerina, going very red, “I really do not think that with Miss Burden, it will be a case of out of sight, out of mind. She is too intelligent for that.”
Mr Bottomley-Pugh gave a ruminative sniff. “Ar... Thing is, it ain’t just intelligence, deary.”
“But it is surely facile to claim,” said Katerina, still very red, “that a lady of Miss Burden’s quality will overlook something like that just because the woman is no longer flaunting herself under her nose.”
Mr Bottomley-Pugh perceived that his little daughter was too young to understand. Too young, and no experience of life, in spite of all her brains, bless her. He looked at her limply. He knew what he meant, but he was damned it he could put it so’s she’d get it. “’Uman nature, me lovey,” he said feebly.
Katerina looked unconvinced.
“I’m a-goin’ on with it,” he said grimly.
“Pa, if he does not even cuh-come to call on dear Miss Burden, I think all our efforts will be vain,” she said huskily.
He patted her shoulder. “We’ll see, me love.”
“Hullo, Tonkins,” said a high little voice from out of the air.
The humble syce gasped, and nearly fell off the spotted pony.
“It’s me: Jenny baba,” said the voice. “I’m up in this tree.”
“Jenny baba? What are you doing?” replied Tonkins, lapsing into Hindustanee.
Jenny replied cheerfully in the same language: “I’m spying on the Prince. Come up, you get a splendid view from up here.”
The syce tethered the spotted pony and mounted into the tree. Jenny handed him a hunk of bread and cheese and nodded at Dinsley Airs. “Look.”
Tonkins looked, munching. She was right, you did get a splendid view. The front door of Dinsley Airs was open wide, and several menservants in an extraordinary livery were spreading a great coloured carpet down its front steps and onto the sweep.
“Ah! They’re getting ready to receive the Rajah!”
“I don’t think so. There’s a man in a big fur hat: I think he’s the Rajah. Wait.”
They waited.
“There he is!” hissed Jenny.
Insouciantly Tonkins produced a small telescope from his jacket pocket, unfolded it and focussed it on the man. “I think this man is only the Rajah’s burra khitmagar, Jenny baba.”
“Really? May I look?” He handed her the telescope and Jenny squinted through it.
“He’s wearing a big chain across his chest, Jenny baba,” explained Tonkins.
“Ye-es... Wouldn’t a rajah do that?”
“I don’t think a Russian one would. And he has no jewels.”
Jenny peered again. “No, nor he does. You’re right: he must be the burra khitmagar. Goody, then they’re waiting for the Rajah!”
“Yes.”
Tonkins and Jenny ate bread and cheese and swung their legs and waited, gossiping gently and from time to time speculating on the possible constitution of the Prince’s household without any sensation of impatience. Or even of the passing of time, really.
Eventually there was a clatter of wheels and hooves and two carriages appeared, each with four horses, and mountains of baggage. The servants lined up on either side of the carpet, the steps were let down, and the burra khitmagar hastened to hand down two persons from the leading coach, bowing and scraping until his nose nearly touched his knees.
“Look at him salaaming!” said Tonkins.
“Yes: so this must be the Rajah!”
Disappointingly the Rajah was not dressed in fine robes, but in a suit of plain black. However, the elderly lady who was with him was some consolation, for she had the tallest black plumes upon her bonnet that Miss Jenny had ever seen. And a great fur cloak that positively trailed after her. No wonder they had put out a carpet for her to walk on! She was short and stout and walked with the aid of a silver-knobbed cane: undoubtedly the begum, they agreed.
Once the Rajah and his mother had gone into his house a positive torrent of persons in the most exotic dress poured from the second coach. Embroidery and strange caps and aprons and strange baggy trousers—Tonkins at first declaring them to be the trousers of Pathans and clapping a hand to his pistol—and exotic fur hats galore! Well! Added to which some of them were carrying what clearly must be golden treasure!
The more experienced Tonkins privately thought it was brass and copper things for making tea, and possibly the odd water-pipe or two—but kindly refrained from disillusioning the excited Jenny baba.
... “How did she look?” asked the Earl with a frown.
“Oh, very excited, huzzoor.”
“Not that. Did she look well?”
“Yes, very well. She is growing fast into a woman,” he said, eyeing him sideways.
His hand clenched: he scowled.
“Only small breasts like tiny lemons, as yet, great zemindar, huzzoor.”
“I can scarcely call on the woman and ask to see her,” he muttered.
“If this humble syce might make a suggestion—”
“Well?”
“If the huzzoor were to ride out towards the chota bungalow of Marsh Memsahib in the mornings, he might espy a girl upon a brown pony, ill enough kept, its hairs in want of singeing and its hooves not—”
“Yes!”
“—not polished. Jenny baba braids its tail herself because the lazy syce of Marsh Memsahib—”
“Yes! Bus!”
The humble syce salaamed and exited, remarking that the huzzoor was his father and his mother.
Unmoved by this odd turn of phrase, which was a commonplace of the life they had both lived for the last thirty years, the Earl strolled over to his study window and looked out vaguely.
When Mr Crayshaw came in he jumped a little but said: “Tonkins tells me the new tenant has arrived at Dinsley Airs.”
“So I believe, sir. I find it hard to credit, if it’s some sort of a Russian prince, as the local talk has it, that the Embassy would not have contacted your Lordship.”
“Mm? Oh—yes. Me, too.”
“Probably some merchant, made his pile and decided to retire to a rural spot where he may épater le bourgeois,” said Mr Crayshaw, his eyes twinkling. “In fact, Bates’ suggestion is that it will turn out to be nothing more than a Belgian.”
“Unkind!” said the Earl with a sudden laugh.
“Indeed. For myself, I would lay a wager that it will be nothing farther east than a Pole.”
“No, no, dear boy,” he said, grinning very much: “on due consideration, I’m with Bates! It’ll be a Belgian!”
Mr Patterson groaned. “Haven’t we had enough of these newcomers to the neighbourhood? Look how the last two have turned out! The Marsh female’s a social disaster waitin’ to happen—”
“That is not amusing, Percival.”
“And Sleyven, far from offering for one of the girls—”
“That will do! Oblige me by calling!” she snapped.
“Winifred,” he said heavily, “it will not be a prince. Indeed, I will lay you a monkey that it will not even be a Russian.”
“It is most certainly a Russian.”
“Who told you that? The Marsh female?”
“I have not spoken to her. It was Lady Judith Golightly, and her information, I believe, came from the Palace.”
“Winifred, I would still not believe it is a Russian prince if her information came from the Almighty!”
“That is neither amusing nor tasteful. You will oblige me by calling, Percival.”
“Shelby tells me they’re sayin’ at Maunsleigh it’s a Polish merchant, at most. –Oh, very well,” he said dully. “I’ll call.”
“I said,” said Kitty in steely tones: “you may call, George.”
“If he’s a prince, which I take leave to doubt—”
“Leave CARDS!” she shouted.
“Leave cards yourself: the latest is he’s got his aged ma with him.”
“There is no need to be coarse. Where did you hear that?” she added keenly.
“Cook,” said Major Harrod succinctly.
“Gossiping with the servants? How very typical. I do not think Cook’s word is sufficient to justify my calling on a gentleman of royal birth who may have no hostess.”
Major Harrod shrugged.
“Well, George, you have a choice: call at Dinsley Airs, or give up your curricle,” said his sister sweetly.
“Look, I’m only trying to tell you that if he ain’t a prince—and how likely is that, for God’s sake?—well , if he ain’t, we may have made an undesirable acquain—”
“JUST LEAVE CARDS, GEORGE!” she shouted.
“All right, all right,” he groaned. “But don’t blame me if it turns out he’s a Belgian ironmonger.”
“A— Where did you hear that?” she demanded suspiciously.
“Has a ring of truth about it, don’t it?” said Major Harrod airily. “Young Whatsisname. Uh—Ventnor’s nephew.”
“What would he know of the matter, pray? He does not even live in the district. Leave—cards,” she repeated in a steely voice.
Major Harrod shrugged elaborately. “Right you are. Leave cards, it is.”
“If His Royal Highness—or His Serene Highness, I think it may be, for a Russian prince—if, as I say, he has no hostess, it would be entirely correct for Mr Humphreys to call,” said Miss Burden in a prim voice.
Miss Humphreys collapsed in ecstatic giggles.
“I admit that Katerina Bottomley-Pugh maintains that he truly is a Russian prince,” Miss Burden then admitted, relenting somewhat. “Though she does not know it of her own knowledge: she has only the word of the agent or whoever he was who called on Mr Bottomley-Pugh, enquiring about houses to let for the summer.”
“Then it must be true!” gasped the little spinster lady.
“Well, it may be true,” allowed Miss Burden temperately. “But Mr Lumley will have it that it is a Proosian, not a Roosian, come over from Hanover on the strength of having made his fortune in ironmongery.”
“Hanover?” she quavered.
“I am merely the reporter,” said Miss Burden primly.
Strangely, Miss Humphreys collapsed in ecstatic giggles again.
The great zemindar had ridden out towards the chota bungalow of Marsh Memsahib early in the morning. Frankly, he hadn’t seen how else to manage to catch a glimpse of his daughter. Sure enough, after riding up and down in what he sincerely trusted would strike the eye of any beholder as a carefree manner, he espied a girl upon a brown pony, ill enough kept—etcetera. The Earl rode slowly towards her.
She gave him an uncertain smile.
“Good morning,” he said, removing his hat.
Jenny beamed. “Hullo, Colonel Wynton! It is you! –I’m sorry, I mean Lord Sleyven!”
“Yes. I—I think you must be Jenny Marsh?” he said in a voice that shook a little.
Jenny beamed, and nodded. “I’ve grown since you last saw me!”
“Yes, indeed.” She most certainly had: she was about twice the size he remembered her, bidding fair to be very tall. And much thinner than the plump little object he remembered.
“That’s a fine black. Is that one of the horses you and Tonkins got in Ireland?”
Jarvis agreed it was.
“Have you still got your dapple grey?”
“Uh—no. I let him go to young Fiennes when I left India. Lieutenant Fiennes: I don’t suppose you remember him.”
“Yes, I do: he always used to bring me a paper of jullerbees, when he came to call!”
Jarvis smiled, and nodded.
“Did you bring your cook with you?” asked Jenny on a wistful note.
“No: I don’t think he would have been happy in England.”
“No. We didn’t bring ours, either,” she said, sighing. “It’s awfully dull, having to eat English food all the time, isn’t it?”
He smiled and agreed.
“But on the other hand, look at Mr McMurtrie!” said Jenny with a giggle.
“I don’t think I know a McMurtrie.”
“Um—no, you might not have met him. He lives in Calcutta: he was a friend of Papa’s. A burra box-wallah. He would never have an Indian dish in the house. He used to boast he had lived twenty-five years in the country and had never had a curry served up to him under his roof!”
“I would call that a dubious distinction.”
“Yes!” gasped Jenny, collapsing in giggles.
The Earl smiled. They rode on slowly together, Jenny chattering about India and Jarvis not saying very much, but encouraging her with the odd question or so. Not that she needed much encouragement.
After a short argument over whether Jenny would, could or should jump a certain hedge, resolved by Jenny’s defiantly jumping it, and after the race up the hill which followed the jumping, she reined in and said abruptly: “Would you go back?”
“Yes,” he said, his mouth tightening. “Tomorrow, if only there were something for me to do there. And no responsibilities here.”
“So would I,” said Jenny with a deep sigh.
He hesitated. “Is it so bad, here?”
“It’s horrible! She made us leave Ayah behind!” she cried. “She said I was grown up, and Ayah was an unwarranted expense!”
“I see,” he said, biting his lip.
“And now she’s saying I have to go to school,” she added glumly.
“Er—didn’t you and Susi-Anna baba use to have a governess?”
“Yes: several, but the last one left. Mamma said she was making eyes at Uncle George. And she says I’m undisciplined,” she said, scowling.
“Are you?” replied the Earl mildly.
“No,” she said, going very red. “And a person can’t be good all the time!”
“I quite agree.”
There was a short pause. The Earl looked thoughtfully out across the fields.
“Anyway, when I’m grown up, I’m going back!” said Jenny pugnaciously, sticking out her lower lip.
“Yes. Well, aim at it, if that is what you want: it does not hurt, to have a goal in life,” he said with a sigh.
“Even for a girl?” returned Jenny suspiciously.
“Mm. Marriage is not inevitable. And you will have an independence.”
“Will I?” she said, staring.
“Er—yes. Your mother once mentioned it to me,” he said lamely.
“Truly? Huzza!” cried Jenny with a glad laugh.
Jarvis tried to smile, but found he was perilously near tears. Poor damned brat. Well, if he lived to see her twenty-first birthday... He swallowed a sigh, and supposed, somewhat drearily, that he should speak to Golightly: make sure that if he died before Jenny came of age, the executors of his will and her trustees between them would make damned sure her mother never got her hands on the trust fund.
They rode back companionably towards Dinsley House, again talking of India. Jarvis did not warn her not to mention to Kitty what he had said about the independence that was due to come to her. He did not have the impression that Jenny confided anything at all in her mother.
“I left cards!” said Major Harrod irritably. “What you wanted, weren’t it?”
“But did you not see—”
“No.”
Kitty flounced out.
… “Actually,” the Major admitted later to Addle, “I did see a few odd-lookin’ fellows. Wouldn’t let on to her, though!” He chuckled.
“No, indeed, George, dear!” she agreed, nodding. “So what were they like? How were they odd?”
The Major rubbed his chin. “Dashed funny hats. Must have been Russian hats.”
“Er—yes, dear. Prince Nicolas did not wear a funny hat,” she noted dubiously.
“No, but these fellows weren’t gentlemen. Servants of some kind. Funny breeches, too. Well, at first glance thought they was Pathans: gave me quite a start,” he admitted. “Baggy, y’know? And sort of frock-coat affairs; dare say they may be the Russian idea of footmen.”
Miss Harrod, very excited, interrogated him further, but all she got out of him was that one of ’em had a beard. Not like a Sikh, no. More like a Pathan, he dared say. Red. And the hats was some sort of fur. Lambskin, maybe. Not like a turban, no. Tall, y’know? This raised a very odd picture indeed in Miss Harrod’s mind, but her excitement did not abate.
“I collect,” said Mrs Somerton on a dry note, “that Mrs Marsh’s scheme to meet His Royal Highness has signally not worked.”
“No?” said Mrs Waldgrave eagerly.
“No. She had the Major leave cards, but nothing came of it.”
Mrs Waldgrave gave a smothered snigger.
Mrs Somerton refreshed her visitor’s cup. “It is Mr Somerton’s opinion that the man is nothing but a Belgian merchant.”
“Ye-es... Miss Harrod did mention to me that he has a positive retinue of very foreign-looking servants.”
Mrs Somerton noted neutrally: “Belgians are foreigners,” and Mrs Waldgrave gave another snigger.
… “Of course, Dinsley Airs is not within my parish, my Lord,” explained Mr Butterworth redundantly, “but I felt it would not be ineligible to call.”
Neither was Maunsleigh within his parish, strictly speaking, but apparently he had not felt it ineligible to call there, either. It was a little early in the day for a chota peg, but the Earl had not objected when Bates had brought in the Madeira. Mr Crayshaw, expressly invited to be present in the library by his employer for the duration of the visit, had appeared most grateful to see it.
“And were you received?” his Lordship asked politely.
“Oh, indeed, my Lord! His Royal Highness was most gracious: most gracious indeed!”
The Earl and Mr Crayshaw did not exchange glances, but it was an effort.
“That was enlightening,” summed up Jarvis sardonically when the visitor had, at long length, taken his departure.
“It was a pre-emptive strike,” said Mr Crayshaw, frowning.
“Eh?”
“About the two parishes’ joint harvest festival, sir, because Mrs Waldgrave had it at Lower Nettlefold last year.”
“Oh—yes.”
“I’m sorry, sir. You were saying it was enlightening. I can only agree,” said young Mr Crayshaw with a twinkle in his eye. “Most gracious, most gentlemanly, and aged in his forties.”
“Could be anybody, in fact,” summed up the Earl.
“Quite!” he gasped, breaking down in helpless sniggers.
… “The foreign accent must prove it,” decided Miss Burden.
Logic was not precisely Miss Humphreys’s forte, but even she looked doubtful.
“Prove what?” asked Powell Humphreys drily.
“That it is either a Roosian or a Proosian, of course,” said Miss Burden severely.
The brother and sister collapsed in horrible sniggers.
… “Mamma, the only way to prove it, one way or the other, is to call,” said Lacey. “You do not know that he has no hostess, after all.”
Mrs Somerton was rather flushed. The more so as this somewhat base notion had also occurred to her. “Mrs Waldgrave maintains that the Vicar did not see any lady... Though he is sure the gentleman is truly a Russian.”
“Yes, but did he ask him?”
“No, of course not, Lacey! But he spoke with a foreign accent. And the house is said to be full of odd-looking servants.”
“Dinsley Airs? It always was,” said Lacey dulcetly.
Mrs Somerton bit her lip. “Really, Lacey!” After a moment she added in a very weak voice: “I dare say one might leave cards.”
... Mrs Jackley scratched her head. “Well, I ain’t ’eard ’oo’s doin’ the cooking for ’em, and that’s a fact, Miss Burden!”
“I know it is not Mrs Cartwright’s cook, for she has retired to live with her sister.”
Cook nodded.
“Well?” said Mrs Langford with a twinkle in her eye, as her afternoon caller emerged from the kitchen regions of Kendlewood Place.
“The interrogation of Cook has produced less than nothing, and I know not how to proceed,” replied Miss Burden promptly.
“Well, that is terrible, Midgey. You must truly be at a loss. We, of course, at Kendlewood Place, are at a slight remove from the thing,” said Mrs Langford, still with a twinkle, “but at this stage, as I see it, two courses are open to you.”
Midge eyed her suspiciously.
“You could, like the rest of the district, leave cards on the pretext of believing there to be a lady of the house,” she said primly. “Though on the evidence so far, that will not necessarily produce a result.”
Midge gave a smothered snigger.
“Or you could break your leg at the bottom of his drive,” finished Lettice dreamily.
“Ar,” she said with a horrible leer. “Or I could dress up as a cook, and offer me sarvices—hey?”
Mrs Langford, who had believed the day was hers, collapsed in helpless giggles.
“How was she?” asked the Colonel, later the same day.
“Well, full of jokes, Charles, but I think she truly is a little happier in herself. Though she still blames herself terribly for not having prevented Mrs Cartwright from visiting at the workhouse.”
The Colonel sighed. Everyone had assured Miss Burden that as no-one could possibly have guessed there was about to be an outbreak of scarlet fever at the workhouse, Mrs Cartwright’s death could not possibly be laid at her door. “Yes. We must just give her time. Er...” He looked at her guiltily. “I suppose there is no news of the Russian prince?”
Mrs Langford collapsed in giggles once more, gasping: “No—there—is—not! And you are as bad—as all—the rest!”
His Royal Highness the Prince Alexei Alexandrovich Petrovsky peered out of the window of the little salon. “Ah. This looks like action. A barouche with a bonnet in it.”
Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Nicolaevna Petrovna sniffed slightly. “A bonnet with feathers?”
Prince Alexei peered again. “Upstandin’ ones.”
Mysteriously, the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Nicolaevna Petrovna returned to this: “Hm. Well, shall we be at ’ome, Sid?”
“Might as well be. I think the neighbourhood’s in sufficient of a ferment, by now.”
“Aye.”
They looked at each other, and grinned.
The major-domo—no-one could possibly have taken him for a butler—must have been over six feet tall. The high black Astrakhan hat he wore made it nigh upon seven. Even Lady Ventnor, though buoyed up by the consciousness of being the squire’s wife, felt a little daunted; but then, Russians were known to be very foreign and odd, were they not? Indeed, it was said to be almost an Eastern culture. And certainly those extraordinary baggy breeches the man was wearing, above odd knee-boots, not suited to an indoor servant at all, must prove that they had very different notions from us. The frock-coat was not, perhaps, extraordinary in itself, though to be sure no-one wore frock-coats these days. Added to which—though this might have been the Russian idea of livery—it was frogged, corded and epauletted for all the world like an hussar’s uniform. And there was a large gold chain across his chest, rather like a mayoral chain! Yes, it must be the Prince’s livery—Lady Ventnor was instantly convinced that the tenant of Dinsley Airs was a prince: who else would keep an indoor servant of that sort? In the hall there were more men, also with the high hats, the boots and the baggy breeches. Most of them also wore frock-coats, though less elaborately corded and braided than that of the man who had flung open the front door and bowed her and Harry Pryce-Cavell in, but two of them, quite shockingly, were in high-necked, full-sleeved white garments which the squire’s lady perceived to be shirts! High-collared, embroidered with a little scarlet thread, and not tucked into the breeches but worn out, with wide leather belts: so that you could not have said, precisely, that they were in their shirt-sleeves, but— Well, very foreign and odd.
The entrance hall of Dinsley Airs had been used to be a spacious, airy, light-filled area, containing little more than a long-case clock, quite fine, two matching occasional tables which Mrs Cartwright had claimed were French inlay work and which Lady Ventnor had always secretly coveted, and a couple of hard chairs. It was now well-nigh unrecognizable. The immediate impression was of a dark, exotic, mysterious cavern. The clock was in its usual place, certainly, but the black and white marble floor, a feature of the twin houses, had vanished under a multiplicity of carpets. Not spread out neatly in our English fashion, but higgledy-piggledy, some half covering others, so that you had no real impression of the pattern of any of them, but only a muddled idea of rich, dark colour. In Mrs Cartwright’s day the walls had been oak panelling, with a mirror over one of the occasional tables. Most of the panelling was now almost hidden by, incredibly, more carpets. Evidently of a finer quality, but in the exotic gloom it was hard to get a true idea of these hangings. The occasional tables were still there, if you looked for them. On one, where visitors’ cards had been used to be left, there now stood an odd wooden frame, almost like an opened box: it consisted of two elaborately carved panels to the sides, and a middle panel showing a picture of, possibly, a saint. Well, it had a halo. The table itself was half hidden by a draped shawl. The mirror above it was likewise half veiled by a shawl, this one of deep crimson silk. Very odd. The other table had been treated similarly, except that its centrepiece was a large brass pierced-work object from which a strange, scented smoke proceeded. Lady Ventnor at first thought she was imagining this smoke, though she certainly perceived the scent directly she stepped in. To either side of the staircase the elegant lines of the hall were hidden by a great collection of tall skreens, mostly dark leatherwork with a little gliding, but one or two very exotic-looking, of pierced metal. They gave the hall a mysterious appearance: you could no longer precisely grasp its extent.
In Mrs Cartwright’s day the light had been used to flood down from the tall window on the stairs: it was now veiled by a deep crimson curtain. And, Lady Ventnor saw with a shock, looking up, Mrs Cartwright’s small chandelier had been replaced by a giant brass box: more pierced-work, suspended from enormous chains and in its turn dangling further chains, with chased brass bobbles and pendants and— Well, really! The only word for it was barbaric: barbaric. And perhaps Russians were colour-blind, but really, the mixture of dark crimsons, purples and scarlets...!
The major-domo conducted the visitors through the exotic gloom, past a clutter of strange half-glimpsed shapes—Lady Ventnor jumped a little: that was a stuffed bear!—and, throwing open the door to the salon, announced, in stentorian tones and the strangest of accents, approximately: “Your Mosd Serene ah Hoighness, Ekaterina Nicolaevna! Your Mosd Serene-ah Hoighness, Alexei Alexandrovich! May Oi presend, the Lady Vendnora of Neddlefold Ah-Hall, and the Ah-Honourable Mis-der Proycey-Cavelli!” –All the aitches articulated.
A handsome man, dark-haired, with striking wings of silver at his temples, rose from a shawl-draped sofa, smiling. Lady Ventnor was relieved to see that he was in a simple suit of dark clothes. Like any gentleman. The old lady in black, with a magnificent but quite unsuitable high collar of diamonds at her neck, remained seated and did not smile.
“Lady Ventnor? How vairy kind off you to call!” said the Prince, with, her Ladyship noticed with an overwhelming sense of relief, only the slightest accent. Quite charming, really. “I am Alexei Alexandrovich Petrovsky.”
Lady Ventnor curtseyed, and presented the bowing Mr Harry Pryce-Cavell. The Prince greeted him kindly and then, turning to the elderly lady, who still had not smiled nor moved, said: “Lady Ventnor, Mr Pryce-Cavell, please allow me to introduce my mother, the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Nicolaevna Petrovna.”
At this the old lady smiled graciously and extended a gnarled hand, laden with huge, exotic-looking rings, for Mr Harry to bow over. Lady Ventnor found she was curtseying very low, as His Highness said apologetically: “My mother does not speak any English, I am afraid.”
“What a pity,” said Lady Ventnor, smiling a trifle nervously: the Grand Duchess was very grand indeed. A high sweep of white hair, somewhat after the style of the last century, draped with a fine black lace shawl. The face was lightly poudré and adorned with a single patch in the middle of one cheek: Lady Ventnor had not seen that in any lady for many years. Giant diamond drops, matching the collar, dangled from her ears, but the heavy black silk dress was itself unadorned. The wrap of sables was, however, impressive. Especially on a mild day like the present one. “Er—enchantée, votre Altesse. Est-ce que votre Altesse parle français, peut-être?”
“Hélas, my mother does not speak French, either,” said the Prince. He added something very rapidly in a very strange tongue indeed to his mother, and she smiled, very slightly, and inclined her head to Lady Ventnor.
... “So?” demanded Mr Simon Golightly eagerly.
Harry Pryce-Cavell laughed. “Well, it was all frightfully exotic, old man! But the theory that he’s a Belgian merchant may be utterly discounted: you never saw such sables as his old ma was draped in, and my aunt swears the black shawl she had over her head and shoulders was the finest Chantilly; dare say the old bird as she stood was worth a king’s ransom! Collar of diamonds nigh three inches high. And emeralds and cameos and I know not what on her fingers.”
“I shall beg Mamma to call,” said Simon with a grin. “And what’s he like?”
“Very gentlemanly. Sorry to disappoint you”
Simon grinned again, but acknowledged: “Have to admit, we was anticipatin’ somethin’ in the nature of a green velvet waistcoat, gold embroidered!”
“Nothin’ of the sort: very neat. Mind you, there was a giant ruby on his finger, size of a damned pigeon’s egg.”
“Lor’.”
“Well, doubtless that is the Russian style, but otherwise, he was quite unexceptionable. I would not say the same of his taste in furnishings, though!” he said, laughing. “Not that I know the house very well, but I would not have recognized it! In actual fact, the only thing I did recognize,” he added thoughtfully: “was that dashed hideous green marble chimney-piece in the salon.”
“Eh?”
“Well, don’t ask me to describe precisely what he’s done to it, dear boy—well, mayhap it’s the old dame’s taste—but I thought, on first walkin’ into the salon: ‘Cloth of gold’.”
“Lor’.”
“And there’s Persian carpets everywhere: what I mean is, they seem to favour slingin’ ’em around, one on top of t’other, and hangin’ ’em on the walls, and so forth—and there’s even one over the table in the window: my Aunt says it must be a silk one, though mind you, there’s three gilded cages of dashed parrots atop it! And all gilded stuff like you never saw, and shawls and skreens and so forth everywhere! Oh, and my Aunt Ventnor tells me there used to be a Venetian glass mirror over the mantel, but it’s vanished, and there’s a dashed great portrait of a fellow with a ruff and beard, wearing a ruddy great gold hat with a giant emerald the size of me fist atop it!”
“The word you are lookin’ for is crown, old boy,” he said kindly.
“You’re tellin’ me! Only it were enclosed, y’see, more like a hat. Must have weighed a ton. Oh, and the fellow in the portrait was sportin’ the same ruby ring the Prince was!”
“I cannot wait!”
“Yes, well, warn your ma that His Highness favours giant wolfhounds in the house.”
Mr Golightly gulped.
“Oh, it’s exotic, I’m tellin’ you!” he said with relish.
Mr Golightly agreed, with a pale smile. He did not care for wolfhounds.
“Their names are Ivan and Tamara!” reported Jenny eagerly. “Peter Ivanovich says they are very Russian names! And they’re huge: why, I dare say they are ten hands high!”
The Earl smiled. “And who is Peter Ivanovich?”
“One of the servants; they all have names like that. Their cook is called Natasha Andreyevska, and she gave me a Russian tartlet!”
“What was it like?” he asked kindly.
“Well, it was delicious; but actually, I have to admit that it tasted just like one of our own Cook’s lemon curd tartlets. Except that it was bright yellow: the pastry, I mean. I am not sure, because of the lemon taste, but I think it had kesha in it.”
“Mm,” he said thoughtfully.
Prince Alexei Alexandrovich peered from the window of the salon. “Flashy barouche. Flashy bonnet to match. I think this may be it.”
Ekaterina Nicolaevna replied grimly: “She ain’t gettin’ in. Not yet.”
His Highness shrugged. “If you say so.”
The burly Peter Ivanovich duly reported, his wide face very bland: “It was her, all right, your Royalness.”
“‘Your Royal ’Ighness’, yer noddy!” snarled Her Serene Highness.
“Right. Your Royal Highness,” said Peter Ivanovich, with a profound bow. “She left cards.”
“And?” drawled His Highness.
Peter Ivanovich gave a rich chuckle, deep in his splendid chest. “Which do you wish to hear, dear old fellow? That she was dashed peeved or that she gave your ’umble servant”—he winked—“the eye?”
“Both, wouldn’t be bad,” noted the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Nicolaevna.
“Well, it was both, all right.”
“Mm. Well, you’re a fine upstanding figure of a man, Peter Ivanovich,” noted his master drily.
Peter Ivanovich, last seen upon the boards of the London theatres in the rôle of the villainous Captain Jeremiah Coldheart, in that popular melodrama The Pirate’s Revenge, or Virtue Overturned, and better known to his profession as Harold Hartington, or, in much earlier days, as Atlas the Strongman, flexed his still impressive biceps, winked again, and exited, sniggering.
“She’ll be mad as foire, now!” predicted the Grand Duchess, rubbing her hands.
“That or put off entirely: yes,” he said blightingly.
The Grand Duchess just rubbed her hands, and cackled.
“Look at this, Charles,” said his Lordship, handing him a sheet of paper.
The Colonel sighed ostentatiously, and held the sheet of paper up, blinking at it. “Eh?”
The Earl had written: “Alexei Alexandrovich Petrovsky. Ekaterina Nicolaevna Petrovna. Peter Ivanovich. (Pyotr Ivanovich?) Natasha Andreyevska. Lemon curd. Kesha.”
“Dash it, Jarvis, this is a dashed word game! You cannot fill a fellow full of the roast beef of old England and expect him to—”
“It’s not. Look at those first two names: do they not strike you as odd?”
“Yes. Very. Take it away,” said the Colonel, closing his eyes.
Lady Judith Golightly bent forward with a smile. “May I?”
“It’s some sort of acrostic, Lady Judith,” groaned the Colonel.
“But I do not think it is a word game!” said Lady Judith, raising her eyebrows over it.
The Dean had been sitting at the harpsichord which was a feature of the smaller yellow salon at Maunsleigh, gently playing a piece which none of his audience had recognized. He brought this to a close and trod over to his wife’s sofa. “May I see? ...Ah.”
“I declare, I am nigh dead of frustration!” cried Lettice. “What is it, pray?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs Langford,” said the Earl. He handed her the paper politely.
Lettice looked at it blankly. “I collect these are the names of the newcomers to the district, Lord Sleyven?”
“Mm.”
“Er—is this a Russian word? K,E,S,H,A.”
“What? Oh, I beg your pardon. No: kesha is an Indian word for saffron.”
“I am not enlightened,” she admitted, handing the paper back.
“You had best explain the significance of the saffron and the lemon curd, Sleyven!” said the Dean briskly, holding out his hand for the list again.
The Earl sat down, saying slowly: “I have been told that the Russian tartlets of the Dinsley Airs cook—that is her name, next the lemon curd—that they much resemble those of any English cook. Except that the pastry be coloured yellow with what is suspected to be k— saffron.”
“That is not impossible. Saffron is a very old spice, of both the West and the East,” said the Dean.
“Mm. Is lemon curd Russian, though?”
“I have no notion, Sleyven, and nor, I think, do you!” he said with a chuckle.
“True, but the forms ‘Petrovsky’ and ‘Petrovna’?”
“Er... That fellow your brother once had down,” he said to his wife, rubbing his chin.
“Count Petrov?”
The Dean looked dry. “Exact. What was his wife’s name?”
“The Countess—Oh. The Countess Petrova, yes,” said her Ladyship.
“Right. And there was a fellow in his train—I cannot recall the exact name: a dashing young fellow, belonged to a cavalry regiment. His name ended in -sky, and his wife’s name ended in -skaya, not -ovna.”
“Ye-es... I think we are reasoning from insufficient evidence, David,” she said uneasily.
“Not to say, jumping to conclusions!” added Lettice with a little laugh.
Her in-laws to be looked upon Mrs Langford with great approval, and the Dean agreed: “Mea culpa. After all, we have the forms W,H,I,T,E and W,H,Y,T,E, side by side, do we not?”
“Yes. And Johnson and Johnston, with and without the T, variously pronounced,” said Lady Judith.
“Johnstone,” murmured Lettice.
The Golightlys looked upon her with approval once more.
“Kesha’s an Indian form,” said the Colonel suddenly.
“Charles, you may go to sleep again,” returned the Earl sternly. Grinning, Colonel Langford leaned back in his armchair and allowed his eyes to close.
The Dean looked dubiously at the list again. “All the same...”
“Mm. It strikes as just a trifle spurious,” said the Earl.
“Judith will call,” decided the Dean. “Spy out the quality of the old lady’s furs and diamonds and—uh—what was the other stuff Simon was on about? Besides the wolfhounds. Something the old lady had on, was it?”
“A Chantilly shawl,” replied Lady Judith heavily.
“A whole shawl?” said Mrs Langford.
Lady Judith smiled at her. “I have only Simon’s word, and he had it from Sir William’s nephew. A reputed whole shawl, Mrs Langford!”
“There you are, then: call,” said the Dean, retreating to the harpsichord.
“Dean, you are being exasperating!” she said with a vexed laugh. “What if I call, and find them to be impossible, pray?”
“It has happened before,” noted the Dean, very dry. He rippled his hands over the keys before his reddening wife could speak.
“Oh, I wish I could see it!” sighed Miss Humphreys. “Mrs Somerton says it is so exotic! With the stuffed animals, and the parrots, and the wonderful carpets, and Her Highness’s remarkable jewels!”
“Yes, so do I!” cried Janey.
Miss Burden’s eyes twinkled. “Well, the one option open to us seems to be to trudge through the mud to Dinsley Airs.”
Her hearers looked at Miss Burden indignantly.
“Or Mr Lumley would lend us his cart, should you wish to visit a prince and a grand duchess upon a cart.”
“I am sure he would, too! But,” said Miss Janey on a vicious note, “what I should like to know is, why Mrs Somerton could not have taken us up in her barouche! Or at least you, dear Miss Humphreys: one more would not have been a squeaze. And she had to come almost into the village to get to Dinsley Airs!”
Indeed she had. That or take the muddy back road from Plumbways, scarce more than a rutted track.
Miss Humphreys bit her lip, but nodded sadly.
“We might walk,” said Miss Janey on a hopeful note.
“You might, but you would arrive very muddy and out of breath,” returned Miss Burden. “And it is too far for Miss Humphreys. “And,” she said, as Janey opened her mouth, “we are not going, Janey.”
Janey subsided, pouting.
Kitty’s colour rose. “So you have called, Lady Judith?”
Lady Judith had come straight from Dinsley Airs to call on Mrs Cunningham. She was not best pleased to have walked into the salon and found Mrs Marsh sitting there, but was putting the best face possible on it. “Why, yes. The Grand Duchess Ekaterina Nicolaevna Petrovna is a very grand lady indeed. Though we did not find we had a common language.” she noted, very dry.
“But— Good gracious: do not all well-born Russians speak French?” said Mrs Cunningham’s daughter-in-law.
“So one has heard, Lady Paula,” agreed Lady Judith. “And certainly those who visited at Maunsleigh after the Peace celebrations spoke excellent French. It is the language of the Court; but then, Her Highness may have lived a retired life, on their country estates.”
“Yes, of course, but what are they doing here, Lady Judith?” asked Mrs Cunningham avidly.
“Unfortunately the Prince did not say. And I did not like to ask.”
The ladies’ faces fell.
“But I gather that he is fixed here for the summer. They certainly appear to have brought enough of their own household fixtures for an extended stay.”
“I had heard that the place is bursting with—with strange carpets and exotic birds and so forth!” said Mrs Cunningham eagerly.
“Mm. The Prince’s mother is very fond of parrots, and has several in the salon, both live and stuffed. There were certainly many carpets, though I do not know that I would call them strange... Though the salon was so dim that I could not be perfectly sure of what I was seeing.”
“Lady Ventnor says that the house is terribly gloomy,” offered Lady Paula.
“It is most certainly dark, but I would not call it gloomy, precisely! Say rather, a dark warmth. Very lush.”
The ladies looked at her uncertainly.
“With a stuffed bear in the hall!” she said with a sudden laugh. “Standing on its hind legs!”
The ladies gulped.
… “Well?” said the Dean with a twinkle in his eye, as his wife returned from her expedition.
“Odd.” Lady Judith sat down slowly, pulling her gloves off.
“I say, I wish you had taken me, Mamma!” said Simon.
“Mm, well, possibly you would have been able to pronounce on the quality of the carpets,” she said drily.
Mr Golightly reddened. “Very amusing, Mother.”
“Were they part of the oddness, my dear?” asked the Dean.
“We-ell... It is very hard to say, David. I could scarcely see when I came into the front hall, for it was very dark and my eyes had not adjusted to the light, but when I was shown out, I thought... Well, perhaps it is the Russian way, and they do not put their good carpets in the hall.”
“What about the old lady’s jewels?”
“David, I could not examine them minutely! She does not speak a word of English, by the way, so we merely exchanged bows, smiles and nods. He, however, was all complaisance.”
The Dean looked at her frown. “But?”
“Well, that was odd, for I was instantly convinced, on first setting eyes on him, that we had met, but the more we talked, the more I became convinced that we had not.”
The Dean rubbed his chin slowly. “Hm. And what was his voice like?”
“Very pleasant. Rather deep, as to its tone. Quite resonant.”
“No: Papa means his English, Mamma!” urged Simon.
Lady Judith glanced at her husband uncertainly: the Dean was not accustomed to say what he did not mean. “A slight accent, but excellent, fluent English. And a most gentlemanly manner.”
“Hm. Odder and odder, then.”
“No, it ain’t!” protested the misguided Mr Golightly.
“Simon,” said his father heavily: “if he be a member of the Russian aristocracy, why did the Embassy not contact Maunsleigh to say he was coming?”
“Um... blotted his copybook with the dashed Russian Court?”
“That is certainly a point,” admitted the Dean, rather shaken.
“Mm. I felt that the fact that their talking parrots spoke only German and Welsh were also points,” said Lady Judith drily.
They gaped at her.
“One of them speaks German, the other Welsh.”
“Welsh, Mamma?” croaked Simon.
“Judith has a very good ear,” murmured the Dean.
“More to the point, I have connexions in Wales!”
“Uh—aye. Old Cousin Anne,” recalled Mr Golightly.
“Though I suppose one may acquire one’s parrots from anywhere, even if one be Russian,” she admitted.
“Dearest,” said the Dean with a laugh, “one may acquire them on the docks at Portsmouth! One from a Welshman, one off a German ship, y’see.”
“Yes, but— I cannot explain it, but the whole atmosphere was slightly... spurious,” she said, using the word her cousin had used. “And the parrots somehow seemed to be the finishing touch.”
“Mm. And the Chantilly lace?” asked the Dean blandly, ignoring the fact that Simon was choking.
“It was. Very fine. Glorious, indeed. And a huge shawl.”
“Then if they be impostors— No, do not let us beat about the bush, my love,” he said as she frowned. “If they be impostors, they must be wealthy ones.”
“Mm.”
“I tell you what!” said Simon excitedly. “If the Prince had claimed the parrot what spoke Welsh was talkin’ Russian—”
“Wait,” said the Dean, watching his wife’s face.
Lady Judith bit her lip. “David, I do not wish this to become one of your—your things!”
“It will,” predicted Mr Golightly to the ceiling.
“That’s enough,” said the Dean, swallowing a smile. “Very well, my darling, I promise it shall not. What was it?”
“I admit I was a fool. I was so startled to hear the parrot say a phrase that I have heard an hundred times from Cousin Anne’s Myfanwy, that I remarked upon its speaking Welsh.”
Mr Golightly broke down in horrible sniggers.
The Dean had to swallow very hard, but looked at her face and managed to refrain from laughing.
“Everybody has been received there but ME!” shouted Kitty, hurling her reticule across the pink salon.
The Major dodged, wincing. “Dare say you called on a bad day. Er—coincidence!”
“RUBBISH!” She rushed out furiously. The door of the pink salon slammed behind her.
The Major waited.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs; then, from above, came the sound of another door slamming.
The Major shrugged, and retired into his paper.
The girls listened open-mouthed as the intrepid Janey recounted her “accidental” encounter with the Prince at the gates of Dinsley Airs. He had even disentangled the traces of Mr Lumley’s donkey-cart for her, she admitted.
“Jenny has seen him, but not spoken to him,” said Susi-Anna Marsh wistfully.
“Mamma and I merely left cards,” admitted Lacey Somerton, swallowing. “We did not see him.”
“He is quite blissfully handsome,” sighed Janey. “Dark: very romantic looks. Grey eyes, with the thickest, blackest lashes I ever saw on a grown man!”
The other young ladies sighed deeply. –Miss Bottomley-Pugh’s sigh was a trifle late but no-one noticed.
“We talked for an age,” said Janey smugly.
“Of what?” croaked Katerina.
“Oh—of this and that. He is quite a travelled man, of course—though he does not know Rome. And quite well read.”
Miss Bottomley-Pugh nodded feebly. Uncle Sid was that, all right. He had read every published play in the English language. And acted in not a few of them.
The Grand Duchess Ekaterina Nicolaevna unaffectedly tipped back her wig and scratched her head, with a sigh. “One little girl a-besieging of yer gates? I suppose it’s progress.”
“We are not doing so badly!” said His Royal Highness with a laugh. “The Dean’s wife has called, and the squire’s lady, and the lady from that other grand house!”
“Plumbways. The Somerton cat.”
“Yes. And it was your idea not to admit Mrs M. as yet!”
“Yes, but the point is, you great noddy, it oughter be her what’s besieging of yer gates!”
“It’s a bit soon for that,” he drawled, preening himself. Peter Ivanovich gave a snigger.
Ekaterina Nicolaevna Petrovna merely sniffed.
“And no-one suspects a thing,” said His Royal Highness in conciliatory tones.
“Ho, don’t they, just? Lady Judith’s eyes was everywhere, in case you wasn’t noticin’!”
“I noticed her noticing the sables and the Chantilly. I told you they’d be worth their weight in gold.”
“Worth what your brother shelled out for ’em, you mean!” she retorted smartly.
“Exactly.”
She snorted. “Yes, and just as well she didn’t get a gander at these dratted so-called diamonds! I’m in a quake every time a lady’s shown in!”
“They’re the best paste. We had ’em for Good Queen Bess in a piece called Sir Walter’s Passion, last year,” noted Peter Ivanovich. “He was Sir Walter,” he added with a jerk of the head. “Oh, and come to think of it, the diamonds did duty for Hamlet’s mother.”
“Hamlet’s mother’s cat,” muttered the old lady.
Peter Ivanovich gave a started laugh. “No, truly, ma’am!”
“Oh, aye. And which on yer was Hamlet?”
“He was. I was his wicked uncle,” said Peter Ivanovich sedately.
“Yes, well, uncles or not—”
“‘Uncle me no uncles,’” said the actors simultaneously.
“—Pardon us, dear lady. A quote from the immortal bard himself. Pray proceed,” said Peter Ivanovich at his most unctuous.
“I was about to say, that whether or not these bits o’ glass looked all roight on your made-up queens on your made-up stage, they won’t fool no earl’s daughter, in full summer!”
“That is why the windows are shaded, ma’am,” said the major-domo courteously.
“Partly,” murmured His Royal Highness, eyeing the large portrait over the mantel.
“That is a Fred Greenstreet the Elder!” protested Peter Ivanovich.
“Exactly!” he said with feeling.
“Dear old fellow, it’s genuine! Well, a genuine thirty-year-old fake ancestor, apart from the crown. Fred’s old Pa painted it with his own hands, for a Cavaliers and Roundheads thing.”
“Cavaliers my foot, I’d’ve chopped their ’eads orf, curls and all!” said the old lady crossly. “I’m saying, these bits of glass are a risk!”
“No-one would suspect a Grand Duchess of wearing fake jewellery, ma’am,” said Peter Ivanovich earnestly.
“They better not, that’s all! So, what are you going to do about Mrs M.?”
The Prince’s black-fringed grey eyes sparkled. “Nothing. Your strategy, or do I mean stratagem, appears to have worked, ma’am. This,” he said, producing an envelope from his pocket, “came earlier.”
The Grand Duchess snatched it off him.
“A dinner and dance,” he explained. “The dance is ostensibly for the daughter.”
“Huh! Well, if we go, and I’m not sayin’ as I will,” she noted darkly, “I’m not wearing paste diamonds! I wouldn’t be able to swallow me dinner!”
The Prince reached out gracefully and retrieved the invitation. “We shall both go, Ekaterina Nicolaevna. You can wear the pearls that Joe’s got in his safe for Kate’s coming of age.”
“I’ll do no such thing!”
“You will, if you wish to come. For we,” he said dreamily, “have the most magnificent Russian tiara, that will look quite splendidly regal above them!”
“Me? In a tarara?”
“You will look the part. Nay, you do look the part.”
She sniffed, and heaved herself to her feet. “That’s as may be.”
“Where are you off to?” he said with a yawn, holding up the invitation from Kitty Marsh and admiring it.
“The kitchen. If so be as you lot wants any dinner tonight. Acos she might just know enough to pretend she’s a Russian to little Jenny, but that Nancy Andrews don’t know—”
“‘A hawk from a handsaw,’” they said simultaneously.
Mrs Cumbridge merely snorted, and took herself off to the kitchen.
Next chapter:
https://thepatchworkparasol.blogspot.com/2022/12/family-affairs.html
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