A Very Quiet Summer

24

A Very Quiet Summer

    Only Lash and Aunty Bouncer were home to receive—or perhaps counter—Lady Stamforth’s kind invitation. Captain Cutlass and Mouse were with the Quarmby-Vine relatives in Derbyshire and Niners had been despatched to Blasted Oak House at Belinda’s urgent invitation. Julia, realising that there was no point in hoping that Mrs Cox would go out to Wardle Heights Farm to support Mary through her first baby, had packed her bags and gone herself. Not at all unwillingly, but most certainly with the remark that Ma Cox was an unfeeling monster. And Aunty Jicksy had elected to accompany her, with some obscure remark about the countryside round that way when she, the late Mr Huggins and one, Ellen Jones, had all been young. The Dark Ages: quite.

    Aunty Bouncer got her stroke in first. “Yes, yer Ladyship’s already told us you intention a quiet summer, only funnily enough, a little bird what pretty often comes to roost in our kitchen’s told us you’re laying on some ’uge great party with a theatrical performance.”

    “A leetle Poulter-bird, one presumes!” she said with a merry gurgle.

    “It ain’t funny. The family’s in their blacks,” said Mrs Peters grimly. “Added to which, what about that pretty boy that was a-hanging round the shop?”

    “Mr Bobby Cantrell-Sprague ees steell weeth us; he ees editing my India memoirs. Deed Leetle Joe not mention that I have asked heem to print the book?”

    “He did, yes, only the expression ‘pie in the sky’ was what sprung to mind,” replied the indomitable Mrs Peters.

    “No, I assure you: Mr Bobby ees working vairy hard.”

    “Good. Might be something to ’im after all.”

    Her Ladyship nodded the fashionable hat. “And do you not theenk that eef he sticks to eet, that weell prove he ees not just a pretty face?”

    “Maybe. But we don’t want Mouse to ’ave another disappointment.”

    “I theenk he has enough character to settle down to a sensible life and support a wife. I admit,” she said airily, “that I deed not theenk that, the year he was dangling after our leetle friend, Peg, but then, that was not serious, and he was scarce more than a boy. He went through the university vairy young: he ees vairy bright. The dons were tairribly disappointed that he deed not weesh to be a scholar, but of course the family deed not desire eet.”

    After a moment Mrs Peters recovered from this flood of information and asked drily: “Did he?”

    “No, he said to Lewis that eet was possible for a man to enjoy opening a book weethout wishing to live een an ivory tower of scholarship. That was at the fencing salon, I theenk.”

    “He boxes, too, I think,” recalled Lash suddenly.

    “Of course! A don’s life would not do for heem at all: een fact he ees so fond of horses and dogs, that we deed wonder eef he might do for Mina. But she treats heem like a brother.”

    “Yes, I noticed that,” agreed Lash mildly. “I think I should point out that Mouse’s mother and brother will not wish to see her tie herself up to a parasite, your Ladyship.”

    “No such theeng! He ees working vairy hard on the book. Many young gentlemen een the same circumstances would have chosen to do nothing at all!”

    “True enough,” agreed Aunty Bouncer. “Right: that leaves the question of this ’uge party with theatrics, don’t it?” she noted, eyeing the caller sardonically. “Go on, ’ow many dukes have you invited?”

    Her Ladyship was seen to smile limply. “None at all, thees year. Lewis has decided eet must be for the children from now on. I thought your Ned might like to come, Mrs Yates. Eendeed, I hope you all weell come.” She looked at them hopefully. “Eet’s not until August. I theenk Charles and Trottie True weell be home, yes?”

    “Aye,” agreed Aunty Bouncer, “but the younger girls’ll still be away. Niners’ll be with John and Belinda, though I dessay they might drive over. What exactly is it gonna be? A play?”

    Suddenly Lash recalled those cards she had once helped Joe set up: what seemed like two lifetimes ago, yes. “No haunted forests or spurious knights of the Round Table, I trust?”

    “Not thees year,” she said dazedly. “How deed you—”

    “It’ll’ve been the invitation cards what Joe printed for you,” said Aunty Bouncer kindly.

    “I see. No, thees ees a—well, we call eet a masque, because eet’s a play weeth musical interludes: a version of Puss een Boots, adapted from the fairy tale by Charles Perrault.”

    “We got the book,” agreed Mrs Peters. “’Armless enough.”

    “Yes. Well, if it’s for the children, there can be no objections,” said Lash, smiling at her Ladyship. “But I don’t know that I’ll be able to get Ned along: last time I proposed the fairy tales as an alternative to the eternal Rime of the Ancient Mariner, he stigmatised them as brattish.”

    “See, ’e was mad for that thing last year, and we thought he’d’ve grown out of it by now,” explained Aunty Bouncer.

    “Jack likes eet, too,” said Nan heavily. “Perhaps eef you tell heem that my Johnny ees looking forward to the play, dear Mrs Yates?”

    As the ladies knew that Master Johnny Edwards, Lady Stamforth’s son by her first husband, was now a big boy of fourteen, going to his step-papa’s old school, they agreed that this might be the clincher, and the talk insensibly drifted off the topic of the girls’ summer and on to children, their fancies and their pets…

    As they saw her Ladyship out it became apparent why the last of these topics had come up. The barouche contained a sweating footman and two feisty-looking pugs. “Deed you walk them, Alfred?” she cried.

    “Yes, me Lady! Only they won’t settle, not no-’ow!” he gasped over the yapping.

    “They are young ones,” explained her Ladyship with a lovely smile. “Hush, Prunes! Hush, Prisms! –I deed not bring them een, because of Dog Tuesday. I wonder, do you know of anyone who would like a dear leetle dog?”

    “Or two,” noted Lash, two seconds before Aunty Bouncer could. “No.”

    “Do Mrs John Formby’s leetle boys have dogs, perhaps?”

    There was a short pause, during which Lash and Mrs Peters contemplated the delirious delight of having her Ladyship foist a couple of snappy pugs on Cousin Belinda.

    “Well, no,” said Bouncer, coughing slightly. “Keen on Dog Tuesday, ain’t they, Lash?”

    Lash glared, but could not contradict her.

    “The vairy theeng!” she cried, clapping her hands.

    “How could you?” croaked Lash when her Ladyship’s conveyance had taken the fusillade of shrill yapping round the corner.

    Aunty Bouncer looked slightly conscious but replied: “My money’s on Belinda: them two’ll be the best be’aved dogs in Christendom afore Harvest Festival!”

    On second thoughts, she was not wrong. Laughing, Lash took her arm and went back inside.

    Cousin Belinda in person called three days later but, possibly as a reward from the Almighty for not having been the one who had suggested a viscountess offer her two yapping pugs, Lash was out and Aunty Bouncer had to entertain her by herself.

    “And was it a pleasant visit?” enquired Lash with tremendous affability.

    “All right, she took ’em, and she’s renamed ’em Pat and Pip, that do yer?” she snarled.

    Alas, Lash collapsed in streaming hysteria.

    “Yes, hah, hah. She wants us to go out to Blasted Oak ’Ouse!” she said loudly. “Yes, thought that’d stop you in yer tracks,” she noted as the laughing fit ceased abruptly.

    “I can’t! Not two years in a row!”

    “Well, me too neither, only I’m blamed if I can think of an excuse, Lash.”

    “Ned’s schooling?”

    “Won’t wash: she’ll send ’im with her lads until it’s time for their holidays.”

    “Well, uh— Oh, glory,” said Lash dully.

    No possible excuses occurring, she went. The one dubious consolation being that Mrs Peters had been similarly unable to think of an excuse, so she went, too. Oddly, Mr Huggins seemed keen on the thing. This mystery was more or less resolved by his remarking during the journey in the Blasted Oak House barouche: “Don’t care what that Rattle claims, Mouse ain’t gonna marry no noddy from the castle! And what’s more, it weren’t the dry rot what was making the beer at the Sailor’s Arms taste better than what they got at the Elephant & Castle!”

    Nobody had to ask for clarification of this last, because Ned volunteered excitedly: “They’re pulling it down! Me and Micky Trickett seen the roof come down! Whoomph!” he illustrated, flinging his arms up.

    And so they settled down to a quiet life of genteel drives in the barouche to venues as exciting as Lasset Place, Broadmeadows, or Longwood House. The food, however, was still good—though Belinda’s cook’s pies were still not as good as Julia’s. Possibly it had not occurred to Mr Huggins that Cousin Belinda did not care for him to remind the company that Julia sometimes did her own baking. Or on the other hand, since he was not particularly slow, perhaps it had.

    Several weeks dragged by with the only excitement being the news that Mary had had her baby and the subsequent visits to see mother and infant. A boy. They would name him Joseph Lucas. The “Joseph” after John-John’s Pa, if Ma did not object? Julia did not appear to object at all: on the contrary, she was very pleased to have Mary calling her Ma and thrilled with Master Joseph. Though not quite so thrilled at the prospect of the christening. Oh—over to Lasset Halt? Well, Mr Collins was preferable to Skellett. Innocently Mary corrected this to “Mr Courtenay, Ma.” There was no sign of Mrs Cox, but astonishingly enough Mr Cox turned up one afternoon complete with a guilty-looking but excited Lucinda. Mrs Gilfillan’s late husband’s aunt had just died, being the reason the latter was not over in Brighton.

    Aunty Jicksy came back with them to Blasted Oak House after this visit—had enough of the babe’s bawling, being the explanation—but other than that and the prospect of more drives to see Master Joseph, nothing changed. Well, Niners, having at Belinda’s urging taken up archery as a ladylike sport, attempted to teach her Aunty Lash her new skill with near-fatal results, but otherwise…

    Several letters from Derbyshire had reported with great satisfaction on the scenery and with no enthusiasm whatsoever on the mild entertainments offered by the kind Quarmby-Vines at Sommerton Grange, so Aunty Bouncer asked without much hope as Lash laid down the latest epistle from Captain Cutlass: “Anything in it?’

    “Put it like this. The younger Mrs Q.-V. has kindly produced another half-fledged imbecile in a choking neckcloth and fancy yellow pantaloons for Mouse, possibly unaware that those are not her criteria even for sensible conversation, let alone a partner in life—”

    “Give over. –Here, that blamed Mrs Q.-V., Senior, hasn’t been giving dinner parties, has she?”

    “Only for a few close friends,” said Lash heavily. “I suppose if she finds it acceptable, it must be, given her grandfather was a duke. No dancing, merely cards for the elders and lottery tickets for the young people. But this wasn’t an evening party.”

    Mrs Peters sniffed slightly. “Elegant drive to view an Elizabethan knot-garden?”

    Lash sighed. “No, that’s the chief frightful neighbours’ mansion, and they’re now in residence. No, it was an al fresco entertainment with a little music.”

    “Picknick in the garden!” chirped Aunty Jicksy with a snigger.

    “Well, yes, if you call something that included a string quartet from the town a picknick!”

    Grinning, Aunty Bouncer held out her hand for the letter.

    “I’d ignore the reference to dashing majors, he sounds even more imbecilic than Mouse’s yellow-pantalooned one,” advised her niece.

    “Eh?” She turned over. “I get yer! He’s actually known as the Dashing Major!”

    “It’s a stupid nickname that the nobs have adopted, and the man preens himself every time it is used!”

    “I got that,” she said mildly. She glanced through the letter rapidly and collapsed in a choking, wheezing fit. “Oy, listen to this!”

    “I have read it, thank you,” replied Lash.

    “I ’aven’t! Go on!” urged Jicksy.

    Grinning, Bouncer read out the choicer bits of Captain Cutlass’s letter.

     Naturally I did not at all know what to expect of a Phelps-Patterson, in especial as Mrs Q.-V. had privily assured us the Dashing Major is not, at all, but the old aunt decided to leave him her property, so he tacked it onto his bit. Tho’ I am not, I blush to confess it, absolutely sure what bit was tacked, and what bit was tacked onto.

     This apparently tickled Mrs Peter’s fancy: the reading was suspended while she went into a muffled sniggering fit. Lash sighed.

    But the instant he appeared I was able to recognise that of course he was! Quite a military carriage—not the vehicle, tho’ that is, too: it is a curricle, which Susannah, Mrs Q.-V. the younger, has explained so many of the military men favour—with the most flashing dark curls and dashing dark eyes imaginable! No, I have confused them, in my emotion, but you know what is meant. They dashed and flashed like nobody’s business, whilst the white teeth positively blazed, and we mere females were enabled to be quite overcome. I can tell you this for a fact, as Miss Mary Something, who is a particular friend of Susannah’s, assured me that we must be.

    “As much of a ninny as this Susannah is, then,” noted Aunty Jicksy.

    “Which one, ’im or ’er?” retorted Aunty Bouncer brilliantly. They both went into sniggering fits. Lash sighed again.

    The compliments then flew thick and fast, so much so that he nigh o’er-looked the fact that we ladies were in want of sustenance—but not quite. Tho’ naturally we should not care for the robuster meats, especially on such a warm day. So altho’ the viands were located all of ten feet to our rear I somehow managed to totter over there, and allowed Mr Q.-V. the elder, who has the merit of recognising that we ladies are possessed of stomachs, to carve me a good plate of cold beef.

    The aunties were in agonies. Lash took a deep breath.

    “Yes, all right, lovey,” said Aunty Bouncer, blowing her nose, “we realise this Major feller’s a landed gent and not quite old enough to be her father, but we don’t want Captain Cutlass to tie herself up to a noddy!”

    “I wouldn’t mind seeing her tied up to a noddy with a good-sized place in Derbyshire and the income to support a curricle!” snarled Lash.

    Mrs Peters replied calmly: “Yes, yer would, Lash. –Go on, ring the bell, Belinda’s told us to order up a tray of tea whenever we fancy it, and I fancy it.”

    “I fancy a drop of port,” said Mrs Huggins with a sigh.

    Her peer didn’t even bother to snort, just eyed her drily.

    Belinda having reminded them that Puss in Boots was for the children, with a sort of smiling forbearance that stopped well short of anything like “After all, she was brought up as a foreigner,” or “More money than sense, but she means well,” but left them in no doubt that those were her sentiments, they went. Well, the old people managed to get out of it, but Lash and Niners accompanied John and Belinda, together with three horribly excited little boys. On its green-gold mound in the sun the great grey edifice appeared, as they approached, its usual imposing self. As the Blasted Oak House barouche got nearer, however, Lash croaked: “That is not the Vane coat of arms on that flag, is it?”

    “No! It’s Puss in Boots!” cried Ned.

    Sure enough, Puss in Boots—black and brown on a red ground—was waving merrily over the ancient castle; a fair enough indicator of what was to come.

    It was an outdoor performance, set within the castle walls, before the ancient keep itself. As it was a very sunny day the rows of seats set out on the grass were sheltered by bright strips of cloth; a wise precaution if the hosts wished the audience to see anything at all but parasols.

    Miss Baldaya was with her sister and brother-in-law, greeting the guests, but there was no sign of Miss Benedict, a mystery which was resolved when they found seats by Trottie True and Charles. “She is in it, dear Aunty Lash!” said Trottie True gaily. “We gather it is quite a tradition for the young people and the castle’s guests to take part!”

    Lash consulted her programme but it did not enlighten her as to the part Mina might be taking, though informing her that it had been printed by “J. Formby & Son, Waddington-on-Sea.”

    “Mr Emmanuel Everett, who takes Puss, is quite a well-known London actor,” said Charles with a smile. “Though hitherto I have only seen him play the hero.”

    This was a fair indicator of how serious the thing was intended to be, then. “Is Lady Stamforth in it as well?” asked Lash in a doomed voice.

    “No, though it is far from unknown for the hostess to take a rôle—generally non-speaking, in a tableau or some such—in these summer productions of old Brentwood’s!” said the Captain with a chuckle. “And if he puts it on again at Sir Jeremy Foote’s, further down the coast, I would not wager a groat that Lady Foote will not be in it—boots, as it were, and all!”

    “Yes,” said Lash limply as Trottie True collapsed in giggles and even Niners smiled. “I see.”

    Considerately Captain Quarmby-Vine, who was between her and his wife, pointed to the place in her programme. “Chorus of attendant Faeries, Nymphs, & Pixies.”

    “Mm.”

    “The pixies are mostly the children,” he said kindly.

    “I thought it was an entertainment for them— No, forget it!” said Lash with a laugh. “But if you could explain to me what the Lord Mayor of London is doing in it I should be grateful.”

    Gravely the Captain consulted his programme. It did say “Lord Mayor of London: Mr Perseus Brentwood,” yes. “My past experience of the fellow’s productions would indicate, ma’am,” he said formally, “that it is in order to afford Mr Brentwood a juicy part.”

    “I think they must have combined Puss in Boots and Dick Whittington, Aunty Lash,” contributed Trottie True kindly.

    Yes? The programme indicated that they had combined, at the very least, Puss in Boots, Dick Whittington, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the other hand, the presence of “A Shipwrecked Saylor”—how had Little Joe ever been persuaded to retain that spelling?—and “A Great Albatross” would seem to suggest… Lash swallowed hard. Ten to one Ned would stand up and scream, as if he did if one misread a syllable of his favourite poem: “That’s wrong!” Oh, help.

    “The albatross is a contemporary reference,” said Captain Quarmby-Vine, on the broad grin.

    “Stop it, Charles!” she snapped.

    He looked at her in surprise.

    Helpfully his wife explained Ned’s mania.

    “Yes. Sorry, Charles,” said Lash numbly. “The thing is, he knows dratted Puss in Boots, and if they stick in bits of Dick Whittington he’ll probably be incensed enough, but if they start throwing in broken bits of The Unspeakable Rime of the Frightful Ancient—”

    “Don’t worry, Lash, my dear, I’ll speak to him!” he said cheerfully, getting up.

    Lash watched numbly as he made his way to the front where a crowd of children were sitting on a selection of rugs. Sitting and stuffing their faces: Rani Ayah was in attendance. He didn’t have lads of his own and she was quite sure he didn’t know how insistent children could be on getting the story right…

    “What did you say, Charles?” asked Trottie True with a twinkle in her eye as he returned.

    “Told him it wasn’t going to be the proper Puss in Boots. And that they probably had got the idea of the albatross from the poem but it wouldn’t be that, either.”

    “Yes,” began Lash anxiously, “but what about—”

    “And that the Lord Mayor of London would be rather like the one in Dick Whittington and though there might be bits of that it wouldn’t be the real one, either. But that London does have a real Lord Mayor,” he finished, twinkling.

    “Oh,” said Lash limply. “That sounds all right.”

    “I was a boy once, meself!” he said with a laugh. “Stayed with some family friends up in Scotland one frightful year when I was about thirteen, and the adults got up a production of Macbeth, which by that time I had read, y’see. I spent the whole performance in gleeful, not to say morbid, anticipation of Macbeth’s head on a pike, and blow me down! They’d left it out, in consideration of the ladies’ sensibilities. Never been so frightfully dished before or since! Though quite some years later I escorted a party to a performance at Drury Lane where they also omitted it,” he added drily.

    Lash looked at him in horror. “But surely that is one of the great climaxes of the piece?”

    “That was certainly my instinctive conclusion.”

    “There, you see?” beamed Trottie True. “Don’t worry, Aunty Lash, I am sure he has made Ned understand!”

    If anyone could get such a concept through a very stubborn head of that age—mm. But she thanked him nicely and settled back more comfortably, the anticipation now almost outweighing the apprehension.

    Mr Perseus Brentwood’s production of Puss in Boots was so overpoweringly immediate that the entrance of the booted cat was greeted with screams of terror by the littlest ones at the front. At which Mr Emmanuel Everett very sensibly removed the head-dress—leaving some fuzz on the chin which presented a very odd appearance indeed—and explained kindly: “It’s only me, dressed up; don’t be frightened. Want to see the head close-up? You can stroke the ears, if you like.” So with only one or two screams of “No! No!” and “Don’t like it!”—not from Lash’s own infant, thank God—the head was inspected, the ears were stroked, certain lofty tones, amongst which Ned’s were clearly discernible, explained: “It’s only a man dressed up! See?” and Mr Everett resumed the head and the performance.

    After quite some time Lash came to herself sufficiently to perceive that the children were not laughing when the adults were. Oh, Lor’. She peered, but as far as she could see they were all watching in rapt attention.

    “What is it?” murmured Niners, as Puss and the Marquis of Carabas, a very pretty fair-haired young man who certainly came over as completely inane, though whether this was merely an actor’s effect was not determinable, having encountered The Faerie Queene (Miss Ariadne Aden) and An Aery Sprite (Mr Graeme Grandcourt), went on their way in proud possession of a magic daisy (possibly Magicke Day’s-Eye), taller than even the booted cat himself, and the Queen and her toadstool were wheeled off by, possibly, two members of the “Chorus of attendant Gnomes & Grotesques,” though they looked more like a couple of sweating gardeners.

    “The children aren’t laughing,” muttered Lash in agony.

    Niners smiled. “No, Aunty Lash, they’re taking it seriously.”

    “Yes, but—”

    “That’s rather the point of these summer things of Brentwood’s,” murmured Charles.

    Lash sat back limply. Good grief! Why hadn’t the man warned her?

    The Captain cleared his throat. “Sorry; thought you knew.”

    “Just warn me of anything else you think I know!” she hissed.

    “Uh—the actors usually take several parts,” he murmured.

    Lash had gathered as much from the programme; she nodded.

    “More than the programme would indicate,” he murmured.

    Looking mildly surprised, Lash nodded again.

    “To the point of idiocy, Lash,” he murmured.

    “Oh!” she gulped.

    Captain Quarmby-Vine smiled. “Mm.”

    There was some indication of this towards the end of the first act, when a chance-encountered “King Wobbly” reduced the children to ecstatic, streaming hysterics—the performance, indeed, pausing to allow him to repeat his routine. King Wobbly was—well, very fat and wobbly. The presence of a small, ermine-edged coronet, as well as the presence of enormous padded yellow pantaloons, possibly indicated some slight reference to His Late Majesty George IV—though it was true that the adult members of the audience were not reduced to hysterics on account of it. King Wobbly was not on the programme. Charles pointed silently to “Lord Mayor of London: Mr Perseus Brentwood.” Lash’s jaw dropped. She gaped at King Wobbly’s giant red cheeks, huge blobby red nose, giant puffy white eyebrows, and, under the coronet, bright pink bald pate fringed with two rows of symmetrical white curls. The Lord Mayor of London had been a tall, impressive, nay villainous figure, with pitch-black hair and side-whiskers, a villainously yellow complexion, and sneering black brows.

    “Yes,” murmured the Captain. “Wig and paint. False nose.”

    Lash’s hand went uncertainly to her own eyebrows.

    “False,” he said succinctly.

    She gulped.

    More of the same was to come. The “Musicke & Songe” with which the programme announced the act would end revealed itself to consist of the string trio which had done the thing’s overture, four pretty singing, dancing fairies in exiguous white gauze gowns and wings, and one singing tenor in long gold lovelocks strumming a mandolin. The Captain, nodding at this last, said: “That’s him: Everett. –Puss.”

    Er… True, the actor appeared as Puss with all his limbs covered in striped fur, not to mention the giant boots, so the fact that the mandolin player had very shapely legs indeed, in astoundingly blue Mediaeval hose, did not disprove— But surely he was both shorter and fatter, as Puss? Was it merely the effect of the fur suit?

    “Illusion,” said the Captain with a twinkle in his eye, as the applause died down, “is the actor’s art, my dears.”

    “That singer was much taller than Puss,” said Niners uncertainly.

    Lash nodded grateful agreement with her.

    “My dears,” said Trottie True on an anxious note, leaning forward: “he was not joking.”

    Lash frowned.

    “N— Look, I ain’t joking! Hang on. Ahoy, Formby!” he said loudly, leaning forward.

    “Aye, aye, sir?” responded John with a grin across Trottie True and Belinda.

    “Frightful yaller-haired fellow with the mandolin: that were Everett, fellow who takes Puss, weren’t it?”

    “I’d say so. Can’t tell with the head on, of course, but from what we saw of him at the beginning when he took it off, yes!”

    “Puss is surely shorter, Cousin John,” said Niners with a frown.

    “Considerably,” agreed Lash. “And his whole carriage is completely different!”

    “No, no,” he said kindly. “Largely the effect of the padding—and the fur, of course.”

    Belinda leaned forward. “I thought Puss was shorter than the singer, too.”

    “Nonsense, me dear: it’s that same geometrical puzzle that I tried to explain to the boys!”

    Belinda drew a deep breath. “I cannot see that geometry is involved, John.”

    “’Course ’tis! If the man is broader in the beam as Puss he will appear shorter: it is a particular kind of optical ill—”

    “Nonsense,” she said grimly.

    Charles got up quickly. “Never argue with a lady over a question of geometry, John. Shall we fetch ’em some refreshment?” And the two gentlemen left the ladies to their triumph.

    It was, alas, short-lived. No sooner had they received glasses of something suitably cooling than Lady Stamforth rustled up, crying: “My dears, I do hope you are not finding eet too seelly! Ees not Mr Everett adorable as Puss? Such a vairy purry, furry voice! One would swear eet ees a different man entirely, when he plays hees mandolin and sings so prettily!”

    The ladies were reduced to red-faced silence, even Belinda only being capable of a gulp.

    “Didn’t recognise him,” explained Captain Quarmby-Vine, trying not to laugh.

    “But— Oh!” she said with a trill of laughter, taking in the red cheeks. “Well, of course you could not know, my dears, but Mr Everett weeth hees mandolin ees a feature of Mr Brentwood’s summer shows! And deed you see Mina?”

    They looked at her blankly.

    “Deed you really not spot her? Een the scene weeth the toadstools and the Faerie Queen.”

    Captain Quarmby-Vine cleared his throat. “I defy anyone to recognise even the sex of a person shrouded in a white tube under a hat three foot wide.”

    “Oh, four!” she replied with a gurgle. “But she and Bobby C.-S. were not toadstools: they are much too tall for toadstools!”

    The “faeries” in that scene had been as over made-up as the gauze ones who had sung and danced at the end. And their dresses had been as exiguous. “Mina wasn’t one of the fairies, was she, Lady Stamforth?” said Niners dubiously.

    “No, no, my dear! Well, personally I would have let her, but Lewis deed not think those dresses were quite respectable! I shall give you a hint. They were both green.”

    Trotte True swallowed. “Not one of the lizards?” she croaked.

    “Which?” replied her Ladyship airily.

    “Stop it, Nan!” said Charles with a laugh. “Tell us at once, under pain of having no attendees at the next!”

    Sunnily her Ladyship revealed that Mina had been a frog and Bobby had been a lizard. And, possibly not realising that the stunned expressions on the Formbys’ faces were not due so much to this revelation as to the realisation that their new relative by marriage addressed her by her name, rustled away again.

    Lash tottered to her feet. “I shall just check on Ned.”

    “I shall come with you,” said Niners gratefully.

    They went down to the front in silence. Master Yates was stuffing his face with what was possibly a piece of fried vegetable dipped in a sauce— Oh, who cared! And if it was vegetable, so much the better! He replied scornfully to his mother’s anxious enquiry as to whether he was enjoying the show: “’Course!”

    “So am I,” said Niners gratefully. “Puss is good, don’t you think?”

    Ned nodded hard round a bite of heathen pie.

    “Good,” said Lash gratefully. “Which bit did you like the best, dear?”

    Swallowing with difficulty, her offspring retorted scornfully: “When he took his head off, of course!”

    Lash tried to smile. “Mm. Um, did you like the Lord Mayor of London?”

    “No! He’s horrible, Ma,” he explained.

    “Yes, he’s horrible!” agreed his little cousin Joey.

    “Y— Uh—”

    “Give it up, Aunty Lash,” murmured Niners.

    “Mm. Well—well, we are just back there, Ned. With Charles and Trottie True.”

    “I know,” he said indifferently.

    Vanquished, his relatives retreated.

    “It was all like that,” said Lash with a sigh.

    Mary had listened in wide-eyed, breathless interest but Julia, who was holding Master Joseph Formby, did not appear to have taken in a word. “Mm,” she agreed vaguely.

    John-John and Commander Henderson had joined the ladies in time for tea and the major part of the report. “And did the children enjoy it?” asked the latter kindly.

    “Of course, sir,” said Niners, smiling. “They loved the broader comic characters.”

    “Niners, as you pointed out yourself, they took it seriously,” said Lash heavily.

    “Not all of it,” she said kindly. “Not the fat king or the court jester, Aunty Lash.”

    Lash sighed again. The court jester had been yet another metamorphosis of Mr Emmanuel Everett: admittedly with a very silly red-cheeked face and evident false nose, and a very, very silly bladder on a stick, but in a spangled harlequin suit that might have passed muster behind the footlights of Drury Lane at a distance of fifteen feet or more but that across a lawn on a very warm afternoon at what was supposed to be a performance for the children had been at the limit of acceptability. And the giggling that had proceeded from the fine ladies in the row of seats behind theirs had most certainly indicated the rig-out had had its effect.

    “Ned seems to have liked some sort of comic milkmaid, too,” added Aunty Jicksy. “With a cow, was it?”

    “In a play?” asked Mary in bewilderment.

    Quickly Niners, not remarking that her brother’s shoulders were shaking and that Commander Henderson had coughed and covered his mouth with his hand, explained: “Not a real cow, of course! Two men dressed as a cow—well, it was not intended to deceive anyone, really, but the head was very good, I thought. The comic milkmaid kept trying to milk it and the cow kept kicking her and her bucket.”

    “Him and his bucket. It was a man,” said Lash heavily. In fact it had been the actor-manager, Mr Perseus Brentwood himself. Again. Nay, yet again. Charles and Cousin John had lapsed into counting the number of times the man appeared—no, well, Charles had begun it, explaining that it was half the fun, and John had immediately joined in.

    Niners waited while the gentlemen’s spluttering fits died away. “Yes. He was terribly silly, but the children loved him,” she said tolerantly.

    “I get you,” agreed Aunty Bouncer mildly. “Can’t see why you didn’t like it, Lash.”

    “No, indeed,” murmured Commander Henderson, mopping his eyes.

    “She was very nervous because Ned had never seen a play before and we thought he might expect it to be just like the story of Puss in Boots in the book,” explained Niners.

    “Oh—wasn’t it?” said Julia vaguely, hugging the baby.

    “Er—no, Ma: there is no comic cow or milkmaid in the story,” said Niners on a weak note, ignoring as best she might the Commander’s further sudden coughing fit.

    “Nor yet any giant albatross,” said Lash grimly. “How they could have been so stupid—! Especially after several of the children screamed at the cat.”

    “Lash,” said Aunty Bouncer on a tired note, “give over. I’m sure no-one cared how many times Ned stood up and shouted.”

    “Did he shout at the Puss?” asked Julia with a vague smile.

    “No, Julia, he shouted at the giant albatross,” said Lash heavily. “To give you chapter and—hah, hah—verse, he stood up and shouted: ‘“At length did cross an Albatross! Thorough the fog it came!’ Huzza!” Very loud on both ‘Albatross’ and ‘Huzza’.”

    “I’m glad he enjoyed it,” replied Julia, smiling.

    “Oh, he enjoyed it. Quite half of the children were screaming with terror, however.”

    “Oh, no!” cried Mary. “Was it very frightening?”

    “Well, yes,” admitted Niners. “It was a tall man, and the wing-span something like twelve feet in all. However, Puss very kindly told them not to be frightened again.”

    This struck a chord with John-John: he collapsed in a wheezing, choking fit, from which his grinning employer assisted him to recover by kindly bashing him on the back.

    Julia did not appear even to see this by-play. “I don’t think there were any giant birds in the story,” she said mildly, hugging her grandson.

    “Er—no,” said Niners limply, not daring to look at the gentlemen. “In any case the children got over it quickly and they thoroughly enjoyed the rest. And I must admit, so did I. It was silly, of course, but none the worse for that!”

    “Niners—” began Lash heavily. “Oh, never mind,” she sighed. “It was ostensibly for the children, and you’re right: they enjoyed it.”

    “’Course they did!” said Aunty Bouncer quickly. “Go on, tell ’em about Mina Benedict.”

    “It’s a tradition for members of the house-party to take part,” explained Niners. “Mina and Mr Cantrell-Sprague were both in it, in most amusing costumes, as a frog and a lizard, and little Jack was in the last scene, as a pixy: she looked delightful, did she not, Aunty Lash?”

    “Very sweet. She had a funny little red hat, Julia, and a green coat and leggings.”

    “That sounds adorable,” smiled Julia, actually looking up from Master Joseph. “Who is this Mr Cantrell-Whosis, again? Mina’s beau?”

    Niners blinked, and Lash’s jaw sagged.

    “Julia, wake up! Anyone would think it was you what ’ad the milk!” said Aunty Bouncer sharply.

    “Mm? Oh!” she said with a laugh. “I suppose it’s just having a baby in the house… Well, I’m glad you all had fun.”

    “Ma,” said Niners on an uncertain note, “Mr Cantrell-Sprague—”

    “Never mind, Niners,” said Lash quickly.

    Great-Aunty Jicksy patted her hand. “Yes, leave it, lovey.”

    Gratefully Niners left it.

    Driving back to Blasted Oak House in the barouche, however, she ventured: “Ma doesn’t seem herself at all.”

    Great-Aunty Bouncer sighed. “No. Well, just be thankful she ain’t taken against Mary.”

    “You might say,” said Great-Aunty Jicksy, looking at Niners’s face, “why on earth would anyone, a sweet little lass like her, but that don’t often count with mothers-in-law.”

    “Mothers of sons, she means,” said Lash with a sigh. ”Yes. I for one am very thankful for it. And, um, if concentrating exclusively on Mary’s baby is her way of—of getting over Joe’s death, Niners, I think we should just leave her to it.”

    “Yes,” she said, swallowing. “But… Well, she was so very sharp and—and aware, before,” she said in a low voice.

    “And will be again, lovey,” explained Great-Aunty Bouncer quickly. “But just for the moment, if she wants to forget every blamed word she ’eard about fancy-pantaloons Cantrell-Sprague from the castle, let her.”

    “Yes. It don’t count that he’s Mouse’s fancy, in the state what she’s in, Niners,” said Great-Aunty Jicksy on an anxious note. “Never mind that the gal always was ’er favourite.”

    “No, I see,” she said, blinking.

    Lash, who was next her, took her hand and squeezed it hard.

    “I must say,” said Niners in a choked voice, “that I am very tired of all these—these changes.”

    The two old ladies exchanged glances. “Well, it’s been a hard year,” allowed Mrs Peters. “But life is change, lovey. We can’t expect things to stand still.”

    “Aye, she’s right. And Baby Joey ain’t a bad change, deary!” piped Mrs Huggins anxiously.

    “No, of course. I wish Ma had let me hold him longer. But… well, it is still a big change, having John-John back from sea and not having to worry over him any more, or over Commander Henderson,” she said on a wan note.

    The old ladies exchanged glances again. “Did yer, dear?” said Mrs Peters weakly.

    “Of course, Aunty Bouncer. Miss Henderson and I used to walk up to St Jude’s every Wednesday afternoon to change the flowers on her Aunt Violet’s grave, and we always said a prayer for them both.”

    Her relatives looked at her limply. Niners had never breathed a word of this, hitherto!

    “What if it rained?” said Jicksy at last.

    “We would take the carriage, naturally, Aunty Jicksy. But now she changes the flowers on Sunday, before church.”

    “Silly ’en,” said Jicksy, scowling.

    “That’s a bit hard,” protested her peer feebly.

    “Come orf it, Bouncer! Ain’t she got the sense to see the girl’s ’ad more than enough? Why make another change, for nothing?”

    “Gratuitously,” agreed Lash limply. “Well, yes. I suppose we shouldn’t have let Belinda kidnap you this summer. I’m sorry, Niners.”

    Niners went very red. “No! I did not mean to imply that, at all! And—and after all, it is the same as last summer.”

    “It’s as blamed boring, aye,” said Jicksy with a sigh.

    “Right, but what was the alternative?” replied Bouncer. “Stay home moping? With the occasional drive out with Ma Mountjoy being gracious, or a stroll down to the Front?”

    Jicksy shrugged, looking cross. “Blow the Front: I’d of gorn down to the lifeboat and chucked a stone at it like the little girl done!”

    “That would have broken the monotony,” agreed Lash in a hard voice.

    “Yes. Give over, Jicksy,” sighed Bouncer. “–Missing ’er drop of port,” she explained.

    “Aunty Jicksy, I could speak to Cousin Belinda about it,” offered Niners kindly.

    Mrs Huggins had the grace to gulp. “No, don’t, deary. She’d offer, but she’d suffer for it.”

    “In her sense of propriety, dear,” said Lash kindly to her niece’s puzzled face. “We’ll be home soon, anyway, Aunty.”

    “That bottle’s almost empty,” replied the old lady mournfully.

    “Whose fault’s that?” cried Bouncer swiftly.

    “Noddy! Julia always used to remind Joe to buy another!”

    The barouche was silent.

    “Sorry,” said Jicksy in a small voice.

    “I’ll remind Little Joe,” said Lash with a sigh. “Or you could, yourself, Aunty Jicksy.”

    “Yes. Sorry,” she repeated. “S’pose yer lose yer sense of proportion, or something, when yer get to my age. Well—the little things matter more,” she said with a sigh.

    “I will speak to Cousin Belinda,” determined Niners, sticking her chin out, “and do not argue, Aunty Jicksy!”

    The barouche was silent—not the least because Niners had both looked and sounded incredibly like Julia. The old Julia—yes.

    “I suppose,” said Bouncer heavily, as they got down on the sweep and Niners hurried inside, presumably to speak to Cousin Belinda immediately, “that this stuff about too many changes explains why she ain’t been encouraging Colonel Bredon none.”

    “We have only seen him twice, Aunty,” returned Lash cautiously.

    “And she didn’t encourage him neither time. He looked at her as if he fancied her when she sang, though, don’t you think?”

    “Might just of been because he likes music,” said Jicksy dubiously as Lash hesitated.

    “Mm,” she admitted. “And—and I have to say, that though she appeared to listen attentively when he played the piano, she didn’t look at him.”

    The old ladies sighed, and Bouncer admitted: “Noticed that.”

    “Send ’er out with Ben in the trap again?” ventured Jicksy.

    Bouncer coughed. “You can drop that. Come on, the girl’s probably sticking ’er neck out as we speak. I wouldn’t mind a drop of port, meself.”

    “Yer might of said so!” she cried.

    “Thought I’d let you bear the brunt,” replied Bouncer cheerfully. “Give that blamed parasol to Lash, and come on!”

    Smiling, Lash accepted Aunty Jicksy’s best black silk parasol, and the two old ladies headed eagerly inside towards the port. “I suppose,” she conceded wryly, “that one has to be that age for such small things, as well as mattering more, to offer such great consolation!”

    “Another letter from Derbyshire for you, Lash,” announced Aunty Bouncer.

    “I suppose this will be the last before they are back,” conceded Lash.

    The three old people were looking at her expectantly. Swallowing a sigh, she opened it and ran her eye rapidly over it. She smiled reluctantly. “It’s Captain Cutlass being silly again… As a matter of fact,” she admitted, glancing at Mouse’s sheet, “now they are both being silly! Well, that’s an improvement, at all events.”

    The party from Sommerton Grange had all been favoured with an invitation to a quiet dinner at a nearby property owned by a close friend of the Quarmby-Vine brothers—a retired Naval commander. He was, apparently, a handsome man, considerably older than his pretty little fair-haired wife, and they were a devoted couple, both pleasant and intelligent. This had not, however, stopped the two Formbys.

    Captain Cutlass started off reporting quite nicely on the lovely grounds of the property and the delicious dinner, including an excellent roast goose, but then lapsed from prose into poetry:

It is a youngish Ladyship

And she stoppeth one of three.

“By thy fair curls and wide blue eye,

Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?”

    “’Ere!” cried Aunty Bouncer excitedly.

     “Yes: Ned’s mania,” agreed Lash.

    “Thing with the albatross—right,” conceded Jicksy.

    “Thought it sounded familiar, like,” admitted Ben comfortably. “Go on, then.”

She holds her with her mitten’d hand

“There is a dinner’, quoth she,

“Hold off! Another? Fayre-haired loon!”

Eftsoons her hand dropped she.

 

But undeterred, then bade them all,

The wide Park for to see,

The spreading lawns, the moaty Pond,

And eke the chestnut tree.

 

At length appear’d a mighty Bird

Thorough the fog it came

Well sauc’d, with ragouts—collops, too,

And soups one cannot name.

     The old ladies shrieked, and collapsed in tearing-eyed hysterics.

    Lash cleared her throat. “That’s based on the bit in the original where the albatross appears, Nunky.”

    “The—goose!” gasped Bouncer helplessly.

    Gasping: “I get it!” Nunky Ben collapsed in a wheezing fit.

    Lash, who had thought the plagiarist’s use of the next verse much funnier, kindly waited until they were over it before proceeding:

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

 

The Ladyship, whose eye’s still bright,

And gracious silk undimm’d,

Permits them all at dead of night

To ’scape her Derb’shire Door.

 

I went like one that has been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn,

A sadder and a wiser maid,

I rose the morrow morn.

    The old people all collapsed in helpless sniggers again. Lash smiled feebly: had Coleridge had that few lines that actually rhymed? Not to say, so many that scarcely scanned.

    Mouse, though on the same theme, had essayed a different form—and a different poet.

It is not to be thought of that the Flood

    Of Commander Sir Arthur’s famous lake (or Pond) would be

    Actually likely to arise and create an inland sea

Although to hear him talk its “pomp of waters, unwithstood”

Would certainly of it be capable, if unchecked, unrooled

    And generally allowed to rush about like mad,

    And straight without its famous Stream to pour, if had

The owner’s banks and mounds its force for good

Or ill not tamed. In his halls are hung

    Portraits of the inev’table ancestors of old.

We must be starved, it seems, while speak the tongue

    Of spouse and host alike; interminable tales are told

Of house and grounds. And still the dinner does not come;

    Of Earth’s first blood I’d now partake, or pudding cold.

    A certain silence reigned. Finally Aunty Bouncer ventured: “What was that?”

    “Not Wordsworth,” admitted Lash. “Um, sorry. A sonnet, Aunty.”

    “Thought they ’ad more rhymes than that?”

    “So did I,” admitted Jicksy. “And that ‘Earth’s first blood’ bit’s nasty, why put that?”

    Alas, Lash gave in completely, and gasping: “Not her own! And Wordsworth’s rhymes were wuh-worse!” collapsed in streaming-eyed hysterics at last.

    The travellers had returned, more genteel diversions at Blasted Oak House were enjoyed, possibly not the word, summer neared its end, and the Formbys at last came home thankfully to New Short Street. Then came the not entirely unexpected news of Miss Victoria Formby’s engagement to Mr Jimmy Rossiter—or, as Aunty Bouncer put it: “What with ’er ma asking ’is ma over, if it hadn’t’ve happened the sky would’ve fallen, that’s what!”

    Sir Harry received the thrilling news politely, if without interest, and asked his visitor kindly: “The little cousin happy, is she?”

    Captain Cutlass had pondered upon the matter of the disposal of Miss Victoria and so replied seriously: “Well, yes, in her terms I think she is. It’s true he is an attractive and pleasant-mannered young man, and not so very much brighter than she is… But compared to Trottie True or John-John, it does not seem to me that there is true feeling on either side! How can people bear to marry on such terms, sir?” she burst out.

    He made a face. “Don’t ask me. Never been one for that sort of social bargain, meself. –So when’s the wedding to be?”

    “Not until next June. I suppose Mr Courtenay will perform the ceremony,” said Captain Cutlass with a shudder.

    Sir Harry sniffed. “Damned priests are all the same, Catholic or Protestant. Reminds me of the time me son’s—” He broke off hastily: he had nearly said “valet”.

    “Yes, sir? Something to do with a priest, was it?” she prompted.

    He cleared his throat. “Aye. To do with paying a priest off, more like. It was a servant. He was a bigamist.”

    Captain Cutlass swallowed.

    “Usually they clap ’em up for that, in the Catholic countries. Well, and send ’em straight to Hell, of course. Let me see,” he said, rapidly editing all mention of the estate out of the story. “His name was Jésus—very common name in Spain. He was a country lad, but was apprenticed very young to a goldsmith in the town. He married his first wife at seventeen—had to. Mind you, she was a widow and well past forty, but the priests had got hold of him, y’see. Then about a year after that he came back to his village and married a girl of around fifteen or so. News don’t travel fast in those rural parts, and nobody knew of the first marriage. We was living there for a bit, doing quite well for ourselves at the time, quite a decent house, so he comes along and begs for a job, and me wife—too soft-hearted for her own good, y’see—takes him on. Sort of general help,” he said airily, glossing over the footman bit. “His wife has a brat six months after the wedding, and Jésus seems to be doing fine—though mind you, he was always pleading poverty, but everyone assumed it were just that the wife wasn’t a good manager. Then a couple of months later I discovered, quite by chance, that the so-called solid gold cross on the altar in the local church was actually lead, gilded. Normally never set foot in the church, you understand, but the priest had called on me wife practically in tears, some big holy day coming up, and so forth, so I looked in to tell him we’d be there—well, no skin off my nose. And the fellow insists on showing me all his treasures in great detail, and he’s maundering on about something or another, forget if it was a damned statue or a skreen or what, and I’m idly fingering the cross, and I scratch the gilt off! Dare say no-one else would have thought anything of it, but I never had liked the look in Jésus’s eye, and it was too much of a coincidence, y’see, him having worked for a goldsmith. I don’t say a word to the priest, but go home and corner Señor Jésus. Denies everything, of course, so I have a good think about it, and get off to town to talk to the goldsmith. Don’t like the look of him, neither, very shifty-looking character indeed. So I get hold of one of his workers, fill him full of the local red wine—harsh as bedamned,” he noted by the by—“and the fellow spills the lot. The goldsmith was blackmailing poor old Jésus on account of the two wives, and got him to steal the gold cross and replace it with the replica. The man couldn’t tell me whether he sold it or melted it down. So I decide I’d better see the wife, and this fellow explains she died a couple of months back, and the eldest daughter by the first husband has taken on the rest of the brats. I go off to see her, and that’s when I find out the wife’s age. Well, couldn’t altogether blame poor old Jésus for getting out of it, hey? Seventeen and past forty? As the brats are all there, I ask which one is his? And the daughter’s husband starts shouting and the daughter bursts into tears and admits that none of them ain’t, and her ma seduced poor old Jésus well after the event, and the priests did the rest. So I get off home, pretty hot under the collar, as you can imagine, and tell my wife the lot, and we see Señor Jésus together. I was ready to bully it out of him, I’ll admit, but no sooner have I told him we know the lot than he’s prostrating himself at my wife’s feet, bawling all over the show—excitable fellows, these Spanish peasants. I would’ve liked to prosecute the damned goldsmith, but it can’t help anybody for the truth to come out, and Jésus agrees with me. Only then he asks, what shall we do about Maria? And y’see, the wife’s name’s Consuelo—I mean, the second one, the bigamous one.”

    Captain Cutlass choked.

    “So then the rest of it comes out. The reason he’s so broke is that the goldsmith made him marry this Maria, who’s his niece, that someone else had got into trouble—no, true: Jésus was in the village at the time, couldn’t have been him—and he’s been forcing him to support her. Told the neighbours he was some sort of travelling man, which is why they scarcely ever see him. As you can imagine, I question Señor Jésus narrowly, but it appears he’s white as the driven snow: never even had the woman.”

    Regrettably, his ladylike audience collapsed in splutters.

    “Aye, but it gets better. I get on over to see the priest and explain to him precisely what happens to obscure country priests when the local big house gets to hear they’ve been sanctioning bigamy. And who, exactly, is the father of Consuelo’s brat? So the priest bursts into tears and admits it was a married fellow what already has eleven brats of his own, and the girl’s mother was frantic, and Jésus came along— In short, the damned girl seduced him and they told him the brat was his. So there’s poor old Jésus, three times married, and never a father!”

    Alas, Captain Cutlass collapsed in further splutters.

    Sir Harry sniffed. “Aye. Well, a bit later on me son needed a man to work for him, so Jésus did that—got him away from the village. And as for shelling out gelt to the priests: I paid the man to arrange an annulment of the marriage to Consuelo—well, it may never’ve been legal in the first place, but it was for the benefit of the village, y’see. Think the grounds had to be it was never consummated, which wasn’t true, but the threat of the wrath of the local landowners did the trick.”

    Captain Cutlass blew her nose. “I see! And would you have reported him to the big house, Mr Smith?”

    The false Mr Smith blinked. “Uh—not really, no,” he said weakly.

    “And what became of him in the end? Does he still work for your son?” she asked eagerly.

    Damned Jésus Juarez? Of course he did! He was as they spoke very probably handing Luís the wrong garment entirely for whatever activity he intended for the afternoon. “Couldn’t say what happened to him eventually, me dear,” he said vaguely.

    Captain Cutlass gave a deep sigh. “It’s so exotic!”

    “Somethin’ like that, aye.”

    She thought it over. “There is a logical flaw in your story, though, sir. Did the village priest in fact know that Jésus was already married to the older woman when he forced him to marry Consuelo?”

    “Yes,” said Sir Harry succinctly.

    “That is truly appalling! Surely in their terms that would be imperilling the poor little man’s immortal soul?”

    Jésus Juarez was not particularly little, for a Spaniard, but Sir Harry merely replied simply: “Yes.”

    “And—and did the poor man realise it?”

    “What, that the damned priests had imperilled his immortal soul? Don’t think so, no. He was more afraid of what might happen to it if he didn’t marry the girl when the priest told him to. –Well, this Reverend Courtenay sounds the type to hold Hell fire over a miserable villager’s head, too.”

    Captain Cutlass shuddered. “Yes, and horrid Mr Skellett from St Jude’s! Perhaps we Protestants need not vaunt ourselves on the Reformation, after all.”

    “I wouldn’t, no,” he said mildly. “Put ’em in a frock and they’re all the same: keep the people ignorant and afraid, and they’ll stay well under the thumb and pay their damned tithes.”

    “Or give them fruit-cakes that were intended as a gift for themselves,” she noted grimly.

    Sir Harry did not question the precise reference, he just said sourly: “Exact.”

    She tried to smile. “Sir, I perceive you are a dangerous radical and anti-clerical at heart!”

    “Makes two of us, don’t it? No, well, a rationalist, certainly. And a revolutionary, in me time. As for anti-clerical: yes, and an atheist. It’s interesting to read the encyclopédistes and watch the way they try to reconcile deism, the belief in a supreme being, with their rationalist ideas. Never convinced me,” he admitted with a sniff. “Don’t think poor old Diderot ever realised he wasn’t in fact a Christian.”

    Captain Cutlass gave a muffled snigger, nodding.

    Sir Harry realised he’d been rambling on. “Er—was going to say, me son’s sent down a box of books,” he said cheerfully, omitting entirely the denuding of Ainsley Manor’s library shelves. “Dare say y’might give Voltaire a go, hey? Not his poetry nor his silly tragedies, poor fellow, couldn’t write for the theatre like he imagined he could. No: his prose style. Lucid, carries you along, and not verbose. Always think of him as the French Cicero, though I dare say your Dr Adams wouldn’t have agreed.”

    “There was only one Cicero!” said Captain Cutlass with a laugh. “I confess, I don’t much care for Voltaire, though I have only read him in translation.”

    “Big mistake,” he said, shaking his head. “Try the Lettres sur les Anglais in the original. Style’s a pure pleasure.”

    “Ye-es, but should one read him only for his style?”

    Sir Harry looked again at the wide brow, now wrinkled dubiously, and the perfect complexion of milk and wild roses. “Uh—think you’re too young to grasp it, as yet. Would have reacted badly meself, at your age, if anyone had told me to read anything for its style,” he admitted. “But talking of the damned priests, read him for his anti-clericalism! He manages to convey a certain admiration of some aspects of Protestantism with some really well-aimed barbs!” He shook slightly. “Bishops were his bête noire, be they Roman or Anglican! Talks about the way the English clergy are allowed to marry and y’start thinking ‘Yes, sound chap, very balanced, he really approves of this’, and then he gets in a good one at the bishops: how does it go? Something like: ‘La mauvaise grâce que les évêques ont contractée dans l’université d’Oxford ou dans celle de Cambridge et le peu de commerce qu’on a ici avec les femmes font que d’ordinaire un évêque est forcé de se contenter de la sienne!’” He burst out laughing.

    “Sir, your French is much too fast for me,” said Captain Cutlass, smiling at him.

    “Mm? Oh! Forgot.” Obligingly he translated.

    She laughed. “I shall re-read him! I have Dr Adams’s French dictionary!”

    “Good.” He looked at the clock. “Best see what Manuel’s planning for dinner, hey?”

    Captain Cutlass got up, looking uncertain. “I have to get home, sir.”

    “Hey? Oh—damnation,” he said, his face falling. “So y’do, me dear. Didn’t come over by yourself, did you? Shouldn’t be sailing home alone at this hour.”

    “No, Mr Rattle came with me. He’s in the kitchen giving his opinion on a large pot of stew that contains dried beans and very little else that I could identify by sight! Though it appeared Manuel was about to add potatoes to it.”

    “Good, sounds like the Asturias-style dish. A peasant dish, but not to be despised! Holà, Julio!”

    Julio Juarez shot in, beaming, and was interrogated in Spanish as to the dish being prepared in the kitchen, having to assure his master that it was not only for the servants.

    “Sure you can’t stay?” he said hopefully to his visitor. “If Rattle can take you back—”

    “No, they will worry about me.”

    “Of course.” Courteously Sir Harry rose and saw her and Mr Rattle down to the boat.

    “Damn,” he said to Julio Juarez, who had accompanied them, uninvited. “It’s all getting too complicated, ain’t it? Nearly forgot meself completely and mentioned Luís today.”

    Carefully Julio replied: “Par-don, Meestair Smeet’?”

    “Uh—oh.” Repeating his remark in Spanish, Sir Harry picked the little boy up and strode back to the house with him. “Thing is,” he said, still in Spanish, setting him on his feet again, “if I do ask her to come and keep house for me her family’ll never wear it! Not a girl of that age!”

    Politely Julio agreed with him.

     Sir Harry sat down with a sigh. “Should never have started the thing: damned Bungo was right all along,” he concluded sourly.

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/spaniards-in-sussex.html