April Showers

11

April Showers

    The weather had closed in again, the wind and rain were whipping the windowpanes of the old house in New Short Street, Timothy Trickett’s recent mending of the rotted window-frame in Great-Nunky Ben’s room had been declared by Joe to be a stitch in time, though the old man himself had condemned it with a sniff as a patch job and the new wood not properly seasoned and bound to warp afore you could turn round, and the family were clustered round the fire in the front parlour, at their usual evening occupations. Even Ned was still up: his mother was immersed in the creation of an embroidered reticule for Captain Cutlass, doubtless to celebrate, or perhaps promote, her recent elevation to the status of young lady, and his aunt was immersed in a newly-discovered volume by Miss Austen: Persuasion. His Great-Aunty Bouncer was deep in the intricacies of a new knitting pattern which was to result in a fine shawl for Captain Cutlass whilst simultaneously putting Mrs Mountjoy’s nose out of joint, the pattern having been loftily handed on by that lady’s sister-in-law, and his Great-Aunty Jicksy was deep in the Land of Nod.

    Julia had just remarked that it was hard to believe that any young woman could be that much of a doormat, though the fellow sounded like a Bingley in a uniform, when there came a loud knocking upon the front door.

    Aunty Jicksy woke up with a start. “Thunder!”

    “No,” said Nunky Ben, laying down the piece of wood he had been whittling. “I’ll go, if yer like, Joe.”

    Joe’s ruddy cheeks had paled. It was unlikely, at this time of the evening, that it could be any but bad news, as the old man’s offer implied. “No, I’ll get it, Nunky Ben.”

    The old man grunted, but got up. “Come with yer.” He lit a candle as Joe strode out, and hobbled in his wake, shielding the flame with his hand.

    Joe opened the front door to a gust of wind. Nunky Ben’s candle flickered but did not go out and in the dim light two huge, caped dark shapes were discerned upon the doorstep.

    “Hullo, Pa!” said one of them with a laugh. “Back at last, like a bad p—”

    The end of his sentence was muffled by Joe’s bear-hug.

    “Ahoy there, Nunky Ben!” said John-John with a grin, emerging from this embrace with his hat knocked off and his fair curls madly ruffled.

    “Gawdelpus, we thought you was a-drowned at sea, lad!” he gasped.

    “It’d take more than a storm off the East Indies to drown me, Nunky!” He held out his hand and the old man, elbowing Joe out of the way, seized it fiercely but then had to blow his nose hard on a huge, grimy kerchief.

    Joe was already blowing his. “Come on in, lad,” he said weakly. “And your friend, of course.”

    By this time the rest of the family had flooded out into the passage, Aunty Jicksy’s shrill tones topping the hubbub with an order to: “Let ’is ma get at ’im, you lot!”

    Joe hauled John-John inside bodily, what time Julia was thrust forward by many hands and saying valiantly: “There you are at last!” forthwith burst into a storm of sobs on her tall son’s chest.

    But eventually they were all back in the front parlour, Nunky Ben, creaking and groaning, had with his own hands added more logs and a mite of coal to the fire, and the two tall men were able to take off their capes and John-John was able to introduce: “Commander Henderson, Pa; it was him as rescued us.”

    Grinning, Joe wrung Commander Henderson’s hand. “Can’t thank you enough, sir!”

    “Well, it wasn’t I alone, Mr Formby,” said the tall, dark-haired man pleasantly. “The lads did most of it, and if it wasn’t for Sammy Bodger up in the crow’s-nest, we should never have spotted them at all!”

    “Bob Bodger’s son,” said John-John to his family. “There are a fair few from these parts aboard Lucas’s vessel. Couple of the Carter boys from down Old Short Street, too. Well, I suppose I had better introduce you to this lot, Lucas!”

    Commander Henderson owned with a twinkle in his eye that he would be most gratified, so John-John duly introduced him. The Commander did not blink as the two elder girls were made known to him as “My older sisters, Trottie True—um, Theresa, and Nin—um, Elizabeth,” in fact he bowed politely, expressing himself glad to know them, and remarked that he thought it must be Miss Elizabeth who was so kind as to visit with his aunt, and he was grateful to know she had found such congenial companionship, and was not rattling about in that house alone all the day.

    Her Aunt Lash had recovered sufficiently from the stupefaction of having John-John turn up safe and sound to observe Niners’s reaction narrowly, but alas, she did not blush at all, merely replied composedly that on the contrary, she was grateful for the opportunity. As expected, Trottie True did not speak up for herself, so Lash said quickly: “And it is Theresa who has been looking to your old seafaring friend Mr Hartshorne, Commander Henderson.”

    “Oh! No! It’s nothing, really! And the baking is largely Ma’s and Cookie’s, not mine!” she gasped, turning very pink.

    “She visits him at least once a week, and it is certainly she who reads your letters to him,” said Lash firmly.

    Commander Henderson’s rather severe face lit up in a genuine smile. “Then pray allow me to express my gratitude, Miss Formby.”

    “It was nothing, sir,” said Trottie True in a small voice. “He will be so thrilled to see you home safe.”

    “’Course he will!” agreed John-John cheerfully. “Now, this is my youngest sister, Mouse—there’s another, seems to be missing,” he added, putting his arm round Mouse as the Commander bowed and murmured: “Delighted,” not addressing her as “Miss Mouse”.

    “Welcome home to England, Commander Henderson,” said Mouse promptly. “Our other sister will be disappointed to have missed you: she is over in Brighton with Captain Burns’s wife.”

    “Eh?” said John-John.

    “Yes,” she said, looking up at him anxiously. “Is he all right, John-John?”

    “Out of course! We were dashed lucky, lost but three sailors, a cook, and one officer.”

    Mouse swallowed. “Which officer?”

    “You would not know him: our Second Officer, George Gage: he was from Southampton.”

    Little Joe meantime was cheerfully introducing himself and wringing the Commander’s hand, thanking him for rescuing his brother from the briny. “Who were the sailors and the cook, John-John?”

    John-John scratched his fair curls. “Well, the cook came from somewhere up north—Yorkshire, I think. The sailors were Ned Pierce, he was a Devon man, a fellow called Hawke who was a nasty piece of work, no loss, and, uh, Jem Saddler.”

    “Oh, no!” cried Trottie True, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “Poor Mrs Jem!”

    “Aye,” said John-John glumly. “Washed overboard, no hope of rescuing him, poor fellow.”

    “These things happen,” said Lash on a grim note.

    “Sorry, Aunty Lash,” said Little Joe glumly. “Shouldn’t have asked.”

    “No, I think it could have waited,” she agreed with a sigh.

    “At least Lucas has not lost anybody from Waddington-on-Sea,” said John-John.

    Ned had been remarkably silent, perhaps overawed by it all, not least when John-John had seized him bodily and swung him up very high—it was so long since they had seen his cousin that he had probably forgotten, his mother reflected, what he looked like and how big he was; but at this he suddenly piped up: “Did you lose anyone rounding Cape Horn, sir?”

    He blinked.

    “Do not mind us, Commander Henderson,” said Lash with her soft gurgle of laughter: “we all know by heart every word you have writ to Mr Hartshorne!”

    The Commander cleared his throat. “I see.” The little boy was still looking at him expectantly and so was his pretty mother, so he added, perforce: “We did lose a couple of fellows rounding Cape Horn, but they were not from hereabouts. And later we lost several men from a tropical fever.” He swallowed. “And Captain Morrissey, sadly.”

    “He was alive when you wrote from off South America,” ventured Trottie True.

    “Yes, indeed, Miss Formby. This was very much later, in the Pacific. We had put in for water and several of the crew picked up a fever there, and unfortunately the captain contracted it also.”

    “Very sorry to hear it, Commander Henderson. So you captained the vessel the rest of the way? No wonder John-John said it was you as rescued them!” said Joe. “–That’s right, John-John, you sit by your Ma! Now, will you care for some supper, Commander?”

    “You are very kind, sir. But I think I had best get on round to my aunt’s house.”

    Involuntarily Lash looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It informed her that in all probability Miss Aitch, who kept early hours, would have retired, but then, he must be presumed to know what his aunt would prefer. She said nothing, and Joe and Little Joe together showed the Commander out, with renewed wringings of the hand and thanks for restoring John-John to them.

    After that, with Ned appointing himself to wake Cookie—not that she would ever have forgiven them if they’d let her sleep through John-John’s home-coming—and the enormous supper that had to be prepared and that John-John had to consume, and everybody’s deciding to join him in it, and the telling of all the news, on both sides, and the presentation to Ned of a curious carved bone which had luckily been in John-John’s pocket at the point when the ship went down and which he was almost positive had been carved by a South Seas cannibal, and the retelling of all the news, and another burst of tears of joy from Julia—nobody had leisure at all to think, really.

    After a very late night the family slept late. Lash came into the kitchen, yawning, to find Cookie at the stove, Aunty Bouncer in the rocker, in the act of bending to offer Dog Tuesday a tidbid, and Little Joe at the table, engulfing sausage and bacon.

    “Hah! Got you,” she said to Mrs Peters.

    “Only a crust,” replied the old woman with an annoyed look.

    Grinning, Lash came over to Cookie’s side. “Can I do anything, Cookie, dear?”

    “Well, you could cut some more bread, ’cos most of the loaf’s gorn down them holler legs,” she noted. “Apart from that you could sit down and let me feed yer like a Christian!”

    Lash awarded her fat red cheek a smacking kiss and went to sit down by Little Joe.

    “I could manage another slice, Aunty Lash,” he said meekly as she operated on the loaf.

    “Right, and could those hollow legs then dash down to the baker’s to get another loaf for the family?” she enquired genially.

    “Three,” said Cookie drily. “They better, if yer want bread, ’cos I’ve sent that Polly orf to buy a couple o’ lobsters for a welcome-home dinner for John-John.”

    “Right; another three loaves,” Lash agreed.

    “Uh—well, I ought to be opening up the shop: Pa’s still asleep. Think the shock of John-John turning up safe and sound has taken it out of him just as much as Ma,” he admitted.

    “Yes: that on top of the worry about him,” agreed Joe’s sister. “Well, if opening the shop be more important than bread for the family, then you can’t have a slice, no.”

    “I’ll go, slave-driver,” he groaned.

    Grinning, Lash awarded him a thick slice of bread.

    “Ned still asleep?” he asked, wiping his plate with it.

    “Dead to the world. So’s John-John,” said Lash with a smile.

    “Dare say he’ll sleep till noon,” he said, nodding.

    “Which?” asked Aunty Bouncer drily.

    “John-John. Doubt the accommodation’s that comfortable on a man-o’-war, and he was saying Commander Henderson had crowded on sail—’member?”

    “Nope, it all got too blamed nautical for me. But I’ll take yer word for it!” retorted the old lady smartly. “Well, they both looked as if they could do with a good sleep—aye. Not to say a shave,” she added drily. “Thought the Royal Navy preferred its captains to be pwang dee vice?”

    Lash swallowed hard. “Um, yes. Um, the man has been at sea for something like two years, Aunty Bouncer, and sailed round the world by way of Cape Horn: that is a little hard, isn’t it?”

    Mrs Peters sniffed. “Dessay. Good-looking feller in spite of the whiskers, in’ ’e?”

    There was a short silence. Cookie turned round and looked at Lash in surprise.

    “If you like that granite-faced look—I suppose,” she said with a little shrug.

    “Didn’t you say ’e was a fine upstanding figger of a feller, Mrs Peters?” said Cookie in surprise.

    “Aye, ’e is,” agreed Aunty Bouncer, eyeing Lash thoughtfully. “Only problem what remains is, shall we award ’im to Niners or to Trottie True?”

    Lash inspected the teapot, and got up. “On the contrary, there is a second problem, which is how shall we hog-tie Miss Aitch long enough for it to happen? The tea’s gone down the hollow legs, too. I’ll make a fresh pot.” She went out to the scullery to rinse it out.

    Mrs Peters raised her eyebrows very high at Cookie.

    “Eh?” croaked Mrs Dove.

    Aunty Bouncer just gave one of her sniffs.

    “You are not opening up today, are you, Little Joe?” said Trottie True on a weak note, some ten minutes later.

    Little Joe swallowed the last of the cup of tea which his aunt had generously awarded him from the fresh pot and got up. “John-John isn’t going to run away, y’know! And—well, dare say he’ll sleep for hours anyway, and then, thought I might leave the field clear for Pa and Ma, on his first day home.”

    “Very thoughtful!” she beamed. “I’ll come into the shop, too!”

    “Yes, well, dessay Niners won’t think it right to go to Miss Aitch today, so there’ll be enough of a crowd of us,” noted Aunty Bouncer. “Though I s’pose someone ought to take ’er ’er apologies.”

    Little Joe had gone over to the door. He paused. “Look, I’m up for as many loaves of bread as you like, but nothing’d persuade me to go near Miss Aitch!”

    “Coward!” scoffed his great-aunt. “She won’t open the door ’erself!”

    “No, but I can envisage very clearly,” replied her great-nephew with a shudder, “that fancy footman inviting me in, calling me ‘Mr Formby’ while he looks down ’is nose at me, and ushering me into the presence!”

    “There was the recent dreadful episode of Miss Aitch’s buttonholing him in the High Street and asking graciously after Victoria and all at Blasted Oak House,” Lash reminded the company.

    Alas, Trottie True dissolved in giggles.

    “Yes, there was!” he said with feeling. “And I ain’t up for another! Three loaves, was it, Cookie?”

    “Better make it five, John-John’s got them holler legs what run in the family,” she responded amiably.

    “Right!” he said with a grin, hurriedly exiting.

    “I could deliver the message,” offered Trottie True, as Lash poured her a cup of tea.

    “In this weather? When it’s right out of your way? Rubbish!” said her aunt crossly.

    “Look, I’ll have to pop out and do a bit o’ shopping—” began Cookie.

    “No, Cookie, Ned and I will go,” said Lash firmly. “It’ll get him out from under everyone’s feet and stop him waking John-John up. And if that clock’s right—”

    The kitchen clock was Mrs Dove’s pride and joy. “’Course it is!” she said huffily.

    “Then it’ll give me the opportunity to apologise to Miss Finch and explain personally why he’s so late for school.”

    “You’ll never get ’im back there this afternoon,” noted Aunty Bouncer at her driest.

    “No, but I don’t expect to, Aunty Bouncer, dear!” replied Lash with a smile. “If there’s anything you need besides lobsters, Cookie, write me out a list.”

    Cookie assented to this and, serving Trottie True firmly with a plate of bacon and sausage with the order to eat it, because she hardly ate a crumb last night, sat down to write it.

    By the time the bleary-eyed Niners and Mouse surfaced, Lash and the protesting Master Yates, stuffed with sausage and gnawing on the last crust of the loaf, were out of the house.

    “I intentioned popping over myself: I would just have left a message with the footman,” said Niners feebly.

    “Well, Mrs Lash’ll do that, deary,” said Cookie comfortably, pouring her a cup of tea. “’Andsome feller, Miss Aitch’s nevvy, is ’e?”

    “Quite handsome, I suppose, Cookie,” she agreed nicely.

    “I would call him dark-visaged,” protested Mouse.

    Cookie rolled her eyes.

    “Not pretty, maybe,” said Aunty Bouncer on a malicious note, “but then, ’e ain’t young, nor ’alf-Portuguese, neither.”

    Poor Mouse went very red. “I merely said—”

    “Yes; sorry, lovey,” she growled, putting her hand to her stomach. “Ate too much last night.”

    “Peppermint mixture,” decided Niners, getting up.

    Mrs Peters sighed, but did not order her not to fetch the bottle.

    “Pretty is as pretty does,” said Cookie firmly, “and—twice that, Niners, she’s been burping ’er ’ead orf—whether or not you fancies a dark feller, the man saved John-John’s life!”

    “Yes,” said Mouse on a grateful note: “We all owe him more than we can ever repay.”

    Mrs Peters opened her mouth but caught Cookie’s eye in time. “That’s right,” she admitted, subsiding. “Ta, Niners,” she sighed. Niners stood over her, so she drank it off, perforce.

    “Better?” she asked grimly.

    Aunty Bouncer smiled weakly, putting her hand to her midriff. “Not mu—” She produced an enormous belch. “Um, yes, a bit,” she admitted sheepishly.

    Looking very dry, Niners returned the bottle to its cupboard.

    … “He’s too old for ’em,” concluded Mrs Huggins, some time later.

    Her peer sighed. “Must be, Jicksy. Dunno why I imagined ’e’d be a younger feller.”

    “Well, s’pose Miss Aitch ain’t that old. But the Commander must be ’er oldest brother’s son.”

    “Yes, he is,” said a deep voice from the doorway and the old ladies and Cookie jumped and gasped.

    “Thought you’d sleep for hours yet,” admitted Cookie, recovering herself first.

    John-John came in, grinning. “No. Woke up wondering why the bed wasn’t rocking! Lucas is a full commander, now, y’know: had the news the promotion had come through when we reached Calcutta. Must be around forty. And if anybody had their due, they’d give him his own ship,” he noted, sitting down heavily at the table, “but as we ain’t at war and he ain’t got the connections, it won’t happen. –Any breakfast, Cookie?”

    Mrs Dove jumped. “’Course! Saved the cold taters for yer, special! Fancy ’em fried up with sausage?”

    “Do I!” he said with a laugh. “The vision of your fried-up cold taters and hot sausage was the last thing to flash through my mind as I went down in the briny off the East Indies!”

    “Get along with you!” choked Cookie, shaking all over with gratified chuckles. “’Ere, did yer?” she added, getting the cold potatoes out of the pantry.

    “What?” he said mildly.

    “Go down in the briny, lovey.”

    The old great-aunties now both had their beady eyes fixed on him. The burly sailor swallowed. “Well, yes, but you needn’t tell Ma and Pa that tidbid. Lucas had the small boats out, fished us out all right and tight.”

    “Big sea, was there?” asked Mrs Huggins keenly.

    “Uh—well, yes, Aunty Jicksy. Hell of a sea, actually.”

    “Uh-huh. And will Captain Burns get it in the neck for losing ’is ship?”

    John-John bit his lip. “Well, the Line won’t be too pleased. Doubt if he’ll get another ship. But it weren’t his fault: we were attacked by pirates—well, that was why Lucas was in the offing: they’d had orders to mop the fellows up before they sailed on to India. Half our rigging was shot away and we were taking a bit of water from a hole just above the water-line, but she’d have ignored that, but for the damned storm. The seas got up, you see.”

    “Right; so it was after that, the bit what you favoured the family with, that the Captain couldn’t manage to turn ’er into the wind?” said the sharp little old lady.

    “Mm.”

    “What happened to the pirates?” asked Bouncer.

    “One lot vanished—there was two vessels, both a lot smaller than us, but they came at us from both sides, y’see. But t’other lot sailed right into Lucas’s waiting arms and he blew them out of the water!”

    “Serve ’em right!” cried Jicksy shrilly.

    “And so say all of us!” agreed Bouncer.

    “Aye. Yeller ’eathens, were they, deary?” asked Cookie.

    “Well, brownish-yellow, but certainly heathens, yes, Cookie! –That potato smells good!”

    “You might as well make a start on it: the sausages ain’t done yet,” she conceded, dishing out fried potato for him.

    The first lot of potatoes had vanished and Cookie had served up a second lot with the sausages when Mrs Huggins said slowly: “So, you call Commander Henderson ‘Lucas’, do yer?”

    “That is his name, Aunty Jicksy.”

    “Very funny. No, well, ’e’s a commander in the Royal Navy and captaining the ship, into the bargain.”

    “Yes, but a very decent fellow, and you see, I was not under his command,” he said, smiling at her. “And of course we had mutual acquaintances in Waddington-on-Sea.”

    “Right. So ’e’s not above his company.”

    “Far from it,” said John-John, staring at her, his fork suspended.

    Mrs Peters sniffed slightly. “She was thinking of Miss Aitch—’is aunty.”

    “Oh, her!” said John-John with a laugh. “Dried-up old prune!”

    “Well, yes. Only don’t go and say that in front of Niners.”

    “Might do ’er some good if ’e did,” noted Mrs Huggins on a sour note.

    “I stand corrected, Jicksy,” she agreed grimly. “So it might.”

    John-John looked from one to the other of them limply. “What are you two on about?”

    “Your sister not getting no younger while you’ve been at sea, that’s what!” retorted his Great-Aunt Jicksy sharply.

    “You said it, Jicksy,” agreed Bouncer. “What if she was to get it into ’er noddle that the men ain’t looking for a copy of a dried-up prune, it might ’elp, some.”

    “All she does morning, noon and night is listen to ’er, learn up what she’s got in her blamed house, and tell it over to herself,” reported Jicksy sourly.

    “Not all, surely?” said John-John feebly.

    “Yes!” they snapped.

    The burly sailor swallowed and looked at them helplessly.

    “They ain’t far wrong, John-John,” advised Mrs Dove.

    “She’s got worse, you mean,” he said feebly.

    This time all three of them chorused: “Yes!”

    “Uh—well, dunno what you expect me to do about it,” he said feebly.

    “Introduce ’er to some o’ these fine Royal Navy acquaintances of yours, for a start,” said Mrs Huggins, glaring at him.

    “Yes, but—”

    “Take her about a bit,” added Mrs Peters, glaring at him.

    “Treat ’er like as if she was a girl, not a prune,” said Mrs Dove on a sour note, whisking the cup out from under his hand and the teapot off the table.

    “Yuh—”

    “Her and the rest of yer sisters,” noted Jicksy very sourly indeed.

    “Yes!” chorused the other two.

    “Y— But I… Um, well, I had some pretty silks for ’em, but they all went down with the ship,” he said lamely.

    The three of them looked at him sourly but after a moment Cookie conceded: “Well, ’is ’eart’s in the right place, I s’pose.”

    “Dunno where ’is brain is, though!” noted Mrs Huggins smartly.

    “At it already, are they?” said a cracked old voice from the doorway. Nunky Ben came in, looking dry. “’Ow long yer been home, lad?” he said kindly. “Two minutes, is it?”

    “Um, well, feels like it,” John-John admitted with a feeble smile.

    “Ignore ’em,” he advised briefly, sitting down beside him. “Soured. Thing is, they thought Mouse was gonna get orf with a half-Portygee Bingley, and Lash was all lined up for Dr Kent or ’is sister’s relation, Waters, didn’t matter which, and young Victoria produced a brother in fancy pantaloons what one on ’em might of ’ad; only funnily enough, it all come to naught!” He gave a triumphant nod and John-John, though not taking any of the precise references, exploded in laughter.

    “Yes!” said Mr Huggins gleefully. “I’ll ’ave two sausages and three nice fat rashers to me breakfast, thanks, Cookie, and a pot of that there coffee what yer too mean to serve up unless Joe asks for it special.”

    But alas, with this he had gone much, much too far and Cookie, grimly waiting until John-John’s fit had devolved into loud blowing of the nose, said coldly: “You’ll ’ave the ’eel of this ’ere loaf with a bit o’ bacon fat, and a pot o’ tea like usual, and like it!”

    Lash, Ned and Dog Tuesday had got as far as the school before it dawned that the reason there were so many people out and about on the streets on a grey, drizzly day was that it was Friday, and therefore market day. She dragged her complaining offspring inside, offered an apology and explanation to Miss Finch, got that ladylike person’s permission for Ned to have the afternoon off school and the assurance that the school in toto would say a little prayer of thanks for the merciful deliverance of Lieutenant Formby and the men on his ship, and retreated in fairly good order.

    “Did she mean deliverance?” she said to Dog Tuesday, out on the pavement. “Uh—well, it sounded appropriately ecclesiastical, and I’m sure any Maker there may be will accept it in the spirit in which it was meant!” She paused. “Unless He’s a Church of England one as portrayed by Reverend Cake-Stealer Skellett, of course,” she added on a sour note.

    Dog Tuesday merely panted eagerly and pulled hard on the lead.

    “The thing is,” said Lash, “if we deliver Miss Aitch’s message first, as I am sure we ought, the predators will have swooped upon every last item of sustenance in the market by the time we get there!”

    Dog Tuesday panted, his little tail wagging nineteen to the dozen.

    “Ma Mountjoy is a whole flock of predatory eagles on her own,” admitted Lash. “Well, by proxy, for it’s Lombard Street to a China orange she’ll have sent her cook down!”

    Dog Tuesday panted and wagged eagerly.

    “Oh, be blowed to Miss Aitch and all her prunes, prisms and china teapots as well! John-John don’t get delivered home safe from a watery grave every day of the week—perhaps ‘deliverance’ is right, after all!” she noted by the by. “His welcome-home dinner takes precedence over silly social forms! Come on, Dog Tuesday; market first!”

    And they set off at a fast pace, Dog Tuesday’s thin little tail going nineteen to the dozen.

    The day was considerably advanced by the time Lash, laden with two very full baskets, with an extra large package tied onto one of the baskets with string, and with Dog Tuesday’s lead looped around her wrist, arrived before Miss Henderson’s sufficiently imposing residence. She set the basket with the attached parcel down on the doorstep and panted, looking up at the unwelcoming black door with its large, shiny knocker. Dog Tuesday also panted, but displayed more interest in the parcel.

    “Get off!” ordered Lash. “Don’t dare to touch it, unless you wish to be flayed alive and fed to Ma Mountjoy and the rest of the flock of predatory eagle— Glory!” she gasped as the door suddenly opened.

    There was a brief pause. Lash goggled up into Commander Henderson’s dark, hard face and the Commander looked expressionlessly down at the very flushed, luminous-eyed face within the battered old black bonnet.

    Then he said: “Redundant, I think, Mrs Yates: eagles are predatory.”

    Lash gulped. “Um, you’re right. Well, so is Ma Mountjoy,” she admitted, rallying very slightly.

    “I don’t think I know her,” he murmured.

    “Um—no. Sorry,” she said feebly. “Our neighbour.”

    “I see. Please, come in,” he said, holding the door wide.

    “No!” gasped Lash in horror.

    The Commander’s well-shaped eyebrows rose very slightly. “No?” he murmured.

    “No, this not a social call, as I should think you might have seen from Dog Tuesday alone, to say nothing of the baskets! And for Heaven’s sake don’t say have I merely come to leave cards!” retorted Lash crossly. “Of course I have not, and since you’ve seen the way we live, it must be perfectly evident to you that none of us has a card to our name! Though my brother will print you a very nice set, if you are in need of some,” she added on a grim note.

    “That’s very kind,” he said politely, apparently completely unmoved. “I’ll bear it in mind, though I think I have sufficient; one does not use many cards during two years at sea.”

    “No,” said Lash, gulping. “Um, I’m sorry, Commander Henderson.” The dark-featured, hard face reminded unsmiling and she added on a desperate note: “One would imagine the convicts in New South Wales don’t require one to leave cards—no.”

    He hesitated. Then he said: “Not the convicts, no. However, I must confess that in all of our settlements and colonies which I have visited, there is a certain stratum of society which does both leave and require the leaving of cards.”

    Lash gaped at him. “Surely not!”

    “Yes. Life in the more genteel circles of New South Wales is extremely formal.”

    “Good grief! Go halfway round the world to a new land and then—” She looked at him limply.

    “Yes. It appears that human nature is like that, Mrs Yates.”

    “My son-in-law did say something about the formality of life in Calcutta, but then, we English have been in India for some time,” she croaked. “Um, well, he was talking about the Governor’s circles. Though the officers’ wives all seem to hold dainty tea parties and so forth, come to think of it.”

    “Quite. I have been to innumerable dainty tea parties in places as exotic as Calcutta, Colombo and Cape Town, Mrs Yates,” he said, unsmiling.

    Lash goggled at him.

    “Not to mention,” said the Commander primly, “Bombay, Botany Bay and Batavia.”

    “Oh!” cried Lash. “You have a sense of humour after all!”

    At this the hard grey eyes twinkled a little and he said sedately: “I hope so, Mrs Yates. May I ask the purpose of your call?”

    “Just to deliver the message that Niners will not intrude upon you and your aunt today,” she said feebly. “I’m sorry: I mean my niece Elizabeth,” she amended glumly.

    “Thank you for the message. And please don't apologise for using the family nicknames: I know them all: John has told me a lot about his brother and sisters,” he said nicely.

    “Oh,” she said feebly. “Has he? Good. Well, I suppose we’re not the only family that does it.”

    “Of course not,” he agreed. “But will you not step in and give the message in person? My aunt will like to see you, I am sure.”

    Lash took a deep breath. “Commander Henderson, she will not. I dare say she may have no objection to my person, and I know she would be all that is polite, but the intrusion of this old cloak and bonnet into her sitting-room would cause her exquisite embarrassment, and I shall not inflict them upon her!”

    She had time to wonder if this plain-speaking had damned the entire Formby family forever with the Hendersons; then he said: “So it is only that you wish to spare Aunt Hortensia embarrassment?”

    Help, was that her name? Hortensia Henderson? How frightful! “Yes, of course,” croaked Lash. “I mean, I don’t care what I wear, but I know such things matter to Miss Henderson.”

    He smiled at her. “I see.”

    Lash swallowed. In spite of the severity of his face in repose, that claim of one of the aunties—oddly, she could not for the life of her recall which—that he was a good-looking fellow, was most certainly justified when he smiled: he was well-nigh overpowering. The more so as he had beautiful white, even top teeth—not too long, horse teeth were hideous on men as well as women. The bottom teeth were just crooked enough to prevent the smile from being monotonously symmetr— Er, yes.

    “Yes. Do you? Good,” she said disjointedly.

    “Are you on your way home?” he asked nicely.

    “What? Oh! Yes, we’ve done all our commissions for this morning, haven’t we, Dog Tuesday?”

    Smiling very much, Commander Henderson said: “Then may I escort you and assist you with the baskets?”

    “Buh-but is it on your way?” croaked Lash, turning for some strange reason very pink indeed.

    “I think so: I am headed for Hartshorne’s house.”

    “Oh, of course!” she beamed. “He will be so thrilled to see you, sir! Well, yes, it is in that direction, and you could turn off at the High Street.”

    Not saying whether he would or would not, the Commander said: “Good. If you would just wait one moment, I shall pass on your message. –James, pray come here a moment.”

    Lash swallowed as the fancy footman appeared instantly to his rear. Had he been standing in the hall all this while listening? She waited numbly as the Commander passed on Niners’s message for Miss Aitch and watched numbly as the Commander, assuming a large Naval chapeau-bras which made his total height something like seven feet and the whole effect completely overpowering, came down the steps and picked up the basket with the parcel attached.

    “It’s only spring greens in that parcel,” she said weakly as the little dog yapped and capered, “but he’s convinced it’s at the very least honey-dew, if not actual B,O,N,E,S.”

    Smiling very much, the Commander responded: “Then the milk of Paradise must be in your other basket, and I trust it is not too heavy for you, ma’am?”

    “No!” she gasped.

    “Splendid,” he said solemnly. “Then pray take my arm.”

    Limply Lash took his arm. It was some time before she was capable of uttering: “So you read Mr Coleridge, sir?”

    “Yes. I find him uneven, though I enjoy some of his poems. Er—since we are so near to Brighton, I’m afraid I have to admit that although I do like that one, it always makes me think of—”

    “The Pavilion!” choked Lash ecstatically. “Me, too! In fact if you mentioned the words ‘a stately pleasure-dome’ to any member of our family I think they would take it that you were referring to it, sir!”

    “John is most fortunate in his family, then,” he said, smiling.

    “Um, yes—is he? Thank you,” croaked Lash.

    “Do you like The Rime of the Ancient—”

    “No!” said Lash violently, involuntarily jerking hard on Dog Tuesday’s lead. He gave an indignant, half-strangled yelp and she gasped: “Sorry, Dog Tuesday! Yes, good boy! What a good dog!”

    “I must apologise, ma’am,” said Commander Henderson solemnly. “I had thought my remark unexceptionable, and had no notion—”

    “Don’t,” said Lash unsteadily, “or I’ll be strangling the poor little pooch again!’

    “What is he?” he said, lips twitching. “Terrier?”

    She cleared her throat. “That is as close as we have come, certainly. He was a stray that Ned brought home.”

    “That’s very clear, Mrs Yates,” he said with a laugh in his voice. “Dare I ask why you so dislike that poem?”

    “That’s Ned, too,” admitted Ned’s mother glumly. “Not that I care for it, in any case, but I made the mistake of reading it to him once, and now it’s become a mania, and has to be read at least once a month. He knows whole swathes of it by heart and will inevitably pull one up sternly if one tries to skip any of the beastly— Help, you don’t like it, do you?”

    “No. I quite admire its craft—but no, loathe it!” he said with a laugh.

    Lash sagged. “Oh, good!” she said fervently.

    He looked down at her, his wide mouth twitching, but said nothing.

    “At least last month our cousin’s daughter, Victoria, volunteered for reading duty, so I did not have to be the martyr to Baby Bouncer’s mania. Um, Ned’s,” she corrected herself lamely. “I’m forbidden on pain of death to call him that any more.”

    “So it is the same child,” said the Commander somewhat limply.

    “Yes. –Oh! Did John-John mention him?”

    “Mm.”

    After a moment Lash said: “Oh, Heavens: and you were wondering where he was and thinking God knows what?”

    “Mm.”

    She swallowed hard. “It seems an age back, but in actual fact it was only about a month before Christmas that the proscription on ‘Baby Bouncer’ was pronounced. Well, the definitive one: he had complained about it before.” The Commander said nothing. “Or are you claiming that ‘proscription’ is absolute?” added Lash on a grim note.

    He laughed. “No! –Though I think perhaps it is,” he murmured slyly.

    Trying to tell herself that it was silly to be so shaken by the masculine quality of Commander Henderson’s laugh—what the Devil should it be if not masculine, he was of the male sex, after all!—Lash replied weakly: “Um, yes. Well, since the subject has come up, may I ask you if albatrosses—that plural strikes as very odd—if albatrosses are regarded as good luck signs at sea, and if it would be regarded as inviting doom to shoot one?”

    “We-ell…” he said slowly, “sailors have very many superstitions, and though I have not heard that precise one, I dare say it ain’t impossible. Though they are birds with an immense flight range, often soaring for days on the air currents, hundreds of miles from land, so seeing one is not a sign that land is nigh, as sighting smaller birds would be.” He looked down at her dubiously, wondering if this reply seemed sufficient.

    “Hah!” said Lash pleasedly. “I knew it! I’ll wager that the man has never so much as set foot on a sea-going vessel! A punt on a lake in Cumberland, at the most, would be my bet!”

    Grinning, he returned: “One trip on the Dover packet in an almost flat calm, was the consensus aboard, ma’am.”

    Lash looked up at the grin and felt very weak around the region of the knee-cap. “Yes! Um, I suppose you would have large amounts of time for reading, at sea.”

    “Pretty much, yes. In especial crossing the Pacific in the latitudes of the trade winds or coming up the coast of Africa. Unfortunately there is not all that amount of room for storing books aboard a Naval vessel, though.”

    “No, I suppose you would have read everyone else’s books by the time you were halfway across the Pacific,” she agreed.

    “Less!” he said with a laugh. “Got through most of ’em while becalmed off South America, on the way out! Though there weren’t all that many aboard; unfortunately Captain Morrissey was not a great reader.”

    “What on earth did he do with his spare time on such a very long voyage, then?”

    “A captain does have extra duties, such as writing up the ship’s log. Well, he was fond of chess and of cards, and when there was no-one available to give him a game, would play endless games of patience.”

    Lash goggled at him: this was a pretty mindless occupation for a captain in the Royal Navy! “Was he a full captain?”

    “Yes, Mrs Yates,” said Commander Henderson colourlessly.

    “It— If you will forgive my saying so, it does not sound as if you had very much in common with him, sir.”

    “Not many interests in common, no, but one learns to rub along with all sorts, at sea. It is essential on a long voyage to know how to get on with one’s fellow officers.”

    “The mutiny aboard the Bounty must demonstrate that, I think!” agreed Lash with a little shudder.

    “Perhaps. Though it is generally agreed in Naval circles that Captain Bligh was an outstanding seaman,” he said colourlessly.

    “Well, yes, to navigate them all to safety in such a small boat, how could one deny it? But—but to let things get to that pass—and with one of his own officers a ring-leader, too!”

    “Mm. He had not before had a command of that nature, certainly,” he murmured.

    “I suppose officers of the Royal Navy are not allowed to speak of it: I’m sorry; it was tactless of me to mention it. And impertinent,” said Lash on a glum note. “How would I know what it is like to be at sea for months—nay, years? I have always had the option of being able to escape the house!”

    The Commander blinked: that last had struck his ear as very odd. Was she perhaps not happy living with her relatives? They had seemed a cheery crowd, and from John’s conversation he had gathered it was a remarkably happy home—but then, last night had certainly demonstrated it was a cramped one, and Mrs Yates was in some sort a poor relation, was she not?

    He had not spoken: Lash looked up at him nervously, and swallowed.

    Lucas Henderson looked down at her and made a little wry grimace. “Well, Mrs Yates, not to take your points in turn,” he said slowly, “it does take a certain temperament to cope with months at sea shut up in what sometimes seems like a floating coffin, in the close proximity of very varied specimens of humanity. Your nephew most certainly has it, however: his is one of the most equable natures I have ever encountered.”

    “Yes, he’s always been like that. His father and brother are, too,” agreed Lash, nodding.

    “Their family is fortunate, then. In addition to the temperament, one needs, I have found, either a capacity for intellectual or creative occupation, or the lucky facility of being happy without one.”

    After a moment this sank in, and Lash gulped.

    “Mm,” he said on a certain wry note. “The sailors who teach themselves to whittle or similar are in general the happiest. We had a fellow one voyage who created marvellous things from any kind of cord or thread—not just nets, though he was invaluable to us in that regard—but anything from hammocks down to cobweb-fine ladies’ shawls! And many of them knit.”

    Lash merely nodded; she knew several sailors locally who knitted as well as any woman.

    The Commander took a deep breath. “As for officers of the Royal Navy not being allowed to speak of the Bounty mutiny, Mrs Yates, it is rather that a prudent officer holds his tongue on such a subject. Promotions have been lost—nay, whole careers ruined—by an incautious word at the wrong time.”

    “I know: I’m sorry,” said Lash in a small voice.

    “No, don’t apologise. I am very sure you would not repeat a syllable I incautiously uttered,” he said, smiling at her. “And then, I have to admit my career has run its course.” He shrugged a little. “Unless we are plunged into another war in the next few months.”

    “But surely—! You have just sailed your ship halfway round the world!”

    “Mm. It don’t count for much: it was not my command,” he said wryly. “To get my own command in these piping times of peace, I’d have to have either a family or a patron with a deal of influence. But as I have neither, I can look forward to half-pay.”

    “Is there not anyone at the Admiralty with sense?” cried Lash.

    He shrugged a little. “Well, these are the men that just sent Morrissey to find a fast route to New South Wales round the Horn, ma’am.”

    Lash gulped. “I take your point. I’m terribly sorry, Commander Henderson.”

    “I’ve had a good run for my money—there are innumerable men of my age who have been on half-pay for years. I was lucky to get the chance to ship aboard with poor Morrissey, God rest his soul, and very lucky to have the experience of commanding the vessel.”

    “But—but would they not at least make you First Officer, again?”

    He grimaced. “There’s not many a captain who would care to have a man of my age and experience as his second-in-command, ma’am.”

    “None with sufficient largeness of spirit, apparently!” said Lash angrily. He said nothing and after a moment she said: “Forgive me, Commander, I didn’t mean to—to interrogate you.”

    “You’re not,” he replied with a smile. “Well, my aunt will be glad to see me give up the sea. And as she has a property which she would like me to manage, I shall not be without an occupation.”

    “Good, then you won’t be bored,” said Lash in frank relief.

    His eyes twinkled a little but he murmured: “No, I do not think so.”

    “May I ask whereabouts the property is, sir?”

    “It is to the east of the town, Mrs Yates. Do you know a house called High Mallows?”

    Lash gulped: High Mallows was old Mrs Piper-Fiennes’s house. “Yes,” she managed.

    “Near there. The Wardle runs through the property.”

    It would do: the so-called “High Mallows” was, of course, the former Wardle House. “I see. And is there a house on the property, sir?”

    “Well, yes, but it has not been occupied for some years: both my Aunt Hortensia and my Great-Aunt Violet who left it her preferred to live in town. The house is called Wardle Heights, Mrs Yates.”

    Lash, Captain Cutlass and Mouse sometimes drove out that way in the cart in the warmer months, though taking care to steer well clear of High Mallows: there were excellent blackberries and, later, wild rose-hips to be found along the lanes in that direction. Wardle Heights was not up very high: it was near the coast, situated on a sunny slope above the Wardle Stream: a very pretty situation indeed. But in the past some misguided hand had planted ivy there, and the house was positively smothered in it. She looked up at him in some dismay.

    The Commander looked dubiously at her expression. “Er—it is not so conveniently situated as High Mallows: set very much back from the road, and the drive has not been maintained, I think.”

    “Commander Henderson,” said Lash in a hollow tone: “how long is it since you saw it?”

    “Er—well, not since I was a lad. Is something wrong?”

    “We were out that way last summer, and I am afraid the house is smothered in ivy.”

    “My aunt said it might be rather overgrown,” he agreed.

    “I think you do not take my meaning! When I say smothered, I mean literally smothered! One would not know there is a house there at all!”

    “Aunt Hortensia has not seen it in years,” he said lamely.

    “So I would imagine! What,” said Lash, trying not to wince, “is it built of?”

    He swallowed. “Stone.”

    “I suppose that is better than brick, but I should think it will have to be entirely repointed.”

    “Mm. It has rather a pleasant little pillared portico: I remember the pillars as white marble.” He looked down at her face. “Yes: I’ll be very lucky if they are not horribly stained.”

    “Mm. What a pity,” said Lash faintly, “to let a pleasant house go to waste.”

    “Aye, well, that area is not the fashionable one, you see. The family were very minor Sussex gentry, and there was a smaller house there, which my great-grandfather replaced on his marriage in 1731.”

    “I see. But it did not come to your grandfather, sir, but to your great-aunt?” ventured Lash, not quite sure that she should pursue the subject, and hoping she did not seem nosy.

    “That is correct. My grandfather was drowned at sea when my father was but a babe in arms, and my great-grandfather was very annoyed when my grandmother then married a man whom he could not abide. So the property was left outright to my Great-Aunt Violet. I remember her as a very stern old lady, who would brook no shouting in the house!” he said with a little laugh. “She disliked Papa—goodness knows why, for he was the best-natured man imaginable, but I think, though nothing was ever said in front of me, that she never wished him to marry Mamma, but had another candidate in mind.”

    “Oh, help, families can be dreadful,” admitted Lash.

    “Indeed,” he said, wondering if her own had been, at some stage. “So the property came to Aunt Hortensia.”

    Right, and of course she had not removed to the house, since it was not over to the north of the town within shouting-distance of Lasset Place and Blasted Oak House! “Well,” said Lash on a very dry note, “yours must be one of the few families in England—no, the whole of the civilised world—who actually approve of leaving property to the female line.”

    “I think it was only faute de mieux," he replied tranquilly, and she gave a startled laugh. “Thank you for the warning, Mrs Yates: I shall be prepared to have the place stripped of ivy and repointed before I even think about living in it.”

    The had reached the High Street: “Yes, well,” said Lash, looking at the press of vehicles and not paying heed to her words: “your aunty will be happy to have you stay with her!”

    “Indeed she will,” said Commander Henderson with a smile in his voice, “and has already planned a whole week of dinners featuring all my favourite dishes.”

    “Um, yes,” said Lash weakly, wondering if the woman had writ the menus out in French, as she had forced Victoria and Niners to do, the dreadful day that Victoria had been summoned to attend with her cousin. “Don’t forget we have a little dog with us, will you?’

    “Er—no. Oh! In crossing the street?”

    She looked up at him and nodded mutely.

    Lucas Henderson looked down at the perfect complexion, the generous mouth, the huge eyes with their glints of green-gold, and the unruly light brown curls rioting madly within the bonnet, and reminded himself a trifle grimly that according to his Aunt Hortensia, Mrs Yates had been married twice already, and that the partisan Hartshorne was prepared to knock the block off any person who dared suggest the little boy was not the elderly second husband’s.

    “I shall be careful,” he said.

    “That would a nice change; and if you could also be so good as not to plunge into the street without warning, as my brother and nephew do—”

    The Commander blinked. “But of course, Mrs Yates!”

    “It’s silly, but I find the older I get the more nervous I get about traffic,” said Lash with a sigh.

    He blinked again. Women of that age—less, he was quite sure, than Aunt Hortensia’s estimate, but old enough to have a grown daughter—did not customarily refer to their advancing years!

    “It is quite understandable,” he murmured. “The street is very busy.”

    “Mm: market day,” explained Lash.

    “I see. –Now, if you would, ma’am.”

    And they hurried across without incident.

    Lucas Henderson was now very much in two minds about Mrs Yates. There were the two husbands on the one side, plus the rumour about the little boy, not to say the undoubted fact, which Aunt Hortensia had not needed to stress, that the family, though respectable enough, were not gentlefolk; and on the other side there were the big, luminous eyes, the lovely smile, the perfect complexion, and the completely unaffected manner—not to say the undoubted intelligence, which, to say truth, he had encountered so rarely on the distaff side that he no longer expected to find it.

    He might merely have courteously bidden her good-day and turned off for Hartshorne’s, but she said, smiling up at him: “Thank you! That was so comfortable! Now, your way is down the street in that direction, while I go up further, so I’ll just have my basket back, and bid you good-day and many thanks.”

    “No such thing, Mrs Yates! I would not dream of letting you struggle the rest of the way with both baskets,” he replied promptly.

    “But I’m used to it,” said Lash lamely. It had suddenly struck her that this was in some sort a repetition of Mouse’s and Victoria’s encounter with Mr Bungo Ainsley and dratted Bingley-Baldaya, and if she let him escort her home she would never hear the last of it. Never mind that the man was merely being polite and that one would not expect less in a nephew of Miss Aitch’s!

    “Then I would venture to say,” he said, his mouth tightening fractionally, “that you should not be. I insist. –Please.” He bowed her on.

    Help! thought Lash, tottering on obediently. That granite-faced look she had earlier remarked in him did not belie him, and he could obviously be a bit of a Tartar!

    Neither of them uttered anything but polite commonplaces the rest of the way—perhaps because they were both rather busy with their thoughts.

    When they reached New Short Street she said with her friendly smile: “Thank you so much. I shan’t ask you in: you have delayed bringing Mr Hartshorne the good news long enough.”

    The Commander resigned his basket to her, feeling like something of a fool. “Not at all, Mrs Yates,” he replied lamely, bowing. “Good-day.”

    “Good-day,” said Lash, going in quickly: it had just dawned that the family were in the front parlour.

    Commander Henderson looked limply at the closed door, replaced his hat slowly, and turned on his heel, unaware that he was frowning.

    Lash had taken but two steps towards the kitchen with her baskets when the door to the front parlour opened and Julia said with a laugh in her voice: “What was that?”

    “The male version of the Henderson excessive good manners,” replied Lash grimly. “Apparently they run in the family.”

    Aunty Bouncer popped up at Julia’s elbow. “The man saved John-John’s life! Why didn’t you ask ’im in?”

    “Because he was headed for Mr Hartshorne’s house.” She marched on down the passage.

    Aunty Bouncer sniffed slightly, eyeing her retreating back.

    “What?” said Julia faintly.

    “Hartshorne’s house wasn’t between ’ere and Miss Aitch’s last time I looked.”

    “Dearest Aunty Bouncer, please don’t. I really cannot take another Bingley episode!”

    Mrs Peters had the grace to look slightly disconcerted. “Uh—no, well, all right, I won’t. But I thought ’e seemed fair struck, last night. And he’s the right age, and a fine, upstanding figure of a m—”

    “All joking aside,” said Julia on a grim note, “a nephew of Miss Aitch’s?”

    “Um, no,” she muttered. “Yer right. Sorry, deary.”

    Julia sighed. Aunty Bouncer wasn’t wrong: Commander Henderson would have been ideal for Lash. Oh, well.

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/sarling-buds-of-may.html