Backsliders

15

Backsliders

    Little Joe and John-John did not last out the summer at Blasted Oak House after all. John-John in any case had been spending most of the daylight hours over at Wardle Heights helping Commander Henderson, and during what time he did spend with his cousins appeared restless and uneasy. The which was due not merely to a wish to be elsewhere or to the thought that Ma would be very upset if he opted for another voyage, but also to the continuing picture preying on his mind of Mary Cox being wooed by the fancy yellow pantaloons of Brighton. Little Joe was frankly bored: he didn’t like fishing, which his father and Cousin John seemed happy to spend hours doing—at least, he liked taking the boat out, with perhaps old Rattle for company, and hauling in a few mackerel when they were running—but fly-fishing for non-existent trout was a dead bore. In especial as it was generally accompanied by his elders’ gossip. Added to which, the picture of the lovely Rita Baldaya’s face had begun to haunt him more and more, and having nothing to do all day wasn’t helping him concentrate on other things. So when John-John decided to get out of it, he thankfully joined him. He could give him and the Commander a bit of a hand, and then, he might grab the chance to do a bit of stock-taking and tidying at the shop. Julia sighed, but agreed the rest of them would be better off with their room than their company if that was the way they felt. But remember, there was no Cookie: she was on holiday, too! Her sons dismissed this warning with cheerful scorn and duly departed on a pair of the good-natured John Formby’s horses.

    “Thought you might stop out at the farmhouse with Henderson?” said Little Joe mildly to his brother as it appeared he intended staying at home.

    “No,” he said shortly.

    Looking mildly surprised, Little Joe suggested that in that case they might as well see what the Elephant & Castle could do in the way of meat and tater pie.

    “Thought you was heading out to Wardle House this morning?” said Little Joe mildly to his brother next day as he appeared downstairs in a pair of pantaloons and his good blue coat.

    “No,” he said shortly.

    “John-John,” said Little Joe with a laugh in his voice, “don’t you think you’d better tell me? Or are you afraid I’ll blab to Ma and the girls?”

    “No,” he said shortly.

    Little Joe just looked at him mildly.

    “I’ve hired a trap from the Elephant & Castle and I’m headed over to Brighton.”

    “Uh—take the boat: be miles quicker.”

    “It would if I wished to turn up rumpled and sweaty,” he said grimly.

    “Turn up where?”

    Glaring, John-John replied: “If you must have it, Ma Cox’s cousin’s house, and don’t dare to say it wouldn’t do: at least Mary ain’t the sister of a viscountess!”

    “No,” he said in a strangled voice, going very red.

    John-John bit his lip. “Sorry, Little Joe. Miss Baldaya’s a really nice girl and it’s a damned shame.”

    “Yes, well, that’s the way things are,” said his brother tightly. “Um, look, old man, I’ll sail you over. It’ll take hours longer by road.”

    John-John’s feeble objections were overborne, the Elephant & Castle was told the trap wouldn’t be needed, and they got on down to the boathouse. Whereupon Mr Rattle kindly volunteered for sea duty, too.

    He watched dubiously, scratching his whiskery chin, as John-John departed at a brisk pace the moment they docked at Brighton. “Where’s ’e orf to?”

    Sighing, Little Joe explained.

    “’E’ll catch cold at that!” he said in horror. “Ma Cox ’as got notions! Give ’er cook a nice flounder only t’other day—well, the poor ole sod’s all by ’imself in that blamed ’orrible ’ouse,” he excused this lapse—“and she said as ’ow the master reckoned there was some fancy retired lawyer feller a-dangling after Miss Mary, twice ’er age but rich enough to buy up the ’ole of Waddington-on-Sea. ’Alibut or some such, was the name.”

    “Haliburton,” said Little Joe with distaste. “We met him. The indications were Ma Cox’d take him or his nephew for poor little Mary and didn’t care which.”

    Mr Rattle removed his pipe and spat expressively.

    “Yes,” said Little Joe heavily. “Well, come on, Rattle: drown our sorrows?”

    It was still relatively early but Mr Rattle raising no objection to this proposal, they tied the boat up firmly and went ashore.

    Mr Rattle’s preferred hostelry had been located, they had downed a couple of pints and consumed some bread and cheese, an acquaintance of Mr Rattle’s, a Mr Peepers—possibly it was Pepys, reflected Little Joe Formby in some amusement, though he did not look like the type to write a diary, or even his name—had offered opinions on the likelihood of the fine weather’s lasting, the quality of the beer, the state of the tide and the number of pantalooned rufflers currently to be seen in Brighton, all of which except the last had been soundly rubbished by Mr Rattle, and the latter decided they might as well stretch their legs. And if Mr Formby might be interested in as fine a decorated whale’s tooth as he had seen since his last stretch with the Admiral, God bless him, and the ship and all who sailed aboard her—“Amen to that!” assented Mr Peepers, removing his knitted stocking of a hat—he thought he could find the shop.

    The good-natured Little Joe was not as vitally interested in whales’ teeth as he had been at the age when Mr Rattle had first met him, with his shirt-tail hanging out, his feet bare, and his curls tumbling round his shoulders, but he agreed he’d like to see it, and they strolled out into a perfect blue day.

    “Good sailing weather,” said Mr Rattle, testing the wind with a wetted finger.

    “Aye, but we’d better not desert John-John,” said Little Joe with a sigh. “And what’s all this ‘Mr Formby’ nonsense, Rattle?”

    “I ain’t a-gonna let you down in front of that Peepers, Mr Joe,” replied the old sailor firmly.

    He had only very recently, come to that, elevated him to “Mr Joe.” Little Joe rumpled the thick, light brown curls that were very much the same shade as Trottie True’s, but said: “I get you. Ever shipped aboard anything decent, has he?”

    “Ah!” Hugely gratified by this enquiry, Mr Rattle began to plumb the depths of Mr Peepers’s ignorance of the Royal Navy, all decent vessels, and the sea itself.

   It was still going on as they penetrated to one of the more fashionable thoroughfares, which would need to be crossed in order to reach the appointed goal, and Little Joe’s starting eyes observed the spectacle of the stout, yaller-pantalooned Mr Carton-Johnson pressing his unwelcome attentions on a shrinking—

    “By God!” he choked, rushing down the street like the wind.

    “Ah,” said Mr Rattle thoughtfully, following at a more leisurely pace, but bunching his fists in readiness.

    Mr Carton-Johnson was just uttering the phrase from his favourite poet: “What ‘a wild and liquid glance” is thine, dear young la—” when his fat right elbow was seized violently from behind, his fat person was swung right round and a furious voice shouted: “How dare you accost Miss Baldaya in the street? Get off at once, you fat toad, unless you want a dose of home-brewed!” And a large fist was shaken right under his affronted nose. He was just about to splutter an indignant protest when it dawned that this was not a fellow in tired nankeens, an elderly leather waistcoat and homespun shirt—or at least, it was, but it was one he’d met.

    “Oh, it’s you,” said Mr Carton-Johnson glumly.

    “Yes, it’s me, you fat demi-beau!” shouted Little Joe. “What do I have to do, patrol the streets of Brighton daily to keep you off innocent young ladies? Be off with you before I haul you off to a magistrate!”

    “Ah,” agreed Mr Rattle, coming up to his side. “Or I could ’it yer.”

    “No offence in the world was meant— I’m going!” said Mr Carton-Johnson angrily, going.

    “Young lady’s a-gonna bawl,” noted Mr Rattle, sotto voce.

    “No,” gulped Rita, blinking the tears back valiantly. “Thank you so very vairy much, Mr Formby! Eet—eet ees all my fault, I’m afraid.”

    “Well, not all, I think,” said Little Joe grimly, “but why are you by yourself in Brighton at this time of the year?”

    “’E’s got a point,” agreed Mr Rattle. “Though Cap’n Cutlass would of given ’im ’is marching orders, and no mistake!”

    “Yes,” she said, smiling shakily at him. “She ees vairy intrepid, ees she not?” She looked up nervously at Mr Formby, wondering why he should seem so much taller and bigger when he was not in conventional gentleman’s attire—for it was not logical, at all! “I—we came duh-down to the tuh-town, sir—”

    “Then where is Miss Benedict?” he said grimly.

    “Mina ees not weeth me, today,” she faltered. “I came eento town weeth Miss Gump, our lady companion. You see, we thought we might surprise my sister—“

    “This’ll do that all right, Miss Baldaya,” he said grimly. “Never mind the circumlocutions; why are you alone?”

    Rita swallowed. “I am trying to explain, sir. We are embroidering Nan a shawl, for she—she so much admired the one that a lady guest wore—

    “Miss Baldaya, why are you alone?” said Little Joe loudly.

    “Miss Gump came down weeth a migraine and I slipped out to match the thread,” she said glumly.

    He took a deep breath.

    “Sort of thing young ladies do do, Mr Formby,” said Mr Rattle fairly.

    “Slipped out to match the thread while Brighton is still full of undesirables? Slipped how far, may I enquire?” he said awfully.

    “Um—the inn where Miss Gump ees laid down ees along that way, sir.”

    “Be the King’s ’Ead. Said to be real niffy-naffy. Do you a change of yer team without not even blinking,” noted Mr Rattle.

    “No, we always go to the White Hart,” said Rita faintly.

    Mr Rattle’s whiskery jaw sagged. “Love a duck! Mr Joe, in that case she come down four ’ole blocks and right the way along ’ere by ’erself!”

    “So she did,” he agreed on a very dry note. “I’m surprised she wasn’t accosted by half a dozen of ’em.”

    “To be fair to heem,” said Rita very faintly indeed, “he had been introduced.”

    Mr Rattle sniffed. “And took advantage of it, Miss.”

    “Mm,” she admitted, biting her lip. “I just thought, eef I ran quickly along to the shop…” Mr Formby’s face did not look either as if it was ready to be convinced by this statement or as if it found it a valid excuse. Suddenly she burst out: “And eet ees not fair! All I deed was run down the street, and eef I were a boy, no-one would ever remark upon eet!”

    “No, well, Captain Cutlass would agree with you,” said Little Joe with a sigh: “but the thing is, unless you’re as capable as a boy like she is, it ain’t sensible, is it?”

    “No,” she admitted on a sour note.

    Mr Rattle cleared his throat. “Quite a young lass,” he remarked to the ambient air.

    Little Joe’s mouth was now twitching. “Mm. Well, young and silly—aye.”

    If anyone present had expected that the glossy black curls, the enchanting red bow of a mouth and the huge black eyes with their wild and liquid aforesaid might have softened Mr Formby’s stony heart they were now well and truly disabused of this notion and Miss Baldaya gave him a downright glare—the sort of glare, indeed, that any of his sisters might have bestowed upon him.

    “Did you get the thread?” he said mildly.

    “Uh—no!” she gulped. “I had not reached the shop, sir.”

    “Well, if you’re still keen, we’ll take you, only I should probably warn you, Miss Baldaya,” he said on a very dry note, “that your family wouldn’t care for you to be seen with the pair of us in one of Brighton’s most fashionable streets.”

    Rita put her pointed chin in the air. “Eef that ees what you theenk, you misjudge my family entirely, Mr Formby!”

    Mr Rattle cleared his throat. “We come over in the boat, Missy. Dropped John-John orf, ’e was in ’is fancy pantaloons, ’e’s gorn to pay calls. Only we just sailed ’im over, see?”

    “Of course,” she said firmly. “I should be delighted to accept your escort, sir. And perhaps you would care to introduce us, Mr Formby?”

    Little Joe looked at the defiant tilt of that little pointed chin and had much ado not to laugh aloud. Though still very much conscious of the glossy black curls, the enchanting red bow of a mouth and the huge black eyes. “Of course. Miss Baldaya, may I present Mr Rattle, late of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. Miss Baldaya is Lady Stamforth’s sister, Rattle.”

    “Thought you might be, with them looks, Missy. Pleased to meet you,” acknowledged Mr Rattle, holding out his horny hand.

    Miss Baldaya, far from shrinking or freezing him with a maidenly curtsey, shook it warmly and said: “I’m so pleased to meet you, sir! Captain Cutlass and Mouse have told me of you!”

    “Ah,” he said, greatly gratified. “Both on ’em are quite ’andy in a small boat.”

    “I know! I do envy them! My sister’s husband has a small sailing boat, but she ees always so anxious when he takes eet out that we do not get vairy much sailing.”

    “That’s a pity, Miss. You ought to get over to Waddington-on-Sea: Mouse or Cap’n Cutlass’d take you out like a shot.”

    “That would be wonderful, but I am not allowed to do vairy many theengs,” she said with a sigh.

    “Um, doesn’t the little girl sometimes comes over?” ventured Little Joe. “With a one-eyed chap?”

    “Yes; my niece. But you see, she ees not out and expected to be a young lady,” she said sourly.

    “I get you. Boring dinners and balls, is it?” he said mildly.

    “Yes, and een town eet’s also boring walks een the Park or vapid drives weeth approved young gentlemen who admire one for one’s dowry!” responded Miss Baldaya bitterly.

    His mouth twitched. “Well, dare say they might admire one for a little more than that, but I take your point. But—well, your sister must have gone through it, eh? All young la—”

    “No!” said Rita in amaze. “Nan? Of course not! She had had two husbands by the time she was twenty!”

    Little Joe gulped, what time Mr Rattle noted seriously: “That’s young. Only if one on ’em was took orf, or like, drowned at sea in the performance of ’is dooty—”

    “Yes. Her first husband—we called him Uncle John—was took off, een India, of a fever. And the second one was thrown from his huh-horse,” said Rita, blinking.

    “Shocking,” croaked Little Joe.

    “Yes. Well, I was only a leetle girl at the time. But I remember that poor Mina—he was her Papa, you see—cried and cried and would not be consoled by anything. But I must admeet,” said Rita, smiling mistily at them, “eet deed turn out for the best een the end, for eventually we went up to London and Nan met dear Lewis.”

    “There you are,” said Little Joe groggily, wondering how long ago that had been and which of ’em had fathered the little girl and, in short, how old her Ladyship had been when she acquired husband number three. “Dare say a ball or a dinner or two, and even drives in the Park might have been involved, eh?”

    “Well, yes, I theenk so. Um, I was steell in the schoolroom, back then,” she said, smiling her lovely smile at him. “But—but Nan’s ees a vairy different temperament from mine. She truly enjoys the balls and parties and I—I dislike them so much!”

    Oh, Lor’! Poor little thing! Little Joe and Mr Rattle exchanged dismayed glances and the latter, seeing the young man was at a loss, said sturdily: “Best make the most of it when you ain’t in Lunnon, then, hey? Now, which of these fancy shops is it, deary?”

    “Thees one.” She looked at their faces. “There ees no need for you to come een, dear sirs: there weell be no horrid persons een the shop!” she said gaily.

    Thankfully they let her go in alone.

    In her absence Little Joe was conscious of a certain gratitude that it was only old Rattle with him today. Not that he wasn’t sharp enough, mind you, but not likely to come out with the sort of remark that his relatives would. And, indeed, the old sailor merely said in a musing tone: “Pretty lass. Reminds me of some of them lasses we saw when we put in for water and repairs in the Azores.”

    “Well, yes, the Azores were settled by the Portuguese,” he said with a smile.

    “Ah, that’ll be it. Dark lasses in Egypt, too. Not near so pretty—long noses.”

    “The Battle of the Nile,” agreed Little Joe, nodding.

    “Aye. That ’Artshorne, ’e ain’t the only feller what sailed with the Admiral—only I ain’t claiming as I was on the flagship, mind!”

    “No, I know.”

    “Ah.” Mr Rattle put his pipe in his mouth but, possibly on account they were waiting for a lady, did not light it. “Sailed all the way to India, onct—on a troop-carrier, that were.” Little Joe expected him to tell how seasick the soldiers had been, but this time he said: “Pretty dark lasses out there, too. Well—all sorts, from black as yer ’at to real pretty ones like Missy. But the old dames—!” He shook his head. “Ever seen them ones they got up the Castle, Mr Joe?”

    “Uh—oh! The Indian servants? No. Heard of ’em, though,” he said with a smile.

    “Ah. Seen one, onct, round Sunny Bay: she were on the beach with the little lass and the one-eyed feller. Ugly! Like a piece of wrinkled-up boot leather, walking,” he said solemnly.

    Little Joe gulped. “I get you.”

    Mr Rattle sucked on his pipe. “Ah. Flowers in their ’air, them Indian lasses ’ad. Ted Perkins—what I can see ’im clear as I see you, and ’im drowned in the performance of ’is dooty off the coast of Africky forty year agorn—well, ’e said—notions, ’e ’ad, Mr Joe—’e said if a man ’ad ’is rights we could each pick one for ourselves, to bring ’ome. So the coxswain—big feller, ’e were, bit like yourself—’e said let the Captain get only a sniff o’ that idea and Ted Perkins’d be up for a dozen lashes and lucky not to get keel-’auled! And we did ’ear as Mr Fanshaw wanted to marry one, only the Captain wouldn’t wear it, no ways.”

    Fanshaw was a new name on Little Joe. “Who was Fanshaw?”

    “Mr Fanshaw,” he said reprovingly. “Second-lieutenant. ’Is first voyage.”

    Little Joe smiled a little. “Mm.”

    “Aye…” said Mr Rattle on a long sigh. “I wouldn’t of said No…” He brightened. “’Ere she is! Now, Missy, shall I step in and grab the parcel for yer?”

    “No, there’s no need, thank you, Mr Rattle, for I have eet here, een my reticule,” smiled Rita, opening her reticule and producing it.

    The two men gaped.

    “Embroidery silks,” she said in a stifled voice. “They are not—not vairy beeg.” She looked at their faces, gulped, and suddenly went into a gale of giggles, clapping her hand over her mouth and eventually gasping: “I’m so sorry!”

    “All this for a few wisps of thread—aye,” said Little Joe with a grin, offering his arm. “Think your Miss Gump will be ready to go home yet?”

    “No,” she said, shaking her head. “She has taken a draught and lain down, and—and usually weell sleep for several hours once she has taken eet.”

    “Useful sort of lady’s companion,” he noted drily.

    “A sick headache ees not something which one can help!” retorted Miss Baldaya with spirit.

    “No, s’pose not,” he said pacifically. “Well, uh—would Lady Stamforth object, do you think, if you were to walk on with us?”

    Rita was quite sure Nan would not. In London her Ladyship had been known to stroll in the most salubrious walks in the Park chaperoned only by a Mrs Paulina Wellington-Fishe—the “Fishe” being her own, or rather her late husband’s, the “Wellington” having being added by the dame herself in honour of His Grace’s triumph at Waterloo—Nan in becoming walking dress featuring a gown of narrow grey and white stripes topped with a little jacket in her favourite cherry shade, the whole set off by a cherry silk bonnet with white satin bows, and Mrs Wellington-Fishe, who was a large person in her mature years, in a bright pink gown liberally frilled and flounced, topped with a short cape of depressed brown fur and surmounted by a startling blue and white striped high-poke bonnet featuring three upstanding plumes: red, white and blue, the patriotic motif again. Not imparting any of this to Mr Formby and Mr Rattle, Rita assured them Nan would not object at all, took Mr Formby’s arm, and strolled on to the shop which had the whale’s tooth. Where she admired both the tooth and the other fascinating artefacts in the dark, dusty little shop with as much enjoyment as Mr Rattle himself.

    After that, as they were quite near, they wandered down to the waterfront and somehow Miss Baldaya came aboard, and somehow Mr Rattle decided that, since the wind was blowing nice and fresh, a few tacks here and there would hurt no-one. So they did that, Miss Baldaya’s cheeks glowing and the great dark eyes sparkling.

    They arrived at the White Hart to discover, lounging outside it with his hands in his pockets, the burly, blue-chinned, one-eyed Mr Poulter.

    “There you are,” he greeted Miss Baldaya mildly, nonetheless eyeing her companions thoughtfully.

    “I know them!” she said quickly.

    “You do now,” he agreed. “Yer gotta watch ’er. Quiet, but she ain’t slow; not above playing orf ’er tricks, neither,” he advised Miss Baldaya’s escorts.

    “Thees ees Mr Formby, and I have met hees seesters,” said Rita, sticking out the little pointed chin.

    “That right? Well, if ’e is, p’raps ’e wouldn’t mind telling us ’is sisters’ names?”

    Smothering a grin—he was aware that in his present guise he did not resemble anything likely to be known to the family from Stamforth Castle—Little Joe replied: “Think the ones you met in Waddington-On-Sea were Captain Cutlass and Mouse. Likewise out stealing your master’s chestnuts.”

    “’E is, see?” contributed Mr Rattle, removing the pipe and glaring.

    “Never said ’e wasn’t,” responded the blue-chinned Mr Poulter quickly. “All right, then, Miss Rita, I’ll believe yer—fahsands wouldn’t,” he noted.

    “Eet ees true! And I merely went to buy some thread to match the silk for Nan’s shawl!”

    “Wot, that thing what that Gump reckons she can copy from memory, from what that lady wore to dinner? Yer mad,” responded Mr Poulter with cheerful scorn.

    Rita, to her two escorts’ considerable enjoyment, was seen to gulp.

    “Met that Gump, ’ave yer?” Mr Poulter added to Little Joe.

    “Er—aye. She was buying thread then, too,” he admitted.

    Promptly Mr Poulter went into a spluttering fit of the most agonising kind. Emerging from it to mop his one eye with a giant spotted kerchief and admit: “That’s ’er. Drives ’is Lordship mad. Not to mention Mr Troope—’er Ladyship’s butler,” he explained. “Picks at ’er dinner like nobody’s business. And ’ippity-’oppink! Never seen nothink like it! Acos at a gent’s table yer don’t expect no female to bounce up and take the dishes orf the blamed sideboard itself! Only ’er Ladyship won’t give ’er up: ’ad ’er since the boat from India,” he ended glumly.

    “Yes, that ees so,” agreed Rita, smiling at them. “Poor Miss Gump had been governess to some children out een India, and was accompanying a lady home as her companion, but had no post to go to een England. So Nan took her on.”

    “Too soft-’earted for ’er own good,” grunted Mr Poulter. “Poulter’s my name, Mr Formby, sir,” he suddenly added.

    “Oh, yes!” gasped Rita as Little Joe, grinning, stuck out a hand and shook Mr Poulter’s heartily. “I’m sorry! And thees ees Mr Rattle, late of Hees Majesty’s Royal Navy, Poulter. –Poulter was een my brother-een-law’s regiment een the Peninsula, Mr Rattle,” she explained.

    “Right,” acknowledged Mr Rattle, shaking. “Wounded in the performance of yer dooty, then.”

    “That’s it,” agreed Mr Poulter comfortably. “A blamed Froggy bullet, it were. Only the way some of them Portygees what claimed they was on our side fought, could just as easy of been one of theirs!”

    Clearing his throat—after all the Baldayas were Portuguese on the father’s side—Little Joe hurriedly suggested they should step into the inn, to which Mr Poulter assented, admitting that they’d better not take Miss Rita into the tap and that that Gump had gorn and hired a private parlour. And the party adjourned, Mr Poulter, far from raising any objections to Mr Formby’s sitting with a young lady from the castle in a private parlour for the rest of the afternoon, in fact suggesting a bite of something solid would be in order, and Little Joe acknowledging silently that it was not a sensible move to stay on, but he couldn’t help himself. And the shy Miss Baldaya, for her part, giving no sign at all that she wished to be elsewhere—indeed, chattering away comfortably, as if she had known Mr Formby and Mr Rattle all her life.

    It must be admitted that that was John-John Formby’s lucky day. For as he approached the house of that Mrs Gilfillan who was Mrs Cox’s cousin, out came Miss Gilfillan, Miss Cox, and Miss Gilfillan’s maid. Complete with bonnets and reticules. Miss Cox, all blushes, appeared thrilled to see him, Miss Gilfillan, giggling, appeared no less thrilled—possibly because she had it in mind to head for a spot earlier signalled to one, Mr Nate Fosset, who would not now be offered two strings to his bow—and the maid did not appear even to notice his arrival—possibly because, as all now present were aware, it was her habit on such strolls to nip off the moment the young ladies were out of sight of Mrs Gilfillan’s front parlour windows to meet her young man.

    Mr Fosset having been encountered, to the accompaniment of loud giggles and cries of “Fancy meeting you, Fosset!” and such-like from Miss Gilfillan, the two couples strolled on slowly, arm-in-arm, with such a considerable distance between the two pairs as to suggest they might not in fact form one party at all. This was not precisely by design on John-John’s part, and it certainly was not by any design of Mary’s, but they were both very glad of it and did nothing to catch up on the two who had hurried on ahead.

    Over the past few months John-John had, in fact, managed to spend a considerable amount of time in Mary Cox’s company, what with dropping in on his sisters and Captain Burns, and just happening to sail over in the direction of Brighton, and so forth; so the modest Mary was not altogether surprised when she perceived him to be approaching the topic of Messrs Haliburton, uncle and nephew.

    “They are both horrid,” she said, her lip trembling.

    “Yes, I know that, Mary, but what does your Ma intend?”

    “She—she said that Mr Haliburton said that if Mr Cecil Haliburton will offer, he will give him a thousand pounds a year,” she faltered.

    John-John’s mouth tightened. “And has he?”

    “Um, well, no… I don’t think he wants to, really,” she whispered. “He—he has been paying court to that horrid Mrs Oxenburg. She was at Aunt Gilfillan’s dinner dance: in the mauve satin with the tall plume,” she reminded him.

    John-John’s jaw sagged. He had certainly observed Mr Cecil Haliburton’s attentions to this lady, but she was a widow of nigh twice his age! Most certainly she had seemed keen, that was not in question, but he strongly doubted that young Mr Haliburton’s intentions included marriage!

    “Yuh—um, Mary, that sort of thing don’t count,” he stuttered. “Don’t think he will want to marry her, y’know!”

    “Mr Haliburton told Ma that she’d marry Mr Cecil over his dead body,” she reported on a dubious note. “But Mr Fosset claims they will marry, for she has three thousand a year.”

    “Uh—well, that would certainly make him independent of the uncle.”

    Mary nodded hard.

    “I—I ain’t got a thousand a year,” said John-John in a voice that shook a little.

    Mary turned puce. “I know,” she whispered, staring very hard at the pavement.

    “Uh—well, I was thinking of one more decent voyage,” said the sailor, swallowing hard.

    Mary did not protest, or plead, or say anything, but from under the brim of her bonnet a tear was observed to steal down her rounded cheek.

    John-John took a deep breath. “Look, Mary, I think you know how I feel about you. Will you wait for me?”

    At this she looked up at him and said in a tearful voice: “I do want to, and I know I should have the—the strength of character to do it, John-John, but you don’t know what she’s like! I’m afraid she’ll make me marry someone else!”

    As he had known Lady Cox all his life John-John didn’t say she should damned well find the strength of character to stand up to the woman, or she could appeal to her pa, or even that if she stood fast, her mother couldn’t do anything worse to her than put her on bread and water for a year. He squeezed her hand very hard, and said grimly: “Then I shan’t go to sea again. Will you marry me at once?”

    Mary gaped up at him. “But she won’t let us!”

    “I’ll speak to your Pa.”

    “He always does what she says,” said Mary in a tiny voice.

    “Well, in most things, but this is his daughter’s happiness at stake. I have good prospects and a house offered me,” he said, not mentioning that in the near future it was supposed to have Lucas Henderson and Hartshorne in it.

    “It—it sounds wonderful,” she said in a shaking voice.

    He squeezed her hand very hard and, putting his head very close to the bonnet, said: “Then is it Yes?”

    “Of course, John-John!” she squeaked, turning puce all over again.

    John-John had no objection to this shade in Miss Cox and replied, squeezing the hand excruciatingly hard: “Good. Don’t worry, I’ll sort it all out; and if we won’t be rich, we’ll be happy, eh?”

    “Oh, yes, John-John!” she breathed mistily.

    Smiling, he said. “Good. –AHOY! Fosset!”

    Mr Fosset and Miss Gilfillan pausing to let them catch up, he then proposed adjourning to a cosy little cove that the company wot of, not ten minutes’ walk thataway. Mr Fosset, grinning, and Miss Gilfillan, giggling, having assented to this proposal, they all hurried on. And ten minutes later, goodness knew what Mr Fosset and Miss Gilfillan might have been doing—though the former’s head was certainly very close to the latter’s bonnet. But Mr John Formby and Miss Mary Cox were definitely sitting in the lee of a great boulder and a pile of driftwood, her bonnet on the sand and his hat likewise, and he was kissing her very thoroughly indeed. Not displeased to have the naïve Mary inform him that that was wonderful, she had never dreamed it would be like that, and that when Mr Cecil Haliburton only kissed her hand, it make her go cold as a frog all over.

    When Little Joe and Mr Rattle eventually got back to the boat John-John was discovered sitting in it, staring dreamily into space.

    “Sorry we’re so late, John-John!” gasped his brother.

    “Eh? Oh—no,” he said dreamily. “That’s all right. Can you land us at the jetty, old chap? I’ll nip straight up to old Cox’s house.”

    “John-John,” said his brother cautiously, “I dare say he’ll be on your side, but there’s no way he’ll stand up to Ma Cox while you’re at sea for anything from six months to a year, y’know.”

    Mr Rattle spat expressively in agreement with this statement.

    “Eh? Oh!” he said with a laugh. “Poor devil! No, I know. I’m not going. I’ll tell Lucas tomorrow.”

    Little Joe cleared his throat. “You didn’t let her talk you round, did you, John-John?”

    “Eh? Mary? She could not talk a kitten round, bless her!” he said with a laugh. “No, I saw that she could never stand up to the bitch of a mother and it weren’t fair to ask her to do so, so I decided not to go to sea again,” he said calmly. “Well, I saw the decision was up to me, and it was now or never, see?”

    They did see—and Mr Rattle for one also saw that the cheery John-John Formby, who all his happy life had been pretty much of a care-for-nobody, had suddenly grown up into a man. So they offered him the congratulations that were clearly in order, upped with the little brown sail, and set off briskly—the wind having freshened a good deal, as Mr Rattle had sworn it would—for Waddington-on-Sea.

    “Give and take, innit?” noted Mr Rattle thoughtfully, as John-John leapt onto the jetty and rushed off towards the hideous mansion that Lady Cox deemed suited to His Worship’s municipal position. “Can’t ’ave everything in this life. Well, if ’e can sort things out with ’is young lady, dessay there might be ’ope for you and Miss Rita, yet. Though I dunno as I could say which on yer might ’ave to give and which on yer might ’ave to take.”

    Little Joe winced, but said nothing.

    “Now, yer Nunky Ben did just ’appen to mention as Miss Mouse favoured ’er brother,” he said thoughtfully.

    Silently cursing Great-Nunky Ben and his loose tongue, Little Joe replied: “There was nothing in that, Rattle. I dunno if he ever was interested—and a good deal of it seems to have been in the aunties’ imaginations—but I got the impression that Ma thinks the fellow considered himself too good for her.”

    Scowling, Mr Rattle retorted: “There ain’t nobody under the sun as is too good for Miss Mouse! And ’ere’s me fist to back it up!”

    “Aye, well, put your fist to that sheet, and we’ll shove off.”

    They shoved off, and headed for the beach and the boathouse.

    “Might come right in the end,” offered Mr Rattle. “The brother could come to ’is senses—realise what ’e’s missing.”

    Sighing, Little Joe responded: “Given the immense social gap between his family and ours, he’s more likely to congratulate himself on his escape.”

    Mr Rattle looked at his face and did not attempt to press his point.

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/good-and-bad-news.html