Mouse And The Literary Gentleman

21

Mouse And The Literary Gentleman

    The two girls sat on the warm sand of sheltered little Sunny Bay, eating the oysters which Mouse had just gathered round on the nearby rocks.

    “Between you and me,” said Mina Benedict in a lowered voice, “we have always considered him rather a useless young man—and dearest Nan, I might add, would be the first to admit it!”

    Mouse nodded interestedly. Her Ladyship had abandoned the Season entirely—though apparently intending to dash up to town every so often in order to prevent Viscount Stamforth from wearing himself out in committees—and had returned to the Castle with a convalescent young man and a carriageload of nurses, comforts and etcetera. “Then why, Mina?”

    “He needed rescuing,” said Mina with a smile. “His mother is a terribly fashionable woman who is known for her terrifying literary salons,”—she made an awful face: Mouse nodded, her eyes very round—“and we scarcely know the father, but Papa says that he is a nullity who cannot stand up to the woman. Poor Mr Bobby was in very bad odour at home, for you see—and I realise you will not recall Mamma’s mentioning this, Mouse, dear!—he was supposed to contract an engagement to Lady Serena March, but he cried off at the last minute.”

    “You are right, I don’t recall it!” said Mouse with a laugh.

    “His connections and her fortune,” said Mina with another grimace.

    “Oh? But if she’s a lady she must have connections, too?”

    “Yes, but the Cantrell-Spragues are related to everybody,” said Miss Benedict blithely. “At any rate, he cried off. Well, she is good-looking enough, but rather cold and stately in manner. But his mother was furious, you see, and when poor Mr Bobby contracted the fever she is reported to have said that if he lost his looks, it would be a judgement upon him. Well, I suppose he has not absolutely lost his looks,” she admitted, “but he had to have all his hair shaved off, and he has certainly become very thin and haggard.”

    “Poor thing,” said Mouse kindly, eating another oyster.

    Mina also took another oyster, ate it and sighed deeply. “They taste so much better out here in the open air!”

    “Everything does,” replied Mouse placidly. “His mother’s a bit of a Lady Cox, is she?”

    Mina shuddered. “Absolutely! But horridly clever with it! Mamma dragged us to a couple of her salons and I have to confess, I could not understand a word in ten that was spoke! And one gentleman read a poem in Greek, it was dreadful!”

    “I see. Then it was quite brave of him to turn down this Lady Whosis, wasn’t it?” she said with the typical Formby detachment.

    Mina blinked. “I suppose. Well, Nan seems to think so, at all events. She said she thought the effort of standing up to his mother had weakened him, which is why he came down with the fever. She went to visit when we heard he had been so sick, discovered him completely abandoned in his room while his mother was out paying calls, and the so-called nurse dozed off, full of gin—and removed him without ceremony!”

    “I see,” said Mouse placidly.

    Mina smiled. She had thought Mouse Formby might take it like that. There had been quite a stir amongst the Upper Ten Thousand when the lady to whom they referred as “the Portuguese Widow”, or since her marriage to Lord Stamforth, “the P.W.,” had “kidnapped” pretty little Bobby C.-S. Remarks had been passed which were quite unfit for the ears of young débutantes.

    “Well,” she said cheerfully, “Nan will feed him up, of course, she can manage that with the help of M. Lavoisier and the ayahs, but even she will not be able to rehabilitate him in Society!”

    “Is it shocking for a young man to refuse to contract an engagement, then?” asked Mouse dubiously.

    Mina took another oyster. “No, no: it had not been announced. Naturally a gentleman could not possibly withdraw from an engagement. But everybody knew that it was an agreed thing between the families, you see.”

    She appeared to think that this was an explanation. “I see,” said Mouse slowly. “No-one will think he’s a good match for their daughters after this, is that it?”

    Mina nodded cheerfully, munching.

    “Will that matter terribly?” said Mouse on a dry note.

    Mina swallowed her oyster convulsively. “Of course! He has nothing! All those C.-S. boys must marry money!”

    “Then he will have to work for his living, won’t he?” said the daughter of the Formbys composedly.

    Mina thought of Mr Bobby as he had been wont to burst upon the gaze of the assembled blushing débutantes when well: the great blue eyes, the curved red mouth—rather inclined to pouts, alas—and the wonderful neckcloths; and gulped. “I confess I cannot imagine at what.”

    “He could help Little Joe in the shop: they are short-handed. But I suppose that would not do for a young gentleman.”

    Mina sat up and hugged her knees, gazing out to sea. “Personally I’d much rather do that than become a sort of male Miss Gump, which as far as I can see, is the only alternative! But I strongly doubt that he has the backbone. –He was one of our friend Peg Buffitt’s suitors, you know.”

    There were so many names that Mouse was not at all sure who this lady might be. “Recently?”

    “A couple of years back. If he’d told his father he wanted to settle down with her in a little house in the country, they might have managed very well on his allowance: she came from a simple home. But you see, he did not. Whether it was lack of backbone or that he was not truly in love with her, I cannot say.” She shrugged.

    “Oh. But can’t he live a simple life on his allowance now?”

    “No: he has only fifty pounds a year of his own and the father has refused to continue the allowance in view of his failure to comply with his family’s wishes.”

    Mouse stared at her. “Did he tell you as much?”

    “No: Papa said we had best get it quite straight, though he did not object to having another dependant for life at the Castle, if that was what Nan wanted—though it was to be hoped that Mr Bobby would not breed like the pugs!” admitted Mina with a loud laugh. “So he wrote to his father.”

    “The man must be a monster,” said Mouse, her neat nostrils flaring. “Abandoning his own son?”

    “She made him,” replied Mina simply.

    Mouse swallowed. “Well, if she’s a Lady Cox, I can see that.”

    “Mm…” Mina gazed out to sea. “I should have brought some lemons,” she said dreamily.

    “What? Oh: but you didn’t know there’d be oysters!”

    “True. However,” she said, turning her head and smiling at her, “in future I shall be prepared, and not sally forth without a lemon in my reticule!”

    Mouse grinned. “Or a carrot, like Captain Cutlass!”

    “Exactly! Um, you wouldn’t fancy taking the boat out again, would you?”

    “The tide’s on the turn.”

    She appeared to think that this was an explanation. “Oh,” said Mina blankly.

    Smiling, Mouse explained: “It runs quite strongly just at first: watch the waves, and you’ll see; but after a little it will be just right, and we won’t risk being carried over to France!”

    “Have you been to France?”

    “Er—yes, but on no account mention it at home! I’ve been several times with Little Joe and John-John, and twice with Mr Rattle. Do not ask to go,” she said, taking in Miss Benedict’s wistful expression. “I’m not an experienced enough sailor to take you by myself and I’ve no intention of getting Mr Rattle into trouble.”

    “No, of course,” agreed Mina regretfully.

    “We could just potter about, though, if that’s what you’d like,” she said kindly.

    “Ooh, yes! Thank you, Mouse!” she beamed. “Might I take the tiller, do you think?”

    “Not unless you have now learned what ‘jibe-ho’ means,” replied Mouse severely.

    Giggling, Miss Benedict revealed she had, agreed that she would not pester to take it until Mouse said she might, and asked eagerly if they might go right round to Sandy Bay?

    The little fishing community was just on the other side of Brighton, so Mouse, having squinted at the sky, allowed that they might, or even as far as Guillyford Bay—which was only the next one westwards. In order to do this they would have to round Guillyford Point, which on its western side featured a treacherous current and nasty rocks on which more than one foolhardy amateur sailor had come to grief. Mina knew that if they went that far they might see Commander Carey’s wonderful Finisterre moored in her little cove in the lee of the Point, a sight to which she was not at all averse, but she admitted honestly that Papa had told her not to encourage Mouse to do so. With a sniff worthy of Great-Aunty Bouncer, Mouse retorted that she knew better than to sail close in to the Point, but if Mina wasn’t allowed, so be it.

    What with the relief of having carried the day over this—she now knew that the quiet-seeming Mouse was just as strong-willed as the more ebullient Captain Cutlass, but Papa had spoken to her most seriously before he left for London—and the excitement of getting out in the boat and being allowed to raise the sail and eventually to take the tiller, Mina completely forgot to warn Mouse that her step-mamma had decided that as Mr Bobby was now on his feet again, she might encourage him to get down to Sunny Bay for the sea air, and to watch out for him. This kindly warning had been intended to be uttered not because Bobby Cantrell-Sprague was in any sense a dangerous young man, but because Mina did not want her friend to be bored solid for an afternoon with talk about sonnets or essays or such stuff. –Mina Benedict’s own papa had been the hearty country squire type, and in spite of her slender, fair-haired looks she was very much his daughter.

    Some ten days later, therefore, Mouse pulled in to Sunny Bay all unaware that she was in severe danger of exposure to a horridly literary gentleman.

    She had not arranged to meet Mina here today, but was on another expedition entirely, the which would not take long, but since the day was pleasant, if not very warm, she had decided to have a picknick over here. Well, she was clearly only in the way at home, where Captain Cutlass was stewing over some Greek with a wet cloth round her head, Aunty Lash was feverishly working on yet another little gown for Mary’s baby, which was due in July, and Ma, who was at least coming downstairs regularly now, was in the kitchen in a very bad mood, wrestling with a new cake receet that would not work out, and had even shouted at Cookie!

    She had removed her shoes—not having to bother with stockings, since she hadn’t worn any—and was pulling the boat up when a breathless voice cried: “Let me help!” And a bare-footed young man ran up, grinning, splashed into the shallows with her, and helped tow the dinghy up.

    “Thank you!” said Mouse with her unaffected smile. “The tide is on the turn and I should never hear the last of it if I lost her!”

    “You’re welcome!” he replied with a laugh. “Often get out on the water, do you?”

    “Whenever I can,” admitted Mouse. She looked at the bare feet, the tired nankeens, the lack of a neckcloth and the shabby old brown coat and, not realising that this was a literary gentleman in some old clothes that Richard Baldaya had not bothered to take to his new place of residence, in fact loftily advising his sister to burn ’em, the which the provident Nan had not done, added in her friendly way: “Do you like boats?”

    Mr Bobby Cantrell-Sprague looked at the sweet-faced, funny little girl with the boat and the bare feet and replied to her question with a grin: “I like boats, yes, but I’ve never had much opportunity to get out in ’em.”

    His experience of boating in fact consisted of one trip on the Prince Henri-Louis’s big yacht between Brighton and the little bay where they now stood. He had never been one of His Royal Highness’ set, but the young prince had always formed one of Lady Stamforth’s court, Bobby had been paying attentions to her friend, Miss Buffitt, at the time, and her Ladyship had invited them both to the castle for the day… Bobby had been somewhat drily aware that, though “le petit Monsieur,” as he was known in Society, was not above angling for an invitation to his mother’s salons, he did not think much of him, Bobby. Though he had once deigned to give him a bout at Jackson’s—Mr Bobby being not quite so literary as his mother imagined.

    Bobby was the youngest son of a numerous family and, though he had a younger sister, had always been the spoilt little darling of the family. He had been a very pretty little boy, with huge blue eyes, a perfect pink and white complexion and little dark curls which his mother had encouraged to hang in ringlets. In adulthood he had an oval, rather narrow-jawed face of the sort which often indicates Irish ancestry. The ladies were self-confessedly aux anges over the rather petulant, pouting mouth and rounded chin; and the dark jaw, of the sort that needs two shaves a day to look respectable, was not generally considered a drawback. Nor the cerulean blue eyes, to which the black brows and lashes gave, according to a Miss Barbara Jessop, a young lady of more sensibility than sense, a smudgy look which was so Romantick! With the aura of his mother’s literary salons added to these natural attractions, he was more than a hit with the débutante set, he was “a divine Apollo” (Miss Ariadne Satterthwaite: squashed by her mamma on the score of Miss Ariadne’s mere two hundred pounds a year), “Cupid as a young man” (Miss Violet Potter, whose militant mamma went so far as to inform her she might as well whistle for the moon, the unfortunate Violet being the fourth of five daughters of a sufficiently impoverished country gentleman), and “the young Endymion” (variously, Lady Annabel Gratton-Gordon, who in spite of her connections, which more than matched Bobby’s, did not have the fortune to tempt his mother, Miss Jane Pomfret, fewer connections, even less fortune, and Miss Alice Grogan, ditto, added to which Bobby’s mother had fallen out with hers over a question of the genius—or otherwise—of Mr Coleridge).

    Today, in the wake of his illness, the thick black hair was very, very short, the once youthfully rounded cheeks were a trifle hollow, there were shadows under those smudgy blue eyes, and, since Lady Stamforth had whisked the young ladies away for a week’s shopping in town, he had not bothered with a shave. And the once-rounded limbs which had caused a fashionable painter to positively beg him to pose for a Classical study (being rather of Miss Ariadne Satterthwaite’s opinion) were distinctly gaunt. Though the width of the shoulders and the basic proportions of the limbs, over which the artist had waxed ecstatic, were unchanged. –The effort had not turned out well: the artist, carried away with his inspiration, had made the mistake of including Miss Buffitt and her pretty little sister in his composition—at least as to the heads, the more indelicate anatomical details being copied from stock figures—and a very angry relative of the two young ladies had summarily removed the thing from his studio.

    All in all Mr Bobby today did not present the picture of Mina’s weak-minded literary young gentleman whom Mouse had fixed in her head, incorporating, as it did, a swaddling neckcloth, a simpering smile, fluttering lashes, the sort of overpowering clouds of scent favoured by Mr Stottle, no shoulders other than those provided by his tailor, and definite shortness. This young man was quite tall. And he did not simper. –It was true that Mina had few powers of description. But it was also true that any maidens of their age would have been incapable of describing the undeniably pretty yet definitely masculine attraction of Mr Bobby at his best.

    Explaining that she was lucky to come from a family who had always got out in boats, Mouse looked at his bare feet with a twinkle in her eyes and said: “So you haven’t been hauling a boat up?”

    “Eh? Oh—no! Well it’s a beach, ain’t it? Regressed to me childhood, decided I would paddle, since it’s too cold yet for swimming,” he replied, frankly grinning.

    “Yes, though if you do like to swim, Sunny Bay is the best place along the whole coast for it: its configuration means that it catches the sun all day, you see.”

    Bobby looked with increased interest at the funny little girl who used such words as “configuration” so easily and said casually. “Live in these parts, then, do you?”

    “Over to Waddington-on Sea; just to the east. You go past the rocks where the oysters are, and round the next point, it’s not far at all.”

    “Oysters?” he said with a smile, looking at the basketful that was sitting in the boat.

    “Yes: I was going to have a picknick.”

    “So was I, as a matter of fact,” he said on an eager note. “Shall we combine ’em? I can offer cold lamb sandwiches with mint jelly!”

    “Oh, good!” beamed Mouse, unaware that the simplicity of this fare was due to M. Lavoisier’s having gone up to London with her Ladyship for the week and the severe instructions given Rani Ayah not to force Indian dishes on Mr Bobby, for he was quite unused to them. “I’ve only got a piece of cheese and a cold sausage besides the oysters: Ma and Cookie had an awful shouting-match and the kitchen was uninhabitable this morning! But it is a nice big piece of cheese.”

    Admittedly Bobby’s father ate cheese but his mother stigmatised this habit as betraying the culinary discrimination of a peasant. Bobby, however, was also partial to a slab of cheese, and the bouts at Jackson’s were frequently followed by an adjournment to a handy hostelry which offered not only good English ale but excellent cheese and pickles—of all of which his mother was completely unaware. So he replied quite genuinely: “Oh, splendid! I love cheese! My stuff’s in the pony-cart round at the front of the house. I’d better unharness the pony, too: saw the water and just dashed down, y’know?”

    Agreeing fervently that she did know, Mouse accompanied him trustingly up the spring-green slope of the field before little Sunny Bay farmhouse and round to the patch of gravel that did duty as a sweep. Where her jaw dropped at the familiar sight of Mina’s pony-cart with Mina’s pony harnessed up.

    “That—that’s Mina Benedict’s pony, isn’t it?” she faltered.

    “Yes: Laddie Too!” said Bobby with a choke of laughter, stroking the pony’s nose. “Not T,W,O!”

    “Um, yes, I know: her first pony was Laddie,” croaked Mouse, staring. “Are you the gentleman who’s been sick, then?”

    He flushed and his mouth firmed, making him seem quite a lot older. “Yes; and I can assure you that any rumours you may have heard are completely unfounded: Lady Stamforth has been like a mother to me,” he said grimly.

    “Yes, of course. I see: the horrid people in town have said nasty things, have they? Um, no, I just… Um, Mina said you were very literary,” she finished weakly.

    Bobby swallowed. “Er—well, I don’t think I’m as literary as all that. Um, don’t think she likes me much,” he admitted. “Er—not very literary herself!” he offered desperately.

    “No,” said Mouse with a smile, “I don’t think she is. She loves horses and dogs and being in the open air, doesn’t she? Not that they would necessarily prevent one’s picking up a book, but nevertheless she doesn’t seem to do so!”

    “No. Seems a waste of the fine library up at the castle,” he offered.

    “Yes, indeed! What does she do of an evening, then? Just sit round with her stitchery?” asked Mouse naïvely. “We’re all great readers in my family, but my brother’s wife was stunned to see us with our books of an evening. Well, my Aunty Lash does a lot of stitchery, but she’s as fond of reading as any of us.”

    Bobby’s blue eyes twinkled a little. His sisters loathed stitchery—as, indeed, did his mamma—and were normally to be found of an evening, when they were not out at the continuous round of parties, balls and routs of the Season, with a book in their hands. “As far as my observation goes—and Lady Stamforth has only lately allowed me up for grown-up dinner!—Miss Benedict dislikes stitchery even more than she does literary pursuits. But she will read the occasional novel, so long as it is not as heavy as Ivanhoe or Rob Roy,” he said solemnly.

    Mouse gulped.

    “Precisely!” said Bobby, now frankly laughing. “Lady Stamforth, on t’other hand, though stigmatising the latter as ‘horridly Scotch,’ read it with great enthusiasm to the little ones!”

    Mouse clapped her hand over her mouth. An agonised squeak escaped her.

    “Well, yes: Portuguese Scotch, it would have been worth hearing!” he admitted. “Let me see; apart from the very light reading, I have observed some playing of games such as lottery tickets or spillikins, a hand or two of patience, and letter-writing to her many friends. Likewise Miss Baldaya, though she reads rather more, and might even be stigmatised as verging on the literary.”

    “Sorry,” said Mouse in a strangled voice, turning puce.

    “No, don’t be,” returned Bobby drily. “It’s entirely salutary, to be seen as others see one.”

    “Yes, um, is it? Yes, I suppose it is,” she said distractedly, fumbling at the buckles on Laddie Too’s harness.

    “Let me, those are too stiff for you,” said Bobby quickly.

    His fingers touched hers; Mouse blushed and stood back quickly. “My hands are very strong, really,” she offered weakly. “Um, I’m used to Old Horse: his harness is about as old as he is.”

    “Yes? You drive, then?”

    “Yes, though I’m the merest whipster compared to Mina. She can drive a pair!” she revealed, her eyes shining.

    “Aye, well: lived with horses all her life. The father had a decent country place in Kent.”

    “Yes, she told me,” she agreed. “But it wasn’t her own father, but Lord Stamforth who taught her to drive a pair. I must say, he sounds like an excellent father!”

    “Yes,” said Bobby Cantrell-Sprague heavily: “He is. Adores the little ones, too.”

    Abruptly Mouse recalled what Mina had said of his father and went very red. “Um, yes. Um, shall we hobble him?”

    “What does Miss Benedict usually do?”

    “Well, she doesn’t usually hobble him, but the thing is, there’s quite a nice herb garden over to the side of the house.”

    Lady Stamforth had assured Bobby that the house was unoccupied and that there was nothing here. “So the garden is maintained?”

    “Well, no. Um, well, I water the herbs if they look dry,” she muttered. “I sometimes pick them—well, nobody else wants them!”

    Bobby’s mouth twitched. “In that case, by all means let’s hobble him!”

    Laddie Too was led round to the field at back of the house where they could keep an eye on him and hobbled on what Mouse declared to be a juicy patch of grass, and Bobby accompanied her back down to the sands without mentioning that Rani Ayah, who had appointed herself in charge of him, the nurse from London being no longer needed, had sternly ordered him: “Not be sitting on wet beaches, Mr Bobby baba.” –Miss Baldaya had earlier gratuitously informed him that “baba” meant “baby” and Miss Benedict had duly sniggered, from which Bobby, who was not slow, had gathered that the girls were a trifle jealous of Lady Stamforth’s unexpected adoption of him. He had had the sense not to order the old woman not to call him that, and was later rewarded by Lady Stamforth’s remarking casually that it was a great mark of favour, for normally a grown man was only a baba if the ayah had been with him from his birth, and even her Sita Ayah had almost stopped calling her brother Richard “Dicky baba.”

    Mouse chose a dry stretch of sand well above the tide mark, Bobby spread the rug that Rani Ayah had forced on him, and the feast was spread out.

    “I don’t know what these are,” he said limply, unwrapping a cloth to discover a clutch of little pastry packets. “I didn’t ask for them.”

    “Heathen pies!” squeaked Mouse, collapsing in giggles.

    Bobby sniffed one cautiously and blinked. “I’d say so! No, go on: tell!”

    Smiling, Mouse explained. Ending: “So is Rani Ayah looking after you?”

    “Smothering me!” said the young man with a laugh. “She means well, though. Er—may I ask what they taste like?”

    “You may ask, but I cannot tell you: the taste is unlike anything I know!” said Mouse merrily. “Savoury, but not strong. –Don’t touch that!” she added sharply as he unwrapped a glass jar and looked at its bright yellow contents dubiously.

    His hand retreated from it. “Er—no?”

    “Sorry. You may like it, of course,” said Mouse with a blush. “I liked it, but my cousin would not touch it.”

    “Never had it. What is it?”

    “It’s pickled cauliflower. If Rani’s looking after you this will be her version. It’s, um, very, very hot, and very salty and oily at the same time. Um, I think,” she added, wrinkling her brow over it, “that this may be even hotter than the one I tried. Rani Ayah and Sita Ayah come from different parts of India and it seems that Rani’s cooking is generally hotter.”

    Bobby looked at the earnest little heart-shaped face and smiled very much. “I’d better not try it, then. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but it’s not so long since I was on slops.”

    “Yes,” said Mouse seriously. “You don’t want an upset tummy after a severe fever.”

    “Or at any time!” admitted Bobby ,grinning. “But the heathen pies are safe, are they?”

    “Ye-es,” she said, recalling certain remarks of Mina’s, not to say, Rita’s associated giggling fit. “Um, the thing is, unless Lady Stamforth restrains her, Rani, um—”

    “Bursts out in the direction of culinary ferocity?”

    “Yes!” she said with a laugh.

    “In that case I’m afraid I may let you try ’em first, for her Ladyship is not here: she’s rushed the young ladies up to town to buy hats, or some such.”

    Mouse just nodded, not thinking to impress the young man who was staying at the castle with her knowledge of this fact, or, indeed, with her sister’s having married an old friend of the Viscount and Viscountess Stamforth, and, advising him to try an oyster first, expertly opened one with a workmanlike knife.

    “Thank you,” he croaked. “I think I should do that for you.”

    “Have you opened oysters before?”

    “Well, no.”

    “Then I shan’t let you, you might gash yourself horridly. Don’t feel abashed: it’s only a knack, but it takes quite a lot of practice. And my wrists are strong: I do a lot of rowing,” she said calmly, setting to and opening half a dozen.

    Bobby looked dazedly at the little square hands that were opening the oysters and said faintly: “I see.”

    “Go on!” urged Mouse, smiling.

    He gave in, picked the oyster up and tipped his head back to let it slide down his throat.

    The artist who had painted Bobby Cantrell-Sprague as a young Classical god had remarked with approval upon the strong, marble-like white column of his neck: beautiful but entirely masculine—incidentally causing the model a writhing embarrassment, for he was not as vain as his detractors claimed. Mouse looked at the said column, experienced an astonishing rush of heat throughout her veins, and stared fixedly at the sea.

    “Delicious!” said Bobby with an unselfconscious laugh. “Will you not have one yourself?”

    “Oh—yes, I will, thank you.”

    They ate oysters in silence for some time, and then attacked the lamb sandwiches. Mr Bobby then remembering there was a bottle, he uncorked it. And duly recoiled. “Smell it,” he said limply, holding it out.

    Mouse sniffed. “Ugh! Um, if anything it smells a little like the heathen pies.”

    “Uh-huh.” He produced a silver tankard with the Vane coat of arms on it and poured.

    “Cold soup?” ventured Mouse, peering at it.

    Bobby grinned. “Heathen cold soup, I fear, Miss— I’m sorry; may I ask your name?”

    “Marianne Formby. Everybody calls me Mouse, though.”

    “That’s charming!” he said with a little startled laugh. “I’m Bobby Cantrell-Sprague. Or ‘Mr Bobby baba,’ if you prefer Rani’s version!” he added with a grin.

    “Help, she must really like you!” said Mouse in awe.

    “So Lady Stamforth indicated. I’m very flattered. Well, I think possibly she likes having someone to smother! The nurses do not allow her to help very much with Lady Stamforth’s little ones and Miss Jack shouts at her if she attempts to call her ‘Missy Jack baba’, alas.”

    “It’s a stage,” said Mouse, smiling. “Are you game to taste this?”

    “Er… I don’t guarantee to swallow, Miss Formby,” he admitted, tasting it gingerly.

    “Is it not too bad?” she ventured, as he did swallow.

    “Well, uh—very savoury. Full of garlic, too, I’d say.” He looked at her face and passed her the tankard, smiling. “Try it.”

    Mouse tasted cautiously. “Help! It is savoury! Still, if one thinks of it as a cold soup, rather than a drink… The taste is like the heathen pies, actually. Let me taste one, and if they’re not too hot, we might have them together.” She duly tasted, Bobby watching her with a smile, and the heathen pies being approved, they ate and drank happily, voting the combination extremely tasty, unaware that the household she served had declared unanimously they were sick to death of Rani’s samosahs full of her leftover kitcheree, itself composed of leftover dal and rice and very unpopular indeed, and that her Ladyship had specifically ordered her not to give Mr Bobby baba jeeruh panee to drink: never mind its claimed preventative and restorative powers, it would be too feringhee for him. Some might have considered leftover cold sausage and cheese a strange dessert to this feast, but Mouse and Bobby were young with healthy appetites, and ate them up happily. Fortunately Mouse had a flask of water with which to wash the lot down.

    Bobby lay back unaffectedly on the rug, linking his hands behind his head, and sighed. “That’s so much better!”

    “Mm,” agreed Mouse, hugging her knees and gazing dreamily at the sea.

    He looked at the delicate little profile outlined against the pale spring sky and smiled. After a little he murmured: “What are you thinking?”

    “Actually,” said Mouse honestly, going rather pink, “I was wondering if Rani is making you get up at the crack of dawn.”

    “No: on the contrary, she’s letting me have my sleep in. Er—is she prone to?”

    “Well, I got that impression from Rita and Mina, yes. The ayahs tend to rise with the sun, and go to bed with it, too. It has not proven a popular regimen with Jack!”

    “I’m being spoilt, then,” he said with a grin. “Have you ever stayed at the castle, Miss Formby?” She shook her head and he said with a choke of laughter: “Then I shan’t ask if you know whether the morning milk drink Rani offers instead of the more usual chocolate is customary!”

    “Oh, help; what is it like?”

    “Basically warm milk and honey—very sweet—with the addition of a spice which I have never tasted before. Her word for it is something like ‘eellaychee.’ Extraordinarily aromatic! The first time I had it,” he said, his eyes twinkling very much—“I was in a somewhat weakened state, you understand—I began to wonder if it was a vision, and if this was the original honey-dew mixed into the milk of Paradise!”

    The reference of course being familiar to the Formby family, Mouse replied without hesitation: “Well, the stately pleasure-dome is just along the coast a ways, but I trust you would not cast dear old Rani Ayah as the damsel with the dulcimer!”

    Bobby collapsed in splutters, gasping: “No! Nor an Abyssinian maid, neither!”

    Mouse’s face was all smiles. “No, indeed! Did you ask Lady Stamforth or Rita what the spice might be?”

    Bobby looked wry. “Mm. Miss Baldaya giggled and informed me that good boys must not to asking questions and drinking up doody drinks when ayah says, and Lady Stamforth said that she did not think it had an English name but it came as seeds in a little pod.”

    Mouse blinked. “Then it could not be cinnamon or nutmeg—or cloves, either.”

    “No; I had ruled those out,” he agreed, looking prim.

    “I can see you are waiting for me to ask what she meant by doody drink, but I shan’t!”

    Bobby collapsed in splutters all over again. “Aye! Sorry!”

    Mouse hugged her knees and stared out to sea, puzzling over it. Bobby, recovered from the splutters, watched her in some amusement, but did not speak. Finally she ventured: “Either milk or honey is possible.”

    “Exactly,” he agreed calmly. “I could get no sense out of Rani and I’m afraid I lost my nerve at the prospect of Miss Baldaya’s or Miss Benedict’s laughing at me again, and did not ask them. And I did not pluck up the courage to ask Lady Stamforth, either. Instead I cunningly waited until Rani had offered me a cold concoction of soured milk, well salted—it is completely horrid, by the way, make sure to refuse it if she ever tries to force it on you—and asked whether it was a doody drink. Her speech in reply seemed to include those syllables but she ended by pointing to the cup and telling me sternly: ‘Lussy, Mr Bobby baba. Most good for insides. Please to drinking.’”

    “Oh,” said Mouse in disappointment. “No, wait,” she said slowly. “We have the word ‘curd’ as well as the word ‘milk’—”

    “That was my conclusion also,” he said primly.

    “Go on, laugh,” replied Mouse resignedly.

    He did laugh a little but said: “No, no! My mind went through exactly that process!”

    “How frustrating. It must be fascinating, though!” she said eagerly. “Go on: what else has she tried to give you?”

    “Er—well, there were a couple of episodes when she got as far as my room with a tray but her mistress came in and shouted at her, and she took it away again.”

    “Rita, you mean?” asked Mouse in a voice that came out smaller than she had intended.

    “Gracious, no! Both the girls clearly feel that I deserve all I get!” replied Mr Cantrell-Sprague unguardedly. “No, Lady Stamforth. But then there were other times when she deemed the stuff fit for consumption. I suppose she got used to it in India.”

    “Well, go on!” cried Mouse. “Don’t keep me in suspense!”

    “I’m wondering which of ’em to class as the worst after the lussy. I think the rosewater drink,” he admitted with a shudder. “Honestly, Miss Marianne, it was like drinking scent!”

    “Rosewater drink?” she croaked.

    “Yes: a very pink drink which Rani claimed was a sherbet. I could taste it for hours after!”

    “Ugh!”

    “Quite. There was another so-called sherbet which was also disgusting, though not in the same class: that one’s name was sandal.” He looked at her face. “Pray do not kill me, I am merely the messenger. Also horridly sweet, and, um… Spicy, but I cannot describe it. A combination of cinnamon and—and sickening, really!”

    “Imagine!” said Mouse with a deep sigh. “And were they supposed to be healing remedies, Mr Cantrell-Sprague, or just refreshing drinks?”

    “Uh—well, doody drink and lussy are good for sick boys, apparently. I think the others were meant as refreshment.”

    She nodded merrily, twinkling at him, and Bobby asked her cautiously about her family. It had already dawned, from the casual reference to her mother’s being in the kitchen, that they could not be gentlefolk, but the sweet little face, bright mind and considerable education did not suggest the word “ungenteel” to his mind. Whatever his mother might have said. He was conscious of a strong feeling of relief that he was out of her orbit, and conscious also of considerable gratitude, albeit of the wry sort, to Lady Stamforth for having rescued him when he was in too weak a state to resist her.

    Miss Marianne having unaffectedly revealed that the great benefit of being in the bookbinding trade was that one got to read the books, he nodded agreement and expressed the somewhat wistful thought that he would like to see it all.

    “There is no reason why you shouldn’t,” said Mouse simply, smiling at him.

    “No—um—would your brother not object to my visiting?”

    “I can’t see why. Don’t wear your good clothes, though, just in case he casually asks you to hold something very inky—or very greasy, if they happen to be stripping down a press!”

    “I should love to come, and thank you for the warning. Would tomorrow be too soon?”

    “No, but, um, it’s quite a long way, by the road. Should you be riding much yet?”

    “I suppose not,” said Mr Cantrell-Sprague on a glum note. “Well, Rani screamed at me: ‘No ridings, Mr Bobby baba!’ today,” he admitted, making a face. “‘Only taking tonga’ was just barely acceptable. Do you think Laddie Too would make it to the town and back?”

    Mouse replying seriously that of course he would, so long as he had a good rest once he got there, Bobby ascertained the direction of both the shop and the house, and began to chat about books. His impression that she was both intelligent and well read was confirmed. As was his impression that she was entirely delightful. And, if not so spectacularly good-looking as that Miss Peg Buffitt whom he had greatly admired, even more taking, with a much more delicate and, indeed, ladylike air. And, thank goodness, not a fraction as bossy as Miss Buffitt! –Mr Bobby had had several Seasons in London, but as he had been up at Oxford very young, he was not so very elderly as all that, and the forthright Miss Buffitt, who had a crowd of younger brothers, had treated him rather like one of them. The which at the time had rather insulted the darling of the débutante set. With a couple more years under his belt, Bobby winced whenever he looked back on that Season and wondered, in fact, how Miss Buffitt had put up with him at all.

    He did not now ask himself what he imagined he was at, furthering his acquaintance with a daughter of the bourgeoisie. And, indeed, his recent illness had left him disinclined as yet for serious thought. He was merely conscious that Miss “Mouse” was delightful, that it was one of the most gloriously free days he had ever spent, and that it would be great fun to see a printer and binder at work.

    The wind had freshened a little: Mouse squinted at the sky and got up. “I’d best get back.”

    Reflecting that if he stayed much longer poor old Rani would probably make it her business to come and fetch him, Bobby agreed they had best make a move. They were harnessing up Laddie Too when a heavy cob appeared, bearing two figures. Oh, Lor’!

    “Bad boys are being fetched home,” he noted glumly.

    Mouse nodded, twinkling.

    “She would do it,” announced Mr Poulter, dismounting nimbly and lifting Rani down. “Clings on like the Devil ’imself up behind yer, and squawks at nothink, too. –See, I told yer as ’e’d be ’eadink ’ome!” he added crossly to the ayah.

    “Yes, of course I am,” said Bobby. “You should not have bothered, Rani.”

    Mouse, who was aware how little English the ayah spoke, though not sure how much she understood, looked at her dubiously, and began: “He hasn’t been doing too much. We’ve just been sitting and—”

    Rani threw up her hands with a great cry and broke into a speech of lamentation and possibly reproof in her own language.

    “On the rug!” said Bobby loudly. “We sat on the rug, Rani!”

    “See, told yer ’e would!” added Mr Poulter loudly as the noise abated.

    “Of course. Oh: I’m sorry, Miss Marianne; do you know Poulter, his Lordship’s man?”

    “Yes, certainly. A belated good afternoon to you, Mr Poulter!” said Mouse with a laugh.

    “Likewise, Miss Mouse,” agreed Mr Poulter heavily. “Wasn’t nothink I could do to stop ’er, acos she were ready to come down ’ere on foot. And ’is Lordship, ’e told me afore ’e left, ‘Poulter,’ ’e said, ‘I ain’t a dandy so I don’t require two stout men or one Poulter to h’ease me into me coats’—that were a joke, Miss, likes ’is joke, does ’is Lordship, though I won’t deny I’ve been a ’andy man with me fives in me time—”

    “He’s being modest, Miss Marianne!” said Bobby with laugh. “He can still floor anything short of a Jackson!”

    “Well, thankee, sir,” said Mr Poulter, highly gratified and touching his forelock. “But as I was saying, Miss Mouse, ’is Lordship told me ’e could manage in town and someone responsible ’ad to stay down ’ere and stop ’er driving Mr Bobby doolally. –Right,” he said as the ayah gave a cry of protest and broke into another speech. “One of their words, that is. Means cracked, Miss,” he explained kindly, tapping the side of his head. “Dicked in the nob.” He eyed the ayah drily. “You ’ears it quite a bit round the castle.”

    “Yes,” said Mouse, coughing. “Rani, Mr Bobby baba was very good and sat on the rug, and ate his nuncheon up.”

    “Huzzree, think she calls it,” said Bobby, grinning. “Don’t know the word for the heathen pies, do you, Miss Marianne? As I wasn’t expecting them,” he added drily, “I could not ask her.”

    “Lumme, she ain’t been and forced them on yer?” cried Mr Poulter in disgust.

    “No, no: they were delicious!” said Mouse quickly. “It—it’s some word like ‘sammy’, or, um, ‘sammy-so.’ –Very tasty sammy-sos, Rani Ayah,” she offered.

    To the relief of both gentlemen, Rani removed a portion of the veil and blanket that had shielded her face throughout and beamed. “Ah! Very good tasty samosahs!”

    “Yes,” said Mouse feebly. “That’s it. Well, Mr Cantrell-Sprague, since she has so kindly come to fetch you, I think you had best hop into the cart.”

    Bobby smiled and turned to give his hand to the elderly servant. “Come along, Rani, let me help you in.”

    Giggling, covering the face with the drapings again, and uttering something which could have been a scold or could have been thanks, the ayah allowed him to help her into the cart.

    Bobby got up and gathered up the reins. “A demain, Miss Marianne!”

    “Yes,” said Mouse, unaccountably going very pink. “Goodbye, Mr Cantrell-Sprague.”

    And the faithful Laddie Too headed his nose for the castle and his stable to the accompaniment of what Mouse and Mr Poulter discerned to be a continuous flow from the ayah.

    “Not a bad young gent,” said Mr Poulter thoughtfully. “I’ll say this for ’im, he ain’t told ’er not to call ’im ‘Mr Bobby baba,’ like Mr Richard. ’Er Ladyship was real wild with ’im. And the poor old critter couldn’t grasp why not, o’ course.”

    Mouse’s face was now a-flame. “Mr—Mr Baldaya told poor Rani not to call him baba?”

    “That’s right. Nor not Dicky, neither, what they called ’im when ’e was a lad.”

    “Whuh-when was this?” she faltered.

    Mr Poulter tipped his hat back and scratched his head. “Well, the first time ’e’d of been sixteen or so—still at ’is fancy school. Then next time ’e was real serious about the baba thing was when ’e come of age. By that time ’e was making the ’ole family call ’im Richard: that started when ’e went up to the university. Well, ’er Ladyship was remembering nearly ’alf the time,” he said drily. “Any’ow, she got Sita Ayah more or less remembering. Don’t think she cares too much, acos it was Mr Dom baba what was always ’er little boy, and ’e’s got far too kind a ’eart to tell ’er not to! Not to mention the sense to see it don’t matter a toss.”

    “Yuh-yes. That is the older brother, I think? –Yes.”

    Mr Poulter sniffed. “Since then, Mr Richard’s only ordered the poor old critter not to do it twice a day every time ’e’s at the Castle. –The Dicky or the baba,” he elaborated. “But like I say, young Mr Bobby don’t mind. ’E’s fitted in quite well, really. What I would never of said, between you and me, as ’e would. Well, no feller in ’is senses could like being coddled by Rani! But ’e puts up with her quite well, like you seen.”

    Mouse nodded hard.

    Mr Poulter’s not unintelligent gaze lingered on her for moment and his wide mouth twitched. “Aye. ’Asn’t required no-one to read ’im pomes all day, neither, like what Miss Mina reckoned.”

    “Rubbish!” cried Mouse vigorously. “Well, Mina may have said so. But of course he would not!”

    “Right. Want me to give yer a shove orf?”

    “Yes, thank y— Oh! The herbs! I forgot all about them!”

    Saying nothing, Mr Poulter ambled in her wake as she dashed off to pick some herbs. But to himself he reflected that it wasn’t surprising she’d forgotten, with Mr Bobby in the offing. Getting over a fever nor not. In especial as he wasn’t the pale weed what Miss Mina had claimed—well, pale enough, poor young shaver. But a young chap what boxed at Jackson’s wasn’t no weed.

    Mr Poulter not having conveyed his ruminations to Mouse, Little Joe was a trifle surprised that evening to have his youngest sister enquire: “Little Joe, would fives be your fists?”

    “They certainly would!” he said, clenching a bunch of his. “Who’d you get that off? Old Rattle?”

    “No,” she said, pinkening. “Mr Poulter mentioned the word. Um, then is Jackson someone associated with fighting?”

    “Boxing,” he said, grinning broadly. “Well, some time back. The Gentleman, they called him. Prize-fighter, Mouse. Well, Poulter’s got the physique for it—not to mention the physiognomy! Been up against the great Gentleman Jackson, has he?”

    “I—I don’t know. It was just that—someone—said he might. And he seemed to accept it as a compliment.”

    Julia and Nunky Ben had retired some since, as had Captain Cutlass, exhausted by the Greek, but the rest of the family were still up. “It’d be asking too much to say who, Someone, would it?” asked Great-Aunty Bouncer drily.

    Mouse flushed. “Just a—a gentleman who is staying at the Castle.”

    Great-Aunty Jicksy dropped her crochet-hook. “Drat!”

    Lash laid down her work and looked at Mouse limply. “Another one?”

    “No!” she said crossly. She got up and returned the crochet-hook. Unfortunately when she sat down again they were all still staring at her. “He merely happens to be staying at the Castle—I suppose that is not a crime—and I happened to bump into him over at Sunny Bay.”

    “Which probably was a crime,” noted her brother drily.

    “No! I watered those herbs myself, they’d be dead without me!”

    “Think the legal profession’d call that a moot point,” he responded. “This one can’t be all bad if he drops references to Gentleman Jackson into his casual conversation, Aunty Lash!”

    “And if he bothered to pay Mr Poulter a compliment,” agreed Lash. “But—well, I think you’d better tell us a little more than that, Mouse. Unless he happens to be off to India or some such tomorrow as ever was?”

    Mouse got up, her heart-shaped face very flushed. “You are all being horrid. I was merely interested in the vernacular usage. Good-night!” She went out, scowling.

    After quite some time Great-Aunty Bouncer offered: “That’s a new name for it.”

    And Great-Aunty Jicksy collapsed in a wheezing fit, dropping her crochet-hook again.

    “I’ll get it,” said Niners with a sigh. She picked it up and handed it to her great-aunt with the remark: “If you all persist in sniggering every time Mouse meet a pleasant young man, you need not be surprised if the poor girl never contracts an eligible connection.”

    “Niners!” cried Lash. “That’s a little hard!”

    “Aunty Lash, I shall not scruple to say you were the worst,” replied Niners severely. “I shall retire, too. Good-night, everyone.”

    In her wake there was a sheepish silence.

    “All right, I won’t,” said Great-Aunty Bouncer sourly at last.

    “Me, too, neither,” agreed Great-Aunty Jicksy, making a face.

    “Um, no,” said Lash, swallowing. “But really, after all we went through with Bingley-Baldaya—!”

    “That’ll do,” said Mrs Peters weakly. “Don’t start up again.”

    And a definitive sheepish silence reigned in the Formby front parlour.

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/young-people-left-to-themselves.html