Pride And Prejudice

26

Pride And Prejudice

    “I have come,” said Luís to the delightful aproned apparition who had opened the door of the charming old Tudor house that was High Mallows, “to apologithe for my father, Miss Calpurnia. And though I know he doeth not deserve it, to beg you to forgive him.”

    Captain Cutlass had gone bright red but she replied firmly: “Why has he not come himself?”

    “Because I forbade him to, the silly old fool,” said Luís glumly. “I— There is rather a lot to explain, I’m afraid.”

    “I do not think so.”

    “Yes. Though it’s hard to do so without giving you the whole of the Ainsley family history. My father—uh—well, he has an immense capacity for boredom and,” said Luís grimly, “has lived the most of his life in Europe as a spy. –I’m sorry, that was too blunt,” he said miserably as she seemed to stare right through him.

    “No,” said Captain Cutlass slowly. “I should have seen it… All those stories: he seemed to have been in every country in Europe. That makes sense, at all events.”

    “Sí. He—I am not excusing him, Miss Calpurnia, but I should wish you to see the whole picture—he fell out with his father when he was only a lad of twenty: he wished to marry a farmer’s lass and Sir George forbade it. So Harry went off to the Continent—in a huff, I’m afraid—and his father washed his hands of him. They were both red-heads—it runs in the Ainsley family—with the tempers to match. Harry had to scrape along as best he could. Of course most men wouldn’t have turned to spying. But—but Harry enjoyed the excitement and the constant masquerading. He— That is his essential nature, Miss Calpurnia.”

    After a moment Captain Cutlass said: “I thought he had a large family?”

    “Yes. I have an older brother, three sisters and a younger brother—we call him Bungo. Your mother and sister have met him.”

    “Oh, yes, they said he had red hair… All that travelling around the Continent was with his family, then?”

    “Not all, by any means, but the family moved a lot, yes. It would not have occurred to him to give up his chothen profession for the sake of his family. Harry is,” he said heavily, “like that.”

    “I see. He has been in the habit of pleasing himself all his adult life, not to say playing stupid games, and so thought nothing of embarking upon one in the middle of rural England. That does not explain why you let him, though, Mr Ainsley.”

    “I thought it was harmless,” he said limply. “And I—I didn’t intend to be out of England for so long.”

    She drew a deep breath. “I really don’t think that is much of an excuse. Any rational man who cared for his fellow human beings must have seen that it was beyond the pale to allow him to practise that sort of deception on all whom he met.”

    “I—yes, it was entirely remiss of me, and I did see that— Well, I did not see it could hurt anyone,” he said on a dubious note.

    “Mr Ainsley,” said Captain Cutlass grimly, “in our society we are constrained by the fact of our birth. But it cuts both ways: whilst it’s difficult, if not impossible, for a working man to rise into your class, there are certain advantages, even freedoms, to belonging to our class, to which your father had no right.”

    Luís’s handsome jaw sagged.

    “It had never even occurred, had it?” said Calpurnia Catherine on a note of scorn. “No, for your type has always assumed that you have the right to do whatever you please! When I think of that man sitting in poor Mrs Lumley’s kitchen, eating her good plain cooking—!”

    He looked at her limply. “But he—he wath happy there,” he offered feebly.

    “Happy in a situation to which he had no right? I am sure he was!”

    “I— You are judging him too harshly, Miss Calpurnia,” he said, very pale. “For most of the last twenty years he has lived a relatively simple life. It is my brother who has the Ainsley property, and Pa and Madre only set foot there a mere half dothen times after Waterloo, up until her death. Pa has been used to live a very informal life on Madre’s place in Spain, very like the life he’s created for himself at Sunny Bay House. He was both bored and unhappy in the more formal atmosphere of Little Lasset, which ith why he acquired Don Quijote, I mean, Don Quixote,” he said, giving it the English pronunciation, “and—and started trotting about the lanes.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Don Quixote?” cried Captain Cutlass. “Why didn’t he say right out it was a Spanish name, rather than let me make an idiot of myself?”

    “I don’t understand,” said Luís weakly.

    “I’ve been calling him Donkey Oatee!” she cried. “I thought it was because the dear little donkey likes oats!”

    “Uh— Oh, good God! One of damned Harry’s bilingual jokes,” he said, passing his hand through his curls. “I’m so sorry. He is a terrible jokester—at least when he’s happy. He—he was knocked sideways when my mother died, and—and I really think that in large part this nonsense has been a reaction to that. Perhaps you are too young to see it, but a bereaved person doeth not alwayth recover entirely from such a shock.”

    “I can see that, but I can also see that you didn’t bother to stop him. You may take that horse round to the stable, sir, someone will water him. In the case Sir Harry Ainsley was intending to call, please ask him not to.” With that she closed the front door.

    Luís swore fluently in Spanish for some time. But he did take the horse round to be watered, as Calpurnia Catherine, peering from behind a curtain, duly ascertained.

    She had not, as Luís had assumed from her opening the door herself, been alone in the house during the encounter. Mrs Biggs and Nunky Ben were safely in the kitchen, but Mr Piper-Fiennes, having happily acceded to Miss Calpurnia’s suggestion that a bite mid-morning could not come amiss on the days when he was out in the fields, was in, and in fact sitting in the sunny little downstairs salon drinking tea and munching mutton sandwiches with some of Mrs Dove’s own mint jelly, when the caller arrived.

    “Struck me as a decent chap, Miss Calpurnia,” he ventured. “His heart’s in the right place, hey? Always very affable to Ma and me, ’e was, when ’e ad the lease of Little Lasset, and ’ad us to dinner with the best silverware three times! Well, ’alf foreign, h’of course,” he allowed. –Mr Piper-Fiennes, to the relief of her entire family, had not transferred his allegiance from Trottie True to Captain Cutlass, and in fact now that the first shock of his mother’s accident had worn off, was pretty much treating her as a favourite daughter. Which was, according to her Great-Aunty Bouncer, a deal better than treating her like a replacement for the blamed mother like he had been to start off! Not that Captain Cutlass wasn’t capable of bossing him just as bad, mind.

    Frowning, Captain Cutlass returned: “I don’t see what being half foreign has to do with it, Mr Piper-Fiennes.”

    “Well, he won’t understand our ways too well, Miss Calpurnia, me dear. Lived in Spain most of ’is life, ’asn’t ’e?” Mr Piper-Fiennes sniffed, quite à la Great-Aunty Bouncer.

    “I— Oh.”

    Mr Piper-Fiennes was not displeased to see that this shot had had its effect: he nodded sagely. “Aye. Not all of us are lucky enough to be born and raised in Merry England, me dear! Well, now, that was a tasty bite, thankee kindly, and I’ll be orf to ’elp Tom Bender. Um, I should just mention that Ma didn’t never like cold mutton, Miss Calpurnia, me dear.”

    “Oh,” she said blankly. “She’s just eaten a large plateful of those sandwiches, though.”

    “H’all the better!” he said with a sudden loud laugh, going out.

    Captain Cutlass looked dazedly at the spot where he’d been. “Yes,” she said limply.

    Sir Harry’s whole household was forcing him to stay abed until the ankle was completely healed, so what with that and the guilt he was not in the most sanguine of moods. He just looked glumly at his son on Luís’s return from his expedition to High Mallows and said nothing.

    Luís sat down on the bedside chair and passed his hand over his face. “Still furious. Apparently it’s my fault for not controlling you.”

    Sir Harry swallowed.

    “How’s the ankle?” said Luís with an effort.

    “Perfectly all right!”

    “Very well, I dare say you could get up.”

    “Good. Uh, Luís, what did she say?”

    “Does it matter? Oh—one thing she did say, and that is, will you pleathe not call on her.”

    The baronet made a face. “Right. See the Piper-Fiennes fellow, did you?”

    “What? No. –I have met him before,” he reminded him dully.

    “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Not that. Well—damned fellow’s not in his dotage, is he?”

    “Unlike some,” his son noted unpleasantly.

    “Aye,” conceded Sir Harry glumly. “I had best write her a note of apology.”

    “Yes, I think you had, Pa. And I do not wish to monitor your correspondence, but may I see it when you have written it?”

    Sir Harry looked huffy, but conceded he could. “Still as pretty as ever, hey?” he added on a hopeful note.

    “Prettier,” said Luís tiredly, going out.

    Sir Harry raised his eyebrows slightly. “That’s good,” he murmured. “¡Holà! ¡Julio!”

    The letter of apology was duly written. Luís read it through carefully, an expression of pure dismay gradually overtaking his handsome countenance.

    “Now what?” said his father angrily.

    Oh, Lor’. It was couched in the most correct of terms, and would have done credit to Lord Chesterfield in his heyday! Sir Harry, of course, had had the conventional education of a conventional English gentleman.

    “Pa, I—I don’t know how to say this. In—in view of certain remarks that were passed about—about persons of your class assuming they have the right to do whatever they pleathe and—and usurping a working man’s rights, I fear that Miss Calpurnia may take this the—the wrong way.”

     Turning purple, the baronet shouted: “Now tell me I can’t write English!”

    “No, I shan’t tell you that. It’s a beautiful letter, Harry, but—but in the style of an earlier day.”

    “I sweated blood over the damned thing, Luís!” he shouted.

    Luís bit his lip. “Mm.” There had certainly been a lot of shouting at Jorge and Julio, and relays of paper and ink going into the sitting-room during the composition.

    “And what in Hades d’you mean, usurping a working man’s rights?”

    Luís grimaced. “That was in relation to sitting in poor Mrs Lumley’s kitchen eating her good plain cooking, Pa.”

    “Eh? But I enjoyed meself! Bakes as fine a beef pie as you’d find in the whole of England!”

    “Mm. I did tell her that. I think the point was that as you were not born to New Short Street you had no right to be eating it, Pa.”

    “But— Oh. Hell. She’s a damned republican, y’know.”

    “So are you,” said his son drily.

    Sir Harry sniffed slightly. “Not a monarchist, anyroad. Westminster system ain’t wholly bad, or would not be if a few more fellows were enfranchised and the damned nobility and gentry couldn’t pay ’em all off to vote their way.”

    “Sí, sí. –I think I should write a little covering note.”

    “Write all the covering notes y’want,” he grunted sourly. “You’re the one that fancies the girl.”

    So Luís wrote it. His own education had taken place mainly in French, when they lived in Belgium, and though he could read English as easily as he read French or Spanish he had never really had to write in it. True, at one point Bungo had suggested that a fellow did not wish to be favoured with dagoish correspondence at Winchester but Sir Harry, frothing at the mouth, had written a steaming reply to that one—overlooking his own frequent shouts of “Speak English!” when the twins had lived at home. So the note said:

 My respected Miss Calpurnia,

    The enclosed letter of apologie is from my Papa. Please do him and myself the favour of reading it before you condamn him utterly. You will see that it is couched in the style of an earlier day and this, I beg you to beleive, is neither a reference to our conversation on your door step nor intended as an insult to yourself. He is sincerely sorry for the pain he has coursed you and so, I beg you to beleive, is,

Your most respectfull, obliged servant,

Luís Pedro Javier Domingo Ainsley.

     Luís took the notes over himself—the Spanish servants did not, of course, have enough English to navigate themselves safely all the way to High Mallows and Fred Moon could neither ride a horse nor drive. This time Mr Piper-Fiennes in person answered his front door, greeting the caller very warmly indeed and insisting on his coming inside, what time Tom Bender was shouted for and ordered to give the horse a bucket of water, a good rub-down and a nosebag.

    “Please—think nothing of it,” said Luís dazedly as his host then apologised for the household’s being at sixes and sevens. “I was very sorry to hear of your mother’s accident, Mr Piper-Fiennes. How is she?”

    “Recovering remarkably well, sir, though still bruised and will ’ave to keep orf the h’ankle for months yet. Not the woman she once was, but then, you can’t ’ave everything, can you, and Dr Kent himself says as no-one what didn’t ’ave the constitution of a h’ox would’ve come through a fall like that so well!” replied Mr Piper-Fiennes cheerfully.

    “I see. Well, that is good,” said Luís weakly.—Mr Piper-Fiennes certainly looked as if it was.—“I have really just come to give these little notes to Miss Calpurnia, so I wonder if you would be so good ath to see she gets them?”

    Looking coy, Mr Piper-Fiennes responded: “My dear sir, you can give ’em her yourself, for the dear young lady be a-h’overseeing of the new cook as we speaks! And never was a person’s help more ’ighly valued, I do h’assure you, and what I shoulda done without her I don’t know! And pray h’allow me to assure you of the utmost propriety of the whole proceedings, Mr Ainsley, acos the old uncle is a-sitting in the kitchen as we speaks.”

    “I am sure,” agreed Luís feebly as, with a profound bow, Mr Piper-Fiennes then hurried out.

    There was a considerable pause and then both Miss Calpurnia and Mr Huggins appeared, Mr Piper-Fiennes courteously ushering them in with the assurance, addressed to whom it was not absolutely clear, that there could be no impropriety in it, and forthwith closing the door on the three.

    The old man, with something of a defiant air about him, then shook hands and accepted Luís’s invitation to be seated, though not without the cheerful remark: “She’s in a mood, Mr Ainsley, what I dessay yer can see for yerself, and she’ll tell yer we ain’t staying, only my legs ain’t as young as they once was.”

    “You’ve been doing nothing but sit and smoke all morning!” said Captain Cutlass crossly.

    “Right, and I wouldn’t mind doing some more of it, neither. –Go on, Mr Ainsley, Mr Piper-Fiennes said as you ’ad a note for ’er.”

    “Indeed. This is an apology from my father, Miss Calpurnia, but I—I beg you will do me the favour of reading this little attachment first.”

    “Very well,” she said grimly.

    Luís watched in trepidation as she read it through. That was a very odd expression. Not annoyance, more like… uncertainty? No… Bewilderment? No, not as strong as that.

    “May I?” she said at last, holding out her hand for Sir Harry’s letter. Limply Luís passed it to her.

    Captain Cutlass read it through carefully. The she read it through again, even more slowly. Then she re-read Luís’s note, also slowly.

    “Gorn red. Dunno as she’s wild, though,” remarked Nunky Ben dispassionately.

    “Wild? Oh—cross!” realised Luís. “I—I hope not.” He drew a trembling breath. “Miss Calpurnia, that letter may seem too formal and—and— I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten the English word. Er, well, formal. But there is no artifice in it, I assure you. It ith the style in which he learnt to write a proper letter.”

    “Very proper,” said Captain Cutlass on a dry note.

    “He is entirely sincere and deeply sorry for hith silly masquerade.”

    “Mr Ainsley,” she said, holding her chin well up, “never mind who he’s been pretending to be, I have managed to gain a certain impression of your father’s character—”

    “’Ad long enough to,” noted Mr Huggins, very drily indeed, at this point.

    “Exactly,” said Captain Cutlass grimly. “And I think, rather, it is the case that he is sorry to have been caught out. But I take your point that within the limits of his education and capacities, this is a sincere letter of apology.”

    Luís sagged. “Oh, good,” he said weakly. “I—I admit that you are right about Pa and that it is a case of being sorry to have been caught out, so far ath the—the deception itself goeth, but—but he’s sincerely sorry to have caused you pain, Miss Calpurnia.”

    “Very ’andsome, and yer better say as you accepts it, Captain Cutlass,” put in Mr Huggins grimly at this point.

    Captain Cutlass swallowed hard. “I do accept the apology, insofar as my own feelings are concerned, sir. And—and your covering note is, um, most thoughtful.”

    Luís looked at her doubtfully. She did not look as if she accepted anything, much.

    “However, there remains my earlier point, which no mere apology can answer. The man had no right to the position which he assumed.”

    “Then—then should he apologithe to Mrs Lumley, perhaps?” he fumbled.

    “Couldn’t ’urt. Mind you, the woman’s got a mind like an ’en,” noted Nunky Ben. “Feller’ll only ’ave to smile at ’er and she’ll be all over ’im, could of done anything short of stealing ’er blessed teaspoons and she’d—”

    “Stop it, Nunky Ben!” cried Captain Cutlass crossly.

    “I’m right, though,” he said placidly.

    “Yes, of course you are,” she conceded, “and that is not my point, though I must say an apology in person to Mrs Lumley would not go amiss.”

    “Yes,” agreed Luís. “Well, his ankle is better, so I shall make him do it. And also, of course, apologise to your mamma and—and your tia. –I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten the word. Like Mr Huggins, only a lady,” he said miserably, flushing very much.

    “’En?” suggested Mr Huggins sardonically. “We got an ’ouseful o’ them, all right.”

    “I—I think he means aunt. Do you mean my Aunty Lash, sir—Mrs Yates?”

    “And them ’ens, presumably, if the feller’s a-going to apologise all round. There’s Cookie, too. Sat in ’er kitchen scoffing I dunno what enough times, too.”

    “¡Sí, sí, he will apologise to them all! ‘Aunt’—yes, the word ith not at all like the feminine of ‘uncle’, English ith very odd,” said Luís lamely.

    It was obvious even to Calpurnia Catherine in her dudgeon—the which of course she had not paused to examine closely, let alone to question—that he was now very upset. “Yes. I dare say they will be happy to accept his apology, Mr Ainsley. Thank you for coming.”

    “Miss Calpurnia,” said Luís with tears in his dark eyes, “truly I did not see any harm in it, and had no idea it would go on so long!”

    “Added to which, wasn’t nothing he could of done about it from Spain,” noted Mr Huggins, rising to his feet. “If a feller of sixty-odd’s spent most of ’is life being a scoundrel, Captain Cutlass, he ain’t a-gonna change overnight. And at least ’e didn’t hire himself out to old Cox to spy on Jardine or Bundy.”—Mr Jardine and Mr Bundy had been his Worship’s great rivals for the municipal office: Captain Cutlass had to swallow.—“Or to Ma Cox, more like,” he amended drily. “Come on, Mr Ainsley, lemme show you out. She’ll calm down, only you gotta give her time. I’d tell yer pa to steer clear for a bit, in your shoes.”

    “Thank you,” said Luís shakily, allowing the old man to steer him out.

    On the neatly gravelled sweep Mr Huggins handed him a flag-like handkerchief without comment.

    “Dagoish,” concluded Luís at last, having wiped his eyes and blown his nose hard.

    “Dunno about that. Bawled meself when our Joe was took,” he said neutrally.

    “Yes—did you? Yes, very understandable,” said Luís, sniffing hard. “I—I was never in love with my wife, Inez, you understand, Mr Huggins, but nevertheless I was very fond of her and her death was—was most upsetting. Though it was a peaceful end.”

    Mr Huggins gaped at him. “Lumme, lad, you mean as yer wife died in Spain? I’m very sorry to hear that! You bawl all yer like!”

    Instead Luís managed a shaky smile. “Thank you. Did you not realise? I took her home to be with her family. Her sisters were with her at the end.”

    The old man nodded kindly. “Sounds like you’ve ’ad a fair bit to put up with, the last few years. Yer ma went, didn’t she?”

    “Yes,” he said, sniffing hard. “And then Pa started gambling. I— Well, never mind.”

    Nunky Ben’s shrewd little eyes narrowed but he merely took his arm companionably and began to stroll in the direction of the stables, saying chattily: “So were all your brothers and sisters born abroad, Mr Ainsley?”

    “Yes. My older brother, Paul, who has the family property in Wiltshire, was born in Spain, on my mother’s father’s estate, and then Harry took the family off to Belgium.”

    “Right. –So yer brother hasn’t got a Spanish name, hey?” said Nunky Ben amiably.

    “What? Yes—Pablo!” said Luís with a smile, beginning to recover himself. “But we have never used it: Pa insisted on ‘Paul’, I think because in the beginning he was missing England, and then it became a habit.”

    “I get yer. So this Paul, ’e couldn’t look after yer Pa while you were in Spain?”

    “He could have, but his way of life is too formal for Harry, and he does not get on very well with my sister-in-law. And then—it would scarcely have been fair, Mr Huggins. It's true Paul has the English property, but you see, Pa sent him to England when he was only twenty-three, in charge of our sisters Gaetana and Maria, who would have been eighteen and fifteen, and the twins, who were about ten, with the responsibility of launching the older girls and finding husbands for them and of seeing to the twins’ education. Not to mention the responsibility of looking to the estate, which had been left in the hands of tenants for years.”

    “Right. Not many lads of twenty-three would’ve been man enough to take that lot on.”

    “No: he had to grow up very rapidly, poor Paul,” agreed Luís gratefully.

    “Aye, sounds like it,” he said comfortably. “HOY! Tom Bender! Fetch the gent’s ’orse, will yer?”

    In the sunny little salon Captain Cutlass had sat down weakly on the sofa. Oddly enough she was no longer brooding on Sir Harry’s iniquities. Instead she read through Luís’s note yet again. “It’s so… childish,” she said under her breath in a stunned tone.

    She was still sitting there when Nunky Ben came back.

    “Come on, show us what they wrote,” he said without preamble.

    “Well, um… Read Sir Harry Ainsley’s first, Nunky Ben.”

    Grunting slightly, the old man sat down and read it carefully. “Jaw-cracking, hey? Proper gent’s letter, I’d say.”

    “Exactly. Now read the son’s note.”

     Nunky Ben perused it carefully, raising his eyebrows several times.

    “Well?” said his great-niece crossly as the silence lengthened.

     “Can’t spell, hey? Well, brung up forring, yer can’t blame ’im. Think ’e means ‘C,A,U,S,E,D,’ here.”

    “What? Yes! That isn’t the point!” she said crossly.

    “I’d say it was, Captain Cutlass,” replied Nunky Ben shrewdly. “Looks to me like you’re expecting ’im to be exactly the same as one of our English fellers, but ’e ain’t, see? Bawled ’is eyes out, just now.”

    “What?” she croaked, going very red.

    Mr Huggins eyed her with considerable satisfaction. “Yes. You been too cruel to ’im, Captain Cutlass. ’Is nature’s too soft to need that. No, don’t think I do mean soft: gentle, maybe. ’E’s not soft: not like old Cox, for instance. Not a weak feller, by no means. Wouldn’t dump the Pa on his brother, what’s got the property in England, ’cos see, when the brother was a lad of twenty-three, the blamed Pa dumped all the other brats on him! You imagine John-John in his shoes, lovey. ’E’d take it on, all right, but ’t’wouldn’t be easy, would it?”

    “No. The poor young man,” she said weakly.

    “Right. Plain as the nose on your face Mr Ainsley ain’t a-gonna live orf ’is big brother’s sleeve like a parasite, nor let the ruddy pa do it, neither. What no man as is a man would.”

    “No, but apparently he would marry a rich Spanish lady years older than him,” said Captain Cutlass drily. “Though of course, we have only the words of Cousin Belinda, Lady Lasset, Lady Stamforth and Charles Q.-V. on that point.”

    Mr Huggins had rather thought, never mind what she might claim or even believe, that that was a considerable sticking-point. He scratched his chin. “Hmm. Well, ’e ain't come out and said why he done it, ’cos a gent don’t, see, ’specially not to an old codger what ’e ’ardly even knows. But he did mention that when his ma died his ruddy pa started gambling.”

    “I dare say.”

    “Use your wits, Captain Cutlass! Living like gentry in Spain, it won’t of been crown and anchor down the tavern! See, Mr Ainsley mentioned it, then he stopped himself going on about it. If you ask me, the pa run up ’uge gambling debts what they couldn’t pay. What’s he gonna do? Be like—well, say I went orf me rocker and ran up so much that the only way Little Joe could pay it would be to sell the business or marry that dried-up stick Miss Aitch.”

    Captain Cutlass gulped, in spite of herself.

    “Right!” said the old man with considerable satisfaction.

    “Nunky Ben, this is pure speculation!”

    “Dessay. Well, could just of married the Spanish lady for her money, aye. Remains to be seen what sort of feller ’e really is, don’t it?” He looked at Luís’s letter again. “I liked him,” he said mildly.

    Captain Cutlass’s jaw trembled. Suddenly she got up and rushed out of the room.

    “Uh-huh,” said the old man to himself. “I before E except after C,” he murmured, looking at the letter. “Dessay they didn’t never teach you that on the Continong, lad. And yer never got the rest orf yer ruddy pa, never mind ’e writes a jaw-cracking letter like a real gent. But I tell yer what: yer late ma must’ve been a real decent woman!”

    The arrival of Sir Harry Ainsley and his son in a carriage and pair at Number 10 New Short Street was greeted by its inhabitants with almost as much interest as by Mrs Mountjoy. Julia, alas, did not seem to pay much attention, but Sir Harry’s apology was accepted happily by the other ladies of the house, Mrs Dove, indeed, going so far as to remark that there was nothing wrong with a feller’s wanting to sit in a decent English kitchen after living all his life in foreign parts. Mrs Lumley apparently also received the sinner’s speech of repentance most amiably. And according to Rosie Kettle whipped him up a batch of girdle scones on the instant.

    “Putty in the damned fellow’s hands!” concluded little Joe with a laugh. “Oh, well, if he fancied living an ordinary life instead of lording it in the silky salons of Little Lasset, can’t blame him for that!” He paused to let the great-aunties remind him bitterly that Captain Cutlass could. “Aye. Well, get on out to High Mallows and bend her ear,” he advised drily. “You can help Nunky Ben to chaperon her, too.”

    “Don’t think we won’t!” snapped Bouncer, her colour very much heightened.

    Little Joe didn’t think it for an instant; not an instant.

    And so the visits to High Mallows commenced.

    Great-Aunty Bouncer and Great-Aunty Jicksy were first. Not in the cart behind Old Horse, nor on Mr Moon’s waggon, but in a hire carriage of sufficiently ancient vintage belonging to the Elephant & Castle, with Mr Stutt himself on the box, the excuse being he could see how their Belindy was getting on. Jem Sprott, who would normally have been given the job, had been promoted to the very temporary position of barman, in which in all probability, in spite of Mrs Stutt’s frequent popping in from the kitchen, he was letting his pals have free beer—but too bad, it was only for the once. And at least the boats were at sea.

    “Full panoply,” discerned Captain Cutlass grimly, surveying the scene on the sweep from behind the curtains of the salon.

    “Delightful!” approved Mr Piper-Fiennes, coming to look over her shoulder. “Why, we have not ’ad callers at ’Igh Mallows this h’age!”

    Biting her lip, Captain Cutlass recollected that of course his awful mother had never welcomed callers. “No, um, well, I suppose we should offer them tea, Mr Piper-Fiennes?”

    “H’indeed, my dear!” he agreed, rubbing his hands. “What a fortunate coincidence that I should ’ave decided to remain h’at ’ome the very day your aunties should call!”

    Something like that, mm. Possibly it might stop them gabbing on too freely…

    It didn’t.

    There was a lot of it, but as it dawned it was cutting no ice with its intended audience, though Mr Piper-Fiennes was nodding eagerly at each telling point they made, they eventually had recourse to their teacups. And the cake which up until now had been ignored by all save Mr Huggins.

    “Who baked this?” said Mrs Peters dully at last.

    “Mrs Biggs, of course,” replied Captain Cutlass mildly.

    “Thought so: been offered something like it at Ma Mountjoy’s. Only once, mind. Just after Trottie True got engaged to Charles Q.-V.”

    This struck an unexpected chord with Mr Piper-Fiennes: he laughed until the tears ran down his face.

     “Yes,” said Captain Cutlass with a silly grin. “Though she puts more butter in it for us.”

    Gasping, Mr Piper-Fiennes agreed: “Aye! And more soft sugar in the icing!”

    “Does taste good,” admitted Jicksy, smiling at him. “But yer don’t want to let the woman get away with using up all yer good sugar, Mr Piper-Fiennes. ’Cos if Ma Mountjoy’s mean in little things, she really likes to make a splash, and the woman ain’t never been taught to hold household.”

    “No, we’ve realised that,” admitted Captain Cutlass as Mr Piper-Fiennes blew his nose hard on an immense silk hanker. “Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on her.”

    “Most certainly she is, ladies, and the most capable little housekeeper what I h’ever laid eyes on!” beamed Mr Piper-Fiennes.

    “Glad to hear it ain’t been all in one ear and out the other, all the time she’s lived in her ma’s house, then,” conceded Bouncer.

    They did each make one more effort before they left.

    Bouncer offered: “Captain Cutlass, you won’t want to hear this, but I gotta say it.”

    “Or burst, presumably?”

    “That’ll do. None of this to-do was Mr Ainsley’s fault, and if his pa’s a silly old reprobate, so what? I’ve heard you say yourself that one shouldn’t visit the sins of the parents on the children. So next time he comes a-calling—if you haven’t put ’im off altogether, poor fellow—just try to overlook it all, hey?”

    Captain Cutlass merely gave her a sour look.

    So Jicksy chimed in with her effort: “Lovey, she ain’t wrong. And think o’ this: ’t’ain’t like it is in your blessed books, you know. You don’t find no heroes in Waddington-on-Sea, half-Spanish or not. A man’s just a man. He can be just as weak as a woman—weaker, most of ’em, in my experience. Just because they might be big and tall, ain’t no reason to expect ’em to be more sensible or to handle anything better nor what you would. Dessay ’e didn’t control the Pa sufficient—I’d say there ain’t more’n one fellow under the sun what could.”

    “The Duke of Wellington, perchance?” replied Captain Cutlass blightingly.

    Uncrushed, Aunty Jicksy nodded her bright little head—today adorned with her best black silk bonnet in honour of the occasion, a touch which had, alas, gone unnoticed by her great-niece. “Yes, ’im. You only get one of them in a hundred years, deary.”

    “Or a thousand,” agreed Aunty Bouncer. “Most fellers is weak as water, Jicksy, you needn’t wrap it up in clean linen. Well, not saying,” she amended feebly as it dawned that this point was possibly not advancing their cause, “that Mr Ainsley’s that sort. I’d call him an admirable fellow what knows where his duty lies, if you want to know!”

    “I don’t want to know, because you have already made the point twice, Aunty Bouncer.”

    “Now, now, now!” reproved Mr Piper-Fiennes, wagging a roguish finger at her. “Mr Huggins and I are of your mind, dear ladies, but ’ave agreed, h’as talking be well known to pay no toll, to leave it to Miss Calpurnia’s good sense and kindly ’eart to realise Mr Ainsley’s true worth, and to recognise that the pa is just a silly old feller that was lonely for friendly company!”

    After which there was nothing for it, really, but to allow him to show them to their carriage.

    They had journeyed a considerable way back towards Waddington-on-Sea, a mooted adjournment to Wardle Heights Farmhouse having been completely overlooked in the emotion of the moment, before Bouncer noted weakly: “What’s the betting she’ll hold out against Mr Ainsley, and blamed Piper-Fiennes’ll have her in the end?”

    “Pooh!” said Jicksy crossly. “Stuck out a mile, the feller looks on ’er as a daughter, and just be thankful for it! –What’s she got against poor Mr Ainsley, is what I’d like to know!”

    “Apart from the pa? Um… well, dunno, really,” confessed Bouncer sadly.

    “Could be she was, um, took aback? Well, ’e did turn up out of the blue. Dessay the girl’s been telling ’erself these past two years as she can’t ’ave ’im. Bit of a shock, don't you reckon, Bouncer?”

    “Well, ye-es. Only why turn round and snap the poor fellow’s head orf? …No, well, that’s Captain Cutlass for yer,” concluded Bouncer sourly.

    “Aye. Needs to grow up a bit more,” said Jicksy.

    Crossly Bouncer opened her mouth to refute this statement. “Oh,” she said slowly.

    Jicksy nodded brightly at her.

    “All right, Jicksy, you’re right. And it was a mistake to open me mouth. She ain’t ready to hear anything in his favour yet.”

    “Wouldn’t go that far!” she chirped. “She ain’t ready to admit she wants to hear it, but it’ll sink in, mark my words!”

    For a little while peace reigned at High Mallows. Relatively speaking. Certainly Mr Ainsley did not call again. Though as Mr Piper-Fiennes remained firmly on his side, mentioning his probity at least once a day—he had latched onto the word, so much so that it had begun to drive Captain Cutlass to screaming point—possibly that counted for little. In a way it would have been easier had she had to confront the man himself. Mr Piper-Fiennes was so—so ineffectual, really, and so well-meaning with it, that even Calpurnia Catherine did not cut him down to size, though recognising drily that she could certainly have done so. After quite some time some of his words, together with some of the great-aunties’, began to have their effect, and she realised with a sinking feeling that she was also more than capable of cutting Luís Ainsley down to size and had perhaps been crueller to him than she should have.

    “Rubbish!” she said angrily to herself. “He is a grown man! And highly intelligent besides! And—and not in the least the same type as Mr Piper-Fiennes!”

    The words, however, failed to convince her, perhaps the more so as they were uttered in the middle of the kitchen garden with a bunch of spring onions in her hand.

    The gentle Mary was the next to tackle her on the subject. Captain Cutlass could very easily have silenced her, but let her get through it. With the mental reservation that they had always known Mary Cox to be a weak little thing, so naturally she would assume that Mr Ainsley had been treated with unnecessary harshness. Well, “Could you not be kinder to the poor man, Captain Cutlass?” was the way she put it, but there was no doubt what she meant.

    “I collect you’ve been listening to the great-aunties’ gossip, Mary,” she said as her little sister-in-law ran down.

    Mary went very red, hugged Joey fiercely for comfort so that the infant let out a squeak, and said: “They did speak to me, yes. They’re very concerned about you, dear. And—and Aunty Jicksy said that she did try to explain that—that a man, even a gentleman is—is not like a hero in a book.”

    “Did I say I thought he was?” replied Captain Cutlass, scowling horrifically.

    “No, but—but I’m sure it’s only natural, and of course John-John has been wonderful throughout…”

     “But?” said Captain Cutlass, staring at her.

    “But, well, just sometimes—not all the time!” she said hastily, “he can be… Well, it’s very odd, but Trottie True says it’s just the same with her and Charles!” she revealed, her eyes shining.

    “What?” asked Captain Cutlass in a bored voice.

    Mary might have been naïve but she was not taken in by this bored voice for an instant. “Well, just when one has been thinking of them as—as a big man, you know, and—and quite like a hero in a book, one realises that it isn’t always— That book we’re reading in the afternoons is very exciting, of course, and the ladies are all so clever, aren’t they?”

    “Pride and Prejudice?” croaked Captain Cutlass. It had not been her choice or even her suggestion: she had been reading Mr Piper-Fiennes’s copy, unopened by either him or his mother, Mary had spotted it lying on the table, and admitting her own lack of learning, meekly asked if they might read it together. It was not at all unlike reading to Ned Yates, as a matter of fact. Some of the harder bits had been skipped.

    “Yes,” said Mary, nodding hard. “But although they are all so clever I don’t feel that they really understand, and Trottie True agrees with me. Because sometimes, well, quite often, really,” she confessed, blushing, “one’s husband needs to lean on one just as if he were a little boy!”

    Captain Cutlass’s mouth opened and shut.

    “Take the time of the fuss over Three Acre,” said Mary placidly.

    “Um, Commander Henderson’s big meadow?” she groped.

    “Yes. John-John had it all wrong, because he wasn’t paying attention when the Commander spoke to him. So he told the men to plough it up and sow it with oats.”

    “No!” she gasped. “It’s the best grazing land!”

    “I know,” said Mary calmly. “I am not sure why he wasn’t paying attention, but he’s learned his lesson now. Fortunately the Commander saw what they were doing before it had gone too far and stopped the ploughing. But he spoke most straitly to John-John.”

    “And he came home and complained of him to you, did he?” said his sister drily.

    “No, not at all, dearest, you haven’t grasped it yet. He told me about it in a most offhand manner, so that I was quite worried, and feared that he had not learned his lesson. But that evening, when we were alone, you know,” she said, blushing, “he cried.”

    “Eh?” croaked his sister. The last time she had seen John-John cry was at Pa’s funeral, but before that… The time they had taken the boat out in rough weather and almost drowned off Guillyford Point, having to be rescued ignominiously by Commander Carey—talking of commanders—in person. He had been scathing enough, though that wasn’t when John-John had cried. Commander Carey hadn’t done them the favour of taking them home in his wonderful big yacht Finisterre, but had tied the dinghy up to his jetty and driven them back to Waddington-on-Sea in a mere cart. Pa had been at the shop, so he’d delivered them there, waited to make sure John-John was confessing, advised Pa that in his place he’d tan his hide, and gone. Pa had been furious, both at John-John’s demonstrated idiocy in taking the boat out in rough weather, and at his nearly drowning his little sister. It had been, oddly enough, the latter point which had reduced Master John Formby to tears. Pa had given him a beating, but as John-John had always been the sort of boy who boasted he could take a licking, that hadn’t been a factor.

    “Yes,” said Mary, nodding very hard. “He said that the Commander would never trust him again.”

    “I wouldn’t go that far. But if it taught him to pay attention, good. –He cried?”

    “Mm. You won’t mention it, will you, Captain Cutlass?”

    “No, of course not.” She chewed on her lip. Finally she admitted: “Nunky Ben said that so did Mr Ainsley.”

    “I know,” said Mary, nodding very hard again. “I think you thought it means he is soft. Well, perhaps it does. Trottie True says that it’s at those times that it’s the woman’s turn to be strong.”

    “Mm.”

    Mary saw her words had sunk in and sagged with relief, blindly kissing Joey’s forehead and then, as he struggled, setting him down on the rug. After a little, as Captain Cutlass did not say anything, she ventured in a squeak: “Could we possibly go on with the reading?”

    “Uh—of course!” she agreed, coming to with a start. “But if you don’t think Miss Austen’s heroes are representative of real life—”

    “Oh no! I mean, it’s so silly of Mr Bingley to let his friend persuade him against lovely Jane, but then, he lacks confidence, doesn’t he? But Mr Darcy does seem too noble for real life.”

    Captain Cutlass had always secretly admired Darcy, never mind if he could not get one a chair in the rain. “Um, yes,” she said feebly. “Too proud, more like. Well, he does his best for her, you’ll see. He overcomes his pride in the end.”

    “But she is so pleasant and so bright! He must be incredibly rich to think a lovely girl like her not good enough for him!”

    Captain Cutlass was about to point out in no uncertain terms that the lovely girl had the disadvantage of a frightful ma. Just in time she realised that Miss Eliza Bennet was not the only young lady to suffer under that disadvantage! Gulping, she opened the book. Mary had marked the place with a pheasant feather which Mr Piper-Fiennes had kindly donated from the spill vase full of them on the mantelshelf, noting as he did so: “She’ll never know.”

    “We were up to the bit where Elizabeth goes to visit with her friend and meets Mr Darcy’s frightful old aunt,” she reminded her sister-in-law.

    “Oh, yes! Isn’t she dreadful? So very high in the instep! But of course she’s a lady!”

    “I wouldn’t call her behaviour that of a lady, Mary.”

    “No, no: I mean a titled lady!”

    “Oh—yes. She never says what the father was, but he must have been at least an earl.”

    “An earl! That’s much higher than a baronet, isn’t it?”

    “Very much, though as both are immensely far above us, the point is scarce worth making. Did you want to go on with this or not?” replied Captain Cutlass grimly.

    “I’m sorry! Please do go on!”

    Taking a deep breath, Captain Cutlass plunged into it.

    Trottie True was next.

     “If you’ve come to lecture me, don’t bother,” said Captain Cutlass tiredly as her sister got down from the carriage.

    “No such thing. I’ve just brought you a few little things for the household, Captain Cutlass.”

    “Uh-huh. Where’s Charles?”

   “He’s busy on the property. Our house is nearly ready, you know!” she beamed.

    Captain Cutlass was almost sure this merely meant that Trottie True had told him to be busy—talking of strong women and weak men—but she let it pass for the nonce. “Good, you’ll be glad to be in your house. Come in. We can sit in the silken salon like two bumps on a log, or join Nunky Ben and Mrs Biggs in the kitchen, just as you like.”

    “The kitchen, silly one!” she said with a laugh.

    Right, well, possibly that meant she’d be spared the lecture…

    No. Mrs Biggs launched into it a bare two minutes after the cups were in their hands and Trottie True had remarked dazedly upon the excellent quality of the tea.

    “Thing is, Mrs Captain,”—exactly who had first come up with this fashion of miscalling Mrs Quarmby-Vine was not certain, but what was certain was that it had rapidly spread through New Short Street and Old Short Street and was now a commonplace in the town—“poor Mr Ainsley come over with a lovely letter from ’is pa, as I’m sure you’ve heard, and writ a little note to it ’imself, and Captain Cutlass don’t understand that a poor young gent what’s a foreigner might not say the right thing but ’e means well, and ’is pa were silly to pretend to be Mr Smith, I dessay, though liked in the street, yer gotta admit it, and stood I dunnamany rounds at the Elephant & Castle, real generous feller, but it ain’t the poor young man’s blame, no-how!”

    “As I understand it, Mrs Biggs,” replied Trottie True with her lovely smile, “he did know of the silly game his father was playing, and let him go on with it without stopping to think that it was a most dishonest thing to do.”

    “Aye, but ’armless,” said the cook on a dubious note.

    “Harmless?” snapped Captain Cutlass. “What if Mrs Lumley had expected a proposal of marriage?”

    Mrs Biggs gave a startled laugh, the which, perhaps fortunately, more or less drowned out Nunky Ben’s choking fit. “Bless you, Captain Cutlass, deary, she wouldn’t never of expected that! Anyone could see with ’alf an eye he was a gent, never mind what he was calling himself!”

    “I think that is so, dearest,” murmured Trottie True.

    “Can we not discuss it?” said Captain Cutlass tiredly.

    “No, I have a much more exciting topic, for our house is nearly ready, and we have definitely decided to call the property Blossom Grove, and once we have moved in we shall have a big party—in the garden, if this Indian summer continues—and you are all invited, along with all the family and our friends from the town!”

    There was so much meat in this speech that Mrs Biggs and Nunky Ben were momentarily reduced to silence—as, perhaps, had been Trottie True’s intention, Captain Cutlass was not too disturbed to reflect. She gave her sister an ironic glance but said nothing.

    “Me as well, Mrs Captain, deary?” faltered Mrs Biggs at last.

    “But of course! And Mrs Dove and Mrs Lumley!” she beamed. “And naturally Mr Trickett and Micky.”

    “Not ’er, though, deary?” she faltered.

    “Her? Oh! Mrs Mountjoy? Never!” said Trottie True with a gurgle.

    “Not gorn dippy yet,” grunted Nunky Ben. “That Rattle be there, will ’e?”

    “We hope so, Nunky Ben.”

    “Aye. Well, yer might get ’im over,” he owned. “A grove ain’t an orchard, mind: thought of that, ’ave yer?”

    “Quite,” agreed Captain Cutlass in spite of herself.

    “I know, but Blossom Grove is such a pretty name!” she smiled.

    “For that matter, a grove is not a house, either,” noted Captain Cutlass.

    “Nor’s a blasted oak, lovey!” choked Mrs Biggs unexpectedly, going into a sudden spluttering fit and having recourse to the corner of her apron.

    “Nor’s a mallow, ’igh or not,” noted Nunky Ben.

    That did it, and all the most ridiculous names favoured by the gentry in the neighbourhood of Waddington-on-Sea were cited with relish, the topic being finished off by Nunky Ben with the remark: “And yer couldn’t call Little Lasset small unless you were blind, only it’s a bit smaller than Lasset Place, hey?”

    “Quite,” said Trottie True on a weak note, trying not to took at Captain Cutlass.

    “Nether Lasset?” suggested that maiden sardonically. “—You do realise that the only persons ever known to throw huge garden parties in the larger district are Lord and Lady Stamforth, do you?”

    “Pooh!” she said gaily. “Ours will not be in the least like anything ever held at the castle, silly one!”

    “It won’t with Ma Bodger and Rattle along, that’s for sure,” agreed Nunky Ben drily.

    He saw Trottie True out to her carriage himself, handing her up with the remark: “Still in a mood.”

    “Well, yes, Nunky Ben, but I think she’s miffed that he hasn’t called again!” said Captain Cutlass’s eldest sister gaily.

    “Aye, you’re not wrong there, lovey, only ’oo’s gonna make ’im call if she’s gorn and put ’im orf?”

    “Oh,” said Trottie True very airily indeed but with a naughty gleam in her eye: “I dare say there will be a dozen candidates!”

    Nunky Ben thought it over, scratching his jaw, as the carriage headed off. “Right,” he concluded with a sniff. “More like two dozen, I’d say. From ’er Ladyship down!”

    Captain Cutlass’s relatives—though in the cases of Trottie True and the gentle Mary this was not surprising—had all been tactful enough not to refer outright to Mr Luís Ainsley’s recently widowered state. And certainly Great-Aunty Jicksy had at one point remarked to her peer: “It can’t be more than a couple o’ months since the Spanish lady went, and there is an expression for them that picks up the pieces too soon, though I can’t for the life of me recall it.” To which Great-Aunty Bouncer had retorted: “Ghoul? No, well, was I gonna be obvious about it, Jicksy?” So no-one had been obvious. Mr Piper-Fiennes had not been obvious either, and Mrs Biggs, herself possessed of all the gossip of the town via her brother from the Elephant & Castle, simply assumed that Captain Cutlass knew as much as she.

    So Captain Cutlass did not know that Mr Ainsley’s wife had died and he was free to marry again. Though, true, if she had known she would have maintained that that did not alter any of the ethical points at issue.

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/winter-of-discontent.html