Darling Buds Of May

12

Darling Buds Of May

    The watercress available in the market had been found to be droopy and yellowing, and “that blamed mongrel” had favoured Cookie’s precious sorrel that grew in a small patch outside the back door, not merely rendering it inedible but killing it stone dead. So Mrs Dove was in a very bad mood and neither of the two soups she had been meditating was possible and “Get that dawg out o’ my sight afore I strangle ’im!”

    “Mousekin,” said Julia, finding Mouse in the front parlour, reading, “you had best borrow the cart and Old Horse and get out in the lanes first thing tomorrow, and find some nice fresh watercress for poor Cookie. And take Captain Cutlass with you; she’s been stewing over her dratted Greek and Latin ever since she came back from Brighton.” –Captain Cutlass had returned home after Captain Burns had been restored to the bosom of his little family, but with the promise of visiting later in the year, for Sally and Annie were so much improved since she had come to stay, and Mrs Burns, really, did not know how she would go on without her.

    “Yes, of course, Ma. If we were to leave really early,” said Mouse thoughtfully, “and drive out in the direction of High Mallows”—Julia winced—“not too near it, of course,” she assured her, “we might find some of that sorrel that we found last year: remember?”

    “Wild sorrel can be very acid, though.”

    “No, I think this was cultivated sorrel, gone wild: you remember, Ma, it was delicious, and we picked so much of it that we gave some to Miss Aitch!” she said with a smile.

    “Oh, yes, and she favoured Cookie with her receet for a sorrel sauce for grilled fish: it did not go down near so well as the sorrel,” noted Julia.

    Mouse laughed suddenly. “Unworthy, Ma!”

    Julia gave her a relieved smile: Mousekin had been very, very quiet ever since the Bingley-Baldaya episode and they had barely had a smile out of her, let alone a laugh, all year. Well, perhaps she was getting over the dratted man, at last. Julia had tried to tell herself that Joe was right in saying that all lasses of that age took fancies into their heads that did not last, but without, alas, very much success: Mouse’s was a steadfast nature. “Well, sorrel or watercress, then!”

    “Both, with luck,” said Mouse in her usual composed manner.

    Next morning their Aunt Lash discovered the two girls grabbing a quick breakfast very early, before even Cookie was up. “A foraging expedition? What a pity Victoria is no longer with us!”

    “Hah, hah,” replied Captain Cutlass.

    “Ma wants us to get some watercress or sorrel for Cookie,” explained Mouse.

    Lash tried to smile and cast a hunted look over her shoulder. “I see. Propitiation.”

    “Something of the sort,” agreed Captain Cutlass drily. “Why are you up so early?”

    “Sheer cowardice,” admitted Lash glumly.

    Captain Cutlass went into a muffled sniggering fit and Mouse said with a smile: “Why not come with us, Aunty Lash?”

    “Well, uh—do you two young things want an elderly aunt accompanying you, though?”

    “No, dearest Aunty Lash, we want you!” said Mouse gaily.

    Smiling, Lash agreed she’d love to come, in that case. So she snatched up a crust of bread and they all rushed out, grabbing whatever bonnets and cloaks were hanging in the hall, and escaped. Though Lash did note as they hurried off towards the shop: “I suppose I should have told Julia where I was off to.”

    “She’ll guess,” Mouse assured her.

    “Well, yes. There’s Ned to be got off to school, though,” she said guiltily.

    “If Ma don’t do it,” replied Captain Cutlass firmly, “you may be sure one of the great-aunties will!”

    “Yes; and then, John-John is very down on backsliders and slugabeds!” added Mouse.

    “Yes; strange, is it not? For it was impossible to get him up in the morning when he was a little chap! –I’ve always wished Ned had those same yellow curls,” Lash admitted on a wistful note. She became aware that John-John’s sisters were looking at her kindly. “Er—yes! –You’ll understand when you have children of own, dears,” she croaked.

    The girls laughed, and Mouse said: “Really, Aunty Lash, you have no notion at all how to be truly auntly!”

    “And thank God for it!” agreed Captain Cutlass, grinning. “Come on, last one down to the stable’s a monkey’s uncle!” And she was off down the High Street like the wind.

    With a mental shrug, Lash picked up her skirts, cried: “Come on, Mouse!” and dashed after her. There was absolutely no doubt that that tall, upright figure on the far side of the street was Commander Henderson, and what he was doing out and about so early she could not imagine— But too bad!

    On the other side of the High Street the Commander’s hard face was expressionless as he watched the three flying figures in the shabby cloaks and bonnets. He hesitated for an instant, and then crossed over, and went on his way steadily to the Elephant and Castle.

    Old Horse was given an extra nosebag of oats, and a kiss on the nose from Mouse, and then they harnessed him up and headed eagerly for the open air, with Mouse at the reins.

    “This is better!” said Captain Cutlass with a deep sigh as they left the little town behind.

    “Lovely!” agreed Lash, who had elected to ride in the back with the baskets and an old cushion borrowed from the shop. “Look, the roses are starting to flower in the hedgerows already!”

    “Carpe diem,” agreed Captain Cutlass.

    “No such thing! I utterly forbid all reference to Latin tags, gathering rosebuds while ye may, or any such thing, on such a lovely day!”

    “Um, but we are, Aunty Lash,” ventured Mouse feebly.

    Promptly Captain Cutlass went into a wheezing fit worthy of Great-Aunty Jicksy.

    “We are gathering, merely,” replied Lash repressively. “Not while we may.”

    Mouse opened her mouth. Then she closed it again.

    “Leave—it—Mouse!” choked Captain Cutlass. “Old Time is not a-flying today!”

    “Evidently not!” she agreed.

    They jogged on contentedly, everyone smiling.

    “I do miss my little donkey-cart and little Neddy,” said Lash in a dreamy voice.

    The girls exchanged cautious glances.

    “You would not remember him, of course: that was back when I was married to Mr Diver. He said that of course I must have something to get about in, and if I wished to tool myself round in a donkey-cart, it was not positively unrespectable, though not highly desirable.”

    The girls exchanged glances again.

    “I suppose he would have developed into a prosy bore, if he had lived,” mused Lash. “We were not mentally suited, at all. Though he was handsome… But completely conventional.”

    “His mind might have—have broadened,” croaked Mouse.

    “I doubt it: most people’s become more stultified as they age!” said Lash cheerfully.

    “Um, well, Dr Adams’s has not,” ventured Captain Cutlass, unable to think of any other example.

    “No, but he is the exception. And even his prejudices have become more rooted, have they not?” returned her aunt.

    “N—Oh! His intellectual ones, certainly.”

    “Mm, there you are,” said her aunt on a dreamy note. “Dear little Neddy… He was not precisely grey, more a brownish grey…”

    “I think I remember him,” offered Mouse kindly.

    Captain Cutlass, who of course was a year older, frowned hard but could not recall him at all. “I met an elderly man in the lanes driving a dear little donkey,” she offered.

    “Um, Pa would be very happy for you to have a little donkey, Aunty Lash,” said Mouse cautiously.

    As expected, her aunt rubbished this notion firmly. Joe already did far too much for her and Ned!

    “Wait—I remember!” cried Captain Cutlass. “Oh, no, I’m thinking of the Commander’s wife and her little donkey.”

    “Who?” gasped Lash.

    “You know, Aunty Lash: he lives on the coast down near Guillyford Bay and owns that wonderful big ocean-going yacht, Finisterre.”

    “Oh!” said Lash limply, sagging, her cheeks a fiery red, very glad the girls had their backs to her. “Of course. Over on the far side of Brighton.”

    “Past Sandy Bay,” agreed Captain Cutlass mildly.

    “What—what is his name, again?” said Lash feebly.

    “Commander Carey, of course!”

    Mouse waited, but her aunt did not ask, so she said: “So his wife drives a donkey, Captain Cutlass? I never knew that!”

    “Yes: I saw them one day when Mr Rattle and I had sailed down to Guillyford Bay. We were waiting for the tide and she came down to the village. Her little cart is blue.”

    Lash had recovered herself. “That sounds lovely, Captain Cutlass. Mine was brown and cream: quite smart, Mr Diver chose the colours. I’ll say this for him, he had excellent taste; I suppose that’s where Millicent gets hers from.”

    “Nonsense,” said Mouse in a very firm voice. “You do not do yourself justice, Aunty Lash. You have exquisite taste: that green silk shawl you embroidered is delightful.”

    “Yes; even the Brighton shops haven’t anything half as nice,” agreed Captain Cutlass unexpectedly.

    “Very well, I’ll allow you that one tenth of Millicent’s good taste comes from me!” said Lash with a laugh.

    They jogged on in silence, under a pale blue sky with scattered white puffs of cloud. After a while Lash sat up and looked about her. “Where are we headed?” she asked in a hollow voice.

    “Don’t worry, we’ll avoid Ma Piper-Fiennes!” Mouse assured her gaily,

    “Er—yes. So this is the road to High Mallows?” she croaked.

    “Of course!”

    “She has no bump of locality,” Captain Cutlass reminded her sister. “Look, Aunty Lash,” she said, squirming round in her seat: “That is south. See?”

    “Yuh—Well, yes, but it would still be south had we gone the other way, out past old Mrs Bodger’s.”

    “No good watercress thataway—and south would then be on our left,” she said firmly. Lash looked at her hands in a muddled way. Rolling her eyes, Captain Cutlass turned back. “Hopeless!” she said to Mouse.

    “Yes,” she agreed mildly.

    They jogged on, and after a bit Captain Cutlass said: “Shall we try for the sorrel first or the watercress?”

    “Which is less likely to expose us to Ma Piper-F.?” replied Mouse simply.

    Captain Cutlass rubbed her chin. “I’ve seen her up at dawn, screeching at the gardener.”

    Not asking what her sister had been doing out this way at dawn, Mouse replied: “In that case, let’s give her time to get the screeching over and go inside to start screeching at the maids.”

    “Yes.” Captain Cutlass licked her lips. The sorrel was dangerously near to the grounds of Little Lasset. “It’s the next turn on the left, then, Mouse.”

    “I know, I’m not the one without a bump of locality!”

    Lash had sufficient bump of locality to realise, as they took a turn to the left, that they were heading away from the area where lay the property owned by Miss Henderson and which her nephew was to occupy—though there was no reason to suppose that he intentioned heading out to it this morning, and they had certainly not seen him, nor indeed anyone else, on the road. She relaxed, and lay back peacefully against the side of the cart, gazing up into the blue.

    “Near here, I think,” said Mouse after some time.

    “Um—yes,” agreed Captain Cutlass, looking about her uneasily.

    “Remember the cross man with a shot-gun over his arm who ordered us off Sir Roland Lasset’s land?” said Mouse with a laugh.

    “Oh—that time! Mm. Disturbing the pheasants.” She sniffed.

    “Did you disturb them?” asked Lash, yawning.

    “No, we did not lay eyes on a single pheasant,” said Mouse vigorously, “and had only ventured a few yards from the verge, in fact! Added to which, if rumour has not lied, Sir Roland Lasset at the time must have been all of fifteen years of age: a bit young for gentlemanly shooting parties!”

    Lash sat up and looked about her. “Is it Lasset land? I know I have no bump of locality at all, but I thought we were miles from Lasset Place? Miles to the south of it,” she added on a pointed note.

    “Miles to the south and east of it, Aunty Lash,” Mouse explained kindly. “This is not part of Lasset Place, and the land is not farmed with their home farm, but it is all Lasset land.”

    “Those are larches,” said Captain Cutlass on a grim note, “and over there—that is north,” she added, not kindly, “those are hazels.”

    “Right, and that’s where you two were caught red-handed, is it?”

    “Not quite, we hadn't managed to gather any,” replied Mouse regretfully.

    “By that old oak, Mouse—this is it!” decided Captain Cutlass with a sigh of relief. Lasset House and its grounds were not yet within sight.

    “Oh, yes! Whoa, Old Horse! Now, you may have a nice munch! –The sorrel has seeded just through there, Aunty Lash.”

    “Er—yes.” Lash looked round cautiously but no irate gamekeeper hove into view and you couldn’t see any house.

    “Mr Wilkins won’t mind if we pick self-seeded sorrel!” Mouse assured her.

    “Mr Wilkins?” replied her aunt on a weak note,

    “The farmer who has the lease hereabouts. Dairy cattle and pigs, mainly.”

    “Let us hope not. Well, nothing venture, nothing win!”

    And they got down with their baskets, and headed through the little hazel wood.

    “Oh, this is very pretty!” discovered Lash as they emerged to a sunny clearing bordering a tiny stream.

    “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” agreed Mouse happily. “Look, the sorrel is over here!”

    So it was. The clearing also featured a scattering of garden flowers amongst its weeds and grasses and Mouse decided: “I think someone must have planted a garden here at one stage, and the sorrel seeds must have been in the manure they used. The grass is very lush, isn’t it? Mr Wilkins had a couple of his Jerseys and their calves here one year.”

    “Jerseys!” said Lash with a smile. “They’re such pretty cows, aren’t they?”

    “Yes. Hurry up,” ordered Captain Cutlass edgily. “We are trespassing, after all.”

    They got down to it. There was no noise at all save the twittering of a few birds; insensibly the peace and the growing warmth of the lovely morning soothed them, and the picking slowed. The baskets were full, and Mouse was picking a few flowers, when suddenly a voice said: “Well! What a pretty sight!” and they all swung round, gasping.

    A gentleman had emerged from the stand of trees on the far side of the little stream and was watching them with a smile. The smile faded and he snatched his hat off and stepped forward.

    “Miss Calpurnia! Miss Marianne!” he gulped.

    “Good morning, Mr Ainsley,” replied Mouse as firmly as she could. “I’m afraid we are trespassing.”

    “Not at all: this is just farmland. You are welcome to pick as many flowerth ath you wish.”

    “We are not picking flowers,” replied Captain Cutlass grimly, directing a glare at her sister, “but sorrel. And we were not stealing! It has self-seeded!”

    “Yes. Please—feel free,” he said, suddenly bowing, clapping his hat back on and plunging off into the trees again.

    “Help,” said Lash limply. “I collect that was the half-Spanish gentleman who has taken Little Lasset?”

    “Yes,” agreed Mouse glumly. “The house is quite a long way off in that direction. But it was stupid to come.”

    Captain Cutlass shrugged. “The sorrel would have been wasted, else.” She hefted her baskets. “Come on.”

    They tottered in her wake, Mouse wondering silently how on earth Mr Luís Ainsley knew her sister. Lash was also wondering this, and recalling Captain Cutlass’s reaction to the news of who it was who had taken Little Lasset. She said nothing, however, and Mouse headed the cart back to the road.

    “If we take this lane,” said Mouse at last, “we can avoid High Mallows entirely.”

    “Don’t take Old Horse too far up here, Mouse, the surface is terrible,” warned Captain Cutlass as the cart jolted up a lane.

    “Yes: this only leads to the old overgrown house,” she agreed.

    Lash had been dreading this moment ever since they set off on the road to High Mallows, but had hoped it would never come: there were surely many other places where watercress— “Mouse, not Wardle Heights?”

    “I don’t know its name, Aunty Lash. It’s completely covered in ivy.”

    “Mm. Wardle Heights. Don’t you realise who it belongs to?” she croaked.

    “Not another rich brother-in-law to a marquis, one presumes!” said Captain Cutlass loudly and scornfully.

    “No. Miss Aitch,” croaked Lash.

    Captain Cutlass gave a loud crack of scornful laughter.

    “Not really?” asked Mouse.

    “Yes. It—it has been in her family for some time.”

    “Well, she won’t be out here, Aunty Lash.”

    “Gathering watercress? No!” snorted Captain Cutlass.

    “No,” said Lash in a small voice. “Um, but— Never mind.”

    “We could take her some,” said Mouse with a smile in her voice, and Captain Cutlass collapsed in loud sniggers.

    Lash tried to smile. “Mm.”

    “There is never anyone around,” Mouse reminded her. “And we’ll soon see if the house is occupied—though I’m positive it won’t be, with all that ivy on it. You get a good view of it from down by the stream.”

    “Yes. Um, are you sure this is the way, Mouse?” she said feebly as Mouse drew Old Horse to a halt under a shady tree.

    “Yes: we are on the near side of the stream: well, rather to the north of it,” she said on an apologetic note—Captain Cutlass snorted—“and if we were to go further, you would see that this lane leads to that dear little stone bridge you admired last time. The far bank is completely overgrown but we concluded that the driveway to the house must once have led up from the bridge. It must have been a lovely prospect from their front windows; imagine owning a house in such a setting and letting it fall derelict!”

    “We were on the other side of the stream last time,” said Captain Cutlass heavily, getting down. “Hand me some pails, Aunty Lash!”

    “Oh—were we? Oh, yes.” Lash handed down pails obediently, ignoring her niece’s snort.

    After they had pushed their way through some undergrowth the stream was discovered, crammed with watercress, with beyond it the great heap of ivy surmounting the sunny slope leading down to the little bridge, and not a sign of life around. In considerable relief, Lash assisted her nieces to fill the pails. Getting, even though all stockings and boots had prudently been removed, and skirts and petticoats pinned up, rather damp and muddy in the process.

    “There!” said Mouse with a laugh at last, sinking onto the bank and waggling her bare toes in the sun.

    Captain Cutlass subsided beside her with a deep sigh, and also waggled her bare toes. “Would it not be wonderful to live the life of a gypsy, completely untrammelled all the time? If I were a gypsy woman I should wear breeches and bare feet from May to September!”

    Mouse looked at her with a smile but murmured: “And very like the rest of the year, too, unless you managed to steal some boots. –Here.” She passed her her shoes and stockings and resumed her own.

    Lash sat down beside them and pulled her stockings on. “Mm. And I suspect that even in gypsy society there are rules of dress and conduct for both sexes, and that the one may not encroach on the preserve, so to speak, of the other.” She fastened her shoes, her eyes twinkling.

    Captain Cutlass removed her battered bonnet, lay down flat and stared up at the sky. “Talking of which, there are pheasants hereabouts.”

    “Migrated over from the Lasset estate to escape that gamekeeper!” said Mouse with a laugh.

    “I dare say. Would not you, if you were a pheasant? What a waste, though, that Miss Aitch don’t eat ’em!”

    “She would not eat them, my dears,” said Lash primly, “however well her gamekeeper had preserved them for her: merely write them in French in a menu!”

    The girls shrieked, and collapsed in giggles.

    “That is quite probably true,” said a thoughtful deep voice.

    They gasped, and sat up convulsively.

    Commander Henderson emerged from the bushes to their rear, his hard face as usual expressing nothing. “Good morning, Mrs Yates; Miss Marianne.”

    Alas, Lash and Mouse merely gaped at him.

    “Ah, there is the house,” he said mildly. “I was very thankful to hear your voices, just now, for I had completely lost my bearings in that thicket.”

    After a stunned moment in which her ears rang, Lash went very red indeed and snapped: “That seems highly likely, sir, after you have navigated your ship halfway round the world!”

    “Well, all the way, really,” he said on an apologetic note. “Captain Morrissey was not much of a navigator, between you and me. But you see, I have not my sextant on me.”

    At this Captain Cutlass exploded in giggles again.

    Commander Henderson looked at her with interest and said once the giggles had died down: “Will you not introduce me, Mrs Yates?”

    “What?” said Lash numbly. “Oh, haven’t you— Oh, no, of course. My niece, Cuh—er, Calpurnia Formby, sir. This is Commander Henderson, Captain Cutlass.” Too late, she realised she’d used the nickname.

    The barefoot Captain Cutlass scrambled up unaffectedly and held out her hand. “I’m very glad to meet you, Commander Henderson, and I must add my thanks to those of the family for your having brought John-John home safe and sound.”

    The Commander’s look of interest did not abate: he bowed over her hand and said: “I was very glad to, Miss Calpurnia. You have been looking to Captain’s Burns’s wife, I think?”

    “Yes. She and the little girls were overjoyed when he came home,” she said, smiling at him. “It was interesting, though: for although she cried very much, Sally and Annie laughed and jumped for joy, and did not shed a single tear.”

    Typical of Calpurnia Catherine though this speech was, her sister and aunt looked at her in some horror; but Commander Henderson merely said: “Aye; sensibility is something that one acquires later in life, I think.”

    “I see,” she said, nodding thoughtfully.

    “Er—yes,” said Lash, clearing her throat. “Commander Henderson, I must apologise for trespassing on your aunt’s land and stealing her watercress.”

    “We’ll give her some,” said Captain Cutlass promptly. “It’ll be the story of the sorrel all over again, but too bad! –Well,” she said to the Commander with a grin, “I have to admit it wasn't her sorrel that we pinched, last time!”

    “Then the act was all the more generous in you, Miss Calpurnia,” he replied formally.

    Grinning, Captain Cutlass retorted: “Yes, was it not!” Unaffectedly she sat down and resumed her footwear, tactfully shoving her stockings in her pocket.

    “Girls, I think we should be going,” said Lash feebly, attempting to rise.

    “Allow me, Mrs Yates.” Gravely Commander Henderson held out his hand to her.

    “I—I’m rather muddy,” said Lash in dismay, looking at her grimy hand.

    “I assure you I do not regard it,” he said primly.

    Limply Lash allowed him to assist her to rise.

    Mouse, meanwhile, took the opportunity to scramble up by herself, and picked up a couple of the filled pails.

    “Please allow me to assist you, ladies,” said the Commander, hefting the two largest pails.

    “No, really, sir, we are not weaklings,” croaked Lash.

    “No, let him, Aunty Lash, that big pail’s really heavy,” said Captain Cutlass in relief.

    In addition to being heavy it looked very like a pail that was about to slosh water all over a new-looking pair of gent’s buckskins. Not to mention those shiny boots. “It’s got too much water in it,” she said weakly.

    “Not at all, Mrs Yates,” said the Commander with a smile.

    Lash swallowed. “I don’t mean that it’s too heavy for you, just that you are in danger of sloshing water all over your boots.”

    “My boots can take a bit of water, ma’am!” he said with that very masculine laugh.

    Lash gave in, hefted a pail, refused to resign it to Captain Cutlass, who now found herself with only one to carry, did not intervene in the subsequent argument between her and Mouse, who was carrying two, and did not speak at all as Commander Henderson led the way, with no fumbling, stumbling or false starts whatsoever, straight back to Old Horse and the cart. Quietly grazing next to Old Horse was a hobbled brown hack.

    “Is that your horse, sir?” said Mouse politely. “You could have ridden on further, the lane winds round and leads to the little bridge. Though it is very overgrown.”

    The Commander put his pails in the cart. “Aye. I thought I had best take the hint and stop here. –No, Miss Marianne, let me lift them for you.” He lifted her pails into the cart, then Lash’s and Captain Cutlass’s. Lash then made to get in and he came quickly to put his hand under her elbow. “Were you sitting in the back, Mrs Yates?”

    “Yes. –Thank you,” she said, allowing him, perforce, to help her up. “I prefer it, one may stretch one’s legs. That is, if there is any room left in which to do so.”

    Immediately the Commander got into the cart and rearranged baskets and buckets.

    “We had them piled up when they were empty,” explained Mouse, looking up at him anxiously.

    “Yes, of course,” he agreed, smiling down at her. “Will this arrangement do, Mrs Yates?”

    “Thank you, yes.” Limply Lash let him assist her to a seat on the cushion. And whether the man was laughing up his sleeve at them, or secretly disgusted by it all, she could not have said to save her life!

    The Commander was about to jump down. He hesitated, and looked up into the big tree. “This is a lime tree: is not the scent delightful? Do you care for lime-flower tea? Why do you not pick some of the flowers?”

    Lash looked up at him and denied angrily to herself the trembling feeling that had come over her. “What? Oh—yes, we sometimes have lime-flower tea.”

    “I for one wasn’t too sure that it was a lime tree,” admitted Captain Cutlass.

    “Nor I,” agreed Mouse. “But in any case, it is too high.”

    “No, it isn’t! –Oh,” he said with a grin, looking down at them. “Probably is, yes! Well, that’s no problem: I can pick! Do you have anything in which to put them?”

    “My petticoat?” suggested Captain Cutlass.

    “Stop that, Calpurnia, you are too old for that sort of remark to be amusing,” said her aunt grimly.

    The girls looked at her in amazement.

    “There is nothing to put the flowers in, Commander Henderson,” said Lash grimly.

    “Well, at least let me put some in my handkerchief.”

    Mouse took a deep breath, wondering what on earth had come over Aunty Lash: Commander Henderson was only trying to be agreeable, and after all, he was the man who had saved John-John’s life! “That would be delightful, sir, and Niners may return the handkerchief when she goes to Miss Henderson.”

    The handkerchief was filled, and, since Captain Cutlass had had an inspiration, so were the girls’ bonnets, Lash was entrusted with Mouse’s bonnet and the bundled-up handkerchief to hold, and the Commander jumped down and assisted the two girls up onto their seat.

    “Thank you so much, Commander!” beamed Captain Cutlass, as he handed her her flower-filled bonnet.

    “Not at all, Miss Calpurnia. The whole thing was my pleasure. Please, do convey my respects to your mother.” He removed his hat and bowed, as Mouse urged Old Horse into action. “Bon voyage, ladies.”

    “Well!” said Captain Cutlass pleasedly as they jolted back down the lane. “That was a fortunate encounter!”

    “Why?” replied Lash in a hard voice.

    “I love lime-flower tea! –Mrs Burns has it,” she revealed.

    “Perhaps there will be enough when we have dried them to give her some,” said Mouse.

    “That would be good! Though the flowers shrink a lot, when dried.”

    “Yes, but we have plenty. I suppose, really, we should offer some to Miss Henderson!” admitted Mouse with a laugh. “For we would never have got them but for her nephew’s kind offices!”

    “Rubbish, Mouse!” said Lash angrily. “Could you not see the man was laughing up his sleeve at us for a pack of small-town nobodies the entire time?”

    There was a stunned silence.

    “I—I did not get that impression at all,” ventured Mouse.

    “Nor I,” agreed Captain Cutlass. “Well, it ain’t an expressive face, but he cannot help that! For a Henderson connection he was positively affable!”

    “Captain Cutlass,” said her aunt grimly, “you are speaking through your hat—the which, I might point out, should be on your head at this very moment, and if you could not see that he despised you for using it as a basket in that unladylike manner, not to mention the earlier suggestion of the petticoat, then you are the greatest gaby that ever walked!”

    The girls exchanged amazed glances, and after an appreciable pause, Captain Cutlass stuttered: “The petticoat was a joke! And—and I’m sure he realised it!”

    “He realised it was a most indelicate joke!” she snapped.

    Mouse swallowed hard. “Dear Aunty Lash, you are tired, I think.”

    “I am not tired!”

    “Well, I… I really do think you are confusing the Commander’s, um, standards, with those of his aunt.”

    “Exact,” agreed Captain Cutlass in some relief.

    “The only confusion,” said Lash grimly, “would appear to be in the minds of two silly little girls. Respectable families, of the sort whose sons command ships in the Royal Navy, do not allow their womenfolk to jaunt around hatless in carts, foraging for food!”

    The two silly little girls were silent. Mouse’s lower lip, indeed, showed a tendency to tremble.

    After a few moments Captain Cutlass put her hand on her sister’s knee. “Who needs them? Would one wish to end up a Miss Aitch, after all?”

    “No,” said Mouse wanly. “Of course not.”

    Scowling horribly, Captain Cutlass declared: “I say perdition to all the respectable families! Our expedition was both innocent and—and laudable, in that its aim was provisions for the household!”

    “Yes. I—I really think he thought so, do not you?” said Mouse in a tiny voice.

    Captain Cutlass patted her knee. “Of course! Why, John-John says he is a sensible man, after all!”

    They waited in some trepidation, but the voice from the back of the cart did not contradict them.

    “I suppose I should not ask,” said Julia limply, as the silent Lash retired to bed before the baskets and pails were even out of the cart.

    “No, you should take these,” said Captain Cutlass, handing her down the bundled-up handkerchief and Mouse’s bonnetful of lime flowers.

    “What on— What a glorious scent! Ooh: lime flowers?” she cried.

    “Yes; Commander Henderson picked them for us.”

    “What?” croaked Julia.

    “We, um, bumped into him,” growled Captain Cutlass, reddening.

    Julia looked at her daughter’s red cheeks in astonishment. “Bumped— Where?”

    “Obviously, near a lime tree,” said Mouse quickly. “Why don’t you take a couple of pails in, Captain Cutlass? I’ll explain to Ma.”

    Gratefully Captain Cutlass escaped.

    “Go on,” said Julia feebly, not pointing out they were standing in the street and Ma Mountjoy was undoubtedly on watch behind her front parlour curtains.

    “Well, we did bump into Commander Henderson: it turns out the place where the best watercress grows is part of a property owned by his aunt.”

    Julia gulped. “Glory.”

    “She wasn’t there!” said Mouse quickly.

    “Good!” replied Julia with feeling.

    “Captain Cutlass and I thought he was all that was pleasant, and he certainly helped carry the pails; and he picked the lime flowers, it was all his idea, we could not even reach. But Aunty Lash seemed to think that—that underneath,” said Mouse in a voice that shook a little, “he was disapproving of us, because he’s a Henderson.”

    Julia winced slightly, but responded valiantly: “John-John says he is a sensible man.”

    “Mm. Anyway,” said Mouse, casting an uneasy glance at the front door, “that wasn’t the only encounter. At the place that has the sorrel we also met Mr Luís Ainsley.”

    Julia’s jaw dropped.

    Mouse licked her lips. “He—he merely spoke politely and then went away.”

    “Mouse, you weren’t silly enough to trespass on Little Lasset’s grounds, were you?”

    “No. Well, it was off that road, but a long way from the estate itself. I suppose he was just out for a walk. Um, I think he was quite as startled as we. Um—it was very odd, Ma, for he seemed to know Captain Cutlass.”

    “Oh, good grief,” said Julia limply.

    “She was—was quite upset. Well, she became very grumpy. But by the time we found the watercress she had cheered up.”

    “Er… Oh! I see! And it was then that Commander Aitch turned up and Lash became grumpy?”

    “Well, yes.”

    Julia was overtaken by a horrible desire to ask the poor little thing if there had been no Bingleys there. She swallowed hard. “I think you’d best come in and have a nice cup of tea, dear.”

    “Thank you, Ma,” said Mouse gratefully.

    Numbly Julia staggered inside with the lime flowers. Two in one day? Help!

Next chapter:

https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/summer-season.html