3
The Fortunate Formbys At Home
The self-styled Captain Cutlass was the second-youngest child of a sufficiently large and reasonably prosperous family; a family generally acknowledged by those who counted, in quiet little Waddington-on-Sea, or who credited themselves with counting, the which amounted to the same thing, to be a fortunate one. This happy state, though the genial Joe Formby was in a good way of business as a printer and bookbinder, was largely due to the connection with the principal Mr Formby, a retired merchant settled down to the position of country gentleman at a little distance from the town. John Formby’s grounds were, if not extensive, attractive; the house was, if scarcely a mansion along the lines of Blenheim Palace or Castle Howard, commodious enough, and being about the same vintage as these two great showplaces of England, comfortable and modern enough; and his family was neither too huge nor too small, but numerous enough, and attractive enough. And, in the case of the girls, with dowries not huge but sufficient. If the house had the somewhat unfortunate name of Blasted Oak House, well, what was in a name? Although the neighbourhood had not immediately been inclined to welcome a retired merchant with open arms, the gentlemanly appearance of Mr Formby was soon perceived to be an asset—and in short, once it was definite that Mrs Formby had been a Quarmby-Vine before her marriage, the fortunate John Formbys found themselves with the entrée even to Lasset Place itself!
Back in Waddington-on-Sea at Number 10 New Short Street, Great-Nunky Ben Huggins most certainly counted himself fortunate, since Julia’s meat and tater pies were definitely the best in all of Waddington-on-Sea and, if you asked him, the whole of England! But then, he was not a Formby, merely a connection by marriage to Mrs Joe (Julia) Formby. Joe and Julia Formby themselves, “Lash” Formby Yates (Joe’s sister), Aunty “Bouncer” Formby Peters (Joe’s paternal aunt), Aunty “Jicksy” Huggins (Julia’s aunt: a Formby merely by courtesy or propinquity), and the children of Joe and Julia, “Trottie True”, “Little Joe” (six feet and two inches in his good worsted stockings), “John-John”, “Niners”, “Captain Cutlass” and “Mouse”, also considered themselves, by and large, to be pretty fortunate—though not considering the connection to Blasted Oak House to have anything to do with it. As for “Baby Bouncer” (Lash’s), he was too little to have an informed opinion on the point. Or even to be absolutely sure who Cousin Formby was.
“It’s never done us any good!” noted Lash with her cheerful laugh, as Mouse returned rather flushed from an encounter with the lady mayoress over a length of cambric at the Miss Sprotts’ emporium and lodged the usual complaint.
“Exactly!” said Mouse grimly, setting down her basket on the kitchen table.
“Mrs Cox didn’t say we were fortunate in so many words, did she, Mousekin?” asked Julia, turning from an anxious vigil over the soup. –It will perhaps by now be apparent that the Joe Formbys were one of those families much given to the bestowal of pet names and nicknames. The origins of some of which were now lost in the mists of time: Aunty Bouncer had never been married to a Bouncer, so it was certainly not that; and she did not particularly bounce, so it was unlikely to be that—though perhaps she had bounced in her childhood? Or was it that, in her earliest metamorphosis, she had cared to be bounced? Baby Bouncer certainly had, though now far too old for the amusement—and, actually, too old for the nickname, though his irritating family was sublimely unaware of this fact.
“Of course she did, Ma! With a mention of Cousin Belinda’s being a Quarmby-Vine into the bargain! She has a conventional mind.”
“Well, yes,” agreed Julia on a vague note, stirring. “I suppose they all do.”
“Have a piece of bread and honey, Mouse, and forget the woman!” offered Lash cheerfully.
Mouse sighed, but took her bonnet off, dumped it on a chair, and drew up another to the big old scrubbed table. Lash immediately passed her a slice, smiling. Mouse accepted it with thanks, but not without the reflection that if bread and honey were the receet for forgetting, Aunty Lash could most certainly be forgiven for her indulgence in the treat: she had been married at sixteen to a man who had died at Waterloo, only four years later, and the daughter of the marriage, barely three at the time of the great battle, now some fifteen years in the past, was very much not one of the happy, harum-scarum household at Number 10 New Short Street. Millicent (she refused to acknowledge any sort of pet name or miscalling), had gone up in the world, marrying at seventeen a Major Miller of at least her mother’s age, and subsequently disappearing to India with him—without, it was silently recognised by the Joe Formbys, a second thought. And certainly without, so far, any letter except a very short note reporting their arrival in Calcutta, to which the thoughtful Major Miller had appended a much fuller report, describing their house, its servants, and his Colonel’s lady’s kindness to his new wife. Since when the family had all assured Lash repeatedly that it took months for the post to arrive from India.
Lash herself had married again about ten years ago, but had now been a widow for some time: according to such persons as the lady mayoress, or one Mrs Mountjoy from Number 8 New Short Street, the precise cause of Mr Yates’s untimely demise was Baby Bouncer Yates. Nothing that the innocent himself had done, no. The fact of him, given that Mr Yates had been seventy-two upon the occasion of his marriage to Lavinia Formby Diver. Lash’s brother Joe maintained angrily that in the first place seventy-two was not necessarily incapable of it, that in the second place it was none of the hags’ business, and—though only under the shelter of his own roof—that in any case, who cared? It was true that Baby Bouncer, now a sturdy lad of eight, bore no discernible resemblance to the late Mr Yates—but then, he didn’t look like Lash, either. There was certainly no lover in evidence now, and the Formbys had never asked their relative if there once had been.
If they had asked, Aunty Lash would probably have told them, Mouse reflected now, munching bread and honey hungrily. Lash was a plumply pretty, rather untidy, extremely good-natured woman, with no pretensions about her. Along with the good nature and the placidity went not only considerable sense of humour but also considerable intelligence. Mouse’s opinion was that they were lucky to have her: she was the sort of person who never criticised, always listened, and—but only if asked—usually had a considered opinion to give. And more than that: if she did not consider herself qualified to give an opinion, she said so! The only other person Mouse had ever met who did that was old Dr Adams, Mrs Lumley’s lodger at Number 3. The meek retired scholar was reputed (by Mrs Mountjoy, the lady mayoress, et al.) to be a defrocked clergyman, the which accusation possibly had its origins in his possessing a lot of books, many of them in Latin or Greek. Or even more possibly in the innate spite of Mrs Mountjoy, Mrs Cox, et al. In Mouse’s lifetime he had most certainly never been observed to do anything warranting defrocking.
“What is so wonderful about a Quarmby-Vine, anyway?” she said, having swallowed.
From the stove, her mother gave a loud snort.
“Next time you meet her, tell her they’re a hum, Mouse!” advised Lash merrily.
“They ain’t, though!” put in old Mrs Peters suddenly from her position in the rocker next the stove.—Everybody jumped; they all thought the old lady had dozed off.—“Derbyshire, they come from,” she informed the company. “Pots, they got.”
“Said to have, yes,” conceded Julia at her driest. “We’ve not seen the evidence, though, Aunty Bouncer.”
“No,” agreed Lash, also dry. “Derbyshire is a long way off, after all.”
“Exactly!” said Mouse with feeling. “They could claim to be rich as Croesus and—and own a giant Derbyshire version of Stamforth Castle, and who in our little district could contradict the story with confidence?”
“Mrs—Mount—joy—of—course!” gasped Lash, suddenly going into a paroxysm.
The company duly collapsed in splutters, though Julia noted somewhat grimly when they were over them: “Aye: wouldn’t she, though? No, well, that’s it, Mousekin: Derbyshire, pots.”
“I seen one, once,” contributed old Mrs Peters. “Besides Cousin Belinda, that is. ’E were a Navy man.” She sniffed slightly. “Orficer. I was in Brighton—it was afore our Gertie went and died on us.”—Her relatives nodded sympathetically.—“Well, you know what Gertie was: ideas above ’er station and then some!”
“Yes, but she could afford them, Aunty Bouncer,” said Lash soothingly.
“You’re not wrong there, Lash, deary. Never seen a ’uman bean chuck its gelt about like what Gertie did! Well, serve ’im right, Tom Potts was as mean-fisted as they come when ’e were alive!” The family having accorded this reference the expected sympathetic nods of agreement, she continued: “Well, that was it, you see. She would have it we ’ad to go to this fancy shop where all the nobs went, to get something or another—danged if I can remember what it was, now; pair o’ gloves? No, I got it: a bunch of silk flowers to go on a bonnet for their Nancy’s Hilda. –What you can say what you like, but I never seen a girl more like a human pug-dog in all me born days!” Nobody did say anything, possibly because they all agreed with her, and she went on: “That’s why I remembered the bonnet, see, ’cos at the shop, we go in and there’s this orficer feller with a lady in a fancy bonnet like what you never seen, with a pug-dog, and it’s gorn crazy, yapping its ’ead orf, and running round and round ’is legs, tying ’im up in this danged red lead she’s got on it!” She waited for the sniggers to die down. “Ah! And she’s a-saying—foreign, she were, too, now I come to think on it—‘Stand still’—it were more like ‘Stand steell’, really—‘Stand steell, dear Captain Quarmby-Vine, stand steell!’ Only ’e ain’t got the nous to, ’e’s a-trying to unwind ’isself, same time as the pug’s rushing round and round, growling and snapping like what you never ’eard!”
Her audience collapsed, and Lash then asked, mopping her eyes: “What had set it off, dear Aunty Bouncer?”
“Turned out it was a cat what had run out from behind a bolt of cloth. Gertie was useless, of course, all she could do was squeal and holler, and the foreign lady couldn’t do nothing without leaving go of the lead, what would’ve been blamed silly, and the shop-woman had climbed on a chair, silly ’en. So I dumps me parasol and parcels on Gertie and grabs the little brute meself. Then the lady unwinds the orficer. And then she thanks me for my prompt and sensible action: what do you think of that, hey?”
Grinning, Julia replied: “I think it was a hit at this Captain Quarmby-Vine, myself!”
“Absolutely!” agreed Mouse, laughing.
“Only if she was bright,” objected Lash mildly.
“Oh, she were bright, all right and tight,” said the old lady confidently. “Smart as paint inside and out! So, you see: I seen a Quarmby-Vine.” She sniffed. “Useless.”
“Well, yes!” said Mouse with a laugh. “That is certainly a great accretion to the Quarmby-Vine legend, Aunty! But I’m afraid I couldn’t tell it in a way that would flatten Lady Cox!”
“I forgot, and called her that once,” said Lash in a detached tone.
Her relatives gaped at her. Finally Julia croaked: “To her face, Lash?”
“Mm. In front of Mrs Mountjoy’s sister, Mrs Whatserface, the one that’s married to a clergyman.”
Mrs Peters broke down in a fit of the cackles and Mouse immediately went into agonising splutters, but Julia was too awed even to smile. “What did she say?” she croaked.
“Nothing. She overlooked it superbly. One had to admire her.”
“Possibly she took it as her due,” said Mouse in a hollow tone, recovering.
Julia also recovered, and gave one of her richest snorts.
“You’re right, Ma, she’ll be storing it up,” Mouse conceded. “Where’s Trottie True?”
“In the shop,” said Julia placidly, stirring the soup.
The rather less fortunate Joe Formby’s printer’s and bookbinder’s establishment was not in New Short Street, which was not a commercial street at all—and had it shown any designs of tending that way, Mrs Mountjoy would have nipped them in the bud—but just off the High Street, in Elephant Close. The name was maintained by old Dr Adams to be a corruption of “Infanta Close,” the old inn that occupied one of its corners and faced onto the High Street being, correspondingly, the “Infanta of Castile,” but nobody credited this claim. What on earth had Spaniards to do with Waddington-on-Sea?
“In the shop? How shocking!” returned Mouse promptly. “I must alert Lady Cox!”
“Hah, hah,” replied Julia calmly. “Your Pa had a big rush printing job come in, so he sent to say he needed someone with sense.”
“Not me,” explained Lash, smiling.
“Exact. We did not even have to call for volunteers, Trottie True put on her bonnet and rushed off immediate,” elaborated Julia.
Mouse smiled weakly. That was Trottie True, all right! Dependable through and through. Never had an infant been so aptly nicknamed: if was as if Pa and Ma had had second sight! “Well, at least that means I will not have to know until this evening if I’ve got the wrong cambric.”
“’Ave yer?” asked Mrs Peters sardonically.
Mouse grinned. “No notion, Aunty! Mrs Cox said it was the right stuff, and Miss Sprott and Miss Peggy swore it was—”
“Wanted to make a sale,” grunted the old lady.
“Exact!” agreed Mouse cheerfully. “So, as I say, I shan’t know until Trottie True is able to condemn it in person! Oh, I think I found some apricot embroidery silk for you, Aunty Lash!” she recalled, suddenly delving in the basket. “Here!”
Lash got up and quickly rinsed her hands before unrolling the paper. Her face fell.
“Oh,” said Mouse sadly.
“It’s almost a match,” she said kindly. “I think I could use it in the shading. Thank you so much for trying, Mouse.” She felt in the pocket of her grubby apron.
“No, it’s a present!” said Mouse quickly.
Lash looked at what the pocket had divulged: two halfpennies and a bent thing that might once have been a penny before Baby Bouncer and his little friends had discovered the delightful game of laying pennies on the cobbles for iron-clad waggon wheels to rumble over. “I think it will have to be,” she said ruefully. “Thank you, Mouse.”
“Niners is with Miss Henderson,” said Julia with a sigh, before Mouse could ask. “I suppose she’ll be here to collect the soup in…” She looked at the big old kitchen clock. “Has that stopped?”
“It is ticking,” volunteered Lash.
“Yes. Well, if it’s right, she’ll be here in half an hour or so. I wish she’d give it up. The woman’s a hag, and we don’t need the money.”
“She likes to feel independent, Ma,” said Mouse soothingly.
“Yes, but it’s pointless, dear! –And Captain Cutlass is with old Dr Adams, though I suppose it don’t need spelling out, do it?”
“No,” agreed Mrs Peters stolidly.
“No,” admitted Mouse with something of a defiant look on her little heart-shaped face, “and if Latin and Greek be useless to a young woman, at least she’s safe enough with him!”
“Unless the defrocking thing was something to do with young women,” said Lash thoughtfully.
“Aunty Lash!” cried her niece protestingly.
Lash jumped. “What? Ooh, help, did I say that out loud? Sorry. Actually, I like him.”
“We know,” agreed Julia kindly. “And Mouse is right: there are far sillier things a young woman of her age could be up to.”
“Ooh, did I say that?” Mouse preened herself.
“Hah, hah,” said Julia placidly, stirring the soup.
The Formbys’ kitchen did not at the moment indicate it, but the Joe Formbys did have a cook (“That woman who does for the Formbys,” according to Mrs Mountjoy), so Mouse then said: “I gather Cookie’s not back?”
“No,” agreed her mother. “Well, it’s a fair way to Upperdene, and I did tell her that there is no such thing as cheap sugar and it would only be a rumour, but she would go.”
“You get a wonderful view of Stamforth Castle on that road,” said Mouse in a longing voice.
“Well, Mousekin, you should have gone with her,” returned Julia placidly, stirring.
Cookie had gone with her brother, who was a carrier, on one of his waggons, so Mouse replied heavily: “No, she will have spent the entire journey trying to persuade poor Mr Moon that he ought to remarry for the sake of all the little half-moons and quarter-moons.”
Lash gave a delighted crow, and Julia coughed suddenly. “Er—yes, you’re probably right.”
“Ask ’im if ’e’ll take yer next time ’e’s over that way. Dessay ’e might have a delivery to the castle itself, who knows?” said old Mrs Peters with super-optimism.
“A delivery from Waddington-on-Sea?” replied Mouse limply. “I wish I could think it, Aunty Bouncer!”
“Your Pa did them fancy invitations to the castle last summer,” replied Mrs Peters stolidly.
“Ooh, yes!” remembered Lash, beaming. “That’s right, Mouse, so he did! I helped set those up. ‘Lord & Lady Stamforth request the pleasure of the presence of’ dot, dot, dot, insert impossibly grand name, ‘at Stamforth Castle’, no address necessary, ‘on 16th July at 2.00 p.m., to attend Mr Perseus Brentwood’s presentation of a new entertainment, The Haunted Forest, Or, Sir Gawain Rides Again,’ title italicised. Personally I would have added ‘R.S.V.P.’ but Joe claimed that really great nobs don’t.”
“Aye, but do it take a waggon to deliver a bunch of invitation cards?” asked Julia at her driest. “Well, the soup’s done. We could have it in the dining-parlour, I suppose.”
“Why?” said Mrs Peters stolidly.
Smiling, Julia conceded: “Then we won’t bother! Mousekin, darling, pop up and see if Aunty Jicksy feels like drinking some soup—and tell her she can have a drop of Joe’s brandy in it if her temperature’s down.”
“She’ll want it even if her temperature be sky-high!” predicted Mouse with a grin, hurrying out. Aunty “Jicksy” Huggins was not bedridden, nor anything like it: she was merely laid up with a bad cold and, as she was a very old lady, the oldest of Julia’s aunts, Julia had forbidden her to come downstairs and bustle about in her usual fashion until she was completely better.
Julia had smiled but after a moment she sat down at the table with a sigh and said: “I’m sure I don’t know what we’re going to do about Mouse.”
Mouse was barely eighteen, so there was no need to panic about her; but Lash was aware that she was Julia’s favourite daughter. She smiled at her and returned with her usual placidity: “It isn’t her fault if she can’t like Bob Mountjoy, Julia.”
“He isn’t the brightest, but a very pleasant boy; I think he could make her very happy.”
“He could make another girl very happy, but not Mouse: she’s far too bright to support his lack of brains, and not nearly mature enough to perceive that that is not necessarily what counts in a marriage,” said Lash calmly.
Aunty Bouncer gave a loud cackle.
“Not that, Aunty,” said Lash, smiling. “Well, that too, of course, for Bob Mountjoy is a very attractive lad! I’d have him myself if I wasn’t nigh twice his age!”
“He’d have you, too,” noted Julia drily. “Actually I think he’d have you anyway, Lash, if it weren’t for his mother.”
“Ditto,” said Lash solemnly.
“Well, quite! I do admit she’d make a dreadful mother-in-law!” agreed Julia, shuddering, and ignoring Aunty Bouncer’s delighted sniggers. “But goodness gracious, Bob will be very well-off, he’s very good-looking, he has a sweet temperament—”
“Yes. But as I say, Mouse cannot see past the lack of brains,” said Lash serenely. “I dare say someone will come along for her, Julia: she is only eighteen, after all.”
“Suitable lads with brains are pretty few and far between in Waddington-on-Sea, Lash,” said Mouse’s mother with a sigh.
“Then in that case,” said Lash with a wicked twinkle in her eye: “you will just have to write to the Formbys of Blasted Oak House and beg them to take her and turn her into a lady!”
“Aye!” cackled Aunty Bouncer with an identical twinkle. “And then she can catch a fine captain what can’t say ‘boo’ to a little pug-dog!”
And, all three of them exploding in giggles, the topic of Mouse Formby’s lack of suitable suitors was dropped, for the nonce.
Although Joe and Little Joe did not customarily come home for their midday meal, for their head printer, a bent Mr Biddle, lived above the shop in the rooms formerly occupied by Joe’s parents, and his wife usually fed them all, they were not yet all assembled, for Great-Nunky Ben Huggins was still out on his usual “constitutional,” ten minutes along The Front, ending up by amazing coincidence outside The Sailor’s Arms just as the tap opened, and Baby Bouncer was due home from school. So they set the table, provided Aunty Jicksy with a bowl of soup and some of the remains of the bread that Lash had been eating, and politely waited for them.
Great-Nunky Ben was home first. “Soup?” he discovered in great disappointment.
“Full of vegetables, too!” said Mouse with a giggle.
“Get along with you! She’s pulling your leg, Nunky Ben,” explained Julia tolerantly. “’Tisn’t just soup.”
His little bloodshot blue eyes lit up. “Ooh! Meat an’ tater pie?”
“Not today; individual chicken pies. They’re keeping warm in the oven.”
Laboriously he bent to the oven. “Aah!” he reported as a delicious aroma pervaded the kitchen.
Mouse also came and peered. “Dainty,” she approved. “May I pass on congratulations, Ma, on behalf of Mrs Mountjoy, Lady Cox, and the entire kit and caboodle of ’em?”
“Thanks. I think,” said Julia drily. “You can have two if there’s enough, Nunky,” she said to the old man’s inquiry.
He bent again. “One, two, three…”
“Baby Bouncer might have Micky Trickett in tow,” warned Lash.
“Yes, I counted him,” agreed Julia mildly.
“Oh, good,” she said placidly.
“But if ’e don’t come, can I ’ave ’is pie?” demanded old Mr Huggins.
“Not as well as the spare one,” replied Julia calmly.
Laboriously he bent once more. “One, two, three…”
Mrs Peters sniffed. “Well, it’s keeping ’im limber—sort of,” she remarked to the ambient air. “’Ere, doesn’t that Micky Trickett ’ave a home to go to?”
This was aimed at Lash, as the other members of the family were aware. Mouse and Julia eyed her uneasily.
“You know he does, Aunty,” she said calmly, “but it’s only got that silly Betty Kettle in it: Mr Trickett is out at his work.”
“Right, what earns ’im enough so’s ’e could afford better than Betty Kettle: so why don’t ’e?” she retorted smartly.
“I don’t think he cares what he eats or what state the house is in, really,” said Lash placidly. “The poor man is not yet over the shock of his wife’s death, I think.”
“Rats, it were six year agone—more!” snapped the old lady.
“I know, Aunty, but I don’t think it works like that, does it?” said Lash in a vague voice.
Mrs Peters took a deep breath. “Lash, he’d ’ave yer tomorrow!”
“Maybe he would, but I don’t want him,” replied Lash with her usual placidity.
“He’s a fine upstanding figure of a man: what’s wrong with him?” she demanded aggrievedly.
“Nothing, except that he is still in love with his late wife, and except that I am not in love with him,” replied Lash without heat.
“You weren’t in love with old Yates, neither, and you took ’im!” she snapped.
“I didn’t have any money and I needed to marry a man who could afford to bring up Missy decently. Millicent, I mean,” Lash corrected herself.
“And look ’ow that turned out!”
“I agree, and I think that proves my point. Though many people would say it turned out very well: Millicent was able to go to a nice school, and she did catch Major Miller. Don’t be cross, Aunty Bouncer: I truly don’t want Mr Trickett, pleasant man though he is.”
“’E’s only a carpenter,” noted old Mr Huggins with a sniff.
“Jesus Christ was only a carpenter!” snapped the old lady.
“Yer got me there, Bouncer,” he returned with the utmost placidity, winking at Mouse and Lash. Alas, although Lash preserved her countenance, Mouse gulped, and went into an helpless paroxysm of giggles.
“Yes, hah, hah,” said Aunty Bouncer sourly. “All right, then, you don’t ’ave to marry ’im if you don’t want ’im, but does that mean his brat ’as to eat us out of house and home?”
“Apparently, yes,” said Julia soothingly, handing her a brimming glass. “There, Aunty, have a drop of port, and then we’ll have our soup, we won’t wait for the children. –Don’t panic,” she said drily to Nunky Ben, pouring one for him—though in view of the scent of beer coming off him, he probably did not need it.
The seniors had downed their port, old Mr Huggins pronouncing it to be not half a good drop, and were embarked on their soup—even the old man, as he was aware that in Julia’s house those who did not drink up their soup did not get pie—when Niners hurried in, complete with a lidded can, panting.
She was a handsome, dark-haired young woman, taller than her sister and aunt—indeed, considerably taller than the short Mouse—with a well developed figure that could have been as attractive as her mother’s had been in her youth, but was not allowed to be. At the moment it was tightly corseted and shrouded in an unattractive dark brown garment under a shapeless dark brown pelisse. Brown was not Niners’s colour. The bonnet was a slightly bent straw with a dark brown ribbon. Niners, who was about as religious as the rest of the Formbys, did not support the view that dress was frivolous: rather, she shared Captain Cutlass’s view that it was a necessary evil.
“How is Miss Henderson?” asked Julia resignedly, filling the can with soup.
“Very well, thank you, Ma,” replied her daughter politely. “She sends her compliments.”
“Good,” said Julia dully. “Have you done anything different today?”
Niners thought it over. “I would not say different, precisely,” she pronounced judiciously. “We washed the china ornaments in the dining-room, and she told me something of their history, and how to tell a good piece of Dresden—that is a German china,” she informed the family kindly, “and what constitutes hard paste Worcester.”
“Don’t ask!” Mouse adjured the family wildly.
“No,” agreed Julia heavily. “Niners, my angel, what possible good can it do you to know all this rubbish?”
“It’s interesting of itself, Ma,” explained Niners kindly.
“Then by all means look at it and enjoy it!” replied Julia on a desperate note.
“I prefer to be informed,” said Niners calmly. “Thank you, Ma. It smells delicious.” She put the lid carefully on the can. “I’ll see you all this evening. ’Bye.”
“Ta-ta, lovey,” agreed Great-Nunky Ben happily, sublimely unaware of anything in the atmosphere.
“Right, ta-ta. Give Miss Aitch me best,” grunted Aunty Bouncer sardonically as the door closed.
“That girl is getting worse!” said Julia wildly, collapsing all of a heap.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Mouse dispassionately. “Would you, Aunty Lash?”
“I don’t see that she was bad in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know the facts of a case, surely?”
“Lash, she doesn’t even appear to love the china!” cried Julia.
“I think she does. That is Niners’s way of loving it,” said Lash calmly. “Oh, there you are, Baby Bouncer,” she said as two small, scruffy boys burst in. “You’re late.”
“We ain’t!” retorted her son loudly. “And don’t call me that, it’s stupid and brattish!”
“Dad says you might call him Young Bouncer,” offered the skinnier boy.
“I know,” said Lash, smiling her lovely smile at him. “But I can’t seem to remember, somehow.”
“You don’t make an effort,” said Baby Bouncer sourly.
“Dad says there’s nothing wrong with ‘Ned Yates’, neither,” offered Micky Trickett.
“No, except that when I was first married—that was to Mr Diver,” she explained, “I had a little donkey called Neddy, and it somehow doesn’t seem right to call a boy that.”
“Ned ain’t the same as Neddy,” replied the percipient Master Trickett.
“No, that’s true. Would you prefer that?” said Lash obligingly to her offspring.
“Yes,” he replied tersely. “And you better, see, ’cos if you don’t, I won’t answer, no matter what you say to me!”
“Oy!” said old Mrs Peters sharply. “Don’t you talk to your ma like that, Mister!”
“Aunty Bouncer, other boys’ mas don’t call them stupid baby names,” replied Master Yates, sticking out his chin.
“That don’t justify giving your ma cheek,” she retorted sternly. “You say you’re sorry, and I’ll make ’er make an effort.”
“Promise?” demanded Master Yates suspiciously.
“Yes,” said the old lady simply.
“Right. I apologise for giving you cheek, Ma,” said Lash’s son.
“Thank you, Ba— Um, sorry, I’ve forgotten what you decided, again.”
“Ned,” said Mrs Peters calmly.
“Oh, yes. Thank you, Ned,” said Lash sadly.
“Go on, wash yer hands,” Mrs Peters ordered the two boys tolerantly.
The renamed Ned Yates headed slowly for the scullery but said hopefully to his aunt: “Please may Micky stay for dinner, Aunty Julia?”
“Yes, of course,” agreed Julia, just as if this didn’t happen every other day. “We’re having little pies after the soup, Micky: there’s one for you.”
“Tha-anks, Mrs Formby!” he breathed.
Suddenly they made a concerted dash for the scullery.
“Ned,” said Lash glumly to herself.
“Yes, and don’t you forget it!” ordered Aunty Bouncer sternly.
“Hard to, with you on the job, Aunty!” said Mouse with a sudden giggle.
“Aye!” agreed Great-Nunky Ben pleasedly.
“Though if anyone can, Lash’ll manage it,” finished Julia drily.
The family looked somewhat wryly at Lash, and nodded.
Lash Formby Yates, in the year of grace 1830, might have struck her nearest and dearest as impossibly vague, but was adjudged by the widowered Mr Trickett, over a pint after work with one, Jack Scrooby, a boon companion since their mutual youth, to be “As nice a lady as you’d ever ’ope to meet. Pretty, too. Full-figured,”—with a longing look in his eye. Mr Scrooby immediately translated this last into two words each of one syllable, and each containing the vowel “I”. With complete approval. Mr Trickett, though reproving him for using the expression of a lady, sighed, and admitted they were, indeed, two good handfuls. In addition to these undoubted attractions, Lash had a round, wide-mouthed face, wide eyes of a pale hazel shade which tended to a greenish-yellow, and a mound of unruly light brown, very curly hair, totally unsuited to the controlled ringlets, knots, Grecian or otherwise, and neat bands of the day. In view of her widowed state this crowning glory should perhaps have been hidden by a cap—such was certainly Mrs Mountjoy’s opinion—but it was doubtful if Lash Yates had a cap to her name. Mr Trickett, Mr Scrooby and their ilk saw nothing at which to complain in this oversight. Mr Trickett, indeed, went so far as to state, having downed another couple, “Skin like milk,” but at this poetic flight Mr Scrooby discerned he’d had enough, and led him home.
It was not perhaps surprising that these attributes had caught two husbands before Lash was turned thirty—but, as the late Lieutenant Diver had left her with not a penny to her name, perhaps not surprising, also, that the second man to have taken up the challenge of that figure and skin should have been seventy-two and no longer in need of a wife with a dowry. Possibly it was the first imprudent marriage with the impecunious, though very handsome, Mr Diver that had inclined Lash to look with favour on Mr Yates’ suit, or possibly it was merely, as she had just indicated, that she was sure he would be able to support Millicent decently. Niners Formby at one point had opined that had it been any other woman, Mr Diver would have turned out not to have been merely a line officer from a country solicitor’s family, who not only had very little but had not cared for their son to ally himself with the sister of a printer and bookbinder, but the scion of some wealthy house that would immediately have showered munificence upon the lonely widow and little girl, but had been shouted down by her relatives. How unfair! As if poor Lash willingly attracted bad luck! And she could scarcely be adjudged responsible for Waterloo!
Privately, however, Julia Formby had silently acknowledged to herself that Niners’s cold logic had something to it: Lash certainly did not seem to attract good luck! Why, there were they, comfortably believing everything was, if not perfect—forty-odd years between spouses could scarce be that—but at least safe and comfortable: and then old Mr Yates had to take it into his head that Baby Bouncer was not his and up and die, leaving every last groat to the children of his first marriage! Lash was left with only the jewellery he had given her in his most besotted phase and what little she had managed to save out of the housekeeping. Once the jewellery had been sold there was just enough to finish off Millicent’s education.
Julia, in spite of the dryness in which she indulged, was a generous and warm-hearted woman, and the household was comfortably off, so she did not begrudge her sister-in-law and her little boy a thing, and in fact had welcomed Lash most warmly under her roof. But she did now reflect, as Lash was seen to go into a dream rather than eat her chicken pie—what time Nunky Ben’s beady little eyes became fixed on it—that it was an awful pity that she didn’t seem to fancy any of the men who showed an interest in her. Well—you couldn’t count Bob Mountjoy, of course: he was only about twenty, though there was no denying he was one of her greatest admirers. But there was nothing wrong with Mr Trickett, and really, it would be a dreadful waste if Lash were to dwindle away into an aunt. For there was no denying it: Ma Mountjoy, horrid hag that she was, might claim that Lash Formby Yates was “blowsy,” but the Formbys had never met a man who objected to those plump looks, that mass of unruly hair, those big eyes or that milky skin! Of course she was not young, but she was still far prettier than Millicent had ever been, and in fact, thought Julia fair-mindedly, prettier than any of her own girls except Captain Cutlass.
“Oy!” shouted Mrs Peters suddenly and Julia jumped and gasped.
“What— Oh.” Nunky Ben’s hand was retreating from Lash’s plate and he was glaring at the old lady. “Lash, dear, eat your pie before it gets cold. I’ll get you another, Nunky Ben.”
“Mm? Oh. I was thinking,” said Lash vaguely. She smiled her lovely smile and began to eat her pie.
Thinking. Right. Heavily Julia got up and got Nunky Ben a second pie. Dreaming, more like! That was Lash all over!
Next chapter:
https://thefortunateformbys.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-visit-of-miss-victoria-formby.html
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