Holiday Vignettes

27

Holiday Vignettes

    “There,” said Mr Arthur Dearden impressively. “That is the Colosseum!”

    Well, yes. You would have had to be blind to miss it. In fact you would have had to be blind not to have spotted it long since.

    Henry and Pansy exchanged desperate glances. Lady Winnafree’s entrée at the British Embassy in Rome had somehow resulted in their being consigned to young Mr Arthur Dearden’s care for what was beginning to look horridly like the duration of the visit. He was threatening the Vatican, next.

    The Colosseum was duly explored and duly admired. The girls did their best to close their minds to Mr Arthur’s platitudes.

    “This is dreadful,” groaned Henry, collapsed onto the edge of Pansy’s bed that evening before dinner.

    “If you mean the feet, I would tend to agree.”

    “No: Mr Arthur Dearden,” she groaned.

    “Mm. I think you are relatively safe, however, Henry: Sir Chauncey tells me that Lady Dearden intends my fortune for him,” she noted drily.

    “Very like. But I do not see why I have to suffer in that cause!”

    Pansy giggled. “It is the penalty of near relationship, Henry!”

    “Mm. I have been driven to contemplate,” admitted Henry with a sigh, “lying to dear Sir Chauncey and Lady Winnafree about my state of health on the day he proposes foisting his views on the Vatican on us, and creeping out to visit it on my own, instead.”

    “Possibly we could both lie. We could have extreme stomach pains from something we had both eaten, until he has safely gone away again. Then we could both creep out.”

    “Mm, but is your Italian up to ordering up a hackney-carriage, telling the driver to go to Vatican Square, and then telling him to wait until we have seen Michelangelo’s masterpieces?”

    Pansy’s eyes twinkled. “No. ‘Al Vaticano’?”

    “Quite,” admitted Henry with a groan.

    “I tell you what. Henry, even Lady Winnafree’s principe would be preferable!”

    Henry went rather pink, but nodded. They had discovered Lady Winnafree had a principe, in Rome. Sir Chauncey did not seem to mind: he had confided to the girls that the Principe Gian-Carlo d’Urso was a dashed boring, scented fellow, but a fair shot, and as Portia liked him, he supposed he could put up with him, so long as no-one got him onto the subject of Roman antiquities. He meant, they had since discovered, the smaller items, in particular Roman glass, which the Principe collected, not the giant monuments of the great city; though no doubt he knew all about them, too.

    “I had best go and get changed,” said Henry with a sigh. “What would you bet that Lady Dearden places Mr Arthur between us this evening?”

    “Not a groat. It is a certainty.”

    “l would not mind so much, I think, if only he did not drop names all the time!” said Henry, getting up and thrusting a hand through her curls. “It is driving me demented!”

    “Henry!” squeaked Pansy. “Let’s do it, too!”

    “Um—well... Lord Blefford?” said Henry in a hollow voice.

    “Yes! And we may prose on of our friends Lady Jane and Lady Sarah as he does of his friend Lord Teddy Toffee-Nose!” she squeaked ecstatically.

    “Teddy Travers-Coote. I wish you had not said that,” admitted Henry, swallowing, “I’ll never be able to think of him any other way. Um—I suppose I could mention the Marquis and Marchioness of-Rockingham. They spoke to me kindly once.”

    “More than good enough! l wager he has never set foot on the Conte di Carva-Whatsit’s estate in his life, yet he claims to have shot a boar on it!”

    “No, no, that was on the estate of a von und zu Hohern-Huppen-Holtzen-und-So-Forth. Though the point is well taken. –I can think of a bore that could do with shooting,” she muttered, as Pansy collapsed in giggles.

    “Yes!” she gasped. “Oh, do say you will, Henry!”

    “I’ll try. But though my brain can easily conceive of such schemes, my tongue does not always find it easy to utter ’em, in company,” admitted Henry with a grin.

    “Mr Arthur’s example will inspire you, mark my words!”

    Henry nodded, and exited, sniggering.

    ... “When my friend Lord Teddy Travers-Coote and I were in Scotland—after the grouse, y’know—with Lord Ivo and—”

    Henry took a grim breath and let him get through it. “Really? You know, that reminds me of the time my friend Lady Jane Carey—she was Lady Jane Claveringham, of course, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Hubbel—of the time she and I went out with the guns at Wensley Marten. Quite a pleasant little shooting-box—” She carried on at length, firmly avoiding the view past the open-mouthed Mr Arthur of Pansy’s shaking shoulders.

    “Indeed, Miss Parker? How very interesting. They say Wensley Marten is a most attractive place: the house is small, but I think said to be from the hand of Robert Adam himself?”

    Pansy’s jaw sagged in horror but at Mr Arthur’s left Henry replied without a flicker: “No; though that is, I think, a rumour that the Claveringhams encourage. Actually it is much later, by one of his many imitators. But quite pleasant, yes.”

    Pansy took a deep breath. “The simplicity of the Classical style has great appeal, as of course you will agree, Mr Arthur. But there is also much pleasure to be gained from our more native English styles, which appeal by virtue of their intricacy and elaboration, I think. Now, take the famous gilded Elizabethan ceiling of Blefford Park chapel.”—Henry gulped, but Pansy was now well away, and barely noticed.—“You know it, of course, Mr Arthur?”

    Um, well, he had not actually seen— But of course he had heard of it!

    “Henry knows it rather better than I, for of course her sister, Lady Harpingdon, will be the next Countess of Blefford,” said Pansy carelessly, helping herself to a dish of chicken livers in a brandied sauce.

    ... “Chicken livers ‘much like a dish the Blefford Park chef makes’?” croaked Henry much later that night, in the privacy of her bedchamber.

    Pansy retorted swiftly: “Wensley Marten is by one of Robert Adam’s imitators? Henry, have you ever laid eyes on the place in your life?”

    “No,” she said simply.

    Pansy collapsed in giggles.

    Henry promptly joined her but admitted when they had recovered: “I wish you had not let it out about Alfreda. He will be even more unbearable.”

    “He will toad-eat you, you mean,” she translated easily. “I was carried away, I fear.”

    “Yes, so was I. But I don’t think it worked: he seems as keen as ever on the visit to the Vatican,” sighed Henry.

    “In that case that brandied sauce is most definitely going to disagree with us!”

    Henry smiled, but admitted: “I could not be that deceitful with our kind host and hostess. Um—I think we had better admit to Lady Winnafree we cannot abide him, Pansy.”

    Pansy grimaced, but agreed.

    “Ah! Letters!” cried Lady Winnafree.

    There were quite a bundle of them: they had been forwarded to the Rome Embassy while the party had been pottering through southern France, jaunting over to Corsica and sailing over to the Italian coast.

    ... “Well, my dear?” she said with a smile as Henry laid down the first of hers.

    Henry replied stiffly: “It is from Mamma. I had thought that they intentioned staying quietly at Lower Beighnham this summer.”

    Portia was of course not very well acquaint with Mrs Parker; but acquaint enough merely to murmur: “Oh?”

    Henry frowned. “This is from Guillyford Place. She and Dimity are to spend a month or two there, and then go on to visit with Alfreda and Christian at Harpingdon Manor. Well, I suppose that is not entirely out of their way, it is on the Channel coast, on the border of Cornwall and Devon. They may then cross Devon and return home.”

    Lady Winnafree nodded.

    “If anything, I had thought she might go to Oxford, to help Theo get his house in order!” said Henry on a cross note.

    Although Oxford was, of course, a considerable distance from Harpingdon Manor, Lady Winnafree did not consider that an impossibility, either. She just nodded.

    “I suppose,” said Henry, going very red, “I had best make a clean breast of it, dear Lady Winnafree. But please forgive me if I do not give you the actual letter. It appears Lady Tarlington has a considerable house party for the summer, and—and your husband’s nephew Mr John Winnafree is there, and—um—Mamma seems to think he admires Dimity!” she ended in a gulp.

    “That is excellent news, my dear,” she said calmly, “and, indeed. we had suspicioned as much from something dear John wrote us.”

    “Oh,” said Henry limply. “So—so you aren’t cross?”

    “Of course not: I am pleased, and so will Chauncey be. Well, I will not scruple to say to you, Henry, that John is a very serious-minded man, while your pretty cousin is naught but an empty-headed Miss—no?” She put her head on one side, smiling at her.

    “Yes,” said Henry limply,

    “But on the other hand,” added Portia with a twinkle: “John has no sense of humour whatsoever; and, while his intellect tells him that the education of women is a most desirable thing, his feelings tell him otherwise!”

    Henry gave in and laughed weakly.

    “And who else is of the party?” she asked calmly.

    “Oh—quite a crowd. Lord Rupert Narrowmine, of course. Mamma reports that Lady Tarlington confidently expects an offer before the summer is out.”

    “That’s good news, my dear.”

    “Yes. I think Fliss and he will suit. And Theo seems to be there, I cannot imagine why! Though Mamma writes he will not stay long.”

    “Are any of the Claveringhams present?” asked Portia.

    “Um—no,” admitted Henry, biting her lip.

    “Then no doubt he will not stay long, no.”

    “No.” Henry clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Mr Tarlington is there, but he appears to have told his mamma he will accompany Theo back to Oxford and then go on to his own house.”

    Lady Winnafree just nodded.

    Henry was very flushed. She opened her next letter quickly.

    Pansy had retired to the pretty little garden of the small villa—smallish—that Sir Chauncey had taken in Rome, to read her letters in private. The first was from Delphie. That news was not, after all, unexpected, and it would be fun to be an aunt: but there was a little note enclosed from Richard Amory which said that Pansy was not to worry, but Delphie was not keeping very well, and there was a possibility that she might lose the baby. Pansy stared blankly at the neat bushes and charming statuary, not seeing them. Well, there was nothing she could do, it would be foolish to attempt to dash home—and by the time she got there, it could well all be over. Eventually she took a deep breath and opened the next letter.

    Lady Jane wrote that all was well at Buena Vista, Leith’s garden was doing splendidly, and Little Grey was also doing splendidly and getting positively plump! This was what she had named the donkey, refusing to countenance such suggestions as “Neddy” from William Chubb, “Skinny Ribs” from the Commander, whose shoulder had been nagging him that day, “Brazen Lungs,” also from the Commander, for obvious reasons, “Robin”—Mary Potter’s suggestion, none knew why, or, most facetious of all, “Robin Hood,” the Commander’s latest proposal, after hearing Mary’s effort and recalling the donkeys in straw hats he had seen on his travels abroad. Pansy smiled: they had seen just such little be-hatted donkeys themselves in the South of France, and in Rome the hackney-carriage horses as often as not wore hats!

    There was a note enclosed from the Commander: Pansy went very pale and opened it with shaking fingers: but it was all right, he assured her that Lady Jane was very well indeed, and gave a detailed account of the state and doings of Finisterre: he had taken Jane to Boulogne and they had spent two days in France—and a long description of a volume of voyages he had just read.

    Pansy stared into space. Well, he was truly happy, that was what counted. And if his own voyages were henceforward to be confined to short trips across the Channel or merely vicarious adventures from his armchair—well, after all, did it matter? It was what he wanted. And clearly he was looking forward so much to the baby... He would make a wonderful father, discovered Miss Ogilvie. Why, yes! Why had she never seen it before? Commander Carey with a little brood of sturdy, rosy-cheeked children at his knee, and Lady Jane in a lace cap and pretty apron at his side—and Little Grey and his little blue cart in the background! Pansy smiled at the neat bushes and charming statuary of the villa’s garden.

    “What? Well, damn the fellow!” said a cross voice. “I should never have come away!”

    Pansy jumped: the voice had come from beyond the clipped hedge which sheltered the lower section of the garden. It was James’s voice: she hesitated. But he had sounded very bitter as well as very cross and, Pansy thought, considerably upset: she rose and went forward rather uncertainly.

    James was sitting on a stone bench beside a little pool, a bundle of letters beside him. He had crumpled up one letter in his fist.

    “Sir, is—is anything wrong?” she said shyly. “I don’t wish to intrude, but I—I heard you just then.”

    “Er—no,” he said, getting up hurriedly. “It is nothing, Miss Ogilvie. Just that—um—mv brother promised he would be at home this summer, looking after my—” He gulped. “My house.” he said, swallowing, “and now I find that he has gone off to—um—gone off to friends.”

    “Oh, dear, that’s no good,” said Pansy sympathetically. “Does he intend to be away long?”

    James sighed. “I suppose he will stay away as long as the girl in whom he is interested is also at—at these friends’ house. There is nothing particularly urgent to be done at home, I admit. I suppose I should not blame him, he is a very reliable fellow in general, and—well, I think I have got into the habit of relying on his—his steadfastness and—and solid sense,” he said, biting his lip a little, “and have taken him too much for granted.”

    “I see. It is easy to do.”

    “Yes. Well, never mind all that!” he said with a smile. “I trust your news from home is all pleasant, Miss Ogilvie?”

    “Um—mainly. Um, my sister is expecting a baby, but Richard writes she is not very well and may lose it!” she burst out.

    “I’m very sorry to hear that. It must be worrying for you.”

    Pansy nodded. “Mm. But if I go home, it—it might be for nothing.”

    “Yes. If there is a risk of losing the baby, it is usually in these early months. By the time you got back she would either be carrying it safely or would have lost it,” he said sympathetically.

    “Yes,” agreed Pansy, looking at him in some surprise.

    “Men are also a part of the human race,” he murmured.

    “Um—yes!” she gasped. “Um—Commander Carey and Lady Jane have also written to me. Her baby is due this autumn. She is very well, thank goodness. I—I think he is looking forward to it fully as much as she.”

    “Why, yes. There are men, of course, who take no interest in their offspring,” he said gently, “but it is a natural human instinct, after all, to wish for one’s own children and to love them when they come.”

    “Yes. Um—I must not interrupt you further,” said Pansy, looking at his great pile of letters. “But I was just wondering if you would know where one might buy a straw hat?”

    “I think you had best ask Lady Winnafree that!” he said with a smile.

    “No, not for me,” she said, swallowing. “You will think this is absurd, and—and it is. But, um, a hat for a donkey. Like the hackney-carriage horses wear!” she said quickly.

    “Whose donkey, Miss Ogilvie?” asked James, his dark, gypsy face crinkling into a smile.

    Pansy swallowed. “Lady Jane Carey’s. She has called him Little Grey. Their maid suggested he should be called ‘Robin’ and the Commander said it should rather be ‘Robin Hood,’ because—um—”

    “I see!” he said, laughing. “I’ll find out where the straw hats come from, Miss Ogilvie, never fret! Now, I have observed two styles, in Rome,” he said, primming up his mouth. The blue eyes twinkled at her.

    “Two?” said Pansy feebly.

    “Mm. There is the simple cone, in the which case they generally have scoops cut out of the lower portion to fit the ears. Or the brimmed sort, in the which case the usual fashion is to cut slits in the brim to let ’em poke through.”

    Pansy laughed very much. “The cone, for it is more like a hood!” she squeaked.

    “Aye, that would be my choice, too. Leave it to me.”

    “Thank you very much!” she beamed.

    James wanted to say would she then require him to beg Sir Chauncey to get the Ambassador to put the donkey’s hat in the next diplomatic bag, but bit his tongue. He smiled at her and sat down again.

    Pansy returned to her own letters, her cheeks very pink and her eyes very shiny.

    “Good morning, Miss Ogilvie,” said Lord Lavery in some surprise, coming into the breakfast parlour at his uncle’s villa to find her occupying it in solitary splendour. “You are up betimes.”

    “Good morning. I intend seeing the Appian Way and the Tomb of Cecilia Metella this morning,” said Pansy in a very firm voice.

    “I see. We may expect the Barone dalle Nogare at any moment, then, may we?”

    Pansy swallowed. The barone was Lady Winnafree’s replacement for the inane but pretty Mr Dearden. She had, unsurprisingly, expressed sorrow that the girls did not find that the latter’s prettiness made up for his inanity. “No.”

    James wandered over to the sideboard and lifted the covers of the hot dishes there. “Ugh, in this climate? –Mr Dearden, then, Miss Ogilvie?”

    “No. –If you wish for some of that hot food, sir, pray help yourself. I do not intend touching it. The cook seems to have got hold of the idea that he must serve up hot dishes for breakfast, merely because Sir Chauncey one morning desired ham and eggs.”

    James put the covers back on the dishes. “No, I thank you. I shall join you in rolls and coffee. And are those fresh figs? Wonderful!” He sat down at the table, poured himself coffee and took a roll and a fig. “You will not go by yourself,” he said mildly.

    Pansy went very red. “All I need do, surely, is call for a carriage and tell the driver ‘Via Appia.’”

    “I grant you that that would probably get you there. Once you had seen it—it is not short, by the by, so you would probably need the Italian for ‘Stop’—once you had seen it, saying ‘Alla casa’ would probably get you home safe again, too.”

    Pansy glared at him.

    James said calmly: “I recognise that it is quite unfair that because you are a young woman of genteel birth you may not do this, whereas no-one would think anything of it if you were a young man of the same age.”

    “Exactly! And if you can see that—”

    “I can also see that the proprieties demand you do not do it. And although Rome is a civilized city, there is just the chance that you might happen across the one rascally driver who would hold you to ransom, or worse.”

    “Come to that, he might hold a young man to ransom!”

    “Yes.”

    Pansy glared, baffled. “I suppose you mean to report me to Sir Chauncey?’

    “No: a much worse fate will be yours: I mean to escort you myself.°

    “There is no need,” she said stiffly. “And what if Sir Chauncey needs you?’

    “I shall leave a message,” he said calmly. “And if you do not wish for my company, I shall sit beside the driver.”

    Pansy turned scarlet.

    “Well?” said James mildly, eating his fig.

    “Of course I— Of course you must not— What I mean is,” she gulped, “if you would prefer not to sit with me, sir, please do not feel yourself obliged to!”

    He lifted his coffee cup, and sipped slowly. “There is no place like Italy, for coffee.” he murmured. “I shall speak plain, Miss Ogilvie. I do not wish to sit with a cross, contumacious little girl: no.”

    Pansy turned scarlet all over again.

    “But l would very much like a pleasant drive through a part of Rome which I find very interesting with a pleasant, intelligent young woman for my companion.”

    She swallowed hard.

    James just waited.

    Finally she said with tears in her eyes: “I’m very sorry. I’m afraid I—I have treated you rudely and unkindly. And—and truly Henry and I appreciate the fact that you are with us, sir. We can see that you do a lot to—to keep us all safe and comfortable and to see that Sir Chauncey does not overexert himself.”

    “Thank you, Miss Ogilvie, that is generous of you. And I in my turn must apologize for my continual needling of you. The thing is, one meets so few people with any sort of a mind at ail, that when one finds, shall we say, a foe worthy of one’s steel, one tends to give in to the temptation continually to test the blades.”

    “Yes,” said Pansy uncertainly. “I do understand that.”

    “Mm. I suppose I have not been according you nearly the same measure of mercy I would a stupid girl.”

    “Would you?” she said doubtfully.

    “Yes; I do not enjoy the pastime of shooting fish in a barrel.”

    “No,” said Pansy in a small voice. “Um—it’s only...”

    “Yes?” said James eagerly.

    “Um, only that it can be quite tiring. I mean, not the—the content of your discourse, sir, the manner. –I hope that is not rude!” she gasped, reddening once more.

    James got up, smiling. “No, it is not rude at all. I see what you mean, and I can only repeat my apologies. I think you have finished your breakfast: shall we go?”

    “Yes: thank vou. I must just run upstairs and get my bonnet.”

   James bowed and opened the door for her.

    Pansy hesitated. She looked up at him shyly. “l should prefer you to sit with me, if you could bear it.”

    “Thank you, I should like that very much,” he said, bowing again. She gave him a tremulous smile and hurried out.

    Behind her back James raised his eyebrows very high and pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. But to say truth, his legs felt so weak that he was tempted to totter back into the breakfast room and sink onto a chair.

    Pansy was rather quiet in the carriage. James was careful to refrain from any teasing remarks, hoping very much that he had not, after all, overstepped the mark. And not quite perceiving that she was now feeling very shy of him.

   … “So what did you think of the Appian Way?” he said with a smile as they headed back to the villa.

    Pansy hesitated. “To tell you the truth, sir, I found it quite... odd.”

    James had thought she might. His eves twinkled but he said mildly: “Why?”

    “Well, it’s—it’s so extraordinarily... banal,” said Pansy in a shaken voice. “I mean, in the middle of a setting heavy with the weight of history, there is that—that untidy clutter of people coming and going about their everyday business, with carts and waggons and carriages!”

    He laughed. “Yes, l do so agree! Both banal and incongruous!”

    She nodded. smiling.

    “All of Rome has always struck me very much like that, but l admit that the Via Appia seems somehow to—to crystallize the essence of the place’s extraordinary contradictions.”

    “Absolutely!” said Pansy with a deep sigh.

    “I imagine Greece must be very similar, but I have never got that far.”

    “But you know Italy quite well?”

    “Not really,” he said, smiling. “I have been here twice before: my brother and I took ourselves off to the Continent directly the war with Boney was ended: we had heard our—our uncles forever prosing on about the Grand Tour, you see, and could not wait to see the place for ourselves. In fact we were too precipitate, and found ourselves pinned in behind Boney’s lines when he made his escape from Elba!” he admitted with a laugh. “Then I came again with Sir Chauncey, much more comfortably. He and Lady Winnafree stayed in Rome but I was able to get out and see quite a bit of the countryside. That was great fun: different, you know. The people are very ignorant and very, very poor, but in general very generous indeed to a passing stranger. I did not travel like gentry-folk, Miss Ogilvie!” he added with a little laugh, “but had my bundle over my shoulder and a stout stick in my hand, and slept under the stars more nights than I stayed in the inns.”

    “That sounds wonderful,” said Pansy wistfully.

    “Yes, but not altogether safe. I was attacked by a fierce goat with huge horns—pray do not laugh, ma’am, I am sure you would not if it were a bull, and a goat may be just as fierce.”

    “Yes, I’m sure it may,” said Pansy, biting her lip. “I’m sorry, I won’t laugh. Please go on.”

    “I would not be here to tell the tale, only that I managed to get up a tree in time. Where I remained for some time, until the cursed brute’s owner came by! Later there was a frightening episode where I was accused of stealing olives by some peasant, and was thrown into a very horrid cell. I thought it was all up with me, for my Italian is of the rudimentary kind, and though I was up to saying ‘I did not steal any olives,’ l was not capable of making an impassioned speech in my own defence! But it turned out that the man’s main accusation was the fact that I was carrying what he perceived to be a net.”

    “A net?”

    “Yes: they spread large nets under the trees before beating ’em with sticks to bring the ripe olives raining down. But fortunately I was able to demonstrate to the authorities that it was not truly a net.”

    “What was it, then?”

    His eyes twinkled. “A hammock, Miss Ogilvie, from the yacht! The locals were entirely intrigued by it, and after my release I was led up to the olive groves to give the whole village a demonstration of the way in which it could be slung between two gnarled old trees. That seemed to be the excuse for a celebration, for they got out the wine—rough, frightful stuff in home-cured goatskins, tasting dreadfully of goat! And we passed the rest of the afternoon and the whole night in drinking and feasting and telling tales.” He sighed. “It was an experience I would not have missed, even though the local accent baffled me at times: some of the stories you would have sworn came straight out of the Decamerone of Boccaccio! –Oh, and I am very glad to say that the principal meat on the menu was goat!”

    Pansy collapsed in giggles.

    “I have eaten it ever since with a feeling of savage glee,” he admitted.

    “Yes!” she gasped.

    They returned home very pleased with each other and the morning’s drive.

    Pansy ran upstairs and James lounged into the little room that Sir Chauncey had made his study—though he did no studying in it.

    “You’ve told her?” said the old man after one glance at his nephew’s face.

    “Not nearly!” he replied with a laugh. “But I think she has truly begun to see me as a human being at last! –I apologized for the incessant needling of the poor little thing.”

    Sir Chauncey grunted. After a moment he said: “Well, so let us say she treats you as a human being for the rest of the trip.”

    “Yes, let us!” he said with a grin.

    “And then you tell her. She’ll like that.”

    He swallowed. “Well, by that time possibly she will—will be able to understand my reasons for deceiving her.”

    “Aye, and possibly she’ll be furious with you.”

    James retreated from his uncle’s study, looking considerably less pleased with things.

    It had been a little shock to the gentle Lady Harpingdon to discover that Dimity had apparently never before observed a gentleman reading his morning paper at his own breakfast table and that her reaction to Harpingdon’s doing so had been little short of unalloyed horror. The more so when Alfreda had endeavoured to represent to her young guest that it was only because her Uncle Simeon could not afford to have the London papers delivered to his remote country vicarage that he, too, did not indulge the habit. And surely she had seen Theo reading a paper in the morning? Dimity had done so, on occasion, but had apparently concluded that this was because Theo was in Holy Orders. Oh, dear.

    “Dimity, my dear,” she said a little later in the morning room, drawing a deep breath, “if you wish to—to improve your mind a little, I would be very happy to go over some of the pieces from the papers with you, in the mornings.”

    “Not at breakfast,” said Dimity, going very pink. “For I know that Cousin Christian must perceive me to be a totty-head, but I would rather not demonstrate it to him!”

    “No,” said Alfreda comfortingly, squeezing her hand. “After breakfast. In here.”

    “Mm,” she agreed, sniffing a little. “Thank you, Alfreda.”

    “And,” said Alfreda with another deep breath, “if you wish to make yourself into a suitable wife for Mr Winnafree—for I think we need not pretend it is not he who is concerned, between us two women—then perhaps we could also spend a little time with Cook, and doing the household accounts and some mending and hemming together, do not you?”

    Dimity was very flushed. “Ye-es... But I have a great deal of money, you know, Alfreda. I shall not need to do any of those things.”

    Alfreda squeezed her hand again. “But Mr Winnafree does not strike me as the sort of man who would care to live in fine style upon his wife’s fortune. I think,” she said with a little smile, “that he would insist, rather, on most of its being tied up in her children.”

    “Oh,” she said in a tiny voice.

    Alfreda looked at her sideways.

    “Yes,” she said in the tiny voice. After a moment she added firmly: “Girls as well as boys, for it is not fair that the eldest son inherits all. –I beg your pardon!” she gasped, suddenly turning puce and clapping her hand to her mouth.

    Alfreda laughed. “There is no need, Dimity, my love, for I entirely concur and so does Christian! But the Narrowmine property is entailed on the eldest son, you see.”

    “Yes. I know about entails, for Henry explained them to me when I said why could not the younger ones have Guillyford Place, since Cousin Aden prefers his own house.”

    “Did she, indeed?” said Alfreda in some surprise.

    “Mm.” Dimity looked gloomy. “Only that was before I made the mistake of telling her about stupid Fliss’s stupid letter.”

    Alfreda’s mouth opened silently for an instant.

    “I should have kept silent!” cried Dimity bitterly.

    Alfreda put an arm round her. “Dimity, if you have been blaming yourself all these months for the rift between Henry and Cousin Aden, you must cease it immediately. It was no one’s fault but Henry’s, and she has been very stubborn and silly.”

    “But she need never have known, Alfreda!”

    “I think she would inevitably have found out. Fliss is clearly incapable of keeping anything to herself.”

    “That’s true,” she said dubiously.

    “And in any case Henry’s motives are—are rather complex, my dear. Well, I do not pretend entirely to understand her, either. But we are talking of you, not Henry! Should you care for some quiet domestic time with me during your holiday?”

    “Yes. Thank you, Alfreda. Um—but Aunt Venetia will be taking me home very soon.”

    “I think you had best remain with us until the autumn, when Henry and Pansy are due back.”

    “Truly?” she cried, her face lighting up. “Oh, thank you, Alfreda! Lower Beighnham will be so deadly without you and Henry!”

    Alfreda hugged her consolingly, but had to repress a sigh. She and Christian had been looking forward to being alone with just the little girls for company. But dearest Christian would understand. And of course he had to be out and about the property: Dimity would be company for her during the day.

    “Only see!” said Lady Sarah Quayle-Sturt gaily. “A letter from dear Pansy! Is it not thrilling: from Florence!”

    “Thrilling, indeed!” agreed her rather new husband with a little laugh.

    Lady May Claveringham smiled nicely and nodded her curly head.

    Forthwith Lady Sarah read out Pansy’s letter. Miss Ogilvie, it appeared, greatly preferred Florence to Rome, in fact there was scarce any measuring the extent to which she preferred Florence to Rome. The city of Dante had inspired her to work very hard on her Italian—and, indeed, a page of Dante was appended. With a charming translation on which, it appeared, Miss Ogilvie and the Conte Pietro della Giovampaola had collaborated.

    Lady Sarah and Mr Harley Quayle-Sturt exchanged glances. “The man who was mentioned before was the Conte della Giovampaola; the Conte Pietro would be the son, I collect?” he said.

    “Yes,” she agreed. “Good gracious: Pansy and a conte?”

    “I suppose he is a man, like any other,” said Lady May with a frown.

    Lady Sarah gave her a troubled look. “That is true, of course. And he sounds a very pleasant, unassuming sort of person.”

    “Mm. Though by all accounts the Palazzo della Giovampaola in Rome and the mis-named hunting box at which they stopped off on the way north are far from unassuming!” said Harley with a chuckle.

    “Indeed!” agreed Lady Sarah, smiling.

    “Sarah,” said her sister abruptly.

    “Yes, May? What is it?”

    Mr Quayle-Sturt’s home was not so very, very far from Oxford. Lady May took a deep breath. “Do you suppose we might drive into Oxford to do a little shopping?”

    “May, it would mean staying overnight: you do not realise quite how far it is.”

    “Or you do not care,” noted Mr Quayle-Sturt.

    Mav went very red. “But you are so very well, Sarah!”

    “Nevertheless I would prefer her to remain quietly at home,” said Harley firmly.

    “Harley, my dear, May has not yet seen Dr Fairbrother’s house—”

    “No, my dear, not after those dreadful queasy fits you were having just days since.”

    “But Dr Marsh says that is only natural, in my state! I do not need to be wrapped in flannel and kept indoors!”

    Mr Quayle-Sturt sighed. “Sarah, I am not going to argue the point. I don’t wish to come the heavy husband, but ‘No’ means no. The road is not very good, it would mean a half-day’s jolting in the coach there and back.”

    “No, you mustn’t,” said Lady May hurriedly. “I’m sorry. Forget I suggested it.”

    Mr Quayle-Sturt sighed again. “May, my dear, I would take you into Oxford myself, but your visit with us was on the condition that we should not socialise with any of the Parkers while you are in our care.”

    Lady May burst into sobs and ran out of the room.

    The Quayle-Sturts looked at each other in dismay.

    “Hell,” said Harley numbly. “I did not think it had gone that far, with her.”

    Lady Sarah bit her lip. “I was afraid… May has never been one to display her true feelings openly, in spite of that sunny manner. I think possibly she has been secretly pinning her hopes for a long time on this visit, Harley.”

    He grimaced. “I see.”

    Alfreda’s letter reached her sister in Venice. “Good grief,” said Henry, laying it down. “Alfreda has always known what her duty was, but this is positively martyring herself to it!”

    “What?” returned Pansy blankly.

    “She is having Dimity to stay with her at Harpingdon Manor until we get home.”

    “Martyrdom, indeed!” Pansy had been peering from the window. She returned to this occupation.

    Henry read the rest of the letter rapidly. “No further news, really. She sends her best love, Pansy, and her deepest regrets at Delphie’s sad news.”

    Pansy sighed. “That is like her. Well, at least Delphie seems to be quite stout again, judging from Richard’s note. –Help, Henry! Here they are, and they have done as they threatened: the entire gondola is full of flowers!”

    Henry squeaked, and ran to the window.

    Sure enough, the canal on which their palazzo stood—it was not an huge palazzo, but nevertheless—featured two young gentlemen, at present with their hats doffed, a gondolier looking dissociated, as they generally did, however peculiar the conduct of their passengers, and a positive bed of bright blooms.

    “The imbeciles!” gasped Henry, laughing very much.

    Pansy also laughed, and waved hard, though as she was doing it behind the elaborate fretted grille which screened the window it was possible the gesture was not discernible from below.

    Below, the Conte Pietro snatched up a posy, and held it to his bosom with a passionate gesture; his friend, the young Barone Giulio di Montevecchio, picked up a mandolin and broke into melody.

    “Off—key!” choked Henry deliriously.

    “Frightful!” agreed Pansy. “Quick, come along to the little salon!”

    They ran along to the little upstairs salon which, unlike the secluded ladies’ quarters allotted them as bedrooms, featured a balcony the fretted shutters of which could actually be opened.

    “Buon giorno!” cried Pansy, throwing wide a shutter, and leaning out, laughing very much.

    Henry, also laughing very much, plucked a geranium bloom from the pots adorning the balcony and threw it down. “Una fiore per un momento di silenzio!” she cried.

   “Should it not be ‘contr’un momento’?” hissed Pansy.

    “Hush!” she choked. “Senza dubbio!”

    The Conte Pietro had caught the bright red geranium. He bowed very low to Henry, pressed it to his lips with a flourish, and fixed it in his buttonhole.

    “That one is yours, it appears!” hissed Pansy.

    “Ssh!”

    The Barone Giulio, evidently inspired by Henry’s gesture, momentarily ceased playing his mandolin to toss a rose into the balcony.

    “That one is yours, then,” concluded Henry drily, as her cousin gasped but automatically put her hands up to catch it.

    “Um—yes,” said Pansy, looking numbly at the bloom.

    The cousins’ eyes met. They collapsed in gales of giggles.

    Below in the gondola, the two young men, who were as serious about the summer’s double romance—fortunately—as the two young women, burst into over-passionate song, accompanied by the mandolin, very off-key.

    … “Her time,” said James with a scowl, picking at the elaborate gilded lip of a vase on the mantel, “is completely absorbed by those two young idiots.”

    “I TOLD you!” shouted his uncle. “And leave that damned thing alone: if you break it that damned Enrico Chiaccio-Visconti will make me pay for it!”

    James scowled, and shoved his hands into his breeches pockets. After a moment he said: “Is he a Visconti?”

    The Admiral snorted. “Is me boot a Visconti? No! Married a poor little umpteenth cousin what was, and took the name on the strength of it. –Some damned cit. Don’t think he’s any more right to call himself Barone than any other upstart what made a fortune out of the wars with Boney, neither.”

    James looked at his uncle dubiously and did not ask whether it were a Napoleonic title, then. “Uncle Chauncey, are you feeling the heat?”

    “No,” he said irritably.

    James took a deep breath. “I think we had best go home by sea. Never mind if my aunt has conceived of a desire to show the girls Siena and Pisa, they can do without ’em. And what is more, I think we should leave without delay.”

    “You won’t shake off those two imbeciles that way,” he warned sourly.

    James sighed. “Oddly enough, I did not have them in mind at this precise moment, sir. And don’t argue: Venice at this time of year is incredibly stuffy. I don’t think Portia is enjoying it much more than you are. I’ll tell Captain Jenkins to have Mirabelle ready for us in two days’ time.”

    Sir Chauncey merely grunted.

    James strode out, looking determined.

    “Damned fool,” muttered the old man.

    “That,” said Alec Ramsay informatively, with a wave of the hand, “is the Grand Canal.”

    Henry had not hesitated to regale the gallant soldier with the story of Mr Arthur Reardon’s inanity: she collapsed in giggles. They were standing right beside the canal. And had besides been in Venice for over a week, now.

    Grinning, General Ramsay led her gently over to a little café, settled her under a bright canopy, and ordered refreshments for them both. “Are you sorry to be leaving?” he murmured.

    “Well, it is so very beautiful that of course I am sorry. But the heavy heat has been so unpleasant, these last few days: I am glad for Sir Chauncey’s sake that we are leaving. And of course I am looking forward to seeing my family again.”

    He nodded. “Mm.”

    Henry toyed with a little cake. The handsome soldier watched her out of the corner of his eye. “Sir,” she said at last, “you told me once about the battle of Talavera.”

    “Mm.”

    “Um—my cousin, Mr Tarlington,” said Henry, swallowing hard, “once mentioned he was there. I wonder if you know him, General Ramsay?”

    Alec Ramsay was of course something like three times Henrietta’s age. By now he no longer bothered to deny to himself that he had fallen in love with her. He had not let himself hope: it would not have been fair to the girl. And he did not desire a marriage like that of Admiral Sir Chauncey and Portia Winnafree. Added to which, he was pretty well aware, by this time, that there must be someone else. He experienced a wave of despair. But he said evenly: “I know an Aden Tarlington, certainly: Major Tarlington.”

    “Yes, that is he: only he does not use the military title, he said he had not had it long enough and had not distinguished himself sufficiently whilst bearing it to justify his continuing to use it, once he had sold out. But also, l think he is perhaps the sort of person who, once he has decided upon a—a drastic course of action, prefers the past to remain in the past.”

    “Mm, likes things cut and dried. Yes, Aden was always like that. I had not realized he was your relation, Miss Parker.”

    “Um, well, we are only distant cousins,” said Henry, going very pink, “and—and of course we never knew them, really, until Lady Tarlington launched Dimity and myself.”

    General Ramsay looked at the flushed face and tried to ignore the fact that he felt as if something deep inside him was dying. He began to draw her out gently about Aden Tarlington, and allowed her, in turn, to draw him out. Well, Aden was a thoroughly good fellow, excellent with officers and men: he deserved her, if any man did. But frankly, Alec Ramsay would rather have been left labouring under the comforting delusion that if it were not for the gap between their two ages, he might— and she might— And where the idea of the someone else was nothing but a vague cloud on the horizon, easily ignored. No fool like an old fool, eh? thought the dashing Scotsman bitterly.

    “My Heavens, this is from Nice!” cried Mrs Parker, waving the letter wildly. “They will be home in no time!”

    “They are probably home now, if by home you mean England,” murmured her husband. “Unless that letter came by fast courier all the way from Nice to Lower Beighnham?”

    Ignoring this, Mrs Parker cried: “You must send a message to Christian immediately, Simeon!”

    “My dear Venetia, I imagine Sir Chauncey Winnafree is more than capable of doing that from Portsmouth, if he so wishes. Or, indeed, of getting himself and his party into a coach and down to Harpingdon Manor.”

    Ignoring this, Mrs Parker cried: “You must order up the carriage immediately, Simeon!”

    The Vicar acknowledged with a twinkle: “I have already done so.”

    “Oh! Simeon, you are too provoking!” she said with a laugh. “And you will accompany me?”

    “Well, yes. I think we had best all go.”

    “Of course we must all go!” she cried, bounding up and ringing the bell violently.

    The Reverend Simeon had thought she would instantly become too preoccupied with getting the younger ones ready for the journey to revert to what had become, sadly, an incessant, though hardly a favourite, topic during the latter part of the summer. But no: “I wonder if Henry wrote to advise dear Aden of their return?” she murmured.

    Mr Parker gave her an annoyed look and said nothing: he was, after all, a mere man, not a saint.

    Mrs Parker sighed heavily. “I suppose not... But then, he may have written to her!”

    “Ludo has already told us he is sure he has not,” said Mr Parker between his teeth. “And this subject, must I remind you, Venetia, has become very tedious.”

    Mrs Parker frowned crossly, but replied: “Well, it cannot signify, for we are already in the autumn, and this Christmas we shall of course be at Chipping Abbas again!”

    “Rubbish, he has not asked us.”

    She looked lofty. “He will.”

    “He will NOT, and do not dare to hint!” he cried, at the end of his tether.

    Mrs Parker tossed her head and went out, managing to look both defiant and airy.

    The Vicar groaned, and passed a hand across his forehead. Of course he was greatly looking forward to seeing his second daughter again. But if Venetia intended nagging Henry unceasingly on the topic of Aden for the foreseeable future, and if Henry continued obdurate... Well, he could almost wish Lady Winnafree had kept the girls abroad for the rest of the year!

Next chapter:

https://theogilvieconnection.blogspot.com/2022/08/miss-blakes-news.html