James Lacks Sense

26

James Lacks Sense

    “Oh, it’s you,” grunted Sir Chauncey as his eldest nephew and head of his house lounged up to him on the quay at Nice with a lazy grin.

    “As you see, sir,” agreed James, bowing.

    “What the Devil does the fellow think he’s up to?” grumbled the Admiral to his wife. “And what in the Lord’s name does he imagine he’s got up as?”

    James was in shirtsleeves and tattered breeches, with a casually knotted kerchief at his neck and, horrid to relate, nothing at all on his feet. The young ladies looked weakly from him to Sir Chauncey.

    “My dear, as he brought the yacht round for you, l think his dress may be excused,” said Portia brightly. She endeavoured to give her husband a warning look which the girls should not perceive and wonder at, and which naughty James should not perceive and laugh at. It was half successful: James grinned but the girls appeared unaware of anything odd in the air.

    The Admiral snorted but said to the girls: “Aye, well, he seems to have got her here without a scratch, at the least. May l welcome you aboard, me dears?”

    “Indeed you may, sir, and she is a perfectly splendid sight!” cried Pansy, her cheeks a-glow.

    “She’s lovely, sir!” agreed Henry, smiling at him.

    Highly gratified, the Admiral bowed the ladies on board the yacht.

    Her name was not, as Pansy and Henry had at first assumed, Portia, but Mirabelle. This did, indeed, relate to a certain lady, but her Ladyship confided to the girls with a laugh that one would be a great gaby to marry a man of twice one’s age and expect him instantly to forget everything that had happened in his past! Mirabelle Coulton-Whassett had been a great belle in her day, which had been somewhat before Emma Hamilton’s day. She had had an uncle and a brother in the Senior Service, and all the Naval men had been crazy for her. But she had preferred to throw herself away on some little provincial nobody. Her Papa had not been at all pleased but as the nobody had not demanded a dowry, had given in. Portia could not remember whether it was the father or the brother who was the Coulton-Whassett who had landed in the River Tick, but Chauncey would know. Had Henry met a Sir Edward Jubb in town? The nabob. Henry did not think so. Well, no matter; he had bought Lord Coulton-Whassett’s house in Green Street and the entire picture collection, including a very lovely Gainsborough of Mirabelle Coulton-Whassett. The girls had nodded obediently, smiling, and waited, but that was apparently the end of the anecdote. Both Lady Winnafree and Sir Chauncey were full of such revelations. Detailed but inconsequential, Henry and Pansy had decided, was the only way to describe them.

    Lady Winnafree elected to retire to her cabin immediately, for the last stage of the journey to Nice had been a hot and dusty one, but as the old man was evidently burning to show them the finer points of his vessel, and Pansy was evidently burning to be shown them, Henry, smiling, allowed herself to be led on a tour of the ship. Gradually the two sailors forged ahead. After a little she became aware that the sardonic James, the courier, was lounging at her side.

    She smiled shyly at him and said: “So you went all the way back to England to fetch the yacht?”

    “Yes.”

    Henry could not think how to address the man: “James” as his master and mistress did, seemed a trifle impertinent, for he was not a boy but a man most probably between thirty and forty. And more, after all, than a simple footman. But she did not think she had ever heard his surname. She hesitated, and then said: “I trust the Bay of Biscay did not live up to its reputation?”

    “Well, it weren’t too bad, Miss Parker,” he said, straight-faced. “Fortunately I’m as good a sailor as the Admiral. When it comes to sea legs, at least,” he added in a drawl, glancing sardonically at where Sir Chauncey, having taken up a very seamanlike stance in the bows, was now gesturing fiercely at the front of the boat and discussing something with Pansy in what might as well have been Greek.

    “That’s good,” replied Henry lamely “Um, I’ve forgotten what that prong’s called,” she admitted in a crestfallen voice. “We live inland. you see.”

    Shoulders shaking slightly, James returned: “l think you mean the bowsprit, Miss Parker.”

    “Oh, yes. What a fool,” said Henry limply.

    “Never let the old man hear you call it a prong!” he hissed, shaking still.

    “No!” she gulped.

    “I live by the sea, myself, but that don’t mean me conversation’s very naval, ma’am,” he drawled.

    “No,” said Henry with a feeble smile.

    “When her La’ship first met the Admiral,” he said in a reminiscent tone, coming up rather close to her elbow in what Henry felt weakly she ought to perceive as an impertinent fashion, “she would refer to the masts as ‘those sticks’.”

    Henry choked. “That’s apocryphal!” she gasped.

    “No. True as I stand here,” he drawled.

    She swallowed hard.

    “Aye: an awe-inspiring thought, ain’t it?” he murmured.

    “Wuh-well, yes,” she said feebly.

    James looked idly up at the mainmast. “Are you not going to tell me not to speak so impertinent of my betters, Miss Parker?”

    Henry took a deep breath. “No. You expressed my precise thought: it would be intensely hypocritical of me to do so. What I am going to ask you is whether the Admiral’s parrot be on board?”

    “Captain Canada?” he said with a laugh. “Out o’ course he be aboard, ma’am! Why, us wouldn’t set to sea without Cap’n Canada, for good luck!”

    Henry laughed a little, but looked at him eagerly.

    “He’s in the wheelhouse, Miss Parker,” said James with a genuine smile, taking her elbow gently. “Please step this way, and you shall see him immediately.”

    “Thank you,” said Henry with gratitude as he guided her along the deck. “l must say, yachts seem to have a lot of ropes and, um, stanchions and such, don’t they?”

    “Far too many, one feels,” James agreed gravely. He showed her into the little wheelhouse with a smile in his bright blue eyes. “Here he is. Salut, Capitaine Canada!”

    “Salut, Capitaine Canada!” croaked the great blue and yellow parrot, jigging on his perch. “Here’s James! Here’s James! Hullo, Cap’n Canada! Salut, Capitaine Canada!”

    “Oh!” cried Henry in delight. “Is he not wonderful!” She approached the parrot cautiously. He was chained on his perch, but not caged.

    “Don’t put your fingers near his beak,” murmured James.

    “l am not so stupid. Was it you who taught him to talk?”

    “Largely, yes. Well, he had a certain vocabulary but—er—it was not that it was not fit for genteel ears, ma’am, it was dashed scientific!” he admitted, laughing. “Yes, salut, Capitaine Canada!” he agreed, as the bird, jigging, repeated his succession of phrases.

    “Scientific? Oh, of course: Dr Fairbrother. What on earth did he teach him?” asked Henry—not taking her eyes off the bird, however.

    Smiling, James said: “I don’t know that I dare to say it, in case I set him off! No. well, he had him reciting Pythagoras’s theorem!”

    “Truly? That must be quite long, he must be a very clever bird.”

    “Some parrots attain amazing vocabularies, or so Dr Fairbrother claims.”

    Henry nodded seriously. “I wish I might feed him,” she said wistful(y.

    James felt in his pocket. “Here: this is a cacahuète: I bought some on the quay. He likes them.”

    Henry took it uncertainly. “Should it not be shelled for him?”

    “No, no: give it him!” he said with a little laugh.

    Cautiously she held the peanut out. The parrot took it in his clawed foot: Henry gasped a little, but did not back off, watching in awe as, holding it in his foot, Captain Canada expertly pierced a hole in It with his beak and extracted the double nut.

    “The beak is immensely strong: a cacahuète is nothing to him,” said James.

    “I see! And—and it is natural to him to shell such nuts, is it, sir?’

    He smiled very kindly into her innocently excited eyes. “Indeed it is, Miss Parker. Now. come along. or my u— Sir Chauncey will be wondering if I have kidnapped you.”

    Not noticing that he had nearly referred to the Admiral as “my uncle”, Henry allowed James the courier to return her to the company of the naval pair.

    “I like her,” said James to his aunt-by-marriage that night as, the girls having long since retired, he perched on the end of her palatial and unseamanlike bed.

    Portia gave him an exasperated look. “Of course you do, my dear, but would it not be easier to hold a pleasant conversation with her as her social equal?”

    “Mm. Though it ain’t half amusin’ watching her tryin’ to reconcile the damned nonsense they must have drummed into her head for London with her father’s teaching on the equality of man!” he said with a smothered laugh.

    “I do not think that amusing at all, James,” she said stiffly. “In fact I think you are being a great idiot.”

    Sir Chauncey wandered in in his dressing-gown, yawning. “Aye. A damned idiot. Poor Captain Jenkins thinks you’ve run mad, I’m warnin’ you. And the men’ll be startin’ to talk.”

    “Pooh: your men? They would not dare, sir! –Neither of the girls has once addressed me by name, now is that not interesting?” he added thoughtfully.

    “No,” said his uncle grimly. “They don’t see you as a man, how many times do I have to—”

    “No, no, dearest Uncle Chauncey, quite the reverse!” he said, laughing. “It only dawned on me this afternoon that of course they haven’t a clue what my supposed surname might be! And they’re far too nice-minded to address a person of my advanced years, who is not quite in the position of your footman, sir, as ‘James’.”

    “Don’t see what that proves,” he said sourly.

    “No.” agreed Portia. “We told you they were both lovely girls, James, who feel just as they ought on the topics nearest to your own heart. This is very silly: you should have more sense.”

    “But you see, I have to prove for myself they think just as they ought,” he said, shooting her a mocking look from under the thick, curled black lashes.

    Portia sighed. “You are an unmitigated pest, dear boy. Go away before I become really cross with vou.”

    James got up, yawning. “I shall give it up... Let me see. When Miss Pansy has demonstrated to me that she can treat James, the courier, as she would Lord Lavery of Lavery Hall.”

    “She WON’T!” shouted his uncle. “And get OUT!” Irritably he blew out the candles on the little dressing table.

    James picked up his own candlestick, and got out, grinning.

    “Move over,” said the Admiral irritably to his wife, removing his dressing-gown.

    “Are you coming in my bed tonight, darling?” replied Portia in mild surprise, moving over.

    “Aye,” he grunted. clambering in. “Fed up with him,” he said into her neck.

    “Mm. Chauncey, it’s a very warm night, will you be able to sleep?”

    “Aye. Throw them damned covers off,” he rumbled.

    Obediently Lady Winnafree threw the covers off and blew out her candle.

    The Admiral was soon asleep in the warm night, snoring. Portia lay awake for some time: she had had a nice nap this afternoon. James was so naughty! It was just so lacking in common sense of him, to expect Pansy to treat a courier as her social equal. And if nothing came of this absurd masquerade, he would be so disappointed, but there was no telling him: stubborn, like all the Winnafrees... Oh, dear.

    She went to sleep and dreamed they were at sea, off the Azores, in a thing the size of a man o’ war belonging to James that he was stubbornly refusing to re-name “Pansy.”

    “How absurd!” she said faintly, waking with a start in a pale grey dawn. “Added to which, he doesn’t even own anything with a draught of more than six inches!”

    With which, the lady who had once referred to the masts of her fiancé’s yacht as “sticks” drifted off to sleep again.

    “I like him,” said Henry thoughtfully, leaning on the rail and gazing to windward.

    “He is extremely impertinent,” replied Pansy shortly.

    “I don’t think so. He is quite intelligent. I suppose he isn’t... servile,” said Henry in an uncertain voice, “but that is rather a refreshing change.”

    “It’s certainly a refreshing change from that imbecile Jean-P. de la R.,” allowed Pansy. “Come here, you must have your bonnet on, Henry: the sea breeze is deceptive: it’s a very warm day.”

    Henry allowed Pansy to reclaim the bonnet which was hanging down her back by its ribbons, and replace it on her head. “On a day like this,” she said dreamily, “one would wish to spend one’s life at sea.”

    “Yes. There is nothing like a good stiff breeze and a decent deck beneath one’s feet, after all!” agreed Pansy with satisfaction.

    “Mm…” Henry turned round, leaned her back against the rail and gazed upwards. “I do so wish l could do that!”

    High above them James the courier was perched up the mast. Pansy did not look. After a moment she said in a low voice: “Yester morning, very early, some of the men went swimming.”

    Henry was looking over the side again. “Before breakfast?”

    “Mm.”

    Henry sighed enviously. “There, you see: men may do anything!”

    “Yes,” said Pansy in an odd voice.

    After a moment Henry said: “What is it?”

    “Nothing. Well, he was with them.”

    “Who? Goodness, you mean James, Pansy?” Henry looked at her uncertainly. “Pansy, you didn’t—you didn’t look, did you?” she murmured.

    “Not exactly. I—I had got up very early to take a turn on deck and I didn’t realise... No, it’s all right: they were already in the water. He called out,” said Pansy, her face flaming.

    “Was he rude?” asked Henry on a grim note.

    ‘No. He just called out ‘Female on deck.’ They had a scrambling net out: young Jerry was climbing it and he—um—jumped in again,” said Pansy, biting her lip.

    Henry hesitated; then she said in a consoling voice: “All my brothers used to swim in the creek at home every summer in a state of nature, Pansy. I would not refine too much on it. And Jerry is only a boy, he can’t be as old as Egg.”

    Pansy nodded silently.

    After a moment Henry put her hand cautiously over hers where it lay on the rail.

    “He thought it was funny,” revealed Pansy grimly.

    “Ye—not little Jerry? Oh, dear: James thought your embarrassment was funny?”

    “Mm.”

    “Then he is stupid and—and not a feeling man after all!” said Henry crossly.

    Pansy swallowed. “Had you thought he was?” she said in a small voice.

    “I was beginning to,” Henry admitted.

    “Oh.”

    There was a considerable silence. Henry did not see what else she could say. It was a great pity that Pansy did not have brothers of her own. The thing had been trivial, really. Eventually she said: “Even gentlemen, on a warm day in these circumstances, would take the opportunity to bathe, Pansy.”

    “I know. And if he hadn’t laughed l wouldn’t have been embarrassed! Well, not much,” she said honestly.

    “No, well, Lady Winnafree is certainly right when she says he can be very annoying,” admitted Henry.

    “Yes,” said Pansy grimly.

    At this moment there was a cry of “Land-ho!” from high above them.

    “Very amusing. Corsica has been in sight for this last hour and more,” said Pansy. She turned on her heel and went below.

    Henry sighed a little. In a way it was a pity that James had come with them. On the other hand, at least he was a capable adult male, and if there should be a crisis or some such... Sir Chauncey had had a breathless fit the other day and both girls had been rather frightened. Lady Winnafree had said it was nothing, but had declared that he should not go ashore exploring in the hot weather. James had been very cool-headed and helpful, had helped the old man to his cabin, made him take his draught and remained with him that night. No, well, never mind if Pansy found him irritating, on the whole has capabilities outweighed his—has gadfly-like manner! decided Henry firmly.

    “I shall stay aboard with Chauncey—now, do not argue, my dear: you have said yourself l know not how many times that the whole of Corsica has nothing to recommend it to a civilized being and that the fact that Boney got out of it, must prove it,” said Portia severely. “And there is no question of Henry’s going, when she has the headache. It promises to be a very hot day.”—Henry smiled wanly and looked apologetically at Pansy.—“James will take good care of Pansy, I am quite sure.”

    Sir Chauncey gave his nephew a jaundiced look. James bowed politely to Miss Ogilvie.

    “Thank you,” said that maiden grimly.

    “Off you go, then!” said Portia gaily. “And James, make quite sure that Miss Pansy wears her bonnet at all times; and, if you are walking or driving in the sun, has her parasol up!”

    “I shall carry it myself,” he promised. “This way, Miss Ogilvie, if you please.”

    Pansy ignored his outstretched hand and went up the gangplank unaided. “I dare say we shall not be long,” she said from the quay.

    “Rubbish, my dear, you must take the opportunity to see all you can while we are here. l have had Cook put up a lovely little picknick for you, for I am very sure the native food will be inedible!” replied Lady Winnafree gaily. “Now, James, remember: not too much walking!”

    James bowed again, seized the picknick basket, and ran lightly up the gangplank. “This way, Miss Ogilvie! Boney’s birthplace first, is it?”

    ‘His house, at all events. Though, um…”

    “What?”

    Pansy swallowed. “If there are members of his family still living there I should not like to—to embarrass them...”

    “One gathers he has long since installed the members of his family in palaces over the length and breadth of Europe, Miss Ogilvie. But l commend the sentiment.”

    “Well, but that was before we beat him. Where are they now?”

    “Er—I don’t know. But l doubt if they are living in any house that English visitors come to stare at.”

    “No.” There were, in fact, two large English yachts besides their own at the quay as they spoke. Pansy frowned.

    “Would you rather not go?” he said in a low voice, taking her elbow.

    “Of course I shall go, now that we are here!” She pulled her elbow out of his grasp. James quietly took it again.

    “Pray explain to me, if you would be so good,” she said grimly, “the precise method by which you intend carrying that absurd picknick basket, taking my elbow to help me over these terrible rough cobbles, and holding my parasol for me as Lady Winnafree ordered you.”

    “I intend holding the picknick basket in me teeth, ma’am.”

    She wrenched her elbow out of his grasp and strode on very fast, scowling.

    James let her get a little ahead, his blue eyes dancing. Then he hurried up to her side. “You’re going the wrong way,” he said softly into the straw bonnet.

    “Oh,” said Pansy feebly.

    “We’ll take a carriage. You may explore the town on foot a little later, should the desire to do so overcome you.”

    They took a carriage. The view of Boney’s house—or perhaps if was only a house he was reputed to have lived in, or that his mother had lived in—was not precisely enthralling. Nor was the fact that a carriageful of loud-voiced English persons was drawn up outside of it. Pansy winced and bit her lip.

    “I dare say the locals do not understand a word of English,” said James lightly.

    “No. In fact they don’t even seem to speak French, do they? But I think they will understand nuance and gesture as well as any other human creature,” said Pansy with a slight shudder.

    “Yes. Come on, then, we’ll go. Do you wish to wander about the town?”

    “Just for a little, if you should not dislike it.”

    “Er—no, I should not dislike it. But it ain’t up to me, ma’am: your wish is my command.”

    “Pray do not speak so foolishly.” said Pansy grimly, staring straight ahead.

    “There is a quaint building, look: I wonder if it be Roman?” he said, pointing.

    Pansy looked in spite of herself. “Rubbish,” she said feebly. “it is not even Mediaeval.”

    “How disappointing.”

    They jogged on in the carriage for a while; when James judged his companion’s temper would permit of it, and when the surrounding area appeared sufficiently picturesque, he suggested they stop, leaving the basket with the driver, and stroll for a while.

    Pansy looked at him in horror.

    “Very well, I’ll carry the damned thing.”

    “Um—no, I’m sorry: that was selfish of me. It looks terribly heavy. What on earth has she given us?” she said weakly.

    “I think it must be the bottles that are weighing it down, Miss Ogilvie.”

    “Oh. Well, never mind: leave it. If he steals it, that can prove only that his need is greater than ours.”

    “Mm.” The driver was a fat, rascally-looking individual in a leather waistcoat, a greasy-looking kerchief, unspeakable nether garments, and whiskers. There was a battered thing on his head that forty years since might have been a tricorne. James could only be surprised that it did not sport a dirty blue, white and red cockade. The other drivers available had been similar, but at least this one had an open carriage and spoke a little French.

    He ordered the man, in simple and very loud French, to stay in the little square in which they now found themselves. The fellow scowled, and hunched himself up on his seat. Presumably that meant consent? Well, after all, the loss of their basket could not signify! “Come along!” he said cheerfully.

    They walked slowly round the square, and then ventured down an interesting-looking street leading off it.

    It was very hot; the streets were narrow, the pavements, where they existed, very uneven and very dusty. In fact the whole place seemed dusty and unkempt. It was, however, sufficiently picturesque: narrow, crooked little streets with several-storeyed stone buildings, many with tiny balconies on which an occasional plant or caged bird might be glimpsed, and many more with washing, in the Mediterranean fashion, strung across the lanes, high above them.

    Eventually he murmured: “Picturesque, is it not?”

    “Yes. But l think at must also be extremely unhygienic, probably uncomfortable, and, if they get chilly winters, very damp and cold in these narrow houses.”

    “Yes—well, apartments, I would doubt that in this area any of the houses belong to a single family.”

    Pansy nodded: they had seen innumerable ragged children playing in the doorways and countless black-clad women in kerchiefs leaning from the windows, shouting to their neighbours or screaming at the children.

    “And it can be very chilly indeed in midwinter: you are right, these picturesque surroundings cannot be all joy, to their inhabitants.”

    “No. Not unlike the cottages at home, in fact. Well, at Guillyford Bay—” Pansy broke off.

    “Yes?” he said politely.

    Pansy hesitated. Then she said: “The people are not badly off, in general. Many of them are fisherfolk. Most of the land thereabouts belongs to the Tarlingtons of Guillyford Place, though the farms are let, of course. The rents are not too high, and the cottages are in reasonable condition. None of them are in need of re-roofing or anything like that. But they are very small and cramped, and not terribly warm. There are families of as many as fifteen persons living in cottages of no more than three rooms.”

    “Mm. Most of our so-called civilized land is like that. I have seen quite a bit of it, on my travels for Sir Chauncey,” he added, looking at her sideways.

    “Yes, you would have.”

    “Well, I suppose not every landowner can afford to build a model village on his estate, like Lord Rockingham,” he said lightly.

    “Has he?”

    “Yes. For the workers on the estate and the labourers from the home farm, I believe. The cottages are mainly of brick: there are rich sources of clay in the district and the building of the village gave its start to what is now a flourishing local industry, employing many men. The dwellings vary in size, but certainly when I was—” He paused: he had nearly said: “When I was shown the village.” “Er, when I was there, l did not see any examples of large families crammed into the smaller ones. I believe Lord and Lady Rockingham also take an interest in the education of the local children: there are two large and airy schools at Daynesford, the nearest village—quite a large place, really; and when I was last in the district, the Marquis was having a new village school built at Dittersford, the next village, and even making plans for a grammar school at Daynesford!” He laughed a little.

    “For the boys, no doubt,” said Miss Ogilvie grimly.

    “Er—well, yes. Though the Marchioness—well, so they say,” said Lord Lavery hurriedly—“is very interested in the education of girls. l dare say she may persuade him to do something for them. too.”

    “Let us hope so.”

    “Certainly.”

    “There is no need to be sarcastic,” said Pansy, her nostrils flaring.

    “I was not being sarcastic. I am interested in the subjects both of women’s education and of women’s enfranchisement,” he said calmly.

    “What?” gulped Pansy.

    “Certainly. Why, do you not believe that women are as much citizens of their country as the men, and thus as deserving of the right to vote for those who decide their fate?”

    “Yes, of course I do! But we do not even have full male suffrage,” said Pansy weakly.

    “No.” He smiled a little.

    “What?” she said uncertainly.

    “Oh—nothing.” said James Winnafree lamely. He could hardly recount to her how the charming little Marchioness of Rockingham had waxed very eloquent on the subject in his hearing and attempted to persuade her husband to give the tenants of his model village their cottages outright, in order to turn them into enfranchised landowners. The Marquis was a charitable and generous man, but he had refused point-blank to do any such thing: it would have cut a fair-sized hole out of the Daynesford Place estate.

    “There is the argument,” said Pansy, looking at him sideways, “that women’s brains are not so capable of reasoned and logical thought as men’s, and thus must be incapable of making political judgements.”

    “I think you yourself are the living proof that that is nonsense, Miss Ogilvie. Not to mention such better-known names as—well, I cannot think of many English ones!” he admitted with a faint laugh. “Disons, such as Mme de Stael, and to go a little further back in time, Mme de Sévigné, Mme de la Fayette—no?”

    “Yes. Sappho,” offered Pansy.

    “Absolutely. Sappho,” agreed James Winnafree without a blink.

    “They were fortunate that their positions in life offered them the chance to use their innate abilities.” said Pansy grimly.

    “I quite agree. Can one imagine, for example, in Elizabethan times, a woman’s being able to leave her spouse, go off to London, join a company of players, write for those players, and become the greatest English playwright?”

    “No. She would have been married off at fourteen. And had she left her home in such a manner—” Pansy stopped.

    “Mm?” he said mildly.

    She gave him a straight look. “You must know as well as l, sir, that she would scarcely have reached London unravished by rogues encountered upon the road. And had she by any unlikely chance got so far as finding the company of players, she would not have been allowed to join them: women were not allowed upon the stage in Shakespeare’s day.”

    “Mm. And probably Burbage, if she had managed to meet him, would have taken his turn at ravishing her.”

    “Yes. In fact the very most she could have hoped for would have been to become Burbage’s mistress!”

    “Indeed,” agreed James tranquilly.

    “There is another lady.” said Pansy abruptly.

    “Mm?”

    “Of our times, I mean. Well. I have no idea who she is or what her home situation can be, but it must be comfortable. or she would not be able to write.”

    “Er—Mary Shelley?”

    “No!” said Pansy scornfully. “The author of Sense and Sensibility.”

    “Oh, yes, of course. No-one could possibly find her unfit to cast her vote with judgement! So you like that novel? I, too; though l prefer her later work.”

    “Yes, indeed!” she beamed. “Pride and Prejudice!”

    James looked down at her with a little smile. “And Emma?”

    “You mean there is another one?” she gasped.

    “Why, yes: two, in fact. The other is Mansfield Park. I am surprised you have not come across them. l think you were teaching at Miss Blake’s school, just out of Brighton: did not the school have them?”

    Pansy admitted cautiously: “l was teaching there, yes. For a little. But books are very expensive, sir, and the school has to husband its resources.”

    He nodded. “l see.”

    After a moment she looked about her uncertainly. “We have come a long way from the poor of Corsica.”

    “Mm. Perhaps. Though these,” he said, looking about him with a smile as a fat woman screamed from an upstairs window at two grubby boys playing in the dusty gutter, and a thin girl of perhaps fourteen emerged from a house across the way and screeched at them, by her gestures very evidently ordering them to return to their own home: “these are women as much as you or the Lady of Quality of whom we were speaking.”

    “Yes. Well, that one is only a girl. But of course they are. I know what you are thinking,” said Pansy, giving him a hard look: “but the education and intelligence of the male half of humanity differ widely, too. I have met any number of imbeciles who are favoured with the vote.”

    “And very few men of sense? Yes, quite,” he said before she could agree or disagree. “Shall we go back? I rather think those boys were being called for their dinners: I confess I would not mind finding a comfortable spot for our picknick.”

    Pansy nodded: many savoury odours now mingled with the more unpleasant ones from the buildings around them.

    It was slightly uphill back to the square: they retraced their steps slowly, not speaking.

    The carriage was in sight—its driver appearing to have gone to sleep, far from making off with their picknick basket or its contents—when she said abruptly: “Which is your favourite character in Pride and Prejudice?”

    “Oh, Mr Collins, definitely!” said James with a laugh.

    “Oh,” said Pansy, very disconcerted.

    He looked at her sideways. “Though natural)y I admire Eliza Bennet very much.°

    “Mm.” She swallowed. “I have never before met a man who enjoyed that author.”

    James smiled a little. “You may have, but perhaps you did not think to raise the topic.”

    “No,” she agreed slowly, frowning over it. “I think I see what you mean. One is apt to—to make certain assumptions about about the tastes of the male and female halves of humanity.”

    “Yes,” said James simply.

    Pansy was rather pink. She gnawed on her lip.

    After a moment he said: “I think that my favourite female character from the books is Marianne Dashwood.”

    Pansy did not perceive that he was watching her from under the curled black lashes: she was looking ahead, frowning. “Oh. Do you mean— Um, well, she changes, however,” she said uncertainly.

    “I suppose she learns caution, a little, and the dangers of an excess of sensibility: yes! No, what I admire about her is, I think, what her creator may not consciously have set out to give her, but which of course is what makes the charm of the book: the intrepidity and—well, wholeheartedness of her!” he said with a laugh.

    “Oh.”

    “Whilst not admiring her taste in men,” he added drily.

    Pansy looked dubious. “l suppose she learned her lesson there, too. It turned out all right in the end.”

    “The ending is too pat. Though the author handles it well enough.”

    “Ye-es... One could say that her endings are generally too pat. Though one cannot but find them satisfactory.”

    “I agree. l think it is human nature to do so. Do we not all hope for the happy ending, for ourselves?” he said with a little smile.

    Pansy was silent, frowning over it, as they walked slowly towards the carriage.

    “Well?” he said, grasping her elbow strongly and pulling her to a halt.

    Pansy scowled. “Does it matter what I think?”

    “Yes,” said James baldly, looking into her eyes.

    She went very red, and swallowed hard, but put her chin up defiantly. “Very well: I think that was a facile statement.”

    “It was not intended to be. I am convinced that the happy endings of those books are in a large measure why their readers find them so finally satisfying. –No, do not say anything about the artistry and elegance with which they are written: of course that is what makes them so uniquely appealing. But the ultimate union of the main characters is what we hope for throughout: it is our nature to do so. We are, after all, created male and female. We are built to desire an union with a creature of the opposite sex and to conceive of such an union as the ultimate happiness. Otherwise the human race would not have survived.”

    This last remark was made with perfect seriousness and without any suggestion that he was mocking either her or the subject. Pansy wanted to say that he was, but found she could not justifiably do so. She chewed on her lip.

    “Well?” he prompted.

    “I concede that ninety-nine percent of humanity hope for a happy ending, and that that happy ending is seen by them as an union with a fellow creature, yes.”

    “But?” he murmured.

    “To define the happy ending for which we all hope as—as simply the union with a fellow creature, is indeed facile, I think.”

    “Then how would you define happiness. Miss Ogilvie?”

    “If you force me to it, l would have to define it as being truly—um, not content…” said Pansy slowly. “No: I think I mean truly fulfilled. Yes: feeling truly fulfilled by what we do in life. Whatever that is.”

    “Mm. Well, that is a point of view. Whatever we do, ranging from—er—tilling our little field to—er—writing Hamlet?”

    “Go on, mock me.” said Pansy grimly. “But it is precisely that, that I mean.”

    “I am not mocking you. I admit l am teazing you, just a very little. That does not mean I do not take your ideas, or the subject, quite seriously.”

    “At the same time?” said Pansy indignantly.

    “Yes, at the same time,” James replied calmly. “Er—a phenomenon you may not have countered hitherto, Miss Ogilvie. But do not dismiss it on that account.”

    After a moment she cried indignantly: “Are you accusing me of having a closed mind?”

    “Only insofar as this one point is concerned, I think.”

    “Well, I—” she broke off.

    They had reached the carriage. James held out his hand to help her in. “Yes?”

    “I never know when to take you seriously,” she said limply.

    “No? You are not the first person to say so. My own brother finds it a very irritating trait, and he has known me since my cradle. But l have been told that when I refuse to be entirely serious on a serious topic, it is because I am afraid to show my feelings—if you like, afraid to show my true self,” he said with a little twist of the lips, “to the person concerned.”

    Pansy looked up at him uncertainly. “Oh. I would not mock you. And l—I hope I should not denigrate your feelings. whatever they were. You need not hesitate to be serious with me.”

    It was evident of course to Lord Lavery that she was referring only to a purely intellectual intercourse. She apparently did not envisage for an instant that he might wish to be serious on a rather more emotional and personal level than that of the education of women or universal suffrage—or, indeed, the novels of the Lady of Quality.

    “I shall try to be serious when the situation calls for gravity, then.”

    “You are being flippant again,” said Pansy on a resigned note.

    James swallowed a sigh. Very possibly his relatives were correct, and he should have had more sense than to have embarked upon this masquerade. “Not really.—Pray allow me to assist you into the carriage, Miss Ogilvie.—But I think I am endeavouring tacitly to hint that possibly we may not quite agree on which situations call for gravity.”

    “Well, you need not do that,” said Pansy on a dry note, getting into the carriage, ignoring his outstretched hand.

    James the courier could not decide whether this were a hopeful sign or the reverse. Was she refusing to take his hand because the discovery that a courier might yet be a member of the male half, and at that, a member with sensibilities not dissimilar to her own, had shaken her a little? Or was she refusing it because, on the contrary, it was an over-familiar gesture from a mere courier? He got in after her, with a wry little grimace which Pansy did not see, and shouted at the driver: “Allez! Vers la côte, allez vers la côte!”

    The coast had been well and truly reached and they had come some way along a rough road which wound its way along at the top of steep, wicked-looking cliffs, before either of them spoke.

    “What very barren country it is along here,” said Miss Ogilvie.

    “Mm.” James had not told the driver to stop because as yet there had been no likely-looking spot for a pleasant picknick. He was now coming to the unpleasant realisation that they could probably journey on for the best part of the afternoon, and it would be all low scrub, affording no shade at all. “I’m sorry: this was a mistake,” he said abruptly.

    Pansy looked at him doubtfully. “Why? There is a magnificent view of the sea.”

    “Yes, but there is no shade,” he said with a sigh .

    “Oh. Well, I could hold the parasol over us while we eat.”

    “I think you will have to.” James shouted at the man to stop. “ln the carriage or on the grass?”

    “It would be pleasant to get down. Added to which one would be free of the smell of garlic,” she murmured.

    “Yes. Come along, then.”

    They descended, and after some shouting from James the driver gave a surly nod, and extracted from somewhere under his seat a cloth-wrapped package. Which when opened proved to contain an evil-looking sausage, the which partly explained the smell of garlic, a piece of bread, and an onion. A black bottle was produced to accompany this repast.

    “Come along, let’s sit well up-wind of him,” said James, hefting the basket.

    Pansy laughed and nodded.

    A spot at a respectful distance from the carriage was found, rather nearer the cliff edge, with of course a splendid view of the sea.

    “Keep that parasol up,” said James, unpacking the picknick.

    “Mm.”

    He gave her a sharp look. “Are you too hot?”

    “Well, it is a very hot day,” she murmured.

    “Look, we can go straight back, if you don’t feel like food.”

    “No; I’m hungry, actually. But terribly thirsty, too: I hope those bottles do not contain only wine.”

    James investigated: it would be very like Portia to have ordered the cook to pack champagne. But to his relief one bottle was found to contain a lemon barley drink which Miss Ogilvie pronounced excellent.

    “Here,” he said on a dry note, holding out a trouvaille from the bottom of the basket. “Portia thinks of everything.”

    Pansy took it limply: it was a fan. “Yes.”

    After a moment James realised he had referred to his aunt as “Portia.” He winced, and busied himself with unwrapping cold chicken, while he waited for Miss Ogilvie to reprove him. But no reproof came. Had she not noticed? He looked at her from under his lashes. Her face was very pink, but he could not for the life of him tell if it was only the heat or— Hell. If she had hitherto suspected there was something between Portia and James, the courier, as he was pretty damn’ sure she had, then that could only serve to— Hell.

    Pansy had noticed. A wave of desolation broke over her. She swallowed hard, telling herself it was only what she had known all along, really. Dr Fairbrother, after all, had never made any secret of the fact that Portia’s relationship with one or two of the young men who served her husband was not merely that of mistress and servant. She was hungry, and ate her share of the picknick, but was very quiet.

    James was still worried that the heat of the day was too much for her. He had intentioned proposing that they take a siesta—well, she could have lain down and he would have held the parasol over her—but decided that lying down in this heat after a meal would probably not do an English girl very much good, while at least in the moving carriage there would be a little breeze to refresh her. He packed up the litter of the picknick quickly, and stood up.

     “Come along. I think we had best go back, it is really very hot.”

    Pansy was about to reply that she was not too hot, but recollected that he might be. “Yes.”

    James held out his hand. She handed him the parasol and rose without his assistance. James’s face was very flushed. He held the parasol over her silently as they returned to the carriage. She got in quickly before he could free a hand to help her. He swallowed a sigh. Short of telling her the truth, there did not seem any way out of this dilemma.

    He was silent on the way back. Pansy did not really notice: she was also silent. It would not have been true to say she was lost in her reflections: rather, she was trying not to think.

    …“Put out to sea on the mornin’ tide, shall we?” rumbled Sir Chauncey hopefully as the party convened for dinner.

    “Yes, let’s,” agreed Pansy with a sigh.

    “Not much of a place, hey, Corsica?” he rumbled.

    “No,” said Pansy flatly.

    Portia bearded James in his cabin later that evening. after the girls had retired.

    “Is this appropriate?” he drawled as she came in clad in a silk and lace wrapper, and firmly closed the door after her.

    “Don’t be silly. My dear,” she said, giving him a sharp look: “what has gone wrong?”

    After a moment James admitted: “l think she has me confused with young Arthur Dearden. Or possibly Will Adams.”

    “Oh, dear! That is a complication you had not foreseen.”

    “True.”

    “Um—Arthur is in Rome, you know. He has joined his uncle at the Embassy.’

    “Portia, that will prove nothing except that you favoured two of us.”

    “Oh, dear: you’re right. Well, James, you had best confess.”

     James swallowed. “I think she will be furious.”

    “Yes,” she admitted with a sigh. “l think you are right.” She looked at him cautiously. “What did you talk about today, my dear?”

    He sighed. “It is rather a blur in my mind. Um—largely, the novels of a Lady of Quality!” he said with a mad little laugh.

    “Who?”

    “Never mind. Portia, do you know any English ladles in Rome? Know them well, I mean.”

    “English ladies? Well, Emily Dearden, of course.”

    Lord Lavery did not roll his eyes wildly at the news that the wife of the English Ambassador to Rome and aunt-by-marriage to Portia’s erstwhile lover was numbered amongst her friends. “Mm. Is she a reader?”

    Portia goggled at him.

    “B,O,O,K,S,” he said with a sudden glinting smile.

    Portia sighed: he was just so lovely when he smiled like that: dear James! If only one could take Pansy by the shoulders and shake her into falling in love with him! “Oh—books,” she said, jumping slightly. “I have no notion if she be a great reader or not, my dear. Why on earth do you wish to know?”

    “I thought you might borrow a copy of Emma from her, if she were. Pansy has not read it.”

    “Oh, l remember that! You tried to give it me last year. I could not get through it, it was immensely tedious. It had that horrid old man in it who refused to let his guests eat the nice food.”

    James groaned and passed his hand across his face. “The depiction of the precise brand of selfishness practised by Mr Woodhouse is one of the most delicate things in English literature, Portia!”

    “Pooh: boring,” said Lady Winnafree definitely. “He reminded me of old Mr Hogarth, at home. You did not know him, my love, but Wynn would remember him. Of course, he was not a gentleman.”

    James rolled his eyes. “Then did not the resemblance suggest to you that possibly— Oh, forget it,” he groaned.

    “No, because old Mr Hogarth was very boring indeed,” said Portia composedly.

    “Will you ask Lady Dearden to lend you her copy, if she has one, of Emma?” said James, rather loudly.

    “Of course, if you wish it, dear boy.”

    James sighed. He sat down heavily on his bunk. “Thank you.”

    “James—”

    “Don’t lecture me, you cannot tell me more harshly than I have been telling myself how much of a damned fool I am,” he sighed.

    After a moment she said very cautiously indeed: “Dear boy, is she beginning to see you as a man. do you think?”

    “Um—possibly. But for whatever reason she appears not to be letting herself do so. Tell me it is the difference in social status and I swear I will wring your very pretty neck!” he added between his teeth.

    Portia looked at him calmly. “Well, it could be, partly. But for myself, I incline to the theory that it is the teazing.”

    He smiled feebly. “Then what do you advise?”

    Portia held her pretty head on one side. “I advise you to be kinder to her.”

    “Eh?”

    “She is only a young creature, with almost no experience of the wider world. And for very nearly all of her life, except with her papa and Delphie, and of course with Wynn, she has had to fight to justify everything she believes in.”—He scowled and opened his mouth.—“Hush. I have been thinking about it, James, my dear, and I think you are being too hard on her. Pansy would not like to hear me say it,” she said with a twinkle, “but you are making a mistake in treating her as your equal. Of course her reasoning faculty is every bit as good as yours, but that is not the only point in question. When you teaze her about her beliefs, she thinks you are attacking her, and so she—um—makes a pre-emptive strike!” she ended with a little gurgle.

    “Makes a—” James passed his hand across his face. “I see.”

    “Just try to be kinder.”

    “Mm. And—well, should I tell her who I am, or—or not?”

    “I have to admit that it would be rather more comfortable for the rest of us if at this stage you did not, dear boy!”

    James went very red. He got up, and kissed her hand. “I’m damned sorry, Portia.”

    “I think you had best apologize to Chauncey, rather than to me!” she said gaily. “But I am glad you see it, my dear. Just try to be kind and gentle with Pansy for the rest of the holiday, and I think she may allow herself to feel something for you.”

    “Mm,” he said, swallowing hard and nodding. “I shall. Thank you.”

    Portia went back to her cabin, yawning. Oh, dear, what a tangle! But she thought she had given him the right advice.

    “Chauncey,” she said with a twinkle next morning as he came into her cabin while she was breakfasting, as usual, in bed: “remind me. I am to ask Emily Dearden if she has a very boring book for James to lend to Pansy. I cannot remember the title, though it is some name very like her own, and it is by some English lady, with a horrid old man in it who refuses to let his guests eat the nice food.”

    “Book’s most probably Emma. He tried to make you read it last year.”

    “Mm.” She eyed him with a little mocking smile.

    “Thought it was not half bad, meself,” he grunted. “Well observed. Uh—delicate. Reminded me of lemon ice. Refreshing, bit acid, but delicate: y’know?”

    Portia looked at him with great affection and reflected that she would not attempt to explain to Pansy that that boring novel had also made a hit with the Admiral! For even if she was gradually learning about men and women and the complexities of their feelings—and Portia truly believed she was beginning to—she did not think that she would ever be able to credit that particular complexity!

Next chapter:

https://theogilvieconnection.blogspot.com/2022/08/holiday-vignettes.html