28
Miss Blake’s News
On her return from the Continent, Pansy had spent some time in Bath with Delphie and Richard before journeying to the south coast again.
Miss Blake shook hands, smiling. "How are you, Pansy? It's lovely to see you, at last.”
Pansy sighed deeply. “It’s lovely to be here, Miss Blake. I’m very well, thank you. And how are you?”
Miss Blake replied that she was well, and so were all the staff, as, indeed, was Davey Monkey. Adding with a twinkle in her fine grey eye that this last summer, as she believed she had written Pansy, Pointer had not been permitted to go up the plum tree! Pansy laughed and nodded, and the headmistress led her into her sitting-room.
The meek Miss Worrington rose, looking shy. “How are you, my dear Miss Ogilvie?”
Pansy came forward to shake hands, but suddenly hugged the meek spinster lady and kissed her cheek. “I am very well, Letitia, but you must call me Pansy, you know!”
Naturally at this Miss Worrington indulged in a few tears, but was soon urged to a seat by the fire, nearer to it than she would have placed herself if left to her own devices, and was able to assure dear Pansy that her cold was quite gone, now, and how kind it was in her to have remembered it.
Pansy then asked Miss Blake eagerly how the new Infant School was progressing, but the headmistress, laughing, threw up her hands and assured her that now they had her here they did not mean to discuss dull scholastic matters: Pansy must tell them all about her trip abroad, not omitting a single detail!
“Oh, I suppose you wish to hear my impressions of the architecture of the Palais du Louvre, or the Doge’s palace and the Vatican, and so forth,” said Pansy primly.
“Do not be absurd!” said Miss Blake with a laugh. “You know very well that we wish to hear not only of those matters, but also of the fashions! But pray do not start on those until Mlle La Plante is here,” she added, twinkling, “or she will never forgive us! She has forbidden us utterly to mention the word ‘sleeves’ until her arrival, has she not, Letitia?”
Giggling, Miss Worrington owned that she had.
“Though I remark,” added Miss Blake in astonishment, looking at Pansy’s smart russet-coloured pelisse, “that you are wearing some.”
Miss Worrington collapsed in giggles.
“She had also a delightful tippet and muff, Letitia,” revealed the headmistress when her subordinate was over it: “fox, I think. But Pointer made her leave them in the hall.”
Miss Worrington looked hopefully at Pansy.
“Very well, I’ll fetch them!” she said, getting up with a laugh. “Though you may have to bear Pointer’s disapproval for the next week!” She went out, smiling.
Miss Worrington looked hopefully at Miss Blake. The headmistress nodded and smiled reassuringly. Miss Worrington gave a sigh of relief.
Pansy was soon back with the tippet and the muff, and put them on and twirled round for Miss Worrington’s benefit. Mlle La Plante shortly hurrying in from her class, they had to be shown off again. And then the four ladies settled down to a serious discussion of the finer points of the architectural marvels Pansy had observed during her tour of the Continent. With just the passing reference to such points as sleeves and flounces. Even though Pansy had written Miss Blake quite fully and the letters, as they had been intended to be, had been read out to the breathlessly interested schoolmistresses, not one of the ladies from Miss Blake’s experienced a moment’s boredom the entire afternoon.
Miss Worrington wept three times: once over the description of the Grand Canal in the hazy golden sun of late afternoon; once over the description of a waiflike little mother cat observed in a village outside Florence stealing macaroni for her kittens from a plate abandoned on a table outside a taverna; and once, rather more unexpectedly, at the description of a certain pink muslin gown with which Pansy had carried a small posy of carnations. It reminded her so much of a gown she had had in her girlhood! No-one was unkind enough to point out that styles had altered considerably since Letitia’s girlhood.
Mlle La Plante wept twice: firstly as Pansy confirmed that they had walked in the gardens of the Tuileries Palace, and secondly as Pansy admitted that they had visited the Conciergerie, where “feue la Reine Marie-Antoinette” had been shut up: yes. Those who then waited for Miss Ogilvie to add but of course, she herself was not sympathetic to the Royalist cause, were disappointed. Or, more accurately, pleased.
Miss Blake remained dry-eyed throughout but no-one had expected otherwise.
“She has improved so much!” whispered Miss Worrington as Pansy went determinedly off to the kitchen to visit with Pointer and Cook.
“Indeed,” agreed Miss Blake, smiling.
“Shall you tell her?” she quavered.
“I always intended telling her, Letitia; but I am relieved to see that the telling will be somewhat easier than l anticipated.”
Pansy dined with the schoolmistresses, and met the new mathematics mistress, Miss Burke. They did not talk mathematics, as strangely enough Miss Burke seemed eager to know what sleeves the ladies were wearing in Paris this year. The which was probably just as well, for Miss Blake had already written Pansy to say that Miss Burke was competent enough to teach at the level required of her but she feared that the whole notion of the quadratic equation was foreign to her. Miss Burke was young and pale, and plain and quiet, but Miss Blake reported that she handled discipline competently. And that Letitia had taken her under her wing. The new Infant School teacher, Mrs Cummins, was not present: she boarded with Mrs Warrenby, for what with the new infant classroom and Miss Burke’s occupying the room which had once been Pansy’s, there was no room free for her at the school.
“Shall you not expand the building, then?” asked Pansy over the dessert.
Miss Blake and Miss Worrington exchanged glances. “At this stage, I think not,” said the headmistress.
Letitia broke into a flurried speech which involved Mrs Cummins’s and Mrs Warrenby’s getting along splendidly, the number of little girls enrolled for the Infant School, Mrs Cummins’s widowed state, the health, temperament and conduct of Mrs Cummins’s little Katherine, who was just seven years of age, the possibility of taking on little boys at the Infant School, Violet Warrenby’s responsible and caring attitude towards the said Katherine Cummins, Mrs Cummins’s excellent manner with the little ones of the Infant School, the splendid table set by Mrs Warrenby, and the use of the school trap versus that of the Warrenby barouche to ferry Mrs Cummins, Katherine Cummins and Violet Warrenby to and from. It was perhaps not surprising that the glance she and Miss Blake had just exchanged went unremarked by the visitor.
Miss Blake had arranged for Pansy to stay with Mrs Warrenby. She warned her merrily as she put her into the Warrenby barouche that Pansy must not expect to escape them so easily: she would see her on the morrow, for they had as yet scarcely touched on the subjects of braids and buttons! Pansy laughed and agreed that she would look forward to that, then.
She was, however, somewhat surprized when, as she dutifully proposed accompanying Mrs Warrenby and Mrs Cummins to church the following morning, Mrs Warrenby said firmly: “Not this morning, Pansy, my dear. We may all go to Evensong together this evening. But Naomi requested me specifically to ask you to remain behind this morning, as she wishes to have a quiet word with you.”
Pansy was mystified. She did not think that a woman of such good sense as Naomi Blake could intend asking her to return to school-teaching, now that she had her fortune. Well—perhaps to invest in the school? To become a—a sleeping partner in the enterprise? Yes, perhaps that was it! Pansy sat in Mrs Warrenby’s comfortable sitting-room and waited for Miss Blake with a bright, expectant look on her face.
When Miss Blake arrived she was clearly somewhat nervous as well as excited. but Pansy did not reflect on the implications of this mixture of emotions in her former employer.
“I confess I do not know quite how to begin, Pansy,” she said when they were seated by the fire with a tray of tea.
“Is it about the Infant School?”
“Er—no. Not precisely, no.”
“Oh.” Pansy looked at her expectantly but Miss Blake was looking into her lap and twisting her hands together, though with a strange little smile on her lips as she did so. “Er—if it is about financial matters, Miss Blake, you must know that—that I am very interested in female education, and would be happy to contribute in any way I could. If that does not sound too pompous!” she added hurriedly.
“No,” said Miss Blake, smiling awkwardly. “It is not precisely that, either. Though of course I am very glad and, indeed very grateful, to hear you say so. Um...”
Pansy was still looking at her expectantly, though now beginning to look puzzled as well. Naomi Blake bit her lip and said: “Look, shall we drink up our tea? And while we are on the subject of tea, Pointer has charged me on no account to forget to tell you that Davey Monkey has acquired a taste for it. He does not take it very hot, and in fact he will scream abuse at us if it is over-warm for him, but—” She chattered on about the monkey, and Pansy, smiling, but looking more puzzled than ever, obediently drank up her tea.
“I think,” said Miss Blake with a sigh, setting down her cup and feeling in her reticule, “I had best come straight out and—and put it on.”
Pansy stared: the headmistress withdrew a small box from the reticule, opened it, and extracted therefrom a small ruby ring which she put on the fourth finger of her left hand.
“Er—yes,” she said, as Pansy’s jaw dropped. “Wynn Fairbrother has asked me to marry him, and I have said yes.”
“Miss Blake!” cried Pansy, clapping her hands. “I never thought you would!”
Miss Blake sagged in her chair. “You are pleased, then?” she said limply.
“Yes! Of course I’m pleased!” cried Pansy. “It’s the best news I ever heard! It will do him all the good in the world!”
“Mm,” said Naomi Blake, her eyes twinkling. “It may also do me good, too!”
“Well, yes!” said Pansy, laughing a little. “Your discipline will counter his happy-go-lucky carelessness, and his merry approach to life will be a leaven to your more serious temperament! –Oh dear, was that rude?” she added on a gasp.
“Very!” said Miss Blake, now frankly laughing. “But so true! Yes, we both feel that though we are so different in character, we may contrive, an we put our best feet forward, to let the best of ourselves rub off on the other—rather than rubbing each other up the wrong way, you know!”
“Absolutely!” cried Pansy, jumping up and holding out her hand.
Miss Blake smiled, rose, and held out hers: Pansy wrung it fervently. “Congratulations, dear Miss Blake! –I am never sure if one says that to the man or the woman, but never mind,” she added with a grin.
“Whichever it is, I feel that I am the one to be congratulated.”
“No, he is, too,” said Pansy, sitting down. “For if left to himself he lets his house go to rack and ruin and eats bread and cheese ten months out of the year in order to feast on lobster for two, and if it is a choice between his own dinner and the menagerie’s, will always choose the menagerie!”
“I know,” said Wynn Fairbrother’s fiancée. “And we have agreed that on condition I do not plump cushions, I may take charge of the household accounts.”
Pansy smiled weakly, thinking of the tumbledown house in Oxford that was only cleaned when Dr Fairbrother could afford Mrs Mayes.
“And—um—that brings me to the next chapter in this saga!” said Miss Blake with a breathless little laugh.
“Yes?” Pansy poured more tea, as Miss Blake had apparently forgotten it was there.
Miss Blake took her cup but then just stared into it.
“It is about the school, is it?” said Pansy at last.
“Yes. And I fear you may be very cross with me.”
“So you are giving it up?”
“Yes. We at first thought that he might remove to Merrifield and we might contrive to purchase the next-door property, in order for him to continue his experiments. But on reflection we decided it would not do. It is such a tiny place: the populace would be shocked and the school’s reputation would inevitably suffer.”
Pansy nodded, but said in a restricted voice: “Miss Blake, I know I should not say this, but I feel I must: does it not mean that you are sacrificing your interests—indeed, what has been your life—to his?”
Naomi Blake nodded seriously. “Wynn said the same thing. And, indeed, said I must not dream of it.”
“That is so very like him!” she cried.
“Yes. So we then discussed the notion of removing the school, more or less bag and baggage, to the environs of Oxford. But—well, there were several reasons why we decided in the end it would not do. Not the least of which would be the cost. For if I sell the school as a going concern, I sell the goodwill—the reputation—yes, of course you know what I mean,” she said, as Pansy nodded; “but if I remove, there remains only the building on which I could capitalize, and properties in Oxford are so very much dearer, what I could hope to get would go nowhere near purchasing an establishment of a similar size.”
“But Miss Blake, I could help you!” she said eagerly.
Naomi Blake smiled very much. “Thank you: that is like you, Pansy. But even if we could set aside the—er—dubious morality of Wynn’s permitting you to invest in his wife’s school while he is your trustee—”
“Miss Blake! Dubious only in the eyes of those who do not know him!”
“Quite so. But even if we could set that aside, there are two further facts that we felt must be taken into consideration.”
“What?” said Pansy on a cross note. “No, wait: if you do not feel you could accept money from me, what about Lady Naseby?”
“I am coming to that.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Pansy, flushing up. “Please go on.”
Miss Blake inclined her head gravely, and went on: “The first fact is that I have been teaching the daughters of gentlefolk for twenty-five years, now, and—er—feel I have given the profession, or rather, that aspect of it, all I can.” Pansy opened her mouth to protest but the headmistress held up her hand and said: “No: wait. I do not know if you can understand this, Pansy, for after all you are less than half my age: but I feel it is time to move on.”
“Oh,” said Pansy uncertainly.
“I admit it may not be a rational impulse, but there you are!” said Miss Blake with a smile.
“Yes, but... Well, you have not been a headmistress for near that long.”
“True. But I think you might be able to sympathize with my feeling that l never wish to see another simpering Honourable Miss This or Miss That-hyphen-The-Other in my life!” she said with a guilty laugh.
Pansy bit her lip, trying not to smile, and nodded hard.
“Yes! Well, there have been some notable exceptions, of course, and many of my girls have turned into fine women. Did you ever meet Lizzie Hallam?”
Pansy shook her head, looking blank, and Miss Blake smiled and explained: “The older sister of the frightful Pretty Hallam, and one of Lady Naseby’s nieces. She is married to a Spanish gentleman, a cousin of the Marchioness of Rockingham, and they live on the Daynesford Place estate. I visited once: it is a charming little Tudor house, formerly a dower house, I think. –Oh, dear, I am running on!” she said with a rueful laugh.
“I know!” said Pansy suddenly. “Of course! I have not met her, but she is very much involved with the Marchioness’s school for the children on the estate, is she not?” Miss Blake nodded and Pansy said: “Yes: it must be she. I—I am acquainted with someone who is—who is interested in the school,” she said, flushing up, “and. indeed, in all Lord Rockingham’s schemes for his model village and the improvement of the lot of his people.”
Miss Blake nodded. “I suppose you have not heard of a Miss Gore or a Mrs Burke?”
“Why, yes! He— I mean, the person with whom I am a little acquainted,” said Pansy, flushing again, “has spoken to me very highly of a Mrs Burke, in the context of women’s education.”
“Then perhaps you will not be so very cross with the rest of my news, after all!” she said with a laugh. “But you do not know, or know of, Miss Gore?”
“No.”
“I think you might like her. She is highly intelligent, but plain as a pikestaff. Such women commonly have very little to look forward to in life: if it is not an arranged marriage where their face is grudgingly overlooked for the sake of their dowry—in the case of those generally considered the lucky ones,” she noted drily, “then there is nothing for them but to dwindle into an aunt. The which only too frequently means unpaid drudge to a sister’s or sister-in-law’s children.”
Pansy nodded, shuddering, thinking of the fate which might have been Lady Jane’s.
“Yes. The Fates no doubt determined Miss Gore for such an end, but she is not the sort to let anyone but herself decide her destiny—let alone some scantily-clad Greek dames of doubtful morality!” she ended a choke of laughter.
Pansy gasped, and laughed shakily, looking at her in some surprize.
Miss Blake gave what was frankly a grin. “That is one of Wynn’s: you see, he is doing me so much good already!”
“Yes,” she said, smiling feebly.
“Well, you perhaps did not encounter him when you lived in Oxford, but Miss Gore’s brother, Stanley Gore, is at Wadham.”
“I met him once,” said Pansy in a hollow voice. “He and Papa virtually came to blows over—um—I forget what. Not a question of theology, for once: I think it was something to do with the notion of the noble savage.”
Miss Blake’s eyes twinkled. “Wynn assures me he is a naturally mild-mannered man.”
Pansy nodded ruefully.
“Well, Wynn was discussing our private business with Dr Gore, even though they had not before been on those terms—”
“He is like that, Miss Blake,” said Pansy anxiously. “It’s usually because he has been thinking so much about whatever subject is in question that he just comes out with it to whomsoever he happens to meet.”
“So I have begun to realize!” she said with a laugh. “Oh, dear! The first few times I found he had done it I was so cross, and began seriously to reconsider my decision that I could live with him for the rest of my life. Then I thought it over and—well! It is a small matter, after all.”
“Yes. But it is not something that you will ever be able to change, I fear,” said Pansy anxiously.
“No. But after all, I don’t think I want to change it. There is,” said Miss Blake, an odd little smile once more on her lips: “something rather sweet and naïve about such a habit, is there not?”
Pansy replied uncomfortably: “Yes.”
“My dear,” she said with a very kind look, “the fact that I can wax foolishly sentimental over him does not mean that I am blinded either to his faults or to the problems that we will inevitably experience in adjusting our ways of life.”
“No. Um—he may not adjust,” said Pansy, licking her lips, “however much he—he may truly intend to.”
The headmistress replied: “I know. I have thought about it very seriously, Pansy. And I am not blinded by either sentiment or passion, even though it may appear so to an onlooker,” she said drily.
Pansy was already very flushed but at this she went even redder. “I know!” she gasped.
“Liar,” said Miss Blake calmly.
She gulped and gave her a pathetic look.
“I think your position is, that persons in love are always blinded?”
Pansy bit her lip but admitted hoarsely: “Yes. Lady Winnafree agrees with me, too.”
“I can understand that point of view. But consider this: perhaps it is being in love that enables us to see virtues in another human being which otherwise we would miss.”
Pansy looked dubious.
“Well, never mind! For try as one may, it is impossible to analyse it!” said Miss Blake with a little laugh. “I was talking about Miss Gore, I think, before I side-tracked myself?”
“Oh—yes,” said Pansy with a start.
“Yes. She has been for many years an advocate of better education for girls. Dr Gore introduced her to Wynn, you see, and then somehow Wynn brought your cousin Mr Theo Parker in on it, and—well, in short, what we plan is that I should sell the school, lock, stock and barrel, and that we should purchase together a property which Mr Parker has found on the outskirts of Oxford and start a school for young women. Not for daughters of the gentry, but for girls who otherwise would have little or no chance in life: children whose mothers have abandoned them, labourers’ and artisans’ daughters, and so forth.”
“That is a splendid notion!” she cried.
“We hope it will work. It will not be an orphanage, but Miss Gore does a lot of work with a local home for girls and we will have an arrangement whereby the girls come to us for their education, as day girls when they are younger, and then eventually as boarders. The curriculum will not be aimed at turning out pleasant young women who can run a comfortable home and make polite conservation with their husbands’ dinner guests,” said Naomi Blake with a little sigh, “but at fitting them to take up some practical work in life.”
“Good!”
“Though in the nature of things most of them will become mothers. But we hope that they will become mothers who will try to see that their daughters have a start in life.”
“Of course!” said Pansy, clapping her hands together.
“Mm.” Miss Blake gave her a wry look but Pansy, with a glowing face, was absorbed in thinking over the scheme, and missed it. “I think I mentioned two facts, back there,” she murmured.
“Was that not two?” said Pansy, coming to with a start. “Stay, could you not also take little boys in the infant classes?”
“Wynn would like us to. l have warned him that that would multiply by a factor of at least four the amount of interference he might expect with his menagerie.”
“You mean he will remove to this property as well?”
Miss Blake nodded. “We shall live in the existing house, which is quite small, and put up new buildings for the school and the animals.”
“Oh, it has all worked out perfectly!”
“We think it may work out, yes. I shall run the school, of course—”
“Of course!”
“With the assistance of Miss Gore. She is not a teacher, but a most capable administrator. Naturally l shall supervise the academic side of the curriculum, while Mrs Burke will look after the boarders and be responsible for the management of the practical subjects.”
Pansy had forgotten about Mrs Burke. “Oh! Yes. Oh: is she a relative—?”
“Yes: the school’s Miss Burke is her sister-in-law, and in fact it was through Mrs Burke that I found her.”
Pansy nodded. “I see. Miss Blake, I do so envy you, it sounds so exciting! And even if Dr Fairbrother will not permit me to invest in it while he is my trustee, the moment I am of age I shall do so!”
Miss Blake replied simply: “I should be very grateful, Pansy. Mr Parker has been most generous, but he has other charitable interests. And while Lady Naseby has promised her support and may be replied upon to keep such a promise, her forte is committees and fund-raising: she is not a wealthy woman.”
Pansy looked dry.
“Not in the terms in which her world thinks of wealth, that is,” noted the schoolmistress.
“Exactly.”
Their eyes met: Miss Blake smiled and said: “Well, she does much good in the world, Pansy. Can that be said of many ladies of her station in life?”
“No, indeed! I shall not say a word against her!°
“Good. Um—Pansy, I have still not managed to raise my second point.’ she murmured.
Pansy looked politely enquiring.
Naomi Blake cleared her throat. “I fully intend to devote a large part of my energies to managing the new school. But—well, one of the reasons why I am very glad that Miss Gore is to join with me in the enterprise and—er—why I did not feel it would be practical to continue on here is that—in short,” she said, blushing very much but also laughing: “I am not yet in my dotage, and it is possible that I may be rather occupied with producing my very own future pupil!”
“Your own— Oh! Yes,” said Pansy limply. “Of course.”
“I am assured,” she said with a naughty look: “that it will receive as much tender fatherly care as Percival Cummings the Second himself.”
Pansy gulped. “Even he could not have said that!”
“Of course he could, the monster!” she said, laughing.
Pansy eyed her in some awe.
Naomi Blake was pretty well aware of what she was thinking, but nevertheless said: “What is it?
“You’re... softer,” said Pansy slowly.
“I think so: yes,” she said composedly.
Pansy swallowed loudly.
“I shall not say, in the superior tones of a soon-to-be-married woman, that you would understand an you were in my shoes, for it is the sort of remark that even from the most well-meaning of women has been used to bring me to screaming point any time these last thirty years!” she said, chuckling.
“Mm!”
“Only it is horridly true! –I’m sorry, my dear: I shall not teaze you further.”
Pansy smiled gallantly. “That is quite all right: I am very glad to see you so happy. And—and I hope you and Dr Fairbrother do have a baby: I think that would be delightful.”
Little smiles came and went round Miss Blake’s mouth. “Well, that is what he thinks, at all events! I have warned him that I am no good with the creatures!”
Pansy laughed but again looked at her in some awe.
“Do you know,” said Miss Blake with a smile: “l have the silliest feeling that I must thank you, Pansy! For had it not been for your masquerade here, I should never have met Wynn Fairbrother at all!”
“No, that’s true, I suppose. But then, you might as well thank Bunch Ainsley for getting up in the space above the cupboard, or the builder who designed the house for leaving the space there!”
“Aye. Or the Fates.”
Pansy met her eye.
“Those scantily-clad Greek dames!” gasped Miss Blake, as they both collapsed in gales of laughter.
“I have never seen her so happy or heard her laugh so much,” reported Pansy in awestruck tones the next day.
“That is splendid!” cried Lady Jane Carey.
“Indeed!” agreed the Commander heartily, carving ham. “William Chubb, you may hand this to Miss Pansy!”
William Chubb took the platter carefully and stood over Pansy, breathing heavily, while she helped herself to the ham.
Pansy politely took only half what the Commander had carved: William Chubb just stood there, breathing heavily.
“You must take it all, Pansy, my dear,” said the Commander cheerfully, “or William will breathe over you for the remainder of the meal!”
Trying not to laugh, Pansy took the rest of the ham. “Thank you, William,” she croaked.
William Chubb bowed slightly, with the most awful solemnity, and retreated to the sideboard.
Pansy looked frantically at the Commander.
“He has been— William Chubb, my dear good fellow, we are all served, and you may take yourself off to the kitchen,” said the Commander loudly. “Lady Jane will ring an she requires your services further.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you, my Lady,” said William Chubb with awful solemnity, bowing himself out.
‘He has been taking lessons from Jane,” said the Commander solemnly. Pansy goggled at Lady Jane. “Only don’t blame her!” he gasped, breaking down in a spluttering fit.
Lady Jane laughed. “No, well, it was so silly of me not to have guessed why he was asking, Pansy! He expressed an interest in how things are done at Chypsley, my Papa’s principal seat, you see; and—and I thought it was only—only an academic interest!”
Pansy gave an ecstatic yelp of laughter.
“Yes,” said the Commander, on the broad grin: “and the next thing we knew he was tellin’ me I did not do things right in me own house, and offering to get himself up in full livery and serve us in due state.”
“In especial if we have the Vicar and his wife to dine,” said Lady Jane faintly.
Pansy gave another yelp.
“So we let him, sometimes.” admitted the Commander. still grinning. “Awful, ain’t it?”
“Say, rather awe-inspiring! And has he done it to the Vicar?”
“Yes, indeed, and Mrs Vicar was duly overawed and proceeded to ‘your Ladyship’ Jane like nobody’s business,” said the Commander with relish. “The which we then perceived was the object of the exercise! For Mrs Vicar has never accorded me the respect due to a son of Dendledean House!”
“No: she has, rather, accorded you the respect due to the son of the lady who threw a china ornament at her best silk bonnet, Leith!” choked his wife.
The Commander winked his one eye at Pansy and she collapsed in giggles.
“Oh, and by the way,” he said when she was over the fit, “you don’t have to eat all that dashed ham. Give it here, if you can’t manage it.”
“No, no: I’m very hungry,” replied Pansy with a grin, embarking on it.
“Seriously,” said Commander Carey, “I am very glad to hear that Naomi Blake is happy at last.”
Pansy smiled awkwardly and could not refrain from a glance at Lady Jane.
“Yes,” said the gentle lady, smiling: “and as it is public, now, I think we might call and offer her our best wishes.”
“Mm!” agreed the Commander, nodding through a mouthful of ham. “Let’sh!” He swallowed and added: “We may drive over tomorrow, if you wish, my love. Or we could call in on our way to Brighton—might as well take in Merrifield on the way.”
“Leith’s cousins, Selina and Diddy Carey, who live in Bath, as you know, are to come for Christmas,” explained Lady Jane, “and we shall meet them in Brighton.”
“They are coming post, but there is no need for them to come on an extra stage when we may just as easily save them the expense,” added Commander Carey. “Though it isn’t quite true to say they are coming for Christmas.”
“Of course!” said Pansy, smiling. “They will be coming to inspect Master Peter Leith Wynn Carey!”
“Aye: that is it!” he beamed proudly.
“They sent the most beautiful gown and shawl, and Miss Diddy has knitted him the cunningest cap and matching little boots!” reported Master Peter’s mamma.
“And Selina—that is Miss Carey—has altered her will accordingly,” said the Commander, pulling a comical face. “Cousin Jeremy Carey’s silver watch, that was always to come to me as a deserving young lad, has now been diverted to that greedy little monster.”
“Leith!” cried his wife.
‘Darling, he is the greediest creature I have ever laid eyes on: his whole existence is feeding and sleeping!”
“Of course it is, you silly: he is a baby!” she said, laughing.
“Oh, is he?” replied the Commander in mild surprize.
At this Lady Jane and Pansy both collapsed in giggles. Commander Carey was rather glad to see it. For he was not a stupid man, and he had been rather uneasy as to how Pansy would take the little bundle of evidence of his and Jane’s feeling for each other.
Later in the afternoon, the Commander having gone in to sit with his mother for a little, Lady Jane and Pansy were alone in the erstwhile morning room, which had now become Lady Jane’s sitting-room. And where heretofore it had been pretty enough, if a little cold-looking, in shades of blue with a lot of white about it, now it was even prettier, and much warmer, with touches of pink, and some elegant pieces of gleaming walnut furniture. Pansy remarked upon a fine Buhl cabinet and Lady Jane smiled, pinkened, and revealed: “Yes: Grandmamma gave us those pieces on our marriage. As they are from the Dower House at Chypsley, we are afraid she did not really have the right to. However, dear Broughamwood has assured us we are to keep them!”
Pansy looked at her sideways. “What about your papa?”
“We don’t think he knows,” said Lady Jane with a twinkle in her gentle hazel eye.
Pansy collapsed in giggles.
Lady Jane smiled very much and said, patting the sofa beside her: “Come and sit down, Pansy, and tell me all about this engagement of dear Dr Fairbrother’s. Will she make him happy, do you think?”
Pansy came and sat by her and gave her her honest opinion. The which was that she thought it would work: for anything Miss Blake set her hand to, she put her whole self into.
“Yes,” said the gentle Lady Jane slowly. “l can understand that, Pansy. And I do not doubt that hers is a wholly admirable character. But—well, I do not wish to pour cold water... But when it comes to—to two very different temperaments making a life together, effort and—and good intentions may not be enough.”
“No. But in this case, she is so very happy—she is so changed, Jane!—that I am entirely optimistic about it. At least, when I say she is changed,” she amended. thinking about it, “she is, in a certain way. She seems softer, and—and also kinder, if it is not ungrateful and impertinent in me to say so. But otherwise she is just as—as thoughtful and determined as ever!”
Lady Jane was glad to see that this was Pansy’s true opinion. And although she herself still felt uneasily that her point held good, she did not wish Pansy to share her own unease: she squeezed her hand softly and said: “I am so glad. It is splendid news.”
“And she likes monkeys. you know,” said Pansy with a twinkle in her eye.
“Oh, dear—I mean, yes, of course she does. The thing is, Dr Fairbrother has called several times—though of course we did not suspect why he was in the neighbourhood!—and ever since Mary laid eyes on Percy, we have heard nothing but! And much as I would like to have one, I do feel it would be disastrous, with Mamma-in-law in the house!”
Pansy nodded, and in her turn squeezed her hand. “How is she, Jane?”
Jane Carey made a little face. “There is no true improvement, and of course it is not to be hoped for. We do not know if she truly realizes that Baby Peter is her grandson, or not. Sometimes she seems to know and other times she calls him Barnabas. –Well, that is natural, my dear: Barnabas was her first baby,” she said as Pansy grimaced. “But on the whole she is much quieter and does not even throw cushions so much, these days. It was an inspiration of Leith’s to have pleasant Mrs Bellinger come to look after her! She is so capable!”
Pansy nodded, smiling. And did not bring up the occasion mentioned in their correspondence when Lady Jane’s Stripey, normally confined to the kitchen regions, as Mrs Carey did not like cats, somehow had got loose and ventured into the front room. He was now bidding fair to be a monster rivalling Horatio Nelson in size: the old lady had screamed out that there was a giant rat in her sitting-room and attempted to hurl the fire-irons at him. Considerably damaging a small occasional table in the process.
“And how is dear Delphie?” asked Lady Jane. “I have not heard from her for nigh on a month: is she well?”
Pansy nodded. “Very well, thank goodness.” She hesitated. “I think she has got over it,” she said in a low voice.
Lady Jane nodded and said kindly: “Yes. And she was not so very far along, was she?”
Pansy sighed. “No. Only, reading between the lines, they… I suppose it is an exaggeration to say they were pinning great hopes on it.”
“But one does!” she said kindly.
“Mm.”
“I—I would have asked them to come to us for Christmas, you know, for they and the Miss Careys might have travelled very comfortably together, but Leith thought better not, just yet. Baby is still so little: it might be a sad reminder.”
Pansy nodded. “Yes. But she seems happy, and she is very busy. That will be why she has not had time to write you, Jane, for the entire Amory clan seems to be coming to them for Christmas this year! I’m glad to be escaping it, to tell you the truth!”
Jane looked at her anxiously. “Indeed.”
“No, no! Not because of Sir Noël! –Oh, there is a naughty on-dit going around about him: I heard it when I was in Bath, but did not like to write it, for I thought the Commander might be shocked. But I can tell you!” Pansy proceeded happily to tell her: it involved a certain Lord Ivo who was the owner of some fine grouse shooting in Scotland, Sir Noël’s whereabouts this last August, and Lady Ivo. Jane was not shocked, though she was a trifle overcome to find that Pansy considered Leith more shockable than her quiet self. Though there was some truth in it: the story in itself would not shock him, but its coming from Pansy— Well, men were such odd creatures, bless them!
… “I think,” she said to the odd creature, as they waved goodbye from the sitting-room window to Pansy in the school’s trap and the determined William Chubb on the Commander’s sturdy cob as self-appointed escort, “that she is truly pleased about this match between Miss Blake and Dr Fairbrother.”
“Aye. Not to say truly pleased about our marriage, at last!” he said with a little laugh.
Lady Jane squeezed his arm. “Yes. And dearest, she was quite overcome by our darling Peter: did you notice? She turned so pink when she held him, and looked as if she might cry! And said he was the prettiest thing she had ever seen!”
“Mm. Whereas even you,” he said, squeezing her hard, “can perceive that on the contrary, he is a formless bundle approximately the colour, not to say shape and weight, of a well-boiled lobster. And frequently as damp as one!” he ended, laughing.
“Silly one,” she said mildly. “No, but is it not a splendid sign. dearest?”
“Aye. It will not be long, now!” he predicted with a chuckle.
Pansy wrote to Delphie that evening. The next morning she sat down to pen letters to Henry, her Aunt Venetia, Alfreda, Sarah Quayle-Sturt and Lady Winnafree.
The first four letters were rapidly finished and sealed up. Then came the one to Portia. Pansy paused with her pen suspended over the first few lines of this missive. Then she nibbled the pen thoughtfully. Then she looked again at what she had written. Then she took a deep breath, dipped the pen in the ink and applied herself to the task.
The letter eventually produced expressed very firmly Pansy’s view that Dr Fairbrother and Miss Blake would make a success of their strange union, and did not breathe a word of that once-upon-a-time conversation with Lady Winnafree on the subject of the blindfolded little god with the arrows.
Portia smiled very much over it, and handed it to Sir Chauncey over the breakfast table. “What do you think, my dear?”
The Admiral read it over slowly, now and again making a wheezy, huffing noise. “Aye, aye. Little Pansy is pleased, that’s a good sign. Here, what about this schoolmarm, though? Will she do for Wynn?”
Portia shrugged a little. “Who can say? At the least, she is old enough to know what she is taking on. And he is not a fool. We shall just have to wait and see. –No: for me, the interest of the news of the engagement is rather in Pansy’s way of reporting it.”
“Aye! I think that we shall definitely make a push to get over to Harpingdon’s place for the New Year! And trust me to see the fellow accompanies us, me dear!”
“Yes!” said Portia, laughing very much. “I am counting on you!”
“Here, see this here, where she wanders off her subject and goes on about Lady Jane’s infant?”
“Mm!”
The Admiral looked through the letter again, smiling. “Aye, aye; and look here, me love: she has writ but three lines about that dashed cat of hers, as compared to six about the Carey infant!”
“Yes!” she choked.
“Good!” he said, rubbing his hands. “We shall have a happy New Year, then!”
“I am looking forward to it!”
Nodding terrifically, Sir Chauncey went into a prolonged spluttering, wheezing fit. At the end of it however, he observed his wife to be looking at the letter again with a very odd expression on her pretty, pink-cheeked face. “What is it, Portia?”
“Oh... Kittens must turn into cats, I suppose,” said Portia with a smothered sigh. “But in a way, it’s a pity.”
“Me love, you would not wish to see little Pansy miss out on the best of a woman’s life?” he said with a troubled look.
“Why, no! Not that! But she is so... I don’t know, Chauncey... Of course I wish to see her happy with a man she can love and respect, and who will love her, and I do truly think James is the man. But...”
Sir Chauncey scratched his frill of white hair. “What’s the alternative? To see her turn into a strange hag like this schoolmarm of Wynn’s? –And I tell you what, he must be the only man in England that would dream of takin’ on a woman who has been her own mistress, not say a damned headmistress, for over twenty years!”
“Darling, I don’t think it is entirely fair to call her a strange hag.”
“Pooh! Ain’t she the woman that was too proud to take Leith Carey when he was ready to offer her a home and security and the love of a decent man?”
“Mm. Very well, Chauncey, let her be a strange hag. And I agree, that would be Pansy’s alternative.”
“Or worse, given the fortune: to turn into a damned do-gooder like that damned female Whatsername, t’other day!”
“Dearest, I did warn you that that afternoon was to consist solely of ladies whom Lady Rockingham had recommended to me for their interest in charitable works.”
The Admiral shuddered. “Aye. l should have stayed at White’s!”
Portia smiled. “Yes. –Well, you are right, of course, my love, you always are: there is no alternative for our dear little Pansy.”
“There y’are, then. And what is wrong with James, pray? Said yourself just t’other day that he is a lovely fellow!”
“Of course he is a lovely fellow, and if there is any man in England who is capable of—of preserving Pansy’s quality once he has married her, it is he.”
Admiral Sir Chauncey looked at her sideways and did not comment on her use of the “if.”
Next chapter:
https://theogilvieconnection.blogspot.com/2022/08/mrs-parker-does-her-best.html
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