Aftermath

26

Aftermath

    Wilhelm von Maltzahn-Dressen, it was soon revealed, had fled to his cousin’s house because his family wished him to marry a certain high-born German lady and he didn’t. His English was very good and so he was enabled to explain that she had a face like a stoat. The which Lance capably translated for the company. “A face like a ferret, is the usual English simile. A commonplace, out of course. The two are not unalike, but—” At which point George Beresford stopped him in his flow.

    Jack did not wish for a breach with his Cousin Georg nor, annoyed with her though he was, with his Aunt Fanny, so he pointed out with some acerbity that if Wilhelm did not marry the girl, there would be few options left open to him, in especial if, as was being threatened, his oldest brother, Georg, withdrew his allowance. No-one remarked upon it aloud, but all of the Beresfords were aware that Wilhelm’s red hair was a reliable indicator that his father had not been the late Fürst von Maltzahn-Dressen but that “Fritzl” who had also fathered his sister Adélaïde and that, though all of Fanny’s children had been acknowledged as the Fürst’s, there had been no specific provision for Wilhelm in his will. The assumption was that the eldest son would look after him, by no means an unusual arrangement, but it did mean that Wilhelm was completely dependant on his oldest brother’s charity. True, the picture would have been different had he had a doating mamma.

    “Isn’t there something I might do for you, Jack?” said Wilhelm with his charming smile.

    “No,” returned Jack simply. “Lance is helping Uncle George with the property and we have no need of another assistant.”

    “What about the horses?” he replied ingratiatingly.

    “Goodwin is in charge of the stables,” replied Jack flatly.

    “Wouldn’t do, in any case,” grunted George Beresford, eying the smiling young man with disfavour.

    “Logically, there is no reason that one’s birth should prevent one becoming a groom,” noted Lance.

    “He is a prince,” returned Jack grimly.

    “Only a Continental one, though,” said Wilhelm with the smile.

    Lance gave a snigger which he tried unsuccessfully to turn into a cough. “Er—no, well, that’s true enough,” he said feebly.

    “I’ll purchase you an Army commission if you wish for it, but that’s all I’ll do for you,” said Jack on a grim note.

    “That’s very kind, but it isn’t a career vhich appeals,” he replied sadly.

    “Added to which, Cousin Jack, which army?” added Lance.

    “Lance, just keep your mouth shut,” said George tiredly.

    “Well, I will if you wish it, Uncle George, of course; but thing is, someone had best suggest something,” he pointed out with horrid logic.

    Jack swallowed. “He’s not far wrong, Uncle George.”

    “No,” the older man agreed grimly. He scratched his chin. “Uh—could Matthews use him?”

    “Look, I’m not siccing him onto poor Paul!” cried Jack loudly.

    Wilhelm’s eyes met Lance’s. He made a rueful face. Lance grinned back sympathetically.

    George cleared his throat. “Uh—no. Not that. Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, giving the red-headed young man a baleful look. “Uh—no, this idea that Matthews might breed horses.”

    Jack had to swallow. When last heard of, it had not been Mr Matthews’s idea, but Mrs Matthews’s—hers and Sally Matthews’s, the latter being all of fourteen years of age—and the proposal had involved “lovely white horses with flowing manes” that might, at need, draw Mrs Matthews’s barouche or be ridden by the said Sally. Mrs Matthews, be it said, not being by any means a doating mamma, but carried away by having assumed the position of châtelaine to a landowner—and, at the precise moment of speaking, by having consumed two glasses of the port left behind by the last tenant of Hailsham House.

    “It could work,” noted Lance. “They’ve got that grey mare of Sally’s—well, a walking tub of lard, and the legs too short, but she’s got the colour. Buy a decent grey stallion, breed out the short legs?”

    “But it’s perfect! I could bring over my Lipizzaners!” cried Wilhelm.

    Jack passed his hand through his curls. “Uh—greys,” he said to his relatives. “Bred especially for the Spanish Riding School at the Imperial Palace in Vienna. I didn’t know that they were ever sold. Well—depends who you are, I presume. Beautiful horses, part Arab.”

    “They are dark vhen they are foaled and then their coats become vhite as they grow older!” said Wilhelm, beaming at them,.

    “Wilhelm, have you even got any breeding stock?” said Jack on a tired note.

    “I do have a mare who is pure-bred. She has some black shpots,” he admitted.

    “Right, we’ll mate her to young Sally’s mare,” noted George instantly.

    “But she has had two colts and only one has the shpots, Uncle George,” he said meekly.

    George sniffed. “Fifty percent. Don’t they teach you arithmetic on the Continent, lad?”

    “Hang on!” cried Lance. “The Marquess of Wade!”

    There was a short silence. Then Jack noted grimly: “You have never laid eyes on Wade.”

    “No, but Willy and Tony Gratton-Gordon are relations! I’ve met them!”

    Jack sighed. “Wade breeds greys,” he said to Wilhelm. “He may well sell you a colt for sixteen times what it’s worth.”

    “But there you are!” he cried. “That’s it!”

    Mm. Well, there you possibly were, if Mrs Matthews was of Aunt Mary’s opinion in re red-haired and very naïve young men—“Something very taking about his manner,” and: “Those very clear eyes and the lovely white skin”—and not of the George Beresford, or “Villainous-looking” and dislike of red whiskers school of thought.

    “Mind you,” said Lance kindly, “Ma Matthews’ll nigh to explode when it dawns you’re a prince, even if only a Continental one!”

    Wilhelm’s face fell ludicrously.

    “Uh—don’t tell ’em?” ventured George, scratching his grizzled head. “Well, I mean, Fanny never turns up here no more: could be just plain Mister?”

    Wilhelm looked hopefully at Jack.

    “Mr von Maltzahn-Dressen,” said that gentleman drily.

    Wilhelm’s face fell again. “Would it not do, in England?”

    “Hang on!” cried Lance. “Why not just Mr Dressen? Would your mamma be furious?”

    “Er—well, she has washed her hands of me, Lance,” he said with an uneasy smile. “The match was agreed between her and the girl’s family, you see, when we were babies.”

    Everybody, even his uncle, was looking hopefully at Jack.

    “Oh, the Hell with it! Why not?” he said. “You can be Mr Dressen—in fact, the Matthewses probably won’t get their tongues round ‘Wilhelm’, so if you’re serious about the thing you can damn’ well be plain Will Dressen, horse-breeder, from now on! That or be toad-eaten by Ma Matthews for the rest of your natural!”

    “I shall be plain Will Dressen, and thank you so very much, Jack!” he said ecstatically.

    Yes, well. Possibly he’d stick at it. His real father, an energetic and capable man, had had a distinguished military career followed by a distinguished diplomatic career, in the intervals of fathering brats on Aunt Fanny, so maybe there was something to him. “Uh—how old are you now, Wilhelm—Will, I should say?” he added on a note of belated caution.

    Beaming, the renamed Will Dressen assured them he was twenty-one, and of age, and his family could no longer force him to do anything!

    Mm. Making a mental note to tell Matthews the whole, Jack agreed that he’d suggest the scheme.

    Ferdinand Matthews’s reaction was pretty much what he’d expected. He forced him, Jack, to admit that the word “parasite” wasn’t inapposite, and then agreed to the whole, so long as the word “prince” was never mentioned in Mrs Matthews’s or the girls’ hearing.

    The upshot of all of this was that the renamed Will Dressen ending up boarding with the Hiltons at Ten Oaks House.

    “What?” said Mr Beresford dangerously.

    “Yes. I have no notion why the Fürst Wilhelm von Maltzahn-Dressen should prefer to call himself ‘Will Dressen,’ but it is his own business, after all, and I cannot but approve of any young man’s wishing to earn a living and not be dependent on his family,” replied Peg calmly. “He is fitting in very well and is proving of great assistance to Corporal Barker. And in the case you were imagining that he and Paul can have nothing in common, it is no such thing. They are both great readers and although Mr Dressen knows relatively little of our English politics he is very well acquainted with both European politics and history, and so they are enabled to have great discussions over the topics in the newspaper. And I am sure Paul would wish me to express the very great appreciation which we both feel—nay, that he, I and Mr Dressen all feel—for your passing on your paper to us, Cousin Beresford.”

    It was not precisely clear why this completely unexceptionable speech should have resulted in Mr Beresford’s turning purple and shouting: “Poppycock!” but so it did.

    Miss Buffitt, alas, gave a smothered giggle, but opened those extraordinary gold-green eyes very wide and said: “No, truly!”

    Scowling horribly, Mr Beresford turned on his heel.

    “No, wait!” gasped Peg, rushing after him and grabbing his sleeve as he reached the Hiltons’ front door. “Did you bring it?”

    Her cousin turned purple. “No! Uncle George has not finished reading it!” he shouted.

    “Um, not the paper,” said Peg in a sheepish voice. “I’m sorry. The receet.”

    Mr Beresford just stared at her.

    “For the gingerbread,” said Peg feebly. “From Miss Beresford.”

    “Oh! Uh—yes,” he muttered, feeling in the pockets of his greatcoat. “Uh… She did give it me: where did I—” He searched the pockets of his jacket, finally discovering a much folded sheet of paper in the inner breast pocket. “Here.”

    “Thank you,” said Peg meekly. The paper was very warm: she pinkened.

    “And I should warn you now,” said her cousin icily, opening the front door, “that an you do not make the muck, your name will be a scorn and a hissing at the Hall—yours and Barker’s,” he noted acidly, “forever and aye, yea unto the fourth and fifth generations! Good-day!” With that he snatched his hat from the hall table and marched out. Not closing the door sharply behind him, as his cousin was now helpfully holding it for him.

    “Help,” muttered Peg lamely. She closed the door very slowly and went very slowly upstairs to show the receet to Maria.

    “This looks excellent!” beamed her sister.

    Peg sat down on the edge of the bed. “Does it? Good. It won’t be the same as Will’s German muck, of course, but as he wouldn’t know a receet if he fell over it, too bad.”

    “Mm. Paul’s mother puts molasses in hers: it makes it keep extraordinarily well,” she murmured.

    “What does Miss Beresford use?” asked Peg with an effort.

    “Treacle.”

    “Yes, well, according to him,” said her little sister sourly, “we had better make it or be a scorn and a hissing forever at the Hall, and I’m sure I don’t care if we are!” Forthwith she burst into snorting sobs.

    “Oh, dear,” said Maria under her breath—not, however, sounding particularly disturbed. She patted Peg’s shoulder kindly and gave her her own handkerchief. “Peg, dearest, do try not to rile him up.”

    “He riles me up!” said Peg crossly, blowing her nose.

    “Then perhaps you should ask yourself,” she said, sounding horribly like Alice, “why that is so, Peg-Peg.”

    “Because he’s bumptious and—and haughty, and believes he knows it all!” snapped Peg, getting up. “And I am grateful for the paper, and it was only a joke! And why he has to be so scornful about poor Will, I know not!” She ran out, abandoning the receet.

    “Peg, you silly, he’s jealous of him!” cried Maria with a smile in her voice.

    Her cheeks very flushed, Peg hurried downstairs, pretending to herself that she hadn’t heard that.

    Mr Beresford told himself angrily, riding home and quite forgetting he’d meant to take a look at the Home Wood today, that for two pins he’d get off to— Well, not London at this time of year. But there was his friend Bobby Q.-V. over in Derbyshire, he was always welcome at Bobby’s pa’s place— But setting aside the worry over Lance, he couldn’t: old Sir Horace Monday had now arrived to spend Christmas at the Hall.

    As for Lance… His eyes narrowed. On reaching home he went straight into his study, firmly closing the door on the startled William, who had been about to say that Cook had a pot of broth simmering and would he like a cup on this frosty day, and wrote a detailed letter to his man of business. It was not a usual commission but Chudleigh could damn’ well do it or lose his business! –He did not suggest any such thing, but then he was aware there was no need to.

    “But the post’s gorn, Mr Beresford!” faltered William, receiving the letter in a palsied hand.

    “I know that. Get one of the grooms to take it down immediately,”

    Numbly William replied: “Yessir. Immediately, sir.”

    That was that, and now there was nothing to do but get through damned Christmas as best they might. Well, at least Sir Horace and Uncle George were getting on like a house on fire, rather than being at each other’s throats as he’d feared. Sighing, Mr Beresford went back into his study, sat down and stared unseeingly in front of him, only coming to when the gong for the midday meal was beaten with unnecessary fervour. If his father himself had not installed the thing in the front hall—it was some sort of an Eastern curiosity given him by a friend who had travelled to those parts, and quite possibly the most brazen gong in the entire world—he’d have had it thrown out. As it was, he merely strode into the hall and said coldly to William, who was standing there with the thing’s stick in his hand, unable to disclaim responsibility: “There is no need to beat the gong that hard: those who are in the stables or out and about the place cannot hear it, and those who are indoors do not wish to be deafened.”

    Looking very startled, William replied: “Beg pardon, sir!”

    “Has that letter of mine been taken to the post?”

    “Yessir, Bert took it right away, sir!” he gasped.

    “Glad to hear it.”

    “Yessir,” said William sadly. “There’s a nice mutton pie today, sir,” he offered.

    Taking a deep breath, Mr Beresford managed not to snap, though not achieving a smile, and replied: “Good, well, lead me to it, eh?”

    William of course took this literally: he brightened horribly, hastened forward to the dining-room door, opened it and, bowing profoundly, ushered him in.

    Refraining with a terrific effort from telling him this wasn’t damned Blenheim Palace or Castle Howard, Mr Beresford went in and took his seat at the board. Was there any faint hope that today Uncle George, Sir Horace and Lance would have gone off to some far distant part of the estate or even down to the Blue Boar and thus would not be present at— No.

    After the storm in a teacup of Wilhelm von Maltzahn-Dressen’s unexpected arrival in Cumberland, and the further, milder ones of the arrival of yet more foreigners at the Blue Boar—Sir Horace Monday, of course, followed by Mr Matthews’ son-in-law what Mr Ingham never knew that was ’is name and it were true as ’e never asked for the ’All only ’e ’ad a suspicious look about ’im—life in the environs of Beresford Hall was enabled to return to its normal pace. And Christmas was duly enabled to be celebrated.

    There were one or two good things about it. Well, the fact that Uncle George and Sir Horace were getting on so well, of course. Aunt Mary’s lamentations over Peg’s refusal to spend Christmas Day with them at the Hall because of course Maria could not come and she wished to stay with her, Paul and the little ones were, however, extremely irritating. Extremely. The more so as they carried on into the New Year. Lance elected to go and join his sisters, further salt in the wound, on the one hand, though on t’other something of a relief.

    Further afield Mrs Matthews, now with Mrs Willow installed in the kitchen, offered several incredibly dainty entertainments, to which the Beresford household of course went, the more so as it was reliably reported that Lady Porton had sent a gracious note refusing the dinner invitation—too far in this icy weather, or so the report had it. Matters were somewhat amended by her Ladyship’s graciously condescending to call on a January afternoon, the subsequent report being that Mrs Matthews kept quite a genteel household, though perhaps someone might drop just a hint that calling that artificial lake of Hailsham House’s a mere was not entirely appropriate.

    …  “What the devil's up with you, Jack?” demanded George Beresford bluntly as January wore on its icy way and his nephew appeared to be sinking further and further into sour gloom.

    “Nothing. Well, uh—shut that damned door,” he said, giving it a hunted look.

    Shrugging, the elder Mr Beresford shut the study door. “Go on, what is it?”

    Mr Beresford explained with a scowl that he’d written asking Chudleigh to find out the whereabouts of the Princesse P. and what the old bitch might be up to—back before Christmas—and had not yet received a reply.

    “Hm. Well, what’s damned Fanny up to?”

    Jack scrabbled in his desk drawer. “Here.”

    The letter was odiously scented: his uncle blinked.

    “Before you start—”

    “Wasn’t going to,” he grunted. He looked at the signature. “Clementine? Who is she?”

    “A gazetted bitch,” replied Jack between his teeth. “Either read it or give it back!”

    Shrugging, he read it. Lady Reggie Bon-Dutton had decided against Dallermaine for the festive season, the spectacle of the assembled B-D.s grinding their teeth over the American duke not appealing, and had gone to her brother-in-law, Lord Peter, in Hampshire.

    “Never heard of him,” noted George Beresford sourly at this point.

    “Yes, you have: he’s the B.-D. what never pays his wine bills: Matthews mentioned him. Not him, the next bit.”

    “Uh—oh, right. Admiral du Fresne was there without Fanny. Well, doesn’t prove she turned him down, but it’s promising, hey? So where’s she gone?”

    “Over the page. Woburn Abbey.”

    George turned over. “Right. –Thought Bedford was a fairly young fellow?”

    “He is. The attraction there, as the bitch kindly explains, would seem to be someone else entirely.”

    George read on, sniffed, and said: “She’s known Alec Ramsay since her cradle, but all right, it’s on again.”

    “At least for Christmas—the divine Clementine does make that point.”

    “Bitch,” he concluded, tossing it back to him. “Done with her, have you?” he added, giving his nephew a hard look,

    Jack reddened. “Yes! Why else is the tone is so spiteful?”

    “Thought it might be natural to her. Well, glad to hear it. Any more like that?”

    “What, letters or spiteful predatory bitches?”

    “Both, if y’like,” responded his uncle steadily.

    “No! Um, well, no more bitches like Clementine B.-D. –I must have been mad,” he admitted. “But there is another letter. All at second or even third hand, but read it if you like.”

    “For the Lord’s sake, Jack, this one’s scented, too!”

    “It’s from Gwennie Lacey: she’s a friend of Peg’s, and you have met her,” said Jack heavily.

    “Oh right, the little fair dame in the acorn hat: liked that!” said George cheerfully. “Let’s see… Hell’s teeth,” he muttered.

    “Er, yes,” said Jack, clearing his throat. “Sorry, Uncle George. The salient bit’s on the, um, the third page, I think.”

    “Paper to burn,” he muttered, turning over. “Hum, hum—never heard of any of these people! Hum, hum… Oh. Here. –Eh?”

    “Lady Sarah Quayle-Sturt is—”

    “No, don’t explain, dear lad, it’ll be in one ear and out t’other. –Right, so one of the dames was actually there when Fanny gave the Admiral his congé, eh? Good, sounds definite!” he concluded pleasedly. “So maybe the old Princess’ll lay off, hey?”

    “One can but hope so,” said Jack grimly. “If only damned Chudleigh would stir his stumps!”

    A freezing February had arrived—with Sir Horace, incidentally, still in residence—by the time Mr Chudleigh’s letter at last arrived.

    Jack sagged. “By God! The old bitch has gone off to Paris!”

    “Is he sure?” replied his uncle temperately.

    “Yes. Sent a fellow over there to check the story. That’s why it took so long.”

    George cleared his throat.

    “What?”

    “Nothing. Well good news, of course. But Chudleigh’ll make you stand the nonsense for this fellow’s jaunt to Paris, y’know, Jack.”

    “Uncle George, I’d pay ten times the sum—nay, an hundred—to know Lance is safe from the old hag at last!”

    “Yes, ’course you would, dear boy. Well, seems all right, don’t it? –May I?” He read the letter, and smiled a little. “Seems definite, aye, given she’s got this Froggy lad living in the house. –Do Chudleigh even know what the word mignon means?”

    “I think he does now!” admitted Jack, suddenly breaking down in horrible splutters.

    His uncle duly joined him, though then sending for the brandy, admitting: “Feel quite odd. Must be the relief.”

    “Yes,” Jack agreed weakly. “Me, too. If only Lance were not so damn’ vague— Oh, well.”

    “He’s come on a lot,” said his uncle tolerantly. “Can’t expect too much, when he’s been under the influence of damned Buffitt all his life. Well, that and he’s inherited a fair bit of the fellow’s temperament, let’s face it, Jack. Thank God that dear little gal was spared it, hey?”

    Jack sighed. “Yes.”

    Which was all very well in its way. But George Beresford owned to himself later that day: “Well, dashed good thing the boy’s safe, aye. But as to why Jack ain't getting nowhere with the dear little gal—!”

    He thought it over carefully for several days. Both as stubborn as mules, of course, that wasn’t helping. But possibly what was also not helping was the fact of him and Mary apparently permanently installed at the Hall. Well, Mary’d be enough to drive a saint to drink all by herself—and had anyone ever told the dear little gal in so many words that they’d shove off to the dower house if Jack ever stirred his stumps and popped the question? And then—well, the house was well enough, but nothing much had been done to the furnishings since Rowena had been a bride, and perhaps it did all seem a bit old-fashioned to a young thing. Just t’other day dashed Lance had called the dining-room dark. Well, it was darkish, yes. Solid English oak, nothing wrong with it. But come to think of it, Fanny had always loathed it—made Pa more determined not to change it, naturally. The little gal might not realise that she’d be allowed to change things, have them all bright and pretty. And, uh, well, if her tastes were simple enough, she’d just had several months in London being shown how the Upper Ten Thousand lived, and here she was in the damned country with Beresford Hall not laying on one decent dinner because damned Mary refused to entertain formally! Well—refused: her version of it. Got the flutters at the mere idea, had to take to her bed with the smelling-salts. Maybe it was a pity Rowena hadn’t come for Christmas, after all, but she usually spent it in Bath and he had an idea she might have thought that Jack’d take the opportunity to get closer to Peg without his ma’s eye upon the pair of them. Thing was, with no parties at the Hall he had to actually get on over to Hilton’s house, and it looked damned particular. Well, a fellow given the slightest encouragement wouldn’t make no bones about it, but she hadn’t given him any, had she?

    George scratched his head a bit but finally, conceding under his breath: “Better do it,” sat down and laboriously penned a letter to Rowena along those lines, suggesting that perhaps, with Maria being a lot better and being brought down to sit on the sofa every day, she had better get on over to Cumberland and throw a few parties before Peg ran off to Lincolnshire again. And he was about to speak to Jack about doing up the dower house and him and Mary moving into it, and if she could possibly think, in the meantime, of some kind person to invite d— Mary and get her and her everlasting hints out of both Jack’s and Peg’s orbits, he, for one, would be her everlastingly grateful bro.-in-law, George B.

    This scheme might have borne fruit—indeed, appeared about to do so, as George received a very encouraging letter in reply—but as an icy February gave way to the howling gales of March, there came the news that Mendoza Laidlaw was gravely ill of a fever and that Mrs Beresford felt she needed to be in Bath to support Charlotte.

    “Look,” said George, swallowing, as he perceived that his nephew had gone very pale: “if you want to get on down to Bath, Jack, go.”

    “Lord, yes, Jack!” agreed Lance. “You and Mendoza is very close, eh? Don’t worry about us, we shall manage, and Jack Adams has the ewes well in hand, y’know! Though of course I should be only too glad to accompany you. –Very decent chap, Mendoza, y’know, Uncle George,” he assured him.

    “I— Thank you, Lance, but you had best stay here. I think I should go,” Jack admitted.

    “Aye.” George rang the bell, at the same time bellowing: “WILLIAM!”

    Forthwith the footman shot in, was ordered to get that useless Moffat feller to pack a bag for Mister Jack and get ’em to bring the travelling coach round. And that—apart from the stream of lamentation and advice from Mary Beresford, of course—was that.

    … “The thing is,” said Lance glumly after the coach had rattled off and Uncle George had steered him into the library, firmly shutting the door on Miss Beresford, “Mendoza always seemed like such a fit sort of chap. Well—boxed at Jackson’s, y’know? All the more of a shock, y’see. Though I suppose any fellow may contract a fever.”

    “Aye,” he grunted. The brandy he’d earlier forced on Jack was still on the table: he handed him a brimming glass.

    Lance accepted it with thanks but noted after he’d drunk it: “Not a particular friend of mine, y’know: scarcely knew him. Always treated me very decently, though. Introduced me to some pleasant chaps. Think it’s thrown a fright into poor old Jack, though. Never seen him go so white. No, I tell a lie. The day Peg disappeared, that’s right.”

    “Eh?”

    “Nothing to it, Uncle George, she merely got up early and went down to see Westminster Bridge. Jack was imagining all sort of things, but I said to him, Peg has her head screwed on, no need to worry about her. Ignored me, of course: ordered up the curricle, dashed off like the wind. Jenks told me after, sawed at the nags’ mouths like nobody’s business. Wonder they wasn’t both thrown when he found her, he pulled up so sharp. Needn’t have worried, it’s no distance.”

    “Then the geography of London’s changed since I was last there,” said George drily. “Go on, cut along.”

    Lance went slowly over to the door. “Um, well, what shall I do?”

    George thrust a hand through his grizzled hair. “Uh—go and find Adams, check up on the ewes.”

    “Right you are!” Looking happy, Lance disappeared.

    Sighing, George Beresford had recourse to the brandy decanter again. “Well, that’s that,” he said glumly. “–No, well, good to hear he was worried about the dear little gal, took the trouble to go after her himself instead of sending one of the servants. Only now what’s going to happen? Ten to one she’ll be off to damned Lincolnshire before he gets back!”

    The senior Mr Beresford’s gloomy prognostication proved correct: as the trees began to come into leaf, the lambs began to gambol in the fields and the first daffodils and jonquils appeared, and they got the welcome news that Mendoza was much improved and now sure to pull through, Peg bade the Hilton household a fond farewell, not neglecting Corporal Barker and Magnolia, and went home to Lincolnshire.

    Sir Horace pulled up Big White Spot, looking glum. “There it is,” he noted sourly.

    Swallowing, Peg looked at the view of the empty Chelford Place. “Mm.”

    “Well, where is the fellow?” he demanded hotly.

    “Um, London, as he said, one must suppose.”

    “Hasn’t written to Alice, has he?” he demanded, scowling.

    Help, would a negative or positive reply be better? “No,” she admitted honestly. “She would not find it proper, and I had the impression that Mr Corrant is the sort of man that would not, either.”

    “Proper,” said the baronet sourly. “No. Well, has your damned Aunt Portwinkle heard from the fellow at all?”

    “Well, um, not as far as we know,” said Peg lamely.

    “What the Hell is the fellow about?” he muttered.

    “From what Ma said, I gathered he did say that he would be in London for the Season this year, didn’t he?”

    “Dare say,” he grunted. “So is she to be allowed to go?’

    “Alice? Why, yes, it is definite; Great-Aunt Portwinkle has even promised her some new gowns and an allowance of pin money. Well, it was accompanied by some stringent advice on darning stockings, but it was a definite promise!”

    He sniffed, but appeared somewhat mollified. “Well, what about Anne?”

    “It is quite decided,” said Peg, smiling very much. “She does not wish for another Season, so she is to go to Mrs Valentine for a couple of months, and then they will be married from Valentine Hall in June!”

    “And your damned father’s agreed?”

    “Ma did not consult him,” she admitted, “but merely presented him with the fait accompli.”

    “Good. So when are you off to London?”

    Peg sighed. “I’m not absolutely sure. Aunt Beresford has acquaintances who live not far from Lincoln: I think she is arranging for me to travel with them.”

    He patted her knee. “I’ll take you that far in the carriage, meself. Don’t want another disaster, hey?”

    “It was not a disaster at all, sir, I do assure you!”

    “Nonsense, girl! Should never have let you go off like that in the first place!” he rumbled, scowling horrifically.

    “Sir Horace, as far as you knew I was to travel on the stage with my brother to meet Miss Hunt: no-one could have guessed the subsequent events.”

    The old man sniffed. “No-one but anyone who’d known your parents for twenty-five years. –Don’t argue; I’ve decided.”

    Peg was, to say truth, very thankful to hear it. “Thank you so much, Sir Horace; it’s very kind of you.”

    “Aye, aye,” he said absently, staring at the splendid prospect before them. “Think nothing of it, m’dear... Where the Devil is damned Corrant?”

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