Changes

23

Changes

    “But you can’t just go!” cried Peg on an anguished note.

    Maria looked at her anxiously. “Dearest, we have known for some time that whenever Paul found a new position, we would be off,” she murmured.

    “But I’ve only just come home!” cried Peg.

    “Mr Matthews would like Paul to be settled in by harvest time, you see.”

    “I don’t think that the Hailsham House lands will have produced anything to harvest,” said Peg weakly.

    “Nevertheless,” said Maria on a firm note.

    “Mm.” Peg bit her lip. “I thought you might stay on here, since Mr Fitton spoke so kindly to Paul and asked him to come back.”

    “He thought it over very carefully,” Maria reminded her, “and decided, since he very much liked Mr Matthews, that he would much prefer that position.”

    “Yes, well, of course it is a much better position than that of assistant,” said Peg wanly.

    Maria rose, and kissed her cheek. “Yes. And the house sounds very pleasant—well, not in positively first-class condition, but sound enough, and we shall be able to do it up to suit!”

    “Ye-es… Won’t it be very uncomfortable for you, though, Maria? I mean, having it refurbished round you?”

    Maria sat down and began searching amongst the piles of wool, paper and goodness-knew-what on her worktable. “No, for Aunt Beresford has writ the kindest letter to say that of course we must come to them, just at first! Here— Oh, no, this is Anne’s! You must read it, Peg-Peg, it sounds as if she is having the most delightful— Ah! This— Oh, no: this is Aunt Sissy’s. Funnily enough their handwriting is so alike, although Ma swears that for sisters, they are so very— Ah! This is it!”

    Peg took it limply.

    “You see?” said Maria happily. “She has had the nursery completely redone—I do think that sounds an excellent scheme, to put the tint in the whitewash, do not you? And so practical: one may reapply it any time, should there be any little episodes!”

    Peg eyed her drily. There had been a little episode of Maria’s little Jimmy climbing on an occasional chair in the upstairs corridor of Monday Hall—priceless stumpwork on the seat, and impossible to sit on, but had been done by the hand of ancestor—and scribbling on the wall (above the wainscoting, hence the need for the chair) with a pencil subsequently discovered to have been one of Paul’s sketching pencils, which supposedly never left their case without authorisation. “That’s good, only isn’t it hard to match the tint?”

    “She says not,” said Maria sunnily. “Read it, Peg!”

    Peg read it, perforce. Mrs Beresford had had the nursery at Beresford Hall completely redone—quite. The facts that it was not her nursery but her son’s and that not she, but her sister-in-law, was the mistress of the house not being mentioned. “Um, yes,” she said weakly. “She seems to be really looking forward to having you over there. Only, um, from what she told us, she is not there very often, Maria. You won’t have many neighbours.”

    “No, but of course there is Miss Beresford! And then, Mr and Mrs Matthews have several daughters!”

    Ye-es. Would Mrs Matthews and her daughters wish to socialise with Mr Matthews’s agent’s wife? Peg did not say so, merely let Maria report what Aunt Beresford and Miss Beresford had written of the vicar’s wife, and further details of the Hailsham House agent’s house and its kitchen garden—Mrs Beresford had sent her son’s head gardener over to look at it, unrequested, and, as far as Peg could tell, without having consulted her son, her brother-in-law, her sister-in-law, Mr Matthews, or Maria herself. Oh, well.

    And Beresford Hall would let them have some hens, was that not delightful! And what did Peg think of ducks?

    Peg thought that if ducks were to be had in the neighbourhood and Aunt B. got wind that Maria would like some, ducks there would be, regardless of whose ducks they might be in the first place, the suitability of ducks for the property, and Mr Beresford’s wishes in regard to his poultryman’s duties at the time in question. Oh, well. At least someone was making a real effort to make Maria and Paul feel welcome. Unlike the whole tribe of B.-D.s—yes.

    “Anyway,” said Maria, as Peg folded the letter up and returned it to her, “you will be off on your round of visits, soon!”

    “What? Oh,” said Peg dully: “I suppose.” Someone had told the P.W. of the invitation to Bullivant Hall—probably Aunt Sissy, she was a regular correspondent—and Peg had now received several further invitations, and was not only bound thither before long, she was about to tour England from Lincolnshire down to the south coast. Whether she wished to or no—quite.

    Maria gave her an anxious look. “Things do change, Peg-Peg. Especially when one is grown up.”

    Peg sighed. “Yes. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. But I must say, it would not hurt Ma to have a set of household accounts and—and manage what she spends!”

    Maria was of her opinion. Nevertheless she replied calmly: “I know. But you see, she has been used to doing things her own way all her married life—and though you and I might see they could be done more efficiently, she does not wish to change her ways.” She hesitated. Then she said: “And I have to say it, dearest: Pa would not appreciate it, an she did: so there is no incentive for her to make an effort, you see.”

    Peg did see: she nodded hard. “Yes. He is appalling! And to think I was used to think that poor Sir Horace was—was just ranting on unnecessarily, when he upset him!”

    Maria bit her lip. “Mm. But one should take the Christian attitude, Peg: he is our father and, well, I truly do not think he can help it. Um, Paul thinks that when he was a young man, if he had been encouraged to change— But now he is so set in his ways, you see. And I—I truly do think that he himself does not see just how—how difficult he is.”

    “No,” said Peg heavily: “you’re right.”

    Maria waited but her little sister refrained from pointing out that Pa did not himself subscribe to the Christian point of view. She could not but recognise that dearest Paul had been so right in saying that Aunt B.’s invitation would be the making of Peg! “Paul and I are so very glad that Cousin Beresford managed to get Lance out of it,” she said tranquilly.

    “What? Oh! Good heavens, yes: he could easily have gone the same way!” said Peg in unalloyed horror.

    “Mm. His letters are so sensible, these days!” she said happily.

    Er—yes. Well, bucolic. Well, he was clearly absorbed with sensible topics, anyway. “Yes. Um, I had sort of thought, if you and Paul were to settle back in your old house, I might come over and—and learn things from you,” said Peg miserably.

    Maria did not evince any surprise: she just said mildly: “About keeping the household accounts, and so forth? Well, when we are settled in our new house, you must come for a proper visit!”

    “Um, yes. Um, but I haven’t any money, and Cumberland is so very far off,” said Peg on a doleful note.

    Maria’s sweet, bowed mouth firmed. “Paul will come to fetch you on the stage, my dear; you are not to worry about that at all!”

    “That would be lovely,” said Peg wanly. “It—it all seems so… so small, at home.” She swallowed. “Small and dirty,” she said in a low voice.

    “Yes,” said Maria simply. “But do not worry: when we are a little more settled, and when she is a little older, Lilibet will come to us! I have quite decided, for she is getting beyond Ma.” She smiled a little. “Though we may have to fight Mr Valentine for her,” she murmured.

    Peg gulped, and admitted weakly. “I see.”

    “We liked him so much! Who would have thought that such good could have resulted from that dreadful woman!”

    There was no need to ask: “that dreadful woman” in Maria Hilton’s mouth could only mean one person, so Peg just nodded fervently and agreed: “Indeed!”

    Maria then decided they would have tea, and rang for it composedly, quite as if she had lived in a house the size of Monday Hall all her life. She waited until Peg had drunk half her cup and eaten two sandwiches and a little cake and was looking brighter—reflecting, in spite of her charitable nature, that it did not help that one was half-starved in Ma’s house—before she said kindly: “I felt the same as you after I had been married and living in Paul’s house for a while—do you remember that very long, cold winter, before we had the carriage? I could not get over to see Ma at all. It seemed so cold and small and—and grubby, when I did come, that I cried all the way home, and ruined poor Paul’s supper into the bargain!”

    Peg smiled gratefully at her but could not forbear to say: “I suppose that means, you merely singed the toast!”

    “No, it was a boiled pudding, and I boiled the water away, burnt the pudding, broke the basin and ruined the pan!” admitted Maria, shuddering and laughing. “But you see?”

    “Mm. But I was so happy there,” said Peg in a wondering tone.

    Maria leaned forward and put a kind hand on her knee. “Of course you were, Peg! When one is a child, love makes up for a very great deal! It is only when one grows up and starts to take notice that one asks oneself could there not be some order and discipline as well as the love? Though I am not saying,” she added thoughtfully, “that it is an easy task.”

    “Um, no,” said Peg, looking at her with considerable respect. “Aren’t you? I see.”

    “Spoiling them,” added Maria with a little rueful sigh, “is so very much easier than training them up to be reasonable human beings.”

    Peg thought that perhaps she meant “reasoning” or even “rational” but did not correct her, merely nodded. “I’m glad you felt it, too. But Maria, the very odd thing is, that Alice does not seem to notice or mind!”

    Maria shook her fair head firmly. “No, my dear, I think you have that quite wrong. Of course she must notice—and it must strike her even more forcibly, for recollect, she has been away so much longer. But she has managed to detach herself from it, you see.”

    “Yes, that’s what I said, she doesn’t seem to mind!”

    “Um, I don’t think I put it very well. Well, I was never one of the clever ones of the family,” said Maria placidly. “How can I explain? I don’t mean that she is taking a detached attitude, I think she truly no longer feels herself to be a part of it. Um, a bit like Mr Curran,” she said pinkening. “He was very polite, of course, and did not criticise or comment by so much as a look. But it was very clear that he was just mildly amused by Pa’s and Ma’s eccentricities. They were perfect strangers to him, you see, so he was able to be amused.”

    Peg nodded, her eyes very round. “I see!”

    “Some might pity Alice and say it is very sad, but I,” said Maria on a very firm note, “am quite of the contrary opinion. Try a slice of this ginger cake, Peg: it is quite wonderful!”

    Numbly Peg took slice of ginger cake. Maria was quite right: Alice no longer felt herself to be any part of the mad Buffitt ménage, and lucky her!

    Sir Horace was honouring Peg with a drive in the Monday Hall trap. Peg was not quite sure if it were because he was missing Maria already—it having been revealed that he had adopted the habit of tooling her about in this vehicle—or merely because he wished to interrogate her about her own plans.

    “Eh?” he said crossly. “Never heard of any Bullivants! What d’you want to be dashing off to them for?”

    “I met Lady Bullivant and her daughter in town,” said Peg on a firm note. “In fact we went to Diane Bullivant’s ball. It was very kind of her Ladyship to invite me. And there is certainly nothing for me to do here.”

    Sir Horace sniffed. “That’s true, at any rate. Though you might be usefully employed in keeping dashed young George and Bertie out of my orchard!”

    Peg twinkled at him. “I would be very willing, sir, but you see, the only way to do that would be to hog-tie them, and though I might still at a pinch manage Bertie, George is grown much too big and strong for me!”

    “Aye, sturdy young lout,” he said on a grim note, “and in fact, much too big to be mucking around in orchards stealing my good fruit! Don’t suppose that cousin of yours has any ideas about him, hey?”

    “Muh-Mr Beresford?” stuttered Peg. “Whuh-why no, I don’t think— And besides, he has done far too much for us already!”

    “Rubbish. Beresford Hall sounds a dashed fine property, dare say he could use five like young Lance and never notice it. Wouldn’t mind getting over there meself,” he said on a longing note.

    “I—I am sure you would be most welcome, Sir Horace!” gasped Peg. Help! Sir Horace had never gone anywhere, for as long as she could remember.

    He sniffed. “Dare say. But a fellow can’t just bowl up to another fellow’s place—no, well, dare say these days,” he noted grimly, “anythin’ goes. But it were not like that in my day, let me tell you!”

    “I am sure. But nevertheless,” said Peg, very firmly indeed, “I am quite certain that after all your kindness to him Mr Beresford would be delighted to see you at any time.”

    “Maybe,” he said with another sniff.

    Oh, help. Peg took a deep breath. “If you would like me to, sir, I could write my cousin a little note mentioning—just by the by, you know!” she added quickly, “that you would be most interested to see a little of Cumberland.”

    Sir Horace beamed all over his wide, rubicund face. “Splendid! Just the thing! Why did I not think of that, hey?”

    Yes, why not? Peg smiled palely and promised she would write this very day.

    Sir Horace then interrogated her narrowly about the quality of the shooting to be had around Beresford Hall. As it appeared he knew more than she, Peg did not contribute very much to this conversation, but the kindly baronet did not seem to mind.

    “Nearly there,” he said comfortably, as the trap jogged round a bend.

    “Um, where?” asked Peg numbly. They had come a considerable distance, and there was nothing over this way except, quite a long way further on, the house on the Chelford Place estate which Maria and Paul had formerly occupied.

    “Here!” he said happily, pulling the trusty Big White Spot to a halt. –The horse was new, having been purchased to go in the refurbished trap, and the Hiltons’ kindly host had made the mistake of allowing Maria’s very small Rosie, to whom he had taken a great fancy, to rename him. He was an undistinguished brown with a white blaze on his nose. No amount of scorn poured by Bertie and Lilibet had persuaded their small niece that it was not a horse’s name. George, surprisingly, had taken a lofty tone, advising that the brat should be allowed to name the brute whatever she pleased, and had been in extremely good odour with Sir Horace up until an unfortunate episode involving a cricket ball and a cucumber frame.

    They were at the crest of a gentle rise, with below them the main gates of Chelford Place, firmly closed, as usual, and before them and towards the left a splendid view of the property.

    “Um, yes, it is a fine prospect,” ventured Peg.

    “Should dashed well think so! And thanks to Paul and that old woman, Fitton,”—this was high praise compared to what he had called the agent until very recently, so Peg did not remark on it—“in dashed good heart! See, they have had all that dashed creeper off the stonework of the western side of the frontage!”

    Peg had thought the creeper very pretty, especially in the autumn. “Mm.”

    “Palladian,” said Sir Horace with huge satisfaction.

    Jumping, she gasped: “Why, yes! I suppose it is!”

    “Dates from the time of the great Adam himself, though I ain’t claiming he never built nothing in these parts. –Hah! Y’never knew I knew about him, hey? But when I was a young man, I had the privilege of visiting at two very fine Adam houses: Wenderholme, that is—”

    “The Throgmortons’ home: yes; I have heard of it,” agreed Peg, goggling at him.

    “Aye, aye, one of the show-places of England,” he said complacently. “And t’other was Sir John Stevens’s place. –Aye,“ he said, “’tis the same fellow what owns a snug little shooting-box over Beresford’s way.”

    Peg had very much hoped the topic of Mr Beresford was dropped entirely, and in fact had been trying hard not to let her mind dwell on how on earth she would phrase her letter to him. “I see. Well, Chelford Place is certainly very handsome, and—and thank you for bringing me over here, Sir Horace.”

    “Aye—aye,” he said pleasedly, staring at the house. “Dare say Curran will be not half comfortable here, hey?”

    This was complete and utter rubbish; all of the Buffitts, and Maria and Paul as well, were convinced that the notion of Mr Curran’s leasing Chelford Place for any period of time whatsoever was entirely in Sir Horace’s head. Peg only managed to utter a strangled: “Mm!” in reply, but the jovial baronet did not seem to notice anything lacking in this monosyllable and discoursed amiably for quite some time on the number of bedrooms in the house, the new closed stove recently installed (by Lord Frederick—Peg could not help wondering, after that conversation with Mr Beresford and Aunt Sissy, who had paid for it—the excellence of the eastern prospect (little of which was visible from here), the fine rose garden, the merely passable orchard (as compared to Sir Horace’s own, in spite of the Buffitt boys’ depredations), and the far from satisfactory state of the preserves.

    At this last—since he had paused for breath—Peg could not help saying: “But perhaps he will not stay on for the shooting.”

    “And why should he not, Miss?”

    Help! That had been the wrong thing entirely to say! “Um—Paul mentioned that he seemed to take an interest in politics, so, um, perhaps he would prefer to be back in town for the Parliament!” she gasped.

    He sniffed, but appeared mollified.

    Peg was very silent on the drive back but Sir Horace, not appearing to notice this, chatted cheerfully on topics of interest to himself.

    When he had dropped her off at the top of the track leading to the Buffitts’ house, however, he nodded firmly to himself, advised himself that it had been a dashed good idea, noted that, in the case an invitation did eventuate, it could do no positive harm to get on over to Beresford’s place, and drove off with a flourish of his whip and a genial promise to Big White Spot that it would be wedding bells within the year!

    Mr Beresford had been very shaken indeed when his mother’s carriage bowled up on the sweep of Beresford Hall and his mother had got down alone. Truth to tell, Mrs Beresford had been relieved to see this emotion in him. Unfortunately her sister-in-law had made a great outcry, protesting it was so disappointing—and of course quite understandable that little Peg should wish to see her family after months away, but such a disappointment, and if Mr Hilton were to take the post with Mr Matthews it would have been so convenient (exactly what would have, and to whom, not specified) and it was so disappointing, for she had had the yellow bedroom completely rehung for her!

    Mr Beresford, having pecked his mother’s cheek and seen her safely inside, had then abruptly disappeared, leaving her to her sister-in-law’s exclamations and lamentations. His manner was fairly grim that evening, though as Lance had now joined Miss Beresford in exclamation and lamentation there was perhaps some excuse for him. His mother made no attempt to speak to him that day, and after the long journey did not rise early and so missed him at breakfast next morning; but she managed to catch him as the household was dressing for dinner.

    “I am sorry there was no time to write apprising you of Peg’s change of plans,” she said mildly.

    Jack grunted unencouragingly.

    “I think she was missing Rose and her little brothers and sisters—and then, her father did not give his permission for her to come to us for the summer, you know.”

    Jack snorted. “When did she take notice of him?”

    “That is not entirely fair, Jack. He is a most unreasonable man, of course, and Peg is a sensible girl who cannot but be aware of it: but you should give her credit for some filial respect.”

    “Mamma, the fellow is not worthy of filial respect!” he said impatiently.

    “That is certainly true.” Mrs Beresford took a deep breath. “I know you do not wish for my opinion, but I shall give it you nonetheless. Though I do think Peg was homesick, and her father’s wishes may well have played a part, too, I do not think they were all the reason of her decision. I asked Alice’s opinion, and we are agreed that the forcing-house atmosphere of the London Season, plus young Anne’s being about to contract a most eligible connexion, have been a little too much for Peg.” Mr Beresford frowned and opened his mouth; she added quickly: “Alice tells me that she never had an admirer before—most unlike Anne, who appears to have been in the habit of encouraging anything pretty in pantaloons!” She smiled a little.

    “But— Oh,” said Jack limply.

    “Dear little Peg is very young for her age,” said Mrs Beresford on a firm note.

    “Mm.”

    “That sometimes contumacious manner which Sissy tells me you found irritating is due almost entirely to her youth,” she added artlessly.

    “I did not—” He broke off, scowling.

    “And my dear, let us admit it: any young woman might be excused for finding a Corinthian gentleman quite some years her elder quite overpowering!”

    “Allow me to tell you that you are talking rubbish, Mamma,” he said coldly. “I have never seen anything less overpowered than Cousin Peg in my life!”

    Mrs Beresford rather thought he had: the little Contessa dalla Rovere had not been in the habit of being overpowered by anything—on the contrary, a horridly free manner. She refrained from touching on that topic, however, and said mildly: “I think you are wrong, my dear. It is not always easy to recognise an access of shyness in a girl—it is not uncommon for them to cover it with an abrupt manner, you know.”

    He was about to inform her that this was balderdash when he was suddenly visited by a vivid picture of Peg blushing and laughing awkwardly over the coffee on that very first morning in his house. “Uh—possibly you are right,” he said limply. “Well, she can certainly be abrupt enough!” he added, rallying slightly.

    “Mm. Well, think about it, my dear,” she said mildly. “I think the poor girl was overcome by an access of shyness at the thought of spending the whole summer in your company.”

    He went very red and stared at her numbly.

    “I hope I did not give her the impression that I was trying to throw you together. Well, I admit I have tried to throw you together with other young women over the summer—”

    “Have you not!” he agreed sourly.

    “Yes. It was silly, for they were all characterless little doormats. But I like Peg too much to try to help her to a marriage which might not be to her taste.”

    “Thank you very much!” said Jack Beresford with feeling.

    “Well, my dear, shyness apart, did she appear to favour you? On the other hand, Sissy claims that you offered her no encouragement whatso—”

    “Mamma, the girl was a guest in my house and I was in damned loco parentis!” he said loudly.

    This was certainly true; but had he really persuaded himself it was why he had held off? Well, men were odd creatures, and if Jack wanted to explain his own obstinacy to himself in those terms, why not?

    “I do beg your pardon, Jack,” she said smoothly.

    Jack gave her a baffled glare.

    “Of course you could not pay anything like court under such circumstances, even had you wished to. I was hoping that she and Alice might come to me next year, but—well, Lady Stamforth has offered, so—”

    “No!” said Jack unguardedly.

    Mrs Beresford looked at him with what she sincerely hoped was a surprised expression on her face.

    “Look, Mamma,” he said, flushing up, “I don’t deny she’d do her best—but good gad! A girl of Peg’s age with no-one but the P.W to keep an eye on her? She made a dashed poor fist of squiring her around the town this year: how else do you imagine she attracted the notice of dashed Fitz-Clancy? Not to mention Dauntry!”

    “Oh, well, I suppose— Oh, I see! She introduced her to her own court.”

    “Of course!” he said impatiently.

    “Yes. Oh, dear. Well, it was very kind of Charlotte to solicit her interest, and of course she meant it for the best, but perhaps it would not be wise to let the P.W. have Peg next year.”

    “No,” he said shortly.

    For once in her life Rowena Beresford did not attempt to gild the lily, or to spell the thing out in words of one syllable, or any other of her several besetting sins. She just said smoothly: “Well, just as you think, Jack.” And went out quickly before she could actually laugh. Back her in room, however, she did laugh a little, but sighed, too. Oh, dear! It was true he was a man in his thirties, so the image of her Jack in loco parentis was not so unbelievable as all that.

    By the time Peg’s letter arrived Mrs Beresford, largely by dint of talking it all over in minute detail with Mary Beresford behind Jack’s and George’s backs, had managed not to offer Jack any good advice. Letters for Beresford Hall were customarily delivered to the village shop: on the days when Master Josiah Hutchings did not bring them up in the hope of receiving a sixpence from George Beresford or a shilling from the soft-hearted Mary, a groom was normally sent down. Today, however, George and Lance had ridden out early in that direction, and collected the post themselves. The bucolic pair arrived home in time for the midday meal, Lance rather cross because the letter was not addressed to him.

    “I’m sure I don’t know why you rate a letter,” he said aggrievedly as, his uncle pointing out there were letters by his plate, Jack picked them up.

    “Mm?” he said, looking at the superscription on the top one and wincing: Aunt Honeywell.

    “Well, why not write me?” he said aggrievedly. “I have not had a letter this age!”

    “Mm,” murmured Jack, setting the next letter aside—Jimmy Hattersby-Lough, it would be something and nothing. The next hand was unknown to him. Shrugging, he opened it. He went very red.

    “Dashed Peg,” said Lance irritably. “No, I won’t have salad, thanks, Aunt Beresford.”

    “On the contrary, Lance, my dear,” said Mrs Beresford in a steely voice, trying not to look at Jack. “You will take a good helping of salad—yes, help him to it, thank you, William,” she said to the footman. “The human digestion requires greens,” she said pointedly. “Even George has been known to eat the occasional leaf or two.”

    “Rabbit food,” grunted Mr Beresford, senior, his eyes on his nephew’s face.

    Mrs Beresford gave up a pretence that they were not all vitally interested in Jack’s correspondence and said baldly: “Is it from Peg, Jack?”

    “Yes. It is merely to say that old Sir Horace is hoping that I’ll invite him over. Didn’t know the old boy ever went anywhere,” he said with a shrug.

    “He doesn’t,” said Lance, staring, fork suspended.

    “Perhaps he does not get many invitations,” said Mrs Beresford with a super-human effort. “Lance, the salad is for eating, not for waving.”

    “Eh? Oh!” Lance shovelled it in. “What else does she say?”

    “Nothing,” said Mr Beresford tiredly, passing him Peg’s letter. “Read it for yourself.”

    Lance immediately read it out aloud—in all innocence, the assembled Beresfords reflected with emotions ranging from dry amusement (George, who was not completely the bluff bucolic of his preferred persona, and Mrs Beresford herself), through tolerant kindliness (Mary, who was not entirely stupid, any more than her brother was), to sour irritation (Mr Beresford). It amounted to nothing more than that the family were all well, they were missing Maria, and Sir Horace would so much appreciate an invitation to visit but had not liked to ask for one. And, as an afterthought, the news that no Currans had yet been sighted at Chelford Place.

    “It’s all a hum,” explained Lance, à propos this last. “In the old boy’s head.”

    With the exception of his Cousin Jack, who merely looked annoyed, the assembled Beresfords looked at him kindly, and nodded.

    Most of his relatives noticed that Jack did not ask for his letter back and that Lance did not think to hand it to him. Somehow during the course of the day, however, the letter found its way to Mr Beresford’s study and there took up a position in the middle of his desk, into the bargain weighing itself down with a beautiful piece of rose quartz which had belonged to his great-grandmother and which now featured nominally in the rôle of paperweight but, as the whole household tacitly recognised, actually as an ornament.

    Jack found it there late that evening, on escaping from the spectacle of Uncle George trouncing Lance unmercifully at billiards. He gaped. It could not have been Mamma—she was capable of putting the thing there, but even at her most tactless would hardly have weighed it down so pointedly. Uncle George, more simply, would not have bothered to weigh it down. Uh—Aunt Mary? The want of tact did not seem like her. Uh—no. Must have been one of the servants.

    Lance watched admiringly as Uncle George once more beat him hollow. “You can’t half play, sir,” he said on an envious note.

    “Eh?” George Beresford looked at his gloomy face. “Oh. Well, had a cue in me hand since I was half your age, y’know. Jack, too: his father was very fond of the game.”

    “Yes. Sir Horace don’t play, though the house has got a billiards room. But he wouldn’t never let us near it,” he revealed glumly.

    “He’s got some sense, then. Well, you need more practice, my boy! Get in here instead of sitting around with your head in a book on a wet day, that’s the idea!”

    Beresford Hall had a fine library. “Um, yes. Well, I will try to. I say,” he said, as the older man racked ’em up: “I put Peg’s letter on Jack’s desk. Well, I thought someone had best give the fellow a bit of a push.”

    “Mm?” George Beresford straightened. “Oh! Good for you, lad! His own worst enemy, y’know—and what’s more, he don’t get that from the Beresford side!”

    They looked at each other, and sniggered happily.

Dearest Alice,

    I write as requested, but there is very little to report. Bullivant Hall is a charming house, about the size of Monday Hall, but the furnishings much lighter and more modern in style. Lady Bullivant has been all that is kind and welcoming, and Diane also. She rides—I think we met her once in the Park in town, do you recall?—and was very happy to show me her horses. Well, I use the plural but as her Mamma is a sensible woman there is but one horse that is her own, a pretty roan with a very gentle look to him, and the pony that she used to ride when she was little. He is the loveliest creature, cream-coloured with a white mane and tail. He is out to grass, now, and her little sister Elinor has her own pony, patched brown and white. I dare say some might say he needs the condition taken off him, but to my eye he appeared quite charming. Sir James Bullivant is of the hearty, no-nonsense sort, so that it is hard to envisage him as the doating papa, but he must be, if he encourages his daughters to choose their own horses. He informed me privily that Elinor’s ‘Patches’ looks like a gypsy’s pony, but she would have him, and that she insisted on the name! So I was emboldened to tell of Big White Spot, at which he laughed very much.

    Dear Alice, it is rather odd, I have to say, because although there is a small house party, G. is not here! So why did Lady B. invite me? Well, mayhap she wanted to confirm her impression that it was not outside the bounds of credibility that I might have the stuff of which familial approvals are made? I wondered at first if I was merely asked as company for Diane, but it cannot be that, for she has quite a circle of friends in the neighbourhood.

    It is interesting to observe the running of a large country house, and also to see how Lady Bullivant brings her girls up. It cannot but confirm a suspicion that every word that ever fell from the lips of such as Aunt Honeywell, Great-Aunt P. herself, Aunt B., and even our dearest Maria, was so very right. Incidentally, Lady B. knows Aunt Honeywell: how lowering!

    What else can I tell you? The house party is made up of some cousins on her Ladyship’s side, the name is Witherspoon, and some old friends, variously a Sir James and Lady Buckman, and a Mr & Mrs Dearden, with a timid young Miss Dearden, due to be launched next year, poor girl, and a very unfledged junior Mr Dearden who was thrilled to know (not from myself, I assure you), that I was a connexion, however obscure, of a noted Corinthian. Goodness gracious, how would I know what blacking he uses on his boots?

    We have been for several pleasant drives, taking a selection of open carriages, and the weather so far has smiled on us, the countryside hereabouts very pretty, but to my eye not so striking as dear Lincolnshire. There is a Ruin threatened, but so far it has not eventuated. Diane is not quite sure that it is Gothic, but it is very old! I did not know that she does flower sketches: they are the most charming things! Sir James has had some of the prettiest ones framed, and they are hung in the downstairs salon and the breakfast room. It must be so pleasant to have a talent, do you not think? Little Elinor informed me sourly that she herself is all thumbs and is being made to practise the piano as a result of it! She is only nine, but bright as a button.

    I am so glad I took your advice and packed every stitch of clothing I have, for we seem to spend half our time changing our clothes, it is quite as bad as London! Pleasant though it is, I own there are times when I would prefer to be free to run over the hills in a cotton rag! I broke down and asked Diane—tactfully, you know!—if they were just as formal when the family is alone, but oh, dear! She did not understand what I meant! Well, I suppose the ponies and the encouragement to sketch (or torture a musical instrument!) go along with the formality and the never-ending corsets and bonnets.

    I do hope you are taking advantage of the freedom you can presently enjoy and do not wear a corset positively every day! Tho’ I do see the sense of wearing a bonnet when it is very sunny: we called at a neighbouring house the other day and it was a very different, much more relaxed atmosphere, but I have to admit, the daughters of the house very freckled.

    My love to the family, and pray ask Ma if she should care for a wonderful receet for a rhubarb preserve. On second thoughts, it would be a waste of breath. Ask Cook, and please pass on my love to her and Bessy.

Your loving sister,

Peg.

P.S. I suspect you have already thought of this, but in the case you have not, do not mention the Bullivant girls’ ponies to Lilibet: Big White Spot is more than enough of a sore point for the one summer!

    This letter could not but confirm all of Alice’s previous thoughts about Peg and the state of her feelings—though she did not seize the implications of the reference to the running of a large country house. She folded it up slowly.

    Rose watched the folding wistfully. Peg’s letter to her had been very short, little of the real Peg in it. “What does she say?”

    “Very little, really. They have been for some drives, but not yet to a threatened ruin.”

    “Yes, she wrote that to me, too.”

    “Miss Bullivant seems a pleasant girl—talented, too: she does flower sketches.”

    “Mm. Did she mention the dresses?”

    “Only that they change them a lot, Ma,” said Alice lightly.

    “Oh. Yes.” Rose cleared her throat. “Cousin B. wrote that this Lady Bullivant is a sister to Lord Geddings.”

    “I believe that is so, though Peg mentions he is not one of the house party.”

    “What? Then why did the woman invite her?” cried Rose.

    Alice put Peg’s letter in her reticule. “I think, merely to be a companion to Diane.”

    “Ye-es… I suppose that is possible.” Rose looked wistfully at the reticule.

    Lilibet had demanded to read Peg’s letter to Ma and had been struggling with it, scowling. Now she demanded loudly: “I want to read it, too!”

    “Hush. You are reading it,” said Rose quickly.

    “No! Alice’s letter!”

    Alice looked at her without any evidence of interest in her face. “One does not ask to read another person’s private correspondence, Lilibet. Not even one’s sister’s.”

    “But Peg’s my sister, too!” she cried.

    “That is my point,” said Alice calmly.

    Rose winced, but ventured: “Would it hurt, Alice?”

    Alice returned with a dry look in her eye: “Elle m’a décrit less jolis chevaux des filles Bullivant, maman, et a même ajouté qu’il serait injudicieux d’en parler à la petite.” Rose was goggling at her. “Étant donné la Grande Tache Blanche de votre cher voisin—ou plus précisément, le Grand Chanfrein Blanc.”

    “Chanfrein?” croaked Rose.

    “Blaze,” said Alice drily, touching her own forehead.

    “Bl— Oh! I see. No, Lilibet, Peg’s letter to Alice is private,” she said firmly.

    “What did she say?” wailed Lilibet.

    “Nothing to do with you. –It was private, Lilibet, and if you do not stop whining, Alice will not drive you in Sir Horace’s trap!”

    “You will, won’t you?” said Lilibet to Alice immediately.

    “Not if you disobey your mother, no.”

    Lilibet subsided, glaring bitterly.

    “La cadette a neuf ans,” said Alice to her mother, still dry.

    “Cadette— La cadette Bullivant: j’y suis. Mon dieu!” said Rose, looking at Lilibet in horror.

    “Quite.”

    “So Aunt Portwinkle made you keep up your French, dear?” said Rose limply. “You are much more fluent than I. Well, since Peg went to London I have not uttered a word of it, I must admit.”

    “Great-Aunt Portwinkle and I generally speak French together on a Wednesday afternoon,” replied Alice. “But I fear I am only fluent in the Stratford-at-Bow variety, Ma!”

    Rose smiled limply. Nevertheless. Chanfrein? Good grief! “Lilibet refuses to learn,” she revealed with a sigh.

    “What?” cried Lilibet immediately. “I do not! What, Ma?”

    “To learn French,” said Rose dully.

    “It’s stupid!”

    “That is your opinion, no doubt,” said Alice coolly, rising. “The wider world would maintain that those who refuse the opportunity to learn a foreign language when it is offered them are the stupid ones.” She went out, unsmiling.

    “I HATE Alice!” screamed Lilibet, bursting into tears of rage and—it was sincerely to be hoped, thought Rose, looking at her sourly—shame.

    The sentiment certainly seem to be reciprocated. Well, not hate, no. But Alice did not appear to like her little sister—and frankly, given Lilibet’s behaviour throughout her visit, who could blame her? Rose got up, picked up Peg’s letter to her, which Lilibet had let fall to the floor, and went over to the door.

    “Where are you going?” shouted Lilibet angrily.

    “For a walk. You’re not coming,” replied Rose brutally. The door closed after her.

    Lilibet threw herself on the floor in screaming hysterics—but, alas, nobody came.

    “Is that from Sir Horace, my dear?” asked Mrs Beresford, smiling a little, as Jack laid the letter down.

    “Mm. Says he would be delighted to get on over, but a little later in the year, for,” he said with a wry lift of his eyebrows, “he would not wish to be absent when Curran arrives at Chelford Place.”

    There was a short silence. His relatives eyed Mr Beresford warily.

    Finally Lance rushed in. “But do he say that Curran is definitely coming, Cous’?”

    “No.”

    Lance collapsed in splutters, hitting his thigh.

    “Well,” said Mrs Beresford valiantly, doing her best not to laugh, for poor Jack, in spite of their little chat about Peg, was still very down—not that that was bad in itself, of course!—“the summer is not so far advanced as all that, and we shall look forward to seeing him a little later on.”

    Alas, this valiant effort failed signally, for Lance broke out in renewed splutters and George Beresford promptly joined him.

    “Horrors,” croaked Rose, laying her Cousin Honeywell’s missive down.

    “What does she say, Ma?” asked Alice.

    “It is not so much her actual words, my dear, as what lies behind them.”

    A twinkle appeared in Alice’s fine grey eye. “Very well, Ma, what lies behind them?”

    “A mass of seething emotions of the horrid variety. Jealousy, in the main. She is busting her stays,” said Rose, looking impossibly prim, “to get one of you girls, since Aunt Portwinkle had you for so long and is threatening to kidnap Peg next winter.”

    Alice broke down and laughed helplessly. But on recovering, mopped her eyes and said: “Well, dearest Ma, a stay in her house could do Peg no harm and might do her some good.”

    “What good?” gasped Rose indignantly.

    “Aunt Honeywell will see to it that she gets a close acquaintance with the way in which things ought to be done in a gentleman’s household,” said Alice smoothly.

    “Yes, polishing that hideous silver épergne that she does not trust the servants to clean properly, and measuring out spoonfuls of her mixture! And she is healthy as a horse, I might add: the only thing she suffers from is an excess of bile! And there is no gentleman: Honeywell passed off from the constant nagging years since!”

    “Nevertheless.”

    Rose went rather red. “You mean your sister and your Aunt Honeywell will be enabled to spend hours on end every morning going over the blessed household accounts! –She went on and on at me, but good gracious, Alice, what does she imagine I have to add up?”

    “I know, Ma,” said Alice soothingly. “But even Great-Aunt Portwinkle admits, er, in her better moods, that Aunt Honeywell knows how to keep household.”

    “I thought the phrase was ‘mean as sin’,” said Rose sourly.

    “That was certainly the implication, though she would not go so far as to utter it.”

    “Very well, Alice,” said Rose tartly: “in my place, what would you decide?”

    Alice Elizabeth Honoria Buffitt could not imagine herself in her mother’s place, quite frankly: she would never have let things get to this pass. With Pa’s abilities in design and construction, he could have become a successful architect—and been happy at it, what was more. And too bad what his family that had never done a thing for them might have thought of it! However, she replied readily: “Of course I would ask Peg what she wished, Ma; but I think I would encourage her to go to Aunt Honeywell for at least a couple of months. Recollect she is conveniently close to Bath: Peg will be enabled to see something of our Laidlaw cousins.”

    “Yes. –I thought Charlotte might invite her, actually,” admitted Rose gloomily.

    “Yes, but Aunt Sissy writes that she is very down in the wake of Nobby’s marriage, and I am sure it is quite natural. The more so as, jolly girl though she is, I cannot see Horrible making the effort to be a companion to her.”

    “No. She and little Georgey seem to be running wild,” said Rose dully.

    “Mm.”

    Suddenly Rose laughed. “Pug and all! Whatever Aunt Sissy and Charlotte may claim, I cannot think that one can run very wild in Bath with a fat little old pug in tow! Um… Well, what shall I write Cousin Honeywell, then?”

    “I would just say that you are writing Peg, and if she expresses a wish to go, we might drop her off when the carriage takes me back to Great-Aunt Portwinkle, if that is convenient.”

    “Yes. Oh—convenient to Cousin Honeywell! Yes, of course.” Rose looked at her sadly.

    “If you like, Ma, I would be very happy to write it for you.”

    “She knows my handwriting,” said Rose glumly.

    “Of course. I meant, just a draft,” said Alice smoothly.

    Rose expressing fervent thanks, Alice opened her little portable writing desk that rivalled Timothée and rides behind Big White Spot in Lilibet’s esteem but which, since the first time, she had not dared to touch. And urged her mother to write to Peg.

    Rose took up her pen, but having writ that her Aunt Honeywell had invited her, and there was no need to stay for more than a week, and that she must not accept if she did not wish for it, said lamely: “I can’t think of anything else to say.”

    Alice looked up. “Mm? Oh. Um… I am sure she will have heard from Maria and Anne… Did you tell her of Cousin Beresford’s invitation to Sir Horace in your last?”

    “Yes, but I don’t think I phrased it tactfully enough… It used to be so easy to write to her!” said Rose on an anguished note.

    Oh, dear. Alice looked at her very sympathetically and said kindly: “I know. But the thing is, Ma, Peg is growing up and going through a period of change.”

    “She is changing into a person whom I do not know and—and cannot feel I have a thing in common with!” said Rose with tears in her eyes.

    Alice Buffitt, in spite of her better inclinations, experienced nothing but pleasure at this sad statement. But she said gently: “Just at the moment she is not very happy, and, I rather think, beginning to feel she made the wrong decision about Cumberland.”

    “She won’t admit that!” said Rose sourly.

    “Not to us, no. She has not changed to that extent. But she may admit it to herself. But my point is, that once she has adjusted to certain inevitable changes, we shall see very much of the old Peg back.”

    “Do you think so? Well, I suppose she is reacting against her home background,” admitted Rose with a sigh. “I have seen that often enough, in boys as well as girls.”

    Sometimes Alice overlooked Ma’s undoubted intelligence. She smiled and nodded encouragingly.

    “Let’s hope she adjusts soon, then,” said Rose with a sigh. “I suppose I could write the next chapter in the Great Curran Anticlimax.”

    Alice’s eyes twinkled. “Do that, Ma!”

    Brightening, Rose took up her pen again, and was soon scribbling away happily, quite in her usual style.

    Alice had finished her draft, and was satisfied with it. She sat back and watched her mother somewhat drily, reflecting that she was certainly the eternal optimist, and that if ever any woman had needed to be, that woman was Rose Buffitt.

    The post having been delivered at the usual time, and the weather having turned drizzly and dull, the gentlemen of the Beresford Hall household had fled to the library to read theirs—there had been a great packet from assorted female Laidlaw relations for Mrs Beresford and her sister-in-law.

    The letter fluttered from Mr Beresford’s nerveless hand. “By God,” he croaked.

    Lance had been skimming, with scornful shrugs and frowns, a scrawl of complaint from George—largely about Pa becoming more and more impossible. He looked up quickly. “If that is from Ma—”

    “No. Sir Horace,” he croaked.

    “Look, I wrote damned George—and Bertie, too—that they were to leave the poor old boy’s orchard alone—and the damned cucumber frames, too—for they are both too dashed big to be pestering the poor old fellow with that sort of nonsense!”

    “Did you, Lance?” he said feebly. “That was well done of you.”

    George Beresford, who was merely reading a note from an old friend about sheep, eyed them both ironically and noted: “What it will be, y’see, the Curran fellow will have turned up at Whatsisname Place complete with a four-in-ha—”

    “Yes!” yelped Jack, suddenly giving way entirely. “It was not a hum after all, and the mysterious Curran has taken up residence at Chelford Place!”

    The chaise and four rattled up the Chelford Place drive, and drew up on the sweep, just as a burly, gaitered figure emerged from under the Palladian portico.

    “Ha!” the genial Sir Horace greeted the new arrival as he jumped down. “Knew it was you, Curran, old fellow! That ass, Fitton, tried to tell me the lease was took by some dashed lord or another! Told him, you is mistook, it’ll be Curran, mark my words, no matter what name is on the lease!”

    “Er, yes,” he said somewhat limply. “How are you, Sir Horace?”

    The old man wrung his hand painfully hard. “Oh, never better, dear fellow, never better! Knew it was a guinea to a groat you’d be arrivin’ today! Told that old woman, Fitton, you would make excellent time on the road! Now, Fitton has installed a staff for you—mind you, the kitchen garden’s in a shockin’ state, and so I told the fellow—and they’ve had the damned creepers off that wall, see?”

    “Yes: the place is much improved,” he agreed, smiling, since this seemed to be what was required.

    “Of course! Said it would be! Told him you would bring your own horses,” he noted.

    “Er—well, I have sent a few hacks up, yes.”

    “Aye, aye, and the curricle,” he agreed: “the team arrived yester morning. Fine lookin’ nags!”—The newcomer swallowed. Clearly the old man must have been over here every day.—“Told ’em to install a couple of decent barrels down cellar and in the meantime, in the case it has not had time to settle, old Gridley has sent up a couple of dozen bottles of ale!”

    “Er—yes. Thank you. The post-boys will be able to refresh themselves—excellent.”

    “Brought your guns, of course,” stated Sir Horace.

    “I— They are to send them up,” he said weakly.

    “Of course, of course, dear fellow! Well, I can always let you have a shot-gun, in the meantime! Dare say we could get out after the odd rabbit or two, hey? Said to that dashed Fitton, since young Paul Hilton went the estate is goin’ to rack and ruin: over by my eastern border it’s overrun with warrens: would not risk takin’ a decent horse over that way if me life depended on it—and, mark, me life would depend on it!” He shook with chuckles.

    “Er—yes. We could get out after them—certainly.”

    “And the gun-room here may have a shot-gun or two—never seen the gun-room,” he added on a hopeful note.

    “Oh—of course! Please, come inside, Sir Horace!”

    Chuckling complacently, the old man accompanied him inside.

    … “You’ve missed Peg. Stayin’ with these Bullivant people, never heard of ’em,” grumbled Sir Horace, lowering the inevitable tankard—the ale from Mr Gridley was, very evidently, not just for the post-boys.

    “I— Oh,” he said, sounding very disconcerted. “You mean she is gone already?”

     The old man shot him a sapient glance. “Mm. Didn’t get to take her for only two little drives behind Big White Spot,” he reported crossly.

    “That is a pity, Sir Horace,” he said politely, pulling himself together with a visible effort.

    “Much the best of them gals, y’know,” rumbled the baronet.

    He took a deep breath. “I’m sure, sir.”

    He still seemed very overset: Sir Horace, cunningly not remarking on the point, was not displeased by it, and went on with his report. “Alice is home. Very pretty gal, I’ll grant you that: quite like her Ma in looks. Nothin’ of that warmth of Rose’s about her, though. Ladylike, but a bit stiff. That old hag of a great-aunt seems to have done her best to turn her into a niminy-piminy Miss. Well, not saying’ the gal is quite that, but… And you’ve seen that house for yourself, Curran, dear fellow: it could do with a bit of refinement, hey? No, well, Rose was quite upset, said the old hag was turnin’ her into the image of herself, but I said to her: ‘Y’send one of your gals off to her for a half-dozen years, what the Devil do you expect?’ No, well, don’t say the gal can’t drive a trap quite nice—made her tool it up and down the drive before I’d let her take it out alone, y’know—and Rose claims she can jabber away in French like nobody’s business, but what I say is, ladylike is fine—and I’m not sayin’ she puts on airs and graces, mind—but I’d prefer to see a bit of spirit with it! Not half the go in her of little Peg.”

    He paused, but Curran seemed sunk in frowning abstraction. “I say, Alice ain’t got half the go in her of little Peg!” he repeated loudly.

    “Er—no? I have not met her,” he said in a vague voice.

    “No, exact: that’s why I’m tellin’ you, dear fellow! Now, young Anne’s a pretty little thing—but brainless, y’know. And a bawler.” He shook his head. “Somethin’ shockin.’ Seemed like every time we laid eyes on her, the gal would bust out a-bawlin’! Good thing young Valentine’s set to take her off their hands, hey? Me nephew wouldn’t never have done for her,” he said, shaking his head. “Nice enough little gal, but not a penny to bless herself with: his parents wouldn’t have stood for it for an instant. But Valentine don’t need to marry a gal’s dowry—had it out of him in so many words, the Pa’s very comfortable—the place is about the same size as me own,” he noted complacently—“and they were only too pleased to invite the little gal for the whole summer. And Maria and Paul have gone: he took that situation over in Beresford’s county. Well, advised him to,” he said glumly. “Didn’t want to see the young fellow bein’ wasted here as assistant to that old woman, Fitton, when he could be doin’ very much better for himself. Oh—y’won’t have heard any of that, of course! Well, see, it’s like this—”

    The new tenant of Chelford Palace got the whole story, perforce.

    “I’m very glad to hear Hilton has a suitable situation,” he said, as the flow was temporarily dried up and Sir Horace was inspecting the ale bottles, which were in a similar state.

    “Aye, aye, he deserves it, poor young fellow. Well, y’said yourself he was workin’ wonders putting me library in order! What do you say to ordering up another two or three, hey?”

    Obediently he rang the bell. “More ale, please,” he said as a footman came in.

    “Ned Gregg,” explained Sir Horace as the young man exited. “Sent him over to see Fitton just t’other week, Lord knows me own place don’t need half a dozen footman, house is like a dashed empty shell!”

    Oh, Lor’, of course the old fellow was missing his house guests! The new tenant of Chelford Place, who had been revising his earlier decision about the length of his stay, looked at him in some dismay.

    “Wrote me sister, only she won’t risk sending me nephews over while the Buffitt gals are still unwed.”

    “I see,” he said limply.

    Sir Horace brightened, as the ale was brought in. “Your health, Curran, dear fellow! –Aah! That’s better! Mind you, we may not have that long to wait, hey? Said to Rose, if one gal can catch a decent fellow—and without a brain in her head, too—well, why cannot young Peg? No need to despair yet a while, and the Beresford woman has promised her and Alice both another Season, next year! But as to Alice’s catching a duke on her hook! Never heard such tommyrot in all me life! I said to Rose: ‘Just you duke me no dukes! Never mind if the old hag believes it, them pretty little gals of yours will have told her that to make her leave poor Alice in London!’ So then she bust out a-bawlin’, bad as little Anne, though I will say it ain’t like Rose to give way—and said that damned Damian, damn his eyes, had done his best to ruin little Peg’s chances with young Beresford, and not content with that, was now swearing none of his gals would marry a fashionable idler as long as he lived, and that Alice could whistle for a title, he’d sooner see his daughters dead than tied up to a damned Tory and condemned to the life of a fashionable hag! What do you think of that, hey?”

    “I think several things, sir,” he said on a grim note, “of which perhaps not the least significant is, does he know a Tory from a Whig?”

    “Far’s I can tell, he don’t know a Tory from me left boot,” returned the old man sourly.

    “I see. But—er—just how serious do you think he is with this stuff about titles?”

    “Serious as he ever is about anything,” said Sir Horace with a sniff. “On his form up till now, could mean it’ll last until next week, or ten years.”

    “Hm…”

    The old man eyed him sideways. “Went on about your coats for long enough, anyroad.”

    “Mine?” he said. very startled.

    “Aye.”

    There was a short silence and the newcomer said: “Sir Horace, I—” He broke off.

    “Yes?” prompted the old man.

    Anyone more percipient than Sir Horace Monday might perhaps have realised at this juncture that the new tenant of Chelford Place had changed his mind about whatever it was that he had been about to say—and even, perhaps, wondered whether his distrait air indicated that he had had something on his mind ever since he arrived.

    What he did say was: “It is just that my name is not Curran. I am afraid you misheard me slightly, sir. The family name is spelled C,O,R,R,A,N,T and pronounced ‘Currant’.”

    “I get you. Natural mistake,” said Sir Horace calmly. “Beg your pardon, I’m sure.”

    “No, please don’t apologise. I should have corrected your misapprehension, sir.”

    “Think nothin’ of it!” Sir Horace did not think he had been mistaken in “Curran”. Modest fellow, dashed intelligent, well spoken, and one could see at a glance, well born—but not the sort to puff off his consequence. “Yes, Ned Gregg?” he said as the footman came in again.

    “If you please, Sir ’Orace, it’s Miss Buffitt, a-come back for yer with the trap and Big White Spot,” reported the young footman conscientiously.

    “Right. Now, listen, Ned Gregg,” said the old man clearly. “This here is Mr Corrant, with a T, got that?”

    “Yuh-yessir,” he said doubtfully. “So you were right and Mr Fitton were wrong, then? It ain’t no lord as is a-comin’?”

    “What? No! I mean yes!” cried Sir Horace, suddenly turning purple. “This IS Curran—Corrant, dammit! Or ain’t you got eyes in your head? Whatever that old woman, Fitton, said about some lord taking the place, he was wrong!”

    The newcomer cleared his throat. “In actual fact, my distant connection, Lord Geddings, did sign the lease, Sir Horace. But as you see, Ned, it is I who have come.”

    “Right,” said the old man crossly. “Said all along it were Curran as were coming!”

    “Yessir, Sir Horace! Beg pardon, Mr Corrant, sir,” he said numbly to his new master.

    “Not at all, Ned,” he said, smiling nicely.

    “Yessir. Um, shall I tell Miss Alice that Sir Horace be a-comin’, then, sir?”

    “No, no, no!” said Sir Horace testily. “Show her in here, lad!”

    “Yessir!” Ned Gregg shot out.

    Alice came in looking her usual composed self. The old man, though he knew little of fashions, could not but feel it was a pity she was in the snuff-coloured thing.

    “There you are, my dear,” he said, heaving himself up.

    “I hope I am not too early, sir, but it looks as if it could rain,” she said with her lovely smile.

    “Aye, aye, must be gettin’ back. Now, Alice, me dear, this is Curran, but in actual fact, had the name a bit wrong. Corrant, with a T.”

    Mr Corrant had now gone very red. He came forward and bowed stiffly.

    “How you do, Mr Corrant?” said Alice with complete poise. “I am Alice Buffitt.”

    “How do you do, Miss Buffitt?” He took her hand and bowed over it. “I— My distant connection, Lord Geddings, mentioned he had met your sisters in town.”

    “Why, yes,” said Alice politely. “May I say I did so admire his Lordship’s reply to Lord Winterbourne in the Lords, at the last sitting before the break?”

    He took a deep breath. “There is no need to say so, Miss Buffitt. If you follow politics to that extent, you must be aware that every syllable Geddings uttered was pre-approved by Wellington.”

    Alice’s cool grey eyes twinkled. “To tell you the truth, my suspicion was that every syllable was actually written by His Grace’s own hand!”

    “No, he’s a busy man,” he replied smoothly.

    She gave a startled laugh, and took a second look at him.

    “Now, now: that’ll do!” said Sir Horace with complete geniality, giving the startled Mr Corrant a hearty slap on the shoulder. “You run along out to Big White Spot, me dear. I’ll be with you in a minute: have just one thing I wish to say to Curran in private! –Corrant, of course,” he corrected himself happily.

    “Certainly, Sir Horace. Good day, Mr Corrant,” she said politely. And with that she was gone.

    The newcomer looked numbly at the closed door.

    “Graceful thing, ain’t she? Bright, too. Mind you, that sort of woman can develop into a shrew,” said the old man. “Take your distant connexion, old Lady Darley, for example. Well, must be in her eighties, hey? Don’t remember her in her younger days, of course, but when I was a young man she was still a very attractive woman. Darley dumped her at that place of his and more or less ignored her for the next thirty years—a softer woman would have pined away, but she went t’other way.”

    “I perfectly take your point,” he said, heroically not laughing, “and quite to the contrary, would expect any helpmeet of mine to act as my hostess both in town and in the country, and, er, were I to involve myself in political life, actively to further my political career.”

    “Well, that’s good,” returned Sir Horace cheerfully. He took his arm. “Come on, dear fellow, mustn’t keep her waiting!” He led him over to the door and waited while the younger man opened it for him and bowed him out.

    “But I tell you what,” he said, taking his arm again in the hall.

    “Yes?” he said nervously.

    “If this story about a duke were true and not some tale the gals made up for the old lady, wouldn’t he be up here this summer, hey?” He beamed at him.

    There was a lot that could have been said, of course, on the score of Chelford’s many responsibilities, the family’s expectation of his taking up residence at Dallermaine that summer, and even the fact that the B-D.s were all in mourning for the last duke: but Mr Corrant looked at Sir Horace’s red-veined, beaming face and suddenly laughed. “Exactly!”

    Sir Horace steered him out the open front door, which was being held wide by the interested Ned Gregg. “There she is!” he said proprietorially.

    Big White Spot and all—so she was. The new tenant of Chelford Place didn’t see the hideous dress or the humble little trap or even the raw-boned horse with the ridiculous name: he saw the elegant set of her shoulders and the tilt of the lovely head in its simple straw bonnet as she looked round at them and smiled, just a little—just enough. She was perfection—perfection!

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