In Which Mrs Beresford Resolves A Mystery

29

In Which Mrs Beresford Resolves A Mystery

    It was a mystery to Mrs Beresford why Jack had not proposed to Peg! The Season was well and truly over, July was near past and Alice’s nuptials had very lately been celebrated at Medways, the assembled august company appearing to accept without a blink (a) Mr Buffitt’s speech at the wedding breakfast, well larded with choice Classical references and concentrating almost entirely on the subject of the principles of hydraulic engineering in general and the problems of the Medways artificial waterfall in particular, and, indeed, (b) the fact that the Buffitts were now comfortably installed in an old dower house on the property. Not the present dower house, though as that was standing empty some persons might have wondered why it had not been offered instead, but a much older one, situate at some remove from the great house.

    And if Jack had been worrying that—that Peg might feel it her duty to her family to accept an offer from him, there was clearly no need to, for it was perfectly obvious that they would never need to worry about a thing for the rest of their lives! The boys would be going to school immediately after the summer holiday, and—desperately—Rose was no longer in rags!

    Jack eyed his mother somewhat drily as she ended this speech, panting, rather, and noted: “No, well there is still the problem of Lilibet.”

    “What?” said his mother blankly.

    “Lilibet. The little girl.”

    “What are you on about, Jack? There can be no doubt that Geddings will see the child is properly dowered, when the time comes!”

    “Mm. If he lives so long, ma’am. –No, no, there is nothing wrong with him, so do not fly up into the boughs, I merely meant that the brat may well drive him to suicide long before the day of her come-out dawns.”

    “Er—she was over-excited, I dare say, Jack. Children who have, well, not been properly schooled will often misbehave in a large gathering—and even the most well brought-up child may become overexcited! Goodness, I remember only too well the time poor Cousin Samela Partridge-Yonge—you do not remember her, I dare say, Jack, she died many years a-gone, and she was not young at the time, of course—”

    Regrettably, Mr Beresford here broke down in splutters, having to mop his eyes.

    “You do remember,” conceded his mother with a little smile. “Well, May was very naughty and the cream on that dratted cake ruined the poor old thing’s best silk, but—”

    “No!” he gasped.  “—Young,” he said unsteadily.

    “She was only three,” agreed Mrs Beresford with a reminiscent smile.

     Jack mopped his eyes again. “No,” he said with difficulty. “You said that Mrs Partridge-Yonge was not yuh—young!”

     Mrs Beresford took a deep breath. “How else could I possibly have phrased it, pray?”

    He smiled at her. “No-one could possibly have phrased it otherwise, ma’am. I do remember that occasion, as a matter of fact. Those cream cakes were splendid.”

    “Yes. Freddy Partridge-Yonge—you never met him, my dear, he was a great deal older than Samela, and died when I was but a slip of girl—the man was besotted with Jerseys. They give excellent cream, I do admit,” she ended a trifle unsteadily.

    Jack’s eyes twinkled. “Fat cream-coloured cows with great brown eyes? Presumably that explains why there was a herd of ’em on the lawn at the front of the house, then!”

    “She insisted they graze there in his memory,” said Mrs Beresford on a weak note.

    “Mm-hm. Am I misremembering, or did they have garlands round their necks?”

    “She used to do it for parties... Oh, dear!” She laughed weakly.

    “I suppose every family has ’em!” Jack conceded with a grin. “It’s odd, you know: at the time I do not think I thought it strange at all, but merely accepted it as a—a standard feature, if you will, of Cousin Samela Partridge-Yonge’s house!”

    “Children do,” said his mother with a smile.

    “Mm, apparently. –Samela is a very pretty name, is it not?”

    Mrs Beresford blinked. “Why—why, yes, I suppose it is, Jack. Er—very old-fashioned these days, dear boy,” she added cautiously.

    “Samela,” he said, smiling over it. “I like it.”

    She took a deep breath. “You will like it in vain, Jack, if you do not stir your stumps and ask Peg to marry you!”

    “Er—so as to produce a girl who might be named Samela?” he murmured politely.

    “Do not be frivolous, Jack!”

    “I’m sorry, Mamma. Um, well,” he said, looking rueful, “since you bring the subject up, and since we did not quite finish the subject of Lilibet, I suppose I had better say my piece.”

    Mrs Beresford was still very ruffled. “Yes, and the sooner the better!” she snapped.

    “I mean, say what I had intended to say just now, Mamma.” They were in the downstairs salon of his mother’s house in Bath. He eyed the front windows uneasily. “Unless there is the chance of a call from any of the Bath busybodies, this afternoon?”

    “Many people are away. The Miss Careys, for example, have gone to stay with their connexion near Brighton.”

    Miss Diddy Carey was certainly one of the busybodies he had in mind. “Glad to hear it. Uh—well, about Lilibet.”

    She frowned. “Did I not just say? It was nothing, Jack! And Geddings will look to her.”

    “No, Mamma. Has it not dawned? She cannot abide the man and she cannot abide her sister Alice, either, and I am afraid the sentiment is reciprocated!”

     Mrs Beresford’s jaw had dropped.

    “Alice cannot handle her, though this may astonish you, ma’am. At least, she is more than capable of silencing the brat, but she ain’t capable of doing so in a manner which will not be resented forever.”

    Mrs Beresford’s mouth opened and shut. Finally she said: “Jack, my dear, the little girl has never been disciplined. I dare say—in fact I am sure—Alice must have been the first to attempt to do so. And—and children’s resentment generally does not last very long.”

    “I am reliably informed that Lilibet’s has lasted since—well, when did Alice go up to Lincolnshire? Last summer, wasn’t it? Yes, we came back here, and then— Yes. Then,” he said flatly. “Over a year.”

    “Oh, dear. That does not sound very— But who told you?” she said limply. “Rose?”

    “No: she appears to have washed her hands of the whole thing.”

    Mrs Beresford had, actually, noticed that. She bit her lip. “Mm.”

    “George told me. Not in the spirit of telling tales, before you say anything, Mamma. He was very sensible about it, in fact: he is a decent young chap in spite of that damned father. He said he did not fancy going off to school next term and leaving Lilibet, horrible though she be, to Alice’s tender mercies, but it was no use speaking to his mother. –Going very red on the last phrase,” he added, smiling.

    “Well, I do not quite see why he spoke to you, Jack, dear—though of course I am glad he did! Sensible boy, indeed!” she added hastily, not perceiving a twinkle in her son’s eye as she did so.

    He rubbed his chin. “We-ell... reading between the lines, though not very far between the lines, his initial enthusiasm for the soi-disant ‘Curran’ has waned with the discovery of the formality which prevails at Medways, coupled with the formality of his Lordship’s company manners and, er, the restrained and mannerly demeanour which his Lordship apparently thinks a parcel of rambunctious lads should display in his house.”

    “But surely—!” she gasped. “He was a boy once, himself!”

    Jack looked dry. “He ain’t got no brothers, ma’am.”

    Nor had he, of course. His mother looked at him limply.

    “Well, I don’t know what his papa may have been like, but he died young, didn’t he? And I do know that his uncles are a pair of doating old women. Damned surprising that he has turned out as decent a man as he has, to my mind.”

    “Er—yes,” she agreed weakly. “Oh, dear, it is so—so short-sighted of him, Jack! After all, boys will be boys! And they were not naughty while we were there, at all!”

    “Unlike Lilibet—quite. Just as well they’re sending them to school, where they can enjoy the company of other lads.”

    “Jack, perhaps Lilibet—well, she is too young as yet. But might she be sent to school a little later?”

    “Their doing so will cement her dislike of Geddings and Alice, I fear.”

    Mrs Beresford could see, that, yes, though her own was not a nature to hold a grudge. “Mm.”

    “I did think of suggesting she go to Paul and Maria.”

    She brightened. “That may be the very thing, Jack!”

    “No,” he said with a sigh. “George tells me she is jealous of their little ones.”

    His mother looked at him limply.

    “Lord knows I don’t want to spoil the brat any more than she has been already, but—well, dammit, Mamma!” he said loudly. “What sort of a life has it been, after all? Compare it to May’s happy childhood!”

    Tears sparkled in his mother’s eyes. “Yes,” she said in a stifled voice, whisking out a handkerchief. “Don’t go on, dearest. Of course I shall take the child, if Rose will allow me.”

    Jack staggered to his feet. “No! Mamma, I wouldn’t dream of asking you!” He went over to his mother’s sofa, sat beside her and put his arm round her. “Now, don’t sniffle. What I thought was, take her myself. But the thing is,” he said as his mother blew her nose and looked at him in astonishment, “I don’t want to put myself in the position of implying to Peg that I’m offering for her in order to be able to look after her little sister, on the one hand, or on the other hand, suggesting that she must take me in order to ensure her little sister has a decent home and a chance at growing into a reasonable human being.”

    “No,” said Rowena Beresford very weakly indeed. “I—I see, dear. But—but why haven’t you offered for her long since, silly boy?”

    Jack sat back and ran his hand through his black curls. “Mamma, you keep inviting the girl to live under my roof! I've been her host—no, dammit, I’ve been damned well pretty much in loco parentis, for the last two years!” he said loudly.

    “That—that is the only reason?” she croaked.

    “Yes!” he said in loud exasperation. “How could I possibly offer in those circumstances? It would have been indecent! And Society would most certainly have condemned it as such! Why, practically the instant the poor little soul set her toe in town the cats were saying she had come up express to catch my damned fortune!”

    “Mm. I—I’m very sorry, Jack. It is all my fault: I should never have assumed I had the right to invite anybody to live under your roof. I mean, well, for the first year you must admit some of the blame is Rose’s—though I do not deny the initial invitation came from me!” she said quickly. “But of course it is your house, dearest, it is not mine—it is not even your father’s old town house! Which I should never have disposed of without consulting you,” she admitted, frowning.

    “Mamma, I was but a boy, and the place was hideous, Papa always loathed it. Pray do not upset yourself over that.”

    “No, but—well, I should not have assumed that I had the right to invite the girls to your house this last Season,” she said, gnawing on her lip.

    Jack squeezed her waist. “No, you did very right: we had to have them in town.”

    Ignoring this, Mrs Beresford said wanly: “It is not even a Beresford house.”

    He blinked. “Yes, ’tis! Mamma, truly I am not reproach—”

    “No, for you would never have bought it but for old Uncle Jack Bartlemy-Jones leaving you his fortune!” she cried loudly.

    “Uh—well, yes, the old boy’s money enabled me to purchase a larger house than I would otherwise have done, true.”

    “There you are, then! No wonder you keep that hideous portrait of him in the front hall.”

    “Er—it is quite a decent watercolour, in actual fact, Mamma,” he said cautiously.

    “Jack, he is wearing a puce waistcoat—puce! With his red face?”

    “That is scarcely the artist’s fault,” said Jack, looking prim. “Fortunately the hall is dim enough for the colours not to have faded.”

    It was as if he had not spoken: she swept on: “And he was no relation, you know, only the husband of your Great-Aunt Catherine Beresford that was, so really, one had no expectations that he might leave— Though it is true that Aunt Catherine was always very fond of you—and of dearest John, of course! And they had no children of their own. But then, there was that nephew—no, I think he was a cousin’s son. Peter Bartlemy-Jones, that was it! I never saw it, but he had a quite decent property in, er, Shropshire, I think—well, no matter!”

    Jack smiled a little. He had expected his mother to exclaim at length over the news that he did intend to ask Peg to marry him: but if it had thrown her off-balance, he did not in the least mind if she rambled on!

    “As matter of fact, Mamma, I rather think that the reason he left me his gelt was nothing to do with any wish his late wife might have expressed: it was much simpler than that! The old fellow was tickled pink that you and Papa were calling me ‘Jack’, and assumed, quite incorrectly, I am sure, that it was after him!” He laughed. “I remember very clearly being sat on his knee—he was huge, was he not, Mamma?” he added eagerly, “—and being shown his gold watch that chimed, and the old boy saying: ‘So it’s Jack, hey? After your old Uncle Jack! Well, well, well!’ –Shaking all over with chuckles, so it was like riding in a boat on choppy waters!” he ended, chuckling himself.

    “Good Heavens, when was this?” croaked his mother, staring.

    “Well, when you took me to see him, I must suppose, Mamma.”

    “You cannot have been more than four years ol— No, stay! You still had your curls!” she gasped. “Three!”

    “Very well, three,” said Jack primly. “Nevertheless I remember it.”

    “The old lady was still alive—she would have been the oldest of your grandfather’s siblings, of course—and she made the mistake of offering you a morsel of her ginger cake, and it was too hot for your poor little mouth,” said Mrs Beresford, smiling a little and shaking her head over it. “You began to cry, so Uncle Jack set you on his knee—perhaps that was the occasion, my dear!”

    “I don’t remember being bitten by a cake,” said Jack meekly.

    “No? Well, he was very prone to have you on his knee, dear old man! But we never dreamed at the time— Well, Peter Bartlemy-Jones was there with his horrid wife and that dreadful daughter with the greasy flaxen ringlets,” she said, shuddering. “She was about eleven, I suppose, but more than capable of buttering the old man up shamefully. That’s right: she called him ‘Nunky Jacky-kins,’ and her mother did not reprove her!”

    “Appallin’, ma’am,” he said formally. “Small wonder he did not leave her his fortune.”

    “No, but he left her Aunt Catherine’s wonderful pearls!” she retorted smartly.

    “Er—good gad,” said Mr Beresford limply. “Mamma, if you wish for a string of pearls, of course I—”

    “No! Dearest boy! No! What an idea! It rankled at the time,” she said with a foolish smile. “They might have become an heirloom, you see.”

    “I’ll buy Peg the finest string that the London jewellers can provide and they shall become an heirloom!” he said madly.

    Wistfully she recalled: “It was fully two yards long, each pearl the size of a well developed pea...”

    Jack gulped. “Mamma, I’m not a nabob, you know.”

    “What? No! Silly boy, of course you must buy Peg something suitab— Oh, dear! What have I been saying?”

    Jack collapsed in splutters. He laughed so hard that tears ran down his face.

    Mrs Beresford could only look at him weakly. “Maundering on about—about goodness knows what—pearls and cream cakes and—and—old Uncle Jack Bartlemy-Jones...”

    Jack blew his nose weakly. “It’s the shock of finding I have the sense after all to wish to offer for Peg.”

    Something like that, certainly! More like the shock of discovering that for two years—well, not quite that long, if Sissy’s reports were to be credited, but very nearly that long—he had been considering himself as unable to offer for Peg because he was her host! Oh, well, men were capable of persuading themselves of anything, reflected Mrs Beresford. And if he wished to believe that was why he had shilly-shallied all this time, let him! She drew a deep breath.

    “I am so very, very pleased about it, dearest boy. And you do very right to wish to take Lilibet. Indeed, I think it is the best possible solution! Er—but when your own children come, she may be jealous of them, you know.”

    “I had thought of that. Well, actually, Aunt Sissy raised the very same point when I wished to take Bertie, quite some time back. But I think if we do our best to, um, involve her: make her feel that she is going to have a little niece or nephew whom she may love and help to care for, then perhaps it will not go down too badly. What do you think, Mamma?”

    “That is the best possible approach to take, my dearest Jack!” she beamed.

    Phew! Jack sagged. “Good. But, um, how should I put it to Peg, then?”

    Mrs Beresford looked at him blankly.

    Jack swallowed. “I—I think I began this conversation with the intention of asking you how I might couple a wish to take Lilibet with a proposal to Peg, whilst making sure she understands that—the proposal is in fact unconditional.” He swallowed again.

    Good Heavens, was that all? “Ask her first. Then—not immediately, dear, but a day or two later—just say that you are very worried about Lilibet after George’s speaking to you, and does she think it will answer, leaving the child in Alice’s hands, if George is so sure it will not,” replied his mother calmly.

     Jack beamed at her. “Of course! Brilliant, Mamma! Underhand, possibly, but brilliant!” he added with a chuckle. He got up. “Er—where is Peg?”

    “Well, I— Oh, dear! It was all so muddled, was it not?”

    Muddled, Jack Beresford reflected, was a damn’ good word for it. Not the wedding itself, no. Apart from a few minor incidents, to which the more august guests had not, thank God, by and large been exposed, it had gone off very well. The grander invitees, including Wellington, yes, had soon taken themselves off to their homes, but some of the nearer relations had stayed on for a little. The very day after the bridal pair had set off for their honeymoon on the Continent, just when the older ladies had retired to teacups and chat in Rose’s pretty new sitting-room, a cricket ball had crashed through the window. Mrs Portwinkle, Aunt Honeywell and several dragons on the Corrant side had not been amused. Not the boys, no: Lilibet. There was absolutely no doubt it had been deliberate, for she could not, as George had privily admitted to Jack, hit a ball with a bat to save her life, and so must have thrown it. Needless to state, as well as her dislike of Alice and Geddings she had developed a thorough loathing for Mrs Portwinkle and Mrs Honeywell, both of whom had reproached her for such earlier peccadilloes as: speaking when adults were speaking, demanding cake off her mother’s tea table when she was entertaining—or at all—walking into a gentleman’s salon in muddy boots—one look at Geddings’s face as the brat stamped all over his beautiful Persian carpets would have been enough to assure anyone that he had thoroughly shared the speakers’ sentiments—pouring a pot of raspberry jam over her poor little brother’s head, stealing the jam in the first place, throwing stones at the white doves which fluttered so prettily round the Medways dovecot, and which Alice, alas, had greatly admired in her hearing, taking the said stones, actually pieces of white Carrara marble, from their appointed spot at the base of a writhing Classical statue in the formal rose garden in the first place... Well, the crimes were endless, poor damned unhappy brat. It did not help, in Jack’s considered opinion, that while Geddings had busied himself taking the boys out riding and so forth he had not bothered to provide a pony for Lilibet. Jack had dared to suggest it—not in front of the child, of course—and Alice had replied in her quiet way: “Jeremy and I do not consider that she is old enough yet to be responsible for a pony, Cousin. And besides, her conduct scarcely merits such a gift, does it?” Jack had found he was so angry with her he could not speak. Could she not see that the child was jealous of her brothers, and that never giving her treats was in the highest degree unlikely to improve her conduct? He had, however, merely clenched his fists and walked out.

    Lilibet had been captured by the obliging Bertie and of course had denied all responsibility for the cricket ball, the which had not gone down at all well, as Aunt Honeywell claimed grimly to have seen her dress behind a nearby bush just before the ball broke the window. The resultant scene had ended with Lilibet in a screaming fit on Rose’s pretty new carpet and Lance and Jack, who had been lurking in the next room with its French windows open onto the terrace and had perforce overheard the lot—well, at first merely chatting, but then definitely lurking—jointly going in to remove her bodily. Lance had administered a spanking but although it had doubtless relieved his feelings, it hadn't done any observable good: she had bawled, in fact screamed, but still maintained the lie. Great-Aunt Portwinkle had of course discovered this and been more annoyed than ever. Lilibet was declared to be incorrigible, and the offer, or possibly threat, to take her in Alice’s place in a few years’ time should her conduct have improved by then had been withdrawn. Rose had burst into tears, so possibly she was not as indifferent to either her youngest daughter’s conduct or her ultimate fate as she had appeared to be. Lance, alas, had then lost his temper with his great-aunt and told her what he thought of her, at which point Aunt Honeywell had weighed in...

    This had all been quite bad enough, but that evening both Mrs Portwinkle and Mrs Honeywell had discovered earthworms in their beds. The screams had reverberated throughout the gracious halls of Medways. Next morning when the crime had duly been reported, poor Rose was horribly overcome: Lilibet had been locked in her room on bread and water in the wake of the afternoon’s fiasco: how could she possibly have got out? Surely one of the boys would not have been that silly? The boys had denied responsibility for the crime loudly and angrily, the more so, Jack had a fair idea, as they were wishing they had (a) thought of it and (b) had the daring to carry it through; and Lilibet’s room had been inspected narrowly by the fuming Lance. –Mr Buffitt, of course, was well out of it, up at the waterfall.

    It then became clear that the little girl must have climbed out of her window and down the trelliswork against the house, on which a pretty climbing rose had been trained. Lance inspected her arms and legs ruthlessly. Sure enough, they were very scratched. He then attacked the trellis angrily, until a panting Medways gardener hurried up and relieved him of the task.

    Poor Mrs Portwinkle, who after all was an elderly lady, had been quite prostrated—it was not that she was afraid of a few mere earthworms, out of course, but the shock of finding them like that. Aunt Honeywell, temporarily on the best of terms with her out of solidarity against the Buffitts, had declared grimly that she could not possibly be allowed to go home alone to “that barracks of a house”, but as she herself could not possibly accompany her, being due at Cousin Aubyn Honeywell’s silver wedding celebrations in four days’ time, it had best be Peg. Rather understandably Mrs Portwinkle had declared that no Buffitt should ever set toe across her threshold again. Jack’s mamma had then weighed into the thing—ill-advisedly, in his opinion. He himself had offered to escort the old lady but apparently all men were broken reeds. He had then retired from the lists, found Lance, who was still fuming, and dragged him off for a decent ride.

    By the time they got back to the house the day was well advanced, and Mrs Portwinkle, Mrs Honeywell, and two of the grimmer Corrant relations had vanished. There were still not a few there to lick their lips over the thing, though, not excepting the dowager Lady Compton, Mrs Joan Corrant, Mrs Cordelia Hanson-Wells, Mrs Violet Brinsley-Pugh, and the very elderly Lady Laetitia Corrant, who was a sister of the Marquess of Wade—and that meant the entire Gratton-Gordon tribe as well as the Brinsley-Pughs would have the full details before the cat could lick her ear! Oh, and Mrs Joan Corrant had been a Vane, so that old gossip, Tobias Vane, would have the tale in two shakes as well, and the Vanes were of course connected by marriage to the Narrowmines, Blefford’s family, as well as the Bon-Duttons... In short, the whole of England would very soon be able to lick its lips. No doubt the story would be served with a side dish of Buffitt’s damned waterfall nonsense and his speech thereon at the wedding breakfast, too.

    Mrs Beresford had more or less hurled herself at her son on his return from his ride, not even asking where on earth he had got to all day, and declared they would be off at once. It was nigh on four, but a beautiful day, and the evenings were long at this time of year—and if they managed only one stage, what did it matter? He did not make an effort to see Peg: it would have been pointless: the Buffitt household was still in an uproar, for Rose had apparently bawled her husband out on the score of his never being there when needed and damned Damian Buffitt had walked out when she was in the middle of it.

    So he and Lance had simply obtained fresh mounts from the Medways stables, and ridden off beside his mamma’s coach. Lance expressing with some feeling his gratitude that he was working for Cousin Jack, well out of his family’s orbit.

    Mrs Beresford was now looking at her son uncertainly.

    “Mamma, where is Peg?” he repeated. “Is she still at her parents’ home?”

    “Well, my dear, the last I heard, Aunt Portwinkle had calmed down sufficiently to agree to accept her company on the journey home.”

    “Are you sure? Thought she was adamant that no Buffitt toe should ever cross her threshold again?”

    “Well, yes, but that was before she and Cousin Honeywell had a falling-out.”

    “Already?” croaked Jack, though perhaps he should have known better.

    “Mm. She passed an incautious remark relative to Mrs Portwinkle’s age, Jack.”

    Jack had a coughing fit.

    Mrs Beresford’s eyes twinkled. “Quite! Then Lady Laetitia Corrant came down firmly upon your great-aunt’s side—well, apparently they knew each other as girls, though I must say it was the first I had heard of it—and raked up some minor scandal in which Cousin Honeywell’s, um, husband’s cousin on his mamma’s side, I think, was involved.”

    “Back in the year Dot, was this?” enquired Jack neutrally.

    “Considerably before the year Dot, I think, my dear!” she said with a laugh. “Peg was present, poor little soul: she had come over as Rose’s deputy to offer the family’s apologies, you see, and as the name Uckridge was mentioned she squeaked out something about knowing Miss Nancy Uckridge—I think, with the laudable intention of diverting the old ladies from, er, topics close to home! At which Lady Laetitia launched into a positive diatribe against the Uckridges, but I am afraid it was so involved that I cannot possibly tell you who was at fault, dear boy, for I did not grasp scarce a syllable of it!” She laughed heartily.

    Jack was looking at her in horror. “Mamma, you don’t mean the old hags took it out on poor little Peg?” he cried.

    “What? Oh! No such thing, dear boy!” she said, mopping her eyes. “Thank goodness you agreed to leave: I could not have supported another five minutes of it without bursting out laughing in their faces, and that would have damned the Beresfords utterly as well!”

    “Don’t joke,” he said tightly. “Why did the old harridan take Peg?”

    “I am trying to tell you, Jack; it is not my fault if it was all muddled! Apparently Aunt Portwinkle once knew a Mrs Uckridge—the present woman’s mamma-in-law, I think it must have been—and cordially loathed her, so her sympathies were all with Lady Laetitia, but—now, I do not swear I have this right—but I think that a connection of the late Honeywell’s was a very close friend of a Mr Arthur Uckridge, who performed some service for that side of the family—well, as I say, none of it was clear—but Mrs Honeywell became extremely incensed, and reminded Mrs Portwinkle of a certain Hermione Bishop that was.”

    Mr Beresford just looked at her wildly.

    “Well, my dear,” she said with a chuckle, “I have no notion if that was in relation to a Portwinkle peccadillo or not, but I rather got the impression that it was, for Aunt Portwinkle reminded her angrily that that name was never to be breathed in her presence again, and coupled a mention of ‘young Horace Honeywell’ with that of a certain Antonia Preston that was. A woman, so she informed us, whose conduct she would not scruple to characterise”—her voice shook slightly—“as of the very lowest.”

    “I have never heard of a young Hor— Wait!” he said sharply.

    Mrs Beresford collapsed in helpless gales of laughter, nodding madly. “Yes!” she gasped, when she could finally speak. “She meant Honeywell’s old Uncle Horace, of course!”

    Jack must have been about ten when he last saw old Horace Honeywell. The most ferociously proper, grim, upright old man he had ever met. Read the Bible aloud for two hours night and morning, a ceremony which the entire household, including guests, was expected to attend, age or youth not being a reason for absence, and inflicted a half-hour’s grace on his guests at table. Most unfortunately youth had not excused those over the age of about five of sitting up and eating their mutton like a Christian soul. Little May had been spared but Jack had been herded to the sacrifice.

    “It cannot have been true,” he said very faintly.

    “My dear, Mrs Honeywell was so furious that it must have been,” replied his mother mildly, though with a twinkle in her eye.

    He swallowed. “Possibly the incessant Bible reading was a mark of repentance, then. So—er, I see, I think. Peg had said the right thing, so Great-Aunt Portwinkle— No, wait: was it Great-Aunt Portwinkle or Aunt Honeywell who was pro the Uckridges?”

    “Aunt Portwinkle cordially loathed the Mrs Uckridge that she knew, but she was now furious with Mrs Honeywell for pointing out that any suggestion of Peg’s accompanying her home would not do, for not only was she needed to support her mother, being immured in ‘that barracks of a house’—the second time she had used the phrase, my dear—being immured there had manifestly not done Alice the slightest good, for she would never had met Geddings had she not gone up to London! This was a direct contradiction, as you may not have noticed, of her earlier stance that Peg should accompany the old thing—”

    “Mamma, this is not a funning matter!” he cried.

    Mrs Beresford smiled. “Of course it is, dear boy! I did try to say at that point that I thought that Aunt Portwinkle’s influence upon Alice had been only a good one, but I’m afraid, although the old thing was pleased, Cousin Honeywell was very annoyed and passed some cutting remarks about Rose’s household in particular and the Buffitts in general. Which logically, of course, supported my remark, but that did not appease Aunt Portwinkle, and Peg became very cross and cried out in defence of her mother—something to the effect that at least she truly loved her children and did not consign them to a cold old schoolroom while she ate tea and muffins downstairs in warmth and comfort!”

    “But I thought she had never even visited there?”

    “No; she must have had it from her mother, I collect,” said Mrs Beresford calmly. “Or perhaps Lance: he was forced to visit once, I think.”

    “Uh—yes. Well, from what I have seen of Aunt Honeywell’s household that is an horridly accurate description.”

    “Mm. It certainly hit home. Peg was described as an unmannerly hoyden who would never be a fit mate for a gentleman, and she walked out, thank goodness.”

    “Uh—Peg did?”

    “No, Mrs Honeywell, dear. Peg could not walk out, for at the point at which Cousin Honeywell had declared she should not go with her, Aunt Portwinkle had seized her arm,” said Rowena Beresford with what was perilously near a grin.

    Jack gulped. “So she went with the old hag, then?”

    “I am not absolutely sure, Jack, for Aunt Portwinkle then told me to be off, she did not care if she never set eyes on another Beresford—with something about Fanny, which I am rather glad to say I did not grasp. Well, Alec Ramsay was in there somewhere, but since, as you saw, she turned up for the wedding unaccompanied, I cannot say why.” She looked at his face. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I could not insist on staying: it would have provoked a dreadful scene: Mrs Portwinkle and Lady Laetitia were both terribly stirred up, and—” she swallowed—“I had not meant to say so, dearest boy, but old Lady L. made a slighting reference to my dear John.”

    “Then of course you could not stay, Mamma!” he said warmly.

    “No,” said Mrs Beresford in some relief. “I did not wish to leave Peg, but— And without Cousin Honeywell there, I dare say things would have calmed down. I went upstairs to pack, and when I came down again they had all gone. I did go over to Rose’s house, but there was nobody in but Bertie, and he said he had only just got in himself, and there was a note here from Peg for his mother, but he had not opened it. And asked me anxiously if that was right, poor child!” she added, with a laugh and a sigh. “So of course I said he had done quite right. –I think she may just have run home for her clothes, and gone straight away. Er—I did linger upstairs for a while, I’m afraid, Jack,” she added apologetically.

    “Understandable,” he conceded drily. “Well, it seems most probable that she has been dragged off to Great-Aunt Portwinkle’s lair, so I’ll get over there straight away. She is not going to be left with the hag!” With this he marched out, looking grimly determined.

    Mrs Beresford sagged in her seat. After quite some time she said aloud: “It is quite a way—and what if she has not gone there but merely—well, she could have been anywhere, out and about on the estate! Gone up to her pest of a father at that damned waterfall, or—or anything!”

    After about ten minutes there came a knock at the front door. Mrs Beresford jumped, and waited in considerable foreboding.

    But it was only her sister Sissy.

    “Thank goodness it’s you,” she said faintly.

    “Is everything all right, my dear? Jack passed me in the street, going at such a pace, in his curricle. I do not think he even saw me.”

    “Well, yes!” said Mrs Beresford with a mad laugh. “Everything is quite all right, in that he has made up his mind to ask Peg to marry hi—”

    “Huzza!” cried the little old spinster lady, doing a short dance.

    “Indeed!” she agreed, smiling weakly. “But the thing is— Sissy, my dear, do come and sit down!”

    The beaming Miss Sissy, who had had the privilege of driving back to Bath after the wedding in her nephew Jack Laidlaw’s carriage, and had thus missed the entire Lilibet affair, not to say the confrontation between Mrs Portwinkle and Mrs Honeywell, obediently sat down, saying: “Was it not a lovely wedding? Did you ever see such a beautiful bride? And now it is Peg and Jack’s turn! I am so happy!”

    “So am I!” owned Rowena Beresford with a laugh. “Of course it is splendid news, but the thing is, he’s rushed off to Aunt Portwinkle’s, and I am not perfectly sure that Peg is with her!”

    “Well, he cannot know if she be there unless he looks, my dear,” she said composedly. She looked at her expectantly, but nothing happened. “Rowena, my dear, shall I ring for a tray of tea?” she said brightly.

    Mrs Beresford jumped sharply. “Oh—yes, by all means, Sissy: pray do ring,” she agreed weakly.

    Beaming, Miss Sissy bounced up to do so.

    “Well!” she said brightly, sitting down again. “All’s well that ends well! Though mark, I knew it from the beginning!”

    “Mm. Er—she has not accepted him yet, Sissy,” she said with somewhat belated caution.

    Miss Sissy laughed confidently. “She will! The only wonder is, that he delayed so long to ask!”

    “Oh—as to that!” Mrs Beresford sat up straight, looking very pleased with herself. “Well, my dear, according to Jack—and you will see, Sissy, that he has persuaded himself it is the real reason—according to Jack—” She plunged into it.

    “Just like a man,” concluded the little spinster lady at the end of it.

    “Well, quite!”

    Miss Sissy’s bright little brown eyes twinkled. “I collect the temperature of the feet was not mentioned, my dear?”

    The tea-tray had been brought in: Mrs Beresford was occupied in pouring. “The temperature of the—oh!” Hurriedly she set the pot down. “No!” she gasped. “Oh, dear!”

    Miss Sissy waited, smiling complacently, as her sister laughed heartily.

    “No,” she said finally, mopping her eyes. “Admit as much to his mamma? Never, Sissy!”

    At which Miss Sissy, alas, collapsed in helpless giggles at her sophisticated nephew’s expense.

    Mrs Portwinkle’s very elderly butler in person opened the imposing front door to Mr Beresford.

    “It’s you, Master Jack! Thank Gawd!” he gasped.

    “What is it?” demanded Jack tightly.

    The old man produced a flag-like handkerchief and mopped his brow. “It’s Miss Peg, sir! She’s run orf with a feller called Chegwidden, and Mrs Portwinkle’s in a right state!”

Next chapter:

https://pegbuffitt-aregencynovel.blogspot.com/2023/05/alls-well-that-ends-well.html