3
“Who Are These, Coming To The Sacrifice?”
Miss Sissy Laidlaw was a little, thin, wispy spinster, who gave the appearance rather of a faded little brown hen. A small head, and a small eye, above a thin neck, and an anxious expression. Added to which, she was wont to dress in subfusc shades of brown or snuff. Left to herself she would of course have leapt into the carriage and flown to dearest Jack’s side. But fortunately her nephew Mr Laidlaw had received an urgent communication from his third son.
“Read that!” he spluttered, handing it to his wife.
Charlotte took it anxiously. “Is Mendoza quite all right? Oh, goodness!” she gasped. Mr Laidlaw eyed her sardonically. “Oh, but of course she must come to us! Why on earth did the silly boy tell Jack I could not take her?”
“Charlotte,” said Mr Laidlaw heavily, “read it again.”
Mrs Laidlaw read Mendoza’s letter again. “Oh,” she said.
“Yes, ‘oh’,” he agreed. “If anything is going to make Cousin Jack take responsibility for another human being, it is this!”
“Ye-es… But Jack, the poor little girl!”
“Er—oh. Dammit,” he said, rubbing his nose. “Um, well, Jack ain’t a bad fellow, y’know.”
“My dear, he can be horridly blighting.”
Jack Laidlaw grimaced. “Aye. All the same… No, look: I shall have a word with Aunt Sissy!” he said determinedly. “There is no way that the girl’s going to come all the way down from Lincolnshire and then not have a Season. –No, well, if it comes to it,” he said as Charlotte began to lodge objections, “of course we’ll take the poor child in, my dear: no question. Dare say Nobby could do with another bridesmaid—it’ll only make fifteen,” he noted airily.
Mrs Laidlaw responded to that outrageous exaggeration as might have been expected.
“Well, possibly it only feels like it,” he said with a grin. “Now, think this over carefully, Charlotte, and tell me what you think. Send Horrible with Aunt Sissy to keep her up to the mark?” He raised an eyebrow.
“If that is a horrid sporting expression, which I strongly suspect, my sitting-room can do very well without it,” said Mrs Laidlaw with dignity. “And while I am on the subject, it is high time we started calling poor Horrible ‘Hortensia’ and Mendoza ‘John’.”
“Probably. They’ll never answer to ’em, though. And the fellows he knows think his being called after the great Mendoza is a famous joke, y’know.”
Mrs Laidlaw sighed. Very possibly they did. But what did their mammas think? And what did the mammas of all the pleasant girls think? “Er, dearest, Horr— Hortensia is a little young for London.”
“Aye. Not too young to keep Aunt Sissy in order, though. Not to say, stand up to damned Jack when he’s on his high horse. You think it over, my dear, and I’ll get on round there right away and stop her from rushing off to be dashed Jack's doormat!” He winked, and was gone.
Miss Sissy had just been about to put on her bonnet and rush round to tell dear Jack and Charlotte the news! And dearest Jack had sent a carriage!
Mr Laidlaw took the agitated little bird’s claws of hands in his big warm ones, sat her down, and began to tell her, gently but firmly, just how this situation could be handled, not to say, convince her that it would be “dearest Jack’s” intention, damn his eyes, to send the poor brat back home to Lincolnshire, whatever he might have omitted to put in his note. And that it was not to be thought of for an instant. Then he allowed her to put on her bonnet and come and tell Charlotte the news.
Charlotte greeted them radiantly with: “My dears, is it not exciting? And I have absolutely decided, Jack: you are perfectly right, and Hortensia must go with Aunt Sissy!”
When the fuss had somewhat died down and Aunt Sissy had been returned to her home to pack, Mr and Mrs Laidlaw convincing her in chorus that tomorrow would be soon enough to set off from Bath for London, Charlotte added: “And what is more, Jack, I shall speak to Horrible and make quite sure that she understands that part of her duty is to see that Aunt Sissy does not over-tire herself. The girls may go on walks to the silly Park and so forth together; well, with one of Aunt Beresford’s footmen, I suppose. But there is no need for Aunt Sissy to trail round on that sort of exhausting expedition.”
“No, qui—”
“And what is more, I shall write dearest Nan on the instant! She will be able to take Cousin Peg under her wing!” she beamed.
Mr Laidlaw had to swallow. “Dearest Nan” was Lady Stamforth. Certainly she and Charlotte were on the best of terms, for she had been their neighbour in Bath before she had ever met Lord Stamforth; but all the same, the difference in their stations in life—
“She was so very kind to Nobby during her Season!”
“Yes. Charlotte, just remember two things: this girl is not actually one of our own daughters; and then, do we want Lady Stamforth taking the whole thing off Jack’s shoulders?”
She thought it over. “No, of course, and I shall write her it all!” she beamed.
Jack blinked, but conceded she would write the P.W. it all. At least, he reflected somewhat glumly, Stamforth had a head on his shoulders, so if the two matrons plotted up anything too outrageous—and Charlotte had that look in her eye, there was no denying it—he could be relied upon to put a stop to it. The fact that he, Jack Laidlaw, would never be able to look the man in that damned sardonic eye of his again, was, of course, beside the point. As was the point that Stamforth never had been all that fond of Jack B., had he?
The red-headed Miss Hortensia Laidlaw, aged seventeen summers, fixed her respected mamma with a cold grey-green eye, but let her get it all out.
“Very well, I shall go, but I shall not enjoy it,” she stated flatly.
“Good. I mean, of course you will, dearest,” said Charlotte weakly.
Horrible sniffed, but noted: “You can rely on me, Mamma. I know what Aunt Sissy is. And him,” she noted darkly.
“Er—yes. Dearest, just remember that Cousin Jack will be your host.”
Horrible’s cold grey-green gaze did not falter. She sniffed.
Charlotte smiled feebly; she had sounded just like Aunt Beresford!
“There is the point,” she noted coolly—Charlotte quailed—“that Aunt Sissy has no taste.”
“N— Uh, Hortensia, dear, that is going rather too far.”
“Mamma, there is no use blinking at facts. That vile dress she made for Georgey’s last birthday was blue.”
Charlotte sighed. All of her daughters except little Prue had bright ginger hair, and greyish eyes tending to the greenish. And none of them could wear blue. Fortunately Georgey had absolutely no taste and so had worn the thing cheerfully. “Well, never mind, my dear; I have written to Lady Stamforth and asked her to keep her eye on you both.”
“Good. She’s got taste,” said Horrible tersely. “Do we have to find a rich husband for this Cousin Peg Buffitt?”
Charlotte winced. “Not necessarily rich,” she murmured.
“I see,” said Horrible simply.
Her mother smiled weakly: no doubt she did.
“Has she got any money?”
Charlotte put her hands over her ears. “My dear, I have no idea, and you should not ask such things!”
“It’s best to know,” she said simply.
Sighing, Charlotte took her hands from her ears. “I suppose it is, yes. Well, Cousin Rose Buffitt has never had two pennies to rub together, and from what I’ve heard of Mr Buffitt, he has nothing, either. I very much doubt they have been able to dower their girls.”
“No. What about Aunt Honeywell?”
Charlotte winced. “She cannot stand him,” she murmured.
“Oh, of course! That Cousin Rose!”
“Mm.”
“Possibly,” said Horrible, narrowing the eyes horribly, “Cousin Jack might be persuaded that it's his duty to do something for her. Though it will be the first time in his life he ever did anything for anybody,” she noted detachedly.
Charlotte leaned forward and grasped her hands strongly. “Yes, my dear: that is exactly it, and caring for this little Cousin Peg may be the making of him!” she said urgently.
“I can see that, Mamma. In fact I have seen it for some time,” said Horrible kindly, “but I fear you are allowing your sensibilities to run away with you. However, I’ll do my best,” she added kindly.
Limply Charlotte nodded. And tottered off to report to her dearest Jack: “She will do it. And seized every implication of the thing before the words were out of my mouth.”
“Told you,” he said, grinning. “No flies on Horrible.”
“No.” Charlotte collapsed onto the sofa. “Dearest, she is getting worse!”
“Didn’t know that was possible! No, thing is, she’s all upset because Nobby’s suddenly grown up and grown away from her.”
“Yes,” said Charlotte wanly. “And to think I was so determined that she must spend this last spring at home with Nobby before she marries… Oh, well. Not that she has been misbehaving, at all, poor lamb. But she cannot understand it, or share any of Nobby’s feelings, and though of course Nobby does not mean to exclude her, she feels so left out!”
“Yes. Think she will be better off in London. And she’ll like being responsible for Aunt Sissy and this new Cousin Peg.” He scratched his chin. “Er, there is the point that the girls may not get on.”
“They may have very little in common, Jack, but Horrible is by far too sensible to expect to make a bosom-bow of her. And then, she is the sort of person who accepts people as they are, isn’t she? I think she will manage to get on with her.”
“Mm. Well, who is there that Horrible has a thing in common with, anyway?” he said thoughtfully. “Well, young Georgey to some extent, I suppose.”
“Really, Jack!”
“Never mind,” he said peaceably. “It’ll do her good: show her a bit of life that's different from Bath. Then next year you and Aunt Beresford can do the thing properly, if you still want to.”
“Of course,” she said with dignity.
Jack Laidlaw smiled a little; he was very sure that that was exactly what she’d been thinking.
Horrible went into her eldest sister’s room that evening looking gloomy. Elizabeth, Miss Laidlaw, known as "Nobby” ever since her brothers had dubbed her so as an infant, was sitting at her dressing-table, brushing out the long, straight, red-gold hair that was very like her next sister’s in colour, but had none of the natural curl of Horrible’s. “Hullo,” she said mildly.
Horrible sat down on the edge of the bed, looking gloomy. “I’ll miss you.”
“Don’t go, Horrible, if you don’t want to. Mamma will understand.”
Horrible sighed. “She had this Romantick notion that we’d like to spend these last few months together.”
“Dearest John would be only too happy for you to come on walks with us,” said Nobby with an anxious look.
“I like him, but it’s terribly boring. He doesn’t talk about things.”
“Things?” said her sister vaguely.
“No. Only about people, and his parish, and so forth.”
“Ye-es… He wants me to know about his family and his home. I don’t think I know what you mean. He doesn’t gossip, Horrible.”
“Actually it might be more interesting if he did. I don’t mind going to London. We don’t seem to have anything in common any more, do we?”
Nobby bit her lip. “I'm sorry. I suppose I have been, um, concentrating on John, rather.”
“No, don’t be. It's natural, at your age,” said Horrible heavily. “Do you really like kissing him?”
“Of course!” she said with a laugh.
“I don’t see that it is ‘of course’. Matt Yattersby once kissed me and it was horrid. I kicked him really hard in the shin!” she said with satisfaction.
Nobby was looking at her in some horror. “When was this?”
“Mm? Oh, last year, when he was home on furlough from his stupid ship.”
“I see,” she said limply. Lieutenant Yattersby was generally reckoned a catch: he was certainly very handsome, and most of the unattached maidens of Bath would have been only too thrilled to have been favoured by him. “Well, I suppose if you do not care for a man, then it’s different.”
Horrible fixed her with the hard grey-green stare. “Is it? What about that George Potter person?”
Nobby giggled. She put her hand over her mouth but the giggles could still be heard.
“See?”
“No! He kisses all the girls!” she gasped, taking the hand away. “He is known for it, all over London! It was just silly!”
“Well, to me, there is a long distance between horrid and just silly, but I suppose that just proves I haven’t grown up,” she said gloomily, getting up. “Never mind; I dare say some of Aunt Beresford’s books will be at the town house, and then, Cousin Jack is a lot of things, but he ain’t an illiterate: I’ll read his.”
“Yes, good!” her sister smiled. “And you’ll be able to see something of Mendoza!”
“You mean, watch him and his silly little pals throw old Uncle Philly’s fortune away,” she noted grimly. “Good night.”
“Come and give me a kiss, donkey!” said Nobby with a laugh.
Horrible sighed. “You've changed, all right.” But she came and allowed Nobby to peck her cheek and even gave her a peck in return.
“Everybody grows up, Horrible,” said Nobby on an uncertain note.
“The evidence would tend to support that theory: yes,” she said grimly, going over to the door. “Personally, I’d rather go straight from childhood to middle age; the in-between bits never seem to me to be typified by anything approaching sense.”
Nobby just smiled and shook her head, and Horrible went out, looking horribly grim.
Mr Beresford had sustained with fortitude the news that Cousin Jack Laidlaw’s second daughter was staying in his house; he had sustained with fortitude Aunt Sissy’s throwing her arms round his neck and bursting into tears; the Buffitts had been shown to their rooms…
“Who the Devil is it?” he shouted as there came a timid tap at his door.
After some fumbling the door opened.
“Oh. I beg your pardon, Aunt Sissy,” said Mr Beresford, reddening.
“My dear boy, what is it? Is the arm paining you? We shall have your mamma’s Dr Gordon to it, direct!”
“No,” he said with a sigh. “I can do without the brutal ministrations of that Scotch quack.”
“Jack, my dear, if you had some provincial doctor set the bone, I am sure your mother—”
“I don’t give a fig if it do heal crooked,” he said, frowning.
“Has Moffat some laudanum for you, at the least?”
“He has certainly tried to force the muck on me, yes. But I’m not a dashed invalid.”
It was fairly obvious the arm was paining him and he wasn’t admitting to it. Miss Sissy said mildly: “No, of course. You are very wise not to take it, when you are not truly ill. Now tell me, dear boy, what do you think of our little cousin?”
He swallowed a sigh but replied politely enough: “I suppose I have not thought all that much. I dare say when you clean the girl up she’ll look presentable enough.”
“But my dear nephew, she is a perfect little beauty: you must have remarked it!”
Mr Beresford turned away and fiddled with a clean shirt that was laid out neatly for him on his bed. “Those yaller eyes are damned peculiar.”
“Those great limpid eyes? They are lovely! How you can call them peculiar, Jack—!” She gave a sentimental sigh. “She puts me so much in mind of your Aunt Fanny at that age!”
He turned his head and stared at her. “Eh? No, really, Aunt Sissy! Aunt Fanny is the sort of beauty that that square-faced little country hobbledehoy will never be, clean her up how you will.”
“I suppose you could say that her face is square, but with the width across the cheekbones, it is quite fascinating; and she has just that clear complexion that your Aunt Fanny had as a girl, and the same wild-rose colour in the cheeks!”
He shrugged. “Well, you knew her in her girlhood. But I thought she was famed for her wit, even in those days?”
“Wit and spirit, my dear. Of course, little Peg seems very tired, but I think perhaps she is a girl of considerable spirit!” She nodded brightly at him.
“An uncontrolled hoyden, would be more like it,” he said in a bored voice.
Miss Sissy stared at him in distress.
He reddened. “Not that she’s precisely said or done— Well—spoken out of turn like a damned ill-bred brat.”
“That dear little girl?” she said faintly. “I cannot see it.”
“No, well, you did not have to enjoy the unending barrage of puerile comment— I’m sorry. Forget it.”
Doubtless dear Jack was hungry after the long journey. Miss Sissy said brightly: “Well, dinner will be ready very soon, my dear boy! And we thought we would not change, for tonight.”
“Eh? Oh; no. Well, the Buffitts don't have any clothes.”
“No, of course. Nor does little Hortensia, or only the one simple little muslin, but her dear mother has charged me with the responsibility of buying her something pretty, and quite grown-up!”
Mr Beresford sank limply onto the edge of his bed. “What are you and Charlotte plotting?”
Miss Sissy gave an airy and extremely unconvincing laugh. “Oh, nothing in the world! And I dare say little Peg is not your type. But I am very sure that she will be found generally to be entirely enchanting. And if your Aunt Fanny could catch a prince—”
“Oh, God,” said Jack in hollow tones, passing his hand through his short black curls. “Aunt Sissy, please! You are allowing your imagination to run riot. This girl is not, may I remind you, a Miss Beresford. And just because Mamma achieved a more than respectable match for May—”
“Well, exactly! Think of the Miss Gunnings,” said his aunt significantly, nodding at him.
“Who—?” But Miss Sissy, smiling and nodding pleasedly, had gone out before the question was half formed. “My God,” said Mr Beresford heavily.
Miss Sissy trotted swiftly along the passage to her own room. “We-ell… ” she said slowly to herself, “there was something, I think… Yes. And as for claiming those eyes are ‘peculiar’!” She gave a smothered giggle. “Silly boy! I never heard anything less convincing in my life!”
It was not until she had changed into a clean afternoon gown that she remembered that she had meant to ask dear Jack what his intentions were with regard to the boy. Because a young man of that age, with absolutely no experience of the wider world, and not a penny in his pocket, could not be left to his own devices in London. Did Jack mean to sponsor him? With the best will in the world, Miss Sissy could not see it. Oh, dear. In that case, the boy had best be sent back to his home as soon as possible. Before, in fact, he got the idea into his head that he might be asked to stay.
Brother and sister had been despatched early to bed. Lance followed Peg into her room and looked around with interest. “This is something like!”
Peg yawned. “You have it. I shall be lost in this great bed.”
“Actually, they’ve given me a dashed decent room of my own. Um, what do you think, Peg?”
Peg sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. “It’s terrible. Even Aunt Honeywell’s cannot be as bad! I’ve never seen so much cutlery in my life, and there were only the five of us.”
Lance blinked. “Uh—yes.”
“I knew they’d dress for dinner,” said Peg glumly.
“They didn’t,” he said blankly.
“They made a point of telling us they wouldn’t, more like. He was sneering, of course,” said Peg dully.
“No, he wasn’t. I think he’s a very decent fellow.”
“Lance, he is playing you like a trout,” she said tiredly.
“He is not!”
She sighed. “Have it your own way. But don’t expect him to buy you a dinner-suit from his own tailor, that’s all.”
Lance reddened, and glared. “I wasn’t thinking that at all!”
“Much.”
“Um, young Horrible seems a decent gal. Um, sensible,” he ventured.
Peg gave a cracking yawn. “Yes. Well, she doesn’t seem impressed by him, that's a great point in her favour. –I can’t talk, I’m too tired. The dinner was good, wasn’t it? Slap-up. I shall have to write George about it.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He edged towards the door. “Um—don’t say ‘slap-up’, Peg. I mean, not in front of them.”
Peg frowned.
“Good night,” said Lance hastily, sliding out.
“Oh. Good morning,” said Peg in a tiny voice, as a bowing footman opened the door of what he had assured her was the breakfast room. Peg did know that grand people had whole rooms in which to do nothing but take one meal of the day—after all, Sir Horace Monday had one, at the Hall—but the discovery that the Beresfords’ town house possessed such an adjunct to gracious living did not raise her spirits.
Mr Beresford blinked, and got to his feet.
“Don’t get up, Mr Beresford. It’s silly, when we’re living in the same house,” said Peg, still in the small voice.
“What? Pray don’t be absurd, Miss Buffitt. Come and sit down.”
Nervously Peg came to sit on the chair he was holding for her. “Thank you. Um—is it all right?” she said timidly as he resumed his seat.
“Mm?” he said vaguely.
Peg perceived that he had a newspaper opened by his plate. Oh, dear. It must be his habit to breakfast alone with his paper, and probably ladies did not come down to breakfast at all, in London. “Am I supposed to be here?” she squeaked.
Mr Beresford lowered his coffee cup and stared at her. “This is the breakfast room.”
“Y—Um, the footman said— No, um, do ladies?” gasped Peg, very red.
“Do— Oh. Henry, pour for Miss Buffitt, please, and then I think we can serve ourselves. Oh, but ask Cook to send up some more hot rolls, please.” Not noticing that Peg had become rigid with horror as the footman poured coffee into the cup next her plate, he said: “That is a very hard question to answer, Miss Buffitt, because it will not be satisfied with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Many ladies, or so I am told, stay abed the entire morning. Others—or possibly the same ladies, who am I to say?—take their breakfast abed, a habit maintained in some families to be a decadent one. The which families generally maintain that sensible women come down to breakfast like reasonable human beings.” He looked at her blandly.
Peg’s hands shook slightly. “What—I mean— Which do I have to do?” she blurted.
Suddenly the phrase “Poor little girl,” sprang unbidden into Jack Beresford’s head again. He cleared his throat, and said formally: “You must make yourself quite at home. Do whichever you please. I think it often depends on the activity of the night before. Grand balls induce a tendency to say in bed until three in the afternoon.”
“Nobody could stay abed that long!” said Peg with an amazed laugh.
He eyed her drily. “No? Be that as it may, you must please yourself.”
“But— Um, what did your sister do?” said Peg on a desperate note.
“She ate up her breakfast like a sensible girl, I’m glad to say,” said Mr Beresford in a very bored voice.
Peg’s hands trembled again, but she took a roll and tried to butter it. Politely Mr Beresford passed her a plate of sliced ham. Blindly she took some.
Silence fell. Mr Beresford was buried in his paper. Peg looked dully at the roll and ham on her plate and wondered if she could possibly force them down past the lump in her throat…
Suddenly he looked up and said: “Is there something wrong with that coffee?”
“No, um, I’ve never had it before!” she gasped.
He stared. “What the Devil did you have when we were on the road?”
“Um—whatever they gave me,” she croaked, feeling that if he asked her another question she would disgrace herself by bursting into tears and running from the room. “Um, sometimes milk. Once it was tea. And—and once it was a drink that Lance said was porter.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Porter? Not in any house that I stopped at, I sincerely trust!”
“No. When were with Mr Bundy,” said Peg faintly.
“That I can believe. Well, if you don’t wish for coffee, order up something else. I think May usually had tea,” he said in a vague voice.
“No. I mean, I’ll try the coffee. Only how does one drink it?” burst out Peg desperately.
At this Mr Beresford laid his paper aside altogether and said: “Let me get this quite clear. No-one in your home ever has coffee, is that it?”
“No. We cannot afford it.”
“Chocolate? –No. Tea, then?”
“Ma keeps it in a little box with a key that was a wedding present. She likes it,” said Peg cautiously.
“Er—and you do not?”
Peg licked her lips. “I did drink it, that time when you stopped on our way here.”
Mr Beresford sighed heavily. “I see.” He drew Peg’s cup towards him. Peg watched him like a rabbit transfixed by the fox. He sugared the cup and stirred it. Then he added a quantity of milk. “This,” he said with precision, “is the nauseating brew that to my sister passes for coffee. Try it. You will probably enjoy it.”
The transfixed Peg tried it. “Ooh!” she said. “Isn’t it odd?”
Mr Beresford had picked up his paper again; he grunted.
“Bitter but sweet as well,” she ventured.
No response.
“It has a very brown taste!” said Peg with a silly laugh.
Mr Beresford threw down his paper, strode over to the sideboard, and began slicing large pieces off the ham that sat there.
Glumly Peg subsided, sipping the very brown drink…
“Um, what happens now?” she said when at very long last the ordeal seemed to be over and he threw aside his napkin and got up.
Mr Beresford looked down his nose at her. “I go for an early morning ride in the Park, Miss Buffitt. I presume you merely possess your soul in patience until Aunt Sissy and Horrible come down. Which no doubt they will do at a sensible hour.”
“I am too early, aren’t I?” said Peg miserably.
“Yes,” he said with precision, going over to the door. “Unless you ride?” he said in a bored voice.
“No,” she gulped. “Um, I’ve sat on Mr Briggs’s old Brownie, but he was a draught horse. Um, I used to ride his cows, when I was little.”
“Really? I don’t advise you to impart that morsel to any of your new London acquaintance,” he drawled, going out.
Peg gulped.
… “Oh, pooh!” said Lance cheerfully, at the end of her shuddering report. “It can’t have been that bad!”
Peg shuddered. “You weren’t there.”
“And as for letting on to the fellow you ain’t never had coffee before!” He gave a superior laugh. “What a gaby! Thought you had more nous, Peg!”
To his horror, his fierce little sister at this gave a shattering sob and rushed from the room.
“What did I say?” said poor Lance numbly.
“I was betting,” said Horrible with her nose to the window of the small downstairs sitting-room the very next day, “that we would have one more day’s grace. But I was wrong. She’s here.”
“Hortensia, my dear, come away from the window. A lady does not flatten her nose to the pane, however tempted to do so she may be,” said Miss Sissy serenely.
Peg looked uneasily at Horrible, but she just grinned amiably and came to sit down. Adding cheerfully: “Miss Diddy Carey, who lives across the square from us in Bath, is at the window all the time. Though I admit I’ve heard Miss Carey tell her it’s unladylike.”
Miss Sissy gave a strangled cough.
“I see,” said Peg uncertainly.
Horrible just had time to wink at her and Miss Sissy just had time to smother a giggle with her handkerchief, and Peg only just had time to realise that the exchange had all been entirely amiable and that the very proper Miss Sissy found Horrible amusing, when the door opened and she was announced.
“Lady Stamforth, madam.”
Peg tottered dazedly to her feet as a cloud of softness, warmth and perfume seemed to drift into the room, pervade it utterly, and embrace both Miss Sissy and Horrible fervently. Cries of: “Oh, eet seems so long seence I saw you both!” And: “Ees eet not delightful?” And: We shall have such jolly times, I promeese you!” filled the air. And Peg found herself giving a very wobbly bob indeed. Then two warm, gloved little hands seized hers and the prettiest face she had ever seen smiled into hers, and the soft, low voice with its enchanting foreign accent said: “So you are Cousin Peg Buffitt! Dear Mrs Laidlaw has writ me een the kindest terms, and I know you do not know her, but I do so hope you weell let me help you to get to know the town, and be friends a leetle—no?”
And Peg found herself stuttering: “Um—yes—I should like that! Thank you!” All the while wondering frantically when you said: “Your Ladyship”, because neither Horrible nor Miss Sissy had.
… “She’s like that,” said Horrible simply as at long last the visitor departed.
Peg just looked at her limply.
“It's like being hugged in a big, soft fur rug, isn't it?” said Horrible detachedly.
Peg had never actually seen a fur rug: nevertheless she cried: “Oh! Yes! It is that exactly!”
“Yes. But it’s quite genuine, you know. We’ve known her forever, haven’t we, Aunt Sissy?”
Miss Sissy nodded complacently. “Oh, indeed, my dear. Quite some years, now.” And began to tell the dazed Peg all about Lady Stamforth and her dear children, and the dear little dogs—not that she had had any dogs with her—and the castle, and— It went on for some considerable time.
Eventually Horrible said with a grin: “I think you’ve confused her enough, Aunt Sissy, for one day!”
“Um, yes. I mean, I’m sorry!” gasped Peg, turning scarlet. “Um, did you call her Lady Benedict, at one point, or was I getting mixed up?”
“We probably did,” said Horrible cheerfully, “because that was what she was, when we first knew her. Aunt Sissy can tell you all about her three husbands another time.”
Lady Stamforth was not elderly: far from it. Possibly as much as thirty years of age, but she could not be more. Peg gaped. “Three?”
“It is a very sad story, but as dear Hortensia says, another day,” said Miss Sissy on a firm note. “And as I am sure you saw, she has all the taste in the world, and may be relied upon to dress you two girls most suitably and delightfully!”
Horrible looked at Peg’s face. “That is true, actually.”
“She—um—I never saw anything half so fine as that bonnet!” she gasped.
“She wears a lot of that deep cherry colour. Even I can see it wouldn't suit you. And I don’t think all ladies wear furs at this time of the year, though it isn’t warm, is it? But she feels the cold: she grew up in India, you see,” said Horrible helpfully.
“Is—is that what the accent is, then?” stuttered Peg.
“Portuguese. She is half-Portuguese. They call her the P.W.—Portuguese Widow, you see,” said Horrible, one eye on Miss Sissy, “because she was a widow when she first came to town. Her father was a Portuguese gentleman who took his family out to India, and they grew up in a Portuguese settlement. But her mother was English.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Miss Sissy on a very firm note for which Peg could see no justification at all. “Dear Lady Stamforth’s late mamma was a Jeffreys, and that, of course, is our dearest Robert’s family!”
“Lord Keywes,” said Horrible in a bored voice. “Cousin May’s husband.”
“Oh, yes; of course!” she gulped.
“Too many names,” discerned Horrible, getting up. “Come on; let’s go for a stroll before luncheon.”
Peg rose uncertainly. “I should like to, but do you know London, then, Horrible?”
“No, not at all.” She winked. “Cousin Jack's rumoured to have a map in his study, but it belonged to his papa, and mere oddities of relations like us aren’t allowed to touch it, or even go in there, if one can take my brothers’ words for anything.”
“Horrible, dear, that is enough,” said Miss Sissy on a firm note; forgetting, Peg noticed with some amusement, to call her Hortensia. “You must take a footman with you, my dears, and not go too far, for I am sure Cook is even now preparing a delicious colazione for us!”
Forthwith Horrible grabbed Peg’s hand and dragged her from the room.
“Phew!” she said with a laugh when they were in the open air. “We all love Lady Stamforth, she is like the best sort of aunt, but when her attention is almost solely on one’s inept self, it’s a bit like being smothered in icing sugar, isn’t it?”
Suddenly Peg grinned at her. “Yes! I thought honey, but I think you are right: drifts of soft sugar, indeed!”
“Come on, let’s go this way. –What’s his name?” she suddenly hissed.
Peg blinked, at being asked anything by the competent and knowledgeable Horrible. “The footman? That’s Henry.”
Nodding, Horrible said: “We’ll go this way, Henry, but don’t let us go down St James’s or anywhere unsuitable for young ladies, will you?”
“No, Miss. Beg pardon, Miss, but we’re quite a way from St James’s.”
“That’s good, for were I to set eyes on it,” said Horrible happily, forging ahead at a great pace, “I feel sure the temptation to go down it should overcome me! –Come on!” she cried.
Peg scrambled after her, smiling. “Wait! What's St James’s and why is it unsuitable? And what’s a colazione and is it edible? And please, what was that soft grey fur she had that was contributing greatly to the soft sugar effect?”
And Horrible, grinning, slowed down obligingly and began to tell her.
… “It was such a relief!” explained Miss Sissy, nodding brightly at her nephew in the wake of the girls’ return from their walk, talking nineteen to the dozen.
Mr Beresford grunted unencouragingly.
“I think they are going be the best of friends!”
“Er—good. Well, Horrible’s a decent little thing.” He took a deep breath. “Aunt Sissy, how long—”
But Miss Sissy was pattering briskly over to his study door, crying: “Come along, dear boy: Cook has prepared the most delicious colazione for us! We must not let it get cold!”
Lady Stamforth had decreed that Peg should not visit anywhere until she was dressed. This did not mean that Peg’s body must merely be covered in the interest of decency, out of course. It meant hours of torture at the hands of seamstresses, with her Ladyship’s own maid, a dark-visaged elderly Indian woman, assisting with pincushions and pins, and Miss Sissy popping in and out to supervise, and a succession of the former May Beresford’s dresses, all far, far too tight in the bust for Peg, being tried on and ruthlessly cut into… Horrible was undergoing similar torture, true. As for the dresses themselves—well, according to Miss Sissy they had been going to waste in a wardrobe, and Rowena—that was Aunt B., of course—would never forgive her an she did not make use of them. Horrible seemed to accept this as a matter of course. Dubiously Peg let them do their worst…
Finally Lady Stamforth decided that she would do. Peg had been feeling for some time that she would do, in fact she had a strong feeling that if left to her own devices she would do quite well in London, so long as no more early-breakfasting gentlemen were encountered. Because think of all the wonderful sights there were to see! The Tower of London, and St Paul’s, and Westminster Abbey— But apparently young ladies in their first Season were not expected to wish to view these sights. Or was it just that they had to be dressed first?
“And just to try your wings, we shall call on dear Cherry Amory!” said Lady Stamforth. “That weell be entirely unalarming!”
“Good,” agreed Horrible with something perilously near to a sigh of relief. “I know her.”
Peg smiled weakly. She had now discovered that the Laidlaws, even though their own home was in Bath, not London, knew a lot of fashionable people. She was not at all surprised to learn that this unalarming “Cherry” was in fact Lady Amory. Glumly she put on the indicated bonnet. Straw. “Quite seemple,” being adorned with only one wide green ribbon, and one small bunch of white flowers. According to Lady Stamforth, dress was “entirely seegneeficant, een London, but one must learn to walk before one runs!” This was the London millinery equivalent, clearly, of a gentle stroll for a young lady. Peg had smiled limply and refrained from pointing out that her own straw bonnet had belonged first to one, Jane Honeywell, niece-by-marriage of Aunt Honeywell’s, never seen by the Buffitts but well known by reputation not to say citation, next to Peg’s own sister Maria, and only thirdly to herself. Lady Stamforth having decided it was not a particularly warm day, she also put on the indicated pelisse. Green. According to Miss Sissy, a soft grey-green.
Then they went.
… “So?” said Lance.
Peg smiled weakly. “Um, well, Lady Stamforth was right. She was very kind. And quite young, I suppose. Well, her age, I suppose.”
“There you are, then. Did you meet him?”
Peg gave him a look of dislike. Sir Noël Amory had already been encountered by Lance in the Park, when out riding with Cousin Jack. His leg, or so it was Lance’s claim, across a bruising brute of a black like what you never saw. “No frightfully decent fellows disguised as belted baronets—or should that be vice versa?—were encountered, no.”
Lance looked bored. “All right, go on. What went wrong?”
“Nothing went wrong. Lady Amory was very kind, and I dare say not wholly stupid, and it was plain as the nose on your face that we have nothing at all in common.”
“Pooh,” he said uneasily.
“She tried to tell us that everybody is shy before their first big party, the which is so self-evident that one wonders why she bothered to waste her breath, and then she asked me about Tommy and Lilibet, possibly not in order to be enabled to tell me about her own children, but that was certainly the result of it.”
Lance stared. “You like brats.”
“Yes, but I wanted to talk about BOOKS and PICTURES!” shouted Peg.
“Oh.”
“I asked her what the very pretty one of a family on a picknick was, which she has in her salon, but all she said was that it was Noël’s grandfather as a boy, with his parents.”
“Dare say it was,” said Lance feebly.
“PALTRY!” shouted Peg.
“Don’t be like that. Dare say she ain’t interested in pictures—well, why should she be?”
“Why, indeed? I am sure Sir Noël and Lady Amory just send a footman running with a note to the great Sir Joshua whenever they require the odd portrait of little Mallory or Bobby with their pug-dog to be dashed off!”
He smiled uneasily. “Dare say. Pug, have they? Feisty little fellows, Cousin Jack says. Um, ain’t Sir Joshua dead, though?”
“I am sure I do not know; because I am just an ignorant little country MOUSE, and why I hoped actually to LEARN something in London, I cannot TELL!”
“Er—no. Think Pa said he was dead,” muttered Lance, pulling his ear. “Um, don't shout, Peg, I’m sure you can be heard all over.”
“The wonderful ‘Cousin Jack’ will hear me and be shocked, will he?” said Peg sourly.
“Don’t think so. Think he’s out. That ain’t the point.”
Peg gave a terrific snort, and marched out.
“Oh, Hell,” said Lance feebly.
Lady Ferdy Lacey accepted a cup of tea, and twinkled at Peg over the rim. “Naturally one was agog, on hearing that dear Lady Stamforth was helping to launch Mr Beresford's young cousins this Season!”
Why? thought Peg. She smiled limply, wishing very much she’d accepted Horrible’s invitation to accompany her and her brother Mendoza on a walk. But she’d thought it kinder to let Horrible have her brother to herself for a little. She tried to stop her mind wondering how much Lady Ferdy’s outfit had cost. Because it included a giant muff, which her Ladyship had tossed casually aside onto a chair, that was composed entirely of small fluttery pale blue feathers, and a trailing wrap of pale blue velvet, also cast aside, which was somehow—Peg could not see how and was conscious of a wish that she had Maria’s skills in needlework to assist in the necessary detection—somehow tasselled in more of the feathers. Not edged, no: distinctly tasselled. The bonnet was of blue silk in a darker shade, featuring a profusion of guess-what in amongst a profusion of satin bows, loops, whorls and rosettes. Possibly her outfit was but walking dress but as it had undoubtedly cost more than the Buffitts’ annual household income, Peg felt that was a misnomer. It seemed to have two layers: the outer being dark blue, fastened tightly at the high waist, and open over an underskirt of palest blue, dotted with a tiny motif of dark blue fleur de lis. A cunning touch—at least, Peg decided it should feature as such in the letter she was mentally planning to Maria—was that the outer garment had no sleeves, the inner taking over that function. Long and tight, but very puffed at the shoulder. Edged at the cuff with three narrow rows of… not twisted cord, no, that would have been impossibly expectable, and even a country mouse could see that Lady Ferdy was not expectable: finely twisted silk ribbon which from a distance the ignorant might suppose to be cord. Correspondingly the outer garment was edged, everywhere possible, with three rows of the lighter shade. –Tunic! It must be what, according to Maria, fine ladies called a tunic! Nothing like what Pa claimed was worn by Ancient Greek and Roman males, no. The gloves of course were palest blue. Very like she would wear them once and discard them as hopelessly worn and soiled. Lady Ferdy was a very fair lady, her hair so pale as to be almost colourless, with huge eyes of china blue, and a complexion like a rose. And at least as old as Maria. Possibly even as much as twenty-five. Her conversation consisted almost entirely of had Miss Sissy heard that the So-and-So’s were in town, but in the whole, Peg would have expected nothing less. Or more.
At long last she departed, with a great fluttering of the lashes and a coy promise that Peg would break the hearts of all their young men.
As her barouche was heard to clatter away there was an almost tangible silence in Mr Beresford’s downstairs sitting-room.
Finally Miss Sissy offered: “Gwennie Lacey was a Dewesbury. They are Hammonds on the distaff side: Lady Lavinia Dewesbury, Gwennie’s mother, is the aunt of the present Marquis of Rockingham.”
“I see,” said Peg brightly. “And would that be ‘Cousin Arthur’, ‘dearest Wallace’, ‘Cousin Giles’, or ‘poor dear Cousin Cecil’, ma’am?”
Much to her surprise, Aunt Sissy collapsed in giggles. Emerging from them to mop her eyes and declare: “I think I could tell you who they all are, my dear, but that is probably enough for one session! –The Marquis is ‘Cousin Giles’.”
Peg sighed. “Why did she come?”
“Oh—well, my dear, she is a fashionable young matron with little to do but pay calls and gossip. I dare say she thought that she would like to be first to see dear Jack’s little cousins, and that perhaps she might make a friend of you.”
“She is more Maria’s age than mine and Horrible’s,” said Peg limply.
“Yes, but if you had interests in common that would not matter.”
Peg eyed her with foreboding.
“I am sure she could see you have not. Though she does put me a little in mind of dear Cousin Rose when young,” said Mrs Buffitt’s cousin serenely.
Peg gulped. That had struck her forcibly, also: very clearly Gwennie Lacey had one of those quick, bright, shallow minds, incapable of any deep or sustained ratiocination, which Pa claimed Ma had. “Yes.”
“Well, now she has seen you she will go away quite happy, and I dare say will not bother to call again!” said the little spinster cheerily.
Peg smiled weakly. “Mm.”
“Er—now, I have a little note here from dear Jack's Aunt Fanny,” she said, clearing her throat.
“Oh, yes?” said Peg politely.
“Er—that is the Fürstin von Maltzahn-Dressen, Peg, my dear. She would like to see you.”
Apparently it was tantamount to a Royal Command. Peg looked at her in horror.
“I shall take you myself,” she said bravely.
“Y— Um, Aunt Sissy, what about Horrible?” she gasped.
“She has not asked for her.”
Peg subsided, gulping. Oh, help.
Peg had thought the Beresfords’ smart town house very large. But the Fürstin von Maltzahn-Dressen lived in a huge palace. Its front hall was filled with pillars and giant objets d’art, and it had a marble floor and an enormous and elaborate staircase, going up and up and up… And possibly the reason St Paul’s had not been proposed was that her connexions were too used to giant domes, because their relative’s front hall certainly had one. Very like, if one knew where to look, it would be cited in a book as the next wonder of the world after Sir Christopher Wren’s— No, stay! Doubtless the house had been designed by the great architect himself!
Thinking all this did not make the outward Peg any braver, alas, and she experienced a strong desire to take Aunt Sissy’s hand as they were led by the butler in person across acres of marble and then acres of what was very probably woven on the very looms of Aubusson, and into a salon which was occupied by a slender, fair-haired lady in a wondrous garment which the subsequent reduction to “Brown silk, with a little lace, and a lace shawl” in the letter to Maria did not describe at all. She was a poem in human form, and her sitting-room was a poem in—in architectural form, and Peg was totally incapable of describing either of them. Added to which she was the most frighteningly sophisticated creature imaginable! Peg had thought Lady Stamforth’s dress, smiles, and warm, charming manner the epitome of sophistication until this minute. Now she realised what a fool she had been. The Fürstin von Maltzahn-Dressen was not warm nor kind. Nor, apparently, was she even interested! So why on earth had she wanted to see her?
Peg and the Princess Anna had been dispatched upstairs—not quite told to run and play, dears. The Fürstin freshened Miss Sissy’s cup, and eyed her drily. “Well, Sissy?”
“Have you not had a very full report from Lady Ferdy Lacey, Fanny?” returned Miss Sissy with a smothered giggle.
The Fürstin’s chiselled lips twitched very, very slightly. “The girl is an imbecile. Though the report certainly reduced Anna to a quake of nerves at the idea that she would be obliged to meet a gazetted bluestocking; which poss-i-bly was its object; I cannot say.”
“Oh, dear!” said Miss Sissy with a laugh.
“So, report, Sissy, my dear,” she said languidly, offering a box.
Miss Sissy’s jaw dropped.
“Bompey du Fresne,” explained Fanny von Maltzahn-Dressen with a shrug. “Jack has seen it, did he not mention it? –No, well, I suppose he has had other things to occupy his mind, since: now I come to think of it, that was just before he set off on his quest. –Take that bonbon, my dear: bourré de violettes sucrées.”
Looking very meek, Miss Sissy took it.
“So?” drawled Mr Beresford’s other aunt.
“Delicious!” she said, swallowing.
“Sissy, you may tell me instantly either that Jack is at little Miss Buffitt’s feet or that he ain’t,” she drawled.
Miss Sissy gave a smothered giggle. “But I cannot tell which it is!”
Fanny’s lips twitched a little. “He has taken up the occupation of contortionist?”
“Not quite! But he certainly does not at all know how to go on. Of course, little Hortensia is a tower of strength, but Peg is more than capable of standing up to him, I am glad to say. –Good gracious, my dear, is that a topaz?” squeaked Miss Sissy, her eyes bolting from her head.
Languidly Fanny picked up the little gold ball. Languidly she flicked it open with her thumbnail. “Ex-quis-ite, no?” she drawled.
“Quite perfect,” she breathed.
Fanny shrugged, and tossed it back into the box with a pettish gesture. “Is that all you have to report?”
“It has only been a couple of days.”
“Mm. And the journey down from wherever-it-was?”
“I think,” said Miss Sissy slowly, “that something happened between them. But I have been unable to get a word out of either of them.”
“No? Poss-i-bly Lady Stamforth may have more success?” she drawled.
Poor Miss Sissy gulped. “Dear Charlotte asked her to keep her eye on the two girls.”
The fine brows rose infinitesimally. “And of course that will be such fun for her, for Jack, and for the chit.”
“I really do think,” said Miss Sissy bravely, sticking her little chin out, “that that is going much too far!”
“I dare say. –Don’t let the P.W. trick the girl out in the shades she affects, I beg.”
“I don’t think I could stop her,” said Miss Sissy frankly. “But she will not; she has delightful taste, you know.”
“Nothing too Missish,” she said, wrinkling the elegant nose a little. “Jack has never fancied that. That is, if that is the object of the exercise?” She raised the fine eyebrows very high.
Miss Sissy was very flushed. “Only if they can truly care for each other!”
The Fürstin looked at her exquisite sweetmeat box, and shrugged a little. “These shades, I suppose, with those eyes. Avoid those wishy-washy greens. That pelisse the child is wearing today is appalling.”
Poor Miss Sissy was very red. “I do not think it is quite that. It was one of May’s—hardly worn.”
“Yellow-greens—so few women can wear them, my dear; but nothing with blue in it. And yellows, out of course, even the most acidic: but do not drown the girl in ’em. There: that is my best advice. –Here,” she said, holding out her exquisite box.
“No, I thank you, my dear; they are delicious, but extraordinarily rich.”
“Take the damned box, Sissy,” she said on a pettish note. “These are the chit’s colours: consult it before you choose her dresses.”
“Fanny, Admiral du Fresne must have had it made to order!” she said in horror. “I cannot possibly take it.”
“Very well.” Languidly Fanny rang the bell. Languidly she ordered the servant to take the box upstairs and give it to Miss Buffitt with her compliments. Miss Sissy watched numbly as this order was carried out. Eventually she managed to point out that Peg had nothing, and the gift was far too lavish.
“We have ate most of the sweetmeats. She may put ribbons in it,” said the Fürstin on a note of finality. “Shall we see you at the Portuguese Embassy this week?”
… “But these are real jewels!” gasped Lance.
“Oh, pooh!” replied Peg with a laugh. “I expect they are glass. What does one say? Paste, is that it? But pretty, are they not?”
“Look, from what I’ve heard of the Fürstin von Maltzahn-Dressen, she would not give paste house-room.”
“I think that’s true, Peg,” owned Horrible. She examined the giant topaz on the small gold ball with a dubious look on her round face. “Um, this is real, I would say. A topaz. Mamma has a brooch with stones just like this.”
“Why should she give me a box full of valuable trinkets?” said Peg logically.
“No notion.” Lance picked up a tiny cube. “This is a little tortoiseshell box. Dare say one could use it as a snuffbox.”
Peg rolled her eyes madly. “By all means, take it! I thought only gentlemen of a past generation took snuff?”
“Aye, Beau Brummel’s set. Well, Cousin Jack don’t.”
“That must prove it,” she noted with a curl of her lip.
Lance set the little cube back in its place. He peered at the lacquered interior. “Dare say the catches are solid gold. Think you’d best ask Aunt Sissy if there has been some mistake.”
Peg nodded numbly and took the box along to Miss Sissy’s room. And duly staggered back to report: “It is valuable. Very. But she says I cannot possibly return it. Lance, I dare say these little balls and tiny snuffbox things would feed the family for a year!”
Lance ignored this: he had picked up what seemed like a solid round stone, and was pleasedly discovering that it was cunningly hinged. “Look! Pretty, eh? Now, I know what this stuff is: it ain’t valuable: Sir Horace has a polished slab of it in his study. Um… agate. Says it comes in a variety of colours.”
“The workmanship is so fine, that I am sure it is valuable,” said Peg firmly. “And—and I am afraid I did not thank her properly.”
“Write her a note,” advised Horrible. “Mamma always makes us write thank-you notes for presents. Not that anyone’s ever thrown a box full of valuable jewels at me!”
Lance was untying a little package of green-gold gauze. “Ooh!”
“Go on, eat it,” groaned his sister.
“Uh—no. It’s yours.”
“It would stick in my gullet.” She investigated the box and found another sweetmeat. “Have it,” she said to Horrible with a sigh.
“Well, if you’re sure—”
Eagerly they ate the sweetmeats.
“Rosewater, I think. Lady Stamforth’s women often make Indian sweetmeats rather like it,” pronounced Horrible.
Lance was grinning. “Think mine was fifty percent brandy! Just as well you didn’t eat it, Peg. Whew!”
“How would you know what brandy tastes like?” she said, staring.
“Pooh! Me and Cousin Jack—”
“Oh, stop talking about the beastly man!” she shouted.
“He ain’t beastly. Been very decent to me, I can tell you.”
“Tell me once more that he let you drive his stupid horses and I shall scream!”
“Only a pair. Very decent of him—”
“Oh, GET OUT!” shouted Peg.
Lance shrugged, and got.
“All he can see is the Corinthian rubbish: the clothes and the horses,” offered Horrible on an uncertain note.
“I know.”
Horrible went over to the door. “I’d write her a note,” she repeated. “Don’t ask me how to phrase it, though, for I haven’t a notion.” She eyed her cautiously, but Peg was staring glumly at the sweetmeat box, and didn’t notice. Horrible went out, looking dubious.
Peg stared glumly at The Box. It stared back at her complacently. Oh, help. How on earth did one write an extremely grand lady, one, moreover, who thought the gift such a trifle that she had not bothered to present it in person, that one had only accepted the thing because one had stupidly believed it to be a trifle…
The Fürstin opened the note, her face expressionless. Anna watched her nervously.
“Mmm,” she said.
Anna swallowed and did not dare to ask what it said.
“Not quite impossible, then,” said Fanny von Maltzahn-Dressen to herself. “Anna, my dear, should you wish to see more of Miss Buffitt I should have no objection.”
The Princess Anna had thought Peg a very jolly sort of girl, and very pretty, of course; but obviously very clever. Unlike herself. “Thank you, Mamma,” she said glumly.
Exactly why, having declared the rout parties at the Portuguese Embassy the stuffiest in London, Lady Stamforth should then ordain they must go, was beyond Peg or Horrible to tell. But since it had been spoken, they must obviously obey. And in the case they had any idea of disobeying, her Ladyship sent her carriage to collect them. Dinner at Stamforth House, just en famille, and then the Embassy.
Her Ladyship was revealed to be immensely grand in white satin, frosted with the most delicate embroidery of seed pearls and crystal beads, with only two touches of colour about her—apart from the great soft dark eyes, the laughing red mouth and the peony-pink cheeks, out of course: a diadem of dark amethysts on the head, and a tiny posy of violets at the bosom of the very low-cut gown. So low, indeed, that the girls scarce knew where to look. Peg had never in her life seen anything like it. And Horrible had fondly imagined Nobby’s new dance dress to be low! Stamforth House was in Blefford Square, so, as Horrible remarked sotto voce, ’nuff said. It was not quite so grand as the Fürstin’s residence, was about all that one could say of it. The saturnine Viscount Stamforth was, to the girls’ terrific relief, merely matter-of-fact: he neither gushed over them nor ignored them, and said kindly he was sure that Nan and Miss Sissy would save them from the worst of the terrors of the Embassy. And did not, to Horrible’s silent relief, want to know where the Hell Cousin Jack was. And, indeed, appeared actually to believe Aunt Sissy’s patent lie about a previous engagement.
Horrible was in unremarkable white muslin with a deep green sash that according to Lady Stamforth flattered her skin and brought out the colour of her eyes. Horrible had not pointed out, though she did know that her Ladyship would only have laughed, that the phrase “the colour” was tactfully vague. Peg was in equally unremarkable white muslin with a narrow gold sash and a tiny bow of mixed white and gold in her bright gold curls and therefore there was no logical reason why she should look stunning, while Horrible looked merely Missish—but so it was. As Horrible, grinning, duly informed her. Peg turned all colours of the rainbow at this so Horrible was inspired to hug her arm and point out gruffly that she was not yet a lost cause, then! Aunt Sissy was in crushed silk of a strange shade halfway between brown and grey, but that was only to be expected.
Peg had not hitherto observed Lady Stamforth with her husband. And Horrible, though of course she knew them quite well, was observing them for the first time as her almost-out self at a grown-up dinner party. The experience, as the girls were to agree on comparing notes much later that night, was—well, Horrible’s expression was “a sobering one” while Peg was to declare it had shaken her to the core. What with the giggles, and the flutterings of the great long, dark lashes, and the leaning of the bosom against the upper-arm… Help.
The rout party itself could not but be an anticlimax after the spectacle of the P.W. in her own house with her own husband—and so it proved. The Ambassador was small, stout, yellow and very self-important. His lady was tall, thin, acidulated and very yellow. And very, very grand, in fact it was quite positive that she had not even noticed they were there. The son of the house was very yellow and, in the case of Peg, very visibly impressed. Though Peg had done nothing whatsoever to merit this. Or to encourage it.
Before not very long at all it dawned that their presence, if unremarked by their hostess, was attracting a certain amount of attention. And not very long after that it dawned why. Since the P.W. had gone off to chat to a group of her own friends—er, possibly friends of her husband’s, since they were all male, but even to the innocent Peg and Horrible it did not look that way—it was not she who was the attraction in this instance. Oddly enough, most of those eager to make their acquaintance were female. A Miss Abbott was first: tall, dark, handsome, and very high in the instep indeed. She just had to meet them! And it was delightful to see dear Miss Sissy in town again! Her sister, a Miss Ariadne Abbott, almost as tall and just as high in the instep, was just behind her with their cousin, a Miss Nugent. Who managed to combine an air of crawling deference to the Miss Abbotts with one of complete condescension to Peg and Horrible. Miss Abbott wondered, with a certain rolling of the eyes, whether Miss Buffitt’s cousin, Mr Beresford, were here tonight? Peg’s answer being in the negative, the Abbotts and their cousin moved on...
Miss Chambury’s august mamma having engaged Miss Sissy in conversation, Miss Chambury was enabled to enquire, the meanwhile looking Peg’s and Horrible’s simple white muslins up and down, whether their cousin, Mr Beresford, were here tonight? After which she and the mamma very speedily moved on...
Lady Margaret Fitz-Clancy, who was tall, dark and handsome, did not look as if anyone ever shortened her name to “Peg”. Or even “Peggy”. She adjusted her sparkling bracelets very slightly and inquired in a kindly condescending tone, the meanwhile looking down her very aristocratic nose at Peg’s simple white muslin, whether Miss Buffitt’s cousin, Mr Beresford, were here tonight? No? Lady Margaret moved on…
Horrible took a very deep breath. “Possibly there is some justification for that manner of his, after all.”
Peg bit her lip. “Mm.”
Miss Sissy thought that Peg would like to meet the Highett girls: and Hortensia doubtless remembered them from Bath! Whether or no, they forced their way slowly through the throng in search of the Highett girls. Ah! There they were: the tall woman in the blue was Lady Highett and the woman in the puce next her, with the turban, was a Mrs Clarence Uckridge. The bright blue Lady Highett and the puce Mrs Clarence Uckridge looked down their noses at Peg and Horrible and spoke to them with kindly condescension before turning their attention to Aunt Sissy. The diademed Miss Highett looked down her nose at Peg and asked if she were one of the Kentish Buffitts. No? Ah. The wondrous fair Miss Uckridge raised her Grecian eyebrows just very slightly at this juncture, but did not speak. Miss Penelope Highett allowed herself to smile just slightly, revealing the teeth to be a little buck, the which diminished the look of handsome superiority just a fraction, and asked whether they might expect to see Miss Laidlaw’s cousin, Mr Beresford, here tonight? Horrible replied grimly: “No.” And the Highetts and Uckridges moved on.
Peg was just thinking Good riddance, when suddenly Miss Nancy Uckridge, who had not spoken at all, broke away from the group and came back to her side. Taking her arm before the startled Peg could move, she cooed, with a tremendous rolling of her large brown eyes and fluttering of her thickly curled lashes: “And pray tell, will your cousin, Mr Beresford, be here tonight, Miss Buffitt?”
Peg gulped, Horrible choked, and Miss Nancy Uckridge forthwith dissolved in gales of giggles. Gasping: “How many of them have asked it?”
“All of them,” admitted Peg with a reluctant grin.
“Naturally! They are all nigh dead of jealousy that you are living in the very same house with him!”
“I hardly see him, and he certainly ignores me.”
“I think I might have guessed that: he does not strike as one who would take a kindly interest in the doings of the infantry,” said Miss Nancy with a grimace.
“No, quite.”
“Though as my sister Paulina is all of six and twenty perhaps she does not feel herself to be any longer in that class; and Caroline and Penelope Highett will certainly never see twenty-five again.”
“They must be supposed to be old enough for him, then,” said Peg primly.
“Certainly by themselves!” gasped Miss Nancy, collapsing in giggles all over again. “Mamma would not object, you know, if we were to be friends; because of course if I am thrust under Mr B.’s nose there is always a chance that he may realise I am irresistible. Shall we?”
Peg did not know what to say. No-one had ever forced their friendship on her in this way. She avoided Horrible’s eye: she had a feeling that given the least encouragement her Laidlaw cousin would ask flatly: “Why?” Why, indeed? thought Peg. Was Miss Nancy Uckridge’s frank manner assumed with the very aim of getting nearer to the eligible Mr Beresford? Not that Nancy Uckridge struck one on first acquaintance as either cunning or underhand—but then, a person who was, presumably would not. “Um, if you wish,” she said limply.
Apparently not in the least put out by this lukewarm reception of her offer, Miss Nancy squeezed her arm, said: “Oh, goody-doody! We shall walk in the Park and ogle all the pretty young men tomorrow morning; it is a promise!” And hurried away to rejoin her mamma.
“That may or may not have been genuine,” warned Horrible.
“I know,” said Peg glumly. “If she does call to go walking, will you come?”
“No,” said Horrible baldly.
Peg sighed. She hadn’t thought so.
… “It was all like that,” she reported glumly to Lance.
He yawned. “Oh, aye? Cousin Jack and me had a splendid time. Went to Astley’s Amphitheatre. He says it ain't fit—”
“I know!”
“He would have taken you, Peg, if ladies still went there.”
“Oh, pooh!”
Lance cleared his throat. “Meet any eligibles?”
“Hundreds. Their mammas all dragged them away from me, however.”
“Spineless lot, these London fashionables,” he said with a grin.
“Yes.” Peg came closer and sniffed. “You smell like Jem Hutchinson that time we found him asleep in the rick not two minutes before Mr Briggs let the bull into the field.”
He sniffed gingerly at his sleeve. “Oh.”
“They drink a lot of beer at Astley’s Amphitheatre, do they?” said his sister arctically.
“N— Uh—Cousin Jack took me to the Daffy Club,” he muttered.
“What?” she gasped.
“Look, whatever Pa might have told you, it ain’t true! Perfectly respectable fellows go there! Dare say you might see Rockingham there any night of the week,”
“Well, you would certainly not have seen him there tonight, because he was at the Portuguese Ambassador’s party with his wife on his arm like a respectable man!” shouted Peg. “What mischief is he dragging you into, Lance?”
“Nothing! I said, perfectly respectable fellows. Don’t be such a nag.” He yawned again.
“I shall speak to him,” she said tightly. “Where is he?”
“White’s,” replied Lance with considerable satisfaction. “Dropped me off here. Said they’d never let this damned coat across the threshold at White’s.”
“Then I shall speak to him in the morning.”
“And show yourself up for a provincial ninny; aye, do that,” said her brother drily, strolling over to the door.
“I shall write Ma and Pa!” shouted Peg furiously.
“Pa’ll let her read it out but he won’t listen, he’ll be thinking about his dashed experiments.”
“You used to like his experiments!” cried Peg with tears in her eyes.
“That was before I knew better. But write ’em, by all means. If he does listen, he’ll only laugh. Oh, tell him Cousin Jack’s taken me to Jackson’s: that’ll really make him laugh: told me himself Uncle Ted once actually landed a hit on the Gentleman’s midriff.”
“I dare say the both of them were DRUNK!”
But Lance, shrugging, had gone off to bed.
Miss Sissy and Horrible had gone straight upstairs, considerately leaving brother and sister together. The shouting was quite audible. Horrible hesitated, then followed the little old lady into her room. “Shouting at him again.”
“I am sure he fully deserves it,” said Miss Sissy on a firm note. “And it is a pity Jack is not home, for she might then direct the shouting at the true culprit.”
Horrible stood on one leg. “Ye-es… But you know what gentlemen are, Aunt Sissy: Cousin Jack probably imagines he’s doing Lance a favour.”
“I dare say he will tell himself that that is what he is doing.”
After a moment Horrible said dourly: “I get it. Papa once said that most people are capable of immense self-deception when they so wish, and I suppose being a Corinthian don’t make one exempt.”
“No,” she said with a sigh. “It is a great pity that Jack is not sufficiently interested to find the boy a useful occupation.”
“Yes. Um, could Lord Stamforth help?”
Miss Sissy removed her small garnet earrings and laid them carefully in her tiny jewel box. “I am very sure he could, dear. But just at present, I am waiting to see if Jack might bestir himself.”
Horrible nodded slowly. “I see. Um—could Peg ask Jack, do you think?”
“That is something else for which I am waiting,” she agreed placidly.
Horrible gulped. “I see.”
Miss Sissy smiled a little. “Of course he has always been more or less in the position of an uncle to you and the other children. But he and Peg are the same generation, you know, dear. And only second cousins: it would not be undesirable.”
Horrible licked her lips. “What about Aunt Beresford?” she croaked.
“I have written to dearest Rowena, congratulating her on having had the idea to invite one of the Buffitt girls,” she said serenely. “Come and give me a kiss, Hortensia, dear.”
Obediently Horrible came and pecked her withered cheek. “I always thought Aunt Beresford was the clever one, before,” she said gruffly.
Miss Sissy smiled, just a little. “Well, Rowena was always the bright one, and of course very outspoken… No-one takes maiden aunts seriously, my dear.”
“I shall, in future!” stated Horrible stoutly, marching out.
Miss Sissy smiled a little, and sighed a little, but went on quietly with her usual bedtime routine.
Next chapter:
https://pegbuffitt-aregencynovel.blogspot.com/2023/06/earth-has-not-anything-to-show-more-fair.html
No comments:
Post a Comment