The Portuguese Widow

Excitement In Lymmond Square

Lymmond Square was one of those peaceful, respectable, tucked-away little centres of quiet which were still to be found in the busy town of Bath in the year 1822. If quiet, it was not an unfashionable address: the tall houses were commodious and comfortable, and only the children of the gentry, duly supervised by careful governesses and nursemaids, were to be seen in the grassy enclosure at its centre. Usually playing properly with balls or hoops, though sometimes less properly engaging in combat with their small peers, in the which fists, feet, and, most regrettably indeed, the occasional cricket bat had all been known to play a part.

“It is those Laidlaw children again,” said old Lady Amory on an unamused note, as sounds of mayhem rose shrilly on the quiet, grass-scented air of Lymmond Square.

Her grandson, Sir Noël Amory, lifted his quizzing glass and peered without interest at the square’s garden. “Aye: so ’tis. Ginger brats, ain’t they? Ill-favoured, too. Shall I close the sash, Grandmamma?”

“No, I thank you, my dear: the evening air is so mild at this time of year.”

It was late July: and if the evening air was mild, the afternoon air had been distinctly stuffy for some weeks past. The fashionable baronet looked anxiously at the old lady and said: “Are you quite sure you would rather not come back to Brighton with me, Grandmamma? I have taken a house in a very quiet street, and we could get out on Égyptienne: you’d find the sea air most refreshing.”

Old Lady Amory had a stomach of iron, so she did not shudder at the thought of refreshing sea air aboard Noël’s large sea-going yacht. However, she did turn the offer down, kindly but firmly, saying that she knew what Brighton was like in the summer, and what he imagined was a quiet neighbourhood would prove to be no such thing. And she had no wish to see Prinny lording it round the place pretending to be a real king. Sir Noël bit his lip: the long-awaited succession had gone to the erstwhile Regent’s head, rather, and he was meddling in politics like nobody’s business. It was to be hoped he would soon tire of it: well, he had tired of everything else he had tried in his lifetime.

Besides, added the old lady, at her time of life she feared she was past upping stakes and moving from house to house whenever the fancy took her. Sir Noël looked at her anxiously: Lady Amory was now in her seventies.

“I’m not, however, quite decrepit, thank you, dear boy, so you need not be ordering up black-edged cards, just yet!” she said tartly.

He smiled. “I should hope not, indeed, Grandmamma! –That reminds me, have you seen the guy Ninian Dalrymple is making of himself, with his black-edged handkerchiefs and his black gloves, all over the death of that damned pug?”

“I am avoiding the Pump Room on account of it,” responded his grandmother.

Sir Noël laughed very much and kissed her cheek gracefully. He then returned to his position lounging in the window of the pretty little downstairs sitting-room. In the garden the ginger-haired children were still quarrelling. A tilbury went by at a slow trot, but apart from that all was quiet.

“The Onslow house is still not taken,” said his grandmother abruptly.

“Dearest Grandmamma, I don’t need a house in Bath!” he said with a light laugh. “After all, you are so kind as to let me inflict myself on you from time to time, and then there’s my Uncle Richard just out of the town a little: why should I purchase a whole house to rattle about in?” –This last phrase was not chosen without malice aforethought.

Sure enough, the old lady returned grimly: “You should not purchase a house to rattle about in at all. You should purchase it to put your wife and family in!”

Noël was a bachelor. He eyed her drily.

“Do not tell me that your Uncle Richard has remarried and may provide you with an heir, for I do not wish to hear it! And if you think Richard and Delphie look to see a child of theirs inherit the property, you are very much mistaken!”

Colonel Richard Amory was the best fellow in the world, so his nephew replied equably: “I don’t think it, ma’am.”

“You are past the time when considerations of une grande passion should weigh with you, Noël,” said his grandmother in measured tones. “Save that for the fashionable London females you favour with your attentions. What you need is a sensible, well brought-up girl with no silly notions in her head.”

Noël goggled at her. “I pity the sensible girl!”

“It would get Viola out of your house,” Viola Amory’s mamma-in-law pointed out grimly, and not for the first time.

“I have a melancholy conviction that, on the contrary, she and this sensible girl would have their heads together before the cat could lick its ear, combining to foil my every move. –For my own good, of course!” he added sardonically, just as she was about to wither him.

Lady Amory had to bite her lip. “Be that as it may, there is far more likelihood of her moving to the dower house if you are married than if you remain single.”

Since Sir Noël had been trying to persuade his mother to remove to the dower house for something like seven years, now, he could only agree with this remark. –It was not that Viola Amory was a managing female. On the contrary. She was a lachrymose, drooping figure, continually draped in trailing scarves and shawls, and continually complaining of something-or-another. And very, very fond of having her own way.

“That chit has taken Lavery, you know,” said Noël’s grandmother abruptly.

“Certainly, ma’am,” he replied evenly. “And, if you will permit me to say so, I do not think it altogether fitting in you to refer to my Aunt Delphie’s sister as a chit!”

“Pooh,” replied Lady Amory, frowning.

“Possibly Lavery would like to buy the Onslow house,” he drawled.

“Rubbish. His political interests must keep him in London for a large part of the year.”

“True. There is the point that my interests, if not political, also keep me in London for a large part of the year.”

To this Lady Amory responded on a grim note: “What about Lavery’s sisters?”

Noël swallowed a sigh. “Grandmamma, I do not dislike the Miss Winnafrees, but as I cannot care for either of them, I do not wish to spend the rest of my life with one.” He paused, eyeing the old lady drily. “As, in fact, I informed Lady Winnafree only last week.”

Portia, Lady Winnafree, was the Miss Winnafrees’ aunt. Lady Amory knew that Society did not lie when it declared her to be on more than terms of mere friendship with Noël Amory. –Admiral Sir Chauncey Winnafree was turned eighty, and doating, and had told Noël to his face that he liked to see Portia happy. Since Portia was within a few years of Noël’s own age and was a short, plumpish person with very pink cheeks, amazingly bright eyes and a mop of glossy brown curls normally dressed artlessly à la Cupidon, Noël had been quite happy to make Portia happy.

The old lady’s lips tightened fractionally. After a moment she said: “Very well, then: the Anthony Hallams are bringing out a daughter next y—”

“Who?” he said blankly.

Lady Amory flushed a little. “The Anthony Hallams! Their elder girl married Julian Naseby.”

“Have you met the younger Lady Naseby, ma’am?” he said, staring at her.

“Of course I have met her, as you must surely be aware!”

“Then you will have remarked that there is nothing between her very pretty ears but fluff.”

Managing to ignore this, his grandmother stated on a grim note: “The sister, Kitty Hallam, is very like her. The same brown curls. A short figure, but not rumty-tum. She should please you.”

Noël looked at her in amusement: she must be aware that Portia, Lady Winnafree, fitted this description to a T. He refrained from mentioning this point, however, and merely drawled: “She must be young enough to be my daughter.”

“These days they all are, Noël,” said his grandmother evilly.

At this the fashionable baronet laughed very much, kissed his grandmother’s cheek and then her hand, refused her offer of the carriage, and took his departure on foot to collect his horse. He had ridden in from his Uncle Richard’s house, a little way out of the town, but the brute had cast a shoe.

Lady Amory sighed, and tapped her fingers irritably on her knee. “Well,” she said to herself, “it can do no harm, at all events, to invite the Hallams to dine. And in spite of everything he is a sensible man: he must be aware that it is past time he was setting up his nursery!”

Sir Noël was, of course, aware of this. And though perhaps there was no absolute necessity for him to do so, for his Uncle Richard and his second wife would in the nature of things produce offspring, still if he did intend to marry it would be highly unfair to wait until Richard’s child was of an age to have conceived expectations. The Amory property was in Devon: a sufficiently large estate. It had not been in excellent heart when Noël had inherited it, but he had seen to it that a reliable agent was put in, and things had picked up a little. Then, not so long since, an elderly uncle on his Mamma’s side had died, leaving his nephew a tidy little fortune. Noël had been able to buy back most of the lands that his father had heedlessly sold off. Not to say, afford to indulge his expensive tastes. And to launch, dower and marry off several younger sisters.

It was not, then, monetary worries which creased his handsome brow as he walked slowly round Lymmond Square in the mellow air that July evening. Grandmamma’s nagging over this matrimony thing was nigh to driving him insane. Well, poor old girl: she wanted to see him with his son at his knee: natural enough. He sighed, and looked at the gingery Laidlaw children squabbling in the garden without really realizing he was doing so. He rather wished for a son himself. How unfortunate it was, to be sure, that in order to produce a son and heir one must first tie oneself up to some empty-headed little dame who, if she was sober-behaved enough to remain faithful would bore one to tears before the ink was scarce dry on the marriage lines, and if she were not, would not be supportable at all. Sir Noël Amory knew all about the pretty Society ladies with complaisant husbands: arid he had no intention of becoming one of the latter. He grimaced a little and walked slowly on, frowning.

It was true to say that Noël Amory, in spite of his wealth and his comfortable mode of life, was a disappointed man. He had been very much in love some five or six years back with a pretty little auburn-haired lady who had preferred another gentleman. She had had charm and brains as well as beauty, and with all that a sweetness and naturalness that Noël was sure he would not find again in a hurry.

Then, more recently, there had been the stupid business with the former Pansy Ogilvie, she who was now Lady Lavery. He had been enchanted by her frankness, her unusual touch—she was a better sailor in a small boat then he himself—and, well, by the big brown eyes, pink cheeks and petite figure. But Miss Pansy had been too young to form a serious attachment and perhaps, too, too sensible to have her head turned by Sir Noël’s tall good looks and charming smile. She had once declared that a man like Noël Amory was not as much use in the world as a decent cat. He had suffered considerable disillusionment on finding that she was, oh dear, just a bit boring. He had fallen out of love almost as abruptly as he had fallen into it, and since then had felt somewhat soured on the subject of human relations.

True, there also had been several far from serious encounters with such charming persons as Lady Winnafree and a certain Lady Ivo. But if he could find a suitable woman to whom he could give his heart as well as his hand, all that would, of course, stop. For he was not a libertine, at all. Just a rather attractive fellow who had always liked women and was ready to please and be pleased. But finding the suitable woman was the rub. For where was she?

Well, she was certainly not in quiet Lymmond Square this mild July evening, and Sir Noël walked on, unaware that he was now scowling horribly.

“See?” said Nobby Laidlaw to her brother, Freddy. “He doesn’t want the Onslow house after all. You owe me a sixpence.”

Freddy glared. He had spent his entire allowance of pocket-money, as Nobby very well knew, on such items as currant buns, liquorice, a very cunning ball affixed to a string, with which, if you had the knack of it you could perform all sorts of cunning tricks—Freddy had not the knack of it yet but his was an optimistic temperament and he had not despaired—and a dead grass snake provided by one, William Yattersby, for the truly extortionate sum of one whole shilling. Freddy hadn’t absolutely decided what to with it, but it would be something perfectly splendid and not anything that Nobby or Paul or Georgey or Horrible suggested. Though he might listen to The Great Mendoza. Possibly.

Horrible came up at this moment and, true to her nickname, stuck her tongue out at Freddy and said, approximately: “Nyah!”

Freddy replied in kind. It had been injudicious of him to make the bet—but then, the man had been standing in front of the Onslow house for a positive age and he had looked a well-breeched swell and, as has been noted, Freddy’s was an optimistic temperament.

“You can charge him ten percent, now, Nobby,” noted Horrible.

“NO!” shouted Freddy.

“Yes. –What is ten percent of sixpence?” Nobby asked her younger sister.

Horrible’s freckled brow furrowed. –Comparisons were invidious, but Horrible was marginally more ginger and freckled than Nobby. Their mother felt a kind of swamping despair come over her every time she looked at the pair of them, but possibly, for Nobby was but eleven and Horrible nine, there was hope yet. If she kept them indoors and smothered in cucumber slices and lemon juice and possibly mashed strawberries between the ages of thirteen and eighteen? Baby Prue, on the other hand, had a complexion like a pink rose and Nurse had had it impressed upon her that it was going to remain so.

“One tenth,” said little Paul helpfully.

“Be quiet,” returned Nobby immediately.

Paul was unmoved: he was only eight, but he was the brightest of the Laidlaw children. Mrs Laidlaw thought perhaps he might go into the Church and become a bishop? Or even an archbishop! Why not, somebody had to do it. Paul’s activities in Bath Abbey on a Sunday generally consisted of arguing in an undertone with his brothers and sisters if he could get away with it, poking, kicking, and generally annoying the brother or sister on either side of him if he could get away with it, surreptitiously stealing from the collection plate if he could get away with it, making awful faces at the Yattersby children if someone had been stupid enough to place him within sight of them, and, if all other distractions failed, choosing the longest words from the prayer book and seeing how many words might be constructed from them. His record was twenty-seven but then, he was only eight.

“Say a halfpenny,” said Horrible, narrowing her eyes. Horribly. “That’s one twelfth. Near enough.”

“All right. You owe me sixpence-halfpenny,” announced Nobby.

Freddy glared. If only he was old enough to go to a proper school and get away from the pair of them! But Papa had said he did not believe in sending boys away to school at a tender age and Freddy should not go until he turned eleven. And it was just not fair! For Matt Yattersby had been at Harrow for an age! And it would be another whole year, very nearly, until Freddy could join him. –At this precise moment Master Yattersby was on his holidays at the parental home just two streets away, but Freddy was considering the spirit, not the letter of the thing.

Georgey came up looking vague. “Sixpence-halfpenny for what?”

“Bet,” said Nobby tersely.

“I’ll write it down in the betting book, shall I?”

“Yes,” agreed Nobby.

Georgey set down the large bunch of flowers she was clutching—the joint property of the inhabitants of the square, of course—and picked up the slate that she was accustomed to wear slung round her neck on a cord. Ignoring her mamma’s representations that it made her look odd. Carefully she inscribed the date, the amount, and the words “Fredy ows Noby”. Georgey was but seven and spelling was not her forte. Though as her father pointed out, that scarcely mattered: she was clearly going to end up either as the Governor of the Bank of England, or in Newgate Prison for usury. In proof of this latter claim she then asked: “Is there a ten percent in that?”

“Yes,” agreed Horrible and Nobby.

“Yes,” said Freddy sourly as she looked at him for confirmation.

Tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, Georgey wrote carefully: “Inncloods 10 purr sent.”

“Good,” said Nobby.

“Now he can’t welsh on it,” agreed Horrible.

“Be QUIET!” shouted Freddy, giving her a push.

Horrible fell on him, boots and all, forthwith.

It got so bad that The Great Mendoza had to put down his book and intervene. “Here, you brats: that’ll do.”

Horrible kicked him in the ankle and he almost forgot he was fourteen years old and a Wykehamist. (Not Harrow: his Great-Uncle Philibert had insisted on sending him to his own old school and The Great Mendoza’s papa had said that if Uncle Philly wished to chuck his money away on sending one of the brats to school, he personally would not argue over which school it was.) Unlike most of his siblings, The Great Mendoza was not ginger, but dark as to hair and eyebrows, and dark-eyed. There had been a pair of ginger twins before him and though Mrs Laidlaw had wept with relief when he came along with his beautiful dark hair, so like dearest Jack’s, Mr Laidlaw (dearest Jack) had said “Scowling a bit, ain’t he? Wouldn’t say he was beautiful, meself. Puts me in mind of the great Mendoza, actually.” Once Mrs Laidlaw had ascertained this person was an adornment of the ring and had cried out upon him for comparing their darlingest new baby to a horrid prize-fighter, and Mr Laidlaw was bent over his son admiringly again, the baby hit him in the eye with a clenched fist. That settled it: he was The Great Mendoza from then on.

The combat was eventually settled by Mendoza’s getting Horrible in a strong grip with one arm cruelly bent up behind her back and making her swear on the Sacred Dalrymple not to continue. As this was one of the most sacred of all the Laidlaw children’s oaths, Horrible merely scowled dreadfully upon being released.

“The grandfather pug’s dead,” noted Georgey, à propos of this oath.

“I wager he had a splendid funeral for it,” said Paul wistfully. Possibly he did have religious leanings, and his mother’s choice of career for him was right after all.

“I think,” said Nobby, narrowing her eyes frightfully so that looked rather like Horrible, “we should send him a letter of condolence.”

“As a joke?” said Mendoza dubiously.

“NO!” she shouted furiously, turning purple. “And you need not be in it!”

Mendoza shrugged and returned to his book. Brats’ diversions could scarcely interest a Wykehamist, after all.

Nobby and the younger ones began to plan what they would say to Mr Ninian Dalrymple in their letter of condolence. Georgey volunteered to write it but this offer was unanimously vetoed, Nobby did not even have to ask for a show of hands. There were some slight logistical problems involved, such as getting hold of the writing paper Papa kept in his desk, but these only added interest.

In the quiet house on the most exclusive side of the square old Lady Amory gave an unconscious sigh as the shrieks died away and the evening calm engulfed Lymmond Square. Yes, she would invite the Anthony Hallams. And she had best have a few more couples, or it would look too particular—not that Noël would not see precisely what she was up to, but... Well, possibly the Henry Kernohans with that youngest girl of theirs: she was a friend of Kitty Hallam’s. She would write out a list! Lady Amory rang her bell briskly and was quite surprised, for the room seemed so light, still, when the parlourmaid came in with candles. She must, she reflected ruefully, have been plotting for some time. Well, never mind: someone had to see Noël’s future settled sensibly!

Life went on its calm way in Lymmond Square as July waned into an even warmer August, the Laidlaws—mercifully, in the opinion of the rest of the inhabitants of the square—went to visit relatives near the sea for a few weeks, and Colonel Amory and his wife descended on his mamma in force and bore her off to their cool, roomy house just outside the town until the weather should be less oppressive.

September came, Lady Amory returned thankfully to her own house and her own bed, The Great Mendoza and the twins, not to say Master Matt Yattersby, went back to their schools, Freddy had another shouting-match with his Papa on the subject, and things settled into their usual routine.

October came, there was a chill in the air and the leaves on the trees in the square garden were turning and beginning to drop—and still the Onslow house remained empty!

“Mayhap it is haunted,” said Horrible hopefully, leaning far out of the schoolroom window in order to get a glimpse of it.

“Pooh!” retorted Georgey sturdily. Facts and figures, especially the latter, were within Georgey’s sphere of comprehension. The possibility of the Onslow house’s being occupied by ghosts was about as credible to her as that 2 plus 2 would suddenly make 5.

“I dare you to get into it at night and stay there for two hours,” said Freddy.

“All right, I will,” replied Georgey calmly, overlooking the fact that none of them possessed a watch. “How much?”

Freddy thought it over.

“How much?” –Georgey readied her slate.

“I take it back,” he said sulkily.

“You can’t take back a dare,” said Nobby instantly.

“No,” agreed Horrible, not turning round from her position half out of the window.

“I can’t bet, because I haven’t any MONEY!” shouted Freddy furiously.

“You owe Nobby... seven shillings and fourpence three-farthings,” Georgey ascertained, consulting the slate.

“Where did the three farthings come into it?” asked Horrible, still not looking round. A carriage had driven up. It was too much to hope that it was going to stop outside...

“Interest,” said Georgey tersely. Their father’s worst fears were evidently in a fair way to being confirmed.

“Is that the same as ten percents?” asked Horrible, staring intently at the carriage.

“YES!” several persons shouted.

Horrible ignored this. She stared intently… “Look! There’s a man!”

“Frightfully exciting,” agreed Freddy sourly.

“No! Going into the Onslow house!” she gasped.

“Hah, hah,” he noted.

“No! Truly!” cried Horrible in anguish.

Recognizing the genuine injured note of one who has been accused in all her blamelessness, her siblings rushed to the window. –They were at present without a governess, a very frequent occurrence indeed in the Laidlaw house. In fact Master Matt Yattersby had once made a book on the length of time, or perhaps more strictly speaking the shortness of time, before each succeeding governess left the house.

On the floor below Mrs Laidlaw was entertaining lady visitors. Concealing a wince as footsteps thundered across the ceiling, she said politely: “More cake, dear Aunt Sissy?”

Miss Sissy Laidlaw, a thin, dried-out little spinster who lived in a very small set of furnished rooms in the town and had never ceased mentally to thank her lucky stars that she had refused the kind offer of a much younger Mrs Laidlaw to come and live in their big house with her and dearest Jack and babies Micky and Lukey, fluttered a little and protested, but took a second piece of cake. It was Mrs Laidlaw’s cook’s special orange-peel cake, which, provided that you were fond of orange peel, was quite wonderful. Unfortunately the receet required a large and reliable oven, which Miss Sissy’s furnished rooms did not include.

Mrs Laidlaw did not offer the cake to Aunt Beresford, for she knew she did not care for it: instead she passed the plate to Miss Carey and Miss Diddy Carey. They were fellow inhabitants of Lymmond Square, and in fact lived on one side of the Onslow house. The inhabitants of the house on the other side of it had not been invited to take tea.

The thin Miss Carey and the plump Miss Diddy both accepted large slices of cake and allowed Mrs Laidlaw to freshen their cups. Mrs Laidlaw then helped Aunt Beresford to Chocolate Surprise Cake. –The surprise being over, the cake now being cut and its cream-filled plain sponge inside having been revealed. Not that Aunt Beresford had been surprised, at all, for it was a receet of her late dear Mamma’s. And Charlotte’s cook did not do it as well as her own.

The first forkful of Chocolate Surprise Cake was just being raised to Aunt Beresford’s mouth when the sitting-room door burst open without ceremony and Horrible rushed in, panting.

“Mamma! Only guess! There’s a man—”

“Hortensia,” said Aunt Beresford levelly, lowering her cake fork, “a well-behaved child does not burst into her mother’s sitting-room in that fashion.”

“But—”

“That is very right, Hortensia. But is something wrong, dear?” said Mrs Laidlaw. “—They are without a governess at the moment,” she explained to the company.

Aunt Beresford did not say “again,” but the deep breath she took spoke volumes.

“No! There’s a man gone into the Onslow house!” gasped Horrible. “I beg your pardon, Aunt Beresford!” she added, still panting.

“Good gracious: perhaps it is sold at last!” said Miss Diddy brightly.

“Yes,” said her elder sister weakly, trying not to crane her neck in the direction of the window.

Horrible rushed over to it. “Look, Miss Carey, there’s a carriage right outside it!”

Repressing a wince at having her mind so easily read by a child of nine, Miss Carey replied: “I see, dear.”

“But how exciting!” said Aunt Sissy kindly. “I wonder if it will be a family of children for you to play with, Hortensia, dear?”

“Not ‘play’!” said Horrible scornfully. She pressed her nose to the window. “But I can tell you, if there are children, we shall have some splendid fights!”

At this Aunt Beresford said repressively: “That will do, Hortensia. Come here and say ‘Good afternoon’ properly, if you please.”

Horrible was quite capable of arguing with even so terrible a figure as Aunt Beresford, but at this moment there was nothing to see except the carriage and pair standing quietly by the kerbside, for the front door of the Onslow house had closed upon the man. She came and looked obediently up at the black silk bulk of Aunt Beresford. “I beg your pardon, Aunt Beresford. Good afternoon,” she said carefully.

Mrs Beresford looked at her with a concealed twinkle in her iron-grey eyes. “Good afternoon, Hortensia. You had better greet the other ladies, I think.”

“I said good afternoon to Aunt Sissy when she arrived,” explained Horrible. She gave a wobbly bob and said: “Good afternoon, Miss Carey; good afternoon, Miss Diddy.”

The Carey sisters replied kindly: “Good afternoon, Hortensia, dear.”

“It is but a carriage and pair,” Horrible then said helpfully to Miss Carey.

“Er—yes,” she murmured, reddening.

Horrible was now eyeing the Chocolate Surprise Cake sadly.

“Was it but the one man, dear?” asked Miss Diddy, with a cautious eye upon Mrs Beresford.

“Yes. Sort of skinny. With a tall hat. And a black coat.” Horrible looked fixedly at the cake.

“I suppose,” said Miss Carey, giving in almost entirely: “that you could not tell whether or no he were a gentleman, could you, my dear?”

“No, Miss Carey. I say, that cake we had that time we were at your house was splendid!”

“Horrible!” gasped her mother. Forgetting a previous vow not to call her by that dreadful nickname. And it was too cruel in Jack to encourage the other children to use it!

“It was not a hint, precisely, Mamma,” said Horrible glumly.

“Do not prevaricate, Hortensia,” said Mrs Beresford majestically. “And I think you may return upstairs to the schoolroom, now.”

“Yes, Aunt Beresford. I say, if we were to come over to your house, might I look at the flower books, if I were very careful?” –Mrs Beresford possessed two very beautiful volumes with hand-tinted plates.

There was another twinkle in the iron-grey eyes but Mrs Beresford merely returned drily: “Wait until you are asked, Miss.”

Recognizing this for consent, Horrible beamed at her and said happily: “Yes, Aunt Beresford! Good afternoon, ladies!” And dashed out. Only remembering at the last moment to dash back, bob, and close the door.

“‘Good afternoon, ladies?’” echoed Mrs Beresford on a feeble note.

“At least she said it,” said Mrs Laidlaw weakly.

“Charlotte, she sounded precisely like Mr Ninian Dalrymple, when she said it!” replied her husband’s aunt forthrightly.

Miss Carey and Miss Diddy gulped. They had remarked that.

“Well, yes; I think she may have picked it up from him,” Mrs Laidlaw admitted. “The children are very fond of him, you know. And he has been very good to them: he had them all to tea only last week. They could none of them manage any supper afterwards!” she added with a little laugh.

“My dear, is that wise?” said Aunt Sissy anxiously.

“He’s harmless enough, Sissy!” said her robust sister.

Miss Sissy looked dubiously at Mrs Beresford but did not dare to argue with her.

“Jack says he is entirely harmless,” Mrs Laidlaw agreed placidly. “And although he is forever to be seen at the Pump Room, he leads quite a lonely life, so I am glad he is seeing something of the children. And he has promised Georgey a pug puppy!”

“Make sure it’s house-trained before it comes to you, then,” Mrs Beresford advised drily.

“I suppose they are quite sweet,” allowed Miss Carey. “But they have such squashed-looking faces.”

“Oh, but that is their charm!” cried her plump sister.

“Personally I think they’re hideous little creatures. Give me a decent spaniel any day,” said Mrs Beresford robustly. Though widowed and now resident in Bath, she had formerly lived a country life, married to a gentleman of sporting pursuits. And fortunately for himself as robust in manner as she.

“They can be ill-tempered,” quavered Miss Sissy.

“Mr Ninian Dalrymple’s are not,” said Mrs Laidlaw firmly, hoping to end the matter.

But in vain. Her four middle-aged callers immediately embarked on an extended discussion of the rival merits and demerits of pugs, spaniels and, just by the by, several other breeds. Mrs Laidlaw repressed a sigh, but reflected it was better than discussing the horrible behaviour of Horrible. Or even the matter of the Onslow house, the which had been going on so long—in fact predating baby Prue—that it had become a very tedious topic indeed.

Miss Diddy peered from behind the front parlour curtains. “A gentleman is going into the Onslow house! Well, I am not precisely sure if he is a gentleman; at all events, a man.”

“Dearest, you sound like funny little Horrible Laidlaw!” said Miss Carey with a laugh.

Her plump, pink-cheeked sister replied with dignity: “That is no bad thing to sound like, there is solid worth in that little girl.”

“There must be, indeed, if Rowena Beresford approves of her,” she noted on a dry note.

“Oh, that reminds me, my love, Rowena has not returned my copy of Ivanhoe!” Although published some two years since, this exciting work by the author of Waverley was still enjoying immense popularity. Miss Diddy, an unaffected admirer of such literature, was on Mr Blackwell’s list to receive all the new novels, and her sister, though affecting to despise her tastes, was generally after her with the new titles, but Rowena Beresford had held out, in the matter of Ivanhoe, until just recently.

Sardonically Miss Carey replied: “Mayhap she is reading it a second time, being fascinated by the adventures of her Romantick namesake.”

“I—I would have said it was the other heroine, the Jewish lady, who was the more Romantick,” she faltered. “And certainly the more adventurous.”

“Quite.”

“It is so odd, do you not find, my love, that the author did not, er…”

“Award her to that boring ass of a hero? No, I do not,” she said roundly. “Marry a fair young English stalwart like Ivanhoe off to a Jewess? Unheard of! The book would have been hissed from the publisher’s list! –If it had ever got onto it.”

Miss Diddy looked her resentfully. “If that is how you felt you did not need to read it! –Was he fair? Oh, dear, I cannot remember!”

Miss Carey drew a deep breath. “I suggest you get it back from Rowena, then, and re-read it, Diddy.”

“Yes. –Oh, dear, I do hope she has not passed it on to her sister-in-law!”

“The chances of Mrs Courtenay Hamilton’s leaving a second volume of yours in a post-chaise between London and York must be very remote, Diddy.”

Miss Diddy looked at her resentfully. “If she could be that careless once, she could be so again!”

“Mm. But it will not be on the road to York, for the old cousin they were visiting there has since died.”

“Oh! You are impossible, Selina!” she cried.

Miss Carey smiled a little and said: “I’m sorry, my love. –So a man went into the Onslow house, did he?”

“Oh!” she said, recalled abruptly to the subject in hand and turning back to the window. “Yes, indeed! He had a young fellow with him, almost a boy, I suppose you would say, who was carrying a sheaf of papers!”

“Did he look like a clerk?”

“Ye-es. You mean the boy? Well, yes. A very young clerk. Do they not call them juniors?”

“Very like. Did they come in a carriage?”

“No,” said Miss Diddy regretfully.

Miss Carey had been hoping that her sister would say they had. “Oh. Then I fear it must only be the Onslows’ man of business again. Or at the very most the agent into whose hands he has put the sale of the house.”

Miss Diddy sighed. “Someone must move in soon!”

Miss Carey did not ask why. She merely agreed.

“So you are to have neighbours at last!” said Miss Grainger brightly with a forced smile.

“That, at least, is Meredith’s opinion,” replied Mrs Chalfont coldly.

Miss Grainger looked nervously at Meredith Chalfont. He smiled blandly, not refuting his mother’s statement. Or confirming it.

Mrs Meredith Chalfont, who was a kind-hearted young woman, said hastily to her mamma-in-law’s morning caller: “Merry was walking round the square, Miss Grainger, intending to call on Mother Chalfont, you know, and saw three men going into the house! With rules and papers and I know not what!”

“Buckets of plaster, it is to be hoped,” noted Mrs Chalfont without a trace of a smile.

“Well, they were not workmen, Mother Chalfont,” said Mrs Meredith feebly.

“But no doubt that will be next!” said Miss Grainger brightly.

This was the wrong tack entirely, for Mrs Chalfont then pointed out coldly the mess and noise this would entail in the square for no doubt months on end. And right next-door, too! Mrs Chalfont, Snr., who was a widow, and her sister, Mrs Lydia Daveney, who was also a widow, were the neighbours of the Onslow house whom Mrs Laidlaw did not invite to take tea. And vice versa: the Laidlaw children had few admirers in Lymmond Square and Mrs Chalfont was certainly not numbered amongst their select ranks.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Miss Grainger very soon after that made good her escape.

“All I can say is,” noted Meredith Chalfont as he and his wife, having nobly done their duty, hurried away from Lymmond Square, “thank God we don’t live in her house!”

“Yes,” said Mrs Merry, squeezing his arm. “Our dear little house is so much, much cosier!”

“Mm. If only she would let Cherry come to us. The poor girl looks paler and sadder every time we call.”

Mrs Merry bit her lip. Her sister-in-law, apart from kissing her cheek and asking her in a faint voice how she did, had scarcely moved or spoken throughout their visit. “Yes.”

“They both bully her, you know, June,” he said grimly. “Of course Mamma also bullies Aunt Lydia, but then she in her turn bullies Cherry.”

Mrs Merry nodded sadly. “It would have been so lovely, having my dearest Merry and our dear Cherry in our little house. Merry and Cherry! I was used to think that so sweet when I was a little girl, you know!”

Meredith smiled: the two families had been acquaintances for years. “Aye. It was Papa’s notion. Well, things were much happier when he was alive.”

“Yes. –If Baby is a girl,” she said hopefully: “do you think we might call her Cherry?”

“Yes, I think we might. And then we shall at least have our own little Cherry in our house!”

Mrs Merry hugged his arm again, beaming. “Yes, Merry.”

Colonel Amory passed a dish of pommes de terre Chantilly. “Have some of these, Noël. No-one can do them like Mamma’s cook, you know. –So how is the great metropolis, in this crisp October weather?”

Sir Noël shrugged slightly. “The same as ever. Though the weather is not so pleasant as it is here in Bath. –Oh, the Parliament is in session, I suppose you are aware. At dinner two days since it was all the table could speak of.”

Mrs Amory then decided she would have some of Cook’s delightful green beans. They were, of course, bottled, at this time of year. The Colonel was aware his wife disliked bottled beans: he watched with a little smile as Noël helped her.

“Oh, Bobby was in town, by the by,” said Noël.

“In town? Why did you not bring him down, my dear?” said Lady Amory.

“Er—I suggested it, but he said he would come down after I had gone on my way, for he could not sit through another dinner watching you throw little débutantes at my brutally unfeelin’ head, ma’am,” said Sir Noël apologetically.

Colonel Amory chuckled. “That is one for you, Mamma!”

“It was but the one dinner,” said Lady Amory in an annoyed tone. Her youngest son’s sayings rarely amused her.

“Well, yes, Grandmamma,” said Sir Noël, “but the rub seemed to be that it had come straight on top of your attempt to throw the oldest Miss Kernohan, Miss Grainger’s niece, and a depressed young woman from the square at his head.” His long, sherry-coloured eyes twinkled but his face remained grave. “Whether simultaneously or sequentially, I did not quite gather.”

The Colonel choked, and Delphie Amory put her hand over her mouth, but Lady Amory merely snorted.

Richard then recovered himself sufficiently to force a larger helping of pheasant pie on his wife than she wished for, and said: “I fear poor Bobby is a lost cause, Mamma. He has never quite got over Alfreda Parker that was, you know.”

Her Ladyship sniffed.

“He was truly in love with her, Mamma,” said Delphie shyly.

Old Lady Amory’s rather hard eyes softened. “Mm. I dare say he may have been, yes. And I am sure your Cousin Alfreda is as amiable as you say she is, my dear. But Bobby could never hope to compete with Harpingdon—and I am not referring to his Lordship’s wealth or position.”

“No. –Lord Blefford, now,” Delphie reminded her, blushing. “It is so hard to think of dearest Cousin Alfreda as a countess!”

The Amorys did not find it all that hard; but Delphie was the daughter of an obscure Oxford professor: so they looked at her kindly and agreed. Lady Amory then asking if the Earl and Countess of Blefford were living in “that mausoleum,” Blefford Park, the talk turned to the doings of mutual acquaintances, and away from Mr Bobby Amory. To the relief of more than one person present at Lady Amory’s intimate family dinner that crisp October evening.

“Who is it this time?” said Richard Amory in a doomed voice as the two gentleman, left in solitary state in the dining-room, passed the port between them.

“Mm?”

Bobby’s older brother made a resigned face. “Bobby. There can be only one reason for his being in London in October.”

“Yes: the debates in the Parliament, of course,” he drawled.

The Colonel had a prolonged choking fit.

“No, you are right,” admitted his nephew kindly when he was over it. “In fact there is only one question: is he in town to get away from an old one or for an assignation with a new one?”

“Or both,” he noted.

“Or both!” choked Noël, taken unawares.

The Colonel’s lean, handsome face, that was very like his nephew’s regular features, if a little wider across the eyes, wore a broad grin. “Well?” he said, when Noël was over it.

“Oh, getting away from an old one. Or more precisely, from an enraged husband. Don’t think you would know them: Mr and Mrs Thomas Standish.”

The Colonel’s jaw had dropped: Bobby Amory was more than experienced enough in the field to know that the ladies with the husbands that were likely to become enraged were, however pretty, the ladies to be sedulously avoided by a prudent man.

“Tarlington’s theory is that he has a death wish,” drawled Sir Noël in explanation of this aberrant behaviour.

“I should say so! –So he is also in town?”

“Aye: his wife made him come up for the debates,” he noted sourly. “The Lord save me from women who are fervent about politics!”

Mrs Tarlington was another of Mrs Amory’s cousins: the Colonel smiled a little and murmured: “She’s a sweet little thing.”

“Earnest,” he said with a groan.

“Well, yes. But dear old boy, if you don’t like ’em dumb, and you don’t like ’em earnest, what is there in between?”

“Well, my delightful Aunt Delphie, for a start!” he said with one of his rare genuine smiles. “You’re a damned lucky man, Richard.”

“I know,” said Richard Amory smugly.

Noël sighed, and helped himself to the port. After a moment he said reluctantly: “I suppose Lady Rockingham is on the earnest side, too, if the truth be told.”

Rather relieved to hear him say so, the Colonel agreed: “Er—a little.” Perhaps he was getting over the pretty little Marchioness of Rockingham at last, poor fellow.

After a moment Noël wrinkled the straight nose that distinguished all the handsome Amorys and said: “Oh, well, dare say dear Aunt Betsy Urqhart was right, and we should not have suited.”

Richard’s eyes began to twinkle. “Told you that to your face, did she, dear boy?”

“Of course.”

“We must get on over to see her,” Richard decided.

“You will not need to, for she intends visiting Bath quite soon. She is to stay with the Dorian Kernohans.”

“Oh, but she could have come to us!” he cried.

“No, you is too far out of town: if Aunt Betsy is in Bath, she must be at the centre of things!”

“Aye!” he said, laughing. “I say, pity they have offered: she might have taken the dashed Onslow house! Though the latest rumour is it is taken.”

Sir Noël raised his eyebrows slightly. “Again?”

“This time the rumour is so strange, that it may just possibly be true.”

Noël gave him a sardonic look. A Bath rumour? They were not apt to be.

“A Portuguese widow,” said Colonel Amory with precision.

“Eh?”

“I am merely repeating what was said to me.”

“Never tell me Grandmamma repeated that one to you!”

“I shall not tell you any such thing,” he said, the sherry-coloured Amory eyes sparkling naughtily. “For it was Miss Grainger: she drove out express to tell us.”

“And which reliable resident did she have it from, pray?” he said acidly. “The Chalfont hag? Miss Diddy Carey? –I presume the jaundiced report that Grandmamma intends to fall back on her for Bobby was one of his exaggerations.”

“Mm? Oh!” said the Colonel with a chuckle. “Not entirely! Mamma did invite her to dine when Bobby was there to play host for her. We were invited that night, too.”

“For God’s sake, Richard!”

“She is a perfectly pleasant woman,” said the Colonel primly.

“She is a perfectly confirmed spinster, you mean! –Reminds me of a cat that Carolyn once had,” he said thoughtfully. “Female, it was. Pretty, plump, fluffy thing: very like Miss Diddy. Only it never had kittens. Carolyn was in despair, so I had the farrier take a look at it, faute de mieux; but he couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Just infertile. Some creatures are, apparently.”

Richard was now trying not to laugh. “I was not serious, dear boy! And that is apocryphal from beginning to end!”

“Not at all,” replied Noël coolly. “Fluffkin, she called it, with amazing originality. It was part-Persian, I think. Bluish, y’know: very pretty, as I said. Perhaps you don’t remember it: you must have been in India at the time. Your little Lizzie would recall it, though.”

“I shall ask Lizzie,” he said grimly.

This was the Colonel’s daughter by his first marriage: Noël looked at his uncle’s determined face in some amusement but did not raise any objection to his word’s having to be verified by a damsel of some thirteen summers.

After a moment the Colonel said: “Want any more?”

“No, though it is excellent port: some of that batch that my grandfather laid down, is it?”

“No, I think it’s the lot Bobby got for Mamma. I have not tasted better, I must admit. –Who were those others that you said Mamma dredged up for him?”

Noël blinked. Could it signify? “Uh—Miss Kernohan, Miss Grainger’s niece, and the daughter of the frightful Mrs Whatsit from the square.”

“What, little Miss Chalfont?” gasped Richard.

“I think so, yes.”

Richard frowned, but got up. “Mamma will not object if we blow a cloud in the conservatory, dear boy.”

“Should I happen to have my cigars with me, you mean,” he noted drily.

The Colonel grinned. “That is it!” He gave him a sly look. “Talkin’ of Portuguese widows!”

“The Senhora Alvorninha was not a widow,” he said with dignity.

The Colonel choked.

“Besides, I was very young at the time.”

Choking again, Colonel Amory took his arm, and they went off to the little conservatory. But the Colonel did not let the topic just raised drop: once they had lit up and a footman had come discreetly to check that the connecting door to the main part of the house was closed, and gone again, he said slowly: “Miss Chalfont is young enough to be Bobby’s daughter, you know.”

“Er—so?”

“Well, good Heavens, Noël, the poor little thing! What sort of life must she lead? Stuck here in Lymmond Square where her greatest treat is dinner with my mother and dashed Bobby!”

“We cannot know that that is the greatest treat on offer, in her case, Richard.”

The Colonel frowned. “Don’t be flippant, dear old boy. She is the sweetest thing! Surely you must have met her?”

“Er—don’t think so,” he said indifferently. “Uh—think Bobby said she never said ‘boo’ all night.”

“Of course she did not! The mother bullies her!” he said impatiently.

“Oh. Well, get Delphie to take her under her wing, old man.”

“I shall try. But the mother... I am surprised she let her dine here. I think she would prefer to keep her at her beck and call all the rest of her life,” he said grimly.

Noël was not interested, but he replied tolerantly: “Frightful.” He blew out a long stream of blue smoke. “Now, what about Miss Kernohan? Shall Bobby have her?”

The most charitable description of Miss Kernohan would probably have been “a serious-minded woman, no longer in the first blush.” The Colonel had a choking fit and his cigar went out. Bobby Amory liked ’em not so tall, absolutely not so bony, and of a completely frivolous disposition. And very pretty. It was true that young Lady Blefford, the former Miss Parker, was of a serious disposition. But then, she was also charming, and very, very pretty indeed.

Feebly he relit his cigar. “I wonder if poor Bobby might be getting over Lady Blefford?”

Noël shrugged. “No idea. And you must admit he ain’t been precisely inconsolable, since. And I must say, if he was serious about her— No, very well, I agree: he was. But it is the first time I have ever seen him serious about any woman, in my life!”

Richard made a wry face. “The first time in your life, mm. Well, you would only have been a lad at the time. But around about ’99, turn of the century, Bobby was very serious indeed about Nancy Jeffreys.”

“Oh? A relative of Elizabeth’s, Richard?”

Elizabeth Jeffreys had been Colonel Amory’s first wife: he nodded. “Her older sister. You would have been too young to hear the story, of course: and then you went into the Army straight from school, I suppose the scandal never reached you.”

“Bobby made a scandal with Elizabeth’s sister?” he croaked.

“No! Good God, no! No: he was deadly serious: made an offer in form to her Papa: but Nancy wasn’t interested. Terrible flirt: shockin’. Most unlike my poor dear little Elizabeth.”

“So what was the scandal?”

“She ran off with some dago fellow. Not sure just who or what: the Jeffreyses hushed it up, y’know. But she definitely ran off to the Continent. The family never mentioned her name afterwards, y’know the style of thing.”

Noël stared at him. “Dare one ask what she was like?”

“Oh, fascinatin’, dear fellow!” he said with a laugh. “Naughty, y’know!”

“In looks?” said Noël feebly.

“Well, very pretty—Bobby don’t look at ’em twice if they ain’t, out of course. Let me see: in colouring she was like Elizabeth: dark curls, but— Hard to explain. Much more vivid. As if... as if poor dear Elizabeth was a watercolour, but Nancy was a full-blown portrait in oils? A Rubens, let us say!”

“I think I begin to see!”

Richard Amory grinned. “Aye. Masses of curls, she had: well, I suppose they were already beginning to wear ’em shorter in those days, but Nancy’s always seemed to be tumbling all over the show. Couldn’t dress, mind you: very little sense of style. And always untidy: ten to one she’d turn up to a party with her stockings wrinkled and a tear in her gown, but it never mattered, with Nancy!”

“Great God,” said Noël feebly. “Have you heard Bobby on the subject of ill-dressed women, Richard?”

“Well, tried not to, y’know!” he said with a laugh. “Aye, well: that is now. This was then!”

“Mm. And—uh—Bobby was very cut up about it, was he?”

“Well, yes: threatened to join up and come out to India with me!”

“Lor’.”

“Only Mallory said someone needed to stay at home, just in case.”

“Mm,” said the man who had gone into the Army on leaving school. “Poor Papa.”

“We are all selfish at that age, Noël,” said Richard gently. “I think Nature makes us so.”

“I suppose that is true,” he said, biting his lip. “Only to have been in the Peninsula when he died—!”

“Yes. But Mallory would have understood, dear boy.”

Noël swallowed. “Yes.”

Richard looked at him a trifle awkwardly: they seem to have strayed well away from the history of Bobby’s amours.

But after a moment Noël said: “Poor old Bobby. Well, I shouldn’t think he will take anything that Grandmamma can dredge up for him in Bath, after a Nancy Jeffreys!”

The Colonel made a wry face, shaking his head in agreement, and the topic of possible brides for either Bobby or Noël was dropped, for the nonce, in favour of the excellent cigars.

“Miss Chalfont! Miss Chalfont!” gasped Nobby breathlessly.

Obediently Cherry stopped in her tracks and let the oldest Laidlaw daughter catch up with her. Flying hair, flapping pelisse, torn skirt, stockings wrinkled round the ankles, and all, she noted with a certain envy. She herself had had the most horridly proper of childhoods, after Papa had died when she was about two years younger than Nobby was now, and as far as she could see it looked set to continue for the rest of her life.

She smiled at her. “Hullo, Nobby.”

Nobby wheezed and gasped. “We saw... Onslow house!”

“Slow down and take deep breaths,” said Cherry, smiling.

Nobby wheezed and gasped, but got out: “We saw a load of great boxes going into the Onslow house this morning!”

“I see! I think the noise must have been what woke me up,” admitted Cherry.

Nobby nodded hard. “But they didn’t stay long,” she revealed regretfully, beginning to march along with great strides.

Perforce Cherry hurried to keep up. “No?”

“No, they just delivered them and went away again. But they were huge great boxes, Miss Chalfont!”

“How exciting!” smiled Cherry. “It sounds as if someone is really moving in at last, does it not?” –Wishing she might tell Nobby to call her “Cherry.” Only if she did, somehow or another it would get back to Mother’s ears. Because everything did.

“Yes!” Nobby beamed and skipped a bit. Then she paused and said dubiously: “Horrible says the boxes may only have been sent there for storage. What do you think?”

“I don’t think that’s very likely.”

Nobby skipped. “No! Nor does Mamma!”

“Good,” said Cherry on a weak note, hoping very much that Nobby had not pounded into her poor Mamma’s bedroom at dawn in order to wake her to see a carrier’s cart. It was not, of course, the sort of thing that she herself or her brother Merry had ever done, but she knew it was the sort of thing the lucky Laidlaw children did.

“Adam Ames says it is a Portuguese widow,” said Nobby, narrowing her eyes.

Cherry had to repress a wince: it made her look so like her next sister in one of her bad moods. “Yes, I had heard that. Um—who is Adam Ames?” she ended weakly.

“Miss Chalfont! Our footman!” she cried.

“Oh, of course,” said Cherry feebly.

Nobby began to detail the names and relationships of those who served the Laidlaw household. Cherry didn’t really listen: she knew that there was a devoted core who would not have left Mr and Mrs Laidlaw and the children if boiled in hot oil, but sort of above and beyond that there was a large, floating population that came and went. Mostly went. She wondered silently if they had a butler at the moment, but did not like to ask. It was true that her own household did not feature a butler and nor did the Miss Careys’. But the Laidlaws were a wealthy family, well known in Bath and environs, and Mr Laidlaw could more than afford a butler. Finding one that did not mind the occasional toad in his bed was the problem.

Nobby finished her recital and asked eagerly: “Do you think it’s a Portuguese widow, Miss Chalfont?”

Cherry jumped: she thought they had left that topic. “Um—well, I cannot say, Nobby. It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”

“‘There are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio,’” said Nobby sepulchrally.

“Yes,” Cherry agreed weakly.

“Have you read Hamlet?”

“Yes. I have never seen it performed, however.”

“Nor I; I have never been to the play at all. But—Papa—says!” gasped Nobby, jumping, “that he will—take us—to the play—this winter! If we are very good,” she added, stopping again, and grinning. “Only what he really means is, if we are not especially wicked.”

“Yes!” said Cherry, twinkling at her. Though she knew she should not encourage her to talk of her papa in that disrespectful way.

They had reached the Laidlaw house: Nobby stood on one leg, twisting the other foot behind her ankle. “Would you care to come in, Miss Chalfont?”

Cherry swallowed. It would get back to Mother, an she did. “I should like to very much, Nobby, only I am afraid I—I must hurry on: I have errands to run.”

““I see,” said Nobby sadly. “I say, I will bet you a sixpence it is a Portuguese widow!”

“I am not allowed to bet,” said Cherry incautiously.

“But she won’t know!” hissed Nobby, bringing her face rather close to Cherry’s. The which was easy to do, as she was now standing on the bottom step of the short flight outside her house.

“No,” said Cherry weakly, trying to pretend she did not hear the sounds of mayhem clearly floating up from the area below. “Um, no, truly, Nobby, I’d better not.”

Nobby sighed. “Oh, well. It would have covered me, with Freddy, you see. ’Bye!” She suddenly dashed up the steps, pushed the door open—Cherry had not realised it had been slightly ajar: she gulped—and vanished.

“Good-bye,” said Cherry sadly. She walked on slowly towards Milsom Street. It was not until she was almost at the shop which sold the particular type of embroidery silk which Mrs Daveney desired that it dawned on her what Nobby must have met by the strange expression “cover me, with Freddy.” Good gracious! Cherry went into the little shop, smiling.

“Portuguese widow?” said Major-General Cadwallader testily. “Rubbish, Lowell!”

Old General Lowell had had himself brought to Lymmond Square in a chair, for although it was a fine, crisp October day, there was a distinct chill in the wind. And besides, prolonged exertion was not the forte of a man of his girth. Even although the chair had spared him the exertion, he huffed and puffed a bit before saying: “Heard it from Ninian Dalrymple at the Pump Room, only t’other day!”

Of course General Lowell was a senior officer, not to say a very senior gentleman indeed: over eighty, though remarkably hale and hearty for his age. So Major-General Cadwallader, who was a good twenty-five years the old man’s junior, could not be quite as rude as he would have wished to be. He snorted. “He will have got it from one of those damned Laidlaw brats.”

“Aye, aye, dare say. –Saw that one with the teeth t’other day, up to some mischief or another outside the Abbey.”

“The teeth?” echoed Major-General Cadwallader feebly.

“Aye. With the gap between ’em.” Suddenly the General gave a rich, wheezy chuckle. “Knew a little widow with just that trick of puttin’ her tongue in the gap, when I was a subaltern, out in Calcutta.” He tapped his top front teeth. They were pretty gappy, too. Major-General Cadwallader could only be thankful the old man did not attempt to demonstrate with the tongue. “And that were not yesterday!” he added with a wheezy laugh, just as the Major-General was thinking the very thing. “Hot little piece!”

“Not Indian?” said Major-General Cadwallader weakly. His own service had been in the Americas and the Peninsula. “I thought they had to chuck themselves on the husband’s funeral pyre, or some such?”

“Not all of ’em. –No, in any case she were not all Indian: father was Indian, but mother was part Russian, part Chinee, I think.”—Major-General Cadwallader gulped.—“But as I was sayin’, that little Laidlaw brat has just the same trick with the tongue and the teeth, and I should not half like to meet her in ten or fifteen years’ time!” More wheezy chuckles.

Major-General Cadwallader could think of nothing to say in response to this, but fortunately the old man did not seem to notice, and elaborated happily: “Shortish. Curls all down her back.”

That could have described either Horrible or Georgey. The Major-General gave up on the topic of the Laidlaw brats. “Er—yes,” he said limply. “I think the rumour of a Portuguese widow may be discounted.”

The old man eyed him shrewdly. “Why?”

Major-General Cadwallader’s lean cheeks reddened. “Why?” he echoed feebly.

“Aye. Why discount it? Do you know where it came from?”

“Er—no. Though I should not put it past any of those Laidlaw brats to concoct such a story!”

The General sniffed. “Doesn’t sound like anything a pack of brats would think of. And talking of Portuguese widows, I hear that young so-and-so, Noël Amory, is in town again?”

“I think he is staying with his grandmother, yes,” said Major-General Cadwallader, hoping that the old man would not tell one of his filthy stories. For the Major-General was not the sort of man who found the accounts of other men’s amorous exploits either amusing or interesting.

Naturally this hope was not fulfilled and General Lowell told him in detail the story of a very much younger Noël Amory and the Senhora Alvorninha. Not neglecting to stress the point that she had not been a widow, after all. So Major-General Cadwallader could not see why on earth he had bothered to tell it. Except that he was the sort of man who did tell such stories.

When the old man had huffed and puffed himself off, not neglecting to clap his junior on the back and invite him warmly to dinner, for his sister would love to see him—Major-General Cadwallader politely accepting, though he always had the feeling that Miss Lowell, who was some dozen years younger than her brother, had a damned fishy look in her protuberant blue eye when it rested on himself—the Major-General wandered restlessly over to his front windows and stared out into Lymmond Square, sighing. The view of the garden was very peaceful: it was occupied today only by the Laidlaws’ nursemaid, well muffled up, the Laidlaws’ elaborate baby-carriage, and a large spotted dog which he had seen only the other day being tugged up the steps of the Laidlaw residence by the little boy, so probably it was theirs, too. Or they had stolen it. He stared blankly at the dog and the nursemaid and the baby-carriage, and wished that he had retired anywhere but Bath. For life here was so damned flat. But his elderly Aunt Patience had left him the house, and it had seemed stupid not to occupy it, when it was a perfectly good house, and... Oh, well. A man had to live somewhere. And now that he had left the Army, it did not matter very much where he lived.

Major-General Cadwallader, who had been perfectly happy bivouacked in the most shocking conditions in the Peninsula, sighed and drummed his fingers a little on the window-sill of his comfortable house in Lymmond Square and wished that England were still at war.

Mrs Chalfont raised her eyebrows very high. “Indeed?”

Up until this moment Mrs Peregrine Yattersby had been very sure of her ground. Now she faltered. “Er—well, yes: Peregrine had it from Lord Onslow’s agent himself.”

“I had heard it, too,” said Miss Grainger incautiously.

Graciously Mrs Chalfont offered seedy cake. Both ladies hated it but they each took a piece. Lydia Daveney refused it, but Cherry, who also hated it, meekly took a piece. Mrs Chalfont then said with a pitying smile: “A Portuguese widow? I think you will find you are mistaken, dear Mrs Peregrine.”

Mrs Peregrine nodded weakly above the seedy cake. She was sure she must be. And she would speak severely to Peregrine this very evening on the subject of unseemly jests that were not at all the thing, in a man of his age and position!

“Mrs Chalfont says it is not so,” reported the gaunt Miss Grainger sadly.

Lady Amory poured tea. “Indeed?” she replied courteously.

“She will have better information, no doubt?” drawled Sir Noël.

“Don’t teaze, Noël,” said Mrs Colonel Amory, smiling at him.

Sir Noël smiled back, and even though she had known him since he was a little boy, the watching Miss Grainger felt her heart do a silly sort of loop within her withered bosom. He was, really, the most attractive man! She said a trifle breathlessly: “Oh, no: please! I know exactly what Sir Noël means, dear Mrs Amory! Mrs Chalfont will always have better information!”

Lady Amory chuckled, Sir Noël smiled and nodded, and dear Mrs Amory went into a giggling fit.

“But what is the better information, my dear Miss Grainger?” Lady Amory then asked kindly.

“Her information is that it is a Kentish widow.”

The company looked blankly at one another. Finally Noël said: “I liked the Portuguese theory better.”

“Yes!” said the Colonel’s wife, laughing. “So exciting!”

“Indeed: so much more Romantick!” conceded Miss Grainger.

“Quite. Whereas a Kentish widow... It is dashed disappointing, y’know,” said Sir Noël sadly to his grandmamma’s caller.

“Yes!” squeaked Miss Grainger, collapsing in giggles.

“Though it strikes a note of verisimilitude,” noted Lady Amory drily. “Try the Madeira cake, my dear Miss Grainger, Cook has put walnuts in it this time: see what you think.”

Miss Grainger took a piece of the cake eagerly, and the talk turned to matters culinary.

When the spinster lady had been seen into a chair by Noël, Delphie said sadly: “I must say, it’s very disappointing to have a Portuguese widow replaced by a mere Kentish one.”

“Well, yes. But one must not look for excitement in Lymmond Square,” noted Lady Amory. “After all, my dear, that is why one lives here.”

“Slow down, Hortensia, and do not speak with your mouth full,” ordered Mrs Beresford.

Horrible had come alone to visit with Aunt Beresford. Intrepid though the Laidlaw children were, she was the only one who had ever dared this mission. Mrs Beresford was, of course, aware of the daring involved, though she had not let this be perceived. –Horrible had not literally made the journey alone, though Aunt Beresford had no doubt she would have been capable of it: Charlotte had sent a footman with her. Judging by the way the two had proceeded up Mrs Beresford’s quiet little street, Hortensia had made the whole journey clutching his hand and talking at him nineteen to the dozen. Mrs Beresford had wondered silently how long this one would stay. Unless perhaps he liked sticky-pawed, loquacious little girls?

Horrible swallowed loudly, gasped a bit and said: “Yesterday a gigantic waggon came to the Onslow house!”

“Indeed? That is progress, then.”

“Yes! And crates and crates were unloaded from it!”

“Large crates?” She perceived that the child was looking disconcerted. Smiling a little, she said: “Were they large enough to contain articles of furniture, is what I mean, Hortensia.”

Horrible looked hard at the chairs in Mrs Beresford’s sitting-room, narrowing her eyes horribly. Mrs Beresford wondered, not for the first time, if the child were short-sighted, and if she should speak to Charlotte about it. But spectacles on top of those freckles? Oh, dear!

“They were big enough to put chairs in, Aunt Beresford, but not a sofa.”

“I see. Very probably they did contain chairs, then.”

“Yes. And there were great long things, very heavy, which Papa said must be rolls of carpet. But they were wrapped up in sacking and stuff.”

“Yes, of course: one would not wish one’s good carpets to become soiled on the journey. –And do not say ‘and stuff’, my dear, it is vulgar.”

Horrible looked disconcerted. “What should I say, then, Aunt Beresford?”

“‘And so forth’ would not be ineligible, my dear.”

She nodded. “‘And so forth’. –Would you not say it is all very promising, Aunt Beresford?”

“Very promising indeed, dear. Now, may I offer you some cake?”

Horrible sighed deeply. “Yes, please, Aunt Beresford!”

“But I have it on the best authority,” said Mr Ninian Dalrymple, pouting, “that it is a Portuguese widow! Why, one is expecting black lace mantillas, at the very least!”

Miss Carey smiled a little. “I think that would rather be a Spanish widow, would it not, Mr Ninian? But I agree, it is so disappointing to have it reduced to a mere Kentish widow. Why, I dare swear one knows a dozen such!”

Mr Ninian twinkled at her. “Precisely!”

Miss Carey offered tea, smiling, and, it being scarce a formal call, for they were all old friends, Miss Diddy passed the cake. Mr Ninian as she did so preventing her, almost forcibly, indeed, from giving any to Xavier III of Borrowdale and Fortunata of Borrowdale, who had accompanied him.

“They are so good!” gasped Miss Sissy Laidlaw, as the two little pug-dogs merely sat there, panting slightly.

“Of course. All my darlings are trained not to beg,” said Mr Ninian serenely. He congratulated Miss Carey on the quality of her lapsang and added: “But my dears: does anyone know whence this Kentish rumour came?”

Miss Sissy looked dubious. “Dear little Cherry Chalfont told me.”

“Yes. And we had it from Catherine Grainger. And I think she had it from Mrs Chalfont, did she not, Diddy?” said Miss Carey.

“Ah!” said Mr Ninian with a laugh. “So we are getting to it! All these different strands of the Kentish rumour, it appears, are traceable to the one source!”

“But where did she have it from?” said Miss Diddy on a blank note.

Mr Ninian gave a smothered giggle. “Two guesses, Miss Diddy!”

Miss Diddy looked blank.

“Ooh!” squeaked Miss Sissy, clapping her hand to her mouth. A squeak escaped from behind the hand.

“Yes,” said Mr Ninian, looking impossibly prim. “I fear ’tis so.”

Miss Sissy went into a helpless giggling fit, gasping that he was so naughty!

“Diddy, wake up!” said Miss Carey on a cross note to her blank-faced younger sister. “I collect Mr Ninian is implying that it is a fabrication by Mrs Chalfont!”

Miss Diddy choked on her cake.

“More boxes,” Freddy Laidlaw pointed out keenly to Major-General Cadwallader. “I dare swear they will be moving in any time.”

Major-General Cadwallader never knew what to say to children. Especially not to the Laidlaw brats: you never knew what they might come out with. He shifted uneasily. “Er—mm.”

“I say, you would not like a small wager on it, would you, sir?”

“What?” he gasped.

“On the time within which the family might move in,” explained Freddy. “Ten days might be a reasonable estimate.” He looked up at him hopefully

“Certainly not!” gasped Major-General Cadwallader. “And does your father know what you’re up to, young man?”

Freddy looked puzzled: he was merely walking round Lymmond Square. “Mamma said I might call to see if William Yattersby is free to come out, sir.”

“Wha—No! That you are betting, young man,” he said grimly.

“Yes, of course. His money’s on a fortnight from yesterday.”

The Major-General gulped. “I see. Good-day to you,” he said grimly, walking on.

Freddy gave him a vaguely puzzled glance, but by the time he was halfway to the Yattersby house had forgotten all about him.

Major-General Cadwallader walked on grimly. He had a bad ankle, which had healed crooked after being shattered by a piece of shrapnel at Badajos. But as he had had not a few good friends who had been killed at Badajos, he had told himself he could consider himself lucky. As usual the ankle was giving him considerable pain, but he continued with his usual constitutional, ignoring it.

“They’re COMING!” bellowed Horrible, falling out of the ash tree in the square’s garden.

“Quick, quick, tell Mamma!” screeched Georgey. The injunction was apparently directed at herself: she rushed across the road, pounded up the steps, flung open the front door, which some unknown hand had left slightly ajar, and pounded into the morning-room.

“Mamma! Aunt Sissy! The Onslow house people are coming!” she gasped.

Since Mrs Laidlaw and Miss Sissy were sitting quietly admiring Baby Prue, there was no-one to disapprove of their rushing to the front windows, so they both did.

Georgey danced up and down, not knowing whether to dash back outside or stay here. You certainly got an excellent view from the morning-room, but it wasn’t as close as the garden railings, against which her siblings had now flattened themselves. As she watched, however, a giant waggon drove up and parked in front of the children, entirely blocking their view. So that settled it.

“Look, Georgey, a great waggon!” said her mother.

“And FIVE coaches!” shouted Georgey, jumping.

They watched breathlessly.

“That is a blackamoor,” said Miss Sissy dazedly as a very dark man jumped out of one of the coaches and turned to give his hand to a lady.

“Great Heavens,” said Mrs Laidlaw numbly.

“It must be a Portuguese widow!” shrieked Georgey, jumping. “Mr Ninian Dalrymple wins!”

Neither lady asked what he won: they had a fair idea.

In the garden the other Laidlaw children, duly repositioned, were reduced to silence by the sheer splendour of it all. Blackamoors! Turbans! Veiled ladies! Great banded chests! Trains of horses and ponies, for which a man asked Freddy directions to the livery stable!

“Charlotte, dearest,” said Miss Sissy after some time, when the excitement had abated somewhat and the newcomers had all disappeared into the Onslow house, “did it strike you that none of those was—er—”

“White, Aunt Sissy?” said Georgey helpfully.

“N—Well, no, dear, some of them were Europeans! Um, that none of them could possibly be the ladies or gentlemen of the house, Charlotte, dear, is what I mean!”

Mrs Laidlaw nodded. “Yes. I think that must only have been the servants.”

After a dazed moment Georgey gasped: “You mean there’s more?”

“I think the family is yet to arrive: yes, dear.”

Georgey raced out into the street, bellowing: “HEY! I SAY! Mamma says there’s MORE!”

“Come away from that window instantly, Cherry,” ordered Mrs Chalfont grimly.

“But Mother, I think the family is arriving,” said Cherry feebly.

“I beg your pardon?” she said in a steely voice.

Cherry swallowed, and came away from the window.

Further round the square Sir Noël, quizzing glass raised, noted languidly: “More great excitement. The ginger brats are all out again.”

“Mm. Well, does any of this lot resemble a Portuguese widow?” asked his grandmother, very drily indeed.

He laughed “I cannot tell, from here! There are several black-clad female figures, certainly! –Shall you call, if it be a Portuguese widow, Grandmamma?”

“I do not believe for an instant it is a Portuguese widow. But in any case, I shall leave cards.”

“Risky,” he said, shaking his handsome head.

“Not in Lymmond Square,” replied his grandmother grimly.

Sir Noël laughed.

“I was out,” admitted Mrs Laidlaw, bouncing Baby on her knee, “but the children tell me there is a family of several children.”

“I see,” said Mrs Beresford drily. “And did they say whether they looked Portuguese?”

Mrs Laidlaw laughed. “Well, no, they did not say, Aunt Beresford, but then on the other hand, the darlings have no notion of what a Portuguese person might look like!”

Mrs Beresford smiled. “True.”

“And I must thank you for putting up with Hortensia,” she added with a twinkle.

“You know perfectly well I love to have her, Charlotte,” said Aunt Beresford majestically.

Mrs Laidlaw laughed again, and said: “Well, yes! I think I do!”

“Shall you call, Charlotte?”

“I thought I might leave cards. What do you think?”

Mrs Beresford considered this carefully. “I suppose it cannot be ineligible. One does not need to call, afterwards, if one then hears unfavourable reports.”

Mrs Laidlaw’s eyes danced, but she said only: “No: that is what my Jack says.”

“Oh: you’re in, Noël,” said Colonel Amory in a strange voice, as his Mamma’s butler showed him into Lady Amory’s sitting-room.

Sir Noël had been reading. He laid the book down and rose. “As you see. I am afraid Grandmamma is out, though: paying calls. –What is it?” he said as Richard limped to a chair and, sitting down heavily, mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Not the leg, dear fellow?”

“No, no,” said the Colonel feebly. “I have just had the oddest experience!”

“Oh?” Sir Noël rang the bell and ordered brandy.

Richard smiled weakly. “It was the stupidest thing. I think I’ve just seen a ghost!”

“Good God. Well, here is Stopes with the brandy—thank you, Stopes. Get it down you, Richard.”

The Colonel swallowed brandy. “Uh— Well, have you—have you seen anything of the new occupants of the Onslow house, Noël?”

“No; it is but two days since they moved in. And it has been raining steadily since.”

“Mm. And you have not heard whether it be a Kentish widow or—or a Portuguese one?” he said with a weak attempt at a smile.

Noël stared at him. “No. It appears to me to be more likely to be an Anglo-Indian one, judging by the servants. What the Devil is all this?”

“Er… Well, as I was passing the house on my way here,” said Richard feebly, “a carriage drew up, and an Indian fellow rushed out with an umbrella. And—and a lady got out. I had paused, you see, to—”

“Spy,” agreed his nephew mockingly.

“No such thing. So as not to incommode the lady.”

Noël was now positive that some feminine skeleton in the closet of Richard’s Indian Army days was about to be revealed. And he had not thought the dear fellow had any! “Mm. And?”

“Well,” said the Colonel with a strange laugh: “don’t scoff, dear boy, but I could swear it was Nancy Jeffreys!”

“Uh—Oh! You don’t mean Bobby’s inamorata from the year Dot?” he croaked.

“Yes. She looked so exactly—” He broke off.

Suddenly Noël gave a shout of laughter and slapped his knee. “Of course! The Portuguese widow! Here, you said she ran off with a dago, did you not, Richard? Well, that is it, then! He was a Portugee, and now she has come home to roost, in—in—Lymmond Square!” he gasped helplessly.

“It cannot be she,” said the Colonel uncertainly.

Noël whooped. “Of course it can!”

The Colonel finished his glass of brandy. “No. After all, it’s twenty years agone… No, it must just be a coincidence.”

Noël continued to whoop. “No, it must just be Nancy Jeffreys! This’ll set the cat amongst the Bath pigeons! Nancy Jeffreys! By Gad!”