Married Bliss, By Way of Devizes

43

Married Bliss, By Way of Devizes

    Lymmond Square was quiet and peaceful, dozing in the summer sun. This was due in large part, as Jack Laidlaw quite frankly admitted to himself, to the fact that his own brats had gone down to Stamforth Castle for the summer.

    Some might have thought—and some had, indeed, been so silly as to express the thought—that this was damned odd, in that the castle’s owners might have been supposed to have been on their honeymoon at that precise time. But Charlotte had explained clearly that Nan and Lord Stamforth, though the fact had not been widely circulated amongst their acquaintance, intended but a few days at a quiet spot along the river—YES, the Thames, where were Mr Laidlaw’s wits?—before returning to London to oversee the refurbishing of their pink salon.

    According to her own report it had been refurbished already. He had not pointed this out and had been rewarded for this restraint with the information that the green marble pillars were to go.

    “I get it. She’s goin’ back to town in order to tell ’em how to knock ’em down, and Stamforth’s goin’ with her to stop her pulling his house down around her ears.”

    “Y—No!”

    “Well, he may be goin’ with her for one or two other reasons,” drawled Jack, eyeing her blandly.

    Mrs Laidlaw went very red, gave a very silly laugh, and hurried out of the room. Forgetting until quite late that evening to favour him with the intelligence that Nan had written that they would be in town for about a week and that then of course they would be going down to the castle! And that Miss Gump would keep an eye on the children. And—um—well, of course she was not young, but then, she was not old, either, precisely, and Major-General Cadwallader was not—

    Whether Cadwallader was supposed to be not old, not young, or even not yet in his dotage, Jack Laidlaw never learned, for at that point he had broken down and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

    Lymmond Square, therefore, was quiet and peaceful. And Mr Laidlaw was only slightly in the doghouse. Enough to be only mildly surprised when his wife burst into his study panting: “Jack!”

    “Eh—what?” he said, rousing himself on his window-seat, blinking.

    Charlotte did not say she had thought he had come in here with the intention of doing his accounts. Instead she gasped: “Jack! I have just seen Cherry going into Lady Amory’s house!”

    “Eh? What? Oh. Dare say they’ve popped down to see the old lady,” he said groggily.

    “They were going to Cowes directly after Nan’s wedding!” returned his wife witheringly. “Cherry told me so herself, at the reception! –Do not dare to claim it is on their way!”

    “Dare say they changed their minds,” he said humbly.

    Charlotte bent over him and hissed: “He is not with her!”

    Jack drew back. “Don’t do that! –What do you mean?” he added without hope.

    “It was a post-chaise, and she was alone!”

    He sat up, groaning. “Now, look, Charlotte—”

    Charlotte ignored this. “Did you not remark—” She went on for some time. Jack had not remarked young Lady Amory’s red eyes at the damned Stamforth wedding, no. And it was true, if not entirely relevant, that Charlotte had earlier told him that the sensible thing would have been to have stayed on in London for a night, rather than setting off for home immediately—yes. But it was certainly not true that Charlotte had been predicting disaster for months and that Cherry was much too good for that conceited man-about-town. At least, this last probably was, but it wasn’t true that Charlotte had repeatedly told him as much. Not unless he’d slept through it. Which given the usual volume was not a credible possibility.

    “Now, look, Charlotte—”

    He might as well have saved his breath.

    “Very well,” he groaned, eventually. “Go over there and ask old Lady Amory what’s up.”

    This went over as well as might have been expected, and Mr Laidlaw was definitively sent to the doghouse. So much for their peaceful summer without the brats.

    It was quite easy in London, as young Lady Amory had by now discovered, for a man who had had a disagreement with his wife to disappear for the day.

    This particular disagreement had blown up over something and nothing. Cherry declared it angrily to be nothing. Noël replied that it was not nothing, and that a man had a right to a say in his own daughter’s name. Cherry retorted crossly that as yet there was no question of a daughter at all. Noël took this as some sort of veiled hit at his masculinity and became very angry—the more so as Viola Amory had begun nagging him on the topic of grandchildren. This was another reason why he had not. wished her to join them in town for the Stamforth wedding, though unfortunately it had not dawned on him that possibly Cherry might have been sympathetic towards this reason, had he but explained it.

    Noël did not slam out of the house in Green Street which the Amorys now owned: he retired, very dignified, to his study. Ignoring the fact of his wife’s rushing up very close to the outer side of the study’s closed door and shouting at it in tones of the utmost scorn: “‘Study!’”

    That evening he was faced with a very odd dinner. There was not one single hot dish visible. True, it was a very warm day, and for some time he had been regretting his decision to stay in town for a few days and take Cherry to some damned thing of Brentwood’s. As he had pointed out, most of the theatres were shut, no-one was in town but cits, and— Very well, he would take her!

    “I was down in the kitchen,” said Lady Amory in a defiant voice, sticking out her pointed chin.

    “Yes?” replied Noël neutrally.

    “I do not care what you think, I wished to see for myself what conditions were like down there!”

    Noël said nothing.

    “And it was baking hot, and poor Cook looked near to dyspepsia!”

    “I don’t think you mean dyspepsia,” said Noël neutrally.

    “I— No, that thing they feared Uncle Ketteridge had,” said Lady Amory feebly.

    “Mm.”

    “I ordered them to let the fires go out, and I have sent Betty and Harris and Frederick off home to their mothers, and Mrs Blaney is to take them all to Margate, and I do not care WHAT you say!” shouted Cherry.

    Noël did not ask who the Devil Mrs Blaney was, he merely looked feebly at the cold ham, cold beef and cold salads on his dining table.

    “And no-one needs a hot meal in weather like this!”

    “Very true. May I pass you some cold ham, my dear?”

    “OH!” shouted Cherry, bounding to her feet. “You are impossible! And I hope it chokes you!” She rushed out like a whirlwind.

    Noël looked sourly at the ham. “It probably will,” he muttered.

    He did not come into her room that night. Young Lady Amory did not sleep at all well, and woke somewhat late the following morning, not feeling at all refreshed. When she got down there was no sign of Noël, and the butler informed her, with a sympathetic look in his eye, that he believed Sir Noël had gone to his club, my Lady. Cherry greeted this news with a grim smile and told him that as they would be closing the house in a very few days, he might tell James and Edward that they could begin their holiday today. If he thought he could manage with just Martin? Sir Noël’s butler thought he could, but he did not think that Sir Noël would like him to. Since, however, the household staff were firmly on young Lady Amory’s side in anything whatsoever, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case—a fact of which Noël was all too well aware but of which Cherry remained in blissful ignorance—he merely bowed, and thanked her.

    The day was even hotter than the previous one. Cherry felt very languid. By noon she was almost ready to admit that Noël had been right, and that they should have gone straight on down to Cowes. In fact, she would have admitted it, had he but returned home, but he did not.

    “He will be at that stupid White’s,” she said grimly to Pug Chalfont. “Eating hot, stodgy food that will give him an indigestion.”

    Pug panted, looking up at her trustingly.

    “And,” said Cherry, her jaw trembling, “you will not be renamed Pug Amory, if I live to be an hundred! And I hate him!”

    Pug merely panted.

    “It will only get hotter,” said Cherry dully. “So I suppose we might as well go for a walk now.”

    Pug gave an excited bark.

    “We shall go along to Nan’s house, in any case,” said Cherry glumly, getting up.

    They went slowly along Green Street in the heat to the house which, because of the noise and the dust at Stamforth House, the Stamforths were using for the week. But Troope, at his most benign, informed Lady Amory that Lord and Lady Stamforth were out: no, not in Blefford Square: he believed they were calling on Mrs Dinsdale.

    “Lord Stamforth’s Aunt Julia?” said Cherry in a hollow voice.

    Troope bowed. “Indeed, my Lady.”

    Cherry swallowed, asked him to tell Lady Stamforth that she had called, and—um—no, just that!—and retreated.

    Troope looked after her sympathetically. He did not imagine, any more than she did, that Lady Stamforth would return from Mrs Dinsdale’s in a particularly good mood. The more so as he was aware that she had not been in a particularly good mood when she left the house.

    Noël did not return for his dinner that night. Cherry ate cold ham and salad with a defiant look on her face, alone in the dining-room. She did not wait up for him, but went to bed early. She did not fall asleep, however, but lay awake, waiting for the sound of his tread on the stairs.

    When he eventually got home it was very, very late. Cherry’s candle had gone out and she was half-drowsing. She roused with a start as Pug gave a loud whine and shot over to the door, where he began scratching vigorously.

    “Stop that!” She waited, but Noël did not come in. She heard the creak of his dressing-room door, and then the sound of the door closing. She waited again, but he did not appear. Taking a deep breath, Cherry got out of bed, and drew the curtains back, in order to peer at the pretty little clock which stood on an occasional table in the window. “Half past three,” she ascertained grimly. Overlooking the fact that the pretty little clock was a piece of too-expensive French enamel frippery which her then very new husband had forced upon her to celebrate—well, to celebrate something very intimate. And of which Cherry had hitherto been very pleased to be reminded, whenever she looked at the clock.

    “Where the Hell is she?” demanded Noël in exasperation, discovering towards dinnertime next day that not only was there no sign of Cherry, she had apparently been gone since early that morning.

    His butler replied neutrally: “I do not know, Sir Noël. Er—a young woman called this morning, while you were still asleep, sir.”

    “And?” he said, staring at the man.

    The butler coughed slightly. “In a state, if I may say so. Lady Amory saw her in the morning-room, and then went out with her.”

    Noël’s lean cheeks reddened. “May I ask why you admitted a young woman in a ‘state’ to this house?”

    The butler did not say that it had been Martin, not himself. “She sent her name in to Lady Amory, Sir Noël, and her Ladyship said she would see her.”

    “Well, what WAS her name?” he shouted.

    “A Miss Brentwood-Jones, sir.”

    “A— Oh, good grief!” he said, passing his hand through his curling brown locks.

    The butler looked at him impassively.

    “Find me— No, send James in, he can get round to the damned theatre with a message.”

    “James is on his holiday, Sir Noël. Martin will take the message, if you wish.”

    Noël stared at him. “I thought that it was Frederick who had been sent off on his holiday?”

    “Lady Amory allowed James and Edward to go yesterday, Sir Noël.”

    “Do you mean to tell me there is only—” Noël took a deep breath. “Very well,” he said with awful restraint. “In that case, ask Kettle to come in here, please.”

    Kettle duly appeared, all agog, as his master noted with considerable irritation, on hearing that he was to go to the theatre to call on the theatricals!

    “Well, that’s that,” said Noël grimly to himself, striding round his study. “But by God, she shall not get off scot free! Going off without even a message!”

    But that was not that. When Kettle returned, it was in the company of Mr Perseus Brentwood himself.

    “Sir Noël, I took the liberty,” said the thin little valet anxiously.

    “Where is my wife?” the baronet demanded of the actor-manager.

    Mr Brentwood’s usually florid cheeks had taken on a bluish tinge. “But Sir Noël, that’s just it! We haven’t seen Miss Cha—Lady Amory, I should say—since you was so kind as to permit ’er to call for the rehearsal of the comic piece!”

    “Then where is Miss Brentwood-Jones?” said Noël through his teeth. “I collect they were last seen leaving this house together.”

    “They don’t know, Sir Noël,” said Kettle quickly.

    “And that’s Gawd’s truth!” said Mr Brentwood, producing a bright yellow silk handkerchief and mopping his streaming forehead

    Noël perceived that the man looked very much as if he might drop down with “dyspepsia” at any minute. He drew a difficult breath and said: “Please, be seated, Mr Brentwood. You, too, Kettle. I think a brandy is indicated, at this juncture.”

    The two subsided slowly, Kettle perching on the very edge of a hard chair, eyeing his master nervously, and Mr Brentwood, though leaning back in a large armchair with a sigh, also eyeing the baronet nervously.

    “Daisy’s been odd,” he revealed over the brandy. “Very odd in ’er manner, is what she’s been. We put it down to—er—women’s things, if you take my meaning, sir. But seems it’s more than that. Billy Quipp maintains it’s Emmanuel Everett. –And I curse the day I ever admitted the man to the company!” he added with a flash of his old, vigorous manner.

    “I see. And where is Everett?”

    “Gorn. Slung ’is ’ook. Two days since,” said Mr Brentwood morosely. “Or so ’is landlord says. Well, ’e ain’t in the current piece, sir.”

    “Ah. And where might your daughter have sought refuge?”

    “Well, if she’s gorn with Lady A., she won’t’ve gorn to Emmanuel Everett, curse ’is eyes. –I don’t think,” he added mournfully.

    “No-o... I have to admit it would be very like Cherry to attempt to bring about a marriage between them,” said Noël in a shaken voice, as this realisation dawned upon him.

    “Can’t. ’E’s married already. Well, I say ‘already’: it were twenty year a-gorn. Clorinda Parkes. She threw ’im out after three months. –You’d know ’er better as Mrs Vickery, Sir Noël. Runs a gambling house—discreet, mind you. Very well thought of. You won’t get no watered wine there. Nor no shaven cards, neither. And the dice as true as arrers.”

    “Er—yes, I do know Mrs Vickery’s,” said Sir Noel feebly.

    “Aye,” he said gloomily. “Well, she’s Emmanuel Everett’s wife, all right and tight.”

    “But does your daughter know it, Mr Brentwood?” asked Kettle keenly.

    “Yes. Well, I told her, acos I could see the silly lass were making eyes at ’im, and Mrs Lily, she told ’er in no uncertain terms. –Mrs Cornish, Mr Kettle,” he explained sadly. “Plays the Lady Bountiful, in the current piece.”

    Kettle nodded politely, one eye on his master.

    “So, where else could she have gone?” said Noël briskly.

    “Not to ’er Ma, that for sure,” said Mr Brentwood glumly.

    “Oh?”

    “She run orf to h’Ostend with a so-called Mounseer dee Large,” he said sourly. “Which left Daisy on my ’ands. Well, there was ‘er Aunty Bess, only she ‘ad an offer from an Irishman what didn’t want to be saddled with no unspoiled virgin. What some men would’ve sold ’er to the ’ighest bidder, so I suppose there’s that much to ’is credit,” he noted sourly.

    “Mm. But as I collect she is no longer an unspoiled virgin,” said Noël on an acid note, “would she have gone to this aunt and the Irishman?”

    “Couldn’t of, sir: we lost track of ’em. Well, the feller said ’e lived in Derry: maybe you’ve ’eard of it? Acos I never did.”

    “Er—yes, well, that is in Ireland.”

    “Daisy wouldn’t never ’ave gorn orf to Ireland, she’s one as gets sick in a rowboat!” he said confidently.

    “I see. Anyone else?”

    “Sir Noël, Daisy ain’t got no-one left but me!” He mopped his eyes with the yellow handkerchief, and blew his nose loudly.

    Kettle at this point put in on an uncertain note: “There is a possibility that she may have gone to the old man, Sir Noël.”

    His master looked blank.

    “You remember Grandpa Brentwood, sir!” urged Mr Brentwood brightening.

    “Er—oh: yes. Is he not with you?”

    “Well, no. ’E’s got new lodgings. There was this Mrs Blaney, you see, and we all said to ’er, ’e ain’t a bad old feller, but a fine upstanding figure of a woman like yerself would ’ave to be cracked to take ’im on. Only she would ’ave it as ’e could come to this cottage of ’ers at Margate, acos when she were a little lass, ’er ma, she took in theatricals—like, lodgings, Sir Noël—and she remembered Grandpa—”

     He broke off: Sir Noël had risen and was ringing the bell violently.

    “Get Cook and the rest of the kitchen staff in here immediately,” he ordered the butler. “Oh, and yourself, and the last footman—Martin, is it?”

    “Yes, Sir Noël,” said the man feebly.

    Sir Noël’s assembled household together informed him that, imprimis, Mrs Blaney was Frederick’s ma, secundus, she had inherited a cottage at Margate from a grateful former lodger of her late ma’s, and tertius—anxiously, from Cook—it was really roomy, sir!

    “I think the mystery of Lady Amory’s and Miss Brentwood-Jones’s whereabouts may have been solved,” he said.

    A very small, grimy girl, whom he had not known formed part of his household, at this said in a hoarse squeak: “Yus, an’ vey went orf in a post-chaise, too!” In what was only barely recognizable as English.

    Cook frowned her down but admitted: “I’ve got Mrs Blaney’s direction, sir. And Aggie, here, was certainly sent to fetch some sort of a carriage.”

    “Thank you. And I should be much obliged to all of you,” said Sir Noël, with a hard look at his butler, “if in future when my wife orders up strange carriages for obscure errands, I am apprised of the fact instantly.”

    The butler agreed in chastened tones: “Yes, Sir Noël.”

    “Sir Noël, had the housekeeper been in the house, I think you would have been informed,” said Kettle in an undertone. “Lady Amory allowed her to go last week, if you remember, sir, as her niece was expecting to be confine—”

    “Thank you, Kettle,” he said with a sigh. “Have them send the curricle round, will you? I’d better get down to Margate.”

    “What do you MEAN, she went away again?” he shouted.

    Mrs Blaney, a round-faced, red-cheeked, comfortable-looking sort of woman, replied calmly: “Like I said, sir. She made sure as Daisy would be safe with me and Grandpa, and then she went away again in ’er ’oire carriage.”

    “When?” demanded Noël angrily.

    “Well... I suppose it were in the afternoon, sir.”

    “She took the Lunnon road,” volunteered one, Bert Blaney. “Acos they ’ad a change of ’orses, from afore. So she din’t need anuvver.”

    “Where had you this change?” demanded Sir Noël of Miss Brentwood-Jones in an alarmingly grim voice.

    Miss Brentwood-Jones burst into noisy sobs, but after some time Mrs Blaney managed to get something out of her that she kindly translated as: “At the ’Orse and ’Ounds. sir. About four mile from ’ere. On the Lunnon road, like what Bert said.”

    Bert began to look vindicated, but stopped, for Sir Noël had gone.

    It was late when Noël reached his house again. There had been no sign of Cherry on the road. Though he had found another posting-house where she had stopped to change horses again.

    Kettle appeared in the hall the minute his master entered it, shaking his head.

    “I’ll try her London acquaintance. Though most of them have long since left for the country.”

    “Sir, it is a little late.”

    “Goddammit, Kettle, she’s my WIFE!” he shouted.

    Kettle just looked at him respectfully.

    “No, well, first thing tomorrow. –Stay: mayhap she has gone to Bobby!”

    “No, sir; I did think that. But Mr Amory has gone to Scotland.”

    “That fellow that runs his damned lodgings—”

    “No, Sir Noël: I went myself. She is not there.”

    “Um... Lady Bene— Lady Stamforth?”

    “I did call there,” said Kettle cautiously, “but the butler informed me that her Ladyship and his Lordship were out at an evening party.”

    “At this time of year?”

    “Lady Georgina Claveringham is still in town, sir.”

    Noël passed his hand over his curls, sighing. “I see. Well, first thing tomorrow, then.”

    He was not as early the next morning as he had anticipated, because he had fallen asleep from sheer weariness as a dim dawn light filtered into his room. But as soon as Kettle had shaved him, he hastened round to see Lady Stamforth. Because the more he thought of it, the more he was sure the damned woman must be sheltering Cherry again! It was obvious!

    Later that same morning Lewis was very startled to have a panting butler burst into the front hall of Stamforth House.

    “Troope? What the Devil’s wrong?” he said, going rather white. For Troope in person to come after him, it must be something serious: had an accident befallen Nan?

    “My Lord, Mr Dom has arrived—”

    “Is he all right? Are they all well at the castle?” said Lewis sharply.

    “Oh, yes, indeed, my Lord! But her Ladyship had gone out, and we thought nothing of it, though we knew Mr Dom was expected, but Mr Dom discovered she had left a note—”

    He was brandishing a piece of paper, Lewis now saw. He held out his hand for it.

    “My Lord, according to Mr Dom, her Ladyship’s run off with Sir Noël Amory!”

    “Rubbish. Is that for me?”

    “I beg your pardon, my Lord. Er—it was not sealed, my Lord.”

    “Mm.” Lewis looked at the note thoughtfully.

    “My Lord, I did try to persuade Mr Dom that whatever appearances might be, it—it would be most unlike her Ladyship to do any such thing! But he would not be convinced, and rushed off in pursuit of them—and—and so I thought I had best come myself to apprise your Lordship of it!”

    “Mm. Thank you, Troope.”

    The note was not very long. But the scrawl certainly filled the sheet.

Stamforth:

    I will never concede that your conduct the other afternoon was anything but intolerable, the fact that the woman is your aunt does not excuse Either of You. Clearly you are indifferent to the fact that I am your Wife!! Or perhaps you are not aware that a Gentleman should put his wife before his Mere Aunt?

    As to That Lady, if you dare to lay a finger on her, I will not render myself responsible for my actions! You have heard my opinion on this before, I believe?

    I have gone with Sir Noël. Pray do not put yourself to the trouble of following us.

    Lady G. is perfectly correct, and you are Incorrigible and a Hard-Hearted Flirt. To think I never saw it till last night! And DO NOT DARE to reproach me with locking my bedroom door as LONG AS YOU LIVE!

    I may send for my dresses. Sita will know.

    And do not think that the fact that I am writing this means that I have forgiven you for last night or ANYTHING! For I shall never do so.

Nan.

P.S. Dom is due this morning, but I cannot wait. Look after him and LEAVE THAT LIME PICKLE, it is for him.

    “I think she means the very yellow pickle in the covered glass dish on the dining-room sideboard. It is gaspingly strong and salty: I do hope you assured Mr Dom it is all his?”

    “My Lord, this—this is not a joke!” gasped the old butler.

    Lewis took his elbow very gently. “No. I beg your pardon, Troope. You did quite right to come to me. If Mr Dom has rushed off, er, at a tangent, he must of course be stopped before he does something silly. Come into the dining-room: I think you had best sit down for a little. I can assure you that there is nothing in this note that you or I need worry over.”

    Looking bewildered but relieved, Troope allowed his new master to take him into the dining-room, sit him down and pour him a glass of brandy.

    “This,” said Lewis unemotionally, unveiling one of the shrouded objects that were piled all around the room, is ‘That Lady’ to whom her Ladyship’s note refers.”

    “The—the Lely, Lord Stamforth?” he faltered.

    “Mm. Lady Hubbel called t’other day to inspect our refurbishings, while Lady Miranda, here, was leaning against a wall in the front hall, and—er—passed a remark, let us say. Whereupon I suggested that Lady Stamforth might like to reconsider her decision to have this particular portrait in the pink salon. Somehow she got the impression that I was—er—reneging on an earlier promise.”

    “I see, my Lord.”

    “Most of the rest is self-evident, I think,” murmured Lewis, half to himself.

    “Y— But my Lord, why has her Ladyship gone with Sir Noël?”

    “Did you not tell me this morning that his man called last evening in quest of young Lady Amory?”

    “Er—yes, my Lord that is true... Oh, dear!” said the butler.

    “Mm. I think that Lady Stamforth has gone off to help Amory find his wife.”

    “Of course, my Lord. Now that I come to think— Of course, that is the obvious conclusion.”

    “We had best get back to Green Street and question Amory’s household,” said Lewis cheerfully. “But if Lady Amory has disappeared, I should think it more than likely that she has gone to her relatives in Bath.”

    “Very natural, my Lord.”

    Lewis twinkled at him. “Yes: given that they have apparently had a series of quarrels over such significant points as the name of their first girl child, Sir Noël’s official adoption of Pug Chalfont as an Amory, and—er—what was the other? Oh, yes: Sir Noël’s mother’s wish to accompany them to town.”

    Troope smiled weakly. “So one gathers, my Lord.”

    “Young marriages, eh?” said Lewis meanly.

    “Yes, my Lord,” he said feebly.

    Lewis laughed. “That was highly unfair, and I do beg your pardon!”

    “Not at all, my Lord.” Troope cleared his throat. “My Lord, Mr Dom was in a passion, if I may say so.”

    “He must have been, if he did not come straight to me.”

    The old butler reddened. “He did say something about hoping to keep it from your Lordship.”

    “Mm. Well, if you are quite recovered, we’ll get back to Green Street.”

    The quailing Kettle looked Viscount Stamforth bravely in the eye. “Her Ladyship was here, yes, my Lord. For a few moments, only.”

    “And did your master disclose where they were headed?”

    “Bath, my Lord,” he said faintly.

    “Ah.”

    “By—by way of Devizes,” added Kettle in a weak voice.

    “I beg your pardon?”

    “My Lord, I don’t know why! But Lady Stamforth said they must first make a stop at Devizes!”

    Lewis replied coolly: “I would have taken an oath that Lady Stamforth had never heard of Devizes. –Stay: has your mistress relatives there?”

    “Not that I am aware of, my Lord.”

    “And that is all you know?”

    “Yes, indeed, my Lord! But if I may say so, my Lord, I am very sure Lady Stamforth had—had nothing but Lady Amory’s welfare in mind,” he faltered.’

    Lewis smiled at him suddenly. “Thank you—Kettle, isn’t it? Thank you, Kettle,” he said as the little man nodded humbly. “I am sure you are right: she is very fond of young Lady Amory.”

    Kettle agreed gratefully, and Lewis hurried off, not allowing a wry expression to appear on his face until he had left the house. He was not at all sure that Nan had departed with only Cherry’s welfare in mind. Not in view of certain passages in that letter. But he did not think for an instant that Dom’s supposition was correct. A lady with flight from her incorrigible and hard-hearted flirt of a husband on her mind would hardly pause to think of lime pickles. Or of pink-patched Lelys for the said husband’s downstairs salon! No, she had gone with Sir Noël for two reasons, one of which was, certainly, to smooth over things between him and Cherry.

    But the other? “Pray do not put yourself to the trouble of following us?” Lewis had never seen a clearer invitation to a man to pursue! Very plainly she had gone with Amory to provoke him into coming after her. Whether the episode of the locked bedroom door and that subsequent conduct of his for which he was not to be forgiven was a direct cause, he was not sure, but it seemed likely. Even though at the time, she had given very definite indications of having forgiven it! Lewis smothered a laugh, and hurried off to see that Sita packed a bag for Nan.

    ...Devizes? Why the Devil? Well, no doubt all would be revealed in due time.

    Mrs Urqhart had, of course, been in the right of it in realising that Nan would have been quite the wrong woman for Noël. Her shrewd estimate of their respective characters was most certainly vindicated by the occurrences of that morning. Noël had called merely to find out if Cherry was being sheltered by Lady Stamforth. He was quite determined not to stand any nonsense from her. Half an hour after his foot had crossed the threshold of the hired house in Green Street, the pair of them were headed for Bath.

    Nan had without difficulty got out of him the fact that he and Cherry had had a disagreement. Sir Noël had not volunteered any specifics but he had not needed to, for she had immediately said: “The first girl’s name again? Or not allowing your poor mamma to come up to town for our wedding? Not a repetition of your earlier eensistence on re-naming Pug Chalfont, I trust?”

    “That was a joke!” cried Noël.

    “On the contrary. I gathered from Cherry’s account of eet that you phrased eet as a joke een order to put yourself een the position of being able to claim eet was only a joke, and thus to put yourself een the right: but at the time you said eet, eet was not eentended to make Cherry laugh, was eet?”

    “It—” He met her eye. “No, very well. You are very acute, ma’am,” he said with dislike.

    “Yes. Also I have been married several times: I understand these theengs.”

    “Lady Stamforth, you constrain me to inform you that the very day you and your groom returned from your honeymoon, I encountered Stamforth at Fioravanti’s fencing salon, flogging the stuffing out of poor young Harry Dinsdale!”

    “That was the day after, I theenk,” returned Nan with the utmost  composure. “The day I told heem he was paltry.”

    It was while Noël was still trying to get his breath back—at least, looking back, he was almost sure it was then—that she decided she would accompany him to find Cherry. And to help smooth things over. He attempted to argue, needless to state; but perhaps also needless to state—Mrs Urqhart, for one, would have maintained it was a foregone conclusion—his words had no effect on her. He gave in, largely because to argue longer would have wasted precious time. But also because, though he did not quite admit this to himself, he felt a certain thankfulness that he would not have to confront Cherry alone. For taking Miss Brentwood Jones to a safe haven was one thing: but actually to run off from him was quite another.

    “You realise we cannot possibly get all the way to Bath in one day?” he said grimly as Nan put her bonnet on before the mirror in the downstairs salon.

    “Yes, of course. Een any case, we had best stop off at Devizes.”

    “You have acquaintance there to whom you wish to advertise this fugue, do you?” he said grimly.

    “No. But Mr Everett has a sister there, weeth whom he often stays een the summer. I theenk Cherry may look for heem there, een order to speak to heem on Miss Brentwood-Jones’s behalf.”

    “Lady Stamforth, Everett is a married man, and Miss Brentwood-Jones has apprised Cherry of that fact.”

    “So you said, yes. I theenk she may ask for hees financial aid for the girl.”

    Noël sighed. Mrs Blaney had revealed that Cherry had already handed over a substantial sum—most of her pin-money for the quarter, indeed—for the upkeep of Miss Desdemona Brentwood-Jones and the infant to come. “You’re probably right. I suppose it is not really out of our way. But do you have Everett’s sister’s exact direction?”

    “No, but I do not theenk eet weell be hard to find her. She ees married to an ironmonger called Steele.”

    He had to swallow, but retorted with some spirit: “I see. We scour Devizes—it is a sizable town, Lady Stamforth—for an ironmonger called Steele.”

    “Weeth an E,” she said tranquilly.

    Noël did not reply: he did not trust himself not to shout at the woman.

    “Shall I order up my carriage?” she offered.

    “No!” he said angrily. There was a pause. “We shall take mine. You may ride in it, I shall ride alongside.”

    “That ees vairy proper. I shall just pen a note to Lewis.”

    He sighed. “Well, hurry up.”

    She duly penned the note, and exited from her house with nothing but the bonnet on her head, a shawl over her arm, and one small bandbox in her hand. Noël did not remark on this: he did not wish to be held up by the damned woman’s packing. He did make one more attempt to shake her off when they were at his house waiting for the carriage to be brought round, but without success.

    “Where ees Pug Chalfont?” she said as the carriage was announced.

    “What? I don’t know!” he said impatiently.

    She just looked at him expectantly.

    “Uh—Cherry must have him with her,” said Noël sheepishly.

    “That ees good. Pugs are fine protectors.”

    Noël’s lips tightened grimly. He handed her into the carriage, warned her he would be giving orders to spring ’em, and closed the door on her.

    Dom had no notion why Sir Noël and Nan were headed for Devizes, but he knew they were, for he had got the information out of Amory’s valet, happening upon him just as the man emerged from the house to stand peering up and down the street.

    “Where ees Amory gone weeth my sister?” he had snarled.

    To which poor little Kettle had faltered: “Duh-directly, to Devizes, Mr Baldaya, but—”

    Dom had rushed off without stopping to listen to the “but”.

    He did not catch up with the fugitive pair until very late that evening. And at that, he nearly missed them. He was about to pass a sufficiently obscure country inn, having mentally dismissed it as not the sort of place where a dashed Pink like Amory would be likely to put up, when it suddenly dawned that since the man was running off with his, Dom’s, sister, he might well choose this sort of place at which to stop for the night. He swore at his hired horse in Portuguese, and pulled the creature up savagely. –Dom had had very bad luck with his horses along the way, otherwise, or so at least he himself was sure, he would have caught up with them long since.

    Mr Youndleby of The Running Horn was, as a consequence, very startled indeed to have a foreign-looking young gent burst into his taproom at an advanced hour, panting: “Who have you got een your private parlours?”

    “Beg pardon, sir?”

    “Who ees een your private PARLOURS?” shouted Dom.

    “We don’t ’ave but the one, sir. And a gentleman’s took it.”

    “Aye, I’ll wager he— Ees that rum?” he demanded, fixing one, Ned Foster, with a glittering eye.

    Mr Youndleby was fast coming to the opinion that the young gent was not foxed, as he had, very naturally in view of his chosen profession, at first assumed, but rather, a bit cracked. “Yes, sir, that’s rum, true enough,” he said soothingly.

    “Ar. Not a bad drop,” put in Mr Foster.

    “Good, I’ll have a tot. Where ees thees private parlour?”

    Mr Youndleby poured rum hurriedly. “’Ere you are, sir, you get this down you. Now, the private parlour’s took, like I say, but you’ll be snug enough in ’ere, won’t ‘e, Ned?”

    “Ar, snug enough,” conceded Mr Foster. “Not a bad drop at all, young sir,” he added to Dom in a rather more pointed tone, since the stranger had not taken his first, and more subtle, hint.

    “And nobody won’t bother you, neither,” added Mr Youndleby, directing a stern look at Mr Foster. Whose scot was getting rather long. Perhaps because rum was not especially cheap and because Mr Foster earned but seven shillings a week for his dawn-to-dusk labours in Mr Beamish’s fields.

    Mr Beamish himself was seated by the fire: which was burning, it was not the custom of The Running Horn to spend an evening with a cold grate merely because the calendar said it was June. Though they had been known to let it go out in a very warm August. Not to open the windows, though. “Ar,” he agreed. “Known for its good rum and for its respect of a man’s right to a bit of peace and quiet, is The Running Horn.”

    “I am not looking for peace and quiet,” said Dom, making the tactical error of actual converse with the company: “I am looking for a gentleman and a lady who are vairy probably een your private parlour as we speak.”

    “’E did ’ave a lady with ‘im!” piped a little, cracked voice from the large armchair opposite Mr Beamish’s.

    “Granfer ’Awkins. Ignore ’im, sir,” advised the landlord, tapping the side of his head. “Now, what do you say to a nice slice of pie? And a pint o’ porter to wash it down?”

    “Ar, and then maybe another tot of rum would just go down nicely,” agreed Mr Foster, with immense cunning.

    “I do not weesh— Well, I am damned hungry, but first I weell speak with thees gentleman who has a lady een your private parlour,” said Dom grimly, setting his empty rum glass down on the bar with a snap. –Mr Foster looked at it sadly.

    “You don’t want to do that, sir,” said Mr Youndleby soothingly. “Now, a nice slice of pie—”

    “She ees my SISTER, and she has RUN OFF weeth heem!” shouted Dom. “I demand that you let me see heem!”

    “Lumme!” piped Granfer Hawkins.

    “’Ere, now, we don’t want no trouble,” said Mr Beamish, rising.

    “A man’s got a right, if it’s ’is sister,” opined Mr Foster, shaking his head. And looking sorrowfully at Dom’s glass again.

    “Exact,” said Dom grimly. “So you weell either show me the way, or I weell find eet for myself,” he said to the landlord.

    “Through that-’ere door, sir!” piped Granfer Hawkins.

    “There? Good,” said Dom. “Thank you, old sir, and please have one on me.” He tossed him a coin and before Mr Youndleby, who was of a stout and breathy persuasion, could get himself out from behind his counter, had flung open the indicated door, and gone through it.

    “Hee, hee!” noted Granfer Hawkins.

    “This means trouble, Mr Youndleby,” pronounced Mr Beamish judiciously.

    “Ar, it do that, Mr Beamish, sir,” said the innkeeper sourly.

    “Ten to one ’e’s got a pistol in ’is pocket,” opined Mr Foster, eying the abandoned rum glass mournfully.

    The rest of the company, numbering about half a dozen souls, simply rushed in Dom’s wake.

    Nan had been regretting the decision to accompany Sir Noël for some time. For one thing, he had barely spoken to her on the journey. And for another, Lewis had not, as she had fully expected, caught up with them. It was a busy route, and Sir Noël had not been able to get any definite indication that Cherry’s coach had passed this way, so his temper had worsened as the day drew on towards twilight. He had had enough of the saddle, and had spent the last stage sitting morosely in the coach. And had been considerably startled when, on passing a humble inn, she had leant forward, jerked the carriage-string hard, and ordered them to stop. However, it was already very dark, they had passed one accident on the road—not Cherry’s coach, a cart entangled with a curricle—and he had not argued with her. Though he had warned her sourly that he intended to be up before dawn. And that he would not wait for her.

    “I wonder eef they have many bedchambers?” she said, peering up at the old inn. “We may have to claim to be husband and wife.”

    “You are my sister,” said the baronet in blighting tones.

    “Oh, een that case eet cannot seegnify, eef we have to share a room,” she replied happily.

    Sir Noël took a very deep breath, and did not reply.

    In the stuffy little private parlour she took charge of ordering the dinner. Noël did not object: he had a fair idea that whatever was produced, it would be inedible. Though he did say blightingly as Lady Stamforth and the stertorously breathing landlord between them decided that a nice cheese would go down well: “I do not care for cheese.”

    His “sister” replied cheerfully: “Eet ees vairy nourishing, Noël. And eef you are hungry enough, you weell eat it.”

    If she had truly been his sister he would probably have strangled her years back; and as it was he felt near to it.

    Dinner was consumed in silence. Though Lady Stamforth did say brightly as Sir Noël downed his second pint of ale and absent-mindedly ate a slice of cheese: “There! You feel much better now, do you not?”

    He was advising her coldly to get herself up to bed, in view of the early start tomorrow, when the door burst open  and her brother appeared on the threshold, very flushed.

    “Dom! What are you doing here?” she cried.

    “What are YOU?” he shouted. “And what ees HE?  No, don’t tell me!” he shouted as Sir Noël rose and opened his mouth. “For I shall KEELL heem, een any case!”

    With that he made a mad rush at the presumed abductor.

    Instead of side-stepping, or shouting at him not to be a fool, or, indeed, anything sensible, Noël simply put his fists up and fell to.

    “Thees ees STUPEED!” shouted Nan as the fight raged up and down and over the little parlour, chairs were knocked flying, and the crowd in the doorway ooh-ed and aah-ed. And in one case loudly offered sixpence on the tall gent. “Stop eet, Dom!”

    Sir Noël was both taller and bigger than Dom, he was in the custom of boxing at Jackson’s, and he was reasonably fit. And, though Dom was furious, the baronet was in a very bad mood indeed. So it was not so very long before Dom was on the floor with blood oozing from a cut lip and Sir Noël was standing over him, fists still clenched, breathing hard.

    “I—ain’t done—yet!” he panted.

    “Pooh, of course you are done, even I can see that he ees a better fighter than you!” cried his sister, bustling forward.

    “Be—silent!” he panted.

    “Dom, thees ees utterly stupeed! I am not eloping weeth Sir Noël!”

    “No, acos you ees both—married!” he panted.

    “Ar; see? Said she weren’t ’is sister!” said a voice from the doorway.

    “‘Course she is, Jim ’Awkins, are you deaf? Both furrin, ain’t they?” countered another voice.

    “They both talks funny, aye,” conceded a third voice.

    “Not ’im and ’er, ’er and ’im!” retorted the first voice loudly.

    “Dom, we are een search of Cherry, you seelly!” shouted Nan angrily.

    “Rats!” panted Dom.

    “That is true,” said Noël, still breathing hard. “Though if you’d get up, I’d be happy to give you another dose.”

    “She has run off. We theenk she ees headed for Devizes, and then Bath. They had a series of stupeed fights,” said Nan.

    Dom panted, and glared at Sir Noël. “That true?”

    “Yes. You should ask Jackson to set you to one of his young fellows regularly, Baldaya. No science.” Noël walked over to the table and picked up the jug that had held the ale. “Get out, the show’s over,” he said to the group at the door.

    “It weren’t ’alf bad, while it lasted,” noted a voice wistfully.

    “Get OUT!” he shouted.

    The landlord thrust his way to the front of the group, breathing stertorously. “Now, now, sir, no call to take that tone. Now, you may say it ain’t my business—”

    “I do. Get me another jug of ale, and another tankard, and get—this lot—out,” said Sir Noël evilly.

    Gloomily Mr Youndleby took the ale jug and chased his clients and neighbours out. Certain sour remarks as to “gentry” and “niffy-naffy” and noses being so high in the air that own feet might be tripped over were heard from the grimy little passage, and then the door closed.

    “Idiot,” said Sir Noël blightingly to the crestfallen Dom.

    Nan knelt by his side. “Dom, you’re bleeding, let me—”

    “No!” he said angrily, pushing her away. “By God, you need a beating!”

    “Yes: why do you not administer one, Baldaya?” agreed Sir Noël cordially.

    Dom struggled slowly to his feet, wiping the cut lip cautiously with the back of his hand. “Ow! Why did you let her come?” he retorted crossly.

    “Because stopping her was beyond my poor powers,” he said acidly.

    Nan stuck out her rounded chin. “I have come to make sure that he does not bully poor Cherry unmercifully.”

    “Rats,” discovered Dom, goggling at her. “I don’t know the eens and outs of eet. and I don’t want to—but you’ve come to annoy poor old Lewis, haven’t you?”

    “Pooh!” she said with a shrug.

    “She wrote heem this damned letter,” Dom explained, “and I can’t remember all what was een eet, but there was definitely sometheeng along the lines of not forgiving heem and locking her door on the poor fellow, so eet’s clear they’ve had a row.”

    “They have had a series of rows, apparently,” said Noël on a grim note. “He was at Fioravanti’s the day they got back from the honeymoon, working it off on Harry Dinsdale. Apparently she’d called him paltry.”

    “The day after!” snapped Nan.

    “There you are,” he said to Dom.

    “Ave, well, she’s like that. Plays weeth ’em like a damned cat playing weeth a mouse. Wants to stir ’em up all she can while there’s steell life een them, y’see.”

    “Mm. A pity you did not realise this a little earlier, Baldaya.”

    “Aye, well, eet were a good bout,” said Dom, smiling ruefully. “Ouch! –Don’t s’pose you’d care to refer me at Jackson’s, would you, Sir Noël?”

    “You are both EEMPOSSIBLE!” shouted Nan.

    “Doesn’t like eet when no-one takes notice of her. Eegnore her,” Dom advised the baronet.

    “I shall. I shall be happy to recommend you to Jackson.”

    Dom thanked him fervently as the landlord brought in more ale and Sir Noël, bowing politely, assured him it was his pleasure.

    “I shall go to bed,” said Nan with dignity.

    “Yes, well, you’ll be lucky eef you sleep through the night weethout your husband arriving and beating the daylights out of you,” replied Dom indifferently. He explained to Sir Noël: “Told them not to let on, but ten to one they have, half of them ees hees old family retainers and t’other half ees hers.”

    Nan made a growly noise through her teeth and rushed out.

    Noël looked at Dom awkwardly. “I really could not stop her.”

    “Oh, Lord, no need to tell me! I’ve known her all her life! No-one’s ever been able to stop her, once she’s got the bit between her teeth!”

    “Mm.” Noël sat down with his ale. “Some of us were wondering whether Stamforth might.”

    “Yes,” said Dom glumly. “But some of us were hoping that we wouldn’t be favoured with the answer just yet awhile.”

    “Er—oh! I see what you mean!”

    “Aye,” he said sourly. “Aye.”

    Even though they had good teams the following day and Sir Noël ordered ’em to spring ’em, Devizes was not yet in sight when he and Dom decided they had best rack up for the night.

    “Er—look, Amory: eef you weesh to go on ahead and look for thees ironmonger’s—” said Dom awkwardly.

    “No, I do not think I would achieve anything, stumbling round an unknown town at past midnight.” he said wearily.

    “No. Uh, well, thees inn looks respectable. Nan can have her dinner upstairs,”

    Noël eyed him drily. “Mm.” Mr Baldaya had failed, very audibly, to persuade his sister to accompany him back to town. Once in the early morning and once when they paused for refreshment at midday.

    On the morrow, therefore, their coach rattled into Devizes very early, while the sky still had a pearly haze.

    Mr Steele’s direction was discovered without much difficulty. Portions of Mr Steele’s street were being washed by, respectively, a burly man in shirtsleeves and a striped apron, a thin boy in shirtsleeves and a leather apron, and a fat woman en cheveux as they arrived.

    “Fishmonger’s wife,” ascertained Dom, peering. “Um... leather apron?”

    Mr Baldaya’s company, though at first he had been glad of male support, had begun to pall on Sir Noël, sad to state. “It is irrelevant.” he noted shortly.

    “Theenk striped-apron, there, ees a butcher. He has that cheerful look to heem, don’t he?”

    Sir Noël ignored this.

    “That ees eet: ‘Steele, Ironmonger’,” pointed out Nan.

    “Yes!” he said irritably.

    In the respectable little parlour behind the shop, young Lady Amory was discovered sitting at a round table. Holding hands with Mr Everett.

    Sir Noël drew a hissing breath.

    “Before you say anything,” cried Cherry, very flushed, “it is a most tragic story, and poor Mr Everett is scarcely to blame!”

    “Not half,” replied Dom simply, appearing at Sir Noël’s shoulder.

    “Oh—good morning, Mr Baldaya,” said Cherry, very disconcerted.

    “’Morning, Lady Amory,” said Dom cheerfully. “Glad to see you ees een the peenk.”

    “Yes, of course I am. And please, do not call me by that silly title; I should be very pleased to have you call me Cherry. For we have been through some adventures together, have we not?” she said. smiling.

    Beaming, Dom began: “Vairy gratified, Ch—”

    “Will you release my WIFE?” shouted Sir Noël at Mr Everett, who had not got up.

    “Well,” said that gentleman in his usual lugubrious tones, “it ain’t my preference, but I will if you say so. But don’t ask me to get up.”

    “He cannot walk, for that dreadful boy shot him in the foot,” explained Cherry.

    “Good for him, whoever he is!” replied her husband instantly.

    The passage to Mr Steele’s back parlour was very narrow, and the two gentlemen had not stood back to allow Lady Stamforth to precede them. She now pushed past them, crying: “Oh, poor Mr Everett!”

    “This is the fellow who is responsible for fathering an unwanted infant on a sixteen-year-old girl, may I remind you?” said Sir Noël, very loud.

    “But he is NOT!” cried Cherry. “I wrote you all about it!”

    “You did not write me anything, ma’am!” retorted her husband loudly.

    Nan, meanwhile, had fallen to her knees by Mr Everett’s chair and was unwrapping the bandages on his foot.

    Emmanuel Everett, looking highly gratified, murmured: “Only a flesh wound. But it is immensely painful.”

    “Of course eet ees, poor Mr Everett!” she cooed. “She left the note weeth me, Sir Noël,” she said over her shoulder. “Een my opinion your late behaviour towards her deed not justify your receiving eet. I know you have suffered on thees journey and een my opinion you—”

    “WHAT?” he shouted furiously.

    “WHAT?” bellowed Dom.

    “—fully deserved to!” finished Nan loudly.

    “Oh, dear,” said Cherry lamely.

    Emmanuel Everett, sad to relate, at this broke down in horrible sniggers.

    Explanations took some time. But by the time the travellers had retired to the best inn Devizes had, where it was still more than early enough for breakfast to be served, it was more or less sorted out. The father of Miss Desdemona (or Daisy) Brentwood-Jones’s infant was one, Grandison Nuttall. Mr Nuttall was the yellow-haired, pink-cheeked boy who had played the hermaphroditic Ariel in Mr Brentwood’s Tempest. On Sir Noël’s noting dazedly that he had looked about fifteen (and Dom’s interpolating a muttered “old enough”), Mr Everett explained that the damned boy was, in fact, sixteen, and the reason he had not been able to offer Miss Brentwood-Jones honourable marriage was that he was married already. There had been an earlier episode when he was but fifteen.

    “I don’t believe a blind word of eet,” concluded Dom when, the ladies having gone upstairs to freshen up, the two gentlemen were momentarily alone. “Well, half. Maybe.”

    “Yes,” Noël agreed. “I’m in no doubt that Everett was up her, too.”

    “Exact, or why else should the lad have gone for heem weeth a pistol?”

    “Quite.”

    Dom thought it over. “Ask me, either of ’em could be the brat’s father.”

    “Oh, quite, old man. But you will never get the ladies to concede that,” he drawled.

    Dom winced. “No. –What a fellow, eh?” he added in disgust.

    Sir Noël, quite understanding that he meant Mr Everett, agreed feelingly. He then produced his cigar case. “Do you, dear boy? I have ’em shipped from Portugal,” he said with a tiny smile.

    “Oh, by Jove! Thanks awfully, Sir Noël!”

    The two gentlemen lit up and smoked in peaceful silence.

    When Nan came down, quite some time later, the air of The Elephant and Castle’s best parlour was blue with smoke, and the words “Senhora Alvorninha” might have been discerned through the smoke.

    “Deesgusting!” she said, bustling to open a window.

    “Here! I say, Nan! Draughts!” spluttered Dom.

    Ignoring him, his sister said: “Cherry would be glad eef you would go up to her, Sir Noël. And please believe that not handing you her note was all my idea.”

    Noël rose, pitching his cigar butt into the fireplace. “I have no difficulty whatsoever in believing that, Lady Stamforth.”

    “No, nor ANYONE!” agreed Dom angrily.

    “But,” said Noel coldly, though he rather wanted to laugh, “I own I should like to know why the note was left with you and not at my own house, with one of my own servants.”

    Nan eyed him drily. “Eef I were een your shoes, and really wanted to make your marriage work, I would not ask her that. Now or ever.”

    The lean cheeks flushed; his long mouth tightened a little. But he said evenly: “You are quite right, Lady Stamforth, of course. Thank you for your good offices.” And went out.

    “Deliriously handsome, ees he not?” noted Mr Baldaya’s sister airily ere the door had scarce closed behind him. “Out of course she ees mad about heem. And I theenk perhaps she ees ready truly to admeet eet to herself, at long last.”

    Dom lapsed into Portuguese, and began shouting at her.

    Noël entered the bedchamber cautiously. Cherry was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, looking depressed. Pug was lying in the middle of the bed, snoring loudly. Possibly he had had a trying few days, too.

    “I’m afraid it must have been terrible for you,” she said dolefully.

    “It was not pleasant, no. I imagined—” He broke off, biting his lip. “All sorts of things, Cherry.” he said in a low voice.

    “Yes.” Cherry swallowed. “However, I was quite safe, and Mr Shipton took magnificent care of me.”

    Shipton was the driver of her hire coach. Noel had a feeling he had a dependant for life, there: she seemed to have adopted the fellow. “Mm.”

    “I suppose we could not do with an extra coachman?” she said wistfully. “Or he could be a groom: he knows all about horses.”

    Mr Shipton had a head of matted grey, greasy straw, he affected black gloves with the fingertips out of ’em, thus affording the interested a good view of the matching black nails, and the mere thought of him anywhere near the immaculate Amory stables—!

    “Or—or perhaps, though he is a townsman, he would like to come home with us to Thevenard Manor?” said Cherry in a tiny voice.

    —Especially those at Thevenard Manor: his head groom, who had been his father’s head groom, would have a conniption.

    “Yes, of course, my dear. We owe him a lot,” he said, smiling nicely. “Ask him what he would like.”

    Cherry smiled gratefully.

    “Cherry,” said Noël, his eyes filling suddenly, “why did you go down to Margate without me?”

    “Margate? Oh! Um, well, you were still asleep, and I—I thought you were cross with me because you were so late the night before, and, um, actually. I didn’t know where it was. Cook had described it, but—um—it sounded a lot nearer than that,” said Cherry lamely. “I was sure I would be back by early afternoon.”

    “Oh,” said Noël limply. “I—I wasn’t cross, but I was very late, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

    “You would not have disturbed me,” said Cherry, her lips trembling. “You never disturb me.”

    “No. Um—were you waiting up for me?”

    “I can never sleep if I know you are out of the house,” she said simply.

    Noel came and knelt down beside her. “In—in future,” he said in a shaking voice. “I’ll always come in to you.” He took her hands in his and suddenly buried his face in her lap.

    “I think I’ve been very cruel and horrid to you,” said Cherry in a high, strained voice.

    Noël made a muffled noise into her lap.

    “But I don’t know why!” she wailed, breaking down in sobs.

    Noël  looked up. His own face was wet with tears. “Married life, or some such. It takes getting used to,” he admitted, sniffing.

    “Yes,” she said faintly. “Oh, dear.”

    “Shall we both try to do much, much better?” he said shakily.

     “Mm,” Cherry agreed. “Um—you do go out a lot.”

    “When we’re in town?” She nodded, and he said: “Um, well, I suppose I could try. not to, so much.”

    “It is quite boring,” said Cherry timidly.

    “Being alone in the house? Yes,” he said, biting his lip. “I see. Perhaps—” He broke off: he had nearly said perhaps she could spend more time with Lady Stamforth. “Perhaps,” he said, clearing his throat, “I’ve been wrong in not letting Viola accompany us to town. But I—I wanted it to be just us, for a while.”

    “Mm. But when we’re in the country, and you’re busy on the estates, we spend a lot of time together.”

    “Yes,” said Noël with a sigh. “Very well, my darling, Viola may come up to town with us. Only for God’s sake, try to stop her spending a fortune on furs and so forth, won’t you?

    “Does she?” said Cherry in innocent surprise.

    Noël groaned. “She’s been known to, yes. Used to drive poor Papa— Well, never mind. She loved him, in her way.”

    “Yes, she loved him very much.”

    “Aye. And if it’s humanly possible,” he said with a flicker of his glinting smile, “don’t let her nag me about grandchildren!”

    “No. But perhaps she won’t have to,” said Cherry on a hopeful  note. “Perhaps we could try harder?” She peeped at him.

    Noël at this gave a laugh that cracked, got up, and rolled young Lady Amory onto her bed. Neither of them even noticed Pug Chalfont giving an indignant yelp and jumping off the bed.

    “He can be Pug Amory, the brute,” said Cherry, much later, as Pug, having decided he wanted out and that if he did not make a fuss no-one would notice this fact, snuffled and whined horribly, scratching at the door of The Elephant and Castle’s best bedroom.

    Noël tweaked a nipple idly. “Mm. It will be practice for fatherhood.’

    “I thought this was?” she said in confusion.

    He gave a yelp of laughter. “You’re becoming quite daring, Cherry Amory: it must be marriage!” He got out of bed, walked over to the door, opened it, said: “Get out!” and booted Pug out with his bare foot.

    From the corridor there came an indignant yelp that was definitely Pug, and a scream that was definitely not Pug.

    He closed the door. grinning. “Snaggle-toothed hag in a giant black bonnet.”

    “She may count herself fortunate,” said Lady Amory sedately.

    Sir Noël got back into bed with a horribly pleased smirk upon his face.

    “Nothin’ in it,” concluded Jack Laidlaw, as a sheepish-looking Charlotte reported that Cherry had come alone only from Devizes, and that was merely because Sir Noël had had business to settle in the town and yes, that was him, on the brown horse, just before the dinner hour.

    Charlotte then reminded him of the red eyes at the Stamforth wedding, but without conviction.

    “So what? Any marriage has its ups and downs. And talking of dinner—”

    Mr Laidlaw was informed he was all stomach.

    Since this was an accusation more usually levelled at such persons as Paul or Horrible, Mr Laidlaw, regrettable to state, collapsed in splutters. And Mrs Laidlaw, alas, had perforce to exit looking very dignified.

    Mr Baldaya was still shouting at his sister in Portuguese in The Elephant and Castle’s best private parlour when the door opened and a cool, deep voice said: “Thank you. You need not announce me.”

    He broke off and said thankfully: “Lewis! Thank God! She ain’t run off, but what she has done ees damned bad enough: she kept back thees letter what Cherry wrote Amory, and the poor fellow has been een an agony all the way to thees damned pl—”

    “Yes. Thank you, dear boy. I will deal with it.”

    “‘Deal!’” cried Nan scornfully.

    Both gentlemen ignored her.

    “Have you breakfasted?” enquired Lewis.

    “Oh, aye. Ask ’em for the cold sirloin, Lewis, they do eet weeth— Oh,” he said. “I see. Look, I’ll, uh, stretch me legs. Might take another look-een at Everett’s brother-een-law’s street, I should like to know what that fellow een the leather apron—” He perceived that Lewis was holding the door for him. “Oh. Right you are. Caught up with ’em before she had to spend a night weeth heem, y’know,” he said awkwardly.

    “Good,” replied his brother-in-law unemotionally.

    Dom went out, pausing only to add: “What I was goin’ to say, weeth a horseradish cream. Dashed tasty.”

    “Thank you, Dom. I shall ask for it.”

    Dom vanished hastily.

    Lewis sat down and looked at his wife calmly. “What do I do now?”

    “Whuh-what?” she faltered.

    “I am afraid I do not know the correct procedure. Do I rant and rave? Do I put you over my knee? Call Amory out? The last couple of times we met at Fioravanti’s I beat him quite easily, but if the correct procedure is to have his blood on my hands—”

    “Do not be seelly!” said Nan crossly.

    Lewis just waited, with a very mild expression on his face.

    Nan eyed him uncertainly. After a little she perceived that underneath the surface mildness he was looking very strained and grey. She swallowed. Lewis still said nothing, so eventually she ventured in a voice that shook a trifle: “Lewis, deed—deed you ride all the way here?”

    “Mm? Oh. I certainly intended to ride, yes. And I did ride most of the way. But yesterday afternoon my horse went lame, and I was leading him when we were overtaken by the stage. Mr Sampson, Mr Ridley, Mrs Quigg and Mrs Jellerby all urged me most warmly to get in, so I did. Miss Quigg is but nine months of age, so she could not urge me, but her subsequent gracious behaviour indicated that I was most welcome.”

    After a moment Nan said dazedly: “Thees Mrs Quigg gave you her baby to hold?”

    “Yes. No doubt she perceived that I am a harmless old fellow,” he said mildly.

    Nan gulped.

    “Oh, and before I forget,” he said, feeling inside his coat: “Mrs Jellerby was so very kind as to favour me with her infallible receet for a quince—er—I think she called it a quince fudge.” Nan was looking completely blank, so he added: “I think Sita once made some quince chutney which was most acceptable? Er—in French they are des coings, my dear, but I have no notion what the Portuguese word might be. Large yellow-skinned fruit, something like a lumpy apple in appearance. There is half an orchardful of ’em at Stamforth.”

    “Oh—the greetty fruit. Yes. A fudge?”

    “Yes.”

    “Thank you,” said Nan feebly as he handed her the receet.

    “I stayed with the stage, for I did not feel there was any point in trying to hurry on. I had no notion why you had headed for Devizes, you see, and so felt that I could do no more than tour the inns.”

    Nan bit her lip.

    “Why did you come here?” he asked politely.

    “I knew that Cherry had come here to see Mr Everett. Hees sister ees married to an ironmonger een the town.”

    “Ah.”

    Nan burst out, very flushed: “I know eet was wrong of me to keep her note from Sir Noël, but he has been a perfect peeg to her ever since he married her! And eef he suffered, he deserved eet!”

    “Possibly. Though in your shoes I would not have had the hubris to play the rôle of cruel Fate. But then possibly I am more  cowardly than you.”

    “You know vairy well that ees nonsense. And—and I was een the wrong. But eet ees all right now, and they have made eet up. Well, he went upstairs to her about an hour ago and he has not come down, so—”

    “Yes. They, of course, are young,” said Lewis with precision.

    “I—Um, he ees not so vairy— Um, yes. Buh-but I am not vairy old, neither.”

    “‘Either’. No, I suppose I keep forgetting that.”

    “Actually, I am younger than Cherry,” said Nan in a small, squashed voice.

    “Really?”

    “Mm. –I’m vairy sorry, Lewis, I deed eet because I weeshed to provoke you!” she bust out.

    “Yes. I shall not ask why, because I do not truly think you could tell me. But obviously married life is not proving as—er—absorbing for you as I had hoped.”

    “I was not bored!” said Nan, going very red.

    “No? Well, I suppose you cannot tell me this, either, but what had I done? Er—was it the episode of the door?”

    “What? No!” she said scornfully.

    “I thought you might never forgive me for that.”

    “Pooh, what ees a broken lock?”

    “Er—mm. Nothing, of course. Though the place in Green Street is not my house to  wreck. Then, what?”

    Nan was very red. “I theenk eet was mostly what Lady Georgina said at her horreed party.”

    “Eh?” he said numbly.

    “All those LADIES!” she shouted. “And you never SAID!”

    “Uh—but you knew about Violetta Spottisw—”

    “Do not CALL her that!” she shouted.

    “I beg your pardon. Lady Algie, then. You knew of that.”

    “Yes, but not because of anything YOU ever said to me, Lewis Vane!” retorted Nan angrily.

    “I adore the way you pronounce my name.” he said dreamily. “‘Lew-weess’. No, it is not quite that. Er—a gentleman does not boast of his conquests, my love.”

    “Stop LAUGHEENG!” shouted Nan.

    “I beg your pardon. I did not intend to laugh. I’m sorry if you’re jealous, Nan, though I must confess, I’m rather flattered, too. And it was not so many ladies, truly.”

    “Lady Georgina was COUNTING them!” she shouted.

    “Telling them over, certainly. She is too old to notice or care if she gives offence, my angel.”

    “I realise that!” she said impatiently. “That ees not the point!”

    “No. Well, it was not so many. Lady Georgina’s memory goes back to my very green youth.”

    “Mrs Broadbent ees old and fat and ugly,” said Nan grimly.

    “Er—oh! Little Primmy! Yes, she is certainly fat, and not young. But she was the prettiest girl in London when she was Primrose Oakleigh. And I merely worshipped her from afar.”

    “RUBBEESH!” shouted Nan furiously.

    “Er—apart from that one episode in the lake at Chypsley. Lady G. had filled us all full of champagne and we were too young to handle it. –My darling girl, I assure you if I’d known the old hag was going to rake up ancient history, I would not have taken you to dine with her. And, um, that episode,” he said on a cautious note, “was typical of Lady G. in those days. She—uh—” He cleared his throat. “Liked to watch. In especial if it was very young people she was watching.”

    “Vairy young and pretty!” she retorted angrily.

    “Well, yes, I have just admitted that Primmy Oakleigh—”

    “NO! YOU!”

    “Nan, you know I’ve never been a pretty—” Lewis broke off, recollecting just what Lady Georgina had actually said. “Um, well, I don’t see that I can be held accountable for my figure as a lad. And I really did not dream you would be jealous of my past.”

    “Nor deed I,” said Nan in a trembling voice. “I just— And then, when you—you broke the lock that evening, I decided that I would not be cross or jealous... But the next morning, eet all came back to me,” she ended in a squashed voice.

    Lewis sighed, and passed his hand over his forehead. “Evidently.”

    “You had gone off weethout me.”

    “I let you sleep in, you impossible woman!” he said with a groan. “I knew that you were expecting Dom that morning, so I thought you would not care to come round to Stamforth House. But I wished to speak to the plasterers before they embarked on the main drawing-room.” He took a deep breath. “However, I see now that it was a mistake.”

    “You had promeesed that we would do eet all together,” said Nan in a tiny voice.

    “I see,” said Lewis heavily. “Do I dare to ask what you took it into your head to suppose my motives to have been, that morning?”

    Nan bit her lip. “I—I am not sure. I—I theenk I thought you had determined to have your own way and—and so had gone off behind my back.’

    “To eat Dom’s lime pickle and hide the Lely: yes!” said Lewis with a mad look in his eye.

    “The peeckle was not at Stamforth House,” replied Nan in bewilderment.

    “Never mind,” he said heavily.

    Nan eyed him uncertainly. After quite some time she ventured: “Lewis, would you like some breakfast?”

    “No, I thank you. Mrs Jellerby refused to let me leave them at The Bull without getting myself round hot sausages, fried eggs, and porter.”

    “The Bull?” said Nan confusedly.

    “The inn where the stage pulls in, my dear.”

    “Oh.” Nan got up uncertainly. “Um, would you care to go upstairs and rest, then?” she said timidly. “You look vairy tired.”

    “I am tired. Thank you.”

    “I’m so vairy sorry, Lewis, and I weell never do eet again!” she cried with tears in her eyes.

    Lewis stood up very slowly, sighing. “If you could just try not to, Nan. Don’t make any promises which you may not be able to keep.”

    “Yes. I mean, No. I—I was vairy angry about all those ladies.” She turned away from him and rang the bell, not looking at him.

    “I’m sorry. I should have told you my entire past amorous history, I suppose,” he said with a grimace.

    “Yes. I theenk I could have handled eet, eef eet had come from you. Well, I would have been vairy bitter, buh—but I do not theenk,” said Nan, her lips trembling, “that I would have weeshed to—to punish you for eet.”

    Lewis nodded silently, as one of the inn’s servants came in.

    “Lord Stamforth would like to rest, so please would you show heem to my bedchamber?” said Nan.

    “Certainly, my Lady. This way, my Lord.”

    Lewis accompanied the man in silence. He did not ask Nan if she wished to come up, because frankly, he did not think he could cope with her doing so.

   When he woke up the sun was slanting through a gap in The Elephant and Castle’s curtains. His wife was sitting silently by the bed, watching him. “Hullo,” he said mildly.

    “Lewis, I weell never behave like such a peeg again!” she said vehemently.

    “I suppose it adds variety, Nan, but it’s damned tiring.”

    “I know. Do you— How do you feel now?” she asked anxiously.

    “Oh, quite refreshed, thank you.”

    Nan licked her lips nervously. “Sir Noël has sent Cherry on to hees grandmamma een Bath: he has decided that vairy possibly Emmanuel Everett ees the father of Daisy’s child, but he thought eet best not to argue the point weeth Cherry. But een any case Mr Everett ees vairy weelling to take her, eef she weell live weeth heem outside wedlock. Which she might not find shocking, for after all, they are theatricals, And een any case, he theenks he might try hees luck een Edinburgh, where they are not known, and eet weell not be against the law for her simply to call herself Mrs Daisy Ever—”

    “I’m not interested,” said Lewis brutally.

    She broke off, gulping.

    “Nan, I know you wish me to beat you, but I don’t feel it would resolve anything. Though I don’t deny I’d quite enjoy the experience,” he said thoughtfully.

    Nan gulped again.

    “But personally I do not feel our marital relations need that sort of, er, gingering up, quite yet. Shall we wait a few years until it has all palled? Or is it your contention that it has palled already?”

    “No! Of course eet has not palled, you seelly theeng!” she cried with tears in her eyes.

    “Good. And—um—I owe you an apology,” said Lewis, gnawing on his lip.

    “Me?” said Nan blankly.

    “Yes. I should never have allowed damned Aunt Babs and Lady G. to get their heads together over the guest list for the wedding.”

    “Eet deedn’t matter,” said Nan with a sigh. “We had to have them all.”

    “No. We did not have to have a damned Society wedding at all. I—Nan, I let them get away with it, I think, because at the back of my mind I wished to punish you for—for treating me so unkindly after I had proposed,” he said in a very low voice.

    A tear trickled slowly down Nan’s round cheek. “Yes. I see.”

    “I—I know you had your reasons for doing so… I should never have spoken of you to Amory as I did. Whether or not you could overhear me,” he said with a wry shrug.

    Nan sniffled. “You are shrugging,” she noted faintly.

    “I think I do it when I’m miserable,” said Lewis frankly.

    She wiped a tear away with the back of her hand. “Yes.”

    “Shall we try to put it behind us?””

    “Mm,” she said, sniffing. “Lewis, I have to know. Would you ever have proposed eef your Aunt Agatha had not walked een upon us that day?”

    Lewis took a deep breath. He could give her the easy answer, and—for she was too intelligent to take it at its face value—she could pretend to believe it, and they might jog along very comfortably for years on that basis. The fact that it would more or less mean living a lie was neither here nor there: he did not believe that truth was a virtue. Or he could give her part of the truth: in which the sort of thing he’d said to Noël about the difficulties of living with her, would figure largely. And as far as it went, that was true enough. Or...

    “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Not because I did not wish to, or because of my doubts that I could live with you, or that I could satisfy you. Not physically, Nan: emotionally. There is a difference,” he said as she opened her mouth.

    Nan nodded meekly.

    “Mm. I know I wished for it… I might perhaps have waited as much as another year. But,” he said grimly, making up his mind to it, “I might never have proposed, Nan, and for only one reason: because, and don’t ask me why, I am very good at denying myself the thing I most want.”

    Nan swallowed loudly. “Oh,” she said numbly.

    “That,” said Lewis, making a hideous face, “is the truth. For what it’s worth.”

    Nan thought it over slowly. “Ye-es.... I theenk I see. I do not understand why eet should be so... But eet ees behaviour which I have observed een other people. You are not alone een eet.”

    “Mm. Just bear in mind, I don’t know why I do it, or why in God’s name I should—should feel the impulse to do it, but—”

    His wife got up. “No. Hush. We are all contrary creatures, au fond. –Lewis, I am vairy sorry, but you weell have to get up.”

    “I am up, odd though it may seem at this juncture,” he murmured.

    “I fear eet must wait: Dom has discovered a man who makes boot trees. He has plunged heemself eento a full-blown scheme to expand thees man’s business and eemport special wood from Portugal for the boot trees.”

    “Let him,” said Lewis brutally.

    “No, you fool!” cried his wife. “I would let heem weeth a good weell, eef he proposed doing eet here, but he has decided that he weell eenstall the man een the castle, using the keep as a sort of manufactory, and bring over a dozen eendentured workers from hees estates een Portugal, and he ees about to help heem to pack up all his equipment!”

    “God!” said Lewis, hurling back the covers.

    “There weell be time for that later,” noted his wife kindly.

    “Indeed there will. Christ, a damned Portuguese manufactory in our house? Hand me those damned breeches!”

    Hurriedly Lady Stamforth handed him his breeches.

    Lewis and his companion strolled slowly, arm-in-arm, on the gold-green sward of the slope below Stamforth Castle, in the warm haze of a perfect summer’s afternoon. Below them on the slope a hatless, dark-haired, plump figure in a crumpled print gown gambolled with a crowd of children and several small cream and fawn dogs.

    “That,” said Lewis with a tiny smile, nodding at the sight, “represents the gratification of an odd whim.”

    “Ah!” agreed Mrs Urqhart, panting slightly. “She’s took ’er corset orf, too.”

    “Quite,” he said gravely.

    Mrs Urqhart nodded and grinned. Lewis smiled. They strolled on gently.

    “It give ’er a fright, y’know,” she said.

    “Um—what? My saying that I might never have offered?”

    “No. Think she’d guessed that for ’erself, she ain’t thick. No: you turnin’ up at Devizes lookin’ so exhausted.”

    “Did I?” he said limply.

    “Aye,” she said, patting his arm. “Said you was lookin’ ‘vairy grey and strained’ and it suddenly dawned on ’er, what if you was to drop down dead?”

    Lewis had to swallow. “I never thought of that.”

    Mrs Urqhart agreed mildly: “No, well, you wouldn’t. A man don’t think of ’isself in them terms.”

    “No, indeed. –Drop down dead?”

    “Now, don’t get on yer high horse!” she said in alarm.

    “I shall not.” Lewis smiled to himself.

    “Cain’t hurt,” noted the shrewd old lady.

    “Well, no; though should I not take it as a great insult to my masculinity?”

    “You would if you was a noddy, yes,” she acknowledged.

    Lewis laughed a little, and they strolled on slowly, not speaking for some time.

    Eventually Mrs Urqhart, nodding at the scene below them, said shrewdly: “She won’t change, you know, me lovey.”

    “No. Well, perhaps no-one ever truly changes. But... we understand each other a little better, I think.”

    “All you can ’ope for, really,” she said placidly.

    Lewis was watching Nan rolling on the grass laughing helplessly, while one of the red-haired Laidlaw children attempted to remonstrate with one of the pugs and Amrita and Mina spoke jointly and severely to another of the pugs.

    “Didn’t no-one ever tell ’em that that there Peter Pug were a bitch?” asked Mrs Urqhart conversationally.

    “Don’t ask me,” said Lewis, smiling, his eyes still on Nan.

    “Oh, well, it don’t signify, you’ve got room for I dunnamany litters ’ere,” she said casually.

    “Mm.” Lewis turned his head suddenly. “Yes!” he said with a loud laugh.

    Mrs Urqhart grinned, but hugged his arm and said: “So, you’re happy, are you, Lewis, lovey?”

    “Yes. As much as is humanly possible, I think.”

    Mrs Urqhart did not express any objection to this temperate estimate of the Stamforths’ marital bliss: she merely nodded. He weren’t the type to go in for hyperbole. And, even though Nan was, she was by far too intelligent to believe any from him. So there you were. It was working out.

    Lewis had installed a rustick bench for just this sort of purpose; he led the old lady over to it and sat down quietly beside her. Before them the English Channel sparkled bright blue. In the foreground Nan and the children laughed and played with the pugs. The sun shone out of a forget-me-not sky.

    “You doesn’t often get a day like this,” said Betsy Urqhart in a dreamy voice.

    Lewis was not deceived for one moment into taking this remark at face value. But he smiled and agreed, in the same tone: “No, indeed. One must enjoy it while one may.”