Nan's Bad Day

12

Nan’s Bad Day

    Insensibly over the five months they had been in Bath Nan had become very bored with the dawdling existence imposed upon her both by the fact of her widowhood and by the nature of the provincial centre. When Mr Amory had been in the town she had at least had the distraction of her feelings for him to occupy her: though she was quite aware that her feelings for him were in a large way to being encouraged, if not positively provoked, by the tedium of Bath life. But when she had given him his congé there was nothing with which to amuse herself. She was a voracious reader and although at first the Circulating Library had provided sufficient intellectual sustenance, it was now failing to do so. She had not, of course, been able to bring any part of Hugo’s extensive library with her: all the books now belonged to Everard. And then, one could not read all day, in any case!

    Instead of removing to a town she might have bought a place in the country; but she had thought that in a respectable town like Bath they might find a pleasant school where Mina and Amrita could make friends of their own age, and that there would be some families for Daphne, Susan and Dom to get know, and... Well, it had seemed the sensible move. In fact it still seemed the sensible move. So it was a great pity that Bath had turned out to be so deadly dull! And as far as Nan could see it would not improve much even once she was out of her widow’s weeds. Certainly she would be able to entertain and go out to entertainments—provided that Bath had not decided the Baldaya children were social outcasts. But then, of what would these entertainments consist? Pleasant dinners en famille with the Laidlaws would be the best she could hope for. Apart from that, it would be boring little hops where her rôle would be that of chaperone to Susan and Daphne, boring strolls to the boring Pump Room, and boring dinners where she would have to make conversation with stuffy English persons who knew no language other than their own and could not even conceive of cultures other than their own, let alone of these cultures being as valid as their own! Horrors.

    Nan’s was an optimistic temperament, but with the dullness of Bath coming on top of Hugo’s death even she was in danger of sinking into—not perhaps, a depressed state—but a sort of sullen, angry boredom. A state, in fact, in which it was all too likely—as she herself recognized—that she would go and do something extremely foolish, even outrageous, just because there was nothing else to do and she could not stand it!

    She had enjoyed the Indian evening with Mr Laidlaw, the children and Mr Beresford well enough. Or, more exactly, she had enjoyed it on its own terms. And Nan was beginning to feel very strongly that just for once she would like to state her terms, not to have to put up with the terms imposed by Bath and her circumstances.

    She woke up very early the next morning feeling cross, and decided that the only word to describe the evening was “tepid”. The whole of Bath, in fact, was tepid. Apart from its weather, which was wet, cold, and horrible.

    “What is it?” she said in a grumpy voice as Sita Ayah sidled into her room.

    Dom baba, it appeared, was sneezing, but refusing to stay in his bed.

    “If he wishes to make himself sicker than he need be, let him do so, he is a grown man,” said Nan sourly.

    Sita Ayah pointed out that last year Dom baba had had a dreadful cold, he—

    “All RIGHT!” shouted Nan in the ayah’s native tongue, flinging back the covers. “I will go and make sure that the great baby stays in bed!”

    “All men are but great babies, Nanni baba,” said the ayah sententiously.

    “Not all,” replied Nan with a deep sigh. “But I fear I have already met the only two born within the last hundred years, or even the next hundred years, who were not.”

    She allowed Sita to wrap a warm dressing-gown around her and cover that in a heavy shawl, and went off to Dom’s room.

    “Thigg is,” said Dom thickly, “who weell look after the brats, eef I abb dot up?”

    Nan goggled at him. “Sita Ayah, Rani Ayah, Miss Gump, Nurse, the nurserymaid—”

    “No!” he gasped, grinning and sneezing at the same time.

    “Eef you mean Dicky and hees friend George,”—Dom nodded, sneezing—“don’t worry. I’ll look after them, and see that George meets hees aunt. Eet weell be something to do,” she added, sighing. She went over to the door. “And for Heaven’s sake stay een bed, we don’t want you giving eet to half the household as you deed last winter!”

    He nodded, sneezing.

    Back in her room, Nan was very quickly informed by a panting Rani Ayah that Dicky baba was being naughty. Amrita had accompanied her, apparently for the express purpose of confirming this report.

    “What’s he doing?” she said grimly in the ayah’s language, pulling on her dress.

    Dicky baba, it appeared, had committed the great crime of announcing his intention of breakfasting in the breakfast room.

    Nan sighed. “He’s growing up, Rani. If he wishes to breakfast like a grown-up man, he may.”

    “But he told me that he did not wish for my kitcheree, Nanni baba!” she wailed. “He wishes only for the soft breads of that foreign devil!”

    “Yes. They eat soft foreign breads at his school. And George will certainly not wish for kitcheree, he is an English boy; and even I do not like kitcheree for breakfast and in fact I do not like kitcheree at all, and in fact NO-ONE LIKES KITCHEREE, RANI, SO WHY DID YOU MAKE IT?”

    There was a stunned silence. Then Rani burst into tears.

    “I told her not to,” said Amrita helpfully. “She made it to use up the leftover rice and dal from last night.”

    Nan took a deep breath. “Yes. Rani—”

    Rani sobbed harder than ever.

    “Rani, I’m SORRY!” shouted Nan desperately.

    Rani interrupted her sobs in order to inform Nanni baba that no-one appreciated her.

    Sita Ayah, who often pretended she did not speak Rani’s language, here broke in with the impatient remark that Rani knew perfectly well that no-one liked re-cooked rice mixed with dal in this household, so why had she made it?

    Rani wailed and beat her breast.

    “STOP THAT!” shouted Nan at the top of her lungs.

    Rani stopped out of sheer astonishment.

    “Rani, it is not your job to make breakfast. Take Amrita and go back to the nursery, if you please,” said Nan grimly.

    Weeping despairingly, Rani took Amrita’s hand. By the door Amrita said with perfect calm: “I told you not to make it.” Rani continued to weep despairingly and they went out.

    “The woman’s a fool,” noted Sita Ayah pleasedly in her native tongue.

    “Yes,” said Nan tiredly. “What is the time? Am I imagining it or is it still pitch black outside?”

    It was six thirty-five, so she was not imagining it.

    “Hullo, Nan!” said Dicky with complete insouciance.

    “Good morning, Lady Benedict,” said George on a nervous note.

    Grimly Nan returned: “What on earth are you two doing up at thees hour?”

    “Eet’s gone six-thirty!” protested Dicky in tones of hugely injured innocence.

    “I am aware of that, Dicky. What are you doing up, demanding breakfast?”

    “I don’t see why I should not eat in the breakfast room! I am not a brat, y’know!” cried the Wykehamist.

    “Dicky, eet ees SIX-FORTY!” shouted Nan.

    “We could come back later, Lady Benedict, when there’s some breakfast,” offered George.

    “And when the fires are lit,” noted Nan pointedly as Krishna scurried in to lay and light one. “Why—are you—up?”

    Dicky admitted that he and Jeffreys and Laidlaw had this great scheme, you see—

    “George has to meet hees aunt at NOON!”

    “I know!” he said huffily. “We’ll be back een time.”

    “Neither of you ees going out. Mendoza may come here eef he weeshes.” Nan turned to Krishna and said rapidly in his language, which perhaps needless to state was not that of either Sita or Rani: “Krishna, there is no need to lay a fire for Dicky baba when he gets up at this hour. But thank you, anyway. Is Lavoisier Sahib up yet?”

    The stout little Krishna beamed, laid his hands together, touching them to his forehead, and bowed very low. “Yes, Nanni baba, he is making his foreign-devil soft breads for Dicky baba and his honourable friend!”

    “I see. In that case, I shall go and apologize to him.”

    “Lavoisier Sahib is honoured to make foreign-devil breads for Dicky baba and—”

    “Yes. Thank you, Krishna, that’s a beautiful fire. You may go, now.”

    Beaming and bowing, Krishna took himself off.

    “Don’t thank him, weell you?” said Nan nastily to her brother.

    “He would have made a fire anyway—”

    “Dicky, eet’s the middle of an English winter, I have told the Indian servants they need not get up until seven!”

    “They always get up hours before that!”

    “Do you weesh to spend the rest of the day in your room?” said Nan dangerously.

     Sulkily the Wykehamist admitted: “No.”

    “No. Well, I shall not say that you may not have any of M. Lavoisier’s brioches, for hees feelings would be hurt. But as a punishment for your lack of consideration, you may eat a large dish of Rani’s kitcheree.”

    “Oh, I say, Nan, that is not f—”

    “BOTH OF YOU!” shouted Nan.

    There was an astonished silence.

    “Yes, Lady Benedict,” muttered George Jeffreys, very red. “I’m awfully sorry, Lady Benedict.”

    Dicky swallowed, but after a minute he said: “All right, but I shall have a peeckle weeth eet, mind!”

    “Have as many peeckles as you weesh,” said Nan tiredly, ringing the bell. “Richpal,” she said, switching languages yet again, “pray tell Rani Ayah that her kitcheree will be required after all.”

    “Yes, Nanni Begum,” replied the tall footman respectfully. “Do I not have to eat it, then?”

    “What?” said Nan feebly.

    “She has told us we must. Krishna will not because her food is impure, but—”

    “Nobody has to eat it,” said Nan heavily. “I’ll come out to the kitchen.”

    Beaming and bowing, Richpal conducted her out.

    What seemed like ten hours later Nan tottered back into the breakfast room.

    “I say, Lady Benedict, this kitcheree stuff is not half bad!” beamed George.

    “Good,” said Nan limply. “—I’ll just have a brioche and some coffee, thank you, Alfred,” she said to the English footman who had shown her in.

    “Certainly, my Lady. And may I ask how Mr Dom is doing?”

    “Steell sneezing. But he has taken one of Miss Gump’s draughts on top of one of Sita’s, so I theenk he’ll sleep for the rest of the morning.”

    “Yes, my Lady,” said Alfred, trying not to laugh.

    “You mean he actually swallowed that muck of Miss Gump’s?” said Dicky in awe.

    “Objectively I suppose eet’s no worse than Sita’s. Eet ees just that we are used to Sita’s,” said Nan drily.

    “What’s in them?” asked George with interest.

    “We don’t know: they are both secret receets,” explained Dicky.

    George nodded. “Aunt Kate has a special draught, too. Only it is not for colds, but stomach-ache. It’s absolutely frightful! –She says that nothing will cure a cold.”

    Dicky began to refute this theory and from there they diverged onto the rival frightfulness of their family draughts…

    Nan sat back, ate brioches, and let it wash over her.

    She was on her third cup of coffee when The Great Mendoza arrived.

    “Good morning, Mendoza,” she said to his taken-aback visage.

    Mendoza eyed her uneasily. “Good morning, Lady Benedict.”

    “You are up too early, Mendoza, you may eat kitcheree,” noted Dicky airily.

    George choked, and then looked at Nan like a terrified rabbit.

    Nan consulted the clock on the mantel. Only twenty past seven? No, it must have stopped: it could not be a second less than half past two in the afternoon!

    Mendoza had followed her gaze. “I could go away again, Lady Benedict,” he offered.

    She laughed. “No, stay by all means, Mendoza! But as George has to meet hees aunt, I have told Dicky that the two of them are not to go out on any expeditions thees morning.”

    Mendoza’s face fell. “Oh.” He sat down beside Dicky.

    Alfred came round the table. “Brioches, Master Mendoza?”

    “N— Um—may I have some of that?” he gulped, looking at Nan.

    “It is perfectly splendid!” George assured him fervently. “And have some of this pickle, I don’t know what it is, only it is sweet and hot!”

    “Yes, eet ees hot, and you must watch you do not burn your mouth,” added Nan.

    “Hot?” said Dicky in astonishment. “Thees ain’t hot, Nan!”

    “No. But to English palates eet ees hot.”

    “Papa said you gave him a lemon pickle,” noted Mendoza, beginning on his kitcheree and quince and ginger chutney. –Quinces were greenish-yellow, unripe mangoes were greenish-yellow, there had been some method in Sita’s madness. And the result was certainly delicious.

    “Not exactly: he eensisted on tasting eet,” said Nan, smiling at him.

    Mendoza gave a guffaw. “He would! He wrote me that he drank a gallon of water after it!”

    “Goodness, deed he write you about eet?” said Nan feebly.

    Mendoza nodded hard with his mouth full. “Yesh,” he said thickly, swallowing. “He writes me of all their doings at home. Twice a week, usually.”

    “Papa writes once a week. But he’s in Sweden, his letters take months to arrive,” said George, without noticeable emotion,

    “I see,” said Nan weakly. “He ees our ambassador, then, George? Lord Keywes?”

    George nodded stolidly round a mouthful of brioche with quince and ginger pickle.

    “Dom writes once a week,” noted Dicky through a mouthful of brioche.

    “Well, so do I,” said Nan feebly. “At least once, Dicky.”

    The boys eyed her tolerantly. After a moment Dicky swallowed thickly and explained tolerantly: “That ain’t the same, Nan. You are m’sister.”

    “Yes,” said Mendoza.

    “But—”

    “Harding’s papa don’t never write,” said George tersely.

    “No,” agreed Dicky, even more tersely.

    “I see,” said Nan shakily.

    There was a short silence. Apart, that was, from the noise of three starved boys finishing the very last of the kitcheree (Mendoza), the very last of the pickle (George) and the very last of the last brioche (Dicky).

    Suddenly Nan said in a choked voice: “Pray excuse—” She got up and hurried out before the boys could even push their chairs back.

    Alfred Weddle had seen there was something wrong: he followed her. “My Lady, what is it?” he said as Nan grasped the newel post very tight and wept all over it.

    “Notheeng!” she gasped. “Oh, how silly of me!”

    Helpfully Alfred handed her a large clean handkerchief.

    “Thank you!” gasped Nan, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. “The poor leetle theengs! Do you not think eet ees unnatural, sending boys off to school like that?”

    The unfortunate Alfred replied uneasily: “It is what the gentry do, my Lady.”

    “Your mother would not do so, I am sure!”

    “Um—no, my Lady. Seeing as how we be but lowly folks, like.”

    Nan blew her nose and smiled at him. “They were so proud that their papas write them, you see! Eet was so sweet!”

    “Yes, my Lady.”

    “And I had not known,” said Nan, scrubbing her eyes and putting Alfred’s handkerchief in the sleeve of her neat black woollen dress, “that Dicky thought of Dom like that: as—well, as almost taking the place of hees Papa.”

    “Oh, yes, my Lady. Very proud of him, Master Dicky is, if I may say so.”

    “Good,” said Nan with a sigh. “—Of course, Mr Laidlaw ees a vairy nice man.”

    “Yes, indeed, my Lady. Very much liked in Bath, so I am told.”

    “Yes. So Lord Keywes must also be a nice man, would you not theenk?”

    Alfred looked at her helplessly.

    “George’s Papa. He writes to heem every week, even though he ees so far away.”

    “So I understand, my Lady.”

    Nan looked at him cautiously. “You have not heard anything to Lord Keywes’s discredit, have you?”

    “No, my Lady: I ain’t never heard of him at all, my Lady.”

    “No,” said Nan weakly. “Of course. Um—weell you see eef there are any more brioches, Alfred? I theenk the boys could manage some. Thank you.” She smiled at him and went back to the breakfast room with every intention of being extra-kind to the three sweet little fellows and offering them a ride in the carriage or some such as compensation for having refused to let them disappear on their planned expedition. Firm but motherly, was the tack to take.

    The three were deep in confabulation. Mendoza had a grubby piece of paper in his hand and they were all poring over it. As she sat down he eyed her sideways and began stealthily to slide the paper back towards his pocket.

    “Exactly what deed you have planned for thees morning?” she said in a hard voice, lapsing rather from the motherly side.

    “Nothing, much,” muttered Dicky.

    “It was only—” George broke off under the glares of his companions-in-arms.

    “I could speak to your father,” noted Nan to the ambient air two feet above Mendoza’s head, giving up on the motherly thing definitively.

    Reluctantly Mendoza revealed that it was only mistletoe.

    “Meestletoe?” echoed Nan feebly. “The market stalls are full of eet!”

    “No!” said Dicky scornfully. “Not that!”

    It took a little time, during which a new plate of steaming brioches arrived, but she finally got it out of them: the three Wykehamists proposed getting barrowloads of mistletoe from a certain spot on a certain “Old Nightingale’s” land, and hawking it in the streets.

    She looked at them limply. Her main emotion was a strong desire to laugh. Not to say a strong desire to be fifteen again and join in such a splendid scheme! “Well, I am sure I do not care eef you all fall out of trees endeavouring to pick meestletoe—though how you envisage bringing eet back to town, I cannot imagine. But has eet not occurred that the spot may by now have been picked bare by the local people?”

    “No, because Old Nightingale—” Mendoza broke off.

    “He shoots poachers,” explained Dicky calmly.

    “Well, that is what Cousin Jack says,” conceded Mendoza uneasily.

    “My Papa says the Gaming Laws are iniquitous and he will not prosecute a man for taking a bird or hare that has gone into his garden to destroy his poor crops,” put in George.

    Nan looked at him with interest. “But your papa ees a landed gentleman, George.”

    “He is, Lady Benedict, but he is a man of very advanced views.”

    “Harding’s papa says Lord Keywes should be een Newgate along with the poachers,” noted Dicky. “Or hanged.”

    “Yes, he does,” agreed George. “But Papa says that Lord Harding is an unjust, cruel man.”

    “Y—Oh! I am sure he ees, George, for he ees the man who never writes to his son, no?”

    “Yes,” agreed George calmly.

    “Old Nightingale did have a man sent to the Assizes, I am sure of that, for Papa and Cousin Jack were talking about it,” offered Mendoza.

    “Then he ees vairy likely also an unjust, cruel man!” said Nan vigorously.

    There was a short pause. “Oh, good gracious!” she cried. “I see! You mean the people are scared to go on his land to pick the meestletoe? But you seelly things, what eef he catches you and prosecutes you?”

    They eyed her tolerantly.

    “Do not tell me,” said Nan, shutting her eyes. “The risk ees what makes eet such a splendid scheme!”

    “Well, yes. But you won’t tell Papa, will you, Lady Benedict?” said Mendoza with a melting look.

    Nan was quite shaken. In ten years’ time—no, less, he was already turned fourteen—in about five or six years’ time, the dark-haired, dark-grey-eyed Mendoza would be a most irresistible young man indeed!

    “No, I won’t tell anyone,” she said feebly. “But there weell not be time for George to go on this expedition and to meet his aunt, weell there? How long does eet take to get there, Mendoza?”

    The Great Mendoza admitted reluctantly that one could do it in an hour.

    That meant two, at the very least. Nan nodded. Then she looked thoughtful. Then she leant over the table and hissed: “Listen! Eef I lend you my aid, swear you weell never tell a soul?”

    The two guests goggled at her, their jaws dropped, but Dicky just nodded eagerly.

    “I shall take you een the carriage to vairy near thees horrid Old Nightingale’s wall, and eef the meestletoe ees there, we shall take eet all, for he deserves to lose eet, the horrid man!”

    “What about the coachman?” croaked Dicky.

    “I shall not take heem, I shall get Hughes to drive us, and he weell never give us away! –He was Hugo’s groom,” she explained to the visitors. “And eef you should get stuck on the wall, he weell give you a hand down, or my name ees not Nan Baldaya!” she finished with a naughty giggle.

    “Eet ain’t, eet’s Nan Benedict,” noted Dicky dubiously. “Nan, have you gone into one of your mad moods?”

    “Yes!” said Nan with a mad laugh. She got up. “Get yourselves ready; I shall order up the carriage and warn Hughes he ees on no account to divulge our destination to a soul! And mind you put on warm mufflers and gloves!” She danced out of the room.

    “I say! She is not half something, Baldaya!” cried Mendoza.

    “Yes! I wish she was my sister!” cried George admiringly. “She is not half game!”

    “Yes, but listen, you fellows,” he cried desperately, “you don’t understand! When she’s like this, she weell do anything at all!”

    “All the better,” said Mendoza with an evil grin. “She can never betray us.”

    There was the sound of an enraged shout in the distance, there was the sound of a shot in the distance, Nan fell off the wall onto Hughes, the boys hurled themselves at the wall and scrambled for their lives, and two minutes later the carriage was jolting rapidly down the unkempt, rutted lane which bordered Mr Nightingale’s property.

    “That was close!” gasped Nan.

    The boys had had further to go: they just gasped and nodded.

    “We deed splendidly!” pronounced Nan.

    The boys nodded, panting. The carriage floor and one of the seats were piled with mistletoe: they were all squashed onto the other seat.

    “I’ll get that barrow off Matt Yattersby,” decided Mendoza, when they’d got their breaths.

    “He’ll want to be een on eet!” protested Dicky.

    “Well, he didn’t come, so he can’t be. I’ll give him a sixpence for the loan of the barrow.”

    “Where did he get it from?” asked George with interest.

    “Found it,” said Mendoza tersely.

    There was a short silence. No-one precisely believed this statement but on the whole they all thought they had better pretend to.

    “We can start with the square and work our way outwards,” Mendoza decided. “I know the Miss Careys will take some.”

    “Some of these bunches are very big,” noted George.

    “Aye.” Mendoza got out his penknife. “We’ll cut them up into smaller ones. I think we can charge gentry sixpence a bunch.”

    “I would have said a penny,” said George dubiously.

    “You’ll never make your fortune!” retorted Mendoza cheerfully.

    “Sixpence seems all right. Given that they’ll be gentry,” agreed Dicky.

    “Yes,” said Nan. “Miss Diddy Carey weell spend more than that on a seelly bow, so they can all well afford a sixpence for a bunch of meestletoe!”

    Mendoza was dividing the bunches busily. “Aye. –I wish I was not born a gentleman, for then I would go into commerce and have a fine time,” he noted.

    “Yes,” said George mournfully. “Papa says I must learn to run the property.”

    “But he heemself ees not running eet at the moment, George,” protested Nan.

    “No. But he only went to Sweden because he was asked, and he thought it was his duty. When he’s home he sees to everything.”

    “I see. And would you not like to learn to do that, George?”

    “No, I’d rather be a sailor, like Lord Nelson,” he said wistfully.

    “We came to England on a ship. Eet weren’t that exciting,” noted Dicky cautiously. “What I mean ees, you are days and days at sea with nothing to see.”

    “You were only a passenger,” said Mendoza.

    “Yes, it would be different if you were a serving officer,” noted George with a sigh.

    “Um... The younger officers deed seem to have a lot of time on their hands when the sea was calm, George,” murmured Nan.

    “But it would only have been a merchant ship! The Navy is different!” he cried.

    Nan agreed, though privately she did not think it would be, very much. Not for the officers, when the sea was calm and they were not involved in a battle. For the men, of course, it was a different story. But she did not voice these thoughts to the boys. Though she did wonder for an instant what George’s father might have to say on the subject: if he was a man who disapproved of the way English landed society put its sport ahead of the empty stomachs of the common people, what would he feel about such customs as press-ganging, flogging and keel-hauling, to name but three?

   All the mistletoe was in neat bunches and they had reached the town when it occurred to Mendoza to wonder what the time might be. Solemnly George produced a large silver watch from his pocket.

    “Hees papa gave him that when he went off to Sweden,” said Dicky enviously.

    “A fellow really needs a watch, at school,” agreed Mendoza enviously.

    “Oh,” said Nan on disconcerted note. “I never thought…”

    “No: you’re only a female,” agreed her brother.

    “I’ll speak to Dom,” she said, swallowing.

     “Good. –Maybe you could drop a hint to Mr Laidlaw,” he added.

    “It won’t do no good, the twins got their watches when they were sixteen,” said Mendoza glumly.

    Meanwhile George had opened the watch. “Five to twelve,” he pronounced portentously.

    “What?” gasped Nan.

    “Aunt Kate will wait for me, don’t worry,” he reassured her.

    “That ees not the point, George, she weell be expecting you, and worrying about— I had no idea eet was that late!” she gasped, pulling the carriage-string.

    “Just as well we took the carriage,” noted Dicky.

    “Yes. –Yes, Hughes, please go straight to the staging-inn, Master George has to meet his aunt.”

    “I’ll do that, my Lady, if you really want it, only have you looked at yourself of late?” replied Sir Hugo’s middle-aged groom severely. –Hughes perhaps would not have let himself be suborned into taking her on such an expedition had it not been for the bitter rivalry that existed between himself and the new coachman. Nan was aware of this rivalry and had played on it blatantly but fortunately Hughes had not realized she was doing so.

    Nan looked down at herself in some dismay. Over her black woollen dress she was wearing an old dark brown pelisse which had once been Susan’s. Susan had of late years worn it only for the muddier sort of country walks, following the hunt, and that sort of thing. Over it was a thick grey-brown woollen shawl, pinned tightly at the neck, crossed over the bust and then, since it was an oblong Indian shawl of the type worn over a saree in winter, and thus not particularly amenable to knotting of the ends, belted round the waist. The skirts of the pelisse and the black dress were now mud-spattered and into the bargain the dress was ripped where she had caught it on the wall. Uncertainly she removed the shawl and attempted to straighten her bonnet. It was quite a respectable bonnet, plain black silk. But it had got rather crushed when she had tumbled off the wall onto the waiting Hughes.

    “Ees that better?”

    “Not much,” said Mendoza detachedly.

    Nan sighed. “Eet well have to do. We cannot keep George’s aunt waiting. –Go on, Hughes, please!”

    “No-one can stop her when she’s een one of her mad moods,” explained Dicky with a sort of gloomy pride, as they set off again. “Not even Hugo.”

    “Um—well, no!” agreed Nan with a guilty laugh. “Um—well, I only deed two mad theengs when I was married to Hugo.”

    “She got out on the stable roof and walked along the ridge-pole,” Dicky explained.

    “I did that once and Papa beat me. He said it was as much for giving him the fright of his life as for being such a damn’ fool, for if I’d fallen onto the cobbles of the stable yard it would have been the end of me,” noted Master Jeffreys.

    “Well, exactly!” Nan agreed. “Hugo was furious: he put me over his knee.”

    “Did he use a belt or a cane?” asked Mendoza with interest.

    “He had no need of either, believe me, Mendoza; he had the hardest hand I have ever encountered!” said Nan with a shudder and a laugh.

    “That’s true,” noted Dicky. “She shrieked her head off—bawling, y’know—and then when he stopped she shrieked at heem, and he yelled at her: you could hear them all over the house.”

    “Why did you do it?” asked George curiously.

    Nan made a face. “I theenk I sort of... burst out! I had been vairy, vairy good for months and months, meeting all Hugo’s horrid relatives and stuffy neighbours, and... Um, I’m not sure!”

    “He said she might not ride out with heem to see old Jem Hughes—that ees Hughes’s brother—take his sow to Mr Beddoes’s boar, on the way to the cockfights over at Torrington Vale,” explained Dicky. “So Nan said eet was not fair, for of course she had seen eennumerable cockfights in India. –The Hindoos will not do eet, mostly, only the rest of ’em don’t mind. And ladies aren’t supposed to watch, only Nan wasn’t a lady in those days.”

    “Exactly,” said Nan. “And I have seen dog-fights as well, and there was a man who used to travel weeth snakes and a mongoose: do you remember, Dicky? The mongoose always won, but eet could be a thrilling battle, because of course eef the snake strikes home but once, the mongoose dies of the poison. And as for seeing the sow put to the boar, which I theenk was the idea that really upset him, I have been used to seeing animals all my life!”

    “Aye, well, there is nothing in seeing a sow put to the boar,” said the country-bred George. “So then you went and got out on the ridge-pole?” he asked solemnly.

    “Not precisely, George. We had a horrid fight, you see, and—um—” She swallowed, and instead of saying they had slept in separate rooms that night said: “And the next morning I crept out vairy early before he was awake, and deed eet.”

    “That showed him,” said Mendoza with satisfaction. “What was the other thing?”

    “What? Oh,” said Nan lamely, glancing at Dicky.

    “That was when they were een London. I missed eet,” he said regretfully.

    “Eet was seelly,” she said. The boys were looking at her expectantly. “Oh—well, I drove down a street een London where the gentlemen have their seelly clubs. Eet’s not supposed to be the theeng for ladies to be seen there, for the men ogle them with their nasty quizzing-glasses from the windows.”

    “White’s. The bow-window,” said George arcanely. “Papa belongs to that. That’s not too bad. My Mamma did much worse things, but I can't remember her, because she died when I was but a year old.”

    Nan swallowed. “How vairy sad.”

    “Not really. My Great-Aunt Kate says it was a good riddance, for she was a flibbertigibbet who thought of nothing but dress and dancing and card-playing. She went to a ball by herself because Papa had to be in the House—that is the House of Lords, Lady Benedict,” George explained kindly. “Sometimes they sit all night. And then after the ball she went to a man’s house to play cards. And he and another man had a fight and Mamma got shot. The men put her in her carriage and told the coachman to drive her home; and he didn’t realise there was anything wrong, he thought she had drunk too much wine. And by the time she got home to our house she had bled to death.”

    “George!” gasped Nan, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “How dreadful!”

    “It was shocking in itself,” allowed Mendoza kindly, “but it was in the nature of a blessed release. For she was in the habit of playing cards with men in their houses, you see, and going off to balls and parties with them.”

    “Yes. And of drinking too much wine,” George agreed. “So, you see: she did much worse things than driving past the clubs.”

    “What? Oh, yes,” said Nan faintly.

    “But of course she was never shunned or anything, because her papa was a duke. Papa says that is nonsensical, for the rank a person is born to should not affect one’s opinion of their conduct.”

    “A duke?” said Nan feebly.

    “Yes. He never cared what she did.”

    “He—Oh! Your grandpapa! Well, perhaps that explains why she—um—grew up as she deed, George.”

    “Yes, that is Papa’s theory.”

    Nan was now wondering why on earth Lord Keywes had married this flibbertigibbet, loose-moralled duke’s daughter. Well, possibly she had been irresistible. Or possibly it had been an arranged marriage. She said nothing, as the carriage drew up in the yard of the big staging-inn.

    George’s Aunt Kate was not yet arrived. Refreshments were offered, the boys admitted to raging starvation, and Nan, thinking she had better not leave them here alone while she rushed home to change into something more suitable for meeting an English lady, the which would have been her preferred choice, reluctantly accompanied them into the inn.

    Kate Jeffreys was a tall, raw-boned woman in her late forties, the youngest of Robert Jeffreys’s paternal aunts. She had never married and family opinion was divided as to whether this was because she had never wished to, because she had never needed to, being far more capable than most mere males, or because she had scared ’em all off. Certainly in Lord Keywes’s absence she was running his extensive properties for him as capably as any man. She was not given to flights of fancy, palpitations, megrims, or vapours, let alone bouts of hysteria, but when she walked into the private parlour of one of Bath’s largest inns and saw Cousin Nancy standing there in front of the fireplace, untidy dark mop, torn and draggled skirt, muddied stockings an’ all, she felt she could have thrown a selection of several of these. Simultaneously.

    Nan had taken off her bonnet after the meal in a vain endeavour to impose some order on her riotous brown locks. She swung round with a gasp when the door opened.

    There was a short silence. George was filled with guilt because on the instant Aunt Kate walked into the room he was sure she must Know All; Dicky and Mendoza were filled with guilt anyway and besides, George’s Great-Aunt Kate’s reputation preceded her; and in any case none of the three Wykehamists would have spoken first, mistletoe-thieves or not. They scrambled to their feet and stood there sheepishly.

    “By God, the Beresford woman was right,” said Kate Jeffreys in a voice she did not recognize as her own. “Nancy’s daughter.”

    “Yes,” said Nan in a tiny voice, swallowing. “I’m so sorry, I— There was no way we could warn you, and our house has more room than the Laidlaws’.”

    “Have you said anything to him?” said Kate Jeffreys grimly.

    “No,” said Nan miserably.

    “You had that much sense, then. Unlike your mother. –George,” she said, feeling in her reticule, “I have no doubt you will have spent every last groat of your allowance plus all of the money I sent you to purchase yourself an inside ticket on the stage and hire a room here for the night.—Don’t give me any explanation, if you please.—Take this, take your unspeakable friends, get out and spend it, and come back in an hour. Do you understand?”

    “Yes, Aunt Kate.”

    “Wait: have you still got that watch your misguided father gave you?”

    “Yes, Aunt Kate.”

    “Good. Get out, then.”

    Surprisingly enough the three boys merely grinned, as they got.

    “Shall we sit down?” said Kate Jeffreys grimly to Cousin Nancy’s daughter.

    “Oh! Yes! Please—please come by the fire, Miss Jeffreys.”

    Kate Jeffreys sat down. Nan hesitated, then seated herself without apologising for her appearance.

    After a moment Kate Jeffreys said: “Is your mother still alive?”

    “No,” replied Nan baldly.

    “That’s a mercy,” she said grimly.

    Nan went very red but said nothing.

    “The Beresford woman wrote my nephew, Keywes, to say you were living in Bath. Fortunately I’m opening his mail, so the letter came to me.”

    “I do not theenk I know— You mean Mr Jack Beresford’s Mamma,” said Nan, turning scarlet, “I have never met her.”

    Grimly Miss Jeffreys returned: “I don’t think you needed to, did you?”

    “Apparently not,” replied Nan in equally grim tones.

    “By God, you’re the spitting image of Nancy when you get that mutinous look upon your face, girl!”

    “Eendeed? Personally I do not subscribe to the doctrine of reincarnation, though I am ready to admit eet ees as valid a theory as any.”

    Kate Jeffreys’s jaw sagged. After a moment she said in a shaken voice: “Well, you’ve certainly got all her brains as well as all her damned impertinence, not to say ten times her education.”

    Nan just looked at her grimly.

    “Don’t look at me like that,” she said on a tired note. “Nancy was a fool to herself and man-mad, but personally I always rather liked her. –She could never stand feminine women, y’know. They drove her mad with their flutterings and their fancies and their damned fragilities. I was never like that, as you can no doubt see for yourself. We got on fairly well. How old were you when she died?”

    “Sixteen. But she had not been living weeth us for some years, by then.”

    Kate Jeffreys winced. “In that case, perhaps you had better ring for something considerably stronger than tea, and then you can tell me precisely why the Beresford woman is in such a damned flutter merely because you’ve turned up in Bath to make sheep’s eyes at that precious son of hers. –And incidentally,” she added as Nan rose and numbly rang the bell: “why in God’s name you didn’t contact the family when you decided to remove to England!”

    Nan sat down. “The family—” She broke off, as a waiter had come into the room.

    “Have you eaten?” said Miss Jeffreys abruptly.

    “Yes. The boys were up vairy early: they were vairy hungry.”

    “In that case, bring me a decent slice of hot meat pie, a tankard of porter, and a nip of brandy,” said Miss Jeffreys to the waiter. “Want a brandy?” she said to Nan.

    “Yes, please.”

    “Very well, two br— Hold on, how old are you?”

    “I am nearly twenty-two, Miss Jeffreys,” said Nan in a hard voice.

    Kate Jeffreys raised her eyebrows. “And we are very nearly in ‘23, I think? –Two brandies, the porter, and the pie, please. And make sure the pie’s hot!”

    “Yes, madam.”

    “Your voice is quite different, unless I’m misremembering,” said Miss Jeffreys.

    “I’m told eet ees much deeper than Mamma’s.”

    “Yes. Go on: what were you going to say about the family?”

    Nan took a deep breath. “Your family deed not respond when my father wrote to inform them of hees and Mamma’s marriage, nor when he wrote of my birth and then my brother Dom’s, so I had no eenterest whatsoever een contacting them when I came to England.”

    “Hm.” Miss Jeffreys felt in her reticule and produced a letter. She unfolded it carefully. “Yes. The Beresford female claims you are Hugo Benedict’s widow.”

    “Yes.”

    “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Hugo Benedict I knew twenty-odd years ago was a plain man with a considerable deal of sense. What was he about, not to let us know he had met and married you?”

    Nan gulped. “Eet was my fault. I wouldn’t let heem.”

    Kate Jeffreys raised her eyebrows again. “And he gave in to you? Well, he was ever a fool for a pretty face. His first wife was used to wind him round her little finger.”

    “From all I have heard of her she was pretty and kind and good,” said Nan in a shaking voice.

    Miss Jeffreys sniffed slightly. After a moment she said: “Know the Jerninghams, do you?”

    “I know Major Cecil Jerningham, certainly. And I do not know hees papa or hees uncles vairy well, but they were at Hugo’s funeral and were vairy kind to me and Dom.”

    “Your brother?” Miss Jeffreys consulted the letter again. “How old is this brother?”

    “Nearly twenty-one.”

    She snorted. “That means the Beresford female’s panicking over both the spineless son and the idiot daughter, then!”

    “She ees not an idiot, she struck me as a bright and pleasant girl! And Mr Beresford may prefer to live een Bath weeth hees Mamma and sister, but that does not make heem spineless!”

    “Not much,” said Kate Jeffreys drily. “Which of those ragamuffins was also a brother, then?”

    “What? Oh: Dicky. The one weeth the brown hair, like mine. The dark boy is M— Mendoza Laidlaw,” said Nan limply. “I’m sorry, that ees what the family call heem: I don’t know hees real name. They live near us een Lymmond Square.”

    “I see. And I collect your house has more room than Laidlaw’s does?”

    “What? Oh! Yes. Dicky and Dom had invited heem before I— What I mean ees, Dom only realized after he’d said George could come home with them that eet might be the same family as Mamma’s.”

    “Mm. I collect Dicky is the ‘Baldaya’ of whom George’s letters have been rather full lately, then?”

    “Yes,” said Nan limply. “Of course.”

    Miss Jeffreys thought it over, frowning. The waiter came in and deposited the refreshments: she thanked him absently. He bowed and went out.

    “Thank you for not mentioning the connexion to George,” she said at last.

    “Dom thought we might, but he ees only thirteen, after all.”

    “Yes, quite.”

    Nan picked up one of the brandies and sipped it, not speaking.

    Miss Jeffreys picked up the other. “Go on, then,” she said, knocking half of it back and sighing deeply. “Let me know the worst. Exactly what did Nancy get up to? Ran off and left you, I collect? Then what? Or don’t you know?”

    “Y— Um—she went off weeth a rajah,” said Nan feebly.

    Kate Jeffreys goggled at her. “With a what?”

    “Eet’s like a prince. Eet ees an Indian title.”

    “What?”

    “A rajah,” said poor Nan feebly. “I’m sorry, Miss Jeffreys, I don’t know how to explain eet any better.”

    “What in God’s name was an Indian prince doing in the wilds of Portugal on Baldaya’s ranchero, or whatever the damn’ things are called? –Aside from letting Nancy seduce him, lequel va sans dire.”

    “Eet—eet— We weren’t een Portugal; I thought you knew.”

    “Not in Portugal? Where in God’s name were you, then?”

    “India. Papa took us there before Daphne and Dicky were even born.”

    “Baldaya took Cousin Nancy to India?” she croaked.

    “Yes.”

    After a moment Miss Jeffreys noted drily: “Didn’t work, though, did it?”

    Nan swallowed. “Well, no.”

    Miss Jeffreys knocked back the rest of her brandy. She seized the tankard of porter and drank thirstily. Nan watched her uneasily.

    “What happened to her? –Lord, not the funeral pyre, I hope?”

    “What? Oh, no, not suttee! No, there—well, we heard there was an epidemic,” said Nan faintly, hoping that Miss Jeffreys, like most of the English, would have no notion of distances in India and not query how they had heard of Nancy’s death.

    To her relief her mother’s cousin merely replied: “I see. And your father?”

    “We don’t know exactly, but he went after her when she ran away weeth the rajah and—and he never came back,” replied Nan truthfully.

    Miss Jeffreys sniffed, but merely embarked on her pie.

    When the pie had vanished, together with most of the rest of the porter, she sighed and said: “You certainly never had your brains from your father, then.”

    “How do you know?” replied Nan vigorously. “You never knew heem! And he was good at business, and the firm was vairy successful. –I deed not understand at the time, but that was perhaps why Mamma became bored and ran off. Papa spent a lot of time on the business.”

    “I can see that happening: yes. I gather Portuguese is your first language?”

    “Yes. Oh, I see what you mean, Miss Jeffreys. We were living een a Portuguese colony on the western coast of India. I suppose you would say,” she said cautiously, “eet ees quite near to Bombay.”

    “And why did you leave?”

    “Well, frankly, I theenk that ees my business,” said Nan in a hard voice.

    “Not if you’ve taken up my great-nephew, it ain’t,” replied Miss Jeffreys grimly.

    “We merely offered heem shelter for the NIGHT!” she shouted.

    “After the damned brat had spent the money I sent him: yes. –Don’t shout at me, girl. And don’t pretend to be stupider than you are: you must see that if the boys have become friends you can’t go on pretending the connexion between the families don’t exist. You’d be... what? Nancy was my cousin, and Robert’s father’s, of course, so... George’s first cousins twice removed? Something like that.”

    “Would eet not be second cousins? Where does his father feet een?” said Nan in confusion.

    “Robert’s his FATHER !” she shouted.

    “Oh, I see. Lord Keywes. I’m sorry.”

    Miss Jeffreys rolled her eyes and sighed, but after a moment said in a quieter tone: “So you and your brother were only tiny when your father removed to India? That would certainly explain…”

    Nan waited, but she didn’t elaborate. She would not ask her, it was too humiliating: the woman was putting her in the wrong; so—so she would just let her ask what she liked and not volunteer anything at all, and in the future they would have nothing to do with her and her horrid family! Though the boys could be friends if they wished.

    Kate Jeffreys sighed. “Did you or your father ever receive a letter from my nephew?”

    “No, we have only just met heem!” said Nan in astonishment.

    “What? No, from ROBERT!” she shouted.

    Nan refrained from telling her not to shout at her, woman, but it was an effort. “No.”

    “Look, he would have written— I’m not sure. His father died just after he married that slut Persephone Bon-Dutton: I think he wrote then. That would have been around ’08. And certainly when Nancy’s father died in 1812. And also when his grandfather—my father—died and he succeeded to the title: 1810.”

    “No.”

    Miss Jeffreys frowned. “I’m damned if I can see why you should lie about it.”

    Nan was silent.

    “Robert’s a decent fellow he wrote in the first instance to say that no matter what my father said, Nancy could always rely on him if she needed help.”

    Nan was silent.

    “You might show some gratitude, girl!”

    “I might, eef I was eenterested in your family, yes. But eet ees not my family, I’m glad to say, and I am not eenterested een eet. Except that for my sisters’ sakes I should be glad eef you’d refrain from spreading the lie that our parents were not married.”

    “Look, you stupid little thing, Papa damn’ near disinherited Robert when he told him he’d written to your parents!”

    Nan took a deep breath. “We never received the letter. But I cannot see why you would lie about such a theeng.”—An expression of amazed wrath grew on Miss Jeffreys’s face as she realized her cousin’s daughter was quoting her own words back at her.—“From what I have read of the present Lord Keywes, eet would be like heem to take the humanitarian stance. Unfortunately, we are not in need of hees charity.” She stood up. “Eef you are not willing to let Mrs Beresford know that the rumours currently rife in Bath are weethout foundation, then we have plenty of other options. We do not care for Bath, een any case. I shall wait for the boys outside. Good-day.” She went out quickly before she really lost her temper and started screaming at the woman.

    Kate Jeffreys sat there scowling for some time. Impertinent chit! And to say they did not need Robert’s charity! Robert was the best fellow in the world, and well did she remember the frightful day on which he had told Papa he had written to Cousin Nancy and her Portuguese husband! Well, that was all ancient history. But to reject the family’s overtures in such a way! As if she had offered the girl an insult, rather than an olive branch! –Of course, never mind if she had not cared how she actually behaved, Nancy had been as proud as Lucifer in that sort of way, too. And much good it had done her. ...A rajah? Good grief.

    After quite some time spent in a sort of muddled brooding in which her normally very clear mind was not accustomed to indulge, Miss Jeffreys took a deep breath, pulled herself together, and re-read Mrs Beresford’s letter.

    “Hm,” she said. “I suppose now I shall have to go and see Rowena Beresford! And explain to her,” she noted grimly, getting up and folding the letter tightly, “how it comes about that, though I personally do not wish to see Hugo Benedict’s widow set foot at Vaudequays, we should appreciate it if rumours about her doubtful birth were scotched! ...Hell.”

    She went over to the smeared, many-paned little window of the rambling old inn and peered out at the yard. “The obstinate little thing is just sitting there in her carriage! For the Lord’s sake!”

    She hesitated, but in the end did not go out to her, or send a message asking her to return. She knew she had made a mull of the interview: she had come to Bath with every intention of being kindly gracious, willing to overlook all previous faults, and, if Lady Benedict was at all presentable—and she had supposed she must be, after all Hugo Benedict had been a sensible man with a sense of what was due to his position—welcome her into, if not precisely the bosom of the family, at least the outer fringes of the family circle. But Nancy’s daughter had all of Nancy’s damned impertinence and all of Nancy’s pig-headed independence, and—

    Kate Jeffreys found she was getting angry all over again. She took a deep breath, and went back to the fire. No, it could only make matters worse at this stage to endeavour to speak to the girl again. She was still far too angry to trust herself to strike the right note. And she should speak to damned Rowena Beresford, but…

    At the very back of her mind was the thought that Robert would be very seriously annoyed indeed if she did not see Mrs Beresford and sort the matter out. And also the thought that he was like to be very annoyed in any case, for, as Miss Jeffreys was guiltily aware she was wont to do, she had of course rushed in with her great boots on where angels themselves would have used silk slippers. Kate Jeffreys, as she was wont to do, refused to pull out these thoughts and examine them closely.

    “Calm down!” said Dom in Portuguese with a gasp and a sneeze.

    “I am calm, really,” replied Nan in the language with which they had both grown up. “I suppose within her lights she was doing the right thing, coming to see us when Senhora Beresford wrote her.”

    Dom sneezed, and nodded.

    “But she was so patronising, Dom!”

    “I got that,” he said thickly, blowing his nose. He had gathered it not only from Nan’s impassioned speech when she had burst into his room, but also from the Portuguese.

    “I admit I was rude to her—but not nearly as rude as she was. And she was rude first!”

    He nodded, blowing his nose.

    “Possibly we should remove from Bath,” said Nan on a guilty note.

    “Wait and see. –No, well, don’t cross your bridges before you come to them, Nan.”

    Nan choked indignantly. “I am not crossing any bridges at all! She turned up in Bath without notice and started asking me rude and intimate questions without even so much as a good-day!”

    “I expect she had a shock. Well: walked in, saw you standing there—”

    “I had a shock, too!” she cried crossly.

    “Yes.” Dom sneezed. He blew his nose. “Only hers would have been worse. You were expecting her to turn up. And you do look awfully like Mamma.”

    “But— Oh.”

    “Senhora Garvão was used to say Mamma was always untidy, remember? Dare say you looking like a rag-bag made it worse. Well, made the resemblance more pronounced.”

    “And made her more inclined to patronize me, yes! I had worked that out for myself, thank you! You do not seriously envisage waiting six months while Bath gossips, Dom?”

    He sighed. “No, I envisage waiting to see if Senhora Beresford calls, you cloth-head!”

    “Oh,” said Nan, pinkening. “Yes. How silly of me.”

    “Quite. Go away and leave me to enjoy my misery in peace.”

    “Is it getting worse?”

    “Drippier,” said Dom, blowing his nose glumly.

    “That is at least progress,” she said optimistically.

    “Go AWAY!”

    Nan went out, but popped her head back into the room to say wistfully: “If Senhora Beresford does not call, shall we think about removing from Bath, Dom, dearest?”

    Dom sighed. “I suppose we shall have to rethink our position, aye.”

    “I am very sick of Bath.”

    Dom sighed.

    “I’m going! Shall I send Sita with another draught?”

    “No, send Alfred with a hot rum toddy.”

    “Is that wise?”

     Dom gave her a wrathful glare and she vanished precipitately.

    He lay back on his pillows, sighing. “Mistletoe? Oh, my God,” he said to himself.

    Nan had forgotten all about the invitations she had blithely issued for dinner that night, until she went to her room to change. “Oh, help,” she muttered.

    “What is the matter, Nanni baba?” Sita endeavoured to feel her forehead but Nan thrust her away.

    “I have invited the Laidlaw boys to dinner and now Dom is too sick to be the host!”

    “I’ll tell Ranjit not to let them in the house!” she said fiercely.

    “Don’t be ridiculous, this is England,” said Nan wearily.

     There was a short pause.

    “The twins are sixteen and a half,” she said cautiously.

    Sita burst into impassioned speech. Nan didn’t stop her, she felt that on the whole the ayah was right. Had they been Dicky’s age... But they weren’t, and silly convention or no... She took a deep breath. “Sita, fetch Dicky Sahib to me immediately.”

    “Dicky baba is not a grown-up man, Nanni—”

    “Fetch DICKY SAHIB!” shouted Nan.

    Sita got the point and vanished.

    Looking lofty, Dicky allowed that of course he could play host. Adding: “You can have Lukey and Micky beside you. Only listen: don’t you go flirting weeth them, eet’s embarrassin’.”

    Nan went very red. “I do not fl—”

    But the Wykehamist had stalked out.

    Nan went slowly downstairs. It had been a very bad day. Though the mistletoe gathering had been huge fun. Only, she should not have done it at all! Why was her life so boring: why was she condemned to be a g—woman? ...Oh, dear: and why was she still having these thoughts, at her age?

    Five minutes later she rose gracefully to greet the blushing Laidlaw boys. “My dears! I am so glad you could come!”

    As, contrary to her strong feeling, she did not have engraved on her forehead the words “This has been a very bad day”, Micky, Lukey and Mendoza saw nothing at which to cavil in Lady Benedict’s appearance and manner that evening.