Summer Storms

29

Summer Storms

    The house which the Sothebys had been used to take for the summer months was very small. Two storeys, plus two tiny attic rooms in the gable which Nan declared unfit for human habitation after one glance: they were directly below the thatch. Very luckily there was a large, newish, stone stable block which had sufficient accommodation for the menservants. Though it was fortunate indeed that they had not brought M. Lavoisier, Troope, or Murchison. As it was, the family only just fitted into the house, with Daphne, Susan and Ruth sharing one room with Miss Gump, another occupied by the two little girls with Rani, Nurse, Polly the nurserymaid, Johnny and Rosebud, and a third by Nan and Iris, whilst Dom, by virtue of his sex, found himself in solitary splendour in the fourth and smallest room. When Dicky arrived from the Vale of Keywes, which he was not due to do until the last week of their stay, he would have to share with Dom.

    After the rooms had been allotted those who could count and were not exhausted by the shouting might have realized that this scheme of distribution left Sita out in the cold. Sita had, however, decided that she would sleep in a truckle bed in the kitchen: a decision which effectively pre-empted any move by Rani to take over the kitchen from her. By this time Nan’s entire household knew Sita well enough to realize it, so no-one said anything except Iris. She was very puzzled to see her Cousin Nan and her Cousin Dom go into choking hysterics as she expressed the thought that there was plenty of room for “poor Sita” in the room she and Nan were sharing: she had thought her Baldaya cousins were more caring towards their dependants than that.

    “Tactics!” gasped Dom when he could speak. “She would beat a Wellington at hees own game!”

    “What?” said Iris numbly.

    Gently Dom led his cousin aside and explained.

    After she’d got over the hysterics Iris looked thoughtfully at Nan. “That could explain a lot.”

    “Yes, couldn’t eet?” he said cheerfully. “Prema was worse, eef anything!”

    Four weeks passed in a relaxed enough manner at Sunny Bay House, if not precisely in a golden haze. The weather was not ideal but then, this was England, after all. Various small crises arose but these were only to be expected in family life, and the weather could be blamed for most of them. Well, some of them.

    On one damp day Richpal and Ranjit visited the village together in their turbans and blankets, and narrowly escaped ducking in the pond on the common, even though the villagers were now accustomed to see Sita with Ruth or Hughes.

    Hughes himself had already started a running feud with the local innkeeper on the score of the unfitness of his stables to house a dog, let alone a decent horse. The quality of the man’s ale was also called into serious question. This made supplies to Sunny Bay House somewhat problematic, as the irritated Dom, on one particularly warm day, did not neglect to point out to their faithful henchman.

    Miss Gump took it upon herself to alienate the farmer’s wife whom Ruth had only just managed to get over Sita and persuade to supply them with fresh butter, eggs and milk, by criticising the quality of the said butter. The next nearest farm was a considerable walk away. Nan in person had to accompany Ruth, on a very damp day indeed, to placate the woman.

    Krishna created a small crisis by lighting a fire for his cooking in Hughes’s precious stable on a pouring wet day. Amrita had to be put across Dom’s knee for attempting to bore a hole through the thatch in one of the tiny attic rooms, also on a pouring wet day. Was she MAD? That was the roof! Everyone ignored her screams that she had been trying to make a chimney so that Krishna could do his cooking up there. Then Mina had to be put even more severely across Dom’s knee for stealing one of his cigars and smoking it in one of the said attic rooms, causing Rani to panic and rush round screaming in three languages that the house was on fire. Which, Dom did not neglect to point out, it well could have been, and was Mina MAD?

    One gloriously fine day, the local vicar called—unfortunately just when Mina, Amrita and Johnny were returning from a swim in Sunny Bay, it being only thirty yards or so across the field, without having bothered to reclothe themselves. True, Nan and Rani, who had been supervising, were clad, but as the Indian version of supervising swimming entailed wading out to waist-height in your cotton saree, the vicar was scarcely impressed.

    Early in the third week of their stay the conscientious Susan and Ruth, a pouting Daphne and a resigned Iris and Dom accompanied Miss Gump and the two little girls to see Stamforth Castle. Nan volunteered to remain behind and help Sita and Rani with the plum chutney. As the ayahs had already almost come to blows on the score of the putative ripeness of the plums, the putative suitability of said plums for chutney, and the quality of the sugar available from the local village—making three sets of almost coming to blows in all—not to mention the frightful confrontation over who should actually be in charge of the chutney-making, no-one called her a piker.

    Dom had not taken Miss Gump’s word that the edifice was within easy walking distance of Sunny Bay House, the which was just as well: it took nigh on half an hour in the carriage, and by the time they got there the sky was suspiciously lowering. They were not, however, let off the visit on the strength of this and in fact no-one was so silly as to suppose they might be.

    Whether Miss Gump’s guidebook was out-of-date or merely inaccurate was difficult to tell, but in any case, it was apparently wrong in declaring that the castle was no longer inhabited. Over the main entrance a flag flew bravely in the whipping wind against the dark grey sky. Large parts of the great grey outer walls were roped off and covered in scaffolding, upon which workmen scurried and shouted, and did incomprehensible but exciting things. Other parts were barred to the general public. At one point Dom was driven to take the book off her in order to ascertain that she wasn’t looking at a description of a different castle entirely: but no, this was it. According to the book one entered by the main portico where the drawbridge had once stood. Well, one entered under a huge stone arch, from which clumps of candytuft sprouted prettily and over which a large honeysuckle trailed in scented profusion: close enough.

    There was absolutely no sign of a moat, although the diagram in the guidebook had a dotted line to indicate one, and Mina became very cross on the instant. The castle had been built as an hollow square but once you were through the arch, which was impressive enough, about twenty-five feet deep, you discovered that to your right what had appeared from the outside to be a corner tower was entirely mouldered away inside and, indeed, adorned with a fine display of rambling roses and more honeysuckle; and to your left, the truncated stump forming that corner was now revealed as roofed over at about the level of the second storey of a more ordinary dwelling, forming a sort of lodge. At the moment occupied by a sort of gatekeeper and his family: well, there was washing drying on some huge pieces of fallen masonry outside it and a man in a frieze jacket emerged from it and offered to sell them tickets and take them round the parts that were open to the public, so—

    The interior of the hollow square was huge and could have contained a small village. What it did contain was, chiefly, a large lawn with a wide gravelled carriage-way. The carriage-way led up to a pleasant-looking, largish house, perhaps a hundred years old, built against the far wall: but to the visitors’ astonishment, the workmen who were swarming over it appeared to be dismantling it, rather than restoring it. Dom questioned the gatekeeper, who assured them this was so: his new master had discovered, he reported with relish, that it were riddled with dry rot. Aye: riddled. As they gaped down the positive vista of lawn and carriageway, there was a rending crash from the house, huge clouds of dust flew up, and the better part of the roof was seen to have collapsed into the interior. Mina, perhaps needless to state, cheered up almost, though not quite, to the point of forgetting there was no moat.

    “So you have a new master?” said Miss Gump, rather faintly, into the subsequent ringing silence.

    “Aye, ma’am, that we do. Old Lord, he popped off a month since. Well, he were never the same man, after his son were killed at that there Waterloo.”

    Nobody else had to contribute: Miss Gump made all the appropriate tutting noises, and got out of the man that the new lord had ordered the demolishing of “New House” immediate, while Old Lord were scarce cold: it were unsafe.

    “So—so what has become of the household?” she ventured.

    Shaking his head, the man explained that New Master had sent most on ’em up to Lunnon, to the town house. What hadn’t never been aired these eight year and more a-gone, ma’am.—Miss Gump winced.—And the rest were a-living in Old Hall!

    They stared, as he finished on a note of triumphant conclusion, nodding hard towards the rubble of the house.

    “Old Hall?” said Susan faintly. “Is that nearby?”

    Blessing her, the gatekeeper explained it were just over there, Miss! Nodding hard.

    They goggled at the great stone wall against which “New House” had been built. It was certainly all that was visible “over there”.

    “There is an archway,” discovered Iris. So there was: over to the far right.

    Ah! The gatekeeper could take them through the archway, if they liked, and show them Old Hall, only it would be sixpence extra. Each.

    This very definitely was not in Miss Gump’s guidebook, and it was more than probable—depending, of course, on just how out-of-date it was—that the gatekeeper had created a nice little unofficial income for himself by inventing this unofficial charge. Hurriedly Dom produced the requisite number of sixpences, and urged the man to lead the way. Forthwith deputing himself to grasp a hand each of Amrita and Mina, who showed definite signs of being about to veer off in the direction of the demolition site.

    The small archway which led through the immensely high stone wall reminded Miss Gump vividly of College X, which she had visited at Oxford in her dear brother’s day—or was it College Y? Or stay, was it the time she and Cousin Miranda Pratt had visited Cambridge— No: she had it wrong: it was the Fellows’ Garden at—

    Dom and Iris at this point gave up even pretending to listen and went through.

    “Great Heavens!” gasped Iris.

    “Lor’,” said Dom, his jaw dropping.

    “Ah!” said the gatekeeper with immense satisfaction. “That be Old Hall, that be.”

    The wall against which “New House” had been built merely partitioned off about one third of the immense interior of the old castle enclosure. The two thirds now revealed to their amazed eyes were dominated by a gigantic, half-ruined, featureless stone structure at a distance of some thirty yards: presumably the original keep. Against the far wall there were a great number of structures, all more or less lean-to, largely unidentifiable and largely tumbledown; off to the far right, towards the back of the enclosure, was a reasonably neat stable block; and to their near left, two oblong stone buildings of quite astounding beauty were set in a T-configuration. The far end of the longer building abutted the castle wall, over to the left; the smaller building, nearer them, featured a little steeple with an elaborate stone cross: it must be the family chapel. The longer leg of the T, to which the gatekeeper was proudly nodding, must be “Old Hall”. It was quite high, but appeared to consist of only two storeys. The windows were all narrow and arched, the slate roof was very steep, and the structure itself was supported at intervals by—er…

    “Are those flying buttresses?” croaked Iris.

    “No idea,” croaked Dom. “I say, it ain’t half Gothick!”

    There was a gasping, panting noise from behind them. “Perpendicular! Good gracious me, that must be the— Yes! And this is the family chapel!” The pages of the guidebook flapped busily. “But this cannot be right! No, stay—” More flapping.

    “Are those flying buttresses, Miss Gump?” asked Iris limply,

    “No, no, my dear. But they are certainly buttresses. Let me see... Ah! Here we have it! Yes, a very fine example of the— Iris, my dear,” she said in a low voice, “according to this, the hall and chapel are not open to the public and are in very bad repair.”

    Iris shrugged. “They look all right to me.”

    The gatekeeper came up very close to her elbow. “Lasted, they ’ave, Miss. New Master, he says as how they was built proper, first place.” He nodded portentously. “Had ’em scrubbed inside and out, he did, and they come up like nobody’s business!”

    “Ah!” said Miss Gump excitedly. “There are flying buttresses, Iris, my dear, but they are at the far end of the chapel! You will see! Come along, girls, you must not miss this!” She led Iris off. Susan and Ruth followed obediently. Daphne, pouting, stayed with Dom and the children.

    “That be Old Hall,” said the gatekeeper to Dom.

    “Aye, a vairy fine structure,” he agreed kindly. “Er—living een eet, are they, deed you say?”

    The gatekeeper burst into detailed explanation, but it must be admitted that Dom didn’t listen. The more so as Mina and Amrita were tugging fiercely at his hands, demanding to go “Up!” Up what, they didn’t appear to mind.

    Casting a wary eye in the direction in which Miss Gump had disappeared, the gatekeeper then offered to let Dom have a peep inside Old Hall. Dom agreed, with a wink, that he wouldn’t half mind, and with great precautions the man eased open the enormous front door, which was set in the end of the long building, facing the pretty little chapel. Dom, Daphne and the little girls peered in eagerly.

    It was a huge, largely bare, stone-flagged place. What had appeared to be two storeys from the outside was now revealed as one, with clerestory windows below an enormous vaulted ceiling. Two large fireplaces featured in a side wall: you would need ’em, thought Dom, shivering slightly. An elaborately carved wooden balcony ran round part of the structure above the first set of windows but frankly, you hardly noticed that, except to perceive that many tattered, faded flags and banners drooped from it. There was nobody in sight, but by one of the fireplaces a clump of fairly modern sofas and chairs was set, and under the long windows to the left was what in any other setting would have appeared an enormous oaken refectory table. In Old Hall it looked positively small.

    “Help!” gasped Daphne.

    “What een the name of all that’s wonderful was eet built as?” asked Dom feebly.

    “It be Old Hall, young sir,” said the gatekeeper in an offended manner.

    “Uh—right. –Banqueting hall or some such?” he said to his sister.

    Daphne replied uncertainly “I suppose so. You could hold a wonderful ball here, Dom!”

    If you didn’t mind dancing on stone flags, yes, you no doubt you could.

    When the gatekeeper’s grandfer were a lad, gentry did use to have a great dance here, every Midsummer and every Christmas as well: ah. They were great days. He looked as if he was about to expand on this theme, but at this moment a door was heard to creak open somewhere in the dim regions at the back of Old Hall and a man’s deep voice called out something: hurriedly the gatekeeper tugged them out and eased the big door closed again.

    “Thanks,” said Dom with a wink, handing him a shilling.

    The gatekeeper, having had a cautious nibble at it, put it in his pocket, grinning. Chapel, it were locked, he informed them regretfully. They’d had Old Master lying in state in there. Daphne jumped, and looked over her shoulder nervously. Lordy, there weren’t nothing scary about it, young Missy, only New Master, he’d said as how them gilders or such like did ought to be looked to, and there was a man a-coming from Lunnon town to see to ’em, and until then, it were to be kept locked.

    “The gilding?” asked Dom uncertainly.

    The gatekeeper was just assuring them this was so when Miss Gump reappeared and assured them excitedly that the gilded chapel of Stamforth Castle had once been— blah, blah. When she’d run down, even though it had now begun to spit and the wind was howling round the more broken-down parts of the castle wall, of which they could now see there were plenty, Dom got the gatekeeper to take them all “Up.” There was only one stretch of the broad castle wall that was safe, or at the least that visitors were permitted to ascend: Dom saw, with some amusement, that on another part of the great wall two girls were hurriedly taking in a load of washing.

    There was a wonderful view south across the golden-green sweep of the gently rounded hill on which the castle stood, down to the coast and the sea. To the north miles of rolling Sussex farmland were at the moment dramatically shaded with ominous black patches of racing cloud. Dom got his party down to ground level just as the storm broke over the castle with a crash.

    Back in the carriage, panting, Miss Gump explained that the interior wall was much later: much later! No-one particularly cared, though Ruth agreed politely that it must shade the Old Hall dreadfully.

    “Ah!” said a pleased voice. “That it do!”

    Miss Gump and the young ladies gasped and jumped, as the gatekeeper’s tousled head poked into the carriage, grinning. “New Lord, he be a-going to tear it right down. Then when you drives in through Big Arch, Old Hall’ll be what you sees first off. He says as New Wall, it be a nacker-nizzom,” he explained proudly, “and did ought to be cleared right out.”

    “An anachronism,” explained Miss Gump helpfully.

    “Ah, that be it, ma’am, like I say: a nacker-nizzom.”

    “In a way that would be a pity, it will destroy that beautiful smaller arch that reminded you of the College, Miss Gump,” said Iris sycophantically.

    “Oh! You are so right, my dear!”

    “Nay, it won’t do that, Miss, acos New Master, ’e says Little Arch, it can stay. Little Arch, it be a sight older than New Wall!” he assured them, chuckling richly.

    “I knew it!” cried Miss Gump. The pages of the guidebook flapped again. “Ah! Now, this will interest you, Iris, my dear: in the fourteenth century...”

    “It were all like that,” reported Dom glumly on the slightly damp party’s return.

    “Mm.” Nan held out a spoonful of freshly-made chutney; gratefully Dom opened his mouth.

    “Mm!” he said, nodding.

    “Eet was vairy good of you to go, Dom.”

    “Someone had to,” he said with a sigh. “The dashed place ees nigh as beeg as Windsor, remark!”

    “Really?” she said, staring.

    “Aye. Well, een area. Horridly tumbledown, though. Not much habitable. Said thees new fellow’s pullin’ the actual house down, didn’t I? –Well, pulled eet: we were lucky enough to catch the roof coming down!” he said with a laugh.

    “The day wasn’t entirely wasted, then,” said Nan, smiling.

    “No, five minutes of eet were real good.”

    She laughed and squeezed his arm, and offered him a hot pooree with fresh chutney. Nodding eagerly, Dom stood at her elbow while she fried it up.

    “Who ees thees new lord?” she asked idly as he consumed it.

    Dom swallowed thickly. “Never heard of heem: Viscount Stamforth. Do eet ring any bells?”

    She shrugged. “No.”

    “No. Well, whoever he ees, he’s got the right idea. Though personally, I’d leave the whole place to eets fate. ’Member the Red Palace of Ishnapoor?”

    Nan nodded fervently, her eyes shining.

    “Nothin’ like eet,” said Dom with a sour face. “No ponds, no pretty open halls. Mind you, een thees climate! No, well, nothin’ even approaching a fortification, either: remember how you had to cross that huge dry moat and then go through that long, narrow archway with all them arrow slits high up above you to get eento the Red Palace?”

    Nan nodded.

    “Not an arrow slit een sight!” he said in disgust.

    “Oh. Well, what about the outer walls, Dom?”

    “One decent scaling ladder and you’d be over ’em while they was steell rushing about eenside trying to get the women eento the inner quarters. –Never saw any women’s quarters, at all, actually,” he noted.

    “Dom, I don’t theenk they have them, een English castles!”

    “Oh. Well, anyway, eet was damned boring. Don’t bother to go.”

    Miss Gump, of course, then gave her a diametrically opposed report and diametrically opposite advice, but Nan just nodded and smiled.

    The day the letters came was another lowering, dark day, with thunder rumbling over the Channel. Amrita and Mina had declared their intention of going out in his boat with old Ned Grundy from the village, and the expected floods of tears resulted when Nan vetoed it on account of the weather. Krishna had caught a bad cold and an hour was spent jointly by Nan, Sita, Rani and Daphne, the last-named being his favourite of the family, in persuading him to go back to his bed and remain there. As he wouldn’t accept a posset from impure hands, there was nothing else they could do except make sure he was warm and hope he would shake it off.

    Mina then caused a minor crisis by being discovered in the loose-box with Dom’s Glorious Boy; as this activity had been strictly forbidden—the more so as she was offering Glorious Boy green apples, the which were well known to cause colic, was she MAD?—she had to be put across Dom’s knee. Amrita went around looking saintly for about a half hour after that, until the disappearance of half a batch of raspberry tartlets made only yesterday afternoon by Nan’s own hands was traced to her. And the remains of the last three tarts discovered in her pillowcase. Knee, the household decided unanimously.

    Even the little ones contributed their mite. Johnny got into the act by laboriously pulling a kitchen chair over to the table while Rani’s back was turned as she stirred at the stove and Sita’s back was turned as she supervised Rani’s stirring at the stove. He had eaten the better part of a quarter pound of fresh butter, smearing himself liberally in the process, by the time they realised that the room had become suspiciously silent. He was a bit small for the knee, and the crime perhaps not grave enough, but as the butter had been set aside for Nan to make a replacement batch of tartlets no-one was terribly pleased. He was duly apprised of this point and burst into roars of guilt and despair. And as Sita had sworn she’d look after him while Rani cooked, Rani and Nan were not terribly pleased with Sita. In fact a screaming match ensued.

    Rosebud’s only crime that day was to stagger out of the back door in the rain and investigate the flourishing herb garden that grew conveniently just near the door. True, she was wearing a waistcoat of Dom’s over her own small garments at the time, having just discovered the entrancing game of putting on other people’s clothes, but no-one was particularly annoyed by this except Dom. In fact certain people laughed themselves silly. A shouting match then ensued, Rosebud suddenly joining in, possibly because it had dawned on her that she was the criminal in the case, with loud wails.

    During all of this period Miss Gump was laid upon her bed with a migraine due to the approaching thunderstorm. Whether this helped or not was a moot point.

    By what might have been time for a meal if everyone had not been too busy shouting, spanking, and looking for evidence of stolen tarts to make one, Nan had frankly given up and was on the shabby sofa in the shabby sitting-room with her feet up and a shawl over them, à la Mrs Urqhart. Iris had given up pretending that they were having a summer and was crouched on the hearthrug, building a fire and wondering whether Dom would object too much if she filched that bottle of burgundy he’d hidden on the top shelf of the pantry and turned it into mulled wine.

     Nan thought the answer to this question was Yes, and was about to say so, when the door opened to admit a salaaming Richpal in his turban but with a blanket over his uniform. He’d given up pretending it was summer long since. A man had come to call. With a message. But it wasn’t proper for Nanni Begum to receive— Yes, Nanni Begum! Ekdum, Nanni Begum!

    The “man” came in, looking very unsure of himself.

    Nan goggled at him. He was sixteen, at the very most. The footmen were getting worse, possibly it was the weather. “Uh—yes?” she said feebly. “I am Lady Benedict. Have you a message for me?”

    In a local accent so thick that even Iris had difficulty in understanding it the boy explained that Mrs Pincher, she had had all these letters come, and they had been wondering, should they send a message, see, and Jem Pincher, he could have brung ’em out to Sunny Bay House only yesterday if they had but thought… It eventually emerged that New Lord from Castle, he had said: “Tommy, you bring ’em over right smart to the lady,” Miss.

    Nan looked limply at Iris.

    “That is Lady Benedict, give them to her,” said Iris clearly.

    Tommy felt in the recesses of his damp garments and produced a great wad of letters which he thrust proudly at Nan.

    “Thank you,” she said limply.

    “Dare one ask how long these letters have been waiting at Mrs Pincher’s establishment?” asked Iris faintly.

    Vicar, he had said as how Mary Pincher, she might pop on over to Sunny Bay House once she’d—

    “Forget I spoke,” groaned Iris.

    “S’il s’agît du curé qui est venu nous voir le jour de natation, sans doute il n’est pas pressé de nous voir recevoir notre courrier,” said Nan drily.

    “Sans doute. Et lui,” she said, nodding at him, “il ferait le signe de la croix, s’il était catholique: mais regardez-le, Nan!”

    “Yes. –Tommy—eet ees Tommy, no? Yes,” she said as he nodded convulsively, “eef you go eento the kitchen, Tommy, someone weell give you something to eat.”

    “Thank you kindly, Miss!” he gasped.

    “Come on,” said Iris with a sigh, getting up. “This way. –It’s all foreign food, mind,” she warned, steering him out to the passage with a firm hand on his scrawny shoulder. Tommy’s voice could be heard reporting what Vicar had said on this subject.

    Sighing, Nan turned to her letters.

    Iris came back after quite some time. “He ate it, but he’s probably convinced he’s devil-cursed for the rest of his— What’s up?”

    Nan wrinkled up her nose. “Where’s Dom? I’d better tell you both at the same time.”

    “Uh—stables, I think. Hang on. BHAI!” yelled Iris at the top of her lungs.

    Richpal and Ranjit both shot in like rockets.

    Raising her eyebrows only very slightly at Nan, Iris ordered them to fetch Dom Sahib, ekdum.

    They shot out like rockets.

    “I suppose I should not laugh,” said Nan feebly. “Een the sad circumstances.”

    “Who’s died?” replied Iris simply, sitting down on the hearthrug again.

    Nan made a face. “Only Mrs Chalfont,” she admitted.

    “Cherry’s ma? Never! Well, good riddance!”

    “Mm.”

    When Dom came in he heartily concurred in this opinion.

    Nan sighed. “Yes. But she seems to have made eet an excuse not to announce the engagement to Sir Noël.”

    “Eh?” he croaked.

    “Does she want him, or not?” said Iris, staring.

    Nan sighed again. “She wants heem, I am convinced of eet. But she’s afraid he does not want her.”

    Dom was unaffectedly reading Cherry’s letter. “Ugh. She says here, Lady Amory the younger has invited her down to Devon but she’s not going!”

    “Even though Sir Noël has volunteered to escort her: yes,” groaned Nan.

    “Oh, yes, so he has... What the Devil’s all thees about Mary and Smeeth?”

    “Mrs Chalfont’s servants. I’m not sure, Dom. She seems vairy shaken...”

    “This beet here,” he noted grimly, “sounds as eef she’s blaming herself! But as far as I can see, eef the woman got a series of colds and neglected them and then got an inflammation of the lungs and refused to admeet she had eet, eet was all her own seelly fault!”

    “Yes. That does sound vairy like her, Iris,” said Nan, as their cousin looked dubious.

    “I get you. Obstinate type,” she said, nodding.

    “Aye. –Listen here!’’ said Dom in amaze. “‘Sir Noël has shewn heemself so obdurate towards poor Aunt Lydia, declaring he weell not have her een hees house. Eet seems too unnecessarily cruel, when Thevenard Manor ees such a large house. Poor Aunt Lydia has offered to supervise the household linen’—theenk she means Amory’s,” he explained redundantly, “‘but of course I have told her there ees no need for that: eef I am ever married she weell be a welcome guest een my house.’ Eef! –And thees ees the woman, Iris,” he explained bitterly, “what let her and her brother shiver on the area steps all night when they was about Mina’s and Amrita’s ages, and then let the mother lock Cherry out een the square on a freezing winter’s night weethout saying boo!”

    “Cherry deed say that she had taken her draught that night,” murmured Nan.

    “Pooh!”

    “I weesh there was something we could do,” she said, frowning over it. “I could write and ask her to join us, but would she come?”

    “Shouldn’t it be damned Noël Amory that should be doing something about it, and not you?” drawled Iris.

    “He has asked hees mother to invite Cherry down to Devon,” Dom pointed out dubiously.

    Iris sniffed.

    “He can scarcely marry her out of hand,” murmured Nan. “But I suppose you are right, eet ees Sir Noël’s business, not ours.”

    “Poor Cherry... I theenk she ees a leetle scared of heem,” said Dom in a low voice. “You know?”

    “Ye-es...” Nan looked doubtfully at Iris.

    “If you’re sparing my maidenly blushes, don’t bother,” noted that maiden drily. “I entirely agree. He’s a sophisticated man of the world, I’d be damned scared myself at the thought of getting into his bed.”

    “But no!” cried Nan in astonishment. “He weell know he ees doing, Iris, that ees a great advantage!”

    “Ali the more reason for we maidens to shake in our shoes,” replied Iris with a comically wry look.

    “Yes,” agreed Dom firmly. “Theenk you’re both right: he weell know, out of course, but Cherry won’t know enough to know that that’s a reason not to be scared.”

    Nan thought it over. “Horrors, yes, you’re right! Poor leetle Cherry, but that ees so wrong! Could I perhaps write eet to her?”

    “No!” gasped Iris in horror.

    “Eef I put it vairy tactfully… I don’t see how,” she admitted sadly.

    “That eet?” asked Dom, stretching. “Anyone fancy a hot mulled wine? I theenk I might sacrifice that burgundy, eet ain’t doin’ me no good in the pantry,”

    “My thoughts exactly!” said Iris with a gurgle. “Oh—but there is more, though, I think?”

    “I’ll get the wine,” said Dom firmly, getting up and going out.

    Nan looked doubtfully at Iris. “I’m sorry. Sometimes Dom doesn’t theenk.”

    “No, no! He’s a lovely fellow!” she said, laughing.

    “Yes,” said Nan in some relief. “He ees.”

    When they were sipping the wine and Dom had reported happily that Sita was making hot curried soup—Iris blinked, but made no remark—Nan disclosed with a smothered sigh: “Thees came for me, and thees ees for you, Dom. Eet ees clearly about Ruth.” She handed him a letter addressed in a very black hand.

    “No frank,” said Dom, turning it over. “What deed you have to pay for thees?”

    “Notheeng,” said Nan blankly. “I deed not pay for any of them.”

    “Then Mrs Pincher will no doubt be hitting you up for innumerable sixpences,” noted Iris. “Is it from the lawyer?”

    “No,” said Nan, flushing a little. “From Colonel Vane. Een mine he just says that een July Major Norrington ees due at Dieppe and he weell make sure you know how to get there, Dom.”

    Dom was reading his. “Aye. Says he’ll meet me een Stamforth town at the Arms, to make sure I don’t get lost!”

    “The Arms?” asked Nan.

    “The Stamforth Arms is that large inn in that dump of a small town where we stopped for refreshments on the way down, and they tried to persuade us we needed to change horses,” Iris reminded her.

    “Oh, yes. Just make sure eet ees you who pays for anytheeng you drink, Dom.”

    “Oh, aye,” he agreed peaceably.

    “Is that it?” asked Iris. “No actual news of this Norrington character?”

    Nan shook her head.

    “No,” agreed Dom cheerfully.

    “How will you recognize him?” asked Iris politely. “Or shall you just tour the inns and taverns of Dieppe, calling out: ‘Oy, anyone here by the name of Norrington?’”

    “Sometheeng like that,” he said with his easy grin.

    Iris sighed. “Men’s work?” she said to Nan, raising an eyebrow.

    “What?” she said, jumping. “Oh! Yes: they are all like that, Iris, even,”—she eyed her brother grimly—“the sweetest of them.”

    Dom smiled uneasily.

    “Yes!” said Iris with a laugh. “Well, dare say Dieppe isn’t that big. I’m glad Colonel Sour-Puss hasn’t forgotten all about the business.”

    “He would not,” said Nan tightly.

    “No, of course not, best fellow een the world,” agreed Dom easily. He glanced at Nan’s lowered head, winked swiftly at Iris, and said loudly: “Come on, Nan, that all?”

    “What? Oh! No. Let me see... Thees ees from Dicky. Assuring us that Cousin Keywes weell bring heem as far as— Well, never mind. Suffice eet to say that he weell take the stage for the last two laps of the journey and we are not to meet heem off eet, for he ees n—”

    “—not a brat!” Dom joined in, laughing. “Aye! That all he says?”

    Nan sighed. “Almost. Every second word ees ‘Cousin Keywes.’ Read eet, eef you like, but eet ees vairy boring. Unless you are vitally eenterested een Cousin Keywes’ seat on a horse, Cousin Keywes’s pistols, Cousin Keywes’s opeenions on thees, that and the other, all boring and all to do weeth horseflesh or guh-uns. –I’m so sorry, Iris!” she gulped as Iris broke down in hysterics.

    “Don’t be!” she gasped. “I’m glad to hear Robert’s giving pair of ’em a good time,” she admitted, smiling.

    “He seems to be, yes, een their terms,” admitted Nan, twinkling at her. “Does George’s shooting a rabbit count?”

    “Very much so! Er—does he mention Miss B.?” asked Iris in a hollow voice.

    Nan winced.

    “Go on, I can take it.”

    Dom had been reading the letter. “What he says ees,” he admitted: “‘More visitors came yesterday. Cousin Keywes says we need not be bothered with them but eef he catches anyone not taking off his hat to a lady the fur weell fly. Cousin Keywes ees a great gun. Mr Beresford came out weeth us this morning. He does not care for dawdling een salons neither. He ees a great gun. There ees also hees sister and mother. She asks to be remembered to you.’ The next beet ees about guns, so I shall omeet eet!”

    “There ees a leetle more news on the subject, from Charlotte Laidlaw,” added Nan cautiously.

    “Er… Oh: your Bath acquaintance? Go on,” said Iris heavily.

    Looking rather uncertain, Nan read out:

    Aunt Beresford and May called last week, to say goodbye before they set off to visit at Vaudequays, May looking positively radiant. I am sure you are right, my dear Nan, and that it is Lord Keywes. He sounds a good man, and I am sure will make her happy. And you need have no fears for him, my dear: May is the best little creature in the world. Between you and me, not an original mind, but entirely sweet-natured.

    She looked up, and shrugged a little. “What you thought, no?”

    “Mm,” agreed Iris wryly.

    “Any news of Miss Tarry and her clergyman?” asked Dom.

    “Oh absolutely!” said Nan with a laugh. “Let me see... Here eet ees!”

   We dined with the Henry Kernohans the other night, and met Tarry’s beau, at last. My dear, you would have been hard put to it not to laugh, had you seen the way in which Miss K. endeavoured to monopolize the poor man with talk of Church affairs, poor relief and so forth! Jack said to me afterwards, Can Proserpine truly believe she is the attraction at that house? For myself, I incline to the theory that she is concerned to show Mr L.-J. that there is one relative of Tarry’s at least who will do him credit with his influential Church connexions!

    Seriously, my dear, we liked him so much, and very much admired his manner to Tarry, which was not, as I had feared from your description of him, overly paternal or patronising, but merely kindly and caring. One can see that he is very much in love with her. Tarry, of course, thinks the world of him. Fortunate girl: it is in the highest degree unlikely that there is the sort of disillusionment in store for her that so many besotted young females experience when they find themselves actually tied to—

    Nan broke off, looking at Iris’s face, and laughing. “I deed tell you she was one of us, Iris! Here, you must read eet all!”

    Iris was rather pink. “I own, I should very much like to, but is it not private?”

    “No, no, not at all! Please!”

    Iris seized upon Charlotte Laidlaw’s letter eagerly and tucked it away to read later.

    “There ees more,” said Nan. “Thees ees a kind note from Mrs Urqhart. She urges me to send Susan and Daphne to her for a month.”

    “Do it,” said Iris immediately.

    “They are my responsibility, Iris, not hers. And we have already imposed upon her so much.”

    Iris looked at her drily. “Does she say that Mr U. will be with her for the month in question?”

    “Well, yes. He usually takes a month away from the City een the warmer weather.”

    “Or at the least in the middle of the year,” said Iris with a wince as a thunderclap boomed overhead and more rain lashed the windows.

    “Aye,” agreed Dom, getting up and operating on the fire. “Who built thees? Never tell me eet were Richpal or Ranjit?”

    “No, no: mea culpa,” groaned Iris, obligingly moving over on the rug. “Women cannot build fires, it is a male precept—nay, law,” she said grimly to Nan.

    “Well, I cannot!” Nan admitted with a gurgle.

    Iris looked at her affectionately. “I can believe that. Look, if Mr Urqhart’s down for the summer and Mr Charleson’s next-door, or next thing to it, don’t you think you’d better let the pair of them go?”

    “Added to which, they ain’t no use nor ornament here,” noted Dom.

    “Um—well, that ees not quite fair to Susan... But what about Ruth?” she said weakly. “We would be depriving her of their company.”

    “Leaving her with only ours: horrors,” agreed Iris drily.

    “She’s got more sense—and more guts—than both of ’em rolled together and multiplied twice over,” said Dom into his fire. “Get reed of ’em, Nan. If I see Susan mooning out the window sighing gustily once more thees week, I swear I weell throw a conniption!”

    Iris choked, but admitted: “Me, too! –Dom, what is a conniption?”

    “No idea, but I know overwrought ladies throw ’em!” he grinned, sitting back as the fire roared up the chimney. “There!”

    “Well, um, how shall we manage eet?” asked Nan on a guilty note.

    “I’ll take ’em,” said Dom briefly.

    “Dom, you have to go to thees Dieppe place.”

    “Not till next month, ees eet?” He fished Colonel Vane’s letter out of his breeches pocket and re-read it. “Oh. Says here, Meet me on the fifth. Oh, well, plenty of time!”

    Nan counted on her fingers. “Not eef you have to go all the way to The Towers.”

    “Escort ’em over, leave Hughes to bring the coach back, ride back: easy.”

    “Eef you are sure you can make eet, Dom? Finding Ruth’s uncle ees much more important than getting reed of Daphne and Susan, you know.”

    “Aye, only eet just don’t feel like eet!” he said with a laugh. “No, I shall do eet, easy; but we shall have to start at first light tomorrow, mind!”

    “That weell leave us weethout either Hughes or you, Dom...” she said uneasily.

    “Lord C. hasn’t sniffed us out so far! Highly unlikely he will at this stage!” said Iris bracingly.

    “N-n… Well, that ees vairy true. Only there were two other letters; you had best read them, Dom,” said Nan heavily, passing the last two to her brother.

    Dom broke the wafer on one. He gulped.

    “What?” said Iris fearfully.

    “Nothing to do with Lord C.! No, eet ees just merely,” he said, eyeing his sister grimly, “that old Quarmby-Vine proposes sailing round from Cowes een hees yacht and dropping anchor—he actually says that,” he added as Iris went into a giggling fit, “een Sunny Bay!”

    “Is it—even—on the charts?” she gasped.

    “No idea. But he appears to have located eet, all right and tight,” he said grimly.

    “Dom,” cried Nan agitatedly, “I swear I never believed for a moment he would truly come! I looked on the map, and Cowes ees miles and miles—”

    “Nautical miles!” wailed Iris, going into a paroxysm.

    “Aye,” said Dom heavily. He unfolded the second letter. “By God!”

    Iris goggled at him: he looked horribly like his Uncle Érico when he went that purple shade and his eyes bulged.

    “Read eet,” he said through his teeth.

    Iris read it, wincing. His Highness the Prince Henri-Louis, signing himself merely “Yr. Devoted, Henri-Louis,” as if that made it better, would do himself the honour of dropping in upon Lady Benedict, should it be convenient, with his dear friend M. le Vicomte d’Arresnes, as the yacht was moored near Brighton.

    “Don’t look at me like that!” cried Nan, as her empurpled brother continued to glare. “Truly I deed not— Well, I merely told heem where we would be, and— But Colonel Vane warned heem off! Een so many words, Dom!”

    “Apparently they weren’t enough,” he noted grimly.

    “I deed not encourage heem AFTER!” she shouted.

    “Er, if my humble opinion’s worth anything, Dom, I really don’t believe she did,” said Iris cautiously.

    Dom sighed heavily. “Hand me that, I shall have to write to the poor fellow meself, I suppose. God, how does you tell a prince to sheer off your sister?” he groaned.

    “Um, if they do turn up, Dom, will it be so bad?” ventured Iris.

    “Only eef they recognise Miss Smeeth,” he said heavily.

    Iris bit her lip. “I’ll get her in here, shall I?”

    “That would do for a start.”

    Iris went out.

    Dom eyed Nan thoughtfully.

    “I deed NOT—”

    “No, all right.”

    They waited in silence.

    To everyone’s terrific relief Ruth had never met any sort of prince except Prince Pom-Pom, and had never even heard of Henri-Louis. Nor did she know any Quarmby-Vines. So Dom consented to depart the next morning, taking with him the now ecstatic and radiant Daphne and Susan. And, as an afterthought, Miss Gump, to chaperone the two young ladies, one of whom after all was not actually related to Mr Baldaya by blood.

    As the carriage disappeared round a bend in the rutted country lane that led to Sunny Bay House a watery ray of sunshine filtered through the cloud cover, and Iris noted dazedly: “The sun’s coming out.”

    “Yes!” said Nan with a sudden loud giggle.

    Iris linked arms with her and they went back inside, smiling.

    They had just over twenty-four hours in which to enjoy their liberation. Then Nan was very startled indeed to see Iris and Ruth, who had set out on foot for the village with the declared intention of determining how many sixpences were owed to Mrs Pincher for all that mail, returning in the big travelling coach which had brought most of the household down and which Hughes had reluctantly permitted the local inn-keeper to shelter for them. With four bone-shakers poled up and an uncertain-looking groom from the inn on the box.

    “Iris!” she gasped, rushing out onto the rutted patch of gravel that did duty for a sweep at the front of Sunny Bay House. “What ees eet? Not—not news of Ruth’s papa?”

    Iris jumped down. “No, thank God. No: letter from Lilias,” she said, biting her lip. “Her mother’s gravely ill. I—I took the liberty— I thought you would not mind.”

    “Oh, no, of course! You must go to her, you deed quite right to fetch the coach!”

    It was only on the other side of Sussex, Iris explained: she had worked out the quickest route— Nodding, Nan hurried her into the house to pack.

    “But can she go alone, dear Nan?” faltered Ruth as the young ladies crammed a last unworn summer gown into a valise.

    “Yes,” said Iris immediately.

    Nan frowned over. it. “She weell have Peter Hawkins driving her, and the boy from the inn can accompany them over the first stage to bring the horses back... You had best hire a postboy at the next stage, Iris: do not argue! Oh, dear, I weesh we had not sent Miss Gump off with Daphne and Susan!”

    “Perhaps I—” faltered Ruth.

    “No, you must stay where I can keep an eye on you,” said Nan, squeezing her hand.

    “Then—then Sita?” she suggested

    Nan nodded. “I really theenk that would be the best solution, Iris. You must have a woman weeth you, you cannot cross Sussex by yourself.”

    Iris was rather relieved to be told so: she had, of course, never made a journey unescorted and unchaperoned in all of her sheltered, proper life.

    “And Rani weell not like to leave Amrita. Eet must be Sita. Her English ees much eemproved, though I am afraid she does not like to use eet,” she admitted.

    “You must tell her that Iris is her responsibility,” said Ruth with her gentle smile.

    Nan laughed. “I shall do so! Thank you, Ruth! Weell you be comfortable like that, Iris? Or perhaps you would like to take Polly Weddle, too?”

    Iris winced. “No, thanks.”

    “Well, she ees brainless but well-meaning. But eet’s true that Sita doesn’t theenk much of her. No, I tell you what: you must take William or Alfred,” she decided firmly.

    “I cannot deprive you of your footmen.”

    “Yes, you can. Now I come to theenk of eet, you had best take Ranjit: he ees the biggest and strongest and he admires you greatly, Iris; and William gets along best weeth heem, so he shall go weeth heem.”

    Iris demurred but finally gave in. That would still leave Nan and Ruth with Richpal and Alfred for protection, plus little fat Krishna, who was at least another body, and Jimmy, the boy who helped Peter Hawkins and Hughes in the stables.

    “Oh, dear,” said Nan limply as the big coach disappeared round the bend in the rutted country lane.

    Ruth slipped her hand through her arm and led her back gently inside.

    It having started in yet again to rain, they sat down by the fire. “You know what thees means, don’t you?” said Nan, trying to smile.

    The children were in the sitting-room; Johnny pawed at Ruth’s knee and she lifted him onto it and kissed his soft brown hair. “What?”

    “Weeth Rani een the kitchen eet weell be kitcheree every other meal.”

    Ruth knew all about Rani’s kitcheree, now. “Yes!” she said with a giggle. “Oh, dear, so it will! Never mind, dear Nan: we must just hope that she allows it to be served up with some of Sita’s wonderful plum chutney!”

    Nan giggled and nodded, but could not forebear to wince as a sudden flurry lashed the rain against the windows.

    “It has been much warmer today,” said Ruth kindly. “Perhaps this is the last of these summer storms.”

    “We must just hope so,” Nan agreed, doing her best to smile.