The Fait Accompli

35

The Fait Accompli

    Lewis awoke groggily. He seemed to have been flitting half in, half out of crazy dreams for a very long time. And he had a dreadful head, the like of which he had not experienced since his days as a raw subaltern. And his mouth was like the bottom of a parrot’s cage: in fact, he fancied he could see the actual parrot: a grey creature that had belonged to Great-Aunt Sophia Vane.

    “Pretty Polly! Pretty Polly!” it squawked.

    By God: it was! Lewis struggled to a sitting position.

    “’Ullo, Colonel!” said an eager little voice.

    His Lordship goggled at the sight of Clara Vane, in a pink print dress under a spanking clean white apron, with her hair well brushed and a pink ribbon in it, seated next to a small table which held, amongst other artefacts which he did not immediately register, Great-Aunt Sophia Vane’s Pol Parrot.

    “Look, ain’t ’e jest splendid? She says as ’ow it’s all right to ’ave ’im in yer room!”

    Lord Stamforth had not heretofore been aware that the word “splendid” was in Clara Vane’s vocabulary any more than the pink print dress was in her wardrobe. Or a parrot in her possession. He stared around a pretty bedroom he had never seen in his life before. “Clara, where the Devil are we?”

    “In ’er ’ouse, of course! And guess what!”

    “What?” said Lewis resignedly. –Was he at Tobias’s house? No, surely not: Tobias had a pleasant house in town, but it was full of dim green furnishings and old, dark furniture. This room was light and airy, with white walls and pale blue brocade curtainings.

    “She’s given me a pug!” hissed Clara, putting her face very close to his.

    Lewis blenched involuntarily.

    “Aw-wuh! You said I could ’ave a pug!” she wailed.

    “Yes. Hush, Clara! For God’s SAKE!” he cried. “Be SILENT! Of course you can keep the pug, Clara Vane, if some idiot’s given you one. But WHERE ARE WE?”

    “I said! In ’er ’ouse!”

    It couldn’t be his second cousin George’s: George and Lady Mary had gone to the country, to their neat little Jacobean manor, and this was not any room in—

    Lewis swallowed hard. A horrible suspicion was overcoming him. “Whose?” he said in a doomed voice.

    “Lady Benedict’s, o’ course,” said Clare Vane matter-of-factly. “’Er girls ’ave got a pug, too, only it ain’t so fine as mine. Peter Pug’s a daft name, ain’t it?”

    “Er—yes,” he said dazedly, hoping she did want him to confirm it. This was very definitely not Sunny Bay House. Unless she’d moved him into her own room? No, the ceilings there were not so high—and not so handsome, either.

    “Guess what I’ve called mine!” Clara was urging.

    “Um... Percy,” said Lewis limply.

    “Nah!”

    “P—um—Porteous,” he said feebly.

    “Nah! That ain’t a name!”

    Lewis did not argue. “Poulter Pug.”

    “A pug ain’t a person, Colonel!”

    “Er—no, I beg your pardon. It is a male, is it, Clara?”

    Clara Vane nodded hard. “Guess!”

    Lewis sighed. “Well, I cannot. Does it begin with P?”

    “No,” she said smugly.

    That gave some scope, then. “Um—well, have you named it after someone?”

    “Sort of.”

    Lewis winced. “Not someone you know?”

    “No-o. Not really.”

    “King George?”

    “Blimey, Colonel, where’s yer brains at? ’Ooever ’eard of a pug called King George?”

    “Very true. Taverns and monarchs may be called King George, but not pugs. I give up, Clara Vane: tell me.”

    Clara Vane gave him a defiant look. “Ivanhoe,” she said, the H very aspirate.

    Lewis gulped.

    “’E’s a person in a book!”

    “Yes, I know, I’ve read— Clara, how in God’s name did you come to hear of Ivanhoe?”

    Clara’s chin was still in the air. She replied with great aggression: “She’s been readink it to us, see? Like at bedtime. She always reads to them girls, see, and she says as ’ow I’m a part of the ’ouse’old so long as I stays ’ere, and I don’t gotta sleep in no kitchen, I can ’ave a bed like any other girl! See!”

    Not an H in it, registered Lewis limply. “Yes, I think I see. Lady Benedict has put you in a bedroom with her girls, is that it? And she reads to you all at bedtime?”

    “Mm,” she said, nodding very hard.

    Lewis bit his lip. “I’m glad,” he said in a stifled voice.

    “’Ere, are you all right, Colonel?” she asked in alarm.

    “Yes— No, I— Dammit,” he muttered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Clara, have I had a fever, or some such?”

    “She says as ’ow you’re very weak,” replied Clara dubiously.

    “Yes, but— Well, how did I get here?”

    “Dunno.”

    “Um—Clara,” said Lewis carefully: “I understand that we are in a house that belongs to Lady Benedict, and that she has given you a pug and a parrot, and been very kind to y—”

    “Nah! ’E’s yours, not mine, Colonel! Only she says as ’ow, if I’m very good, maybe you’d let me ’ave ’im for a borrer,” she said, eyeing the parrot longingly.

    “Er—yes,” he said limply. “Mine? Never mind,” he added hastily. “You may certainly borrow him, Clara Vane. Just listen a moment. Where is this house?”

    Inexplicably Clara Vane went very red. She looked at him helplessly.

    “Yes?” he prompted.

    Clara Vane hesitated. Then she burst out: “Don’t you believe it, Colonel! It’s a blamed lie, and that Mina, she’d say anyfink! Acos I know what a barf is, and it ain’t!”

    “Oh, dear,” said Lewis, biting his lip.

    Clara glared sulkily.

    “Yes—Um—The town is called Bath—don’t interrupt; let me explain,” he said as she opened her mouth. “The town is called Bath, and for a very specific reason which relates directly to what you and I think of as a bath. A very long time ago England was invaded by the Romans, and they built very, very large public baths, so that lots of people could bathe in them at the one time. –I think the men would have had one bath for themselves, and the ladies another,” he added hastily.

    “All squashed up together?”

    “No-o... The baths were not just big, they were like huge rooms, partly filled with water, Clara. But it is the same word. The town was named after them. So, you see: you and Mina are both right!” he ended on a somewhat desperate note.

    “Oh,” she said thoughtfully.

    Lewis watched her as she thought it over.

    “I gets yer drift, Colonel, sir!” she said happily. “’Ere, I bet as that Mina, she don’t know that!”

    “Well, no, I think she cannot, if she did not explain it to you, Clara.”

    Clara nodded happily. “You know everyfink, Colonel.”

    “No, I do not!” said Lewis in horror.

    She gave him a tolerant look. “Yes, yer do. Miss Gump, she says you learned me up real good, and my maffermaticks is streets ahead of that Mina’s!”

    “Good. But no human being knows everything, Clara;” he said without hope.

    Clara Vane merely sniffed slightly.

    “Er—well, for a start, I do not know how I got here, or—or how that parrot got here, or whose it is,” said Lewis on a weak  note.

    “Ma brung it. It’s yours, Colonel, sir!” she urged.

    “Your mother is here?”

    “Yes, ’course. She’s given ’er a ’ole lot of dresses and aprons. And real caps! And she says as ’ow no-one can’t do yer gofferings and frills like what Ma can, she ain’t never seen such a ’and with a h’iron!”

    Apparently Lady Benedict had done the impossible, then, and conquered Mrs Arkwright. Lewis looked at her limply.

    “And shirts,” she said kindly.

    “Mm. What about the parrot?”

    “I said! Ma brung it. It’s yours, Colonel: a man brung it to the castle!” she said earnestly.

    Lewis turned and stared at the parrot.

    “It knows words,” said Clara on a cautious note.

    “It cannot be— Pol Parrot: dis-moi que tu m’aimes!” said Lewis loudly, ignoring Clara’s recoil and gasp.

    “Dis-moi que tu m’aimes! Dis-moi que tu m’aimes!” agreed Pol Parrot. And quite intelligibly, provided that one knew the language.

    “Gawd save us!” gasped Clara in horror.

    “It’s all right, Clara, that was a French phrase. This must be my Great-Aunt Sophia Vane’s parrot. –How old can the creature be?” he muttered to himself.

    “She says as ’ow they lives to a very old age.”

    “Yes.” Lewis did arithmetic in his head. Great-Aunt Sophia Vane had had Pol Parrot when he was a lad, so… Well, perhaps the creature was little more than his own age. He looked at it limply. “What have they been feeding it on, Clara?”

    “Sita knows,” said Clara reassuringly. “’E’ll eat fruit, mind, only usual ’e ’as that dry stuff.”

    Lewis now perceived many sunflower seed husks on the bottom of the cage. He nodded, with some relief.

    “Watch!” she hissed. “He’s gonna eat some now!”

    Lewis watched, smiling, as Clara Vane watched Pol Parrot husk and eat a sunflower seed.

    “Ain’t ’e clever?” she said, sitting back with a sigh. “What’s ’is name?”

    “Oh—did the man not say? It is just Pol Parrot,” said Lewis, wondering who the Devil could have sent him—and why. Great-Aunt Sophia Vane had died some ten years back.

    “Pol Parrot!” she said happily. “’Ullo, Pol Parrot! ’Ullo, Pol Parrot!”

    Lewis sagged back limply against his pillows as Clara Vane chattered happily at Great-Aunt Sophia Vane’s Pol Parrot and Pol Parrot chattered back. In Lady Benedict’s house in Bath? But— He could not remember a damned thing! And he felt so weak—he must have had a fever. But how had she got to know of— No, wait: the last thing he could recall was going to bed in her house at Sunny Bay. With Ursa Norrington on the premises, that was right, and—

    Lewis sat bolt upright with a gasp.

    “Whassup?” said Clara, not turning her head.

    “Where are my clothes?” he said tightly.

    “She says yer can’t ’ave them. And Ma, she says as ’ow I’m to take notice of ’er, and you ain’t a-goink nowhere.”

    Lewis took a deep breath, and got out of bed. He was clad in a large nightshirt of extra-fine quality: very possibly the provident and practical Lady Benedict had kept her late husbands’ nightshirts. Either that or he was depriving Dom.

    “It’s locked,” said Clara without interest as he went shakily over to the door.

    “Then give me the key.”

    “Bless yer, I ain’t got it. Colonel!”

    Lewis took a deep breath. He hammered on the door and shouted: “Open this door!”

    There was the sound of a key in the lock, and the door opened, to reveal a sturdy, ruddy-cheeked, middle-aged man in the dress of a groom. Holding a large pistol.

    “You intend to shoot me if I try to exit, do you?” said Lewis nastily.

    The man replied somewhat obliquely: “Her Ladyship has given orders that you’re to stay in your room, my Lord. Begging your Lordship’s pardon,” he added politely.

    “Well, I intend to come out of my room.”

     “Don’t shoot ’im!” shrieked Clara Vane.

    “Damnation,” said Lewis under his breath.

    “They don’t like bloodshed,” said the man stolidly.

    “No, very true, and I collect we have a houseful of them!” returned Lewis irritably.

    “Aye, that’s right, my Lord.”

    “Who are you?” he demanded abruptly.

    “Hughes, my Lord. Her Ladyship’s head groom.”

    “’E drives the coach, too!” said Clara, coming up to Lewis’s elbow. “You stay in yer room, Colonel, sir.”

    “Clara, Hughes has no intention of shooting me,” said Lewis grimly. “—Do you?” he added, even more grimly.

    Hughes’s ruddy, countryman’s face broke into a reluctant grin. “Well, no, my Lord, I can’t say as I have. But if so be you’re in the market for a bit of home-brewed—” He laid the pistol on a handy chair—in fact undoubtedly the chair he had been sitting on to guard the door—and raised his fists suggestively.

    “Don’t ’it ’im!” screamed Clara Vane.

    Hughes gave Lewis an impassive look.

    “Do not say it: they don’t like that, either,” he groaned.

    “Not most females, no, my Lord. Still, if so be as you’re wishful—?”

    “No,” said Lewis, clutching the doorjamb. “My damned legs…”

    Swiftly Hughes grabbed him round the shoulders. “Better get you back to bed. It’ll be that muck that that Sita’s been filling you with, my Lord. And I’m not saying as they done wrong, only what I am saying is, there wasn’t no need, for Peter Hawkins and me, we could have kept you safe between us, without no forring drugs.”

    The man spoke quite nicely, but there was a countryman’s burr. Lewis said nothing until he had been assisted back into his bed, and Clara Vane was fussing over the pillows. Then he said: “Thank you. I think perhaps you are a Kentish man, is that right?”

    “Aye, that I am, my Lord! Born and bred!” he beamed. “I was Sir Hugo’s own groom, my Lord.”

    “I see. Er—there would be no hope of getting my clothes, I suppose, Hughes?”

    “None at all, my Lord.”

    Lewis sighed. “Then may I see Lady Benedict, please?”

    “Aye: Clara Vane can take her a message. But if you’ll excuse me, my Lord, don’t go for to expect that she’ll let you out of her sight before we get a message that a certain person has been got away from England.”

    Lewis’s mouth opened a little, but for a moment he was incapable of speech. Then he said: “Hughes, you sound like a sensible man. What the Devil are you doing, allowing yourself to be embroiled in this?”

    The man cleared his throat. “Well, I wasn’t there, you see, when her Ladyship done it all. I’d had to take the young ladies over to Wiltshire. Then the chaise lost a wheel on the way back: held us up, some. But I don’t claim as I could have stopped her. Though I’d have tried,” he added heavily.

    “Mm, I see.”

    “It is all right, my Lord. It won’t be long, now. Her Ladyship saw him down to Southampton—”

    “What?”

    “Yes, my Lord. And he’s got the Indian footmen down there to guard him, with William helping, and couriers what Mr Quigley sent down from Lunnon. And your Mr Poulter, he’s down there, too, just until the ship goes.”

    Lewis’s jaw dropped.

    “Her Ladyship said I was to say, special, my Lord.”

    “I see. –Clara, please go and tell Lady Benedict I wish to speak to her as soon as possible.”

    Clara Vane edged over to the door, looking wistfully at Pol Parrot.

    “You may borrow the parrot when you return, but hurry,” said Lewis resignedly.

    She nodded hard, and shot out.

    Lewis leaned back against the pillows, closed his eyes, and sighed.

    After a few moments he became aware that Hughes was fidgeting. He opened his eyes again.

    “My Lord, they tell me as the effects of that damned Sita’s muck, begging your pardon, they do take a while to wear off. But you’ll be right as rain after it’s out of your system, and—um—they have been feeding you broth and so forth.”

    “Yes.” Lewis passed a hand dazedly over his face. “I keep having half-remembered visions of faces bending over me, spooning something into me.”

    “Aye, that’ll be Sita; and Rani, when she come back; and your Mrs Arkwright, my Lord. And her Ladyship, of course.”

    “Mm. Is Mr Baldaya in the house?” asked Lewis on a grim note.

    “No, my Lord. I thought you’d know: he’s gone to Portugal,” said the man blankly.

    “Oh. Well, thank God for that,” he muttered.

    “Yes, my Lord.”

    “Well, who is in the house? –Sit down, man!” he added impatiently.

    “Thank you, my Lord.” Hughes sat down on the chair vacated by Clara Vane, and proceeded to tell him who was in the house.

    Lewis had expected the children all to be in residence. And possibly Miss Chalfont. But…

    “Who is Miss Jeffreys?” he said feebly.

    “Uh—well, she’s her Ladyship’s cousin. From Vaudequays, my Lord. Lord Keywes’ sister, she be.”

    “Oh, good gad: that Miss Jeffreys; yes,” he said limply. “And is Miss—um—Miss Smith here?”

    Hughes coughed delicately. “If you mean Miss Norrington, my Lord, no, she ain’t. Still down at Sunny Bay, she be, with her Pa’s cousin, Major Norrington.”

    “Then—” Lewis broke off. “Thank you, Hughes. I think I see. I shall get the details out of Lady Benedict.”

    “Yes, my Lord,” he said on a strangled note.

    Lewis eyed him not unkindly. “What is it?”

    Hughes swallowed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say it—but there’s no saying she’ll tell you the truth, my Lord!” He gave him a desperate look.

    “I am not relying on it,” agreed Lewis calmly.

    “No, my Lord,” he said gratefully. “Thing is—” He broke off.

    “Yes?”

    “Um, well, it ain’t my place, my Lord.”

    “Say it, man!”

    “No-one can’t control her, my Lord, not even Sir Hugo. Well, what I mean is, he put her over his knee and belted her a couple of times, only that were after she’d been and done it, if you get my drift.”

    “Yes; Mr Baldaya told me something very similar.”

    “Only she never went so far as to drug a man for days on end only for his own good before, my Lord! Or not that I ever heard.”

    “No.”

    Hughes looked at him miserably.

    “Perhaps the secret is,” said Lewis with a tiny smile, “not to wish to control her.”

    “But then she’d walk all over you like a blasted doormat!” he gasped. “Begging your Lordship’s pardon!” he gulped, turning beetroot.

    “That’s quite all right, Hughes. I agree: a man should think very hard before he decides to make a doormat of himself.”

    “Yes, my Lord,” he gulped.

    Lewis leaned back against his pillows and closed his eyes again.

    “Hughes, please sit outside hees Lordship’s door,” said a grim voice.

    There was the sound of Hughes scrambling hurriedly to his feet. Lewis opened his eyes without haste.

    “Do not theenk you can suborn my faithful servants,” said Nan grimly.

    “I would not dream of doing so,” he murmured. “In any case, is it not an impossibility? ‘Faithful’ means ‘cannot be suborned’, does it not?”

    She ignored that and sat down. “Hughes ees as ready as any man to enter eento a stupeed sort of conspiracy of males who theenk they can manage anything, on account of their natural superiority. But eet weell go no further than expressing hees sympathy for you behind my back, I can assure you.”

    “I am aware of that,” he said levelly.

    Nan took a deep breath.

    “It is all right: I have already been acquainted with the fact that I have been drugged for days on end only for my own good. But I am flattered that to Hughes’s knowledge you never did it to any man before.”

    “Eet has been barely a week!” she snapped.

    “No wonder I feel so damned peculiar.”

    To his surprise, she went very red. “I’m sorry. But Sita has used eet many times: she assures me there weell be no permanent effects.”

    “Mm. Were you really afraid I would—er—pursue Curwellion with a drawn sword?”

    “No: that he would escape and come after you,” said Nan with a little shudder.

    “I see. Forgive me if my recollections are a little hazy, but were not almost the last words you spoke to me to the effect that you never wished to set eyes on me again?”

    “That does not mean that I weesh to have your death on my conscience.”

    “No.” Lewis gave her a mocking look. “Do tell me how you got me out from under Ursa’s nose. Not to mention how you got Curwellion off to Southampton.”

    “Eet was easy, and men are not the only ones who can DO THEENGS!”

    “No, very true. It is only very naïve men, such as Ursa Norrington, who have lived most of their lives in an exclusively male environment, who are so silly as to believe it,” he murmured. “You and I and Mrs Arkwright, and Sita, of course, know that on the contrary, it is women who make the world go round.”

    “You theenk that ees vairy amusing, but eet ees true. Eet ees also women who keep the world een eets course when the stupeed men go off to slaughter one another een their stupeed wars!”

    “Mm. But ain’t it very often the same women, or at least their sisters, that stand by cheering ’em off to the fray, ma’am?”

    Nan took a deep breath. “Yes. I am not here to deescuss such theengs.”

    “No; I beg your pardon. We shall not talk in abstractions, but stick to the concrete.”

    “Do not dare to say eet ees what women’s brains are fit for!” she cried.

    “Lord, even Ursa can’t have been so stupid as to say that, surely?”

    “Um—yes,” said Nan, gulping. “When he had lost hees temper weeth Iris because she refused to leesten when he said she must not go all the way to Wiltshire to collect the girls weeth only Rani for chaperon.”

    “One concludes she went?”

    She rolled her lips together in an effort not to laugh. “Mm.”

    “So come along: how did you get round Ursa?”

    “I—” Nan broke off: there had been a tap at the door. “Who ees eet?”

    One of the ayah’s voices replied, and she went to let her in.

    “Good morning, my Lords Sahib! Today here is good soup!”

    “Thank you, Sita. I collect I have also to thank you for preserving my life,” he said grimly.

    Sita gave a flustered laugh and with her free hand pulled her saree over her face.

    “Well, you have embarrassed her: I deed not theenk a mere man could do eet,” said her mistress, taking the soup from her. She spoke a few pithy words: Sita bowed deeply to his Lordship and shot out.

    “What did you say?’ asked Lewis curiously.

    “Sit up straight. I said you were not such an imbecile as she had supposed, and that I had warned her.”

    “Thank you. –I can feed myself.”

    Silently she handed him the bowl. To Lewis’s annoyance his hand trembled as he raised the spoon.

    “I put the drug een the Major’s glass of porto,” she said.

    “I see. And Curwellion?”

    “Sita drugged hees drink at night. I made sure he remained drugged, and got heem out in the morning while Major Norrington was steell asleep.’

    “And what is to prevent his getting off at the ship’s first port of call and returning to England?”

    “But— Oh,” said Nan limply. “Of course, you missed all that.”

    Lewis drank soup slowly. “Never tell me he allowed himself to be bought off by Ursa?”

    “No: he accepted a large sum from me, and I do not weesh to hear any argument on the subject!”

    “I am not going to argue: I have not, though I know you do not believe it, very much disposable cash at all. But I should like to know how you did it. Not to mention how you prevailed upon Ursa to let you. Or was he already under the influence?”

    “No, thees was the day before. Um—well, he had already tried and failed. He offered heem too many choices: eet showed weakness, and Lord Curwellion deed not believe hees threats, and eegnored all hees offers. I simply offered heem as much money as he wanted, or death. –Nothing vairy dramatic: merely one of Sita’s potions.”

    “I think an Englishman might find that very dramatic,” he said with a little smile. “Mm... I see. Am I to be allowed to know how much it was?”

    “Twenty thousand guineas,” said Nan flatly.

    He raised his eyebrows. “That is certainly a great deal of money. Do you have that much at your disposal?”

    “Yes. I have given heem some een bank drafts and some een cash. Well, he weell not get eet until the ship sails, but Mr Quigley brought eet down from London for me.”

    “This is your lawyer, whom I met, I think?”

    “Mm,” said Nan, suddenly remembering that day. She bit her lip, staring hard at the pale blue silk coverlet of his Lordship’s bed.

    “You seem to have managed it all very capably,” said Lewis calmly.

    She looked up, very startled. “Yes.”

    “But I do wish I had been privileged to hear the interview with Curwellion,” he murmured.

    “Eet was not vairy pleasant,” she said, her mouth tightening. “He ees dying, you know.”

    “What?”

    “Eet ees perfectly true: the Major confirmed eet. Eet ees some liver disease. And I could see for myself: he has an oddly transparent look: you know?”

    He nodded silently.

    “Yes. He weeshes to die een Florence; that ees een Italy,” she said helpfully.

    “Yes, I know where Florence is,” said Lewis a trifle limply. “So you are shipping him off to Italy?”

    “Yes. I should get word vairy soon that the ship has sailed.”

    “And then will I get my clothes?”

    “I theenk eet might be safer not to, unteell he has rounded Spain and ees een the Mediterranean.”

    “That is not logical. If you are afraid he will reappear, then you should keep me immured until he has had time to escape, return to England, and fail to find me; or until you have word that he has reached Florence safely and shows every sign of remaining there.”

    “Yes, I know. But I shall give the ship time to clear English waters.”

    “Did he give you his word of honour that he would not return to England?”

    She nodded.

    “Then he will not. You may safely release me.”

    Nan got up. “Vairy soon. Try and rest.”

    “Lady Benedict, I collect I have been resting for a week; I do not wish to rest!”

    “You may not have your clothes. But later today you may come downstairs, eef your legs weell carry you. But Sita says you weell be vairy weak, for a while.”

    “Mm. Oh: Dom has gone to Portugal, has he?”

    “Yes. That was the Major’s doing. He ees a fool: he deed not tell me until he had done eet: how could he imagine I would object?”

    “I can only repeat that he has lived for many years in an exclusively male society, and knows nothing whatsoever of women.”

    “That ees vairy true,” said Nan coldly, going over to the door. “Hughes! You may open, please!”

    “Wait: I must thank you for taking Clara and Mrs Arkwright in,” he said awkwardly.

    “That was notheeng. I thought they would worry when you deed not return to the castle. And een any case they cannot have been comfortable there, since you pulled the house down. Mrs Arkwright knows eet all, by the by: I thought eet best to tell her.”

    “Yes; you are a superb tactician,” he sighed.

    Nan hesitated. “I deed not tell her merely out of tactics. Eet was partly that, yes. But also, I was genuinely concerned that she would be worrying.”

    “Of course. And I am truly grateful. But please do not say any more, or I shall fall into strong hysterics.”

    “Huh!” she retorted strongly, going out.

    Lewis lay back on his pillows and smiled a little.

    The door closed and her voice said loudly: “Lock eet! I do not care what he has said to you, or you have said to heem, I do not trust heem! Lock eet!” And the key was heard to turn in the door.

    Lewis Vane continued to smile, just a little.

    “Well?” said Iris, as her cousin reappeared downstairs.

    “He appears perfectly calm and rational.”

    “And?”

    “And notheeng. He deed not say so, and I do not suppose that there ees any man on earth who would, but I theenk he believes I deed eet for the best.”

    “He may believe that, Nan, but isn’t he mad as fire?” she said, gaping at her.

    “No.”

    Iris had been standing by in the belief—mistaken, she now perceived—that Nan might need her support. She tottered to her feet. “I think I’ll go over to Cherry’s house and help her with sorting out her mother’s things.”

    “That aunt weell try to grab everything of value,” warned Nan.

    “Yes. But then, I doubt very much that Cherry will want to keep anything for sentimental reasons.”

    “No, vairy true.”

    Iris went over to the door, but hesitated. “Nan, Lord S. may yet try to escape.”

    “I do not theenk so.”

    “You mean he’s actually accepted the fait accompli?”

    “Yes,” she said, sticking her rounded chin in the air.

    Iris tottered out into the hall. Once there she allowed herself to roll her eyes madly and mutter: “Very well, he may have accepted it, unique amongst the male half of humanity. But will he ever forgive you for it?”

    She winced, and hurried out.