Cherry's Pickle

6

Cherry’s Pickle

    Major-General Cadwallader’s house being at the far end of the square, he merely raised his hat stiffly to Lady Benedict, for having her brother with her she did not need his escort, before limping off homewards. He was unaware that behind his stiff back Dom saluted and the ladies in his party, including Cherry, collapsed in gales of muffled giggles. Though he did hear the giggles.

    “You are too naughty, Dom!” hissed Nan, shaking all over.

    “He ain’t a bad old stick,” allowed Dom.

    “No. And I believe his ankle often pains him very much, that is why he sometimes appears cross,” said Cherry shyly.

     Dom glanced down at her with approval. “Aye, that will be eet. Well, come along!” He hurried them all over to the other side of the square.

    Immediately the Benedicts’ front door opened and the three Indian footmen, Ranjit, Richpal, and little fat Krishna, all huddled in heavy shawls over their tunics and white uniforms, appeared looking anxious, and behind them the two English footmen, not huddled in shawls, but shivering slightly; and behind them again, Sita Ayah, Rani Ayah, and Miss Gump could be glimpsed. All making clucking noises.

    “Quick, eenside!” ordered Dom. “Miss Chalfont, may I see you to your door?”

    “No, pray do not, it is just a step,” said Cherry hurriedly. “It was so pleasant, was it not? Good-night, Lady Benedict!” she called as Lady Benedict’s servants began positively chivvying her party up the steps.

    They all called good-night and Cherry hurried off to her own front door before Mr Baldaya could repeat his but kind embarrassing offer.

    The shaft of golden light from the house next-door and the babble of voices in a mixture of languages was abruptly cut off as the Benedict front door closed, and Cherry was alone in the square.

    She went up the steps and stopped right at the top. In fact with her forehead against the front door. She took a deep breath. She didn’t have a key. In fact she did not possess a key, for Mrs Chalfont was not the sort of woman to issue door keys to unmarried daughters, twenty-four or not. Cautiously Cherry tried the big knob, but the door would not open. She took another deep breath, and, stepping back a little from the door, grasped the knocker and knocked firmly. Nothing happened. Cherry felt she had made enough noise to wake the dead, but she knocked again. Again nothing happened.

    Obviously the servants must have gone to bed. She should give them time to get out of bed: she waited a little. Still nothing happened. She knocked again, much harder, and this time waited for a long time.

    Nothing happened. The square was very still. Cherry began to shiver, as much from fear as cold. Had Mother found out about her escape and told them to lock her out? Mrs Chalfont had the sort of hard, cold, unforgiving temper that could well do such a thing. After a time she went down the area steps, hugging her shawl very tightly to her, and knocked at the kitchen door. There was no response: she tried the door, pushing with all her might, but it was firmly locked. Bolted, probably. Mother had once sacked a cook, a parlourmaid and a footman all at the once for having allegedly left the area door unbolted. After that they had not had any menservants in the house: Mrs Chalfont said they made the female servants flighty.

    Cherry knew that it was theoretically possible to get into the house from the mews, but she had never done it. She did not think she would even recognize which was the back of their house. She hesitated, and then slowly and carefully, shaking with a mixture of cold and fear, tried prising up all the windows she could reach. It was not possible to move any of them. She returned to the front door and knocked, and waited, and knocked again. Nothing. The square was silent and empty. If only she had accepted Mr Baldaya’s offer to come to the door with her!

    Should she perhaps go Lady Benedict’s house and ask for help? Only—it would be so humiliating: she would have to say she had gone out without her mother’s consent and then, if Mother ever got to know she had confided in Lady Benedict, she would be angrier than ever... Oh, dear! Cherry looked doubtfully up at the bulk of the Benedict house. There was only one light showing, and it went out as she watched. All that trying of the windows must have taken much longer than she had supposed.

    She went up to the top of the steps again and tried unavailingly to reach the windows of the front rooms. This took some time, and she was panting and sweating by the time she gave it up. Well, there was only one thing for it, decided Cherry, unaware that she was no longer thinking straight, but on the contrary believing herself to be behaving in a most logical manner: she would go round to the mews and try getting in that way. She set off determinedly.

    The Chalfonts had not kept their carriage since Cherry was a little girl, in her papa’s day, and since Merry had left home they had had no riding horses, either. It was years since Cherry had even seen the stables. When she got there everything was shuttered, dark, and unfamiliar. There seemed to be no way through the high wall which she was sure backed onto the houses of Lymmond Square. She felt her way along it several times, but she must have misremembered: there were no gates in it. She did not consider trying to knock up the grooms who slept above the stables: they were all strange men. When she heard a horse move restlessly and whinny, she shrank, and then hurried away.

    She returned to Lymmond Square. Was it only her imagination or did it seem darker than ever? Certainly no lights showed in any of the houses. Determinedly she went through her routine of trying the front door, knocking, and waiting again. Then she re-checked the area door and windows. Then she returned to the front door and tried it again. Still no result. Only then did she give way to despair and sink down onto the steps with her head in her hands.

    It was very quiet. She had heard a dog barking some time back but now even that familiar noise had ceased. It was now far too late to knock up a neighbour. Though in any case Cherry could probably not have done so: the embarrassment of it was too much for her to contemplate, let alone her mother’s reaction to her having involved a stranger in their private business. What could she do? She shivered and hugged her cloak tightly to her, very glad she had worn it. And that she had automatically followed her mother’s standing orders and put a heavy flannel petticoat on under her party dress.

    A tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away angrily. It was too stupid! Well, she supposed drearily, she must just stay here until Smith unlocked the front door in the morning. Cherry huddled into her cloak and prepared to wait the night out. It could not, after all, be so many hours until morning, for the party had ended very late, and then she had been such a time trying to get in. She would just wait.

    After quite a period of just waiting she began to realize that she could not just wait: she would catch pneumonia. She felt chilled to the very bone, though it was not a particularly windy night and it was certainly not snowing, or even raining. She got up and determinedly started off for a tour of the square in order to warm herself up.

    She made three tours before she felt anything like warmer, and finally sank down on the step again. There was a sliver of moon: did it seem higher or lower in the sky than it had been earlier? Cherry couldn’t remember where it had been, and she felt obscurely that she must remember, it was too silly! And if the moon were up, did not that mean it was earlier than she had supposed, and that she would have even longer to wait before the servants got up? Now: the moon rose in the... east. No, west. Wait, was it different from the sun? And it moved... She was almost sure it moved from left to right, if one faced into the square from her house. Then... She would wait and see, and if it reached the corner of Major-General Cadwallader’s house, then she would be on the right track! Cherry concentrated fiercely on the sliver of crescent moon, but it did not seem to be doing anything. Stupid thing! No, well: she would think it out logically. Say she leant out of her bedroom window, which was at the back of the house, then the moon was normally to her... left. Not that she was supposed to lean out of the window— Never mind that. So, the moon was on her left at the back of the house, which must mean it was to the right at the front of the house, and then—yes, it would move away towards the Major-General’s house! ...Would it? Well, it had not so far, and it was too stupid, for how was she to tell the time if the moon did not move!

    She began to cry again, but her thoughts boiled and bubbled so tumultuously over the moon and its doings that it was some time before she realized she was doing so. She got up and determinedly began to walk again. She would not cry, it was too stupid! And she must have been out for at least... three hours? More, very like. And as they had been at the Laidlaws’ until at least one, that meant there were now only about two hours to wait until Smith and Cook got up, and possibly less before Mary got up, and if she went down into the area very likely Mary would be able to let her in without anyone’s ever knowing about it! Only, what if she had miscalculated entirely and there were four hours until morning? Or—or more? Impressions of time were subjective, it was well known. Very well, if the moon were still in the same position when she reached the house she would know that it had all been subjective and that each tour of the square took less than five minutes and that in fact she had only been out here for an hour in all. ...It could not be so short a time! Two hours? Well, it all depended on the moon, of course, and the stupid thing would not move!

    Cherry stumbled on around the square, tears dripping down her cheeks.

    Sir Noël Amory had for once miscalculated his arrival in Lymmond Square. It was not precisely his fault, for one of his wheelers had gone lame on the second-to-last stage and they had had to limp along for the better part of the stage. The hour had been so advanced when they reached the posting-house that he had decided to dine there. Then he had been given a team of dreadful slugs for the last stage, and after an hour of jolting along behind them he was wishing crossly that he had sent his own horses ahead, or decided to ride the last stage, or that it was summer and he might have sailed Égyptienne into the Pool of London and come down from the metropolis in his curricle, or that he had never decided to spend Christmas in Bath with Grandmamma at all, or—anything, really: he had finished his book and there was nothing to do except brood.

    Noël had not intended to spend Christmas in Bath. He had gone on down to his home in Devon after his visit with Grandmamma, intending to spend some time there, stay on for Christmas, and then perhaps go off to visit with his old Army friend Aden Tarlington. Unfortunately home had featured, not only his complaining Mamma, which he had expected, but also the Miss Hookams, which he had not expected. The Hookams were neighbours: their papa’s land marched with his at one point. Noël was aware that it was one of Viola Amory’s ambitions to see him married off to a Miss Hookam, for the estate was not entailed and Mr Hookam had no sons. However, he was also aware that the Miss Hookams had a domineering mamma with the voice and manner of a regimental sergeant-major, and that under her influence they had developed into three dull little doormats. Well, three pie-faced, dull little doormats, to be precise. The pie-facedness would have been enough discouragement on its own: but Noël was also grimly aware that should he marry a Miss Hookam, Viola would immediately take over, though in her different manner, where the mother had left off, and far from removing herself to the dower house, would proceed to manage his wife and his house and the rest of his life for him.

    Noël had had business to settle on the property, so he had stuck it out until his business was finished. Then he had had an unpleasant interview with his mother, largely on the subject of Thevenard Manor’s being his house, not hers, and his desire to be consulted should she wish to invite guests to it, in the which he had been icily polite and she had wept and reminded him of the dead Sir Mallory. This sort of blackmail had never gone down very well with Noël, and as he was as bitterly aware as she that he had seen very little of his father during his adult years, it had had the opposite effect to that which Viola desired, and he had forthwith left the house. Saying as he went that he did not give a tinker’s curse if she had invited Uncle and Aunt Edmond Whittaker, Cousin Lysle Whittaker and his unspeakable brats, old Cousin Amy Whittaker, Mr and Mrs Whittaker-Smythe, and the whole damned tribe of Whittakers: they could all FRY IN HELL! Viola Whittaker Amory had burst into renewed tears but by that time her son was out of earshot.

    This turbulent scene might have suggested he had rushed off to Bath without notice but in fact, the minute he had realized that the Miss Hookams were installed for the winter in his house he had written to Grandmamma and to Richard to say he would be in Bath for the festive season, after all. So old Lady Amory was expecting him. Noël knew she would not worry particularly if he was late, for the roads were often bad on the first long stretch across Devon: if he had not arrived by her bedtime, she would go calmly to bed, instructing Stopes to wait up for him. So he was not worried about being so late, merely damned bored with having had nothing with which to occupy himself for the last stage. Except the irritating thought that, though Viola of course went about it in the most annoying way possible, she was fundamentally correct, and he should get married. The more so with Richard’s and Delphie’s good news: it would not do to let their child grow up with expectations— Well, he had been over all that a thousand times. And he supposed he had better resign himself.

    But it should not be a Miss Hookam! The Anthony Hallams’ second daughter, Kitty, might do, as Grandmamma had suggested. Certainly there was no fear of any daughter of Mrs Anthony’s not behaving herself with perfect propriety after she was married. Only, if the daughters had lovely Mrs Anthony’s looks and virtue, they certainly had not inherited her intelligence.

    But then, one could count on the fingers of one hand the number of young women one knew who had brains as well as looks and virtue. Settle for the looks and the virtue without the brains, then? ...Aye. But could he put up with it? And Hell, would a little thing like Miss Kitty be able to handle damned Viola? Noël wrinkled his straight nose. He had scarcely met pretty little Kitty, but he knew that her sister, Julian Naseby’s wife, was firmly under the dowager Lady Naseby’s thumb. Certainly the elder Lady Naseby was a woman of great elegance, great propriety and absolute virtue. But there was no doubt that she told the girl what to wear, whom to be seen with, what functions to attend and, en somme, when to breathe. Ugh. One wanted a woman at least capable of standing on her own two feet! Not that one wished one’s home life to be a continual round of cat-fights, either. But with damned Viola banished to the dower house, they might at least have a chance at a peaceful life! ...Damnation, he had meant to moot the scheme of her removing to Bath, once again. Though all current indications were that she was holding out for a house in town. The which did not mean that between Seasons she would not come and infest the country house again. God.

    Noël’s thoughts went round and round in a familiar circle.

    When the coach drew up at long last outside Grandmamma’s house he was only too glad to leap down immediately and stretch his legs by running up the steps to knock at the door. No reply. Old Stopes must have nodded off, the which was not surprising, as he was about Grandmamma’s own age, and the hour was exceeding advanced. Well, it did not matter, for Noël had his own key. He felt in the pocket of his greatcoat for his bunch of keys.

    “Please—” said a timid little voice.

    Noël leapt a foot. Accosted on the steps of his own grandmother’s house! What the Devil was respectable Lymmond Square coming to? He turned, frowning.

    “Oh! Mr Amory!” said the girl on a gasp.

    Noël recognised from the accent that she was a lady, after all. She must be in trouble. He came slowly down the steps.

    “You mistake: my name is Amory, but I am not Mr Bobby,” he said politely.

    “Oh!” gasped Cherry, clutching her cloak very tightly to her. Nor it was. He was very like Mr Bobby Amory, but now that he was closer to her she could see he was taller, and his shoulders seemed wider, though that might just be the effect of his greatcoat, which was terribly fashionable—indeed, very like Mr Bobby’s. And his face was a little narrower. “I’m so sorry,” she said weakly.

    “Not at all. I am Noël Amory.” He paused, but she did not say her name. “Are you in trouble? May I help?”

    “My house is all locked up,” said Cherry faintly.

    “Oh? You live in the square?”

    “Yes. Over there,” said Cherry faintly, waving vaguely in the direction of her house. “I thought I should just walk until morning and the servants would let me in, because it is already very late, and the moon is—is—”

    “But good gad, what are you doing out alone at this hour?”

    “I went to the Laidlaws’ party,” said Cherry, very faintly.

    “What? Oh, yes: the couple with the ginger brats: that it?”

    “Yes,” she whispered.

    “Er—but did they not see you safe home?”

    This was terrible! Cherry had only intended to ask if she might come in and wait in old Lady Amory’s front hall in the warm until the servants were stirring. And now he was interrogating her, and he must think— And of course, he must be Sir Noël, the head of the Amory family, and— Oh, dear, this was dreadful! Why had she ever spoken to him? And what had made her think he was Mr Bobby Amory: he was not in the least like him, his voice was not kind and he did not have that way of crinkling up his eyes when he spoke, or that lovely smile, and—and he was a horrid man!

    Sir Noël, of course, was not a horrid man. But at the moment he was certainly a tired and cross man. Who felt very strongly that his life did not need the added complication at this juncture of having to rescue some harum-scarum Miss from the consequences of her own folly. He was very far from wishing to favour her with the charming smile that had fluttered maiden hearts, and many not so maiden, for quite some years, now.

    “The—the Benedicts live next-door to me and—and I walked home with them,” she fumbled, “and Lady Benedict’s brother said he would see me to the door, only it is so close, and then they—they all went inside with the men in the turbans and Rani Ayah and the other ayah, and—and—then I found the door was locked!”

    He stared at her blankly. “Why the Devil did you not immediately run to them for help?”

    “I—I didn’t think of it,” whispered Cherry, her eyes filling with tears.

    “Great God, you’re an imbecile, girl!” he said loudly. “—What? No, wait, man, for God’s sake,” he said as his groom murmured they had best get the horses off to the stables. “I’d better sort this mess out first.”

    “I know you think I have behaved foolishly, but truly I thought I could get in!” cried Cherry loudly. “And Mother would have been furious had I knocked up Lady Benedict and her family! But the area door was locked, and so were all the windows, and I tried the mews but I could not get through, and so I decided to wait, but the moon would not move, and—and I walked around the square, and then I— But you do not need to sort me out, thank you, for I shall be quite all right, and as you are not Mr Amory after all it duh-duh-does not matter!” she gulped, bursting into tears.

    He sighed. “Look, there is no need to cry,” he said heavily. “We shall sort it all out.”

    Cherry sobbed convulsively.

    Heaving another heavy sigh, Noël produced a large silk handkerchief. “Here.”

    Cherry blew her nose hard. “I shall be perfectly all right, thank you, Sir Noël,” she said with dignity.

    “Rubbish. All other considerations apart, it’s freezing. Come along, we’ll try your door again,” he said, putting a hand under her elbow.

    Cherry snatched her arm away. “I know when my own front door is locked!” she cried in a high, trembling voice.

    “Nevertheless I shall try it for myself. Are you sure you turned the key the right way?” he said in a bored tone, taking the elbow again, this time in a distinctly ungentle grip.

    “I have not got a key.”

    Noël drew a very deep breath, refraining with difficulty from rolling his eyes. He marched her on in grim silence.

    They rounded the corner of the square.

    “Look, Miss— What the Devil is your name?” he said irritably.

    “Cherry Chalfont,” said Cherry dully.

    “Oh,” said Noël weakly. The daughter of the frightful woman from around the square. “Well, look, Miss Chalfont, does your Mamma know you are out?”

    “No,” she said simply.

    Noël bit his lip. “I see. Then does it not occur to you that she may have unwittingly locked the house up, and that you will not in fact be able to get in until morning?”

    “Of course it occurs to me! It occurred to me hours ago, and I’m telling you: you cannot get in, because I have tried!”

    “Nevertheless I will try myself. And we shall see what calling out will do.”

    “No!” she gasped, standing stock still.

    “I think your mother would consider waking one or two of the residents of Lymmond Square preferable to your stayin’ out all night,” he drawled.

    “No! She would not! You do not know her!” gasped Cherry.

    He gave a superior little smile. “Nonsense. You are becoming hysterical. Come along.” He took her elbow once more.

    “No! Not if you intend shouting!” she hissed.

    “Miss Chalfont, you are being ridiculous.”

    “I won’t,” said Cherry grimly.

    “Look, you stupid female, do you want me to pick you up and sling you over my shoulder bodily? Because believe you me, I am very nearly ready to do so!” he said grimly.

    “No! Ssh!” hissed Cherry, bursting into tears again.

    “God give me strength!” he said through his teeth. “For the Lord’s sake, stop bawling, girl!”

    Cherry sobbed convulsively. She was trying to say something at the same time, but it must be confessed that Noël Amory did not listen very hard. When she finally became coherent, it sounded like: “Mother did it on purpose.”

    “Wipe your eyes, and come along,” he said, repossessing himself of her elbow.

    “No! You don’t understand! Please listen, Sir Noël!” said Cherry desperately, looking up pleadingly into the coldly handsome, unresponsive face.

    He shrugged. “I’m listening.”

    She swallowed. “I think Mother found out that I went to the party and has locked the door on purpose.”

    “Leaving her daughter to the mercy of anything that happens to be roaming the square in the middle of the night. Aye, very likely,” he said icily.

    “You don’t understand! She is like that! Once when my brother and I were younger she took us for a long walk towards the Wells, and we became tired, and lagged behind when we were coming home. So she walked on fast, leaving us to follow or not, and—and soon she was out of sight and we had to come all the way home by ourselves. And it was dreadful, for when we got to the town we did not know which way to go!”

    After a minute Noël said uncertainly: “How old were you then?”

    “I suppose it was about two years after Papa died. I would have been eleven, and Merry twelve.”

    “Oh.” More than one remark of his grandmother’s à propos of the Chalfont woman now came back to Noël Amory. He peered at her uncertainly in the gloom.

    “Truly, Sir Noël. She is like that,” she whispered.

    “Mm. But surely she would prefer being knocked up in the middle of the night— Wait: if she has locked you out deliberately,” he said slowly, “then do you not think she is very probably waiting up for your knock?”

    “But I knocked and knocked! Very loud!” said Cherry desperately.

    Sir Noël chewed his lip. “I see.”

    Cherry sniffled. “She will expect me to be waiting on the area doorstep, for that is what Merry and I did, that time.”

    “You mean she locked you out all night, when you were children?” he said in horror.

    “Yes,” said Cherry simply.

    “But— Good God, the woman must be a monster!” said Sir Noël roundly.

    Cherry made no reply

    “Look, Miss Chalfont, I have to say this seems unlikely to me. A mother does not act that way, however annoyed she may be with her daughter. Well, for God’s sake, your virtue could be in danger!”

    “If she is very angry she will not care about anything except punishing me.”

    “I think you are exaggerating.”

    “No! She is not a nice person, like your mother!” cried Cherry, bursting into tears again.

    “Hush.” Sir Noël’s mother was not a particularly nice person, of course, but he knew she would never have dreamed of inflicting such a punishment on any of his sisters. Bread and water for half a day and not being allowed to attend Miss Paula Hookam’s birthday party had been Carolyn’s worst ever punishment, and she had been the naughtiest of ’em. And at that the girls had all declared the worst part of the punishment was having Mamma cry over you for having been so n... Wait.

    “I think you mean my grandmamma, don’t you?” he said gently.

    “Luh-Luh-Lady Amory!” sobbed Cherry.

    “Uh—yes. The Lady Amory whom you know is my grandmother. Mr Bobby is my uncle.”

    Cherry continued to sob.

    “Look, don’t cry,” said Noël awkwardly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I promise I will not shout, if that is what you want.”

    “Yuh-yuh-yes!” she gulped.

    “Hush,” he said, biting his lip. “Try to stop crying.”

    “I’m sorry!” gasped Cherry at last.

    Noël led her on in silence. He was not at all sure that he believed her claims about her mother’s probable actions. But if the story about abandoning the two children miles out of the town was true, and it seemed so bizarre that he did not think she could be making it up, then—well, presumably the woman was capable of anything. And from all he had ever heard of her from Grandmother and, he seemed to recall, from the Miss Careys as well, she was certainly a cold, hard, ruthless personality. Noël was not so naive as to suppose that a woman could not be as cruel and unfeeling as a man: but all the same he was shocked.

    At the house he hammered very hard on the knocker, and ran down to the area and also hammered very hard on that door, but with no result. If the damned woman were awake, she could not have failed to hear him. He tried his own key, but it did not work; and he also tried putting his shoulder to the door, but that did not work, either. And his penknife broke in the sash of one of the area windows.

    “Damn,” he said ruefully. “I suppose I could break the glass, but I don’t think you could squeeze by the bar if I did.”

    “No-o... I’m quite thin, though.”

    For very obscure reasons which he did not attempt to examine, the sound of Miss Carey’s voice saying distressfully: “We are persuaded the girl does not get enough to eat,” came back very clearly to Noël Amory at that moment. He could recall the precise occasion: the thin Miss Carey in dark brown silk holding a cup from Grandmamma’s best tea-set in her hand and Miss Diddy Carey with her everlasting lace cap under her bonnet. It must have been summer: Miss Diddy’s fondness for bows had prompted her to sport apricot bows in her bonnet, apricot bows on her bosom, and apricot bows round the lace cuffs at each wrist. Bright apricot.

    He was suddenly convinced the girl was right and the damned mother was sitting upstairs like some ugly spider in its web, listening to her efforts to get into the house!

    “Right!” he said grimly. “Come along, we are doing no good here. You may stay the night at Grandmamma’s house. And I shall bring you home myself in the morning.”

    “No!” gasped Cherry,

    “I shall certainly not leave you in this grimy area, my dear Miss Chalfont. You will be perfectly safe with my grandmother.”

    “No—I mean—thank you!” gasped Cherry, turning a fiery red, which in the gloom the baronet did not perceive. “I should be very grateful to stay in Lady Amory’s house, but please don’t come with me in the morning.”

    Sir Noël took her elbow gently and guided her up the area steps. “Someone must speak to your mother. It will be I or a magistrate. Which do you prefer?”

    “You could not be so cruel!” she gasped.

    “It will be for your own protection. She must be made aware that other people know of her treatment of you! Good God, were she one of the lower orders, her children would have been taken away from her!”

    “Yes. Our society is not very fair, is it?” said Cherry, shivering. “But if you came with me, she would punish me later. Truly, Sir Noël!”

    “Oh. Um—well, I shall talk it over with Grandmamma. Come along.”

    He urged her along the footpath. Cherry accompanied him silently.

    “What a big bunch of keys,” she said naïvely, as he got out his keys before his grandmamma’s door.

    “What? Oh!” he said with a little laugh. “These are nothing: merely my town or visiting keys, Miss Chalfont! To my Uncle Bobby’s chambers in town—this is for the outer door to his building, and this for his own door; and this is my key to my Uncle Richard’s house, and these belong to the house I generally hire in Brighton for the summer. I don’t use it at this time of the year, out of course, but they never get a let between seasons. And this is my key to Grandmamma’s house. But you should see my country keys! There are all the house keys, of course, and those to the stable block and the office, and the cellar keys, naturally, and— Damn,” he said weakly.

    “What is it?”

    Noël bit his lip. “Just a moment.” He turned the key again. Then he turned the big door handle. Then he both turned the handle and put his shoulder to the door.

    “Damnation!” he gasped.

    “Is it bolted?” said Cherry fearfully.

    “Mm. Old Stopes must have bolted it, and then nodded off. He has this fear of burglars, it is the most absurd— Well. And he’s deaf as a post, too.” He hammered on the door, yelling loudly: “STOPES! STOPES!” But nothing happened.

    His groom came up the steps. “Sir Noël, maybe her Ladyship never done get your note.”

    “She did, for she replied to it. Old Stopes will have nodded off.”

    The man nodded. “Aye, that’ll be it, the silly old far— Fool,” he ended a weak note.

    Sir Noël coughed.

    “Beggin’ your pardon, sir! –For ’e won’t never let the footmen stay up ’stead of him, when we do be expected, Miss,” he explained helpfully to Cherry: “He will’ve sent ’em all to bed long since, that do be why no-one be a-h’answering.”

    Sir Noël took a deep breath. “Yes. I have to admit this has happened once before, Miss Chalfont.”

    “Aye, it has that!” said the man. “We done hammer like fury on the knocker, Miss, and yells ourselves hoarse, too, and the only thing what do happen is, an old gent from over the way, he do throw up ’is window and swears blue murder at us!”

    “Oh,” said Cherry faintly, wondering if it had been Major-General Cadwallader. Or possibly Mr Henry Faraday, who was reputed in the square to have a ferocious temper.

    Sir Noël and the groom both tried knocking and yelling again, but there was no response.

    “Give it up, sir,” advised the man, shaking his head.

    “Yes,” he said, frowning. “Miss Chalfont, I think we had best knock up one of your neighbours. Perhaps the Laidlaws?”

    “No!” gasped Cherry, clutching at his sleeve.

    “I think it would be sensible,” he said gently.

    “No! Oh, please, Sir Noël: it would make it ten times worse!”

    “Well—uh—does your brother live with you?”

    “No, his house is about twenty minutes away.”

    “I’d better take you there, then,” he said in relief.

    “Please don’t, sir,” said Cherry, beginning to cry, “for he and June have a very new baby and their nights are disturbed enough as it is, and—and it is only a little house! And Mother is already very bitter towards June, buh-because of the duh-duh-dean when she wanted the buh-bishop! And June’s muh-mother has asked us all to them for Christmas, and Merry and June are going but she will nuh-not permit Aunt Lydia and me! And—and—and it would make things so much worse if they tuh-took my part against her!” She gave a loud sob. “Do you not suh-see?”

    Sir Noël made a face. He certainly saw that the poor little thing was nigh hysterical. And he did not much fancy waking up a young woman who had just given birth. No, let them sleep. And if the young woman was already in strife with her mother-in-law—and what a mother-in-law—! No, well, there was another solution.

    “If you are quite sure that you would not prefer me to knock up the Miss Careys or the Laidlaws, I think I should take you to my Uncle Richard and Aunt Delphie. For I think you know them, do you not?”

    “Oh! Yes!” cried Cherry. “I have stayed with them!”

    “Yes.” Noël had by now reflected that perhaps she could stay with Richard and Delphie for a space while the damned mother calmed down or someone did something about the mother. The brother, with a bit of luck, and not himself. “Very well, then, if you are sure that you don’t object to driving for an hour in my company?”

    “Oh no, of course not, sir,” she said on a respectful note.

    Noël made a wry grimace, which she did not see in the dim light. “Mm. Come along, then. –Oh, Kettle,” he said, pausing with his hand on the door of the coach: “I am afraid we must head for Colonel Amory’s house. Can you stand it for another hour?”

    A huddled figure on the box next the coachman replied faintly: “Certainly, sir.”

    “Who is it?” asked Cherry.

    “My valet, Miss Chalfont.”

    “But he must ride with us!” she cried in horror.

    “Er—no. He is a very bad traveller, Miss Chalfont, and gets ill in closed carriages.”

    “We could have the windows open.”

    “Thank you kindly, Miss,” said Kettle from the box, “but I do better h’outside, as Sir Noël ’as h’indicated. And may I assure you, Miss, that Sir Noël is most careful to see that I have a hot brick to my feet at h’every change, and h’often in between times, if we come across a h’inn, and this great bearskin carriage-rug, besides, which I am sure many a gentleman’s gentleman as ’as worked in the great ’ouses would be glad—”

    “That’ll do, thank you, Kettle,” said his master.

    “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Only to assure the young lady, sir.”

     “I think the young lady is assured,” said Sir Noël on a dry note.

    “Um—yes,” she said, not sounding as if she was.

    Hurriedly he opened the door for her. “Get in.”

    Meekly Cherry got in. Sir Noël followed her, and arranged the rug over her knees. “Tuck it closely round you.”

    “You have some of it,” she said anxiously.

    He sighed. “Miss Chalfont, I have not been wandering round Lymmond Square in the freezing cold for the Lord knows how long. –How long was it, at any rate?”

    “Um, I don’t know. But the party broke up very late. Miss Sissy Laidlaw remarked that it was hours past her bedtime.”

    “Oh, good gad, you mean that woman like a little faded hen who is a friend of the Miss Careys?”

    Cherry swallowed. Miss Sissy did look rather like a faded hen. Of the dim fawnish sort. She had a scraggy neck and a small head with a small eye, and a faded, dim, fawnish complexion, and usually wore faded snuff-coloured dresses. And her expression was somewhat anxious and somehow did give the impression of a small, worried hen. “Yes,” she said faintly.

    “My dear Miss Chalfont, I would wager a monkey her usual bedtime is not a second past nine o’clock,” he drawled.

    “You are probably right,” admitted Cherry in a squashed voice. “Um—why a monkey?”

    “Uh—Oh, good gad,” he muttered. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. A gaming term, I fear. A monkey is five hundred pounds, Miss Chalfont.”

    Cherry fancied he was giving her a mocking look. She shrank into the rug. “Oh,” she said in a tiny voice. “Whuh-why?”

    “I have no notion,” he drawled.

    Cherry felt a fool. Her face flamed. She glared out of the window.

     After a few moments, however, he said in a surprised voice: “I have never thought about it before.”

    She looked at him timidly.

    “What a shockin’ lack of natural curiosity,” he said, smiling.

    “Yes,” she whispered.

    “Can it once have been the price of a monkey?” he murmured.

    “It is a terrible lot of money,” ventured Cherry.

    Of course it was not, to Sir Noël, and he had lost more than that on a single bet before now, though he would not have called himself a gambler, by any means. However, he replied: “It is not a small sum, certainly.”

    “How much would a monkey cost?” she wondered, frowning over it.

    Suddenly he laughed. “Well, I can actually tell you that, Miss Chalfont, for not so long since, I bought one!”

    “Oh!” cried Cherry. “Of course! ‘Little Nole’!”

    “Yes,” said big Noël, now frankly grinning. “That is it, aye: little Lizzie’s monkey. Though m’grandmother would rather, if one is to call the creature by a Christian name at all, that it were the standard English form ‘Little Noël.’”

    “Yes!” choked Cherry, going into a prolonged fit of the giggles.

    Sir Noël leaned his handsome head against the upholstery of his travelling coach with a little smile, watching her lazily.

    “So how much did you pay for him?” she said eagerly.

    “He was a mere twenty-five guineas. His trainer assured me it was a fair price, but I am not at all sure of it, for at the first he wished to give him me.”

    “I think that is quite a lot,” said Cherry. “It is much more than Mary’s annual wages.”

    “Er—mm, I am sure,”

    “She is only a scullery maid,” said Cherry, blushing. “I find it quite extraordinary that she can be expected to sustain life on a fraction of the sum—though of course she gets her board—whilst a gentleman such as yourself—” She broke off, gulping. “I beg your pardon!”

    “No, no, not at all,” he murmured. “I, too, find it quite extraordinary. Though Mary’s board must, I feel, count for something in the case. Er—well, twenty-five guineas was the sum for a monkey, Miss Chalfont, though as I say, I have a suspicion he was cheap at the price.”

    “I think he would have been cheap at any price!” said Cherry fervently. “I love him!”

    There was a small silence in Noël Amory’s luxuriously appointed travelling-coach.

    “Do you?” the man said gently. “I am glad. Have you any pets?”

    “No.” Cherry swallowed. “My brother used to have white mice, but when Papa died Mamma ordered him to drown them.”

    Noël grimaced, in spite of himself.

    “Only,” said Cherry, suddenly smiling: “he did not! He gave them to Charlie Pocock; and Matt Simkins, who was Papa’s coachman, swore he had seen them drown with his own eyes! –Which may have been disloyal to his mistress, but then she dismissed him without notice, so it served her right!”

    “Er—yes,” he said limply.

    “I have sometimes thought I would like a cat,” said Cherry on a wistful note.

     Noël’s sisters had had cats and puppies and birds and God knew what. Carolyn had once had a tortoise, called, for mysterious reasons, George. It had buried itself one winter and never reappeared, so whether it had quietly gone to its Maker, or whether it had merely got fed up with Carolyn tying blue ribbons round its wrinkled neck and paws and simply crawled off to greener pastures, the Lord alone knew. And Harriet had once had a ferret—though admittedly Viola had thrown a fit when she found out about it. He laughed suddenly and told Miss Chalfont about Harriet’s ferret. And then about Carolyn’s George and somehow also about Fluffkin the blue Persian cat, and the ponies and— It went on for some time.

    “I would so love to see your home,” said Cherry wistfully at last.

    Noël came to himself with a start, reddening. “Er—mm. It is not half bad, parts of Devon are very pretty. Er—well, if Delphie is well she and Richard are coming down for Easter: it should be pretty then, and not too cold. Why do you not come with them?”

    “I could not!” gasped Cherry, her hands flying to her cheeks.

    “Why not? You would be company for Delphie.”

    “It is very kind of you,” she said faintly. “But Mamma would never permit it.”

    Noël’s mouth tightened. He did not say anything, but thought to himself that they would see about that. One could not very well interfere between mother and daughter—but by God, something must be done about her!

    Dim grey light was already showing behind the tall chimneys of Doubleday House when they clattered up to its portico.—Why “Doubleday” the Amorys had no idea, since the previous owner had been a Mr Maddern, but there was nothing wrong with the name, and so Richard had retained it.

    Noël saw that Miss Chalfont had become a prey to cold feet as the moment of actually presenting herself at the Colonel’s house approached, but he pretended he had noticed nothing, and ushered her firmly inside.

    “Send a message up to Colonel Amory that I’d like a word, would you?” he said to the footman, drawing off his gloves. “And ask Mrs Williams to step into the small salon. And I think a tray of tea for Miss Chalfont, thank you.”

    Colonel Amory’s footman looked ruffled and sleepy, but his face was expressionless and he bowed very properly and said: “Certainly, Sir Noël. I will have a fire lit direct in the small salon.”

    Cherry swallowed hard as Sir Noël then led her firmly into the small salon. “The fires are not even lit!” she hissed. “Poor Mrs Williams will be asleep in bed!”

    “Then she may wake up and get out of it,” said Sir Noël coolly. He glanced at her distressed face. “That is part of a housekeeper’s lot, Miss Chalfont. And I do not think she can complain of harsh treatment, in general, in my Aunt Delphie’s house.”

    “No,” said Cherry faintly. “Of course not; how silly.”

    “Exactly,” he drawled.

    Cherry suddenly went very red and glared at the empty grate. He smiled a little but said nothing.

    The fire was speedily lit, a tray of tea rapidly appeared—so there must have been a fire lit in the kitchen—and Colonel Amory came downstairs in his dressing-gown, yawning, just as Noël was pouring for Cherry.

    “What the— Cherry, my dear!” he said in a stunned voice.

    Cherry had forgotten she was supposed to call him Richard, for she had never been able to manage it. She stumbled to her feet and cried in a loud voice: “I’m sorry, Colonel Amory! Only we couldn’t think where else to go, and truly I duh-don’t need to stay and—and I could just have gone away again without duh-disturbing—” And burst into sobs.

    Under his uncle’s astonished eyes Noël—Noël!—put the teapot down calmly, rose, and went to put a gentle hand on her heaving shoulder.

    “Don’t cry. Everything will be all right. Richard and I will sort it out for you, I promise,” he said.

    “Uh—yes. Of course,” said Richard numbly.

    Cherry continued to sob.

    “She is in a pickle,” said Noël evenly over her head, “but it is nothing very terrible.”

    Cherry was now sobbing: “Muh-Mother will buh-be so angry!”

    Richard made a lugubrious face, raising his eyebrows interrogatively. Noël shook his head very slightly. Richard sagged in relief.

    Noël shot his uncle a mocking look but said: “If she locked you out deliberately she will have no right to be angry;”—Richard’s mouth opened in shock—“and if it was a mere accident we may explain it all. Now, sit down and drink your tea, and then you must go up to bed.”

    “Yes, of course,” Richard agreed. “Oh—Mrs Williams,” he said weakly as the housekeeper came into the room. “There you are—good. As you see, Miss Chalfont has come to stay for a little. Would you make sure the blue room is ready for her, please?”

    “Of course, sir. Good morning, Miss Chalfont. Good morning, Sir Noël,” said the housekeeper, curtseying.

    “Good morning, Mrs Williams. Sorry to haul you out of your warm bed so early,” replied Sir Noël cheerfully. Cherry had been trying to stifle her sobs but at this they dried up out of sheer astonishment. She gaped at him indignantly.

    The housekeeper was smiling, assuring him that it was her pleasure, and she would have the blue room ready for Miss Chalfont and the yellow room for himself in a trice. And not to worry about Mr Kettle, for she would make him one of her tisanes.

    “Splendid, Mrs Williams,” said Richard hastily, and Mrs Williams exited, beaming.

    “Well!” said Cherry to her gallant rescuer. “Of all the—”

    “Brazen, was I not?” he said with a grin. “Sit down and drink your tea.”

    Weakly Cherry sat down and drank her tea.

    “Well?” said Richard on a grim note after the tea had been finished and Mrs Williams had returned to lead her off to bed.

    “Don’t look at me,” drawled his nephew, leaning an elbow on the mantel. “Oh: how is Little Nole? Bloomin’, I trust?”

    “Yes, he is perfectly well, and Delphie and Lizzie have been knitting him jackets and spencers and I know not what for the colder weather: he is better looked after than I— Now, look here!”

    Noël laughed a little. “Sorry, Richard! It is just that Miss Chalfont informed me ardently that she loves him, so I was hopin’ the creature had not—er—handed in his final account.”

    “Just stop trying to change the subject! What is the matter?”

    Noël shrugged, and told him.

    “What?” said Richard in a shaken tone. “The woman cannot deliberately have locked her out!”

    He shrugged again. “In my opinion it is more than likely. Certainly if the story about locking them out when they were eleven and twelve is true. Not to say deserting them on the road to the Wells!”

    “That is not so very young, and after all there were the two of them.”

    “Richard! They were less than little Lizzie’s age! And she left ’em to find their way back through the town, and then locked them out all night!”

    Richard grimaced, pulling his ear. “Nasty, I admit. But from that to leaving a young woman alone in the square on a winter’s night...”

    “Well, it may all have been accidental. They could just have locked up and gone to bed, never realizing the girl had slipped out.”

    “Yes. We shall sort it all out this morning. You did very right to bring her to us, dear boy,” he said, smiling at him.

    “She had hysterics at the idea of knocking up the neighbours.” He shrugged.

    “Mrs Chalfont would not care for them to know her business,” said Richard.

    Noël grimaced. “So I gathered. Well, I shall get a couple of hours’ sleep, and then we’d better discuss what to do for the best. I feel she cannot go back to that woman. Possibly the brother may take her.”

    “Er—yes. Certainly. Dear old fellow, Delphie and I will sort it out for her, if you—”

    “No,” said Noël grimly. “If it were merely a case of a harum-scarum Miss on an escapade, I would leave you to it and welcome, but— And in any case it is my responsibility. I’ll see you at breakfast. And thanks, Richard.” He strode out, yawning.

    “Good God,” said Colonel Amory numbly.