Sommerton Grange Entertains

3

Sommerton Grange Entertains

    Young Mrs Quarmby-Vine having determined upon a little dancing party, invitations of course had to be issued. And so the younger ladies set out in the barouche for Bluff Yewby, Miss Bon-Dutton not betraying a fervent wish not to encounter damned Lochailsh there, and the Contessa dalla Rovere not betraying a certain sinking feeling at having to face two formidable English grandes dames.

    In the event, these fear were groundless: The visitors were shown into the Bluff Yewby downstairs salon to be faced with nothing more formidable than two very young ladies. Hurriedly Katie Dewesbury urged Miss Bon-Dutton, who was leaning heavily on a stick, to be seated, congratulating her on being up and about again.

    “This,” she then admitted on a certain note of resignation, “is my sister, Nellie. The Contessa dalla Rovere, Mrs Bobby Quarmby-Vine, and Miss Bon-Dutton, Nellie.”

    Nellie Dewesbury was a short, slight girl with sparkling hazel eyes and a mop of light brown curls. And a distinct look of mischief about her. “How do you do?” she said eagerly. “As you see, it falls to my lot to be Katie’s chaperone today. I am afraid Lady Partington-Gore and Mamma are out: they will be so sorry to have missed your party, Miss Bon-Dutton.”

    Eudora replied properly and colourlessly. It was pretty evident, from the sheepish expression on Katie Dewesbury’s face, that very little of that speech was sincere.

    This impression was soon confirmed, as was the impression that Miss Nellie could fairly have been described as an imp. Having had tea brought in, without bothering to defer to her older sister in the matter at all, and made sure the visitors were comfortable in a manner worthy of a dowager of three times her years, she confessed artlessly: “Of course, I am not absolutely out, but it was agreed that since Katie manifestly stood in need of a chaperone this afternoon, it must be me. And in the event Mr George Potter should call, you will see that I have a very strong sense of my duties, for I shall deny him our door.”

    “You can’t deny him our door, precisely, when the house belongs to the Partington-Gores,” noted Katie drily.

    “No? Well, I dare say that may be correct—Katie is quite clever and intellectual, and is wont to discuss the reports in the Morning Post with Mamma herself,” she explained. “But I shall certainly deny him our presences; for I entirely concur with Mamma’s opinion that he will not do for Katie! Now, I collect you are here to discuss the promised dance at Sommerton Grange?” said Nellie brightly.

    “I told her not to hint,” said Katie, turning puce. “She’s only seventeen, and I’m afraid she thought that was witty. I do apologise.”

    “Not at all!” replied Susannah with her kind laugh. “Of course we are here to ask you to the party. But it will not be a very big affair, you know, and the dance is only for the young people.”

    “In the which case, you must qualify,” said Raffaella with extreme kindness to Miss Nellie.

    “Mm. And if she is but seventeen, yet it must be supposed she has free will; you need not apologise for her, I think, Miss Dewesbury,” added Eudora drily.

    “No!” said Katie with a startled laugh, looking at her with some respect. “Well, we shall love to come, Mrs Bobby, of course.”

    “And now we only have to decide what to wear,” said Nellie with relish.

    “White muslin,” noted Eudora instantly in blighting tones.

    Unabashed, Miss Nellie responded: “Oh, I see you know my mamma!”

    “I have known her for many years and I cannot feel she would consider that that tone is entirely appropriate in company, if the company be only ourselves,” replied Miss Bon-Dutton at her coolest.

    “Thank you, Miss Bon-Dutton,” said Katie calmly. “I could not have put it better myself.”

    Miss Nellie had reddened, but she rallied and squeaked: “Nay, Mamma could not have put it better herself! How wonderful you are!” she said to Miss Bon-Dutton, rolling her hazel eyes earnestly.

    “That will do, Nellie. Or sisterly solidarity or not, I shall be reduced to reporting you,” said Katie calmly. “And it will be white muslin for you, as you know very well. But I think I shall wear my new pink silk,” she said with a little smile.

    “It is the most ravishing thing!” said Miss Nellie eagerly to the company. “A very, very pale pink, the which does not in the least make her look all pink and yaller as some claimed!”

    “It was Gwennie. But she is as fair as I; she could wear the shade, also,” said Katie with a smile. “Oh—I’m sorry, Contessa: I mean my sister, Gwendolyn, Lady Ferdy Lacey.”

    “The Laceys are the Duke of Munn’s family, Contessa,” explained Miss Nellie instantly, “but as it is not a very old title, and as we of course are Hammonds on the maternal side, we were not so very thrilled as all that to have Gwennie catch him. Or at the least, were enabled to pretend not to be.”

    “How old a title is it?” asked Raffaella, unmoved.

    Miss Nellie Dewesbury was observed to blink. “Um, I don’t know.”

    “It dates back to the time of James I,” said Katie calmly. “Though there was an earlier Scottish title, which I think was bestowed in the era of Henry IV of England. Do not ask Nellie who they were, for she will be unable to enlighten you. The word ‘history’ is meaningless to her, I fear.”

    “Yes,” agreed Miss Nellie sunnily. “As also the words ‘mathematics’ and ‘politics.’ In especial why the plural,” she said earnestly to the Contessa.

    Raffaella gave a gurgle of laughter. “Absolutely! English is such a hard language, is it not? I am so glad I never had to set to and learn it!”

    “So you are not Italian?” said Nellie eagerly.

    “No, I was born in England. But my Mamma is an Italian lady, and after Papa died she took us back to Italy. Well, she waited until after Waterloo to do so.”

    “It sounds so Romantick!” she gasped, clasping the hands to the bosom,

    Raffaella eyed her drily. “It was not so Romantick as all that. Girls are very strictly chaperoned in Italy, much more so than here: you and Katie would certainly not be permitted to receive even such inoffensive visitors as ourselves, over there. And it would most certainly be white muslins for your entire first Season. After that it would not signify, for they would have married you off, and it would be black silk and docility,” she ended deeply.

    Unabashed, Miss Nellie went into a trill of laughter, clapping her hands.

    “Well,” said Katie with a smile, “that is one for you, I think, Nellie! No, but do tell us what you are planning to wear, yourself, Mrs Bobby,” she said politely.

    Nothing loath, Susannah obliged, and the rest of the visit was spent in harmless discussion of the fashions.

    The customs in England being much less strict than those of Italy, Miss Dewesbury had ridden out escorted only by one of Bluff Yewby’s grooms. She was nothing that could have been called an intrepid horsewoman, and so she just rode gently as far as the village of Heddleford, not attempting, to the groom’s silent relief, to jump anything, or to gallop. She was delighted to encounter the Contessa dalla Rovere, in charge of Sommerton Grange’s trap, looking in a confused way into the dark little window of Heddleford’s village shop.

    After a polite exchange of greetings Katie said with a twinkle: “Had you forgot what our little village shops are like, Contessa?

    “I think I had forgot what the people are accustomed to eat, at all events!” replied Raffaella with a shudder.

    “Yes, well, Heddleford is typical, alas! Should you care to go in?”

    “I have been in, and they have nothing resembling a sausage, and never stock fresh fruit, so I came out again!” said Raffaella with her merry laugh.

    Katie smiled and nodded, and, agreeing she would be happy to accompany the Contessa along the road to Sommerton Grange for a way, set off with her at a very easy pace. Naturally the conversation turned to the coming party at Sommerton Grange.

    “It has grown,” said Raffaella solemnly. “Susannah is quite at a loss to explain how it happened.”

    “I think it happened because she drove all over the county inviting everyone she knows, Contessa, did it not?” replied Katie primly.

    Dimpling, Raffaella countered: “Oh, not only that, Miss Dewesbury! She wrote to all her more far-flung acquaintance, inviting them, as well! –I wish you would call me Raffaella, if that would be the done thing.”

    The well-mannered Miss Dewesbury responded instantly: “Of course it would. I should very much like to call you Raffaella, and you must please call me Katie.”

    “Good, I shall. It suits you, Katie: it is a very blue, pink and white name!” said Raffaella pleasedly. “I have never seen such very fair hair as yours; it is truly lovely.”

    “Why, thank you. My sister Gwennie has it, too. Mamma maintains there is Scandinavian blood somewhere in the family. Well, my cousins live at a place called Daynesford and the people thereabouts are often very fair!” she said with a laugh.

    “That explains it, then. Tell me, has Miss Nellie managed to persuade your Mamma to let her wear at least a coloured muslin?”

    “No!” admitted Katie with a laugh. “She is not near so bold to Mamma’s face as she is behind her back! But what are you to wear, Raffaella?”

    “Well, I have no clothes,” replied Raffaella sunnily, “but Susannah has been so very kind and given me some of her own gowns. And there was no necessity at all, for I foisted myself on them in the most brazen way, and we are only the most distant of relations, after all.”

    Miss Dewesbury, in spite of her good manners, had blinked: the foisting was certainly the version she had heard from Lady Lavinia and Lady Partington-Gore, yes.

    “I shall tell you it all,” decided Raffaella with her sunny smile. Forthwith pouring her story into the astonished Miss Dewesbury’s ear.

    At the end of it, Katie blew her nose very hard.

    “Now, you must not!” protested Raffaella. “For, you see, it has a happy ending: here I am, safe in placid old England!”

    “Yes. Of course,” she said, trying to smile.

    “Er, the thing is,” said Raffaella with a dubious look, “my step-papa’s family has some influence, and certainly they know everybody in Rome, and the story they have been careful to spread puts all of the blame on me, and none on him. If your Mamma has any diplomatic friends, I think they might well give her the Roman version.”

    “She has very many diplomatic friends, yes. But,” said Katie Dewesbury, sticking out her rounded chin, “she is not at all a woman given to believing gossip, and most certainly not a woman full of unconsidered prejudice.”

    “She will give me a fair hearing, you mean?” said Raffaella on a neutral note.

    “Yes, she most certainly will!” said Miss Dewesbury strongly.

    “I see. Good. Well, I rather think she will be alone in that. Even kind Mrs Quarmby-Vine has her doubts, and I don’t think Mr Q.-V. believes more than half of my scandalous story,” she said with a shrug.

    “Don’t you care?” ventured Katie.

    She rolled the big dark eyes. “Katie, cara, of course I care, but how can I prove any of it?”

    Katie gnawed on her lip. “No. I see. It is very unfair.”

    “Life is unfair,” said the Contessa dalla Rovere with another shrug.

    Katie swallowed, and they continued slowly down the dusty country road in silence for a while.

    “Well!” said Raffaella at last on a rallying note. “I think we started to discuss our gowns, did we not? I am not the least kind Susannah’s type, but with some judicious alteration a very pretty white gauze that she gave me will be just the thing. Well, taking it up, for she is taller than I, and then, letting the bodice out, for she is flatter, and most definitely cutting out a large section from the front, for she is so much more modest than I that one can scarcely find a superlative to describe it!”

    “To describe— Oh! To describe the degree! I see!” said Katie with a laugh.

    “Well, I would take the compliment unto myself,” said Raffaella, waving at herself with her whip hand, the which was not holding a whip, as no amount of cracking of the same had earlier affected Sommerton Grange’s reliable old horse, “but I perceive that you are just as well endowed! You will see, the white gauze will be quite dashing, and will probably confirm all the worst suspicions of the ladies of the neighbourhood; but then, one does not dress for the ladies, does one?”

    “Not any more!” admitted Katie with a sudden laugh. “I was quite prepared to tell Mamma that from now on I require something more sophisticated than the boringly Missish gowns she has always dressed me in, but she actually suggested it for herself! Well, perhaps she realises, now that Nellie is ready to be launched, that I am no longer a little girl.”

    “Of course,” agreed the Contessa happily, seeing nothing at which to cavil in this assumption. “Now, tell me who will be there.”

    “But I think you know, better than I! –Oh, I see, the personalities?”

    “Yes. A Mr Beresford, a friend of Mr Bobby’s,” she prompted her.

    “I know Mr Beresford slightly. Well, I have danced with him. He has a decent place in Cumberland, I believe.”

    “Well, that will almost make up for the lack of a title!” said the Contessa gaily. “You see, I have determined that I will catch at the very least a viscount. He shall be a viscount of immense gallantry and nobility of spirit, who will see the unblemished flower,” she said deeply, rolling the eyes, “behind the sinful reputation! For if I ever set eyes on Mamma again,” she promised, “she is going to have to curtsey to me! I admit I do not know yet precisely how I shall go about it. But I have writ a very soulful letter to old Great-Uncle Ambrose Andrews, explaining that an Andrews can hardly foist herself forever on her well-connected distant relatives without pecuniary assistance. And that if it were sufficient for me to have a Season and snare a husband, I should never need to call on his aid again. It may answer, depending on whether Aunt Beauchamp has possessed herself entirely of his purse-strings,” she said with one of her shrugs. “Well, this Mr Beresford sounds quite hopeful, in the event that I am forced to settle for a mere Mister. I suppose he is not good-looking?”

    “He is very good-looking,” said Katie with a smile. “And very well off indeed.”

    “There must be a but, though? I should not mind a bad limp,” the Contessa assured her.

    “No!” she choked. “No, well, he hunts, and drives a four-in-hand. I suppose the but is his mother,” she said, swallowing in spite of herself.

    “Oh, we have those in Italy, too! But thank you, Katie, cara, I shall be prepared!” she assured her gaily. “More? Is there not a duke, rumoured to be staying at Bluff Yewby and also rumoured to be steering clear of poor Cousin Eudora?”

    “Yes. Lochailsh. He is not young, Raffaella,” warned Miss Dewesbury a trifle limply, wondering if there was any way at all she could tactfully say that nor was he the sort of man to look twice at a young widow with a dubious reputation, even if the young widow were blameless in the case. And most certainly not the type of man to look twice at any offspring of the woman to whom her mother and Lady Partington-Gore referred with horrid relish as “the frightful Principessa Claudia” or “that Italian Woman.” Er… no. None at all.

    “Oh, age does not matter! But how old is the title?”

    “Put it like this: it is certainly older than that to which the House of Hanover lays claim,” replied Lady Lavinia’s daughter on a very dry note indeed.

    “That is very naughty!” choked the Contessa, going off into a paroxysm. “So—er—Mediaeval?”

    “Which, Lochailsh or the title? Well, it is, certainly. One of the oldest titles in Scotland. And I am afraid that he is, also.”

    “But cara, this sounds intriguing! Terribly Romantick!”

    “I would describe him, rather, as terribly high in the instep,” admitted Miss Dewesbury on a grim note.

    “Oops!” said Raffaella with a gurgle. “Never mind, I may be able to fascinate him,” she said deeply.

    Privately Miss Dewesbury considered that if any young woman could, that young woman was probably the Contessa dalla Rovere. Unfortunately, she was not convinced that any young woman had that power. His inamoratas were always older, married ladies. She was too kind to say this to Raffaella, however, and to her relief her new friend seemed quite content to leave it at that.

    “I know Captain Quarmby-Vine, of course,” she said. “But I have not met his friend. A commander. Is he also one of those rather bluff, hearty naval gentlemen?”

    “No,” said Katie, blushing.

    Raffaella looked at the blush with interest. “I see.”

    “I think you mean Commander Sir Arthur Jerningham,” said Katie, holding up her chin and ignoring this last. “They have been close friends all their lives. He lives quite near, at Hortleberry Grene.”

    The Contessa’s jaw dropped. “No! I remember him! He once caught me and my brother Bobby fishing in his stream, and gave us a positive sermon on the theme of thy neighbour’s property!” She shrugged. “Without the slightest indication that he recognised the incongruity of it. Well, envisage it, cara: I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and Bobby about up to my shoulder, and the both of us soaking wet, with one small troutlet in our basket, and there was this towering figure who owned all the countryside as far as the eye could see, lecturing us in the most pompous tones imaginable, as if we were the most hidebound, dyed-in-the-wool old poachers the district could afford!”

    “When was this?” asked Katie.

    “What? Well, it cannot signify, Katie! Um… the summer of Waterloo, actually. The last summer we spent in England before Mamma dragged us off abroad.”

    “You would have been about thirteen, I would think? Yes. That is more than old enough to know right from wrong,” she said seriously. “And did he let you keep the trout?”

    Raffaella shrugged and pouted. “Oh—after a minor sermon on the sub-theme of good not coming out of evil, yes! So?”

    “Many men would not have: indeed, most, I think!” she said with shining eyes.

    Raffaella groaned. “Then perhaps you should have him, Katie. I would take an axe to his very proper head before the honeymoon were over. Besides, he is not a viscount. Do not argue: he is yours,” she said sternly.

    Katie gave in, and laughed, but said: “Well, I don’t think there are any unattached viscounts. Lady Benedict,” she said, pinkening again, “has just married Viscount Stamforth.”

    “Oh?”

    “She is the lady whom they call the Portuguese Widow.”

    “Indeed?”

    Katie gave a pettish shrug. “I am surprised that Miss Bon-Dutton has not mentioned her, for she was the talk of London! All the gentlemen were dancing on her string. Well, Captain Quarmby-Vine certainly was.”

    “Ah. And Commander Sir Arthur Jerningham?’

    “Oh, indeed. In the intervals when Mrs Percy Murray had momentarily loosened her stranglehold on him. But they were not the only ones, by any means.”

    “And what is the Portuguese Widow like?” asked Raffaella with interest.

    “I think you may discover that very easily for yourself, by looking in your mirror,” responded Miss Dewesbury drily.

    “Truly? Short and plump, and dark?”

    “Yes. She has a foreign accent, though, which the gentleman all found entrancing. As a matter of fact,” said Miss Dewesbury with a tilt of that determined little chin, “I can tell you that for a fact, for I had the very phrase from figures as diverse as Admiral Dauntry, who is old enough to be your grandfather and hers, from my own Papa, who is certainly old enough to be her papa, and from my brother, Quentin. Who is almost intelligent enough to see that he would not, in fact, be up to the weight of a twice widowed lady, if she be only our age.”

    “Twice widowed?” said Raffaella, staring. “I thought my past was eventful enough, for twenty-two!”

    “Well, I did say, did I not, that she was the talk of the town? The first husband was a nabob and left her an immense fortune. That helped,” said Katie drily.

    “It would do! –So Commander Sir Arthur likes short, well-endowed ladies,” she said slowly. “No, do not look like that, cara, for if he is as I remember, I swear I do not want him! In a way it is a pity you are not dark, like this Portuguese Widow. On the other hand, that might be too vivid a reminder… No, I think it may answer very well! If a man has a predilection for that type of figure,” she said eyeing it thoughtfully, “he will not easily change it. Even though he may not be aware, himself, that he has it. But did you gain the impression that he prefers the lady to be of a mature type, not only as to her figure, but as to her—er—behaviour and comportment?”

    Katie was now very red indeed. “I would say so. If the proof of the pudding be in the eating, as the adage has it,” she admitted grimly.

    “Ah. And this Mrs Percy Whosis?’

    “Murray. Worse,” she said grimly. “And very much older than the P.W.”

    “Well, a man does not customarily look for a very much older lady when he seeks a wife. I think you need not give up hope! And he will most certainly be at the dance. I was going to award him to Cousin Eudora, for she swears that Captain Quarmby-Vine is a blockhead, though he does much admire her bosom, but you may have him, instead! Bother, that leaves only Captain Q.-V. Though I believe there is a Major P.-P. in the offing?”

    “Yes, well, that would be Lady Partington-Gore’s brother, Major Phelps-Patterson, who has lately inherited a snug property on the far side of Bluff Yewby; but I am afraid Miss Bon-Dutton cannot have him,” said Katie, looking very prim, “for Mamma has destined him for me.”

    “But do you want him?’

    “The Dashing Major? Not I!” said Katie with a sudden laugh.

    “Do tell!” cried the Contessa.

    “Oh, it is just a silly nickname that Gwennie and I gave him when we were little. We have known the family forever, you see. Well, our brother Quentin adopted it and repeated it to his military friends—he is a hussar—and somehow it took on, and the whole of London started using it! He is dashing, you see: dark, and high-coloured, and rather handsome, with a hooked nose and—well, somewhat of a flamboyant manner! Well: dashing, no? He knows, of course, but actually, I think he finds it flattering rather than anything else. He is not a very sensible man,” she finished simply.

    “A blockhead?”

    “No, I think that would be going too far. Oh, dear, how can I define it? He is the sort of man who, if you told him he had very fine teeth, would be forever flashing them!” she produced with a twinkle.

    “I see him!” agreed the Contessa, laughing. “Well, I do not think Cousin Eudora could stomach something that was dashing but not sensible. Although— Is he a pleasant gentleman?”

    “Would that count, Raffaella?” replied Miss Dewesbury drily.

     Raffaella went into a paroxysm, gasping through it: “Not very much, for me, no! But it would for Cousin Eudora, of course. We shall only award her a very pleasant gentleman, and so I warn you, Katie!” she said, pointing a stern finger at her.

    Katie giggled, but noted: “I think that Captain Quarmby-Vine is quite pleasant, actually. But I hardly know him. Er—but he very much admired the P.W. He sent her lots of posies. My brother Quentin said they made jokes about it in the horrid clubs.”

    “Anything whatsoever to do with the horrid clubs,” replied Raffaella gaily, “shall be ignored entirely! …Hm. I shall take another look at the white gauze. Or rather at its bodice. This is just in the case, you know, that I have to fall back upon Captain Q.-V.! For this Mr Beresford may admire another type— No!” she gasped.

    “Yes,” said Katie, clearing her throat. “That is why he went off to his estates in Cumberland, and missed the Season.”

    “Another one?” she screamed.

    “The P.W. is very, very charming,” said Katie limply.

    Raffaella merely goggled at her.

    By the time the anticipated date rolled round, young Mrs Quarmby-Vine’s little party had developed from the informal entertainment which its originator had initially envisaged into a sizeable dinner and dance. To which, alas, not all of the invited guests were looking forward with unclouded delight.

    Captain Quarmby-Vine had greeted the news that his nephew’s wife had got up a little party with a scowl and a grunt of: “Might have known. Damned women.” From which Peter Quarmby-Vine concluded glumly that old Charles was still brooding over that damned Portuguese female—damnation!

    Over at Hortleberry Grene Commander Sir Arthur sighed, and decided he had best go. Lilian Q.-V. would probably try to throw that sister of hers at his head, of course. Well, there was always the card room.

    At Bluff Yewby Pamela Partington-Gore laughed a little, shrugged and said: “Well, it will be a bore, of course, but if dear Lilian Quarmby-Vine wishes for our support—!”

    To which Sir Frederick Partington-Gore, who was a very grand personage indeed and only “Freddy” to his intimates and those, like Lady Lavinia Dewesbury, née Hammond, who had known him from his cradle, replied with a jump: “Hey? Oh—aye. Impossible to get out of the damned thing, mm. Um—dare say we might drag old Alec along, eh?”

    “I am sure he will come, if you suggest it, my dear.”

    Sir Frederick grunted. After a moment, however, he said: “That damned sister of Lilian’s will be there, knee or not, and I’m tellin’ you now, it ain’t no use the pair of you plottin’ to throw her at Alec’s head. The female’s a hag.”

    “Freddy, that is ridiculous!” said Pamela, her colour somewhat heightened. For it was years—years!—since she and Lilian had conceived any such notion. “Eudora Bon-Dutton is a well-bred, sensible woman who would make Alec an excellent wife. He might count himself fortunate to get her. And those Classical looks of hers, you know, would most certainly do him credit.”

    “Looks like a damned marble statue, cold as a damned marble statue, and about as much personality as a damned marble statue,” replied Sir Frederick with considerable satisfaction.

    “She would run his houses very competently.”

    “Dare say. Why would a fellow want,” said Sir Frederick brilliantly, “to marry a damned marble housekeeper? Bad blood in that family, too,” he added before his glaring wife could get a word out.

    “Er—well, yes, one cannot deny that! But at least theirs is not the senior branch.”

    Looking very pleased, Sir Frederick told her in detail the story of that Persephone Bon-Dutton who had been from the senior branch—very much so, being the then Duke’s daughter—and her disastrous marriage to the present Lord Keywes.

    Since Pamela had heard it all before, and was aware that Freddy knew this, she listened with a very cold expression on her handsome face. And said when he had finished: “Very edifying. Just be sure you do not repeat any of that in front of Bobby Q.-V.’s friend Mr Beresford.”

    “Uh—eh?” he fumbled.

    Lady Partington-Gore rose. “His sister,” she said on a note of finality, “is the second Lady Keywes. As I think a moment’s reflection must have informed you.”

    Mr Beresford arrived at Sommerton Grange on the day itself, only just in time to be hurried upstairs to dress for dinner. And greeted the news that his old friend’s wife had got up a little party with a scowl and: “Well, damn you, Bobby!” From which Mr Bobby concluded glumly that old Jack was still brooding over that damned Portuguese female—damnation. And that he had best warn Susannah not to try throwin’ any of her girlfriends from Yewby town at the fellow’s head.

    The reaction of Alec Dalziel, Duke of Lochailsh, Lord of Inver and Ailsh, to Sir Frederick’s mumbled conveyance of the Sommerton Grange invitation was all that the baronet had anticipated: he looked down his high-bridged nose and said coldly: “If this is another plot between Pamela and the Q.-V. woman to throw Miss Bon-Dutton—

    “NO!” He met his old friend’s eye. “Um—well, Pamela swears it ain’t,” he said glumly. “No sayin’ what may be in Lilian Q.-V.’s head, mind.”

    The Duke shrugged a little, but said: “Oh, very well. Just don’t expect me to dance.”

    The well-connected Mr Beresford propped up the wall and gloomed Byronically at the merry throng.

    “Broodin’. The Portuguese Widow,” Mr Bobby explained illuminatingly.

    Captain Quentin Dewesbury, who had joined his relatives at Bluff Yewby two days earlier, nodded sapiently. “Thought so. All over town, y’know. Went off to his place in Cumberland when the engagement to Stamforth was published.”

    “Mm.”

    They watched for a while.

    “Don’t dance, Jack,” said Mr Bobby under his breath.

    “Could go over and force the fellow?” suggested Quentin.

    “Lor’, would that be better or worse, old man? For we may get him to ask one of these little gals,”—Mr Bobby was terribly lordly about such matters as débutantes’ hops since his marriage—“but then he’ll glower at her all through!”

    “Highly likely,” the gallant hussar agreed heavily.

    “That need not stop you dancing, old boy,” noted Mr Bobby.

    “Mm? Oh!” he said with a sheepish laugh.

    “Have little Miss Hannah Potter.”

    “Eh? Oh. Well, at least she ain’t got a moustache like damned Porky Potter.”

    “Noticed that,” Bobby agreed.

    They might have expanded on this topic but at this moment his wife bustled up to them and asked them why they were not dancing.

    “Because you ain’t provided enough pretty little girls, Susannah!” explained Mr Bobby with a laugh.

    “Well, I have provided a dozen, is that not sufficient even for a hussar?” said Susannah, opening her eyes very wide at the Captain.

    Grinning, he replied: “I say, Mrs Bobby, you are not half hard on a fellow!  No—um—well, thing is, I wouldn’t mind dancing with little Miss Hannah, but it’ll encourage her dashed mother.”

    Assuring him that she knew he was brave enough to take that in his stride, Mrs Bobby led him inexorably off and deposited him at Miss Hannah Potter’s feet.

    “Uh—where’s Pa and Arthur J.?” asked Bobby, as she returned, all smiles.

    “They have gone off to play cards, which I suppose one might have expected.”

    “Oh, Lord, yes! Pa won’t dance.”

    “No, I know, but I did think… Well, Sir Arthur is so lovely,”—Mr Bobby blinked slightly, but nodded—“and he is unmarried and not terribly elderly, after all!”

    “Uh—Pa’s age, ain’t he? Dare say he ain’t interested in dancing with the infantry.”

    “No,” said Susannah, sighing. “I suppose not. But I think he is a lonely man, Bobby.”

    Not at the moment, he could not be, if he was playing cards with Pa, but Bobby Quarmby-Vine, in the short time they had been married, had learned not to make that sort of remark. He merely nodded kindly.

    Lady Lavinia had, in the most—most brass-faced way, decided Nellie, squirming, button-holed Major Phelps-Patterson and forced him to ask Katie to dance. It was all truly dreadful, and totally embarrassing, and why she had ever imagined that it would be great fun to be a grown-up young lady and go to real dances… She should have taken heed of Gwennie’s and Katie’s horror tales: what a fool she was.

    “Please, Mamma! That is the young man who talks about fish!” she hissed, as her mother then looked round the room, and fixed her lorgnette upon Mr Godfrey Quarmby-Vine.

    “He is interested in fishing? That is an entirely blameless preoccupation for a young man,” approved Lady Lavinia, her face entirely unmoved and not betraying by so much as the twitch of a muscle her strong desire to laugh. “Come along, my dear: he is one of Mary and James Q.-V.’s sons, I think.”

    The quailing Nellie was hailed off inexorably to meet her fate.

    Lady Lavinia sat down quietly, fanning herself. Quentin was refraining from making sheep’s eyes at the Contessa dalla Rovere, and had danced once with Hannah Potter: all that could be hoped for, really. Katie was now flirting shamelessly with Roddy P.-P., which at least showed she was not as immune as she had claimed. Arthur, of course, had fled to the card room, but there was plenty of time, yet…

    “Well, no,” said Katie, fluttering her lashes, as the Dashing Major asked, the dance finishing, if she would care to be taken back to her mamma. Grinning, Roddy Phelps-Patterson asked hopefully if she would care for a glass of champagne, then?

    “Very much, but if you could possibly emanate across the ballroom, sir, the appearance of a man handing a young woman a glass of lemonade as you do it, I should be vastly gratified!” replied Katie, peeping naughtily at him. And reflecting that if he was not a blockhead, he was not very far off it, and if Mamma wished her to encourage him, she should see her do just that!

    The Dashing Major sniggered, tucked her hand in his arm, patted it in a far from avuncular fashion, though he was certainly old enough to be her uncle, and led her off towards the champagne. Assuring her as he went that the very set of his shoulders spoke the word “Lemonade.” Katie smiled and nodded, thinking grimly to herself: “Flashing teeth.”

    They then sat out and proceeded to gratify Lady Lavinia’s hopes as much as was decently possible in the confines of an English ballroom during the course of two country dances. After which Quentin Dewesbury, grinning very much, came up and gave the Major a mock salute, announcing: “I’m under orders to say, sir, that for herself, Mamma don’t mind, but to sit out any longer with Katie would occasion remark, and so, if you please, could you go and dance with someone else?”

    “You coward, Quentin!” said Katie bitterly as the Major, laughing, surrendered her with good grace and wandered off.

    “Yes, I am, where Mamma’s concerned!” said the gallant hussar with feeling. “Want to dance this one?”

    “No.”

    “Oh, um—sorry,” he said lamely. “Um, well, dammit, what do you want to do?”

    “I should like to go and talk to Raffaella dalla Rovere, but I am very sure you have not the bottle to take me over to her, under Mamma’s eye,” replied his little sister smoothly.

    “No, by George, you’re right, there! –Quite a little peach, hey?” he said on a wistful note.

    “Oh, go and play with your toys, Quentin!” said Katie heatedly.

    “No need to get your dander up. Haven’t noticed you standing up to Mamma, these last four years.”

    “No? Then you may notice it now!” Under the gallant hussar’s starting gaze she walked composedly over to the Contessa and sat down by her.

    “Ooh!” gasped Nellie before she could stop herself.

    Lady Lavinia turned her head with majestic slowness—she was a large woman. “Yes, my dear? Ah,” she said, following Nellie’s gaze. “That was to be expected.”

    Nellie waited in fear and trembling but to her astonishment absolutely nothing more happened.

    “I see you enjoyed a dance with Mr George Potter, Raffaella,” said Katie primly.

    Raffaella shut her eyes, and moaned slightly. “Eighteen if he is a day. I do not think that down upon his lip has yet sighted the razor’s edge.”

    Katie collapsed in giggles.

    “He made three remarks in the course of the dance,” said Raffaella faintly, still with her eyes shut. “One, Was it not frightfully decent of Mr and Mrs Q.-V. to throw this little hop; two, Was not the dinner dashed good; and three, Did I not find this summer weather trying? To which I replied in the most conformable way possible,” she said, suddenly sitting up and opening her eyes: “Yes, Yes, and No. The last threw him a little, but only slightly, alas. Well, what else could one say?”

    “You could have lied and said No, No, and Yes,” noted Katie detachedly.

    Raffaella collapsed in giggles immediately.

    “Well, he is much nicer than his brother, the one they call Pooter Potter,” Katie admitted. “He is a horrid young man who tries to kiss one in an alcove. Gwennie let him. She said she wanted to see what it was like. But then when he tried a second time some days later, she pretended to be utterly shocked—indeed, nigh swooning with shock—and he was terribly disconcerted!”

    “It cannot have been completely enjoyable the first time, then.”

    “No, she said it wasn’t.”

    “Oh dear,” Raffaella then said with a sigh: “is it not positively deadly? Have you remarked that all the young men from Susannah’s circle of Yewby friends are as null as all the young women?”

    “Er—well, yes. But it was kind of her to give the party,” said Miss Dewesbury valiantly.

    “Yes, but cara, it would be even kinder of her to give us something pleasant to dance with!” she hissed.

    Katie collapsed in giggles again, nodding helplessly.

    As the dance came to an end and the dark-visaged gentleman who had arrived at Sommerton Grange just in time for dinner, and not, in fact, in time to be introduced, was observed still to be propping up the wall, Raffaella took a deep breath. “That is the last straw! That man has stood there through every dance, ignoring every female in the room!” She rose, looking determined.

    “Raffaella, that is Mr Beresford. He comes from a very proper family, and I do not think—”

    “Is it, indeed? I am sure I do not care if it be His Majesty King George in person!. And the proper family does not seem to have taught him that it is not generally considered manners to prop up a wall while young women are not dancing. And since it appears Providence will not intervene, I shall.”

    “I am quite of your opinion, but you really must not ask him!” hissed Katie urgently.

    “Pray disabuse your mind of the idea that I intention asking him to dance with myself,” she said in a lofty tone, departing.

    Katie watched numbly.

    “I perceive that you are not dancing, sir,” she said to Mr Beresford.

    He straightened, with a jump and a blink. “Er—no.”

    “It is not some physical trouble, is it?” said Raffaella solicitously. “A sore foot?”

    Just at first, Mr Beresford had been a little taken aback: in the first place, proper young women did not accost one at dances, and in the second place, she was so very like Lady Stamforth! But now he perceived that it was only in looks and that she was a forward and cheeky little baggage, with none of the wonderful goodness and kindness that characterised Lady Stamforth: and he scowled ferociously at her.

    “Oh!” said Raffaella, clasping her hands to her full bosom. “That is even more Byronic than your previous pose, sir! Would that I were of an artistic bent: I would take your silhouette immediately! But in the meantime, there is a young woman over there who lacks a partner. Pray allow me to present you to her.”

    “You are a minx, Miss,” said Mr Beresford—very sourly indeed; and Raffaella could see that, that inexplicably—though of course these things were mysterious—he had not fallen instantly for her charms!

    “No, no, I am merely anxious to see my young acquaintance dancing with a pretty young gentleman,” she said soothingly in the accents of a dowager of long standing.

    “Look, I ain’t dancing. There is a proverb that you may drag a horse to the water but you cannot force him to drink. I don’t wish to dance with your friend, whoever she be. –Oh, I see. Little Miss Dewesbury. We have met. She will not thank you for getting her a dance with me.”

    “Good gracious, Katie is not interested in sulky boys!” said Raffaella in astonishment. “Merely, I thought that a pleasant young woman from a small country town who has not danced,”—she gave him a steely look—“might go home happy if a dashing man-about-town with a coat from the hands of Mr Weston himself had honoured her with one dance.”

    Mr Beresford looked at his lapels in a startled way. “How did— Oh, very well. Present me.”

    Forthwith Raffaella grabbed his arm in a grip of steel and led him over to Miss Mary Watkins, aged just seventeen, whom she had met for the first time only that evening, proudly presenting him to the astonished maiden with the remark: “Dear Miss Mary, may I present a young man from London who would so much like to dance with you? Sir, may I present Miss Mary Watkins?”

    Mr Beresford, if he was a spoilt only son, and at the moment very sulky and heartsore, was not completely self-absorbed or selfish; and he perceived that the young woman from the country town had flushed up very much and was giving the cheeky minx a doubtful look. So he bowed very nicely and said: “Will you, Miss Mary?”

    She accepted in a fluttered voice, and he led her off into the set.

    “Well done!” cried Katie, clapping her hands, as Raffaella returned, smiling grimly.

    “Si!” she said with a laugh. “But I just wish that Providence was of your mind, Katie, and would award me a marquis or even a baronet, as a mark of its approval!”

    At this a meek voice said: “It’ll award you a mere Mister, Contessa, if you’ll deign to accept him?” And Mr Bobby Quarmby-Vine, grinning, emerged from behind the pillar that was placed near their sofa. “That was dashed well done of you. Me and Quentin have been tellin’ the silly fellow all evening he should dance.”

    Raffaella laughed. “Well, he was very shocked, I think! But at least he is doing it. And I should adore to dance with you, Mr Bobby; you may tell me who all those nobs were at dinner, at the top of the table with your papa!” And allowed Bobby to lead her into the set.

    Katie, meanwhile, looked warily over at the other side of the room, but fortunately Mamma now seemed absorbed in thrusting poor Nellie into the arms of Mr George Potter.

    Raffaella returned from the dance with a very odd expression on her face. “Katie, come for a turn about the room,” she said abruptly.

    Katie rose and accompanied her forthwith. “What is it? You look so strange.”

    “Mr Bobby has just told me that the tall man with the hook nose who vanished into the card room was the Duke of Lochailsh.”

    Katie stared at her. “I thought you realised.”

    “The point is, he vanished without having a addressed a word either to Cousin Eudora, or to yours truly!”

    “Oh, dear. Did no-one introduce you?”

    “No. And even I do not have sufficient intrepidity to walk up to a very old Scottish title and speak to it out of the blue! It is not fair, and there should be a social rule that titles are obliged to be introduced, and to dance! Is he not Lord of the Isles, or some such?”

    “What? Oh! No. Lord of Inver and Ailsh. Papa says they are just a couple of rain-drenched rocks.”

    “Yes, well, he looks as cross and craggy as an old rain-drenched rock, and I cannot say he struck my fancy, but I do not give a fig for that! Goodness, don’t look so shocked, cara! It will be quite enough for me to have a luxurious establishment and force Mamma to bend the knee! And go in before her at dinner,” she noted grimly.

    “I think, if you could not care for him, it would be a dreadful mistake to set your cap at him,” said Katie earnestly.

    “Oh, pooh! Now, how shall I start?”

    “As he is not in the ballroom, I am at a loss for an idea,” noted Katie.

    Raffaella sighed. “Mr Bobby tells me he is playing cards with our host and Commander Sir Arthur.”

    “Oh,” she said on a doleful note.

    “Cara, this is not yet even the first skirmish! We have but barely sighted the enemy’s outposts. You must not give up at this early stage!”

    “He said to me,” admitted Katie indignantly: “‘Oh, little Miss Katie. How are you, my dear?’ And did not even look at me!”

    “There is nothing in that. He has not yet learned to look at you! When next you are in his company, see that you look at him—in the eye, you know; and then smile, rather slowly. It will not hurt if you blush, so feel free to do that, also.”

    “You don’t mean deliberately?” she said limply.

    “Well, not the blush! Yes, of course I mean deliberately, cara!”

    Katie thought about it. Her jaw hardened. “It is an excellent idea, and if you will not take it amiss, it is exactly the sort of trick used by such as the P.W.”

    “Of course!” she encouraged her warmly.

    “But unfortunately I don’t think I could. Not calculatedly.”

    “Just don’t think about it. Instead let your head sort of say to itself: ‘What a lovely man he is. Che bello…’ Um, ‘What a lovely man he is,’ Katie. Then you will find yourself smiling at him without even having to try. And the next time, it will be so much easier!” she said with a gurgle.

    She frowned over it. “I could try…

    “Yes, but do not try too hard, that is the secret. Don’t concentrate on it: just let your mind sort of float: ‘What a lovely man he is.’”

    “I see.”

    They strolled on in silence for a while. Then Raffaella urged: “‘Tell me more about the Duke! One cannot formulate a successful plan of attack, you know, without having all of the facts at one’s disposal! I hope he is rich as well as single?” she added in alarm.

    “Um…  He is certainly not poor, and he owns a great deal of land.”

    “Not mortgaged to the hilt, I trust?” she said with a twinkle.

    Katie replied seriously: “I don’t think so. But Papa and Mamma know him only slightly. They sometimes see him when they go to Scotland to stay with Lord and Lady Ivo at Craigie Castle, it is quite near to the Isle of Ailsh. Um, well, as these things are measured up there.”

    “I collect that you mean one can see it dimly in the mist, hull-down on the horizon?”

    “Well, yes. But I should warn you,” said Katie, looking very demure, “that although I have been to Craigie Castle twice I never got a glimpse of it.”

    “Oops!” said Raffaella with her gurgle of laughter. “And the other one?”

    “Inver. Even further out to sea,” she said sedately.

    Raffaella collapsed in giggles. But when she was over them she said cautiously: “Well, where is his castle, then?”

    “One would not call it a castle.”

    “Oh, good: you mean it’s a decent country h— You don’t,” she recognised in a hollow voice.

    “No. I have never seen it. They call it a keep, not a castle, Raffaella. It is on the Isle of Ailsh. It is usually referred to as the Keep of Ailsh but the people have another name for it.”

    “Yes?”

    “I can’t pronounce it,” said Katie simply.

    Raffaella grasped her arm strongly and pulled her to a halt. “Katie, are you trying to tell me that the people up there don’t speak English?”

    “It is rather far north,” she murmured. “The Ivos only go up there for the shooting.”

    “How frightful!” she said, shuddering.

    Katie looked at her sideways. “The house on the mainland is very pretty, though. It is situated in the little town of Lochailsh but it has quite extensive grounds surrounding it. Lochailsh Palace.”

    “Katie Dewesbury, you—you monster!” she gasped.

    Katie’s eyes twinkled. “Every word I said was true. And I really didn’t mean to tease, but you were so insistent on the castle theme!”

    Raffaella laughed, and admitted: “Si!”

    Mr Beresford had finished his dance with Miss Mary Watkins, and very fortunately a dim-looking young fellow in an ill-fitting coat had come up and asked her for the next. So he had escaped. He had returned to his former position by the wall, but had been unable to stop his eyes straying in the direction of the cheeky minx.

    Jack Beresford, truth to tell, though he fancied his heart to be broken over the Portuguese Widow, she who was now Lady Stamforth, was suffering from very little more than the pangs of puppy love. Well, a little more, perhaps. It had been the first time his affections had been seriously engaged, and the lady had never reciprocated. It was true she had been a widow, but she had married very young, and was quite well-connected—indeed, a distant cousin of that Lord Keywes to whom his own sister was now married—and it would not have been unsuitable. And Jack Beresford, though of course he would not have admitted it, could not at all understand why she had not reciprocated. And, dash it, the fellow she had married was ugly as sin, reputed to be the hardest man in London, had a face what would crack if it tried to smile, and was old enough to be her father! Which of these points rankled the most with the young, good-looking, and sufficiently charming Mr Beresford would have been very hard to say. There was the additional point that it was the first time that where he had shown an interest, the young lady had not eagerly responded. The boot, indeed, was usually very much on the other foot, and Mr Beresford was used to fending off crowds of blushing damsels. A large measure of pique was thus added to his genuine unhappiness.

    He had accepted Bobby Quarmby-Vine’s invitation to pop over for a few weeks because he was very bored with his own company and that of his middle-aged uncle and aunt, and because Bobby had sworn they would just have a quiet family time—no entertaining. And because Bobby was a very decent fellow with whom he had been at school and his father was likewise a decent fellow. Mr Beresford had a strong-minded, sensible mother but his father had died many years earlier.

    So Jack had arrived at Sommerton Grange in the expectation of no more exciting activity than perhaps a little fishing or rough shooting, only to find the whole place in an uproar over a damned dancing party! Hell!

    After a certain period of watching Raffaella and Katie talking and laughing together, he reached the conclusion that she could not be all bad if she had wanted little Miss Mary to dance, and that, after all, it was rather the sort of generous thing that Lady Stamforth herself might have done! So convinced was he, indeed, that eventually he walked over to them and said: “Well, you are both very merry, even if you are not at this moment dancing with two dashing men-about-town in coats from Mr Weston! How are you, Miss Dewesbury?”

    Katie went very pink, not because she affected Mr Beresford at all, but because she was trying not to laugh. And said in a strangled voice: “Very well, I thank you, Mr Beresford.”

    “Do present me formally, cara,” said Raffaella, her eyes dancing.

    “Oh, help! Didn’t you— Um, may I present Mr Beresford?” said Katie limply. “Sir, this is the Contessa dalla Rovere.”

    Mr Beresford was very taken aback. What with his diplomatic connections, not only through his brother-in-law, Lord Keywes, currently Ambassador to Rome, but also through his Aunt Fanny, the Fürstin von Maltzahn-Dressen, a notable socialite, he had long since, even in his rural fastness, heard the version of Raffaella’s story favoured at the Italian Embassy. In fact, it sometimes seemed to Jack Beresford, opening yet another scrawl of crossed pages, that his mother and his dashed aunts and married cousins had nothing better to do with their time than write him damned boring letters full of gossip! And what in God’s name made them imagine he’d be interested was beyond him. Jack in fact normally laughed very much over his witty Aunt Fanny’s letters—the Fürstin was an accomplished raconteuse in several languages—but he was not yet quite old enough to admit that he did so.

    “Delighted, Mr Beresford,” said Raffaella primly.

    Limply Jack bowed. “Er—do you care to dance, Contessa?” he said feebly.

    The big dark eyes sparkled. “What, with that poor sore foot of yours? You are too noble! But I will not put you to the pains, sir. Come along, Katie,” she said, seizing Miss Dewesbury’s arm and leading her off, willy-nilly.

    Jack was left standing there like a damned fool. His lean jaw hardened. Very clearly she was nothing like Lady Stamforth at all. This whole thing was a damned bore, and if Bobby was going to inflict damned dancing parties on a fellow every time one was invited to Sommerton Grange, it weren’t worth the bother of coming!

    Mr Beresford retired, scowling, to the card room, where Bobby’s gaga Great-Uncle Ludo Quarmby-Vine promptly took fifty guineas off him at piquet, pointing out with a cackle as he did so that young fellows these days had no idea of the game.

    Eudora, of course, was not dancing, as her knee was still far from healed. She had had no expectation of enjoying the party, but it would hardly have done to have lurked in her room, sulking. So she had dutifully come downstairs. At dinner she had been placed at a considerable remove from His Grace of Lochailsh, the which had possibly proven nothing more than that Peter’s advice had prevailed over Lilian’s kind heart. She was somewhat disconcerted to find that Charles Quarmby-Vine, who was at her right hand, behaved in a positively uxorious fashion throughout. It had probably been a mistake to have taken the Contessa’s advice and done her hair in a new fashion: much lower and fuller, with side curls, and nothing of the Grecian about it. The Contessa had also favoured her with some earnest, not to say indelicate, advice, about the bodice of her blue silk gown, but Eudora had ignored that. As also the advice that, although she looked splendid in blue and her thick, creamy skin could well support the shade, a warmer colour, perhaps a ruby, might flatter her more. The next thing the creature would be telling her to wear a rose behind her ear! She had looked down the table and sighed a little at the sight of Raffaella, glowing in the white gauze, being wasted between old Uncle Ludo Quarmby-Vine, though old Ludo did not look as if he shared the opinion, and a dim young fellow from the town, invited to make up the numbers. Well, at least Lilian had refrained from placing the Contessa next to Lady Lavinia’s ewe-lamb, the gallant Captain Quentin Dewesbury of the hussars. Eudora’s nerves would definitely not have sustained that: it had been bad enough to have been present at the moment that Lady Lavinia had been introduced to the Contessa. Oh, certainly her Ladyship had perfect manners: there had been nothing in either her tone or manner to indicate that she knew every sordid detail of the ghastly Principessa Claudia’s history and to boot had had, without any doubt whatsoever, every sordid detail of Raffaella’s from the Italian Ambassador’s lady. But that was not the point.

    Charles continued uxorious as the dance began, seeing she had a comfortable seat, ascertaining that she did not feel like cards just now, and assuring her kindly that he himself would not dance. Eudora bore it for as long as she could. Eventually it became clear that no-one, very much, was dancing with the Contessa: Susannah’s male acquaintances from the town seemed frankly terrified of the foreign name and the assured manner, and of course those of the damned Bluff Yewby party who were of an age and sex to dance must know precisely who she was and were avoiding the unfortunate girl on the strength of it. She took a deep breath and said evenly: “Charles, I wonder if you would do me the favour of asking Raffaella to dance?”

    Captain Quarmby-Vine was far from immune to Raffaella’s charms, but she was half his age and a guest in his brother’s house, and then, there was the tarnished reputation to think of. So although his manner to her had been extremely warm throughout her stay at Sommerton Grange, he had not allowed it to be more than avuncular. He blinked a little, but said: “Of course, my dear, if you wish for it! Er—well, shall I ask little Miss Dewesbury to come and sit with you, eh?”

    ‘Thank you. That would be delightful.”

    The two ladies watched as, sparkling horridly, Raffaella twirled in the arms of the smirking Captain.

    “That is a rescue mission,” explained Eudora drily.

    Katie nodded, trying not to laugh. “Well, yes, but a rescue of her, or yourself, Miss Bon-Dutton?”

    Eudora looked at her drily. “Both. Though Charles is not a bad old stick.”

    “I think he is a pleasant gentleman,” said the well brought-up Miss Dewesbury politely.

    “He is a pleasant gentlemen, and he has many good points,” agreed Miss Bon-Dutton with an impatient sigh. “So it must be entirely my fault, as, indeed, all my relatives would assure you it is, if I find myself intolerably chafed after half an hour in his company.”

    “Mm.” Katie eyed the two uncertainly. “Raffaella does not seem in the least bored,” she ventured.

    “No,” agreed Eudora, sighing again. “It does not seem to matter to her whether they be short or tall, young or old, fat or thin, so long as they be wearing pantaloons and smiling at her in that idiotish way.”

    The dance ending, the Captain brought the Contessa over to Miss Bon-Dutton. Remarking, since there were four of them, that possibly a hand of whist might be in order: if the young ladies played?

    Miss Dewesbury was aware that her mamma would not care for her unmarried daughter to vanish into the card room, even at such an informal little dance as this: she was about to refuse politely, but fortunately Miss Bon-Dutton did so for her. And very kindly suggested that the Captain must not feel himself obliged to bear them company. But the Captain ignored this hint and sat down and began to chat cheerfully. It was almost a relief—well, very nearly a relief—to find Mamma bearing down upon them, with Nellie in tow, and her most gracious smile on her face…

    “That,” Raffaella admitted, as Lady Lavinia, having capably sent the Captain about his business and chatted graciously to the ladies for just long enough, firmly bore her two daughters away, “was one of the most horrid experiences of my life. And I must apologise for having exposed you to it, Cousin Eudora,” she added on a dull note which was most unlike her usual cheerful tones.

    “It was fairly dreadful, yes, but there are far worse women to be encountered in Society, I assure you. You must have remarked that she did not so much as look, or hint, or enquire kindly after your Italian relatives, or any such thing.”

    “I know,” said Raffaella, trying to smile. “The refraining made it worse, actually. When they are cats, one—one knows what to do.”

    Eudora bit her lip. “Mm.”

    “I so much like Katie,” she said dolefully. “I thought she could be a friend.”

    “Yes, I know. I can only apologise for the whole of damned English Society, Cousin,” she said grimly.

    Raffaella tried to smile bravely.

    “If it were up to me,” said Eudora, now very angry indeed, “you should catch damned Jack Beresford, or better, damned Lochailsh himself, and put all their aristocratic noses so painfully out of joint that they would never recover from it!”

    ‘Thank you,” said Raffaella weakly, not quite daring to tell her that with that angry flush on her cheek, she looked quite magnificent.

    Eudora sighed. “I must admit, Cousin, I have had my doubts about your story, as I think you must realise we all have.”

    “Yes,” said Raffaella on a grim note.

    “But having thought it over, I have come to the conclusion,” said Miss Bon-Dutton levelly, “that even if you flung yourself at the Conte dell’Aversano without bothering about the fact that it might not result in marriage, I cannot blame you. Your home situation was intolerable: any young woman might take desperate measures to escape it.”

    The Contessa looked at her dubiously. “Ye-es… Do you believe what I said about my stepfather, then?”

    “I suppose I believe that, whatever the exact truth of the matter, you must have had a very good reason to have run off with old Pietro dell’Aversano. I met him once, you know. A good many years back; I could not have been your age. He struck me, if I recall correctly, as very handsome, very intimidating, and very old!” said Miss Bon-Dutton with a little smile. “I cannot conceive that, fourteen or fifteen years on, you would find him irresistible.”

    “No, although you and I are very different types, I think?” said Raffaella with her bright smile. “But you are right, of course.”

    “Mm. I have been thinking of setting up an establishment of my own,” said Miss Bon-Dutton without preamble. “Mamma is become insupportable and Bath is certainly insupportable, and— Well! I am old enough to please myself, I think. If I take a house in London, should you like to share it, at least for next Season?”

    The Contessa had gone scarlet, Eudora was not displeased to see. “Whuh-why?” she fumbled.

    “I cannot tell you: for as I say, I do not wholly believe your story. I think, simply because I find myself wholly on the side of the woman in such a situation, and without any sympathy at all for the rules of society. The more so as they would appear to me,” she said on a dry note, “to have been established by the sex which feels itself free to flout them with impunity.”

    “I see,” said Raffaella numbly. “Thuh-thank you, Cousin Eudora. Buh-but it may not answer. The cats will doubtless all cut us: my reputation, you know.”

    “Let them. I shall hold a regular salon,” said Eudora, cheeks very flushed. “The fashionables will flock to it like flies, I can assure you. You may give poetry readings in Italian. Love poetry. Do you sing or play?”

    “No.”

    “That is a pity. Never mind, it shall be a literary and political sort of salon.”

    “With very low-cut bodices!” gurgled Raffaella.

    “Exactly,” said the proper Miss Bon-Dutton grimly. “If they wish to make fools of themselves over bosoms, we shall give ’em every opportunity!”

    “Why not dance, old fellow?” said Charles Quarmby-Vine with a laugh to his old friend Arthur Jerningham as the Commander appeared all set to escape back to the card room after the supper. “Thought you was selling out, by the by,” he added, eyeing the dress uniform.

    “What? Oh. Currently on half-pay. And there’s a damned stain on my dress clothes, the combined efforts of my damned household can’t get it out. Shall have to take a bolt to the metropolis, order up another suit, I suppose. Well, it will gladden old Weston’s heart! –No, can’t make up my mind, Charles. The place needs my attention, but… Well, these piping times of peace, y’know: who wants to sail a desk at the damned Admiralty?”

    “Exact! Said to Peter, find me a snug little country place, and I’ll sell out tomorrow!” agreed Captain Quarmby-Vine with feeling. “That is, if I had a snug little wife to put in it,” he murmured, his eyes lingering on the Contessa, talking and laughing with Mrs Bobby and a clutch of her friends.

    “Well, it would not hurt, no.”

    “In the meantime, one can make a start by dancing, Arthur!” insisted the Captain, smiling.

    “Mm? Oh. With naïve little girls?” he said with a wry smile that the simpler-minded of his acquaintance would have been very surprised indeed to see on good old Arthur’s countenance.

    “There is certainly none here who approximates the quality of Lady B.—Lady S., as she is now,” said the Captain on a glum note,.

    “No,” agreed the Commander, his mouth tightening.

    “They do say she is leading Stamforth a merry dance,” ventured Charles Quarmby-Vine hopefully.

    “I take leave to doubt that,” he said coldly.

    The Captain blinked, but did not attempt to argue. “Look, why not dance with Eudora?”

     Commander Sir Arthur shuddered slightly. “No, I thank you.”

    “She’s softened some lately, y’know! Dare say escaping the mother’s orbit has helped.”

    “Sorry—no,” he said definitely.

    “Uh—well, little Miss Dewesbury: ain’t she your cousin or some such?”

    “Oh, very well,” he murmured, strolling off.

    Captain Quarmby-Vine turned his attention back to the Contessa. Very pretty. Just the sort of figure he liked. And a bit of life to her—y’know? Well, just a girl, of course, but—well, a bit of life to her! Made a fellow feel like he was a fellow, in her company! He did sums in his head, calculating how soon it would be appropriate to ask her for another dance.

    “May I, Miss Katie?” said the Commander with a bow and a smile.

    “Yes, my dear: off you go,” said Lady Lavinia kindly.

    Katie laughed a little and said: “Thank you, dear Mamma; but I think after some four Seasons in town I may be considered old enough, and nearly wise enough, to accept or reject a gentleman for myself!”

    “Accept me for yourself, Miss Katie!” urged the Commander, the long, black-fringed blue eyes sparkling.

    “Thank you sir, I should be very pleased,” said Katie, very prim. She put her hand in his, and then flicked him a naughty little glance from under her lashes.

    The Commander gave a delighted laugh, lifted the hand briefly to his lips, and led her onto the floor.

    Apparently the significance of this exchange had entirely escaped Miss Nellie Dewesbury. “Mamma, why did you let him?” she hissed as her sister was borne into the dance. “He is our connection, and old as the hills!”

    “Well, at least one of those points would be sufficient reason to allow Katie to dance with him, my dear,” returned Lady Lavinia drily.

    Miss Nellie subsided.

    It was a waltz. Arthur Jerningham held the warm, plump little body just a little more closely than he would have the little Katie of last summer: though not in the way he would have the lady who was now Lady Stamforth. He did not speak very much. Nor did Katie; she was almost overwhelmed by being in his arms at last. Not to say, when the arms were in the dress uniform, hitherto only jealously observed whirling about the floor with such womanly figures as those of the P.W., the Fürstin von Maltzahn-Dressen, or the truly horrid Mrs Percy Murray in its clutch.

    “Thank you, Miss Katie, that was delightful,” he said, bowing at the conclusion of the dance.

    After those four Seasons, Katie had far more sense than to express her feelings openly at this point. “Why, indeed it was, Sir Arthur!” she said, twinkling up at him and taking his arm in a composed manner.

    Arthur Jerningham felt very pleased indeed. She was adorably pretty, she had a womanly little figure—why had he not noticed that before?—and, with the excellent manners—most unlike her frightful sister Gwendolyn—she was yet able to convey, as your true woman was, of course, that she found one a not unattractive fellow! Smiling, he looked down at her plump, pretty little person, and said: “I say, Miss Katie, I wish you would call me ‘Cousin Arthur’, as Quentin does,”

    Katie took a deep breath, put her little chin in the air, and looking him in the eye and blushing very much, as Raffaella had advised her—though not, of course, blushing deliberately—said: “But we are not, in fact, true cousins, Sir Arthur.”

    He blinked. “Er—s’pose not, no.”

    “Though we are the same generation,” she added, still firm.

    “Oh, are we?” he said uncertainly.

    “Yes, Gwennie once worked it out. Discovering,” said Katie, looking impossibly prim, “that we stand, in fact, in the position of aunts to Major Cecil Jerningham.”

    Commander Sir Arthur, taken unawares, collapsed in splutters. “By Jove! You would do, aye!” he gasped, blowing his nose.

    At this point something astounding happened. The well brought-up Katie Dewesbury gave him a look from under her lashes that was worthy of the P.W. herself, and said: “Do you not think that Major Cecil would fancy me as his aunt, sir?”

    “He’s a gaby if he don’t!” replied the Commander, in his turn giving her the sort of look he was accustomed to direct at the experienced ladies of his own social set.

    Katie blushed, and laughed, and involuntarily fluttered her lashes a great deal.

    Commander Sir Arthur began to feel all warm and cheerful; the sort of feeling, though he did not pause to analyse it, that he had not in fact experienced since the Portuguese Widow’s engagement to Viscount Stamforth was announced.

    The gallant Captain having worked out that it was now time to ask the little Contessa for another, he duly did so. Oddly enough he was not refused.

     “That is the third dance that that naughty little minx has had with poor dear Charles,” said Lilian Quarmby-Vine in a very low voice to her spouse. “Before you disappear back into the card room with your cronies, Peter, could you not do something about it?”

    “Eh?” he said, the jaw dropping. “Uh—well, it's not that I wouldn’t if I could, my dear, but—um—well, what?” he ended lamely.

    Suppressing an angry feeling that men were All Alike, Mrs Quarmby-Vine replied evenly: “Possibly, introduce a pleasant young man to our little cousin.”

    “Look, Lilian—” He broke off. “No, all right; it ain’t fair that you women should have to do all the work, at these damned hops.”

    “So I think,” she said evenly.

    “Um—well—ah!” His eye fell on Mr Beresford, propping up a pillar in Byronic fashion. “Young Jack! Damned if I know why he didn’t stay in Cumberland, if he's determined not to enjoy himself. Fellow’s spent half the evening playing cards with old Uncle Ludo, and t’other half glooming about with a face like a fiddle. Yes, well, since he agreed to come on over to us, there’s no reason he shouldn’t dance. And every reason he should,” he decided on a grim note, marching off.

    Mrs Quarmby-Vine was conscious of a wish to sag slightly. They were not all positively bad; it was setting them in motion that was the problem!

    “Oy,” said Mr Quarmby-Vine to his son’s good friend. “If you want to eat your mutton at Sommerton Grange, you can sing for your supper.”

    Jack Beresford, a watchful look in the black-fringed grey eyes which had been admired by a-many young damsels throughout several London Seasons—fruitlessly, yes—replied: “’Fraid you're becoming obscure, sir.”

    Mr Quarmby-Vine took his elbow in a confidential manner. “Dance, Jack. D,A,N,C,E. Entails getting out on the floor and hoppin’ around with a pretty little gal as if you was enjoying yourself.”

    “Ah. But can I produce a reasonable facsimile of that, sir?” he drawled.

    “You’d damn well better, my lad!” replied his old friend’s father fiercely.

    Jack Beresford was very far from being a lad. He was, however, very fond of Mr Quarmby-Vine—though he did not quite realise that over the past twelve years or so the man had stood very much in the place of his own father—and he replied politely enough: “If you say so, sir, I shall try. But can you find me a pretty little gal?”

    “Over here,” said his best friend’s father tersely, dragging him off by the elbow.

    Jack pretended to wince, but they were both aware that this was a mere form: Mr Beresford, accustomed to box at Jackson’s, was even occasionally favoured with a bout by the champion himself.

    “Well, now, my dear!” Mr Quarmby-Vine greeted Raffaella heartily as the dance ended. “There’s no need to waste any more of your time on an old buffer like Charles—Lilian would like a word, Charles, by the way,” he added cheerily—“for Mr Beresford would be delighted to show you how the young fellows do it!”

    “Honoured, Contessa. Will you?” drawled Mr Beresford, bowing.

    The Captain shot him an annoyed look, but beamed at Raffaella, bade her a fulsome good-bye in which promises to return very speedily were well to the fore, and took himself off.

    Peter Quarmby-Vine, his face blank, merely watched as the little Contessa, having shaken the curls and dimpled very much at poor old Charles, then curtseyed very properly to Mr Beresford—over-properly, in fact, for these modern times—and intimated she would be charmed, sir. It was not until they were twirling off in the waltz that he allowed himself to grin and to mutter: “Minx, indeed. Well, dare say it won’t do young Jack no harm—nor that blockhead Charles, neither, in spite of Lilian!” He wandered slowly back in Lilian’s direction, taking a circuitous route which would allow her to dispose of poor old Charles before he got there.

    On the floor, Raffaella allowed Mr Beresford to accomplish a complete turn of the ballroom before she uttered, fluttering her lashes wildly: “Do forgive me sir, but I am afraid I did not quite catch the name.”

    The attractive Mr Beresford flushed. “Jack Beresford,” he said shortly.

    “Oh? Of course, yes. Are you the one who is Mr Bobby’s friend from somewhere odd?”

    “Cumberland,” said Mr Beresford through his teeth.

    “It is so kind of you to take pity on a widowed lady like myself,” said Raffaella dulcetly.

    Mr Beresford went very red and said nothing.

    “But there is absolutely no need, you know! Of course, I would not say so for the world in front of dear Mr Quarmby-Vine, but as a woman who has already been married once, I am really not interested in very young men. Added to which, I fear I must admit to you, dear sir, that I am in England express to catch a title.” She fluttered her eyelashes modestly.

    After a stunned moment Jack managed to croak: “I’m astonished that you ain’t dancing with Lochailsh at this moment, then.”

    “Oh, he is not my type!” said Raffaella gaily. “Those dour, craggy looks do not appeal. And then, he does not give the impression of being here to enjoy himself, does he? Sulks in a man are never appealing. Though he has the advantage of not being a boy.”

    Mr Beresford’s chiselled nostrils flared angrily. “I take your point, ma’am, and will return you to your chaperone the moment the dance is ended,” he said through his teeth.

    Raffaella went into one of those irritating trills of laughter. “Pray don’t be insulted, dear sir! I am sure there must be any number of little girls here tonight who will be highly flattered to attract your notice!”

    Mr Beresford as near as dammit snapped out that he was not interested in little girls. He gritted his teeth.

    Raffaella smiled to herself, and desisted. As the dance ended, however, she said blithely: “I have no chaperone, sir, for a widow scarcely needs one, but if you would be so very good as to conduct me to Miss Bon-Dutton’s side?””

    He could do no less: he bowed, led her over to Miss Bon-Dutton, bowed again, and left her.

    Sir Lionel Dewesbury had actually managed to wrench himself away from the cards before the candles guttered, and, wandering up to his wife’s side, noted: “Goin’ quite well, hey? Not a soul here who can give one a decent hand of piquet, mind. Who’s that fellow that’s got poor little Nellie in his sweaty clutches?”

    “Really, Lionel, what an expression,” returned Lady Lavinia mildly. “He is a Mr Winthrop, from Yewby town. Quite a respectable young man.”

    That took the innocent Mr Winthrop off with his cloak over his face, then, concluded the sapient Sir Lionel. “Mm. And why the Devil’s Katie sittin’ out with Arthur?”

    A little smile hovered on Lady Lavinia’s mouth. “Why do you think, my dear?”

    “Eh? Well, damned attractive to the womenfolk, Lavinia—and knows it,” he noted, directing a glare at his wife’s connection, “but dash it! He’s our age!”

    “Not quite, I think. And apparently Gwennie has worked out that he is not our generation, but hers and Katie's.”

    “Gwennie has?” After a moment he said: “Oh. Got her on the rack and grilled her for three hours over hot coals, did you?”

    “Two,” responded Lady Lavinia mildly. “Over tea.”

    Sir Lionel went into a painful wheezing, choking fit.

    “Well, nothing may come of it,” she said mildly. “But it is something to bear in mind.”

    He nodded feebly. “What about Roddy P.-P.?” he ventured.

    “The Dashing Major is a noddy,” responded Lady Lavinia with majestic calm.

    “Yes, but does Katie think so?”

    “I think she has always thought so. But this evening has certainly confirmed that she has not changed her opinion since she and Gwennie dreamed up the soubriquet.”

    “Good,” said Sir Lionel mildly.

    “I am of your mind. But,” she reminded him with a sigh, “she has had four Seasons.”

    “Best encourage Arthur, then,” he said mildly. “Uh—leave her with the P.-G.’s. rather than drag her up to the Keep of Munn this August?”

    “Elizabeth Munn is expecting us all… I shall think about it,” she conceded.

    “Good. Er…” He eyed Miss Bon-Dutton and the Contessa dubiously. “Ain’t that little gal what’s sitting with Eudora B.-D. the damned Principessa Claudia’s daughter? T’one what blotted her copybook? Forget what the story was, exactly.”

    “Yes,” she said with a sigh. “One of poor Jeremy Andrews’s children.”

    “Aye. Well,” said Sir Lionel in a vague voice, recalling the gossip of a generation back, “or not, as it were. Depending on which one she is.”

    “Mm,” she agreed drily.

    “Er—well, wasn’t Katie sitting with her for a while?”

    “Yes.”

    “Nip it in the bud?” he ventured.

    Her ladyship gave an impatient sigh. “Oblige me by not talking that tolerant tone with me, Lionel! -No, I beg your pardon, my dear,” she said as the amiable baronet blinked. “Katie has very few friends. None with whom she truly has anything in common. Though of course she and Gwennie have always been close. If it were not for the story going around about the girl… Though Lilian Quarmby-Vine has a different version, and I must admit all that I have ever heard about the Barone Giulio Neroni would indicate it is not unlikely.”

    “Aye, but she’ll have had it off the girl herself,” he said uncomfortably.

    “Yes. Well, my dear,” she said, “I shall see to it that Katie is kept too busy to see very much of her. But I think I shall write to Lord Keywes. He may be able to enlighten us as to the truth of the matter ”

    Sir Lionel did not think so. Their ambassador in Rome was only too likely to have the same version as the Italian Embassy in London was spreading about the poor little gal. But he merely said mildly: “Good idea. Care for a glass of champagne, me dear?”

    At the other side of the Sommerton Grange ballroom Commander Sir Arthur had also glanced over at Miss Bon-Dutton and the Contessa. And ventured: “I think I saw you chatting to the little Contessa dalla Rovere, Miss Katie?”

    “Yes; I have seen a little of her, since we came down,” said Katie neutrally.

    Not taking this neutral tone as a warning sign, the Commander rushed in: “She seems a pleasant enough young woman. One of poor Jeremy Andrews’s children, is she not? But—er—well, possibly it is only a rumour, but the Italian Embassy certainly has hold of a story that does not redound to her credit.”

    Katie had gone very red. “I think I know the story you mean, sir. I can assure you that there is nothing in it, and that the Contessa was blameless throughout. And, indeed, that her family has treated her shamefully!”

    “Yes.” he said uncomfortably, eyeing her flaming cheeks. “I dare say.”

    “Her stepfather is a monster and her mother gave her no support whatsoever,” said Katie angrily. “She is a dreadful woman.”

    “Yes? Oh, good God, yes!” he said with a smothered laugh. “The Principessa Claudia! I remember her from when I was with the Admiral in the Med.!”

    Katie looked at the reminiscent smile that was hovering on his long mouth, and got up abruptly. “I am sure you do, sir. In my book, the sins of the parents ought not to be visited on the children—or at least, the daughters, for of course,” she said arctically, “the sons are not in question. Reputation scarcely matters to a male, does it? I believe no-one shunned the Admiral, whatever may have been the fate of poor Lady Hamilton.”

    The Commander had stumbled to his feet. “Miss Katie, that is not altogether true: reputation must be a matter of concern to any right-thinking—”

    “Pray take me back to my mamma, if you would, sir,” interrupted Miss Dewesbury arctically.

    Very red, Commander Sir Arthur protested: “I only wished to warn you, for your own sake, to be a little careful of whom you take up.”

    “Do you know,” responded Katie with horrid geniality, “I should think so much better of you, sir, if only you had warned me, instead, not to believe malicious gossip without absolute proof! Pray do not trouble to escort me, I am capable of crossing a ballroom unaided,” she said grimly, walking off.

    Unwisely Commander Sir Arthur, after a startled moment in which he stood there both looking and feeling like a fool, followed her and attempted to remonstrate with her. An impossible task, in a not-very-large ballroom crowded with dancing couples.

    Lady Lavinia had, of course, been aware of every gesture and glance. She merely said, with her usual calm, as her red-cheeked daughter came up to her: “There you are, my dear. I think, unless you absolutely wish for another turn on the floor, that we might go. –Ah, Arthur: Lionel has gone back to the card room. Would you be so good as to fetch him? Thank you. –That will do, Nellie," she said repressively as Miss Helena Dewesbury, deposited back at her mamma’s side as the Commander departed, attempted to ask Katie if she and he had had “a fight”.

    “He looked awfully cross,” she murmured.

    “Nellie, my dear, I realise that you are very young, but if you could refrain both from exaggerated turns of phrase and positive puerility, I should be grateful. Where is your fan?” she added before the reddening Nellie could draw breath.

    “Oh, help!” she squeaked, going into a panic. “What did I—? Where could I—?”

    Calmly Lady Lavinia, ignoring the fact that Katie was still looking very angry, suggested several places where Nellie might have left her new fan…

    The day after the Sommerton Grange dance the Duke of Lochailsh, looking grim, announced that as one of his elderly aunts was not very well he thought he might head north rather earlier than he had first intended. Thanking Freddy and Pamela Partington-Gore very much for their hospitality and politely hoping to see Lavinia and Lionel Dewesbury up in Scotland later in the year, he vanished northwards.

    “See?” concluded Sir Frederick. “Told you that throwing the B.-D. hag at him would never work.”

    “Freddy, neither Lilian nor I—” Pamela broke off, sighing. “No, well, you are right in essence, my dear.”

    Two days after the Sommerton Grange dance Mr Beresford, looking grim, made his apologies to his kind host and hostess and explained that as Uncle George had not been very well this year he thought he had best get on back to Cumberland.

    “What was that?” said Mr Quarmby-Vine feebly to his son as Mr Beresford’s coach rattled away. “Cold feet?”

    “Um—something like that, Pa,” agreed Mr Bobby glumly. “Well, the Contessa looks awfully like the P.W., don’t she? Um, not that Ma B. would ever let him get away with it, anyway.”

    Mr Quarmby-Vine rubbed his chin slowly. “No.”

    “You’re right, of course: making it worse,” agreed Mr Bobby brilliantly. “Poor fellow.”

    Three days after the Sommerton Grange dance the Contessa dalla Rovere allowed the smirking Captain Quarmby-Vine to take her for a long drive in the Sommerton Grange trap. In the course of it allowing him to pat her knee in a far from fatherly manner. And at the end of it allowing herself, as he assisted her down, to trip just enough to precipitate her fair form against his manly one.

    Whether this was, so to speak, cause and effect, Bobby Quarmby-Vine, who had emerged onto the gravel sweep just in time to witness this last scene, could not absolutely have said, but he was pretty damned sure it was. And could only conclude that Jack was well out of it.

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