by Mira Stables
Well – he had certainly offered to support her attempts at discipline, and he could scarcely have put a stronger weapon into her hands. The dismay on Benedict’s face was really quite pitiful. She guessed that this was a treat long desired. She said briskly, “If by a clean bill you are to understand that all your nephews and nieces are positive pattern cards of virtue, then, no, they are not. If, on the other hand you wish to know if they are amenable to discipline and are quite as virtuous as healthy children have any right to be, then, yes, they are. I think I may say that we are good friends and rub along very comfortably together. On the whole I think they deserve a treat,” she concluded, and had her reward in the ring of brightening faces.
Having decided that they would lunch early so that they could spend the whole afternoon enjoying such delights as the penny peepshow, a conjurer who could swallow fire and also conjure rings off ladies’ fingers only to find them again in gentlemen’s pockets and a monkey who could walk a tight-rope carrying a basket of eggs and turn head over heels without breaking them, they agreed that the younger members of the party should travel in the pony cart with a groom in charge, while Miss Ashley and Beatrice would go with the Earl in the carriage, and his lordship took his leave.
Benedict said soberly, “Miss Ashley, you’re a regular trump. We don’t deserve it – at least I don’t – but I truly, truly thank you. I can’t promise never to tease you again, because the things I do often seem to tease grown-ups when I didn’t mean to. But I will try very hard to think first. About things like spoiling your dress and not waking you up when you are tired.” And then, this unaccustomed sobriety yielding to his natural resilience, “And some day, when there’s nothing much to do, will you tell us all about the ghosts at Hampton Court?”
Chapter Three
Vaguely the Earl had been aware that a certain degree of domestic peace had descended upon his establishment. The children seemed less unruly, though no one could say that they were unnaturally subdued. There were fewer complaints from the servants about Master Benedict’s misdeeds. In his innocence he had supposed that they were settling down together and finding satisfactory entertainment in each other’s society, which gave their elders a much more peaceful existence. Rather smugly he reflected that he had always been an advocate of large families, believing that they were a good preparation for the rough and tumble that life probably held in store. It did not occur to him that, still a bachelor at thirty seven and with no particular interest in the opposite sex, he was not allowing a great deal of time for putting his theories into practice. It was satisfactory, though, that his nephews and nieces should provide such a striking example. Benedict, for instance, was becoming positively civilised. Since his lordship was driving the carriage himself, it was pretty to see the boy hand Miss Ashley and Beatrice up without a trace of self-consciousness before turning away to his own humbler vehicle. One didn’t want a boy to be too soft, but there was something to be said for the refining effects of petticoat influence. He smiled benignly upon his nieces.
The only incident that threatened to mar the harmony of the afternoon was Beatrice’s desire to have her fortune told and her uncle’s disapproval. In his view, fortune tellers were charlatans, preying on the credulous. Bea should have more sense than to listen to their fabrications. Tumblers, jugglers, performing animals were skilled entertainers. Let her take her pleasure in watching them. He brushed past the lad who was standing outside the fortune teller’s booth, assuring prospective customers that the soothsayer, his grandmother, was of true Romany blood; was, indeed, a queen among her own people. Certainly there was a strong tincture of gypsy blood visible in the boy’s own colouring and in his supple grace of movement. The Valminster party, under the stern guidance of their mentor, resisted his inviting gestures and moved on relentlessly, despite Beatrice’s backward glances. His lordship was able once more to resume his reflections upon the beneficial effects of daily association with the female sex. But an afternoon spent in sampling all the delights of the fair raised considerable doubt in his mind as to the precise source of the petticoat influence that had exercised such an admirable effect on Benedict. To be sure the boy picked up Bridget when she tripped and fell, but he brushed her down in very cursory fashion, assured her that she wasn’t really hurt and bade her stop bawling in a most unchivalrous way. Perhaps Bridget, so close to him in age, did not strike him as a creature to be cherished and protected. It was not until they had made the whole round of the offered attractions and Miss Ashley had gently but firmly rejected Adam’s plea for just one more ride on the whirligig, that the truth began to dawn on him.
“Fairings!” exclaimed Benedict. “We haven’t bought any fairings.”
The choice was fairly limited. Luckily Adam was easily contented with a jack-in-the-box and Bridget enraptured by a string of varicoloured beads. Beatrice chose a scarf which her Mama would undoubtedly have stigmatized as gaudy, but after her earlier disappointment Graine had not the heart to deny her. Benedict vanished for ten minutes to return stuffing several small packets into his pockets and offering no account of their contents.
His lordship suggested that they should repair to the inn where they had left the carriages and partake of suitable refreshment before they undertook the rigours of the return journey, but Benedict said indignantly, “But we have no fairing for Miss Ashley.”
Nothing would serve but that he should embark on a search forthwith. The others might proceed to the Swan and Pigeons. He would join them as soon as he had procured an appropriate token.
In fact he was not long, arriving with his face brimming with mischief and begging Miss Ashley to open the small parcel right away.
It contained a pink sugar mouse with a white string tail.
“You said you liked mice,” said Benedict with a twinkle. “I’m sorry they had no white ones.”
Miss Ashley chuckled; the children laughed; only his lordship was puzzled by what seemed to him an odd choice of gift. A handkerchief, now, or even a brooch would have been well within the boy’s means.
Miss Ashley took pity on his puzzled expression. “We were talking about the pets that my brothers and I kept when we were children,” she told him kindly, “and I mentioned my partiality for white mice. Thank you very much, Benedict. Only I shall not want to eat it, you know, any more than I could eat rabbit pie after I had fed and fondled the poor little creatures that went to its making.”
The Earl could see no similarity between the two cases, but he was more concerned to consider this new aspect of Miss Ashley’s relationship with Benedict. To be sure the young woman was rather more forthcoming than she had been at their first meeting, but he still found it surprising that she had so easily established some sort of understanding with his difficult nephew. He had no illusions where Benedict was concerned and had a pretty adequate notion of the means that the boy had used to dispose of the several tutors who had preceded Mr Read. Now he actually wondered if Miss Ashley’s presence in his household accounted for the fact that Mr Read had lasted so long. But why? No doubt she had all the virtues and a well-informed mind, but those qualities had never appealed to Benedict before her arrival.
Benedict himself could not have enlightened him. He could not have said when or why he had begun to like Miss Ashley. Hard pressed he might have muttered that she was a good plucked ’un, or even that she played fair. But that was not quite all. Benedict felt that there was more to Miss Ashley than met the eye. He was an observant youth and it had struck him that Miss Ashley’s awkward halting gait was miraculously cured if ever she was required to move quickly. He had noticed it again this very afternoon when Bridget had tumbled. Miss Ashley had fallen behind with Adam, but she had been there in a flash when she was needed. Benedict suspected that she could run like a deer. So why should she pretend? He scented a mystery and found it intriguing. Innate good breeding told him that he should not seek to pry into Miss Ashley’s secrets, but there could be no harm in just noticing things, could there?
Miss Ashley had indeed grown rather lax in her routine of disguise. As the weather grew warmer she heartily wished that she had never embarked on a career of deceit, especially as it had proved to be totally unnecessary. In fact, she thought, unwillingly applying a layer of grease paint to a petal-smooth skin, it began to look as though she had vastly over-rated her personal attractions. The thing was that she had been obliged to resign two otherwise desirable posts in order to evade masculine attentions that amounted almost to persecution. In the first case the son of the house, a stripling of seventeen, had dangled after her in a fashion that embarrassed not only his lady love but his parents. They had been kind and fair, realising that it was not her fault, that she had given him no encouragement. But the more she snubbed him, the more he yearned, and there was nothing for it but to leave. She had moved on to take charge of two young children, thinking to avoid dealings with callow youths, but in the next establishment it was the guests who posed the problem. They – or several of them – seemed to think that a pretty governess was provided for their entertainment. Mostly there was no harm in them, but Graine found their gallantries embarrassing. When the lady of the house began to display a degree of jealousy, it was obviously time to move on again.
That was when her sister had suggested the possibility of a post with the Brownings. A temporary post at present. Sir John was going to Copenhagen and his wife wished to go with him. But whether the children would eventually join their parents, or whether Lady Elizabeth would open up Mounsell Park, their country home, was not yet decided. In either case Graine hoped that she would be kept on. She liked the children and could settle herself very happily in the country, while the possibility of foreign travel was also appealing. Unaware of the eagle eye that Benedict was exercising over her proceedings, and of a further complication that was about to descend upon her, she touched the sugar mouse with a gentle fore-finger and then busied herself in applying the brown velvet patch that simulated the mole on the side of her nose. There had been no need for these disfiguring additions in this household, she thought ruefully, and the caps beneath which she had hidden her pretty hair made her head feel hot and heavy. She sighed, locked away grease paint and patch box, and went down to dinner. For the first time it struck her that she might have to keep up the pretence for months, perhaps years. It was a depressing thought. Her sister Bridget (who knew nothing of her present masquerade) had frequently scolded her for embarking on ill-judged activities without thinking far enough ahead. This was a case in point. But at least, she comforted herself, her disciplinary difficulties with her pupils were in a fair way to being solved.
They were all in the home paddock next day watching young Adam school his new pony over the series of low obstacles that had been set up for his especial benefit, when one of the footmen came from the house with a message for Miss Ashley.
“A gentleman to see you, miss. Your brother, he says, and it’s urgent. So his lordship told me to stay here and keep an eye on the young ladies and gentlemen while you go to attend to it.”
His delighted face showed that the task was much to his liking. Graine hid a sympathetic grin. Henry was not very old, Bosworth a strict taskmaster. She could well understand that half an hour out of doors in the easy-going atmosphere of the schoolroom world was an acceptable release from his usual duties. But what in the world could Dominic be wanting with her? And how had he got leave from school to make the journey?
When her father’s untimely death in the hunting field had disclosed the shocking state to which rash speculation and sheer ill-luck with the blood stock in which he had invested his money had reduced Hugh Ashley’s fortune, Dominic’s godfather had come to the rescue so far as the boy was concerned. He should live in town with Sir Everard and attend Westminster School as a day pupil. Even the holidays need not present much difficulty. Sir Everard, who was some kind of a distant cousin as well as godfather, had a small place of his own in Ireland where he often spent the summer. Dominic could go with him if it happened to be inconvenient for him to stay with his sister Bridget and her husband. Dominic had brightened considerably at this suggestion. Accustomed to the casual, friendly ways of a shabby, run-down but very contented Irish holding, he had small fancy for the restrictions of Town life. He knew that he must get a good education, for he would have his own way to make in the world, but Town life and school would be endurable if one could look forward to holidays in Ireland.
It was the threat to his summer holiday that had brought him hurrying to his sister for support, as she learned even before he greeted her. Henry had said that he had left the young gentleman talking with his lordship in the library. As Graine went in she heard her brother exclaiming indignantly, “There could be no enduring it. Rome! At the height of the summer. And with Uncle Everard it would be all stuffy churches and picture galleries. Not even jolly things like the Colosseum and the Catacombs. And the dreadful part of it is that he thinks he’s giving me a high treat and keeps prosing on about ancient cultures and artistic opportunities which I don’t care a straw about.”
At this point in his diatribe he became aware that his sister had entered the room and rose to greet her. Lord Valminster, who had been listening with sympathetic interest, could not fail to notice his startled expression, for his mouth dropped open and his eyebrows shot up in quite unmistakable fashion. He turned to look at Miss Ashley to see what had so discomposed her brother. She looked strained and anxious and she was holding out her hands in a very peculiar fashion, the right wrist supported in the left hand, the right thumb and first finger linked to form a circle. He was just about to enquire if she had hurt her hand when he noticed that the hand her brother extended in greeting was shaping a similar circle. A swift glance at the boy’s face surprised a mischievous grin which had temporarily banished the aggrieved expression. His lordship realised that he had been privileged to witness some private form of communication by which members of the Ashley family exchanged messages. So far as he could remember from the days of his own youth, such signs were generally a warning against accidental betrayal. He wondered what guilty secret Miss Ashley was guarding so anxiously. Her brother’s prompt response seemed to have reassured her, for she was now addressing him with a vivacity that his lordship had not seen in her before, in one breath expressing her delight at seeing him, in the next asking if he had leave from school and scolding him for taking up Lord Valminster’s time with his troubles.
His lordship rose. “As to that, Miss Ashley, it is I who should apologise for intruding upon what you would doubtless prefer to be a private interview. However, before I leave you I have a suggestion to make. Your brother can perfectly well spend his holiday here. I am a little acquainted with Sir Everard Hastings. In fact I share a good many of his antiquarian and artistic tastes” – this with a gleam of laughter in his eyes for the abashed Dominic – “and I think if I were to put it to him that his Roman tour would be far more enjoyable without the society of a restless schoolboy bored to the point of sullenness, he might be persuaded to consent to such a scheme. Your brother – Dominic, is it – is far too young for large doses of culture. He would do better here. It may not be Ireland, but at least he can follow his natural bent for country living. Nor need either of you think yourselves indebted to me. Your sister will tell you, Dominic, that I have a young nephew who will be all the better for the company of an older boy who shares his interests and can possibly restrain some of his less orthodox activities. He is to go to school next half, and I daresay you could give him some useful hints that may serve to keep him out of trouble at least with his contemporaries. I will leave you to talk it over with your sister, and if you think well of the suggestion I will have a word with Sir Everard.”
A little dazed by this sudden prospect of release from a tour that would be nothing but a penance, but doubtful as to the propriety of accepting such bounty from one who was a stranger to him, Dominic allowed his sister to scold briskly over his rebellious behaviour and ingratitud
e before he counter-attacked.
“I’m not ungrateful. I just didn’t want to go. Lord Valminster was in the right of it. On a journey like that Uncle Everard and I simply wouldn’t have suited. I should have made him as miserable as he would have made me. He’s a regular trump, isn’t he? Lord Valminster. What’s the nephew like? And do you think I ought to accept? And most of all, what sort of a May game d’you think you’re playing? I scarcely knew you till you gave me the sign. You look quite hideous.”
“Yes, don’t I?” agreed his sister cordially. “I meant to. But it’s too long a story to tell you now. Come down to the paddock with me and meet the others. Beatrice is about your age but the other three are younger. The nephew that his lordship meant is Benedict. He’s twelve. I think you’ll like him. I do. And I must admit it would be delightful to have you here for the holidays. We’ve planned all sorts of excursions. As for your being good for Benedict, I don’t know. I suppose so, just as I expect it was good for you to have two older brothers to see you kept the line. But only if you take to each other.”
So far as could be judged on short acquaintance, this seemed highly probable. Horses supplied the vital link. After several minutes spent in discussing the style of Adam’s pony – and in giving its rider one or two hints – Benedict invited the newcomer to come down to the stables with him and inspect his own two hacks. Graine left them to it, herself fully engaged in answering questions about her brother, the other members of her family, what horses and dogs they all kept, and was this the brother who had owned the grass snake? Wisely she made no mention of the invitation that his lordship had issued. Dominic had a streak of rigid honesty in his make-up. He might not want to go to Rome, but unless he felt that he could in some sort repay his host for hospitality so generously offered, neither would he come to Valminster. She awaited the return of the stable party with considerable curiosity and some anxiety. His lordship’s solution of the problem seemed to her to be an ideal one. Dominic could always spend the holiday with their married sister, but Bridget was expecting to be confined in August and would be in no case to give much attention to the entertainment of an energetic schoolboy. Moreover her husband was a good deal older than she, and was stigmatized by his young brother-in-law as dull and pompous. She could not help hoping that Dominic and Benedict would take to each other.
