“Be grateful for some interference? I was, indeed. Your rescue was very well timed. Had my brother Eric been there, he would have done exactly the same.”
“He is abroad, Miss Warrington?”
“No. At Cambridge. We’d hoped he would come home for the summer, but he took on two students cramming for Responsions, and was unable to break away. Arthur adores him, and was terribly cast down. But Eric tries to—to help with expenses, you see.”
“He must be a fine fellow.”
“Yes, he is, and full of high spirits; always ready for any escapade, the more reckless the better. I am very sure his friends had some jolly scheme for the Long Vacation that he would far rather have shared than spending the summer days tutoring.”
They had reached the barnyard, and a small army of chickens came rushing to meet them with much squawking and a flurry of dust and feathers.
“If you will be so good as to tether Orpheus,” said Marietta, “I’ll divide up the mash and you will see how impolite are the table manners of our flock.”
Five minutes later, Diccon retreated from the yard and leaned against the fence brushing straw and feathers from his breeches. “They’re savages,” he said breathlessly.
“And carnivorous,” she agreed.
He inspected the back of his hand. “I thought that great red brute would go for my throat!”
She could not restrain a chuckle. “That was Gentleman Jackson.” And recalling how Diccon had dodged about, trying to put down the smaller bowls while the flock surged about him, she said, “I’m sorry he pecked you, but I think he grew impatient.”
“Impatient! He was downright murderous! I’m very sure Jackson would never behave in such a way!”
She closed the gate and asked, “Do you know the great man? Eric yearns to meet him.”
“Most young bucks do. He’s a grand fellow. And considering I did exactly as you bade me, I fail to see why your rooster became so hostile.”
She thought triumphantly that she’d found one more piece of the puzzle that was this enigmatic gentleman. He might be a humble free-trader, but he knew the much-sought-after boxing champion. She explained, “He became hostile because he was—er, baffled by your terminology.” Diccon raised an eyebrow enquiringly, and she said, “As I told you, sir, one does not summon fowls by calling ‘Chicken, chicken.’”
He grinned and untied Orpheus. “No, but when I called, “Here, coop, coop, coop,” following orders, they came at me like Ney’s cavalry. Now, will you tell me what I’m to do with my friend, here?”
Before she could respond Mr. Fox came plodding towards them, with Arthur mounted on his back. The boy, red-faced and out of breath, wheezed, “I must … talk with … Sir G’waine! P-private!”
“Ar-thur…!” said Marietta, recognizing the signs.
“Oh, do go ’way, Etta! It’s … it’s men talks!”
“Now that’s a sure way to make the ladies curious,” advised Diccon gravely. “Besides, it’s not quite polite. What we have to do, Sir Lancelot, is to beg your sister’s pardon, and ask if we may be excused.” With a hopeful glance at Marietta, he added, “Just for a little while.”
CHAPTER VI
“Disgraceful, sir!” trumpeted Lord Ignatius Dale, his dark eyes protruding alarmingly and his whiskers vibrating. “I say it again—dis-grace-ful!”
As cool as the short, round peer was inflamed, Diccon faced him on the terrace of the vast stone pile that was Downsdale Park, and drawled, “There is not the need, my lord. I heard you the first time. I brought Master Warrington here to apologize for trespassing, and—”
“Not - the - need?” bellowed his lordship. “Not—I say not the need, sir? What, I wonder, Mr. Whoever-You-Are, would you fancy constituted a need? That undisciplined young savage lurking behind you, sir, brought that confounded mangy little ass trampling all over my grounds, sir! It consumed my peonies! My peonies! M’wife dotes on ’em, d’you hear me?”
“Along with most of the county, I do, sir. But—”
“Eh? Why, Devil take you, sir, how dare you, sir?” Purpling, his lordship howled, “I said m’wife dotes on ’em! And the poor soul is laid down on her bed with the vapours, from the shock of seeing that damned ass leering at her through the window of the breakfast parlour while she was eating her eggs, sir! All along the terrace the mangy damned brute trampled his dirt! And not content with eating m’confounded peonies, and putting m’lady into the vapours, what must the damnable—”
Diccon lifted one hand to halt the flow. “Guard your tongue, sir! There is a child here.”
“By George, don’t I know it!” Dale shook clenched fists at the impervious sky. “The brat’s dumb brute ate m’papers, you stupid bl—” he checked with a fuming glance from Diccon’s hauteur to Arthur’s terrified face.
“Do you say Mr. Fox was inside your house, my lord?”
“Who the deuce is Mr. Fox?”
“My donkey is named for Charles James Fox. He looks like him, you see. Especially,” added Diccon musingly, “when he wears his hat.”
Staring at the donkey Lord Dale saw the resemblance to the great statesman, and almost smiled. “What I see,” he snapped, recovering, “is that you are ripe for Bedlam, sir. You and that brat with you! A gentleman should feel safe in leaving important letters lying on the table of his own terrace. A gentleman does not have to put up with common trespassers, and donkeys, and runny-nosed brats daring to insult him on his own lands!”
“I will admit that Mr. Fox is partial to a paper snack now and then, and I am sorry for it if he ate your letters. But I fail to see that he insulted you, nor do I see that Master Warrington stands in need of a handkerchief. As for my social standing, should you perhaps be happier were you to be insulted by someone with a title in front of his name—whether or not he personally had earned the right to be addressed as ‘my lord’?”
Dale scowled. “Why, you’re a dashed revolutionary! I’ll have you clapped up, be damned if I don’t.”
“Which won’t get your letters back, will it?”
“No, and they were government documents, I’ll have you know, and I hadn’t even read ’em! By Jupiter, if I thought ’twould serve, let me tell you I’d have that confounded ass cut up and—”
Arthur gave a horrified yelp. “It wasn’t his fault, sir! I only came here ’cause I thought Alan A’Dale lived here, but Mr. Fox din’t know your letters was ’portant, and I’m very sorry, Lord, but please don’t cut up his tummy!”
Dale glared at the scared child and ground his teeth. The donkey brayed shatteringly, dogs barked a noisy accompaniment, and from inside the mansion a faint scream sounded.
Diccon said, “You made your apologies very nicely, Arthur. Now go back to Mr. Fox. This noisy man is upsetting him.”
Arthur fled.
Diccon turned back to the angry peer. “Now, see here, Dale—”
“Stay back!” raged his lordship. “You men—throw him over the wall!”
* * *
“An’ then,” said Arthur, kneeling on a kitchen chair and watching his aunt tape a piece of sticking plaster across Diccon’s knuckles, “a lady comed out, an’ she was all stiff, like a statue, but Diccon bowed to her, jus’ like Sir G’waine would, an’ he talked, an’ she didn’t seem so stiff, an’ in the end they went to look at the flowers in the garden an’ me an’ Mr. Fox crep’ away an’ waited.”
Coming in from the dining room where she had set out covers for luncheon, Marietta exclaimed, “Good gracious! Never say you were able to placate the mighty Lady Dale, Major?”
“After knocking down two of her footmen?” Whisking a fragrant mutton pie from the oven, Fanny said, “You must have a silver tongue, sir.”
Diccon was quite aware that this very pretty girl neither liked nor trusted him. He said with a wry smile, “And if I remarked that your pie smells delicious would you think I was merely trying to win your friendship?”
“Oh, no,” said Fanny coldly, “I would be more likely
to say that you just proved my point.”
He sighed. “And that properly sends me to the ropes.”
Mrs. Cordova shook her head and left them.
“No one here wishes to do that, sir,” said Marietta. “Indeed we all owe you a debt of gratitude.” She ignored Fanny’s stormy frown, and went on, “You must be eager to leave this house, for we have involved you in one disaster after another!”
Diccon tried without much success not to stare at her. A ribbon of orange velvet was threaded through her dusky curls, and she had changed into a gown of pale orange muslin, with a low inset yoke of snowy eyelet ruffles. Yearning for the ability to sketch, he murmured, “To the contrary, ma’am. I cannot remember when I’ve enjoyed myself so much.”
“You must enjoy violence,” said Fanny tartly.
Persevering, Marietta said, “In which case we shall have to disappoint you, Major. For the rest of your stay here, you are to enjoy peace and quiet.”
Diccon smiled at her dreamily, then sprang up as Mrs. Cordova came puffing in again, carrying “Captain Miles Cameron.”
“No, really Dova,” protested Sir Lionel, entering the dining room in time to see her settle her inanimate friend into the chair Diccon drew out. “Not at table! What will our guest think?”
“Oh, the Major knows him.” Apparently unaware of the sharp glance Diccon slanted at her, she added, “I invited Miles to luncheon because he has some news for us, and I don’t want to forget. Now, if you will say grace, Warrington, we can get on. I am fairly famished!”
She appeared to forget “Captain Cameron’s” news while she satisfied the pangs of hunger and chattered about Lord and Lady Dale who were both, she said with cheerful candour, “blighting” people.
In a low voice Marietta begged her father for a few moments of his time after luncheon. Sir Lionel smiled at her but looked uneasy and without answering launched into a prolonged monologue about the failings of the Prince Regent. Discussing “poor old Prinny’s” increased girth, he chortled, “They say he’s been obliged to leave off his stays, and is now so large that he can no longer even ride around the Pavilion grounds!”
Fanny giggled, but Mrs. Cordova looked shocked, and scolded, “Really, Warrington! That is scarcely a subject to be discussed at table with young maidens present!”
“Pooh!” said Sir Lionel airily. “My girls are not missish, and we’re all family here. Well,” he grinned at Diccon, “almost all.”
“Which reminds me,” said Mrs. Cordova. “Miles met our dearest Eric the other day!”
“Did he so?” Watching her eagerly, Marietta asked, “Was Miles in Cambridge, then?”
Just as eagerly, Fanny enquired, “Is Eric well?”
No longer surprised by their acceptance of their aunt’s often inexplicable remarks, Diccon assumed that they were being kind and humouring the lady.
“He is quite well,” replied Mrs. Cordova. “But Miles was not at Cambridge, dear. He met Eric in Town.”
“Come now, Dova,” said Sir Lionel tolerantly. “You know very well my son is at University. Cameron must be mistaken.”
“Oh, no,” she said, reaching for a ripe peach.
Fanny said, “Eric may have gone into London for a change. The poor darling has had little enough vacation.”
“Now don’t go putting on a Friday face, Etta,” said Sir Lionel. “A young fellow must kick over the traces now and then. I’ll warrant we both did, eh, major? Are you a Cambridge man, by the bye?”
“No, sir,” said Diccon. “My schooling ended at Eton.”
“Went straight into the military, did you? Well, it’s a good life for a lad. One of these days, I’ll have the story of how it is that an old Etonian and a major is now a free-trader.”
Diccon smiled. “I doubt there is much I could tell you that you’ve not already guessed, sir.”
Fanny said, “And we should not press Major Diccon to tell us things that he prefers to keep secret, Papa.”
Marietta slanted an embarrassed glance at Diccon, but his expression was unreadable.
Taken aback, Sir Lionel exclaimed, “Secrets? Jupiter! I had no intent to pry!”
“Of course you did not, sir. And Miss Fanny is quite correct, for there are, you know, secrets”—Diccon winked conspiratorially—“and secrets.”
Relieved, Sir Lionel laughed. “You rogue! I’ll wager you could tell some tales. Without the ladies present, of course.”
“Do you hear that, Miles?” Mrs. Cordova dug an elbow at “Cameron.” “They are so unkind as to try and keep it to themselves.” She leant towards Diccon and said, “I have been naughty, Major, for I peeped at your palm whilst you were sleeping one day. I mean to ask Madame Olympias to consult her Mystical Window Through Time, and then I will know all your secrets, I warn you!”
He groaned. “In which case, ma’am, I shall be wholly in your power!”
“Foolish creature,” she said complacently. “You already are!”
* * *
“Went red as fire.” Sir Lionel chuckled. “Did you see? That young fella’s got a colourful past, I’ll warrant, and don’t want your aunt snooping into it!”
“Perhaps.” After ten minutes alone with her father in his cluttered workroom, Marietta was still striving to turn the conversation in the right direction. “But I want to—”
“He’s got an eye for you, child.” Sir Lionel took up a wooden object about a foot long that bore some resemblance to a miniature pair of fireplace tongs. “Plain to see. You must keep him in his place, m’dear. Oh, I know you think we stand indebted to him. And I’ll own he has poise and polished manners. I like him, and I do not doubt he comes from good stock. But he has no prospects now, Etta. I cannot allow a prize like you to throw herself away on an ingratiating rascal, who is at best a penniless half-pay officer!”
“How can you say such a thing, Papa? I scarcely know Major Diccon.”
“Just as well.” He tightened the handles of his device, and snapped the flat ends at her playfully. “Fanny don’t trust him. What d’you think of my flea trap, m’dear? I’ll wager it’ll sell like wildfire!”
Clearly, he had no intention of letting her come to the point. Marietta gripped her hands together and said with firm resolve, “Papa, Mr. Innes Williard called here this morning, and—”
“Now did he, by George!” Sir Lionel’s eyes sparkled. “Another of your admirers, and a respectable one who—”
“Respectable! He attempted to force his attentions on me and was so horrid that had it not been for Major Diccon—”
“What’s that? I hope Diccon did not overstep the mark? If he means to offend my guests, he must take himself off, well or no!”
Her cheeks flushed with anger, Marietta protested, “You must not have heard, sir. Mr. Williard was the one who offended. The Major came to my aid, as I am sure you or Eric would have done!”
“Well, of course, if Williard really—” Cornered and fuming, Sir Lionel stamped to the far end of the room and rummaged in a bin filled with scraps of wood and metal. “His sister is a very pushing female, but that ain’t his fault. I doubt the man intended any offence, and you’re too quick by far, miss, to fly into a huff. You’re a very pretty girl, but you mustn’t give yourself airs. If young Coville don’t come up to scratch, Innes Williard’s a jolly good substitute. Lots of ladies have dropped the handkerchief for him, and would be overjoyed did he cast a glance in their direction!”
“Then I wish them joy of him, sir! I find him repellent, and—”
“Repellent!” Frowning, Sir Lionel returned to the workbench and slammed down a metal bar with unnecessary force. “Here’s a high flight! The man’s a friend and neighbour! He’s well-favoured, well-built, very plump in the pockets, and—”
“And an uncouth boor who did not hesitate to warn me that I must be nice to him since we’re in his debt to the tune of five thousand guineas!” At this, her father paled and looked stricken. Running to catch his arm she said, “Papa! Is it truth? I try so
hard to pay the bills and set aside funds for school expenses, but—”
“But I do nothing! Is that it?” Scourged by guilt, he pulled away and blustered, “I’ve given up my clubs. I don’t patronize my tailor—faith, but my clothes are in rags! I sacrificed my carriages and horses. And—and do I complain when you ladies buy cloth and pattern cards and—and deck yourselves out in the latest fashions and fal-lals? No!”
“But, dearest Papa, you said we must keep up appearances, and we sew and mend all our clothes so as to keep expenses down!”
“Oh, aye, set it all to my account! I say nothing when you bring this fellow into our home to eat up everything in the pantry and cause me to be saddled with a great bill from that miserable apothecary! Despite the fact that Diccon nigh killed my son with his nasty temper!”
“You know how badly he felt about that! Besides, Arthur was much to blame. And it was my fault that the Major was hurt afterwards. In honour we were obligated, sir! You could not wish that—”
“So now my honour is challenged, is it?” Sir Lionel sank onto a chair and put a hand over his eyes. “That I should live to see my own daughter turn against me!”
Stricken, she sank to her knees beside his chair. “Never, dearest Papa! Never! You know how much we all love you.”
“I don’t know … why you should,” he said brokenly. “You’re perfectly right, and I’m a villain! I sought only to make a little winning, Etta! Williard is shockingly poor at cards, and I so seldom have the chance to play anymore. The stakes were low … I don’t know what happened.” His voice shredded. He caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek and said on a sob, “I do not deserve … your loyalty! You’d be better off if I were … dead!”
He was a weak and foolish man, but he had been a devoted husband and in their more affluent days nothing had been too good for his children. The shock of his beloved wife’s death so soon after Arthur was born had shattered him, and although he had recovered and now seemed reasonably contented, his strength and self-sufficiency seemed to have been buried with Mama. But he was kind, and gentle, and meant so well. And she loved him.
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