‘Whatever is the matter, Henry?’ Maggie could hear her say, a little acerbically, as the child’s screams impacted on her consciousness at last. ‘Stop that screaming this minute or I shall march you straight back home to see your papa.’
‘But those horrid children have hit me and stolen my liquorice, mama.’
‘No we have not,’ countered Will. ‘You are telling fibs. You yourself were hitting me.’
‘And the liquorice is most certainly ours, is it not, William?’
‘Indeed it is. You are a horrible little sneak to run to your mama like that.’
‘We shall most certainly never play with you again if you keep hitting us with your spade and stealing all our things.’
Maggie reluctantly dragged her thoughts away from Mr Wright, who had until then been featuring largely within them, and felt it incumbent upon her to intervene.
‘Augusta – William – stop that right now and return the liquorice to your playmate. You know full well that it really belongs to him.’
The twins apparently had other ideas. They stuffed what remained of the liquorice into their own mouths, pushed their unfortunate victim roughly onto the sand, and ran off giggling together towards the water’s edge.
‘Oh dear, I am so sorry, ma’am – I fear that Will and Augusta are a little over-boisterous this morning. Perhaps you will allow me to reimburse you for the liquorice?’
The woman stared coldly at her for a moment.
‘I had much rather you kept them under control,’ she said, comforting her little boy before turning to go away. ‘I am persuaded that they’ll kill someone if they continue to behave as badly as that.’
Maggie felt mortified, though she could sympathise entirely with the sentiments that the woman had expressed. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second to gain some strength before marching resolutely down the beach towards her two little charges – who were now, in the absence of a third party to torment, just in the process of attempting to push each other into the water – in an endeavour to get them back again. Fortunately, after the fourth time of requiring them to leave each other alone and take her hands, to absolutely no avail, salvation appeared in the welcome form of the focus of her recent musings, who had been wandering along the Esplanade in a homeward direction after a productive morning spent in the bar at the Royal Hotel. Spotting or, more probably, hearing his offspring perilously close to drowning each other Mr Wright varied the direction of his walk a little in order to take in the stone steps leading down to the beach, from whence he proceeded to bellow his requirement that they leave off what they were doing that instant, and take Miss Owens’ hands. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that their papa was a good few yards away from them and therefore in no position immediately to enforce this directive, the twins ignored him to such an extent that Augusta was fully immersed in the shallow water, with her head being pressed stolidly beneath the waves, before Maggie was able to dash in after them and haul a reluctant Will back on to dryer land. By this time Mr Wright had managed to navigate his way across the soft sand - at great damage to the lustrous shine of his expensive top boots - and gingerly extract his daughter, dripping and screaming lustily, from the edge of the very chilly sea.
‘Right, cold baths and no supper for you two tonight,’ threatened their papa, depositing his daughter with some disgust onto the sand once more. ‘And if you cannot be trusted to do what Miss Owens tells you to do there will be no more excursions onto the beach with her, either.’
Maggie felt a little brighter at this remark. There was nothing she would like more, she thought, than never to have to take the little horrors out with her again.
‘But that’s not fair,’ whined Will, kicking Maggie surreptitiously on the shin and glaring at his sister, daggers drawn. Maggie dragged him resolutely up the beach. ‘She started it. I don’t see why I should get punished. If she hadn’t stolen the liquorice and eaten it all up I’d never have hit her in the first place.’
This was a little much for the gentle Augusta to accept.
‘You horrid little monster,’ she spat at him defiantly, probably judging that her papa’s not insubstantial frame provided an adequate barrier to any possibility of recrimination from her brother just then. ‘You ate just as much as I did. He did, too, papa – look in his mouth. It’s all black. I didn’t eat hardly any of it at all. I bet my mouth’s as white as anything compared to his great big black one.’
‘Well, you are both as bad as each other,’ countered their papa. ‘It is very naughty of you to steal liquorice from anybody else. If you cannot learn to play nicely with the other children you will soon find that no-one will play with you at all.’
By this time Maggie had managed to get an insubordinate and extremely sandy Will back up the steps and onto the Esplanade, with Mr Wright close behind with his mulish and dripping little girl. Luckily the house was not too many yards distant and, determinedly ignoring the many delights of Mr Ryall’s enticing toy shop on the way, in another couple of minutes they had mounted the steps, entered the hall, summoned the children’s nurse and had the very great pleasure of seeing them carted unceremoniously up the stairs for their baths. Maggie was eyeing her sand-encrusted gown and slippers ruefully. Mr Wright seemed equally concerned about his boots.
‘I am so sorry to put you to all that trouble, Mr Wright,’ she said. ‘I hope your boots are not totally ruined.’
‘Oh, no matter,’ he returned, tearing his gaze away from his boots and eyeing her own little feet with some concern. ‘I have other pairs available to me. I can very quickly change them. But what of you? Your slippers are quite wet, and totally encased in the sand.’
‘They are indeed. I can only hope that they will recover themselves once they are fully dried out.’
‘You must allow me to assist you in removing them, Miss Owens. You will not wish to tread the sand up the stairs and quite into your chamber. Here – please be seated for a moment and allow me to untie the ribbons.’
He eased her gently towards the hall chair and sat her down on it. Then he knelt in front of her and raised the hem of her gown a few inches so that he could find the top of the ribbons which tied the slippers to her feet. Without fully realising what she was doing Maggie held out each leg a little and allowed him to remove them. Despite the totally undesirable situation in which she had so recently found herself – despite the discomfort of damp, sandy stockings and wet, sandy shoes – she suddenly realised that she was perfectly contented. The sight of Mr Wright kneeling at her feet, the sensation of his fingers on her ankles, the concern for her comfort and welfare that his eager assistance appeared to evidence – well, what could she do other than enjoy the moment and wish that it would never end?
Chapter 4
‘And so we are agreed, William? You shall take control of Aunt Staveley’s finances and relieve her of all the worry and responsibility of looking after them herself.’
Mr and Mrs Wright were sitting up in bed, enjoying their morning eggs in the comfort of their own chamber prior to facing all the problems and inconveniences that the world was due to throw at them that day.
‘After all, the poor woman scarcely goes out more than once in a fortnight and she can have very little call on her income over and above what she pays us for her rent. I am persuaded that she should much prefer you to look after everything for her. You may give her a little pocket money from time to time to enable her to buy the children’s presents and things like that, and if I were you I should invest the rest of it and make it work hard for us all.’
‘If you really think we should do so then I shall, my dear,’ returned her husband, mildly. ‘If you are certain that Mr Staveley will not object?’
Mrs William gave her husband a withering look.
‘How foolish you can be at times, William,’ she chided. ‘Of course Mr Staveley will not object. Why should he object, indeed, when he is in no position to look after his mother himself and we are relieving him of al
l the burden of maintaining her? Granted, I understand that he will shortly be back in the country while his boat is decommissioned, and I daresay he will expect us to provide him with a roof over his head for a while (you shall need to ensure that he pays us for his stay, by the bye – he is not to be given it for nothing, you know), but generally speaking he is away at sea for a good fifty weeks of every year. Of course he will not object to us helping his mother with her money. He can have no possible objection to us doing so after all.’
‘Well, I daresay you are right. I just wondered whether he might feel – well, a little resentful, if we were to take control of all of her money like that. After all, my dear Georgiana, I suppose he lives in expectation of inheriting it in the end.’
Mrs Wright gave a somewhat smug little smile.
‘Then all the more reason for us to assist her with it, would you not say, my dearest? After all, I should hate to see it go entirely to waste.’
Chapter 5
Mr Berkeley was rolling around on the nursery floor in the company of his three children, playing a game that was supposed to involve marbles but which appeared, as usual, to have degenerated somewhat into a simple rough and tumble on the carpet.
‘And so you really think that we must go, Kathy?’
Kathryn was sitting on the sofa nearby, sewing in hand, watching their antics with an amused and happy smile.
‘I’m afraid I do, Drew. You know that I dislike Georgiana just as much as you do – and at least you have an excuse to avoid her for half of the evening in the company of the other gentlemen, which I do not – but it would be most rude of us, I fear, were we just to send our excuses and stay away. What would your poor sister think? She should be mortified were we to neglect her husband’s family. And perhaps with a larger party to protect us we shall both be able to avoid the woman a little better than we did last time?’
Andrew sighed and extricated his shirt, which had formerly been crisply starched and pressed but which now more closely resembled an extremely limp rag, from the jam-sticky clutches of his younger son.
‘I suppose you must be right,’ he acknowledged, ruefully. ‘You normally are. And it may be quite interesting to meet with Mr and Mrs Buxton. I have heard good things about that young couple. They are on a visit to their grandmama’s, I understand, and I know for a fact that they are intending to come along.’
Kathryn, too, had heard good things of Mr and Mrs Buxton, who currently resided in Eastern England but were apparently in line to inherit the grandest house that Weymouth had to offer when the old lady whose husband had built it for her eventually passed away.
‘Then let that be our reward,’ she said firmly. ‘They may yet become our neighbours at some stage and it should be good to make their acquaintance whilst we can. I shall pen our acceptance and drop it in on my visit to the library tomorrow afternoon.’
The engagement in question was a formal dinner being organised by Mrs William Wright in honour of the Regent’s birthday. Well, that, at least, was what the invitations had intimated although in all actuality anyone who knew anything of the good lady at all knew that it was really in honour of Mr and Mrs Buxton instead. Having had the extremely good fortune to discover a mutual acquaintance in town, she had somehow managed to secure an introduction to the lady and gentleman in question and immediately established such a degree of intimacy with them that, on learning of their plans to remain in Weymouth a month or six weeks at the least, she had determined on providing them with a grand dinner in the company of her relatives and friends.
Mr and Mrs Buxton would surely have felt embarrassed and flattered had they realised the extent of the planning to which Mrs William subjected her glamorous event on their behalf. Indeed, not only did it consume the whole of her attention for the space of several days but it also spread like the measles into the other members of the family - and most specifically into Mr Wright and his long-suffering servants - as the time determined for its inception gradually drew close. For, having been told in no uncertain terms by his lady that there was no way in which he could be spared to undertake his normal morning occupation of reading the papers at Harvey’s library and that, instead, he was required to consult with the butler on the preparation of the wine for the evening, agree the arrangements for the carving and equally onerous tasks, poor Mr Wright was obliged to forego his own interests (as usual) and neglect his newspapers in favour of meeting the demanding expectations of his very good wife instead.
It was singularly unfortunate, therefore, that despite having thought through almost every likely contingency and put remedial plans in place, Mrs William was to find herself caught out at almost the last moment by an unwelcome appearance in the hall at about a quarter after four on the very afternoon of the party. This unwelcome appearance took the form of a visitor – Mr Frederick Staveley – who had begged a passage to Weymouth on the ship of a privateer of his acquaintance and thus enabled himself to appear at his relatives’ new house somewhat in advance of the date they had previously been given to expect. Mr Staveley would have received only a lukewarm reception at the best of times, Mrs William having little or no time for people who would neither benefit her family directly nor reflect some worthwhile glory on it by dint of their attentions. But for him to appear this afternoon of all afternoons and apparently expect to be fed. Well, it was the outside of enough and would have been quite sufficient to try the patience of a much more saintly hostess than she would ever be. Indeed, for a brief moment it crossed her mind to hint to Mr Staveley that his presence, not being expected, was not entirely convenient just then and that he should perhaps instead consider purchasing his dinner at the Royal Hotel down the road. The Royal housed a most genteel dining establishment and was scarcely five minutes from Grosvenor Place, if one only walked quickly enough – it would be no inconvenience to the fellow at all to take his dinner there. But to this her husband, sadly, could not be brought to agree.
‘For after all, my dear Georgiana, he will see the house as his home as well as ours, will he not, his mama having paid us for the privilege of taking the apartment upstairs? It would seem a little rude were we simply to turn him away on the very first night of his stay. He will have to be included. There is no option. I am very much afraid that we will have to revise our plans.’
Now, had the dinner been the usual family affair, the sudden and totally unexpected appearance of Mr Staveley would actually have made no difference to Mrs Wright’s plans at all. There was no shame in having a spare gentleman at an ordinary family meal. But for a formal dinner – well, although it could be done – she had known of several great hostesses who regularly fielded imperfectly symmetrical parties – she had set her heart upon a level of formality which really required an equal number of male and female guests. She had already put herself out once for Mrs Staveley, who had insisted that it was only polite for her to attend and therefore for whom she had felt obliged to invite the elderly curate from a nearby parish with whom the old lady had apparently been acquainted in her somewhat distant youth. For an elderly relative to so disrupt an expensive dinner party by requiring two gentlemen partners was – well – really, it was the outside of enough. She would certainly never allow it to happen like that again.
‘It is most annoying,’ she was saying through the open door which joined her husband’s dressing room to their chamber. ‘Had Freddy had any sensibility whatsoever he would have seen immediately that his presence would be most unwelcome and offered to dine somewhere else for the night. He’ll hardly know anyone anyway. I cannot imagine for one minute that he’ll add anything to the party - except expense to us - at all.’
‘It is much to be regretted, that’s for sure, my love,’ agreed her husband, dutifully. ‘Though I can see that his mama will be pleased to have him here. She will scarcely have seen him above a fortnight this past two years and more.’
‘Well then, another evening would have made no difference to them at all, would it? And now what are we going to
do? Where can we find a suitable female to partner him at this late stage in the proceedings?’
Mr Wright thought for a moment. He knew of one female whom he would be quite delighted to have present at the event but he wasn’t quite sure that he was brave enough to suggest her. Perhaps luckily, therefore, it was Mrs Wright herself who stumbled upon the self same person without any actual prompting from her dearest spouse at all.
‘What about Miss Owens, William?’ she demanded. ‘She has an almost genteel air about her at times. She doesn’t need to stay long after the meal – she can slip off back to the housekeeper’s room as soon as the coffee is served – and I could put her with the Staveleys at their part of the table. Nobody else needs to mix with her at all. In fact, now I think of it, I find that a perfectly splendid idea. I could partner her with Mr Robertson. I cannot imagine for one minute that he’d object to dining with a governess. That would allow me to put Freddy with his dear mama. With any luck she might keep him occupied for a while and stop him stuttering and stammering to everyone as he normally does at the table. It would be a blessing for him, and a blessing for us all. Now,’ holding up her hand imperiously, ‘do not attempt to make me change my mind on this, William – it is completely made up already. I know that you will not like it above half, but we find ourselves in quite some pickle about it, to be sure, and sometimes we have be prepared to compromise a little every now and then.’ Mr Wright was fully aware of the need for compromise. He had become well used to doing just this for the past ten years and more. ‘Now tell Rogers to notify Miss Owens that she will be dining with us tonight. It’ll be quite a treat for the poor girl after all. I daresay she won’t have attended anything half as grand as this in her life before....’
An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) Page 3