Penelope's Pups 1

this is a work in progress but I want it up, edited and proofed in a hurry as it's a Christmas story. Book 9 in the Charity School series, Penelope has been given a holiday job caring for the Spaniels of Lady Herongate [Daisy's Julian's aunt] during a house party.  Lady Herongate is fond of her nephew, who also tries to spare her unpleasantness, as a result of which, Ned Atherton was on the invitation list ... 

 My mistake, it's book 10 - I lost count

Chapter1

 

“Who are you inviting over Christmas, Aunt Augusta?” asked Julian as he idly pulled the ears of an adoring Fleet. Penelope was sat on the floor tickling Fancy’s silky tummy. Fancy’s plume of a tail beating on the carpet was enough to raise some of the dust inevitable over the winter from the fire.

“Penelope, put that dratted dog up on the chaise longue, I don’t want the carpet beaten until the spring,” said Lady Herongate. “Well, Julian, we have Penelope, of course, and I thought the vicar and his curate; I can’t really avoid having that whippersnapper of a magistrate and his children. There’s a daughter about Penelope’s age and a son a year or so older.  Charles, the son, is mad to be a soldier and his father won’t hear of it.  I don’t know much about the girl; quiet creature. Either sly or stupid I suppose.”

“Ma’am, I’m q-quiet in company, b-because of my st-stammer,” said Penelope. “I m-may not be a b-blue-stocking, but I’m n-not stupid and n-nor am I sly.”

Lady Herongate stared at her.’

“Well done,” she said. “That’s the most you’ve said to me so far, my girl, and I applaud you. I knew why you are quiet, however; that head-preceptress of yours laid down law that I wasn’t to bully you. I don’t bully you, do I?”

Penelope laughed.

“M-Ma’am, you t-try to bully everyone, b-but it only works if anyone t-takes it,” she said.

“A girl with sense!  Mind, I will say this, Julian, you don’t let me ride roughshod over you like I used to; being married to young Daisy is good for you!”

“Yes, ma’am; and I’m far too scared of my wife to ignore her orders if they conflict with yours,” said Julian with a straight face.

“What a bouncer!” said Daisy.

“Yes, dear,” said Julian, tongue firmly in cheek.  “At least I’m used to forceful women.”

“Yes, and you never turned a hair at me,” said Daisy, softly.  “I beg pardon, Aunt Augusta; we interrupt your description of guests to come, by our frivolity.”

“Actually it was Penelope taking exception to me making value judgements; and quite right too,” said Lady Herongate. “There will be a couple of other young ladies, with their chaperones, whose parents are going to house parties of their own and are glad to get rid of their daughters for a while.  Now why the sour looks?”

“Because, Aunt Augusta, both Penelope and I are thinking of how nice it would be to have parents who had the option not to want to spend Christmas with their closest family, and both of us thinking that our parents would have loved to have the opportunity to have more time with us,” said Daisy, ever forthright.

“Ah, yes, well, quite,” said Lady Herongate.  “I would have positively doted on daughters had I been blessed, but people have children so often for quite the wrong reasons.  And Miss Veronica Vane, who is a vain, self-centred chit with an adoring mother, is an heiress.  Her portion, however, is tied up so tight that her mother is on the toddle to catch a man to keep her in comfort before she loses her looks. She will be a nuisance, but we must take what girls we can get, to make up numbers, and I do feel sorry for her mother, no fortune, no brains, and the sort of vapid looks which are soon old and faded by the time they reach forty.”

“You could have had more orphans to stay,” said Daisy.

“I could, could I?” said Lady Herongate. “Well the party is for Penelope, and that arrangement is long standing. Her friend Julia went and got married, and has borrowed the twin hellions to help her manage her own pack of unwanted brats, and the other one who is old enough went home to her family for Christmas. Mind, I don’t say one of the girls coming ain’t a mere child, being fifteen, but I wager Penelope don’t want to be burdened with a heap of girls of that age, and it is a heap, ain’t it?” she asked Penelope.

“F-for me? But you are employing me to care for F-Fancy and F-Fleet while your g-guests are here,” said Penelope.

“There, well, I wanted to do something nice for one of you girls, and it’s nice for the dogs to have someone to be there for them as well,” said Lady Herongate, disconcerted at being caught out at a kindness.  “If there is anyone else your age, I’ll invite them if you want.”

Th-there’s Hermione Driscoll and K-kitty Walker who are a bit older, the s-same age as the t-wins,” said Penelope. “But there are ind-deed a p-pack of fifteen-year-olds b-below them. But K-kitty has gone to b-be with her family, she’s a ward of L-Lord Chisterley. Frances is the same age, but she’d hate a h-house party.”

“Well then!  I’ll send for the Driscoll girl,” said Lady Herongate. “She’ll be company for the younger  Parnell chit.  Diana, her name is; her older sister is Helen Parnell.  She and Veronica Vane will be coming out next year, so they might as well get used to company. The Parnells are connections of Lady Heatherington, whom you know, Julian, and she too old to attend house parties any more.”

“Good; she terrifies me,” said Julian, frankly. “Looks like she was born about the same time as that Ozymandias fellow and is in as good a state as any Egyptian mummy.  But that sounds as though it’s going to be heavy on girls,” he added. “Three neighbours, Penelope – Miss Belfield, I mean -  with Miss Driscoll and Kendry’s girl, and only Kendry’s boy, the curmudgeon of a vicar and poor Gideon Golightly the curate to balance them.

“You’re a fool, Julian” said Lady Herongate. “Why, you mentioned your friend St. Clair Wincanton, who also has a sister, so I thought I’d invite all your friends. I have their addresses still.”

Julian stared in horror.

“Aunt Augusta! Surely you haven’t invited Ned Atherton?”

“Well of course I have! Friend of yours, ain’t he?”

“No!  Not any more, he ... he tried to help Lord Milverton to kidnap Mrs. Macfarlane when she was Miss Fairbrother, by kidnapping one of the little girls and threatening terrible things. He tried to kill me on the road to Brighton – it’s how I met Daisy again, when she rescued me.”

“Oh dear,” said Lady Herongate.  “I cannot really write and tell him that the invitation is cancelled; it would not be at all proper.”

“Even for trying to kill your nephew?” Daisy raised an eyebrow.

“If you had proof of that, he would be in gaol, not on the ton,” said Lady Herongate.

“Daisy, he will do anything he can to hurt me and anyone I hold dear, as well as trying to marry the irritating heiress,” said Julian. “Will you mind buying him off?”

“What an excellent idea,” said Daisy. “What sum do you think we need?”

Julian made a face.

“In the thousands, I fear,” he said.  “He heard of Mrs. Macfarlane’s fortune being eight thousand, unaware at first that it was yearly, and said he could run through that in a couple of year.”

“Then we offer him five thousand,” said Daisy.  “Cheap at the price to avoid danger; Ned Atherton is a nasty piece of work,  unless he’s changed out of all recognition since I met him at that ill-fated picnic. I wouldn’t put it past him to push me over, taking advantage of my club foot and unwieldy situation of pregnancy, hoping to hurt me and kill our child.”

“My dear Daisy! Surely that is melodramatic and too gothic!” cried Lady Heronshaw.

“No, it isn’t,” said Julian. “Intemperate fellow, Ned. If he once realised I’d married a beautiful girl like Daisy, he’d be ready to kill her without hesitation just to spite me. Believe it; he did not clip my carriage wheel for a prank.  I was just lucky that a cart full of hay broke my fall.  Ran into him in town and he was shocked to see me.  Sin Wincanton almost passed out because Ned told him I was dead.  They all missed the notice of my marriage,” he added.

“Dear me, perhaps I had better commit the solecism of telling him not to come,” said Lady Herongate.”

“Money speaks louder than social solecism,” said Julian, cynically. “Mind, it might not be a bad idea, Daisy-flower, to call up your tame Bow Street Runner to attend the party, and if Ned turns up roaring to apprise him of who Matthew Hudson is.”

“Good gracious! Have one of those rough creatures in the house?” cried Lady Herongate.

“Oh, he’s house-broken,” said Daisy.  “I’ve been educating him in the ways of the gentry; I match his pay to hold himself on retainer, and then pay the guinea a day Bow Street requires for him to leave the city on my business.  I’d feel happier, Aunt Augusta, to have his protection.”

“Very well; send for him,” said Lady Herongate.

“And I’ll write to Atherton,” said Julian, grimly.

 

Herongate Hall

23^rd November

Atherton,

It has come to my notice that my Aunt Augusta, unaware of your various perfidies regarding both Mrs. Macfarlane’s orphans and myself, invited you for Christmas.

I don’t want you anywhere near kin of mine.

I am prepared to pay you the sum of five thousand pounds to stay away.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Nettleby

 

“I won’t put Abby Rivers off,” said Julian to Daisy. “He and I ain’t so friendly any more, because he can’t kick the gambling, but I like him as a good companion, he’s witty and amusing.  And I don’t know this spoilt brat of an heiress, and nor do I see why I should protect her so if he makes a dead set for her, I won’t interfere.”

“I might,” said Daisy. “I like the twins very much and they are orphans because their father was a gamester.  So was my friend Marianne’s father.  In fact, he wagered her to a most unpleasant lecher and lost her! Fortunately, he then shot himself, and she ended up in the orphanage, and subsequently married to a connection of her mother’s.”

Julian grimaced.

“Well, when you put it that way ...” he said.  He took up pen again.

 

Herongate Hall

23^rd  Nov.^r

Sin,

I asked my Aunt Augusta to invite you to her house party, and she only went and invited all three of my former friends.  I like Abby Rivers well enough but he hasn’t had one of those moments to make him grow up like you and I have, and I am concerned about his gambling.  As to Ned, well, I told you when I last saw you how he had tried to kill me, and what he had done to spite Mrs. Macfarlane. He is a loose cannon.  I have offered to pay him off so he does not come and cause trouble; but you know Ned, he is quite as likely to turn up as he is to accept a bribe to stay away, because his vindictive streak is wider than his greed.  Which being so, be warned, and let Abby know as well.

Julian.

 

“Well, I like that!” said Abernethy Rivers when St. Clair Wincanton tossed the note to him.  “Everyone gambles! Julie become all moralising about gambling?  He’ll become a parson next.”

“He went travelling,” said St. Clair.  “I suppose it did for him what being made by my father to work on his lands as a labourer did for me.  I see my former self as a silly little boy; and to be honest, Abby, he’s right, everyone gambles, but usually they only play with what they can afford to lose. If you want to get married, you’ll need to mend your reputation, because no reputable mother will let you anywhere near her daughter.  I wager that’s why Julian didn’t intend to invite you; probably an heiress or something at the house party. But you note, he doesn’t try to buy you off; gives you more respect than he gives Ned.”

“I suppose so,” Rivers acknowledged.