The Trees: the obligatory Halloween story

 my head was still somewhat in Poland

The Trees

 

Jan and Józef Komornik grew up in their father’s cottage, as a bailiff and forestry manager in the woodlands of a manor called Dąbrów.  They sometimes asked, when young, “why is our cottage built of stone, when many people have cottages of logs?” and their father replied, “Because the trees in this old part of the forest wouldn’t like it.”

When their father died, Jan took on the post, but his brother Józef wanted more.

“I want to go to the city and make a name for myself, and get more education,” said Józef.

And he did.

Jan was proud of his brother, who wore designer suits, and drove a sports car, and became a property developer.

Then one October, Józef wrote,

Dear Janko,

I have bought some of that old tangled woodland which you had to agree not to manage or fell trees in; it’s wasted land now there are no longer noble hunting parties. I plan to fell it all and build a shopping centre with a small clinic and veterinarian clinic and a better school, which as well as being profitable for me will give back something to the community which raised me.

Your loving brother,

Józio.

It sounded a good idea, and Jan wondered why he felt disturbed about the whole idea.

 

Józef turned up, very dapper in a silver grey silk and linen suit, impeccable tie and hand-made shoes.

“You have a paunch,” said Jan.

Józef laughed.

“And you’re skinny,” he said. “It’s the result of working lunches; I’m hoping that with this deal I’ll make enough to have a few hours to myself and spend some time in the gym.”

Jan smiled.  He spent his hours working in the forest and did not need a gym.

Józef was directing surveyors, who were marking which trees to take down; Józef thought that a few groves left would be pleasant, and a park as well.  The leaves had almost gone from the trees, and they stood, stark and skeletal, gloomy and unprepossessing, but Józef was confident that springtime would bring them back to beauty, if sufficiently well managed.  Some were just too ugly to keep.

“Look at this tree, two scars up high on the trunk, a broken branch and hollow below; almost like a malevolent face,” Józef joked.

“I wouldn’t make fun of things like that if I was you,” said Jan, uncomfortably.

“Well if it has a hollow it’s likely to be rotten, so it will have to go, even without an ugly face scaring people,” said Józef. He marked an X on the trunk.

Jan shuddered.

“I wonder if this is a good idea after all ...” he mused.

“You had your head filled with folk tales,” scoffed Józef. “Though I wish Pa was still here to tell them. I have to go into town, but shall I come back to keep you company for the All Saints’ vigil?”

“That would be good,” said Jan. “Try to get here before dark. Some of the old beliefs ...from when it was a Pagan feast ...”

“I’m not superstitious,” said Józef.

 

 

Some hours later, Józef was driving his open-topped classic sports car through the woods that led to his brother’s cottage, and was beginning to wonder how superstitious he was.  The trees seemed to be leaning towards him, and he felt distinctly uneasy. There was a soughing through the branches which sounded almost like a growl ... and there had been no wind to make such a noise before he entered the woodlands.  And yet, the branches thrashed as if in a gale.  He looked in the wing mirror. It was too easy to imagine faces ... no, he had imagined a tree flowing out from the side of the road into the middle of where he had just driven, it was an optical illusion.

Nevertheless, he drove a little faster, and kept glancing behind.

It was not long before he started to realise that the trees were following him.

Józef was a good driver, fortunately, or he might have crashed; as it was, he arrived at his destination at breakneck speed and turned the car in a handbrake turn to face the headlights towards the forest.

He leaped out of the car without killing the engine or lights.

“Jan! Jan! A can of petrol!” he screamed.

Jan came out.

“Mother of God!” he exclaimed, crossing himself. “I ... I don’t have trees this side of the fence ...”

The trees were, very slowly, oozing towards the brothers, those roots which were partly exposed rippling as if they were using their roots like the legs of centipedes. They shied from the light of the headlamps, but at the edges the trees came on.

“Petrol!” shouted Józef again.

“I don’t have any; have you none in the boot?” asked Jan, who had modernised to a hand-cranked generator for emergencies, and who had battery powered LED lamps for everything else.

Józef gasped, remembering the can in the boot, which he rapidly unlocked.

And the trees came on.

Józef stuffed a rag into the can as he opened it, and quickly clicked his cigarette lighter to light the rag. There was an angry susurration in the bare branches.

And the trees came on.

He was about to throw the can when branches reached down and it was wrest from his grasp and tossed negligently into his car.

The resultant explosion threw Józef into the trees. Jan gasped as he was ... swallowed whole.

Jan crossed himself and prayed.

The insubstantial figure of their father appeared beside him, and strode forward.

“No!” said the apparition. “My sons are as two wings to a maple seed; one has grown free in this rich soil, the other has been confined and grew stunted, but he is not rotten in his core. Let him know your feelings, but let him go!”

The susurration of the trees was an angry whine.

“Let my brother go!” demanded Jan, finding his courage.  “Or I will take a terrible revenge when you are dormant in mid winter!”

His father turned.

“It won’t be necessary, son,” he said. “But they will tell Józef a few things. Keep vigil; I love you both. They will return him with the dawn.”

“Oh, Pa!”  Jan was sobbing.

His father smiled, and faded from sight.

 

Just before dawn, there was a creaking noise, and the split in one of the ancient trees opened, and Józef stumbled out.  His natty suit hung off him; he had lost all his extra weight, and his hair stood on end.

And the trees receded. 

Józef fell at his brother’s feet in a dead faint.

 

Later Józef was able to talk to Jan about his ordeal.

“They .... Pa was able to persuade them to come to a compromise with me,” he whispered. “I am to build in natural clearings and may take some younger trees, and I must move back here to help you conserve the wildwoods. I ... it was terrible, Janko! But ... but Pa made them let me go.”

“We will light a candle for your safety,” said Jan. “But you can realise some of your plans?”

“Yes, providing I respect the trees,” said Józef. “Now I understand why we have a stone cottage in a natural clearing. How fortunate it was that it was All Hallows, and Pa was able to come in response to our prayers for aid. We will light many candles on his grave.” 

"And one to the Mother of God to whom I prayed; the biggest I can afford," said Jan.

Józef nodded emphatically.

Jan did not mention that it was a time sacred too to the old ways, when such supernatural things best left sleeping might be awakened with enough provocation.

Some things were best left ... unspoken.

 

Penelope's Pups 2

 huh it eats formatting like font and italics in the new format

Chapter 2

 

Herongate Hall

Nr Richmond, Surrey

November 23^rd 1812

Dear Julia,

Well, I have met the redoubtable Daisy! And of course, Mr. Daisy, or as one should properly style him, Mr. Nettleby. Mr. Nettleby is a most amiable man and does not mind being styled as Mr. Daisy, which he says is a fairly accurate summation of his circumstance. Lady Herongate told him he should assert himself more . Mr. Nettleby laughed at her, and asked how often the late Lord Herongate tried to assert himself, and declared that a proper acceptance of who wore the trousers and a failure to be exercised over the state of affairs led to a longer and happier life .  Lady Herongate is a starchy old dowager, but she was quite at point non plus with this easy refusal to even pretend to be Daisy’s lord and master.

However, I watched him just say ‘Daisy’ when she was getting a little flushed from dashing about helping Lady Herongate’s cook quite unnecessarily, and she subsided.  Daisy is in an interesting condition and Mr. Nettleby seems to be keeping a good eye on her to prevent her from over-exerting herself. She  is quite visibly with child now and seems to be blooming, but she had quite a hectic flush and the  cook was muttering words we don’t learn in our French lessons. I think he was already put out that we were making a very English pudding in his domain, it being ‘Stir-up Sunday’.  Did you make and stir puddings with all your excess of adopted children and your siblings?  We had great fun and all got covered in flour.  I could imagine the Goyder twins managing to have a flour fight but perhaps they are being more mature and setting an example as you have borrowed them for Christmas whilst you seek for the perfect governess. The only person who dislikes Stir-up Sunday is, I think the vicar, whose name is Virgil Gore-Sheldon, and I assure you, he deserves it.  He gave a thundering denunciation of the blasphemy – yes, I am not joking, he said blasphemy – of misinterpreting the text "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people" in thinking about such irrelevancies as food.

I think most of his tenant-farmer congregation think food really very important. It gets more important the less of it you have; as those of us who were at the Oxford school can attest.

I have not even mentioned Fancy and Fleet, the spaniels.  They are pretty creatures, Fleet is a foxy colour and Fancy is the same with white markings, and they have big brown soulful eyes.  Lady Herongate wages a constant war with His Majesty’s tax collectors – in the person of Sir Brabazon Kendry, the local magistrate, whom she apostrophises as a young whipper-snapper with more hair than wit.  Mr.  Nettleby says that Sir Brabazon is a fair and just man but that the dogs are spaniels, even if they are King Charles Spaniels not the larger hunting dogs, and the law specifically lists spaniels as due for taxation.  Lady Herongate claims they are lap-dogs.  As to being a young whipper-snapper, I believe him to be around 40 years old.  Mr. Nettleby said, however, that he would speak to Sir Brabazon, as he was really pleased with how well Fancy and Fleet looked, since he had nicknamed them ‘Feisty’ and ‘F—t’ for being so fat and ill-conditioned, but had written to his Aunt Augusta (and what a suitable name Augusta is for Lady Herongate, for she is august) that overfeeding the dogs was a form of cruelty and begged her to stop doing so.  She has evidently taken him at his word, and they have besides their own servant, a boy who rejoices under the name Copenhagen, after Admiral Nelson’s victory. Lady Herongate calls him Cope, but he answers better to Hage which is what his friends call him. He is employed to take them for a run twice a day, as well as to groom them and bathe them at need.  I like Hage, he puts me in mind of what a younger brother of the Goyder twins might be like.  He’s an ambitious youth, struggling with educating himself. His father is Lady Herongate’s Bailiff, so he is a cut above the village boys, but still not easy to rise, as he hopes to do, to the position of steward or secretary to a landowner.  Didn’t you say that your Sir Perceval was in need of a good bailiff soon?  It would be better than having to kick his heels helping out his father. Of course, he’s only eleven now, but there’s nothing like looking ahead.

Daisy has heard of your Rupert, and thinks Sir Perceval an excellent soubriquet for him.  She  was full of praise for him spending some of his hereditary sinecure on orphans, but then she has started an orphanage for crippled children to teach them to make the most of themselves.  She hired a doctor and gave him his congé within two weeks as soon as she discovered that he saw an orphanage of cripples as a gift to him to experiment on them. One of her orphans smuggled a letter out, about how he was scratching their arms, and they got all sorts of diseases, and it was not inoculation before you ask.  Daisy borrowed from Dr. Mac’s vocabulary and called the physician a ‘shilpit wee sumpf’ and has called for him to be struck off. She took out a full page advertisement in the newspaper as well, declaring him to be no follower of the hypocratic oath, which states ‘first, do no harm’.  Apparently his excuse was that orphans are not cared about by anyone that he could do as he liked to them to make breakthroughs to save what he called ‘real’ children.  You may be assured that Daisy (and she has asked me to call her Daisy) laid into him with vigour, pointing out that she cared, and that there was a big difference between using an experimental cure on sick children who were unlikely to recover otherwise, and in introducing sickness to them in the first case.  She has hired a once-fashionable London doctor who turned to drink and dried him out with brutal and ruthless efficiency – Mr. Nettleby’s description – and offered him a chance to make up for being a sot without having to go to sea for it. Anyway, Daisy is wondering if you and Sir Perceval will be wanting servants in the future. She tends to recruit from what they call ‘fallen women’ though in the case of former servants, as you know full well from having a pack of half siblings, most of them were more pushed than fallen.

Fancy just brought me her lead and put her paws on my knee with a mournful look; and I am employed to keep them occupied over Christmas so I will take her  and Fleet for an extra outing. I have no doubt that both will get slipped extra titbits over the festive season, however hard Lady Herongate tries not to spoil them so the extra exercise will do them no harm.

Your affectionate friend,

Penelope.

 

“What is this sinecure she mentioned?” asked Julia of her husband, who she was entertaining by reading out her friend’s letter.

“Oh, it is a grant from the crown, as Constable of Howlett Montfitchet; a castle equally ruinous as Stansted Montfitchet.  It’s what Gerard calls ‘The Noble Ruins’ which gives him the opportunity to refer to our maternal grandmother, who is a dowager Hasely of great rectitude and starchiness as ‘the Nobler Ruin.’  Basically I have to keep law and order in the neighbourhood, and as I am also the local magistrate, that is a simple matter.  For which I am paid the ridiculously large sum of four thousand pounds yearly on top of what the estate and my investments bring.  I am more than happy to further justice by caring for your siblings and call it a suitable way to fulfil some duties arising from a post which frankly no longer has any real meaning.”

“Oh, I see,” said Julia.  “I am happy to leave money matters in your hands.”

“You’d better tell her about the extra members of our household provided by Philippa,” said Rupert.

“Goodness, yes!” said Julia, giggling.

 

Reedmere Priory

Howlett End

Essex

25^th Nov. 1812

Dear Penelope,

I am glad you have met the legendary and redoubtable Daisy, and it sounds as though legend does not exaggerate. What a horrid shock for her to find such perfidy in a doctor seemingly prepared to give time to orphans, I assume she thought he would be like Dr. Mac.  I fear the local doctor has not given me a high opinion of other physicians, but Rupert tells me that he is not a physician, only an apothecary-surgeon who served an apprenticeship with his father, and does not have a degree. As well as a governess we are seeking a household doctor, and an apothecary will do us well enough for in the case of anything serious we can appeal to Dr. Mac.

We have settled in well; and after discussion with Frank, Ben and Sally, as the oldest of my siblings here, we are to be Rupert and Julia to them and to Jacky when he is home from sea. However, there is a large gap then, from  William and the child we never knew having died, and Elizabeth and Harry are much of an age with  our ‘Bells’. Arabella was, of course, the first to call us firmly Mama and Papa, and when Isabella stopped being shocked she started to do so too. Harry is warily starting to trust me, and calls Rupert ‘Papa’ quite happily.  Elizabeth has asked if she cannot be called ‘Elizabelle’ or ‘Elisabella’ so she can be a Bell as well as Isabella, Arabella, Rosabella, Annabella and Maribella (I thought I would list them in case you had forgotten) and as she has to get used to not being Lizzie in any case, I don’t see why not. She is nine months older than Isabella, and it is good for Isabella not to be the oldest, and she is less prim than she was. Elizabelle as I must now call her is thriving on having siblings, and has lost the affectations forced on her for having been sold to actors.  Harry is not quite five, it turns out, having been born in December; He is learning his name, having been called ‘brat’ and ‘oy, you’ all his young life. Maggie is an excellent nursery nurse along with Ruth, and she said to me that it pleases her to see her son happy.  Her wretched mother who abused Harry so has been forced to go on the parish since Maggie refuses to send her any more money, and Rupert paid for Maggie to take out a writ against her for the neglect of the child she was paid to care for. The old woman had made the poor child tend to her animals and her few crops, and without him she did not do so good a job of it.

We also have Sally’s grandmother, who is frail, but she is there purely to tell stories and be someone to cuddle the children, something they all sorely need. 

And to answer your question, yes of course we observed Stir-up Sunday. Our vicar is a little bit of an idiot at times but not enough to refer to it as blasphemy! Dr. Theodore Marney is a bit starchy but he is a fairly recent-comer to this parish, and is still settling in.  He did say, when he read the text that he hoped his congregation would manage to concentrate on God and His vicar for a little while before they decided to stir up their pudding more than they ever managed to stir themselves to good works. Such snidery stung the conscience of many and I noticed some of our stingier parishioners surreptitiously putting more in the offertory.  And Dr. Marney puts more than a tithing in, so he may not be as friendly as the Rev. White back at Swanley but he practises more than he preaches, and no man can do more. 

Now, I must tell you of Philippa’s exploits!

It was Boanerges’ fault – no surprise there – for some rascal had been and taken some ponies from the New Forest with the intent of breaking them for sale.  And the poor things were in a terrible state!  Anyway, Boanerges got out, as is his wont, and managed to release the ponies and led them back to our lands, where Philippa, his ally and crony in the business, promptly charmed them enough to accept her ministrations and coloured their manes and tails after the manner of gypsies, and set about healing them of all the weals, with the enthusiastic aid of Arabella and Harry. Those ponies will be too tame to go back to the New Forest, but perhaps we can arrange for them to breed with wild ponies to keep up numbers. They are wild creatures in any case and not anyone’s property, though Philippa seems able to tame them well enough; but they will permit no-one but her, Arabella and Harry to approach them. Harry may have a birth date in the same year as Isabella, but there are six months between him and Isabella, and only three between him and Arabella, who must have been conceived immediately after Isabella was born. Scarcely wonderful that there were problems with her, or that her mother was unhealthy through the pregnancy and subsequent to it. Arabella declares that Harry is her twin; and to be honest, with his birthday being on top of Christmas, I am inclined to let him share a birthday with Arabella.  Sally and Annabella are also March babies – apparently Harkness thought it was ‘so sweet’ to give Annabella a name similar to Arabella because of Annabella being born on Arabella’s birthday.  That man is a fool.

Your affectionate friend,

Julia

 

 

 “Well th-that is an understatement,” said Penelope to Daisy, to whom she was reading Julia’s letter, to help keep Daisy acquainted with the Charity School girls.

“He does sound most unsatisfactory from what you have told me; but those twins!” said Daisy. “I  hope Julia does not mind their influence on her ... well, her children, they are now.  Why does she have them staying?”

“Oh, there’s n-no vice in them and l-little ones l-love them,” said Penelope.  “J-Julia is waiting to f-find a really g-good governess, and asked to borrow Fee and Phip in the m-meantime. It gives them a bit of work experience, for R-Rupert is p-paying them, so Felicity has a b-bit more for setting up her Modiste’s shop, and Ph-Philippa has b-been getting a bit of money by b-breaking and t-training colts for d-driving and s-selling them on at a profit.  I w-wager those ponies will b-be mounts for the B-Bells before next Christmas, horses l-love Phip.”

 

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.