the marquis's memory 24 final chapter

 sorry about the delay; word locked on me and then *&%@£$$$$ windows 11 decided to update on me.

 

Chapter 24

 

Pip changed her rather bedraggled gown for a charming dimity, the bodice enhanced with needle lace, with green sash and narrow ribbon shoulder bows catching a ruched sleeve over an elbow-length under-sleeve. In clean silk stockings and jean half-boots, dyed green, and a villager straw hat with green ribbons and a cascade of silken roses, she was a pretty picture.  Noah had insisted on his daughter, Hetty, coming along as her maid, and Tiberius ready to wait on her, aping the manners of a footman, which had Hetty and Pip in stitches of laughter as they sailed upriver and across the river to Ipswich, docking just below the lowest bridge, where the estuary narrowed into a river, no longer tidal in nature. They docked just downstream of the ancient customs’ house, a building some four hundred years old or more, and looking somewhat the worse for its eld.

 

The Calypso, having a French build, was treated to some suspicion by an officious fellow on the dock. Geoffrey listened to him for a few minutes, laying down law, and then beckoned him over.

“Dew yew lissen here, bor,” he said, in perfect emulation of the Suffolk idiom, “Yew moight say as how the other soide of river be furrin, but thass not so furrin thass we hev tu go through customs.”

This blast of local speech bypassed a lot of red tape.

“You take Hetty and Tiberius, and go up and get yourself something pretty,” said Geoffrey, passing money to Pip. “Past the customs house, there’s an old inn, called the Lord Nelson, renamed since he was High Sheriff of Ipswich in 1801, and if you keep going, you should get to Brook Street without trouble.”

Geoffrey wanted Pip well away from any unpleasantness as he took James James to be arraigned.

As it happened, James James was quite defeated, and was willing to enter a plea of guilty, which would make matters faster. The magistrate looked through the letter and the commonplace book.

“This Lady Calver – she seems complicit,” he said. “Her letters preserved here, and the… descriptive passages are fairly damning.  Are you going to call for her arraignment too, er, my lord?”

“My mother is confined in a private mental asylum, sir,” said Geoffrey. “I am not sure how much she truly understood of this iniquity, and I would prefer to assume that a fevered mind overlooked the full implications of this infamous collaboration.”

“Indeed, I can quite understand that,” said the magistrate. “It will come up before the next assizes.”

“As he has agreed to admit to it all, I take it that my betrothed wife, who was instrumental in rescuing me, will not have to testify?”

“No, she will be spared that,” said the magistrate, kindly.

 

The return to The Haddingtons was uneventful. Pip had bought a couple of Norfolk shawls for herself, one for Effie, as a peace offering, and had been tempted by a black merino spencer with military frogging, and a matching shako style hat.

“It’s smart and stylish, and it’s also useful whenever the next member of the Royal Family decides to die,” she said, cheerfully.

Geoffrey laughed.

“And worn with colours when not in national mourning,” he said.

 

oOoOo

 

Now that the danger was over, and Effie and Pip were reconciled, Pip threw herself into organising Effie’s wedding. It was to be quite the largest affair that the Haddingtons had ever seen, though, said Geoffrey, it must be surpassed by their own wedding, in St. George’s, Hanover Square. He had driven to London to put up the banns for himself, and to arrange a modest house for the Endicotts and their wards whilst waiting for the banns in both home parishes.

“Must we marry in London?” asked  Pip.

“We must; we must be seen to do it properly,” said Geoffrey. “But there will be fewer people for the little season, and we can then go on to honeymoon in Cambridgeshire at my seat, so that my people there can see you.”

Pip sighed.

“The more noblesse you have, the more people need obleeging,” she said.

“That more or less covers it,” said Geoffrey.

In the meantime, Effie was deliriously happy, and made a beautiful bride. It rained in the morning, early, but had cleared up by the time she was ready to walk up to the church. Geoffrey stood as Simon’s groomsman, and Effie agreed – perhaps a little reluctantly, because of their difference in estate – to be given away by Gaffer Keeble. Pip and Alethea were her supporters.

She would have been even more reluctant, had she known that the Gaffer intended bringing Napoleon with him, on a fancy rope made up of naval knotwork, to tell young Mr. Endicott the best way to father a good big family.

Fortunately, Napoleon was an equable sort of boar, so long as he was well-fed, but Pip lost her villager straw hat to his search for comestibles.  This was par for the course, and did not bother Pip too much, as she had more than one hat, but there was a moment of contretemps when Ragged Robin slouched into the church, to see what was going on, on the wrong day for it, noticed flowers, but, having sidled up towards them, caught sight of Napoleon, who was not usually such an ally as he had been over the capture of James James. Especially as the boar was already munching something.

Ragged Robin charged. Napoleon did not take kindly to this, and the Gaffer lost his hold on Napoleon’s lead as Robin chased the boar out of the church and back home. Geoffrey waited for Effie to have hysterics, but was favourably impressed when she took this level of mayhem in her stride. 

“Oh, that dratted goat!” was all that  Effie said.

She had thrown her bouquet, caught by Pip, before Robin returned, looking for floral largesse, and Pip fed him the bouquet.

“And I wonder what that symbolises?” laughed Geoffrey. “I mean, I know there’s a text about the caterpillar shall have thy increase, but what about a goat eating one’s bride’s bouquet?”

“It means that Pip is a kindly girl who probably won’t turn any waifs and strays from your door,” said Effie.

“I can live with that,” said Geoffrey.

 

oOoOo

 

The assizes came first, and Geoffrey attended. He indeed put in a good word for James, who was transported for fourteen years. Geoffrey was much relieved. He went to see his mother, and spoke to her firmly, of how her fantasies had led a man astray. She seemed to sincerely regret that James had been transported, but she was still blaming Geoffrey for it.

“I’m getting married, mother,” said Geoffrey. “My bride is the eldest child of Philip-Paul Seward. A connection but not too close.”

It wasn’t right, of course, but he had not expected it to be.  He left his mother screeching at him.

“Keep her closely watched,” he said, sadly, to the male nurse.

“Yes, my lord,” said that worthy.

 

oOoOo

 

The newspapers reported in relatively bald prose how beautiful the new young Marchioness looked, wearing a Pomona-green undergown of lutestring, with an overgown of Dhaka muslin, shot with silver, and embroidered with motifs of lily-of-the-valley, Pip’s favourite flower, if somewhat unseasonable.  Silver ribbons caught the gown under her bust and crossed on the bodice  where the green silk spoke for itself, not covered by the sheer muslin. A muslin cap caught a sheer veil of the same Dhaka muslin, this time plain but for a deeply-scolloped edge. Her titian locks shone in copper contrast, and her piquant little face was loaned a rare beauty by her happiness.

The papers did not mention that the marchioness had a damp stocking, because, although she had heaved up her bridal gown out of the way, she had knelt in the road to see if a beggar child knocked down was alive or dead, and that the said child was in the back of her carriage being taken back to Grosvenor Square for the ministrations of Mrs. Winston, the housekeeper, whilst Effie almost had hysterics about the delay. It is, however, the bride’s prerogative to be a little late, though of course, Geoffrey was beside himself with worry, in case she had been snatched by agents of his mother. He was so relieved to find out that the delay was caused merely by a waif or stray that he made no demur about finding the child a place in the household, and he agreed that Mrs. Winston could do better for a broken leg than any number of expensive doctors.

Pip made her vows firmly, and moulded herself to her husband when he was told he might kiss her. The congregation of servants cheered; such augured well for an heir in the not too distant future.

The happy couple endured the wedding breakfast, but retired when the guests fled screaming from the small nanny-goat which joined the celebrations and went investigating the greenery; Pip not having mentioned that one of her wedding gifts was the half-grown goat, Sweet-Pea, nor that she had bribed a footman to both let in Sweet-Pea, and see that no harm befell her, when it started looking tedious.

The footman suspected that life would not ever be tedious with her ladyship.

Geoffrey was inclined to agree, when they had barely reached the wedding chamber before she started exploring.  They had been, perforce, celibate of late, and he was glad to rediscover his bride’s very willing body.  

They set off for Cambridgeshire the next day, with Sweet-Pea, who would not be happy in town, and who was perfectly well behaved for her mistress, and walked to heel on a halter made by Gaffer Keeble. After all, some people had pet dogs to ride in their phaetons; and Sweet-Pea sat bolt upright on the phaeton seat, plainly enjoying the motion.

“It wouldn’t be our family without the odd goat involved,” said Pip, happily, snuggled up to her husband on one side, and Sweet-Pea on the other.

“Well, as I understand it, her sire, Ragged Robin, enabled the capture of James James, so I will have no word said against any of her family,” said Geoffrey. “And although it was through a sow that I was introduced to the Haddingtons, and thus to you, I think we can declare Sarey to be an honorary goat, being of quite as individual disposition as any of Widow Spalding’s flock.”

“How wonderful,” said his marchioness. “I am sure Sarey would approve.”

Geoffrey personally believed that Sarey did not care one way or the other so long as she could seek sunny spots and go for her daily dip at the shore, but he did not mention this.  And as for having a pet goat? Well, what might be extraordinary in Mrs. Blank of nowhere was merely a delightful eccentricity in a marchioness.

And it had cleared the place of irritating guests very well.

Geoffrey was looking forward to a long, happy marriage with his individualistic little bride.

 

 

oOoOo

 

The dowager marchioness became increasingly disruptive, ignoring the company hired for her comfort, and the entertainments provided for her, frequently screaming, weeping, and rending her garments. She tried, frequently, to run away, and did so during the winter, which was one of the coldest ever known, dressed in a white sheet like Queen Matilda escaping from Oxford, as she had written in a letter to the long-left James. A massive search was made for her, though her footprints filled rapidly with snow; and she was found, at last, by the wall of the messuage, under a laurel bush, and frozen to death.

Geoffrey held a quiet funeral for the deeply disturbed woman, and half considered selling back the messuage to the specialist in alienation until Pip pointed out that this would deprive of homes the half-dozen poverty-stricken gentlewomen who resided there; so Geoffrey continued with the ownership, paying for the keep of such unfortunate women as might need a place to go. They held a sale of work twice a year, selling such fancy goods as nicely bred, ill-educated ladies were trained to turn out, and Geoffrey wore the slippers Pip would buy for him, or recline on the embroidered cushions.

 

A visibly pregnant Pip brought out Alethea, with aid from Effie, and Alethea made a brilliant, and happy, marriage.

The young marchioness was brought to bed with a daughter, that summer,  and two years later with a son.  Pip was a country girl, and knew enough to use herbal aid to regulate her fertility.  They called their daughter Sarah, and their son, Robert, which were perfectly good names, and no apparent links to pigs or goats. Both children had strongly independent streaks, and a tendency to escape their nursemaids, and both grew up much loved, without being doted upon.

The family attended the regatta at the Haddishams every year, bringing, as Pigeon had hoped, some smart young men with yachts to the improvement of the regatta and the frustration of the excise men; and Geoffrey undertook to organise boxing matches as part of it, and knocked down Moyse as a wedding anniversary gift for his wife for several years running, as well as being village champion, and able to give a few pets of the fancy a run for their money.