poets and spies 15

 

Chapter 15

 

Jack was beyond delighted when Daphne brought him his dinner on a tray. She blushed.

“I need to apologise,” she said.

“You have nothing to apologise for; I was indelicate in my delight in sharing understanding,” said Jack.

“I shouldn’t have been so... Francine would call it ‘preceptress disease,’” said Daphne. “You know, unwed ladies of uncertain age who have given up all hope, and so find anything to do with... with intimacy frightening.”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t want to be a governess. I want to be married and have my own children, and I want a husband who cares about what I want as well as what he wants. I’d like to marry well enough to thumb my nose at my stepmother, who wants me kept down.  She has her children, my half-siblings, and she doesn’t want reminders that she’s only four years older than I am, and that I’m the only child of Papa’s first marriage. I don’t really care about being anything like a countess so long as I am free. I considered David Peacock, you know; he seems a good sort of man, and I’m used enough to hard work, I’d make a good farmer’s wife, you know.”

“It seems a waste of your brains.”                                                                                               

“The Peacock boys have bettered themselves, don’t underestimate them,” said Daphne.  “But I couldn’t help it, when I saw a beautiful young god across the salon... but he belonged to someone else.”

“You felt it too?”

“Yes.” She blushed. “But l... lust isn’t enough.”

“How eminently sensible!”

“Francine,” said Daphne. “We discussed love and lust hypothetically at school, and she waved her hands and said something like, ‘eh bien, mes amies, lust, oh it makes the blood sing and the pulse race, and you have a beautiful young man, but if that is all you have, what will you then do with him when he is forty, and has a paunch and is thin on top?’ because Francine is very practical.”

Jack laughed.

“I am vain enough to fight gaining a paunch and my family usually has a good head of hair. But I will go grey and gain wrinkles some years in advance of you. I am something of a sportsman, but I am also a closet poet, and  I like to read. I like the theatre, but I genuinely enjoy being in the country, where I tend to live much like a country squire. Alice hated it; called it being ‘immolated in a muddy hole.’”

“I like living in the country,” said Daphne. “Are you proposing, and if so, is it as wife, or mistress?”

“What, you would expect me to suggest making a young lady into my mistress?” Jack was startled.

“I have no great family and I am no catch as a wife to an earl,” said Daphne. “They say mistresses have more fun; I should think the ones who have most fun are wives who are treated also as mistresses, because they have no worries about being discarded and poor. I would want a legal document if I was your mistress, to have a pension of three hundred a year if you discarded me.”

“A mean amount. But you have thought it out.”

“I... I want to touch you and I want you to explain the more... well, you know which poems. But I’m not stupid enough to think I can aspire to marrying you, so I need... safeguards. A woman who has lost her looks is a leaf tossed in the wind, at the mercy of the world’s cruel  wintery blast. I know it’s mercenary; but... but it is a big step.” She finished on a whisper.

“Come here,” said Jack.

She went to him; and though he only had one good arm to put round her, he pulled her on top of him. And then he kissed her, rolling her over with his injured arm on top so his hand could caress her without moving too much.

Daphne surrendered to  his kiss, wriggling happily against him, one hand sliding into his blond hair, the other on his chest.  When he lifted his lips from hers, she growled at him.

“A wife who is treated like a mistress suits me very well,” he said. “Oh, Miss Kempe! What is your first name? Nobody has ever told me.”

“Daphne,” said Daphne.

“What, a shrub to be mother of my little shrubs? You are fond of them, I think?”

“I adore them,” said Daphne. “Are you sure you want to marry me?”

“Oh, yes, I’m not going to let you go; you are intelligent, enter into my interests, and you bubble with passion. Though we might get married quietly, here, and forget to send a notice to the paper so we can pretend you are my mistress.” His eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Oh, what a most excellent prank!” said Daphne.

“I need to see your father,” said Jack.

“I should write first,” said Daphne. “If I say I have received an offer of marriage from my friend’s husband’s brother, my stepmother will assume you to be the sort of bucolic she assumes Mr. Brierly to be. If she had any idea who you are, she’d take steps to collect me and make sure I never saw you again, you know.”

“She could try; I am not going to let that happen, however! But Stoat, a bucolic? I can imagine his outrage, and him groping for a quizzing glass,” laughed Jack. “Oh, you can say I own some land in Hertfordshire, and run sheep.”

“I shall,” said Daphne. “But you have a wounded arm, and you are using it too much! You should lie still while I kiss you, now I know how.”

“Oho, you would like to take the lead? Well, why not?” he rolled back onto his back, and she sat over him, blushing, and brushed his lips with hers.

His dinner tray, on the commode, was entirely forgotten.

 

oOoOo

 

Stoat negotiated rapidly with the farmer who had possession of horses, and soon had acquired a couple of good riding beasts. Francine had no fears of riding astride, and they cantered off. Stoat was inspired to stop at the coaching inn.

“My friends!” he said. “I am looking for my cousin, who owes me money, and moreover I suspect him of trying to cheat at a wager; he is a sallow fellow, with dark hair, and he affects the English look with a coat he bought from a smuggler.”

“Oh, him!” the landlord spat. “So that was what he was agitated about, that it was imperative to know when the calèche would be here. And he was relieved not to wait long.”

“Oh, the cheat! The villain! You mean he has left already?” cried Stoat.

“Aye, two hours since,” said the landlord.

“Well! I was to race him to Paris as we both have business there, but we were to set  off together,” said Stoat.  “I pray you, what inns are the overnight stops for the calèche?” the calèche stopped overnight instead of going night and day alike like the stagecoach or the mailcoach. 

Furnished with the information about the overnight stops, Stoat left a vail which would be generous for a prosperous grocer, and went out to mount up.

“He has two hours start on us,” he said. “And though I want to push on and get ahead, I don’t want to push the horses too hard. The calèche after all will have changes of horses regularly, as it’s a government-run transport.  They’ll be able to sustain a speed of eight miles an hour;  and reasonably speaking on these nags, we won’t go a lot faster.”

“They are not bad animals, I think,” said Francine.

“Sweetness, they are not bad animals, but they have not been exercised regularly, or had their stamina maintained. They are too old to be likely to throw out splints, but we don’t want them dropping dead of apoplexy for being pushed too hard. Or developing cramps, or dying for sweating too hard and not being sufficiently hydrated. We shall have to stop and buy them bran and give them a wet bran mash with honey and salt, to keep them going.”

“I am sorry; I had no idea,” said Francine. “Me, I only ride the beasts, I do not know what makes them go.”

“A lot of tender care, actually,” said Stoat. “Horses are unbelievably delicate.”

“I know about needing to cool them,” said Francine, “And to be gentle with their mouths.”

“Which is more than many know, and in most circumstances is all you need to know,” said Stoat. “But these beasts have been allowed to get out of condition, and as you can see, they are reluctant to canter.”

“But that man did not warn us, we might have been people who would make them gallop!” said Francine.

“Quite,” said Stoat. “And I’ll see if we can’t take the poor beasts with us when we go.”

“Good; cruelty to dumb beasts is not proper nor respectable,” said Francine.

“I doubt we will catch up before the calèche stops for the night,” said Stoat. “At this point we have a problem. As, indeed, at all points hereon if we stop the calèche. Collet is surrounded by people who will not like to see another man killed.”

“But he is in English clothes; will they question it if you pretend to be whatever the French have instead of Bow Street Runners?”

“Not as easy as when the Committee for Public Safety was so feared, but... it might work,” said Stoat. “When we stop to feed the nags, I’ll see if I can construct a document. Few enough of them will have seen a warrant for arrest or a policeman’s warrant of identity, and I know the basic form and enough formulaic phrases. I even have an official seal on my fobs.”

“Bon, that will do nicely. You have the bearing and sheer gall to carry it out.” She considered. “There is, somewhere, a pun in there on Gallic and gall, but I cannot think it through at the moment, my brains are being jarred worse than my backside is, for this wretched beast refusing to go at anything faster than a trot.”

“You know to rise and fall, at least.”

“I have watched men at the trot. I am not unobservant. I am not happy with M. Collet, for it is not an accustomed movement, and everything is going to hurt, tomorrow.”

“I am sorry, love.”

“I do not blame you, my Stoat, I blame Collet. And I will not weep for him. He is interrupting our marital bed, and that is unforgiveable.”

“Totally,” said Stoat, with a straight face.

What was amusing was that most Frenchmen would nod solemnly in agreement with  Francine; l’amour was sacred.

 

They stopped to feed the horses at a ramshackle looking inn, in a village which appeared not to have a name, and Stoat was content to order food for the horses and for his companion and himself and to sit in the shadows to construct some papers which should pass muster when they caught up with Collet. The odd food stain would not matter, but would indeed add verisimilitude. Francine was glad just to be off a horse, and wished only that the chairs were not so hard. She sat on her satchel.

“Sorry, little one,” said Stoat. “Shall I hire a room for you to rest, and go on alone?”

“I will not be a liability,” said Francine. “Me, I am hardy. Did not I manage to drive, and drive, and drive, in pursuit of poor Romilda, when my wrists were breaking, but breaking from the effort? I have the fortitude to be an English heroine, as good as any in any novel, yes, and better than those who scream and faint to give the hero something to do. Me, if I wrote a novel, I would make it so that the heroine does not know what hysterics are, and make her a good foil for her hero. But some of them can endure, and mon Dieu! How loudly some of them do their enduring! But me, I suffer, but in silence. Have I made one word of complaint?”

“No, my sweet, you are stoic and uncomplaining, and I adore you,” said Stoat. “But a man is permitted to worry when he sees his wife is in some pain and suffering, and to offer her succour.”

“Vraiment,” said Francine. “And his wife appreciates such courtesy, but though she longs for nothing so much as to sink into a goose-feather bed, and preferably in his loving arms, the good wife is nonetheless more dutiful than this, and manages not to sigh after a cushion for her so-abused arse.”

“Sweetness!” said Stoat.

They applied themselves to a simple, but nourishing, meal of chicken stew, with plenty of onion and turnip to pad it out, and a piece of black bread with a scrape of butter on it. The wine was red, rough and undistinguished.

“Adequate,” said Francine, somewhat revived “But they would have been better to have fed the wine to the chicken, to revive it before butchering it.  But if that was cassoulet de poulet aux fines herbes as he said, I am a Hottentot.  Certainly, the pullet involved was more of an old crone of a fowl. But it was well enough cooked.”

Stoat laughed, and went to settle up. Some negotiation led to him presenting a feather pillow to Francine to ride on.

“My hero!” said Francine. “I will express my gratitude when we can be together properly.”

“I hope it helps,” said Stoat.

“Me, I will not cease to resent Collet, but I will do so from a position of less discomfort,” said Francine.

 

 

Francine was certainly ready to curse Collet in English, French, and Latin by the time they reached the large village of Brecqueflori, a pretty village set on the side of a hill, which the road climbed. There was an estaminet as well as the coaching inn. Here they left their horses, having paid for them to be fed and watered, not a usual service offered by an estaminet, but Stoat bribed the proprietor well, and to bring them on to the inn when they were satisfied. 

He flashed his forged documents.

“I am about to arrest a dangerous criminal, citizen,” he said. “Your co-operation is appreciated, and I know you will do nothing to impede my official business.”

The implied threat made the accompanying thanks more credible.

They drank a glass of unmemorable wine, and strolled over to the inn. Under cover of darkness, Francine slipped a cold hand into her husband’s hand. He squeezed it reassuringly.  Killing a man in what would be cold blood was never easy; but Collet had shot the unsuspecting earl, and planned to finish him off.

And Stoat was certain that he had more blood on his hands than that of his harmless brother.

 

wings of diplomacy 1

 I have posted this as a sample before but just to get started again, here it is complete.

Chapter 1

 

“I’ve changed my mind, tell him to go back!” said Irene trying to pull a comic face at her husband through her labour.

Wojciech held her hands, and Jan, as  imperturbable over delivering his foster-son’s first child as over delivering a foal, called calm instructions to the girl he loved as dearly as if she was his own daughter.

“It’s just a trifle late for that” Wojciech said dryly. “I’m afraid he already has the order to charge.”

“Stop bellyaching about it and push,” said Jan.

Wojciech George came into the world protesting over the hurry but quite capable of fastening onto a nipple with tenacity.  Although the Polish for George was Jerzy, Irene wanted her son to have a name which would do in England; and St. George, that quintessentially English saint, shared his day with St. Wojciech.  Somehow it seemed appropriate.

Wojciech gazed proudly down at his wife and son.

“He is beautiful!” he said.

“He’s red and wrinkled and looks like a pickled plum” said Irene, cheerfully kissing her pickled plum adoringly.  “Feliks, you shall be first to hold your brother” and she passed him over.

Feliks was adopted; he had been Wojciech’s first friend when Wojciech had set out to be the last winged hussar, and had attracted Wojciech’s notice by the fellow feeling of sharing hair the colour of a new horse chestnut. Orphaned, he had gone to find his winged hussar, and had been adopted, Wojciech talked by Irene into laying aside his scruples over blurring the distance between peasant and szlachta.

Their adopted daughter, Aleksandra,  was the child of a szlachcic ruined by debt occasioned by borrowing to care for his sick wife. He had turned to crime, and Wojciech had duelled him to give him an honourable death. Ala, the name she had chosen for herself rather than the more conventional ‘Ola’,  had not forgotten her Papa, but called Wojciech ‘Papa’ not ‘New Papa’ now, and was happy for Irene to be ‘Mama’. She would have to know more, one day; but one day was a long time away. Feliks was  her partisan supporter, and he would be of his adoptive brother.  Wojciech insisted that he have time off the school he attended with Irene’s brother Błażej and their friends so he could meet his little brother or sister, and know that he was still part of the family.

Feliks appreciated that.

“Oh, my innocent brother, so happy and peaceful,” he murmured. “Enjoy it while you can; you have to be a baron one day.”

“Poor little babe,” said Wojciech, “Let him slumber in blissful ignorance or I’ll foist it onto you.”

“Now there’s no need to get nasty, Papa,” grinned Feliks.

 

oOoOo

 

The little family was settling down to a feeding routine when a letter arrived from Warszawa.

 

To our most beloved agent and force of arms on the border, the last winged hussar, greetings.

Wojciech, I would like you to come to Warszawa as soon as you might, with your good lady and anyone else you feel you need, ready to undertake a journey on my behalf.

Stanisław August.

 

“Damn, damn, double damn and all the devils in hell and the imps in purgatory!” said Wojciech. He continued cursing for two straight minutes. Irenka stared, open mouthed.

“Papa never swears,” said Feliks, in awe.

“No, but apparently when he does so, he does it in spades,” said Irene.

“Letter from the king; I am sorry to sully your ears,” said Wojciech, tossing it to his wife. He knelt to beg forgiveness from God for swearing. Irene read it.

“He means England, I wager,” said Irene.

Wojciech considered.

“Do you think so, Irenka?” he asked.

“He specified me. I think that is suggestive.”

“Well! Yes, I suppose so.”

 

oOoOo

 

 

 

Wojciech entered the gold and white ballroom of the  palace with his usual softly heavy tread, and Irenka on his arm. Compared to many, they were conservatively clad, and Wojciech clung to Sarmatian garb rather than trick himself out in the current fashion.  Irene, used to western clothes, wore a panniered ballgown in a claret so deep that it appeared black in the folds, deep enough not to clash with either her hair or that of her husband’s effulgent locks. His kontusz was of similar shade, in brocade wrought with leaves in red, orange and gold, making him a creature of blood and fire. It was an effect they had discussed to help to further the legend of the Last Winged Hussar, the Blood Angel. His żupan was black, touched with gold, and he wore red hussar boots over black trousers, and a black kontusz sash, heavy with gold bullion. His ruby signet gleamed on his finger, and rubies matching it in shade adorned Irenka’s neck. She was unpowdered, and her strawberry-blonde hair was close in colour to the red-gold on Wojciech’s kontusz.

There was a gasp from a youth who had, until that moment, considered himself very fine in his new Western clothes. He was a handsome youth, and knew how to dress for his colouring, in a rich, dark blue jacket, heavy with gold lace across the chest and down the sides to where it cut away, over a velvet waistcoat in the same blue, voided in a pattern of fleurs-de-lis showing the gold silken ground of the cloth. His breeches were in a cream satin, suggesting gold, but not sufficiently  overdone to be vulgar. It was about the colour of his pale golden locks, which shone through his hair powder in places, caught into a queue at the base of his neck, the black solitaire exquisitely tied over his snowy cravat.

“Hellfire!” he exclaimed. “Płodziewicz!”

“And what do you have against my Godbrother, whelp?” asked the big man whose even paler blond hair was not powdered.

The boy’s father sank his face into his hands as the lad opened his mouth.

“He’s a big bully!” said the boy. “He made my father thrash me, but how was I to know he was a szlachcic? He was digging!”

“I dig sometimes too,” said Seweryn Krasiński, still more amused than angered. “A soldier has to know how to deal with bodily waste, you know. And a good landowner helps his peasants in times when all hands are needed on the land, like at harvest. Didn’t your father teach you that?”

“But ... but it’s what peasants are for!” squealed young Zdziarski, as Wojciech approached and plainly recognised the youth who had impeded his rescue of the carter who had brought his adoptive son Feliks to him, who had been buried in a landslide.

“Still has a voice like a magpie with a stick up his arse,” he said. “Don’t go picking on Lady Filka Krasińska any more than on my wife; those of us who are allied to the Raven banner don’t have meek wives.  Filka put three war rockets through the last person who irritated her.”

“Made the devil of a mess,” said Seweryn.

“I couldn’t tell by the time you’d walked through what was left,” said Wojciech.

“I wouldn’t have done if I’d known,” said Seweryn defensively. “What are you doing in Warszawa?”

“I don’t know; I got a letter asking me to attend the king so I came,” said Wojciech. “Well, I know in broad, he wants me to be diplomatic in England.”

“You?” said Seweryn. “You big lug, the words ‘Wojciech’ and ‘diplomatic’ are mutually exclusive.”

“It’s because of Irenka’s relatives,” said Wojciech. “At least, I assume so. Or he might have sent you.”

“Dear God, you can’t let Filka loose in England since she discovered war rocketry, it’s only a century since London last burned,” said Seweryn.

“Oy!” said Phyllis.

“If you and your brother got together ...” said Seweryn.

“Oh, fair point,” agreed Phyllis. “Wojan, dear Godbrother, I take it you know young Lord Zdziarski?”

“Unfortunately,” said Wojciech. “But he may have improved with keeping. I take exception to brats who tell their men to shoot my –at the time – pregnant wife as well as shooting me because I wouldn’t let him interrupt a rescue mission of some of my dependents.”

Phyllis peered at Cyprian Zdziarski.

“His head is still attached, and he shows no signs of having met Hellish Polish Quarte going the wrong way,” she said.

“I was busy,” shrugged Wojciech, “and pre-occupied. And then his father arrived and asked nicely for his life. I suggested thrashing him.  Did it do any good, and are you civilised enough for a szlachcic to speak to now, boy?” he asked Zdziarski.

“I ... I ... you will meet me for that!” squealed Zdziarski.

His father groaned.

The dark, saturnine man, with the scarred face, standing near him, grinned.

“Have you any other sons, Lord Zdziarski?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“Married?”

“Widowed.”

“If I was you, I’d look for a bride to breed an heir,” said Władysław Sokołowski. “Your whelp just irritated the third best swordsman in Poland.”

“And you’re the best ...”

“No, my wife’s the best. I stand between her and Wojciech since losing an arm. And Wojciech is a force of nature.”

“What the devil can I do?”

“Well as he’s in a good mood, he may just play with the boy and humiliate him. If I was you, I’d send him to school for a year to curb his manners.”

“Yes, I think I will.” He considered. “I might just send him to school in Lapland and hope he doesn’t irritate the reindeer.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it,” said Władysław. “Wojciech:the king wants you; he’s in the octagonal salon.”

 

 

“Well, my last Winged Hussar, how are things on the borders?” asked the king. “Did you have a quiet journey?”

“Quieter than they were, sire,” rumbled Wojciech. “Funnily enough the fear of being run down by winged hussars has a deterrent effect on brigands. It worked on the brief interruption to our journey, too, but there were only four of them, so I had them outnumbered without Irenka having to disturb herself. They flung themselves off their horses and surrendered.”

“I wonder why?” said Stanisław August with an innocent look. Wojciech laughed.

“I confess, I play up the melodrama, sire,” he said.

“And I always thought you straightforward and humourless when you were at court,” said the king. “I believe I did not know you at all.”

“Oh, I am straightforward on the whole,” said Wojciech. “But a look of bovine stupidity on the face of a large man is generally believed, and it means one does not get involved in tedious smalltalk.  I am also quite good at maintaining an immobile face. Sokołowski describes me as having a distressing turn of levity.”

“Well, I am glad; you are accounted by many as a dour fellow.”

“Including my young brother-in-law who still has not figured me out,” grinned Wojciech. “Poor Błazej! But he will learn. He’ll hear tales of Seweryn’s and my exploits with gunpowder while he’s at Raven’s Knoll.”

“I thought that was Mikołaj?”

“Oh, it’s a Raven Banner thing.  But you didn’t want to talk about my youthful peccadilloes or how we scared Władek half to death with a fusillade of firecrackers in the bushes.”

“To be honest, I’d probably enjoy very much the tales of your youthful peccadilloes, but it wasn’t why I asked you here,” said the king. “You have planned to visit Lady Irenka’s family in Britain, I believe?”

“Yes, we had considered it,” said Wojciech.

“Then perhaps you will consider doing so now?”

“At your command, sire. My mission?”

“To deliver certain letters to George III of England from me, and to bring back any reply. You’ll have full diplomatic status.  I’ve had a house leased for you in St. George’s square, which I thought appropriate as your name day is shared with that English saint.”

“Aye, sire, it’s why our firstborn is Wojciech George, not our own version of the name, Jerzy, or Jurij. So he has links to his English family, and has a name-day of both names together.”

“I hope the Lady Irena will enjoy meeting her relations and showing her son to them,” said the king. “The appeal to the English king is personal; I know him, of course, from my time in England. But I have a sense of fear with all the black eagles perched overlooking our lone white eagle.”

“Aye,” said Wojciech. “It is an ominous presence.  I will not leave first thing, I have a certain engagement to teach a puppy a lesson.”

“Oh?”

“The Zdziarski boy.”

“He is only a boy; he is well grown but he’s young. Go easy on him.”

“I was planning on giving him a lesson. Not on hurting him,” rumbled Wojciech, hurt.

“I should take your words at their meaning; thank you. And my apologies,” said the king.

Wojciech bowed.

 

oOoOo

 

 

 

Zdziarski fils was not a morning person. However, he turned up on time on the river bank at the time-honoured duelling ground. He was clad in plain dark morning clothes, and took off his jacket and waistcoat, handing them to a servant.  Wojciech shucked his kontusz and żupan, passing them to Irene.

“You bring your wife to a duel?” said Zdziarski.

“She’s my second,” said Wojciech.

Wojciech had already decided to do what Irenka had done to a loudmouth, and proceeded to use his sabre, twice the size of the boy’s weapon, with the delicate touch of an artist with a paintbrush. Cyprian Zdziarski fought with all he could manage, and was sobbing in frustration at his failure to even mark the damned red hussar. He sniffed hard on tears of anger and resentment and shook his head, and then noticed that red drops flew off when he did so. Holding his karabela at long guard he raised a hand to his face. He looked disbelievingly at his fingers; and then touched another part. He looked down and saw his shirt cut at chest and belly, and his smallclothes across the thigh. The cuts were perfectly straight.

“I apologise, my lord,” he said stiffly.

“Well, lad,  you’re not so stupid you can figure out when you are outclassed,” said Wojciech. “Try to learn to curb that temper of yours, and you’ll have a better chance to grow up, and to become a decent man. You’ve been spoilt, which isn’t entirely your fault, but it is up to you to do something about it.”

“I ... yes, my lord,” said Zdziarski.

 

Rookwood 3:1

 

Chapter 1

 

“Harriet! I have a letter for us from Francine!” cried Daphne, tucking her arm into her friend’s. It gave Harriet some support to help her walk a bit faster, too, since Harriet had been orphaned in a coach accident, and her leg had never totally healed.

“What does she say?” asked Harriet. “I am glad she can write to you without The Kipper opening it.”

“I don’t see how she justifies it, myself, opening the mail of orphans. Why, it might be confidential information from your solicitor, if you had been left well enough off to have one,” said Daphne. “I think The Kipper just likes to pry.”

“Well, look at the fuss she made about Francine sending us a bonnet each, wanting to know why, and where they came from; I swear she was ready to accuse Francie of stealing them,” said Harriet. “I am glad I was able to show her the line in her letter that Francie had to dispose of her mother’s stock so the shop would be available, and preferred to send gifts to friends than have them sent to charity. I wager she knew The Kipper would stick her fishy nose in.”

Miss Herring was not a popular preceptress, as might be seen by this frank exchange.

“Well, as I have parents, of a sort, she can at least write to me without The Kipper daring to read them,” said Daphne. She had been the recipient of both the villager straw, lined with cerulean blue, which suited her pale, Saxon prettiness, and the sage-green capote with bronze-green ribbons to pass on to Harriet, ideal for a girl whose hair was on the red side of chestnut. If sent to Harriet, both girls suspected that Miss Herring would have had a new bonnet. Girls at school on some sufferance as orphans did not, in her book, deserve anything, and only the Principal’s strong rule allowed Harriet to keep the gowns she had. Miss Phipps cordially detested Miss Herring, but needed a teacher of geography with globes.

The girls reached their den, a carefully constructed shelter hidden deep in the shrubbery, inside a laurel bush, which Daphne had laughed over, and called most appropriate to her own name.  There was a tarred sheet to keep off light rain, and a couple of broken chairs, mended roughly by the girls. It was nothing special, but to Daphne and Harriet it was a haven. Daphne had a father and stepmother, but she was no parlour border to have her own room, and the girls shared a room with four younger ones. Privacy was golden.

“Dear girls,” wrote Francine,

“My darling Stoat has taken a house near Prior’s Eleigh so we might both be close to our friends, and he says I might invite you to stay over Christmas. We are living in the house formerly owned by Major Braxton, or rather, leased by him; but Stoat has managed to buy it so we can make it our own. It’s a nice place, a little large for just two of us, but it is to be hoped that we shall fill it duly with a sufficiency of progeny to make it more convenable.”

“Isn’t it fun that you can notice that Francine is French even before she slips in words like ‘convenable’ when she can’t find a better English word?” said Harriet. “Such a weird name to call her husband, ‘Stoat.’”

“I think his name is Stotham,” said Daphne. “His mother’s maiden name. Francine did write of it, remember?”

“Oh, yes, he is not the oldest son to use such a name, but all first sons are called something outlandish – Bohemond, wasn’t it?”

They both giggled.

“Under the circumstances, you can see why he’s glad to be ‘Stoat’ can’t you?” said Daphne.

“Yes,” agreed Harriet. “Go on.”

“I have written to Miss Phipps to secure permission for Harriet, and to Mr. Kempe, and as Stoat does not use the courtesy title he is entitled to until he has a nephew, I thought a plain Mr. and Mrs. Brierly would not make your stepmother jealous enough to forbid it, Daphne. Please say you will both come! Mr. and Mrs. Goldsteen are looking forward to meeting Harriet – if they like you, Harry, there’ll be a job waiting for you as companion to their spaniels, and as they are childless, you will be, essentially, the  daughter of the house. I await your replies,

Francine.”

 

“How clever of Francine to remember, through all her own troubles, that my stepmother would not like me meeting people who are above her own class,” said Daphne. “I must script a masterpiece of a letter to her. She doesn’t want me home for Christmas, but it would be like her to make me stay at school if she thought I would enjoy it too much.”

“Oh, write that your emigrée friend who married requires a companion to meet her new husband’s family, as moral support,” said Harriet.

“That’s a good one,” said Daphne. “If Phippy doesn’t forbid you to go for any of our misdeeds, it should be fun; she can’t really stop me if Papa says yes.”

 

Daphne laboured on a letter.

“Dear Mama,” she opened, and pulled a face. “And that’s two lies in the first two words as she is neither my Mama, nor is she dear.”

“Just write it,” said Harriet.

“I have had an invitation for the Christmas period to the new home of my friend, Francine. You might recall I have mentioned her, an emigrée, left penniless when her mother fled the revolution in France. She has made a respectable marriage, but is nervous of meeting some of her new English in-laws, and would like someone quintessentially English as her companion over Christmas.  I expect I will be de trop most of the time, with a newly wed couple, but I would like to help her out, if you are willing for me to go. Miss Phipps was surprised that I said I was sure you would expect me to stay in school rather than have a family Christmas, so perhaps this is a solution?

Your obedient daughter,

Daphne.”

“Another lie in the last line,” laughed Harriet, reading over her shoulder. “A master stroke to suggest that Phippy was asking questions; your stepmother would dislike her motives to be questioned, I wager.”

“Oh, she would,” said Daphne. “Mind, it’s a pity Francie and her Stoat have rounded up all the spies, it would have been famous sport if we might have been able to catch Bonapartist spies.”

“I could do without that much excitement, I fancy,” said Harriet.

 

 

oOoOo

 

Highfield End

Highfield

Near Bishop’s Stortford

 

“My dear Daphne,

What have you been saying to make that awful woman ask questions? You are a tiresome girl. Well, I don’t care how bored you are in darkest Essex [Prior’s Eleigh? One has never even heard of the place, your bucolic friend and her farmer husband sound tedious in the extreme. You had better purchase yourself a couple of evening gowns, however, to make sure the hayseeds don’t get the chance to look down on you, and you grow like a weed and doubtless show unsuitable amounts of ankle in your current gowns. Which is no problem in a girls’ school, but I will not have any skirters of what passes for society in the country laugh at you. I’ve sent a money order for four hundred pounds to Phipps to hold for you so you may go into Brentwood and order a couple of gowns. Do not pay more than two hundred pounds for any one gown, if you are clever, you can probably stretch to as many as four or five gowns with that.”

Do behave yourself and do not make yourself a laughing stock to show me up.

Your mother,

Amy Kempe.”

 

“I can hear a whine in her voice in every sentence,” said Daphne. “There are no flies on Phippy, do you suppose we can ask her to take us into Brentwood and buy heaps of lovely fabric, and ask if Francine will drive over to help us cut out gowns? She’s a marvel and so sure with the scissors, and then we can sew them up ourselves.”

 

Miss Phipps was nobody’s fool and she had a fair idea of Mrs. Kempe’s motives. She was also as irritated as Daphne meant her to be when Daphne showed that good woman her own letter, where the preceptress might see herself referred to by her surname only, like a chambermaid. Miss Phipps had no great pretensions to the aristocracy and was therefore more alive to what was due to her than had she come from stock with a title somewhere, which would enable her to laugh it off.

“I have a better idea, Daphne,” she said. “I will send to dear Francine, Mrs. Brierly, I should say, and ask if she will pick you up to escort into Brentwood, and then come back here to help you cut out some gowns. You are correct to think that your money will go further spent on fabric than on a modiste. I also strongly urge that you do not spend all of this, but keep much of it against emergency.”

“Yes, Miss Phipps, I thought if I took one hundred pounds, I could get enough for at least four gowns each for the two of us, and trims, and caps and if we talk fast, Francine might be persuaded to help us with turbans and bonnets.”

Miss Phipps laughed.

“She probably will, for she is a generous soul, as are you, to think of Harriet. I strongly suggest a Norfolk Shawl each, which will eat into your hundred pounds; take one hundred and fifty, for you may always return with some over, whereas you do not want to be embarrassed by being short.”

“No, indeed,” said Daphne. “And though Francine would make it up, I would be mortified if she had to do so.”

“Quite so,” said Miss Phipps. She knew perfectly well that Francine herself counted every shilling twice, even though she was married to one of the wealthiest men in England, and accounted it an excellent trait.

 

oOoOo

 

“I am here, enfin, mes amies, parbleu! Mais je suis si heureux de vous voir! Me, who could not be happier with my cher mari, yet I am cast into transports of delight to see again my dear friends!”

“Francine, I have never heard you use that much French in one burst before, even to put down M. Despard,” laughed Harriet.

“My Stoat wishes to improve my French accent to pass more for Paris than Colchester,” said Francine. “Eh bien! It is a good habit to have, to be able to sound entirely French, when undoubtedly there are still spies about. But I am good, so good, and I have not denounced M. Despard as a Bonapartiste, though it would have been very funny,” she added.

“You don’t change, I am glad to say,” said Daphne. “Did Phippy tell you why we asked to borrow you?”

“Yes,  indeed, and I will be most pleased to see you both outfitted properly, and moreover I will sew those parts which are most challenging, since both of you have fingers which might delight an elephant, but achieve subtle effects in cloth they will not.”

“Oh, Francine, will  you really? I was going to ask you to cut out what we could manage,” said Daphne. “I never hoped that you might help with the sewing.”

“Ce n’est pas rien. I never thought I would miss having something to sew, but I do. I have made a layette for our first child when he or she arrives which Stoat says rivals a royal baby, and I have seen that all our napery is sufficiently decorative, and when Phippy’s letter arrived, Stoat said ‘Thank G-d for that, you now have something to keep your fingers occupied before I wake up in the morning to find myself embroidered.’ He is very droll, but I have taken to making bonnets for the people I like because I have no tasks to do until he entertains and the time is very heavy.”

It turned out that Mr. Stotham Brierly had driven his wife to the school, to be a more sober escort to three giggling girls than one of them trying to appear a staid matron.  Francine did not even try to dress as a staid matron, since it made her look as if she had borrowed someone else’s clothes.  Only her newly coiffed hairstyle of short hair with little ringlets under absurd lace caps gave even a nod to her married status, and Stoat resigned himself to being de trop for a while, save as coachman. He did not disapprove; Francine had been forced to grow up rather fast, when she have become involved in the spying of her unpleasant cousin. He loved to see her have fun, and sat, smiling, as Daphne and Harriet caught their friend up with all the school news.

“And M. Despard does not know yet where the mouse came from,” said Daphne. “Save that he regards Harriet as a saviour for having removed it.”

“It gnawed on his ear,” said Harriet. “I was terrified of the consequences, poor thing, it might have been poisoned.”

“Even so!” said Francine.

 

oOoOo

 

The shopping trip to Brentwood was exciting for three young girls let loose amongst fabric, ribbon, laces, and other notions. Stoat was that rare man who, without taking a deep delight in fabrics, vicariously enjoyed the pleasures they brought to the girls.

He also smiled when Francine beckoned a haberdasher, passed over some money and indicated that she would pay for the fabric a plainly-clad girl clearly coveted, but could not afford.

“She will get snippy about charity,” he said, quietly.

“Of a surety; I told the haberdasher to tell her that there was some of the same out the back which was water stained, which was much cheaper if she could use it. She will think the haberdashery fussy when she does not find an obvious stain, but I merely paid the difference between what she could afford, and what it cost.”

“You are sweet,” said Stoat.

Her eyes danced.

“You may explore that thought more, later,” she said.

 

Daphne spoke out as they drove out of Chelmsford.

“This isn’t the way back to the school.”

“No; I spoke with Phippy and I have stolen you for the rest of the term as well as over Christmas. Stoat said I might. Your trunks have been sent on.”

“Mr. Brierly is a very kind man,” said Harriet.

“Indeed; and I adore him,” said Francine.