An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) (5 page)

‘
Whatever is the matter,
Henry?’ Maggie could hear her say,
a little
acerbically
,
as the child’s screams
impacted on her consciousness at last. ‘Stop that screaming this minute or I shall march you straight back home to see your papa.’

‘But those
horrid
children have hit me and stolen my liquorice, mama.’

‘No we have not,’ countered Will. ‘You are telling fibs. You yourself were hitting me.’

‘And the liquorice is most certainly ours, is it not, William?’

‘Indeed it is. You are a horrible little sneak to run to your mama like that.’

‘We shall most certainly never play with you ag
ain if you keep hitting us
with your spade
and
stealing
all
our things.’

Maggie
reluctantly dragged her thoughts away from
Mr Wright
, who had until then been featuring largely within them, and
felt it incumbent upon her to intervene.

‘Augusta – William – stop that right now and return the liquorice to your playmate. You know full well that it
really
belongs to him.’

The twins apparently had other ideas. They stuffed what remained of the liquorice into their own mouths, pushed their unfortunate victim
roughly
onto the sand, and ran off giggling together towards the water’s edge.

‘
Oh dear,
I am so sorry, ma’am – I fear that Will and Augusta are a little over
-
boisterous this morning.
Perhaps you will allow me to reimburse you for the liquorice?’

The woman stared
coldly
at her for a moment.

‘I had much rather you kept them under control,’ she said, comforting her little boy before turning
to go
away. ‘I am persuaded that they
’
ll kill someone if they
continue
to behave as badly as that
.’

Maggie felt mortified, though she could sympathise
entirely
with the
sentiments that the
woman
had expressed
. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second
to gain some strength
before marching resolutely down the beach towards her two little charges – who were now, in the absence of a third party to torment, just in the process of attempting to push
each other
into the water – in an endeavour to get them back
again
.
Fortunately, after the fourth time of requiring them to leave
each other
alone and take her hands
, to absolutely no avail,
salvation appeared in the w
elcome form of
the focus of her recent musings
, who had been wandering along the Esplanade in a ho
meward direction after a
productive morning
spent in the ba
r at the Royal Hotel. Spotting
or, more probably, hearing his offspring perilously close to drowning
each other
Mr Wright
varied the direction of his walk a little
in order
to take in the stone steps leading down to the beach
,
from whence he proceeded to bellow his requirement that they leave off what they were doing that instant, and
take Miss Owens’ hands. Perhap
s unsurprisingly, given that their papa was a good few yards away from them and therefore in no position imm
ediately to enforce this directive
, the twins ignored him to such an extent that Augusta was fully immersed in the
shallow
water, with her head being pressed stolidly beneath the waves
, before Maggie was able to dash in after them and haul a reluctant Will back
on
to dryer
land. By this time
Mr Wright
had managed to navigat
e his way across the soft sand
-
at great da
mage
to the
lustrous
shine of his
expensive
top boots
-
and gingerly extract his daughter, dripping and screaming lustily, from the
edge of the very
chilly
sea
.

‘Right, cold baths and no supper for you two tonight,’ threatened their papa, depositing his daughter
with some disgust
onto the sand once more. ‘And if you cannot be trusted to do what Miss Owens tells you to do there will be no more excursions onto the beach with her, either.’

Maggie felt a little brighter at this remark. There w
as nothing she would like more
,
she thought
, than never to have to take the little horrors out with her again.

‘But that’s not fair,’ whined Will, kicking Maggie surreptitiously
on the shin
and glaring at his sister, daggers drawn
.
Maggie
dragged him resolutely up the beach. ‘
She
started it. I don’t see why
I
should get punished. If
she
hadn’t stolen the liquorice and eaten it all up
I’d
never have hit her in the first place.’

This was a little muc
h for the gentle Augusta to accept
.

‘You ho
rrid little monster,’ she spat at him defiantly,
probably judging that
her papa’s not insubstantial frame
provid
ed
a
n adequate
barrier to any possibility of recrimination
from her brother
just then. ‘You ate just as much as I did. He did, too, papa – look in his mouth. It’s all black. I didn’t eat hardly any of it at all. I bet my mouth’s as white as anything compared to his
great big
black one
.’

‘Well, you are both as bad as
each other
,’ countered their papa. ‘It is very naughty of you to steal liquorice from anybody else. If you cannot learn to play nicely with the other children you will soon find that no
-
one will play with you at all.’

By this time Maggie had managed to get an insubordinate
and extremely sandy
Will back up the steps and onto the Esplanade, with
Mr Wright
close behind with his mulish and dripping little girl. Luckily the house was not too many yards distant and
, determinedly i
gnoring the many delights of Mr Ryall’s
enticing
toy shop
on the way,
in another couple of minutes they
had mounted the steps, entered the hall, s
ummoned the children’s nurse
and had the very great pleasure of seeing them carted
unceremoniously
up the stairs for their baths. Maggie was eyeing her sand
-
encrusted gown and slippers ruefully.
Mr Wright
seemed equally concerned about his boots.

‘I am so sorry to put you to all that trouble, Mr Wright,’ she said. ‘I hope your boots are not totally ruined.’

‘Oh, no matter,’ he returned,
tearing his gaze away from his boots and eyeing
her own little feet with some concern. ‘I have other pairs available to me. I can very quickly change them. But what of you? Your slippers are quite wet, and totally encased in the sand.’

‘They are indeed. I can only hope that they will recover themselves once they are fully dried out.’

‘You must allow me to assist you in removing them, Miss Owens. You will not wish to tread the sand
up the stairs and
quite into your chamber. Here – please be seated for a moment and allow me to untie the ribbons.’

He eased her gently towards the hall chair and sat her down
on it. Then he
kne
lt in front of her and raised
the hem of her gown a few inches so that he could find the top of the ribbons which tied the slippers to her feet. Without fully realising what she was doing Maggie held out each leg a little and allowed him to remove them. Despite the
totally
undesirab
le
situation in which she had so recently found herself – despite the discomfort of damp, sandy stockings and wet, sandy shoes
– she suddenly realised that she was perfectly
contented
. The sight of
Mr Wright
kneeling at her feet, the sensation of his fingers on her ankles, the concern for her comfort and welfare that his eager assistance appeared to evidence – well, what could she do other than enjoy the moment and wish that it would never end?

‘And so we are
agreed
, William?
You
shall take
control
of Aunt Staveley’s finances and
relieve
her of
all
the worry and responsibility of looking after them herself.’

Mr and Mrs W
right
were sitting up in bed, enjoying their morning eggs in the comfort of their own chamber prior to facing all the problems and inconveniences that the world was due to throw at them that day.

‘After all, the
poor
woman scarcely goes out more than once in a fortnight and she can have
very
little call on her income over and above what she pays us for her
rent
. I am persuaded that she should
much
prefer you to look after everything
for
her. You may give her a little pocket money from time to time to enable her to buy the children’
s presents and thin
gs like that
, and if
I
were you I should invest the rest of it and make it work
hard
for us all.’

‘If you really think we should
do so
then I shall, my dear,’ returned her husband, mildly. ‘If you are certain that Mr Staveley will not object?’

Mrs William gave her husband a
withering look
.

‘How
foolish
you can be at times, William
,’ she chided. ‘O
f
course
Mr Staveley will not object. Why should he object, indeed, when he is in no position to look after his mother himself and we are relieving him of
all
the burden of maintaining her?
Granted, I u
nderstand that he will
shortly
be
back in the country
while his boat is decommissioned
, and I daresay he will expect us to provide him with a roof over his head for a while
(you
shall need
to ensure that he pays us for his stay
, by the bye
– he is not to be given
it for nothing, you know
), but generally speaking he is away at sea for a good fifty weeks of every year. Of
course
he will not object to us helping his mother with her money. He can have no
possible
objection to us doing so a
f
t
er
all.
’

‘Well, I daresay you are right. I just wondered whether he might feel – well, a little resentful, if we were to take control of all of her money like that. After all,
my dear
Georgiana,
I suppose he lives in expectation of inheriting it in the end.’

Mrs Wright gave a somewhat smug little smile.

‘Then all the more reason for
us
to assist her with it, would you not say, my dearest? After all, I should
hate
to see it go entirely to waste.’

Mr Berkeley was rolling around on the
nursery
floor in the company of his three children, playing a game that was supposed to involve marbles but which appeared
,
as usual
,
to have degenerated somewhat in
to a simple rough and tumble
on the carpet.

‘And so you really think that we must go, Kathy?’

Kathryn was sitting on the sofa
nearby
, sewing in hand, watching their antics with a
n amused
and happy
smile.

‘I’m afraid I do, D
rew. You know that I dislike Georgiana just as much as you do – and at least you have an excuse to avoid her for half of the evening in the company of the other gentlemen, which I do not – but it would be most rude of us, I fear, were we just to send our excuses and stay away. What would your poor sister th
ink? She should be mortified
w
ere
we to
neglect he
r husband’s family. And perhaps with a larger party
to protect us
we shall both be able to avoid the woman
a little better than we did last time
?
’