To Say Nothing of the Dog (34 page)

“Ring for Jane to bring it,” Mrs. Mering said.

“She has gone to the vicarage to fetch the bunting,” Verity said, and as soon as Mrs. Mering had left the room to get the list, “Mr. St. Trewes, may I prevail on you for a favor? The Chinese lanterns we had intended to string between the stalls have not been delivered. Would you be so good as to go to Streatley for them?”

“Baine can go,” Tossie said. “Terence is to go with me to the Chattisbournes’ this morning.”

“Your mother cannot spare Baine, with the tea tent to be set up,” Verity said. “Mr. Henry shall go with you. Baine,” she said to the butler who had just come in, “bring Mr. Henry a basket in which to carry the jumble sale donations. Is the carriage waiting?”

“Yes, miss,” he said, and left.

“But—” Tossie said, her mouth forming a pout.

“Here is the address,” Verity said, handing Terence a sheet of paper, “and orders for the lanterns. This is
so
good of you,” and hustled him out the front door before Tossie could even protest.

Baine brought the basket, and Tossie went to get her hat and gloves. “I don’t see why Mr. Henry couldn’t have gone for the lanterns,” I heard her say to Verity as they went upstairs.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Verity said. “Wear your hat with the polka-dot veil to show to Rose Chattisbourne.”

Verity came back downstairs. “I’m impressed,” I said.

“I’ve been taking lessons from Lady Schrapnell,” she said. “While you’re at the Chattisbournes’, see if you can find out when Elliott Chattisbourne—he’s the one whose clothes you’re wearing—is coming home. She could have been secretly corresponding with him since he’s been out in South Africa. Here comes Tossie.”

Tossie fluttered down the stairs in the polka-dotted veil, carrying a reticule and a parasol, and we set off.

Baine ran to catch up with us. “Your hat, sir,” he said breathlessly, handing me my boater.

My straw boater, which I had last seen floating down the river, the ribbon already beginning to fade pale blue onto the soggy straw. Baine had somehow restored it to its original state, the ribbon bright blue, the straw scrubbed and crisp.

“Thank you, Baine,” I said. “I thought it was lost forever.”

I put it on, feeling jauntier immediately and fully capable not only of keeping Tossie away from Terence but of being so charming she’d forget all about him.

“Shall we?” I said to Tossie and offered her my arm.

She looked up at me through the polka dots. “My cousin Verity says your hat makes you look feeble-minded,” she said speculatively, “but I don’t think it’s
that
bad. Some men simply don’t know how to wear hats. ‘Don’t you fink Mr. St. Twewes looks dashing in his boater?’ my dearums Juju said to me this morning. ‘Don’t you fink he’s the han’somest, han’somest mannums?’”

I had thought baby talk was bad, but baby talk from a cat—

“I knew a chap at school who lived near here,” I said, changing the subject to something more productive. “I can’t remember his name just now. Began with a ‘C.’ ”

“Elliott Chattisbourne?”

“No, that’s not it,” I said. “It did begin with a ‘C,’ though.”

“You knew him at school?” she said, pursing her lips. “Were you at Eton?”

“Yes,” I said. Why not? “Eton.”

“There’s Freddie Lawrence. But he went to Harrow. Were you at school with Terence?”

“This was a medium-tallish chap. Good at cricket.”

“And his name began with a ‘C’?” She shook her curls. “I can’t think of anyone. Does Terence play cricket?”

“He rows,” I said, “and swims. He’s a very good swimmer.”

“I think he’s terribly brave for rescuing Princess Arjumand,” she said. “ ‘Don’t oo fink he’s the bwavest knight in awl the world?’ Juju asked me.
‘I
fink he is.’ ”

This kept up the entire way to the Chattisbournes’, which was just as well since I didn’t know any other facts about Terence.

“Here we are,” Tossie said, starting up the drive to a large neo-Gothic house.

Well, you survived that, I thought, and the rest of the morning’s bound to go easier.

Tossie stepped up to the front door. I waited for her to ring the bell and then remembered it was the Victorian era and rang it for her, and then stepped back as the butler opened the door.

It was Finch. “Good morning, miss, sir,” he said. “May I say who is calling?”

“It’s not the same game. It’s an absolutely different game, that’s the trouble.”

Darryl F. Lanuck on croquet.

C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

A Surprise Appearance—Jeeves—In a Flower Garden—Giggling—Dress Descriptions—An Overweight Cat—Sex and Violence—Finch Is Not at Liberty to Say—Tales of the Wild West—Amazing Treasures People Have in Their Attics—Home Again—I Am Prepped—A Civilized Game—Bad News—Croquet in Wonderland—More Bad News

I am not certain what I said or how we got in the house. It was all I could manage not to blurt out, “Finch! What are you doing here?”

It was obvious what he was doing. He was buttling. It was also obvious he had patterned himself on that greatest of all butlers, P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves. He had the supercilious air, the correct speech, especially the poker-faced expression down cold. You’d have thought he’d never seen me before in his life.

He ushered us inside with a perfectly measured bow, said, “I will announce you,” and started for the stairs, but he was too late.

Mrs. Chattisbourne and her four daughters were already hurrying down the stairs, burbling, “Tossie, dear, this
is
a surprise!”

She stopped at the foot of the staircase, and her daughters stopped, too, in a sort of ascending arrangement. They all, including Mrs. Chattisbourne, had turned-up noses and brownish-blonde hair.

“And who is this young gentleman?” Mrs. Chattisbourne said.

The girls giggled.

“Mr. Henry, madam,” Finch said.

“So this is the young gentleman who found your cat,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “We heard all about it from the Reverend Mr. Arbitage.”

“O, no!” Tossie said. “It was Mr. St. Trewes who returned my poor lost Princess Arjumand to me. Mr. Henry is only his friend.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “I am
so
pleased to meet you, Mr. Henry. Allow me to introduce my flower garden.”

I had gotten so used to having people say nonsensical things to me in the last few days that it didn’t even faze me.

She led me over to the stairs. “These are my daughters, Mr. Henry,” she said, pointing up the stairs at them one by one. “Rose, Iris, Pansy, and my youngest, Eglantine. My own sweet nosegay, and
some
lucky gentlemen’s, she squeezed my arm, “bridal bouquet.”

The girls giggled in turn as she said their names and again at the end when she mentioned the bridal bouquet.

“Shall I serve refreshments in the morning room?” Finch said. “No doubt Miss Mering and Mr. Henry are fatigued from their walk.”

“How marvellous of you to think of it, Finch,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said, steering me toward the door on the right. “Finch is the most wonderful butler,” she said. “He thinks of simply everything.”

The Chattisbourne morning room looked exactly like the Merings’ parlor, only floral. The carpet was strewn with lilies, the lamps were decorated with forget-me-nots and daffodils, and on a marble-topped table in the middle of the room was a poppy-painted vase with pink peonies in it.

It was just as crowded as the Merings’, too, and being asked to sit down meant working my way through a maze of hyacinths and marigolds to a chair needlepointed in extremely realistic roses.

I sat down gingerly on it, almost afraid of thorns, and Mrs. Chattisbourne’s four daughters sat down on a flowered sofa opposite and giggled.

I found out over the course of the morning that, except for Eglantine, the youngest, who looked about ten, they giggled at all times and at virtually everything that was said.

“Finch is an absolute gem!” Mrs. Chattisbourne said, for instance, and they giggled. “So efficient! He does things before we even know we want them done. Not at all like our last butler—what
is
his name, Tossie?”

“Baine,” Tossie said.

“Oh, yes,
Baine,”
she said with a sniff. “An appropriate name for a butler, I suppose, though I have always felt it is not the name that makes the butler, but the training.
Baine’s
training was adequate, but hardly perfect. He was always reading books, as I recall. Finch never reads,” she said proudly.

“Wherever did you find him?” Tossie said.

“That’s the most amazing part of the whole thing,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. (Giggles.) “I went over to the vicar’s to take him our dresser scarves for the fête, and he was sitting in the vicar’s parlor. It seems he’d been employed by a family who’d gone out to India, and he was unable to accompany them because of a sensitivity to curry.

A sensitivity to curry.

“The vicar said, ‘Do you know of anyone in need of a butler?’
Can
you imagine? It was Fate.” (Giggles.)

“It sounds highly irregular to me,” Tossie said.

“Oh, of course Thomas insisted on interviewing him, and he had the most glowing references.”

All of them from people who’d gone out to India, no doubt, I thought.

“Tossie, I should be cross at your dear mother for hiring away—” she frowned in thought, “—I’ve forgotten the name again. . . .”

“Baine,”
Tossie said.

“For hiring away Baine, but how can I be when I’ve found the perfect replacement?”

The perfect replacement came into the room bearing a flowered tray with a cut-glass decanter and glasses on it. “Currant cordial!” Mrs. Chattisbourne cried. “The very thing! Do you see what I mean?”

Finch began pouring the cordial and passing it around.

“Mr. Henry,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “Are you at school with Mr. St. Trewes?”

“Yes,” I said. “At Oxford. Balliol.”

“Are you married?” Eglantine asked.

“Eglantine!” Iris said. “It’s rude to ask people if they’re married.”

“You
asked Tossie if he was married,” Eglantine said. “I heard you whispering.”

“Hush,” Iris said, turning, appropriately enough, carnation pink. (Giggles.)

“What part of England do you come from, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Chattisbourne said.

It was time to change the subject. “I wished to thank you for your son’s loan of clothing,” I said, sipping the currant cordial. It was better than eel pie. “Is he here?”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “Didn’t the Merings tell you? Elliott is in South Africa.”

“He’s a mining engineer,” Tossie volunteered.

“We have just had a letter from him,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “Where is it, Pansy?”

The girls all got up and began looking for it with a good deal of giggling.

“Here it is, madam,” Finch said, and handed it to Mrs. Chattisbourne.

“Dear Mother and Father and Posies,” she read. “Here at last is the good long letter I had promised you,” and it became obvious she intended to read the entire thing.

“You must miss your son a great deal,” I said, trying to forestall her. “Will he be home soon?”

“Not until his two years’ tour of duty is up, eight months from now, I’m afraid. Of course, were one of his sisters to marry, he would naturally come home for the wedding.” (Giggles.)

She launched into the letter. Two paragraphs convinced me that Elliott was as silly as his sisters and had never been in love with anyone but himself in his life.

Three paragraphs convinced me Tossie didn’t care two pins for him either. She looked positively bored.

By paragraph four I was wondering why Elliott had escaped being named Rhododendron or Mugwort, and gazing at the Chattisbournes’ cat.

It was lying on a violet petit point footstool, and it was so enormous only a few violets showed round the edges. It was yellow, with yellower stripes, and even yellower eyes, and it returned my gaze with a heavy-lidded languor which I was beginning to feel myself, what with the currant cordial and Elliott Chattisbourne’s prose. I thought longingly of being back at Muchings End. Under a tree. Or in a hammock.

“What are you wearing to the fête, Rose?” Tossie asked when Mrs. Chattisbourne paused to turn over the letter to the third page.

Rose giggled and said, “My blue voile with the lace insets.”

“I’m wearing my white dotted swiss,” Pansy said, and the older girls leaned forward and began to chatter.

Eglantine went over to the footstool, picked up the cat, and dumped it on my lap. “This is our cat, Miss Marmalade.”

“Mrs.
Marmalade, Eglantine,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said, and I wondered if cats were given honorifics, like cooks.

“And how are you, Mrs. Marmalade?” I said, chucking the cat under the chin. (Giggles.)

“What are
you
wearing to the fête, Tossie?” Iris asked.

“The new dress Papa had made for me in London,” Tossie said.

“Oh, what’s it like?” Pansy cried.

“I’ve written a description of it in my diary,” Tossie said.

Which some poor forensics expert will spend weeks deciphering, I thought.

“Finch,” Tossie said, “do hand me that basket,” and when he did, she reached under the embroidered cloth and brought out a cordovan leatherbound book with a gold lock.

And there went Verity’s hopes of stealing a look at it while we were gone. I wondered if I could possibly sneak it out of the basket on the way home.

Tossie carefully unclasped a delicate gold chain with a tiny key on it from her wrist and unlocked the diary, and then painstakingly refastened it.

Perhaps I could ask Finch to steal it for me. Or perhaps he’d already thought of it, since Mrs. Chattisbourne claimed he could read minds.

“White mignonette organdie,” Tossie read, “with an underdress of lilac silk. The bodice is made with a lace front, edged with a ruffle embroidered in ingrained colored silks of the softest shades of heliotrope, lilac, and periwinkle, worked in a pattern of violets and forget-me-nots inset with—”