Penny looked back at him from the door quite fondly.“Why, of course you haven’t quashed me, Father.Do we know anyone in the Athelney crowd?”
“I certainly hope not!They’re cranks, in my opinion, whatever social position they occupy.”Stephen’s eyes narrowed.“I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much temptation for you to get yourself mixed up withthatcrowd.Should I be worried?”
“Of course not, Father,” Penny said with her sweetest smile.“And don’t worry about me, I’m in my element.You ought to check on Crispin, though.I fear he’s struggling a bit.”
Once by her mother’s dressing table, Penny propped her chin on her hand.“What’s the Athelney crowd like, Mother?”
“Athelney?”repeated Sylvia, her eyes shifting focus from applying a cream to her face.“Oh, you mean those people who never got over the Norman Conquest and play at hiding in the marshes?Fuddy-duddies, dear.And they don’t know a thing about art.I’m quite in favour of ten sixty-six, you know.Honestly, where would the English language be without French?We’d all be saying such coarse words all the time.And who knows what we’d be drinking!”
“How would a girl like me get herself invited into a circle of fuddy-duddies, if she wanted to infiltrate it for Reasons of Her Own?”
“That’s easy, my dear.Fall in love with one.”Sylvia removed the Grecian-style ornaments from her hair, dropping them in her customary midden of hairpins, bracelets, and scent bottles, and began hunting for her hairbrush.“Men adore to think they’ve tamed the shrew.It’s better than bagging an imperial stag for them.”
Penny’s nose scrunched, then smoothed.“What a marvellously devious thought,” she exclaimed, handing her mother the hairbrush.Penny jumped up and kissed her mother on the cheek.“You really are the dearest thing.”
Sylvia blinked.
“Have you ever thought of inviting some real people here, Mother?”said Penny.“I mean, working class ones?”
“Here?”Sylvia looked at her dressing table in alarm.“Do you think they’d approve of us?”
“Well, even if they didn’t, it might liven things up.Crispin gets dreadfully bored with the stodgy, worthy sort of females we have around, you know.”
“Really?”breathed Sylvia, putting down her brush.“You astonish me.I’ve always expected Crispin to bring home someone really solid and respectable when the time comes.Someone with thick ankles and a thicker skull.A Tory, most definitely.You’ve no idea how I’ve dreaded her inevitable entrance on Stage Right.”
“Never fear,” said Penny breezily.“Fast and foreign—that’s how Crispy likes them.”
Sylvia’s eyes lit.“Fascinating.”
Penny went back to her room humming.Her parents were terribly good sports, and so easy to manage most of the time.Even her brother wasn’t quite as bad these days.He was playing his own game, of course, behind the scenes.There was no point trying to find out what it was—Crispin was as close as a clam.He’d put on a pretty scene about letting her in that evening, but a good deal of it had been play-acting.
At least, she thought it had.Truthfully, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if the legendary Fairweather sibling rivalry ever ran aground on the sandbar of genuine fraternal affection.
Chapter fifty-six
Ormdale
Violetwasonherway back to the abbey from a walk when a plump dragon fell on her from above.
Violet let out a shriek, just managing to clutch Oolong in her arms before he tumbled to the ground.
“Blimey O’Riley!”she exclaimed at the dragon, who huffed at her and nodded upwards.
Violet looked up.High in the tower window, Una was visible, looking for all the world like a lady in a pre-Raphaelite painting.
“Whatever are you doing up there, Lady of Shalott?”Violet demanded.
Una’s face crumpled.
Violet had never climbed stairs so quickly.
When she reached the tower door, she found, to her amazement, that the key was in the lock.How on earth had Una got herself locked inside, with the key left in the door?
Once inside, it wasn’t that Violet forgot that Una didn’t like being embraced, it was simply that as soon as Violet saw her sister weeping on the floor, she had a strong conviction that this was one of the few times where an embrace was not only advisable but necessary.
After a time, Una stopped crying on Violet’s shoulder.
“Well,” said Violet at last, looking round the room.“This is the tidiest I’ve seen this place inages.”
