Tilling, Or, The Last Merrifield Easter

11

Tilling, Or, The Last Merrifield Easter

July 15 Not. It’s like death and taxes. We finished our stretch at the Colonel’s cottage, on Mrs B.’s return from hols. she approved everything, giving Bean Minor a smacking kiss on the strength of it (received with the expectable squirming), and then we had to go back to putrid School. Ugh.

    It’s been weeks and weeks and so far Miss Stinkerton hasn’t asked to look at the dear girls’ diaries and/or essays, she must have forgotten about that idea, well good, because looking back not very much of it is suitable for her eyes and I’d have to lie and say I’d lost the thing.

    The Brain thinks if I really work I could get a scholarship at the end of the year but what’s the point of that? Grannie’s already decreed that (a) I’ll be too young to start university, (b) they should never have put me up a year in the first place, and (c) that a stiff year in a French school getting my bac would do me far, far more good and lead to far, far better things than anything an English university can offer. The only bright bit about that being that I’d get to stay with Tante Émilie in Paris again and be able to sneak off and illegally see the cousins at Resto LeBec.

    … On the other hand if I work really, really hard now at stuff that’d let me pass the bac this year (needless to say not on the English curriculum) then I could go to university in Paris and actually stay with the cousins!

    Okay, I’ll investigate how to sit the bac as a non-resident or whatever the technical term is. I was born in France, that helps. –Grannie did her nut over Dad getting Mum pregnant again so soon after the Bean, overlooking the fact that he’s never had much say in anything and Mum had to be in there somewhere, and hauled her, baby Bean and embryo me off to her lair for the duration. I gather dear old Marthe was in her element—surrogate grandchildren plus feeding Mum up on the correct French nosh—but no-one else was.

July 17 Not. –Later. Christmas has come and gone, totally putrid, we had to spend it incarcerated at the Château LeBec with Grannie. Marthe’s food was great of course but otherwise one draws a veil. Constant nagging, and another huge hole in the roof was discovered, with the consequent flood in the attics. If the silly old hag would break down and take Oncle Patrice’s advice and turn the château itself into a company, separate from the wine business, and get a loan and do it up and put in more bathrooms, she could make a fortune out of unsuspecting English, German and Scandinavian tourists. (Given that she hates all Asians and turned down a very good offer from a tour company to bus in loads of Chinese to tour the vineyards.) There’d still be plenty of room for the family, they only live in one bit of it anyway. But of course anything Oncle Patrice suggests is automatically dismissed, poor old chap.

    Well I suppose one can look forward to Easter. Bean Minor will no doubt provide me with a close analysis of the Easter eggs’ rival merits (or demerits) as usual.

    Meanwhile the bimbos are already competing madly as to just who will roll up in what glamorous vehicle to whisk them away to what Easter treats the usual cold English spring can produce. Naturally putrid Melissa Canning-Foulkes is fully expecting The Boyfriend to turn up in his Audi that his rich dad paid for. Unfortunately for her Angela Purviss is several up in the One-Upmanship Stakes this year, having arrived back from the Christmas break flaunting an Engagement Ring!! from her Boyfriend. The only slight fly in the ointment being that it has to be worn on a chain round the neck as rings are strictly forbidden at Merrifield (and earrings nominally only allowed on religious grounds tho somehow the bimbos all manage to have gold keepers in.) Angela isn’t quite eighteen yet but she’s declared her intention of shaking the dust the minute she is, not that one can blame her for that. Unfortunately the snide questions about the date of the wedding fell flat. Scheduled for June of next year. One has to book the desired pretty little country church at least a year in advance, smirk, smirk.

July 19 Not. –Later. Not expecting (or wanting) to be collected by a Boyfriend in the vehicle his dad had paid for, Alysse Johns and I were closeted in the room we’re sharing this year—at Merrifield they pair off the top form, the rooms are combined bedrooms slash studies. It was quite a relief really when she said “I don’t mind” when I said maybe we could share. She sucks lots of peppermints over the Classics swot but it’s preferable to having one’s room infested by either a giggling bimbo endlessly on the phone to her thick peers or bending your ear about bimbo crap for hours, on the one hand, or on the other hand a bouncing Hearty telling you to cheer up and do something jolly and what about coming out to watch the Match slash have a jolly good Run round the playing field.

    Alysse was sweating and muttering over a Latin prose with the help of Mr Lewis and Mr Short, meanwhile blowing peppermint fumes out at intervals, and I was chewing the biro over French géographie which as Grannie has so correctly pointed out is not taught in English schools (and in any case is totally different from English geography), and occasionally groping for a Larousse or a Grévisse to make sure I was reading what I thought I was, the answer always being yes, which sadly usually failed to aid comprehension, when there was a pounding on our door (hilariously labelled by some Hearty “Swots Ville”—two words) followed by a Hearty yell of “HOY! Melly-sand! Visitor!” and a certain amount of loud panting.

    Ugh. Babs Rowntree. “Go AWAY!” I shouted.

    Alysse looked up briefly. “Why does she imagine you’d want her to visit you?”

    “God knows.”

    “MELLY-SAND! You’ve got a VISITOR! DOWNSTAIRS!” the hearty Babs shouted.

    Eh? I got up, wiped the ink from the leaking biro down my tracksuit trousers (it was a mufti day, being nominally the break) and went over to the door.

    Ugh! The Heartily beaming red face of Babs Rowntree beamed at me. “You’ve got a visitor and the others are as mad as fire about it!” she congratulated me.

    That filled me with excitement, not. The last time they’d got all flustered it turned out it was only the Bean, having been dragooned into coming over to collect his poor little sister for a sustaining Sunday tea by his Housemaster. Granted the tea was good, tho of course he made me pay my share.

    “All right. Thanks, Babs,” I sighed.

    Excitedly she lumbered down the stairs. I followed unenthusiastically. They were in the so-called Seniors’ Common Room, read Seniors’ Over-Scented Battleground.

    “He’s in with the Brain!” they hissed, their eyes very round. That is, as round as eyes laden with muck could possibly go. I counted at least three sets of false eyelashes on crooked.

    “Eh?” I replied weakly.

    “Yess-ss!” they confirmed, thrilled to the core.

    I shrugged and sat down to await events. Um… ordering him not to give alcohol to a minor? Um… ascertaining if he’d driven over, if so in what, and where was his licence and ordering him not on any account to speed? Um… Well those’d do for a start, and no-one could claim that in the case of Michael Fullarton-Browne, aka the Bean, they weren’t fully justified.

    The door opened and the assembled bimbos shot to their feet, hurriedly concealing such crimes as Rude Mags, Mascara Wands, Nail Polish Pots, et al., and in the case of one cretin trying to remove the dangling things from the auditory lobes.

    “Here we are,” said the Brain’s voice with a smile in it. “Melly-sand, my dear, you have a visitor. –I’ll leave you to it.” With which she exited, and in came—

    “John Raice!” I gasped in horror. “What are you doing with a walking-stick? I thought the leg was better!”

    “Hullo, Mel darling,” replied the Colonel, those long, very clear blue eyes twinkling like mad. “Ah… not the one I broke over the damn hedge, this time. Went to Devon Holmes’s chap in London, he tutted a bit over the—er—legacy from Afghanistan, sent me off to the surgeon again, he fiddled with it, and I’m stuck with the stick until further notice.”

    “I knew you were overdoing it!” I cried.

    “Er—mm. Then and later. Thought I could tackle the damned stairs a bit sooner than I should’ve, kind of thing.”

    “You total idiot,” I sighed. “You know that staircase is precipitous.”

    “Yep.”

    “Don’t tell me the hospital said you were fit to drive the M.G.!”

    “Er—not the hospital, past that stage. Seeing Devon’s physiotherapist again. He prescribed the stick. No, Clive Lamont’s lent me the Roller. Complete with shover,” he finished drily.

    I sagged. “Thank God.”

    “Mm. Well fancy a day out? The weather’s not much but I thought we might lunch somewhere, tool around the countryside for a bit, have a nice tea? Then up to London, your Miss Swayne’s okayed me for putting you up over the break—if you fancy it?”

    “At the flat, you mean?”

    “Yes. No stairs,” he said, making a face.

    “Well let’s hope that lift’s reliable,” I said, not asking if he was also going to host my siblings. “Okay; thanks very much.”

    “Good. Brought you a little something,” he added with a smile, feeling in the pocket of the fawn Burberry that was hanging open negligently from the manly form, a great look on someone with his shoulders and long legs, but abysmally silly on those shorter and stouter, especially if of the wrong sex.

    Help, gift-wrapped with a bow! Sort of oblong, about ten centimetres high… I opened it uncertainly.

    “Er—a classic,” he ventured. “It’s the Eau de toilette. The shop was very helpful. They seemed to think it would suit a younger girl with no taste for such horrors as candy flavours or such-like. I got quite a history of the scent, actually. Formulated as something fresh for the modern girl of the Twenties—the Junior Drones’ era, eh?”

    “Chanel Numéro 5! Lovely! Thanks awfully!”

    “My pleasure. Want to pop upstairs and change? Better pack some things, too, or have you left most of your clothes at your mother’s?”

    “No, she throws things out. Well there isn’t much to pack, Grannie edited everything I took to France over Christmas. There’s a new manteau BTBG, tho,” I offered.

    He grinned. He’d heard all about the BTBG thing while we were at the cottage. It sort of arose naturally out of a discussion about Lucia. “Wear it, by all means!”

    Okay, I would. It’d look good with that new pair of jeans scored when good old Oncle Patrice took me ostensibly grocery shopping over in the town. And that rather tight thin-knit pale green sweater that he chose, come to think of it. Likewise the new boots.

    “Right. Won’t be long. Do you want to wait here? Its one advantage is that it’s warmer than the front hall. Or given that I’m not a simpering bimbo that has to be tenderly escorted from door to car, maybe you’d better wait in the Roller, it’s miles more comfortable.”

    “A vos orders, mon général!” he replied with a laugh. He took my elbow in a not very colonel-to-general-ish fashion and added: “Allons-y!”

    And out we went.

    “Don’t hurry, I’ve got The Times in the car,” he said with a grin in the hall.

    “That’s okay, my entire mufti wardrobe would fit into one drawer. –Go away, Betsy Duncan,” I added grimly. “Juniors are not permitted in the hall and what did Miss Swayne say in assembly only last week about spying on your elders?”

    The putrid little creature vanished precipitately.

    “You a prefect this year, Mel?” asked the Colonel, his shoulders starting to shake.

    “No, thank God, but I am a Senior, and that putrid little creature is a sneak, a liar and a tale-teller. I don’t think even Miss Swayne will be able to fix her. –I say, Colonel, thanks for everything! The bimbos were completely routed!”

    He made a little face. “That’s okay. –Thought it was ‘John’, Mel?”

    Did I call him— Oh. I did. Sheer horror will do that. “Um, well, only if you don't mind,” I muttered, going red, what an absolute goop!

    “I don’t mind at all. You’re seventeen now, aren’t you? I don’t think the populace will be shocked.”

    “Yes, I’ve had my birthday. It’s the Bean’s eighteenth this month. I suppose Mum’ll forget it as usual.”

    His nostrils flared, help! “You mean to say she—” He took a deep breath. “Did she forget yours, my dear?”

    “Yes, of course.”

    “And little Tommy’s?” he demanded grimly. Boy would I have hated to be up on report before him! Those poor errant soldiers!

    “Um, well… Promise you won’t tell anyone this?”

    “Depends what it is, frankly, Mel.”

    “Nothing bad, only if Bean Minor ever gets to hear of it I think he’d be devastated. He thinks she doesn’t forget, but it’s not Mum who sends the presents at all, it’s good old Trisha, her Sidekick—PA.”

    “Jesus. I promise, but frankly I’d like to strangle the woman.”

    “Yeah. Anybody decent who knows her feels like that.”

    “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “I won’t ask about your bloody father, I don’t think my blood pressure’ll take it.”

    “Just forget he ever existed: we do!” I said with a laugh, heading for the stairs.

    Behind me the front door shut with something of a bang, but that was possibly just because it is unexpectedly heavy.

    … “This,” I explained, getting into the car, “is the combo of le manteau BTBG from Grannie, and new jeans and boots that good old Oncle Patrice thought I should have because all the girls seem to be wearing them.” I grinned. “Like for the last half-century, I think, but never mind, the shop assistant said they were this season’s!’

    “And the scarf and beret? Not to say the gloves.”

    I spread my hands out proudly. “Jolly good, aren’t they? Couple of years back. Trip to les grandes surfaces behind Tante Émilie’s back with Tante Louise and le cousin Marc-Antoine from the restaurant to inspect les soldes de l’entrée. I forget which shop he nicked these from.”

    Given that they were bright red and fuzzy Colonel Raice’s faint reply: “I doubt that they were missed,” was possibly justified.

    “The scarf was hand-knitted by Marthe—that’s Grannie’s cook—and Grannie’s forbidden me to wear it in public. Dear old Marthe declared it was just what all the schoolgirls and schoolboys wear en Angleterre.”

    He smiled. “Got it. Er—did nobody mention to her what the rainbow effect is commonly deemed to represent these days?”

    “No!” I choked, collapsing in wheezing sniggers and groping for a pocket hanker.

    “Have mine,” he said, producing the traditional flaglike one.

    “Thanks.” I mopped my eyes. “I do hope you won’t feel it’s making you look particular, John.”

    He grinned. “No, I’ll be brave. And the jaunty black beret? Or don’t I dare ask?”

    “Tante Louise. Birthday present.”

    “I thought it was only men who wore berets in France?” he groped.

    “No. After that trip to the grandes surfaces we went home for a five o’clock and she showed me some of the family albums and there was a snap of some ancestress from les années trente looking terrifically smart in a little Chanel number with a beret. She must have remembered that I admired it."

    “I see. So the forbidden French cousins remembered your birthday,” he concluded with a little sigh.

    “Yes, they always do. So does Oncle Patrice, of course! Look, he sent me these!” I beamed. I pulled up the sleeve of the frightfully BTBG black overcoat and peeled the fuzzy glove back slightly. “Aren’t they lovely? You can wear them as a set or separately.”

    It was a set of three silver bangles. Quite plain, but they looked super.

    “They are lovely, yes. May I?”

    “Of course.” I took them off and he looked at them closely.

    “Mel, do you know what they are?” he said after a bit.

    “Um, one says ‘bangles’ in English, I’m pretty sure.”

    “Mm. Not that. What they’re made of.”

    “Silver?”

    “Er—no. Platinum.’

    “But— Help. Isn’t that very dear?”

    “Dearer than silver, certainly. And these are exquisite.”

    “Duh-do you mean he spent too much on them?” I croaked.

    “Not that, my dear,” he said with a smile, putting them back on for me, ooh! More goopy redness, why couldn’t I stop doing that? “But they can’t have been cheap.”

    “Um…” Help, should I tell John Raice this or not? I knew he was ferociously right-thinking and all that.

    “What?”

    “Um, well he does know people in the trade who could, um, get stuff for him at a discount.” Well not entirely a lie. The prices he’d get from Oncle Albert would certainly be low enough to be discounts in terms of retail value. Or there could have been a certain trade-off in respect of those cases of wine heading to Paris, I realised in some relief.

    “That sounds okay,” he said with a smile. “Tho one understands the impulse to beggar oneself for a pretty girl, of course!”

    “Hah, hah,” I growled, fiery red again.

    He just laughed a bit and looked out of his window.

July 24 Not. Continuing: Merrifield isn’t far from Brighton and after we’d shot through that metropolis and headed east I ventured: “Where are we going? Or are we just driving?”

    “I rather like Rye, so I thought it might make a change—you must know Brighton pretty well by now, eh?”

    Er… I knew a couple of teashops quite well, yes. And the class had of course been dragged to the Pavilion.

    “Fairly well, I suppose.”

    “Uh-huh. Well, Rye is Lucia territory!” he said with a laugh.

    “What?”

    “Yes. E.F. Benson lived there for years and was the mayor for a while. Mallards is his old house, Lamb House. It’s still there, but sadly the famous Garden Room is no more: bombed during the Second World War.”

    “I’d have rebuilt it.”

    “Me, too! There shouldn’t be too many tourists infesting the place at this time of year, so we can go and see it, if you like. It’s a National Trust property now.”

    “So at least it’s being properly looked after,” I said in relief.

    “Yes. There are lots of places to eat because of the huge influx of tourists in summer—not merely because of Lucia, by no means, it’s a very pretty little town—and an incredible number of pubs for a place with a population of something under five thousand!” He grinned at me.

    “Got it. A place after your own heart.”

    “Yep! Anyway, I’ve found a pub which turns on a very decent lunch. Excellent lamb chops, and all their soups are made on the premises from real ingredients.”

    Yes. Great. Only problem being, did I want my nose to run as it always does with hot soup in cold old Blighty in front of John Raice? Not frightfully, I discovered.

    “They sound good, but we get an awful lot of soup at Merrifield and while I admit the accent’s on the awful, you do get to the stage of wanting something to chew.”

    “Plenty of choice. They make their own pâté and there’s a great mushroomy thing. And it’s all solid nosh: no fancy little artistic piles spattered with splots and blots of this and that and minute specs of suspicious greenish entities.”

    “Tiny herb sprouts, I think those ones might be,” I said with a sigh. “Great.”

    “And—er—while I realise that after Merrifield the term ‘mash’ may strike terror or at least iron into the soul, theirs is the stuff that dreams are made of. Light, fluffy, creamy; tastes of real potato and real butter. Or if preferred, at this time of year there’ll be baked potatoes in their jackets.”

    I laughed. “I’m practically dribbling!”

    “Good.”

    And so we drove on into Rye and down to the harbour…

    “Crumbs,” I noted weakly.

    “Mm. Somewhat bleak at this time of year,” he agreed.

    We got out but it was dashed chilly so we hurriedly got back in again and headed for the pub in Q.

    The food was as good as predicted and so we did full justice to it. I was a bit doubtful about choosing the pâté because of course it wouldn’t be as good as any French pâté you can buy from any little charcuterie in Paris however unappetising the quartier in Q. may appear, but as it didn’t pretend to be anything other than it was, a “simple chicken liver & sherry pâté”, I tried it. Lovely! Just a smooth liver paste, well I suppose that is what the word means in the context, lightly flavoured with fresh thyme and containing nothing else but chicken livers, sherry and butter. Served with neat wedges of wholemeal bread, which went with it very well. Chalk one up to a sufficiently obscure Rye pub. Not to say to John Raice for discovering the place! He had the mushroom soup, explaining that it was a compromise between the desire for soup and the call of the mushroom-y hors d’oeuvre, which did sound nice, so we decided to come back another time and have that. He gave me a taste and it was certainly a delish soup, tho I wouldn’t advise anything with that much cream in it for a person that age as a regular thing. Then I gave in and had the lamb chops, since he seemed so keen on them. Nothing like any French côtelette d’agneau, no, but yummy: quite thick, juicy but not pink—I hate pink lamb and he agreed feelingly with that sentiment—and accompanied by a real English mint sauce, carrots done in honey and lemon juice (nicely turned: the aunts from the resto would probably have fainted), and a mound of their famous mash.

    “Well?” he said, those long, clear blue eyes sparkling like anything.

    “You’re right, John,” I conceded. “This mash is food of the gods! How do they do it?”

    “Well,” he said, rubbing his nose, “I did ask them, once. Amounts to choosing the right spuds, adding the correct amounts of butter and cream, and standing over young Kenny in the kitchen until his arm falls off whipping it by hand.” He grinned. “Words to that effect.”

    “Sure.”

    He laughed. “No, honest! Approaching a spud to a food-processor is tantamount to instant dismissal, I gathered.” He looked at the frown. “Er—ask them if you don’t believe me, Mel.”

    “What? No, I do believe you. The words ‘du diable’ are heard if anyone mentions the things in Marthe’s kitchen. No, I was just wondering… Can the verb ‘to approach’ be transitive?”

    He swallowed—not mash. “Yes. In that sort of context—definitely.”

    “Oh. Then I got that stupid translation wrong.”

    “From French or English?”

    “From English, of course. It said ‘He approached his mouth to the receiver.’”

    He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Sounds bloody old-fashioned. But I don’t see, quite, how you could have misunderstood it.”

    I sighed. “I assumed there was a comma missing after the ‘approached’.”

    “Er… ‘He approached, his mouth to the receiver.’ –Oh, Lor’.”

    “Yeah. Well, live and learn,” I sighed. “Only what if there’s something similar in the putrid exams?”

    “Well… A-minus rather than straight A?”

    Sourly I replied: “The assumption will be that my French is rocky, not that I didn’t understand the English.”

    “Ye-es… But I still don’t see that one small mistake will damn you forever.”

    “Come into the 21st century, John,” I sighed. “You have to be a hundred percent right if you want to get anywhere these days.”

    “Oh, right. But do you want to get anywhere, Mel?”

    “Yes: out of bloody Merrifield and out of puerile school. Grannie’s trying to dump me into a senior year over there, would you believe? So as I can sit the bac at the end of the year with those she imagines are my peers because of that year I skipped.”

    “Can she?” he replied coolly.

    This brought me up short.

    “Well?” he murmured.

    “Not legally, no. She’s not my legal guardian, Mum is. But I haven’t got any money, not even enough to get the bus from the village.”

    “What? What about your pocket money? Haven’t managed to save any of that?”

    I ate my last turned carrot. “Yum! –What pocket money? –Survey my available relatives, John,” I invited him, as his jaw was seen to sag. “Which of them is going to throw money—regular money—at me? Oncle Patrice can’t, Tante Élisabeth monitors his spending.”

    His jaw hardened. “Got it. And your brothers? Little Tommy?”

    “Same. Bean lives off the charity of his peers. Egg and Flossie and Crumpy tactfully don’t mention the subject. And they set Bean Minor useful little tasks that usually don’t need doing, like dusting Flossie’s bookshelves or brushing their jackets, and tip him for them. And of course if he goes on an errand to the village for them they always give him something to spend at the shop.”

    “Got it. Well that’s decent of them. But…” He laid his knife and fork neatly together. “I don’t mean to play the inquisitor, Mel darling, but I thought you mentioned on the way over that you paid for yourself at some teashop Michael took you to?”

    “Yes, that was in Brighton. I had some money back then because old Oncle Alphonse gave me some earrings ages back, and one of the bimbos coveted them so I sold them to her.”

    He bit his lip. “I see, my dear. I’m so sorry… I hadn’t the least idea.”

    “That’s okay, why should you? And Bean was unexpectedly in funds because Crumpy had lent him ten quid to put on one of Mr Ovenden’s horses, and it came in at thirty to one.”

    “Er—right. Dare I ask, how they manage to bet? I was under the impression that it was a sacking offence at Marbledown.”

    “I think you’re thinking of Mr Lamont making a book at Eton. Tho I’m not sure that anyone’s ever been caught doing that at Marbledown… Unless it was what that ancestor of Flossie’s got the boot for, I think he was his Uncle Flossie’s uncle. Usually they get the gardener to put their bets on for them, and if they win he gets ten percent.”

    He grinned. “Horribly clear!” The waitress arriving at that moment, he asked for the menus again so as we could think about pud, and I assumed the topic was closed.

    But it wasn’t, of course. Well, neither topic, actually.

    Once we’d decided on the treacle tart, a very English pud that I’d never had before, he eyed me quizzically and said: “The gardener usually puts their bets on for them?”

    “Uh—yes.”

    “And?”

    I sighed. “Combo of Flossie and Crumpy, really. Crumpy’s the maths whizz, Flossie’s the front man. Clear?”

    “All too horribly so!”

    “Yeah. Well actually I think Crumpy’d quite like to be a bookmaker when he leaves school but of course with all the online gambling these days it’s no fun, really, and even the guys on the rails are hooked up electronically."

    “Really?”

    “Yes. It’s partly so as the Tote can read the starting prices at a glance and adjust theirs accordingly. The day of the small independent bookie is almost over.”

    “I see. Just as well, his father’d have a fit.”

    “He had a fit anyway at the idea he wants to be a hotel receptionist.”

    “What?”

    I sighed. “Is it a generational thing? It’s a perfectly decent job.”

    “No, really, Mel! Er… well I suppose if he did some sort of hospitality course he could eventually manage a hotel, but…”

    “That’s an idea. –Do they have cheese here?”

    “Mm? Oh—nothing you’d call cheese, no. Their one failing.”

    “Got it.”

    “Er—and Clive Lamont and I are not the same generation, thanks. He’s in his fifties, for God’s sake!”

    Yes, well, l didn’t think there was as much between them as there was between me and Colonel Raice, so I just said: “I suppose he is. But if Crumpy was my son I’d rather see him happy in a job he wanted to do than stuck in something up-market that he hated.”

    “You have a point.”

    The treacle tart then appeared, together with a small jug of… Not English custard, no.

    “John, if that’s cream I honestly don’t think you should. Not after that creamy soup and all the butter and cream in the mash.”

    “I don’t usually, but this is a treat!” he said with a grin. “I won’t souse it, I promise.”

    He was as good as his word. So I took some, too…

July 30 Not. Carrying straight on: Okay, treacle tart goes up there in the celestial hierarchy of English puds alongside Eton Mess—definitely!

    “Gosh,” I concluded.

    He laughed. “I thought you’d like it!”

    He claimed the place did real espresso so we then had coffee. Not bad at all. astoundingly enough. He stirred sugar into his, sighing, and admitted: “Mrs B.’s been more or less standing over me with the damned milk jug every time the word ‘coffee’ is mentioned. One more reason why I decided to migrate to the flat.”

    “Ri-ight… Milk jug?” –I hadn’t noticed any such artefact in his cottage.

    “She insists on using it,” he said heavily. “Think it was Gran’s. Well Ma certainly wouldn’t have foisted it on me—unless she wanted to get rid!” he ended with a laugh.

    “No,” I agreed. His mother’s a racehorse trainer, which is how come he knows Ian Ovenden so well. Very good-natured and generous, but hard as nails when it’s anything to do with discipline. Well there was a near disaster when a stupid stable lad was caught smoking in the hay loft, so one can’t blame her. The dad’s a retired brigadier-general: they didn’t see all that much of each other during John’s youth, one gathers, but they seem to have settled down together quite amicably now. It would be hard to imagine Mrs Raice wielding a milk jug, yes.

    “And I suppose another reason you’re at the flat,” I added, “would be that you’re back at work even tho the surgeon—two surgeons, come to think of it—and the physiotherapist have told you to take it easy.”

    “All I do is sit at a desk and push papers, Mel.”

    Yes, well. That’s about as clear as it’s ever going to get. I know he speaks Arabic and Pashto, and some Farsi as well, and he can read all of them, and as the words “intelligence analysis” were once mentioned in connection with his daily grind—

    “Listen,” he said as we finished the coffees, “I’ve decided. I’m going to put the fear of God into your bloody father about the pocket money thing. Not to say about making proper provision for all of you. For God’s sake, he can’t just send you and Michael out into the world at the end of the year without a penny!”

    “He’s never in his life done anything as active as ‘send’, John. Well if you think you can do any good… It’s very decent of you.”

    “I just wish that I’d known sooner—or taken my head out of my bloody arse long enough to even look,” he added grimly. “Er—sorry, Mel.”

    After a moment it dawned that the ‘sorry’ was possibly on account of the Language in front of Little Me.

    “Don’t apologise, I’m not a bimbo or a Mrs Berrington. And there’s no reason you should have realised. All the people you know, like Mr Ovenden, are normal.”

    “Nevertheless,” he said on a sour note.

    “Have a liqueur, since you’re not driving,” I suggested kindly.

    “Mm? Oh. That was a rather indifferent Australian chardonnay, wasn't it? The wines here on the whole aren’t much—probably goes with the lack of decent cheese,” he admitted with a little smile. “I’ll have a brandy. Fancy something?”

    I did, but as I wasn’t yet eighteen it might not have been a good idea to stick our necks out that far—spirits being a far cry from indifferent white table wines—so I just lied.

    The magic of Cognac did its usual trick and he cheered up like anything and we retreated to the car in good spirits. So to speak.

    Elton McInnes, Mr Lamont’s amiable chauffeur, had had, he assured us, a good ploughman’s in the bar, with just a light beer, so we all set off happily for the tourist delights of Rye. –Elton was, the Junior Drones had long since privily decided, rather more than just a driver. We knew he was a retired heavyweight boxer whom Mr L. had once owned. (It sounds like slavery, but one can, evidently, rather like owning a whole football team, only not nearly so expensive and if Mr Lamont could have afforded one of those, he had once assured us, he’d have bought Harrods instead!) Well Elton has the physique one might expect so it’s pretty obvious he’s also a bodyguard, as and when. And yes, the name was a form of homage, so as Mr L.’s Elton is definitely not young one does rather wonder how long the famous one can possibly go on doing that piano pounding and caterwauling.

    “Um, in the meantime, Mel,” said John in rather a strangled voice, as we peered out unavailingly at a greyish view of greyish murk, possibly La Manche being in there somewhere, “take this to tide you over.”

    And he thrust a bundle of banknotes into my hand.

    “What? For Heaven’s sake! I can’t possibly!”

    “Yes, you can. It’ll at least spare me the sleepless nights envisioning you stuck somewhere miles from anywhere—a bleak picture of a deserted railway station comes vividly to mind—in the middle of the night.”

    “I don’t think I could get stranded without any money to get there in the first instance,” I pointed out dubiously.

    “Yes! Dumped by some oaf of a spotty boyfriend!” he said between his teeth. “Just take it, Mel!”

    “Well, um, thanks very much. I’ll pay you back,” I said feebly.

    “Crap. And for God’s sake come to me if you’re ever really stuck. I mean,” he said, gnawing on his lip, “in any sort of trouble at all, Mel. Boyfriend, health, broke—anything.”

    “Or up the duff,” put in Elton hoarsely at this juncture, breathing pickled onion fumes all over us.

    At least one of us had forgotten that the glass wasn’t up between us and him. Colonel Raice went very red, oh, Lor’.

    “Yes; goes without saying, I’d have thought, Elton,” he said shortly.

    “No, it’s best to get these things clear,” I said quickly. “I’ll try not to be that dumb, but yes, I promise, John.”

    “Good,” he said, sagging, if still rather red.

    “Or Mr Lamont’d look after you,” put in Elton happily. “Said just the other day he wished you was his daughter and it was a Helluva pity you didn’t seem to want to take up with young Crumpet.”

    It was my turn to go rather red. “Um, yes. Well he said something like that to me, too, tho I have an awful feeling he’s still hoping… Not the daughter bit, tho,” I added, involuntarily thinking of all that lap-sitting that had gone on.

    “Yeah, well that cow, she said she wasn’t gonna ruin ’er figure for him again, see,” Elton reported.

    “Christ,” muttered the Colonel.

    “I can see it,” I admitted. “I was only about five but I can remember Mum throwing a frying pan at Dad after she’d found out our Tommy was on the way.”

    “Cripes. Full or empty?” Elton enquired clinically.

    “Full. She’d overcooked the omelette anyway and it stuck to it—well, until it hit him,” I noted fairly. “Then it stuck to his hair and sweater.”

    Not altogether surprisingly at this happy addendum they both went into delighted sniggering fits. Good on them.

    Elton then asked the Colonel if he was sure this was the way to this windmill or whatever it was but he wasn’t. So we stopped and Elton attempted to google it. He thought he’d found it but it turned out he hadn’t so we gave up on that one and John decided we ought to look for the Ypres Tower instead.

    So Elton attempted to google it…

    “There is a sort of tower,” he reported. “I think. Only it ain’t it. Um, there’s a sort of castle.”

    A certain amount of throat-clearing then took place and Colonel Raice admitted: “That may be it. Er—Y,P,R,E,S, Elton.”

    “Aw! Ya shoulda said, Colonel! –Wasn’t that in the War or something?” he added hazily. “Lessee… I think we have to… Um, if we turn back and then go right—no, hang on…”

August 2 Not. Continuing: We did eventually make it. Yep, that was a castle, all right. Well, a small one. Greyish. Surrounded by grey murk.

    After a certain amount of staring by all parties John said in my ear: “Okay, ce n’est pas Chenonceau.”

    “Ni Versailles non plus, heureusement!” I admitted.

    Elton sniffed slightly. “Not a patch on Windsor, is it? –You okay, Mel? Not too cold?”

    “No, I’m fine, thanks, Elton, this coat is nice and warm.”

    “Good. Well, if you two wanna take a look inside, go ahead, I’ve got me Racing Post.”

    One of us seemed rather keen, so in we went…

    I was then favoured with a fair amount of intel about Mediaeval warfare, interspersed with obscure-ish bits of English history. Well even I had heard of 1066, but this place didn’t date back that far, so why drag it in, one might well ask.

    Finally I was driven to say: “Is this the sort of thing they teach you at Sandhurst?”

    “Er—well, mention here and there, really!” he said with a laugh. “They were keener on Sun Tzu, on the whole. –No? Ancient Chinese general said to have written the treatise known as The Art of War. When one analyses it,” he added, the corners of his mouth twitching, “it’s very largely basic common sense. Such as, if the enemy force is larger, don’t attack.”

    “You’re kidding!”

    “No. Very sound chap, old Sun Tzu. Stressed precisely the sort of thing that those who vaunt themselves on their advanced military strategy are apt to overlook: get too wound up in their own theories, you see.”

    “I do see, yeah. –How ancient was he?”

    He shrugged. “Scholars are still arguing over that. Possibly as early as 500 B.C., possibly only around 220 B.C. Most of the dating relies on the style of the extant texts and of the type of warfare they describe.”

    “I suppose that figures… You know, it’s amazing the way history is taught in England and France, as if anything pre-William the Conk or Charlemagne barely existed, with a passing ref or two to Caesar and an occasional nod to the Greeks, but way over in China they’d clearly developed a far more sophisticated civilisation far earlier, that never gets a mention.”

    “I’ve often thought that,” he agreed. “Had enough of this relatively new castle? Want to see the gun garden?”

    “Eh?”

    “Er—well, some argument over which bit of what’s left of the grounds was really the original, I think, but anyway, let’s take a look at the cannons set out on the lawn, shall we?” he suggested, grinning.

    Actually when John Raice grins at me like that he could suggest anything at all and I’d blindly totter in his wake. So out we went to the lawn…

    Er, yes. Row of guns—cannons, right—looking hugely neat and tidy, with an excruciatingly neat pyramid of cannon balls set in the middle of the display.

    “Warfare it ain’t,” I said feebly. “It’s as horribly neat and well-mown and unreal as that lawn at the Tower of London.”

    “So you’ve been there?”

    “Yes: Trisha took us one day when Mum had dumped us on her. Those ravens look jolly fierce, don’t they?”

    He laughed. “Mm, big beaks!”

    “Yes. Bean Minor was only about five… He was scared of them, bless him.”

    I heard him swallow. “Yes. Well they’re coming up to town this evening on the train—don’t worry, I sent Michael the dough for the tickets—and we’ll go and see whatever Tommy likes.”

    “Ugh! It’ll be the London Eye!” I gasped.

    “Perfectly sa— Oh. Your height thing, right? Damn. So—send the two of them up in it while we sit in the nearest café discussing cake, coffee and life in general?”

    “Um, well I could wait by myself if you’d rather go up in it.”

    “I’ve tried it. To tell you the truth a panoramic view of London through a sealed, fully air-conditioned capsule wasn’t as exciting as hoped. I’d much rather have coffee and cake with you, Mel!” he grinned.

    Ooh, would you? Jolly good!

    “Okay, great. Um, his other passion at the moment seems to be Madame Tussaud’s, I’m afraid.”

    “Damn. I was hoping for something relatively healthy, like the zoo! Okay, frightful waxworks it shall be.” With which he took my elbow and steered me back to the car. A short distance which I could perfectly well have traversed without aid, the more so as he was the one with the stick, not me, but funnily enough I didn’t resist.

    And then it was ho! for…

    No it wasn’t.

    Oops. It sort of looked to me as if we’d come round in a circle. Not that anything looked particularly distinctive in the prevailing grey murk but, er… That sort of arch thing sort of looked… Old grey stone…

    Colonel Raice was having a coughing fit. I gave him a glare.

    “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, stopping.

    “We haven’t come round in a circle, have we?” I said, still glaring.

    “Er—no. More—er—described a semicircle.”

    “That old grey stone looks strangely familiar to me,” I warned.

    “Y— No. I mean, it is old, yes. It’s the old Landgate. One of the original entrances to the old town.”

    “Oh. –Ah, j’y suis! Comme la Porte Saint-Denis!”

    “That’s right,” he agreed. “—Elton, old chap, we must have taken a wrong turning. We’re, uh, too far inland. We need to turn round and head, er, more or less southwest into the town,” he ended feebly.

    “Shit. Well, I can’t figure the bloody place out! It’s you that wants to see this ruddy house what’s got two names, Colonel, you navigate us there! –And before anyone mentions them speaking GPS discs, Mr Lamont won’t have them in the car, they drive ’im mad, goddit?” he added evilly.

    “Yes,” we admitted.

    “Right. Well I’ll turn ’er, when I can find a bit that’s wide enough, but then it’s up to you.” He handed the Colonel his smart phone.

August 5 Not. Continuing: It’s best to draw a veil over the subsequent proceedings. Much later that day John was to admit privily to me that he didn’t think Elton could read. I wouldn’t have gone that far but I was pretty sure he couldn’t tell his left from his right.

    However, we did find Lamb House aka Mallards, thanks to repeated directions to the effect of: “Other right, Elton,” and: “No, that’s not (insert name of road), Elton: try the next”; etcetera.

    And Elton sat back with a sigh of relief with his Racing Post while we went in.

    … “Well?” said my Colonel as we ended up back at the car.

    “Well it’s a lovely National Trust House, but it doesn’t shout ‘Lucia’ at me.”

    “Nor me,” he admitted. “That ‘King’s Room’ is a bit of a pain, isn’t it?”

    “Absolutely! Especially that frightful new-looking four-poster with the plastic protectors on its posts! I mean, when she was in Riseholme Lucia went in for real Elizabethan stuff, didn’t she?”

    “I’ve always felt it was probably Elizabethan-style Victoriana, but yes, near as she could. –The garden’s not at its best at this time of year but the cherry tree’s not bad, eh?”

    “It’s lovely. You can see why Miss Mapp got all that fruit and veg out of the garden, it’s wonderfully sheltered, isn’t it? –And you can see the church tower, tho I got the impression from the books that it was closer than that. And the lawn’s plenty big enough for Lucia to do her exercises!” I ended with a laugh.

    “Good Lord, yes! I’d forgotten that bit! Mapp goes up the church tower to spy on her, doesn’t she?”

    “Oh, yes… But something intervenes to spoil her triumph, doesn’t it?” I groped. “I’ve forgotten what. Blow. Which book is that in?”

    “Um… Can’t remember. Can’t recall how Lucia got out of it, either. Damn!”

    We looked at each other and laughed.

    “I’ll have to re-read them all,” I decided as he politely opened the car door for me.

    “Me, too!” he grinned.

    And we settled into the Rolls in a state of perfect understanding.

    Ten minutes after that Elton was hopelessly lost again, but John solved that one by telling him just to take any road that went downhill. Well, sloped, Elton. We’d eventually get down more or less to sea level.

    Which we did.

    “Blimey, the dump’s even worse down ’ere,” was Elton’s conclusion.

    One couldn’t blame him, really.

    “Er—yes. Well drive eastwards, old chap—no, other way.”—Was it my imagination or was poor John starting to sound slightly desperate?—“There’s something else I want to show Mel.”

    “What, miles of nothink?” Elton retorted with feeling. “Okay, it’s your funeral.”

    And off we went…

    This sortie resulted in nothing but a flattened: “Damn. I was sure it was along here that I found the place that must have been the one that Lucia had when she and Mapp were swept out to sea in the great flood…”

    “Yeah? Well it ain’t ’ere now, Colonel!”

    “Never mind, Elton,” I said quickly. “Maybe if we head up to higher land we can get the big picture.”

    There was a disillusioned mutter of “What higher land?” but the poor man headed the car in more or less the right direction, avoiding anything that looked like an Ypres Tower or a Landgate, and eventually we were able to get the big picture…

    “No wonder they were flooded out,” I concluded.

    Feebly John offered: “I suppose that in Mediaeval times a lot of this wasn’t so silted up…”

    Maybe not, but Mapp and Lucia didn’t live in Mediaeval times, did they?

    Yes, well. I have to admit it, Elton’s “My Gawd” pretty much summed it up.

    And so we bade farewell to Rye, the picturesque Tilling of the Sussex coast…

    Unfortunately we’d spent so much time getting lost in the dashed place that John and Elton agreed that we’d better not stop for tea if we wanted to get to London in time to meet the boys’ train. Bother.

    … “Hullo!” I said in astonishment as they piled off. Three of them. “What are you doing here, Flossie?”

    “Lovely to see you, too, darling,” he replied drily.

    “Hah, hah. Well?”

    “Must you always interrogate one? Going to stay with Uncle Flossie for the break, of course.”

    “Does he know that, Flossie?” asked John.

    “He does as of twenty minutes back,” he admitted.

    “Dare say it might give him time to get rid of whatever it was that left those purple knickers down the crack of the sofa last time you were there,” noted the Bean.

    “Really! Is that any way to talk in front of this innocent child?” I gasped, clasping my hands over the innocent one’s ears.

    He pulled away, very red. “Don’t do that! You are the limit, Mel!”

    “It’s the lady hormones,” said our host smoothly. “They start to strike round about that age.”

    “Ugh!” cried the brilliant Bean, recoiling in horror.

    “Very funny. At least I care,” I sighed.

    “One never said you didn’t, old chap,” drawled Flossie. “I say, would it be frightfully inconvenient if I asked for a lift to Uncle Flossie’s lair?”

    “I think that question might have been addressed to you, John,” I noted.

    “Well, more or less,” said Flossie, looking hard at the walking stick. “Another tumble, was it, sir?”

    “No, it’s his tin knee playing up, and drop it, will you?” I sighed.

    “I’m not driving, Flossie, to answer your unspoken question,” John informed him drily.

    “Er… if Sister Bean is, I withdraw my request,” he said in a very faint voice.

    “She’s not that bad,” the Bean noted tolerantly.

    Flossie shuddered. “She’s a speed demon, you mean.”

    “In what?” asked John on a weak note.

    “Anything!” they all three replied with feeling.

    “Le Peugeot de l’Oncle Patrice,” offered Bean Minor helpfully.

    “Or Crumpet’s heap,” added Flossie drily.

    “It’s not really a heap. It’s an oldish sports car that the Crumpet’s deluded dad gave him for Christmas,” I explained.

    Bean sighed. “It’s a Porsche 986, sir. 2004 model.”

    “Mm. Crumpy drives it sedately at about 30 m.p.h., bless his conventional little heart,” Flossie explained. “Sister Bean doesn’t.”

    “I’m a perfectly safe driver,” I pointed out coldly. “And I don’t speed in built-up areas.”

    John gave me a dry look and informed the chaps kindly that l wasn’t driving today, and since Clive Lamont’s Elton was driving we’d better get out there and start looking for him, and no, Michael, old chap, he hadn’t attempted to park the Roller, he was going round and round in ever-decreasing circles and as he apparently had no bump of location—

    They were already heading for the exit.

    “So do we take Flossie or not, John?” I groped.

    “I suppose so,” he sighed. “Er—has he said anything to you about his choice of career?”

    I winced. I’d been hoping for some time that that topic would not be raised. “He’s been struggling a bit with the Arabic, tho I think he enjoys it… Um, actually I think you’ve lost him, John. I don’t think your sort of stuff suits people with the gift of the gab. He’s decided he wants to be a barrister.”

    “Mm. It should suit him down to the ground. Well you win some, you lose some.”

    “Yes.” He was starting to look a bit bluish around the mouth, not a good sign, so I said: “How’s the leg holding up?”

    Colonel Raice was observed to open and shut his mouth. Then he made a face and admitted: “Well since it’s you, Mel, the bloody thing’s started nagging me. I’d better take some pills before dinner. Which means no alcohol.”

    “Never mind, I don’t think my siblings will want anything fancier than fish and chips. –That is their idea of a London treat,” I explained, as we made our way slowly out of the station. “Tho I’m not up for trying to explain to Elton how to get to the nearest chippy to Mum’s dump.”

    “Heaven forbid!” he said with a laugh. “Not to worry: he’s bound to know a good one!”

    Which he did. So having firmly dropped off Flossie at Uncle Flossie’s appropriately up-market residence (tho as his flat’s only on two floors of the house in Q. the shiny black front door is probably only a coincidence, not a symptom of a longing to occupy Number 10), we headed for John’s flat for him to take his pills and to drop off the luggage and force Bean Minor to go to the lavatory and wash whatever that was off his face.

    And thence to Elton’s chippy. I rather think the car knew its way blindfold, there was certainly no recurrence of the Rye stuff.

    I can now reliably report, never mind what rubbish one might see on the idiot-box, that that is the very best fish and chips shop in London. Both chips and fish first-class. Washed down with Coke (Elton and my siblings) and glasses of water (John and me).

    It was definitely the best meal of the London part of the Easter break.

    Just as well, because the rest of it consisted of the tourist delights likely to appeal to the twelve-year-old mind. Bean not dissenting: his tastes hadn’t matured, tho his jeans were now definitely a couples of inches too short for him.

    … And yep, we sent the two of them up in the L. Eye while we sat in the nearest café discussing cake, coffee and life in general. A welcome break and a half!

August 11 Not. Continuing: I don’t know exactly what happened the day John took off for Oxford, but given the results, it was pretty clear. Before he went he pressed largesse into the Bean’s hand, instructing him grimly to take charge, not to let either of us out of his sight, and—in so many words, how blush-making—if Mel needed to go to the Ladies’, to station himself where he could see the door and WAIT. (On pain of death, kind of thing. The poor old Bean was completely cowed and little Bean Minor’s jaw sagged and his eyes got very round indeed.) And he was to take us to the Natural History Museum (the miniature legume’s choice, natch) and then lunch and the designated cinema and then a taxi back to the flat: got it? A chastened Bean agreed he’d got it and, rallying only very slightly, added: “You can rely on me, sir!”

    And a boring day was had by—well, me. In spite of a certain lordliness hovering over the older legume’s physiog., they both appeared to enjoy the putrid N.H.M. thoroughly. Sir David A. has a lot to answer for, in my opinion. The film was even worse but as they’d both voted for it I’d expected no less. Unfortunately it was far too loud to go to sleep in. Bother.

    Dinner that evening consisted of a pizza delivery—their choice. John and I opted for bread and cheese. Plus a beer, why not? Bean was also awarded a beer and Bean Minor was allowed a Coke tho what his caffeine level must have been like by that time I shudder to think. Then they settled down to watch something violent on the idiot-box and John decided to put his feet up.

    I’d expected him to vanish into his very small study but instead he went into his bedroom and stretched out on the bed with a sigh. I followed him anyway.

    “How did it go?”

    Not pretending to misunderstand me, he said: “On the dressing-table.”

    Um… “This?” I asked, holding up an envelope.

    “Uh-huh. Open it.”

    Crumbs. Inside it there were three hefty cheques signed by Dad!

    “What did you do, hold a gun to his head?” I croaked.

    “No. I felt like it, tho. I gave him a damn’ good piece of my mind. Those are for the three of you to open bank accounts.” He yawned suddenly. “Sorry. Uh—take you to my bank tomorrow, okay?”

    “Yes, great. Thanks very much, John. Um, you didn’t get him to cough up regular pocket money for poor little Tommy, did you?”

    “I—” He met my eye and made a face. “No. Wanted to; didn’t think he’d keep his word. Type to look all vague and claim he forgot, isn’t he? I’ll send him something myself, Mel, don’t worry.”

    It was at that point that I completely lost it and burst into tears.

    “Oh, Lor’! Don’t cry, Mel darling!’

    “Sor-ry!” I sobbed. “Thank—you-hoo!” Words to that effect.

    He got up and gave me his handkerchief. “Come on,” he said, patting my back. “No need to bawl.”

    “You—don’t—owe—us—anything!” I sobbed, more or less.

    “No, well, known you all forever. Should have bloody well done something long since. I suppose I assumed that since you were being sent to school… No, sorry: that’s the excuse I’ve been giving myself. It’s the bloody English syndrome, isn’t it?”

    “What?” I said soggily.

    He made an awful face. “Head well down, don’t rock the boat. –Anyway, you’ll be all right now, whether you want to go on to university here or in France.”

    I blew my nose hard. “France.”

    He made a face and muttered: “Probably just as well.”

    I didn’t ask what that meant. I just said: “We’ll always be grateful, John.”

    “Balls.” He lay down again and sighed. “Just hand me a couple of pills, would you? In the drawer. –Thanks. Those bloody stairs up to your father’s eyrie are a killer. It’s not the going up, it’s the jolting coming down.”

    “Should you, on top of beer?”

    “Er—if you’d consulted the bottle you’d have seen it was only light beer.”

    “Underhand,” I approved, pouring some water from his bedside flask into his glass.

    “Thanks. Here’s to a successful bac, Mel.” He raised the glass and knocked back the pills.

    “Fingers crossed. Um, shall I tell the boys?”

    “Mm? Oh. By all means. Just don’t lay it on too thick, there’s a good girl.”

    “No, right.”

    Embarrassment all round, as can be imagined, but they manned up and thanked him, only to be told to think nothing of it, it wasn’t his dough, and to get out of it and let an old man get his beauty sleep.

    “Um, Mel, do you think we ought to thank Dad?” ventured the Bean after some time of mindless telly watching, make that mindless watching of mindless telly.

    “No.”

    He thought it over. “You’re right. Abso-bally-lutely not. Sod the B., in fact.”

    “Hear, hear.”

    “Hear, hear! Rhubarb, rhubarb! Rhubarb and custard!” shrilled Bean Minor.

    “Too much caffeine,” I diagnosed. “He’s off the Coke entirely tomorrow, Bean.”

    “Oh, Lor’, is that what— Right!”

    “I say!”

    “Definitely,” we chorused.

    Bean Minor subsided, only to resurface and say: “I say, the Colonel’s frightfully decent, isn’t he?”

    “No-one would argue with that, old chap,” the Bean agreed kindly.

    He apparently mulled it over, as he then came out with. “I wish he was part of our family… It’s an awful pity he’s so old. ’Cos otherwise, you could marry him, Mel, and then he’d be my brother-in-law!”

    What? Out of the mouths of babes and— No, really!

    “I’m going to bed.” I exited in a dignified manner.

    It didn’t help that behind me I heard the Bean say tolerantly: “You put the hind hoof right down the oesophagus there, old chum. She’s got a whacking great crush on the chap. Has had for years. Dare say it’ll wear off, tho.”

    Oh, will it, just? We’ll see!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriends-anovel.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-last-of-marbledown-and-merrifield.html