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“A mere refusal to face her duty to herself, which is to make a career. Miss Gillon, Charles, very sensibly decided on a profession instead of resigning herself to becoming a namby-pamby old maid in the country. She has a gift for vulgar drawing and is employed by advertising agencies.”
“You mean a vulgar gift for drawing, Georgi.”
“I mean just what I say, Peregrine. I consider some of her drawings extremely vulgar and not at all fu
I was faintly suspicious. My aunt had never said a word about the vicar’s daughter, or perhaps she had passed so lightly over the name that I assumed it belonged to some loyal parishioner. I had been somewhat too occupied to remember the admiral’s staunch feeling for the proprieties. Since he wouldn’t put Georgina up himself because of the absence of any female relative, it stood to reason that the vicar — whom I knew to be a widower — must have the essential woman in residence.
The admiral’s vicar came in from the garden, bringing with him a lot of mud and some vague and hearty apologies. I liked him at once. He had merry eyes and an air of almost Bohemian preoccupation. I mean that his disregard for the things of this world was casual rather than saintly.
He was full of praise of my aunt, who, he said, was an excellent influence on all of them — all of them. Nur Jehan appeared to resent being included or, more probably, felt that the vicar’s pat on entering the kitchen had been insufficient. He gently nipped his owner’s shoulder.
“Pure Persian Arab,” Matthew Gillon explained to me proudly. “A parishioner of mine brought him home from Kerman where he had been vice-consul. Nur Jehan comes from the Kerman desert, and as a foal he was brought up in the family tent, which I believe is very usual. So when my friend settled here he had not the heart to keep him out of the house. I do not think he wished to. Both his boys had been killed in the war, and the stallion, I’m afraid, was all he had left to love. A lonely man. After only a year in our midst he passed away, leaving me this superb young three-year-old. So I did not like to change Nur Jehan’s habits too suddenly. Poor fellow, he deeply felt the loss of his father —his owner, I mean.”
“He is completely untrained,” Georgina said severely.
“He gets out of the glebe meadow and terrifies the village children, let alone passing motorists.”
“I’m getting on with the fences as fast as I possibly can singlehanded, Mrs. De
“Georgi, don’t tell me you’re encouraging him in this folly!” the admiral accused her. “And when you know very well that this wretched stallion …”
“I don’t agree at all,” Aunt Georgina interrupted. “Nur Jehan is merely a late developer whose interest has not yet been correctly aroused. As a lifelong bachelor you should sympathize.”
“But, dammit, I…”
“Valparaiso does not count, Peregrine.”
“Hell!” said the admiral, turning a deeper shade of tortoise.
“And if Mr. Gillon will only feed himself properly as well as Nur Jehan,” Georgina went on unruffled, “I see no reason why they should not be a great credit to the village. Nur Jehan is a more dignified investment than tomatoes under glass.”
“What sort of mount is he?” I asked, for everyone seemed to be hypnotized into treating the Arab as if he were a prize buck rabbit.
“Being ridden,” Georgina explained, “is one of the many duties, Charles, which Nur Jehan does not greatly enjoy. And he refuses to be ridden by a woman at all.”
I thought that most improbable — the sort of romantic nonsense which appeals to the unscientific. But who was
I to argue with Aunt Georgina on a matter of horses? I had been a horseman at the age of seventeen. The Hungarian branch of the family had seen to that. Since then I had merely used horses whenever they were available and the most convenient method of transport.
“His former owner found no difficulty,” said the vicar mildly, “nor have I.”
“Because you let him go where he likes at the pace he wants to,” Georgina answered.
I could see that nothing, not even living on porridge — if that were true —was going to separate Matthew Gillon from Nur Jehan. He not only adored the stallion, but had a reasonable and i
“And eventually, Peregrine,” Georgina went on, “the vicar will have to employ a groom. Benita ca
“There’s profit in that, too,” I said, remembering Jim Melton and the ‘earse.
Cunobel glared at me; but before he had time to point out that, dammit, it wouldn’t pay for the straw, Benita Gillon joined us in the kitchen. I had been prepared for my own idea of a female commercial artist and I expected, I think, that she would either muck out the stable in garments altogether too colorful for the job, or else would consider that the rescue of a father justified a deal of u
We had barely time for a few words before Aunt Georgina called the admiral and myself to attention and dismissed us. She had intended, I suspect, to parade Benita a couple of hours later when all three of them were coming over to dine, and she was not pleased at the girl’s arrival direct from the stable. She was quite wrong there. Benita grew deliciously out of her heavy Wellington boots like a graceful young tree from a pot.
The comfort of the admiral and his guests was assured by Frank — naturally a naval production too. He was cook, butler, valet and intelligence staff. Women were permitted aboard for laundry and floor-scrubbing, for the making of pies, jams, pickles and larder-stocking in general, which Frank insisted was their work. What he really wanted from them was more intimate village gossip than could be obtained in the pub.
When we came back I saw Frank whispering confidentially to his employer.
“Of course he hasn’t, boy!” Cunobel shouted — it was his habit to address anyone under sixty as “boy” — “What would he have a di
“Badgers,” I corrected him, not being sure whether he knew that the Hernsholt country was a most improbable haunt of the red squirrel.
“Badgers or rats,” he said oddly, “all one! He’s an old fool, that boy! When we’re alone I have to dress for di
Benita draws for the sherry people. And lousy sherry it is! Pah! Knows very well I don’t dress when there are guests! Thinks I can’t move with the times!”
The di
“Benita, my dear, Mr. De
Her glance at me was delightful. It suggested, while preserving a proper demureness, that we were two professionals and must be patient with the unseemly interruptions of amateurs.
“This is what happens …” she said.
She borrowed a pencil from the admiral and an envelope from me. With a dozen swift strokes she caught the feathering of the hair and the angle of tail to body. I agreed at once that she was right and that I had very badly described what I had seen.