An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) (4 page)

M
aggie had been feeling quite comfortable since the arrival of Mrs Berkeley at her side, the more so as the object which generally made her feel most uncomfortable
,
albeit in an oddly exciting and desirable
sort of a
way
,
had not yet appeared in the drawing room. However,
just as her conversation with Mrs Berkeley
lapsed into companionable silence for a moment
, the
perpetrator of this
discomfort
suddenly appeared in the doorway and immediately made her blush. The blush intensified most annoyingly as she watched him st
ride
into the room and look around it. His eyes found her
s
in a moment and she was rewarded by a very slight smile as he headed towards the coffee
and helped himself to his cup
.

‘Mr William
Wright
bears a strong resemblance to his brother, do you not think, Miss Owens?’ suggested Mrs Berkeley, following his progress across the room in much t
he same way as Maggie had done
albeit, most probably, with
sensations which were
very different from her
own
. ‘Their hair is of quite the same hue, I should say, and their mannerisms – the way
in which
they present themselves – I should have known that they were brothers even had they not been introduced to me as such.’

Maggie looked across at
Captain Wright
. She could see the point about the mannerisms. Both
he and William
were bluff, hearty individuals with easy manners and a ready laugh
, with a tendency to crinkle their eyes
immediately before they spoke
.
Both looked smart and elegant in their evening attire – Mr William in a black tailcoat and black Florentine breeches,
Captain Wright
in a dark blue cutaway
coat
with
light
cream breeches
and waistcoat
.
And despite
Captain Wright
being more than eight years William’s junior she felt that they looked very much of an age. Of course,
Captain Wright
had already spent many years at sea. The hard life
of a sailor
, the responsibility, exposure to the weather – all these things had taken their toll and whilst still a relatively young man, and not at all bad looking, Maggie could not help but consider that, overall, Mr William was much the more attractive of the two.

‘Yes,’ she said, her comparisons over. ‘
There is certainly a similarity between them. It is the same with your husband and his sister
, if I may say so, ma’am
. I consider them to look very much alike. And yet Will and Augusta are quite different from their brother Perry, and Amelia is different again. The twins, I think, take after their mother and Perry ta
kes after his papa. I am not yet
sure about little Georgia. It is
perhaps
too early to say whom she most closely favours
– she is only fifteen months old after all
. It is strange how some children take after one or other of their parents and yet others bear no resemblance to
either of
them at all.’

‘Our three are all quite different, too. Kate, I think, has something of my look about her while
Andy
most certainly favours his papa – blond and sturdy
and full of fun
.
He is an absolute joy.
And then there is
Rob
. L
ittle
Rob
is perhaps more of a mixture. He is quite a serious child,
quite staid,
very
set in his ways
, though with a lively older sister and
little
brother he is
definitely
having to learn how to look to himself!
I suppose it
’
s all to the good. Being a younger son
Andy
will need to find himself a profession
at some stage,
and a confident child
like him
will
at least
have the advantage of being happy to fi
nd himself a sponsor if ever he needs to do so
. It is the same with
Philip
-
a young relative of Mr Berkeley, for whom we have taken some responsibility since th
e
death of his mama
a couple of years ago
. He is a mischievous, outgoing young
man who has recently found himself a position as midshipman on a magnificent man of war. I quite admire him his enterprise. He deserves
his
little
success.
’

Maggie realised that she had only been half listening to what Mrs Berkeley was telling her
about the children
. She had resumed her perusal of
Mr Wright
as he acquired his coffee and decided where to sit. He had finally selected a seat next to his brother’s wife, from where he could quite easily survey the whole of the rest of the room and, in particular, allow his gaze
to fall upon her – Maggie – almost as often as she might wish.
His gaze was upon her now. Most annoyingly, she could feel another blush
prog
ress
ing
unmerciful
ly
across her face. The instigator of the blush was probably too far distant to notice it although she was acutely aware that Mrs Berkeley was not.

It was fortunate, therefore, that the lady who was then approaching them from the extremely well padded
Sheraton
sofa that she had just that moment vacated was totally unaware of the reason for Maggie’s blush
. A
s
it was,
Mr Wright
’s good lady
was
already
annoyed enough that Maggie
appeared to be retaining Mrs Berkeley’s
kind
attentions entirely to herself rather than merely sitting in a corner of the room, observing, as would more normally have been expected of a young lady in her subordinate position
in the household
. She shot her a barbed glance. At least the wretched girl had the decency to blush under Mrs Berkeley’s attention
. Ignoring Maggie altogether
as being totall
y unworthy of any further considerat
ion
, she
adopted
a gracious
if somewhat insincere little
smile
which she instantly directed towards
her chief lady guest instead.

‘My
dear
Mrs Berkeley,’ she enunciated
carefully, with plenty of stress on the ‘dear’. ‘My
dear
Mrs Berkeley. Whatever has possessed you to hide yourself away so far from the rest of us at this end of the room? Please, do me the honour of joining
me
over
here
instead. I should particularly value your opinion on a new outfit for
darling
little Augusta that I have just seen illustrated in th
is month’s ‘Ackerman’s’
magazine
.
It is quite delightful, I can assure you – very short and with the
dainti
est little rosebuds embroidered along the hem.
I was wondering whether you would consider it quite
suitable
for a
sweet
little girl of six.’

Maggie could see that Mrs Berkeley would much rather retain the seat she had already selected for herself but that, equally, having been on the receiving end of so particular a request, she
had no more choice in
t
he
matte
r
than
did
Maggie
herself. So with no more than a quiet ‘Perhaps you will excuse me, then, Miss Owens?’ Mrs Berkeley submitted to the inevitable with a good deal of grace, relinquished her seat in favour of a standing position next to Mrs William at the
mahogany drafting
table
by the wall
(recently acquired at great expense from
Gillows’ of London’s
finest range
)
, and concentrated her attention on the illustrated magazine that was
thrust
unceremoniously
under her
slender
nose instead.

Finding herself in solitude once again Maggie was well placed to watch the interactions that were then taking place at the other end of the drawing room. Mr Berkeley was still talking primarily with his brother
-
in
-
law, whom she understood
had recently succeeded in gaining his promotion to Commander
and was now
at home awaiting
his first
ship
.
William had moved across to join them.
Old
Mrs Sta
veley was sitting with Mrs John,
whom she had just
now
employed in holding a skein of wool between her hands in order that she could wind it more readily into a ball. Mrs Staveley was dressed, as
she always was
, in a neat
jet
black silk gown an
d a neat
, snow white lace cap. It seem
ed that s
he was having some
difficulty
in
retaining her hold on the ball – she did suffer from arthritis, after all
-
and just as Maggie was watching her she ma
naged to drop it
from her fingers
and see it
swiftly
unravel
itself as it made its bid for freedom
under the chair
that Maggie herself was sitting on.

‘Would you like me to do some winding for you, Mrs Staveley?’ she asked, retrieving the offending wool
deftly
from beneath her skirt.

Mrs Staveley turned her bright eyes upon her
for
a second, and nodded. Maggie rose and went to kneel on the floor
in front of
Mrs John, who still held the skein in her hands.

‘Such a mistake to have made
, you know, Miss Owens,’
whispered the old lady, bending towards her from the comfort of her chair next to them. ‘
I had thought it a good idea. It suited us all
at the time
, you know. But now I can see that it was not a good idea. I rue the day, Miss Owens, I really do rue the day
.’

Maggie, de
ciding
that this was a somewhat singular
remark to make
about a simple decision to
wind some wool
at a family party, thought
that it might be politic to
ignore what Mrs Staveley had
just whispered to her
. S
o she pretended that she hadn
’
t heard her, cast a
vague but
reassuring smile in her direction, and set to work on the winding with a good deal of vigour. And, indeed,
she found that
it was not at all difficult to ignore the old lady, for
no sooner had
she positioned herself on the floor in front of Mrs John
than
she became instantly aware that
Mr Wright
had
removed himself once again
from his selected situation
, traversed the whole length of the drawing room, sought a low stool from the music room behind her, and was personally arranging it so that she could continue her labours in more comfort. Catching his eye for just a second she smiled her thanks
, perched herself upon it, and basked for the rest of the e
vening in the approbation that
his li
ttle act of kindness appeared, t
o her
,
to d
emonstrate
.

It was about a week after the party
that
Maggie
found herself
sitting
on
the
beach with Will and Augusta
, parasol raised
defiantly
against the patchy sunshine
.
She would much rather not have been sitting there on the beach, and in particular would much rather not have been sitting there on the beach with the terrible twins, who required watching every moment of the day in case a new opportunity for terrorism should
happen their way
and tempt them into further misdemeanour.
Despite this vigilance
, however,
she had not immediately spotted that
Will
was currently in the process of
destroy
ing
another child’s
sand
castle and hit
ting
him
on the head
with his sp
ade
whilst his sister
Augusta was taking the opportunity provided by this distraction to
steal the
unfortunate
victim
’s
liquorice
from his pocket
.
His handiwork destroyed, his head battered and his liquorice stolen, what cou
ld the poor child do but to run bawling and screaming
to his mama
,
who had somewhat rashly allowed her own concentration to lapse for a moment in the face of a most engaging conversation with an acquaintance of hers on
the steps
which led up
from the sand
y beach and on
to the roadway
above
it
.