Voices in a Haunted Room

I was seated next to him. Millicent was opposite next to David. Lady Pettigrew at one end of the table surveyed us all as a general might his officers while she also kept her eyes on other ranks serving from the kitchens. I noticed Lord Pettigrew, from the other end of the table, watching her with a mixture of exasperation and tenderness. I thought: He is very different from Jonathan; and it occurred to me that if Millicent became more and more like her mother as the years passed, Jonathan’s marriage might be a stormy affair.

There was a buzz of conversation as neighbours whispered together, but Lady Pettigrew was the sort of woman who could not bear her command to slip even for a moment and she liked to know everything that was being discussed, and such was her forceful personality, that the conversation soon became general.

It was not long before the subject of the war in Europe cropped up and in particular the successes which Napoleon Bonaparte was achieving all over Europe.

I noticed that Harry Farringdon, who was seated next to Fiona Browning, appeared to be rather taken with her, and I felt a little qualm of uneasiness as I remembered Evie Mather.

I had not seen Evie for some time. She had been at Aunt Sophie’s once or twice with her sister, and I wondered now about her. Mrs. Trent had been so anxious that something should come of her friendship with Harry Farringdon, and Mrs. Trent was, in her way, as forceful a woman as Lady Pettigrew, and the manner in which Harry was paying attention to Fiona Browning indicated that Evie’s might be a lost cause.

“The Reverend Pollick is determined that there shall be no hitch,” Lady Pettigrew was booming from the head of the table. “He is a man who takes his duties very seriously and for that we applaud him, do we not, Henry?” Lord Pettigrew murmured agreement.

“He insists on a rehearsal. So tomorrow it is going to take place. It won’t be necessary for everyone to attend ... only the principals of course. But if any of you would like to step into the church, I think you might find it interesting.”

Everyone at the table declared they would not miss it for anything.

“Such a fussy little man, the Reverend gentleman. Mind you, he always remembers that he owes his living to us, and I suppose, understandably, he’ll look upon this wedding as his personal triumph.”

There was talk then about previous weddings and Lady Pettigrew went on: “Your turn next, Harry.” At which everyone all lifted their glass to Harry Farringdon and I noticed that Fiona Browning had turned quite pink.

We left the men with their port while Lady Pettigrew led her battalion to the drawing room, where she held forth on the blessings of marriage, and how happy she was to see Millicent joined in matrimony to a man of her parents’ choice.

“They have been lovers from childhood,” she said indulgently. “Isn’t that so, Millicent?”

“We have known each other since we were children.”

“That’s what I’m saying. And this, of course, has been in our minds since they were tots.”

I asked Fiona where she lived and I wondered why I had not met her before. “We have only been in the south of England for two years,” she told me. “We come from the north.”

“That is why we have never met.”

“My father has estates in Yorkshire and he now has an interest in breeding sheep in Kent. He has bought a place on the Essex borders. He always went to London a good deal, but it was a long journey. It is so much easier for him to get up there now.”

“You like it here?”

“Oh yes.”

Gwen Farringdon leaned forward. “We have taken them under our wing,” she said with a smile. “We have become great friends.”

So, I thought, the Farringdons approve of Fiona as a future daughterin-law. Another nail in the coffin of Evie’s aspirations.

Millicent said that she and Jonathan were going to London immediately after the wedding.

They planned to spend the honeymoon near Maidenhead. “The Grenfells ... You know Sir Michael and Lady Grenfell ... they have offered us their place for the honeymoon, but Jonathan wants to be in London. Of course, I should have liked to go abroad.

We’ve talked of Italy ... Venice ...”

I felt myself go cold and heard myself say: “Floating down the canals while a gondolier sings Italian love songs.”

Millicent gave her rather shrill laugh.

“That’s exactly it,” she said.

“Never mind,” said Lady Pettigrew. “We’ll soon defeat those wretched foreigners.”“It looks as though the French are being successful all over Europe as they were saying earlier,” I said.

“Oh, it is this miserable Bonaparte or whatever his name is. What they should do is get him. That would soon stop them. It’s absurd ... Those wretched revolutionaries allowed to overrun Europe. I can’t think what they are doing.”

I said, not without irony: “They should make you generatissima, Lady Pettigrew.”

Everyone applauded and Lady Pettigrew seemed modestly to agree that it would be an excellent idea.