The Ladies of Grace Adieu: And Other Stories by Susanna Clarke Page A

you that she will not have you creeping around and around her house!"
    "Ha!" cried Venetia, so loudly that Fanny started.
    "Mrs Mabb's relations and dependants," continued Mr Grout with a severe look at Venetia's exulting expression, "have all been frightened out of their wits by your odd behaviour. You have given her aged uncles bad dreams, made the children afraid to go asleep at night and caused the maids to drop the china upon the floor. Mrs Mabb says that there is not one complete dinner service left in the house! She says that the butter will not come in the churns because you have given her cows malicious looks - Miss Moore, will you stop tormenting this lady?"
    "Let her give up Captain Fox to me," said Venetia, "and she shall never hear of me again."
    "Oh, Venetia!" cried Fanny.
    "But young lady!" cried Mr Grout. "It is Mrs Mabb that the Captain loves. As I think I have explained to you before, Mrs Mabb is as fair as the apple-blossom that hangs upon the bough. One glance of Mrs Mabb's eyes . . ."
    "Yes, yes! I know!" cried Venetia impatiently. "You told me all that before! But it is just so much nonsense! It is me the Captain loves. Had it been otherwise he would have told me so himself- or at least sent me a letter - but I have neither seen nor heard any thing of him since I returned from Manchester. Oh! Do not tell me that Mrs Mabb forbade him to come or some such other foolishness - Captain Fox is not the man to be dissuaded from doing his duty by any body. No, depend upon it, this is another trick of Mrs Mabb's."
    "Young lady!" cried Mr Grout, very much appalled. "It ill becomes a young person of no consequence, such as yourself, to go about slandering great people in all the dignity of their property!"
    "Mr Grout!" cried Fanny, unable to keep silent a moment longer. "Do not speak to her so! LTse milder language to her, sir, I beg you! Can you not see that she is ill? I am, of course, extremely sorry that Mrs Mabb should have been put to any inconvenience by Venetia's going to the house - though I must say you make a great piece of work of it — and merely remark, in justice to Venetia, that all these cows and uncles must be extraordinarily nervous creatures to have been put in such a pickle by a poor, sick girl looking at them! But I tell you what I shall do. To keep her from wandering abroad and causing further nuisance to our neighbours I shall hide the green slippers the Purvises gave her - which are the only shoes she has - where she cannot find them and then, you know," Fanny concluded triumphantly, "she must remain at home!"
    Mr Grout looked at Venetia as though hopeful that she would admit defeat.
    But Venetia only said sweetly, "You have my answer, sir, and I advise you to go and deliver it. I dare say Mrs Mabb does not tolerate procrastination."
    For the next two days Venetia waited for an opportunity to go in search of Mrs Mabb but in all this time Fanny neither left her alone nor answered any of her inquiries about Mrs Mabb. But on the third day Fanny was called away after dinner to take some elderflower tea and peppermint cordial and other remedies to John Harker's maid who had a bad cold. As Fanny went up Church-lane to Harker's farm it seemed probable that among the things her basket contained were the green silk dancing slippers, for when Venetia came to look for them she could not find them anywhere.
    So she wrapped her feet up in rags and went anyway.
    In a golden light, by what the inhabitants of Kissingland were pleased to call a river and which other, less partial people would probably have called a stream, in a fresh green meadow, beneath blossoming May-trees, some children were playing. One boy with a tin whistle was the Duke of Wellington, another boy with a drum was the entire British army and four little girls in grass-stained gowns of blossom-coloured muslin gave a lively portrayal of the ferocity and indomitable spirit of Napoleon and his French generals.
    By the time Venetia passed by