Lady Macauley meets Mr Porteous

When Lady Macauley met David Porteous for the first time in my garden one day last week, Bill said it was as if the earth had lurched a moment on its axis, then collecting itself, made a grinding sound and started turning again. I said I thought this far-fetched, even for him; and he admitted that he might have exaggerated a bit. But all the same, he insisted that it had been an arresting moment; during which the assembled company, if not perhaps the earth itself, had held its breath to see which way this particular pair was going to jump.

That Lady Macauley had jumped first, I was not surprised to learn. Nor that she had put out her hand and with a smile that withheld more than it conferred, said “So you are the famous Mr Porteous? I had been wondering what you would look like, and now I see that reports have not been exaggerated. I hope you will come and visit me one day, and tell me what a man does who has given up the Cloth to go adventuring, and abandoned his dog collar for a silk tie.”

I found it difficult to credit that even Lady Macauley could have gone so far as that in the first moments of a meeting. But Bill assured me that it was so – give or take an embellishment or two of his own for the sake of dramatic effect. “The gist of what she said was just as I give it to you. She took the wind right out of his sails for a minute – though I admit that some of the imagery is probably invented, and probably my own. She stood her ground at any rate, and he stood his. I don’t remember precisely what it was he said in reply. Only that he gave her his most effective grey-eyed look, and somehow managed to convey the impression that she might like or dislike him as she would; it was all the same to him, since her approval was not absolutely essential to his happiness.”

I received the distinct impression that Bill had felt a grudging admiration for David Porteous at the moment he described. He would never admit to it of course: he would insist that his personal dislike of the man remained unaltered. But there is something in Bill which delights above all in the irony of a thing - and it was clear to me there had been a moment of exquisite pleasure for him, in seeing Lady Macauley being taken on so effectively at her own game. “What’s obvious is that they will be friends of sorts” he ended by telling me. “It will be something of a battlefield of course - and poor Belle will doubtless be caught in the crossfire. That aspect of it saddens me immeasurably. But all the same, as spectator sports go, it promises to keep us entertained for weeks to come.”

I was glad he'd had the grace at least to think of Belle’s likely discomfort. It proved he was not entirely without heart or scruple, I told him. I only wondered if he had also thought to ask himself how all this was going to affect poor Frances – and am glad to be able to report that at this reminder, his gaiety received a visible check. That Frances must also be rendered uncomfortable by the association was clear even to him. But then everything about this engagement of hers was uncomfortable to Frances, he said; and the only thing we could do was continue to stand by her, and try to see her though whatever events should follow.

All this took place on the one fine afternoon we had last week. It had rained incessantly; we have so far had the most miserable summer. And now the ugly spectre of terrorism has raised its head again, in the form of explosive devices left in cars in London and Glasgow.... Happily, the devices were discovered before harm was done; and in any case it is not of them I mean to write today (or any day) ... The potential bombs were there, but horrible as they were, can hardly be allowed to intrude on the story. All that need concern us here is that on the one afternoon last week upon which I had invited a small group of friends to tea in the garden, the rain was merciful. It ceased for an hour or two, the sun came out and we were able to gather in the garden in the vicinity of what I persist in regarding as ‘David Porteous’s gazebo’.

That this group included Frances, and therefore Mr Porteous, had somehow seemed to dictate that it could not also include Lady Macauley and Belle. It was unfortunate, but inescapable; Belle having herself on several occasions expressed her misgivings about Mr Porteous’s likely impact on her mother, and the awful repercussions it would almost certainly have for her. No amount of his being engaged to someone else would deter her mother, Belle feared, if she should take it into her head that he would be an amusing new acquaintance – or worse, a suitable man for Belle to try to captivate! Belle had been down this road before, many times; and could only entreat us, heart in mouth, to try to keep them apart as long as possible.

It hadn't seemed a great deal to ask. Besides which, neither Bill nor I had reason to wish to promote David Porteous’s cause in the village – though we were at pains not to seem to demote it either of course, for Frances’s sake. My little party had been got together largely in Pamela’s interests, if the truth be known. I had been conscious for some time that she was feeling rather side-lined these days, by the closeness of Bill’s and my new association with the Macauleys. I disliked the idea that factions had grown up in the village; and that to consent to belong to one group, seemed necessarily to preclude one’s also belonging to any other. I had wanted Pamela to see that my friendship with Belle Macauley and her mother in no way interfered with that longer-standing one I had with her; and so I had invited her and Roland to tea in the garden, along with three other couples; among whom, of course, were Frances and David Porteous.

David’s daughters had happened to be staying at the manor house at the time, so Frances had phoned ahead to ask if she might bring them too; and so it was a group of a dozen persons that was gathered in the garden at the moment when the Macauley Daimler pulled up in the road outside. It seemed to hover there a moment; during which Lady Macauley herself peered out, and was seen to enter into some sort of heated discussion with Belle, who was driving. After which the car swung round abruptly, and proceeded to reverse slowly into our little forecourt.

I was in the kitchen with Frances preparing tea at the time, so was able to view proceedings only through the window, and from a distance of something like twenty five yards. But I saw Lady Macauley climb out of the car and make her way without assistance – with considerable speed and agility indeed – through the front gate and all the way along the length of the garden to the spot, right at the bottom, where the little group of my guests was assembled. What happened at the moment of her finally reaching the group was obscured for me by Bill’s pergola, now in splendid full bloom of roses and jasmine. And in any case, Belle herself had suddenly appeared in the kitchen in a state of acute mortification. She was overcome with embarrassment, poor woman; so that I was obliged to turn away from the garden, and give all my attention to her.

"Mummy has done it again!" she cried. ”She has gate-crashed your party, and I hardly know what to say in excuse of her! She would have me pull up outside, just to see if anything was ‘going on’, as she put it.... And then she saw the people gathered, and heard laughter and talk, and that was it. She said she was sure you wouldn’t mind if we came in to join your party – and was halfway up the path before I’d even had a chance to stop the engine! I’ve never seen her gallop off at such speed – it shows she can do it when she wishes! But Rose has followed her in - and will head her off and bring her back, if you’d really much rather we shouldn’t stay...”

In the face of such sincere embarrassment, what could I say, what do – except of course insist that nothing would give me greater pleasure than that they should all stay and join the party? Which in a sense was true. I had a sort of fatalistic feeling about it now, and had come to think that this was a meeting that was bound to have happened sooner or later anyway. I introduced Frances; adding, rather awkwardly I thought, that they were probably acquainted with one another very well by sight, yet had perhaps never quite met... And then I asked Belle if she would mind carrying one of the trays we had prepared, and come down with us to the gazebo to join the other guests....


Alas though, the word count has already exceeded my allotted fifteen hundred! There is no Google ruling that I know of, to limit the number of words one may post – but I am nervous of exhausting the patience of possible readers, and so I pause here; hoping to return tomorrow or thereabouts, to finish relating this really rather pivotal part of the story....