England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Mate selection -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"He wanted to come part of the way in my car, so I let him, and he was
awfully funky. I don’t think much of bishops if they’re all like him,
though he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords in the
cathedral."
"Fighting? with swords? Oh, what—" said Penelope.
"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn’t know. I’ll tell you by and
by. Bradstock’s at Spilsborough. Where’s my drink, Pen? I say, did
you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford? That was fun. He threw De Vere out
of the window, and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell and
Scott."
"What Mr. Bunting?"
"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but he wasn’t. I had tea with him
afterward. I’ll tell you by and by. Do you know grandmother had fits
about it all?"
Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the results of her fatal
conduct were thus revealed to her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her
heart almost failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible troubles.
"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked. "Oh, the bishop and Guardy and duels
and fits and Mr. Bunting and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"
She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over Bob in her eagerness for
more news.
"I say, Pen, be careful! That went down my neck," said Bob, "and
outside it, too. I say, who’ve you married? Tell me. Where’s the kid?
May I see it? I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad somehow and rather
worried. I feel better now. I don’t mind what went down outside. I’ll
have a bath soon. Where’s the kid? They _do_ talk a lot about it in
town. They say, some of ’em, that you’ve married the Rajah of Jugpore,
the little beast, and that the baby is black, or partly black. Is it?
I know it isn’t."
"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"
She rushed at the bell, and when the servant came she commanded the
instant appearance of the baby and the nurse.
"You know they said you married Timothy Bunting," said Bob.
Penelope flushed crimson.
"It was wicked of them."
"That beast Weekes told granny you had. She said she knew it. That’s
how I had tea with Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he’d chucked Plant and
Gordon down-stairs. They were sick. Oh, oh! is this the kid?"
Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and told the nurse she might
go and have tea. When she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.
"He’s—he’s all I’ve got," she said, sobbing.
Bob started.
"I say, what do you mean? You don’t mean you aren’t married at all?"
"No, no," said Penelope. "I mean—oh, it’s terrible! Oh, baby, I love
you!"
She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very fine baby, and wept again.
Bob inspected the boy with great interest.
"I say, I rather think it’s like Plant," he said.
Pen gasped.
"But in this light, it’s rather like Gordon."
"Oh!" said Penelope.
"And its forehead is like De Vere’s a little. I say, won’t you tell me
who you’ve married?"
Penelope hugged the baby and howled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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