This information reminded me of an old rhyme I had once learned as a child, and used to shout about the house:—
"Come all you young men, with your wicked ways;
Sow your wild, wild oats in your youthful days;
That we may live happy when we grow old—
Happy, and happy, when we grow old:
The day is far spent, the night's coming on;
So give us your arm, and we'll joggle along—joggle
and joggle and joggle along."
Fleming herself, I learned, had come from Ash, and was therefore, I suppose, of an Anglo-Saxon family, though she was far from stupid and rather elegant in shape. Because, I suppose, I did not like her, I was rather aggrieved she had been born in Kent. Mr and Mrs Monnerie, she told me, had had no children. The fair young man, Percy Maudlen, with the tired smile and beautiful shoes, who came to tea or luncheon at No. 2 at least once a week, was Mrs Monnerie's only nephew by blood; and the still fairer Susan Monnerie, who used to float into my room ever and anon like a Zephyr, was the only one Mrs Monnerie cared to see of her three nieces by marriage. And yet the other two, when they were invited to luncheon, were far more docile and considerate in the opinions and sentiments they expressed. That seemed so curious to me: there was no doubt that Mrs Monnerie belonged to the aristocracy, and yet there always appeared to be quarrels going on in the family—apart, of course, from births, deaths, and marriages, which seemed of little consequence. She enjoyed relatives in every county in England and Scotland; while I had not one, now, so far as I knew, not even in Kent.
Marvell, the butler—he had formerly been Mr Monnerie's valet—was another familiar object of my speculations. His rather solemn, clean-shaven countenance and steady grey eyes suggested a severe critic of mankind. Yet he seemed bent only on giving pleasure and smoothing things over, and stooped my dish of sliced cherries or apricots over my shoulder with a gesture that was in itself the cream of flattery. It astonished me to hear that he had a grown-up son in India; and though I never met Mrs Marvell, I felt a prodigious respect for her.