Charlotte House Affair 01 - My Particular Friend

cannot help you and I hate to waste your time.’
    ‘Charlotte, let him explain.’
    ‘Yes, Charlotte, he looks so lost,’ I agreed with Mrs Fitzhugh.
    Charlotte looked levelly at Mr Worcester and I could tell that she could now see his despair as well. She sat and said, ‘To have gotten engaged to one woman accidentally is perhaps understandable. To do it twice shows carelessness. How did this come about?’
    ‘Charlotte, might we have some tea?’ Mrs Fitzhugh asked. ‘If as you say this young man has only just arrived after a long journey …’
    ‘Please,’ I begged.
    Charlotte shrugged her shoulders and only began to call out Robert’s name when he opened the door, having been ready no doubt to throw out our visitor.
    ‘Some tea, Robert?’
    ‘Yes, Miss House,’ he answered and left. We waited for the tea, which arrived momentarily thanks to the prescience of Mrs Hutton. While Mrs Fitzhugh prepared our tea I noticed Mr Worcester make several attempts to fix his waistcoat only to give up in frustration. Once we were settled, Charlotte returned her attention to our guest and said: ‘Now you will tell us how you came to be engaged to two women.’
    ‘It all started with Evelyn Blankenship. You know her, of course? No? Well she’s a good sort if a trifle high minded, always saying stirring stuff about the rights of man and how we’re all noble born, even the lowest among us. I can’t see it myself and neither can her father, Sir Walter; they’re always arguing about it. I stick up for her of course; you always have to back up an old chum, even if they’re all wet.
    ‘Did I mention she’s pretty to look at, too? Or she would be if she weren’t always telling you how you need to improve your mind. “Your mind is like clay, Bertie, soft formless clay. Someone needs to come along and make something of it.” Some fellows like that sort of self-improvement, like my friend Blotto, that is Bartholomew, Bartholomew Cuthbertson. Says his mind’s needing improving from day one and she’s just the girl to do it. It takes all kinds to make a world, I always say.
    ‘And I’m right because wouldn’t you know it she thinks Blotto’s mind—this is Mr Cuthbertson’s mind—is soft and formless too, which is her way of expressing interest. And before you know it Blotto—Mr Cuthbertson, I mean—who previously was ignorant of the lowest among us, is now taking them soup and doing them various good works, or rather he’s having a servant do it. He’s completely smitten with her.
    ‘But it will never work out because Blotto’s the younger son and Lady Blankenship has got higher hopes for Evie—that is Miss Blankenship—and he has never said a word to Evelyn —that is Miss Blankenship …’
    ‘If I might interrupt, Mr Worcester. You apparently maintain a social informality peculiar to your circle. You will not offend us if you refer to the participants in this matter as you would normally.’
    ‘Oh, that’s a relief and very liberal of you. Well, what was I saying? Oh yes, Mr Cuthbertson … well dash it all, there I go ignoring what you’d just said.
Blotto
… got it in two … has never said a word to
Evie
to jolly things along. Add to that he’s got the face of a sad lobster and has never been good with the honeyed words and thus it may be quite some time before anyone applies for a special license.’
    ‘Yes, Mr Worcester, but how does all this relate to your being engaged?’ Charlotte asked, testily.
    ‘Nearly there, Miss House. Now where was I? Yes, so Blotto follows Evelyn like a moonstruck cow, doing good works left and right but nothing comes of it because Lady Blankenship would never allow it and because Blotto refuses to plight the old troth because of the lobster aspect and that he considers himself unworthy of Evelyn.
    ‘And that’s when Evelyn has one of her brilliant ideas that the general public would consider a stinker but that she thinks a corker. She invites me to Dashwood Abbey, Blankenship’s stately home, and announces between the soup and fish that we are engaged.’
    ‘And what was the reasoning behind this,’ Charlotte asked, this time with more interest.
    ‘Stock in Worcester does not trade highly at the Abbey. On a previous visit, Sir Walter found me sitting fully clothed in the garden pond with a fowling piece and calling softly “Coo, coo … coo, coo,” and since then he has considered me a lunatic, no less because the fowling piece shot through the