Maggie MacKeever by Strange Bedfellows

Katherine did not intend her son to marry anyone, and thus rend the delicate fabric of her own very comfortable existence, perhaps need not be explained.
    “I have harbored doubts about Lady Amabel for some time,” she whispered, leaning so far forward that she almost touched the knob of her walking stick with her chin. “One does not like to cast aspersions, but I have seen no indication that the chit has the slightest sense of what is and isn’t nice. I will be frank, Dougharty! You at least I know will feel just as you should! I was actually glad to hear that the chit had come to London, for she had set her cap at my son.”
    “Oh, I say!” Henrietta stared at that Exquisite, currently studying Diana bathing upon the chimneypiece through his quizzing glass. “I feel for you, Lady Katherine—indeed I do. I have long held that Amabel is incorrigible. She possesses what I fear is an incurable levity—but I must not speak unfavorably of a guest in this house.”
    Disappointed, because she wished very much to hear further adverse comments on this topic, Lady Katherine once more sat erect. “We were very nicely placed in the country, before Fergus took the notion that he must come to London. Nor could I dissuade him, though ordinarily he is a good obedient boy, and very considerate, and a great solace to me.” She looked arch. “Fergus could serve as a model of good breeding for any amount of romantical misses, I vow! Certainly any number of misses have wished that he might. Though I should not say so, Dougharty, my son is a bachelor of the first stare,”
    Lord Parrington would remain a bachelor, thought Henrietta, had Lady Katherine her way. Henrietta saw nothing to censure in this ambition which, had she possessed a son, she would doubtless have shared. In fact, Henrietta wished Lady Katherine every success in detaching her son from Amabel, to whom by prolonged exposure Henrietta had not grown endeared.
    Impatient for agreement, Lady Katherine poked Henrietta with her cane. Henrietta stared. “I said,” repeated Lady Katherine, “that my son is a bachelor of the first stare.”
    “Indeed!” Henrietta blanched, aware she’d caused offense. “A gentleman of position and substance—well-connected—any young woman must count herself fortunate!”
    Lady Katherine was not pleased by this restriction; in her opinion, no female young or old could be insensible to her offspring’s good looks and charm. She did not quibble, lest her displeasure reduce her new-found ally to incoherence. Though Lady Katherine ordinarily derived considerable satisfaction from causing lesser beings to quiver like blancmange, no further adverse intelligence concerning Amabel could thereby be learned.
    “Most young women would realize their good fortune,” she remarked, surveying the solar with unabated distaste. “From Lady Amabel’s absence, we must assume that she does not. I had hoped Fergus would not be disappointed in the chit, but my hopes are unfulfilled, alas. Now perhaps he may be persuaded to go home! This racketing about the countryside is no treat for a woman of my age—or enfeebled health.” Recalled to her weak condition, Lady Katherine partook of her vinaigrette. “It is a mother’s duty to sacrifice herself. Fergus has not the least notion of how to go on, the lamb.”
    Well did Henrietta know the discomforts of travel, due to her own frequent journeys from relative to relative, undertaken not only in search of scandal but also to escape the tedium of her own shabby little house. Sympathetically, she regarded her companion.
    “Who is a lamb?” inquired Lord Parrington, having tired of Diana bathing amid monkeys and birds and beasts upon the fireplace. Secretly, he had also grown weary with waiting for Amabel to grace the solar with her presence. Though Fergus was far from the popinjay Mab’s father considered him—there was nothing of the fop in him—he was very correct. No son of Lady Katherine’s could