Way too long since I updated, sorry. I do confess that I lean on my writing sometimes when things aren't going well and ignore it when things are. Actually things are going well now, which is why I realized I couldn't leave things quite so serious as they were at the end of the last chapter. I think one more chapter after this will do it. The bit about Eliza's mad piano skillz is in act 3 of Shaw's Pygmalion, and I am hypothesizing about how they came to be. But lest you think I get away from the musical, I am still giving Higgins a hard time about his questionable singing skillz. (That's Rex Harrison's fault of course.). So here's to Lerner & Loewe, here's to Shaw, and their great characterizations, which aren't mine, I'm just playing. Enjoy.

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Hespera tottered to the door of the Pickerings' parlour. "Madam, Master Henry is on the telephone for you."

Mrs Pickering had been expecting the call since her daughter-in-law phoned to say she received the telegramme that morning. "Oh, thank Heaven!" she cried. "I didn't want to bother them myself but I was quite tempted." She leapt from her chair, yet placed the magazine on the endtable just so. From behind the newspaper in the other wing chair came a snort. "Now, Hugh, Hespera has served our family since before Henry was born. He will always be Master Henry to her, and there is nothing wrong with that."

Colonel Pickering lowered the newspaper as he tried to stop laughing, but his heart wasn't in it. "Terribly sorry, Grace, dear, but I just find it preposterous to imagine Professor Henry Higgins as a boy!"

Mrs Pickering turned at the door to smile sweetly at her husband. "But Hugh, all men are boys." She glided off.

The colonel paused, considered, cogitated, turned it over, and finally said, "I say, Grace, that's not very..." But she was long gone down the hall.

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"Hello, Mother."

"Henry, it's so good to hear your voice! I hope you don't mind that I asked Eliza to have you phone me when you got home."

"If you must know, dear, I'm a bit annoyed that you think I wouldn't do that on my own."

"But this was such a long trip this time, and I thought you might be... distracted. Were things more difficult?"

"Mother, you know I cannot discuss my work."

"Of course."

"But yes, they were rather."

"I'm so sorry. How is Eliza holding up?"

"Oh, Eliza's been a brick." From the background there was an inelegant giggle.

"Henry, Henry, ever the romantic."

"Now, Mother, Eliza's a sufficiently sensible woman to know that it's a compliment. She's a wonder with the gardens here, and they can't do without her at the Field Surgery warehouse. I stand by my statement."

"Very well, very well. Dear, we would love to have the two of you over for dinner tomorrow evening if you are up to it."

"That sounds capital! A little later than usual, perhaps? I do have to go in to the War Office in the morning."

"No time off at all?"

"In my position, I don't go on leave, I just change location."

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"Oh, my, that is good, I don't want to stop eating it, but it is awfully spicy." Eliza reached for her wineglass. "What did you say it was called?"

Henry and Pickering proclaimed "Curry!" at once, smiled knowledgeably at once, and gave each other a competitive glare.

"Hugh says they eat it all the time in India," said Mrs Pickering. "I try to tell him it's not the sort of thing that would catch on in Britain, but he still insists on serving it to guests."

"Only those with educated palates, my dear."

Mrs Pickering dabbed her mouth with her napkin. "Well, I hope dessert will cool off the palates a bit. We have a trifle. We've gotten round the sugar ration with a good deal of fruit; I hope it's acceptable. Martin, will you refill the wine for everyone, please?"

"Yes. Ma'am." Martin, an abstainer, had also been part of Mrs Pickering's household since she was Mrs Higgins. She was accustomed to his frosty responses and puritannical attitudes regarding alcohol.

"And then perhaps you could treat us with a little more music, Eliza. It's a joy to hear you play piano, it seems like so long since we've heard it. What was that you were playing before dinner?"

"Just a few tunes from Mikado that I remembered. Yes, I've certainly felt a lot more like playing lately!" Eliza glanced over to Henry.

Henry cleared his throat and suppressed a smile. "Mikado, eh? It did seem rather more elegant than all that when you played it."

"Perhaps I added a few things."

"It still amazes me how well you have always played the piano," said Pickering. "I could not believe how you just seemed to pick it up the first time you sat down at one after we took you to that Brahms concert."

"But Colonel, that wasn't the first time I ever sat down at a piano! You only asked me if I had ever had lessons, and of course I never had money for those."

"Well, then, how the deuce did you learn to play?"

Eliza took a genteel sip from her wineglass, placed it on the table, smiled demurely, and with perfect upper-class enunciation and phrasing, answered, "I listened to the blokes play at the pub where me mum tended bar."

Pickering was caught completely off guard and started to cough. Mrs Pickering shuddered. "Ah... Martin, please get a glass of WATER for Mrs Higgins."

"Indeed. Ma'am." Martin's eyebrows said, I told you so.

Mrs Pickering subtly turned to her husband and whispered, "Hugh, do you think she's all right?"

Pickering rather less subtly answered, "Well, she seems so."

"HAAA!" cried Henry.

Mrs Pickering grew more concerned. "Now Henry, you mustn't be angry with Eliza..."

"Nothing of the sort!" said Henry. "I simply realised that she learned to play at the Royal Lisson Grove Academy of Music!"

Both Pickerings expected Eliza to take offense, but instead she dissolved into laughter. "The Royal Lisson... Oh, goodness, if only old Tom Cooper could hear that about his pub, God rest him! I'd love to go back and call him headmaster and hear what he would say!"

"Imagine the recitals! the repertoire!"

"The audience! Oh, goodness!"

Martin knocked over two glasses at the sideboard.

Henry rose from hs seat. "Ladies and gentlemen, the Marylebone Harmonica Quartet are pleased to offer this evenng their Variations on a Theme of Florrie Forde!"

Eliza curtsied flamboyantly. "Followed by the art song Sister Susie's Sewing Sh... " ("Ahh, take care!" goaded Henry.) "...Sewing Shirts for Soldiers!" she proclaimed perfectly, but Henry roared wth laughter all the same.

Mrs Pickering leaned over to the Colonel, keeping a wary eye on her son and daughter-in law's continuing antics. "I don't think Henry is... drunk, do you?"

"From what I could see, neither has partaken enough for that."

Eliza tried to stop Henry from singing with one of the good embroidered linen napkins. Mrs Pickering gasped and muttered, "Perhaps the aperitif had gone bad... do you think they may be ill?"

"Well, dear, if so, I do hope it's contagious!"

Mrs. Pickering wheeled round to see the Colonel smiling at her wryly, and quite hopefully.