False Colours Part 20

'Yes, ma'am: certainly!' responded Cressy, with smiling composure.

The Dowager favoured her with a searching glance, but refrained from comment.

She beguiled the rest of the drive with roseate plans for the future Lord Stavely's career, in which agreeable occupation she was much encouraged by Cressy; but although this put her into great good humour, it was with marked asperity that she commanded Cressy, as soon as she had removed her sable-plumed bonnet, and sunk into the winged chair, thoughtfully placed in her bedroom by her hostess, to declare herself, and without any roundaboutation.

'And don't put on any simpering, missish airs, girl, for I abominate 'em!' she added sharply.

'Now, that, Grandmama, is most unjust!' said Cressy, in deeply injured accents. 'I have a great many faults, but I am not a simpering miss!'

'No,' acknowledged the Dowager, always mollified by a fearless retort, 'you're not!

Come here, child!'

Cressy obeyed her, sinking down at her feet, and folding her hands with a meekness belied by the twinkling look she cast up at her formidable grandparent. 'Yes, ma'am?'

she said innocently.

'Baggage!' said the Dowager, in no way deceived, but palliating the severity of this remark by pinching Cressy's cheek. 'Now, you listen to me, girl! You'll find that this brat of Albinia's has put your nose out of joint, so, if you take my advice, you'll bring all this paltering of yours to an end, and accept Denville's offer. I said I wouldn't press you, and I stand by my word; but I know Albinia, and I tell you to your head that if you found her hard to deal with before she gave birth to a son you'll find her insupportable now that she's puffed up in her own conceit! What's more, she won't rest until she's rid of you: make up your mind to that! As for your father, he's fond of you, but he won't take your part: he's a weak man-none of my sons ever had an ounce of s.p.u.n.k between them! Took after their father, more's the pity! Bag and baggage policy was all you could look for in any of 'em.'

'Well, I shouldn't wish Papa to take my part, ma'am-or, rather, I know that it would be very improper to encourage him to do so!'

'It wouldn't fadge if you did. If Albinia ain't a shrew I'm much mistaken!'

'Impossible!' Cressy said, laughing at her.

The dowager's fierce eyes gleamed, but she said: 'None of your impudence, miss!

Not that I'm often mistaken, for I haven't lived to be an old woman without learning to know one point more than the devil, as they say.' Her eyes softened, as she looked down into Cressy's face. 'Never mind that! I've more fondness for you than for anyone, child, and I want to see you established, and happy. I told you at the outset I set no store by Denville's rank or fortune, and no more I would have, if I'd discovered him to be the frippery young care-for-n.o.body Brumby thinks him. Not but what he's a prize catch, and has had 'em all on the scramble for him ever since his come-out! However, I've lived long enough to know that it ain't by any means everything to land a big fish, and not a word of censure would you have heard from me, Cressy, if you'd had a preference for some lesser gentleman-provided, of course, that his birth matched your own, and he was up to the rig!'

'You like him, don't you, Grandmama?' said Cressy.

'Yes, I do-not that it signifies! A very proper man, I call him, and one that knows what's o'clock, and ain't afraid to look one in the face, and give one back as good as he gets!' the Dowager replied, with a dry chuckle. 'No want of proper s.p.u.n.k in him, for all his engaging manners! But what I want to know, my girl, is whether you like him?'

'Oh, yes! I think everyone does,' Cressy responded. 'He is very charming!'

'I'd a notion you thought so!' remarked the Dowager caustically.

'Oh, I do! But I am not very well-acquainted with him yet, you know,' said Cressy pensively.

'I know nothing of the sort!' declared the Dowager, staring down at her under frowning brows. 'Pray, how much better acquainted with him do you expect to be, miss?'

' Much better, ma'am! But however well-acquainted with him I may be I shall never marry him!'

'Well, upon my word!' uttered the Dowager, her eyes snapping. 'Have you taken leave of your senses, girl, or are you no better than a common flirt? You've lived in his pocket above a sennight-smelling of April and May, the pair of you! and very well pleased I've been to see it! I wasn't in favour of the match at the outset, and I know very well you were of two minds, Cressy! Which was why I brought you here! I'll thank you to tell me why, if you was ready enough to accept his offer at the outset, you've changed your mind! What, in heaven's name, do you look for in your husband, wet-goose? As handsome a young man as I've clapped eyes on this many a day, with a well-formed person, excellent style, easy manners, an address many an older man might envy, superior understanding, and a smile I could not have withstood when I was a girl, and you choose to turn niffy-naffy! Good G.o.d, Cressy, have you windmills in your head?

You told me you had made up your mind to a mariage de convenance, but if you don't know he's nutty upon you, you're no better than a moon-ling, and I wash my hands of you!'

Cressy, a mixture of guilt and amus.e.m.e.nt in her face, possessed herself of one of these hands, and nursed it to her cheek. 'Indeed I'm not a moonling, Grandmama!' she said, her voice quivering on the edge of laughter. 'I told you the truth, moreover! I did think that such a marriage would be preferable to remaining in Mount Street, and Denville never pretended that he felt any warmer affection for me than I felt for him! As for being nutty upon me, he never was, and never will be! Which I am heartily glad of, dear ma'am, because I tumbled quite-quite desperately in love with his brother, and he is the man I am going to marry, whatever you, or Papa, or anyone may say!'

The Dowager's claw-like hand closed on hers like a vice. ' What?' she demanded.

'Denville's brother?'

Cressy raised glowing eyes to hers. 'His brother, Grandmama. You have never met Denville. Kit is so like him that even I was deceived at first! But there is no comparison! I-I felt the difference when he came to Mount Street in Denville's place, to meet you; and that was why I was willing to come here with you!' She drew the Dowager's twisted hand to her mouth, and kissed it. 'You will perceive the difference, because you're so wise, ma'am, and so discerning! Oh, I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know that you think so well of Kit!'

'You're out!' interrupted the Dowager harshly, s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand away.

'Jackanapes!' she uttered, her jaws working. 'So he's been making a May game of me, has he? A more impudent imposture I never heard of, not in all my days!'

Cressy smiled lovingly at her. 'You will discover him to be in perfect agreement with you, ma'am, for that is precisely what he thinks. He entered into it against his will, and would have escaped from it had you not proposed this visit to Lady Denville! I must try to make you understand the circ.u.mstances-the bond that exists between him and Denville! But I am much inclined to think that no one who was not born a twin could wholly understand the-the strength of that bond!'

'What I understand, and without difficulty, is that he's a cozening rascal who knows just how to bring you round his finger, nickninny!' retorted the Dowager, in no way appeased.

'Well, he hasn't tried to do so, but I haven't the least doubt that he could! ' admitted Cressy, unabashed. 'I have no more knowledge than you, Grandmama, of what it means to be a twin, but I collect that, if they are as close as Kit and Evelyn, each knows when the other is in trouble, or has suffered a physical injury-and neither would hesitate, no matter what the cost, to fly to the other's rescue. It seems,' she said slowly, knitting her brows, 'that they can't help but do so!'

'Does it indeed?' snorted the Dowager. 'Well, perhaps you'll explain to me, my girl, what trouble Denville was in which caused his brother to practise this abominable cheat!'

'Yes, indeed I will, ma'am!' Cressy said, with disarming readiness. She chuckled.

'It is quite fantastic, you know, but for my part I have never enjoyed anything more in my life! Only a Fancot could have embarked on such a crazy adventure-and only Kit could have carried it with such a high hand! He doesn't want for proper s.p.u.n.k, Grandmama!'

'Cut no wheedles for my benefit!' commanded the Dowager, 'A round tale is all I wish to hear!'

It was not quite a round tale which Cressy, disposing herself more comfortably at her knee, recounted, for it underwent certain expurgations; but it was true in all its essentials, and the Dowager listened to it in silence. It could not have been said that there was any relaxing in her countenance; but she appeared, several times, to be afflicted with a tic, which twitched the muscles in her cheek; and once, when Cressy, knowing her love of a salted story, ventured to describe the encounter with Mrs Alperton, she was seized by a choking fit, which, glaring at her granddaughter, she ascribed to asthma. But when the tale was told she declared that a more disgraceful one she had never heard, adding shrewdly: 'I notice that that pretty, silly gadabout whom you choose to call your dearest G.o.dmama don't figure in it! Trying to put the change on me, ain't you? You may hang up your axe, Cressy! I'm not a pea-goose, and never was, so if you mean to tell me she wasn't at the back of it, spare your breath!'

'Why, of course she was, ma'am!' said Cressy, all wide-eyed innocence. 'It was her notion that Kit should take Evelyn's place just for that one evening, and to save his face! Surely I told you so?'

'Ay! You told me!' said the Dowager sardonically. 'What you haven't told me is why it was so mightily important to Denville to have the Trust wound up!'

'But can you wonder at it, Grandmama? Only think how irksome it must be to him!'

'Don't talk flummery to me, girl!' said the Dowager irascibly. 'I have it on the best of authority that his revenues don't bring him a penny less than 16000 a year, and Henry Brumby told me himself that his debts were paid out of the estate when his father died!' Her eyes narrowed. 'His mother's debts, eh? You needn't put yourself to the trouble of denying it! It's common knowledge she's been at a standstill these dozen years and more! Means to settle 'em, does he? Well, I don't think the worse of him for that, but what such a caper-witted, fly-away wastethrift has ever done to deserve so much devotion I shall never know, if I live to be a hundred!' Her crooked fingers worked amongst the folds of her silken skirt. Cressy said nothing; and after a moment or two, she brought her piercing gaze back to the girl's face. 'A pretty piece of business you've made of it, between you!' she said scathingly. 'Understand me, miss! I'll have no scandal attached to our name! Good G.o.d, it must be common knowledge by now that you stand upon the brink of an engagement to Denville! What do you imagine your father will have to say, when he learns of this?'

'He will await your decision, Grandmama,' Cressy answered calmly. 'You know that as surely as I do! I hope it may be in my favour-in Kit's favour!-because I love you both, and to marry without your approval couldn't but throw a cloud over my happiness.' She raised her eyes, giving the Dowager look for look. 'But in less than a twelvemonth, ma'am, I shall come of age, and neither you nor Papa will have the power to prevent my marriage to Kit!'

'If,' said the Dowager, after a pregnant silence, ' I had ever dared to speak so to my grandmother, I should have been soundly whipped, and confined to my bedchamber on bread-and-water for a sennight!'

The gravity vanished from Cressy's face. 'No, would you, ma'am? How very brave your parents must have been!'

'Hussy!' said the Dowager, putting up her hand to hide her quivering mouth. 'Don't think you can come over me with your impertinence! Pull the bell! I am out of all patience with you, and f.a.gged to death as well! Look at the time! I should have been laid down on my bed half-an-hour ago! Not an hour left before I shall be obliged to rig myself out for dinner, and not a wink of sleep shall I get, thanks to you, you ungrateful, abandoned, unnatural baggage! Go away! And don't flatter yourself that you've won my support, because you haven't!'

Retiring discreetly from the presence, Cressy closed her eyes in momentary thankfulness, before running down the stairs in search of Mr Fancot. Admirably though she had concealed it, it had been with considerable trepidation that she had admitted the Dowager into the secret of the hoax practised upon her. The result of her disclosure had, so far, been more hopeful than she had allowed herself to expect. At no time had she indulged her fancy with the thought that her tyrannical grandparent would instantly bestow her blessing on a union which, besides being undeniably inferior to the one first submitted for her approval, bore all the signs of being attended by exactly the sort of scandalous on-dit s which were most obnoxious to a highbred dame of her age and generation; she had rather entertained a lively fear that the Dowager would fly into a towering rage, which might even impel her to sweep herself and her granddaughter off to Worthing that very day. She had certainly, and justifiably, taken a violent pet; but, to Cressy's experienced eye, no thought of proceeding to extremes had so much as crossed her mind. Even more significantly (and very much to Cressy's relief), she had not instantly summoned her hostess to account for her perfidy. Instead, and in a querulous voice which belonged to a vexed and bewildered old lady rather than to an infuriated despot, she had abused her erring granddaughter, not for having lent herself to a disgraceful hoax, but for having caused her to lose half-an-hour's sleep. Grandmama, thought Cressy shrewdly, wanted time for reflection; and that circ.u.mstance alone was enough to encourage optimism in the initiated. The battle was by no means won; Grandmama might yet prove hard to handle; but she had undoubtedly been amused by certain aspects of the outrageous story unfolded to her; and equally undoubtedly she had taken a strong fancy to Mr Christopher Fancot. In Cressy's judgement, all now depended upon that resourceful gentleman's ability to discover a discreet way of extricating himself and her from a situation which gave every promise of affording the ton matter for unlimited gossip and conjecture. She ran him to earth in the library, but he was not alone.

Even as she spoke his name, she saw that Sir Bonamy was present, and she drew back, murmuring an apology.

Kit was standing with his hand on the back of a chair, confronting Sir Bonamy, seated on a sofa, his hands on his knees, and an expression of resignation on his countenance. Kit turned his head quickly, saying in rather an odd voice: 'Don't go, Cressy! Sir Bonamy knows the truth about us, and won't object, I believe, to my disclosing to you the-unexpected news which he has just broken to me.'

'No,' said Sir Bonamy, preparing to heave himself to his feet. 'No sense in objecting to it. Mark me if it ain't all over the county before the cat can lick her ear!'

'Pray don't get up, sir!' Cressy said, coming across the room to lay a restraining hand on his arm. 'What is this news? Don't keep me on tenterhooks, Kit! I c-can see that it is good news!'

Mr Fancot's eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. He said in a measured tone: 'Sir Bonamy informs me that my mother has accepted an offer of marriage from him.'

' No! ' cried Cressy. 'Is it so indeed? Oh, my dear sir, let me be the first to felicitate you!'

'Much obliged to you! Hardly know whether I'm on my head or my heels, but I don't need to tell you I'm the happiest man on earth! That,' said Sir Bonamy doggedly, 'goes without saying!'

'Of course it does! It must seem to you like a fairy story!'

'Ay, that's it! Sort of thing one never thought would happen to one. What I mean is,' he corrected himself hastily, 'something I'd ceased to hope for!'

Kit had been looking decidedly grim, but Cressy, stealing a glance at him, was relieved to see that his ready sense of humour had been roused by the dejected picture presented by his parent's successful suitor, softening the lines about his mouth, and bringing the laughter back into his eyes. But he said, with perfect gravity: 'You must find it hard to realize your good fortune, sir.'

'Yes, well, I do!' confessed Sir Bonamy. 'At my time of life, you know, a thing like this takes some getting used to! Yes, and another thing! I can't but ask myself if your mother will be happy, married to me! Now, tell me, Kit! do you think she might regret it?'

'No,' said Kit. 'I am very much inclined to think, sir, that you will neither of you regret it.'

'Well, I must say, Kit, that's very handsome of you-very handsome indeed!'

exclaimed Sir Bonamy, visibly astonished. 'There's no question of my regretting it, of course, but damme if I ever thought to hear you say such a thing to me! To tell you the truth, I thought you'd cut up pretty stiff!'

'I could hardly wish for a kinder or more indulgent husband for her!' Kit said, smiling. 'You'll cosset her to death!'

'Ay, so I will! But did you wish any man to marry her?'

'No, certainly not any man, but one who loved her, and could be. trusted to take care of her, yes! What I do not wish is to see her setting up an establishment of her own- and getting her affairs into heaven only knows what sort of a tangle!'

'No, by G.o.d!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Bonamy. 'I hadn't thought of that, but you're very right, my boy! It wouldn't do at all! At least I shan't have that to worry about!'

'You won't have anything to worry about!' Cressy a.s.sured him. 'Will you think me very saucy if I say that never did a knight more thoroughly deserve to win his lady than you, dear sir?'

'No, no!' protested Sir Bonamy, much discomposed. 'Nonsense! Very obliging of you to say so, but no such thing! As a matter of fact, I'm a baronet.'

'To me,' said Cressy, avoiding Kit's eye, 'you have always seemed like a knight of ancient chivalry!'

'What, one of those fellows who careered all over, looking for dragons? Well, whatever put such a silly notion as that into your head, my dear girl? Rigged out in armour, too! Why, it makes me hot only to think of it! Not the style of thing I care for at all, I promise you!'

'Ah, you misunderstand me! It wasn't dragons I had in mind but your unswerving faithfulness to G.o.dmama! You have been her sworn knight throughout the years!'

'Baronet,' interpolated Kit unsteadily.

'I've so often thought how lonely you must have been,' pursued Cressy, ignoring this frivolity. 'In that great house of yours, quite alone, and-as it must have seemed to you-with nothing to look forward to!'

'Very true! Except that one grows accustomed, you know, and I don't live in it alone precisely.'

'You have servants, of course, but what do they signify? So very little!'

Sir Bonamy, who employed an enormous staff which included three cooks wholly indispensable to his comfort, thought that they signified a great deal, but refrained from saying so.

'But now how different it will be!'

'I know it will,' he agreed, with a deep sigh.

'And, oh, how you will be envied!' she said, hastily changing her note. 'They will be ready to murder you, all G.o.dmama's disappointed suitors! I can't but laugh when I picture to myself the chagrin of certain of their number when you walk off with her from under their noses!'

It was plain that this aspect had not previously occurred to him. He considered it, puffing out his cheeks a little, as he always did when anything pleased him. 'Yes, by Jupiter!' he said. 'They will be ready to murder me! The loveliest, most sought-after woman in the ton, and she chose me! A triumph that, eh? Lord, I'd give a monkey to see Louth's face when he reads the advertis.e.m.e.nt! He'll be ready to murder me, if you like!' A less agreeable thought occurred to him: he said gloomily: 'Yes, and I know of someone else who'll be fit to cut my liver out, and that's young Denville! I was forgetting him. Kit, if this marriage was to cause a breach between him and your mother, she'd break her heart, and I'd give her up sooner than do that!'

'Don't worry, sir: it won't!' Kit replied. 'I can't promise that Evelyn will take very readily to the marriage, but never fear! he'll come round, and under no circ.u.mstances would he become estranged from Mama. That you may depend on!'

'I dare say you know best,' said Sir Bonamy, accepting his fate. He rose ponderously to his feet. 'Time I went up to change my dress!'

'We don't change this evening, sir: General Oakenshaw drove over an hour ago to pay his respects to my mother, and she has persuaded him to remain to dine here.'

'You don't mean it! Why, I thought that old spider-shanks had gone to roost years ago!' exclaimed Sir Bonamy. 'Well, well, what a day this has been! One surprise after another! I won't put on my evening rig, but I must change my coat, and I don't know but what I won't take a little rest before dinner, just to pluck me up, you know!'

'And perhaps a cordial?' suggested Kit.

'No, no, I don't want a cordial! The thing is that I've had a lot of excitement today, which I ain't accustomed to, and I feel a trifle f.a.gged! A short nap will set me to rights again!'

'As you wish, sir,' said Kit, holding open the door for him, and bowing him out of the room.

Shutting it again, he turned to find that Cressy had collapsed into a chair, in fits of laughter. She uttered, between gusts: 'Oh, Kit! Oh, Kit! I thought I should die! Poor Sir Bonamy!'

'You and your knights!' he said.

That sent her into a fresh paroxysm. 'Baronets!' she wailed. 'Wretch that you are!

That was nearly my undoing! Oh, don't make me laugh any more! It positively hurts! '

She mopped her eyes. 'But it will be a happy marriage, won't it? When he has accustomed himself to the idea?'

'I should think it might well be, if he can be brought up to the scratch. What I want to know, my love, is whether this was one of Mama's nacky notions, or yours? Out with it, now!'

'Kit, how can you suppose that I would venture to suggest to G.o.dmama that she should marry Sir Bonamy, or anyone else?'

'I don't. But I strongly suspect that it was you who put the idea into her head!

Well?'

Her mirth ceased. 'Not quite that. I own, however, that it did spring from something I said, and that I hoped it might. Are you vexed with me?'

'I don't know. No, of course I'm not, but-Cressy, is she doing this for Evelyn's sake?'

'Not entirely. I think for her own as much as his. I can't tell you what pa.s.sed between us, for what she said to me was in confidence. I will only tell you that I found her in great distress, and discovered that she meant to-oh, to make a perfectly dreadful sacrifice for Evelyn!-and that when I left her she was wearing her mischief-look! Kit, I do most sincerely believe that she will be happy! She is very fond of Sir Bonamy, you know, and always on comfortable terms with him! And above all she must not live alone! You yourself said so. You had her quite incurable extravagance in mind, but what has been very much in my mind is my conviction that she would be miserably unhappy.'

'Yes, I feel that too. But what of Ripple? You wouldn't describe him as radiant, would you?'

She laughed. 'Well, perhaps not radiant, precisely! Now don't set me off again, I implore you! The thing is that he has been perfectly content with his lot for years, and has suddenly realized-I think!- that he doesn't in the least wish to change it! It must have been a great shock to him, but he will very soon become reconciled to the idea, for he does dote on her, you know! He will be very proud of her, too, and positively revel in squandering enormous sums on her. Oh, dear, look at the time! I must go, or I shall be late for dinner! Kit, who is this General G.o.dmama has invited to dine with us? I wish she had not, for there is something else I must tell you. I have broken it to Grandmama that you are not Denville.'