‘Yes, they did, but anyone could have told ’em it wouldn’t fadge. Couldn’t expect Kit to like being asked only for Uncle Matthew’s fortune. Knew I didn’t want his blunt. Knew I was dashed fond of her, too. So I popped the question, and there we were. Got a notion we shall suit very well.’
There was now a slight crease between Mr Westruther’s brows, but he said, still in an amused tone: ‘Do forgive me!—But how came you, in these circumstances, to tear yourself away from your—er—betrothed so soon? And you always polite to a point!’
‘Didn’t tear myself away from her,’ replied Freddy. ‘Brought her up to town with me. Wanted to present her to m’mother and father. She’s in Mount Street.’
He watched his cousin to see how this piece of corroborative information was being received, and was a little puzzled. There was a gleam in Jack’s eyes, and the hint of a smile playing about the corners of his mouth. ‘I see,’ he said. He patted Freddy on the shoulder. ‘I felicitate you, coz: I am quite sure you will suit admirably! Of course I shall call in Mount Street to pay
my respects to the future Mrs Standen, but in the meantime do, pray, assure her of my best wishes for her happiness!’
‘Much obliged. Very likely she’ll visit Meg, though.’
‘Then I shall call in Berkeley Square. What a charming surprise for Meg! Here she comes!’ He paused, watching Lady Buckhaven, who had been taking part in the country-dance which had just ended, trip across the floor towards them. ‘Dearest cousin, here is Freddy with such delightful news for you! I shall leave him to tell it to you, but I give you warning that when they strike up for the waltz you are mine, and I will by no means submit to being supplanted by him!’
Lady Buckhaven, a very pretty blonde, with her mama’s large, rather full eyes, and a great deal of vivacity, cried out at this. ‘How can you, Jack? As though I would do anything so rustic as to stand up with my own brother! Freddy, where have you been this age? What have you to tell me?’
His eyes were on his cousin’s retreating form; instead of answering, he said, in a disapproving tone: ‘What’s he mean by calling you his dearest cousin?’
‘Why, that I am, to be sure!’ she retorted, laughing.
‘Well, it ain’t much to boast of,’ said Freddy, having passed his family under rapid mental review. ‘All the same, shouldn’t encourage him!’
‘Don’t be so gothic, Freddy! He is the most enchanting flirt, and only think how ravishing it is to set odious creatures like Charlotte Kilvington there gnawing their nails with jealousy! I declare you are as stupid as Lady Buckhaven! Oh, Freddy, the most shocking thing! That antiquated old fidget insists that I cannot remain in London while Buckhaven is away!’
‘Yes, I know. Thought of something, too. That’s why I came tonight.’
‘Freddy, you have not? Oh, tell me this instant!’ she cried, clasping ecstatic hands.
‘Yes, but don’t kick up such a dust!’ said her censorious brother. ‘You’ll have everyone gaping at us. Come and sit down! And, mind, now, Meg! You needn’t set up a screech just because I’ve got something to say that’ll surprise you!’
Thus admonished, Lady Buckhaven meekly accompanied him to two vacant chairs, placed between a pair of palms against the wall. Their progress was somewhat impeded by the determination of various acquaintances to greet them, but they arrived at their goal at last, and Lady Buckhaven said, disposing the diaphanous folds of her blue gauze overdress becomingly: ‘I can’t conceive why you should be so mysterious! If it is all a take-in, I will never forgive you! Oh, Freddy, I must tell you the latest crim. con. story! You will be in whoops! Only fancy!—it is all over town that Lady Louisa Aldstone and young Garsdale—’
‘Lord, I knew that before I went to Melton!’ interrupted Freddy scornfully. ‘And you needn’t tell me Johnny Eppleby fathered the last Thresham brat, because I know that too!’
‘No!’ exclaimed his sister.
Perceiving that he had over-estimated her new-found knowledge of the world, Freddy said hastily: ‘All a hum, I daresay! I wish you will stop chattering, and pay attention!’
She turned her blue orbs upon him expectantly, and, with all the air of one wearied with repeating an incredible tale, he disclosed his engagement to her. She was quite as astonished as Lady Legerwood had been, and much more exclamatory; but no sooner had he propounded to her his scheme for her own salvation and Kitty’s entertainment, than she forgot every other consideration in wholehearted approval of a plan which bade fair to afford her with a reasonable excuse for eschewing the rural amenities of Gloucestershire. She retained the haziest memory of Miss Charing, having only once visited Arnside, and that some years previously, but she was sure she would like her excessively; and the intelligence that she would be expected without loss of time to superintend the purchase of a wardrobe she greeted with rapture. ‘And I am to introduce her into society? Oh, you may depend upon me, my dear brother!’
‘Well, I do,’ acknowledged Freddy, ‘but I must say I don’t feel easy! Never knew anyone with such a shocking eye for colour as you, Meg! That underdress, or petticoats, or whatever you call it, that you have on! No, really, m’dear girl! It won’t do!’
‘Freddy!’ cried Lady Buckhaven, stunned. ‘How can you say such a thing? This particular shade of pink is all the crack!’
‘Not with this blue stuff it ain’t,’ said Freddy positively.
‘Jack,’ said Lady Buckhaven, tilting her chin, ‘said he had never seen me look more becoming!’
‘Sort of thing he would say,’ responded Freddy, unimpressed. ‘Daresay you think he looks becoming in that devilish waistcoat he has on. Well, he don’t, that’s all! Take my word for it!’
Affronted, she exclaimed: ‘I never knew you to be so disagreeable! I have a very good mind not to invite Kitty to visit me!’
But this, as Freddy knew well, was an empty threat. Hardly had Lady Legerwood and her young guest left the breakfast-table than Meg swept in upon them, resplendent in a new pelisse of Sardinian blue velvet, and a bonnet with an audaciously curtailed poke and a forest of curled plumes; and displaying with ostentation the sables which had been her lord’s parting gift to her. Between her dread that some germ of measles, wandering adventurously down from the nursery-floor, might fasten upon her daughter, and her disapproval of sables and blue velvet, Lady Legerwood was for several moments too much occupied to present Kitty to the visitor. On the whole, it was her daughter’s lack of taste which most exercised her mind, for her own eye for colour, like Freddy’s, was unerring. ‘Ermine or chinchilla with blue, Meg!’ she said firmly. ‘Sables never show to advantage! Now, if only you had chosen to wear the Merino cloth pelisse I bought for you—not the earth-coloured one, but the braided one in French green—it would have been unexceptionable!’
By the time this point had been fully argued, news was brought to Lady Legerwood that the doctor had arrived, whereupon, after hurriedly commending Kitty to her daughter’s care, she hurried away, bent on convincing the worthy physician that certain unfavourable symptoms, which had manifested themselves during the night, made it advisable for him to call in Sir Henry Halford to prescribe for Edmund. As the family doctor, a rising man, was at daggers drawn with the eel-backed baronet, it did not seem probable that she would be seen again for some appreciable time.
Meg, as good-natured as her mother and brother, would have been amiable to anyone for whom her kindness had been solicited. Had she found herself confronted by a dazzling blonde she would not have spurned Kitty; but it could not be denied that the discovery that Miss Charing was a brunette immediately confirmed her in her conviction that she would like her prodigiously. Both were little women, but Kitty was built on sturdier lines than Meg, who was a wispy creature. One of her admirers had once labelled her ethereal, which so much delighted her that she ever after took great pains to live up to it, dressing her feathery curls à la Méduse, wearing gowns of the airiest materials, and cultivating a fluttering restlessness worthy almost of that still more ethereal beauty, Lady Caroline Lamb. As a débutante she had not been remarkable, for there were many prettier damsels, and her mother’s sense of propriety allowed her natural liveliness little scope. But she had made an excellent marriage, and had speedily discovered that the wedded state exactly suited her. Matched with an affluent peer, a good many years her senior, she found that the world of ton had far more to offer a dashing young matron than ever she had suspected when she was demure Miss Standen. Her husband regarded her with doting fondness; she had as much pin-money as she could spend; and she was able to gather round her a court of gentlemen who were far too wary to pay marked attentions to unmarried maidens. She had a considerable affection for her lord, and was very disconsolate to be obliged to part from him for perhaps as much as a year, even crying herself to sleep for three nights in succession; but since her disposition was volatile, she soon recovered from this state of despondency, and had now nothing to worry her but the dread of being obliged to live with her mother-in-law, and the cer
tainty that her pregnancy would compel her to give up going to balls right in the middle of the London Season.