‘Yes, there is, Miss Charing, and she don’t scruple to hold it over his head. She and that precious doctor of hers! A pretty pair, and it would do me good, it would indeed! to tell them what I think of them! If he don’t do what she bids him, she threatens she’ll have hi
m under lock and key, and tell everyone he’s mad.’
‘Oh, no! She could not!’ Kitty cried, horrified. ‘He is not! Not mad!’
‘No, he’s not, but no one could deny he hasn’t all his wits,’ said Miss Plymstock dispassionately. ‘However, there’s no harm in him, and I warrant you if he had me to look after him he would be a great deal better than he is now. For one thing, I don’t mean to let his Mama come scaring him out of his senses; and for another, I think it will suit him much better to live in this Irish place of his than to be racketing about town, the way he’s made to. He can have his horses, and though I daresay I shall find it a damp, ramshackle place, I don’t care for that, because I’ve always had a taste for the country, and I don’t doubt I shall soon set it in order.’
Kitty did not doubt it either. Regarding her hostess with a fascinated eye, she faltered: ‘I beg your pardon, but—but—do you love Dolph?’
The question in no way discomposed Miss Plymstock. She replied calmly: ‘I collect that you mean to ask me if I have fallen in love with him. Well, I have not, and I don’t suppose anyone could. I like him very well, and I shall like to be the Countess of Dolphinton, and to be a married lady. My brother don’t favour him, and he don’t wish me to marry him, but I don’t heed him. I’m not pretty, like you, and I have no fortune. It isn’t likely I shall receive another offer.’ She met Kitty’s eyes squarely, and said in her forthright way: ‘I’m not his equal in station, and I don’t pretend I am; but you might say he wasn’t fit to marry anyone. I promise you this: I mean to take good care of him, and to make him happy, poor Foster!’
Kitty stared at her, her brain working swiftly. Secluded though her life had been, she was well aware that there was perhaps no one amongst Dolphinton’s relations who would not be shocked by such an alliance as this. Even Freddy, good-natured though he was, would frown upon it, she thought, recalling his disparaging remarks about the late Mr Yalding. In the eyes of society, Dolphinton’s peculiarities were outweighed by his birth; the enjoyment of a substantial fortune was the only thing that could render Miss Plymstock eligible, and she had no fortune at all. But Kitty, looking at that homely countenance, could see poor, bewildered Dolphinton happily ambling round his Irish bog, ruled certainly, but kindly, and as certainly protected from his mother’s disturbing influence. She drew a breath, and said: ‘I’ll help you!’
Miss Plymstock’s already high colour deepened to a rich beetroot. ‘You’re very obliging! I’m not one to wrap things up in clean linen, so I’ll tell you I know how he was made to offer for you, and what you said when you rejected him, and it made me think you was a nice girl, and one I’d be glad to meet. Once his ring’s on my finger I shall know what to do, for I’m not afraid of any of them; but the thing is, how to get it there? You must know, Miss Charing, that he’s got a set of spies round him, that carry tales to his Mama. I don’t doubt she’s told them he’s a trifle queer in his head. Well! If Sam—that’s my brother!—would lend me his aid, I could maybe do the thing, but he won’t, for he don’t like Foster, and he would be glad to match me with a friend of his own, if he could do it. What he says is, an Earl’s all very well if he’s affluent, but one like Foster, with a weak head and no fortune, is a bad bargain. But to my way of thinking he’s a better bargain than a tea-merchant, with snuff all over his waistcoat, and one foot in the grave—even if Mr Muthill was to offer for me, which I’ll lay my life he don’t mean to!’
‘Exactly so!’ said Kitty faintly.
‘I’ve thought of Gretna Green,’ pursued Miss Plymstock, ‘because banns won’t serve. If her ladyship didn’t discover we had put ’em up, Sam would, for he keeps a close watch on me. I know it ain’t the thing to be married across the Border—’
‘No, pray do not do that!’ Kitty interrupted, much shocked.
‘I can’t do it, because it would cost a deal of money, and her ladyship don’t allow Foster more than a pittance. And it wouldn’t be good for Foster to be chasing to Scotland for as much as three days, I daresay, thinking all the time his Mama was on his heels,’ replied Miss Plymstock, with unshaken calm.
‘Oh, I am persuaded it would be very bad for him! We must think of a better scheme than that.’
‘But can you?’ asked Miss Plymstock.
‘Yes, between us we must be able to do so. I own I do not immediately perceive how it is to be contrived, but I mean to think very particularly about it. It will be best if Lady Dolphinton believes him to be obedient, I think. She is the most absurd creature! I daresay you are aware that she has compelled him still to angle for me! Should we not turn this to account? Recollect, if she knows him to be in my company she will be satisfied! Something may suggest itself: it must do so! If you do not object, I will encourage him to be a great deal in my company; and—though it will go sorely against the grain with me!—I’ll let her think I am not wholly averse from his suit.’
‘I’m agreeable,’ said Miss Plymstock. ‘But maybe this cousin Freddy of Foster’s won’t like it?’
‘Freddy? It has nothing—I mean,’ Kitty corrected herself hastily, ‘he will have not the least objection, I assure you!’
Eleven
In pursuance of her aims, Miss Charing allowed herself, with real heroism, to be inveigled by Lady Dolphinton into visiting the Dolphinton house in Grosvenor Place, a locality which her ladyship described disparagingly as quite out of the way, and this in so scornful a voice that Kitty quaked to think of what she might have said of so unmodish a quarter as Keppel Street.
There had been a time when Lady Dolphinton had not spared to state her opinion of encroaching orphans, or her conviction that this particular orphan was a sly little hussy. It seemed that that was now to be forgotten. She was all amiability when Kitty presented herself in Grosvenor Place; and, since she could be agreeable enough when she chose, soon had the girl at her ease. She had the tact not to let Dolphinton appear, and the wit not to mention Mr Westruther; and if she tacitly assumed that Kitty had accepted Mr Standen’s offer as a means of establishing herself creditably, she did so with enough sympathy to make it hard for Kitty to be offended. The folly of the world in venerating the higher ranks of nobility was lightly touched upon; and also the advantages attached to a pretty young woman’s allying herself with a complaisant man. ‘But that I should not say to you, my dear! Freddy—dear creature!—is a Standen! You will discover soon enough how straitlaced a family!’
Kitty could barely repress a smile, but by the time she had driven out with Dolphinton five times, and had twice accompanied him and his mother to the theatre, Mr Standen surprised her by delivering himself of a protest. He said that she was making a cake of herself.
Kitty refuted the accusation with some heat. Mr Standen temporized. ‘Dashed well making a cake of me!’ he said.
‘Absurd!’
‘Well, it ain’t absurd. Here’s half the town knowing you’re engaged to me, and wondering if you’re going to tip me the double. Mind, I wouldn’t say a word if it weren’t Dolph! Coming it a bit too strong, Kit, to prefer a fellow like that to me!’
‘But, Freddy, we agreed that only your family should be told we were engaged! Surely you cannot have spread the news!’
‘I should rather think I haven’t! Now, for the lord’s sake, Kit, don’t be missish! You don’t suppose we could tell m’mother and Meg without its leaking out! Besides, Jasper knows too: no use denying it when he’d asked Meg already. Sisters!’ said Freddy, in a voice of loathing. He added, after a moment’s reflection: ‘That cousin of yours knows, too.’
‘Camille? No, indeed, he does not! I have not said a word to him about it, I promise you, Freddy!’
‘Told him myself,’ said Freddy.
She fixed her eyes on his face. ‘But why?’
‘Thought it would a good thing to do,’ replied Freddy vaguely.