Cotillion

‘That’s what Jasper says, but it don’t make it any better. Seems to me that fellow Bonaparte ennobled a lot of devilish queer fish. Thing is, this Camille of Kit’s looked to me as though he meant to dangle after her. Told him we was engaged. Told him the terms of this Will Uncle Matthew means to make. Then he stopped haunting the place. Dangling after the Yalding fright instead.’

‘In fact, an adventurer! I imagine Annerwick will take good care that his daughter doesn’t marry to disoblige him. Isn’t there a sister living with Lady Maria, as dragon?’

‘Yes, but she’s a poor dab of a female. The on-dit is that Lady Maria means to have the Chevalier. Wouldn’t surprise me at all: handsome fellow, very popular with the ladies. No use saying it ain’t my affair. Seems to me it might be. What I mean is, if Annerwick took fright, very likely to set a lot of dashed awkward enquiries afoot. If the fellow’s an impostor, disagreeable situation for Kit. Besides, she don’t like not having relations. Told me so. Said it made her comfortable to have a respectable cousin. Ought to do something about it.’

Lord Legerwood, who had been listening to him with much more interest than he was wont to accord him, said: ‘I expect you ought, Freddy, but precisely what you should do I confess I don’t immediately perceive.’

Freddy looked surprised. ‘Don’t see any difficulty about that, sir. If he’s a loose-fish, nothing for it but to get rid of him.’

Lord Legerwood’s eyes widened a little. ‘I trust you are not proposing to fight a duel, Freddy?’

‘Lord, no! Cork-brained thing to do! Pack him off to France again; that’s the dandy!’

‘An excellent scheme—if you can bring it about.’

‘Daresay I shall think of a way,’ said Freddy. He observed a curious expression on his father’s countenance, and said with slight concern: ‘Anything amiss, sir?’

‘No—oh, no!’ replied Lord Legerwood, recovering himself, ‘I almost believe that you will think of a way, for I perceive that you have depths hitherto unsuspected by me, my dear boy. Tell me, if you please, if I am correct in assuming that my part in this is to discover for you, if I can, who and what is your Chevalier?’

‘That’s it,’ said Freddy, gratified by such ready understanding. ‘Very much obliged to you if you would, sir.’

‘I will do my poor best,’ bowed his lordship. ‘Meanwhile, permit me to congratulate you upon the change you have wrought in Kitty’s appearance! I collect that yours has been the guiding hand: alas, I knew when I saw her the other evening that my poor Meg could have had little to say in the choice of her apparel!’

Freddy looked pleased. ‘Elegant little thing, ain’t she?’ His brow clouded. ‘Shouldn’t have worn those topazes, though. Wouldn’t let me give her a set of garnets. Pity!’

Lord Legerwood, although noting this peculiar reluctance on Miss Charing’s part to receive gifts from her betrothed, refrained from comment. He merely said, polishing his eyeglass: ‘Oblige me, Freddy, by telling me if Jack Westruther is often to be found in Berkeley Square?’

Freddy’s brow darkened. ‘Too dashed often, for my taste. No need for you to trouble yourself, though. Keeping my eye on Meg!’

Lord Legerwood, sustaining yet another shock, said faintly: ‘You are?’

‘To be sure I am. What’s more, got my own notion of what’s in the wind.’ He nodded portentously, but added: ‘Don’t mean to say anything about that: not my affair! Trouble is—beginning to think he’s too damned loose in the haft!’

‘I have thought that any time these past seven years,’ said Lord Legerwood.

‘You have?’ said Freddy, regarding him with affectionate pride. ‘Always say you’re the downiest man I know, sir! Up to every rig and row in town!’

‘Freddy, you unman me!’ said his father, profoundly moved. ‘No one, I believe, has yet called me a slow-top, but I own I am happy to learn that you are—er—keeping an eye on your sister.’

‘Yes, but no need to fear there’ll be any brats coming though a side-door,’ said Freddy bluntly. ‘For one thing, can’t, with Meg increasing; for another—Jack’s got his eye on a devilish prime article. Don’t think he would, either: dash it, not such a rum touch as that!’

With this assurance Lord Legerwood had to be content, for his son’s confidences were at an end. Freddy saw no reason to inform his parent that he had been thunderstruck to discover that Miss Charing had, by means unknown to him, become acquainted with the damsel whom he had had no hesitation in designating a prime article. He had already viewed with disapprobation her friendship with an ill-favoured female of obviously plebeian origin; his feelings when he called in Berkeley Square and found his affianced bride entertaining Miss Broughty held him spellbound upon the threshold, his jaw dropping, and his eyes starting from his head. When Miss Broughty presently took her leave, he nerved himself to expostulate with Kitty, representing to her that to be striking up an acquaintanceship with the daughter of a lady whom he did not scruple to call an Abbess, if ever he saw one, could in no way add to her consequence. ‘It won’t do, Kit! Take it from me!’

To his intense discomfiture he came under the beam of Miss Charing’s wide-eyed, enquiring gaze. ‘What does an Abbess signify, Freddy?’ she asked.

He was thrown into disorder, and replied hastily: ‘Never mind that! Wouldn’t understand if I told you! Thing is, the woman’s putting that girl up to the highest bidder. Oughtn’t to say such things to you, but there it is!’

‘I know she is,’ responded Kitty calmly. ‘She is quite the most odious woman imaginable! I am so sorry for poor Olivia! Indeed, Freddy, you would pity her if you knew the whole!’

‘Yes, I daresay I should. No harm in being sorry for her, but it won’t do to be making a friend of her.’

‘But, Freddy, surely there can be no objection! Though we may dislike Mrs Broughty, Olivia’s birth is respectable, for she is related to Lady Batterstown, and she, I know, is a friend of your Mama’s!’

Freddy sighed. ‘Trouble is, Kit, you ain’t been on the town long enough to know the ins and the outs! Oliver Broughty was a dashed loose screw, by all I’ve ever heard, and it don’t make a ha’porth of odds if he was some kind of a third cousin to Lady Batterstown, of if he wasn’t. In fact, he was, but it’s what I was telling you t’other day: every family has its scaff and raff! We have! Thing is, don’t foist ’em on the ton!’

Kitty wrinkled her brow. ‘It is true that Lady Batterstown seems not to have been very kind to the Broughtys. One cannot but feel that had she but befriended Olivia the poor girl might have achieved a very creditable alliance, for you cannot deny, Freddy, that she is most beautiful!’

‘That ain’t enough,’ said the worldly-wise Mr Standen.