‘You are mistaken, coz,’ interrupted Mr Westruther, in a brittle voice. ‘The Fish is cleverer than we knew. I have not the slightest desire to dwell upon all she saw fit to pour into my ears not an hour since, for I found it nauseating, but if the matter teases you, you may as well know that she believes herself to be comparable to Katherine Parr—tending the aged and irascible monarch!’ he added sarcastically.
‘So that was it!’ exclaimed Kitty. ‘Of course! He had a bad leg too! Though I fancy it was not precisely gout that afflicted him, was it? Now I see it all! How very like Fish to be so absu
rd! If only Uncle Matthew has not bullied her into saying she will marry him, I must say I think it an excellent thing for them both, don’t you, Freddy?’
‘Well, Freddy?’ said Mr Westruther. ‘Do you think it excellent, or does some grain of common-sense exist in your mind?’
‘Not my affair,’ said Freddy. ‘At least—come to think of it, not sure it isn’t, in which case I do think it’s an excellent thing. What I mean is, I don’t want that woman living with us, and if she marries my great-uncle she dashed well can’t!’
Miss Charing’s cheeks became flooded with colour. ‘But, F-Freddy—!’ she faltered.
Mr Westruther laughed. ‘Just so, my love! You have been so busily employed in making what I can only call infelicitous matches that you have left your own future out of account, have you not? Oh, don’t look so conscious! I imagine Hugh cannot be so wood-headed that he does not know very well what game you have been playing! Dolphinton, I am sure, we need not regard; and as for Miss Plymstock, I look upon her as quite one of the family! It has been an amusing game, my little one, and you must not think that I blame you for having played it. It was very unhandsome of me not to have come to Arnside that day, was it not?’
He moved towards her as he spoke; his eyes were laughing again; and he held out his hands. The Rector cast a glance at Mr Standen, but Mr Standen had discovered an infinitesimal speck of fluff adhering to his coat sleeve, and was engaged in removing it. It was a task that appeared to absorb his whole attention.
Miss Charing took a step backward. ‘If you please, Jack,’ she said, rather breathlessly, ‘no more!’
‘Oh, nonsense, Kitty, nonsense!’ Mr Westruther said impatiently. ‘This folly has gone far enough!’
Miss Charing swallowed, and managed to say; ‘I collect that you mean to ask me to marry you, but—but I beg you will not! If you had come—that day—I should have accepted your offer, which would have been a very great mistake, and makes me so deeply thankful now that you did not come! Pray, Jack, say no more!’
He paid no heed to this, but said: ‘The fair Olivia admitted you a little too deeply into her confidence, did she? I was afraid she would. Don’t trouble your pretty head for such a trifle as that, Kitty! You will own that I have borne with tolerable equanimity the news that she has fled to France with your enterprising cousin.’
‘No, no, it is not that! I can’t tell what it is, only that perhaps I have changed, or—or something of that nature!’ said Kitty. ‘And, indeed, Jack, I am excessively fond of you, and I daresay I shall always be, in spite of knowing that you are quite odiously selfish, but, if you will not be very much offended, I would much prefer not to be married to you!’
He stood staring down into her perturbed face. The laugh had quite vanished from his eyes, and there was a white look round his mouth. Miss Charing had never before had experience of the temper Mr Westruther’s cousins knew well, and she was a little frightened.
‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said, quite softly. ‘George was right after all! Dolphinton was a little too much for you to swallow, but you had indeed set your heart on a title and a great position, and so you laid the cleverest trap for Freddy that I have ever been privileged to see! You cunning little jade!’
It was at this point that Mr Standen, that most exquisite of Pinks, astounded the assembled company, himself included, by knocking him down.
For this, two circumstances were largely responsible. He took Mr Westruther entirely unawares; and Mr Westruther, recoiling from the blow, tripped over a small footstool, lost his balance, and fell heavily.
‘Good God!’ said the Rector, forgetting his cloth. ‘Well done, Freddy! A nice, flush hit!’
Lord Dolphinton, who had found the interchange between Kitty and his cousin rather beyond his power of comprehension and had allowed his attention to wander, now realized that a mill was in progress, which he was perfectly well able to understand. In high glee he called upon Miss Plymstock to observe that Freddy had floored Jack, and begged Freddy to do it again.
Freddy himself, rather pale, stood waiting with his fists clenched while his cousin picked himself up. There was a very ugly look in Mr Westruther’s eyes, which caused Hugh, who had helped him to his feet, to maintain a grip upon his arm, and Kitty to say hurriedly: ‘Oh, Freddy, it was splendid of you, and I am so very much obliged to you, but pray do not do it again!’
‘No, no!’ said Freddy, conscience-stricken.
The ugly looked faded. ‘At least admit you could not!’ said Mr Westruther.
‘No, I know I could not,’ replied Freddy, ‘but I dashed well don’t mind trying to!’
Mr Westruther began to laugh. ‘Freddy, you dog, you took me off guard and off balance, and I have a good mind to knock you through that window! Oh, take your hand off my arm, Hugh! You can’t be fool enough to suppose I mean to have a turn-up with Freddy!’ He shook the Rector off as he spoke, and straightened his neckcloth. That done, he held out his hand imperatively to Kitty. ‘Come, cry friends with me!’ he said. ‘I will apologize for the whole, confess that I entirely misread a situation that is now perfectly plain to me, and remove myself immediately from your presence.’ He held her hand for a moment, grinning rather ruefully at her; then he lightly kissed her cheek, and said: ‘Accept my best wishes for your happiness, my dear, and believe that I shall do my utmost to cut you out with Uncle Matthew! My felicitations, Freddy. I’ll serve you trick-and-tie for that leveller one of these days. Oh, no, pray don’t accompany me, Hugh! Really, I have had more than enough of my family for one day!’
A bow to Miss Plymstock, a wave of the hand, and he was gone. The front-door slammed behind him; they heard his tread going down the garden-path, the click of the gate-latch, and, in another moment or two, the sound of his horses’ hooves.
Miss Plymstock rose, and shook out her skirt. ‘I’m bound to say I ain’t at all sorry to see the last of him,’ she remarked. ‘Nor I haven’t told you yet, Mr Standen, how very much obliged to you I am for bringing that licence.’
But Mr Standen was not attending. He addressed himself to the Rector. ‘Oughtn’t to have done it, Hugh. Not the thing! He wasn’t expecting it.’
‘Very true,’ agreed the Rector. ‘It was, in a sense, improper, but since you could not, I fear, have landed him the smallest punch under any other circumstances, I cannot regret it. He came by his just deserts. The most deplorable feature of the business is that such a scene should have been enacted in this room, under the eyes of two ladies.’
‘Better have gone into the garden,’ nodded Lord Dolphinton. ‘Like watching a good mill.’
‘What you would have watched, my dear Foster, would not have been a mill, but a murder!’ said the Rector tartly.