False Colours

‘Ay, no wonder! But I’ll be bound she was glad to see you, sir. Which I am too, if I may say so.’ He glanced critically at the waistcoat he was holding, and sniffed. ‘You never had this made for you in London, Mr Christopher. You won’t be wearing it here, of course. Is that foreign man of yours bringing the rest of your baggage after you?’

‘No, it’s coming by carrier. I haven’t brought Franz with me. I knew I could depend on you to look after me.’ Receiving no immediate response to this, he said, surprised: ‘You’re not going to tell me I can’t, are you? Fimber!’

The valet emerged with a start from what bore all the appearance of a profound reverie. ‘I beg your pardon, sir! I was thinking. Look after you? To be sure I will!’ He added, as he laid the condemned waistcoat aside, and picked up the greatcoat which Kit had flung across a chair: ‘And time I did, Mr Christopher! These Polish coats are gone quite out of fashion. Nor you can’t wear that shallow in London: the present mode, sir, is for high crowns.’

‘Never mind my dowdy rig!’ said Kit. ‘What the devil is my brother doing?’

‘I don’t know any more than you do, sir, and it’s got me all of a twitter! It might be that he went off in one of his distempered freaks, and yet I don’t think it, somehow. My lady will have told you that he’s in a way to become buckled?’

‘She did, but he has never so much as given me a hint of it,’ replied Kit grimly. ‘Something damned brummish about the business! Well, if anyone knows the truth you do, so tell it to me, without any hiding of the teeth! Is he turning short about?’

‘No, that I’ll go bail he’s not!’ Fimber replied. ‘No one knows better than me the sort of bobbery he’ll get up to when he’s in high leg, but he wouldn’t play nip-shot now – not when he’s made the young lady an offer! What’s more, he wasn’t poking bogey when he told me, and her ladyship too, that he would be back within the sennight, for he bid me to be sure to engage the barber to come to trim his hair today. He will be here, sir, at noon.’

‘And what, pray, has that to do with me?’ asked Kit, eyeing him with misgiving.

‘It occurs to me, sir, that you are wearing your hair too long. His lordship favours more of a Corinthian cut.’

‘Oh, does he? Now, you may stop pitching your gammon, and tell me this! – Are you thinking that I might take my brother’s place tonight?’

‘Well, sir,’ said Fimber apologetically, ‘the notion did cross my mind! It seems as if it was meant, you coming home without a soul’s being the wiser, and not bringing that foreigner with you – and no need to worry about your baggage, for you may leave it to me to see it safely stored. No need to

worry about your clothing either, because his lordship has enough and to spare for the pair of you. Nor it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve changed shoes with him, not by any means it wouldn’t be!’

‘The circumstances were very different. I’ve told my mother that already.’

Fimber turned a shocked countenance towards him. ‘You told my lady you wouldn’t help his lordship to bring himself home? Well! Never did I think to see the day when you would not be ready to through stitch in anything for his sake, Mr Christopher! As he would for you, no matter what might come of it!’

‘I know that. Nor would I hang back an instant, however much against the pluck it might be, if I were convinced it was what he wished me to do. But that’s where the water sticks, Fimber: I’ve a strong feeling that there’s nothing he wishes less than to marry Miss Stavely. If that’s so, I should be better employed trying my possible to bring him safe off.’

‘You can’t do that, sir! Why, he’s offered for her! You wouldn’t have him play the jack, putting such a slight on the poor young lady – no, and he wouldn’t do it! I don’t say he hasn’t often set people in a bustle with his starts, but I’ve never known him behave ungentlemanly, not in all the years I’ve served you both!’

‘I was wondering rather if I couldn’t contrive to get Miss Stavely to cry off. I wish you will be open with me! Don’t try to persuade me that he isn’t blue-devilled: I know he is!’

‘Well, sir, since you ask me, in my opinion he wasn’t near as blue-devilled when I saw him last as what he has been ever since –’ Fimber broke off in embarrassment.

‘Ever since when? Go on, man!’ said Kit impatiently.

Fimber began with finicking care to fold the despised waistcoat. His reply was evasive. ‘It is not my place, Mr Christopher, to speak of the circumstances which might have caused his lordship to offer for Miss Stavely, but he didn’t make up his mind to it in the twinkling of a bedpost, as you might say. So don’t you get to thinking that he did it on the spur of the moment, and was sorry for it after, because that’s not so. I’m not saying it was what he’d have chosen to do, for often and often he’s told me that he’s got no fancy to become a tenant-for-life, never having met any female he didn’t think a dead bore after a month or two. Well, I didn’t pay much heed to that, not at first, thinking he’d get to be more sober when he was older, like you have, sir.’ He paused, looking undecidedly at Kit. Then he said, as though impelled: ‘Mr Christopher, there’s not a soul I’d say this to but yourself, but the truth is I’ve been regularly worried about him! Let alone that he’s been going the pace more than he should, he’s more rackety than ever he was when it was to be expected that he should always be prime for a lark, and he’s beginning to take to the muslin company – which is what has me in a worse fret than all the rest!’

Kit nodded, but said frowningly: ‘It sounds to me as if he were bored, or out of spirits. That always made him resty. But why?’

‘I couldn’t say, sir, not to be sure. Unless it might be that he’s lonely.’

‘Lonely? Good God, he has a host of friends!’

‘In a manner of speaking, sir. But I wouldn’t call them intimate friends – not such as he’d tell his mind to, the way he would to you. He’s never been quite the same since you went away, though it’s hard to explain what I mean, and no one that didn’t know him as well as I do would notice it. I daresay it comes of being a twin. You was always so close, the pair of you, that you never wanted any other cronies. His lordship never took anyone into his confidence but you, and it’s my belief he won’t, except, maybe, his wife. It may be otherwise with you, but –’

‘No,’ Kit said slowly. ‘I hadn’t considered it, but it isn’t otherwise. But I have a good deal to occupy me, and he hasn’t.’

‘Exactly so, Mr Christopher, and that’s where the mischief lies, as I don’t doubt her ladyship would tell you.’

‘She has told me. But whether the remedy lies in marrying him to a girl he don’t care a rap for I strongly doubt.’

‘Well, sir, it isn’t what one would have chosen, but the way he’s carrying on now he never will be married. What’s more, if my Lord Brumby was to discover the sort of company he keeps he wouldn’t end that Trust a day before he was obliged to. If you’ll pardon my saying so, sir, your father may have meant it for the best, but he served his lordship the worst turn he could, when he put that slight on him!’

‘Took it very much to heart, didn’t he? That was the only time he ever buttoned up against me. He barely spoke about it. I was afraid it would rankle.’

‘Yes, sir, and so it has! It wasn’t a bit of use trying to persuade him that the thing to do was to prove to my Lord Brumby that he was very well able to manage his affairs. Well, you know what he is when he’s been put into a real flame, Mr Christopher! Not a bit of interest will he take in his estates: it’s seldom he even visits them, which isn’t surprising, for he’s got no power to do a mortal thing without he has his uncle’s leave, and I know well he feels downright humiliated.’