False Colours

‘They all know who he is,’ she said trenchantly, ‘and if he don’t know who we are, so much the better for him! If I had guessed you meant to invite the whole family, stock and block, I wouldn’t have come here tonight, and nor, I daresay, would he. Anyone but a chucklehead would have known that it would only serve to make Mama as cross as crabs!’ She waved him aside, and addressed herself to Kit, saying: ‘No need to take fright! I don’t know what maggot my brother got into his head, but very likely you’ll never set eyes on most of these old quizzes again. How does your mother do?’

‘Very well, ma’am, and desired me to convey her compliments to you.’

‘Mighty civil of her – or of you!’ she replied. ‘We’ve never been on better than bowing terms. So you’re going to marry my niece! I wish you happy: it won’t be her fault if you’re not.’

‘Then we shall be, ma’am, for I am determining it shan’t be mine.’

‘You’re full of pretty speeches,’ she said, putting him forcibly in mind of the Dowager. ‘I see young Lucton wanting to edge in a word. Heaven knows what he’s doing here, for he’s the merest connexion! However, I daresay you’re glad to see a face you do know!’

She nodded dismissal, and he turned away to confront a young gentleman of dandified appearance, who was hovering close at hand, and who greeted him with a broad grin, and drew him a little apart, saying: ‘I warned you, Den! Devilish, ain’t it? Dashed nearly sherried off to Brighton this morning: can’t think why I didn’t!’

‘A want of nerve!’

‘No, no, that wasn’t it! The old lady don’t take a particle of interest in me. Fact is, I wanted a word with you. You haven’t forgotten that little matter I broached to you, have you?’

‘No, but to own the truth I’ve been too busy to think about it.’

‘What a fellow you are!’ said Mr Lucton. ‘No wish to press you, but you said you’d give me an answer within a day!’

‘Oh, lord, did I?’ said Kit, thankful for the first time in his life for his twin’s well-known forgetfulness. ‘I was called away suddenly, and it went out of my mind.’

‘Ay, I guessed as much, so I’ve done nothing about it. Don’t want to press you, Den, but I wish you will tell me one way or the other!’

‘Yes, but not at this moment!’ protested Kit. ‘It’s neither the place nor the occasion.’

‘Oh, very well!’ said Mr Lucton discontentedly. ‘I’ll give you a look-in tomorrow, then. Though I must say –’

He was interrupted by the sound of the dinner-gong, and, as Lady Stavely came up at that instant to take possession of Kit, the rest of the sentence remained unuttered.

Kit found himself placed between his hostess and Miss Cressida Stavely at the dinner-table. He was relieved to see that the length of the table separated him from the Dowager; had it separated him from Cressida he would have been profoundly thankful.

For the first ten minutes his attention was fully engaged by Lady Stavely, who regaled him with a flow of vivacious small-talk. This presented him with no difficulty, since she allowed him little opportunity to speak, and asked him only such commonplace questions as anyone would have been able to answer. She was, mercifully, more anxious to show herself off than to draw out her guests, but he found her empty, incessant titter of laughter irritating, and was not altogether sorry when she turned from him to converse with Mr Charles Stavely. Sooner or later he would be obliged to talk to Cressida; he thought that to do so at the dinner-table might be the best way of avoiding a tête-à-tête. He glanced at her. Her head was turned a little away, as she listened to what her other neighbour was saying to her. It struck Kit that she had all the unconscious assurance l

acking in her stepmother. Lady Stavely was overacting the part of Society hostess; she had been for too long the daughter who had failed to catch a husband to slip easily into her new position. It was not difficult to understand why she should be jealous of Cressida, so quietly poised, so well-accustomed to the management of her father’s establishment, and to the entertainment of his guests. She appeared to be absorbed in her conversation with her neighbour, but she must have noticed that Lady Stavely had transferred her attention to her brother-in-law, for she brought her conversation to a natural conclusion and turned towards Kit, saying, with a faint smile: ‘I wish this were not such a dull party: you must be dreadfully bored!’

‘Not at all!’ he replied.

She looked quizzically at him. ‘A high treat, in fact!’

‘Well, I shouldn’t describe it in quite those words,’ he owned, ‘but the truly boring parties, you know, are the formal squeezes, when one is obliged to do the polite to all the people one would least wish to talk to.’

She was surprised. ‘But I thought you never attended such parties!’

‘Not when I can avoid them,’ he said, retrieving the slip.

‘Which, in general, you find yourself able to do! And when you are not so able,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘you take care not?to become bored by arriving late, and leaving early, don’t you?’

‘A gross aspersion upon my character!’

She laughed. ‘Did you think that because I am not very much in the habit of attending such squeezes that I don’t know your reputation? You are the despair of hostesses!’

‘You have been listening to slanderous reports.’

She smiled, but shook her head. ‘You will be able to leave this party early, at all events. My grandmother doesn’t keep late hours. I am afraid, however, that she will wish to hold further conversation with you. Can you bear that?’

‘Easily! I consider she has been much maligned. I will allow her to be disconcerting, but by no means the petrifying Gorgon I was led to expect.’

‘Not by me!’ she said quickly. ‘I never said that of Grandmama!’