False Colours

‘And you?’

‘Yes,’ she said frankly. ‘I feel the same – perhaps more bitterly, which – which quite shocks me, because I had never dreamt I could be so horridly ill-natured! Between the two of us poor Papa is rendered miserably uncomfortable! I detest Albinia as much as she detests me, and – to make a clean breast of it! – I find I can’t bear playing second fiddle where I have been accustomed to being the mistress of the house!’ She added, with an effort at playfulness: ‘You should take warning, Denville! I have lately learnt to know myself much better than ever I did before, and have come to the dismal conclusion that I am an overbearing female, determined to rule the roost!’

He smiled at her. ‘I’m not afraid of you. But tell me this! – if I should ask it of you, would you find it irksome to share a home with my mother?’

She stared at him, and then exclaimed, as enlightenment dawned on her: ‘Was that the stipulation you spoke of? Good God, how could you be so absurd? Did you think that I should require you to thrust her out of her home? What a toad you must think me! My dearest, most adorable Godmama! Let me tell you, my lord, that my hope is that she will receive me into your household with as much kindness as she has always shown me!’

‘Thank you!’ he said warmly. ‘But I must tell you that she straitly forbade me even to suggest such an arrangement to you. She says it never answers. Indeed, she informed me that she had always regarded it as a most fortunate circumstance that her own mother and father-in-law were dead before she married my father!’

Her eyes danced. She said appreciatively: ‘I can almost hear her saying it – perfectly seriously, I make no doubt! Do, pray, assure her that I should not so regard her death!’

‘I shan’t dare to disclose that I mentioned the matter to you. She promised me a severe scold if I did so!’

‘No wonder you should be in a quake!’ she agreed. ‘One always dreads the ordeal of which one has no experience!’

He laughed. ‘Now, how do you know I have not that experience, Miss Stavely?’

‘I don’t think my understanding superior,’ she replied, ‘but I have cut my eye-teeth!’ She looked curiously at him. ‘May I know why I have sunk to be Miss Stavely again? You called me Cressy when you proposed to me – but perhaps you have forgotten?’

‘By no means!’ he said promptly. ‘Merely, your habit of addressing me as my lord led me to fear that I had gone beyond the line.’

‘What a whisker!’ she remarked. ‘I recall that Grandmama told me last night that you had a ready tongue.’

‘I wish I could think that she meant it as a compliment!’

‘With Grandmama one can never be quite certain, but she did say that she had been agreeably surprised in you!’

‘Come, that’s encouraging! May I hope that she will consent to our marriage?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t asked her, you see, and all she has said so far is that she wants to know you better.’

‘I wish you will tell me, Cressy, whether you mean to be ruled by her decision?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I make my own decisions.’ She thought for a moment, and then said, with a gleam of mischief: ‘I might make her decision my excuse!’

‘Oh, no, I don’t think you would! You’re no shuffler,’ he responded coolly.

‘How can you know that?’ she asked, meeting his eyes with a surprised question in her own.

He smiled. ‘It isn’t difficult to know it: no extraordinary intelligence is necessary to enable one to perceive that your mind is direct. You don’t talk flowery commonplace, and you’re not afraid to come to the point.’ He paused. ‘That being so, tell me what it is you wish to say to me! I fancy you didn’t invite me to visit you only to discover what my stipulation was.’

‘No,’ she acknowledged. Her colour was a little heightened; she said, with a touch of shyness: ‘I hardly know why I did ask you to come. You will think me very far from direct! You see, when you proposed t

o me, I was in a horrid quarrel with Albinia – a vulgar pulling of caps, as women do! I wished of all things to go away from here, not only because I was hurt and angry, but because I saw that it wouldn’t do for me to remain. Albinia is anxious to be rid of me, and I can’t blame her, for I find I am becoming one of those detestable people who are for ever picking out grievances, or coming to cuffs over trifles. And when I made the really shocking discovery that I was hoping that Albinia’s child, which she is so certain will be a son, will be a daughter – just to take the wind out of her eye! – I knew that I must go away.’ She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. ‘So ignoble!’ she uttered, in a stifled voice.

‘But very natural,’ Kit said. ‘A son to put your nose out of joint, eh?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, that was it. But to allow oneself to be put into a flame by such a cut – spoken in a mere fit of crossness, too – !’

‘I consider it stands greatly to your credit that you didn’t divulge your ignoble wish.’

She forced a smile. ‘I’m not quite as direct as that.’

‘You may put it so, if you choose: I should have said that you are not so wanting in conduct!’

‘Thank you: that was kind in you!’

‘No, only truthful. Were you in a passion when I proposed to you? I didn’t guess it.’