False Colours

ss, and with a handkerchief knotted round his throat –?! Ay, and what do you think he was doing when I walked in? Reading poetry to her! What a booberkin! I can tell you this, my boy: in my day we’d more rumgumption than to bore a pretty woman into a lethargy!’

‘I was not in a lethargy!’ stated her ladyship. ‘No female of my age could be bored by poems written in her honour! Particularly when the poet has been so obliging as to liken her to a daffodil!’ She observed, with sparkling delight, the revulsion in both gentlemen’s faces, and added soulfully: ‘Tossed like a nymph in the breeze!’ She went into one of her trills of laughter, as the gentlemen exchanged speaking glances. ‘Confess, Bonamy! you never said such a pretty thing to me!’

‘Puppy!’ said Sir Bonamy, his eyes kindling. ‘A daffodil! Good God! Well, I’ve never written a line of poetry in my life: it is not my way! But if I did write about you I shouldn’t call you a paltry daffodil! I should liken you to a rose – one of those yellow ones, with a deep golden heart, and a sweet scent!’ said Sir Bonamy, warming to the theme.

‘Nonsense!’ she said briskly. ‘You would be very much more likely to call me a plump partridge, or a Spanish fritter! As for your party, I should like it of all things, and it is most vexatious of Evelyn to go into the country again, for naturally I must accompany him. It is so dreary at Ravenhurst, if one is quite alone: not that I ever have been there alone, but I have often thought how melancholy it would be if I were obliged to stay there by myself. So you will drive over from Brighton to dine with us, if you please! I expect we shall be able to set ducklings before you, though not, I fancy, quails. But certainly lobsters and asparagus!’

This ready acquiescence in his resolve to seek refuge at Ravenhurst surprised Kit. It was not until Sir Bonamy had departed that he learned the reason for it. ‘Dearest, did you know, then?’ demanded his mother, when he returned from helping to hoist her admirer into his carriage.

‘Did I know what, Mama?’

‘Why, that your uncle Henry is coming to London, on a matter of business! Bonamy told me that he had heard someone say that he was coming, and he said that he would invite him to his party! To be sure, Bonamy couldn’t recall who had told him of it, but I wholly believe it, because it is just the provoking sort of thing Henry would do! When anyone would have supposed that he would be fixed in Nottinghamshire – or do I mean Northamptonshire? Oh, well, it’s of no consequence, and you will know! Wherever it was that he purchased a property when he retired! My darling, I know you have a kindness for him, but you must own that nothing could be more unfortunate than this ridiculous start! I don’t feel that he can be depended on not to recognize you, do you?’

‘On the contrary!’ said Kit emphatically. ‘He would know me within five minutes of clapping eyes on me! When is he coming to London?’

‘Oh, not until next week!’ she assured him. ‘There’s no need to be in a pucker, Kit!’

‘No – not if I can get out of town!’ he said. He looked at her, between amusement and exasperation. ‘Mama, I don’t think you can have the smallest notion of the dangers of this appalling situation! I met a friend of Evelyn’s on my way to Mount Street, and gave him the cut direct! God knows who he is! I brushed through – said I had been in the clouds, and he swallowed it. But what if he’d guessed I wasn’t Evelyn? A pretty case of pickles that would have been, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t guess, and I’m persuaded no one will, except your uncle, or some particular friend of yours, and you may easily avoid them. However, I think you are very right to remove from London, for I perfectly understand that it must be very exhausting to be always on the watch for Evelyn’s friends. Not that I believe any of them would suspect a take-in. Well, look at Bonamy! I did think that he might recognize you, and I let you come into the room just to see whether he would. It wouldn’t have signified if he had, because I should have disclosed the whole to him, and he wouldn’t have breathed a word to a soul, but he hadn’t a notion!’ Her eyes searched his face, trying to read his thought. She stretched out her hand, and when, with a faint, rueful smile, he took it in his, she said coaxingly: ‘Dearest, why do you look like that? Are you not enjoying yourself? Not at all?’

‘No, Mama, I am not enjoying myself!’ he replied, with admirable restraint.

‘Oh, dear!’ she sighed. ‘I thought you would! Why, you were used positively to revel in hoaxing people! Quite as much as Evelyn did! And if ever you were discovered it was always he who made the fatal slip, never you!’

His fingers closed round her hand. ‘Do but consider!’ he begged. ‘In the old days we were just kicking up a lark: we never ran that rig for a serious purpose! Now, think, love! What if the fellow I met today had known me? You might trust Ripple with the truth, but how could I trust a stranger, who, for anything I know, may be no more than a chance acquaintance of Evelyn’s? The story would have been all over town by now, and what would be Miss Stavely’s feelings when it reached her ears?’

She thought this over, and nodded. ‘Very true! It wouldn’t do, would it? So awkward to explain it satisfactorily! You don’t think Cressy suspects, do you?’

He shook his head. ‘No, because she scarcely knows Evelyn. But she’s no fool, Mama, and if she grew to know me – then she would recognize the imposture as soon as she met Evelyn again.’

‘Yes, but she won’t grow to know you. You shall leave for Ravenhurst immediately, and if Evelyn hasn’t returned by then – though surely he will have done so? – I shall join you next week. It would look very particular, you know, if I were to leave London in a pelter.’

‘Of course it would, and I beg you won’t do so! You need not come to Ravenhurst at all, love: you will be bored to death there!’

‘Kit, how can you think me such an unnatural wretch?’ she said indignantly. ‘It is all my fault that you are obliged to air your heels in the country, and the least I can do is to bear you company! For it isn’t as though you have a chère amie in England, which, of course, would be far more amusing for you – though I don’t think you could take her to Ravenhurst, even if you had.’

‘No,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I don’t think I could!’ His gravity broke down; he went into a fit of laughter, gasping: ‘Oh, Mama, what next will you say? First it was Ripple’s corset, and now my chère amie! Such a want of delicacy, love!’

‘Fiddle, Kit! What a wet-goose I should be if I thought you knew nothing about the muslin company! Of course you do, though not, I fancy, as much as Evelyn does, which I am excessively thankful for. Oh, Kit, what can have happened to Evelyn? Where is he?’

He stopped laughing, and put his arm round her, giving her a reassuring hug. ‘Don’t worry, Mama! I know no more than you do what can have happened to him, but I’m very sure he’s safe and sound somewhere. As for where he is, it seems to me that since he was last heard of at Ravenhurst I may be able to discover a clue if I go there myself. So no falling into the dismals, if you please! Promise?’

She put up a hand to stroke his cheek, smiling mistily at him. ‘You are such a comfort, dearest! I’ll try to keep up my spirits, but it will be a struggle to do so when you’ve gone away. And when I recall that I shall have to visit old Lady Stavely I feel ready to sink!’

Seven

Leaving Fimber to follow him with such articles of his brother’s wardrobe as Fimber considered indispensable, Kit drove himself down to Sussex in Evelyn’s curricle, taking Challow with him. This individual lost no time in quashing the several plans he had formed for discovering Evelyn’s whereabouts. He described these, with the freedom of an old and trusted servant, as caper-witted, adding, with some severity, that saving only his lordship he had never known anyone with more maggots in his head than Mr Kit. ‘Being as you’ve set yourself up as his lordship, sir, there ain’t nothing you can do to find him. A capital go it would be if you was to go round the countryside asking after him!’

Accustomed to the faithful henchman’s strictures, Kit said mildly: ‘I’m not really as bacon-brained as you think – not that that’s praising myself to the skies! As far as inquiring after my brother goes I know very well I’m hamstrung. But –’

‘Yes, sir, you are. And if you’ve taken a notion into your nous-box that I can do it for you, you’re beside the bridge! In course, no one wouldn’t think there was any havey-cavey business going on if I was to start asking after my lord when he’s known to be at Ravenhurst! Oh, no! Not if I didn’t ask any but whopstraws they wouldn’t! And don’t you humbug yourself into thinking everyone won’t know it, Mr Kit, because there ain’t anything that happens at Ravenhurst but what it’s talked of all over! You’ll have to show yourself abroad now-and-now, too, for you don’t want it to look as if you was hiding yourself: that ’ud make you look brummish straight off!’

‘Yes, I know all that,’ Kit said. ‘I was thinking of the toll-gates, and the pikes.’

‘Well, sir, I don’t deny I’ve thought of ’em myself,’ confessed Challow. ‘It’s my belief it won’t fadge to go asking questions there any more than it will anywhere else. Now, just you think! I do know that his lordship drove off through the main gates, but which way he took when he reached the lane I don’t know, and even if I was to discover that, cunning-like, from Tugby, at the lodge, it’s my belief it wouldn’t do us a bit of good. If he turned left-handed, it looks like he was making for the London road, but I don’t think he did, because I took that road myself, only a couple of hours after his lordship drove off, and the pike-keeper where you come out on to the post-road knows both him and me, and not a word did he say about having seen my lord when he opened the pike to let me through. Seems to me it’s more likely he turned right-handed when he got to the lane, but that don’t do us a bit of good neither. You know as well as I do, Mr Kit, that it’s not more than five miles till you get to the e

nd of the lane that way and only a step from the village. If I was to start inquiring after his lordship at that pike, we’d have the busyhead that keeps it flashing the gab in an ant’s foot, which would send my lord up into the boughs when he got to hear about it.’