False Colours

‘Pray say no more!’ begged Cressy, suddenly assailed by maidenly shyness. ‘There is no possibility of my marrying Lord Denville, ma’am, as you will understand when I tell you that my affections are – are already engaged!’

There was a moment’s frozen silence, during which Mrs Alperton seemed to wilt where she sat. Kit, withdrawing his intent gaze from Cressy’s face, quietly left the room, feeling that she stood in no need of support, and that no time should be lost in summoning Mrs Alperton’s chaise to the door. He dispatched a footman on this errand, desiring him at the same time to send Challow up to the house.

That worthy arrived speedily. He evinced no surprise at the curt question which greeted him, but replied: ‘Yes, sir, I do know where it came from. According to what the postboy told me, it was hired in Tunbridge Wells. And a regular saucebox he is, but he’d got no reason to tell me a whopper, so we may as well believe him as not. Also according to him, Master Kit, the party which hired it had quite an argle-bargle with Norton before he let her into the house, saying as how his lordship would reg

ret it to his dying day if he didn’t see her. Very full of it, the lad was! Well, it made me prick up my ears, as I don’t need to tell you, but by what the lad says, the party was naught but an old griffin: not by any manner of means one of his lordship’s convenients – asking your pardon, Master Kit, if I’m speaking too bold!’

‘Not one of his convenients: her mother!’ said Kit, his brows knit.

‘You don’t say!’ exclaimed Challow, shocked. ‘Whatever brought her here, sir?’

‘It seems his lordship hasn’t visited her daughter for nearly a month. She thinks he has abandoned her. I hoped that perhaps – But if she comes from the Wells we are no better off than we were before, for we know that wasn’t where he went!’

‘I’ll take my affy-davy it wasn’t,’ asserted Challow. ‘And a very good thing too if he has abandoned that one! All the same, Master Kit, it looks like you’re in a case of pickles – if her ma’s half the archwife the postboy says she is! Seems to me you’ll have to hang up your axe.’

Kit’s frown disappeared, and the ready laughter sprang into his eyes. ‘Yes, it looked like a case of pickles to me too,’ he admitted. ‘In fact, I thought it was all holiday with me! But I was rescued in the very nick of time – and the archwife is about to depart: beaten at all points!’

Thirteen

When he re-entered the Blue saloon Kit gathered, from what he heard, that Mrs Alperton had been regaling Cressy with nostalgic reminiscences of her past glory. By the expression of sympathetic interest on Miss Stavely’s serene countenance he was encouraged to hope that Mrs Alperton’s frequently asserted regard for innocent girls had prompted her to withhold the more lurid details of her career, together with the information that she had been pretty well acquainted with Lord Stavely. Nor was he mistaken: Mrs Alperton had interrupted her narrative several times, with apologies for having allowed herself to run on more than was seemly; and she took care to assure Cressy that although she had more than once entertained Stavely at her parties their association had never ripened into anything beyond what she called company-acquaintance. She was describing these parties, explaining that however nobly born a gentleman might be there were times when he took a fancy for a bit of jollification, when Kit came in. Cressy had exercised a soothing influence upon her, but the sight of Kit brought her wrongs back to her mind. She cut short her reminiscences, and glowered at him.

‘Denville, Mrs Alperton, as you may suppose, is anxious to return to her daughter,’ said Cressy, before that lady could re-open hostilities. ‘She has been telling me, too, how very ill-able she is to afford the post-charges, and I have ventured to say that I am persuaded you will see the propriety of discharging that obligation for her – since all the trouble and expense she has been put to was caused by your stupid forgetfulness!’

‘I do indeed,’ Kit replied. ‘So much so that I have already attended to the matter. The chaise is at the door, ma’am: you will allow me to do myself the honour of escorting you to it!’

Mrs Alperton, rising from the sofa, favoured him with a stately inclination of her head, but observed with a good deal of bitterness that this was the least she had a right to expect, and pretty scaly at that. She then took gracious leave of Cressy, sniffed audibly at Kit, who was holding open the door, and stalked from the room.

He accompanied her out of the house, and very civilly handed her up the steps of the chaise, begging her, as he did so, to assure the afflicted Clara that she was not forgotten, and should not be left to starve.

But Mrs Alperton, somewhat exhausted by so much effort and emotion, had lost interest in her daughter’s sorrows, and she merely cast Kit a look of loathing before sinking into a corner of the chaise, and closing her eyes.

Kit went back to the Blue saloon. Cressy was still there, standing where he had left her, with her back to the fireplace. She said seriously, as soon as he came in: ‘She ought to have been offered some refreshment, you know. I did think of it, but I was in dread that at any moment someone might hear voices in here, and come in – Lady Denville, perhaps, or Mrs Cliffe.’

‘I don’t think Mama would have been any more perturbed than you were, but God forbid that my uncle should get wind of it!’ He shut the door, and stood looking across the room at her. ‘Cressy, what did you mean when you told that harridan that your affections were engaged?’

The colour deepened a little in her cheeks, but she replied lightly: ‘Well, she talked so much like someone in a bad play that I became carried away myself! Besides, I had to say something to convince her! I could see she didn’t quite believe me when I said I wasn’t going to marry your brother.’

He let his breath go in a long sigh, and walked forward, setting his hands on her shoulders, and saying: ‘You don’t know how much I have wanted to tell you the truth! Cressy, my dear one, forgive me! I’ve treated you abominably, and I love you so much!’

Miss Stavely, who had developed an interest in the top button of his coat, looked shyly up at this. ‘Do you, Kit?’ she asked. ‘Truly?’

Mr Fancot, preferring actions to words, said nothing whatsoever in answer to this, but took her in his arms and kissed her. Miss Stavely, who had previously thought him unfailingly gentle and courteous, perceived, in the light of this novel experience, that she had been mistaken: there was nothing gentle about Mr Fancot’s crushing embrace; and his behaviour in paying no heed at all to her faint protest could only be described as extremely uncivil. She was wholly unused to such treatment, and she had a strong suspicion that her grandmother would condemn her conduct in submitting to it, but as Mr Fancot seemed to be dead to all sense of propriety it was clearly useless to argue with him.

Several minutes later, sitting within the circle of Kit’s arm on the sofa lately occupied by Mrs Alperton, she said: ‘Why did you do it, Kit? It seems quite fantastic!’

‘Of course it was – infamous as well! I beg your pardon, even though I can’t be sorry I did it. If I hadn’t come home that night, I might never have known you – or have known you only as Evelyn’s wife!’

This terrible thought caused him to tighten his arm involuntarily. She soothed him by softly kissing his cheek, and by saying, as soon as she had recovered her breath: ‘But I don’t think I should have married Denville. I had so very nearly made up my mind not to when I met you! Then I thought – being so grossly deceived – that perhaps I would, after all. But why was I deceived?’

‘I did it to get Evelyn out of a scrape,’ he confessed. ‘No one but Mama, and Fimber, and Challow knew I wasn’t in Vienna; and in the old days, when we were prime for any lark, we often did exchange identities, and only those who knew us very well ever found us out. So I was pretty certain I could carry it off. But when I took Evelyn’s place at that first dinner-party it was in the belief that it would be for one occasion only. If I had known that I should be obliged to maintain the hoax, nothing would have prevailed upon me to have yielded to Mama’s persuasions!’

Her eyes danced. ‘I knew it! She did persuade you!’

‘Yes, but I must own,’ said Kit scrupulously, ‘that I put the notion into her head – not in the least meaning to do so, but by saying, in a funning way, that if Evelyn didn’t come back in time to attend that party I should be obliged to take his place. Only to make her laugh! You see, I found her in the deuce of a pucker, because Evelyn was still absent, although he had been expected to return to London days earlier. I thought then that he had been delayed by some trifling hitch, so I consented to run that rig, though it went very much against the pluck with me. Can you understand, Cressy? The circumstances – the intolerable slight offered you if Evelyn failed to appear at a gathering assembled to make his acquaintance – !’

‘Indeed I can!’ she responded instantly. ‘I don’t blame you at all – I am even grateful to you for having spared me such a daunting humiliation! What did delay Evelyn?’

‘I don’t k