False Colours

‘Which I most certainly did!’ he interjected.

She smiled at him, and said, quoting his own words: ‘So what could I do but help you out of a scrape?’

He caught her hand to his lips. ‘Oh, Cressy, you are such a darling!’ he told her. ‘Don’t think badly of my twin! I know it must seem as though he’s a shocking loose-screw, but I promise you he’s not!’

‘No, of course he’s not! You can’t suppose that I believed the fustian nonsense Mrs Alperton talked, about his leaving Clara to starve! As for his having seduced her, I should think it very much more likely that it was Clara who seduced him! Kit, I know it is most improper of me to ask you, but who was the Marquis?’

‘My dear, I haven’t the least notion, and dared not inquire! I only know that he provided her with outriders, and stocked her cellars with wine from his own.’

‘And a carriage drawn by cream-coloured horses! I did venture to inquire, but she said he was a Duke now, and turned respectable, and that she bore him no grudge, and so wouldn’t take his character away.’

‘What a pity! I daresay we shall never know now.’ He sat frowning for a moment or two. ‘I wonder if Evelyn did go after Silverdale? He has a place somewhere in the north, I collect. No, I don’t think he would have done so without telling Mama.’

‘He didn’t. Sir Bonamy was talking about Silverdale yesterday, to Mr Cliffe – that is to say, he was talking about Brighton, and the people staying at the Pavilion. He mentioned Lord Silverdale: I heard him. Kit, cannot you think of any place where Denville might be? I do feel you ought to make a push to discover what has happened to him. You can’t maintain this hoax for ever!’

‘Oh, I shan’t be obliged to!’ he replied. ‘He’ll come back! Yes, I know it must seem odd in me not to be in flat despair: I think so myself, whenever I consider every appalling possibility; but I find, after conjuring up nightmares, that I don’t believe one of ’em. Evelyn could not be dead, or in distress, and I not know it. And when he does come – Lord, we shall still be in the suds! This is the very devil of a hobble, Cressy!’

‘But why? Of course it is bound to be a little awkward, but must it be so very bad? No announcement of my engagement to Denville has been made, and that horrid piece of printed gossip might just as well refer to you as Denville. Surely we must be able to contrive so that only our families need ever know that Denville made me an offer? Or if not that – I was forgetting that unfortunate dinner-party – at least my aunts and uncles need never know that you played that hoax on us all. We can tell the truth: that I met you, and found I liked you better!’

He smiled a little, but shook his head. ‘That’s not it. We are deeper in the suds than I think you know, lov

e. Even assuming that your father would give his consent –’

‘He will: Albinia will take good care of that!’

‘I daren’t assume so much. He must think me a poor exchange for Evelyn! I have neither his title nor his possessions, remember! His fortune is handsome; mine is merely genteel!’

‘Well, Papa can scarcely take exception to that, for my fortune is merely genteel too. Of course, he may be disappointed when he learns that I am not going to be a Countess after all, so let us immediately decide what title you mean to adopt when you are raised to the peerage, like your uncle! That should reconcile him, don’t you think?’

‘To be honest with you,’ he said apologetically, ‘no, I don’t! I can’t help feeling that he might even doubt my ability to achieve such a distinction.’

‘Papa is not very clever, but he’s not such a goose as that! You may not be as wealthy as Denville, but I haven’t the shadow of a doubt that you will make a much greater mark in the world than he will. Perhaps I ought to tell you that in preferring your suit to his I am governed by ambition. You, in course of time, will become the Secretary for Foreign Affairs –’

‘In a year or two!’ interpolated Mr Fancot affably.

Her lips quivered, but she continued smoothly: ‘– and I shall go down to history as a great political hostess!’

‘That’s much easier to picture! Do you think you could be serious for a few moments, little love?’

She folded her hands demurely in her lap. ‘I’ll try, sir!’ Then she saw that although he smiled there was trouble behind the smile, and she became grave at once, unfolding her hands to tuck one into his, warmly clasping it. ‘Tell me!’

His long fingers closed over her hand, but he did not immediately answer her. When he did speak it was to ask her an abrupt question. ‘What did Evelyn tell you, Cressy? You said that he had been very frank with you: how frank?’

‘Perfectly, I believe. I liked him for it – for not pretending that he had fallen in love with me, which I knew he had not. He did it charmingly, too! Well, you know his engaging way! He explained to me how uncomfortably he was circumstanced, and that Lord Brumby would wind up the Trust if he entered into a suitable marriage. I thought it very understandable that his present situation should chafe him beyond bearing.’

‘That was all he told you?’

‘Why, yes! Was there some other reason?’

‘Not precisely. His object was certainly to wind up that confounded Trust, which has irked him more than I guessed. But I know him, Cressy! – oh, as I know myself! – and I am very certain that he would never have proposed such a cold-blooded marriage merely to rid himself of shackles which fretted him. As I understand the matter, he was forced into this by the urgent need to get possession of his principal.’

‘Do you mean that he is in debt?’ she asked, considerably surprised. ‘Surely you must be mistaken! I had thought, from what Papa told me, that the income he enjoys is very large indeed? Could he have run so deep into debt that he must broach his principal?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not Evelyn: Mama!’

She gave a gasp, but said quickly: ‘Oh, poor Lady Denville! Yes, I see – of course I see! I should have known – that is, – Pardon me, but I have heard gossip! I discounted the better part of it. You must be as well acquainted with tattle-boxes as I am! Detestable creatures! I was aware too, that Godmama was – was a little afraid of Lord Denville; and of course I know that she is amazingly expensive! She told me herself that she was so monstrously in the wind that her case was desperate – but in such a droll way that I thought she was funning. And when your father died I supposed – I don’t know why – that her affairs had been settled.’

‘They were not. In justice to my father, I believe he didn’t know in what case they stood. She never told him the whole – dared not! The blame for that must lie at his door!’