False Colours

‘Indeed it must!’ she said warmly. ‘Pray tell me the whole! You may trust me, I promise you! I love her too, remember! Is it very bad?’

‘Do you think I would have breathed one word of this to you if I didn’t trust you? I do, most implicitly, but I can’t tell you how bad it may be until I’ve seen Evelyn. It would be useless to try to discover the answer from poor Mama, for I don’t think she has the smallest notion how much she owes. It’s plain enough it must be a larger sum than any of us suspected.’

She said diffidently: ‘Would not Lord Brumby see the propriety of discharging her debts?’

‘Yes, I think he would, but –’ He paused, frowning. ‘That was the thought that occurred to me. Not that she should have applied to my uncle, but that Evelyn might do so. But something she said to me – my uncle does not like her, you know – made me realize why Evelyn would not do that – or I either! It would be a betrayal.’ He glanced up, with a twisted smile. ‘We couldn’t do it, you see. She would never betray us, and – well, we love her dearly! So you see why I said we are in the suds.’

She nodded. ‘Very clearly! It is most awkward, and I don’t immediately perceive by what means we are to come about. Unless your brother would consent to offer for some other eligible female?’

‘That’s the only solution I can think of,’ he admitted. ‘Unfortunately, my dear, you are, in my uncle’s eyes, the most eligible of all females! He certainly knew that Evelyn meant to offer for you, and it may well be that Evelyn, or Mama, told him that he had done so, and had been accepted – subject to your grandmother’s approval! Whatever his opinion of Evelyn may be, he’s very full of starch, you know, and would find it impossible to believe that she would not approve of a marriage with the head of his house! He would be far more likely to think Evelyn incurably volatile, and by no means to be trusted with the control of his fortune. And even if he could be won over – No, I’ll have no hand in thrusting my twin into a marriage of convenience! I wouldn’t have furthered his engagement to you if I hadn’t known he was committed already. So – so there we are, my darling! At Point Non-Plus!’

She nodded, and sat thinking, quite as troubled as he was. After a pause, she turned her eyes towards him, and said: ‘You can do nothing till Evelyn comes back, can you? I understand that. And then?’

‘Between us we must be able to come about. If I knew just how badly scorched Mama is – but even if I did I couldn’t turn tail at this stage! Only think what a dust there would be if I were suddenly to announce that all this time I’d been hoaxing everyone! I can readily imagine your grandmother’s delight at receiving such tidings: I should be ruining myself as well as Evelyn!’

‘You might,’ she conceded. ‘One never knows, with Grandmama. She likes you, so that it’s possible she would think it a very good joke. She will have to know the truth in the end, after all!’

‘Yes, but not until Evelyn is here to explain why he was compelled – as I know he must have been – to behave so abominably.’

She thought this over. ‘No. I was wondering if we might not make up some tale – but we should very likely be bowled out if we did. And I can’t help feeling that it would be very much better if the Cliffes never do know that they were hoaxed.’

‘Very much better! And how they are to be got rid of presents us with another problem. I have an uneasy suspicion that they mean to spend the rest of the summer at Ravenhurst.’

She laughed. ‘Yes, but I am very sure Godmama won’t allow them to do so! Kit, how many persons know the truth?’

‘Besides those I’ve mentioned, only my old nurse, and Ripple. What made you find me out? Did I betray myself? Ripple, who has known me all my life, wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t done something he knew Evelyn would never do.’

‘Oh, no! You didn’t betray yourself in any way you could help. I hardly know how it was – except that you are not quite like Evelyn, however much you appear to be his image. It puzzled me, when I first met you, but I thought yo

u were perhaps a man of several moods. I might not have found you out if I hadn’t seen that portrait, and if I hadn’t been present when Godmama started to say Kit, and changed it suddenly to Kind Evelyn!’

‘I thought you hadn’t noticed that slip. I yield to none in my devotion to Mama, but a more caper-witted creature I hope I may never encounter! Let me tell you, my love, that her latest brilliant notion – a gem of high value, this one! – is that if Evelyn should suddenly return to us he must pretend to be me!’

That sent her off into another fit of laughter. ‘Oh, she is so superb! Do you mean to tell her about this? I think we should, don’t you?’

‘No – emphatically!’ said Kit, drawing her back into his arm. ‘We’ll keep our secret until Evelyn comes home!’

Fourteen

The following day was not destined to be ranked amongst Mr Fancot’s happier memories. It included a picnic, arranged by Lady Denville for the entertainment of Cressy, Ambrose, the young Thatchams, the Vicar’s elder daughter, and Kit himself; a singularly unsuccessful dinner-party; and a letter from Lord Brumby.

This was addressed to Evelyn, and it did nothing to raise Kit’s hopes of being able to solve the problem which had kept him awake for a considerable part of the night. It was written in an amicable spirit, but it made Kit’s heart sink. Lord Brumby had seen the paragraph in the Morning Post, and, while he expressed himself austerely on the impropriety of it, he was glad to learn from it that his nephew’s affairs were prospering so well. He had received from his old friend, Stavely, a gratifying account of the excellent impression Evelyn had made in Mount Street; and he entertained no doubt that this must be strengthened during Miss Stavely’s stay at Ravenhurst. His congratulations might be premature, but he believed he need not hesitate to offer them, since it would be strange indeed if his dear Denville, who (as he was well aware), possessed the gift of being able to make himself very agreeable, when he chose to do so (underscored), should fail to win a lady already favourably disposed towards his suit.

That made Kit grin appreciatively, but the next sheet, however acceptable it might have been had it been addressed to himself, lowered his spirits still more. It was devoted to praise of Miss Stavely. No one, in Lord Brumby’s opinion, could be a more eligible bride. Her fortune was not large, but it was respectable; her lineage was impeccable; and from all he had seen and heard of her she was eminently fitted for the position offered her. His lordship ventured to predict for his nephew a future of domestic bliss, unattended by such youthful volatility as he had been obliged, in the past, to deprecate.

He ended this missive with a brief paragraph which, under other circumstances, might well have encouraged optimism in Mr Fancot’s breast. ‘I must not conclude, my dear Denville, without informing you that I have received a very comfortable account of your brother from Stewart, who writes of him in such terms as must, I know well, afford you as much gratification as they afford me.’

Mr Fancot, reading these lines in unabated gloom, put up his uncle’s letter, and went off to superintend the final preparations for an expedition of pleasure to Ashdown Forest.

This, being attended by all the ills, including a shower of rain, which commonly beset al fresco entertainments, was spoilt for Kit from the outset by the inability of the Vicar’s daughter to ride. She was driven to the rendezvous in the landaulet, which also carried the picnic-hampers; and Miss Stavely, the doyenne of the party, bore her company: a graceful act of self-abnegation which would have confirmed Lord Brumby in his high opinion of her excellence, but which won no encomiums whatsoever from Mr Fancot.

The dinner-party, which followed hard upon his return from this expedition, sent him to bed in a state of exhaustion. Lady Denville, in her praiseworthy desire to make the Dowager Lady Stavely’s visit to Ravenhurst agreeable, had been inspired to beg the pleasure of Lord and Lady Dersingham’s company to dinner; and this couple, whom she described to Kit as antiquated fogies who belonged to the Dowager’s set, had felt themselves obliged to accept her invitation. In the event, her inspiration was proved to be far from happy, as Sir Bonamy, when he learned of the high treat in store, correctly prognosticated. ‘Maria Dersingham?’ exclaimed that amiable hedonist, his eyes starting from their sockets. ‘No, no, my pretty! You can’t be serious! Why, she and the old Tartar here have been at outs these dozen years and more!’

The truth of these daunting words was confirmed within five minutes of the Dersinghams’ arrival. Nothing could have been more honeyed than the civilities exchanged between two elderly and redoubtable ladies of quality; and nothing could have struck more terror into the bosoms of the rest of the company than the smiling remarks each subsequently addressed to the other. The only person to remain unaffected was Mrs Cliffe, whose unshakeable conviction that her sole offspring would shortly succumb to an inflammation of the lungs, contracted in Ashdown Forest during a shower of rain, occupied her mind to the exclusion of all other considerations; and the only two persons who derived enjoyment from the party were the contestants themselves, who showed signs of alarming revivification at every hit scored.

It was in a state of prostration (as he informed Cressy, when he contrived to snatch a brief moment or two alone with her) that Kit retired to bed shortly after eleven o’clock. He was certainly very much too tired to tease his brain by trying to hit upon a solution to the problem that confronted him; and, in fact, fell asleep within a very few minutes of Fimber’s drawing the curtains round the enormous four-poster bed, and leaving the room.

He was dragged up, an hour later, from fathoms deep, by a hand grasping his shoulder, and shaking it, and a voice saying: ‘Oh, do wake up, Kester! Kester!’