‘Ah!’ breathed Cressy, raising her eyes to his in a glowing look of confidence. ‘I knew you would find it – oh, I knew it, my dearest dear!’
Twenty-two
Well, it’s to be hoped he has!’ said the Dowager irascibly.
‘But of course he has!’ said Evelyn, shocked by her evident want of faith in his twin’s ingenuity. ‘Go on, Kester! Tell us!’
Kit could not help laughing, but he coloured a little, and said: ‘I will, but I’m afraid the scheme I have in mind is pretty make-shift. I think it covers all the difficulties, but I may have left something out of account: the devil of it is there are so many of them!’ He glanced round the circle. ‘Well – it seems to me that the most urgent need is to restore Evelyn to his rightful position. That can’t be accomplished here, but I see no reason for him to bury himself in Leicestershire: he need go no further than to Hill Street. Brigg won’t suspect anything, for he’s a great deal too shortsighted; and I fancy Dinting won’t either, because I took good care to keep out of her way when I was in Hill Street myself.’
‘What about my shoulder?’ interrupted Evelyn.
‘How are the London servants to know when, or how, you broke it? They do know here, so you’ll overturn that phaeton of yours tomorrow, on your way to London – which will account for your arrival in a hired chaise.’
‘Now, hold a minute, Kester!’ said Evelyn. ‘What the devil should I be doing, jauntering up to London, when I’m known to be entertaining guests here? Dash it, even my uncle wouldn’t believe I was as freakish as that!’
‘You are going up to London to meet me, twin. I shall send Challow to fetch the letters from the receiving-office tomorrow, and he will bring me a packet-letter from myself. Whereupon Mama will be cast into transports, and I – faithfully imitating your well-known impetuosity, Eve! – shall set out for London in your curricle, taking Challow with me, and picking you up at Pinny’s cottage. There you’ll take his place – and we’ll hope to God we can get to East Grinstead without anyone’s recognizing you!’
‘I’ll keep my hat over my eyes, and wind a muffler round my chin,’ promised Evelyn. ‘What’s the significance of East Grinstead?’
‘Well, you don’t ever stop for a change there, do you?’
‘What, a bare six or seven miles from here? No, of course I don’t!’
‘So however well they may know you at the toll-gate, they don’t know you at the posting-houses. I propose to leave the curricle at one of them, and to accomplish the rest of the journey in a job-chaise. Challow will have to walk to East Grinstead as soon as it begins to get dark, and drive the curricle up to London tomorrow. Fimber will follow us, with your baggage: no difficulty about that! I must remember to ask him where he deposited my own baggage, by the bye. You’ll set me down, when we get to London, and arrive in solitary state in Hill Street, where, in due course, I also shall arrive – in a hack, having, for some inscrutable reason, journeyed up from the coast on the stage-coach.’
‘Not the stage: the Mail!’ interrupted Cressy.
‘Yes, that’s much better!’ Kit agreed. ‘Thank you, love!’
‘And then?’ she asked.
‘I must see your father, and disclose the truth to him. If I can persuade him to pardon the deception, and to give his consent to our marriage, I think I can contrive to turn the affair into an unexceptionable romance. If not –’ He stopped, and said, after a moment: ‘I don’t know, Cressy, and can’t bring myself to face that possibility!’
‘Well, that don’t signify!’ said the Dowager, who had been listening to him intently. ‘He’ll consent fast enough when he learns that I do!’
‘May I tell him that, ma’am?’
‘I said you might marry Cressy with my goodwill, if you could find a way out of this scrape without setting tongues wagging, and I’m a woman of my word! How
do you mean to do it?’
He smiled. ‘I don’t, ma’am: it would be a task quite beyond my capability!’
‘Beyond anyone’s, my boy,’ said Sir Bonamy. ‘There’s bound to be a deal of talk: no getting away from that!’
‘None at all, sir. The only thing to be done is to sell the world a bargain! – I beg your pardon, ma’am! – to publish a Banbury story, which the tattle-boxes may discuss to their hearts’ content without doing any of us an ounce of harm.’
‘Another of your hoaxes, eh? I thought as much!’ said the Dowager, eyeing him with a certain grim respect.
‘The last one, I promise you!’ he said. ‘And only with your approval, ma’am!’
‘You’ve as much effrontery as your brother!’ she told him. ‘Out with it!’
‘Yes, ma’am! Little though any of you may know it, my love for Cressy is of long standing. I met her when I was last in England, and formed an enduring passion for her, which, however, I – er – kept locked in my breast!’
‘Why?’ demanded Cressy, blinking in bewilderment.
‘I knew my case to be hopeless. Your father would not have entertained my suit, nor did I feel that my circumstances were such as would enable me to support you in the style to which you were accustomed.’