pittance. And it wouldn’t be good for Foster to be chasing to Scotland for as much as three days, I daresay, thinking all the time his Mama was on his heels,” replied Miss Plymstock, with unshaken calm.
“Oh, I am persuaded it would be very bad for him! We must think of a better scheme than that.”
“But can you?” asked Miss Plymstock.
“Yes, between us we must be able to do so. I own, I do not immediately perceive how it is to be contrived, but I mean to think very particularly about it. It will be best if Lady Dolphinton believes him to be obedient, I think. She is the most absurd creature! I daresay you are aware that she has compelled him still to angle for me! Should we not turn this to account? Recollect, if she knows him to be in my company she will be satisfied! Something may suggest itself: it must do so! If you do not object, I will encourage him to be a great deal in my company; and— though it will go sorely against the grain with me!—I’ll let her think I am not wholly averse from his suit.”
“I’m agreeable,” said Miss Plymstock. “But maybe this cousin Freddy of Foster’s won’t like it?”
“Freddy? It has nothing—I mean,” Kitty corrected herself hastily, “he will have not the least objection, I assure you!”
Chapter XI
In pursuance of her aims, Miss Charing allowed herself, with real heroism, to be inveigled by Lady Dolphinton into visiting the Dolphinton house in Grosvenor Place, a locality which her ladyship described disparagingly as quite out of the way, and this in so scornful a voice that Kitty quaked to think of what she might have said of so unmodish a quarter as Keppel Street.
There had been a time when Lady Dolphinton had not spared to state her opinion of encroaching orphans, or her conviction that this particular orphan was a sly little hussy. It seemed that that was now to be forgotten. She was all amiability when Kitty presented herself in Grosvenor Place; and, since she could be agreeable enough when she chose, soon had the girl at her ease. She had the tact not to let Dolphinton appear, and the wit not to mention Mr. Westruther; and if she tacitly assumed that Kitty had accepted Mr. Standen’s offer as a means of establishing herself creditably, she did so with enough sympathy to make it hard for Kitty to be offended. The folly of the world in venerating the higher ranks of nobility was lightly touched upon; and also the advantages attached to a pretty young woman’s allying herself with a complaisant man. “But that I should not say to you, my dear! Freddy—dear creature!—is a Standen! You will discover soon enough how straitlaced a family!”
Kitty could barely repress a smile, but by the time she had driven out with Dolphinton five times, and had twice accompanied him and his mother to the theatre, Mr. Standen surprised her by delivering himself of a protest. He said that she was making a cake of herself.
Kitty refuted the accusation with some heat. Mr. Standen temporized. “Dashed well making a cake of me!” he said.
“Absurd!”
“Well, it ain’t absurd. Here’s half the town knowing you’re engaged to me, and wondering if you’re going to tip me the double. Mind, I wouldn’t say a word if it weren’t Dolph! Coming it a bit too strong, Kit, to prefer a fellow like that to me!”
“But, Freddy, we agreed that only your family should be told we were engaged! Surely you cannot have spread the news!”
“I should rather think I haven’t! Now, for the lord’s sake, Kit, don’t be missish! You don’t suppose we could tell rn’mother and Meg without its leaking out! Besides, Jasper knows too: no use denying it when he’d asked Meg already. Sisters!” said Freddy, in a voice of loathing. He added, after a moment’s reflection: “That cousin of yours knows, too.”
“CamiUe? No, indeed, he does not! I have not said a word to him about it, I promise you, Freddy!”
“Told him myself,” said Freddy.
She fixed her eyes on his face. “But why!”
“Thought it would be a good thing to do,” replied Freddy vaguely.
“I can’t conceive why you should have done so!”
“Oh, well! Cousin of yours!” said Freddy, his attention on his quizzing-glass, which he was polishing with his handkerchief.
“To be sure, yes! I do not object to his knowing, if he will not spread it about, for I have a particular kindness for him. He is a delightful man, don’t you think, Freddy?”
“Very pleasant fellow,” agreed Freddy.
“Meg says his manners have a truly Gallic polish. She is in transports over him! There is just that sportive playfulness, you know, which Englishmen, in general, have not. And a most superior understanding!”
“Shouldn’t be at all surprised,” said Freddy. “In fact, I’m dashed sure he has!”
She said, a little shyly: “You can’t conceive how happy it makes me to have so respectable a relation! It is not quite comfortable, you know, to have no one of one’s own family!”
“No, I daresay it ain’t,” said Freddy, his ready sympathy stirred. “Not but what you might have the better part of my relations, and welcome! However, I see what you mean, Kit. Thing is—no wish to interfere, but no use thinking you’re up to snuff yet, my dear girl, because you ain’t! Won’t do for you to encourage the Chevalier to dangle after you. Don’t want to be one of the on-dits of town!”
“Oh, no, indeed I don’t!” she replied, laughing. “But you quite mistake the matter, Freddy! Camille’s behaviour is unexceptionable! I daresay you may be thinking of Meg’s having invited him to go with us to the Argyll Rooms, but I assure you that was quite an extraordinary happening! I could see you did not like it above half, but remember! we are first cousins, and had then but just met again after so many years! It was very natural that he should call rather frequently to see me, at the outset. I don’t think I have met him, save in company, since that evening.”
Freddy, who had taken his own simple measures to discourage the Chevalier’s visits to Berkeley Square, looked faintly gratified. It had never before fallen to his lot to steer an inexperienced damsel past the shoals of her first London season, and it was not a task for which he felt himself to be fitted; but an intimate knowledge of his elder sister had not filled him with confidence in her discretion. He had a hazy idea that having brought Kitty to town it behoved him to keep an eye on her. He had taught her the steps of the quadrille; he had done considerable violence to his feelings by escorting both her and Meg to a masked ball at the Pantheon, so that she might, in this large and extremely mixed assembly, learn to dance creditably in public; he had requested his mother to procure a voucher for her, admitting her to Almack’s, and had forbidden her straitly to accept any invitation to waltz there; he had dissuaded her from buying a jockey-bonnet of lilac silk, much admired by Meg; and he had taken strong exception to a pair of bright red Morocco slippers, saying in a resigned tone that it seemed to him that he would be obliged to accompany her the next time she went shopping. “And don’t keep on telling me that they’re Wellington slippers, because if that’s what they said in the shop they were bamboozling you!” he said, with some severity. “Dash it, the Duke’s a devilish well’dressed man, and he wouldn’t make such a figure of himself!”
These were small matters, and on all questions of taste and fashion Mr. Standeri was well qualified to advise. Miss Charing’s charming French cousin was a more serious problem, and one which considerably exercised his mind.
It was Mr. Storiehouse who was responsible for arousing certain suspicions in his breast. Mr. Stonehouse had lately attended a rout-party at the French Embassy, and could not recall that he had seen the Chevalier at this select gathering. Those who most deplored Mr. Standen’s lack of scholarship would not have called in question his worldly knowledge. He knew that the scion of a noble French house should have been present upon this occasion. There might be several reasons to account for his absence; but Mr. Standen remembered that he had not liked the Chevalier’s waistcoat, and he asked Mr. Westruther where he had met him.
“Now, where did I first meet him?” pondered Jack, his mouth grave, and his eyes alight. “Was it at Wooler’s, or was it in Bennett Street?”
Freddy, although he occasionally played hazard at Watier’s, was not a gamester, but he perfectly understood the significance of his cousin’s answer. Mr. Westruther had named two of London’s gaming-hells. With strong indignation, he demanded: “Good God, Jack, is the fellow an ivory-turner?”
Mr. Westruther laughed. “A very skilful one, Freddy!”
