False Colours

was familiar with this gambit, he dealt with it easily enough. He was then spared any further introductions by the intervention of Lady Ebchester, who shook hands with him in a very robust way, adjuring her brother in a pungent aside to stop trying to addle the poor boy’s brains by presenting him to every member of the family.

“They all know who he is,” she said trenchantly, “and if he don’t know who we are, so much the better for him! If I had guessed you meant to invite the whole family, stock and block, I wouldn’t have come here tonight, and nor, I dare say, would he. Anyone but a chucklehead would have known that it would only serve to make Mama as cross as crabs!” She waved him aside, and addressed herself to Kit, saying: “No need to take fright! I don’t know what maggot my brother got into his head, but very likely you’ll never set eyes on most of these old quizzes again. How does your mother do?”

“Very well, ma’am, and desired me to convey her compliments to you.”

“Mighty civil of her—or of you!” she replied. “We’ve never been on better than bowing terms. So you’re going to marry my niece! I wish you happy: it won’t be her fault if you’re not.”

“Then we shall be, ma’am, for I am determined it shan’t be mine.”

“You’re full of pretty speeches,” she said, putting him forcibly in mind of the Dowager. “I see young Lucton wanting to edge in a word. Heaven knows what he’s doing here, for he’s the merest connexion! However, I dare say you’re glad to see a face you do know!”

She nodded dismissal, and he turned away to confront a young gentleman of dandified appearance, who was hovering close at hand, and who greeted him with a broad grin, and drew him a little apart, saying: “I warned you, Den! Devilish, ain’t it? Dashed nearly sherried off to Brighton this morning: can’t think why I didn’t!”

“A want of nerve!”

“No, no, that wasn’t it! The old lady don’t take a particle of interest in me. Fact is, I wanted a word with you. You haven’t forgotten that little matter I broached to you, have you?”

“No, but to own the truth I’ve been too busy to think about it.”

“What a fellow you are!” said Mr Lucton. “No wish to press you, but you said you’d give me an answer within a day!”

“Oh, lord, did I?” said Kit, thankful for the first time in his life for his twin’s well-known forgetfulness. “I was called away suddenly, and it went out of my mind.”

“Ay, I guessed as much, so I’ve done nothing about it. Don’t want to press you, Den, but I wish you will tell me one way or the other!”

“Yes, but not at this moment!” protested Kit. “It’s neither the place nor the occasion.”

“Oh, very well!” said Mr Lucton discontentedly. “I’ll give you a look-in tomorrow, then. Though I must say —”

He was interrupted by the sound of the dinner-gong, and, as Lady Stavely came up at that instant to take possession of Kit, the rest of the sentence remained unuttered.

Kit found himself placed between his hostess and Miss Cressida Stavely at the dinner-table. He was relieved to see that the length of the table separated him from the Dowager; had it separated him from Cressida he would have been profoundly thankful.

For the first ten minutes his attention was fully engaged by Lady Stavely, who regaled him with a flow of vivacious small-talk. This presented him with no difficulty, since she allowed him little opportunity to speak, and asked him only such commonplace questions as anyone would have been able to answer. She was, mercifully, more anxious to show herself off than to draw out her guests, but he found her empty, incessant titter of laughter irritating, and was not altogether sorry when she turned from him to converse with Mr Charles Stavely. Sooner or later he would be obliged to talk to Cressida; he thought that to do so at the dinner-table might be the best way of avoiding a tête-à-tête. He glanced at her. Her head was turned a little away, as she listened to what her other neighbour was saying to her. It struck Kit that she had all the unconscious assurance lacking in her stepmother. Lady Stavely was overacting the part of Society hostess; she had been for too long the daughter who had failed to catch a husband to slip easily into her new position. It was not difficult to understand why she should be jealous of Cressida, so quietly poised, so well-accustomed to the management of her father’s establishment, and to the entertainment of his guests. She appeared to be absorbed in her conversation with her neighbour, but she must have noticed that Lady Stavely had transferred her attention to her brother-in-law, for she brought her conversation to a natural conclusion and turned towards Kit, saying, with a faint smile: “I wish this were not such a dull party: you must be dreadfully bored!”

“Not at all!” he replied.

She looked quizzically at him. “A high treat, in fact!”

“Well, I shouldn’t describe it in quite those words,” he owned, “but the truly boring parties, you know, are the formal squeezes, when one is obliged to do the polite to all the people one would least wish to talk to.”

She was surprised. “But I thought you never attended such parties!”

“Not when I can avoid them,” he said, retrieving the slip.

“Which, in general, you find yourself able to do! And when you are not so able,” she added thoughtfully, “you take care not to become bored by arriving late, and leaving early, don’t you?”

“A gross aspersion upon my character!”

She laughed. “Did you think that because I am not very much in the habit of attending such squeezes that I don’t know your reputation? You are the despair of hostesses!”

“You have been listening to slanderous reports.”

She smiled, but shook her head. “You will be able to leave this party early, at all events. My grandmother doesn’t keep late hours. I am afraid, however, that she will wish to hold further conversation with you. Can you bear that?”

“Easily! I consider she has been much maligned. I will allow her to be disconcerting, but by no means the petrifying Gorgon I was led to expect.”

“Not by me!” she said quickly. “I never said that of Grandmama!”

Mr Fancot, whose courage had been strengthened by the excellent food and drink offered him, replied coolly: “Oh, yes! If not in actual words, by inference! Can you deny it?”

She exclaimed instead: “What an odd, unexpected creature you are, my lord! Can you deny that you looked forward to this party with the gravest misgivings? You told me that the very thought of running the gauntlet of my family put you into a quake!”

“That was because I had been misled,” said Kit brazenly.

She looked at him, amused, yet with a puzzled crease between her brows.. “But you weren’t in a quake— even before you decided that you had been misled. I own, I thought Grandmama would have put you out of countenance, but she didn’t.”

“To be honest with you, she did, but I thought it would be fatal to betray my embarrassment.”

“Yes, very true: she despises the people she can bully. You gave her a homestall, and she may very likely have taken a fancy to you.”

“Can she bully you?” he asked.

“Oh, no! That is, I shouldn’t let her do so, but the occasion hasn’t arisen: she is always very kind to me.” She fell silent for a few moments; and when she spoke again it was in a more formal tone, and as though she were carefully picking her words. “Lord Denville, when you did me the honour of asking me to marry you, we discussed the matter—we began to discuss the matter quite frankly. But we were interrupted, as I expect you will recall, and there has been no opportunity since that day to resume our discussion.” She raised her eyes to his face. “I should like to be able to do so before coming to an irrevocable decision.”

He had been regarding her over the rim of his wineglass, but he set the glass down at this, saying involuntarily: “I thought you had come to a decision! How is this?”

She answered apologetically: “I’m afraid I gave you reason to think so. And indeed, at that moment, I believed I had done so. I can’t explain it to you tonight. I had hoped to have seen you again before this party, but you had gone into the country, and Albinia—Lady Stavely—sent out the invitations without telling me.”

He cast a swift glance towards his hostess, to assure himself that her attention was still being claimed by her brother-in-law, before asking bluntly: “Do you wish to cry off, Miss Stavely?”