She considered the question, frowning. “You will think me a perfect wet-goose, Denville, but the truth is that I don’t know! If Albinia had not come into the room when she did—”
“Unfortunate!” he agreed.
“Yes, and so stupid, if she but knew it, poor thing! To be sure, there was some awkwardness attached to our discussion, but we were on the way to an understanding—or, so I believed. I have felt ever since that a great deal was left unsaid. You too, I dare say. When Albinia came in you had just said there was one stipulation you must make—but you weren’t granted the opportunity to tell me what that may be.”
“Good God, did I really say anything so uncivil?” he asked, startled.
“No, no, you were not uncivil! Remember that I begged you to be plain with me—not to stand on points!”
“I seem to have taken the fullest advantage of that request, if I did indeed talk about stipulations!”
“I thought that was the word you used, but I might be mistaken, perhaps. Yet—”
“I fancy you must have been, for I haven’t the smallest recollection of it.”
“But you can’t have forgotten that you said
He laughed. “But I have forgotten, which proves that it can’t have been a matter of much consequence. If only we had not suffered that untimely interruption—!”
“Exactly so! You must feel as I do that it left us uncomfortably situated. Would it be possible for you to visit me tomorrow, a little after eleven o’clock? We may be secure against another such interruption, for Albinia means to go shopping with her mother directly after breakfast, and my grandmother never leaves her room until noon.” She thought he hesitated, and added, colouring slightly: “I ought not to suggest it, perhaps, but my situation is a trifle difficult. Surely it can’t be thought improper in me—at my age, and in such circumstances—to receive you alone?”
“Improper! Of course not!” he said immediately. “I shall present myself at—a quarter past eleven? Unless I find a carriage waiting at the door to take up Lady Stavely, when I shall conceal myself behind a lamp-post until I see her drive away.”
“Thus investing a morning-call with the trappings of an intrigue!” she said, laughing.
Her attention was then claimed by the cousin who sat on her other hand; and in a very few moments Kit was once more engaged by his hostess.
When the ladies withdrew, and the cloth was removed from the table, Lord Stavely came to sit beside Kit, unconsciously rescuing him from Mr Lucton, who had formed the same intention. Conversation became general; and as Lucton was too shy to raise his voice amongst so many seniors, and Mr Charles Stavely, in his late forties, had only a casual acquaintance with young Lord Denville, no pitfalls awaited Kit. He would have been happy to have remained in the dining-room for the next hour, but Lord Stavely was under orders not to allow the gentlemen to linger over their wine, and he very soon declared it to be time to join the ladies.
In the drawing-room, the supposed Lord Denville had inevitably been the subject of animated discussion. Opinions were varied, one party, led by Lady Stavely, extolling his air and address; another warning Cressy that she would be very unwise to marry a man so notoriously volatile; and a third, headed by Lady Ebchester, stating that it was a very good match, and that Cressy, at the age of twenty, and with a dowry of only £25,000, would be a fool to draw back from it.
This brought Lady Ebchester under the Dowager’s fire. Sitting forward in her chair, and leaning on her ebony cane, the old lady looked like the popular conception of a witch. She fixed her daughter with a gleaming eye, and snapped: “Besides what I may leave her!”
Lady Ebchester was rather taken aback by this, but she said: “Oh, well, Mama, that is a matter for you, of course, but you will hardly leave any great sum to Cressy when you have sons who have nearer claims on you. Not to speak of your daughters—though, for my part, I expect nothing, and nor, I dare say, does Eliza. As for Caroline, however, and poor Clara—”
“Oh, pray don’t, Augusta!” begged Miss Clara Stavely, tears starting to her eyes. “So very improper—so disagreeable for dear Cressy!”
“Don’t cry, Aunt!” said Cressy cheerfully. “If Grandmama leaves her fortune to me, I’ll engage to give it back to the family immediately.”
The Dowager uttered a cackle of mirth. “Do you want to start a civil war, girl?”
“Not in the least, ma’am—and if Aunt Augusta doesn’t know that there won’t be any occasion for me to do so, I do!” retorted Cressy, twinkling at her.
At this point, the deaf cousin, who had formed a very imperfect impression of what had been said, nodded at Cressy, and stated in the voice of one prepared to go to the stake in defence of her beliefs: “Well, dear, I said it before, and I’ll say it again: he’s
As this declaration coincided with the arrival of the gentlemen, Kit, ushered first into the room by his host, was once more privileged to hear this tribute. He managed to preserve his countenance, but his eyes met Cressy’s across the room, and he was obliged to grip his lips tightly together. Cressy retreated to the end of the room, her shoulders shaking; and the Dowager, having informed the deaf cousin that she was a fool, commanded Kit to come and sit beside her.
He obeyed her, drawing up a chair. The Dowager tartly adjured Clara not to hang about her, and told the rest of the company that they were at liberty to indulge in their usual bibble-babble. Correctly interpreting this as a prohibition on any attempt to intrude into her conversation with the principal guest, her relations meekly drifted away, to form small groups in various parts of the room.
“Gabblemongers, all of ’em!” said the Dowager, sardonically observing their efforts to maintain a flow of small talk. She brought her piercing gaze to bear on Kit’s face, and said “Well, young man? What have you to say for yourself?”
“I don’t think I have anything to say for myself, ma’am, and I stand in too much dread of being thought a gabble-monger to say it if I had,” he replied.
“Balderdash!” she said. “You’ve a mighty ready tongue in your head, sir!”
He smiled at her. “Well, what do you wish me to say, ma’am? You can’t expect me to recite a catalogue of my vices, and as for my virtues, would you really think better of me if I puffed them off to you?”
“Have you any?” she demanded.
“Yes, a few, and quite a number of good intentions,” he replied.
“So your Uncle Brumby seems to have told my son. But I have a very good memory, and I recall that he once told
This speech, had it been shot at him before dinner, would have shaken him badly, but he was now sufficiently fortified to be able to answer it with smiling ease. “Yes, my uncle has a great kindness for my brother. Kit is his protégé, you know, ma’am.”
She seemed to be satisfied with this response, for she abandoned the subject, and said, after considering him for a few moments: “Well, it’s my way to open my budget, so I’ll tell you to your head that I’m not mad after this marriage. Mind, I don’t dislike you! In fact, you’re better than I looked for. But whether you’re the man for my granddaughter is another pair of shoes.”
Knowing Evelyn as he did, he found himself in agreement with her, and might have added that Miss Stavely was not at all the sort of girl to attract Evelyn’s roving fancy. He said: “I can only hope, ma’am, that I may be able to prove you wrong. It will be my endeavour, I promise you.”
“I’ll say this for you,” she remarked dryly, “you have excellent address! That’s in your favour—or it is to persons of my generation. I detest the scrambling manners some of you younger men affect! Brumby tells my son you have no faults that won’t be cured by a suitable marriage, but from all I hear, Denville, you’re a here and thereian! I put it no more strongly than that, though, to use words with no bark on ’em, there are those who don’t scruple to say you’ve libertine propensities.”
“Are there?” Kit said, his brows drawing together. “I didn’t know it, ma’am,—and it is untrue!”
“No need to fire up!” she replied. “I set no store by reports of that nature. How old are you? Four-and- twenty? Lord, what’s the world coming to if sprigs of your age ain’t to be allowed a few petticoat affairs without a parcel of windsuckers setting it about that they’re loose-screws? I’ve no patience with such prudery!”
He laughed. “Why, thank you, ma’am!”
She directed another of her piercing glances at him. “All very well, young man, but if you marry my
