False Colours

granddaughter you’ll put a period to your philandering! She’s a rational girl, and a well-bred girl, and I don’t doubt she’d take it with composure, but she wouldn’t like it, and I don’t mean to have her made uncomfortable, that you may depend on!”

“Nor do I, ma’am—and that you may depend on!” he retorted, a little stir of anger in his heart. His twin might have been going the pace rather too rapidly; he might be careless, even lightminded; he was certainly forgetful; but he was not insensitive; and Kit was ready to swear that if he married Miss Stavely he would never use her unkindly, or wound her pride by blatantly pursuing some other female. Whether he would remain faithful to her was another and more doubtful matter; but he would conduct his affaires with discretion. Presumably Miss Stavely, no schoolroom miss, but a rational woman, entering openly into a marriage of convenience, was prepared for some divagations, and would demand no more of Evelyn than the appearance of fidelity.

The Dowager saw the flash in Kit’s eyes, and was pleased. All she said, however, was: “Easy to say, Denville!” She relapsed into silence, staring grimly ahead. After a long pause, she said abruptly: “When I was young, our marriages were arranged for us by our parents. I could name you a dozen females who were barely acquainted with their bridegrooms. I don’t know that it was a good thing.” She brought her gaze back to Kit’s face. “If you’re expecting me to give you my blessing because you’ve a glib tongue and engaging manners, you’re out in your reckoning! I want to know you better before I do that, and I want Cressy to know you better too. I’m tired now: tell my daughter Clara I’m ready to go to bed! And you may tell your mother to come and visit me one morning! Good night!”

5

Mr Fancot returned to Hill Street, on foot, shortly before midnight, and just in time to witness the arrival of his parent, borne down the street in her own sedan chair, and attended by three middle-aged gallants, and one very much younger gentleman, who walked as close to the chair as possible, and bore all the appearance of one who was equally a prey to adoration and jealousy.

Mr Fancot, awaiting the cortege in the open doorway, was deeply appreciative of the scene, which was certainly impressive. My lady was carried by two stalwarts dressed in neat livery; and her chair, when it came into the lamplight, was seen to be of particularly elegant design, and to be lined throughout with pale green velvet. The gallants were plainly men of mode, and when the chair was set down one opened the door, the second tenderly helped her to alight, and the third stood waiting to offer his arm for her support up the few shallow steps to her front-door. Her young worshipper, quietly elbowed out of the way when he had tried to be the first to reach the door, was left disconsolate, gazing hungrily after the goddess. But she paused before she reached the steps and looked back, exclaiming in her soft voice: “Oh, my fan! I must have dropped it in the chair. Mr Horning, will you be so very obliging as to see if it is there?”

Mr Horning’s drooping spirits revived magically. He dived into the chair, found the fan, and presented it to her ladyship, with a low bow, and a smile which Kit thought perfectly fatuous. She thanked him prettily, gave him her hand to kiss, and said: “Now you must all go home, for here is Denville waiting for me, and we have a great deal to discuss. You know, he has been out of town lately.”

Kit had by this time recognized two of the elderly beaux, and exchanged greetings with them; and Lady Denville put him in possession of the third’s name by saying: “Here is Lord Chacely, wanting to know why you weren’t at Ascot Wicked one, you were to have joined his party!”

Kit clapped a hand to his brow. “Good God, I forgot to write to you, explaining why I was obliged to fail! I beg your pardon, sir!”

“Humbug, you young rascal!” Chacely said. “You forgot the engagement altogether!”

“No, no!” Kit protested.

“But, Chacely, did you think he wouldn’t?” asked one of the other gentlemen.

At this, the third gentleman added his mite to this badinage. It was evident that no suspicion that they were roasting Kit, and not Evelyn, crossed their minds: a circumstance which made Lady Denville say, when the door was shut upon them: “You see, Kit! I told you how it would be! I dare say that Newlyn and Sir John Streatley have been acquainted with you since you were in short coats, and if they never guessed the truth you may be easy!”

“I am not at all easy,” he retorted. “But as for you, love, I wonder how you dare address me as “wicked one”! Mama, you are incorrigible! Who the devil is that mooncalf you’ve enslaved?”

Her infectious ripple of laughter broke from her. “Isn’t he ridiculous, poor boy? But one must be kind to him: you see, he is a poet!”

“Ah, that, of course, explains everything!” said Kit cordially. “I expect you are his inspiration?”

“Well, just at present I am,” she acknowledged. “It won’t last—in fact, I think that at any moment now he will fall desperately in love with some chit—probably quite ineligible!—and forget that I ever existed. Which, I must own, will be in one way a great relief, because it is dreadfully tedious to be obliged to listen to poetry, even when it has been composed in one’s honour. But in another—oh, Kit, you won’t understand, but to be three-and-forty, and still able to attach foolish boys, is such a comfort!”

“Mama, you must never make such an admission again! No one would believe you to be a day older than three-and-thirty—if as much!”

This was true, but Lady Denville, after considering the matter, said: “No, but one must be reasonable, Kit, and everyone must know I can’t be a day younger than three-and-forty, when all the world knows that you and Evelyn are four-and-twenty! It is the most lowering reflection! But never mind that! What happened tonight, in Mount Street? I was in such a fret of anxiety all the evening I left my party early!”

“Oh, was that the reason? I must tell you that I was knocked acock when I perceived that the sumptuous chair being carried down the street before midnight was yours!”

“Yes, I don’t think I have ever left a party so early before—particularly when I was winning!” she said naively.

“No, were you? But I was very much shocked, Mama! What has become of your most handsome cavaliere servente? How comes it about that he permitted another—four others!—to squire you home tonight? Don’t tell me his passion has waned!”

She went into another ripple of laughter. “Oh, poor Bonamy! How can you be so unfeeling as even to think of his walking all the way from Albemarle Street? He must have dropped dead of an apoplexy, had he made the attempt! As for his passion, I have a melancholy suspicion that I share it with his cook: he was boring on for ever tonight about a way of serving teal with poivrade sauce! Now, stop funning, and tell me what happened at your party!”

“Oh, a very handsome dinner, and the company—er—the pink of gentility! Not quite in my style, perhaps, but certainly of the first respectability!”

“Were they excessively fusty?” she said sympathetically. “I did warn you that they would be!”

“You did, but you did not warn me, dear Mama, that two of the number are acquainted with Evelyn!”

“No! Who, Kit?”

“Mr Charles Stavely, who appears to be—”

“Oh, him!” she interrupted. “Very likely he may be, but so slightly that it is not of the least consequence!”

“Very true, but if Evelyn doesn’t return in time to save me from Lucton I shall be totally undone. Is he one of Evelyn’s bosom-bows?”

“Young Lucton? Good gracious, no! You don’t mean to say that he was invited to the party?”

“That is precisely what I do mean to say, Mama! Furthermore, I apprehend that Evelyn has entered into