False Colours

could have been more honeyed than the civilities exchanged between two elderly and redoubtable ladies of quality; and nothing could have struck more terror into the bosoms of the rest of the company than the smiling remarks each subsequently addressed to the other. The only person to remain unaffected was Mrs Cliffe, whose unshakeable conviction that her sole offspring would shortly succumb to an inflammation of the lungs, contracted in Ashdown Forest during a shower of rain, occupied her mind to the exclusion of all other considerations; and the only two persons who derived enjoyment from the party were the contestants themselves, who showed signs of alarming revivification at every hit scored.

It was in a state of prostration (as he informed Cressy, when he contrived to snatch a brief moment or two alone with her) that Kit retired to bed shortly after eleven o’clock. He was certainly very much too tired to tease his brain by trying to hit upon a solution to the problem that confronted him; and, in fact, fell asleep within a very few minutes of Fimber’s drawing the curtains round the enormous four-poster bed, and leaving the room.

He was dragged up, an hour later, from fathoms deep, by a hand grasping his shoulder, and shaking it, and a voice saying: “Oh, do wake up, Kester! Kester!”

Only one person had ever called him that. Still half-asleep, he responded automatically, murmuring: “Eve... !”

“Wake up, you gudgeon!”

He opened his eyes, and blinked into the laughing face of his twin, illuminated by candlelight. For a moment he stared; then a slow smile crept into his eyes, and he said, a little thickly, and stretching out his hand: “I knew you couldn’t have stuck your spoon in the wall!”

His hand was taken by his twin’s left one, and strongly grasped.

“I thought you would,” Evelyn said. “What brought you home? Did you know I’d damned nearly done so?”

“Yes. And that you were in some kind of a hank.”

The grasp tightened on his hand. “I hoped you wouldn’t guess that. Oh, but, Kester, it’s good to see you again!”

“Yes,” agreed Kit, deep, if drowsy, affection in his smile. “Damn you!” he added.

“I’m sorry: I’d have sent you word if I hadn’t been knocked senseless,” said Evelyn penitently.

Emerging from the last clinging remnants of sleep, Kit became aware of some awkwardness in the clasp on his hand. He then saw that it was being held by Evelyn’s left one, and that his right lay in a sling. “So you did suffer an accident!” he remarked. “Broken your arm?”

“No: my shoulder, and a couple of ribs. That’s nothing!”

“How did you do it?”

“Took a corner too fast, and overturned the phaeton.”

“Cawker!” said Kit, sitting up. He released Evelyn’s hand, yawned, stretched, cast off his nightcap, vigorously rubbed his head, and then, apparently refreshed by these activities, said: “That’s better!” and swung his legs out of bed.

Evelyn, lighting all the candles with which Lady Denville lavishly provided every bedroom in the house, said: “You must have made a pretty batch of it tonight! It took me five minutes to waken you.”

“If you knew what sort of an evening I have been spending, or just half the things I’ve been yearning to do to you, you skirter, you’d take damned good care not to set up my bristles!” said Kit, shrugging himself into an elegant dressing-gown. “When I think of the bumble-bath I’ve been pitched into, and what I’ve endured, all for the sake of a crazy, rope-ripe—”

“Well, if that’s not the outside of enough!” exclaimed his twin indignantly. “I didn’t pitch you into a bumble-bath! What’s more, I’ll have you know that’s my new dressing-gown you’re wearing, you thieving dog!”

“Don’t let such atrifle as that put you in a tweak!” retorted Kit. “The only things of yours which I am not wearing are your boots!”

These amenities having been exchanged, the dressing-gown securely fastened, and his feet thrust into a pair of Morocco slippers, Kit advanced, to grasp his brother’s left shoulder, and turn him towards the light thrown by a branch of candles on the dressing-table. “Let me look at you!” he said roughly. His eyes keenly scanned Evelyn’s face; he said: “You’ve been in pretty queer stirrups, haven’t you? Still out of frame! And not because of a few broken bones! Eve, why didn’t you tell me the worry you were in?”

Evelyn put up his hand to pull Kit’s from his shoulder. He said, wryly smiling: “It’s no bread-and-butter of yours, Kester. Did Mama tell you?”

“Yes, of course. As for it’s being no bread-and-butter of mine—”

“How is she?” interrupted Evelyn.

“Very much herself!”

“Bless her! At least I knew she wouldn’t get into a stew!”

“She isn’t in a stew, because I told her I knew you weren’t dead; but she was in the deuce of a twitter when I reached London,” said Kit, with some severity.

Evelyn cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him. “No, was she? Well, that’s a new come-out! Her spirits worn down by anxiety, I collect? Doing it much too brown, Kester! I’ve never known Mama to be in a worry for more than ten minutes at a time!”

“No,” Kit admitted, “but this was something out of the way! Why the devil didn’t you send her a message?”

“I couldn’t; I was out of my senses for days, and when I did come to myself I wasn’t in any case to be thinking of sending messages. If you’d ever suffered a deep concussion, you’d know what I felt like!”

“So that was it! Here, sit down! What we need is some brandy: I’ll go and fetch up the decanter!”

“I brought it up with me, and a couple of glasses,” said Evelyn, nodding towards a chest against the wall. “All right and tight with you, old fellow?”

“Yes, except for this damned hobble we’re in,” Kit replied, pouring out two generous measures of Fine Old Cognac. He handed one of the glasses to Evelyn, and sat down on the day-bed confronting the chair in which Evelyn had disposed himself. “Where have you sprung from?” he asked. “And how the devil did you get into the house?”

“Oh, Pinny still has her key to the nursery-wing! She gave it to me, and I walked from her cottage as soon as I thought it would be safe. I’m putting up there for the night. I was driven over, after dark. No one saw me.”

“Driven over from where?” demanded Kit.

Evelyn had tilted his glass, and was watching the glint of the candlelight on the brandy. “A place called Woodland House. You wouldn’t know it: it’s a few miles south of Crowborough. Belongs to a Mr and Mrs Askham.”

“Crowborough?” Kit ejaculated. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve been within ten miles of Ravenhurst all this time?”

Evelyn nodded, shooting him a sidelong look which held as much mischief as guilt. “Yes, but I told you—I had concussion!”

“I heard you!” said Kit grimly. “You came round this morning, jumped out of bed, and posted home, as bobbish as ever! Since when have you run sly with me, Eve?”

“No, no, I’m not running sly! It’s just that it’s a long story, and—and I was wondering where to begin!”

“Well, begin by telling me what took you to Crowborough of all unlikely places!”

“Oh, I didn’t go to Crowborough! I went to Networth. You know, Kester!—a village not far from Nutley, where John-Coachman went to live with his married daughter, when my father pensioned him. Goodleigh told me, when I was here, that he’s grown pretty feeble, and keeps asking after us both. So I drove over to see the poor old chap. Lord, Kester, do you remember how he was used to have one of the carriages pulled out into the yard, and sit us up on the box-seat, and teach us how to handle the whip?”

“Of course I do! But you didn’t get rid of Challow because you were going to see old John!”

“Oh, no! That was by the way—or not so very much out of it! I was bound for Tunbridge Wells, and thought I might just as easily take the pike-road from Uckfield as—”

“Clara!” uttered Kit.

“Yes, that’s right, but how in thunder did you know? If that meddling busybody, Challow, has been nosing