False Colours

so—so divinely innocent, Kester, I couldn’t suppose that she felt the same! They might have left us alone for hours: I—I wouldn’t have said a word to her that might have startled her! She’s such a shy little bird—no, not shy, precisely! So open, and confiding! So unaffected, so—”

“Innocent,” supplied Kit, as his besotted twin hesitated for a word.

“Yes,” agreed Evelyn. “Did you—did you ever meet a girl, Kester, who made you feel that—that the only thing you wanted to do in life was to protect her—shield her from so much as a draught?”

“No,” replied Kit. He added tactfully: “Not yet!”

“I hope you may!” Evelyn said, in all sincerity. The next instant, he frowned, and shook his head. “No, I don’t! Not in your style!”

“It doesn’t sound to me as if she was quite in yours,” Kit ventured to suggest.

A brilliant smile answered him. “I didn’t know, until I saw Patience, what was my style! How could I? I never met a girl that even faintly resembled her!”

There did not seem to be anything to be said in reply to this. Kit merely asked: “Are the Askhams still labouring under the impression that you are Mr Evelyn?”

“No. Before I came away, I made a clean breast of it to Mr Askham. I told him about that damned Trust, and—and how I had meant to bring it to an end—Oh, not why, of course!—and—well, all of it, except what concerned Mama! I dare say it may seem odd to you that I should do so, but you won’t think it when you’ve met him, Kester! He is a man of strong principle, and considerable pride, but he wants neither sense nor feeling, and one can talk to him, as if he were—I was about to say one’s father, but the lord knows we could never talk anything but commonplace to Papa, could we? He was very much surprised, of course, and he didn’t like it above half, but in the end I managed to get him to say that although he must forbid me to say anything to Patience, until I’d settled my affairs, and that neither he nor Mrs Askham had ever wished Patience to make an unequal marriage—such stuff!—he wouldn’t forbid me to come to the house again, if I was seriously attached to Patience, and if he believed her affections to be engaged also. I couldn’t hope for more, and I think Mrs Askham will stand my friend—though she gave me the devil of a scold! I would have left Woodland House then—thinking it was what I ought to do, besides knowing I must see you as soon as possible—but Mrs Askham wouldn’t hear of it, because the doctor came to see me that day, and told her to keep me quiet for another day or two.”

“Oh, so you knew I was here, did you?”

“Good God, Kester!” exclaimed Evelyn. “You may be the clever twin, but you haven’t all the wits in the family! Of course I knew it, the instant I saw that thing in the Morning Post! If old Lady Stavely and Cressida had gone to stay with Lord Denville at Ravenhurst, it was as plain as anything could be that you’d come home, and had stepped into my shoes!” His voice changed suddenly, with his mood. “I know why you did it. Only to get me out of a scrape! You couldn’t have done anything else—but O God, I wish you hadn’t! It was bad enough before, but I could have gone to Cressy—told her the truth— then! There was never any pretence between us, and she has a great deal of sense— not one of your simpering die-aways! But now, when she’s been staying at Ravenhurst, and that curst newspaper has set everyone’s ears acock—! And even if that hadn’t happened, there is still Mama to be considered! Kester, what am I to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Kit frankly. “But I can relieve your mind of one thing! I’ve played you false, Eve! I am going to marry Cressy!”

Evelyn had sunk his brow on to his clenched fist, but at these words he raised his head, staring at Kit, as if he could scarcely believe his ears. “You are going—Does she know, then? That you’re not me?”

“Yes, of course she does. She has known for longer than I guessed. And let me tell you, my lord, that when I took your place at the dinner-party you skirted she had very nearly made up her mind to refuse your very obliging offer! For all your lordship’s charm and address! You can’t think how set up I am in my own esteem to know that one person prefers me to my engaging brother!”

“I said she had a great deal of sense!” retorted Evelyn, laughing at him. “I could tell you of some others who share her preference, but you’re much too puffed-up already, so I shan’t. But, Kester, no more funning! You mean it?”

“Well, of course I mean it, you gapeseed!”

Evelyn seemed to be thinking it over. He said slowly: “Yes, Cressy is your style, isn’t she? Oh, twin, I do wish you happy, and I see that you will suit! She’s a most agreeable girl: I like her very well myself—though I can’t conceive how you should fall in love with her!”

Kit opened his mouth to make the obvious retort, but shut it again. He had never before hesitated to speak his mind to Evelyn, but he perceived that their relationship had undergone a subtle change. The bond between them was as strong as ever, but there were some thoughts they would no longer give utterance to. So all he said was: “Very likely not. But don’t fly into alt too soon, Eve! We may have unravelled one knot in this tangle, but it seems to me that we are still in pretty bad loaf. I know you wouldn’t have offered for Cressy if you hadn’t thought the case desperate. What I don’t know is how desperate it is. To what tune is Mama down the wind?”

The cloud descended again on to Evelyn’s brow. He replied curtly: “About £20,000—as near as I can discover.”

There was a frozen silence. Then Kit got up, and went to pick up the decanter. “I think, Eve,” he said carefully, “that we had best have a little more cognac!”

15

Evelyn picked up his glass, and held it out. “I daresay you need it more than I do,” he observed, “I shouldn’t have thrown the total at you like that.”

“For how long have you known?”

“Oh, some time now! Not all at once, however. I don’t know that I have the total sum yet, but I think it isn’t more than that.”

“How much of it is owed to tradesmen?”

“The least part—though there’s a pretty staggering amount owing to Rundell & Bridge, and there’s no saying what she may owe her dressmaker. Rundell & Bridge don’t dun her: they’re far too long-headed! I should think they must have been jewellers to the Earls of Denville ever since they set up their sign, wouldn’t you? And I shouldn’t wonder at it if they have a pretty shrewd notion that if Mama don’t pay them now, I shall, later! I can’t tell about Celeste: you see, Kester, poor Mama doesn’t understand! The ready just—just slides through her fingers! She don’t know where it goes to, and I’m damned if I do! You never know what she may do next, either! I suppose we always knew that she was in debt, but it wasn’t until some time after my father died that I discovered how far she’d run into Dun territory, or that she’s been borrowing money for years!” He laughed, but not very mirthfully. “Poor darling! If you gave her a century tomorrow, because she was all to pieces, and being dunned by the harpy who designs her hats, the chances are she’d give it away to one of her indigent old friends! And even if she does settle the most pressing of her debts with the money she’s borrowed, she don’t see—and you can’t make her!—that she’s no more in the clear than she was before! You might not know this—I didn’t, until a year or two ago, and there’s not another soul on earth I’d tell it to.”

“Of course not.” Kit stood frowning down at the glass cupped between his hands. “I didn’t know, but I’ve learnt a good deal since I stepped into your shoes. By the way, Eve, my feet are bigger than yours, so I didn’t step into your shoes!”

“Thank God for that, clodcrusher!”

Kit smiled, rather abstractedly. He said, after a slight pause: “Does it ever occur to you that it was a case, rather, of Poor Papa?”

“No!”

The word was uttered explosively. Kit glanced up quickly, and saw in Evelyn’s eyes an expression of