False Colours

20

It was not many minutes before Cressy, dutifully accompanying the Dowager on a sedate drive, realized that an open carriage was hardly the place for an exchange of confidences. The Dowager, with a magnificent disregard for the coachman and the footman, perched on the box-seat in front of her, knew no such reticence, and discoursed with great freedom on the birth of an heir to the barony, animadverting with embarrassing candour, and all the contempt of a matriarch who had brought half-a-dozen children into the world without fuss or complications, on sickly young women who fancied themselves to be ill days before their time, and ended by suffering cross births and hard labours. For herself, she had no patience with such nonsense.

But although she expressed the fervent hope that the heir would not grow up to resemble his mama, it was evident that Albinia (in spite of her hard labour) had grown considerably in her esteem. Lord Stavely’s first wife had been of the Dowager’s choosing, but although she had, naturally, held her up as a pattern of virtue and amiability, she had never been able, in her secret heart, to forgive her for having failed to present her lord with an heir. But Albinia, whom Lord Stavely had married without so much as a by-your-leave, had produced (if his lordship’s ecstatically scribbled letter were to be believed), a bouncing boy, sound in wind and limb, and weighing almost nine pounds; and this feat, notwithstanding her own subsequent exhaustion, raised her pretty high in the Dowager’s esteem. But not so high as to exempt her from censure for her alleged inability to nurse her child. The inescapable duty of a mother to suckle her offspring was one of the Dowager’s hobby-horses; and originated from the shocking discovery that the wet-nurse engaged to supply the wants of her second son (unhappily deceased), had been strongly addicted to spirituous liquors. The Dowager informed her granddaughter, in a very robust way, that she had already written to recommend hot ale and ginger to Albinia.

Cressy bore this with tolerable equanimity, but when the Dowager abruptly deserted the subject of the proper sustenance of the Honourable Edward John Francis Stavely, to warn her that the appearance of this young gentleman on the scene made it imperative for her to withdraw from Mount Street to an establishment of her own, she laid a hand on her outspoken grandmother’s knee, and warningly directed her attention to the stolid, liveried backs on the box of the landaulet.

The Dowager appeared to appreciate the propriety of this reminder. She said: “Drat these open carriages! I never could abide ’em! Coachman! Drive back to Ravenhurst!”

She reinforced this command by digging him in the back with her cane, an indignity which he suffered with perfect good humour, having decided, days previously, that she was a rare old griffin, full of pluck, and game to the scratch.

“I want to talk to you, Cressy,” she said grimly. “It’s high time you emptied the bag! So we’ll go back, and you’ll come with me to my room, and give me a round tale before I take my nap!”

“Yes, ma’am: certainly!” responded Cressy, with smiling composure.

The Dowager favoured her with a searching glance, but refrained from comment. She beguiled the rest of the drive with roseate plans for the future Lord Stavely’s career, in which agreeable occupation she was much encouraged by Cressy; but although this put her into great good humour, it was with marked asperity that she commanded Cressy, as soon as she had removed her sable-plumed bonnet, and sunk into the winged chair, thoughtfully placed in her bedroom by her hostess, to declare herself, and without any roundaboutation.

“And don’t put on any simpering, missish airs, girl, for I abominate ’em!” she added sharply.

“Now, that, Grandmama, is most unjust!” said Cressy, in deeply injured accents. “I have a great many faults, but I am not a simpering miss!”

“No,” acknowledged the Dowager, always mollified by a fearless retort, “you’re not! Come here, child!”

Cressy obeyed her, sinking down at her feet, and folding her hands with a meekness belied by the twinkling look she cast up at her formidable grandparent. “Yes, ma’am?” she said innocently.

“Baggage!” said the Dowager, in no way deceived, but palliating the severity of this remark by pinching Cressy’s cheek. “Now, you listen to me, girl! You’ll find that this brat of Albinia’s has put your nose out of joint, so, if you take my advice, you’ll bring all this paltering of yours to an end, and accept Denville’s offer. I said I wouldn’t press you, and I stand by my word; but I know Albinia, and I tell you to your head that if you found her hard to deal with before she gave birth to a son you’ll find her insupportable now that she’s puffed up in her own conceit! What’s more, she won’t rest until she’s rid of you: make up your mind to that! As for your father, he’s fond of you, but he won’t take your part: he’s a weak man—none of my sons ever had an ounce of spunk between them! Took after their father, more’s the pity! Bag and baggage policy was all you could look for in any of ’em.”

“Well, I shouldn’t wish Papa to take my part, ma’am—or, rather, I know that it would be very improper to encourage him to do so!”

“It wouldn’t fadge if you did. If Albinia ain’t a shrew I’m much mistaken!”

“Impossible!” Cressy said, laughing at her.

The dowager’s fierce eyes gleamed, but she said: “None of your impudence, miss! Not that I’m often mistaken, for I haven’t lived to be an old woman without learning to know one point more than the devil, as they say.” Her eyes softened, as she looked down into Cressy’s face. “Never mind that! I’ve more fondness for you than for anyone, child, and I want to see you established, and happy. I told you at the outset I set no store by Denville’s rank or fortune, and no more I would have, if I’d discovered him to be the frippery young care-for-nobody Brumby thinks him. Not but what he’s a prize catch, and has had ’em all on the scramble for him ever since his come-out! However, I’ve lived long enough to know that it ain’t by any means everything to land a big fish, and not a word of censure would you have heard from me, Cressy, if you’d had a preference for some lesser gentleman—provided, of course, that his birth matched your own, and he was up to the rig!”

“You like him, don’t you, Grandmama?” said Cressy.

“Yes, I do—not that it signifies! A very proper man, I call him, and one that knows what’s o’clock, and ain’t afraid to look one in the face, and give one back as good as he gets!” the Dowager replied, with a dry chuckle. “No want of proper spunk in him, for all his engaging manners! But what I want to know, my girl, is whether you like him?”

“Oh, yes! I think everyone does,” Cressy responded. “He is very charming!”

“I’d a notion you thought so!” remarked the Dowager caustically.

“Oh, I do! But I am not very well-acquainted with him yet, you know,” said Cressy pensively.

“I know nothing of the sort!” declared the Dowager, staring down at her under frowning brows. “Pray, how much better acquainted with him do you expect to be, miss?”

“Much better, ma’am! But however well-acquainted with him I may be I shall never marry him!”

“Well, upon my word!” uttered the Dowager, her eyes snapping. “Have you taken leave of your senses, girl, or are you no better than a common flirt? You’ve lived in his pocket above a sennight—smelling of April and May, the pair of you! and very well pleased I’ve been to see it! I wasn’t in favour of the match at the outset, and I know very well you were of two minds, Cressy! Which was why I brought you here! I’ll thank you to tell me why, if you was ready enough to accept his offer at the outset, you’ve changed your mind! What, in heaven’s name, do you look for in your husband, wet-goose? As handsome a young man as I’ve clapped eyes on this many a day, with a well-formed person, excellent style, easy manners, an address many an older man might envy, superior understanding, and a smile I could not have withstood when I was a girl, and you choose to turn niffy-naffy! Good God, Cressy, have you windmills in your head? You told me you had made up your mind to a mariage de convenance, but if you don’t know he’s nutty upon you, you’re no better than a moon-ling, and I wash my hands of you!”

Cressy, a mixture of guilt and amusement in her face, possessed herself of one of these hands, and nursed it to her cheek. “Indeed I’m not a moonling, Grandmama!” she said, her voice quivering on the edge of laughter. “I told you the truth, moreover! I did think that such a marriage would be preferable to remaining in Mount Street, and Denville never pretended that he felt any warmer affection for me than I felt for him! As for being nutty upon me, he never was, and never will be! Which I am heartily glad of, dear ma’am, because I tumbled quite—quite desperately in love with his brother, and he is the man I am going to marry, whatever