‘Who is going to tell her this whisker? You?’
‘No, stupid! The servants will see that the candle that was set on the hall-table for Evelyn has gone, and the whole household will know that he has returned before you are even awake.’
‘Including Fimber! I collect he won’t recognize me either? Mama, do come out of the clouds! A man who valeted us both when we were striplings!’
‘I am not in the clouds!’ she said indignantly. ‘I was about to say, when you interrupted me, that we must take him into our confidence.’
‘Also Challow, your coachman, the second groom, all the stableboys, –’
‘Nonsense, Kit! Challow, perhaps, but why in the world should the others be told?’
‘Because, my love, there is a phaeton and four horses to be accounted for!’
She thought this over for a moment. ‘Very true. Oh, well, we must trust Challow to do that! You can’t think he won’t be able to: recollect what convincing lies he was used to tell when Papa tried to discover from him what you had been doing whenever you had slipped away without telling anyone where you were going!’
‘Mama,’ said Kit, ‘I am going to bed! I haven’t given back – don’t think it! – but if I argue with you any more tonight I shall end with windmills in my head!’
‘Oh, poor boy, of course you must be fagged to death!’ she said, with ready sympathy. ‘Nothing is so fatiguing as a long journey! That accounts for your perceiving so many difficulties in the way: it is always so when one is very weary. Go to bed, dear one: you will feel much more yourself when you wake up!’
‘Full of spunk – not to say effrontery, eh?’ he said, laughing. He kissed her, and got up. ‘It’s midsummer moon with you, you know – but don’t think I don’t love you!’
She smiled serenely upon him, and he went to retrieve his belongings from the half-landing, and to carry them into Evelyn’s bedroom.
He was so tired that instead of applying his mind to the problems confronting him, as he had meant to do, he fell asleep within five minutes of blowing out his candle. He was awakened, some hours later, by the sound of the blinds being drawn back from the windows. He raised himself on his elbow, wondering, for a moment, where he could be. Then he remembered, and lay down again, rather mischievously awaiting events.
The curtains round the bed were pulled apart with a ruthlessness which was a clear sign to the initiated that the supposed occupant of the great four-poster was in his devoted valet’s black books. Kit yawned, and murmured: ‘’Morning, Fimber: what’s o’clock?’
‘Good morning, my lord,’ responded Fimber, in arctic accents. ‘It is past ten, but as I apprehend that your lordship did not return until the small hours I thought it best not to wake you earlier.’
‘No, I was very late,’ agreed Kit.
‘I am aware of that, my lord – having sat up until midnight, in the expectation of being required to wait on you.’
‘Stupid fellow! You should have known better,’ said Kit, watching him from under his eyelids.
The expression of cold severity on Fimber’s face deepened. He said, picking his words: ‘Possibly it did not occur to your lordship that your continued absence would give rise to anxiety.’
‘Lord, no! Why should it?’
This careless rejoinder had the effect of turning the ice to fire. ‘My lord, where have you been?’ demanded Fimber, abandoning his quelling formality.
‘Don’t you wish you knew!’
‘No, my lord, I do not, nor is it necessary I should know, for what I do know is that you wouldn’t have been so anxious not to let me go with you if the business which took you off had been as innocent as you’d have me believe. Nor you wouldn’t have sent Challow home! You should think shame to yourself, staying away all this time, and never sending her ladyship word to stop her fretting herself to ribbons! For anything she knew you might have been dead! Now, just tell me this, my lord, without trying to tip me a rise, which you know you can’t do! – are you in a scrape?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Kit truthfully. ‘I hope not.’
‘So you may well, my lord! At a time like this! If it’s serious, tell me, and we’ll see what can be done.’
‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know, Fimber.’
‘Indeed, my lord?’ said Fimber ominously. ‘I should have thought that your lordship knew I could be trusted, but it seems I was mistaken.’ He turned away, deeply offended, and walked across the room to where Kit’s open portmanteau stood. Kit had done no more than drag his night-gear out of it, considerably disarranging the rest of its contents. Muttering disapproval to himself, Fimber stooped to unpack it. He lifted up a waistcoat, took one look at it, and turned swiftly to find Kit watching him quizzically. He stood staring for an incredulous moment, and then gave a gasp. ‘Mr Christopher!’
Kit laughed, and sat up, pulling off his night-cap. ‘I thought you were the one person we couldn’t hoax! How are you, Fimber?’
‘Quite stout, thank you, sir. And you wouldn’t have hoaxed me for long! To think of you taking us all by surprise like this! Does her ladyship know?’
‘Yes, she heard me come in, and got up, hoping to see my brother.’
‘Ay, no wonder! But I’ll be bound she was glad to see you, sir. Which I am too, if I may say so.’ He glanced critically at the waistcoat he was holding, and sniffed. ‘You never had this made for you in London, Mr Christopher. You won’t be wearing it here, of course. Is that foreign man of yours bringing the rest of your baggage after you?’
‘No, it’s coming by carrier. I haven’t brought Franz with me. I knew I could depend on you to look after me.’ Receiving no immediate response to this, he said, surprised: ‘You’re not going to tell me I can’t, are you? Fimber!’
The valet emerged with a start from what bore all the appearance of a profound reverie. ‘I beg your pardon, sir! I was thinking. Look after you? To be sure I will!’ He added, as he laid the condemned waistcoat aside, and picked up the greatcoat which Kit had flung across a chair: ‘And time I did, Mr Christopher! These Polish coats are gone quite out of fashion. Nor you can’t wear that shallow in London: the present mode, sir, is for high crowns.’
‘Never mind my dowdy rig!’ said Kit. ‘What the devil is my brother doing?’
‘I don’t know any more than you do, sir, and it’s got me all of a twitter! It might be that he went off in one of his distempered freaks, and yet I don’t think it, somehow. My lady will have told you that he’s in a way to become buckled?’
‘She did, but he has never so much as given me a hint of it,’ replied Kit grimly. ‘Something damned brummish about the business! Well, if anyone knows the truth you do, so tell it to me, without any hiding of the teeth! Is he turning short about?’
‘No, that I’ll go bail he’s not!’ Fimber replied. ‘No one knows better than me the sort of bobbery he’ll get up to when he’s in high leg, but he wouldn’t play nip-shot now – not when he’s made the young lady an offer! What’s more, he wasn’t poking bogey when he told me, and her ladyship too, that he would be back within the sennight, for he bid me to be sure to engage the barber to come to trim his hair today. He will be here, sir, at noon.’
‘And what, pray, has that to do with me?’ asked Kit, eyeing him with misgiving.
‘It occurs to me, sir, that you are wearing your hair too long. His lordship favours more of a Corinthian cut.’
‘Oh, does he? Now, you may stop pitching your gammon, and tell me this! – Are you thinking that I might take my brother’s place tonight?’
‘Well, sir,’ said Fimber apologetically, ‘the notion did cross my mind! It seems as if it was meant, you coming home without a soul’s being the wiser, and not bringing that foreigner with you – and no need to worry about your baggage, for you may leave it to me to see it safely stored. No need to
worry about your clothing either, because his lordship has enough and to spare for the pair of you. Nor it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve changed shoes with him, not by any means it wouldn’t be!’
‘The circumstances were very different. I’ve told my mother that already.’
Fimber turned a shocked countenance towards him. ‘You told my lady you wouldn’t help his lordship to bring himself home? Well! Never did I think to see the day when you would not be ready to through stitch in anything for his sake, Mr Christopher! As he would for you, no matter what might come of it!’
‘I know that. Nor would I hang back an instant, however much against the pluck it might be, if I were convinced it was what he wished me to do. But that’s where the water sticks, Fimber: I’ve a strong feeling that there’s nothing he wishes less than to marry Miss Stavely. If that’s so, I should be better employed trying my possible to bring him safe off.’
‘You can’t do that, sir! Why, he’s offered for her! You wouldn’t have him play the jack, putting such a slight on the poor young lady – no, and he wouldn’t do it! I don’t say he hasn’t often set people in a bustle with his starts, but I’ve never known him behave ungentlemanly, not in all the years I’ve served you both!’
‘I was wondering rather if I couldn’t contrive to get Miss Stavely to cry off. I wish you will be open with me! Don’t try to persuade me that he isn’t blue-devilled: I know he is!’
‘Well, sir, since you ask me, in my opinion he wasn’t near as blue-devilled when I saw him last as what he has been ever since –’ Fimber broke off in embarrassment.
‘Ever since when? Go on, man!’ said Kit impatiently.
Fimber began with finicking care to fold the despised waistcoat. His reply was evasive. ‘It is not my place, Mr Christopher, to speak of the circumstances which might have caused his lordship to offer for Miss Stavely, but he didn’t make up his mind to it in the twinkling of a bedpost, as you might say. So don’t you get to thinking that he did it on the spur of the moment, and was sorry for it after, because that’s not so. I’m not saying it was what he’d have chosen to do, for often and often he’s told me that he’s got no fancy to become a tenant-for-life, never having met any female he didn’t think a dead bore after a month or two. Well, I didn’t pay much heed to that, not at first, thinking he’d get to be more sober when he was older, like you have, sir.’ He paused, looking undecidedly at Kit. Then he said, as though impelled: ‘Mr Christopher, there’s not a soul I’d say this to but yourself, but the truth is I’ve been regularly worried about him! Let alone that he’s been going the pace more than he should, he’s more rackety than ever he was when it was to be expected that he should always be prime for a lark, and he’s beginning to take to the muslin company – which is what has me in a worse fret than all the rest!’
Kit nodded, but said frowningly: ‘It sounds to me as if he were bored, or out of spirits. That always made him resty. But why?’
‘I couldn’t say, sir, not to be sure. Unless it might be that he’s lonely.’
‘Lonely? Good God, he has a host of friends!’
‘In a manner of speaking, sir. But I wouldn’t call them intimate friends – not such as he’d tell his mind to, the way he would to you. He’s never been quite the same since you went away, though it’s hard to explain what I mean, and no one that didn’t know him as well as I do would notice it. I daresay it comes of being a twin. You was always so close, the pair of you, that you never wanted any other cronies. His lordship never took anyone into his confidence but you, and it’s my belief he won’t, except, maybe, his wife. It may be otherwise with you, but –’
‘No,’ Kit said slowly. ‘I hadn’t considered it, but it isn’t otherwise. But I have a good deal to occupy me, and he hasn’t.’
‘Exactly so, Mr Christopher, and that’s where the mischief lies, as I don’t doubt her ladyship would tell you.’
‘She has told me. But whether the remedy lies in marrying him to a girl he don’t care a rap for I strongly doubt.’
‘Well, sir, it isn’t what one would have chosen, but the way he’s carrying on now he never will be married. What’s more, if my Lord Brumby was to discover the sort of company he keeps he wouldn’t end that Trust a day before he was obliged to. If you’ll pardon my saying so, sir, your father may have meant it for the best, but he served his lordship the worst turn he could, when he put that slight on him!’
‘Took it very much to heart, didn’t he? That was the only time he ever buttoned up against me. He barely spoke about it. I was afraid it would rankle.’
‘Yes, sir, and so it has! It wasn’t a bit of use trying to persuade him that the thing to do was to prove to my Lord Brumby that he was very well able to manage his affairs. Well, you know what he is when he’s been put into a real flame, Mr Christopher! Not a bit of interest will he take in his estates: it’s seldom he even visits them, which isn’t surprising, for he’s got no power to do a mortal thing without he has his uncle’s leave, and I know well he feels downright humiliated.’
‘As bad as that, is it? Damnation! I wish I had been at home! I might have been able to bring him and my uncle together. They never liked one another, but my uncle would have been willing to have given Denville a pretty free hand in the management of the estates, had he wished for it.’
‘That wouldn’t have done for his lordship, sir. It’s all or nothing with him.’
Kit was silent for a minute or two. ‘So, to put him in possession of his estates we help him into this loveless marriage, do we?’
‘You may take it that way if you choose, sir, but there’s many such marriages which have turned out well. From all I hear, Miss Stavely is a very agreeable young lady, not one of the giddy sort, but with a head on her shoulders. It wouldn’t surprise me if his lordship grew to be fond of her.’
‘That would be something indeed!’
‘Yes, sir, it would. I’ll fetch your breakfast up now, for we don’t want to run any risks, and it might occasion remark if you was to be seen downstairs before Mr Clent has given your hair a different cut. One comfort is that we shan’t have to get his lordship’s coats altered to fit you, which would have presented us with a difficulty, being so pressed for time as we are.’
‘Well, that would no doubt be a comfort to my brother,’ retorted Kit, ‘but it’s none at all to me!’
Four
Shortly before eight o’clock that evening, my Lord Denville’s town carriage, an impressive vehicle which bore its noble owner’s arms emblazoned on the door-panels, drew up in Mount Street to set down its solitary, and extremely reluctant occupant.
No one, observing this gentleman’s composure, could have guessed that it had taken the united efforts of his mother and his brother’s valet to coax and coerce him into lending himself to what he persisted in calling an outrageous masquerade.
Fimber and Mr Clent had done their work well. Mr Clent, a dedicated artist, had given Mr Fancot a modish Corinthian cut, accepting without question the explanation offered him that the length of his supposed lordship’s glowing locks was due to his prolonged absence from London; and Fimber had spent a full hour teaching him how to tie his neckcloth in the intricate style favoured by his lordship. He told him that it was known as the Trône d’Amour, a piece of information which drew from the exasperated Mr Fancot the acid rejoinder that it was a singularly inappropriate style for the occasion. Mr Fancot also took exception to the really very moderate, though highly starched, points of his collar, saying that it seemed to him that his brother had become a damned dandy. But Fimber, treating him firmly but with great patience, described in such horrifying detail the height and rigidity of the very latest mode in collar-points, that he subsided, thankful that at least he was not obliged to wear these uncomfortable ‘winkers’. He added that if he had known that he would be expected to rig himself in raiment more suited to a bal
l than to a family dinner-party nothing would have induced him to yield to his mama’s persuasions. Lady Denville, striving to impress upon him the need to treat with the greatest formality an old lady who could be depended upon to take an instant dislike to any gentleman arriving at an evening party in pantaloons, did nothing to reconcile him to the ordeal awaiting him; but Fimber, deeming it to be time to put an end to such contrariness, speedily reduced him to schoolboy status by telling him severely that that was quite enough nonsense, and that he would do as he was bid. He added, as a clincher, that Mr Christopher need not try to gammon him into believing that he wasn’t in the habit of wearing full evening-dress five days out of the seven. Furthermore, neither he nor her ladyship wished to listen to any further gibble-gabble about walking to Mount Street: Mr Christopher would go in the carriage, as befitted his station.
So Kit, driven in state to Mount Street, entered Lord Stavely’s house looking complete to a shade. Not only was he wearing the frilled shirt, the longtailed coat, the knee-breeches, and the silk stockings which constituted the fashionable attire of a gentleman bound for Almack’s: he carried a chapeau-bras under one arm, and one of his brother’s snuff-boxes in his pocket, Fimber having thrust this upon him at the last moment, with an urgent reminder that my lord was well-known to be a snuff-taker.
Having relinquished the chapeau-bras into the tender care of a footman, Mr Fancot trod up the stairs in the wake of the butler, and entered the drawing-room on that portly individual’s sonorous announcement.
At first glance, he received the impression that he was being scrutinized by upwards of fifty pairs of eyes. He discovered later that this was an exaggeration. His host, who was the only person whom he recognized, was chatting to a small group of people; he moved forward a step to greet the guest, and so also did two ladies. Fancot realized that he had been imperfectly coached: he had no idea which of them was the lady to whom he was supposed to have offered his hand. For one agonized moment he thought himself lost; then he saw that the taller of the two, a fashionably attired woman with elaborately dressed fair hair and a rather sharp-featured, but undeniably pretty face, was in the family way; and barely repressing a sigh of relief, he bowed to her, and shook hands, exchanging greetings with a cool assurance he was far from feeling. He then turned towards her companion, smiling at her, and carrying the hand she extended to him to his lips. He thought that that was probably what Evelyn, a practised flirt, would do; but even as he lightly kissed the hand he was assailed by a fresh problem: how the devil ought he to address the girl? Did Evelyn call her Cressy, or was he still on formal terms with her? He had had as yet no opportunity to take more than a brief look at her, but he had received the impression that she was a little stiff: possibly shy, certainly reserved. Not a beauty, but a goodlooking girl, gray-eyed and brown-haired, and with a shapely figure. Well enough but quite unremarkable, and not at all the sort of female likely to appeal to Evelyn.