Embracing her with breath-taking heartiness, he mastered a quivering lip, thanked her gravely, and parted from her on the best of terms.
Fimber was waiting for him in his own room. As he eased him out of Evelyn’s longtailed coat, he asked, in the voice of one to whom the answer was a foregone conclusion, if anyone had recognized him. Upon being told that no one had, he said: ‘It was not to be expected that anyone would, sir. When you passed out of my hands this evening the thought crossed my mind that even I should not have known that you were not his lordship. You are, if I may say so, the spit of him, Mr Christopher!’
Questioned about Mr Lucton, he said austerely: ‘A very frippery young gentleman, sir – what one might term a mere barley-straw!’
‘You may term him anything you please,’ said Kit, stripping off his neckcloth, ‘but do you know what was the proposal he made to my brother, to which he expected an answer within a day?’
After a frowning pause, during which Fimber divested Kit of his waistcoat, he said: ‘No, sir, his lordship made no mention of it to me. But from what I know of Mr Lucton I would venture the guess that he may have been wishful to sell his lordship one of his hunters.’
‘Who wants to purchase a hunter at this season?’ demanded Kit sceptically. ‘Not my brother!’
‘No, sir; as you say! But his lordship is known to be very goodnatured: one who finds it difficult to say no; and Mr Lucton is frequently in Dun territory. We will discover what Challow may know about the business, when he comes for orders tomorrow morning. I should inform you, Mr Christopher, that I have taken it upon myself to apprise Challow of what has occurred here. I trust you will think that I did right.’
‘Much you’d care if I didn’t!’ observed Kit. ‘It’s to be hoped that he does know what Lucton expects of my brother! If he doesn’t I shall find myself lurched!’
But Challow, presenting himself on the following morning, did not fail his harassed young master. He was a stocky individual, with grizzled hair, and the slightly bowed legs of one bred from his earliest youth to the saddle. He had taught the twins to ride their first ponies, had rescued them from innumerable scrapes, besides putting his foot down on some of their more dangerous exploits; and while his public demeanour towards them was generally respectful, he treated them, in private, as if they were the schoolboys he still thought them. He greeted Kit with a broad grin, responded to an invitation to tip a mauley by grasping the hand held out to him, and saying: ‘Now, that’s enough, Master Kit! How often have I told you to mind your tongue? A nice thing it would be if her ladyship was to hear you using such vulgar language! And who’d bear the blame? Tell me that!’
‘You would – at least, so you always told us, though I don’t think either my mother or my father ever did blame you for the things we said! Challow, I’m in the devil of a hank!’
‘That’s all right, sir: you’ll never be bum squabbled!’ replied Challow cheerfully. ‘Not but what things are in a rare hubble-bubble, which I don’t deny. But don’t you fall into the hips! I’ll lay my life you’ll get there with both feet. Well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, let alone you always was a sure card! If Fimber hadn’t of told me, I wouldn’t have known you wasn’t his lordship – well, not right off I wouldn’t!’
‘I wish to God I knew what had become of my brother!’
‘You don’t wish it no more than I do, Master Kit. There’s times when I’ve worried myself sick, fancying all kinds of things; but then I get to thinking that his lordship is like a cat: fling him anyway you choose, he’ll land on his feet! And now I’ve seen you in tolerable spirits I’ll take my affy-davy he’s safe and sound!’ He cocked an intelligent eye at Kit, and gave a chuckle. ‘Lor’, sir, what kind of a clodpole do you take me for? Me, that knew you when you wasn’t out of leading-strings! If his lordship was in trouble, or – or worse, which has crossed my mind – you’d know it! Ain’t that so?’
Kit nodded ‘Yes – I think. I haven’t said so to my mother, but I could have sworn, about a week ago, that he had met with some accident. That’s what brought me home so suddenly. I’d meant to come, for I haven’t been easy – Well, never mind that! I think something did happen to him, but it wasn’t fatal. I am as certain of that as I am of anything. If he were dead, or in desperate straits, I should know it.’
‘That’s just what I thought,’ agreed Challow. ‘He ain’t dead! In mischief, more like! I never ought to have let him go off like he did, but he properly bamboozled me, Master Kit. Nor I didn’t think he’d go off on one of his starts when he’s in a way to be buckled. Oh, well, we’ll just have to bear a hand until he comes back, sir, and that’s all there is to it! Now, if you wish to ride today, there’s a neatish bay hack would suit you pretty well. Or there’s the curricle, and a pair of prime ’uns: beautiful steppers, they are: just the thing for showing off in the Park! Or you could have his lordship’s new tilbury: quite the rage these tilburies have got to be!’
But Kit, pithily informing him that nothing could be farther from his intention than to show himself off in the Park, or anywhere else, declined these offers, and demanded instead to be told what, if anything, Challow knew about Mr Lucton’s mysterious business.
‘Him!’ Challow said scornfully. ‘Trying to sell his lordship a horse which we don’t want: not in our stables we don’t!’
‘If his lordship doesn’t want the animal, why didn’t he tell Mr Lucton so?’
‘You know what his lordship is, sir! Too easy by half! Not but what Mr Lucton ain’t one to take no for an answer: a proper jaw-me-dead he is! He waved to us in the Park, so his lordship pulled up, and then he started in to puff-off a flat-sided chestnut he hunted last season, trying to slumguzzle my lord into believing it was the very thing for him. Let alone no one would want a horse Mr Lucton had hunted, that chestnut ain’t worth the half of the price he’s set on it. “A perfect fencer,” he tells my lord. “Jumps off his hocks,” he says. Yes, I thought to myself, I wish I may see it! So I give his lordship a nudge, and he tells Mr Lucton he’ll think it over, and let him know next day, meaning, as he told me, to write him a civil note. I daresay it slipped his mind, for it was the next day that we went off to Ravenhurst. There’s no call for you to trouble yourself, Mister Kit.’
‘Oh, isn’t there? Mr Lucton is coming here today, to get my answer! I shall have to buy the creature, I suppose. What’s the figure?’
‘Master Kit! You won’t never! £160 is what he told his lordship, and dear at £80 is what I say!’
‘I’ll offer him £100, and if he refuses, so much the better. I can’t say I don’t want the horse when the man’s been kept waiting for a fortnight! I’ll give him a draft on my bank – Oh, the devil! I can’t do that, can I? Well, you must go to the bank for me, Challow, and draw the money in bills. I’ll give you a cheque. I’d better make it out for £200, for I shall be needing some pitch and pay for myself. Don’t get robbed!’
‘It’s you that’s going to be robbed, sir!’ said Challow, deeply disapproving.
‘Not I! I’m buying this horse on my brother’s behalf – and serve him right!’ said Kit.
He set forth a little later to walk to Mount Street, nattily attired in the correct town-dress of a gentleman of fashion. His coat of dark blue superfine was the very latest made for Evelyn by Weston, and never yet worn by its owner; his stockinette pantaloons were knitted in the newest and most delicate dove-colour; his cambric shirt was modishly austere, with no ruffle, but three plain buttons; his waistcoat combined opulence with discretion; and his hat, set at an angle on his glowing locks, had a tall and tapering crown, smoothly brushed, and very different from the low, shaggy beaver to which Fimber had taken such instant exception. Only his Hessian boots were his own. Within ten minutes of forcing his feet into Evelyn’s shoes Kit had straitly commanded Fimber to retrieve from his baggage his own foot-wear. Fimber, obstinately prejudiced ag
ainst Kit’s Viennese valet, had eyed his Hessians with contempt, but there was really no fault to be found either in their cut, or in their unsullied brilliance. Starched shirtpoints of moderate height, a Mathematical Tie, dog-skin gloves, an elegant fob, and a malacca cane completed Mr Fancot’s attire, and caused his mama to declare that he was precise to a pin. Thus fortified, he set forth with tolerable composure to keep his appointment with Miss Stavely.
Halfway up John Street this composure was shaken by an encounter with a total stranger, who demanded indignantly what he meant by giving him the cut direct. He extricated himself from this situation by pleading a brown study; but as he had no clue to the stranger’s identity, nor any knowledge of the latest on-dits to which this Pink of the Ton made oblique references, the ensuing conversation severely taxed his ingenuity. It culminated in a pressing invitation to him to join a gathering of Evelyn’s cronies at Limmer’s Hotel that evening. He declined this, on the score of having promised to escort his mother to a ton-party; and parted from his insouciant new acquaintance imbued with a resolve to seek refuge at Ravenhurst without any loss of time. It had been forcibly borne in upon him that a prolonged sojourn in the Metropolis would not only be extremely wearing, but would infallibly lead to his undoing.
He was admitted to Lord Stavely’s house by the butler, who came as near to bestowing a conspiratorial wink upon him as his sense of propriety permitted, and was conducted to a parlour, at the back of the house. Here Miss Stavely awaited him, becomingly attired in a morning dress of jaconet muslin, made up to the throat, its sleeves tightly buttoned at the wrists, and its hem embellished with a broad, embroidered flounce. As he bent ceremonially over her hand, the butler, surveying the scene with a fatherly and sentimental eye, heaved an audible sigh of great sensibility, and withdrew, softly closing the door behind him.
There had been constraint in Miss Stavely’s manner, but the butler’s sigh brought the ready twinkle into her eyes, and she said involuntarily: ‘Oh, dear! Poor Dursley is convinced that he is assisting in a romantic affair! Don’t be dismayed! The thing is that he, and all the upper servants, have, most unfortunately, taken it upon themselves to champion what they imagine to be my cause!’
‘Unfortunately?’ he said.
‘Why, yes! I should be a monster if I were not very much touched by their loyalty, but I wish with all my heart they could be persuaded to accept Albinia as my successor! You can’t conceive how awkward they make it for both of us! Do what I will, they persist in coming to me for orders, even of referring her orders to me! I do most sincerely feel for her: her situation is insupportable!’
‘What of yours?’ he asked. ‘Is that not insupportable?’
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, with a wry smile. ‘You know that! It was – is! – my reason for – for entertaining your proposal, my lord.’
‘That’s frank, at all events!’ he remarked.
Her eyes responded to the smile in his. ‘We were agreed, were we not, that only candour on both our parts could make our projected alliance tolerable to either of us? Your reason for wishing to be married is your very understandable desire to become independent of your uncle; mine is – is what I feel to be an urgent need to remove myself from this house – from any of my father’s houses!’
‘Having made the acquaintance of your mother-in-law – having furthered my acquaintance with her,’ Kit said, smoothly correcting himself, ‘I perfectly comprehend your feeling – and sympathize with you!’
‘No, no, don’t misunderstand me!’ she said quickly. ‘You should rather sympathize with Albinia! It must be hard indeed for her to come into a household which has been managed for years by a daughter-in-law so little removed from her in age. Then, too, I have been in some sort my father’s companion since my mother’s death, and – and it is difficult to break such a relationship. Albinia feels – inevitably – that she is obliged to share Papa with me.’
‘And you?’
‘Yes,’ she said frankly. ‘I feel the same – perhaps more bitterly, which – which quite shocks me, because I had never dreamt I could be so horridly ill-natured! Between the two of us poor Papa is rendered miserably uncomfortable! I detest Albinia as much as she detests me, and – to make a clean breast of it! – I find I can’t bear playing second fiddle where I have been accustomed to being the mistress of the house!’ She added, with an effort at playfulness: ‘You should take warning, Denville! I have lately learnt to know myself much better than ever I did before, and have come to the dismal conclusion that I am an overbearing female, determined to rule the roost!’
He smiled at her. ‘I’m not afraid of you. But tell me this! – if I should ask it of you, would you find it irksome to share a home with my mother?’
She stared at him, and then exclaimed, as enlightenment dawned on her: ‘Was that the stipulation you spoke of? Good God, how could you be so absurd? Did you think that I should require you to thrust her out of her home? What a toad you must think me! My dearest, most adorable Godmama! Let me tell you, my lord, that my hope is that she will receive me into your household with as much kindness as she has always shown me!’
‘Thank you!’ he said warmly. ‘But I must tell you that she straitly forbade me even to suggest such an arrangement to you. She says it never answers. Indeed, she informed me that she had always regarded it as a most fortunate circumstance that her own mother and father-in-law were dead before she married my father!’
Her eyes danced. She said appreciatively: ‘I can almost hear her saying it – perfectly seriously, I make no doubt! Do, pray, assure her that I should not so regard her death!’
‘I shan’t dare to disclose that I mentioned the matter to you. She promised me a severe scold if I did so!’
‘No wonder you should be in a quake!’ she agreed. ‘One always dreads the ordeal of which one has no experience!’
He laughed. ‘Now, how do you know I have not that experience, Miss Stavely?’
‘I don’t think my understanding superior,’ she replied, ‘but I have cut my eye-teeth!’ She looked curiously at him. ‘May I know why I have sunk to be Miss Stavely again? You called me Cressy when you proposed to me – but perhaps you have forgotten?’
‘By no means!’ he said promptly. ‘Merely, your habit of addressing me as my lord led me to fear that I had gone beyond the line.’
‘What a whisker!’ she remarked. ‘I recall that Grandmama told me last night that you had a ready tongue.’
‘I wish I could think that she meant it as a compliment!’
‘With Grandmama one can never be quite certain, but she did say that she had been agreeably surprised in you!’
‘Come, that’s encouraging! May I hope that she will consent to our marriage?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t asked her, you see, and all she has said so far is that she wants to know you better.’
‘I wish you will tell me, Cressy, whether you mean to be ruled by her decision?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I make my own decisions.’ She thought for a moment, and then said, with a gleam of mischief: ‘I might make her decision my excuse!’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think you would! You’re no shuffler,’ he responded coolly.
‘How can you know that?’ she asked, meeting his eyes with a surprised question in her own.
He smiled. ‘It isn’t difficult to know it: no extraordinary intelligence is necessary to enable one to perceive that your mind is direct. You don’t talk flowery commonplace, and you’re not afraid to come to the point.’ He paused. ‘That being so, tell me what it is you wish to say to me! I fancy you didn’t invite me to visit you only to discover what my stipulation was.’
‘No,’ she acknowledged. Her colour was a little heightened; she said, with a touch of shyness: ‘I hardly know why I did ask you to come. You will think me very far from direct! You see, when you proposed t
o me, I was in a horrid quarrel with Albinia – a vulgar pulling of caps, as women do! I wished of all things to go away from here, not only because I was hurt and angry, but because I saw that it wouldn’t do for me to remain. Albinia is anxious to be rid of me, and I can’t blame her, for I find I am becoming one of those detestable people who are for ever picking out grievances, or coming to cuffs over trifles. And when I made the really shocking discovery that I was hoping that Albinia’s child, which she is so certain will be a son, will be a daughter – just to take the wind out of her eye! – I knew that I must go away.’ She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. ‘So ignoble!’ she uttered, in a stifled voice.
‘But very natural,’ Kit said. ‘A son to put your nose out of joint, eh?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, that was it. But to allow oneself to be put into a flame by such a cut – spoken in a mere fit of crossness, too – !’
‘I consider it stands greatly to your credit that you didn’t divulge your ignoble wish.’
She forced a smile. ‘I’m not quite as direct as that.’
‘You may put it so, if you choose: I should have said that you are not so wanting in conduct!’
‘Thank you: that was kind in you!’
‘No, only truthful. Were you in a passion when I proposed to you? I didn’t guess it.’
‘Oh, no, not then! Merely determined to put an end to a miserably uncomfortable situation, and unable to think how it could be done.’ She hesitated, and continued, with a little difficulty: ‘I had never meant to have remained here when my father was married again. I thought – hoped – that Grandmama would have invited me to live with her. She didn’t, however. I daresay you’ll understand that I didn’t care to ask her.’