Cressida (22 page)

“Tomkins!” said Addison’s voice at the same moment imperatively behind her; and before the word was out of his mouth a heavy hand was clapped upon her arm. Simultaneously she saw that the outer door was still guarded by the same ruffian who had admitted her a few minutes before: obviously, it was futile for her to make any further attempt to escape.

She turned coldly upon Addison. “You
are,”
she pronounced very clearly, “a perfect toad, Addison: quite how perfect I never until this moment knew. Shall we go in to supper? At least if I am obliged to endure your company, I need not do it in a famished condition. ”

Addison grinned at her unpleasantly.

“By all means, my dear,” he said to her, and led the way into the dining room.

At about the time that Cressida had stepped into the post-chaise awaiting her—or, rather, Kitty—in Bruton Street, the knocker of her house in Mount Street sounded and Harbage, treading in a stately manner to the front door, admitted Captain Rossiter.

“Is Miss Chenevix at home?” the Captain demanded. Harbage, noting without the slightest change in countenance that the caller’s own face wore an expression little calculated to bring joy to the heart of his betrothed, said he fancied Miss Chenevix was with her ladyship at present, and if the Captain would care to wait in the Small Saloon while he ascertained—

“Thank you; there’s no need for that. In the drawing room, are they? I’ll go up,” said the Captain, who was never one, as Harbage confided later to the housekeeper, to stand upon ceremony, although in this instance he, Harbage, would have thought it very much better if he had done so, as, from what he had heard a few moments before, passing the drawing-room door “quite by accident, of course,” her ladyship was in the act of giving Miss Kitty a regular bear-garden jaw there, and it was a guinea to a gooseberry that Miss Kitty, who was already crying, would be having hysterics in a brace of snaps.

All of which, of course, Rossiter was quite unaware of as he walked upstairs and into the drawing room, but his intrusion was greeted with such an aghast stare on Lady Constance’s part and such a burst of sobbing on Kitty’s that he must indeed have been dull of comprehension if he had not understood at once that he had inadvertently stumbled upon a scene of embarrassing proportions that was taking place between them.

He checked upon the threshold, an expression of distaste upon his dark face.

“I beg your pardon,” he said shortly. “It appears I have come at an inopportune time. ”

“Well, yes; in point of fact, you
have,
rather,” said Lady Constance, distractedly. I am afraid Kitty is not 
quite
herself at the moment. ” She bent a severely minatory gaze upon her weeping protegee. “Kitty, dear,
do 
endeavour to compose yourself and make your apologies to Captain Rossiter!” she said. “Your behaviour is not at all becoming!”

Kitty, however, who had just undergone the shock of being told by Lady Constance, under the stress of Cressida’s departure, that All Had Been Discovered and that she was the wickedest, most ungrateful girl in Christendom, had succumbed to the welter of feelings of shame, fear, disappointment, and obstinacy that had not unnaturally overwhelmed her upon this disclosure, and only sobbed harder than ever.

“I had best leave, I daresay, said Rossiter, casting a glance upon his betrothed that left little doubt that he found the discovery that a young lady he had considered a model of quiet composure could become an unmanageable watering-pot a far from agreeable one. “My apologies, Lady Constance—”

Lady Constance, obviously relieved to hear this speech, said immediately that it might, indeed, be best if he allowed poor Kitty a little time in which to compose herself.

“A letter from her mama,’ she said, improvising rapidly and inventively. “Or not precisely
from
her mama, but
concerning
her mama, for she is too ill, it appears, to write herself. Such a shock for dear Kitty!

Rossiter said, in conventional sympathy, that he was very sorry, and was turning to leave when Kitty, with the inability of all reserved and self-contained natures, once they are fairly launched upon a dramatic scene, to know where to leave off, suddenly ceased sobbing and said, “Stop!”

Rossiter stopped.

“I want you to know,” said Kitty, her voice still impeded by sobs and her bosom swelling, “that I shall never,
never
marry you! I love—”

“Kitty, be silent!” said Lady Constance awfully.

Kitty looked at her rebelliously. “I shan’t!” she said. “You may have stopped me for today, but I shall never marry anyone but—”

“You will go to your room at once, you wicked, wicked girl!” Lady Constance interrupted hastily, seeing the results of weeks of effort flying out the window. She turned a conciliatory smile upon Rossiter. “The poor child is quite beside herself!” she said. “She does not in the least know what she is saying!”

Rossiter regarded her coolly.

“On the contrary,” he said, “it appears to me that she knows precisely what she is saying, and that it may be a great deal better for both of us if she is given an opportunity to say it. ” He walked over to Kitty and stood before her. “What is it?” he asked her, not ungently. “You would like to be released from this engagement of ours—is that it?”

“Yes!” said Kitty, at the same moment that Lady Constance very emphatically said, “No!” The latter continued, in a tone of dramatic appeal, “Captain Rossiter, you
won’t
listen to what the child says when she is so upset—”

“I am not so upset that I don’t know it is not Captain Rossiter, but Mr. Addison, whom I wish to marry!” Kitty said, an equal amount of drama in her own tones. She looked defiantly at Lady Constance. “You can’t stop me, ma’am; indeed, there is no reason for anyone to try to do so!” she said. “Mr. Addison is a gentleman of good family —with an
excellent
position in Society—and
very
agreeable manners—besides being in love with me—
and,” 
she added with a baldness born of her frustration and excitement, “he is
quite
as rich as Captain Rossiter—”

Lady Constance threw up her hands. “Oh,
do
be quiet, you wretched girl!” she commanded, quite in despair over this unlucky turn of events. She turned again to Rossiter. “Captain Rossiter,
indeed
you must not refine too much upon what the child says!” she adjured him. “She is so
very
young and inexperienced, and that 
heartless
man has merely been toying with her affections, of course, without the least intention of anything serious coming of it—”

“He is
not
toying with my affections!” Kitty said angrily. “I should be on my way to marry him at this very moment if it were not for
your
interference!”

Rossiter looked, with what Lady Constance—whose own face was expressing consternation of the wildest sort —considered a most extraordinary lack of perturbation, into the defiant and mulish countenance of his betrothed.

“Do you know,” he said mildly, “I believe I had best sit down and hear the whole of this. So you were planning on marrying Addison today, Miss Chenevix? May I enquire why I—as a presumably more or less interested party—was not informed of this decision upon your part?”

Kitty cast a scared glance at him, and after a moment, instead of replying, burst into tears again.

“For God’s sake, don’t do that!’’ commanded Rossiter in exasperation, his equanimity apparently more disturbed by her lack of self-control than by the fact that she had been planning shamelessly to jilt him. “If you think I am not as quite aware as you are that our engagement has been a mistake from the beginning, you must take me for a bottlehead, for nothing has been more apparent! But why, in the name of Jupiter, couldn’t you have come to me frankly and told me that you wished to be free of it—?”

“But she
doesn’t
wish to be free of it!” Lady Constance babbled, still clinging desperately to the hope that something might yet be salvaged from the wreck Kitty appeared to be bent upon making of her prospects. “Captain Rossiter,
do
go away and allow the child time to recover herself! She does not know in the least what she is saying!”

But Kitty, who had by this time got the bit well between her teeth, was heard at this point to say distinctly, overriding Lady Constance’s efforts to continue speaking, that she knew exactly what she was saying and that she was going at once to Welwyn, no matter who tried to stop her. She further added that she considered Miss Calverton’s action in going in her stead a piece of the most underhanded double-dealing she had ever heard of, and was beginning on a dark insinuation that Cressida’s reasons for doing so had more to do with her own interest in Addison than with any altruistic desire to save Kitty from a disastrous mistake when Rossiter’s voice cut sharply through her words.

“Miss Calverton?” he ejaculated. “What has
she
to do in the matter?”

He looked interrogatively and imperatively at Lady Constance. Lady Constance made for a moment as if to deny that she knew anything at all about it, but then gave it up with a gesture of futility.

“She has gone to Welwyn to meet Addison in Kitty’s place, you see,” she quavered, looking more than a little frightened herself as Rossiter’s gaze appeared to her to darken more menacingly with each word she spoke. “Indeed, I could not stop her!’’ she defended herself. “She was
quite
determined—”

“Quite determined—yes, I can believe that!” Rossiter said savagely. “A more meddlesome, jinglebrained— He broke off, rising abruptly. “And what did she hope to gain by this piece of quixotic nonsense?” he enquired, standing grimly before Lady Constance’s chair. “Even
she
is not tottyheaded enough, I suppose, to imagine that she can appeal to Addison’s better nature—?”

“No, no! It is not that at all!” Lady Constance assured him unhappily. “Her opinion of Addison is
quite
the same as yours and mine! But she is persuaded, you see, that nothing will do to make him give over his pursuit of Kitty but to cause him to appear in an odiously ridiculous light—” She broke off, suddenly regaining spirit under his accusing gaze. “Well, I could not help it!” she said with some acerbity. “You
know
what she is! It was like trying to stop a—a whirlwind!”

He gave an exasperated shrug. “Yes, I can readily imagine!” he was obliged to agree. “I have had experience of her! Well, she won’t thank me for meddling, I daresay, but obviously someone must, and as I can see no one else cast in the role of her deliverer, I shall go to Welwyn myself. Did it never occur to her that under such circumstances a man like Addison might well be dangerous—?”

He broke off suddenly as Kitty, with a shriek of alarm, jumped up from her place and flung herself between him and the door.

“No, no!” she panted. “You shan’t go! You mustn’t! Oh, Captain Rossiter, for
my
sake—”

“What the devil is the matter with the girl?” demanded Rossiter, whose temper, never of the mildest, appeared to be in danger of slipping its leash entirely at this fresh outburst from his late betrothed. “Why shouldn’t I go to Welwyn?”

“She thinks, of course,” said Lady Constance severely, “that you intend calling Addison out, Captain Rossiter. I can only hope that no such wicked thought has crossed your mind! It would be quite disastrous to everyone concerned!”

“Disastrous to Addison, I daresay, if I should do so,” Rossiter said grimly, “but I shan’t! You are quite welcome to him, Miss Chenevix—that is, if he cares to have you, which, you will forgive me for saying, I am strongly inclined to doubt! You have made your choice, however, which leaves me free to make mine as well. He turned to Lady Constance. “Where in Welwyn may I expect to come up with this precious pair?” he demanded. “At one of the inns?”

“Yes—at the White Hart.” Lady Constance, who appeared at length to have become convinced that any further efforts on her part to repair the tatters into which the engagement between him and Kitty had been rent were in vain, looked up at the Captain gloomily. “Addison had a post-chaise waiting in Bruton Street to take her—or, that is, Kitty—up and bring her there, where he was to meet her. It is not above half an hour since she left the house, so I daresay you may even come up with her on the road if you are driving those splendid Welsh-bred greys of yours. But what you are to say to her when you
do,”
she added in a sudden renewal of agitation, “I am sure I cannot imagine! She will probably be
quite 
angry with you for trying to stop her—”

“I expect she will be,” Rossiter said coolly. “I shall see her safe home, all the same, whatever tempests she may choose to raise!”

“I daresay,” said Lady Constance, who had been doing some rapid calculating in her own head during this brief speech, and had come to the conclusion that, with Kitty’s cause irretrievably lost, she had as well do a quick reverse and come down in Cressida’s behalf, “I daresay I have no right to tell you this—”

“Then don’t,” recommended Rossiter, making for the door.

“—but I shall,” continued Lady Constance, unperturbed. “She is in love with you, you know.”

“She? Who?” Rossiter wheeled about abruptly, a thunderstruck expression upon his face. “You can’t mean—”

“Cressy? But I
do,
said Lady Constance earnestly. “Oh, I know it seems
most
unlikely, for she is forever breaking squares with you, but it is true. She told me so herself, on the evening you and Kitty became engaged— not in so many words, of course, but anyone could see how unhappy she was, and when I charged her with it she would only say that it didn’t signify. But it does, of course, if she is truly attached to you, which seems to me 
quite
extraordinary, but, after all, one has known of stranger cases—”

Rossiter, ignoring these oblique aspersions cast upon his desirability as a lover and husband, here interrupted to enquire rather caustically whether Lady Constance’s opinion of Cressida’s present feelings towards him was based merely upon this highly inconclusive piece of evidence.