False Colours (33 page)

‘Yes, yes, my pretty,
I
knew you were up to your tricks!’ said Sir Bonamy fondly. ‘I never thought you’d endure having that brother of yours here above a sennight. Told you he was a devilish dull dog!’

‘Yes,
isn’t
he? But
that’s
not it! I invited him because I thought it would make it less awkward for Kit, but it turns out that he makes it much
more
awkward, now that Evelyn has returned! I can’t stay to explain it to you, but Kit will do so!’

She then flitted away in the wake of Mrs Cliffe, and Sir Bonamy, lowering himself into his chair again, drew a dish of peaches and nectarines towards him, pausing only, before making a careful selection from amongst them, to inform Kit that there was no need for him to explain anything to him, ‘Just as soon you didn’t, my boy! Nothing to do with me!’ he said, delicately pinching one of the peaches.

‘I won’t,’ promised Kit. ‘But I’ve been wanting to have a word with you, sir! I believe you may be able to help me.’

Sir Bonamy, casting him a glance of acute suspicion, said: ‘I shouldn’t think so—shouldn’t think so at all! Not if it has anything to do with this havey-cavey rig you’re running!’

‘Nothing at all,’ replied Kit reassuringly. ‘It is merely that I find myself faced with a—a social problem on which I am very sure you can advise me.’

‘Oh, if that’s all—!’ said Sir Bonamy, much relieved. ‘Very happy to be of service, my boy!’ He picked up his fruit knife, adding, with a simplicity which robbed his words of self-consequence: ‘You couldn’t have applied to a better man!’

‘Just so!’ agreed Kit. ‘It’s quite a small matter, but it has me in rather a puzzle. If you stood in my shoes, sir—or, rather, in my brother’s—and you wished to visit someone who happened to be staying at the Pavilion, how would you set about it?’

Sir Bonamy raised his eyes from the peach, which he had begun to strip of its skin, and stared very hard at Kit. ‘Who?’ he demanded.

‘One of the Prince Regent’s guests, sir.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Sir Bonamy, turning back to his peach. ‘You don’t want to get mixed up in that set. Couldn’t if you did. I’m the only one of Prinny’s friends Denville is acquainted with, so what does
he
want with any of ’em?’

‘A trifling matter of business, which I wish to discharge for him.’

‘Well, if that’s all, my advice to you is to wait until he leaves the Pavilion,’ said Sir Bonamy, dissecting his peach with finicking care.

‘Unfortunately, the matter is rather urgent, sir.’

‘Oh, it is, is it? Sounds to me as if that brother of yours has been getting himself into trouble! Not been playing cards in that set, has he?’

‘No, he has not—which you must surely be in a better position than I am to know!’ replied Kit, a little stiffly.

Sir Bonamy nodded, conveying a quarter of the peach to his mouth. ‘I didn’t think he had, but one never knows what these young cocks of the game will get up to next. Too rackety by half! Now, you needn’t bite my nose off! Who is it you want to visit at the Pavilion? Can’t help you if I don’t know.’

‘Lord Silverdale. On a matter of business, as I have said.’

Sir Bonamy slowly consumed another quarter of the peach. ‘Well, if I were you, Kit, I’d tell Evelyn not to enter on any business with Silverdale. Don’t mind telling you that Prinny’s got some mighty queer cronies! He’s one of ’em. A shocking loose-screw, my boy! Never a feather to fly with, either, and has a damned nasty tongue in his head. Cuts up more characters in an evening than I would in a twelvemonth.’

‘Nevertheless, sir, it is imperative that I should see him.’

Sir Bonamy turned his eyes towards him, and stared at him for several unwinking moments. ‘Oh! Now, look ‘ee, my boy! If it has anything to do with the ruby brooch your mother lost to him at play, you leave well alone! Ay, and tell your brother to do so too!’

‘So you know about that, do you, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, of course I know!’ said Sir Bonamy. ‘I was there! Saw her stake it, and so did everyone else. A silly thing to do, for her luck was quite out, but nothing in it to make Evelyn get upon his high ropes! All open and above-board, you know, and everyone joking her about it, and saying it was just like her to throw her jewellery after her guineas. Why, even Silverdale himself couldn’t brew any scandal-broth out of it! So just you forget it, Kit, and tell Evelyn to take a damper!’

‘I can’t do that, sir. I feel quite as strongly as Evelyn does that the brooch must be redeemed.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t try to do that!’ said Sir Bonamy, putting the nectarine he had been considering back in the dish.

‘But you must surely perceive—’

‘No, I don’t. If you was to ask me, I should say it was a good thing your mother did lose it! It never became her, you know. In fact, I can’t think what made her take a fancy to it, for she don’t in general make mistakes of that nature. But she can’t wear rubies! Anything else, but not rubies or garnets! Don’t you try to get it back for her! Tell Evelyn to buy her another—sapphires or emeralds. She’ll like it just as well!’

‘Probably better,’ agreed Kit, smiling.

‘There you are, then!’ said Sir Bonamy. ‘Damme, Kit, you’ve cut your eye-teeth! Don’t you go stirring coals! Stupid thing to do, because you may depend upon it Silver-dale sold it weeks ago!’

‘I am very sure he didn’t,’ said Kit.

‘You know nothing about it! Silverdale’s going to pigs and whistles, and that brooch was worth a monkey if it was worth a groat.’

Kit hesitated before saying: ‘I fancy I needn’t hide my teeth with you, sir. It isn’t worth more than a pony—if as much. It is nothing but trumpery: a copy of the real brooch.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Sir Bonamy testily.

‘I wish it were nonsense, but I’m afraid—’

‘Well, it is nonsense. Good God, you don’t suppose Silverdale’s a flat, do you? Because he ain’t!’

‘I don’t suppose it occurred to him that my mother would have staked it, if—’

‘No, and nor did she!’ interrupted Sir Bonamy. ‘Told you I was there, didn’t I? If you think I’d have let her put up a piece of trumpery, you’ve got less rumgumption than they give you credit for: more of a beetlehead than one of the tightish clever sort! The only advice I’m giving you is to tell young Denville to stop trying to raise a dust!’

He shot Kit an angry glare, and found that he was being steadily regarded. ‘Mama told me herself that she had sold that brooch, sir,’ said Kit. ‘I recall, furthermore, that she also told me that you had several times sold trinkets for her.’

‘Well, I didn’t sell that brooch for her.’

‘Did you ever sell
any
of her jewellery, sir?’

‘Now, look ’ee, Kit. I’ve had enough of you trying to nose out what’s no concern of yours!’ said Sir Bonamy, in a blustering tone. ‘Damme if you’re not getting to be as bad as your brother! Well, I won’t have it! Couple of impudent halflings I knew when you was fubsy, muffin-faced brats in the same cradle! What your mother saw in you I never could make out!’

Kit could not help laughing, but he said: ‘That’s all very well, sir, but it won’t do, you know. It is very much our concern—and you know that too!’

Sir Bonamy, who was looking hot and harassed, groped for his snuff-box, and fortified himself with a liberal pinch.

‘Now, you listen to me, my boy!’ he said. ‘You’ve no reason to meddle, either of you! No one knows anything about the business, and never will, so if you’re afraid of its leaking out and starting a scandal—’

‘Believe me, sir, I’m not in the least afraid of that, and nor will Evelyn be!’

‘For God’s sake, Kit, don’t go blabbing it all to Evelyn!’ begged Sir Bonamy, alarmed. ‘It’s bad enough having to put up with you poking and prying into my business, without having that young make-bait buzzing round me like a hornet! I knew your mother before you was born or thought of, and, what’s more, if it hadn’t been for Denville,
I
might have been your father! Mind you, I’m damned glad I’m not, for of all the resty, top-lofty, whisky-frisky young jackanapes you’re the worst!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Kit meekly. ‘But you can’t expect us to allow my mother to stand in your debt!’

Sir Bonamy’s little round eyes started at him, and his cheeks began to assume a purple hue. ‘Oh, I can’t, can’t I? Bumptious, that’s what you are, my boy! Next you’ll be asking me to render up an account! Well, that’s where you’ll be bowled out, because I won’t do it, and it’s not a bit of good pestering your mother about it, because she don’t know, bless her heart!’

‘Sir, we
can’t
let it rest like that!’

‘Well, you’ll learn your mistake! You can tell Evelyn it’s none of his business, because it all happened before your father died. And don’t you try to pay me for that curst brooch, for I won’t have it! Good God, boy, what the devil is it to me, a miserable monkey?’

‘If it was you who bought the Denville necklace, sir, Mama must be thousands in your debt!’

‘Well, that’s nothing to me either! Thought you knew that!’

‘Everyone knows you’re as rich as Golden Ball, sir, but it’s beside the point.’

‘No it ain’t,’ said Sir Bonamy crossly. ‘You’ve got no right to stop me spending my blunt anyway I choose—not that I’d put it beyond you to try!’

‘Sir, I do beg of you—’

‘No, no, you keep your tongue between your teeth, Kit! Getting to be a regular jaw-me-dead! You’ll only come to fiddlestick’s end, and so I warn you! It was no fault of Evelyn’s that your mother ran aground, and there was nothing he could have done about it when she was near to being blown up at Point Non-Plus! Little enough I could do either, for she never would take a penny from me unless she was forced to, and then I had to call it a loan, and charge her interest!’

‘Which you never demand!’

‘No, of course I don’t! But I’m not at all sure that I oughtn’t to have done so,’ said Sir Bonamy reflectively. ‘She’s got no more notion of business than a kitten, but she don’t like to be beholden. Frets her more than you might guess!’ He chuckled. ‘Bless her, she thinks all’s right and tight if she can pay interest! She don’t tell me much more than she told your father, and I’ve got my suspicions that she’s borrowed money from others besides me. Well, I know she has, and that’s where I’m at a stand, because she won’t let me give her the rhino to pay her debts, and
I
can’t redeem ’em without raising a nasty dust. She’s got it fixed in her head that there’s no harm in borrowing from people who don’t hesitate to dun her for the interest she owes ’em, but that it’s wrong to come to me. No use arguing with her: all she does is talk balderdash about imposing on me. And when I told her she ought to know there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her, she said she did know it, and it made it worse!’ He sighed. ‘I dare say you don’t like it—in fact, I know you don’t—but I’m devoted to her—always have been, always shall be—but there’s no understanding her!’

‘I think I do understand what’s in her mind when she doesn’t like to hang on your sleeve, sir. You’re mistaken in thinking that I don’t like your devotion to her: we were used to be jealous of you, I think, but that was when we were muffin-faced brats! What could either of us feel, in the light of what I’ve learnt today, but thankful for it that you were devoted to her, and—and most obliged to you?’

Sir Bonamy looked rather gratified, but said shrewdly: ‘You speak for yourself, my boy! You ain’t speaking for Evelyn, and if you think you are you don’t know him as well as I thought you did!’

‘I know him as I know myself,’ Kit replied, ‘and I am speaking for him. I haven’t said he’ll like it: he won’t and nor do I. He won’t stomach it. Good God, sir, how could either of us accept such a situation with complaisance? It was my father’s duty to discharge Mama’s debts. He didn’t do so, and Evelyn will tell you that he inherited his obligations as well as his fortune.’

‘Well, I’d as lief he didn’t tell me,’ responded Sir Bonamy. ‘I don’t want to have him ranting at me as well as you. What’s more, he’ll be wasting his breath, for he hasn’t inherited your father’s fortune yet, and from what I’ve seen of his carryings-on he ain’t likely to get Brumby to wind that Trust up a day before he must! I’ll tell you this too, Kit: when he does get control of his fortune he’ll have enough to do to settle the rest of your mother’s debts without adding what she’s borrowed from me to ’em!’

18

There was no more to be got from Sir Bonamy, who went off to enjoy his usual afternoon sleep in the library, saying that he was glad not to have that fidgety fellow, Cliffe, sharing the room with him any longer. Kit made no attempt to detain him. Every feeling might revolt against allowing his mother to be so deeply indebted to a man upon whom she had no claim, and who stood outside the family, but he could perceive no way either of forcing Sir Bonamy to state the sum of her obligation to him, or of discharging the debt, if he surmounted that first obstacle. The Cliffes were gone within an hour of rising from the nuncheon table; and Kit waited only to see them off before going across the park to Nurse Pinner’s cottage. He found Fimber, whom he had sent there earlier with a couple of bottles of wine, engaged in rather more than usually acrimonious hostilities with Nurse, and for once at a disadvantage, since the noble object of their jealousy was once more, and for the first time since her retirement, restored to Nurse’s fond and despotic care. Fimber had scored a point in having his services in helping his lordship to dress preferred to Nurse’s; but he had been obliged to yield to her superior skill in bandaging; to endure, in tight-lipped silence, her sharply authoritative warnings and instructions when he eased my lord into his shirt and coat; and to suppress his wrath at my lord’s tacit refusal to send her out of his tiny bedroom while he was dressed. She bustled in and out, full of interference, and addressing her nursling with such endearments as she had used during his childhood, so that the only course open to his valet was to adopt an attitude of meticulous respect towards a young gentleman whom he was burning to scold and to cross-question.