False Colours (39 page)

‘But can you wonder at it, Grandmama? Only think how irksome it must be to him!’

‘Don’t talk flummery to me, girl!’ said the Dowager irascibly. ‘I have it on the best of authority that his revenues don’t bring him a penny less than £16000 a year, and Henry Brumby told me himself that his debts were paid out of the estate when his father died!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘His mother’s debts, eh? You needn’t put yourself to the trouble of denying it! It’s common knowledge she’s been at a standstill these dozen years and more! Means to settle ’em, does he? Well, I don’t think the worse of him for that, but what such a caper-witted, fly-away wastethrift has ever done to deserve so much devotion I shall never know, if I live to be a hundred!’ Her crooked fingers worked amongst the folds of her silken skirt. Cressy said nothing; and after a moment or two, she brought her piercing gaze back to the girl’s face. ‘A pretty piece of business you’ve made of it, between you!’ she said scathingly. ‘Understand me, miss! I’ll have no scandal attached to
our
name! Good God, it must be common knowledge by now that you stand upon the brink of an engagement to Denville! What do you imagine your father will have to say, when he learns of this?’

‘He will await
your
decision, Grandmama,’ Cressy answered calmly. ‘You know that as surely as I do! I hope it may be in my favour—in Kit’s favour!—because I love you both, and to marry without your approval couldn’t but throw a cloud over my happiness.’ She raised her eyes, giving the Dowager look for look. ‘But in less than a twelvemonth, ma’am, I shall come of age, and neither you nor Papa will have the power to prevent my marriage to Kit!’

‘If,’ said the Dowager, after a pregnant silence, ‘
I
had ever dared to speak so to
my
grandmother, I should have been soundly whipped, and confined to my bedchamber on bread-and-water for a sennight!’

The gravity vanished from Cressy’s face. ‘No, would you, ma’am? How
very
brave
your
parents must have been!’

‘Hussy!’ said the Dowager, putting up her hand to hide her quivering mouth. ‘Don’t think you can come over
me
with your impertinence! Pull the bell! I am out of all patience with you, and fagged to death as well! Look at the time! I should have been laid down on my bed half-an-hour ago! Not an hour left before I shall be obliged to rig myself out for dinner, and not a wink of sleep shall I get, thanks to you, you ungrateful, abandoned, unnatural baggage! Go away! And don’t flatter yourself that you’ve won my support, because you haven’t!’

Retiring discreetly from the presence, Cressy closed her eyes in momentary thankfulness, before running down the stairs in search of Mr Fancot. Admirably though she had concealed it, it had been with considerable trepidation that she had admitted the Dowager into the secret of the hoax practised upon her. The result of her disclosure had, so far, been more hopeful than she had allowed herself to expect. At no time had she indulged her fancy with the thought that her tyrannical grandparent would instantly bestow her blessing on a union which, besides being undeniably inferior to the one first submitted for her approval, bore all the signs of being attended by exactly the sort of scandalous
on-dit
s which were most obnoxious to a highbred dame of her age and generation; she had rather entertained a lively fear that the Dowager would fly into a towering rage, which might even impel her to sweep herself and her granddaughter off to Worthing that very day. She had certainly, and justifiably, taken a violent pet; but, to Cressy’s experienced eye, no thought of proceeding to extremes had so much as crossed her mind. Even more significantly (and very much to Cressy’s relief), she had not instantly summoned her hostess to account for her perfidy. Instead, and in a querulous voice which belonged to a vexed and bewildered old lady rather than to an infuriated despot, she had abused her erring granddaughter, not for having lent herself to a disgraceful hoax, but for having caused her to lose half-an-hour’s sleep. Grandmama, thought Cressy shrewdly, wanted time for reflection; and that circumstance alone was enough to encourage optimism in the initiated. The battle was by no means won; Grandmama might yet prove hard to handle; but she had undoubtedly been amused by certain aspects of the outrageous story unfolded to her; and equally undoubtedly she had taken a strong fancy to Mr Christopher Fancot. In Cressy’s judgement, all now depended upon that resourceful gentleman’s ability to discover a discreet way of extricating himself and her from a situation which gave every promise of affording the ton matter for unlimited gossip and conjecture. She ran him to earth in the library, but he was not alone.

Even as she spoke his name, she saw that Sir Bonamy was present, and she drew back, murmuring an apology.

Kit was standing with his hand on the back of a chair, confronting Sir Bonamy, seated on a sofa, his hands on his knees, and an expression of resignation on his countenance. Kit turned his head quickly, saying in rather an odd voice: ‘Don’t go, Cressy! Sir Bonamy knows the truth about us, and won’t object, I believe, to my disclosing to you the—unexpected news which he has just broken to me.’

‘No,’ said Sir Bonamy, preparing to heave himself to his feet. ‘No sense in objecting to it. Mark me if it ain’t all over the county before the cat can lick her ear!’

‘Pray don’t get up, sir!’ Cressy said, coming across the room to lay a restraining hand on his arm. ‘What is this news? Don’t keep me on tenterhooks, Kit! I c-can see that it is
good
news!’

Mr Fancot’s eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. He said in a measured tone: ‘Sir Bonamy informs me that my mother has accepted an offer of marriage from him.’

‘
No!
’ cried Cressy. ‘Is it so indeed? Oh, my dear sir, let me be the first to felicitate you!’

‘Much obliged to you! Hardly know whether I’m on my head or my heels, but I don’t need to tell you I’m the happiest man on earth! That,’ said Sir Bonamy doggedly, ‘goes without saying!’

‘Of course it does! It must seem to you like a fairy story!’

‘Ay, that’s it! Sort of thing one never thought would happen to one. What I mean is,’ he corrected himself hastily, ‘something I’d ceased to hope for!’

Kit had been looking decidedly grim, but Cressy, stealing a glance at him, was relieved to see that his ready sense of humour had been roused by the dejected picture presented by his parent’s successful suitor, softening the lines about his mouth, and bringing the laughter back into his eyes. But he said, with perfect gravity: ‘You must find it hard to realize your good fortune, sir.’

‘Yes, well, I do!’ confessed Sir Bonamy. ‘At my time of life, you know, a thing like this takes some getting used to! Yes, and another thing! I can’t but ask myself if your mother will be happy, married to me! Now, tell me, Kit! do you think she might regret it?’

‘No,’ said Kit. ‘I am very much inclined to think, sir, that you will neither of you regret it.’

‘Well, I must say, Kit, that’s very handsome of you—very handsome indeed!’ exclaimed Sir Bonamy, visibly astonished. ‘There’s no question of
my
regretting it, of course, but damme if I ever thought to hear you say such a thing to me! To tell you the truth, I thought you’d cut up pretty stiff!’

‘I could hardly wish for a kinder or more indulgent husband for her!’ Kit said, smiling. ‘You’ll cosset her to death!’

‘Ay, so I will! But did you wish
any
man to marry her?’

‘No, certainly not
any
man, but one who loved her, and could be. trusted to take care of her, yes! What I do
not
wish is to see her setting up an establishment of her own—and getting her affairs into heaven only knows what sort of a tangle!’

‘No, by God!’ ejaculated Sir Bonamy. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re very right, my boy! It wouldn’t do at all! At least I shan’t have
that
to worry about!’

‘You won’t have anything to worry about!’ Cressy assured him. ‘Will you think me very saucy if I say that never did a knight more thoroughly deserve to win his lady than you, dear sir?’

‘No, no!’ protested Sir Bonamy, much discomposed. ‘Nonsense! Very obliging of you to say so, but no such thing! As a matter of fact, I’m a baronet.’

‘To me,’ said Cressy, avoiding Kit’s eye, ‘you have always seemed like a knight of ancient chivalry!’

‘What, one of those fellows who careered all over, looking for dragons? Well, whatever put such a silly notion as that into your head, my dear girl? Rigged out in armour, too! Why, it makes me hot only to think of it! Not the style of thing I care for at all, I promise you!’

‘Ah, you misunderstand me! It wasn’t dragons I had in mind but your unswerving faithfulness to Godmama! You have been her sworn knight throughout the years!’

‘Baronet,’ interpolated Kit unsteadily.

‘I’ve so often thought how lonely you must have been,’ pursued Cressy, ignoring this frivolity. ‘In that great house of yours, quite alone, and—as it must have seemed to you—with nothing to look forward to!’

‘Very true! Except that one grows accustomed, you know, and I don’t live in it
alone
precisely.’

‘You have servants, of course, but what do they signify? So very little!’

Sir Bonamy, who employed an enormous staff which included three cooks wholly indispensable to his comfort, thought that they signified a great deal, but refrained from saying so.

‘But now how different it will be!’

‘I know it will,’ he agreed, with a deep sigh.

‘And, oh, how you will be envied!’ she said, hastily changing her note. ‘They will be ready to murder you, all Godmama’s disappointed suitors! I can’t but laugh when I picture to myself the chagrin of certain of their number when you walk off with her from under their noses!’

It was plain that this aspect had not previously occurred to him. He considered it, puffing out his cheeks a little, as he always did when anything pleased him. ‘Yes, by Jupiter!’ he said. ‘They
will
be ready to murder me! The loveliest, most sought-after woman in the ton, and she chose me! A triumph that, eh? Lord, I’d give a monkey to see Louth’s face when he reads the advertisement!
He’ll
be ready to murder me, if you like!’ A less agreeable thought occurred to him: he said gloomily: ‘Yes, and I know of someone else who’ll be fit to cut my liver out, and that’s young Denville! I was forgetting him. Kit, if this marriage was to cause a breach between him and your mother, she’d break her heart, and I’d give her up sooner than do that!’

‘Don’t worry, sir: it won’t!’ Kit replied. ‘I can’t promise that Evelyn will take very readily to the marriage, but never fear! he’ll come round, and under no circumstances would he become estranged from Mama. That you may depend on!’

‘I dare say you know best,’ said Sir Bonamy, accepting his fate. He rose ponderously to his feet. ‘Time I went up to change my dress!’

‘We don’t change this evening, sir: General Oakenshaw drove over an hour ago to pay his respects to my mother, and she has persuaded him to remain to dine here.’

‘You don’t mean it! Why, I thought that old spider-shanks had gone to roost years ago!’ exclaimed Sir Bonamy. ‘Well, well, what a day this has been! One surprise after another! I won’t put on my evening rig, but I must change my coat, and I don’t know but what I won’t take a little rest before dinner, just to pluck me up, you know!’

‘And perhaps a cordial?’ suggested Kit.

‘No, no, I don’t want a cordial! The thing is that I’ve had a lot of excitement today, which I ain’t accustomed to, and I feel a trifle fagged! A short nap will set me to rights again!’

‘As you wish, sir,’ said Kit, holding open the door for him, and bowing him out of the room.

Shutting it again, he turned to find that Cressy had collapsed into a chair, in fits of laughter. She uttered, between gusts: ‘Oh, Kit! Oh, Kit! I thought I should die!
Poor
Sir Bonamy!’

‘You and your knights!’ he said.

That sent her into a fresh paroxysm. ‘Baronets!’ she wailed. ‘Wretch that you are! That was nearly my undoing! Oh, don’t make me laugh any more! It positively
hurts!
’
She mopped her eyes. ‘But it
will
be a happy marriage, won’t it? When he has accustomed himself to the idea?’

‘I should think it might well be, if he can be brought up to the scratch. What I want to know, my love, is whether this was one of Mama’s nacky notions, or yours? Out with it, now!’

‘Kit, how can you suppose that I would venture to suggest to Godmama that she should marry Sir Bonamy, or anyone else?’

‘I don’t. But I strongly suspect that it was you who put the idea into her head! Well?’

Her mirth ceased. ‘Not quite that. I own, however, that it did spring from something I said, and that I hoped it might. Are you vexed with me?’

‘I don’t know. No, of course I’m not, but—Cressy, is she doing this for Evelyn’s sake?’

‘Not entirely. I think for her own as much as his. I can’t tell you what passed between us, for what she said to me was in confidence. I will only tell you that I found her in great distress, and discovered that she meant to—oh, to make a perfectly dreadful sacrifice for Evelyn!—and that when I left her she was wearing her
mischief-look!
Kit, I do most sincerely believe that she
will
be happy! She is very fond of Sir Bonamy, you know, and always on
comfortable
terms with him! And above all she must not live alone! You yourself said so. You had her quite incurable extravagance in mind, but what has been very much in my mind is my conviction that she would be miserably unhappy.’