False Colours

13

When he re-entered the Blue saloon Kit gathered, from what he heard, that Mrs Alperton had been regaling Cressy with nostalgic reminiscences of her past glory. By the expression of sympathetic interest on Miss Stavely’s serene countenance he was encouraged to hope that Mrs Alperton’s frequently asserted regard for innocent girls had prompted her to withhold the more lurid details of her career, together with the information that she had been pretty well acquainted with Lord Stavely. Nor was he mistaken: Mrs Alperton had interrupted her narrative several times, with apologies for having allowed herself to run on more than was seemly; and she took care to assure Cressy that although she had more than once entertained Stavely at her parties their association had never ripened into anything beyond what she called company-acquaintance. She was describing these parties, explaining that however nobly born a gentleman might be there were times when he took a fancy for a bit of jollification, when Kit came in. Cressy had exercised a soothing influence upon her, but the sight of Kit brought her wrongs back to her mind. She cut short her reminiscences, and glowered at him.

“Denville, Mrs Alperton, as you may suppose, is anxious to return to her daughter,” said Cressy, before that lady could re-open hostilities. “She has been telling me, too, how very ill-able she is to afford the post-charges, and I have ventured to say that I am persuaded you will see the propriety of discharging that obligation for her—since all the trouble and expense she has been put to was caused by your stupid forgetfulness!”

“I do indeed,” Kit replied. “So much so that I have already attended to the matter. The chaise is at the door, ma’am: you will allow me to do myself the honour of escorting you to it!”

Mrs Alperton, rising from the sofa, favoured him with a stately inclination of her head, but observed with a good deal of bitterness that this was the least she had a right to expect, and pretty scaly at that. She then took gracious leave of Cressy, sniffed audibly at Kit, who was holding open the door, and stalked from the room.

He accompanied her out of the house, and very civilly handed her up the steps of the chaise, begging her, as he did so, to assure the afflicted Clara that she was not forgotten, and should not be left to starve.

But Mrs Alperton, somewhat exhausted by so much effort and emotion, had lost interest in her daughter’s sorrows, and she merely cast Kit a look of loathing before sinking into a corner of the chaise, and closing her eyes.

Kit went back to the Blue saloon. Cressy was still there, standing where he had left her, with her back to the fireplace. She said seriously, as soon as he came in: “She ought to have been offered some refreshment, you know. I did think of it, but I was in dread that at any moment someone might hear voices in here, and come in—Lady Denville, perhaps, or Mrs Cliffe.”

“I don’t think Mama would have been any more perturbed than you were, but God forbid that my uncle should get wind of it!” He shut the door, and stood looking across the room at her. “Cressy, what did you mean when you told that harridan that your affections were engaged?”

The colour deepened a little in her cheeks, but she replied lightly: “Well, she talked so much like someone in a bad play that I became carried away myself! Besides, I had to say something to convince her! I could see she didn’t quite believe me when I said I wasn’t going to marry your brother.

He let his breath go in a long sigh, and walked forward, setting his hands on her shoulders, and saying: “You don’t know how much I have wanted to tell you the truth! Cressy, my dear one, forgive me! I’ve treated you abominably, and I love you so much!”

Miss Stavely, who had developed an interest in the top button of his coat, looked shyly up at this. “Do you, Kit?” she asked. “Truly?”

Mr Fancot, preferring actions to words, said nothing whatsoever in answer to this, but took her in his arms and kissed her. Miss Stavely, who had previously thought him unfailingly gentle and courteous, perceived, in the light of this novel experience, that she had been mistaken: there was nothing gentle about Mr Fancot’s crushing embrace; and his behaviour in paying no heed at all to her faint protest could only be described as extremely uncivil. She was wholly unused to such treatment, and she had a strong suspicion that her grandmother would condemn her conduct in submitting to it, but as Mr Fancot seemed to be dead to all sense of propriety it was clearly useless to argue with him.

Several minutes later, sitting within the circle of Kit’s arm on the sofa lately occupied by Mrs Alperton, she said: “Why did you do it, Kit? It seems quite fantastic!”

“Of course it was—infamous as well! I beg your pardon, even though I can’t be sorry I did it. If I hadn’t come home that night, I might never have known you—or have known you only as Evelyn’s wife!”

This terrible thought caused him to tighten his arm involuntarily. She soothed him by softly kissing his cheek, and by saying, as soon as she had recovered her breath: “But I don’t think I should have married Denville. I had so very nearly made up my mind not to when I met you! Then I thought—being so grossly deceived—that perhaps I would, after all. But why was I deceived?”

“I did it to get Evelyn out of a scrape,” he confessed. “No one but Mama, and Fimber, and Challow knew I wasn’t in Vienna; and in the old days, when we were prime for any lark, we often did exchange identities, and only those who knew us very well ever found us out. So I was pretty certain I could carry it off. But when I took Evelyn’s place at that first dinner-party it was in the belief that it would be for one occasion only. If I had known that I should be obliged to maintain the hoax, nothing would have prevailed upon me to have yielded to Mama’s persuasions!”

Her eyes danced. “I knew it! She did persuade you!”

“Yes, but I must own,” said Kit scrupulously, “that I put the notion into her head—not in the least meaning to do so, but by saying, in a funning way, that if Evelyn didn’t come back in time to attend that party I should be obliged to take his place. Only to make her laugh! You see, I found her in the deuce of a pucker, because Evelyn was still absent, although he had been expected to return to London days earlier. I thought then that he had been delayed by some trifling hitch, so I consented to run that rig, though it went very much against the pluck with me. Can you understand, Cressy? The circumstances—the intolerable slight offered you if Evelyn failed to appear at a gathering assembled to make his acquaintance—!”

“Indeed I can!” she responded instantly. “I don’t blame you at all—I am even grateful to you for having spared me such a daunting humiliation! What did delay Evelyn?”

“I don’t know.”

She had been leaning against his shoulder, but she sat up at this. “You don’t know? But—Where is Evelyn?”

“I don’t know that either. That’s the devil of it!” he said frankly. “At the outset, I thought merely—not that he had forgotten his engagement in Mount Street, but that he had confused the date of it.”

“Very likely,” she agreed. “He does forget, you know! People joke him about his shocking memory, and I am acquainted with one hostess who makes it a rule to send him a reminder on the day of her party!” The rueful smile lit his eyes. “Yes, but that’s not it. He has been absent for too long. I think some accident befell him. That’s why I came home in such a bang. I can’t explain that to you, but we do know, each of us, when the other has suffered an injury. He knew it, a year ago, when I broke my leg—not the nature of the accident, but that I had sustained some hurt—and the express I sent him arrived only just in time to stop him posting off to Dover to board the next packet!”

“I remember,” she said. “Godmama said it was the uncomfortable part of being a twin! And you felt that?”

He frowned slightly. “Yes, I did. For several days, I—But it left me, that feeling, so completely that I wondered if my imagination had been playing me false. Something must have happened to him, but it wasn’t a fatal accident, and I don’t think he is any longer troubled in mind.”

“Ashe was when he steeled himself to make me an offer?” said Cressy, unable to resist temptation. “Ah, well! I have been for too long at my last prayers to feel the least surprise at that!”

“Yes, love, indeed!” agreed Mr Fancot, unhandsomely refusing the gambit. “So old cattish as you are!”

“Odious wretch!” Her brows drew together. “Yes, but I still don’t understand! Having so steeled himself, why did he go away at just that moment?”

“As far as we know,” replied Kit carefully, “he went to redeem from Lord Silverdale, who was said to be in Brighton, a brooch which my mama had lost to him at play.”

“Oh!” said Cressy doubtfully. “I see. That is,—yes, of course!”

“I should perhaps explain to you,” said Kit, in a kind voice, “that when Mama staked this bauble, for a cool monkey, she had forgotten that it was merely a copy of one of the pieces she sold years ago.” He added, as she gasped: “But pray don’t think that Evelyn went off to Brighton so hurriedly at her instigation! Nothing could be farther from the truth! She considers that to redeem, for the sum of £500, a brooch worth only a few guineas is grossly improvident.”

Cressy struggled with herself for a desperate moment, but her feelings overcame her, and she went into a peal of mirth. “Of course she does! I can almost hear her saying it! Oh, was there ever anyone so absurd and enchanting as Godmama?”

“Let me tell you, Miss Stavely,” said Kit severely, “that this is not a diverting story! Are you ever serious?”

“Yes, in my own home. Amongst the Fancots, never! No one could be! I have had a—a bubble of laughter inside me ever since I came to Ravenhurst, and you have no idea how much I enjoy it! And when I recall that Godmama told me once that you are the sober twin, and think of this crazy masquerade—”

“But it is perfectly true!” he assured her. “I am the sober twin! Mama would tell you that I am becoming prim and prosy, in fact, like my Uncle Brumby! “I couldn’t help myself: what else could I do than help Evelyn out of a scrape?”

There was a warm twinkle in her eyes, but she responded gravely: “Naturally you were obliged to do it. And did he recover the brooch?”

“We don’t know. He certainly went to Brighton, and as certainly returned here, for one night. He then sent Challow off to Hill Street, with all but his nightbag, saying that he would follow him within the next two days. He left Ravenhurst for an unknown destination, driving himself in his phaeton—and that is the last anyone has heard of him.”

She was startled, and exclaimed: “Good God, what can have happened to him? Can you discover no trace?”

“I haven’t tried to. When I came here it was with the intention of searching for him, not realizing what Challow lost no time in pointing out to me: that I’m hamstrung! So are we all. How can any of us set inquiries afoot for Evelyn while I am believed to be Evelyn?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. But is there nothing to be done?”

“Nothing that I can think of. I hoped I might be able perhaps to discover some clue from Mrs Alperton, but that scent was false, and leads only to Tunbridge Wells, where Challow has already hunted for him. Cressy, I haven’t thanked you for rescuing me from that harpy! I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t intervened—though I wouldn’t have exposed you to such a scene for the world! What made you come into the room?”

“Well, I heard her ranting at you. I own, I suspected something of the sort when Norton looked so meaningly at you, and was so insistent that he must speak to you alone!”

“Good God! Did you?” he exclaimed, surprised.

She smiled faintly. “Why, yes! I’m not quite without experience, you see. Oh, I don’t mean that I have associated with women like Mrs Alperton—though I did once have an encounter with a—a lady of easy virtue! But that was quite by accident, and Papa never knew anything about it. The thing was that when my mother died Papa wouldn’t permit any of my aunts to take charge of me, because he had always been so fond of me, and we were such good friends, ever since I can remember. So I stayed in Mount Street, with Miss Yate, who was my governess, and the dearest creature; and as soon as I was sixteen I came out of the schoolroom, and managed things, and looked after Papa—keeping him company, when he was at home, and comfortable, which he wasn’t, after Mama died. So I pretty soon grew to know about—oh, the things girls don’t, in general, know!” She laughed suddenly. “If I had been the greatest nickninny alive, I must have guessed, from the veiled warnings of my aunts, that Papa’s way of life was not—not perfectly respectable! I believe they thought that he might, at any moment, install one of his fancies in Mount Street! Grandmama knew better, and was a great deal more blunt, when she explained matters to me, and told me how very improperly gentlemen of even the first consideration too often conduct themselves, and exactly how a lady of quality should behave in all circumstances—however mortifying these might be! I must own,” she added reflectively, “that it gave me a very poor notion of my grandfather! And although I dearly love Papa I do know now why my mother was subject to fits of dejection, and—and I would prefer not to be married to anyone of a rakish disposition!”

“That’s dished me!” observed Kit despondently.

“Yes, I was afraid you’d be sadly cast down!” she retorted. Her eyes narrowed in amusement. “I wish you might have seen your own face, when I came into the room! Did you think I might add to the confusion by falling into a fit of the vapours?”

“Not quite that,” he answered, smiling, “but I did think you must be very much shocked.”

“Oh, no! I knew that Denville had been a trifle in what Papa calls the petticoat line! What I did feel was that since you were not Denville you might very easily have found yourself in a fix—”

“Which I most certainly did!” he interjected.

She smiled at him, and said, quoting his own words: “So what could I do but help you out of a scrape?”

He caught her hand to his lips. “Oh, Cressy, you are such a darling!” he told her. “Don’t think badly of my twin! I know it must seems as though he’s a shocking loose-screw, but I promise you he’s not!”

“No, of course he’s not! You can’t suppose that I believed the fustian nonsense Mrs Alperton talked, about his leaving Clara to starve! As for his having seduced her, I should think it very much more likely that it was Clara who seduced him! Kit, I know it is most improper of me to ask you, but who was the Marquis?”

“My dear, I haven’t the least notion, and dared not inquire! I only know that he provided her with outriders, and stocked her cellars with wine from his own.”

“And a carriage drawn by cream-coloured horses! I did venture to inquire, but she said he was a Duke now, and turned respectable, and that she bore him no grudge, and so wouldn’t take his character away.”

“What a pity! I dare say we shall never know now.” He sat frowning for a moment or two. “I wonder if Evelyn did go after Silverdale? He has a place somewhere in the north, I collect. No, I don’t think he would have done so without telling Mama.”

“He didn’t. Sir Bonamy was talking about Silverdale yesterday, to Mr Cliffe—that is to say, he was talking about Brighton, and the people staying at the Pavilion. He mentioned Lord Silverdale: I heard him. Kit, cannot you think of any place where Denville might be? I do feel you ought to make a push to discover what has happened to him. You can’t maintain this hoax for ever!”

“Oh, I shan’t be obliged to!” he replied. “He’ll come back! Yes, I know it must seem odd in me not to be in flat despair: I think so myself, whenever I consider every appalling possibility; but I find, after conjuring up nightmares, that I don’t believe one of ’em. Evelyn could not be dead, or in distress, and I not know it. And when he does come—Lord, we shall still be in the suds! This is the very devil of a hobble, Cressy!”

“But why? Of course it is bound to be a little awkward, but must it be so very bad? No announcement of my engagement to Denville has been made, and that horrid piece of printed gossip might just as well refer to you as Denville. Surely we must be able to contrive so that only our families need ever know that Denville made me an offer? Or if not that—I was forgetting that unfortunate dinner party—at least my aunts and uncles need never know that, you played that hoax on us all. We can tell the truth: that I met you, and found I liked you better!”

He smiled a little, but shook his head. “That’s not it. We are deeper in the suds than I think you know, love. Even assuming that your father would give his consent—”

“He will: Albinia will take good care of that!”

“I daren’t assume so much. He must think me a poor exchange for Evelyn! I have neither his title nor his possessions, remember! His fortune is handsome; mine is merely genteel!”

“Well, Papa can scarcely take exception to that, for my fortune is merely genteel too. Of course, he may be disappointed when he learns that I am not going to be a Countess after all, so let us immediately decide what title you mean to adopt when you are raised to the peerage, like your uncle! That should reconcile him, don’t you think?”

“To be honest with you,” he said apologetically, “no, I don’t! I can’t help feeling that he might even doubt my ability to achieve such a distinction.”

“Papa is not very clever, but he’s not such a goose as that! You may not be as wealthy as Denville, but I haven’t the shadow of a doubt that you will make a much greater mark in the world than he will. Perhaps I ought to tell you that in preferring your suit to his I am governed by ambition. You, in course of time, will become the Secretary for Foreign Affairs—”

“In a year or two!” interpolated Mr Fancot affably.

Her lips quivered, but she continued smoothly: “—and I shall go down to history as a great political hostess!”

“That’s much easier to picture! Do you think you could be serious for a few moments, little love?”

She folded her hands demurely in her lap. “I’ll try, sir!” Then she saw that although he smiled there was trouble behind the smile, and she became grave at once, unfolding her hands to tuck one into his, warmly clasping it. “Tell me!”

His long fingers closed over her hand, but he did not immediately answer her. When he did speak it was to ask her an abrupt question. “What did Evelyn tell you, Cressy? You said that he had been very frank with you: how frank?”

“Perfectly, I believe. I liked him for it—for not pretending that he had fallen in love with me, which I knew he had not. He did it charmingly, too! Well, you know his engaging way! He explained to me how uncomfortably he was circumstanced, and that Lord Brumby would wind up the Trust if he entered into a suitable marriage. I thought it very understandable that his present situation should chafe him beyond bearing.”

“That was all he told you?”

“Why, yes! Was there some other reason?”

“Not precisely. His object was certainly to wind up that confounded Trust, which has irked him more than I guessed. But I know him, Cressy!—oh, as I know myself!—and I am very certain that he would never have proposed such a cold-blooded marriage merely to rid himself of shackles which fretted him. As I understand the matter, he was forced into this by the urgent need to get possession of his principal.”

“Do you mean that he is in debt?” she asked, considerably surprised. “Surely you must be mistaken! I had thought, from what Papa told me, that the income he enjoys is very large indeed? Could he have run so deep into debt that he must broach his principal?”

He shook his head. “No. Not Evelyn: Mama!”

She gave a gasp, but said quickly: “Oh, poor Lady Denville! Yes, I see—of course I see! I should have known—that is,—Pardon me, but I have heard gossip! I discounted the better part of it. You must be as well acquainted with tattle-boxes as I am! Detestable creatures! I was aware too, that Godmama was—was a little afraid of Lord Denville; and of course I know that she is amazingly expensive! She told me herself that she was so monstrously in the wind that her case was desperate—but in such a droll way that I thought she was funning. And when your father died I supposed—I don’t know why—that her affairs had been settled.”

“They were not. In justice to my father, I believe he didn’t know in what case they stood. She never told him the whole—dared not! The blame for that must lie at his door!”

“Indeed it must!” she said warmly. “Pray tell me the whole! You may trust me, I promise you! I love her too, remember! Is it very bad?”

“Do you think I would have breathed one word of this to you if I didn’t trust you? I do, most implicitly, but I can’t tell you how bad it may be until I’ve seen Evelyn. It would be useless to try to discover the answer from poor Mama, for I don’t think she has the smallest notion how much she owes. It’s plain enough it must be a larger sum than any of us suspected.”

She said diffidently: “Would not Lord Brumby see the propriety of discharging her debts?”

“Yes, I think he would, but—” He paused, frowning. “That was the thought that occurred to me. Not that she should have applied to my uncle, but that Evelyn might do so. But something she said to me—my uncle does not like her, you know—made me realize why Evelyn would not do that—or I either! It would be a betrayal.” He glanced up, with a twisted smile. “We couldn’t do it, you see. She would never betray us, and—well, we love her dearly! So you see why I said we are in the suds.”

She nodded. “Very clearly! It is most awkward, and I don’t immediately perceive by what means we are to come about. Unless your brother would consent to offer for some other eligible female?”

“That’s the only solution I can think of,” he admitted. “Unfortunately, my dear, you are, in my uncle’s eyes, the most eligible of all females! He certainly knew that Evelyn meant to offer for you, and it may well be that Evelyn, or Mama, told him that he had done so, and had been accepted—subject to your grandmother’s approval! Whatever his opinion of Evelyn may be, he’s very full of starch, you know, and would find it impossible to believe that she would not approve of a marriage with the head of his house! He would be far more likely to think Evelyn incurably volatile, and by no means to be trusted with the control of his fortune. And even if he could be won over—No, I’ll have no hand in thrusting my twin into a marriage of convenience! I wouldn’t have furthered his engagement to you if I hadn’t known he was committed already. So—so there we are, my darling! At Point Non-Plus!”

She nodded, and sat thinking, quite as troubled as he was. After a pause, she turned her eyes towards him, and said: “You can do nothing till Evelyn comes back, can you? I understand that. And then?”

“Between us we must be able to come about. If I knew just how badly scorched Mama is—but even if I did I couldn’t turn tail at this stage! Only think what a dust there would be if I were suddenly to announce that all this time I’d been hoaxing everyone! I can readily imagine your grandmother’s delight at receiving such tidings: I should be ruining myself as well as Evelyn!”

“You might,” she conceded. “One never knows, with Grandmama. She likes you, so that it’s possible she would think it a very good joke. She will have to know the truth in the end, after all!”

“Yes, but not until Evelyn is here to explain why he was compelled—as I know he must have been—to behave so abominably.”

She thought this over. “No. I was wondering if we might not make up some tale—but we should very likely be bowled out if we did. And I can’t help feeling that it would be very much better if the Cliffes never do know that they were hoaxed.”

“Very much better! And how they are to be got rid of presents us with another problem. I have an uneasy suspicion that they mean to spend the rest of the summer at Ravenhurst.”

She laughed. “Yes, but I am very sure Godmama won’t allow them to do so! Kit, how many persons know the truth?”

“Besides those I’ve mentioned, only my old nurse, and Ripple. What made you find me out? Did I betray myself? Ripple, who has known me all my life, wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t done something he knew Evelyn would never do.”

“Oh, no! You didn’t betray yourself in any way you could help. I hardly know how it was—except that you are not quite like Evelyn, however much you appear to be his image. It puzzled me, when I first met you, but I thought you were perhaps a man of several moods. I might not have found you out if I hadn’t seen that portrait, and if I hadn’t been present when Godmama started to say Kit, and changed it suddenly to Kind Evelyn!”

“I thought you hadn’t noticed that slip. I yield to none in my devotion to Mama, but a more caper-witted creature I hope I may never encounter! Let me tell you, my love, that her latest brilliant notion—a gem of high value, this one!—is that if Evelyn should suddenly return to us he must pretend to be me!”

That sent her off into another fit of laughter. “Oh, she is so superb! Do you mean to tell her about this? I think we should, don’t you?”

“No—emphatically!” said Kit, drawing her back into his arm. “We’ll keep our secret until Evelyn comes home!”