False Colours

17

A luncheon, consisting of sundry cold meats, cakes, jellies, and fruit, was always served at noon in the apartment known as the Little Dining-room; and it had been Kit’s intention to have lain in wait for Sir Bonamy to issue forth from his bedroom, in the hope of being able to exchange a few words with him before he joined the other guests downstairs. But owing to the extraordinarily swift passage of time it was not until the stable-clock had struck twelve that either Mr Fancot or Miss Stavely could believe that they had been in the shrubbery for over an hour. A glance at Kit’s watch, however, sent them hurrying back to the house, where they found the rest of the party, with the single exception of the Dowager, already discussing luncheon. Although Mr and Mrs Cliffe later agreed that modern damsels were permitted a regrettable freedom which would never have been countenanced when they were young, no one made any comment on the tardy and simultaneous arrival of the truants, Lady Denville even going so far as to smile at them.

Ambrose had allowed himself to be persuaded by his mother to partake of a few morsels of food, to keep up his strength; but the Dowager had sent down a message by her maid, excusing herself from putting in an appearance until later in the day. “Nothing to cause alarm!” Lady Denville told Cressy. “Her maid says that she passed a wakeful night, and so finds herself just a trifle down pin today.”

“I thought she would,” said Sir Bonamy, putting up his quizzing-glass the better to inspect a raised chicken-pie. “Too much cross-and-jostle work last night!” He looked up to shake his head in fond reproof at his hostess. “You shouldn’t have invited Maria Dersingham, my lady!”

“I am so very sorry, Cressy!”

But Cressy, with a cheerfulness which Mrs Cliffe considered to be very unbecoming in a granddaughter, assured Lady Denville that, although the excitement of encountering her ancient ally and present enemy might have been a little too much for her, Grandmama had much enjoyed the evening.

“So she did!” nodded Sir Bonamy. “Mind you, it was touch-and-go until we came to the calves’ ears! That’s when she took the lead in milling. Wonderful memory your grandmama has, my dear Miss Stavely!” His vast bulk shook with his rumbling laugh. “Popped in as pretty a hit as I hope to see over Maria Dersingham’s guard! By the bye, my lady, that was a capital Italian sauce your cook served with the calves’ ears!”

It was left to Lady Denville to express the sentiments of the rest of the company, which she promptly did, saying: “Yes, but what happened about calves’ ears, Bonamy?”

“No, no!” he replied, still gently shaking. “I’m not one to go on the high gab, my lady, and I’ll tell no tales! I’ll take a mouthful of the pie, Denville, and just a sliver of ham!”

Interpreting this in a liberal spirit, Kit supplied him with a large wedge of pie, and flanked it with half-a-dozen slices of ham. Mrs Cliffe, who had never ceased to marvel at his appetite, turned eyes of mute astonishment towards her sister-in-law, who told Sir Bonamy severely that a little fruit, and a biscuit (if he was ravenous), was all he ought to permit himself to eat in the middle of the day. She added that she herself rarely ate any nuncheon at all.

“Yes, yes, but you have not so much to keep up!” said Sir Bonamy, blenching at the thought of such privation.

“Well, if you didn’t eat so much you wouldn’t have so much to keep up either!” she pointed out.

Her brother, strongly disapproving of this candid speech, directed a quelling look at her, and pointedly changed the subject, saying that he trusted she had found Nurse Pinner suffering from no serious disorder. “Nothing infectious, I hope?”

“Oh, no! Just a trifle out of sorts!” she replied.

“Infectious!” exclaimed Mrs Cliffe. “My dear sister, how can you tell that it is not? How imprudent of you to have visited her! I wish you had not done so!”

“Nonsense, Emma! A mere colic!”

Mrs Cliffe’s fears seemed to have been allayed. Kit saw, with some foreboding, that his mama had become suddenly a little pensive, and quaked inwardly. Never, he reflected, did she look more soulful than when she was hatching some outrageous scheme. He tried to catch her eye, but she was looking at Cressy, who had finished her nuncheon, and was sitting with her hands folded patiently in her lap.

“Dear child, you wish to go upstairs to see your grandmama!” she said. “You know we don’t stand on ceremony, so run away immediately! Give her my love, and tell her how much I hope to see her presently; and then come to my drawing-room—that is, if Lady Stavely can spare you, of course!” She waited until Cressy had left the room, and then addressed herself to Kit. “Dearest, your uncle’s asking me if Pinny’s disorder is infectious puts me in mind of something I think I should tell you—oh, and Ambrose too, perhaps! I wouldn’t mention it in Cressy’s presence—not that I think she would have taken fright, for she has a great deal too much commonsense, but she might speak of it to Lady Stavely, and I would not for the world cast her into high fidgets! It is all nonsense, but I wish you will neither of you go into the village just at present! Though you may depend upon it if there is an epidemic disease there one of servants will contract it, and spread it all over the house. However—”

But at this point she was interrupted, Mrs Cliffe demanding in palpitating accents: “What disease? For heaven’s sake, Amabel, tell me this instant!”

“Why, none at all, Emma!” replied her ladyship, laughing. “It is only one of Pinny’s tales! Merely because one or two of the villagers complain of sore throats she will have it that they have contracted scarlet fever! Such stuff!”

“Scarlet fever—!”

“Oh, my dear Emma, there is not the least occasion for any of us to fly into a fuss!” Lady Denville said earnestly. “Pinny always thinks that if one has nothing more than a cold in the head one is sickening for a fatal complaint! Why she once said there was typhus in the village!” She broke off, wrinkling her brow. “Well, now I come to think of it, she was quite right! But this is a very different matter, and I do beg of you not to take fright!”

She had said enough. Mrs Cliffe, pallid with dismay, declared distractedly that nothing could prevail upon her to remain another hour in such a plague-stricken neighbourhood. Amabel might think her timorous and uncivil, but she must understand that every consideration must yield to the paramount need to remove her only son out of danger.

Lady Denville, to Kit’s intense admiration, managed to beseech her not to fly from Ravenhurst, without in any way lessening her alarm; Cosmo, when dramatically appealed to, wavered; and Ambrose, who had been dragged to Ravenhurst against his will, and had been wishing himself otherwhere from the moment he had crossed the threshold, seized the first opportunity that offered of lending his mother his support. He did not think the air at Ravenhurst salubrious; he had not cared to mention it before, but he had been feeling out of sorts for several days. A hint that a few weeks spent at Brighton might prove beneficial was well taken by Mrs Cliffe, but met with a flat veto from Cosmo, visibly appalled by the very thought of sojourning at so expensive a resort. In the end, and after much argument,, it was settled that they should go to Worthing, where, according to what Mrs Cliffe had learnt from the Dowager, there were several excellent boarding-houses which provided an extraordinary degree of comfort at very moderate charges. Here, protected from the chilling blasts of the north and east winds by the Downs, Ambrose would be able to bathe, or to ride along the sands, without running the risk of contracting an inflammation of the lungs. There were also three respectable libraries, at two of which newspapers and magazines were received every morning and evening; and at least one very reliable doctor, of whom the Dowager spoke in terms of rare encomium.

Had it been possible, Cosmo would have returned with his wife and son to his own home; but since he had graciously lent this for the summer months to a distant and far from affluent cousin, who was too thankful to have been offered, free, a country residence large enough to accommodate his numerous progeny to cavil at being obliged to pay the wages of Cosmo’s servants, this was impossible. With the utmost reluctance, and only when the wife of his bosom had announced that he might remain at Ravenhurst, if he chose to run the risk of contracting scarlet fever, but that nothing would prevail upon her to expose her only child to such a danger, did he consent to remove that very day to Worthing’s one hotel, and then only on condition that no time should be lost, on arrival at this elegant hostelry, in seeking less expensive quarters.

It was not to be expected that Mr Ambrose Cliffe, hankering after the amusements afforded by Brighton, would be entirely satisfied by the decision to spend the summer months at a small place patronized largely by such elderly persons as disliked the racket of Brighton; but as he had never had much hope of persuading his father to look for lodgings in Brighton, and knew that Worthing was a mere ten or eleven miles distant from the more fashionable resort, he raised no objection.

Throughout the discussion, which was punctuated by charming, if mendacious, entreaties from Lady Denville that her relations should remain at Ravenhurst, in defiance of a rumour which she was positive was ill-founded, Sir Bonamy, with the utmost placidity, continued to work his way through the various dishes set upon the table. Only when Mrs Cliffe, hurrying away to prepare for the journey, turned to take her leave of him, did he heave himself out of his chair, or betray the smallest interest in the scarifying story set about by his hostess. She, declaring her intention of rendering dear Emma every assistance in the arduous task of packing her trunk, shepherded the three Cliffes out of the room, but turned back, exclaiming that she had forgotten to pick up her reticule, for the purpose of confiding hurriedly to her son and her cicisbeo that it was all a hum, but that she had felt that the Cliffes must be induced to go away.

“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!”