‘That’s frank, at all events!’ he remarked.
Her eyes responded to the smile in his. ‘We were agreed, were we not, that only candour on both our parts could make our projected alliance tolerable to either of us? Your reason for wishing to be married is your very understandable desire to become independent of your uncle; mine is—is what I feel to be an urgent need to remove myself from this house—from any of my father’s houses!’
‘Having made the acquaintance of your mother-in-law—having
furthered
my acquaintance with her,’ Kit said, smoothly correcting himself, ‘I perfectly comprehend your feeling—and sympathize with you!’
‘No, no, don’t misunderstand me!’ she said quickly. ‘You should rather sympathize with Albinia! It must be hard indeed for her to come into a household which has been managed for years by a daughter-in-law so little removed from her in age. Then, too, I have been in some sort my father’s companion since my mother’s death, and—and it is difficult to break such a relationship. Albinia feels—inevitably—that she is obliged to share Papa with me.’
‘And you?’
‘Yes,’ she said frankly. ‘I feel the same—perhaps more bitterly, which—which quite shocks me, because I had never dreamt I could be so horridly ill-natured! Between the two of us poor Papa is rendered miserably uncomfortable! I detest Albinia as much as she detests me, and—to make a clean breast of it!—I find I can’t bear playing second fiddle where I have been accustomed to being the mistress of the house!’ She added, with an effort at playfulness: ‘You should take warning, Denville! I have lately learnt to know myself much better than ever I did before, and have come to the dismal conclusion that I am an overbearing female, determined to rule the roast!’
He smiled at her. ‘I’m not afraid of you. But tell me this!—if I should ask it of you, would you find it irksome to share a home with my mother?’
She stared at him, and then exclaimed, as enlightenment dawned on her: ‘Was
that
the stipulation you spoke of? Good God, how could you be so absurd? Did you think that I should require you to thrust her out of her home? What a toad you must think me! My dearest, most adorable Godmama! Let me tell you, my lord, that my hope is that she will receive me into your household with as much kindness as she has always shown me!’
‘Thank you!’ he said warmly. ‘But I must tell you that she straitly forbade me even to suggest such an arrangement to you. She says it
never
answers. Indeed, she informed me that she had always regarded it as a most fortunate circumstance that her own mother and father-in-law were dead before she married my father!’
Her eyes danced. She said appreciatively: ‘I can almost hear her saying it—perfectly seriously, I make no doubt! Do, pray, assure her that I should not so regard
her
death!’
‘I shan’t dare to disclose that I mentioned the matter to you. She promised me a severe scold if I did so!’
‘No wonder you should be in a quake!’ she agreed. ‘One always dreads the ordeal of which one has no experience!’
He laughed. ‘Now, how do you know I have not that experience, Miss Stavely?’
‘I don’t think my understanding superior,’ she replied, ‘but I
have
cut my eye-teeth!’ She looked curiously at him. ‘May I know why I have sunk to be
Miss Stavely
again? You called me Cressy when you proposed to me—but perhaps you have forgotten?’
‘By no means!’ he said promptly. ‘Merely, your habit of addressing me as
my lord
led me to fear that I had gone beyond the line.’
‘What a whisker!’ she remarked. ‘I recall that Grandmama told me last night that you had a ready tongue.’
‘I wish I could think that she meant it as a compliment!’
‘With Grandmama one can never be quite certain, but she did say that she had been agreeably surprised in you!’
‘Come, that’s encouraging! May I hope that she will consent to our marriage?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t asked her, you see, and all she has said so far is that she wants to know you better.’
‘I wish you will tell me, Cressy, whether you mean to be ruled by her decision?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I make my own decisions.’ She thought for a moment, and then said, with a gleam of mischief: ‘I might make her decision my excuse!’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think you would! You’re no shuffler,’ he responded coolly.
‘How can you know that?’ she asked, meeting his eyes with a surprised question in her own.
He smiled. ‘It isn’t difficult to know it: no extraordinary intelligence is necessary to enable one to perceive that your mind is direct. You don’t talk flowery commonplace, and you’re not afraid to come to the point.’ He paused. ‘That being so, tell me what it is you wish to say to me! I fancy you didn’t invite me to visit you only to discover what my
stipulation
was.’
‘No,’ she acknowledged. Her colour was a little heightened; she said, with a touch of shyness: ‘I hardly know why I did ask you to come. You will think me very far from direct! You see, when you proposed to me, I was in a horrid quarrel with Albinia—a vulgar pulling of caps, as women do! I wished of all things to go away from here, not only because I was hurt and angry, but because I saw that it wouldn’t do for me to remain. Albinia is anxious to be rid of me, and I can’t blame her, for I find I am becoming one of those detestable people who are for ever picking out grievances, or coming to cuffs over trifles. And when I made the really shocking discovery that I was hoping that Albinia’s child, which she is so certain will be a son, will be a daughter—just to take the wind out of her eye!—I knew that I
must
go away.’ She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. ‘So
ignoble!
’
she uttered, in a stifled voice.
‘But very natural,’ Kit said. ‘A son to put your nose out of joint, eh?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, that was it. But to allow oneself to be put into a flame by such a cut—spoken in a mere fit of crossness, too—!’
‘I consider it stands greatly to your credit that you didn’t divulge your ignoble wish.’
She forced a smile. ‘I’m not quite as direct as that.’
‘You may put it so, if you choose:
I
should have said that you are not so wanting in conduct!’
‘Thank you: that was kind in you!’
‘No, only truthful. Were you in a passion when I proposed to you? I didn’t guess it.’
‘Oh, no, not then! Merely determined to put an end to a miserably uncomfortable situation, and unable to think how it could be done.’ She hesitated, and continued, with a little difficulty: ‘I had never meant to have remained here when my father was married again. I thought—hoped—that Grandmama would have invited me to live with her. She didn’t, however. I dare say you’ll understand that I didn’t care to ask her.’
‘Readily! Also, that, Grandmama having failed to come to the scratch,
my
arrival on the scene was providential!’
‘Yes, that’s the truth,’ she said frankly. ‘I don’t mean that I would have accepted
any
offer. But although I was so little acquainted with you I liked you very well, and I knew, from what Lady Denville told me, that you were kind, and good-natured, and—’
‘Stop!’ he interrupted. ‘My poor girl, how
could
you allow yourself to be so taken-in? If you mean to accept me at my mother’s valuation a shocking disappointment awaits you! She is the most dotingly fond parent imaginable, and can detect no fault in either of her sons.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, I know that! But
you
are dotingly fond of
her
,
and so charmingly attentive to her that I don’t know how she should detect your faults. I liked that in you too. And although I shouldn’t have thought of marriage if Grandmama had invited me to live with her I knew that it wouldn’t be easy to do that, because I had discovered by then that when one has held the reins for four years, as I did here, and at Stavely, it is the most difficult thing in the world to become a mere young lady, obedient to the decrees of her elders. You see, I never
was
that! So when you offered for me, Denville, it did seem to me that I should be a ninnyhammer to refuse you, only because I was not in love with you, or you with me. You were not disagreeable to me: I dearly love your mama; and you offered me not only your hand but the—the position to which I am accustomed.’ She paused, and after thinking for a moment, said: ‘And to be honest with you, having endured several taunts on my age, and being at my last prayers, I was strongly attracted by the notion of catching one of the biggest prizes on the Marriage Mart!’
He shook his head. ‘
Very
ignoble!’
‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ she agreed, answering the laughter in his eyes with one of her merriest twinkles. ‘But understandable—don’t you think?’
‘Well, never having regarded myself in that flattering light—’
‘Oh, what flummery!’ she interjected. ‘You must be well aware of it! But it’s all nonsense, of course: when you had left me that day, and I had leisure to reflect, I knew it.’ She scanned his face, her brow puckered. ‘I don’t know how it is, but when you came here last night I—I had almost decided to tell you it would not
do
.
Thinking about it, not seeing you again after that interrupted talk—which was attended by a good deal of awkwardness, was it not?—and having had leisure to reflect more calmly—I had misgivings—began to think that we should not suit—that I had accepted your offer in a distempered freak! Then, last night, I met you again, and—’ She stopped, her frown deepening. He waited, speechless, and she said, with one of her open looks: ‘I liked you much better than ever before!’
He still said nothing, for there was nothing he could think of to say. Various thoughts chased one another through his head: that Evelyn was more fortunate than he knew; that the part he himself was playing was even more odious than he had foreseen; that he must remove himself from her vicinity immediately; that when she saw Evelyn again she must surely be conscious of his superior qualities.
‘And now I don’t know!’ she confessed. ‘I was never in such a—such a bumble-broth in my life, and how I come to be so stupid as not to know my own mind I can’t imagine! Such a thing has never happened to me before, for, in general, I should warn you, I
do
know it!’
‘I can believe that,’ he said. ‘You have a great look of decision! I conjecture that once your mind is made up there can be no turning you from it!’
‘Yes, I fear that’s true,’ she replied seriously. ‘I hope I may not be arrogant: one of those overmighty women, who grow to be like poor Grandmama!’
‘I don’t think there can be any fear of that!’’ he said, amused.
‘I trust you may be right! I have certainly given
you
no cause to think me anything but a woolly-crown! But I must hold you accountable for that,’ she said, in a rallying tone. ‘I fancy you must have odd humours, perhaps! You make me feel one day that I have a pretty just notion of your character, and the next that I know nothing about you, which is very disconcerting, let me tell you!’
‘I beg your pardon! And so?’
‘And so I feel that Grandmama is right, when she says I ought to know you better before I make up this skimble-skamble mind of mine.’ Her eyes were hidden from him; she was engaged in the occupation of twisting a ring round and round upon her finger; but she raised them suddenly, squarely meeting his. ‘Will you grant me a little more time for consideration? To become better acquainted—each of us with the other? I dare say you mean to go to Brighton now that London is getting to be so thin of company: that’s your custom, isn’t it?’
‘Why, ‘yes! I have been very much in the habit of escorting my mother there! This year, I find myself obliged to go to Ravenhurst—I don’t know for how long, or whether Mama means to accompany me,’ he replied.
‘Oh! Well, Ravenhurst is not so far from Worthing, is it? The thing is, Denville, that I am going to Worthing with Grandmama next week, to spend the summer there, and I thought that perhaps you would drive over to visit us now and then.’
‘So that we may learn to know one another? You may be sure I shall do so. I must hope that you will find it such a dead bore at Worthing, amongst all the dowagers, that it will weigh the scales down in my favour.’
‘It might well do so,’ she acknowledged, with a grimace. ‘But I must warn you that I am inured to that particular boredom: I go there every year!’
‘I can safely promise that if you marry me you will never set foot in the place again!’ he said, laughter springing to his eyes as he tried to picture his twin in that respectable resort.
6
Mr Fancot arrived on his own doorstep just as his mother’s youthful adorer was being ushered out of the house by Brigg. Mr Horning, who was dressed with a studied negligence which included a handkerchief carelessly knotted round his neck, and unstarched shirt-points, checked, and uttered dramatically: ‘My lord!’
‘How do you do?’ said Kit politely. His appreciative gaze took in every detail of the poet’s attire. He saw too, with unholy amusement, that Mr Horning was looking slightly belligerent, and concluded that Evelyn had not encouraged the dazzled youth’s infatuation. So he said, with immense affability: ‘Did you come to visit me? Do tell me how I may serve you!’
Somewhat taken-aback, Mr Horning said, with a challenging look: ‘I have been visiting Lady Denville, my lord!’
‘No, have you’?’ said Kit. ‘But how kind of you!’