‘I know, I know, Kester, but—’
‘I should rather think you might! Now consider what her life will be, if she marries Ripple!’
Their eyes met, and held, across the space that lay between them, Evelyn’s holding an arrested look, Kit’s very steady. It was he who broke the silence. ‘We always thought him a bobbing-block, didn’t we, Eve? Well, so he is, but he’s been a pretty firm friend to Mama! He isn’t in
love
with her now, but Cressy’s right when she says that he dotes on her. There’s very little he wouldn’t do for her, and the more she wastes the ready the better pleased he’ll be! Furthermore, twin, he’ll take better care of her than ever you or I could! I fancy that such loose fish as Louth will be speedily put to rout!’
There was a long silence. ‘If I thought that she would be happy—Oh, no, Kester, no! She’s doing it to smooth my path, and for no other reason!’
‘Yes, I think she is,’ agreed Kit imperturbably. ‘But if you imagine that she’s sacrificing herself, you’re fair and far off! It’s Ripple who is the sacrifice: Mama’s in high gig! I tell you, in all seriousness, Eve, that if you drive a spoke into this wheel you’ll be doing her the worst turn you could!’
‘Kester, you
know
I wouldn’t—!’ He broke off, as the door opened, and Fimber entered the room, and said impatiently: ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘The tea-tray has been removed, sir,’ said Fimber, addressing himself pointedly to Kit. ‘I have taken it upon myself to instruct Norton—informing him that such was your desire, Mr Christopher—to set out the brandy in the library. He will have no occasion, therefore, to enter the Long Drawing-room again this evening. I should perhaps add that, according to what he tells me, Lady Stavely has not yet retired, but is playing piquet with Sir Bonamy. I shall hold myself in readiness to accompany his lordship to Mrs Pinner’s cottage in due course.’
‘That,’ said Evelyn bitterly, as Fimber withdrew, ‘is what I have to endure! What now, Kester?’
‘Now,’ said Kit, ‘you are going to meet Lady Stavely, God help you! You are also going to felicitate poor old Ripple; and finally you are going to try and discover a way out of this scrape which will
not
set the ton by the ears!’
‘There isn’t one!’
‘There
must
be one!’ said Kit firmly. ‘My life’s happiness depends upon it!’
‘Then you find it!’ recommended Evelyn. ‘
I’m
not the clever twin! Kester, what’s the old lady like? How do I deal with her?’
‘Boldly! She’s a tartar!’
‘Lord, I wish I’d never come home!’ said Evelyn. ‘Don’t you dare to abandon me! I’m all of a twitter already!’
‘Courage, brother!’ said Kit, opening the door into the Long Drawing-room.
They entered the room together, and paused for a moment on the threshold. The Dowager, who had just picked up the cards dealt her by Sir
Bonamy, laid them down again, staring at the twins in astonishment. She did not speak, but the sudden gleam in her eyes informed her granddaughter that she was not unappreciative of the picture quite unconsciously presented by the Fancot twins.
Apart, they were held to be very fine young men; together, with the candlelight glinting on their burnished heads, they were so striking that the Dowager, like many before her, was dazzled into thinking them the most handsome men she had ever beheld.
‘Evelyn, my dear one!’ exclaimed Lady Denville, springing up from the sofa, and going towards him with her light, graceful step, and her hands held out in welcome.
He took one in his own left hand, and kissed it, murmuring wickedly: ‘You
are
smart tonight, love! Dressed like Christmas beef!’
She chuckled, and would have led him forward, but he put her gently aside, and advanced down the room alone, to where the Dowager sat. If he was in a quake, no trace of it was apparent in his bearing. He bowed, and with a smile quite as disarming as Kit’s, said: ‘I owe you an apology, Lady Stavely. But
indeed
I couldn’t help it!’
In spite of herself, her lips twitched, and she put out her hand. ‘So you are Denville, are you?’ she said. ‘H’m! You’d better beg my granddaughter’s pardon, young man!’
‘Why, yes!’ he agreed, his mother’s mischievous look in his eyes; and turned towards Cressy, holding out his hand. ‘So I do, Cressy—but you are very well rid of me, you know!’ She had risen to her feet, and as she laughed, giving him her hand, he kissed it, and then her cheek, saying: ‘I wish you every happiness, my dear!’
‘Thank you! May I return that wish?’ she said demurely.
The smile in his eyes acknowledged the sly allusion, but he replied audaciously: ‘Indeed, I am excessively happy to have you for a sister!’ He turned his head. ‘Kester!’
Kit strolled forward, but his eyes were on Cressy, warmly appreciative. Evelyn said: ‘If I have any right to this hand, may I bestow it on my brother, Miss Stavely? He is much more worthy of it than I am—but that I needn’t tell you!’
‘Thank you, twin, that will do!’ said Kit, receiving the hand, and clasping it strongly.
Evelyn laughed, and turned away to confront Sir Bonamy. He looked down at him, laughter dying, and his smile a little rigid. ‘Kit tells me, sir, that I must offer you my felicitations.’
Sir Bonamy, regarding him with all the wariness of one faced with a cobra, said: ‘Yes, yes! Very much obliged to you, Denville! That is—if you have no objection!’
‘Eh?’ exclaimed the Dowager. She looked sharply from Sir Bonamy to Lady Denville. ‘So
that’s
it, is it? Upon my word!’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ corroborated Lady Denville sunnily. ‘That’s it! Sir Bonamy has done me the honour to ask me to marry him, and I have accepted his offer.’
‘You have, have you? Well,’ said the Dowager trenchantly, ‘if that’s so, it’s the only sensible thing I’ve ever known you do, Amabel!’
Sir Bonamy, paying no heed to this, seized the opportunity to say, in an urgent undervoice: ‘Not if you dislike it, Denville! Naturally, it’s the dearest wish of
my
heart, but no need for you to take snuff! Only have to tell me! For I wouldn’t come between you and your mother for the world!’
Over his hapless head the twins’ eyes met for an instant of unholy joy. No more than Kit could Evelyn resist the appeal of the ludicrous; the rigidity melted from his smile; he produced his snuff-box from his pocket, unfobbed it with an expert flick, and offered it to Sir Bonamy, saying: ‘Take snuff? Yes, indeed! Will you try my sort, sir?’
‘Well, that isn’t precisely what I meant, but—thank you, my boy! I’ve often wondered what your mixture is—a touch of old Havre, I fancy, and a suspicion—no more—of French Prize, added, of course, to—’
‘Just so, sir—and you will not find it
dry!
’
Sir Bonamy, helping himself to a pinch, was shaken by one of his rumbling laughs. ‘Ah, that was
where I was a trifle too knowing for Kit! Told you about it, did he? He hasn’t your deft way of opening his box, either!’
‘Oh, he will never acquire that!’ said Evelyn. ‘His taste is for cigars!’
‘
No!
’
uttered Sir Bonamy, profoundly shocked.
The Dowager broke in impatiently on this digression. ‘Now, listen to me,’ she commanded, driving her cane into the carpet with an imperative thud. ‘Very pretty talking, all of this, but if you think—any of you!—that I’ll give
my
consent to this havey-cavey business you very much mistake the matter!’
‘But, Grandmama!’ interposed Cressy, releasing Kit’s hand, and sitting down beside the Dowager. ‘You told me more than once that you liked Kit! Why, this very day you said that he was
a very proper man
,
and were ready to eat me for seeming to be unwilling to accept his offer! You said I was no better than a moonling!’
‘Hold your tongue, girl! I’ll have you know that there has never been any scandal attached to the Stavelys, and I’ll have no hand in helping you to create one! A fine piece of work this is!’
‘Well, of course, it
is
a little awkward,’ agreed Lady Denville, ‘but I dare say it will soon be forgotten!’
‘That,’ said the Dowager witheringly, ‘is an observation only worthy of such a jingle-brain as you are, Amabel!’
A flush rose to Evelyn’s lean cheeks; but before he could speak Sir Bonamy forestalled him. ‘Perfectly true!’ he pronounced, fixing the Dowager with his round-eyed stare. ‘I never knew a scandal that wasn’t precious soon ousted by another! What’s more,’ he added, pointing a stubby finger at her, and wagging it, ‘if it hadn’t been for that dashed silly notice in the
Morning Post
there ain’t a soul worth a rush who would have known anything about this affair!’
‘Yes!’ Evelyn struck in. ‘Who was responsible for that notice? Not you, Mama!’
‘No, indeed!’ Lady Denville replied indignantly. ‘I may be jingle-brained but
never
have I been guilty of
vulgarity!
’
‘No one said you had!’ said the Dowager testily, and for once in her life disconcerted. ‘We all know it was Albinia who was responsible for that! Not that it’s proved against her, mind, but I’m
not one to blink what’s as plain as the nose on your face! It was her doing, no question about it! I wrote instantly to tell her that I knew it, and not one word has she dared set down on paper in reply! And if she thinks that because she has given Stavely an heir she’ll hear no more of the business she will very soon learn her mistake!
But
,’
pursued the old lady, making a gallant recovery, ‘I’ll thank you all to remember that pretty well every member of the family believes that it was
you
,
Denville, whom they was invited to meet in my son’s house, and
you
who had made her an offer!’
‘What of that?’ demanded Sir Bonamy, continuing to fret the Dowager with his unnervingly blank stare. ‘It ain’t to be supposed
they’ll
spread it about that they was hoaxed! They’ll do what you bid ’em, my lady!’
‘Not all of them!’ replied the Dowager unexpectedly. ‘Stavely saw fit to gather his relations together stock and block, and there were several sprigs there I never saw before in my life, and don’t wish to see again!’
‘That’s
very
true!’ said Lady Denville. ‘Only think of that tiresome young man who pestered Kit to buy a horse which I
know
poor Evelyn doesn’t want to own!’
‘Lucton!’ ejaculated Evelyn. ‘Kester, you didn’t?’
Kit, who had seated himself a little apart from the rest of the group, replied briefly: ‘Nothing else I could do.’
‘Gudgeon!’ said Evelyn. ‘An abominable screw! Why didn’t you consult Challow?’
He won no answer at all to this inquiry, Kit having relapsed into frowning abstraction. He took no part in the lively discussion that followed, although once or twice he showed that he was not wholly deaf to it by raising his eyes from contemplation of his own clasped hands to glance thoughtfully at one or other of the disputants. If the Dowager was brought to own that, despite his perfidy, she would be very well pleased to see her granddaughter married to Kit, only that hitherto pattern of superior sense and propriety herself maintained, in what the Dowager did not scruple to inform her was an unbecomingly highty-tighty manner, her unshakeable indifference to public opinion. Lady Denville was fully alive to the necessity of concealing (by unexplained means) the true facts of the case from the world; Evelyn, knowing that these could only be extremely prejudicial, if not fatal, to his twin’s career, came down heavily on the Dowager’s side; and threw Sir Bonamy into disorder by demanding whether he, an experienced exponent of the established mode, was sincere in declaring that no one would think anything more of the hoax than that it was a very good joke.
‘But it’s something you have frequently done before!’ urged Cressy. ‘Would people be so very much shocked?’
‘I should hope they would be!’ replied Evelyn tartly. ‘Good God, Cressy, I’d a better opinion of your understanding! Of course we have done it before, but only for the sport of it! That was one thing: this is quite another!’
‘Oh, dear, that is
exactly
what Kit said!’ exclaimed Lady Denville guiltily. ‘I ought never to have asked him to do it! It is all my wretched fault—only I was
fully
persuaded that
you
would have done the same thing for
him!
’
The swift change in his expression betrayed the difference that lay between his own mercurial temperament and Kit’s more evenly balanced one. The frown of fretting anxiety vanished; a zestful gleam, compound of recklessness and amusement, heightened the brilliance of his eyes; he burst out laughing. ‘You were right, love!’ he told his mother. ‘I would! In a crack!’ He threw a challenging look at the Dowager. ‘You might as well blame my brother for drawing breath as for coming to my rescue, ma’am: he couldn’t help himself! Nor could I! But
he
,
if I know him, took my place that evening only for that reason, and with extreme reluctance; whereas
I
,
standing in his shoes, should have had no reluctance whatsoever! I don’t know that I should have carried it off as well as he must have done, but I should certainly have enjoyed the fling, which he, even more certainly, did
not!
’
‘No doubt!’ she retorted. ‘It didn’t need your uncle Brumby to tell me that your brother’s worth a dozen of you, young man!’
‘Oh, anyone could have told you that, ma’am!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Indeed, I know of only two persons who would deny so obvious a truth: Kester himself, and my mother—who considers us
both
to be above criticism! Well, we are not, but you may believe, Lady Stavely, that neither he nor I would have entered into this particular hoax had we known that it would ever become known, or that we should be obliged to maintain the imposture! My brother presented himself to you that evening in the belief that either I had forgotten the date of the engagement, or had been delayed by some hitch, or accident, and must surely reappear at any moment. In fact, I had suffered an accident which knocked me senseless for days. When I did recover consciousness, and realized that the date of my engagement was past, I thought I must have ruined myself, and—to own the truth!—I was too pulled and battered to care! Had I known that my brother was in England, and desperately trying to save my face—but I didn’t know it, until I saw the notice in the newspaper! By that time he had not only been forced to keep up the pretence—which, once having entered into, he couldn’t abandon without, as he believed, serving me the worst possible turn—but he had fallen in love with Cressy, and she with him. But what I wish you will understand, ma’am, is that at the outset he had no other thought than to save my face!’