‘I hope to God he does!’ said Kit fervently.
‘Yes, but we must be
provident
,
dearest, and be ready to meet any mischance. And, do you know, I have suddenly thought that it might be a good thing if you
should
be obliged to go to the party in his stead! I very much fear that old Lady Stavely has heard tales about him which have made her suspect him of being rather wild—in fact, quite ramshackle, which is untrue, of course, or, at all events, grossly exaggerated! And although he means to behave with the greatest propriety I can’t help thinking that you would deal with her much better, through being a diplomat, and knowing how to look grave and sober at formal parties, which Evelyn hasn’t the least idea of. I won’t conceal from you, Kit, that if Cressy’s aunts and uncles and cousins are a set of dead bores, which is extremely likely—only consider one’s own relations!—I have the liveliest fear that Evelyn will say something outrageous, or excuse himself far too early in the evening, which would be
fatal!
’
‘If Evelyn does not return tomorrow,’ said Kit, with feeling, ‘I’ll wring his neck the instant I set eyes on him! And if he does return neither he nor you, my very dear Mama, will persuade me to take his place at this party! Nothing short of the direst necessity would induce me to do so!’
‘No, dear, and we must hope there won’t be any necessity,’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘But just in case there should be you won’t object to pretending you are Evelyn for a
little
while, will you? I mean, until he arrives, which I dare say he will, for even he couldn’t be quite so forgetful, do you think? But if he doesn’t it would be most unwise to let the servants know the truth.’
‘Good God, Mama, do you imagine they won’t recognize me?’
‘Well, the maidservants won’t, and the footmen won’t, and Brigg won’t either, because he is getting so short-sighted and deaf. We ought to engage a younger butler, but when Evelyn only
hinted
to him that he should retire on a
very
handsome pension he was thrown into such gloom that Evelyn felt obliged to let the matter drop.’
‘And what of Mrs Dinting?’ interposed Kit.
‘Why should she suspect anything? If you were to encounter her, you have only to greet her, as Evelyn would, quite carelessly, you know. Depend upon it, she won’t even wonder if you’re Kit, because she would never believe you would come home after all these months and not pay a visit to the housekeeper’s room to have a chat with her. Then, too, she will have been told that Evelyn is home, and why should she call it in question?’
‘Who is going to tell her this whisker? You?’
‘No, stupid! The servants will see that the candle that was set on the hall-table for Evelyn has gone, and the whole household will know that he has returned before you are even awake.’
‘Including Fimber! I collect he won’t recognize me either? Mama,
do
come out of the clouds! A man who valeted us both when we were striplings!’
‘I am not in the clouds!’ she said indignantly. ‘I was about to say, when you interrupted me, that we must take him into our confidence.’
‘Also Challow, your coachman, the second groom, all the stableboys,—’
‘Nonsense, Kit! Challow, perhaps, but why in the world should the others be told?’
‘Because, my love, there is a phaeton and four horses to be accounted for!’
She thought this over for a moment. ‘Very true. Oh, well, we must trust Challow to do that! You can’t think he won’t be able to: recollect what
convincing
lies he was used to tell when Papa tried to discover from him what you had been doing whenever you had slipped away without telling anyone where you were going!’
‘Mama,’ said Kit, ‘I am going to bed! I haven’t given back—don’t think it!—but if I argue with you any more tonight I shall end with windmills in my head!’
‘Oh, poor boy, of course you must be fagged to death!’ she said, with ready sympathy. ‘Nothing is so fatiguing as a long journey! That accounts for your perceiving so many difficulties in the way: it is always so when one is very weary. Go to bed, dear one: you will feel much more yourself when you wake up!’
‘Full of spunk—not to say effrontery, eh?’ he said, laughing. He kissed her, and got up. ‘It’s midsummer moon with you, you know—but don’t think I don’t love you!’
She smiled serenely upon him, and he went to retrieve his belongings from the half-landing, and to carry them into Evelyn’s bedroom.
He was so tired that instead of applying his mind to the problems confronting him, as he had meant to do, he fell asleep within five minutes of blowing out his candle. He was awakened, some hours later, by the sound of the blinds being drawn back from the windows. He raised himself on his elbow, wondering, for a moment, where he could be. Then he remembered, and lay down again, rather mischievously awaiting events.
The curtains round the bed were pulled apart with a ruthlessness which was a clear sign to the initiated that the supposed occupant of the great four-poster was in his devoted valet’s black books. Kit yawned, and murmured: ‘Morning, Fimber: what’s o’clock?’
‘Good morning, my lord,’ responded Fimber, in arctic accents. ‘It is past ten, but as I apprehend that your lordship did not return until the small hours I thought it best not to wake you earlier.’
‘No, I was very late,’ agreed Kit.
‘I am aware of that, my lord—having sat up until midnight, in the expectation of being required to wait on you.’
‘Stupid fellow! You should have known better,’ said Kit, watching him from under his eyelids.
The expression of cold severity on Fimber’s face deepened. He said, picking his words: ‘Possibly it did not occur to your lordship that your continued absence would give rise to anxiety.’
‘Lord, no! Why should it?’
This careless rejoinder had the effect of turning the ice to fire. ‘My lord, where have you been?’ demanded Fimber, abandoning his quelling formality.
‘Don’t you wish you knew!’
‘No, my lord, I do not, nor it isn’t necessary I should know, for what I
do
know is that you wouldn’t have been so anxious not to let me go with you if the business which took you off had been as innocent as you’d have me believe. Nor you wouldn’t have sent Challow home! You should think shame to yourself, staying away all this time, and never sending her ladyship word to stop her fretting herself to ribbons! For anything she knew you might have been dead! Now, just tell me this, my lord, without trying to tip me a rise, which you know you can’t do!—are you in a scrape?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Kit truthfully. ‘I hope not.’
‘So you may well, my lord! At a time like this! If it’s serious, tell me, and we’ll see what can be done.’
‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know, Fimber.’
‘Indeed, my lord?’ said Fimber ominously. ‘I
should
have thought that your lordship knew I could be trusted, but it seems I was mistaken.’ He turned away, deeply offended, and walked across the room to where Kit’s open portmanteau stood. Kit had done no more than drag his night-gear out of it, considerably disarranging the rest of its contents. Muttering disapproval to himself, Fimber stooped to unpack it. He lifted up a waistcoat, took one look at it, and turned swiftly to find Kit watching him quizzically. He stood staring for an incredulous moment, and then gave a gasp. ‘Mr Christopher!’
Kit laughed, and sat up, pulling off his night-cap. ‘I thought you were the one person we couldn’t hoax! How are you, Fimber?’
‘Quite stout, thank you, sir. And you wouldn’t have hoaxed me for long! To think of you taking us all by surprise like this! Does her ladyship know?’
‘Yes, she heard me come in, and got up, hoping to see my brother.’
‘Ay, no wonder! But I’ll be bound she was glad to see you, sir. Which I am too, if I may say so.’ He glanced critically at the waistcoat he was holding, and sniffed. ‘You never had this made for you in London, Mr Christopher. You won’t be wearing it here, of course. Is that foreign man of yours bringing the rest of your baggage after you?’
‘No, it’s coming by carrier. I haven’t brought Franz with me. I knew I could depend on you to look after me.’ Receiving no immediate response to this, he said, surprised: ‘You’re not going to tell me I can’t, are you? Fimber!’
The valet emerged with a start from what bore all the appearance of a profound reverie. ‘I beg your pardon, sir! I was thinking. Look after you? To be sure I will!’ He added, as he laid the condemned waistcoat aside, and picked up the greatcoat which Kit had flung across a chair: ‘And time I did, Mr Christopher! These Polish coats are gone quite out of fashion. Nor you can’t wear that shallow in London: the present mode, sir, is for high crowns.’
‘Never mind my dowdy rig!’ said Kit. ‘What the devil is my brother doing?’
‘I don’t know any more than you do, sir, and it’s got me all of a twitter! It might be that he went off in one of his distempered freaks, and yet I don’t think it, somehow. My lady will have told you that he’s in a way to become buckled?’
‘She did, but
he
has never so much as given me a hint of it,’ replied Kit grimly. ‘Something damned brummish about the business! Well, if anyone knows the truth you do, so tell it to me, without any hiding of the teeth! Is he turning short about?’
‘No, that I’ll go bail he’s not!’ Fimber replied. ‘No one knows better than me the sort of bobbery he’ll get up to when he’s in high leg, but he wouldn’t play nip-shot now—not when he’s made the young lady an offer! What’s more, he wasn’t poking bogey when he told me, and her ladyship too, that he would be back within the sennight, for he bid me to be sure to engage the barber to come to trim his hair today. He will be here, sir, at noon.’
‘And what, pray, has that to do with me?’ asked Kit, eyeing him with misgiving.
‘It occurs to me, sir, that you are wearing your hair too long. His lordship favours more of a Corinthian cut.’
‘Oh, does he? Now, you may stop pitching your gammon, and tell me this!—Are you thinking that I might take my brother’s place tonight?’
‘Well, sir,’ said Fimber apologetically, ‘the notion
did
cross my mind! It seems as if it was
meant
,
you coming home without a soul’s being the wiser, and not bringing that foreigner with you—and no need to worry about your baggage, for you may leave it to me to see it safely stored. No need to worry about your clothing either, because his lordship has enough and to spare for the pair of you. Nor it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve changed shoes with him, not by any means it wouldn’t be!’
‘The circumstances were very different. I’ve told my mother that already.’
Fimber turned a shocked countenance towards him. ‘You told my lady you wouldn’t help his lordship to bring himself home? Well! Never did I think to see the day when you would not be ready to through stitch in
anything
for his sake, Mr Christopher! As he would for you, no matter what might come of it!’
‘I know that. Nor would I hang back an instant, however much against the pluck it might be, if I were convinced it was what he wished me to do. But that’s where the water sticks, Fimber: I’ve a strong feeling that there’s nothing he wishes less than to marry Miss Stavely. If that’s so, I should be better employed trying my possible to bring him safe off.’
‘You can’t do that, sir! Why, he’s offered for her! You wouldn’t have him play the jack, putting such a slight on the poor young lady—no, and he wouldn’t do it! I don’t say he hasn’t often set people in a bustle with his starts, but I’ve never known him behave ungentlemanly, not in all the years I’ve served you both!’
‘I was wondering rather if I couldn’t contrive to get Miss Stavely to cry off. I wish you will be open with me! Don’t try to persuade me that he isn’t blue-devilled: I
know
he is!’
‘Well, sir, since you ask me, in my opinion he wasn’t near as blue-devilled when I saw him last as what he has been ever since—’ Fimber broke off in embarrassment.
‘Ever since when? Go on, man!’ said Kit impatiently.
Fimber began with finicking care to fold the despised waistcoat. His reply was evasive. ‘It is not my place, Mr Christopher, to speak of the circumstances which might have caused his lordship to offer for Miss Stavely, but he didn’t make up his mind to it in the twinkling of a bedpost, as you might say. So don’t you get to thinking that he did it on the spur of the moment, and was sorry for it after, because that’s not so. I’m not saying it was what he’d have chosen to do, for often and often he’s told me that he’s got no fancy to become a tenant-for-life, never having met any female he didn’t think a dead bore after a month or two. Well, I didn’t pay much heed to that, not at first, thinking he’d get to be more sober when he was older, like you have, sir.’ He paused, looking undecidedly at Kit. Then he said, as though impelled: ‘Mr Christopher, there’s not a soul I’d say this to but yourself, but the truth is I’ve been regularly worried about him! Let alone that he’s been going the pace more than he should, he’s more rackety than ever he was when it was to be expected that he should always be prime for a lark, and he’s beginning to take to the muslin company—which is what has me in a worse fret than all the rest!’
Kit nodded, but said frowningly: ‘It sounds to me as if he were bored, or out of spirits. That always made him resty. But why?’
‘I couldn’t say, sir, not to be sure. Unless it might be that he’s lonely.’