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 d.a.m.ned 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 circ.u.mstances 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 st.i.tch 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 embarra.s.sment.

'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 circ.u.mstances 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.'

' Lonely? Good G.o.d, he has a host of friends!'

'In a manner of speaking, sir. But I wouldn't call them intimate friends-not such as he'd tell his mind to, the way he would to you. He's never been quite the same since you went away, though it's hard to explain what I mean, and no one that didn't know him as well as I do would notice it. I dare say it comes of being a twin. You was always so close, the pair of you, that you never wanted any other cronies. His lordship never took anyone into his confidence but you, and it's my belief he won't, except, maybe, his wife. It may be otherwise with you, but-'

'No,' Kit said slowly. 'I hadn't considered it, but it isn't otherwise. But I have a good deal to occupy me, and he hasn't.'

'Exactly so, Mr Christopher, and that's where the mischief lies, as I don't doubt her ladyship would tell you.'

'She has told me. But whether the remedy lies in marrying him to a girl he don't care a rap for I strongly doubt.'

'Well, sir, it isn't what one would have chosen, but the way he's carrying on now he never will be married. What's more, if my Lord Brumby was to discover the sort of company he keeps he wouldn't end that Trust a day before he was obliged to. If you'll pardon my saying so, sir, your father may have meant it for the best, but he served his lordship the worst turn he could, when he put that slight on him!'

'Took it very much to heart, didn't he? That was the only time he ever b.u.t.toned up against me. He barely spoke about it. I was afraid it would rankle.'

'Yes, sir, and so it has! It wasn't a bit of use trying to persuade him that the thing to do was to prove to my Lord Brumby that he was very well able to manage his affairs.

Well, you know what he is when he's been put into a real flame, Mr Christopher! Not a bit of interest will he take in his estates: it's seldom he even visits them, which isn't surprising, for he's got no power to do a mortal thing without he has his uncle's leave, and I know well he feels downright humiliated.'

'As bad as that, is it? d.a.m.nation! I wish I had been at home! I might have been able to bring him and my uncle together. They never liked one another, but my uncle would have been willing to have given Denville a pretty free hand in the management of the estates, had he wished for it'

'That wouldn't have done for his lordship, sir. It's all or nothing with him.'

Kit was silent for a minute or two. 'So, to put him in possession of his estates we help him into this loveless marriage, do we?'

'You may take it that way if you choose, sir, but there's many such marriages which have turned out well. From all I hear, Miss Stavely is a very agreeable young lady, not one of the giddy sort, but with a head on her shoulders. It wouldn't surprise me if his lordship grew to be fond of her.'

'That would be something indeed!'

'Yes, sir, it would. I'll fetch your breakfast up now, for we don't want to run any risks, and it might occasion remark if you was to be seen downstairs before Mr Clent has given your hair a different cut. One comfort is that we shan't have to get his lordship's coats altered to fit you, which would have presented us with a difficulty, being so pressed for time as we are.'

'Well, that would no doubt be a comfort to my brother,' retorted Kit, 'but it's none at all to me!'

4.

Shortly before eight o'clock that evening, my Lord Denville's town carriage, an impressive vehicle which bore its n.o.ble owner's arms emblazoned on the door-panels, drew up in Mount Street to set down its solitary, and extremely reluctant occupant.

No one, observing this gentleman's composure, could have guessed that it had taken the united efforts of his mother and his brother's valet to coax and coerce him into lending himself to what he persisted in calling an outrageous masquerade.

Fimber and Mr Clent had done their work well. Mr Clent, a dedicated artist, had given Mr Fancot a modish Corinthian cut, accepting without question the explanation offered him that the length of his supposed lordship's glowing locks was due to his prolonged absence from London; and Fimber had spent a full hour teaching him how to tie his neckcloth in the intricate style favoured by his lordship. He told him that it was known as the Trone d'Amour, a piece of information which drew from the exasperated Mr Fancot the acid rejoinder that it was a singularly inappropriate style for the occasion.

Mr Fancot also took exception to the really very moderate, though highly starched, points of his collar, saying that it seemed to him that his brother had become a d.a.m.ned dandy. But Fimber, treating him firmly but with great patience, described in such horrifying detail the height and rigidity of the very latest mode in collar-points, that he subsided, thankful that at least he was not obliged to wear these uncomfortable 'winkers'. He added that if he had known that he would be expected to rig himself in raiment more suited to a ball than to a family dinner-party nothing would have induced him to yield to his mama's persuasions. Lady Denville, striving to impress upon him the need to treat with the greatest formality an old lady who could be depended upon to take an instant dislike to any gentleman arriving at an evening party in pantaloons, did nothing to reconcile him to the ordeal awaiting him; but Fimber, deeming it to be time to put an end to such contrariness, speedily reduced him to schoolboy status by telling him severely that that was quite enough nonsense, and that he would do as he was bid.

He added, as a clincher, that Mr Christopher need not try to gammon him into believing that he wasn't in the habit of wearing full evening-dress five days out of the seven.

Furthermore, neither he nor her ladyship wished to listen to any further gibble-gabble about walking to Mount Street: Mr Christopher would go in the carriage, as befitted his station.

So Kit, driven in state to Mount Street, entered Lord Stavely's house looking complete to a shade. Not only was he wearing the frilled shirt, the longtailed coat, the knee-breeches, and the silk stockings which const.i.tuted the fashionable attire of a gentleman bound for Almack's: he carried a chapeau-bras under one arm, and one of his brother's snuff-boxes in his pocket, Fimber having thrust this upon him at the last moment, with an urgent reminder that my lord was well-known to be a snuff-taker.

Having relinquished the chapeau-bras into the tender care of a footman, Mr Fancot trod up the stairs in the wake of the butler, and entered the drawing-room on that portly individual's sonorous announcement.

At first glance, he received the impression that he was being scrutinized by upwards of fifty pairs of eyes. He discovered later that this was an exaggeration. His host, who was the only person whom he recognized, was chatting to a small group of people; he moved forward a step to greet the guest, and so also did two ladies. Fancot realized that he had been imperfectly coached: he had no idea which of them was the lady to whom he was supposed to have offered his hand. For one agonized moment he thought himself lost; then he saw that the taller of the two, a fashionably attired woman with elaborately dressed fair hair and a rather sharp-featured but undeniably pretty face, was in the family way; and barely repressing a sigh of relief, he bowed to her, and shook hands, exchanging greetings with a cool a.s.surance he was far from feeling. He then turned towards her companion, smiling at her, and carrying the hand she extended to him to his lips. He thought that that was probably what Evelyn, a practised flirt, would do; but even as he lightly kissed the hand he was a.s.sailed by a fresh problem: how the devil ought he to address the girl? Did Evelyn call her Cressy, or was he still on formal terms with her? He had had as yet no opportunity to take more than a brief look at her, but he had received the impression that she was a little stiff: possibly shy, certainly reserved.

Not a beauty, but a good-looking girl, grey-eyed and brown-haired, and with a shapely figure. Well enough but quite unremarkable, and not at all the sort of female likely to appeal to Evelyn.

At this moment, and just as he released Miss Stavely's hand, one of the a.s.sembled company, an elderly spinster who had been observing him with avid curiosity, confided to a stout matron in the over-loud voice of the deaf: ' Very handsome! That I must own!'

Startled, and far from gratified, Kit looked up, involuntarily meeting Miss Stavely's eyes. They held a look of twinkling appreciation; and he thought suddenly that she was more taking than he had at first supposed. He smiled, but before he could speak Lord Stavely interposed, saying: 'Come, Denville, my mother is anxious to make your acquaintance!'

He led the way across the room to where the Dowager Lady Stavely was seated in a large armchair, grimly watching their approach.

Listening to his mama's daunting description of the Dowager, Kit had insensibly formed the impression of a ma.s.sive lady, with a hook nose and a commanding bosom.

He realized that his imagination had misled him: the Dowager was small, and spare, with a straight nose and a flat bosom. She had a deceptive air of fragility, and her thin fingers were twisted by gout. Her expression was not that of one anxious to make Lord Denville's acquaintance. When her son rather obsequiously presented Kit, she said: 'H'm!' in a disparaging tone, and looked him over critically from head to foot before holding out her hand. That tickled his ready sense of humour, and brought a dancing smile into his eyes. He said demurely: 'I am honoured, ma'am!' and bowed politely over her hand.

'Fiddle!' she snapped. 'So you are William Denville's son,' are you? You're not as good-looking as your father.'

Lord Stavely cleared his throat deprecatingly; a faded lady of uncertain age and a hara.s.sed demeanour, who was standing beside the Dowager's chair, looked imploringly at Kit, and uttered a faint, twittering sound. He was aware of tension amongst the a.s.sembled members of the family, and began to be very much amused. He replied: 'Oh, no! But, then, my father was exceptionally good-looking, wasn't he, ma'am'?'

She glared at him; and, in another attempt to put him out of countenance, said: 'And, by what I hear, you're not as well-behaved either!'

'He was exceptionally well-behaved too,' countered Kit.

Someone behind him gave a smothered guffaw; the faded lady, blenching, said, in the voice of one expectant of a blistering set-down: 'Oh, pray, Mama-!'

'Pray what?' demanded the Dowager sharply.

Lord Stavely, jerked out of paralysis by a nudge from his wife's elbow, hurried into the breach, saying: 'I must make you known to my sister Clara, Denville! I believe you have not previously met, though you are acquainted, I fancy, with my eldest sister, Lady Ebchester.'

Kit, casting a swift glance round the room, saw that one of the middle-aged ladies present was favouring him with a slight smile, and an inclination of her turbaned head, and said promptly: 'Yes, indeed! But-' drawing a bow at what he believed to be a fairly safe venture-'I have not hitherto had the pleasure of making Miss Clara Stavely's acquaintance. Your servant, ma'am!'

'And my brother!' said Stavely, edging Kit away from the Dowager's vicinity. 'You must let me present Mr Charles Stavely to you, Denville!'

'Overdoing it, George!' said Mr Stavely, in a caustic undervoice. 'I've been acquainted with Denville since his come-out.' He nodded to Kit, and gave him two fingers, observing that he hadn't seen him in the club lately.

Kit, realizing that he had placed rather too much reliance on his mother's airy a.s.surance that Evelyn was not acquainted with any other of his betrothed's relations than her father, now knew that it behoved him to tread with even greater wariness than he had foreseen. He responded that he had lately been out of town, and pa.s.sed on, to be presented to two ladies, one of whom said that they had met before, though no doubt he had forgotten the occasion. Since any gentleman, accustomed, as Kit was, to a succession of routs, b.a.l.l.s, and official receptions, was familiar with this gambit, he dealt with it easily enough. He was then spared any further introductions by the intervention of Lady Ebchester, who shook hands with him in a very robust way, adjuring her brother in a pungent aside to stop trying to addle the poor boy's brains by presenting him to every member of the family.

'They all know who he is,' she said trenchantly, 'and if he don't know who we are, so much the better for him! If I had guessed you meant to invite the whole family, stock and block, I wouldn't have come here tonight, and nor, I dare say, would he. Anyone but a chucklehead would have known that it would only serve to make Mama as cross as crabs!' She waved him aside, and addressed herself to Kit, saying: 'No need to take fright! I don't know what maggot my brother got into his head, but very likely you'll never set eyes on most of these old quizzes again. How does your mother do?'

'Very well, ma'am, and desired me to convey her compliments to you.'

'Mighty civil of her-or of you!' she replied. 'We've never been on better than bowing terms. So you're going to marry my niece! I wish you happy: it won't be her fault if you're not.'

'Then we shall be, ma'am, for I am determined it shan't be mine.'

'You're full of pretty speeches,' she said, putting him forcibly in mind of the Dowager. 'I see young Lucton wanting to edge in a word. Heaven knows what he's doing here, for he's the merest connexion! However, I dare say you're glad to see a face you do know!'

She nodded dismissal, and he turned away to confront a young gentleman of dandified appearance, who was hovering close at hand, and who greeted him with a broad grin, and drew him a little apart, saying: 'I warned you, Den! Devilish, ain't it?

Dashed nearly sherried off to Brighton this morning: can't think why I didn't!'

'A want of nerve!'

'No, no, that wasn't it! The old lady don't take a particle of interest in me. Fact is, I wanted a word with you. You haven't forgotten that little matter I broached to you, have you?'

'No, but to own the truth I've been too busy to think about it.'

'What a fellow you are!' said Mr Lucton. 'No wish to press you, but you said you'd give me an answer within a day!'

'Oh, lord, did I?' said Kit, thankful for the first time in his life for his twin's well-known forgetfulness. 'I was called away suddenly, and it went out of my mind.'

'Ay, I guessed as much, so I've done nothing about it. Don't want to press you, Den, but I wish you will tell me one way or the other!'

'Yes, but not at this moment!' protested Kit. 'It's neither the place nor the occasion.'

'Oh, very well!' said Mr Lucton discontentedly. 'I'll give you a look-in tomorrow, then. Though I must say-'

He was interrupted by the sound of the dinner-gong, and, as Lady Stavely came up at that instant to take possession of Kit, the rest of the sentence remained unuttered.

Kit found himself placed between his hostess and Miss Cressida Stavely at the dinner-table. He was relieved to see that the length of the table separated him from the Dowager; had it separated him from Cressida he would have been profoundly thankful.

For the first ten minutes his attention was fully engaged by Lady Stavely, who regaled him with a flow of vivacious small-talk. This presented him with no difficulty, since she allowed him little opportunity to speak, and asked him only such commonplace questions as anyone would have been able to answer. She was, mercifully, more anxious to show herself off than to draw out her guests, but he found her empty, incessant t.i.tter of laughter irritating, and was not altogether sorry when she turned from him to converse with Mr Charles Stavely. Sooner or later he would be obliged to talk to Cressida; he thought that to do so at the dinner-table might be the best way of avoiding a tete-a-tete. He glanced at her. Her head was turned a little away, as she listened to what her other neighbour was saying to her. It struck Kit that she had all the unconscious a.s.surance lacking in her stepmother. Lady Stavely was overacting the part of Society hostess; she had been for too long the daughter who had failed to catch a husband to slip easily into her new position. It was not difficult to understand why she should be jealous of Cressida, so quietly poised, so well-accustomed to the management of her father's establishment, and to the entertainment of his guests. She appeared to be absorbed in her conversation with her neighbour, but she must have noticed that Lady Stavely had transferred her attention to her brother-in-law, for she brought her conversation to a natural conclusion and turned towards Kit, saying, with a faint smile: 'I wish this were not such a dull party: you must be dreadfully bored!'

'Not at all!' he replied.

She looked quizzically at him. 'A high treat, in fact!'

'Well, I shouldn't describe it in quite those words,' he owned, 'but the truly boring parties, you know, are the formal squeezes, when one is obliged to do the polite to all the people one would least wish to talk to.'

She was surprised. 'But I thought you never attended such parties!'

'Not when I can avoid them,' he said, retrieving the slip.

'Which, in general, you find yourself able to do! And when you are not so able,' she added thoughtfully, 'you take care not to become bored by arriving late, and leaving early, don't you?'

'A gross aspersion upon my character!'

She laughed. 'Did you think that because I am not very much in the habit of attending such squeezes that I don't know your reputation? You are the despair of hostesses!'

'You have been listening to slanderous reports.'

She smiled, but shook her head. 'You will be able to leave this party early, at all events. My grandmother doesn't keep late hours. I am afraid, however, that she will wish to hold further conversation with you. Can you bear that?'