False Colours Read online

  Although Kit had been willing enough to concede that Cosmo might entertain the Dowager by playing card-games with her, he had been quite unable to picture her enduring with even the appearance of complaisance his aunt’s flat platitudes. Great was his astonishment, therefore, when, following his uncle and cousin into the drawing-room some time later, he found these two ladies seated side by side on the sofa, and engaged in interested converse. Since Lady Denville had had a card-table set up at the far end of the long room, and lost no time in sweeping the three younger members of the party to it, to play, under her aegis, such frivolous games as suggested themselves to her, it was not until he paid his mama a goodnight visit that Kit learned the reason for this sudden and extraordinary friendship. Nothing, declared her ladyship, had ever been more fortunate! Poor Emma, during the course of a very boring anecdote, had let fall a Name, which had instantly made Lady Stavely prick up her ears. After exhaustive discussion, which had appeared to Lady Denville to range over most of the noble houses in the country, and a fair proportion of the landed gentry, it had been established, to both ladies’ satisfaction, that they were in some way related.

  ‘But pray don’t ask me how, dearest!’ begged Lady Denville. ‘I can’t tell you how many cousins, and marriages, and mere connexions were dragged in: you cannot conceive how tedious! But it has led to that terrible old woman’s taking a fancy to Emma, and I have every hope that we shall be able to fob her off on to your aunt!’

  Ten

  Lady Denville’s hope was to some extent realized. Either because of the remote relationship between herself and Mrs Cliffe, or because the Dowager perceived in that biddable lady an excellent substitute for her daughter Clara, she chose to honour her with her approval, and lost no time in inducting her into the duties of companion-in-chief. Somewhat to Lady Denville’s surprise, Poor Emma was perfectly willing to assume these. They were not, in fact, as arduous as might have been supposed, since the Dowager never left her bedchamber till noon, and admitted no one into it except her abigail; retired to it two hours before dinner; and spent the evening playing whist, or piquet, or backgammon with such members of the party as she considered to be worthy opponents, or partners. Mrs Cliffe was not numbered amongst these; and until the arrival of Sir Bonamy Ripple, three days after the rest of the guests had assembled, it was Kit who occupied the fourth place at the whist-table. He was a sound, if not a brilliant player, and once he had grasped the difference between long whist, which the Dowager preferred, and short, to which, as a member of the younger generation, he was accustomed, she had no serious fault to find with him. But as Lady Denville’s play was divided between flashes of brilliance, and strange lapses (due, as she unacceptably explained to the Dowager, to her having been thinking of something else at just that moment), it was soon tacitly decided that she and her son should be perpetual partners against the Dowager and Cosmo Cliffe.

  Emma’s new duties, therefore, consisted merely of bearing the Dowager company during her unoccupied moments, and going with her, every fine afternoon, for a sedate drive round the neighbouring countryside; and as this regimen exactly suited her disposition no one felt her to be an object for compassion.

  Ambrose, still fired with the hope of becoming a notable shot, spent every morning with the head gamekeeper, a longsuffering individual, who confided to Kit that if he succeeded in teaching Mr Ambrose to hit a barn-door at a range of twelve yards it would be more than he bargained for.

  This, since Cosmo spent the better part of the day either perusing the London papers in the library, or prowling about the estate, asking shrewd questions of bailiffs and farmers, and reporting detected extravagance to Kit, left Kit with the charge of entertaining Miss Stavely. On sunny days, they rode together, or played at battledore and shuttlecock; when it rained they played billiards, or sat in comfortable talk; once, at her request, he took her to the long picture-gallery, regaling her with an irreverent history of his ancestors, many of whose portraits lined the walls. She entered into the spirit of this, and capped with aplomb his top-lofty boast of a recusant priest (in the collateral) with an account of the Stavely who had blotted the escutcheon by having journeyed so far into Dun territory that he had seen nothing for it but to take to the High Toby.

  Kit, acknowledging the superior distinction of this anecdote, wished to know if this enterprising scion had succeeded in making his fortune; but Miss Stavely informed him, with what he told her was odious pretension, that it was generally believed that her interesting forebear had perished on the scaffold, under the cognomen of Gentleman Dick.

  ‘That’s good,’ he admitted. ‘But take a look at old Ginger hackle here! One of my great-great-uncles, and said to have murdered his first wife. Here she is, beside him!’

  ‘Well,’ said Cressy, subjecting the portrait of a languishing female to a thoughtful scrutiny, ‘I shouldn’t wonder at it if he did. Anyone can see that she was one of those complaining women, forever having the vapours, or dissolving into floods of tears. And I have little doubt that that red head of his denotes an uncertain temper.’

  But the picture which held Miss Stavely’s interest longest was the Hoppner portrait of the Fancot twins, executed when they were schoolboys. ‘How very alike you are!’ she remarked, studying more closely than Kit appreciated what was held to have been one of Hoppner’s best likenesses. ‘There is a difference, when one looks more particularly into it. Your hair is brighter, and your brother is a trifle taller than you are. Something in the expressions, too. . . ’

  ‘Do you think so? The seeming difference in height is merely the way in which we were posed, I fancy. As for the expression, the picture was never thought to be one of Hoppner’s happier works,’ said Kit, ruthlessly sacrificing the deceased artist’s reputation. ‘Come and look at Lawrence’s portrait of my mother!’

  She allowed herself to be drawn onward; but she cast another glance at the Hoppner before she left the gallery, and one surreptitious but searching one at Kit’s profile. She said nothing, however, either then, or rather later, when the Dowager delivered herself of the opinion that Lord Brumby had wronged his elder nephew.

  The Dowager was inclined to be indignant with his lordship. ‘Depend upon it, Cressy, he’s getting to be spiteful! It’s often so with old bachelors. He dotes on the other boy, and is jealous of young Denville in consequence!’

  ‘He said nothing to Papa about Denville that was in the least spiteful, ma’am,’ Cressy ventured to interpolate. ‘Indeed, he told Papa that although Denville had been a little wild he believed that nothing more than a – a suitable marriage was wanting to make him –’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ exclaimed the Dowager, her eyes snapping. ‘Henry Brumby’s an old woman, and so I shall tell him! There’s nothing of the profligate about the boy, and never was! I daresay he’s had his adventures: why not? But I cut my wisdoms long before Brumby cut his, and if he thinks I don’t know the signs of a loose-screw he very much mistakes the matter! There ain’t one to be seen in Denville – and that you may believe, girl! I like him. Do you?’

  This sudden question slightly discomposed Cressy, but upon being adjured to answer it, she said, blushing a little: ‘Yes, I do. Much – much better than I did at the outset. But –’

  ‘But what?’ demanded the Dowager, as Cressy hesitated.

  Cressy shook her head. ‘Nothing, ma’am! That is – no, nothing!’

  The Dowager looked narrowly at her, but said, after a moment: ‘Early days yet! I don’t mean to press you, so I’ll say no more. You ain’t a simpering miss, so you won’t underrate the advantages of this match. You know as well as I do that Denville’s a matrimonial prize: time was when I should have thought more of that than I do today. So was his father, and much good did it do silly little Amabel Cliffe when she caught him!’ She sat ruminating for a moment, and then abruptly changed the subject, saying: ‘I collect that Bonamy Ripple is coming to jo