False Colours Read online

  At this point an entirely unexpected voice made itself heard. ‘What a fortunate circumstance that I haven’t gone out!’ said Miss Stavely. ‘Did you wish to see me, ma’am?’

  Since Kit had been standing with his back to the door, his person obscuring Mrs Alperton’s view of it, neither of them had seen it open a little way, and Cressy slip softly into the room. Mrs Alperton started, and let her parasol fall to the floor; but Kit spun round, the nonchalance wiped suddenly from his face, to be succeeded by a look of consternation.

  Smiling brightly upon him, Cressy advanced into the room. Involuntarily he put out a hand to check her, but she ignored it, and went to sit down in a chair facing Mrs Alperton across the empty hearth. ‘Pray forgive me for interrupting you!’ she said gracefully. ‘But you were speaking rather loudly, you know, ma’am, and I could not help but hear a little of what you were saying. I collect you have something you wish to tell me?’

  ‘No!’ said Kit.

  Mrs Alperton, her high colour abating, glanced speculatively at him, before resuming her study of Cressy. There was an uncertain look in her eyes; and it was plainly to be seen that she was unable to decide whether Cressy’s entrance could be turned to pecuniary advantage, or whether it had effectually spiked her guns. She said slowly, and to gain time: ‘So you’re Stavely’s girl, are you? You don’t favour him much, by what I remember.’

  Accepting this familiarity with unruffled calm, Cressy replied: ‘No, I am thought to resemble my mother. Now, what is it that you wish to say to me, if you please?’

  ‘As to that,’ said Mrs Alperton, ‘it’s not my wish to say anything to you, not bearing you any ill-will, nor being one to tell tales, unless I’m pushed to it.’ She transferred her gaze to Kit’s face, and said: ‘Maybe you’d prefer I kept mum, my lord?’

  ‘But I shouldn’t,’ intervened Cressy.

  Mrs Alperton paid no heed to this, but continued to watch Kit maliciously. He met her eyes, and his own hardened. ‘I should infinitely prefer it,’ he said, ‘but I have warned you already that I am not a pigeon for your plucking! Take care what you’re about, Mrs Alperton! The glue won’t hold: you’ll bowl yourself out.’

  ‘Not before I’ve bowled you out!’ she declared venomously. ‘Which I’ll be glad to do, for I’m a mother myself, and it would go to my heart to see an innocent girl deceived like my poor Clara has been! Ah, my dear, you little know what a cozening rascal has been casting out his wicked lures to you!’

  Kit leaned his shoulders against the wall, folded his arms across his chest, and resigned himself.

  ‘No, indeed!’ agreed Cressy. ‘Is Clara your daughter, ma’am?’

  ‘My daughter!’ said Mrs Alperton, in a throbbing voice. ‘Seduced by that villain, and left to starve without so much as a leave-taking!’

  ‘How very dreadful!’ said Cressy. ‘I must say I am astonished! I should never have thought he would have behaved so shabbily.’

  Mrs Alperton was considerably taken aback. So too was Kit. He had hoped that Cressy would discredit the greater part of the story; but none of it was fit for the ears of a gently nurtured girl, and he had not dared to hope that she would not suffer a severe shock, attended by painful embarrassment. But neither he nor Mrs Alperton had taken into account the peculiar circumstances of her girlhood, or the undisguised gallantries of her father.

  ‘Very improper indeed!’ pursued Cressy. ‘I do most sincerely pity her – and you, too, ma’am, for nothing, I daresay, could be more disagreeable than to feel yourself compelled to remind Lord Denville of his obligations.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Alperton, a little dazed. ‘No, indeed!’

  ‘But perhaps there is a misunderstanding?’ suggested Cressy hopefully. ‘The thing is that he is abominably forgetful, you know. You did very right to put him in mind of the matter, for I am persuaded he will do just as he ought, now that he has remembered it, won’t you, sir?’

  ‘Just as I ought!’ corroborated Kit.

  ‘Well, upon my word!’ gasped Mrs Alperton. ‘I never did, not in all my life! I’m telling you he’s a rake, miss!’

  ‘Yes, but do you think you should, ma’am?’ asked Cressy diffidently. ‘I perfectly understand your telling him so, but it doesn’t seem to be quite the thing to tell me, for it is not in the least my affair – though I am naturally very sorry for your daughter.’

  ‘I might have known it!’ said Mrs Alperton terribly. ‘It wouldn’t make a bit of difference to you if he was a murderer, I daresay! Oh, the sinful hollowness of the world! That I should have lived to hear a lady of consequence – and single, too! – talk so bold and unblushing! Well, they didn’t do so in my day, whatever they may have thought! Not those that held themselves up as the pink of gentility! And very right they shouldn’t,’ she added, moved to a moment of sincerity. She seemed to be about to expatiate on this point, but changed her mind, and instead said, reverting to her original style: ‘And me coming to warn you, believing you was but an innocent, and my heart wrung to think of you married to one such as he is! You’ll live to regret it, my girl, for all his gingerbread, and his grand title!’

  ‘Good God, I should think so indeed!’ exclaimed Cressy. ‘Marry Lord Denville? But I’ve no such intention!’

  Mrs Alperton was fast losing control of the situation, but she made a gallant attempt at a recover. ‘Oh, you haven’t? Then perhaps you’ll tell me, Miss Stavely, what this means?’

  Cressy, blinking at the scrap of print held up before her, presented for a moment all the appearance of one wholly bewildered. Then her puckered brow cleared, and she fell into laughter. ‘Now I understand!’ she said. ‘Do you know ma’am, I have been quite in a puzzle to know why you should have wished to talk to me? It seemed the oddest thing! But I see it all now! You have read that absurd paragraph in the Morning Post, which has had us all in whoops! Oh dear, was there ever anything so nonsensical? But it is a great deal too bad!’ she said, resolutely schooling her countenance to an expression of gravity. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am! Infamous of me to laugh, when the tattling wretch who wrote that ridiculous farrago has been the cause of your being put to so much pain and inconvenience! How very kind it was in you to have come to see me! Indeed, I am excessively obliged to you, and shockingly distressed to think you should have undertaken such a disagreeable task for nothing.’

  ‘Not going to marry him?’ Mrs Alperton said incredulously. She looked from Cressy to Kit; and then, as she saw the smile in his eyes, as they rested on Cressy, said roundly: ‘Humdudgeon! And I collect he’s not nutty upon you either!’

  ‘Oh, no! At least, I sincerely trust he is not, for I am persuaded we should not suit.’

  ‘That’s a loud one!’ ejaculated Mrs Alperton, with a scornful crack of laughter. ‘You won’t gammon me so easily! Why, anyone could see –’

  ‘Pray say no more!’ begged Cressy, suddenly assailed by maidenly shyness. ‘There is no possibility of my marrying Lord Denville, ma’am, as you will understand when I tell you that my affections are – are already engaged!’

  There was a moment’s frozen silence, during which Mrs Alperton seemed to wilt where she sat. Kit, withdrawing his intent gaze from Cressy’s face, quietly left the room, feeling that she stood in no need of support, and that no time should be lost in summoning Mrs Alperton’s chaise to the door. He dispatched a footman on this errand, desiring him at the same time to send Challow up to the house.

  That worthy arrived speedily. He evinced no surprise at the curt question which greeted him, but replied: ‘Yes, sir, I do know where it came from. According to what the postboy told me, it was hired in Tunbridge Wells. And a regular saucebox he is, but he’d got no reason to tell me a whopper, so we may as well believe him as not. Also according to him, Master Kit, the party which hired it had quite an argle-bargle with Norton before he let her into the house, saying as how his lordship would reg