“Not feeling quite the thing?” enquired Freddy kindly.
“Oh, yes, but I feel a wretch, Freddy!” she confided. “Poor Fish asked me if I did not feel a pang at parting from her, and I do not!”
“I should rather think you wouldn’t!” said Freddy, without hesitation. “Can’t make the woman out at all, myself. Know what she said to me this morning? Asked me if I’d slept well, and when I told her that it beat me how anyone could sleep at all, with a dashed lot of cockerels crowing their heads off, she said that rural sounds exhilarate the spirit, and do something or other to languid nature!”
“Cowper,” said Kitty, in a depressed tone. “‘Restore the tone of languid nature.’”
“Well, it’s a bag of moonshine!” said Freddy. “What’s more, I always thought so! Often hear of fellows ruralizing— going into the country on a repairing lease, y’know—but I never could see that it did ’em a particle of good. Well, if they’re kept awake the better part of the night by a lot of cockerels, stands to reason it couldn’t! It’s my belief, Kit, the woman’s touched in her upper works.”
“No, she is merely addicted to poetry,” explained Kitty.
“Well, that just shows you!” said Mr. Standen reasonably. He abandoned the topic for one of more immediate importance. “How much did the old hunks give you in that roll?”
“Oh, Freddy!” exclaimed Kitty, awed. “Two hundred and fifty pounds! I am sure I can never spend the half of it! It is the greatest anxiety to me! I have it safe here in my reticule, but only think if I should chance to be robbed!” She untied the strings of this receptacle, and dragged out the roll. “Pray, will you take care of it for me?” she begged.
Mr. Standen was just about to decline the office when a deep and cunning thought entered his head. Having a very nice idea of the cost of feminine apparel, it did not seem to him that two hundred and fifty pounds would suffice to clothe a lady about to make her debut in the first circle of fashion. He was a good-natured as well as an affluent young gentleman, and he now conceived a scheme whereby Miss Charing might be imposed upon entirely for her own benefit.
Detaching a fifty pound bill from the roll, he handed it to Kitty, saying: “That’s the dandy! You keep this one, and I’ll give the rest to m’mother. Have all the bills sent to her, and she’ll stand huff.”
Except for a slight feeling of alarm at carrying as much as fifty pounds in her reticule, Miss Charing had no fault to find with this arrangement, so Mr. Standen stowed the roll away in his pocket, and ventured to speak of a matter which had been considerably exercising his mind. “No wish to pry into what don’t concern me,” he said apologetically, “but can’t help wondering—Thing is, Kit, I’m dashed if I see what your lay is!”
“My lay?” repeated Kitty, glancing sideways at him.
He blushed, and begged pardon. “Talking flash!” he explained. “Forgot myself! What I mean is, good notion to come to town for a spell! I’m not saying it ain’t. Only thing is, what’s to come of it?”
Miss Charing, having foreseen this question, replied: “One should always seize opportunity, you know. I am persuaded that once I am in London I may easily discover an eligible situation. Or I might, if I had pretty gowns, and Lady Legerwood is so obliging as to introduce me to her acquaintance, even receive an offer of marriage.”
“No, dash it!” protested Mr. Standen. “Not if you’re engaged to me, Kit!”
She became intent on smoothing the wrinkles from her gloves. Her colour considerably heightened, she said: “No. Only—If there did happen to be some gentleman who—who wished to marry me, do you think he would be deterred by that, Freddy?”
“Be a curst rum touch if he wasn’t,” replied Freddy unequivocally.
“Yes, but—If he had a partiality for me, and found I had become engaged to Another,” said Kitty, drawing on a knowledge of life culled from the pages of such novels as graced Miss Fishguard’s bookshelf, “he might be wrought upon by jealousy.”
“Who?” demanded Freddy, out of his depth.
“Anyone!” said Kitty.
“But there ain’t anyone!” argued Freddy.
“No,” agreed Kitty, damped. “It was just a passing thought, and not of the least consequence! I shall seek a situation.”
“No, you won’t,” said Freddy, with unexpected firmness. “That’s what you said last night. Talked a lot of stuff about becoming a chambermaid. Well, you can’t, that’s all.”
“Oh, no!” she assured him. “Upon reflection, of course I perceived that that wouldn’t answer. And also I shouldn’t wonder at it if Hugh was quite at fault, and I might do very well as a governess. To quite young children, you know, who don’t need instruction in Italian or Water-colour painting.”
“Can’t do that either,” said Freddy.
“Well, really, Freddy!” cried Miss Charing indignantly. “Pray, what concern is it of yours?”
“Good God, Kit, of course it’s my concern!” retorted Freddy, moved to express himself strongly. “You don’t suppose I’m going to have everyone saying you’d rather go for a governess than marry me, do you? Nice gudgeon I should look!”
This aspect of the case had not previously occurred to Miss Charing, but she was a reasonable girl, and she at once perceived its force. “I suppose it would be disagreeable for you,” she admitted. “Oh, well! I won’t do it, then! If all else fails, I must just return to Arnside. Whatever happens, I shall at least have had one month in London!”
“Yes, but that’s just it,” said Freddy, knitting his brows. “Seems to me you’ve got a devilish queer notion of London! What do you suppose will happen?”
“Good gracious, Freddy, anything might happen! Well, at all events, much more than could ever happen to me at Arnside! You can’t deny that that’s so!”
“No, I can’t,” said Freddy bluntly. “That’s what’s worrying me. The more I talk to you, Kit, the more I wish I hadn’t been such a sapskull as to let you persuade me into this business! You’ll do something gooseish, and I shall get the blame for it.”
“No, no, indeed I will not!” Kitty said coaxingly. “I promise I won’t do anything you think wrong!”
“Dash it, Kit, I can’t tell you how you should go on!” protested Freddy, horrified. “I ain’t in the petticoat-line! Told you so at the start!”
“Of course not! You forget that your Mama will take care of me. Indeed, you have no cause to be uneasy!”
This reminder went some way towards allaying his fears, but a rare instinct for danger prompted him to demand: “Tell me this! Have you some scheme in your head I don’t know about?”
“Yes,” said Kitty, incurably truthful, “I have!” She observed the look of a hunted wild creature in his eyes, and clasped his hand in a sustaining way. “But it is nothing you would dislike!” she added. “I give you my word it is not, Freddy!” She saw that this very handsome assurance had not had the desired effect, and said reproachfully: “Freddy! Don’t you believe me? When I have pledged you my word!”
“It ain’t that I don’t believe you, Kit,” he explained gloomily. “Thing is, I’m dashed sure you don’t know what I should dislike! Lord, I wish I were well out of it!”
It was now Miss Charing’s turn to change colour. “You don’t mean—oh, you cannot mean to cry off?” she faltered.
“No, I don’t!” responded Freddy, stung. “Never hedged off in my life! Play or pay, m’dear girl, play or pay! All I say is, wish I hadn’t said I’d play! The next time I see that fat rascal of a landlord—!”
“Pluckley?” said Kitty, bewildered.
“That’s the fellow,” nodded Freddy, darkling. “That bowl of punch! Never ordered it! Oughtn’t to have had it. No, and, what’s more, oughtn’t to have let you have it either! No sense in wrapping it up in clean linen, Kit: must have been bosky, both of us!”
Nothing would move him from this standpoint, so Kitty, wisely abandoning the attempt, applied her energies to the task of reassuring him.
It was dusk by the time the post-chaise reached the outskirts of London, but there was still light enough for Kitty’s eagerly straining eyes to discern such unaccustomed sights as a sedan-chair borne along by two stalwart carriers; a lamplighter mounted upon his ladder; a man with a tray of hot pies upon his head; an urchin sweeping a crossing for a portly old gentleman in a frock-coat and a Joliffe-shallow; carts, carriages, and coaches by the score; lights illumining fascinating wares in shop-windows; smart footmen sauntering on errands for their employers; beggars holding out cupped hands and dogging the footsteps of any benevolent-looking citizen; and, when the chaise drew towards the more modish quarter of the town, imposing mansions lining the streets, some with the flambeaux already kindled outside their doors.