“Poor boy!” said Lady Denville, smiling kindly upon him. “I dare say if you were to go for a walk it would soon leave you.”
“Amabel, I must beg you not to encourage Ambrose to expose himself!” said Mrs Cliffe. “There is a wind blowing, and I am positive it is easterly, for I myself have a touch of the tic, which I never get but when there is an east wind! It would be fatal for Ambrose to stir out of doors when he is already not quite the thing, for with his constitution, you know, any disorder is very likely to lay him up for a fortnight!”
“Is it?” said Lady Denville, gazing at her nephew with the awed interest of one confronted with some rare exhibit. “Poor boy, how awkward it must be for you, to be obliged to remain indoors whenever the wind is in the east! Because, so often it is!”
“Well, well, we need not make mountains out of molehills!” said Cosmo testily. “I don’t deny that his constitution is sickly, but—”
“Nonsense, Cosmo, how can you talk so?” exclaimed his sister. “I’m sure he isn’t sickly, even if he has got a little headache!” She smiled encouragingly at Ambrose, sublimely unconscious of having offended all three Cliffes: Ambrose, because, however much he might dislike having an incipient boil pointed out, he was proud of his headaches, which often earned for him a great deal of attention; Cosmo, because he had for some years subscribed to his wife’s view of the matter, finding in Ambrose’s delicacy an excuse for his sad want of interest in any manly sport; and Emma, because she regarded any suggestion that her only child was not in a deplorable state of debility as little short of an insult.
“I fear,” said Cosmo, “that Ambrose has never enjoyed his cousins’ robust health.”
“Your sister cannot be expected to understand delicate constitutions, my dear,” said Emma. “I dare say the twins never suffered a day’s illness in their lives!”
“No, I don’t think they did,” replied Lady Denville, with a touch of pride. “They were the stoutest couple! Of course, they did have things like measles and whooping-cough, but I can’t recall that they were ever ill. In fact, when they had whooping-cough, one of them—was it you, dearest?—climbed up the chimney after a starling’s nest!”
“No, that was Kit,” said Mr Fancot.
“So it was!” she agreed, twinkling at him.
“But how terrible!” exclaimed Emma.
“Yes, wasn’t it? He came down looking exactly like a blackamoor, and brought so much soot down with him that everything in the room seemed to be covered with it. I don’t think I ever laughed so much in my life!”
“Laughed?” gasped Emma. “Laughed when one of your children was in danger of falling, and breaking his neck?”
“Well, I don’t think he could have done that, though I suppose he might have broken his legs, or got stuck in the chimney. I do remember wondering how we were to get him out if he did stick tight. However, it would have been a great waste of time to get into a worry about the twins, because they were for ever falling out of trees, or into the lake, or off their ponies, and nothing dreadful ever happened to them,” said Lady Denville serenely.
Mrs Cliffe could only shudder at such callous unconcern; while Ambrose, quite mistakenly supposing that these reflections were directed at his own, less adventurous, career, fell into obvious sulks.
Lady Denville, having disposed of the tea and bread-and-butter which constituted her breakfast, then excused herself, saying, as she got up from the table: “Now I must leave you, because Nurse Pinner seems not to be very well, and it would be too unkind in me not to visit her, and perhaps take her something to tempt her appetite.”
“Some fruit!” said Kit hastily.
She gave a little chuckle, and said, irrepressible mischief in her voice: “Yes, dearest! Not quails!”
“Quails!” ejaculated Cosmo, shocked beyond measure. “Quails for your old nurse, Amabel?”
“No, Evelyn thinks some fruit would be better.”
“I should have thought that some arrowroot, or a supporting broth would have been more suitable!” said Emma.
That set her incorrigible sister-in-law’s eyes dancing wickedly. “Oh, no, I assure you it wouldn’t be! Particularly not the arrowroot, which—which she abominates! Dear Emma, how uncivil it is in me to run away, as I must! But I am persuaded you must understand how it, is!” Her lovely—smile embraced her seething younger son. “Dearest, I leave our guests in your hands! Oh, and I think a bottle of port, don’t you? So much more supporting than mutton-broth! So will you, if you please,—”
“Don’t tease yourself, Mama!” he interrupted, holding open the door for her. “I’ll attend to that!”
“To be sure, I might have known you would!” she said, wholly unaffected by the quelling look she received from him. “You will know just what will be most acceptable!”
“I sometimes wonder,” said Cosmo, in accents of the deepest disapproval, as Kit shut the door behind her ladyship, “whether your mother has taken entire leave of her senses, Denville!”
Mr Fancot might be incensed by his wayward parent’s behaviour, but no more than the mildest criticism was needed to make him show hackle. “Do you, sir?” he said, dangerously affable. “Then it affords me great pleasure to be able to reassure you!”
Mr Cliffe’s understanding was not superior, but only a moonling could have failed to read the challenge behind the sweet smile that accompanied these words. Reddening, he said: “I imagine I may venture, without impropriety, to animadvert upon the conduct of one who is my sister!”
“Do you, sir?” said Kit again, and with even more affability.
Mr Cliffe, rising, and going towards the door with great stateliness, expressed the hope that he had rather too much force of mind to allow himself to be provoked by the top-loftiness of a mere nephew, who was, like many other bumptious sprigs, too ready to sport his canvas; and withdrew in good order.
Mindful of the charge laid upon him, Kit then turned his attention to his aunt, with polite suggestions for her entertainment. She received these with a slight air of affront, giving him to understand that her day would be spent in laying slices of lemon-peel on her son’s brow, burning pastilles, and—if his headache persisted—applying a cataplasm to his feet. He listened gravely to this dismal programme; and with a solicitude which placed a severe strain upon Miss Stavely’s self-command, and caused Ambrose to glare at him in impotent rage, suggested that in extreme cases a blister to the head was often found to be beneficial. Apparently feeling that he had discharged his obligations, he then invited Miss Stavely to take a turn in the shrubbery with him. Miss Stavely, prudently refusing to meet his eye, said, with very tolerable composure, that that would be very agreeable; and subsequently afforded him the gratification of realizing (had he been considering the matter) that she was eminently fitted to become the wife of an Ambassador by containing her bubbling amusement until out of sight of the house, when pent-up giggles overcame her, and rapidly infected her somewhat harassed escort.
Mr Fancot, the first to recover, said: “Yes, I know, Cressy, but there is nothing to laugh at in the fix we are now in, I promise you! I imagine you’ve guessed already that my abominable twin has reappeared?”
“Oh, yes!” she managed to utter. “F-from the moment G-Godmama said—said: Not quails! with such a quizzing look at you!”
Mr Fancot grinned, but expressed his inability to understand why no one had ever yet murdered his beloved mama. Miss Stavely cried out upon him for saying anything so unjust and improper; but she became rather more sober as she listened to the tale of Evelyn’s adventure. She did indeed suffer a slight relapse when kindly informed of her noble suitor’s relief at learning that he had been released from his obligations; but she was quick to perceive all the difficulties of a situation broadened to include an alternative bride for his lordship of whom so rigid a stickler as his uncle would certainly not approve.