She shook her head. “Believe me, Kit, it wouldn’t have answered!”
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Wouldn’t it? Am I to understand that your efforts have been crowned by success?”
“Well, I don’t know—and I must own that nothing could be more unfortunate than this General!” she said seriously. “It is bound to put her out of temper, to be obliged to keep her tongue between her teeth all the evening, for you may depend upon it she will have decided just how she means to rattle you down. However, there’s no denying that she has a pronounced tendre for you, and I am very hopeful that if you can but hit upon a scheme to bring us all off from this mingle-mangle without anyone’s knowing what. really happened she will be very much inclined to relent.”
“I should think she might well!”
She looked inquiringly at him. “I must own that it seems very difficult to me, but I wondered if you have already some such scheme in your mind? Have you?”
“Frankly, my loved one, no!”
“Oh!” she said, slightly dashed. “I must admit that it has me at a standstill, but I did think that perhaps you might have discovered just how to do the trick neatly!”
“I can see you did,” he replied, regarding her in rueful amusement. “Believe me, adorable, it is only with the utmost reluctance that I shatter an illusion so flattering to myself! But, sooner or later, the truth will out! Better, I dare say, to make a clean breast of it immediately! Cressy, my darling, if your mind is set on becoming the wife of a brilliant diplomatist, cry off at once! For I must confess to you that I too am wholly at a standstill!”
Her gravity melted into laughter. “Oh, Kit, you detestable creature! How dare you think me such a widgeon as to cherish illusions? I know that you’ll do the trick!”
Mr Fancot, having dealt suitably with this moving declaration of his loved one’s faith in his superior intellect, said affably, still holding her in his arms: “To be sure I shall! After all, I have twenty minutes to consider the problem before we sit down to dinner, haven’t I? As for the task of breaking the news of Mama’s approaching nuptials to Eve—not to mention cajoling him into accepting it with at least the semblance of complaisance!—twenty seconds, I dare say, will be time enough for me!”
Miss Stavely, a gurgle of laughter in her throat, but blatant adoration in her eyes, said: “More than enough—my darling, my darling!”
21
Dinner at Ravenhurst, that evening, was not destined to be ranked amongst Lady Denville’s more successful parties. She, indeed, deriving consolation from the reflection that no one for whose opinion she cared a rush would ever know anything about it, sparkled with all her usual brilliance; but her harassed son showed signs of preoccupation; Miss Stavely was in a quake; the Dowager, too longheaded to denounce, in the presence of a stranger, the irreclaimable hedge-bird seated beside her, at the head of the table, was understandably filled with a thwarted rage which caused her to snap the nose off anyone so unwise as to address her; and General Oakenshaw was revolted by the discovery that his ancient rival (whom he variously stigmatized as a chawbacon, a bag-pudding, a ludicrously fat Bartholomew baby, and a contemptible barber’s block) was not only an honoured guest at Ravenhurst, but was apparently on terms of the most regrettable intimacy with his hostess.
The only person, in fact, who enjoyed the party was Sir Bonamy Ripple.
He had joined the rest of the company without the smallest expectation of enjoyment. The recuperative nap to which he had pinned his faith had been denied him: he had been unable to close his eyes; and he arose from his uneasy couch feeling as blue as megrim, and much inclined to suspect that he had received notice to quit. But when he entered the saloon in which the remaining members of the party were gathered his sinking spirits revived. Lady Denville, ravishingly beautiful in a golden satin gown, came towards him, bewitching him with her lovely smile, and murmuring, as she held out her hands to him: “Bonamy, my dear!”
“Amabel!” he breathed. “Well, upon my word! Exquisite, my pretty! Exquisite!”
“Truly? Then I’m satisfied! No one is a better judge than you of what becomes me!”
He was so much overcome by this tribute that words failed him, and he was obliged to content himself with kissing both her hands. Straightening himself from a bow which caused his Cumberland corset to creak ominously, he became aware of General Oakenshaw, and realized, with immense satisfaction, that that distinguished gentleman was observing this passage with blatant revulsion. From that moment his subsequent enjoyment of the evening was assured. Raising his quizzing-glass to his eye, he ejaculated: “God bless my soul! Oakenshaw!” Then allowing his quizzing-glass to fall, he surged forward, holding out his hand and saying, with an apologetic air which deceived no one: “My dear sir! You must forgive me for not immediately recognizing you! But when one begins to grow old, you know, one’s memory fails! How many years is it since I last had the pleasure of shaking your hand? Ah, well! best not inquire too closely into that, eh?”
“My memory has not failed!” countered the General. “I recognized you the instant you came into the room! Still as fat as a flawn, I perceive!”
“No, no, my dear old friend!” said Sir Bonamy, with unabated joviality. “It is like your kind heart to say so, but I am much fatter than that! But you haven’t changed a jot! Now I look at you more closely I see that you are still the same old—what was it they used to call you? Sheep-biter! No, no, what am I thinking of? That wasn’t it! Spider-shanks! Ay, how could I have forgotten? Spider-shanks!”
This interchange, while it wonderfully refreshed Sir Bonamy, afforded no pleasure at all to anyone else, with the possible exception of the Dowager. She, indeed, uttered a sharp crack of laughter, but whether this arose from amusement, or from an unamiable wish to vent her spleen on someone, whether she was acquainted with him, or (as happened to be the case) had never met him before in her life, was doubtful.
By the time dinner came to an end, even Lady Denville, whose delightful insouciance had been maintained, without apparent effort, throughout the meal, felt that the sooner her courtly but ancient admirer took his departure the better it would be for everyone; and she issued a softly spoken direction to Norton to bring in the tea-tray not a moment later than half-past eight. Since Cressy had been unable to warn her that the Dowager was in possession of her guilty secret, she was unprepared to meet the attack mounted against her by that formidable octogenarian the instant the door of the Long Drawing-room had been shut, and made no attempt to defend herself. All she did was to bow her shining head before the storm, saying wretchedly: “I know, I know, but indeed I never meant to cause so much trouble! It was my fault—all of it! Say what you like to me, ma’am, but pray, pray don’t lay the blame at poor Kit’s door!”
In the event, this spiritless behaviour stood her in excellent stead, as Cressy, on the brink of picking up the cudgels in her defence, providentially realized. The Dowager saidcrossly: “For heaven’s sake, don’t start to cry, Amabel! You’re a pea-goose, and always were, and that’s all there is to it! As for your precious Kit, you may leave him to fight his own battles! He has enough effrontery for anything!”
From this, Cressy, who had been doing her best to entertain the General when the Dowager exchanged a brief but pungent discourse with Mr Fancot during the course of dinner, deduced, thankfully, that he had not sunk beyond recall in her grandmother’s opinion.