“That’s the dandy, old fellow!” said Freddy, stemming the flow. “No need to stroke me, though. Now, stop it, Dolph, for the lord’s sake!”
He managed to disengage himself, but Lord Dolphinton had not reached the end of his disclosures. “When Jack came, I wasn’t glad,” he said. “Sorry. Because I don’t like him. I’ll tell you something, Freddy: Hugh wouldn’t let me get in the cupboard, and I’m glad of that too.”
Mr. Standen, who had long since ceased to feel surprise at anything his eccentric relative might say or do, thrust him gently into a chair, and said amiably: “Of course you are. No need to sit in the cupboard on my account. If it’s your mother you’re worrying about, no need to do that either: she ain’t coming here.”
“You know that, Freddy?” said his lordship.
“Lord, yes! Gone to a party—thinks you’re at Arnside!” said Freddy, improvising cleverly.
Lord Dolphinton, on whom the repeated assurances of Miss Charing and Miss Plymstock had made no impression at all, appeared to accept this. He turned to relay the information to Miss Plymstock; and Freddy was at liberty to turn his attention to his betrothed, who was tugging at his coat in a way which drew a protest from him.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” Kitty said. “But how in the world did you guess that I had forgot the licence?”
Mr. Standen rubbed his nose reflectively. “Struck me when Meg gave me your letter. What I mean is, told me everything else, but didn’t say a word about the licence. What’s more, knew dashed well you hadn’t enough money to purchase it, and had a strong notion Dolph hadn’t either. Meant to have been here with it sooner, but the thing was I got detained. Had to buy the Broughty girl a toothbrush.”
“Had to do what!” exclaimed Kitty.
“Dash it, Kit, couldn’t let her go to France without one! Must see that!” expostulated Freddy. “Not the thing at all! Bought her a hairbrush and comb as well. Meg saw to the rest, but if ever there was a hen-witted female it’s Meg!”
“Freddy, are you telling me Olivia has gone to France?” demanded Kitty, dazed.
“Gone to Dover,” corrected Freddy. “Boarding the packet tomorrow.”
Mr. Westruther, regarding him out of narrowed eyes, said silkily: “You have been busy, coz, have you not?”
“I should dashed well think I have!” said Freddy, stirred by the memory of his activities.
“You have—you will agree!—a trifle of explaining to do!”
“Not to you, Jack!” said Freddy, meeting his eyes fair and square.
The Rector, a silent and puzzled auditor, at this point moved a pace forward, but it was Kitty who intervened. “Good God! Freddy, she has not eloped with Camille?”
“That’s it,” said Mr. Standen, pleased to find her of such a ready understanding. “Best thing she could do. Saw it in a flash. Thing was, Gosford offered for her—poor girl cast into despair—came to find you—found me instead! Left her with Meg, and went off to your cousin’s lodgings. Silly fellow flew into his high ropes: never met such a gabster in my life! Give you my word, Kit, he enacted me a whole Cheltenham tragedy! However, contrived to settle it all right and tight in the end. Saw ’em off from the Golden Cross, told the hack to take me to Doctors’ Commons, got the licence, and posted down here as soon as I could. Here, Hugh! you’d better take the thing!”
With these words, he handed over a folded document to his cousin. Hugh took it, but before he could say anything, Kitty exclaimed: “But, Freddy, an elopement! Have you considered—I own, the thought did not occur to me until quite recently!—that Camille must be a Catholic?”
It was plain that Mr. Standen had not considered this possibility. He once more rubbed the tip of his nose, but said philosophically, after a moment’s reflection: “Oh, well, no sense in teasing ourselves over a trifle! If he is, she’ll have to change! Shouldn’t think she’d object: seems a very biddable girl!”
Kitty drew a breath. “Then—then everything is settled! At least, it will be, when Dolph and Hannah are married, and there can be no difficulty about that, now that you have brought them that stupid licence! Oh, Freddy, it is all your doing!”
“No, no!” said Freddy, embarrassed.
“Yes, indeed it is! For although it was I who wanted Olivia to marry Camille, I should never have thought of telling him to carry her off to France; and you see what sad work I made of poor Dolph’s elopement! I am so very grateful to you! Oh, and Jack says that Uncle Matthew is going to marry Fish, and that is a very good thing too, though, to be sure, it was none of our doing!”
“Is he, though?” said Freddy, mildly interested. “Well, I daresay it don’t matter, because he’s a deuced rum ’un himself, but that Fish of yours is queer in her attic.”
“Freddy, she is not!”
“Must be. Dash it, wouldn’t write to you about Henry VIII if she wasn’t! Stands to reason.”
“You are mistaken, coz,” interrupted Mr. Westruther, in a brittle voice. “The Fish is cleverer than we knew. I have not the slightest desire to dwell upon all she saw fit to pour into my ears not an hour since, for I found it nauseating, but if the matter teases you, you may as well know that she believes herself to be comparable to Katherine Parr—tending the aged and irascible monarch!” he added sarcastically.
“So that was it!” exclaimed Kitty. “Of course! He had a bad leg too! Though I fancy it was not precisely gout that afflicted him, was it? Now I see it all! How very like Fish to be so absurd! If only Uncle Matthew has not bullied her into saying she will marry him, I must say I think it an excellent thing for them both, don’t you, Freddy?”
“Well, Freddy?” said Mr. Westruther. “Do you think it excellent, or does some grain of common-sense exist in your mind?”
“Not my affair,” said Freddy. “At least—come to think of it, not sure it isn’t, in which case I do think it’s an excellent thing. What I mean is, I don’t want that woman living with us, and if she marries my great-uncle she dashed well can’t!”
Miss Charing’s cheeks became flooded with colour. “But, F-Freddy—!” she faltered.
Mr. Westmther laughed. “Just so, my love! You have been so busily employed in making what I can only call infelicitous matches that you have left your own future out of account, have you not? Oh, don’t look so conscious! I imagine Hugh cannot be so wood-headed that he does not know very well what game you have been playing! Dolphinton, I am sure, we need not regard; and as for Miss Plymstock, I look upon her as quite one of the family! It has been an amusing game, my little one, and you must not think that I blame you for having played it. It was very unhandsome of me not to have come to Arnside that day, was it not?”
He moved towards her as he spoke; his eyes were laughing again; and he held out his hands. The Rector cast a glance at Mr. Standen, but Mr. Standen had discovered an infinitesimal speck of fluff adhering to his coat sleeve, and was engaged in removing it. It was a task that appeared to absorb his whole attention.
Miss Charing took a step backward. “If you please, Jack,” she said, rather breathlessly, “no more!”
“Oh, nonsense, Kitty, nonsense!” Mr. Westruther said impatiently. “This folly has gone far enough!”
Miss Charing swallowed, and managed to say: “I collect that you mean to ask me to marry you, but—but I beg you will not! If you had come—that day—I should have accepted your offer, which would have been a very great mistake, and makes me so deeply thankful now that you did not come! Pray, Jack, say no more!”
He paid no heed to this, but said: “The fair Olivia admitted you a little too deeply into her confidence, did she? I was afraid she would. Don’t trouble your pretty head for such a trifle as that, Kitty! You will own that I have borne with tolerable equanimity the news that she has fled to France with your enterprising cousin.”
“No, no, it is not that! I can’t tell what it is, only that perhaps I have changed, or—or something of that nature!” said Kitty. “And, indeed, Jack, I am excessively fond of you, and I daresay I shall always be, in spite of knowing that you are quite odiously selfish, but, if you will not be very much offended, I would much prefer not to be married to you!”