“Well, that would no doubt be a comfort to my brother,” retorted Kit, “but it’s none at all to me!”
4
Shortly before eight o’clock that evening, my Lord Denville’s town carriage, an impressive vehicle which bore its noble owner’s arms emblazoned on the door-panels, drew up in Mount Street to set down its solitary, and extremely reluctant occupant.
No one, observing this gentleman’s composure, could have guessed that it had taken the united efforts of his mother and his brother’s valet to coax and coerce him into lending himself to what he persisted in calling an outrageous masquerade.
Fimber and Mr Clent had done their work well. Mr Clent, a dedicated artist, had given Mr Fancot a modish Corinthian cut, accepting without question the explanation offered him that the length of his supposed lordship’s glowing locks was due to his prolonged absence from London; and Fimber had spent a full hour teaching him how to tie his neckcloth in the intricate style favoured by his lordship. He told him that it was known as the Trône d’Amour, a piece of information which drew from the exasperated Mr Fancot the acid rejoinder that it was a singularly inappropriate style for the occasion. Mr Fancot also took exception to the really very moderate, though highly starched, points of his collar, saying that it seemed to him that his brother had become a damned dandy. But Fimber, treating him firmly but with great patience, described in such horrifying detail the height and rigidity of the very latest mode in collar-points, that he subsided, thankful that at least he was not obliged to wear these uncomfortable “winkers”. He added that if he had known that he would be expected to rig himself in raiment more suited to a ball than to a family dinner-party nothing would have induced him to yield to his mama’s persuasions. Lady Denville, striving to impress upon him the need to treat with the greatest formality an old lady who could be depended upon to take an instant dislike to any gentleman arriving at an evening party in pantaloons, did nothing to reconcile him to the ordeal awaiting him; but Fimber, deeming it to be time to put an end to such contrariness, speedily reduced him to schoolboy status by telling him severely that that was quite enough nonsense, and that he would do as he was bid. He added, as a clincher, that Mr Christopher need not try to gammon him into believing that he wasn’t in the habit of wearing full evening-dress five days out of the seven. Furthermore, neither he nor her ladyship wished to listen to any further gibble-gabble about walking to Mount Street: Mr Christopher would go in the carriage, as befitted his station.
So Kit, driven in state to Mount Street, entered Lord Stavely’s house looking complete to a shade. Not only was he wearing the frilled shirt, the longtailed coat, the knee-breeches, and the silk stockings which constituted the fashionable attire of a gentleman bound for Almack’s: he carried a chapeau-bras under one arm, and one of his brother’s snuff-boxes in his pocket, Fimber having thrust this upon him at the last moment, with an urgent reminder that my lord was well-known to be a snuff-taker.
Having relinquished the chapeau-bras into the tender care of a footman, Mr Fancot trod up the stairs in the wake of the butler, and entered the drawing-room on that portly individual’s sonorous announcement.
At first glance, he received the impression that he was being scrutinized by upwards of fifty pairs of eyes. He discovered later that this was an exaggeration. His host, who was the only person whom he recognized, was chatting to a small group of people; he moved forward a step to greet the guest, and so also did two ladies. Fancot realized that he had been imperfectly coached: he had no idea which of them was the lady to whom he was supposed to have offered his hand. For one agonized moment he thought himself lost; then he saw that the taller of the two, a fashionably attired woman with elaborately dressed fair hair and a rather sharp-featured but undeniably pretty face, was in the family way; and barely repressing a sigh of relief, he bowed to her, and shook hands, exchanging greetings with a cool assurance he was far from feeling. He then turned towards her companion, smiling at her, and carrying the hand she extended to him to his lips. He thought that that was probably what Evelyn, a practised flirt, would do; but even as he lightly kissed the hand he was assailed by a fresh problem: how the devil ought he to address the girl? Did Evelyn call her Cressy, or was he still on formal terms with her? He had had as yet no opportunity to take more than a brief look at her, but he had received the impression that she was a little stiff: possibly shy, certainly reserved. Not a beauty, but a good-looking girl, grey-eyed and brown-haired, and with a shapely figure. Well enough but quite unremarkable, and not at all the sort of female likely to appeal to Evelyn.
At this moment, and just as he released Miss Stavely’s hand, one of the assembled company, an elderly spinster who had been observing him with avid curiosity, confided to a stout matron in the over-loud voice of the deaf: “Very handsome! That I must own!”
Startled, and far from gratified, Kit looked up, involuntarily meeting Miss Stavely’s eyes. They held a look of twinkling appreciation; and he thought suddenly that she was more taking than he had at first supposed. He smiled, but before he could speak Lord Stavely interposed, saying: “Come, Denville, my mother is anxious to make your acquaintance!”
He led the way across the room to where the Dowager Lady Stavely was seated in a large armchair, grimly watching their approach.
Listening to his mama’s daunting description of the Dowager, Kit had insensibly formed the impression of a massive lady, with a hook nose and a commanding bosom. He realized that his imagination had misled him: the Dowager was small, and spare, with a straight nose and a flat bosom. She had a deceptive air of fragility, and her thin fingers were twisted by gout. Her expression was not that of one anxious to make Lord Denville’s acquaintance. When her son rather obsequiously presented Kit, she said: “H’m!” in a disparaging tone, and looked him over critically from head to foot before holding out her hand. That tickled his ready sense of humour, and brought a dancing smile into his eyes. He said demurely: “I am honoured, ma’am!” and bowed politely over her hand.
“Fiddle!” she snapped. “So you are William Denville’s son,” are you? You’re not as good-looking as your father.”
Lord Stavely cleared his throat deprecatingly; a faded lady of uncertain age and a harassed demeanour, who was standing beside the Dowager’s chair, looked imploringly at Kit, and uttered a faint, twittering sound. He was aware of tension amongst the assembled members of the family, and began to be very much amused. He replied: “Oh, no! But, then, my father was exceptionally good-looking, wasn’t he, ma’am’?”
She glared at him; and, in another attempt to put him out of countenance, said: “And, by what I hear, you’re not as well-behaved either!”
“He was exceptionally well-behaved too,” countered Kit.
Someone behind him gave a smothered guffaw; the faded lady, blenching, said, in the voice of one expectant of a blistering set-down: “Oh, pray, Mama—!”
“Pray what?” demanded the Dowager sharply.
Lord Stavely, jerked out of paralysis by a nudge from his wife’s elbow, hurried into the breach, saying: “I must make you known to my sister Clara, Denville! I believe you have not previously met, though you are acquainted, I fancy, with my eldest sister, Lady Ebchester.”
Kit, casting a swift glance round the room, saw that one of the middle-aged ladies present was favouring him with a slight smile, and an inclination of her turbaned head, and said promptly: “Yes, indeed! But—” drawing a bow at what he believed to be a fairly safe venture—“I have not hitherto had the pleasure of making Miss Clara Stavely’s acquaintance. Your servant, ma’am!”