“I’ll keep my hat over my eyes, and wind a muffler round my chin,” promised Evelyn. “What’s the significance of East Grinstead?”
“Well, you don’t ever stop for a change there, do you?”
“What, a bare six or seven miles from here? No, of course I don’t!”
“So however well they may know you at the toll-gate, they don’t know you at the posting-houses. I propose to leave the curricle at one of them, and to accomplish the rest of the journey in a job-chaise. Challow will have to walk to East Grinstead as soon as it begins to get dark, and drive the curricle up to London tomorrow. Fimber will follow us, with your baggage: no difficulty about that! I must remember to ask him where he deposited my own baggage, by the bye. You’ll set me down, when we get to London, and arrive in solitary state in Hill Street, where, in due course, I also shall arrive—in a hack, having, for some inscrutable reason, journeyed up from the coast on the stage-coach.”
“Not the stage: the Mail!” interrupted Cressy.
“Yes, that’s much better!” Kit agreed. “Thank you, love!”
“And then?” she asked.
“I must see your father, and disclose thetruth to him. If I can persuade him to pardon the deception, and to give his consent to our marriage, I think I can contrive to turn the affair into an unexceptionable romance. If not—” He stopped, and said, after a moment: “I don’t know, Cressy, and can’t bring myself to face that possibility!”
“Well, that don’t signify!” said the Dowager, who had been listening to him intently. “He’ll consent fast enough when he learns that I do!”
“May I tell him that, ma’am?”
“I said you might marry Cressy with my goodwill, if you could find a way out of this scrape without setting tongues wagging, and I’m a woman of my word! How do you mean to do it?”
He smiled. “I don’t ma’am: it would be a task quite beyond my capability!”
“Beyond anyone’s, my boy,” said Sir Bonamy. “There’s bound to be a deal of talk: no getting away from that!”
“None at all, sir. The only thing to be done is to sell the world a bargain!—I beg your pardon, ma’am!—to publish a Banbury story, which the tattle-boxes may discuss to their hearts’ content without doing any of us an ounce of harm.”
“Another of your hoaxes, eh? I thought as much!” said the Dowager, eyeing him with a certain grim respect.
“The last one, I promise you!” he said. “And only with your approval, ma’am!”
“You’ve as much effrontery as your brother!” she told him. “Out with it!”
“Yes, ma’am! Little though any of you may know it, my love for Cressy is of long standing. I met her when I was last in England, and formed an enduring passion for her, which, however, I—er—kept locked in my breast!”
“Why?” demanded Cressy, blinking in bewilderment.
“I knew my case to be hopeless. Your father would not have entertained my suit, nor did I feel that my circumstances were such as would enable me to support you in the style to which you were accustomed.”
“You were modest, weren’t you?” said Evelyn.
“Certainly I was! Noble, too, don’t you think?”
“No,” replied Evelyn frankly. “Buffleheaded!”
“Dear one, Evelyn is perfectly right!” said Lady Denville. “You couldn’t have been such a goose! Depend upon it, everyone must know that you came into a comfortable fortune when your father died!”
“Let the boy alone!” commanded the Dowager. “Stavely thought it not large enough: I’ll attend to that! Go on!”
“I’m much obliged to you, ma’am! Well, I withdrew, never dreaming that my passion was reciprocated, and that I was dashing Cressy’s hopes to the ground.”
“Oh, Kit, no!” Cressy uttered imploringly. “Don’t tell me I hadn’t the wit to throw out even one lure!”
“No, no!” he assured her. “You had too much maidenly reserve to do so! And far too much pride to let anyone suspect your secret. You resolutely thrust me out of your mind.”
“No, I didn’t: I wondered if Evelyn wouldn’t suit me just as well. After all, he’s as like you as he can stare!”
“That’s an even better notion,” said Kit approvingly. “We now arrive at the point where we stand on unassailable ground. My godfather died, leaving his entire fortune to me. I built the whole story round that circumstance, because it is precisely what did happen! Naturally, this altered the complexion of the affair. I came home, full of hope, to find you on the brink of becoming betrothed to my brother. We met, our feelings were too strong to be mastered, and either Evelyn discovered us locked in a fond embrace, or we disclosed our touching story to him—whichever you fancy, Eve!—whereupon he too succumbed to an attack of nobility, and gracefully retired from the lists.”
“Only if I can also have too much pride to let anyone suspect my secret!” stipulated Evelyn. “Not even for you am I going to languish with a broken heart, Kester!”
Sir Bonamy, who had listened in rapt interest to the tale, said: “Well, if ever I knew you had it in you, Kit! Why, I shouldn’t wonder at it if you could write a book, or a play, or some such thing!” He perceived, with faint surprise, that Cressy had collapsed into helpless giggles. “I’m bound to say I don’t see what there is to laugh at: in my opinion you made a dashed moving thing of it, my boy! You know, Amabel, I begin to think he’ll go a long way after all!”
“I know he will!” she responded proudly. “I’ve frequently told you that Kit was always equal to anything!”
Kit’s lips twitched at these tributes, but he was looking at the Dowager. “Will it do, ma’am?”
She was not attending, and vouchsafed no answer. He waited; and after a short interval she said abruptly: “I’ll write to Stavely: no sense in leaving anything to chance! You’ll give the letter to him, and take care he reads it! I never in my life listened to a sicklier, stupider story, but, from what I’ve seen of you, all you would do, if I was to tell you I wouldn’t have it, would be to think of something even more outrageous! Cressy, you may give me your arm! I’m going to bed, for I’m fagged to death!” She bade the assembled company a cursory good night, but informed Kit, holding open the door for her, that she would thank him not to get himself hanged while she was still alive, and able to feel the shame of being connected with a gallows-bird. After that, she allowed him to kiss her hand, and withdrew, leaning heavily on Cressy’s arm.
“Kester, if you do indeed mean to spread this story, we must give it a new touch! You could no more tell it as it stands than I could. Anyone who knows us would guess we were cutting a sham!”
“Good God, we aren’t going to spread it!” replied Kit. “That’s the last thing we should do, if it happened to be true! There’s no need to dress it up. We have only to put Fimber and Challow in possession of the bare bones of it, and leave them to tell it as they please. Give Challow half-an-hour amongst his cronies at the Running Footman, and I’ll lay you any odds you like that there’ll be upwards of a dozen garbled versions spreading all over London within a day! Lord, how many times has Challow favoured you with a choice morsel of gossip? If Stavely consents to Cressy’s marriage, he’ll be only too glad to adopt the story; and I don’t mean to tell Mama what sort of touch to give it!”
“Oh, no!” agreed Lady Denville. “I know just how I shall tell it, if anyone ventures to ask me any questions, when the advertisement of the engagement appears! Of course, only my particular friends will venture, but I know one who will, and it won’t matter a rush if not another soul does!”