False Colours Part 17

She had said enough. Mrs Cliffe, pallid with dismay, declared distractedly that nothing could prevail upon her to remain another hour in such a plague-stricken neighbourhood. Amabel might think her timorous and uncivil, but she must understand that every consideration must yield to the paramount need to remove her only son out of danger.

Lady Denville, to Kit's intense admiration, managed to beseech her not to fly from Ravenhurst, without in any way lessening her alarm; Cosmo, when dramatically appealed to, wavered; and Ambrose, who had been dragged to Ravenhurst against his will, and had been wis.h.i.+ng himself otherwhere from the moment he had crossed the threshold, seized the first opportunity that offered of lending his mother his support. He did not think the air at Ravenhurst salubrious; he had not cared to mention it before, but he had been feeling out of sorts for several days. A hint that a few weeks spent at Brighton might prove beneficial was well taken by Mrs Cliffe, but met with a flat veto from Cosmo, visibly appalled by the very thought of sojourning at so expensive a resort.

In the end, and after much argument,, it was settled that they should go to Worthing, where, according to what Mrs Cliffe had learnt from the Dowager, there were several excellent boarding-houses which provided an extraordinary degree of comfort at very moderate charges. Here, protected from the chilling blasts of the north and east winds by the Downs, Ambrose would be able to bathe, or to ride along the sands, without running the risk of contracting an inflammation of the lungs. There were also three respectable libraries, at two of which newspapers and magazines were received every morning and evening; and at least one very reliable doctor, of whom the Dowager spoke in terms of rare encomium.

Had it been possible, Cosmo would have returned with his wife and son to his own home; but since he had graciously lent this for the summer months to a distant and far from affluent cousin, who was too thankful to have been offered, free, a country residence large enough to accommodate his numerous progeny to cavil at being obliged to pay the wages of Cosmo's servants, this was impossible. With the utmost reluctance, and only when the wife of his bosom had announced that he might remain at Ravenhurst, if he chose to run the risk of contracting scarlet fever, but that nothing would prevail upon her to expose her only child to such a danger, did he consent to remove that very day to Worthing's one hotel, and then only on condition that no time should be lost, on arrival at this elegant hostelry, in seeking less expensive quarters.

It was not to be expected that Mr Ambrose Cliffe, hankering after the amus.e.m.e.nts afforded by Brighton, would be entirely satisfied by the decision to spend the summer months at a small place patronized largely by such elderly persons as disliked the racket of Brighton; but as he had never had much hope of persuading his father to look for lodgings in Brighton, and knew that Worthing was a mere ten or eleven miles distant from the more fas.h.i.+onable resort, he raised no objection.

Throughout the discussion, which was punctuated by charming, if mendacious, entreaties from Lady Denville that her relations should remain at Ravenhurst, in defiance of a rumour which she was positive was ill-founded, Sir Bonamy, with the utmost placidity, continued to work his way through the various dishes set upon the table. Only when Mrs Cliffe, hurrying away to prepare for the journey, turned to take her leave of him, did he heave himself out of his chair, or betray the smallest interest in the scarifying story set about by his hostess. She, declaring her intention of rendering dear Emma every a.s.sistance in the arduous task of packing her trunk, shepherded the three Cliffes out of the room, but turned back, exclaiming that she had forgotten to pick up her reticule, for the purpose of confiding hurriedly to her son and her cicisbeo that it was all a hum, but that she had felt that the Cliffes must be induced to go away.

'Yes, yes, my pretty, I knew you were up to your tricks!' said Sir Bonamy fondly. 'I never thought you'd endure having that brother of yours here above a sennight. Told you he was a devilish dull dog!'

'Yes, isn't he? But that's not it! I invited him because I thought it would make it less awkward for Kit, but it turns out that he makes it much more awkward, now that Evelyn has returned! I can't stay to explain it to you, but Kit will do so!'

She then flitted away in the wake of Mrs Cliffe, and Sir Bonamy, lowering himself into his chair again, drew a dish of peaches and nectarines towards him, pausing only, before making a careful selection from amongst them, to inform Kit that there was no need for him to explain anything to him, 'Just as soon you didn't, my boy! Nothing to do with me!' he said, delicately pinching one of the peaches.

'I won't,' promised Kit. 'But I've been wanting to have a word with you, sir! I believe you may be able to help me.'

Sir Bonamy, casting him a glance of acute suspicion, said: 'I shouldn't think so- shouldn't think so at all! Not if it has anything to do with this havey-cavey rig you're running!'

'Nothing at all,' replied Kit rea.s.suringly. 'It is merely that I find myself faced with a-a social problem on which I am very sure you can advise me.'

'Oh, if that's all-!' said Sir Bonamy, much relieved. 'Very happy to be of service, my boy!' He picked up his fruit knife, adding, with a simplicity which robbed his words of self-consequence: 'You couldn't have applied to a better man!'

'Just so!' agreed Kit. 'It's quite a small matter, but it has me in rather a puzzle. If you stood in my shoes, sir-or, rather, in my brother's-and you wished to visit someone who happened to be staying at the Pavilion, how would you set about it?'

Sir Bonamy raised his eyes from the peach, which he had begun to strip of its skin, and stared very hard at Kit. 'Who?' he demanded.

'One of the Prince Regent's guests, sir.'

'I wouldn't,' said Sir Bonamy, turning back to his peach. 'You don't want to get mixed up in that set. Couldn't if you did. I'm the only one of Prinny's friends Denville is acquainted with, so what does he want with any of 'em?'

'A trifling matter of business, which I wish to discharge for him.'

'Well, if that's all, my advice to you is to wait until he leaves the Pavilion,' said Sir Bonamy, dissecting his peach with finicking care.

'Unfortunately, the matter is rather urgent, sir.'

'Oh, it is, is it? Sounds to me as if that brother of yours has been getting himself into trouble! Not been playing cards in that set, has he?'

'No, he has not-which you must surely be in a better position than I am to know!'

replied Kit, a little stiffly.

Sir Bonamy nodded, conveying a quarter of the peach to his mouth. 'I didn't think he had, but one never knows what these young c.o.c.ks of the game will get up to next.

Too rackety by half! Now, you needn't bite my nose off! Who is it you want to visit at the Pavilion? Can't help you if I don't know.'

'Lord Silverdale. On a matter of business, as I have said.'

Sir Bonamy slowly consumed another quarter of the peach. 'Well, if I were you, Kit, I'd tell Evelyn not to enter on any business with Silverdale. Don't mind telling you that Prinny's got some mighty queer cronies! He's one of 'em. A shocking loose-screw, my boy! Never a feather to fly with, either, and has a d.a.m.ned nasty tongue in his head. Cuts up more characters in an evening than I would in a twelvemonth.'

'Nevertheless, sir, it is imperative that I should see him.'

Sir Bonamy turned his eyes towards him, and stared at him for several unwinking moments. 'Oh! Now, look 'ee, my boy! If it has anything to do with the ruby brooch your mother lost to him at play, you leave well alone! Ay, and tell your brother to do so too!'

'So you know about that, do you, sir?'

'Yes, yes, of course I know!' said Sir Bonamy. 'I was there! Saw her stake it, and so did everyone else. A silly thing to do, for her luck was quite out, but nothing in it to make Evelyn get upon his high ropes! All open and above-board, you know, and everyone joking her about it, and saying it was just like her to throw her jewellery after her guineas. Why, even Silverdale himself couldn't brew any scandal-broth out of it! So just you forget it, Kit, and tell Evelyn to take a damper!'

'I can't do that, sir. I feel quite as strongly as Evelyn does that the brooch must be redeemed.'

'Oh, I shouldn't try to do that!' said Sir Bonamy, putting the nectarine he had been considering back in the dish.

'But you must surely perceive-'

'No, I don't. If you was to ask me, I should say it was a good thing your mother did lose it! It never became her, you know. In fact, I can't think what made her take a fancy to it, for she don't in general make mistakes of that nature. But she can't wear rubies!

Anything else, but not rubies or garnets! Don't you try to get it back for her! Tell Evelyn to buy her another-sapphires or emeralds. She'll like it just as well!'

'Probably better,' agreed Kit, smiling.

'There you are, then!' said Sir Bonamy. 'Damme, Kit, you've cut your eye-teeth!

Don't you go stirring coals! Stupid thing to do, because you may depend upon it Silverdale sold it weeks ago!'

'I am very sure he didn't,' said Kit.

'You know nothing about it! Silverdale's going to pigs and whistles, and that brooch was worth a monkey if it was worth a groat.'

Kit hesitated before saying: 'I fancy I needn't hide my teeth with you, sir. It isn't worth more than a pony-if as much. It is nothing but trumpery: a copy of the real brooch.'

'Nonsense!' said Sir Bonamy testily.

'I wish it were nonsense, but I'm afraid-'

'Well, it is nonsense. Good G.o.d, you don't suppose Silverdale's a flat, do you?

Because he ain't!'

'I don't suppose it occurred to him that my mother would have staked it, if-'

'No, and nor did she!' interrupted Sir Bonamy. 'Told you I was there, didn't I? If you think I'd have let her put up a piece of trumpery, you've got less rumgumption than they give you credit for: more of a beetlehead than one of the tightish clever sort! The only advice I'm giving you is to tell young Denville to stop trying to raise a dust!'

He shot Kit an angry glare, and found that he was being steadily regarded. 'Mama told me herself that she had sold that brooch, sir,' said Kit. 'I recall, furthermore, that she also told me that you had several times sold trinkets for her.'

'Well, I didn't sell that brooch for her.'

'Did you ever sell any of her jewellery, sir?'

'Now, look 'ee, Kit. I've had enough of you trying to nose out what's no concern of yours!' said Sir Bonamy, in a bl.u.s.tering tone. 'Damme if you're not getting to be as bad as your brother! Well, I won't have it! Couple of impudent halflings I knew when you was fubsy, m.u.f.fin-faced brats in the same cradle! What your mother saw in you I never could make out!'

Kit could not help laughing, but he said: 'That's all very well, sir, but it won't do, you know. It is very much our concern-and you know that too!'

Sir Bonamy, who was looking hot and hara.s.sed, groped for his snuff-box, and fortified himself with a liberal pinch.

'Now, you listen to me, my boy!' he said. 'You've no reason to meddle, either of you! No one knows anything about the business, and never will, so if you're afraid of its leaking out and starting a scandal-'

'Believe me, sir, I'm not in the least afraid of that, and nor will Evelyn be!'

'For G.o.d's sake, Kit, don't go blabbing it all to Evelyn!' begged Sir Bonamy, alarmed. 'It's bad enough having to put up with you poking and prying into my business, without having that young make-bait buzzing round me like a hornet! I knew your mother before you was born or thought of, and, what's more, if it hadn't been for Denville, I might have been your father! Mind you, I'm d.a.m.ned glad I'm not, for of all the resty, top-lofty, whisky-frisky young jackanapes you're the worst!'

'Yes, sir,' said Kit meekly. 'But you can't expect us to allow my mother to stand in your debt!'

Sir Bonamy's little round eyes started at him, and his cheeks began to a.s.sume a purple hue. 'Oh, I can't, can't I? b.u.mptious, that's what you are, my boy! Next you'll be asking me to render up an account! Well, that's where you'll be bowled out, because I won't do it, and it's not a bit of good pestering your mother about it, because she don't know, bless her heart!'

'Sir, we can't let it rest like that!'

'Well, you'll learn your mistake! You can tell Evelyn it's none of his business, because it all happened before your father died. And don't you try to pay me for that curst brooch, for I won't have it! Good G.o.d, boy, what the devil is it to me, a miserable monkey?'

'If it was you who bought the Denville necklace, sir, Mama must be thousands in your debt!'

'Well, that's nothing to me either! Thought you knew that!'

'Everyone knows you're as rich as Golden Ball, sir, but it's beside the point.'

'No it ain't,' said Sir Bonamy crossly. 'You've got no right to stop me spending my blunt anyway I choose-not that I'd put it beyond you to try!'

'Sir, I do beg of you-'

'No, no, you keep your tongue between your teeth, Kit! Getting to be a regular jaw-me-dead! You'll only come to fiddlestick's end, and so I warn you! It was no fault of Evelyn's that your mother ran aground, and there was nothing he could have done about it when she was near to being blown up at Point Non-Plus! Little enough I could do either, for she never would take a penny from me unless she was forced to, and then I had to call it a loan, and charge her interest!'

'Which you never demand!'

'No, of course I don't! But I'm not at all sure that I oughtn't to have done so,' said Sir Bonamy reflectively. 'She's got no more notion of business than a kitten, but she don't like to be beholden. Frets her more than you might guess!' He chuckled. 'Bless her, she thinks all's right and tight if she can pay interest! She don't tell me much more than she told your father, and I've got my suspicions that she's borrowed money from others besides me. Well, I know she has, and that's where I'm at a stand, because she won't let me give her the rhino to pay her debts, and I can't redeem 'em without raising a nasty dust. She's got it fixed in her head that there's no harm in borrowing from people who don't hesitate to dun her for the interest she owes 'em, but that it's wrong to come to me. No use arguing with her: all she does is talk balderdash about imposing on me. And when I told her she ought to know there was nothing I wouldn't do for her, she said she did know it, and it made it worse!' He sighed. 'I dare say you don't like it-in fact, I know you don't-but I'm devoted to her-always have been, always shall be- but there's no understanding her!'

'I think I do understand what's in her mind when she doesn't like to hang on your sleeve, sir. You're mistaken in thinking that I don't like your devotion to her: we were used to be jealous of you, I think, but that was when we were m.u.f.fin-faced brats! What could either of us feel, in the light of what I've learnt today, but thankful for it that you were devoted to her, and-and most obliged to you?'

Sir Bonamy looked rather gratified, but said shrewdly: 'You speak for yourself, my boy! You ain't speaking for Evelyn, and if you think you are you don't know him as well as I thought you did!'

'I know him as I know myself,' Kit replied, 'and I am speaking for him. I haven't said he'll like it: he won't and nor do I. He won't stomach it. Good G.o.d, sir, how could either of us accept such a situation with complaisance? It was my father's duty to discharge Mama's debts. He didn't do so, and Evelyn will tell you that he inherited his obligations as well as his fortune.'

'Well, I'd as lief he didn't tell me,' responded Sir Bonamy. 'I don't want to have him ranting at me as well as you. What's more, he'll be wasting his breath, for he hasn't inherited your father's fortune yet, and from what I've seen of his carryings-on he ain't likely to get Brumby to wind that Trust up a day before he must! I'll tell you this too, Kit: when he does get control of his fortune he'll have enough to do to settle the rest of your mother's debts without adding what she's borrowed from me to 'em!'

18.

There was no more to be got from Sir Bonamy, who went off to enjoy his usual afternoon sleep in the library, saying that he was glad not to have that fidgety fellow, Cliffe, sharing the room with him any longer. Kit made no attempt to detain him. Every feeling might revolt against allowing his mother to be so deeply indebted to a man upon whom she had no claim, and who stood outside the family, but he could perceive no way either of forcing Sir Bonamy to state the sum of her obligation to him, or of discharging the debt, if he surmounted that first obstacle. The Cliffes were gone within an hour of rising from the nuncheon table; and Kit waited only to see them off before going across the park to Nurse Pinner's cottage. He found Fimber, whom he had sent there earlier with a couple of bottles of wine, engaged in rather more than usually acrimonious hostilities with Nurse, and for once at a disadvantage, since the n.o.ble object of their jealousy was once more, and for the first time since her retirement, restored to Nurse's fond and despotic care. Fimber had scored a point in having his services in helping his lords.h.i.+p to dress preferred to Nurse's; but he had been obliged to yield to her superior skill in bandaging; to endure, in tight-lipped silence, her sharply authoritative warnings and instructions when he eased my lord into his s.h.i.+rt and coat; and to suppress his wrath at my lord's tacit refusal to send her out of his tiny bedroom while he was dressed. She bustled in and out, full of interference, and addressing her nursling with such endearments as she had used during his childhood, so that the only course open to his valet was to adopt an att.i.tude of meticulous respect towards a young gentleman whom he was burning to scold and to cross-question.

When Kit walked into the parlour, Fimber bowed, and immediately informed him that he would find his lords.h.i.+p in the garden. He added, dropping his voice in the manner of one imparting a confidence whose significance was known only to himself and Kit, that he would find his lords.h.i.+p a trifle on the fidgets.

'Lord bless the man, what else was to be expected?' Nurse exclaimed scornfully.

'Do you go out to him, Master Kit! And if he is to go up to the house this evening, as her ladys.h.i.+p wishes, you may bring him back here, though there's not a bit of need, for I can help him out of his coat better than you or Fimber. Nor I don't want Fimber to come fussing round him at that hour of night, keeping him awake till all hours, with brus.h.i.+ng his clothes, and I don't know what besides, in the finicking way he has!'

'Well, we can talk about that later, Pinny,' Kit said pacifically. He added, with the flicker of an eyelid at the outraged valet: 'Better get back to the house now, Fimber, or Norton will begin to wonder what's become of you.'

He then made good his escape into the small, enclosed garden at the back of the cottage, where he found Evelyn moodily winding his way along the narrow paths which separated various beds filled with vegetables and currant bushes. Nurse had carried a chair out, and placed it in the shade of an apple tree; an open book lay on the ground beside it, with a clutter of newspapers and magazines.

Kit said cheerfully: 'I wouldn't be in your shoes for something, twin! There's a pitched battle going on in the parlour!'

Evelyn was looking moody, but he laughed. 'Oh, I don't mind that! They've been skirmis.h.i.+ng over me ever since you sent Fimber here. The thing is that every time he starts to give me one of his thundering scolds Pinny comes back into the room, so he's obliged to stop, because by the mercy of G.o.d neither combs my hair if the other is present. I can't think why not, but I can tell you I'm thankful for it! Has Mama managed to send the Cliffes packing? She said she meant to, if she could only hit upon a means of doing it. Did she?'

'Can you doubt it? I've just been waving farewell to them.'

'Mama is wonderful! How did she contrive to make them shab off?'

'By telling them that there was not an outbreak of scarlet fever in the village. I was afraid, when she began to talk of sickness, she was going to make it small-pox, which would have been doing it too brown. If you're coming up to the house tonight, I'd best meet you in the nursery-wing, to make sure the coast is clear. Lady Stavely goes to bed at ten and the servants won't come into the drawing-room once the tea-tray has been taken away.'

Evelyn nodded. 'Yes, very well. Kester, I think I'll go to Tunbridge Wells tomorrow.

That's one piece of business I can settle-and if I stay cooped up here for much longer I shall go mad!'

'I should think you might,' agreed Kit. 'But you can't go to Tunbridge Wells, for all that.'

'Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Kester, don't you start talking fustian about my broken shoulder!' Evelyn exclaimed irritably.

'I wasn't thinking about your shoulder. The fact is, Eve, you can't go anywhere until I've disappeared. How are you to get there? Challow can't drive you there in the curricle, because for one thing, someone would be bound to see you, and recognize you; and, for another, he can't take the curricle out secretly, you know.'

'But he can take it out at your orders, and bring you here in it,' Evelyn pointed out, an impish gleam in his eyes. 'Then, dear twin, you can take my place here, in hiding, and I can go to Tunbridge Wells!'

'Leaving my guests to fend for themselves! I would, if the matter were of any particular urgency, but as it doesn't seem to be-no!'

Evelyn sighed. 'I suppose not. But you'll have to leave them, if you mean to go to Brighton in my stead.'

'I don't. I came to talk to you about that,' Kit said. 'Let's sit down!'

He dragged Evelyn's chair up to a wooden bench, and himself sat on the bench.

'You won't like this,' he warned Evelyn, 'but you've got to know it.' He drew from his pocket the roll of bills Evelyn had given him, and handed it to him. 'Here are your flimsies: they won't be needed. The brooch was not counterfeit. I doubt whether any of Mama's jewellery is-not even the necklace she says she sold on your behalf.'