“Except that if my father’s Grand Tour is anything to judge by they went at too early an age, and were hedged about by tutors. As far as I could ever discover from the things my father told me, he went from one large city to another, armed with introductions to the ton, and spent his time between studying with his tutor and attending balls and routs—which he might as well have done in London!”

She said thoughtfully: “Yes, but I have a melancholy suspicion that our fathers—and even more our grandfathers—had very little interest in the beauties of nature, and still less in the customs of the people. My own grandfather kept a diary of his Grand Tour, and it is composed almost entirely of great names, and social functions which he attended: I was never more disappointed, when Papa gave it to me to read! For he must have passed throughout the grandest scenery, you know!”

“Did he record that he took care to wear lambswool next the skin when travelling over an Alpine pass?”

She burst into laughter. “Yes, he did! Oh, dear! How sad that our forebears should have had such opportunities, and should have wasted them so shockingly!”

They had reached the terrace-steps by this time. As they mounted them, Kitsaid: “Have you taken Miss Clara Stavely’s place in attendance on your grandmama, Cressy? My mother wasn’t perfectly sure if she would be accompanying you, or not.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I should have told her. Yes, I always go with Grandmama to Worthing at the end of the Season, so that Clara may enjoy what is known in the family as her holiday! In fact, she has gone to fetch and carry for my Aunt Caroline—and will very likely be required to take charge of the children as well, if I know my Aunt Caroline!” She smiled. “Don’t look so shocked! Let me tell you that my Aunt Elizabeth, who is the kindest creature imaginable, was used to think it as abominable as I can see you do that Clara should become a mere drudge. She invited her once to spend the summer in Hertfordshire, determined that she should enjoy a holiday of ease and comfort. Clara had nothing to do but be cosseted and amused—and had almost moped herself into a decline (as she later confided to me) when Aunt Eliza summoned her to come instantly to her aid, one of her children having thrown out a rash; her eldest son, my cousin Henry, having taken a toss, and broken his arm; and her housekeeper having been obliged to leave at a moment’s notice to succour her ailing mother, who had been laid low with a palsy-stroke. Aunt Eliza told me that Clara packed her trunks in the twinkling of a bedpost, and was on her way to Lincoln while she, and her very attentive children, were still trying to prevail upon her to remain at Stoborough Hall! I collect that there was all to do in Lincoln, and I know how exacting is my Aunt Caroline, but I promise you that when Clara resumed her post beside Grandmama she was wonderfully refreshed!”

He was obliged to laugh at this lively history, but he said, cocking an eyebrow at her: “Yes, I too have an aunt who—according to what my mother tells me—derives immense satisfaction from immolating herself on the altar of family duty. But I hope you don’t mean to try to bamboozle me into believing that you are of this cut!”

“Not in the least!” she replied. “Nor do I immolate myself. The worst I have to suffer when I go to Worthing with Grandmama is—is a certain tedium! And even that is alleviated by Grandmama’s tongue.” He had opened a door that gave access to the terrace from the house, and she said, pausing before she stepped across the threshold: “Thank you for my roses! Do you keep country hours at Ravenhurst? Will you desire one of the servants to take me to my room, if you please? It must be time I made myself ready for dinner.”

“We’ll find my mother,” he replied. “She will certainly wish to take you up herself.”

Lady Denville was not far to seek, for she was coming down the stairs as Kit conducted Cressy into the main hall. She was looking a trifle harassed, but when she saw Cressy her face brightened, and she came quickly down the remaining stairs to fold the girl in a scented embrace. “Dearest child! I was wondering where you were, for I haven’t exchanged above two words with you!”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am! Denville took me to see your rose-garden—and was so kind as to pluck these for me! Aren’t they beautiful? The garden too, so charmingly laid out! We have nothing like it at Stavely.”

“It is pretty, isn’t it?” agreed her ladyship. “Such a labour as it was to make it! But I’ve never regretted it. Cressy, I must warn you that this is the dreariest party! It positively overpowers me to think that I should have invited you to it, poor child! What with my brother, prosing and moralizing in the most boring manner, and Emma growing drabber under one’s very eyes, and speaking like a mouse in a cheese, not to mention Ambrose, whom anyone would take for a mere April-squire—”

“You didn’t invite me, Godmother!” Cressy interrupted, laughing. “I know very well I’ve been foisted on to you! And I defy any party of which you are a member to be dreary!”

“Yes, but I am already feeling excessively low and oppressed,” said her ladyship. “And I was obliged to tell Norton to set dinner forward, because your grandmama particularly desired me not to expect her to keep late hours. So we shall dine at six, my dear—though why one should dine in daylight merely because one is in the country I have never understood! However, it won’t be so very bad, because I have ordered supper at eleven, when I do hope Lady Stavely will have retired!”

“You can’t say I didn’t warn you that I too have relations who put me to the blush, Cressy!” interpolated Kit.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Lady Denville, stricken. “Well, doesn’t it show you how disordered my senses are? Besides, Cressy knows that her grandmama always puts me in a quake!”

“Of course I do!” averred Cressy, her eyes alight with amusement. “Was she very twitty. ma’am? Are you at outs with me for having left her to your management? I do beg your pardon, but I thought you would contrive to smooth down her bristles much more easily if I were not present. I expect you did, too!”

“Well, I don’t know that I did that, precisely,” said Lady Denville, considering the matter, “but I must own that when I took her to her room a few minutes ago she was not so out of reason cross! I don’t mean to say that she was in high good-humour, but she very fortunately detected that the colour had faded a little from the brocade I chose for the curtains in the Blue saloon—which I never thought to be thankful for, K—Evelyn! because I had it sent from Lyons, and the cost put your father all on end. Indeed, I was quite provoked myself when I saw how sadly it had faded! But one never knows when what seems to have been a mistake will turn to good account: it put Lady Stavely in a much better humour when she was able to tell me what a peagoose I had been. Dearest Cressy, I think I should take you to your room immediately, for it won’t do to keep your grandmama waiting for her dinner! They tell me you haven’t brought your maid, so I will send Rimpton to you—and don’t, my love, allow her to put on airs to be interesting! I wonder sometimes why I bear with her—but she is a wonderful dresser!”

Miss Stavely, though in no doubt of Miss Rimpton’s skill, declined her condescending offices, saying that Grandmama’s Jane would do all for her that was necessary. This was not of a nature to tax the skill of an abigail who was more a nurse than a dresser, for it consisted merely of hooking up a very becoming gown of light orange crape. This was done in the Dowager’s room, and under her eye. She accorded the gown a certain measure of approval, but said that the skirt was too narrow, adding the time-honoured observation that she didn’t know what the world was coming to, when females tried to make themselves look like hop-poles. Disdaining the modern fashion of high waists and clinging skirts, she was herself attired in a stiff black silk, worn over an underdress embroidered with silver thread. A cap of starched black lace was on her hair: mittens covered her arms; and in one hand she held a fan. Unlike her granddaughter, who wore the lightest of silk sandals, she had chosen from a large collection of outmoded shoes a pair with high heels, and paste buckles. Cressy told her mischievously that the only thing wanting was a patch on her cheek.

“Patches went out of fashion before you were born!” replied the Dowager crushingly. “You may go now, Jane. No, give me my cane—the ebony one! Yes, that will do. And tell William to come up directly to support me down those slippery stairs!” She turned to survey Cressy, as the door closed behind the placid attendant. “And where have you been, miss?” she demanded.

“Walking in the rose-garden with Lord Denville, ma’am,” said Cressy, undismayed by the sharpness of the question.

“H’m!” My lady scrutinized her own rouged countenance in the looking-glass, picked up a down puff with her twisted fingers, and gave her cheeks a further dusting of powder. “Never thought to ask if I wanted your company!”

“I knew that you didn’t, Grandmama,” responded Cressy, quizzing her intrepidly. “You told me not to hang about you, unless I wished to fret you to flinders, which, I promise you, I don’t! Furthermore, dear ma’am, I couldn’t suppose that when you had Lady Denville to take care of you there was the smallest need for me to remain at your side.”

“Amabel Denville is nothing but a pretty widgeon!” declared the Dowager roundly. “She always was, and she always will be!” She glared at her own reflection, her jaws working. “One of these days she’ll be like me: an old bag of bones! But I’ll tell you this, girl! If any of my daughters had possessed a tenth part of her charm I’d have thanked God for it! Help me out of this chair! I ought to be in my bed, with a basin of gruel, but I’ll come down to dinner, and if I feel able for it I’ll have a game of backgammon with Cosmo Cliffe afterwards. But I dare say I shan’t: I’m too old for all this junketing about the country! I only trust that if I’m carried off you’ll remember it was for your sake I came here!”

This malevolent speech did not augur well, nor did the Dowager’s mood grow more propitious until the party went in to dinner, when she became very much more mellow. For this her hosts had Mr Dawlish to thank. Not for nothing did this genius command an extortionate wage: he knew quite as well what to offer a very old lady as how to serve up a grand dinner of two full courses, consisting of half-a-dozen removes and upwards of thirty side dishes. The Dowager, revived by a soup made with fresh peas, allowed herself to be persuaded to try a morsel of turbot; followed this up with several morsels of a delicate fawn, roasted whole, and served with a chevreuil sauce; and ended her repast with a dish of asparagus, cut and delivered by the kitchen-gardener a bare ten minutes before Mr Dawlish was ready to cook it. This was so succulent that she was moved to compliment Kit on his cook. She informed him, in her forthright fashion, that she had eaten too much, and would probably be unable to close her eyes all night; but it was noticeable that when she left the dining-room she did so without assistance, and with a remarkable diminution of her previous decrepitude.

Although Kit had been willing enough to concede that Cosmo might entertain the Dowager by plying card-games with her, he had been quite unable to picture her enduring with even the appearance of complaisance his aunt’s flat platitudes. Great was his astonishment, therefore, when, following his uncle and cousin into the drawing-room some time later, he found these two ladies seated side by side on the sofa, and engaged in interested converse. Since Lady Denville had had a card-table set up at the far end of the long room, and lost no time in sweeping the three younger members of the party to it, to play, under her aegis, such frivolous games as suggested themselves to her, it was not until he paid his mama a goodnight visit that Kit learned the reason for this sudden and extraordinary friendship. Nothing, declared her ladyship, had ever been more fortunate! Poor Emma, during the course of a very boring anecdote, had let fall a Name, which had instantly made Lady Stavely prick up her ears. After exhaustive discussion, which had appeared to Lady Denville to range over most of the noble houses in the country, and a fair proportion of the landed gentry, it had been established, to both ladies’ satisfaction, that they were in some way related.