Lady Denville, presently joining the party, bade everyone good-morning; hoped, in her pretty, solicitous way, that her sister-in-law had slept well; and said, as she took her seat at the table: “Dearest Cressy! This afternoon we must have a delightful cose together, you and I!”

As the sparkling glance that accompanied these words was as eloquent as it was mischievous, Kit intervened, asking, with all the heartiness of a host bent on arranging every detail of the day, what his guests would like to do that morning.

Attention was certainly drawn away from Lady Denville, but the responses Kit received must have disappointed such a host as he was trying to impersonate. But as his only desire was to snatch a private interview with Cressy, he was very well satisfied with them. His cousin said moodily that he didn’t know; Cosmo, whom the humdrum pattern of an ordinary day in a country house exactly suited, said that he would read, and write letters until the post came in; Cressy, who was having much ado not to laugh, kept her eyes lowered, and did not attempt to speak; and Mrs Cliffe, who was anxiously watching her son, returned no answer, but suddenly declared that Ambrose might say what he chose but she was persuaded that he had a boil forming on his neck. All eyes turned involuntarily towards Ambrose, who reddened, shot a glowering look at his mama, and said angrily that it was no such thing. He added that he had the headache.

“Poor boy!” said Lady Denville, smiling kindly upon him. “I dare say if you were to go for a walk it would soon leave you.”

“Amabel, I must beg you not to encourage Ambrose to expose himself!” said Mrs Cliffe. “There is a wind blowing, and I am positive it is easterly, for I myself have a touch of the tic, which I never get but when there is an east wind! It would be fatal for Ambrose to stir out of doors when he is already not quite the thing, for with his constitution, you know, any disorder is very likely to lay him up for a fortnight!”

“Is it?” said Lady Denville, gazing at her nephew with the awed interest of one confronted with some rare exhibit. “Poor boy, how awkward it must be for you, to be obliged to remain indoors whenever the wind is in the east! Because, so often it is!”

“Well, well, we need not make mountains out of molehills!” said Cosmo testily. “I don’t deny that his constitution is sickly, but—”

“Nonsense, Cosmo, how can you talk so?” exclaimed his sister. “I’m sure he isn’t sickly, even if he has got a little headache!” She smiled encouragingly at Ambrose, sublimely unconscious of having offended all three Cliffes: Ambrose, because, however much he might dislike having an incipient boil pointed out, he was proud of his headaches, which often earned for him a great deal of attention; Cosmo, because he had for some years subscribed to his wife’s view of the matter, finding in Ambrose’s delicacy an excuse for his sad want of interest in any manly sport; and Emma, because she regarded any suggestion that her only child was not in a deplorable state of debility as little short of an insult.

“I fear,” said Cosmo, “that Ambrose has never enjoyed his cousins’ robust health.”

“Your sister cannot be expected to understand delicate constitutions, my dear,” said Emma. “I dare say the twins never suffered a day’s illness in their lives!”

“No, I don’t think they did,” replied Lady Denville, with a touch of pride. “They were the stoutest couple! Of course, they did have things like measles and whooping-cough, but I can’t recall that they were ever ill. In fact, when they had whooping-cough, one of them—was it you, dearest?—climbed up the chimney after a starling’s nest!”

“No, that was Kit,” said Mr Fancot.

“So it was!” she agreed, twinkling at him.

“But how terrible!” exclaimed Emma.

“Yes, wasn’t it? He came down looking exactly like a blackamoor, and brought so much soot down with him that everything in the room seemed to be covered with it. I don’t think I ever laughed so much in my life!”

“Laughed?” gasped Emma. “Laughed when one of your children was in danger of falling, and breaking his neck?”

“Well, I don’t think he could have done that, though I suppose he might have broken his legs, or got stuck in the chimney. I do remember wondering how we were to get him out if he did stick tight. However, it would have been a great waste of time to get into a worry about the twins, because they were for ever falling out of trees, or into the lake, or off their ponies, and nothing dreadful ever happened to them,” said Lady Denville serenely.

Mrs Cliffe could only shudder at such callous unconcern; while Ambrose, quite mistakenly supposing that these reflections were directed at his own, less adventurous, career, fell into obvious sulks.

Lady Denville, having disposed of the tea and bread-and-butter which constituted her breakfast, then excused herself, saying, as she got up from the table: “Now I must leave you, because Nurse Pinner seems not to be very well, and it would be too unkind in me not to visit her, and perhaps take her something to tempt her appetite.”

“Some fruit!” said Kit hastily.

She gave a little chuckle, and said, irrepressible mischief in her voice: “Yes, dearest! Not quails!”

“Quails!” ejaculated Cosmo, shocked beyond measure. “Quails for your old nurse, Amabel?”

“No, Evelyn thinks some fruit would be better.”

“I should have thought that some arrowroot, or a supporting broth would have been more suitable!” said Emma.

That set her incorrigible sister-in-law’s eyes dancing wickedly. “Oh, no, I assure you it wouldn’t be! Particularly not the arrowroot, which—which she abominates! Dear Emma, how uncivil it is in me to run away, as I must! But I am persuaded you must understand how it, is!” Her lovely—smile embraced her seething younger son. “Dearest, I leave our guests in your hands! Oh, and I think a bottle of port, don’t you? So much more supporting than mutton-broth! So will you, if you please,—”

“Don’t tease yourself, Mama!” he interrupted, holding open the door for her. “I’ll attend to that!”

“To be sure, I might have known you would!” she said, wholly unaffected by the quelling look she received from him. “You will know just what will be most acceptable!”

“I sometimes wonder,” said Cosmo, in accents of the deepest disapproval, as Kit shut the door behind her ladyship, “whether your mother has taken entire leave of her senses, Denville!”

Mr Fancot might be incensed by his wayward parent’s behaviour, but no more than the mildest criticism was needed to make him show hackle. “Do you, sir?” he said, dangerously affable. “Then it affords me great pleasure to be able to reassure you!”

Mr Cliffe’s understanding was not superior, but only a moonling could have failed to read the challenge behind the sweet smile that accompanied these words. Reddening, he said: “I imagine I may venture, without impropriety, to animadvert upon the conduct of one who is my sister!”

“Do you, sir?” said Kit again, and with even more affability.

Mr Cliffe, rising, and going towards the door with great stateliness, expressed the hope that he had rather too much force of mind to allow himself to be provoked by the top-loftiness of a mere nephew, who was, like many other bumptious sprigs, too ready to sport his canvas; and withdrew in good order.

Mindful of the charge laid upon him, Kit then turned his attention to his aunt, with polite suggestions for her entertainment. She received these with a slight air of affront, giving him to understand that her day would be spent in laying slices of lemon-peel on her son’s brow, burning pastilles, and—if his headache persisted—applying a cataplasm to his feet. He listened gravely to this dismal programme; and with a solicitude which placed a severe strain upon Miss Stavely’s self-command, and caused Ambrose to glare at him in impotent rage, suggested that in extreme cases a blister to the head was often found to be beneficial. Apparently feeling that he had discharged his obligations, he then invited Miss Stavely to take a turn in the shrubbery with him. Miss Stavely, prudently refusing to meet his eye, said, with very tolerable composure, that that would be very agreeable; and subsequently afforded him the gratification of realizing (had he been considering the matter) that she was eminently fitted to become the wife of an Ambassador by containing her bubbling amusement until out of sight of the house, when pent-up giggles overcame her, and rapidly infected her somewhat harassed escort.

Mr Fancot, the first to recover, said: “Yes, I know, Cressy, but there is nothing to laugh at in the fix we are now in, I promise you! I imagine you’ve guessed already that my abominable twin has reappeared?”

“Oh, yes!” she managed to utter. “F-from the moment G-Godmama said—said: Not quails! with such a quizzing look at you!”

Mr Fancot grinned, but expressed his inability to understand why no one had ever yet murdered his beloved mama. Miss Stavely cried out upon him for saying anything so unjust and improper; but she became rather more sober as she listened to the tale of Evelyn’s adventure. She did indeed suffer a slight relapse when kindly informed of her noble suitor’s relief at learning that he had been released from his obligations; but she was quick to perceive all the difficulties of a situation broadened to include an alternative bride for his lordship of whom so rigid a stickler as his uncle would certainly not approve.

“Oh, dear!” she said distressfully. “That is unfortunate! What is to be done?”

He responded frankly: “I haven’t the least notion! Do you bend your mind to the problem, love! My present concern is to recover that confounded brooch!”

She nodded. “Yes, indeed! I do feel that that is of the first importance. I am not myself acquainted with Lord Silverdale, but from anything I have ever heard said of him I am much afraid that your brother is very right: he is—he is shockingly malicious! Papa told me once that he is as hungry as a church mouse, but can always command a dinner at the price of the latest and most scandalous on-dit. And if he is one of the Prince Regent’s guests—Kit, do you know how to obtain a private interview with him?”

“No,” replied Kit cheerfully, “but I fancy I know who can supply me with the answer to that problem!”

“Sir Bonamy!” she exclaimed, after an instant’s frowning bewilderment.

“Exactly so!” said Kit. He added proudly: “Not for nothing am I Mama’s son! I too have nacky notions!”

17

A luncheon, consisting of sundry cold meats, cakes, jellies, and fruit, was always served at noon in the apartment known as the Little Dining-room; and it had been Kit’s intention to have lain in wait for Sir Bonamy to issue forth from his bedroom, in the hope of being able to exchange a few words with him before he joined the other guests downstairs. But owing to the extraordinarily swift passage of time it was not until the stable-clock had struck twelve that either Mr Fancot or Miss Stavely could believe that they had been in the shrubbery for over an hour. A glance at Kit’s watch, however, sent them hurrying back to the house, where they found the rest of the party, with the single exception of the Dowager, already discussing luncheon. Although Mr and Mrs Cliffe later agreed that modern damsels were permitted a regrettable freedom which would never have been countenanced when they were young, no one made any comment on the tardy and simultaneous arrival of the truants, Lady Denville even going so far as to smile at them.

Ambrose had allowed himself to be persuaded by his mother to partake of a few morsels of food, to keep up his strength; but the Dowager had sent down a message by her maid, excusing herself from putting in an appearance until later in the day. “Nothing to cause alarm!” Lady Denville told Cressy. “Her maid says that she passed a wakeful night, and so finds herself just a trifle down pin today.”

“I thought she would,” said Sir Bonamy, putting up his quizzing-glass the better to inspect a raised chicken-pie. “Too much cross-and-jostle work last night!” He looked up to shake his head in fond reproof at his hostess. “You shouldn’t have invited Maria Dersingham, my lady!”

“I am so very sorry, Cressy!”

But Cressy, with a cheerfulness which Mrs Cliffe considered to be very unbecoming in a granddaughter, assured Lady Denville that, although the excitement of encountering her ancient ally and present enemy might have been a little too much for her, Grandmama had much enjoyed the evening.