False Colours Read online

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t!’ agreed Kit. ‘It would never stay in your purse long enough to be invested in anything!’

  She considered this for a moment, and then sighed, and said: ‘No; that’s true! It is the most lowering reflection. I have frequently tried to cultivate habits of economy, but I don’t seem to have the knack of it. None of the Cliffes have! And the dreadful thing is, Kit, that such habits only lead to waste!’

  He gave a shout of laughter, but, although her eyes twinkled sympathetically, she said earnestly: ‘Yes, but they do! I purchased a cheap gown once, because Papa cut up stiff over one of Céleste’s bills, but it was so horrid that I was obliged to give it to Rimpton, without once wearing it! And when I gave orders for an economical dinner Papa got up from the table, and went straight off to the Clarendon, which is quite the most expensive hotel in London! Yes, you may laugh, but you have no experience of such matters. I assure you, the instant you begin to practise economy you will find yourself spending far more than ever you did before you embarked on such a ruinous course!’

  ‘No, shall I? Perhaps I had better sell out of the Funds immediately, and start wasting the ready!’

  ‘Nonsense! I know very well you haven’t come home to do that! So what has brought you home, dearest? I’m persuaded it wasn’t to look after these prodigious affairs of yours, so don’t try to bamboozle me!’

  ‘Well – not entirely,’ he admitted. He hesitated, colouring a little, and then said, meeting her look of inquiry: ‘To own the truth, I took a notion into my head – stupid, I daresay, but I couldn’t be rid of it – that Evelyn is in some sort of trouble – or just botheration, perhaps – and might need me. So I made my prodigious affairs serve as a reason for wanting leave of absence. Now tell me I’m an airdreamer! I wish you may!’

  She said instead, in a marvelling tone: ‘Do you still get these feelings, both of you? As though one’s own troubles were not enough to bear!’

  ‘I see: I am not an airdreamer. What’s amiss, Mama?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, Kit! That is to say – well, nothing you can cure, and nothing at all if Evelyn returns tomorrow!’

  ‘Returns? Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ disclosed her ladyship. ‘No one knows!’

  He looked startled, and, at the same time, incredulous. Then he remembered that when she had first seen him, and had mistaken him for Evelyn, she had sounded disproportionately relieved. She was not an anxious parent; even when he and Evelyn were children their truancies had never ruffled her serenity; and when they grew up, and failed to return to the parental home at night, she had always been more likely to suppose that she had forgotten they had told her not to look for them for a day or two than to wonder what accident could have befallen them. He said in a rallying tone: ‘Gone off upon the sly, has he? Why should that cast you into high fidgets, Mama? You know what Evelyn is!’

  ‘Yes, I daresay I shouldn’t even have noticed that he wasn’t here, at any other moment! But he assured me, when he left London, that he would return within a sennight, and he has been away now for ten days!’

  ‘So – ?’

  ‘You don’t understand, Kit! Everything hangs upon his return! He is to dine in Mount Street tomorrow, to be presented to old Lady Stavely, and she has come up from Berkshire particularly to make his acquaintance. Only think how dreadful if he were to fail! We shall be at fiddlestick’s end, for she is odiously starched-up, you know, and I collect, from something Stavely said to me, that already she doesn’t like it above half.’

  ‘Doesn’t like what above half?’ interrupted Kit, quite bewildered. ‘Who is she, and why the deuce does she want to make Evelyn’s acquaintance?’

  ‘Oh, dear, hasn’t Evelyn told you? No, I daresay there has been no time for a letter to reach you. The thing is that he has offered for Miss Stavely; and although Stavely was very well pleased, and Cressy herself not in the least unwilling, all depends upon old Lady Stavely. You must know that Stavely stands in the most absurd awe of her, and would turn short about if she only frowned upon the match! He is afraid for his life that she may leave her fortune to his brother, if he offends her. I must say, Kit, it almost makes me thankful I have no fortune! How could I bear it if my beloved sons were thrown into quakes by the very thought of me?’

  He smiled a little at that. ‘I don’t think we should be. But this engagement – how comes it about that Evelyn never so much as hinted at it? I can’t recall that he mentioned Miss Stavely in any of his letters. You didn’t either, Mama. It must have been very sudden, surely? I’ll swear Evelyn wasn’t thinking of marriage when last I heard from him, and that’s no more than a month ago. Is Miss Stavely very beautiful? Did he fall in love with her at first sight?’

  ‘No, no! I mean, he has been acquainted with her for – oh, a long time! Three years at least.’

  ‘And has only now popped the question? That’s not like him! I never knew him to tumble into love but what he did so after no more than one look. You don’t mean to tell me he has been trying for three years to fix his interest with the girl? It won’t fadge, my dear: I know him too well!’

  ‘No, of course not. You don’t understand, Kit! This is not one of his – his flirtations!’ She saw laughter spring into his eyes, tried to keep a solemn look in her own, and failed lamentably. They danced with wicked mirth, but she said with a very fair assumption of severity: ‘Or anything of that nature! He has outgrown such – such follies!’

  ‘Has he indeed?’ said Mr Fancot politely.

  ‘Yes – well, at all events he means to reform his way of life! And now that he is the head of the family there is the succession to be considered, you know.’

  ‘So there is!’ said Mr Fancot, much struck. ‘What a gudgeon I am! Why, if any fatal accident were to befall him I should succeed to his room! He would naturally exert himself to the utmost to cut me out. I wonder why that should never before have occurred to me?’

  ‘Oh, Kit, must you be so odious? You know very well –’

  ‘Just so, Mama!’ he said, as she faltered, and stopped. ‘How would it be if you told me the truth?’

  Two

  There was a short silence. She met his look, and heaved a despairing sigh. ‘It is your Uncle Henry’s fault,’ she disclosed. ‘And your father’s!’ She paused, and then said sorrowfully: ‘And mine! Try as I will, I cannot deny that, Kit! To be sure, I thought that when your Papa died I should be able to discharge some of my debts, and be perfectly comfortable, but that was before I understood about jointures. Dearest, did you know that they are nothing but a take-in? No, how should you? But so it is! And, what is more,’ she added impressively, ‘one’s creditors do know it! Which makes one wonder why they should take it into their heads to dun me now that I am a widow, in a much more disagreeable way than ever they did when Papa was alive. It seems quite idiotish to me, besides being so unfeeling!’

  He had spent few of his adult years at home, but this disclosure came as no surprise to him. For as long as he could remember poor Mama’s financial difficulties had been the cause of discomfort in his home. There had been painful interludes which had left Lady Denville in great distress; these had led to coldness, and estrangement, and to a desperate policy of concealment.

  The Earl had been a man of upright principles, but he was not a warm-hearted man, and his mind was neither lively nor elastic. He was fifteen years older than his wife, and he belonged as much by temperament as by age to a generation of rigid etiquette. He had only once allowed his feelings to overcome his judgement, when he had succumbed to the charm of the lovely Lady Amabel Cliffe, lately enlarged from the schoolroom to become the rage of the ton, and had offered for her hand in marriage. Her father, the Earl of Baverstock, was the possessor of impoverished estates and a numerous progeny, and he had accepted the offer thankfully. But the very qualities which had fascinated Denville in t
he girl offended him in the wife, and he set himself to the task of eradicating them. His efforts were unsuccessful, and resulted merely in imbuing her with a dread of incurring his displeasure. She remained the same loving, irresponsible creature with whom he had become infatuated; but she lavished her love on her twin sons, and did her best to conceal from her husband the results of her imprudence.

  The twins adored her. Unable to detect beneath their father’s unbending formality his real, if temperate, affection, they became at an early age their mama’s champions. She played with them, laughed with them, sorrowed with them, forgave them their sins, and sympathized with them in their dilemmas: they could perceive no fault in her, and directed their energies, as they grew up, to the task of protecting her from the censure of their formidable father.

  Mr Fancot, therefore, was neither surprised nor shocked to discover that his mother was encumbered by debt. He merely said: ‘Scorched, love? Just how does the land lie?’

  ‘I don’t know. Well, dearest, how can one remember everything one has borrowed for years and years?’

  That did startle him a little. ‘Years and years? But, Mama, when you were obliged to disclose to my father the fix you were in – three years ago, wasn’t it? – didn’t he ask you for the sum total of your debts, and promise that they should be discharged?’

  ‘Yes, he did say that,’ she answered. ‘And I didn’t tell him. Well, I didn’t know, but I’m not trying to excuse myself, and I own I shouldn’t have done so even if I had known. I can’t explain it to you, Kit, and if you mean to say that it was very wrong of me, and cowardly, don’t, because I am miserably aware of it! Only, when Adlestrop wrote down everything I said –’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Kit. ‘Are you telling me he was present?’

  ‘Yes – oh, yes! Well, your father reposed complete confidence in him, and it has always been he, you know, who managed everything, so –’

  ‘Pretty well, for one who set so much store by propriety!’ he interrupted, his eyes kindling. ‘To admit his man of business into such an interview – !’

  ‘I own, I wished he had not, but I daresay he was obliged to. On account of its being Adlestrop who knew just what the estate could bear, and –’

  ‘Adlestrop is a very good man in his way, and I don’t doubt he has our interests at heart, but he’s a purse-leech, and so my father should have known! If ever a grig was spent out of the way he always behaved as if we should all of us go home by beggar’s bush!’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Evelyn says,’ she agreed. ‘I might have been able to have told Papa the whole, if he hadn’t brought Adlestrop into it – that is, if I had known what it was. Indeed, I had the intention of being perfectly open with him! But whatever my faults I am not a – a mawworm, Kit, so I shan’t attempt to deceive you! I don’t think I could have been open with Papa. Well, you know how it was whenever he was displeased with one, don’t you? But if I had known that my wretched affairs would fall upon Evelyn I must have plucked up my courage to the sticking-point, and disclosed the whole to him.’

  ‘If you had known what the whole was!’ he interpolated irrepressibly.

  ‘Yes, or if I could have brought myself to place my affairs in Adlestrop’s hands.’

  ‘Good God, no! It should have been a matter between you and my father. But there’s no occasion for you to be blue-devilled because your affairs have fallen on Evelyn: he must always have been concerned in them, you know, and it makes no difference to him whether my father discharged your debts, or left it to him to do so.’

  ‘But you are quite wrong!’ she objected. ‘It makes a great deal of difference. Evelyn cannot discharge them!’

  ‘Stuff!’ he said. ‘He has no more notion of economy than you have, but don’t try to tell me that he has contrived, in little more than a year, to dissipate his inheritance! That’s coming it too strong!’

  ‘Certainly not! It isn’t in his power to do so. Not that I mean to say he would wish to, for however volatile your father believed him to be, he has no such intention! And I must say, Kit, I consider it was most unjust of Papa to have left everything in that uncomfortable way, telling your uncle Henry that he had done so because Evelyn was as volatile as I am! For he never knew about the two worst scrapes Evelyn was in, because you brought him off from his entanglement with that dreadful harpy who got her claws into him when you both came down from Oxford – and how you did it, Kit, I have long wanted to know! – and it was I who paid his gaming debts when he was drawn into some Pall Mall hell when he was by far too green to know what he was doing! I sold my diamond necklace, and your papa knew nothing whatsoever about it! So why he should have told your uncle that�–’

  ‘You did what?’ Kit interrupted, shaken for the first time during this session with his adored parent.

  She smiled brilliantly upon him. ‘I had it copied, of course! I’m not such a goose that I didn’t think of that! It looks just as well, and what should I care for diamonds when one of my sons was on the rocks?’

  ‘But it was an heirloom!’

  ‘I have no opinion of heirlooms,’ said her ladyship flatly. ‘If you mean to say that it belonged to Evelyn, I know it did, but, pray, what use was it to him, when what he needed, quite desperately, poor love, was the money to pay his gaming debts? I told him about it afterwards, and I assure you he made not the least objection!’

  ‘I daresay! And what of his son?’ demanded Kit.

  ‘Dearest, you are too absurd! How should he raise an objection when he won’t know anything about it?’

  ‘Have you – have you disposed of any more heirlooms?’ he asked, regarding her with awe, and some reluctant amusement.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. But you know what a wretched memory I have! In any event, it doesn’t signify, because what’s done is done, and I have more important things to think of than a lot of hideous family jewels. Dearest, do, pray, stop being frivolous!’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be frivolous,” he said meekly.

  ‘Well, don’t ask me stupid questions about heirlooms, or talk nonsense about its being as easy for Evelyn to pay my debts as it would have been for your papa. You must have read that hateful Will! Poor Evelyn has no more command over Papa’s fortune than you have! Everything was left to your uncle’s discretion!’

  He frowned a little. ‘I remember that my father created some kind of Trust, but not that it extended to the income from the estate. My uncle has neither the power to withhold that, nor to question Evelyn’s expenditure. As I recall, Evelyn was prohibited from disposing of any part of his principal, except with my uncle’s consent, until he reaches the age of thirty, unless, at some time before that date, my uncle should judge him to have outgrown his – his volatility (don’t eat me, Mama!), when the Trust might be brought to an end, and Evelyn put in undisputed possession of his inheritance. I know I thought my father need not have fixed on thirty as the proper age: twenty-five would have been a great deal more reasonable, and in no way remarkable. Evelyn was vexed, of course – who wouldn’t have been? – but it made very little difference to him, after all. You’ve said yourself that he has no intention of wasting his principal. You know, Mama, the income is pretty considerable! What’s more, my uncle told him at the time that he was prepared to consent to the sale of certain stocks, to defray whatever large debts Evelyn had incurred – particularly any post-obit bonds – since he thought it not right that the income should perhaps be reduced to a monkey’s allowance until they had all been paid.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘He did say that, and it quite astonished me, for, in general, he’s as close as wax, Kit!’

  ‘No: merely, he doesn’t live up to the door, and certainly not beyond it. But the thing is, Mama, that he didn’t wish Evelyn to succeed my father under a load of debt, and if you had but told him of the fix you were in I’m persuaded he would have settled your debts along w
ith the rest.’

  She gazed at him incredulously. ‘Henry? You must be out of your mind, Kit! When I think of the way he has always disapproved of me, and the rake-down he gave Evelyn, whose debts were nothing compared to mine – Oh, no, no! I had liefer by far put a period to my existence than cast myself on his mercy! He would have imposed the most humiliating conditions on me – condemned me to live the rest of my days in that horrid Dower House at Ravenhurst, very likely! Or worse!’

  He was silent for a moment. Knowing that Henry, Lord Brumby, considered his charming sister-in-law incorrigible, he could not help feeling that there was some truth in what she said. His frown deepened; he said abruptly: ‘Why the devil didn’t Evelyn tell him? He could have handled my uncle so much more easily than you could!’

  ‘Do you think so?’ she said doubtfully. ‘He never has done so. Besides, he didn’t know just how things stood with me, because I never thought to tell him. Well, how was I to guess that nearly every soul I owed money to would suddenly start to dun me, and some of them in the rudest way, too? Not that I should have teased Evelyn with my difficulties when he was already in hot water with Henry on his own account. I hope you know me better than to suppose I should do such a selfish thing as that!’

  A wry smile twisted his lips. ‘I’m beginning to, Mama! I wish you will tell me how you expected to settle matters, though, if you didn’t tell Evelyn?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know then that I should be obliged to,’ she explained. ‘I mean, I never had done so, except now and then, in a gradual way, when I was particularly asked to, so you can imagine what a shock it was to me when Mr Child positively refused – though with perfect civility – to lend me £3000, which would have relieved my immediate difficulties, and even begged me not to overdraw the account by as much as a guinea more – just as if I hadn’t paid the interest, which, I promise you, I did!’