Джорджетт Хейер - Cotillion

“Both go into the cupboard!” suggested his lordship imploringly.

“Certainly not! You will protect Miss Plymstock,” said Hugh.

Rather to Kitty’s surprise, these stern words appeared to inspire Dolphinton with courage. He gulped, but he made no further attempt to reach his refuge. The sound of the knocker on the front-door did indeed make him jump, and shudder, but he said resolutely: “Protect Hannah!” and stood his ground.

Mr. Westruther drew his snuff-box from his pocket, and flicked it open. “If someone would have the goodness to inform me whether I am assisting at a tragedy or a farce I should be grateful,” he said sardonically.

The housekeeper’s unmistakeable tread was heard, followed by the sound of a lifting latch. Lord Dolphinton acquired a firm hold on Miss Plymstock’s hand, and swallowed convulsively.

“Affording protection, or seeking it?” drawled Mr. Westruther, taking a pinch of snuff from his box, and expertly shaking all but a grain or two from between his finger and thumb.

The door into the parlour was opened. “Mr. Standen, sir,” announced Mrs. Armathwaite placidly.

Surprise held the company silent for perhaps thirty seconds. Mr. Standen, not a hair out of place, walked into the room, found that five pairs of eyes were staring at him in astonishment, and said apologetically: “Thought you might be needing me! No wish to intrude!”

Kitty found her voice. “Freddy!” she cried thankfully, hurrying towards him. “Oh, how glad I am to see you! We are in such a dreadful fix, and I don’t know what to do!”

“Thought very likely you would be,” said Freddy. “Not sure, mind you, but I’d a strong notion you’d forgot to buy the special licence.”

Kitty caught his hand. “Freddy, you have not brought one?” she demanded incredulously.

“Yes, I have,” he replied. “That’s why I came.”

For the second time in her life, Miss Charing lifted his hand to her cheek. “Oh, Freddy, I might have known you would come to our rescue!” she said, in a choked voice.

Mr. Westruther, who had been watching them with an odd expression on his face, shut his snuff-box with a snap. As though this sharp little sound released him from a spell which kept him standing with his eyes starting from their sockets and his mouth falling open, Lord Dolphinton suddenly released Miss Plymstock, and surged forward, saying, with gratifying delight, if somewhat unnecessarily: “It’s Freddy! Hannah, it’s Freddy! My cousin Freddy!” He then seized Freddy’s hand, and shook it up and down, beaming upon him, and pawing his shoulder with his free hand. “I’m glad you’ve come, Freddy!” he said earnestly, in a burst of confidence: “I like you. Like you better than Hugh. Better—”

“That’s the dandy, old fellow!” said Freddy, stemming the flow. “No need to stroke me, though. Now, stop it, Dolph, for the lord’s sake!”

He managed to disengage himself, but Lord Dolphinton had not reached the end of his disclosures. “When Jack came, I wasn’t glad,” he said. “Sorry. Because I don’t like him. I’ll tell you something, Freddy: Hugh wouldn’t let me get in the cupboard, and I’m glad of that too.”

Mr. Standen, who had long since ceased to feel surprise at anything his eccentric relative might say or do, thrust him gently into a chair, and said amiably: “Of course you are. No need to sit in the cupboard on my account. If it’s your mother you’re worrying about, no need to do that either: she ain’t coming here.”

“You know that, Freddy?” said his lordship.

“Lord, yes! Gone to a party—thinks you’re at Arnside!” said Freddy, improvising cleverly.

Lord Dolphinton, on whom the repeated assurances of Miss Charing and Miss Plymstock had made no impression at all, appeared to accept this. He turned to relay the information to Miss Plymstock; and Freddy was at liberty to turn his attention to his betrothed, who was tugging at his coat in a way which drew a protest from him.

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” Kitty said. “But how in the world did you guess that I had forgot the licence?”

Mr. Standen rubbed his nose reflectively. “Struck me when Meg gave me your letter. What I mean is, told me everything else, but didn’t say a word about the licence. What’s more, knew dashed well you hadn’t enough money to purchase it, and had a strong notion Dolph hadn’t either. Meant to have been here with it sooner, but the thing was I got detained. Had to buy the Broughty girl a toothbrush.”

“Had to do what!” exclaimed Kitty.

“Dash it, Kit, couldn’t let her go to France without one! Must see that!” expostulated Freddy. “Not the thing at all! Bought her a hairbrush and comb as well. Meg saw to the rest, but if ever there was a hen-witted female it’s Meg!”

“Freddy, are you telling me Olivia has gone to France?” demanded Kitty, dazed.

“Gone to Dover,” corrected Freddy. “Boarding the packet tomorrow.”

Mr. Westruther, regarding him out of narrowed eyes, said silkily: “You have been busy, coz, have you not?”

“I should dashed well think I have!” said Freddy, stirred by the memory of his activities.

“You have—you will agree!—a trifle of explaining to do!”

“Not to you, Jack!” said Freddy, meeting his eyes fair and square.

The Rector, a silent and puzzled auditor, at this point moved a pace forward, but it was Kitty who intervened. “Good God! Freddy, she has not eloped with Camille?”

“That’s it,” said Mr. Standen, pleased to find her of such a ready understanding. “Best thing she could do. Saw it in a flash. Thing was, Gosford offered for her—poor girl cast into despair—came to find you—found me instead! Left her with Meg, and went off to your cousin’s lodgings. Silly fellow flew into his high ropes: never met such a gabster in my life! Give you my word, Kit, he enacted me a whole Cheltenham tragedy! However, contrived to settle it all right and tight in the end. Saw ’em off from the Golden Cross, told the hack to take me to Doctors’ Commons, got the licence, and posted down here as soon as I could. Here, Hugh! you’d better take the thing!”

With these words, he handed over a folded document to his cousin. Hugh took it, but before he could say anything, Kitty exclaimed: “But, Freddy, an elopement! Have you considered—I own, the thought did not occur to me until quite recently!—that Camille must be a Catholic?”

It was plain that Mr. Standen had not considered this possibility. He once more rubbed the tip of his nose, but said philosophically, after a moment’s reflection: “Oh, well, no sense in teasing ourselves over a trifle! If he is, she’ll have to change! Shouldn’t think she’d object: seems a very biddable girl!”

Kitty drew a breath. “Then—then everything is settled! At least, it will be, when Dolph and Hannah are married, and there can be no difficulty about that, now that you have brought them that stupid licence! Oh, Freddy, it is all your doing!”

“No, no!” said Freddy, embarrassed.

“Yes, indeed it is! For although it was I who wanted Olivia to marry Camille, I should never have thought of telling him to carry her off to France; and you see what sad work I made of poor Dolph’s elopement! I am so very grateful to you! Oh, and Jack says that Uncle Matthew is going to marry Fish, and that is a very good thing too, though, to be sure, it was none of our doing!”

“Is he, though?” said Freddy, mildly interested. “Well, I daresay it don’t matter, because he’s a deuced rum ’un himself, but that Fish of yours is queer in her attic.”

“Freddy, she is not!”

“Must be. Dash it, wouldn’t write to you about Henry VIII if she wasn’t! Stands to reason.”