Джорджетт Хейер: False Colours

Sir Bonamy, who employed an enormous staff which included three cooks wholly indispensable to his comfort, thought that they signified a great deal, but refrained from saying so.

“But now how different it will be!”

“I know it will,” he agreed, with a deep sigh.

“And, oh, how you will be envied!” she said, hastily changing her note. “They will be ready to murder you, all Godmama’s disappointed suitors! I can’t but laugh when I picture to myself the chagrin of certain of their number when you walk off with her from under their noses!”

It was plain that this aspect had not previously occurred to him. He considered it, puffing out his cheeks a little, as he always did when anything pleased him. “Yes, by Jupiter!” he said. “They will be ready to murder me! The loveliest, most sought-after woman in the ton, and she chose me! A triumph that, eh? Lord, I’d give a monkey to see Louth’s face when he reads the advertisement! He’ll be ready to murder me, if you like!” A less agreeable thought occurred to him: he said gloomily: “Yes, and I know of someone else who’ll be fit to cut my liver out, and that’s young Denville! I was forgetting him. Kit, if this marriage was to cause a breach between him and your mother, she’d break her heart, and I’d give her up sooner than do that!”

“Don’t worry, sir: it won’t!” Kit replied. “I can’t promise that Evelyn will take very readily to the marriage, but never fear! he’ll come round, and under no circumstances would he become estranged from Mama. That you may depend on!”

“I dare say you know best,” said Sir Bonamy, accepting his fate. He rose ponderously to his feet. “Time I went up to change my dress!”

“We don’t change this evening, sir: General Oakenshaw drove over an hour ago to pay his respects to my mother, and she has persuaded him to remain to dine here.”

“You don’t mean it! Why, I thought that old spider-shanks had gone to roost years ago!” exclaimed Sir Bonamy. “Well, well, what a day this has been! One surprise after another! I won’t put on my evening rig, but I must change my coat, and I don’t know but what I won’t take a little rest before dinner, just to pluck me up, you know!”

“And perhaps a cordial?” suggested Kit.

“No, no, I don’t want a cordial! The thing is that I’ve had a lot of excitement today, which I ain’t accustomed to, and I feel a trifle fagged! A short nap will set me to rights again!”

“As you wish, sir,” said Kit, holding open the door for him, and bowing him out of the room.

Shutting it again, he turned to find that Cressy had collapsed into a chair, in fits of laughter. She uttered, between gusts: “Oh, Kit! Oh, Kit! I thought I should die! Poor Sir Bonamy!”

“You and your knights!” he said.

That sent her into a fresh paroxysm. “Baronets!” she wailed. “Wretch that you are! That was nearly my undoing! Oh, don’t make me laugh any more! It positively hurts!” She mopped her eyes. “But it will be a happy marriage, won’t it? When he has accustomed himself to the idea?”

“I should think it might well be, if he can be brought up to the scratch. What I want to know, my love, is whether this was one of Mama’s nacky notions, or yours? Out with it, now!”

“Kit, how can you suppose that I would venture to suggest to Godmama that she should marry Sir Bonamy, or anyone else?”

“I don’t. But I strongly suspect that it was you who put the idea into her head! Well?”

Her mirth ceased. “Not quite that. I own, however, that it did spring from something I said, and that I hoped it might. Are you vexed with me?”

“I don’t know. No, of course I’m not, but—Cressy, is she doing this for Evelyn’s sake?”

“Not entirely. I think for her own as much as his. I can’t tell you what passed between us, for what she said to me was in confidence. I will only tell you that I found her in great distress, and discovered that she meant to—oh, to make a perfectly dreadful sacrifice for Evelyn!—and that when I left her she was wearing her mischief-look! Kit, I do most sincerely believe that she will be happy! She is very fond of Sir Bonamy, you know, and always on comfortable terms with him! And above all she must not live alone! You yourself said so. You had her quite incurable extravagance in mind, but what has been very much in my mind is my conviction that she would be miserably unhappy.”

“Yes, I feel that too. But what of Ripple? You wouldn’t describe him as radiant, would you?”

She laughed. “Well, perhaps not radiant , precisely! Now don’t set me off again, I implore you! The thing is that he has been perfectly content with his lot for years, and has suddenly realized—I think!— that he doesn’t in the least wish to change it! It must have been a great shock to him, but he will very soon become reconciled to the idea, for he does dote on her, you know! He will be very proud of her, too, and positively revel in squandering enormous sums on her. Oh, dear, look at the time! I must go, or I shall be late for dinner! Kit, who is this General Godmama has invited to dine with us? I wish she had not, for there is something else I must tell you. I have broken it to Grandmama that you are not Denville.”

“Good God! You have been busy, haven’t you? I thought it was agreed that that should be left to me to do?”

She shook her head. “Believe me, Kit, it wouldn’t have answered!”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Wouldn’t it? Am I to understand that your efforts have been crowned by success?”

“Well, I don’t know—and I must own that nothing could be more unfortunate than this General!” she said seriously. “It is bound to put her out of temper, to be obliged to keep her tongue between her teeth all the evening, for you may depend upon it she will have decided just how she means to rattle you down. However, there’s no denying that she has a pronounced tendre for you, and I am very hopeful that if you can but hit upon a scheme to bring us all off from this mingle-mangle without anyone’s knowing what. really happened she will be very much inclined to relent.”

“I should think she might well!”

She looked inquiringly at him. “I must own that it seems very difficult to me, but I wondered if you have already some such scheme in your mind? Have you?”

“Frankly, my loved one, no!”

“Oh!” she said, slightly dashed. “I must admit that it has me at a standstill, but I did think that perhaps you might have discovered just how to do the trick neatly!”

“I can see you did,” he replied, regarding her in rueful amusement. “Believe me, adorable, it is only with the utmost reluctance that I shatter an illusion so flattering to myself! But, sooner or later, the truth will out! Better, I dare say, to make a clean breast of it immediately! Cressy, my darling, if your mind is set on becoming the wife of a brilliant diplomatist, cry off at once! For I must confess to you that I too am wholly at a standstill!”

Her gravity melted into laughter. “Oh, Kit, you detestable creature! How dare you think me such a widgeon as to cherish illusions ? I know that you’ll do the trick!”

Mr Fancot, having dealt suitably with this moving declaration of his loved one’s faith in his superior intellect, said affably, still holding her in his arms: “To be sure I shall! After all, I have twenty minutes to consider the problem before we sit down to dinner, haven’t I? As for the task of breaking the news of Mama’s approaching nuptials to Eve—not to mention cajoling him into accepting it with at least the semblance of complaisance!—twenty seconds , I dare say, will be time enough for me!”