Джорджетт Хейер: False Colours

“I don’t th-think he realizes it either, M-mama!” said Kit.

“No, not yet , but I promise you he will! Naturally, it came as a dreadful shock to him, but already he is beginning to grow more cheerful!” She added, as this drew wails from her distressingly afflicted sons, each of whom was clinging to a heavily carved bedpost: “Wicked ones, wicked ones, you are not to laugh at him!”

“Only give me leave to tell him you won’t f-feed him on biscuits and soda-water!” gasped Kit.

At that, her own enchanting ripple of laughter bubbled up. “Oh, poor lamb! As though I could be so inhuman! I should think it would kill him! Tell him that I shan’t interfere in any way! I shall, of course, but he will never know it, so you needn’t scruple to say that, dearest!”

It was Evelyn who laughed the most at this, and inevitably, he whose laughter quite suddenly vanished. He said vehemently: “Don’t do it, Mama, don’t do it! You can’t! You must know you can’t!”

She replied quite seriously: “That is exactly what I thought myself, when I made up my mind that I would do it! But, do you know, my dear one, the more I think about it the more I believe that I shall positively enjoy being married to Bonamy! That’s what I came to tell you, because I know you don’t like it, and I haven’t been able to snatch a word with either of you since it happened! And suddenly it occurred to me that I shan’t be a Dowager after all! You can’t think what a relief that is to me!” She drew his handsome head down, and kissed him. “So now you’ll let Fimber take you back to Pinny, my dearest, and you won’t worry about anything, because there is nothing more you can worry about! Kit came to the rescue, just as he—just as he—” Her voice cracked, and she turned swiftly to hug her younger son convulsively. “Oh, my darling!” she said. “ Thank you! I’m not going to say another word , because I should cry if I did, and I look hideous , when I do that! Good night, my precious ones!”

The twins were left confronting one another. “You’ll grow accustomed to it, Eve,” said Kit, faintly smiling. “She will enjoy being married to him!”

“Yes,” said Evelyn. He raised his eyes to Kit’s, and a reflection of Kit’s smile glimmered in them. “I don’t propose to embarrass you, Kester, by enlarging on what our beloved parent said—or, mercifully, left unsaid!”

“Well, thank God for that!” said Kit.

“Just so! I do hope we shall never be obliged to say anything to each other!”

“Why the devil should we?”

“I haven’t the least idea. Give the bell a tug, Kester! I’m, going to bed! In the words of our future father-in-law, it’s been a tiring day!”

“ Devilish tiring!” instantly responded his twin.