In a very few moments, Mr. Westruther, admitted to the house by Mrs. Armathwaite, strode into the Rector’s parlour, and stood for a minute on the threshold while his keen, yet oddly lazy eyes took in the assembled company. They encountered first Miss Charing, who had started forward into the middle of the room. An eyebrow went up. They swept past the Rector, and alighted on Miss Plymstock. Both eyebrows went up. Lastly, they discovered Lord Dolphinton, emerging from the cupboard. “Oh, my God!” said Mr. Westruther, shutting the door with a careless, backward thrust of one hand.
The Rector’s parlour was of comfortable but not handsome proportions, and with the entrance of Mr. Westruther it seemed to shrink. The Rector was himself a large man, but he neither caused his room to dwindle in size, nor seemed out of place in it. But he did not wear a driving coat with sixteen capes, which preposterous garment added considerably to Mr. Westruther’s overpowering presence; he did not flaunt a spotted Belcher neckcloth, or a striped waistcoat; and if the fancy took him to wear a buttonhole, this took the form of a single flower, and not a nosegay large enough for a lady to have carried to a ball. He had a shapely leg, and took care to sheathe it, when he rode to hounds, in a well-fitting boot; but he despised the white tops of fashion, and his servant was not required to polish the leather until he could see his own reflection in it.
Mr. Westruther moved forward, the big mother-of-pearl buttons on his driving-coat winking in the lamplight. He put out his hand, and with one long finger tilted Kitty’s chin up. “What a charming gown, my dear!” he remarked. “You should always wear pink: did the estimable Freddy tell you so? He has his uses! May I kiss you?”
“No, you may not!” said Kittv, pushing his hand away.
He laughed. “Ah, just so! Far too many persons present, are there not? Am I correct in supposing that you are here on precisely my own errand? Did you bring Dolphinton? A mistake, I feel—but I cannot believe that he had the wit to come of his own volition.”
He spoke lightly, but she had the impression that under his air of mockery he was angry. This puzzled her, and had the effect of diverting her own annoyance. She said slowly: “No, I am not here on any errand of yours, Jack. To be sure, I have no notion of what your errand may be!”
“Have you not? Then I will tell you, my love!” He rounded suddenly upon the Rector. “I am so happy to have found you at home, coz! Do, pray, inform me!—Are you aware of what has been going on under your saintly nose, at Arnside, or has it escaped your notice?”
The Rector’s eyes flashed. “I will rather inform you, Jack, that I find your manners offensive!”
“Do you? I am glad to hear it—quite enchanted, in fact! You become almost human. In general, you know, I find you as dead a bore as any waxwork.”
The Rector’s hands clenched involuntarily, and his austere mouth tightened. Mr. Westruther, observing these unclerical signs of wrath, laughed. “Do you mean to have a turn-up with me? I should not advise it. You were a first-rate boxer once, but you have let yourself get sadly out of condition, I fancy.”
“Don’t try my patience too far!” said the Rector, his breathing a little quickened.
“Oh, to the devil with you!” Mr. Westruther said impatiently. “Give me a plain answer! Do you know what has been going forward at Arnside, or are you sand-blind?”
Lord Dolphinton, whose eyes had been going from one to the other of his cousins, now saw fit to explain the situation, in so far as he was able, to his betrothed. “That’s my cousin Jack,” he informed her. “Told you about him. He’s vexed with Hugh. Hugh’s vexed with him. I don’t know why, but I wish he hadn’t come. I don’t like him. Never did.”
“Let it console you, sapskull, to know that your sentiments are reciprocated to the full!” said Mr. Westruther, with a snap.
“I’ll thank you, sir, to keep a civil tongue in your head!” said Miss Plymstock, entering the lists in steely-eyed defence of his lordship. “If there’s anything you are wishful to say in Foster’s disparagement, say it to me—if you dare! I’ve heard a deal about you, and not a word that wasn’t true, by what I can see!”
This unexpected attack successfully arrested Mr. Westruther’s attention. Up flew his mobile brows; genuine amusement set his eyes laughing again; he lifted his quizzing-glass, and through it inspected Miss Plymstock from head to foot. “A formidable opponent!” he remarked. “Diminutive, but pluck to the backbone! May I have the honour of knowing who you are?”
“Oh, Jack, pray will you stop behaving in this odious way?” begged Kitty. “It is Miss Plymstock, who is going to marry Dolph, and we are in such a dreadful fix! Only I do think that perhaps you could help us out of it!”
“I feel sure you are mistaken.”
“No, no, I know you could do it, if you would! What in the world has made you so cross? What is it that has been happening at Arnside?”
“So you don’t know! Then let me inform you, my love, that while you have been cutting capers in town, your dear Fish has entrapped my great-uncle into offering to bestow upon her his hand, and his not inconsiderable fortune!”
“What?” almost shrieked Kitty. “Uncle Matthew marry Fish? You must be mad!”
“Whoever else is mad, it is certainly not I!” he replied. He looked at the Rector with narrowing eyes. “I observe, coz, that these tidings do not come as a surprise to you!”
“No. They do not,” said the Rector coldly. “I have been aware for some weeks of my uncle’s intentions. I may add that I have also been admitted into Miss Fishguard’s confidence.”
“Have you indeed? It did not occur to you, I must assume, to warn either Kitty or me of what was looming before us?”
A slight, contemptuous smile curled the Rector’s lips. “You are correct in your assumption,” he said. “It does not appear to me that my uncle’s schemes are any concern of yours, my dear cousin!”
“But, good God, how has this come about?” cried Kitty. “Uncle Matthew and my poor Fish! Why, she goes in terror of him, while as for him, whenever his gout troubles him it is fatal for her to enter his room! Surely you are mistaken!”
“Oh, no, I am not mistaken!” he replied grimly. “My uncle did me the honour to write to me, informing me of his purpose. I am but just come from Arnside. My only mistake has been in thinking that my saintly cousin might, for once in his life, allow his common-sense a little rein!”
His cousin was goaded into making a very unsaintly retort. “Not quite your only mistake, I fancy!”
For an instant Mr. Westruther looked quite murderous; then he uttered a short laugh, and said: “As you say!”
Kitty, who had been staring at him in blank astonishment, suddenly exclaimed: “Can that have been why Fish begged me to return? And yet—Jack, how is this possible!”
“You, my dear Kitty, made it possible when you so unwisely left Arnside. So far as I am privileged to understand the matter, the Fish has been busy! She has learnt to play chess so that he may beat her every night; she has prevailed upon him to believe that the pangs of his gout have been alleviated by some antiquated remedy of her finding rather than by the clemency of the weather; and finally she has instilled into his mind the famous notion that since it will not suit his comfort to dispense with her services it will cost him less to marry her than to continue to pay her a wage!”
Kitty turned her eyes towards Hugh, in a mute question. He said gravely: “I cannot deny that I believe my uncle to be influenced by motives of economy.”
“But Fish—! Can it be that she will consent? When I recall her dismay, upon learning that I was going on a visit to London, I cannot believe it!”
“Very true, but you must recollect, my dear Kitty, that Miss Fishguard’s future, were she to leave Arnside, cannot be other than precarious. Moreover, since you went away, and she has been obliged to fill your place in the household, she has discovered, in some measure, how to make herself agreeable to him. Indeed, I have seldom known him to be in more amiable spirits!”
“Very adroitly has she discovered how to make herself agreeable!” struck in Mr. Westruther. “We have underrated her, my dear Hugh—let us own as much! Has she bamboozled you with her tears, and her vapours, and her protestations? What a bleater you must be!”
“Then that must have been what she meant by treachery!” exclaimed Kitty, unheeding. “How foolish of her! As though I could think such a thing of her! If she does indeed wish to marry Uncle Matthew, it is an excellent scheme!”
“I hope you may think as much when you find yourself cut out of my uncle’s Will by a brat in her image!” said Mr. Westruther viciously.
“An unlikely contingency!” said the Rector.
“On the contrary, nothing could be more likely! My uncle is not in his dotage, as well we know; and if the Fish is much above forty, I have been strangely misinformed!”
Kitty could not repress a giggle. “Oh, dear, how ridiculous it would be! I must go to Arnside as soon as I may.”
“Let that be immediately!” said Mr. Westruther.
“It cannot be immediately, Jack! I told you that we were all in an uproar here! I have been so stupid, and if poor Dolph’s plans are overset through it I shall never, never forgive myself!”
“That ain’t so,” interrupted Miss Plymstock, who had been engaged in quietly explaining to Lord Dolphinton the meaning of a dialogue that was rather too swift for him to follow. “It’s my blame, Miss Charing, and don’t you think I shall be trying to lay it at your door, for that I shall never do!”
“Oh, Jack!” said Kitty distressfully. “Never mind about Uncle Matthew for a moment! I brought Dolph and Miss Plymstock here, so that Hugh might marry them, and I was such a goose that I forgot—at least, I never knew, and that is stupider than anything! Hugh says they must have a special licence, and they have not got one!”
“In that case,” said Mr. Westruther, “you have wasted your time. May I suggest that you waste no more time, but that you turn your mind instead to—”
“Jack, if they must have a licence, could not you get it for them? Are such things to be procured in London? Do they, perhaps, cost a great deal of money?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Westruther, “they do, my dear Kitty! And if you are indulging your imagination with the notion that I mean to drive to London and back for no better purpose than to provide Dolphinton, in whose affairs I take not the smallest interest, with a marriage-licence, you very much mistake your man!”
She laid a hand on his sleeve. “No, no, Jack, you cannot be so disobliging!” she said pleadingly. “It is vital to Dolph’s happiness!”
He looked down at her, a mocking smile in his eyes. “I am quite unmoved, Kitty. Show me that it is vital to my happiness, and I might oblige you!”
She stared up into his face with puckered brows. “To yours? What can you mean?”
He lifted her hand from his arm, and held it. “My dear Kitty, let us have done! Between us, we might, I fancy, induce my uncle to change his mind.”
An indignant flush rose to her cheeks; she pulled her hand away, saying hotly: “I don’t wish him to change his mind! I hope very much that he will marry Fish!”
His brows snapped together. “A sentiment that no doubt does credit to your heart, but very little to your head, believe me!” He broke off, as Lord Dolphinton, uttering a strangled sound, almost leaped from his chair. “What the devil ails that lunatic?” he demanded irritably.
“Listen!” gasped his lordship, fixing dilating eyes upon the window.
The rest of the company now became aware that some vehicle had drawn up outside the Rectory. Kitty ran to the window, and peered out. It was by this time too dark for her to be able to distinguish any object, but she could perceive the glow of carriage-lamps beyond the hedge, and could distinctly hear the fidgeting and blowing of horses. She said uneasily: “It sounds as though there are more than two horses. But it could not be your Mama, Dolph!”
Lord Dolphinton, feeling no such certainty, made a bolt for the cupboard, but was intercepted by the Rector, who took his arm in a firm grip, and said in a voice of authority: “Foster, I will not suffer you to behave in this nonsensical fashion! Now, calm yourself! In this house, you are perfectly safe, whoever may have come to visit me. For shame! Do you mean to leave Miss—er—Plymstock to face what you imagine to be a danger?”
“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.”
“You are mistaken, coz,” interrupted Mr. Westruther, in a brittle voice. “The Fish is cleverer than we knew. I have not the slightest desire to dwell upon all she saw fit to pour into my ears not an hour since, for I found it nauseating, but if the matter teases you, you may as well know that she believes herself to be comparable to Katherine Parr—tending the aged and irascible monarch!” he added sarcastically.
“So that was it!” exclaimed Kitty. “Of course! He had a bad leg too! Though I fancy it was not precisely gout that afflicted him, was it? Now I see it all! How very like Fish to be so absurd! If only Uncle Matthew has not bullied her into saying she will marry him, I must say I think it an excellent thing for them both, don’t you, Freddy?”
“Well, Freddy?” said Mr. Westruther. “Do you think it excellent, or does some grain of common-sense exist in your mind?”
“Not my affair,” said Freddy. “At least—come to think of it, not sure it isn’t, in which case I do think it’s an excellent thing. What I mean is, I don’t want that woman living with us, and if she marries my great-uncle she dashed well can’t!”
Miss Charing’s cheeks became flooded with colour. “But, F-Freddy—!” she faltered.
Mr. Westmther laughed. “Just so, my love! You have been so busily employed in making what I can only call infelicitous matches that you have left your own future out of account, have you not? Oh, don’t look so conscious! I imagine Hugh cannot be so wood-headed that he does not know very well what game you have been playing! Dolphinton, I am sure, we need not regard; and as for Miss Plymstock, I look upon her as quite one of the family! It has been an amusing game, my little one, and you must not think that I blame you for having played it. It was very unhandsome of me not to have come to Arnside that day, was it not?”
He moved towards her as he spoke; his eyes were laughing again; and he held out his hands. The Rector cast a glance at Mr. Standen, but Mr. Standen had discovered an infinitesimal speck of fluff adhering to his coat sleeve, and was engaged in removing it. It was a task that appeared to absorb his whole attention.
Miss Charing took a step backward. “If you please, Jack,” she said, rather breathlessly, “no more!”
“Oh, nonsense, Kitty, nonsense!” Mr. Westruther said impatiently. “This folly has gone far enough!”
Miss Charing swallowed, and managed to say: “I collect that you mean to ask me to marry you, but—but I beg you will not! If you had come—that day—I should have accepted your offer, which would have been a very great mistake, and makes me so deeply thankful now that you did not come! Pray, Jack, say no more!”
He paid no heed to this, but said: “The fair Olivia admitted you a little too deeply into her confidence, did she? I was afraid she would. Don’t trouble your pretty head for such a trifle as that, Kitty! You will own that I have borne with tolerable equanimity the news that she has fled to France with your enterprising cousin.”
“No, no, it is not that! I can’t tell what it is, only that perhaps I have changed, or—or something of that nature!” said Kitty. “And, indeed, Jack, I am excessively fond of you, and I daresay I shall always be, in spite of knowing that you are quite odiously selfish, but, if you will not be very much offended, I would much prefer not to be married to you!”
He stood staring down into her perturbed face. The laugh had quite vanished from his eyes, and there was a white look round his mouth. Miss Charing had never before had experience of the temper Mr. Westruther’s cousins knew well, and she was a little frightened.
“So that’s it, is it?” he said, quite softly. “George was right after all! Dolphinton was a little too much for you to swallow, but you had indeed set your heart on a title and a great position, and so you laid the cleverest trap for Freddy that I have ever been privileged to see! You cunning little jade!”
It was at this point that Mr. Standen, that most exquisite of Pinks, astounded the assembled company, himself included, by knocking him down.
For this, two circumstances were largely responsible. He took Mr. Westruther entirely unawares; and Mr. Westruther, recoiling from the blow, tripped over a small footstool, lost his balance, and fell heavily.
“Good God!” said the Rector, forgetting his cloth. “Well done, Freddy! A nice, flush hit!”
Lord Dolphinton, who had found the interchange between Kitty and his cousin rather beyond his power of comprehension and had allowed his attention to wander, now realized that a mill was in progress, which he was perfectly well able to understand. In high glee he called upon Miss Plymstock to observe that Freddy had floored Jack, and begged Freddy to do it again.
Freddy himself, rather pale, stood waiting with his fists clenched while his cousin picked himself up. There was a very ugly look in Mr. Westruther’s eyes, which caused Hugh, who had helped him to his feet, to maintain a grip upon his arm, and Kitty to say hurriedly: “Oh, Freddy, it was splendid of you, and I am so very much obliged to you, but pray do not do it again!”
“No, no!” said Freddy, conscience-stricken.
The ugly look faded. “At least admit you could not!” said Mr.Westruther.
“No, I know I could not,” replied Freddy, “but I dashed well don’t mind trying to!”
Mr. Westruther began to laugh. “Freddy, you dog, you took me off guard and off balance, and I have a good mind to knock you through that window! Oh, take your hand off my arm, Hugh! You can’t be fool enough to suppose I mean to have a turn-up with Freddy!” He shook the Rector off as he spoke, and straightened his neckcloth. That done, he held out his hand imperatively to Kitty. “Come, cry friends with me!” he said. “I will apologize for the whole, confess that I entirely misread a situation that is now perfectly plain to me, and remove myself immediately from your presence.” He held her hand for a moment, grinning rather ruefully at her; then he lightly kissed her cheek, and said: “Accept my best wishes for your happiness, my dear, and believe that I shall do my utmost to cut you out with Uncle Matthew! My felicitations, Freddy. I’ll serve you trick-and-tie for that leveller one of these days. Oh, no, pray don’t accompany me, Hugh! Really, I have had more than enough of my family for one day!”
A bow to Miss Plymstock, a wave of the hand, and he was gone. The front-door slammed behind him; they heard his tread going down the garden-path, the click of the gatelatch, and, in another moment or two, the sound of his horses’ hooves. Miss Plymstock rose, and shook out her skirt. “I’m bound to say I ain’t at all sorry to see the last of him,” she remarked. “Nor I haven’t told you yet, Mr. Standen, how very much obliged to you I am for bringing that licence,”
But Mr. Standen was not attending. He addressed himself to the Rector. “Oughtn’t to have done it, Hugh. Not the thing! He wasn’t expecting it.”
“Very true,” agreed the Rector. “It was, in a sense, improper, but since you could not, I fear, have landed him the smallest punch under any other circumstances, I cannot regret it. He came by his just deserts. The most deplorable feature of the business is that such a scene should have been enacted in this room, under the eyes of two ladies.”
“Better have gone into the garden,” nodded Lord Dolphinton. “Like watching a good mill.”
“What you would have watched, my dear Foster, would not have been a mill, but a murder!” said the Rector tartly.
“Why, Hugh!” exclaimed Kitty. “I do believe you are quite cross because it was Freddy who knocked him down, and not you!”
“I would remind you, Kitty, that I am in Holy Orders,” said the Rector austerely. “And let me tell you that if I had chosen to come to fisticuffs with Jack—However, we have said enough on this subject! The licence which Freddy has handed to me does indeed enable me to marry you to Miss Plymstock, Foster, but it in no way alters my reluctance to do so. Pray do not misunderstand me, ma’am! I do not wish to oppose the marriage. From what I have observed, I am inclined to think that Foster would derive considerable benefit from it.”
“Well, for the lord’s sake, Hugh, stop prosing!” recommended Freddy. “Dashed if you aren’t as bad as Kit’s French cousin!”
The Rector cast him a withering look. “Have the goodness not to interrupt me, Freddy! While I am prepared to support Foster in his determination to marry Miss Plymstock, I cannot approve of his clandestine way of going about the business.”
“What you mean, old fellow,” said the irrepressible Mr. Standen, “is that you don’t want to be mixed up in it. Scared of Aunt Dolphinton.”
“I am not in the least scared of Aunt Dolphinton!”
“Well, if you ain’t scared of her, you’re scared of what the rest of ’em will say. Don’t blame you: told Kit I’d as lief have nothing to do with it myself. However, shouldn’t be surprised if the family thought you’d done the right thing. I can tell you one who will, and that’s m’mother. What’s more, there’s two of us in it. I won’t hedge off.”
The Rector hesitated. “That is all very well, but—”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Hugh: no sense in refusing! Paltry thing to do, because if you won’t corne up to scratch there’ll be nothing for it but for me to take ’em to the next parish first thing tomorrow morning, and hand ’em over to the parson there.”
Miss Plymstock was moved to grasp him by the hand, saying warmly: “You’ve got a great deal of commonsense, Mr. Standen, and I like you for it!”
“You like Freddy too?” said Lord Dolphinton, pleased. “I like Freddy! I like him—”
“Now you’ve set him off again!” said Freddy reproachfully.
“That will do, Foster!” said the Rector. “If you are determined on this course, I will perform the ceremony.”
“Then that’s settled all right and tight,” said Freddy. “They’ll have to stay here till the knot’s tied, but you won’t mind that. Going to drive Kit to Arnside now, but we’ll come over in the morning, and take ’em to Church.”
Miss Charing, blinking at these competent plans, said: “Yes, but, Freddy, where are they to go when they are married? The thing is, you see, that it will take a little time for Hannah’s lawyer to settle everything with Dolph’s Mama, and until it is all quite safe she does not wish Lady Dolphinton to see Dolph, and also they will not have any money, which makes it particularly awkward for them.”
“I shall be happy to offer you the hospitality of my house for as long as you wish to remain here, Miss Plymstock,” said the Rector, untruthfully, but in a very Christian spirit.
“No, that won’t do,” said Freddy, considering the matter. “Aunt Dolphinton’s bound to come after them. Don’t see how you could keep her out. They’ll have to go to Arnside.”
“Arnside?” repeated Kitty blankly. “Freddy, they could not!”
“Yes, they could. I don’t say it’s where I’d choose to spend my honeymoon, but there’s nothing else for it. Thing is, it’s the one place my aunt dashed well can’t get into. Told me yourself the old gentleman had all the doors barred against her!”
“Yes, he did, but you know how much he dislikes to have guests staying with him! He would never permit them to do so!”
“Got a strong notion he will,” said Freddy darkly. “Going to tell him it’ll make Aunt Dolphinton as mad as fire if he does. Lay you odds that card will take the trick! Shouldn’t wonder at it if it put him in high croak, what’s more.”
“Freddy, you are perfectly right!” said Miss Charing, awed. “Nothing ever puts him in such spirits as being disagreeable to Dolph’s Mama! I daresay he will be very much obliged to us for putting him in the way of serving her such a turn!”
“Just what I was thinking,” nodded Freddy. “Going to tell ’em to put the horses to now. No sense in dawdling here any longer: might put the old gentleman in a bad temper if we were late.”
The Rector begged them to dine with him, but they were resolute in declining the invitation. Kitty put on her bonnet and pelisse, the chaise was brought to the front-gate, and after faithfully promising to return in time to support the bride and groom through the wedding ceremony on the morrow, Mr. Standen and his betrothed left the Rectory.
“Oh, Freddy, what a day this has been!” sighed Miss Charing, sinking back against the squabs of the chaise.
“Devilish!” he agreed. “Brushed through it pretty well, though. All we have to do now is to see ’em safely married, and then we can be comfortable. Mind, there may be a kick-up over the business, but we can’t help that.”
“I know it, and I wanted so much not to drag you into it!” said Kitty remorsefully. “I thought, if only you knew nothing about it, it would serve as a reason for you to put an end to our engagement!”
“Yes, I know you did. Told me so, in that letter you wrote me. Dashed cork-brained notion! Stands to reason if you’re in it I must be too.”
“No, Freddy, it does not,” said Kitty, in a constricted tone. “You know it is all a hoax, our engagement. I am determined to end it. I ought never, never to have thought of such a thing!”
“Now, Kit, don’t say we must quarrel, because I won’t do it!” begged Freddy.
“Oh, no, how could I quarrel with you? I think we should tell everyone that we—we find we are not suited.”
“No, we shouldn’t,” said Freddy. “Silly thing to say, because everyone must know it ain’t true. Got a better notion. Daresay you won’t like it, but it’s what I should like.”
“What is it?” asked Miss Charing rather huskily.
“Send that dashed notice to the Gazette, and get married,” replied Freddy.
Something that sounded suspiciously like a sob broke from Miss Charing. “Oh, no, no! Freddy, pray do not! You know it was all my doing! You never wanted to be engaged to me!”
“No, I didn’t,” he acknowledged. “Thing is, changed my mind! Haven’t said anything, because, to tell you the truth, I thought Jack was right: got engaged to me to make him jealous.”
Miss Charing blew her nose. “I did. I was utterly wicked, and shameless, and stupid!”
“No, no! Very understandable thing to do. Devil of a fellow, Jack! Trouble is—wouldn’t make you a good husband, Kit. Been worrying me for a long time. Thought you was in love with him. Don’t mind telling you it was as much as I could do to keep a still tongue in my head when he asked you to marry him tonight. What I mean is, like you to have everything you want. Wished it was me, and not Jack, that’s all.”
Miss Charing raised her face from her handkerchief. “I was never in love with Jack in my life!” she said. “I thought I was, but I know now it was no such thing. He seemed just like all the heroes in books, but I soon found that he is not like them at all.”
“No,” agreed Freddy. “I’m afraid I ain’t either, Kit.”
“Of course you are not! No one is! And if somebody was, I should think him quite odious!”
“You would?” said Freddy hopefully. “I must say, Kit, I think you would too. Well, what I mean is, if you ever met anyone like that fellow the Fish talked of—fellow who snatched up some female in the middle of a party, and threw her on his horse—dashed embarrassing, you know! Wouldn’t like it at all!”
“No, indeed I shouldn’t!”
“You don’t feel you could marry me instead? Got no brains, of course, and I ain’t a handsome fellow, like Jack, but I love you. Don’t think I could ever love anyone else. Daresay it ain’t any use telling you, but—well, there it is!”
“Oh, Freddy, Freddy!” sobbed Miss Charing.
“No, no, Kit, don’t cry!” begged Freddy, putting his arm round her. “Can’t bear you not to be happy! I won’t say another word. Never thought there was any hope for me. Just wanted to tell you.”
“Freddy, I love you with all my heart!” Kitty said, turning within his arm, and casting both her own round his neck. “Much, much more than you could possibly love me!”
“You do?” exclaimed Freddy, tightening his hold. “Well, by Jove! Here, take this dashed bonnet off! How the deuce am I to kiss you with a lot of curst feathers in my face?” He found the strings, tugged ruthlessly at them, and cast the offending bonnet aside. “That’s better! Been wanting to kiss you for weeks!”
Miss Charing, assisting him to achieve this ambition, was for some moments unable to make any remark. But the rude handling of her headgear seemed to her to call for reproof, and she presently murmured, with her head on his shoulder: “I daresay my bonnet is quite ruined.”
“If it comes to that, I’m dashed sure my neckcloth is,” said Mr. Standen. “It don’t signify about the bonnet. I don’t like it above half. Buy you a new one.”
“No. Just a set of garnets!” said Kitty, with a tiny gurgle.
“Garnets?” said Freddy scornfully. “You don’t suppose I’m going to buy you trumpery things like that, do you? Got my eye on some good rubies. Just the thing!”
“Oh, no, Freddy!”
“And don’t you say ‘Oh, no!’ because now that we really are engaged, I can dashed well give you anything I like!”
“Yes, Freddy,” said Miss Charing meekly.