Cotillion (24 page)

Mr. Westruther laughed. “A very skilful one, Freddy!”

“A Greek?”

Mr. Westruther seemed surprised. “No, a Frenchman, surely?”

But Freddy was in no mood for such trifling. “That card will win no trick! Come, now! A Captain Sharp?”

“My dear Freddy, I have not the least reason to suppose it I Let us rather say, a first-rate player!”

Mr. Standen’s amiable countenance hardened. After staring fixedly at his cousin for a moment, he said with unusual dryness: “Playing a deep game, ain’t you, coz?”

“Why, what can you mean?” said Jack, raising his brows.

“Not sure,” said Mr. Standen cautiously. “Don’t know why you introduced the fellow to Kit.”

“You must be a trifle disguised,” said Mr. Westruther, regarding him with concern. “You have forgotten that Kitty was desirous of meeting her French connections. Isn’t she pleased with him? I was so sure she must be! A personable and a charming creature—you don’t agree?”

“Yes, I do,” Freddy replied. “Very pleasant fellow. Thing is, I’ve a notion there’s something havey-cavey about him, and I don’t like it.”

Mr. Westruther’s broad shoulders shook. “He offends your sense of the respectable, coz? Alas! Now, I find him so amusing! But I am not, of course, one of the stiff Standens.”

“No, and you ain’t engaged to Kit!” retorted Freddy, nettled.

“Very true. Are you?” said Jack sweetly.

“Seems to me,” said Freddy, recovering after a moment from the effect of this undoubted doubler, “that it’s you who are disguised!”

He thought it prudent to say no more to his cousin, but to pursue his own investigations. These led him in due course to seek counsel of his father, whom he met one day in St. James’s Street, and who exhibited great surprise at seeing him, saying that he had supposed him to have gone out of town again. But this shaft went wide. Freddy eyed his satirical parent in mild bewilderment, and said reasonably; “Can’t have thought that, sir! Dash it, met you at Meg’s two nights ago!”

Lord Legerwood sighed. “You have your own armour, have you not, Frederick? Of course, I should have known better!”

“Offended you, sir?” asked Freddy intelligently.

“Not at all. How came such an idea as that into your head?”

“Notice more than you think,” said Freddy, with simple pride. “Never call me Frederick except when I’ve vexed you!”

“Almost you encourage me to look forward to a brilliant career for you!” said his lordship, impressed.

“Shouldn’t think so at all,” said Freddy decidedly. “Wouldn’t suit me. Besides we don’t need two clever coves in the family. Mean to leave that sort of thing to Charlie. You going anywhere, sir?”

“Merely to White’s.”

“Come with you,” said Freddy. “Been thinking lately I’d like a word with you.”

“Surely not!” countered Lord Legerwood gently. “I do not live in the Antipodes!”

Freddy puzzled over this, and said after a moment: “Dashed if I see what that has to do with it, sir! You roasting me? I wish you won’t, for I ain’t in funning humour. Children going on well? Daresay you might not have noticed it, but I haven’t been in Mount Street this age. Never seem to have any time to do anything but look after Kit! If it ain’t seeing to it that Meg don’t persuade her into buying a shocking bonnet, it’s driving with her all over London and showing her a lot of tombs and broken-down statues you wouldn’t think anyone would want to look at, let alone pay to look at!”

Fascinated, his father said: “Is that what you have been doing?”

“I should rather think it is! Yes, and that’s put me in mind of another thing I wanted to say to you! This British Museum they talk so much about! You know what, sir? It’s a dashed take-in! Ought to do something about it. Why, if Kit hadn’t happened to have a deuced good book with her, we should have been bit, like a couple of green ‘uns!”

“My dear Freddy,” said Lord Legerwood, tucking a hand in his arm, “come into the club, and tell me about it!”

“Well, I will,” Freddy replied. “Though that ain’t what I chiefly want to say to you. Find myself in a bit of a fix—at least, shouldn’t wonder at it if I do find myself in one. Had a notion I might do worse than consult you.”

“You might—much worse!” said his lordship. “But first I must and will hear about the British Museum!”

He then led his son into the club, found a quiet corner in the morning-room, and bade him unburden his soul. He listened with rapt appreciation to Freddy’s account of his ordeal, expressing himself so properly that Freddy was disappointed to find that he did not feel that it lay within his province to expose the several abuses discovered by his heir. When he further disclosed, apologetically, that the question of the acquisition by the nation of the Elgin Marbles was to come up before both Houses that very session, Freddy was shocked and incredulous, and for several minutes forgot the real purpose of this interview. It was not until he had been soothed by a glass of very dry sherry that he remembered it, and then he said, without the smallest preamble: “You know the Chevalier d’Evron, sir?”

“I have not that pleasure,” responded Lord Legerwood.

“Thought as much,” nodded Freddy. “It don’t prove anything, of course, because he’s a young man, and I daresay you might not know him. Ever hear of the family?”

“No.”

“Smoky,” said Freddy gloomily.

Lord Legerwood presently interrupted his meditations. “Who is this gentleman, Freddy?”

“Cousin of Kit’s. She likes him. Mended a doll for her once, or some such stuff. Claud chopped its head off. Sort of thing he would do, come to think of it.”

“Am I to infer that you don’t share Kitty’s liking for the Chevalier?”

“Wouldn’t say that,” replied Freddy, rubbing his nose. “Very pleasant fellow. But you know how it is: can’t be on the town without learning to know a flat from a leg!”

“I am happy to hear you say so. Tell me more of this— leg?”

“No, no, he ain’t a leg! At least, I don’t know that he is. Shouldn’t think it’s as bad as that. Jack’s too downy to play cards with a leg. But he ain’t a flat either. Daresay you might not have noticed him, but he was at Meg’s party t’other evening.”

“Are you talking of a handsome young exquisite in a coat of pronounced cut, and an over-large tie-pin?”

“That’s the fellow,” said Freddy. “Good air, good address, talks of his uncle the Marquis. But they don’t seem to know him at the Embassy.”

“Disquieting,” agreed his lordship. “One must bear in mind, however, the late disturbed times in France. Possibly one of the new nobility?”

“That’s what Jasper says, but it don’t make it any better. Seems to me that fellow Bonaparte ennobled a lot of devilish queer fish. Thing is, this Camille of Kit’s looked to me as though he meant to dangle after her. Told him we was engaged. Told him the terms of this Will Uncle Matthew means to make. Then he stopped haunting the place. Dangling after the Yalding fright instead.”

“In fact, an adventurer! I imagine Annerwick will take good care that his daughter doesn’t marry to disoblige him. Isn’t there a sister living with Lady Maria, as dragon?”

“Yes, but she’s a poor dab of a female. The
on-dit
is that Lady Maria means to have the Chevalier. Wouldn’t surprise, me at all: handsome fellow, very popular with the ladies. No use saying it ain’t my affair. Seems to me it might be. What I mean is, if Annerwick took fright, very likely to set a lot of dashed awkward enquiries afoot. If the fellow’s an impostor, disagreeable situation for Kit. Besides, she don’t like not having relations. Told me so. Said it made her comfortable to have a respectable cousin. Ought to do something about it.”

Lord Legerwood, who had been listening to him with much more interest than he was wont to accord him, said: “I expect you ought, Freddy, but precisely what you should do I confess I don’t immediately perceive.”

Freddy looked surprised. “Don’t see any difficulty about that, sir. If he’s a loose-fish, nothing for it but to get rid of him.”

Lord Legerwood’s eyes widened a little. “I trust you are not proposing to fight a duel, Freddy?”

“Lord, no! Cork-brained thing to do! Pack him off to France again: that’s the dandy!”

“An excellent scheme—if you can bring it about.”

“Daresay I shall think of a way,” said Freddy. He observed a curious expression on his father’s countenance, and said with slight concern: “Anything amiss, sir?”

“No—oh, no!” replied Lord Legerwood, recovering himself. “I almost believe that you will think of a way, for I perceive that you have depths hitherto unsuspected by me, my dear boy. Tell me, if you please, if I am correct in assuming that my part in this is to discover for you, if I can, who and what is your Chevalier?”

“That’s it,” said Freddy, gratified by such ready understanding. “Very much obliged to you if you would, sir.”

“I will do my poor best,” bowed his lordship. “Meanwhile, permit me to congratulate you upon the change you have wrought in Kitty’s appearance! I collect that yours has been the guiding hand: alas, I knew when I saw her the other evening that my poor Meg could have had little to say in the choice of her apparel!”

Freddy looked pleased. “Elegant little thing, ain’t she?” His brow clouded. “Shouldn’t have worn those topazes, though. Wouldn’t let me give her a set of garnets. Pity!”

Lord Legerwood, although noting this peculiar reluctance on Miss Charing’s part to receive gifts from her betrothed, refrained from comment. He merely said, polishing his eyeglass: “Oblige me, Freddy, by telling me if Jack Westruther is often to be found in Berkeley Square?”

Freddy’s brow darkened. “Too dashed often, for my taste. No need for you to trouble yourself, though. Keeping my eye on Meg!”

Lord Legerwood, sustaining yet another shock, said faintly: “You are?”

“To be sure I am. What’s more, got my own notion of what’s in the wind.” He nodded portentously, but added: “Don’t mean to say anything about that: not my affair! Trouble is—beginning to think he’s too damned loose in the haft!”

“I have thought that any time these past seven years,” said Lord Legerwood.

“You have?” said Freddy, regarding him with affectionate pride. “Always say you’re the downiest man I know, sir! Up to every rig and row in town!”

“Freddy, you unman me!” said his father, profoundly moved. “No one, I believe, has yet called me a slow-top, but I own I am happy to learn that you are—er—keeping an eye on your sister.”

“Yes, but no need to fear there’ll be any brats coming through a side-door,” said Freddy bluntly. “For one thing, can’t, with Meg increasing; for another—Jack’s got his eye on a devilish prime article. Don’t think he would, either: dash it, not such a rum touch as that!”

With this assurance Lord Legerwood had to be content, for his son’s confidences were at an end. Freddy saw no reason to inform his parent that he had been thunderstruck to discover that Miss Charing had, by means unknown to him, become acquainted with the damsel whom he had. no hesitation in designating a prime article. He had already viewed with disapprobation her friendship with an ill-favoured female of obviously plebeian origin; his feelings when he called in Berkeley Square and found his affianced bride entertaining Miss Broughty held him spellbound upon the threshold, his jaw dropping, and his eyes starting from his head. When Miss Broughty presently took her leave, he nerved himself to expostulate with Kitty, representing to her that to be striking up an acquaintanceship with the daughter of a lady whom he did not scruple to call an Abbess, if ever he saw one, could in no way add to her consequence. “It won’t do, Kit! Take it from me!”

To his intense discomfiture he came under the beam of Miss Charing’s wide-eyed, enquiring gaze. “What does an Abbess signify, Freddy?” she asked. He was thrown into disorder, and replied hastily: “Never mind that! Wouldn’t understand if I told you! Thing is, the woman’s putting that girl up to the highest bidder. Oughtn’t to say such things to you, but there it is!”

“I know she is,” responded Kitty calmly. “She is quite the most odious woman imaginable! I am so sorry for poor Olivia! Indeed, Freddy, you would pity her if you knew the whole!”

“Yes, I daresay I should. No harm in being sorry for her, but it won’t do to be making a friend of her.”

“But, Freddy, surely there can be no objection! Though we may dislike Mrs. Broughty, Olivia’s birth is respectable, for she is related to Lady Batterstown, and she, I know, is a friend of your Mama’s!” Freddy sighed. “Trouble is, Kit, you ain’t been on the town long enough to know the ins and the outs! Oliver Broughty was a dashed loose screw, by all I’ve ever heard, and it don’t make a ha’porth of odds if he was some kind of a third cousin to Lady Batterstown, or if he wasn’t. In fact, he was, but it’s what I was telling you t’other day: every family has its scaff and raff! We have! Thing is, don’t foist ‘em on the
ton
!”

Kitty wrinkled her brow. “It is true that Lady Batterstown seems not to have been very kind to the Broughtys. One cannot but feel that had she but befriended Olivia the poor girl might have achieved a very creditable alliance, for you cannot deny, Freddy, that she is most beautiful!”

“That ain’t enough,” said the worldly-wise Mr. Standen.

“Well, but it seems as though sometimes it is!” argued Kitty. “Olivia has been telling me about the beautiful Miss Gunnings, who were no better connected than she is, and yet, when their Mama brought them to London, they took the town by storm, and one of them married two Dukes!”