So, indeed, it proved. By the time the first guests arrived on Tuesday my lady was herself again, her final activity having been to drift through the flower-gardens, holding up a parasol to protect her complexion from the sun, and pointing out to the head gardener the blooms she wished to see in her six new containers. The effect was all that she had been sure it would be, for the gardener was expert in flower-arrangement; and since she watched him at work, several times choosing, and handing to him, a spray from the basket held by one of his satellites, and proffering a number of suggestions, she was convinced, by the end of the morning, that she had filled all the containers herself, with only a little assistance from him.
The first arrivals were the Hon. Cosmo and Mrs Cliffe, and Mr Ambrose Cliffe, their sole surviving offspring. They came in a somewhat antiquated travelling chariot, drawn by one pair of horses: a circumstance which caused my lady to exclaim: ‘Good God, Cosmo, did you hire that shocking coach, or is it your own? I wonder you will be seen in such a Gothic affair!’
Mr Cliffe, who was a tall, spare man, some few years older than his sister, replied, as he dutifully kissed her cheek, that post-charges were too heavy for his modest purse. ‘We are not all of us as fortunately circumstanced as you, my dear Amabel,’ he said.
‘Nonsense!’ responded her ladyship. ‘I daresay your purse is fatter than mine, for you never spend a groat out of the way. It is quite abominable of you to have brought poor Emma here, jumbling and jolting in a horrid old coach which strongly reminds me of the one Grandpapa had, and which always made Grandmama sea-sick! Dear Emma, how much I pity you, and how glad I am to see you – though not looking as stout as one would wish! I shall take you up to your bedchamber immediately, and see you laid down to rest before dinner.’
Mrs Cliffe, a flaccid woman, with weak blue eyes, and a sickly complexion, responded, with an indeterminate smile, and in a curiously flat voice, that she was pretty well, except for a slight headache.
‘I shouldn’t wonder at it if every inch of you ached!’ said her ladyship, shepherding her into the house.
‘Oh, no, indeed! If only Ambrose may not have caught cold!’
‘My dear Emma, how could he possibly have done so on such a day as this?’
‘His constitution is so delicate,’ sighed Mrs Cliffe. ‘He was sitting forward, too, and I am persuaded there was a draught. Perhaps if he were to swallow a few drops of camphor – I have some in my dressing-case –’
‘If I were you I wouldn’t encourage him to quack himself!’ said Lady Denville frankly.
‘No, dear, but your sons are so remarkably healthy, are they not?’ said Mrs Cliffe, looking at her with faint compassion.
But as her ladyship was not one of those mothers who considered that delicacy of constitution conferred an interesting distinction on her children, the compassion was wasted. She said blithely: ‘Yes, thank goodness! They never ail, though they did have the measles, and the whooping-cough, when they were small. They may have had chicken-pox too, but I can’t remember it.’
Mrs Cliffe admired her lovely sister-in-law, but she could not help feeling that she must be a very heartless parent to have forgotten such an event in the lives of her sons. Perhaps Cosmo was right, when he said that Amabel cared for nothing but fashionable frivolities. But when Lady Denville presently left her, comfortably reposing on a day-bed, with a shawl cast lightly over her feet, a handkerchief soaked with her ladyship’s very expensive eau-de-cologne in her hand, and the blinds drawn to shut out the sunshine, she decided that no one so kind and so attentive could be heartless, however fashionable she might be.
Meanwhile, Kit had led his uncle and his cousin into one of the saloons on the ground floor where various liquid refreshments of a fortifying nature awaited them. Although an engrained parsimony prompted Cosmo to stock his own cellar with indifferent wine, his palate was not so vitiated that he did not know good wine from bad. After a sniff, and an appreciative sip, his expression became almost benign, and he said, with a nod at Kit: ‘Ah!’
‘A very tolerable sherry, coz!’ said Ambrose, not to be outdone.
‘Much you know about it!’ said his father scornfully. ‘Sherry, indeed! This is some of the Mountain-Malaga your uncle laid down – let me see! – ay, it must be thirteen or fourteen years ago! It wants another year or two yet, Denville, to be at its prime, for the longer the Spanish Mountain wines are allowed to mature the better they become. But it is very potable! Alas, what is now being sold as Malaga is a travesty of the Mountain wines I drank in my youth!’ He took another sip, and favoured his nephew with a smile. ‘I collect, my dear boy, that I shall shortly be called upon to offer you my felicitations. Very right! very proper! I live out of the world nowadays, but I understand that Miss Stavely is an unexceptionable female: I look forward to making her acquaintance. Your dear mother tells me that the match has Brumby’s approval, so I must suppose that Miss Stavely’s portion is handsome?’
‘I regret, sir, that I can give you no information on that point, since I have no idea what her portion may be,’ said Kit, regarding him with disfavour.
Cosmo looked shocked, but said, after a moment’s reflection: ‘But it is not to be supposed that your uncle Brumby would favour the match if it were not so! To be sure, you were born to all the comfort of a handsome fortune, Denville, but it must cost a great deal of money – a very great deal of money! – to maintain an establishment such as this, and the house in London, to say nothing of the little place you own in Leicestershire. Then, too, your father, I daresay, made suitable provision for your brother, and that must mean a considerable diminution of your income.’
‘As though Denville wasn’t full of juice!’ muttered young Mr Cliffe into his wineglass.
Happily, Cosmo did not hear this interpolation. He seemed to take almost as much interest in his nephew’s financial situation as in his own; and continued, for as long as it took him to drink three glasses of Malaga, to speculate on the probable yield of my lord’s estates; the number of servants needed to keep so large a mansion in order; the cost of maintaining such extensive flower-gardens; and the extortionate rates demanded for houses in Mayfair. To do him justice, his interest, and his energetic plans for the reduction of his nephew’s expenses, were entirely altruistic: he had nothing to gain; but almost as much as he liked to save money for himself did he like to evolve plans whereby other people’s money could be saved. He was listened to politely by his nephew, and by his son with a mixture of rancour and embarrassment. That young gentleman, as soon as Cosmo had left the room, was so ill-advised as to beg Kit not to pay any heed to him. ‘He always talks as if he was purse-pinched – it’s his way! It’s bad enough when he starts that tug-jaw at home, but when he does it in company it’s beyond anything!’
Kit was not unsympathetic, for he could readily perceive that to a nineteen-year-old, unsure of himself, yet anxious to be thought all the go, Cosmo must be a severe trial; but he thought his cousin’s speech extremely unbecoming, and somewhat pointedly changed the subject. It was to no avail. Ambrose continued to animadvert bitterly and at length on his father’s shortcomings until Kit lost patience, and told him roundly that his complaints did him no credit. ‘I don’t wonder at it that my uncle should have taken your doings in snuff! Lord, could you find nothing better to do at Oxford than to visit the fancy-houses? As for rustication, let me tell you, cawker, that Eve –’ He caught himself up, and swiftly altered the word he had been about to utter – ‘that even Kit and I weren’t rusticated because we had got into the petticoat line! In our day we left such stuff to the baggagery! As for boasting of having given some wretched ladybird a slip on the shoulder –’
‘I didn’t boast of it!’ blurted out Mr Cliffe, blushing fierily. ‘I only said –’
‘Oh, yes, you did!’ said Kit grimly. ‘And if I were you I’d keep mum for that, halfling!’
Much discomposed, Amb
rose muttered: ‘Well, you’re no saint, Denville! Everyone knows that!’
‘No, and nor am I a Queer Nab, which is what you’ll be, if you don’t take care!’ said Kit, with cheerful brutality. He laughed suddenly. ‘Come, don’t be such a gudgeon, Ambrose! You are making me forget I’m your host.’
‘Well, considering they still talk of the things you and Kit did, when you was up, it’s the outside of enough for you to be pinching at me!’ said Ambrose, much injured.
‘Do they? Famous!’ said Kit, his eyes lighting with sudden laughter. ‘I’ll swear they don’t say, though, that we wasted our time chasing the white-aprons!’
Nine
On the following day, towards the end of the afternoon, the Dowager Lady Stavely arrived at Ravenhurst, in an even more antiquated and ponderous travelling chariot than Mr Cliffe’s, and accompanied by her granddaughter, her abigail, and her personal footman. Mr Fancot, notwithstanding his expressed wish to put as many miles as possible between himself and any member of the Stavely family, greeted their appearance on the scene with as much pleasure as was compatible with his fear that he might, in an unguarded moment, betray himself. For this, twenty-four hours spent in the company of his maternal relations were largely responsible. What Lady Denville mendaciously described as a cosily conversable evening had been followed by a singularly boring, and, at times, difficult day. Cosmo, himself the owner of a modest estate, had chosen, when civilly asked to say what he would like to do, to ride round his nephew’s acres. During this expedition, on which Kit had felt himself bound to escort him, he had asked a great many pertinent questions to which Kit, who, as a younger son, had never concerned himself with the management or the revenue of his father’s property, was hard put to it to answer. He was obliged to endure a homily from his uncle, who perceived, with regret, that report had not lied when it described the Sixth Lord Denville as a frippery young man, wholly abandoned to frivolity. Fortunately for the absent Evelyn’s reputation, Mr Cliffe retired to the library after a substantial nuncheon, spread a handkerchief over his face, and sank into profound and audible slumber. Kit was left with the task of trying to entertain his cousin: no easy one, since young Mr Cliffe’s sole desire was, as he expressed it, to take a bolt to Brighton. Asked what he wanted to do in Brighton, he replied vaguely that they might go for a toddle on the promenade, or perhaps take a look-in at a billiards-saloon. But as Kit, in the existing circumstances, was determined to give this haunt of fashion a wide berth; and would have shrunk, under any circumstances, from being seen in the company of a would-be dandy who presented to his jaundiced eye all the appearance of a counter-coxcomb, this scheme was blocked at the outset. Kit said that it behoved him to be on hand when the Stavelys arrived; and that if Ambrose wanted to play billiards on a summer’s afternoon there was a very good table at Ravenhurst. In the end, as Ambrose said that he didn’t know that he really wished to play billiards, he drove him upstairs to change his tightly fitting coat, his dove-coloured pantaloons, and his cut Venetian waistcoat for attire more suited to the country, and bore him off to shoot rabbits. Ambrose went unwillingly, saying, with a nervous laugh, that he was not a crack shot, like his cousin; but after he had been forcibly dissuaded from carrying his fowling-piece at an extremely dangerous angle, and had been given a lesson in how to load and fire it he forgot his affectations, and began to enjoy himself. He was much relieved to find his cousin so goodnatured, for he stood in secret awe of Evelyn, remembering a previous visit to Ravenhurst, as a schoolboy, when Evelyn, finding that he had neither the taste nor the aptitude for any form of sport, regarded him with contempt, and soon shrugged him off. It seemed to him that the passage of time had greatly improved Evelyn; and presently, emboldened by the patient encouragement he received, he confided that he rather thought he would like to be able to shoot well. ‘Only the thing is, you see, that I never had the opportunity to learn, because m’father ain’t a sporting cove.’
Realizing for the first time that Ambrose had grown up under disadvantages he had never himself experienced, Kit was inspired to suggest that while he was at Ravenhurst he should place himself in the hands of the head gamekeeper, who would be delighted to have a pupil to school. The idea took well; and as the proposal was shortly followed by a shot which accounted for one of a gathering of unwary rabbits Ambrose trod back to the house immensely set up in his own conceit, as convinced that he had aimed at that particular rabbit as he was that in less than no time he would be acknowledged by all to be a famous shot.
Half-an-hour after they had reached the house again, and just as Kit came downstairs, having changed his rough coat, his breeches, and his long gaiters for more formal attire, the Dowager Lady Stavely’s impressive chariot was at the door and Norton, aided by my lady’s footman, and with two of his own satellites in support, was tenderly handing her down from it. Kit arrived on the scene in time to hear the blistering reproof she addressed to her helpers: he gathered that her mood was unamiable, and was not surprised to be greeted with a pungent criticism of the state of the lane which led from the pike-road to the main gates. ‘However,’ she conceded magnanimously, ‘you have a very tolerable place here – very tolerable indeed! I was never here before, so I’m glad to have seen it.’ Her sharp eyes scanned the variegated façade. ‘H’m, yes! I do not call it splendid, but a very respectable seat. You should root up all those rhododendrons beside the avenue: nasty, gloomy things! I can’t abide ’em!’
‘But think how beautiful they are when they are in bloom, ma’am!’ said Cressy, who had just alighted from the carriage.
‘All but the shabby-genteels are in London then, so much good do they do one!’ said Lady Stavely sweepingly. She saw that her hostess was coming down the wide, shallow stone steps, and nodded to her. ‘How-de-do? I’ve been telling Denville he should root up those rhododendrons on the avenue: they make it too dark.’
‘Yes, don’t they?’ agreed Lady Denville. ‘Like descending into Hell; only then, of course, one comes out into open ground, which is such an agreeable surprise. Let me take you into the house, ma’am: the sun is quite scorching!’
The Dowager uttered a cackle of amusement. ‘Thinking of your complexion, are you? When you get to be my age you won’t care a rush for it. We used to lay crushed strawberries on our faces, to clear the sunburn. Slices of raw veal, too, against wrinkles. Not that I ever did so: messy, I call it! I daresay you use all manner of newfangled lotions, but they don’t do you any more good than the old-fashioned remedies did us.’
Lady Denville, who nightly applied distilled water of green pineapples to her exquisite countenance, and protected it during the day with Olympian Dew, replied without a blink that that was very true; and guided her guest towards the steps, offering the support of her arm. This was refused, the Dowager stating that she preferred the services of her footman. She also stated, when it was suggested to her that she might like to be conducted immediately to her bedchamber, that she was an old woman, and in no state to drag herself up any more stairs until she had recovered her breath and what little energy remained to her.
‘Then you shall come into the Blue saloon, which is delightfully cool, ma’am,’ responded Lady Denville, with unabated good-humour. ‘I’ll tell them to make tea, and that will revive you.’
‘Well, it won’t, for I shan’t drink it!’ said the Dowager. ‘I’ll take a cup of tea after dinner, but I won’t maudle my inside with it at this time of day! What I could fancy – but it’s of no consequence if you have none! – is a glass of negus.’
‘To be sure! how stupid of me!’ exclaimed Lady Denville, directing a look of agonized inquiry at her butler.
‘Immediately, my lady!’ he said, rising magnificently to the occasion.
Cressy, still standing at the foot of the steps, raised ruefully smiling eyes to Kit’s face, and said softly: ‘She is tired, you know, and that always makes her knaggy! I am so sorry! But she will be better p
resently.’
An answering smile was in his eyes as he said: ‘I’ve a strong notion that somewhere – in one of the lumber-rooms, I fancy – there is a carrying-chair that was used by my grandfather, when he became crippled with the gout. Do you think – ?’
‘I do not!’ she replied, on a choke of laughter. ‘The chances are that she would take it as an insult. It will be best to leave her to your mother’s management: depend upon it, she will charm her out of the mops! I think she would charm the most ill-natured person imaginable, don’t you? And Grandmama is not that – truly!’
‘Certainly not! A most redoubtable old lady, who instantly won my respect! Now, what would you like to do? Shall I hand you over to Mrs Norton, to be escorted to your bedchamber, or will you take a turn on the terrace with me?’
‘Thank you! I should like to do that. I caught glimpses on the avenue of what I think must be a lake, and longed to get a better view of it.’
‘That may be had from the terrace,’ he said, offering his arm. ‘I wish you might have seen it when the rhododendrons were in full bloom, however! Even your grandmama would own that their reflection in the water, on a sunny day, makes up for their gloominess now!’