Cressida (9 page)

The barouche was drawing up at that moment before a narrow house in Half Moon Street, and the Captain’s inarticulate words of protest over his having either the power or the wish to step between his friend and any young lady for whom he might be forming an attachment were lost in the bustle of descending from the carriage. Inside the house Captain Harries found himself, as Cressida had predicted, immediately involved in horse-talk with his young and handsome hostess, and, after a very agreeable half hour spent in this fashion, was able to face the succeeding call with a great deal more equanimity than he would have believed possible when he had set out from Mount Street with Cressida a short time before.

The second call, however, which was in Keppel Street, turned out to be rather less in his line than the first, for the hostess and all her morning-callers were respectably middle-aged or elderly ladies, who talked to one another confidentially about their respective illnesses and looked rather askance at the sight of such a very large young man invading what the Captain was mentally characterising as their hen-roost. To his relief, the conversation seemed to be of no greater interest to Cressida than it was to him, and after paying her devoirs formally to Mrs. Torrance, their hostess, she cast him a glance indicating that she was prepared to take her departure, when the arrival of a new caller and the round of introductions it entailed momentarily put a halt to her intention.

The new arrival was a sensible-looking woman of some five-and-forty years, wearing a slightly outmoded frock and bonnet, and she was introduced to the company as Mrs. Mills, an old schoolfellow of Mrs. Torrance. Cressida, idly noting that the name was the same as that of Kitty’s aunt, wondered if there was a connexion, but thought not, since the name was a common one; there were undoubtedly, she considered, dozens of Millses living in London.

She could not fail to note, however, that the pronouncing of her own name appeared to call up an expression of considerable interest to Mrs. Mills’s face, and before she could properly carry out her intention of leaving, the lady herself had come across the room and taken a chair beside her.

“It
is
Miss
Cressida
Calverton—is it not?” she enquired. And, as Cressida nodded in slight surprise, “I thought I could not be mistaken,” she went on with a smile, “although Selina did not mention your Christian name. I am Kitty’s aunt, you see, and you must allow me to thank you—as I am sure Kitty has already done herself—for your great kindness towards her. I was quite prepared, naturally, to bring her out myself, but the advantages
I
could give her were slight indeed compared to those she will receive from
your
patronage, and Lady Constance’s. I can only hope that she appreciates her good fortune—but there!’’ she added comfortably, “knowing dear Kitty, I am quite sure that she does. Such a quiet, sensible girl—don’t you find her so?”

She looked at Cressida, as if expecting some reply, and Cressida, swiftly collecting herself, said automatically, “Yes, indeed!” She was still, however, too surprised by the revelation that appeared to be contained in Mrs. Mills’s words to be able to prevent herself from enquiring involuntarily, “But—you have made a very rapid recovery, have you not, ma’am? I understand you have been ill—”

“Ill?” It was now Mrs. Mills’s turn to look surprised. “Why, no,” she said. “Where can you have had that idea? I am happy to say that I enjoy excellent health.” She looked affectionately across the room towards Mrs. Torrance. “No doubt you have misunderstood something that Selina has said,” she remarked, “which scarcely surprises me, for she is always in such poor twig that she is forever fidgeting herself that there may be something amiss with her friends as well. ”

Cressida, who felt that this was neither the time nor the place to inform Mrs. Mills that her belief that she had been ill had been founded, not upon some vague words let fall by Mrs. Torrance, but upon the extremely specific statements repeatedly made by Kitty herself, was silent, and after a few more words of conventional gratitude uttered by Mrs. Mills on the subject of her kindness in sponsoring Kitty’s come-out, Cressida seized the opportunity to escape. But her head was in a whirl: in spite of her previous suspicions of Kitty’s sincerity, she could scarcely believe that the girl had been guilty of the calculating deception that Mrs. Mills’s words had innocently revealed to her.

And yet there was no room left for doubt: Kitty
must
have written that first appealing letter to Lady Constance in the full knowledge that Mrs. Mills was both in excellent health and perfectly willing to sponsor her come-out in London. It had been a gamble to write it, certainly, for there had always been the chance that, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Mills did not move in the same circles as did Cressida and Lady Constance, some contretemps such as had occurred that morning at Mrs. Torrance’s might discover her lie. But it was a risk, it seemed, that Miss Kitty Chenevix had been coolly prepared to take in the interests of her ambition, and it had apparently been so easy for her to pull the wool over her mother’s eyes and convince
her
that Lady Constance’s offer had been made spontaneously, rather than as the result of an appeal from her, that no doubt she had felt quite secure in the success of her deception when she had arrived in London.

Cressida, still deep in thought, mounted into her barouche and ordered her coachman to drive back to Mount Street, and only as Captain Harries seated himself beside her did she come to herself sufficiently to realise that she was not alone.

“Oh, I
am
sorry!’’ she said, turning to him with the best attempt at a smile of which she was capable at the moment. “The truth is, I have been wool-gathering—”

She broke off, a trifle surprised to find the Captain regarding her with a very serious expression upon his own face, as if he quite shared her concern over the dilemma into which Mrs. Mills’s words had plunged her. He had, of course, she realised now, been seated close enough to her while Mrs. Mills had been speaking to her to overhear all that was being said, but it did not seem to her that the conversation could have offered any clue to an outsider of the real situation, or of her own astonishment and—yes, she was ready to admit it, anger—when she had discovered how neatly she had been tricked by young Miss Chenevix.

But that impression of an unexpected native shrewdness in the Captain’s character that she had had upon her first meeting with him was strengthened now as he said to her in a quiet, troubled voice, “It is about Miss Chenevix—isn’t it? You were very much surprised when Mrs. Mills told you she had not been ill—”

“Was I? Well, perhaps!” Cressida said, interrupting him with an attempt at lightness. “It really seems I am quite muddle-headed today! I don’t know what poor Mrs. Mills must have thought—”

“I am glad to say I don’t believe she thought what I am thinking,” Captain Harries said in the same thoughtful undertone, and he continued at once, “Not to beat about the bush, Miss Calverton—it was Miss Chenevix who told you that her aunt was ill, wasn’t it? And that is why it is you and Lady Constance, instead of Mrs. Mills, who are bringing her out this Season—”

Cressida looked at him in astonished respect.

“You are really an extraordinary man, Captain Harries!” she said. “To have gathered so much from those few words—”

“It is because I take a very great interest in Miss Chenevix,” the Captain said simply. “I don’t think I should ordinarily have been so acute. ” He looked at her with anxiety visible in his frank blue eyes. “I expect it has made you very angry with her,” he said, “and I can’t blame you for that, but I hope you will try to make allowances, Miss Calverton. She is—very young, you know, and—and I daresay it seemed a great opportunity to her—”

“Yes, I am sure it did, for her to have taken such a risk!” Cressida said, shrugging. “Very young and—very ambitious, you might add, Captain Harries!”

“And what, please, do you intend to do about it?” Captain Harnes’s eyes were asking her when she looked over at him again—a question, she saw, that he did not dare to put into words; and, touched by this evidence of love at first sight, and clinging to it buckle and thong in spite of clear evidence of its object’s unworthiness, she laid her hand lightly upon his for a moment.

“Pray don’t fret yourself over it!” she said reassuringly. “I am not such a dragon as to send her home in disgrace. I shan’t, in fact, even tell her of the discovery I have made; it would make living in the same house far too uncomfortable! But I shan’t try to hide from you that it
must
make a difference in my feelings towards her. I don’t care for duplicity, and I have learned that when you have discovered it in someone in one instance, you are very likely to find it repeated. ”

The Captain looked unhappy, but said nothing to attempt to refute her statement; and Cressida, reflecting somewhat cynically upon love’s ability to be blind to the obvious when seeing it would besmirch the beloved object, was left to her own thoughts until the carriage arrived back in Mount Street.

By that time she had decided that it would certainly not do, since she had promised Captain Harries not to bring Kitty to book for her deception, to disclose anything at all about the matter to Lady Constance, who could assuredly not be trusted to keep it to herself, and as a result she was obliged to endure more of that lady’s raptures upon Kitty’s character and conquests as they met in Cressida’s dressing room later in the day.

“And you will never guess who called upon her this morning while you were out!” Lady Constance remarked impressively. “Addison—yes, my dear, no less! Of course he made a pretence of having called to see you and me, but it was quite obvious, when I told him Kitty was gone to Richmond Park with Captain Rossiter, how the matter stood. He was quite venomous about Rossiter— you know that waspish tongue of his!—and said Dolly Dalingridge was so angry with him for neglecting her last evening that she was going all over London this morning asking her friends to cut him from their invitation lists. ” “As if Rossiter would care a groat if they did!” Cressida said, shrugging. “They won’t, though—not as long as everyone in London is still talking of him. ”

“Yes, but if Addison has taken one of his dislikes to him, he may do a great deal to turn people against him,” Lady Constance pointed out. “You know what an influence he has, and it will be all the greater now if this extraordinary tale going the rounds today—you
have
heard it, I expect?—that Brummell has been obliged to flee the country because of his debts, should turn out to be true. The man will have half of London trembling at his frown—”

“Yes, indeed—mushroom gentlemen, trumped-up April-squires, halflings aspiring to be dandies!” Cressida said scornfully. “Good God, Lady Con, you are not seriously suggesting that Rossiter ought to be concerned, no matter how much venom Drew Addison chooses to spill because he has been outshone at Dolly Dalingridge’s ball! What can he do to harm him, after all?” “Well, I don’t know
that,”
Lady Constance said with dignity, “because one never
does
know what foolish things gentlemen will take it into their heads to do, like old General Kincheloe when he thought his solicitor’s clerk was cutting him out with a
most
unsuitable young female he had become entangled with—quite shocking at his age because he was all of seventy and his daughters, very respectable women, both of them, never dared hold up their heads in Society again—

“Well—what
did
he do?” enquired Cressida, her curiosity piqued as Lady Constance, breaking off her sentence, sat meditating upon the scandalous past with a severe expression upon her face.

“I am sorry to say,” said Lady Constance impressively, “that he attempted to horsewhip the young man in Bond Street when he was walking in company with the young woman, and the young woman wrested the horsewhip from him and beat the General instead. Of course,” she added, “he—the General, I mean—withdrew all his business from the solicitor, which made him—the solicitor, that is—quite furious—”

But Cressida was no longer listening, owing to almost having the giggles in a very schoolgirlish way over the ridiculous tale, which somehow made her feel better about life in general. Or perhaps it was the news that the Honourable Drew Addision was also taking an interest of a sort in Kitty Chenevix that had accomplished that, for in spite of her disparagement of him she could not help feeling that he might be a far more solid obstacle than Captain Harries could ever be in preventing Rossiter from making a fool of himself over that very devious young female.

Not, she told herself, that Rossiter did not thoroughly deserve to have just such a wife, and she would certainly dance at their wedding if it ever came to that pass.

In the days that followed, Cressida found she had every reason to believe in the possibility that she might indeed be required to fulfil her mentally expressed willingness to dance at the wedding of Rossiter and Kitty Chenevix. Certainly it could not be doubted that the Captain grasped every opportunity to be in company with Miss Chenevix: he called almost daily in Mount Street, took her driving in the Park behind his team of match-greys, and at every
ton
ball stood up with her for as many dances as Lady Constance’s sense of propriety would allow.

Meanwhile, Captain Harries appeared to have dropped quite out of the running, though he too called frequently in Mount Street; but this, it was presumed by Lady Constance at least, was to see Cressida, not Kitty, and as a result it gave rise to a rather perturbed and disjointed conversation between her and Cressida, in which she said really, what would Langmere think of that young man’s being so very often at the house, and Cressida said she did not care a rush what Langmere thought, or anyone else, either, and she would choose her friends as she pleased.

All of which made matters a trifle uncomfortable in the elegant house in Mount Street, and they were made still more so—for Cressida, at least—by the daily irritation of having to sit with her tongue between her teeth while Lady Constance went into raptures over Kitty’s success, her character, and her manners. Such a
sweet 
girl!—and did Cressida know that even Mrs. Drummond Burrell, the starchiest of the august Patronesses of Almack’s, had commended her modest behaviour in the face of all the notoriety Rossiter’s attentions had focussed upon her?