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‘Have seen you,’ Freddy said, entering a caveat.
‘Well, yes, but not at all lately. They—they would wish to present me to their acquaintance! Freddy, don’t you think your mama would invite me to stay with her, in Mount Street? Just for one little month?’
Mr Standen, perceiving a straw, clutched at it. ‘Tell you what, Kit! Ask my mother to invite you. Fond of me: very likely to do it to oblige me. No need to be betrothed!’
For a moment her eyes brightened; then they clouded again, and she sighed, and shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t serve. Ever since the buttered lobsters Uncle Matthew is convinced that he has only a few months to live! He had a dreadful colic, you know, and nothing will persuade him that it was only the lobsters, which he would eat for supper! He says his heart is very weak, and that Dr Fenwick is a clodpole. That’s why there is all this bustle about his Will. He is determined to provide for me before he dies, so, you see, he could never be prevailed upon to let me go to London if I were still unbetrothed. He would be bound to suspect I should elope with a half-pay officer.’
‘I don’t see that,’ objected Freddy, painfully following the gist of this tumultuous speech.
‘Well, I don’t either,’ admitted Kitty, ‘but it is what he always says, whenever I have asked him if I might not go to London. He has the greatest dislike of military men, and when the militia were quartered in the neighbourhood he would scarcely allow me even to walk to the village. But if I were betrothed to you, Freddy, he could not refuse to let me go on that score. He could not refuse on any score, because if Lady Legerwood would be so obliging as to invite me to Mount Street it would not cost him a penny above my coach-fare. And there can be not the least necessity for Fish to go too, so that he may be sure that things will go on at Arnside just as they should.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And, Freddy, only think! He said that if I became engaged to one of you he would give me a hundred pounds for my bride-clothes! A—hundred—pounds, Freddy!’
‘You know, Kit,’ said Mr Standen, momentarily diverted, ‘dashed if he ain’t the kind of fellow who behaves scaly to waiters! A Plum wouldn’t buy the half of your bride-clothes! Forget how much blunt m’father dropped when Meg was married, but—’
‘More than a hundred pounds?’ said Kitty, awed. ‘It seems a very great sum to me. But it was quite different in your sister’s case! I mean, she is the eldest of you, and I expect your father wished her to have the very best sort of bride-clothes. Truly, I think I could contrive very well with a hundred pounds! I don’t want grand dresses, or jewels, or costly furs. Just—just one or two pretty ones, so that I need not be a dowd! Freddy, I know I am not beautiful, but don’t you think I might be passable, if I could be more in the mode?’
This appeal awoke an instant response in one whose exquisite taste was the envy of the ton. ‘I know what you mean,’ said Freddy sympathetically. ‘Need a little town-bronze! Give you a new touch!’
‘Yes, that is it!’ she said eagerly. ‘I knew you would understand!’
‘Well, I do, and, what’s more, I’d be very happy to do anything in my power to oblige you. Dashed awkward thing to have to say, but not marriage, dear girl! We shouldn’t suit! Assure we should not! Besides, I don’t want to be married.’
She broke into a gurgle of laughter. ‘How can you be so absurd? Of course we should not suit! I did not mean we were to be really betrothed! Only hoaxing!’
‘Oh!’ said Freddy, relieved. He considered the matter for a moment, and perceived a flaw. ‘No, that won’t do. Bound to find ourselves in the basket. Can’t puff off an engagement, and then not get married.’
‘Yes, we can! I know people often cry off!’
‘Good God, Kitty, you can’t ask me to do a thing like that!’ exclaimed Freddy indignantly.
‘But why should you not? I assure you I shan’t take a pet, or care for it!’
‘Well, I won’t do it, that’s all!’ said Freddy, with unexpected firmness. ‘Shocking bad ton! Now, don’t start disputing about it, Kit, because it ain’t a bit of use! Good God, a pretty figure I should cut!’
He was evidently a good deal moved. Kitty said placably: ‘Oh, very well! I’ll cry off. There can be no objection to that!’
‘Yes, but it would make me look like a flat!’ protested Freddy.
‘No, no! Everyone would say you were very well rid of me! Besides, I daresay it would not make such a stir after all.’
‘Well, it would. Dash it, notice in the Gazette—friends felicitating one—dress-party—wedding-gifts!’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Kitty. ‘I don’t think we should send a notice to the Gazette.’
‘I’m dashed sure we shouldn’t!’ said Freddy, with feeling.
‘You may easily hit upon an excuse for our keeping the engagement private. After all, it will only be for one month!’
He blinked. ‘But there’s no sense in being engaged for a month!’
‘Freddy,’ she said earnestly, ‘anything may happen in a month!’
‘Yes, I know it may. The thing is I ain’t one of these care-for-nothings, and I don’t want anything to happen. No, and another thing! I don’t want to be roasted all over town, which I should be. Everyone knows I ain’t in the petticoat-line!’
‘No one will know we are engaged,’ she coaxed him. ‘I mean, no one except the family, because we shan’t announce it in a formal way.’
