False Colours (37 page)

‘Ay, so it has!’ he agreed, struck for the first time in many years by the truth of this sympathetic remark. He took her hand again, pressing it in his own very warm and slightly damp one, and said with great earnestness: ‘All the use I ever had for my wealth was to bestow it upon you, my dear! It’s yours for the asking, and always will be. Only let me take your debts on my shoulders! Let me—’

She interrupted him, raising her beautiful eyes to his face, and saying: ‘Bonamy, are you—after all these years—asking me to marry you?’

There was a stunned pause. Sir Bonamy’s round eyes stared down into hers. They were never expressive, but they were now more than ordinarily blank; and the rich colour faded perceptibly from his pendulous cheeks. Twenty-six years earlier he had been a suitor for her hand; during the years of her marriage he had been her constant and devoted
cavaliere servente
,
and very agreeably had those years slipped past. She was indeed the only woman he had ever wished to marry; but although the disappointment he had suffered when the late Lord Baverstock had preferred the Earl of Denville’s offer to his had been severe it had not been very long before his cracked heart had mended sufficiently for him not only to appreciate the advantages of his single state, but to offer a carte blanche to a charming, if somewhat rapacious, ladybird, universally acknowledged to be a dasher of the first water. But throughout this left-hand connexion, and the many which had succeeded it, he had maintained his devotion to the lovely Countess of Denville, earning for himself the envious respect of his less favoured contemporaries, and, in due course, the reputation of being a man who, having once lost his heart, would never again offer it (with his enormous fortune) to any other lady. After a couple of years, even the most determined matron, with marriageable daughters on her hands, considered it a waste of time to throw out lures to him, and observed his light, elegant flirtations without a flicker either of hope or of jealousy.

Such a state of affairs exactly suited his indolent, hedonistic disposition. He had settled down into a state of opulent bachelordom, enjoying every luxury which his wealth could provide, rapidly becoming the intimate of the Prince of Wales, and of his scarcely less expensive brother, the Duke of York; abandoning the struggle to overcome a tendency to corpulence; and achieving, by his impeccable lineage, his amiable manners, his lavish hospitality, the genius of his tailor, and the favour of the most admired lady in the land, the position of being a leader of fashion, and one whom any ambitious hostess was proud to include amongst her guests.

Credited by his world with an undying passion for his first love, it had never until this moment occurred to him to question his own heart; and had it been suggested to him that his original infatuation had gently but inevitably declined into fondness he would have been much affronted. But now, staring down into Lady Denville’s beautiful face, an even more beautiful kaleidoscope of his comfortable, untrammelled existence intervened.

Lady Denville’s soft laughter recalled him from this vision; she said, in a voice of affectionate chiding: ‘Oh, Bonamy, what a complete hand you are! A Banbury man, no less! You
don’t
wish to marry me, do you?’

He pulled himself together, declaring valiantly: ‘The one wish of my heart!’

‘Well, you didn’t look as if it was! Confess, now! You’ve been shamming it—all these years!’

He rejected this playful accusation with vehemence. ‘No, that I haven’t! How can you say such a thing, Amabel? Haven’t I stayed single for your sake?’

A provocative smile hovered about the corners of her mouth; she seemed to consider him. ‘That’s what you
say
,
but are you perfectly sure it wasn’t for your own sake, abominable palaverer that you are, my dear?’

He was so indignant at having a doubt cast on his fidelity that the colour surged up into his face, and he almost glared at her. ‘No! I mean, yes! I
am
sure! Upon my word, Amabel—! Have I ever formed an attachment for anyone but yourself? Have I—’

‘Often!’ she said cordially. ‘First, there was that
ravishing
creature, with black curls and flashing eyes, who was used to drive in the park in a landaulet behind a pair of
jet-black
horses,
perfectly
matched, and
such
beautiful steppers that everyone said they must have cost you a fortune! Then there was that
languishing
female—the one with the flaxen hair, who was
certainly
of a consumptive habit! And after her—’

‘Now, that will do!’ interposed Sir Bonamy, aghast at these accurate recollections. ‘Bachelor’s fare! Good God, Amabel, you should know that they don’t mean anything, those little connexions! Why, your own father—Well, well, mum for that!’

The laughter was quenched in her eyes; she turned her head away, and said in a low voice: ‘And Denville. Did it mean nothing? It seemed to me to mean so much! What a goose-cap I was!’

‘Amabel!’ pronounced Sir Bonamy, controlling himself with a strong effort, ‘I have never permitted myself to utter a word in dispraise of Denville, and I’ll keep my tongue between my teeth
now
,
but had you married
me
,
the most dazzling bird of Paradise amongst the whole of the muslin company would have thrown out her lures in vain to me!’

‘But it is too late,’ she said mournfully. ‘I’ve worn out your love, my poor Bonamy! I read it in your face, and
indeed
I cannot wonder at it!’

‘Nothing of the sort!’ he replied stoutly. ‘You misunderstood! I had come to believe that my case was hopeless—can you wonder at it that I was knocked acock? My heart stood still! Was it possible, I asked myself, that its dearest wish might yet be granted? A moment’s rapture, and my spirits were dashed down again, as I realized how absurd it was to think that at my age I could win what was denied me when I was young, and—I fancy—not an ill-looking man!’

‘Very true! Even then you had a decided air of fashion—though it wasn’t until
much
later that you became of the first stare!’

‘Well, well!’ he said, visibly gratified, ‘I was always one who liked to have everything prime about me, but propriety of taste, you know, comes to one in later years! But I am growing old, my pretty—too old for you, I fear! Alas that it should be so!’

‘Fudge!’ said her ladyship briskly. ‘You are three-and-fifty, just ten years older than I am! A very comfortable age!’

‘But of late years I have grown to be a trifle portly! I don’t ride any more, you know, and I get fagged easily nowadays. Ticklish in the wind, too—I might pop off the hooks at any moment, for I have palpitations!’

‘Yes, you eat too much,’ she nodded. ‘My poor dear Bonamy, it is high time you had me to take care of you! I have thought for years that your constitution must be of
iron
to have withstood your excesses, and so it is, for you don’t even suffer from the gout, which Denville did, although for every bottle
he
drank you drank two, if not three!’

‘No, no!’ protested Sir Bonamy feebly. ‘Not
three
,
Amabel! I own I eat more than he did, but recollect that he was of a spare habit! Now, I have a large frame, and I must eat to keep up my strength!’

‘So you shall!’ said her ladyship, smiling seraphically upon him. ‘But
not
to send yourself off in an apoplexy!’

Regarding her with eyes of fascinated horror, he played his last ace. ‘Evelyn!’ he uttered. ‘You are forgetting Evelyn, my pretty! Ay, and Kit too, I dare say, though he don’t seem to hold me in such aversion as Evelyn does! But you must know Evelyn wouldn’t stomach it! Why, he never sees me but he looks yellow! Well do I know there ain’t a soul you dote on more, and
never
would I cause a rift between you!’

Wholly unimpressed by this noble self-abnegation, she replied: ‘You couldn’t! Besides, he is going to be married!’

‘What?’ he ejaculated, momentarily diverted. ‘But it’s as plain as a pack-saddle the gal’s head over ears in love with Kit!’

‘Yes, and was there ever anything so delightful? Dear Cressy! she might have been
made
for Kit! Evelyn has formed what he declares to be a lasting passion for quite another sort of girl. Kit believes it may well be so, but she sounds to me to be positively
Quakerish!
The daughter of a mere country gentleman—
perfectly
genteel, but only picture to yourself how ineligible Brumby will think her!—and one of those
pale
,
saintly females, reared in the
strictest
respectability!’

‘You don’t mean it!’ gasped Sir Bonamy, staggered by this disclosure.

‘I
do
mean it!’ she asserted, tears sparkling on her curling eyelashes. She brushed them hurriedly away. ‘Evelyn thinks I shall love her, but I have the most melancholy conviction that I shan’t, Bonamy! And, what is more, I don’t think she will love me, do you?’

‘No,’ he replied candidly. ‘Not if she’s Quakerish! You wouldn’t deal well at all!’

‘Exactly so! I
knew
you would understand! Evelyn declares I must continue to live in Hill Street, but that I was determined not to do, even if he had married Cressy! I had quite made up my mind to it that I must retire to an establishment of my own, and dwindle into a mere widow, until
you
came here, my dear friend, only because I begged you to, and not wanting to leave Brighton in the
least
,
which I know very well you didn’t, and it struck me, like a flash of lightning, that
never
had you wavered in your attachment to me, and
never
had you received the smallest reward, or even looked for one, for all your goodness to me, and your
exceeding
generosity!’

‘I see what it is!’ he exclaimed. ‘Kit blabbed to you that I didn’t have that brooch of yours copied, silly chub that he is! Now, put it out of your mind, my pretty! Yes, yes, you think you must make a sacrifice of yourself, but I won’t permit you to do so!’

She interrupted him, staring at him with widened eyes. ‘You
didn’t—
Do you mean to tell me that I lost the
real
brooch to Silverdale? And you gave me £500 for it, saying that—Bonamy, did you sell
any
of my jewellery? Kit has never breathed a word of this! Bonamy—
did
you?’

‘No, no, of course I didn’t!’ he answered, much discomposed. ‘Now, is it
likely
I’d let you sell your jewels, and replace ’em with paste and pinchbeck? It was nothing to me, Amabel, so, if Kit didn’t tell you, you may forget it, and oblige me very much!’

‘Oh, Bonamy!’ she cried, impulsively stretching out her hands to him, ‘how good you are! How much, much
too
good!’

He responded instinctively, and, the next instant, found himself clasping a fragrant armful to his massive bosom. Lady Denville, adapting her slim form, not without difficulty, to his formidable contour, lifted her face invitingly. His senses swimming, Sir Bonamy tightened his hold about her, and fastened his lips to hers. At the back of his mind lurked the conviction that he would regret this yielding to temptation, and the premonition that the sybaritic pleasures of his life stood in jeopardy; but never before had he been encouraged to venture more than a chaste salute upon her ladyship’s hand, or, upon rare occasions, her cheek, and he surrendered to intoxication.

He came to earth again when she gently disengaged herself, saying: ‘How comfortable it is to reflect that we need neither of us look forward to a lonely old age, which I have always thought the most
lowering
prospect!’

His countenance would not have led anyone to suppose that he was deriving much comfort from this reflection, but he replied heroically: ‘You have made me the happiest man on earth, my beautiful!’

The irrepressible laughter, inherited from her by her sons, bubbled up. ‘No, I haven’t: I’ve thrown you into gloom! But I
shall
make you happy. Only consider how alike are our tastes, and how very well we are acquainted! Naturally it will seem strange at first, because you are so much accustomed to being a bachelor. To own the truth, I didn’t think I should ever marry again, for I have enjoyed being a widow amazingly! But I am persuaded it will be the best thing for everyone!
Particularly
for Evelyn!’

‘I hope he may think so!’ Sir Bonamy said gloomily.

‘It isn’t of the least consequence if he doesn’t, because it
will
be. I dare say he won’t care
nearly
as much now that his mind is full of his angelic Patience. In any event, he’s at the end of his rope, poor love, on account of my wretched debts, which he is determined to discharge, and which he would never be able to do until he is thirty, if he marries Patience, because you may depend upon it Brumby will
utterly
disapprove of the match! But if he were not obliged to pay my debts that wouldn’t signify in the least, and although he made me promise I would never again borrow money from you, he
couldn’t
refuse to let you pay the debts if I were your wife, could he?’

‘Well, it won’t make a ha’porth of odds if he does!’ said Sir Bonamy, accepting without resentment this unflattering reason for the marriage proposed to him, but regarding his prospective bride with tolerant cynicism. ‘I might have known that resty young bellows-blower of yours was behind this!’

‘Yes, but how
fortunate
,
Bonamy, that my affairs had come to such a pass that I was obliged to consider the advantages of marrying you! But for that I might never have thought of it!’ she said. ‘
Or
have perceived how much more comfortable I should be if I did marry you! It is all very well
now
to be a widow, but only think how dismal when I begin to grow hagged, and have to cover up my throat, because it looks exactly like the neck of a plucked hen, and I’ve no flirts left to me! And then, of course, I thought of
you
,
my poor Bonamy, and my heart was
wrung!
I, at least, have my beloved sons, and I
might
become wrapped up in my grandchildren—though it seems
most
unlikely, and quite sinks my spirits—but what, my dear, will be left to
you
,
when your friends drop off—’