Cressida

by Clare Darcy

  All of which, of course, Rossiter was quite unaware of as he walked upstairs and into the drawing room, but his intrusion was greeted with such an aghast stare on Lady Constance’s part and such a burst of sobbing on Kitty’s that he must indeed have been dull of comprehension if he had not understood at once that he had inadvertently stumbled upon a scene of embarrassing proportions that was taking place between them.

  He checked upon the threshold, an expression of distaste upon his dark face.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said shortly. “It appears I have come at an inopportune time. ”

  “Well, yes; in point of fact, you have, rather,” said Lady Constance, distractedly. I am afraid Kitty is not quite herself at the moment. ” She bent a severely minatory gaze upon her weeping protegee. “Kitty, dear, do endeavour to compose yourself and make your apologies to Captain Rossiter!” she said. “Your behaviour is not at all becoming!”

  Kitty, however, who had just undergone the shock of being told by Lady Constance, under the stress of Cressida’s departure, that All Had Been Discovered and that she was the wickedest, most ungrateful girl in Christendom, had succumbed to the welter of feelings of shame, fear, disappointment, and obstinacy that had not unnaturally overwhelmed her upon this disclosure, and only sobbed harder than ever.

  “I had best leave, I daresay, said Rossiter, casting a glance upon his betrothed that left little doubt that he found the discovery that a young lady he had considered a model of quiet composure could become an unmanageable watering-pot a far from agreeable one. “My apologies, Lady Constance—”

  Lady Constance, obviously relieved to hear this speech, said immediately that it might, indeed, be best if he allowed poor Kitty a little time in which to compose herself.

  “A letter from her mama,’ she said, improvising rapidly and inventively. “Or not precisely from her mama, but concerning her mama, for she is too ill, it appears, to write herself. Such a shock for dear Kitty!

  Rossiter said, in conventional sympathy, that he was very sorry, and was turning to leave when Kitty, with the inability of all reserved and self-contained natures, once they are fairly launched upon a dramatic scene, to know where to leave off, suddenly ceased sobbing and said, “Stop!”

  Rossiter stopped.

  “I want you to know,” said Kitty, her voice still impeded by sobs and her bosom swelling, “that I shall never, never marry you! I love—”

  “Kitty, be silent!” said Lady Constance awfully.

  Kitty looked at her rebelliously. “I shan’t!” she said. “You may have stopped me for today, but I shall never marry anyone but—”

  “You will go to your room at once, you wicked, wicked girl!” Lady Constance interrupted hastily, seeing the results of weeks of effort flying out the window. She turned a conciliatory smile upon Rossiter. “The poor child is quite beside herself!” she said. “She does not in the least know what she is saying!”

  Rossiter regarded her coolly.

  “On the contrary,” he said, “it appears to me that she knows precisely what she is saying, and that it may be a great deal better for both of us if she is given an opportunity to say it. ” He walked over to Kitty and stood before her. “What is it?” he asked her, not ungently. “You would like to be released from this engagement of ours—is that it?”

  “Yes!” said Kitty, at the same moment that Lady Constance very emphatically said, “No!” The latter continued, in a tone of dramatic appeal, “Captain Rossiter, you won’t listen to what the child says when she is so upset—”

  “I am not so upset that I don’t know it is not Captain Rossiter, but Mr. Addison, whom I wish to marry!” Kitty said, an equal amount of drama in her own tones. She looked defiantly at Lady Constance. “You can’t stop me, ma’am; indeed, there is no reason for anyone to try to do so!” she said. “Mr. Addison is a gentleman of good family —with an excellent position in Society—and very agreeable manners—besides being in love with me—and,” she added with a baldness born of her frustration and excitement, “he is quite as rich as Captain Rossiter—”

  Lady Constance threw up her hands. “Oh, do be quiet, you wretched girl!” she commanded, quite in despair over this unlucky turn of events. She turned again to Rossiter. “Captain Rossiter, indeed you must not refine too much upon what the child says!” she adjured him. “She is so very young and inexperienced, and that heartless man has merely been toying with her affections, of course, without the least intention of anything serious coming of it—”

  “He is not toying with my affections!” Kitty said angrily. “I should be on my way to marry him at this very moment if it were not for your interference!”

  Rossiter looked, with what Lady Constance—whose own face was expressing consternation of the wildest sort —considered a most extraordinary lack of perturbation, into the defiant and mulish countenance of his betrothed.

  “Do you know,” he said mildly, “I believe I had best sit down and hear the whole of this. So you were planning on marrying Addison today, Miss Chenevix? May I enquire why I—as a presumably more or less interested party—was not informed of this decision upon your part?”

  Kitty cast a scared glance at him, and after a moment, instead of replying, burst into tears again.

  “For God’s sake, don’t do that!’’ commanded Rossiter in exasperation, his equanimity apparently more disturbed by her lack of self-control than by the fact that she had been planning shamelessly to jilt him. “If you think I am not as quite aware as you are that our engagement has been a mistake from the beginning, you must take me for a bottlehead, for nothing has been more apparent! But why, in the name of Jupiter, couldn’t you have come to me frankly and told me that you wished to be free of it—?”

  “But she doesn’t wish to be free of it!” Lady Constance babbled, still clinging desperately to the hope that something might yet be salvaged from the wreck Kitty appeared to be bent upon making of her prospects. “Captain Rossiter, do go away and allow the child time to recover herself! She does not know in the least what she is saying!”

  But Kitty, who had by this time got the bit well between her teeth, was heard at this point to say distinctly, overriding Lady Constance’s efforts to continue speaking, that she knew exactly what she was saying and that she was going at once to Welwyn, no matter who tried to stop her. She further added that she considered Miss Calverton’s action in going in her stead a piece of the most underhanded double-dealing she had ever heard of, and was beginning on a dark insinuation that Cressida’s reasons for doing so had more to do with her own interest in Addison than with any altruistic desire to save Kitty from a disastrous mistake when Rossiter’s voice cut sharply through her words.

  “Miss Calverton?” he ejaculated. “What has she to do in the matter?”

  He looked interrogatively and imperatively at Lady Constance. Lady Constance made for a moment as if to deny that she knew anything at all about it, but then gave it up with a gesture of futility.

  “She has gone to Welwyn to meet Addison in Kitty’s place, you see,” she quavered, looking more than a little frightened herself as Rossiter’s gaze appeared to her to darken more menacingly with each word she spoke. “Indeed, I could not stop her!’’ she defended herself. “She was quite determined—”

  “Quite determined—yes, I can believe that!” Rossiter said savagely. “A more meddlesome, jinglebrained— He broke off, rising abruptly. “And what did she hope to gain by this piece of quixotic nonsense?” he enquired, standing grimly before Lady Constance’s chair. “Even she is not tottyheaded enough, I suppose, to imagine that she can appeal to Addison’s better nature—?”

  “No, no! It is not that at all!” Lady Constance assured him unhappily. “Her opinion of Addison is quite the same as yours and mine! But she is persuaded, you see, that nothing will do to make him give over his pursuit of Kitty but to cause him to appear in an odiously ridiculous light—” She broke off, suddenly regaining spirit under his accusing gaze. “Well, I coul
d not help it!” she said with some acerbity. “You know what she is! It was like trying to stop a—a whirlwind!”

  He gave an exasperated shrug. “Yes, I can readily imagine!” he was obliged to agree. “I have had experience of her! Well, she won’t thank me for meddling, I daresay, but obviously someone must, and as I can see no one else cast in the role of her deliverer, I shall go to Welwyn myself. Did it never occur to her that under such circumstances a man like Addison might well be dangerous—?”

  He broke off suddenly as Kitty, with a shriek of alarm, jumped up from her place and flung herself between him and the door.

  “No, no!” she panted. “You shan’t go! You mustn’t! Oh, Captain Rossiter, for my sake—”

  “What the devil is the matter with the girl?” demanded Rossiter, whose temper, never of the mildest, appeared to be in danger of slipping its leash entirely at this fresh outburst from his late betrothed. “Why shouldn’t I go to Welwyn?”

  “She thinks, of course,” said Lady Constance severely, “that you intend calling Addison out, Captain Rossiter. I can only hope that no such wicked thought has crossed your mind! It would be quite disastrous to everyone concerned!”

  “Disastrous to Addison, I daresay, if I should do so,” Rossiter said grimly, “but I shan’t! You are quite welcome to him, Miss Chenevix—that is, if he cares to have you, which, you will forgive me for saying, I am strongly inclined to doubt! You have made your choice, however, which leaves me free to make mine as well. He turned to Lady Constance. “Where in Welwyn may I expect to come up with this precious pair?” he demanded. “At one of the inns?”

  “Yes—at the White Hart.” Lady Constance, who appeared at length to have become convinced that any further efforts on her part to repair the tatters into which the engagement between him and Kitty had been rent were in vain, looked up at the Captain gloomily. “Addison had a post-chaise waiting in Bruton Street to take her—or, that is, Kitty—up and bring her there, where he was to meet her. It is not above half an hour since she left the house, so I daresay you may even come up with her on the road if you are driving those splendid Welsh-bred greys of yours. But what you are to say to her when you do,” she added in a sudden renewal of agitation, “I am sure I cannot imagine! She will probably be quite angry with you for trying to stop her—”

  “I expect she will be,” Rossiter said coolly. “I shall see her safe home, all the same, whatever tempests she may choose to raise!”

  “I daresay,” said Lady Constance, who had been doing some rapid calculating in her own head during this brief speech, and had come to the conclusion that, with Kitty’s cause irretrievably lost, she had as well do a quick reverse and come down in Cressida’s behalf, “I daresay I have no right to tell you this—”

  “Then don’t,” recommended Rossiter, making for the door.

  “—but I shall,” continued Lady Constance, unperturbed. “She is in love with you, you know.”

  “She? Who?” Rossiter wheeled about abruptly, a thunderstruck expression upon his face. “You can’t mean—”

  “Cressy? But I do, said Lady Constance earnestly. “Oh, I know it seems most unlikely, for she is forever breaking squares with you, but it is true. She told me so herself, on the evening you and Kitty became engaged— not in so many words, of course, but anyone could see how unhappy she was, and when I charged her with it she would only say that it didn’t signify. But it does, of course, if she is truly attached to you, which seems to me quite extraordinary, but, after all, one has known of stranger cases—”

  Rossiter, ignoring these oblique aspersions cast upon his desirability as a lover and husband, here interrupted to enquire rather caustically whether Lady Constance’s opinion of Cressida’s present feelings towards him was based merely upon this highly inconclusive piece of evidence.

  “No, it is not,” said Lady Constance with dignity. “That is,” she acknowledged, “it was, until today, but I have had a letter in this morning’s post from Lady Letitia Conway-’’ She broke off, looking interrogatively at him. “You are acquainted with her, I think?”

  “I am,” said Rossiter briefly. “Well? Go on.” “Well, it is really a most extraordinary letter,” Lady Constance said confidentially, “and I am not quite sure what to make of it, for dear Letty is so oblique, you know. But I think she means to tell me that she has come to the conclusion that Cressida has really been attached to you all these years, only she was under the impression that you did not care for her because of your having broken off your engagement to her—”

  “I didn’t break it off,” interrupted Rossiter, “but I won’t say I didn’t make it damnably easy for her to do so! But go on,” he commanded once more.

  “Well, it seems,’’ said Lady Constance, who, with her usual volatility, had momentarily forgotten Kitty’s predicament in her interest in this new topic of conversation, “that Letty happened to mention to dear Cressida an interview she had had with you at that time, upon which Cressida became quite agitated and let fall certain remarks that made Letty consider that she now saw the whole matter—I mean of your having wished to break off the engagement—in an entirely new light—”

  She paused, looking inquisitively and knowledgeably at Rossiter, in whose countenance a dark flush had begun to rise.

  “I believe,” she went on after a moment, in a satisfied tone, “she—that is, Letty—believes that she—that is, Cressy—now considers your actions at that time as having been induced by the noblest motives—though I must say it appears to me that any gentleman worthy of the name, when faced with the fact that the young lady he is betrothed to stands to lose a fortune by marrying him, would at once withdraw his suit—”

  But at this point Kitty, who, like all selfish people, took not the least interest in matters that did not appear likely to afford her any advantage, and was still full of rage and chagrin over her own thwarted opportunities, burst in upon the conversation once more to demand that Rossiter, if he indeed intended to drive to Welwyn, at least take her with him.

  Lady Constance turned a scandalised face upon her.

  “Take you with him!” she exclaimed. “Have you no sense of propriety, child!—asking the man you have jilted to take you to an assignation with the man you have jilted him for! Unheard of! Quite unheard of!”

  Rossiter, who appeared all at once to have forgotten his irritation and instead seemed to have fallen into an extraordinarily good temper, grinned.

  “Unheard of—well, perhaps!” he said. “But a commission I’d carry out with the best will in the world if I had the least assurance Addison would marry the girl! As he certainly won’t, I must beg Miss Chenevix to hold me excused. And now I’m off. I have wasted far too much time here already.”

  He walked out of the room with this unceremonious leavetaking, and a few moments later they heard the front door close behind him.

  Kitty burst into violent tears again. “I will go to Welwyn—I will, I will!” she declared, at which moment the knocker sounded below.

  “Good God!” said Lady Constance, looking at Kitty with marked disfavour. “I daresay I had best tell Harbage we are at home to no one for the rest of the day!

  But before she could convey these instructions to him, rapid footsteps were heard upon the stairs, and the next moment Captain Harries walked into the room.

  CHAPTER 17

  Rossiter, driving his own phaeton and greys and sparing no effort to make the best time to his destination, arrived at the White Hart in Welwyn little more than a quarter hour after the moment when Cressida, with the green-coated man’s hand firmly clamped over her mouth, had been driven away from it in the chaise. He at once alighted and, being approached by the landlord, who had come out to greet personally the owner of such a dashing and expensive equipage, enquired of him whether a young lady, travelling alone in a chaise, had shortly before arrived at his hostelry.

  The landlord looked blank. A young lady? No, indeed, he had welcomed no young lady, travelling alone or other
wise, at his inn that day.

  “Deuce take it, man, she must have arrived here!” Rossiter said impatiently. “I have certainly not passed her on the road; I made sure of that!”

  The landlord, scenting romance, said sympathetically that he was very sorry, but there was indeed no young lady staying at his inn.

  “And no gentleman named Addison, either, I daresay!” said Rossiter irritably.

  He gave a terse description of the man he was seeking, which appeared to enlighten the landlord considerably, for he said at its conclusion, “Why, sir, that’s the Honourable Mr. Drew Addison you’re speaking of, and I know him well; he has a hunting-box not half a dozen miles from here. But he hasn’t been next or nigh my inn today; I’ll take my Bible oath on that!”

  Rossiter, who was by this time beginning to have a very distinct idea how the land lay, said he would have a word with the ostlers who were then on duty and proceeded to do so; and at the end of five minutes, with the aid of some intelligent questions and several silver coins, had elicited the information that a chaise, in which one of the ostlers had glimpsed a young lady in a close bonnet, had indeed come into the yard a short time before, with its postillions in a tearing hurry for a change, and had departed as soon as this had been accomplished, having taken up in the interval a large man in a green coat who had been hanging around the yard for an hour or more, as if awaiting its arrival.

  A few further questions brought him explicit directions as to the location of Addison’s hunting-box, and within minutes he was on his way there through the long, gathering midsummer twilight, his anxiety by this time far predominating over the mingled euphoria and exasperation that had carried him to Welwyn.

  The house, almost invisible behind its dark screen of trees, showed little sign of occupancy as his phaeton rolled swiftly up the drive and came to a halt before the front door. As he leaped down, however, and quickly tethered the horses, the door opened and he saw framed on the threshold a large man in a green coat, who enquired in a suspicious tone what his business was.