Frederica Read online

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Jessamy, bracing himself.

  ‘You’ve claimed my protection as your guardian, and you must now submit to your guardian’s judgment. Which is that you will henceforth moderate your studies – believe me, they are excessive! – and devote some part of every day to your physical needs. What you want, Jessamy, is not a Pedestrian Curricle, but a horse!’

  Light sprang to Jessamy’s sombre eyes; he exclaimed involuntarily: ‘Oh, if only – !’ He stopped short, and shook his head. ‘I can’t. Not in London! The expense –’

  ‘There will be no expense. You are going to exercise one of my hacks – thereby doing me a favour!’

  ‘R-ride your horses? You – you’d let me – t-trust me?’ stammered Jessamy. ‘Oh, no! I don’t deserve to be rewarded, sir!’

  ‘You are not being rewarded: you are being commanded!’ said Alverstoke. ‘A novel experience for you, young man!’ The glowing eyes lifted to his, the trembling of Jessamy’s lip, touched him. He smiled, and dropped a hand on the boy’s shoulder, gripping it. ‘Pluck up, you gudgeon!’ he said. ‘You haven’t broken even one of the Ten Commandments, you know, so stop trying to turn a molehill into a mountain! If Knapp has finished furbishing up your coat, I’ll drive you home now.’

  Fifteen

  Upon the following morning, the Marquis received a letter from Frederica, thanking him for his kind offices, and expressing her regret that he should have been put to so much trouble on Jessamy’s behalf. He read it appreciatively, knowing very well that its civility hid – or was meant to hide – intense mortification. She acknowledged it, when, two days later, he met her at an assembly. She said, in answer to his quizzing accusation: ‘Oh, no, no, no, not cross, but so deeply mortified! After all my protestations – ! I do most sincerely beg your pardon!’

  ‘Nonsense! What had you to do with it?’

  ‘Oh, everything!’ she sighed. ‘I brought him to London against his wish, and I’ve neglected him for Charis. I ought not to leave him so much to his own devices.’ She thought this over, and added candidly: ‘Not that he would like it if I were to thrust my company on him too frequently. In fact, it would irk him past bearing. He is a – a very solitary person, you know. And that’s my fault too: I expect I should have at least made a push to cure him of that.’

  ‘You would have been wasting your time. I wish you will explain to me why you are making such a heavy matter of a trivial and perfectly understandable episode? He, of course, was bound to do so, at this stage of his career, but why should you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t!’ she said quickly. ‘If he hadn’t turned to you instead of to me I should have been excessively diverted! But it does vex me that he should have dragged you into the affair. Yes, and although he gets upon his high ropes if I question him, and says it is no concern of mine, but quite his own business, I am persuaded you must have paid for all the damage he did, and that I cannot bear!’

  ‘Nor could he, so I have merely lent him the necessary sum – in return for his promise that he will abate his studies a trifle. Yes, I know you are burning to reimburse me immediately, but that let me tell you, would be a high piece of meddling – and, if I were to allow you to do it, which I shan’t – destructive of the good I rather think I may have achieved.’

  She looked at him, her eyes warm with gratitude. ‘Indeed you have! I was afraid that he would have fallen into dejection, for in general he always does so when he has kicked up a lark, but this time he is more aux anges than in despair. I wish you might have seen him when he rode up to our door on your horse, and called me out to admire its points! So proud and happy! I won’t meddle, but at least let me thank you!’

  ‘No, the subject has begun to bore me. Tell me, instead, who’s the dashing blade with Charis?’

  Her eyes travelled to her sister, who was waltzing with a lively young gentleman, obviously of the first stare of à la modality, and even more obviously bent on fixing his interest with her. ‘Mr Peter Navenby. We met him at Lady Jersey’s party. She told me he no sooner set eyes on Charis than he begged her to present him. There’s nothing unusual in that, of course, but he has become extremely particular in his attentions, and – which I think most significant! – he prevailed upon his mother to pay us a morning visit! I liked her so much! What’s of more consequence is that she liked Charis. I collect, from something she said to me, that her dread is to see him snapped up by some horridly mercenary girl on the catch for a rich husband – which she instantly perceived Charis is not!’ She looked anxiously at his lordship. ‘It would be an eligible match, wouldn’t it?’

  The Marquis, who was surveying Mr Navenby through his quizzing-glass, said: ‘Young Navenby, is he? Oh, a most eligible match! He has all the advantages of birth, and a respectable fortune – prospective, of course, but we must hope his father won’t be long-lived.’

  ‘I don’t hope anything of the sort!’ said Frederica, flushing angrily. ‘An – an abominable thing to say – even for you, my lord!’

  ‘But I thought you were determined to marry Charis to a fortune!’

  ‘I am not, and nor did I ever say so. I wish to see her comfortably established – which is a very different matter to scheming for titles and fortunes! What I do not wish for her is a handsome muttonhead like your cousin, whose fortune is as small as his brain! I shall be very much obliged to you if you will nip that affair in the bud!’

  He looked rather amused, but merely said: ‘You must have been listening to my cousin Lucretia. Let me reassure you! Endymion was not born without a shirt. He inherited quite an easy competence.’

  Conscious of having let her annoyance betray her into a very improper speech, she said stiffly: ‘I shouldn’t have spoken as I did about your cousin. I beg your pardon!’

  ‘Oh, I’ve no objection!’ he replied indifferently. ‘I have really very little interest in Endymion, and not the smallest intention of interfering in his concerns. So you won’t have to be obliged to me. That should at least afford you some consolation.’ He glanced mockingly at her as he spoke, but she had turned her face away, biting her lip. ‘Well? Doesn’t it?’

  ‘No. You made me fly into a miff, and snap your nose off, but I didn’t mean to offend you. I hope I am not so ungrateful!’

  ‘You haven’t offended me, and I don’t want your gratitude,’ he said. Startled by the harsh note in his voice, she looked up at him, doubt and a little dismay in her face. His was inscrutable, but after a moment he smiled, and said, in his usual languid way: ‘Gratitude is another of the things which I find a dead bore.’

  ‘Then you must take care not to give me cause to feel it,’ she replied.

  He had transferred his attention again to Charis, and said abruptly: ‘A budding Tulip, young Navenby. Am I to understand that you have abandoned hope of her milky suitor?’

  ‘Yes, entirely! You were perfectly right: he’s nothing but an air-dreamer! Do but look at him now! – he is seated beside Mrs Porthcawl, watching Charis with the most ridiculous smile on his face! He doesn’t care a rush that she should be dancing with Navenby!’

  ‘True!’ he agreed. The quizzing-glass came into play again, sweeping the room until it found its object. ‘So unlike my muttonheaded cousin!’

  ‘Well, he is muttonheaded!’ she said defiantly.

  ‘I never denied it. I even refrained from retaliating in kind.’

  An irrepressible dimple peeped in her cheek, but she replied with dignity: ‘You mean, I collect, that my sister isn’t – isn’t blue, or – or very clever –’

  ‘You may so phrase it, if you choose. Your sister, Frederica, is a beautiful pea-goose – and well you know it!’

  Since an innate honesty forbade her to refute this charge, all she could think of to say was: ‘The more reason for her to marry a man of sense, and judgment!’

  ‘You may be right. Does that description fit young Navenby? I shouldn’t have thought it, but again you may be right. I know nothing about him, after all, and it never does to j
udge by appearances, does it?’

  ‘Of all the detestable persons I ever met –’ She stopped, gave a gasp, and said in a tone of strong resolution: ‘No. I won’t say it! But I daresay you may guess whom I mean!’ she added, her feelings overcoming her.

  ‘No, I haven’t a notion: do tell me!’ he invited.

  She caught her breath on a choke of laughter, and turned from him, with considerable relief, to greet Darcy Moreton, who had just come up to them. The Marquis lingered only to exchange a few words with Mr Moreton before strolling away to join a group gathered round Lady Jersey. He was apparently unaware of the interest he had aroused by singling out the elder Miss Merriville, and sitting beside her for quite twenty minutes; but he had been observed throughout by several pairs of eyes: some curious, some jealous, and some cynical; and no one had failed to notice that for a large part of this time he had been watching the younger Miss Merriville. Some thought that it would be rather too bad if he were to make that beautiful innocent his next victim; others wondered if he had at last met his fate; and a few ladies, some of whom had cherished secret hopes that their daughters might find favour in his eyes, were unequivocally disgusted. Amongst these was Lady Buxted. She had no axe to grind; she had been as anxious as her elder sister to see Alverstoke suitably married, and his presumptive heir cut out, but from the moment of setting eyes on Charis she had taken the Merrivilles in strong dislike. She was convinced that the blame for Jane’s lack of success lay at Charis’s door; and the compliments she received on her protégées’ delightful manners and excellent style very soon made her hate Frederica as much as Charis. She had been forced to launch them into the ton, and was now able to wash her hands of them; but even this agreeable circumstance was spoilt for her by the ease and rapidity with which they had found their feet. She might tell herself that the hostesses who invited them to their parties only did so to oblige their noble guardian, but she knew very well that it was untrue. Everyone liked the Merrivilles, as the Countess Lieven, with a faint, malicious smile, informed her.

  ‘For my part, I consider them a great deal too coming,’ she told her elder sister. ‘Charis’s namby-pamby airs don’t impress me; and as for Frederica, as she calls herself, I daresay you’ve noticed how positively bumptious she is!’

  ‘No,’ said Lady Jevington bluntly, ‘I haven’t. Very unaffected, pretty-behaved girls, both of them. Charis is a beautiful ninnyhammer; but I believe Frederica to be a young woman of superior understanding.’

  ‘Oh, most superior!’ said Lady Buxted, her eyes snapping angrily. ‘On the catch for a husband! I wonder you should be so taken by her insinuating ways! I knew what her object was within a week of making her acquaintance!’

  ‘Ah!’ said Lady Jevington. ‘So Buxted is making up to her, is he? I’ve several times been told as much, but I never listen to on-dits. Make yourself easy, Louisa! Nothing will come of it!’

  Her colour much heightened, Lady Buxted retorted: ‘No! Not if I have anything to say in the matter!’ The condescending smile on her sister’s face exacerbated her into adding: ‘I have no fears for Carlton: none at all! But I wonder how you will like it, my dear Augusta, when you find yourself with your beautiful ninnyhammer as your sister-in-law!’ She perceived that these words had produced an impression, and continued triumphantly: ‘How is it possible that you, who believe yourself to be so long-headed, can have failed to notice that Vernon scarcely took his eyes off that girl last night?’

  Lady Jevington opened her mouth, shut it again, and, after subjecting her sister to an incredulous stare, said: ‘You are a fool, Louisa!’

  Meanwhile, the Misses Merriville, their thoughts far removed from matrimonial conquests, were warmly welcoming the head of the family, exclaiming joyfully at his unexpected arrival in Upper Wimpole Street, hugging him, kissing him, thrusting him into the easiest chair in the drawing-room, procuring refreshment for him, and greeting his sudden appearance with all the fond delight to be expected of two loving sisters.

  Inevitably, it was Frederica who first came to earth, and who demanded to know what had brought him to London. Fortifying himself with a long drink from the tankard she had just handed him, he met her anxious gaze with an engaging grin, and said: ‘Oh, I’ve been rusticated!’

  ‘Harry! Oh, no!’ she cried, dismayed.

  ‘Yes, I have – Barny too! You know: Barny Peplow, a particular friend of mine – a great gun!’

  She had not so far been privileged to meet Mr Peplow, but her brother’s enthusiastic praise of that young gentleman had long since inspired her with foreboding. But it was Charis who nettled Harry, by uttering in soft but stricken accents: ‘Oh, dear! What can be done?’

  ‘Nothing is to be done! What a goose you are!’ returned Harry impatiently. ‘You needn’t look so Friday-faced, either of you! Anyone would think I’d been sent down for good! Of course I haven’t been! Only for the rest of this term!’

  ‘But why, Harry?’ Frederica asked, by no means reassured.

  He laughed. ‘Oh, nothing very much! Just a bit of bobbery! We weren’t the only ones in it, either. The thing was we were rather full of frisk. It was after old George’s birthday party: George Leigh, I mean, though you don’t know him either, do you? A famous fellow! So there was a bit of riot and rumpus – and that’s how it was! Nothing to throw you into high fidgets, I promise you!’

  Her anxious mind relieved of its worst fears, she agreed to this, and asked him no further questions, knowing well that these would only set up his back. Experience had also taught her that while she understood and sympathised with schoolboys’ pranks, she would never be able to understand what Harry and his friends found to amuse them in their revel-routs, which seemed invariably to start with what he called a spread, or (as she gathered) a wine-party; and to end in horse-play as senseless as it was destructive.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Harry ingenuously, ‘I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to come down, just to make sure all’s right here. There’s no saying but what you might have got into a scrape, and I am the head of the family!’

  Charis giggled; but Frederica, though the ready laughter sprang to her eyes, responded, in a much-moved tone: ‘How kind of you, Harry! Of course, it was your duty to be rusticated!’

  ‘Now, Freddy – !’ he protested, his lips quivering in spite of himself. ‘I didn’t say that!’

  ‘I should think not indeed!’ said Charis, highly diverted by this exchange. ‘When we have been fixed in London for more than a month, and there are only a few weeks left of the term! What a Banbury-man you are, you dearest, horridest creature!’

  He laughed back at her, but said: ‘Well, I do think I ought to keep my eye on you all. You’re neither of you up to snuff, you know, and you were never before in London.’

  ‘There, I must own, you have the advantage of us,’ agreed Frederica.

  ‘Good gracious, when was Harry in London?’ asked Charis, in innocent surprise.

  ‘I don’t precisely remember, but it was some years ago. Aunt Scrabster invited him, because of being his godmother, and he spent a whole week in Harley Street, and was shown all the sights – weren’t you, Harry?’

  He grimaced at her. ‘That’s quite enough, Freddy! Lord, how my uncle did drag me about, and to the stuffiest places! But the thing is that I’ve learnt a great deal since I went up to Oxford, and I fancy I’ve a pretty fair notion of what’s o’clock. And I’ll tell you one thing I don’t like, and that’s this house!’

  ‘No, nor do we, but in spite of its shabby furniture, and its unfashionable situation, we contrive to move in the first circles, I promise you!’

  ‘I know that, and I don’t like it above half. It was this fellow, Alverstoke, who brought that about, wasn’t it? I never heard of him in my life until you wrote that he was a cousin of ours, but I can tell you this! – I know a great deal about him now, and I must say, Frederica, I can’t understand how you came to put yourself under his protection! You ain’t in general so b
ird-witted!’

  ‘But, Harry, what can you mean?’ exclaimed Charis. ‘He has been so very kind and obliging! You can have no notion!’

  ‘Oh, can’t I?’ he retorted. ‘Well, that’s where you’re out, because I have! Kind and obliging! I daresay!’

  ‘Yes, and particularly so to the boys! Are you thinking that he is very starched-up? He does appear to be, and I know that some people say he is odiously haughty, and cares only for his own pleasure, but it isn’t so, is it, Frederica? Only think of his taking Felix all over that foundry, and arranging for him to see the New Mint, besides letting Jessamy ride that lovely horse!’

  ‘Lord Alverstoke was under an obligation to Papa,’ said Frederica coolly. ‘It was on that account that he consented – not very willingly! – to act as our guardian.’

  ‘Guardian? He’s no guardian of mine!’ interrupted Harry, up in arms.

  ‘Certainly not. Or of mine! How should he be, when we are both of age?’

  ‘Yes, well – oh, you don’t understand!’

  ‘I assure you I do! You’ve been told that he’s a shocking rake –’

  ‘Is he?’ interpolated Charis, her eyes widening. ‘I had thought a rake would have been very different! Well, I know they are! They try to get up flirtations, and put one to the blush by the things they say, and – oh, you know, Frederica! Cousin Alverstoke isn’t at all like that. Indeed, I’ve often thought him dreadfully strict!’

  ‘Yes, for ever preaching propriety, and giving one a scold for not behaving as though one had but just escaped from the schoolroom,’ said Frederica, with considerable feeling. ‘Make yourself easy, Harry! Whatever may be Alverstoke’s reputation, he cherishes no improper designs where we are concerned! Nor did we come out under his aegis. It’s true that he invited us to a ball which he gave in honour of his niece, but it was his sister, Lady Buxted, who fired us off, as they say.’