Frederica Page 22

  He did not look to be perfectly satisfied; but as Jessamy came in at that moment the subject was allowed to drop. Jessamy looked grave when he learned the reason for Harry’s arrival, but he only said, when warned that his senior wanted no jobations from him: ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘And none of your moralising speeches either!’ said Harry, eyeing him in some suspicion.

  ‘You needn’t be afraid of that. I have no right to moralise,’ replied Jessamy, sighing.

  ‘Hey, what’s this?’ Harry demanded. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been kicking up riot and rumpus, old sobersides!’

  ‘Something very like it,’ Jessamy said heavily, the scene in Piccadilly vivid in his memory.

  Both his sisters cried out at this; and by the time Harry had been regaled by them with the story of the Pedestrian Curricle, and had gone into shouts of laughter, Jessamy had begun to think that it had not been so very bad after all, and was even able to laugh a little himself, and to tell Harry about the adventure’s glorious sequel, dwelling with such particularity on the points of Alverstoke’s various hacks and carriage-horses that the ladies soon bethought themselves of tasks in some other part of the house, and withdrew.

  When the subject had been thoroughly discussed, Harry acknowledged that it was certainly handsome of the Marquis to place his hacks at Jessamy’s disposal, and gratified his brother by adding: ‘Not that he’d anything to fear. I’ll say this for you, young ’un: you’ve as neat a seat and as light a hand as anyone I know.’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t know that!’ said Jessamy naïvely.

  Harry grinned, but refrained from comment. You never knew how Jessamy would take it, if you made game of him, and he thought it rather beneath himself to set up the boy’s bristles. Besides, he wanted to know more about the Marquis. Jessamy was six years his junior, but he had a good deal of respect for his judgment, and a somewhat rueful dependence on his ability to detect weakness of moral character. If Jessamy erred, it would not be on the side of tolerance.

  But Jessamy had little but good to say of the Marquis. He understood why Harry should be anxious, and owned that he had wondered, at first, if Alverstoke meant to dangle after Charis. ‘It’s no such thing, however. He doesn’t seem to me to pay much heed to her. He did take her driving in the park once, but Frederica told me he only did so as a sort of warning to some horrid rip that was making up to her; and he doesn’t send her flowers, or haunt the house, like cousin Endymion!’

  ‘Cousin who?’ demanded Harry.

  ‘Endymion. Well, that’s what we call him, and, according to Frederica, we are connected with him in some way or another. He’s Cousin Alverstoke’s heir, and in the Life Guards. Nutty on Charis, but there’s no need to worry about him! He’s a big, beef-witted fellow: no harm in him at all – but lord, what a clothhead! Then there’s Cousin Gregory – he’s one of Cousin Alverstoke’s nephews; and Cousin Buxted – but he comes to sit in Frederica’s pocket; and –’

  ‘Here, how many more of them?’ interpolated Harry, startled.

  ‘I don’t know precisely. It does seem odd suddenly to find oneself with dozens of cousins one never knew existed, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Damned odd!’

  ‘Yes, but they are cousins, or, at all events, connections of ours: they acknowledge it!’

  Harry shook his head, but said: ‘Well, I suppose it’s all right and tight. Did you say one of them was making up to Frederica?’

  ‘Yes, it’s the greatest joke!’ replied Jessamy, fully appreciating his brother’s incredulity. ‘And the best of it is that he’s such a dead bore that –’ He stopped, and frowned. ‘I shouldn’t say that of him,’ he said. ‘He’s a very respectable man. Kind, too, and thinks just as he ought. Only, somehow, he makes you want to go off and knock up a lark when he starts moralising. I know that’s wrong, but it does make me see what Cousin Alverstoke meant when he said I should make a better parson if I did fall into scrapes.’

  This disclosure made a stronger appeal to Harry than anything else Jessamy had said in the Marquis’s favour. He declared himself anxious to make his acquaintance, even going so far as to say that he sounded as if he had a lot of rumgumption.

  ‘Well, I daresay you will be taking the girls to balls, so you’re bound to meet him.’

  ‘Taking the girls to balls?’ echoed Harry, horrified. ‘No, by Jupiter! That I won’t!’

  Nothing would move him from this decision. To the persuasions of his sisters he responded that he had outgrown his evening-dress, and would be dashed if he wasted his blunt on a new rig; that he expected to be fully engaged with his friend Barny; that he rather thought he might take a bolt to Herefordshire, just to be sure all was well at Graynard; and, as a clincher, that he was such a bad dancer that he would only disgrace them if they dragged him to any of their assemblies.

  They were disappointed, but not surprised. Harry, who closely resembled Charis, could never disgrace them, however badly he danced, for besides his fair, handsome face and well-made person, he had a considerable degree of lively charm; but Harry, alas, had no taste for fashionable life, and no ambition to acquire the London touch. He was ripe for any spree (as he phrased it) with his friends; but it was easy to see that it would not be many years before he settled down very happily to the life of a sporting squire.

  If anything had been needed to confirm him in his resolution it was supplied by Miss Winsham, acidly expressing the opinion that the least he could do to atone for his rustication was to make himself useful to his sisters. Ten minutes in his aunt’s company were enough to set Harry, in general the most easy-going of mortals, at dagger-drawing. Frederica, seeing the spark in his blue eyes, and the mulish look about his mouth, intervened; and allowed some time to elapse before she ventured to suggest that if he wished to make Alverstoke’s acquaintance he could be sure of doing so by escorting his sisters to Lady Sefton’s forthcoming squeeze.

  But Harry had an answer to that. Little though he might like doing the pretty amongst all the smarts and fribbles of the ton, he hoped he was not rag-mannered. Rather cool, he said, to depend on a chance meeting for the opportunity to pay his respects to the Marquis! He had given the matter some thought; and since it appeared that Alverstoke had placed them all under an obligation he felt that it behoved him to pay a formal visit in Berkeley Square: not merely as a gesture of civility, but to discharge Jessamy’s debt.

  ‘Well, I own I should be glad if you could do so,’ said Frederica, ‘but I don’t think he will let you! I expect you are quite right in thinking that you should pay him a morning visit, but, whatever you do, Harry, don’t let it be before noon! Jessamy and I have both invaded his house before he had left his dressing-room, and for a third Merriville to do so would be quite dreadful!’

  ‘What a paltry fellow!’ exclaimed Harry scornfully.

  But when, strictly adhering to Frederica’s advice, he presented himself in Berkeley Square, one glance was enough to convince him that whatever epithet might be used to describe the Marquis, paltry was very fair and far off indeed.

  As luck would have it, he arrived at Alverstoke’s house just as Alverstoke emerged from it, exquisitely attired in a blue coat of Weston’s tailoring, the palest of pantaloons, the snowiest of neckcloths, and Hessian boots so highly polished that they glinted in the sunshine. Harry, pausing with one foot on the first of the shallow steps leading up to the door, received an instant impression of tremendous elegance, but not for a moment did it occur to him that he was gazing at a veritable Tulip of the Ton. That coat of blue superfine was moulded over magnificent shoulders; and those clinging pantaloons in no way concealed the swell of muscles in his lordship’s powerful thighs which unmistakeably proclaimed the athlete.

  The Marquis, also pausing, but at the top of the steps, looked down at his unexpected visitor. His brows were slightly raised, but after a swift, keen scrutiny, they sank, and he smiled, saying: ‘Don’t take the trouble to introduce yourself! Unless I am very much mistaken, you must be Harr
y Merriville.’

  Harry acknowledged it, too well-accustomed to be recognised by his resemblance to his lovely sister to feel surprise at his lordship’s acumen. His lordship, correctly interpreting the look of revulsion in his face, gave him further proof of it. ‘There is a great family-likeness between you all,’ he said smoothly. ‘Come in, and tell me what brings you to London! Not that I need ask! For how long are you sent down?’

  Since his tone held nothing but sympathetic interest, Harry saw no reason to take umbrage, and replied, with his frank, attractive smile: ‘Oh, only for the rest of the term, sir. It was nothing – just fun and gig! But the Bag-wig was feeling out of curl, and he chose to cut up stiff. But I’m detaining you! Perhaps you have an engagement?’

  ‘It’s not of the smallest consequence,’ replied the Marquis, relinquishing his hat, his gloves, and his cane into his footman’s hands, and leading the way into the library. ‘You shall drink a glass of sherry with me, and tell me in what way I can serve you.’

  ‘Good God, sir, none at all!’ said Harry, shocked. ‘It seems to me that you have done a great deal for my family already. I came merely to thank you for your kind offices.’

  ‘How very civil of you! But pray don’t!’

  ‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ objected Harry, ‘but for the life of me I can’t see that we have the least claim upon you, sir!’

  ‘You are forgetting our relationship.’

  ‘It ain’t a case of forgetting, for I never knew of it,’ said Harry bluntly. ‘Frederica says you are our cousin, but I’ve a strong notion she’s shamming it!’

  ‘You wrong her. Our relationship is a trifle remote, perhaps, but we – er – meet somewhere on the family tree, I assure you.’

  ‘Well, that might be, I daresay,’ conceded Harry doubtfully. ‘I never took much interest in the family tree myself, but of course I know that everyone has hosts of relations one’s never met in one’s life.’

  ‘And some of them such very Queer Nabs!’ murmured his lordship.

  ‘Yes, by Jove, aren’t they just?’ exclaimed Harry, with considerable feeling. He burst out laughing at the quizzical look in the Marquis’s eye. ‘Oh, I don’t mean you, sir! How could I? But only think of my Aunt Seraphina! Not that she’s an unknown relation – I only wish to God she were! I daresay you are acquainted with her?’

  ‘I am, and you have all my sympathy.’

  Harry nodded, but said: ‘Oh, well! She don’t come the ugly with the girls, and they must have somebody to play gooseberry, I suppose.’ He waited, while Wicken, who had entered the room, set a heavily embossed silver tray down at his master’s elbow; but when he had accepted a glass of sherry from his host he said: ‘The thing is, sir, that if we are only remotely related there’s no reason in the world why you should be troubled with any of us, and I don’t like it at all that my sister Frederica should have jockeyed you into it! Which,’ he added shrewdly, ‘I’ll go bail she did!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ replied his lordship. ‘I collect you were not aware that I was under an obligation to your father.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ said Harry.

  ‘How should you be?’ said his lordship, with the sweet, discomfiting smile which rarely failed to depress pretension.

  Harry knew an impulse to ask in what way his erratic parent had contrived to place this unquestionable out-and-outer under an obligation, but the smile warned him that any such enquiry would be an impertinence. He refrained, therefore; but after drinking a little sherry made a recover, and said, his chin lifting a little: ‘However that may be, sir, I must feel myself greatly indebted to you. Not only for sponsoring my sisters, which – which is a debt I can’t repay, but for coming so kindly to my young brother’s rescue. That debt I can repay, and – and wish to do immediately! In fact, that forms a part of my errand to you, so will you tell me, if you please, what was the sum which you were obliged to spend on his behalf?’

  ‘I am afraid you will have to hold me excused,’ replied his lordship apologetically. ‘For one thing, I don’t know: my secretary settled the business; and, for another, I lent Jessamy the sum, whatever it may have been, upon certain terms.’

  ‘Yes, sir – he told me, and – and I’m very much obliged to you! Though why the silly gudgeon didn’t bring his covert-hack to London, instead of making a dashed martyr of himself, or even hire a horse – ’

  ‘I hardly think he would care for a job-horse. And since he is determined not to incur the expense of a horse and a groom in London, may I suggest that you leave well alone?’

  Harry flushed. ‘I beg your pardon, but it isn’t well, sir! I mean, there’s no reason why Jessamy should be so much beholden to you: he should have applied to me, because I’m his guardian, not you!’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t the smallest intention of usurping your authority!’ the Marquis assured him.

  ‘It isn’t so much that – well, as a matter of fact, it’s my sister who has the younger ones in charge,’ confessed Harry. ‘But when it comes to letting my brother – my ward! – run into debt – no!’

  ‘Ah, that is a matter which lies between you and him, and in no way concerns me! Give him a thundering scold – if you feel it to be your duty!’

  ‘What, when I’ve been sent down myself?’ exclaimed Harry. ‘I’m not such a mawworm! Besides,’ he added frankly, ‘I’ll be damned if I give my head to Jessamy for washing!’

  The Marquis smiled. ‘Then, I repeat, leave well alone!’ Then he saw that Harry was looking far from satisfied, and the amusement deepened in his eyes. ‘Or you can stand surety, if you feel he won’t redeem the debt,’ he said.

  Harry stiffened; and replied in rather a gritty voice: ‘I have no fear of that, sir!’

  ‘No, nor have I.’

  ‘What I do fear,’ said Harry, slightly mollified, ‘is that he’ll very likely run himself aground over the business.’

  ‘In that case,’ replied his lordship, ‘it will be your duty – as his guardian – to bring him about again. I can’t agree, however, that it is a likely contingency. I believe the sum involved to have been quite trifling. Meanwhile, he is happily employed every morning, exercising one or other of my hacks, instead of addling his brain with overmuch study. Really, it is I who stand in his debt: I had liefer by far entrust my horses to him than to any groom.’

  ‘Yes, indeed!’ Harry said warmly. ‘He’s got a maggot in his head over some things, but he’s a clipping rider, I promise you! In the hunting-field, I mean! No need to be afraid he won’t keep your hacks well in hand!’

  ‘Then, since our minds are now relieved of care, we needn’t discuss the matter further,’ said his lordship. ‘What are your own plans? Are you making a come-out too?’

  Harry’s mind was not quite relieved of care, but, partly from diffidence, and partly from an innate dislike of responsibility, he let the subject drop, assuring the Marquis instead that he had no desire to make a come-out. He added that he did not think it would be (under the circumstances) quite the thing. ‘I shall be visiting a friend, and going about with him a good deal, I daresay.’

  ‘I see. Keep away from the – er – sluiceries of Tothill Fields, and if you end up in a Watch-house, with your pockets to let, send a message here, not to Upper Wimpole Street: I’ll bail you out.’

  ‘Thank you! But I don’t anticipate –’

  ‘One never does,’ murmured his lordship. ‘These things happen to one, however, and it is just as well to be prepared.’ He looked thoughtfully at his young guest. ‘I recall that your sister told me once that you are fond of boxing: if you have a fancy to attend Jackson’s school – it’s in Bond Street, No. 13 – send this in to him! He will pay particular attention to you.’ He drew out his card-case as he spoke, scrawled something on one of the visiting-cards he abstracted from it, and flicked it over to Harry.

  ‘Oh, by Jupiter!’ Harry exclaimed, catching it, and eagerly deciphering the scrawled message. ‘That’s devilish good of you, sir! I’m excessively oblige
d to you! I’m no better than a moulder, of course, but I am very partial to the sport! Thank you very much! Though why you should concern yourself with me, I’m damned if I know!’ He coloured hotly, and added, in apologetic accents: ‘I mean – well, all this gammon about being under an obligation to my father – !’

  ‘The charm of novelty,’ replied his lordship, bringing the interview to an end by rising from his chair. ‘Since I assumed the rôle of guardian – titular, of course! – of your enterprising brothers, I haven’t known what might happen next. Hitherto I have always known precisely what would happen next: a dead bore, believe me!’

  With this, Harry had to be content. He took a punctilious leave of the Marquis, and went off, unable to decide if he liked him, or disliked him.

  The Marquis had no such doubts. Within ten minutes of making Harry’s acquaintance, he had recognised in him not only his father’s merits, but also his failings. A pleasing boy, with frank, well-bred manners, whom it was impossible not to like; but one who lacked strength of character, and would always be amiably ready to let another shoulder his responsibilities.

  And why the devil should I shoulder them? the Marquis demanded of himself. I must have windmills in my head!

  Sixteen

  If Harry was doubtful of the Marquis, he found no difficulty at all in deciding that the Marquis’s cousin and heir was a capital fellow. The young gentlemen, in fact, took to one another on sight; and this in spite of the slight prejudice created in Harry’s mind by the knowledge that Frederica did not look with favour upon Mr Dauntry. Endymion was not much given to speculation, but had he thought about the matter he would have felt sure that he would like Harry – or any other of Charis’s relations. He was some few years older than Harry, and he had all the town-bronze which Harry lacked; but his intellect was not strong, and, like many other persons of slow wit to whom learning was a painful labour, he was inclined to regard with respect bordering upon awe anyone capable of passing Responsions.