Frederica Read online

  She was so much astonished that she could only stare at him. He pressed her hand reassuringly before he released it, repeating: ‘I promise you!’

  She found her voice. ‘Not married? Not, Mr Trevor?’

  ‘No, no! It – er – came to nothing!’

  ‘Oh, thank God!’ she cried. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s with Mrs Dauntry at present, but I trust she will be able to return here tomorrow. I thought, since she had a valise, that it would be best for her not to come home tonight. On account of the servants, you know.’

  ‘With Mrs Dauntry?’ she said, quite bemused. ‘But how – why – ?’

  ‘Charles, how the devil do you come to be mixed up in the affair?’ demanded Alverstoke.

  ‘Well, it’s rather a long story, sir!’

  ‘Are you going to tell me that you knew of this deplorable scheme?’

  ‘Good God, no, sir! I came into it by accident. Surely you don’t imagine –’

  ‘No, of course he doesn’t!’ interrupted Eliza. ‘Sit down, and tell us all about it before I expire with curiosity! Oh, I beg your pardon, Frederica!’

  ‘Never mind begging Frederica’s pardon!’ said his lordship. He met his secretary’s stern gaze, and smiled. ‘You must forgive me, my dear boy. I have reached the stage when nothing has the power to surprise me, you see. What was the accident which brought you into it?’

  Relaxing, Mr Trevor seated himself, and, after a moment’s consideration, said: ‘I had better tell it you from the start, I think. You’ll remember, sir, that you desired me to attend to a matter of business, which took me to the Temple? Well, I did so, this morning. On my way back I suddenly saw Dauntry, in the churchyard of St Clement Danes. It seemed an odd place to find him in, but the thing that most struck me was that he had a portmanteau with him. Still, it wasn’t any business of mine, and I was just about to go on my way when a hack drove up to the church, and out jumped your brother, Miss Merriville! And the next instant he handed Miss Charis Merriville down, and pulled out a valise from the hack.’

  ‘Was she crying?’ enquired his lordship.

  ‘I don’t know; but I could see she was rather agitated, by the way she was clinging to Merriville’s arm.’

  ‘I expect she was crying,’ said his lordship, in a satisfied tone.

  ‘Cousin Alverstoke, if you say one more word – ! Pray go on, Mr Trevor!’

  ‘Well – I guessed then, of course. I never was in their confidence, but I did know that Dauntry and Miss Merriville were very much attached to each other, and also that you, ma’am, were opposed to the match.’

  ‘I daresay you had that from Chloë,’ remarked his lordship blandly.

  ‘A great many people knew it,’ said Frederica, pointedly ignoring this interpolation. ‘So what did you do, sir?’

  Charles, a trifle flushed, threw her a grateful look. ‘At first, I didn’t do anything,’ he confessed. ‘For one thing, I was pretty well bowled out; and, for another, I didn’t know what to do! It was very awkward, you know. I hadn’t the least right to interfere, particularly when her brother was with her. By the time I’d made up my mind that I ought to make a push to stop them doing such an imprudent thing, they had been inside the church for several minutes. So I ran across the street, and went in after them. There was no one there, except them, and the curate, and the verger, and the curate had begun the service. Which was a bit of a facer, because I couldn’t walk up to them, and say I wanted to speak to them, or call out: ‘Wait a minute!’ or anything of that nature. Not when the service had begun, and with the verger glaring at me! I’m not in orders myself, but my father is, and my eldest brother, and the idea of making a scene in church fairly made me shudder! So I sat down at the back, trying to think what I should do, and of course I remembered the just cause or impediment bit, and waited for it.’

  ‘Charles!’ said Eliza, awed. ‘You didn’t get up and say there was an impediment?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Well, I said, “Yes, I do!” I don’t think the curate had ever had such a thing happen to him before, because he was so flabbergasted he just stood there with his mouth open, and by the time he’d collected his wits enough to order us all into the vestry there was such a rumpus that nobody paid any heed to him. What with Dauntry roaring out that I’d no right to meddle, and wanting to know what the devil I meant by it; and Merriville flying into a passion, and saying that there wasn’t any impediment, and that he was Miss Merriville’s lawful guardian; and Miss Merriville in hysterics, it was the most shocking scene. And I’m bound to own that I said a few things myself – quite forgetting where I was! However, we went into the vestry at last, and things quietened down, because Dauntry was in such a stew over Miss Merriville, that he was too busy trying to soothe her to go on abusing me.’

  ‘Did he succeed?’ asked Alverstoke.

  ‘No, but Merriville did. He threw a glass of water in her face.’

  ‘Quite right!’ nodded Frederica.

  ‘Well, I daresay it was,’ said Charles dubiously. ‘The only thing was that, though it did stop the vapours, it made her cry, and that led to a fresh uproar, because Dauntry came to cuffs with Merriville for doing it, and Merriville said he would do what he chose to his own sister, and so they fell into a quarrel. Which was quite a good thing, because I was able to draw the curate aside, and – and smooth him down a trifle.’

  ‘Charles,’ said Alverstoke, much moved, ‘I have never done you justice! It must be the diplomatic service for you!’

  Charles blushed, and laughed. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t very successful, sir! He was as mad as fire – and no one could blame him! But the main thing was that he said he refused to perform the ceremony, no matter whether there was an impediment or not, because we were a set of infidels, and a lot more to that tune. Then Merriville said he washed his hands of the whole affair, and since I’d played boots with everything I could damned – I mean, he told me I could now be responsible for the rest. And he flung off in a rage. That was a good thing too.’

  ‘A very good thing!’ said Frederica. ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘Well, I managed to persuade the curate to permit us to stay in the vestry until Miss Merriville had recovered. And once I’d got rid of him, and Miss Merriville had stopped crying, I – I talked to them! Showing them how improper it was, and so on. Then Dauntry said that he hadn’t been quite easy about it from the start, and after a while it came out that he thought you, as well as Miss Merriville, would do what you could do to separate him from Miss Charis, sir.’

  ‘Mea culpa! I gave him a hint not to be so particular in his attentions!’

  ‘Yes, he told me about that, but I think he had the notion fixed in his head long before then. Well – I ventured to tell him that I was pretty sure you wouldn’t care a rush if he married Miss Merriville, but you’d cut up stiff if he went about it in a havey-cavey way.’

  ‘How well you understand me, my dear boy! Did he fear I should instantly reduce him to penury?’

  ‘Oh, no! He said he was going to sell out, and try his hand at farming. In the Shires,’ added Mr Trevor demurely.

  ‘Good God! Then, if he was ready to face having his allowance stopped, what was he afraid of? What the devil did he think I could do to stop his marriage?’

  ‘He appeared to think,’ said Mr Trevor, his countenance wooden, ‘that you would contrive to get him sent abroad on a diplomatic mission.’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence, before both the ladies fell into gusts of merriment.

  ‘But I told him,’ said Mr Trevor, ‘that I rather fancied it would be beyond your power.’

  ‘You might well!’ said Alverstoke, who had sunk his brow on his hand.

  ‘I also told him – and I hope you won’t object, sir – that what he ought to do was to tell you the whole, and – and trust to you to make all right with Mrs Dauntry.’

  ‘And with me?’ asked Frederica.

  ‘Well, yes!’ he confessed. ‘I did say that! Wh
at I meant to do – because Miss Merriville was declaring that she couldn’t return here, ma’am, and I couldn’t think where else to take her – was to have brought them both to you, sir, at Alverstoke House.’

  ‘Thank you, Charles! What saved me from this ugly fate?’

  For the first time in his recital, Mr Trevor’s voice became a little unsteady. ‘Dauntry recollected that he had left a letter for his mother. With the butler – to be given her at noon. It occurred to him that she might be prostrated by it, and that it was his duty to reassure her. So – so we called up a hack, and persuaded Miss Merriville to get into it, and drove off to Green Street.’

  ‘Left a letter for his mother?’ repeated Alverstoke. ‘For God’s sake, why couldn’t he have posted a letter to her later? He doesn’t live with her!’

  ‘He thought,’ said Charles carefully, ‘that he had best write to her at once, in case he afterwards forgot to do so.’

  This was too much, even for himself. He succumbed to his bottled-up amusement, and went into whoops.

  Frederica, the first of the assembled company to stop laughing, said, wiping her streaming eyes: ‘And you went with them! I n-never dreamed of s-such heroism, Mr Trevor!’

  ‘I must say I didn’t relish it much, but I thought it was the least I could do, after bringing the wedding to nothing. Dauntry fought shy of going in to his mother without anyone to support him, and Miss Merriville was so frightened, that I thought it very likely the pair of them would turn cat in pan if I didn’t keep them to the sticking point. So I went with them.’

  ‘To find Mrs Dauntry in convulsions?’ asked Eliza.

  ‘No, that was later,’ he replied seriously. ‘When we all walked into the drawing-room, she was sitting in a chair, with Dauntry’s letter in her lap, and looking as though she’d been knocked acock. And no sooner did she set eyes on Dauntry than she rang such a peal over him – well, it nearly made me scour off! It turned him as sulky as a bear, and as for Miss Merriville, I thought she would fall down in a faint. I kept on telling her they weren’t married, but she wouldn’t pay the smallest heed, so that at last I was obliged to go smash up to her, and give her a shake, in the most shockingly brassy way! However, it surprised her so much that she stopped pouring reproaches over Dauntry, and I was able to tell her that he hadn’t got married after all. Then she tried to throw herself on to his chest, saying, in – in a most embarrassing way: ‘Oh, my beloved son, you remembered your mother, and you repented!’ Naturally that set up his hackles more than ever, and he thrust her off, and said: ‘No, I didn’t!’ and that it was all my doing, and that I was a curst addle-plot. So she threw herself on my chest,’ said Charles, blenching at the memory.

  ‘Oh, poor Mr Trevor!’ cried Frederica. ‘Whatever did you do?’

  ‘I couldn’t do anything. That was the worst of it! She had her arms round my neck, calling me her dear, dear boy, and her saviour, and kissing my cheek!’

  ‘But what more could you desire? This is excellent, Charles!’ said Alverstoke.

  ‘Well, I didn’t think it excellent, sir, and nor did Dauntry! Up till then he hadn’t done much more than look black, but hearing her thank me for having preserved him from what she called a fatal marriage fairly wound him up, and the next thing was that he was giving her a trimming, and at the top of his voice too! He was in such a passion he didn’t care what he said to her. I must own, I was as astonished as she was, for he’s such an amiable fellow that I hadn’t thought he could be stirred up. Lord, he even shouted at her, when she put her hand on her heart, and gasped that she felt a spasm coming on, that she could have as many spasms as she pleased, and if she dared to utter one more word against Miss Merriville he’d never speak to her again as long as he lived! But at that Miss Merriville suddenly cried out: “Oh, no, no, no!” and ran to Mrs Dauntry, and put her arms round her, begging her not to heed Dauntry, because he didn’t mean it, and neither of them would do anything she didn’t like, and heaven knows what more besides! She coaxed her to lie down on the sofa, and held her vinaigrette under her nose, and sent Dauntry off to fetch the hartshorn directly. And when he said he didn’t know where to find it I’m dashed if she didn’t rip up at him, saying how dared he be so brutal to his mother, and if he didn’t know where to find the hartshorn, he could ask Mrs Dauntry’s woman, couldn’t he? So he went off and got some brandy, which answered just as well. Only, when he tried to tell Mrs Dauntry it was no use for her to make herself sick, she shuddered, and implored Miss Merriville not to leave her. So then they both began to cry, and the next thing was that Mrs Dauntry was calling Miss Merriville her dear child, and the pair of them had got into a league against Dauntry. He’d come out of the mops by then, and if I hadn’t trodden on his foot he would have begged his mother’s pardon, and begun to pet and coax her.’

  Alverstoke’s eyes gleamed. ‘Very subtle, Charles!’

  ‘I don’t know that, sir, but I could see that the longer he stayed on his high ropes the more Mrs Dauntry would cling to Miss Merriville, because she was the only one of us who was sympathising with her. The only thing I was afraid of was that Miss Plumley would come in, but it turned out that she’d been taken ill last night, with the influenza. That was a stroke of rare good fortune, because Mrs Dauntry’s maid was nursing her, and what with that, and the girls having been sent off with the governess to some aunt or other, to escape the infection, Mrs Dauntry was obliged to fend for herself, which don’t suit her. She said – you know her way, sir! –’

  ‘Too well!’

  Charles grinned. ‘Yes – well, she said heaven knew she didn’t grudge her woman to Miss Plumley, only she was still so unwell herself that the least exertion exhausted her. Miss Merriville agreed with that – I mean, she really did! she wasn’t shamming it!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Frederica. ‘She is very tender-hearted, you know, and is sorry for people on the smallest provocation. Or even on none at all.’

  ‘It – it does her great credit!’

  ‘It doesn’t, but let that pass!’ said Alverstoke. ‘I take it Charis is now performing the combined duties of companion, nurse, and abigail? Has Mrs Dauntry given her consent to the fatal marriage?’

  ‘No, she hasn’t done that yet, but she told Miss Merriville that she was a dear, sweet child, so I shouldn’t think it would be long before she does. Anyway, Miss Merriville is to remain with her until tomorrow. So I told Dauntry, in his ear, that if he didn’t want to make a mess of everything he’d play least in sight for a while, and dragged him off with me. And – and that’s all!’

  ‘All!’ exclaimed Frederica. ‘Mr Trevor, I can never, never tell you how grateful I am to you! I don’t mean to embarrass you by throwing myself on your chest, for you have borne enough this day, but I promise you I easily could! Thank you!’

  Much discomposed, he stammered: ‘Not at all! Nothing to thank me for! Only did what I thought right!’

  ‘Don’t be so modest, Charles!’ said Alverstoke. ‘You know very well that you’ve beaten us all hollow. I find it extremely disturbing. I never doubted my own courage till today!’

  ‘Very true! You are quite shone down!’ said Eliza. ‘Only what’s to be done now? I am at one with you, Frederica, in thinking Endymion a very poor match for Charis, but if Lucretia gives her consent – ?’

  Frederica sighed. ‘I suppose I must do so too.’

  ‘Certainly you must,’ said Alverstoke. ‘You cannot possibly live with a watering-pot for the rest of the summer! You and Lucretia will bestow your blessings on this very boring Romeo and Juliet; I will endeavour to restrain Romeo from committing any extravagant folly; and a formal announcement of the betrothal shall be sent to the Gazette.’

  ‘Very well,’ Frederica said listlessly.

  ‘Yes, but I am strongly of the opinion that the announcement of your own betrothal should come first, Vernon!’ said Eliza, quizzing him with her eyes. ‘In fact, I think your wedding should come first. Charis and Endymion can very well wait for a month or two
before they become formally engaged. And then you can give a betrothal-party for them, and they can be married from Alverstoke House. Don’t you agree with me, Charles?’

  Mr Trevor, manfully, if fleetingly, meeting the eyes of his seething employer, said: ‘As a matter of fact, ma’am, I was just thinking so myself.’

  ‘Oh, were you?’ said his lordship wrathfully.

  ‘Well, sir – you couldn’t expect me to be blind!’ said Charles.

  ‘But what are you dreaming of?’ demanded Frederica, suddenly rather pale. ‘There – there is no question of such a thing!’

  ‘Nonsense, child, of course you are going to marry Alverstoke!’ said Eliza briskly, drawing on her gloves. ‘Why, Augusta told me so the very day after I came up to London! She says you will deal extremely, too. So does Sally Jersey, and –’

  ‘Will you have the goodness, Eliza, to permit me to make my proposals myself?’ interrupted his lordship, in a voice of dangerous calm.

  ‘Yes, my dear brother! But do, pray, stop fearing to put it to the touch, and wondering if this is quite the right moment, or whether you would not do better to wait until Frederica is rather less harassed!’ responded Eliza, smiling affably at him. ‘Charles, are you too worn-down to escort me to Somerset House?’

  ‘No, indeed! I should be happy to do so!’ he said promptly.

  ‘Then we will go there immediately.’ She turned, and embraced Frederica. ‘Goodbye, my dear! I am leaving London tomorrow, so I’ll wish you happy now. Charles, I depend on you to tell me which of the pictures I must most admire!’

  ‘My sisters – !’ said his lordship, with loathing, as he shut the door on Mr Trevor’s heels. Well-aware that it behoved him to tread warily, he added, in a meditative tone: ‘Not but what she was perfectly right, of course. And damnably acute! I did fear to put it to the touch while Felix occupied your whole mind. And why the devil should we wait on the convenience of those two young idiots?’

  Frederica, standing as though rooted to the floor, said, in a voice which, even to her ears, sounded very unlike her own: ‘This is ridiculous, Cousin Alverstoke. Such an – an absurd notion has never crossed my mind!’