Frederica Read online

  ‘That’s better!’ he said, still smiling, but very much more pleasantly. ‘Rig Jane out in the first style of elegance, and send me a Dutch reckoning: I don’t want to know the particulars. I’ll bring Miss Merriville to visit you. I daresay you may like her: she doesn’t want for sense – or determination! Don’t neglect to send Charles that list!’

  On this admonition he took his departure, revolving in his mind various stratagems whereby the younger Miss Merriville could be excluded from the forthcoming visit to Grosvenor Place without opposition from her masterful sister.

  In the event, the problem was solved rather sooner than he had expected, and not by him. Providence, in the guise of the dog Lufra, brought Frederica to Alverstoke House two days later, unaccompanied by Charis, and at what his lordship, no early riser, considered to be an unseasonable hour.

  Since Jessamy adhered strictly to his self-imposed rule of studying every morning, his sisters had taken it upon themselves to exercise Lufra in his stead. They took him for long walks, exploring London; and if he had not tugged so hard on the end of a leash, or had behaved with more circumspection when released from it, their enjoyment of these expeditions would have been unalloyed. Country-bred, they were accustomed to much longer walks than could be achieved in London; everything was new to them; and they sallied forth whenever the weather permitted, Frederica in charge of Lufra, and Charis armed with a Pocket Guide. They viewed, from outside, the edifices, monuments, and mansions to which this invaluable book directed them, even penetrating into the City, where they attracted much attention, but were never once accosted. Not the most impudent of coxcombs cared to approach two damsels accompanied by a large and shaggy dog, straining at his leash, and exhibiting between his panting jaws a set of splendid teeth.

  But two days after Alverstoke’s victorious engagement in Grosvenor Place Charis awoke with a sore throat and a tickling cough; and although she came down to breakfast she was speedily hustled back to bed, Miss Winsham declaring, at her third sneeze, that she had caught one of her feverish colds, and that unless she wished to succumb to an inflammation of the lungs, she would instantly retire to her bedchamber.

  This she did; and while Miss Winsham, having ordered the cook to make a bread-pudding and some water-gruel, was preparing a saline draught for the sufferer, Frederica escaped from the house, knowing that if she told her aunt that she was going for her usual walk she would be obliged to endure a scold for thinking that she could behave as freely in London as in Herefordshire. Miss Winsham would certainly try to persuade her to take one of the maid-servants with her, or Felix; but as Frederica considered herself to be past the age when a chaperon was necessary, and had already discovered that London servants were by no means partial to long, brisk walks, she thought it prudent to slip away, telling no one but Buddle where she was going. Buddle shook his head, and tut-tutted; but beyond suggesting that Master Felix should accompany her he made no attempt to deter her. And as Felix had already wheedled her into giving him half-a-crown, which was the price of admission to Merlin’s Mechanical Museum (open every day from eleven until three), his sister wisely declined to issue an invitation which he would certainly have refused.

  Her destination was the Green Park. Neither she nor Charis had yet visited it, the Pocket Guide not deeming it worthy of more than a glancing reference. It did, indeed, describe in enthusiastic detail the Temple of Concord, erected there as part of the pageantry of the Peace celebrations in 1814, but as this temporary structure had been demolished, Charis thought, four years later, that the Green Park was hardly worth a visit.

  But Frederica, undeterred by the Guide Book’s tepid praise of the park’s ‘several pleasant promenades’, decided to take Lufra there for his walk, rather than to the more fashionable Hyde Park, where the saunterers were too much inclined to ogle fair pedestrians.

  Towed through the streets by her canine friend, she reached the Bath gate in a somewhat heated condition, and was glad to be able to release him from the leash to which he showed no sign of growing accustomed. He bounded ahead, and began to quest to and fro, his plebeian tail carried on high, and his nose hopefully seeking the trail of a possible rabbit. When Frederica strolled round the reservoir at the north-east corner of the park, he brought her a likely stick, and invited her to throw it into the water for him to retrieve; but when she declined to take part in this sport he went off again, and was delighted to discover that the moving objects he had dimly perceived at some little distance away were three children, playing with a brightly coloured ball. He liked children, and he liked chasing after balls: he advanced upon the group, with his tail waving, and his ears expectantly cocked. He was a large dog, and his rapid descent upon the party proved too much for the fortitude of the youngest member, a small girl, who burst into a wail of fright, and fled to the protection of a nursemaid, who was enjoying a gossip with a friend in the lee of the shrubbery surrounding the Ranger’s Lodge. Lufra was puzzled, but turned his attention to the younger of the two boys, who was holding the ball, and uttered an encouraging bark. Whereupon Master John, throwing manly pride to the winds, dropped the ball, and made off after his sister as fast as his fat little legs would carry him. The elder boy stood his ground, gritting his teeth. Lufra pounced on the ball, tossed it and caught it, and finally spat it out at this stalwart’s feet. Master Frank let his breath go, and shouted after his juniors: ‘He only wants to play with us, you – you pudding-hearts!’ He then, rather cautiously, ventured to pick up the ball, and hurled it as far as he could. This was not very far, but Lufra, taking the will for the deed, dashed after it, and brought it back to him. Master Frank, much emboldened, gave him a shy pat. Lufra licked his chin, and a promising friendship was on the point of being inaugurated when the nursemaid shrieked to Master Frank not to touch that nasty, fierce dog. Master John, having tripped and fallen on his face, set up a bellow; and by the time Frederica came running up an animated and noisy scene was in full swing, the nursemaid shrilly scolding, the two younger children crying, and Master Frank rebelliously refusing to abandon his low-born playmate.

  Peremptorily called to heel, Lufra came, bringing the ball with him. Frederica took it from him, and cut short the unbridled complaint of the nursemaid by saying in the voice of one who had for years ruled a large household: ‘That will do! You forget yourself!’ She then looked at Master John, and said: ‘I hope you didn’t hurt yourself when you fell down? Of course, I know you wouldn’t cry because my dog tried to play with you, for I can see that you are quite a big boy, but do, pray, shake hands with him, to show that you didn’t mean to be uncivil when you ran away from him! Sit, Luff, and give a paw!’

  Obedient to the pressure of her hand, Lufra did sit, and obligingly waved one of his forelegs. Master John’s loud laments ceased abruptly. He stared in astonishment at Lufra. ‘Doggie shake hands?’ he demanded incredulously.

  ‘To be sure he does!’

  ‘With me!’ said Master Frank. ‘I’m not afraid of him!’

  Stung, Master John declared that Doggie did not wish to shake hands with him; and by the time this question of precedence had been settled, and both boys had solemnly clasped Lufra’s paw, Miss Caroline was jealously claiming her right to share the honour. Frederica then gave the ball back to Master Frank, and parted from the family, pursued by a darkling look from their attendant, and by the children’s adjurations to bring Doggie back next day.

  She went on her way, unperturbed by the incident, which merely confirmed her in the belief that London-children, acquainted only with the lap-dogs cosseted by their mamas, were much to be pitied; and it was not until she had rounded the shrubbery shielding the Ranger’s Lodge that it was suddenly and forcibly borne in upon her that the Pocket Guide had betrayed her: it had made no mention of a small herd of cows, with their attendant milkmaids, which (as she later discovered) were a well-known feature of the park. Not only did they provide urban eyes with a charmingly rural picture, but their attendants, all attired in the conventio
nal garb of milkmaids, dispensed glasses of warm milk to anyone prepared to disimburse the very moderate sum demanded for the privilege of drinking milk fresh from the cow.

  Too late did she realise the treachery of the Pocket Guide: Lufra, ranging ahead of her, perceived the herd before she did, and stopped for an instant in his tracks, his ears on the prick, and his bristles rising. The matron of the herd, standing within a few feet of him, lowered her head menacingly; and Lufra, either unable or unwilling to distinguish between the males and the females of the species, uttered a blood-curdling sound, midway between a bark and a growl, and launched himself into battle.

  Six

  A lesser woman would have fled at this stage, abandoning Lufra to his fate, for the ensuing scene was truly appalling. To the accompaniment of screams from milkmaids, nursemaids, and several elderly ladies, Lufra committed the enormous crime of stampeding a herd of milch-cows. He did not, indeed, repeat the heroic act which had earned him his name, but, finding that the cows fled before him, he scattered them, enjoying the only sport which had so far been offered him in London.

  No thought of escaping so much as crossed Frederica’s mind, but by the time she had managed, with the help of the head cowman and two of the Deputy-Ranger’s menials, to catch and to secure the wholly unrepentant hound, she knew that her case was desperate. All about her was a scene of carnage; one of the elderly ladies had succumbed to hysterics; another was demanding that a constable should be instantly sent for; the cowman was calling down curses on her head; and the park’s custodians were declaring their fixed resolve to impound Lufra, pending his certain execution. To make matters worse, the nurse with whose charges Lufra had disported himself came hurrying up, attracted by the commotion, and lost no time in deposing that he had savagely rushed upon the children, frightening the poor little dears out of their wits, stealing their ball, and causing Master John to fall flat on his face, grazing his hands and soiling his nankeens.

  ‘Fudge!’ said Frederica scornfully.

  Neither the cowman nor the park-keepers paid much heed to the nursemaid’s testimony. The cowman was only concerned with his cattle; and the park-keepers, observing the flattened ears and waving tail with which Lufra greeted his youthful friends, did not for a moment suppose him to be savage. They recognised in him all the signs of an overgrown and outrageous mongrel, young enough to be ripe for mischief; and, in other circumstances, they would have taken a lenient view of his misdemeanour. But the rules governing London parks were strict; the hatchet-faced old griffin who was adjuring them to summon a constable, her weaker sister who was still in the throes of nervous spasms, various citizens who declared that such dangerous brutes ought never to be permitted to roam at large, and a bevy of nursemaids unanimous in demanding vengeance on the wild animal which had shattered for ever the nerves of their gently-born charges, prompted them to take an extreme view of the case. Confronted on the one hand with a number of persons bent on reporting the incident to the Deputy-Ranger, and on the other by a delinquent mongrel owned by a Young Person unattended by a footman, or a maid, they saw their duty clear before them: Lufra, the elder of the two awfully told Frederica, must be handed over to them, to be kept in custody until a magistrate should pronounce his fate.

  Lufra, misliking both his tone and his purposeful advance, stopped panting, and rose, bristling, and intimating by a warning growl that any attempt to attack Frederica would be undertaken at the park-keeper’s peril: a warlike display which excited the cowman to demand his summary execution, and caused the park-keeper to order Frederica to ‘bring that dawg along o’ me!’

  Amongst the assembled persons none but the cowman knew better than Frederica how unpardonable was Lufra’s crime. One glance at this individual’s enflamed countenance was enough to convince her that an appeal addressed to him would be waste of breath. Inwardly quaking, she said: ‘Take care! This dog belongs to the Marquis of Alverstoke! He is extremely valuable, and if anything were to happen to him his lordship would be very angry indeed!’

  The younger park-keeper, who had formed his own, not inexpert, opinion of Lufra’s lineage, said bluntly: ‘Gammon! No Markiss never bought ’im! ’E’d be dear at a grig! ’E’s a mongrel, that’s what ’e is!’

  ‘A mongrel?’ exclaimed Frederica. ‘Let me tell you that he is a pure-bred Barcelona collie, brought to England at – at enormous expense! I am sorry that he should have chased the cows, but – but he was merely trying to herd them! The breed is used for that purpose in Spain, and – and he is not yet accustomed to English cows!’

  ‘Trying to herd them?’ gasped the cowman. ‘I never did, not in all my life! Why, you’re as bad as he is!’

  The younger park-keeper had no hesitation in endorsing this verdict. He said that Miss was coming it too strong, adding that while he knew nothing about Barcelona collies he did know a mongrel when he saw one. He also said, sticking to his original point, that, in his opinion, no Markiss never bought such a dog as Lufra.

  ‘Indeed!’ said Frederica. ‘And, pray, are you acquainted with my cousin, the Marquis of Alverstoke?’

  ‘What impudence!’ ejaculated the hatchet-faced lady. ‘Calling yourself a Marquis’s cousin, and jauntering about the town alone! A likely story!’

  After a good deal of argument, during which the younger park-keeper supported the hatchet-faced lady, the cowman said (several times) that Marquis or no Marquis any damage done to his cows must be paid for, and the elder park-keeper temporised, a sturdy citizen in a snuff-coloured frock-coat, proffered the suggestion that the Marquis should be applied to for corroboration of Miss’s story.

  ‘A very excellent notion!’ declared Frederica warmly. ‘Let us go to his house immediately! It is quite close, in Berkeley Square.’

  Left to himself, the elder park-keeper would at this stage have abandoned the affair. If the young lady was willing to seek out the Marquis it seemed to him to prove that she really was his cousin; and although he knew that this did not affect the issue he was very unwilling to proceed further in the matter. Properly speaking, of course, the Marquis – if he was the dog’s owner – was liable for a fine, let alone what Mr Beal’s head cowman might claim from him by way of damages; but when you were dealing with lords you wanted to be careful. The younger park-keeper, who was the recipient of this confidence, became suddenly thoughtful; but the cowman grimly accepted Frederica’s invitation, saying that he would have his rights even if the dog belonged to the Queen – meaning no disrespect to her; and the hatchet-faced lady, her eyes snapping, said that if the park-keepers didn’t know their duty she did, and would bring the affair to the notice of the Ranger. There seemed nothing for it but to go with the young lady. The hatchet-faced lady announced that she too would go, and that if – which she doubted – a Marquis was forthcoming she would give him a piece of her mind.

  The door of Alverstoke House was opened by a footman. He was a well-trained young man, but his eyes, when they perceived the cavalcade awaiting admittance, showed a tendency to start from their sockets. Frederica, carrying the situation off with a high hand, said, with a friendly smile: ‘Good-morning! I do trust his lordship has not yet gone out?’

  The footman, his eyes starting more than ever, replied, in a bemused voice: ‘No, miss. That is –’

  ‘Thank goodness!’ interrupted Frederica. ‘I don’t wonder at it that you should be astonished to see me so – so heavily escorted! I’m surprised at it myself. Be so good as to tell his lordship that his cousin, Miss Merriville, is here, and desires to speak to him!’

  She then stepped into the house, inviting her companions, over her shoulder, to follow her; and such was her assurance that the footman stood aside instinctively, offering no other opposition to the invasion of his master’s house by a set of regular rum touches than the stammered information that his lordship was still in his dressing-room.

  ‘Then tell him, if you please, that the matter is of some urgency!’ said Frederica.

  ‘Would you – wou
ld you care to see his lordship’s secretary, miss?’ said the footman feebly.

  ‘Mr Trevor?’ said Frederica. ‘No, thank you. Just convey my message to his lordship!’

  The footman had never heard of Miss Merriville, his lordship’s cousin, but her mention of Mr Trevor’s name relieved his mind. He thought she must be his lordship’s cousin, though what she was doing in such queer company, or why she should have brought a couple of park-keepers and an obvious bumpkin to Alverstoke House he could not imagine. Nor did he know what to do with the ill-assorted visitors, for while it was clearly incumbent upon him to conduct Miss Merriville and her female companion to the saloon he could not feel that either his lordship, or the august and far more terrible Mr Wicken, would be pleased to discover that he had also ushered Miss Merriville’s male attendants into this apartment.

  He was rescued from this social dilemma by the dignified appearance on the scene of Mr Wicken himself. Thankful for the first time in his life to see his dread mentor, he hurriedly informed him that it was Miss Merriville – my lord’s cousin – wishful to see my lord!

  James the footman might not have heard of Miss Merriville, but Wicken was not so ignorant. He, with his lord’s valet, his steward, his housekeeper, and his head groom knew all about the Merrivilles; and what they referred to as his lordship’s latest start had been for days the main topic for discussion in the Room. Nor was Wicken ever rocked from his stately balance. He bowed to Miss Merriville, impassively surveyed her retinue, and moved across the hall to open the door into the library. ‘His lordship shall be informed, ma’am. If you will be pleased to take a seat in the book-room? And you, ma’am, of course,’ he added graciously, bestowing a suitable bow on the hatchet-faced lady, whom he had written down as a governess, or, possibly, a paid companion.