Emerging from her handkerchief, Frederica showed him not a tearful but a laughing countenance. ‘Oh, I don’t think he hurt the cows at all, because we caught him before he had time to!’
‘In that case, then –’
‘No, Charles!’ interposed the Marquis. ‘My sole desire is to be rid of the business, and this is not the moment to be clutch-fisted!’
‘Oh, I’ll see to it that you’re rid of it, sir!’ said Charles cheerfully, and withdrew.
‘Well, what an excellent young man!’ said Frederica.
Seven
He is, isn’t he?’ agreed Alverstoke.
She looked up at him. ‘Yes, and you too! You were truly splendid, and I am very much obliged to you! Oh, and I do beg your pardon for having embroiled you! The thing was, you see, that they threatened to impound Luff, and only think what the consequences might have been! That was why I said he belonged to you.’ A gurgle of laughter rose in her throat. ‘L-like P-puss in Boots!’
‘Like what?’ he demanded.
‘M-my cousin the M-Marquis of Alverstoke!’ she explained. ‘You know!’
‘No doubt I am extremely dull-witted, but I –’ He broke off, as enlightenment dawned on him, and the frown left his brow. ‘Oh! – the Marquis of Carabas!’
‘Of course! And it answered! Except with that horrid creature you gave such a set-down to! I never in my life heard anything so ruthlessly uncivil, but I must own that I enjoyed it!’ She began to laugh again. ‘Oh, but you nearly overset me when you said Luff was a Baluchistan hound! And so you shall be, you bad dog!’
Gratified, Lufra reared himself on his hind legs, and licked her face. She pushed his forepaws off her knees, and got up. ‘You are a shameless commoner!’ she informed him. She raised her eyes to Alverstoke’s and held out her hand. ‘Thank you!’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I must go now. You will tell me, won’t you, how much Mr Trevor was obliged to pay those men?’
‘Just a moment!’ he said. ‘You haven’t explained to me how it comes about that you were walking alone, cousin.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But then, you haven’t explained to me how it comes about that that is your concern, have you?’
‘I am perfectly ready to do so, however. Whatever may be the accepted mode in Herefordshire, in London it won’t do. Girls of your age and breeding don’t go about town unaccompanied.’
‘Well, in general I don’t do so, and, naturally, I would never permit Charis to. But I’m not a girl. I daresay you might think me one, being yourself so much older, but I promise you I ceased to be a young miss years ago! And, in any event, I am not answerable to you for my actions, Cousin Alverstoke!’
‘Oh, yes, you are!’ he retorted. ‘If you expect me to launch you into society, Frederica, you will conform to society’s rules! You’ll either do as I bid you, or I shall wash my hands of you. If you are determined to set the world in a bustle, find another sponsor!’
She flushed, and her lips parted. But whatever stinging reply she had been about to utter she suppressed, closing her lips firmly. After a pause, she managed to smile, and to say: ‘I dare say you would be very happy to wash your hands of us, after today’s adventure.’
‘Oh, no!’ he said coolly. ‘You may put that out of your mind!’
‘That is precisely what I can’t do, though I wish very much that I could, because it almost slays me to be compelled to keep my tongue between my teeth!’ she told him. ‘I should dearly love to come to cuffs with you, my lord, but I’m not sunk quite below reproach – though I must say I think you are!’ she added frankly.
‘But why?’ he asked, beginning to be amused.
‘Because you knew very well when you pinched at me in that odious way that I was too much obliged to you to give you a set-off!’
He laughed. ‘Do you think you could?’
‘Yes, to be sure I could! I can say very cutting things when I’m put into a passion.’
‘I’ll endure them!’
She shook her head, a dimple peeping in her cheek. ‘No, I’ve come down from the boughs now. To own the truth, I think I flew into them because my aunt says exactly what you did: nothing makes one so cross as knowing one is in the wrong, does it?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.’
She looked surprised, but decided not to pursue the matter. ‘Well, I’ll try not to put you to the blush. The case is that Charis has one of her colds, and Jessamy, you know, works at his books every morning: that’s why Charis and I take Luff out walking. He needs a great deal of exercise – more than he can get in London, poor fellow!’
‘Then why not Felix, or your maid?’
‘I haven’t a maid – not an abigail, I mean. Only the housemaids, and they are all town-bred, and it is the greatest bore to go out walking with any of them, because they will dawdle, or say their shoes hurt them. I would have taken Felix, only that he was set on visiting a Mechanical Museum, and he would have been glumpish all the way if I had insisted on his bearing me company. Oh, pray don’t frown! I won’t do it again!’
‘You need a footman,’ he said, still frowning.
‘What, to protect me? Luff does that, I promise you!’
‘To wait on you – carry your parcels – deliver your letters.’
‘I suspect you mean I need one to add to my consequence!’
‘That too,’ he replied.
She looked thoughtful, and presently smiled, rather ruefully. ‘To present a respectable appearance, as Buddle says! He wished me to bring Peter to London, but I left him at Graynard, because, for one thing, Mr Porth was anxious to hire him; and, for another, it seemed such an unnecessary expense. However, I own I have felt the want of a footman, on Buddle’s account: he’s too old for these horrid London houses.’
‘Is the expense a bar?’ he asked bluntly.
‘Oh, no! I’ll hire a footman, and he can take the place of the maid who at present helps Buddle.’
‘No, leave it to me!’ he said. ‘Hiring footmen – London footmen – is no work for green girls.’
‘Thank you: you are very obliging! But there is no reason why you should be put to that trouble.’
‘I shan’t be. Trevor will find a suitable man, and send him to see Buddle.’
‘Then I shall be very much obliged to him.’ She held out her hand again. ‘Now, I’ll say goodbye, cousin.’
‘Not yet! Unless you have some urgent business to attend to, I suggest you allow me to drive you to visit my sister. She wishes to make your acquaintance, and this seems a good opportunity to take you to see her.’
Startled, she said: ‘Oh, but Charis – ! Surely she should go too? Won’t Lady Buxted think it very uncivil – when she has consented to introduce her at your ball?’
‘No, how should she, when the circumstances are explained to her? She would think it far more uncivil of you to delay making this visit of ceremony.’
‘Yes, but Charis will be well again in a day or two!’
‘I sincerely hope so. Unfortunately, I am off to Newmarket tomorrow, and shall be away for a sennight. To postpone the visit until we shall be within a fortnight of the ball would be beyond the line of being pleasing, believe me!’
She looked dismayed. ‘Indeed it would! Oh, dear, she would suppose us to be quite without conduct, wouldn’t she? But I’m not dressed for it!’
He put up his glass, and surveyed her through it. She was wearing a hair-brown pelisse, with orange-jean half-boots, and a neat little hat trimmed with a single ostrich plume curling over its brim. He lowered his glass. ‘I see nothing amiss,’ he said.
‘You may not, but you may depend upon it that Lady Buxted will write me down as a positive dowdy! I’ve worn this pelisse any time these past two years!’
‘It will be quite unnecessary to tell her so.’
‘Yes, indeed it will!’ she said warmly. ‘She will know it at a glance!’
‘How should she, when I did not?’
‘Because she’s a
female, of course! Of all the stupid questions to ask – !’
His eyes were alight with wicked laughter. ‘You under-rate me, Frederica! I am far more conversant with feminine fashions than my sister, I promise you! Must I prove it to you? Very well, then! Your pelisse is not fashioned according to the latest mode; your boots are made of jean, not of kid; and you furbished up your hat with a feather dyed orange to match them. Am I right?’
She scanned him, gravely, but with interest. ‘Yes – and so, I suppose, was Aunt Scrabster.’
‘Oho! Did she warn you to beware of such a sad rake as I am? You’ve nothing to fear from me, Frederica!’
That made her give one of her chuckles. ‘Oh, I know that! I’m not nearly pretty enough!’ Her clear gaze remained fixed on his face, but a crease appeared between her brows. ‘Charis is,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But – but although you call me green, cousin, I’m more than seven, you know. You wouldn’t!’
‘How can you know that?’ he asked, quizzing her.
‘Well, to be sure, I’m not very familiar with rakes – in fact, I never met one before! – but I’m not such a wet-goose that I don’t know you are a gentleman – however uncivil you may be, or whatever improper things you may say! I daresay that sort of carelessness comes of having been born into the first rank.’
He was so much taken aback that for a moment he said nothing. Then a wry smile twisted his mouth, and he said: ‘I deserved that, didn’t I? Accept my apologies, cousin! May I now escort you to my sister’s house?’
‘Well …’ she said doubtfully. ‘If you think she won’t – Oh, no! You are forgetting Luff! Pretty cool, to walk into Lady Buxted’s drawing-room, leading a – a country dog! I won’t do it!’
‘Certainly not, if I have anything to say in the matter! One of my people can take him back to Upper Wimpole Street: I’ll see to it! Sit down! – I shan’t keep you waiting many minutes.’
He left the room as he spoke, but although the second footman ran all the way to the stables it was rather more than twenty minutes later that Frederica was handed into his lordship’s town carriage. The protesting yelps of Lufra, held in leash by James, followed her; but she resolutely ignored their frantic appeal, merely saying anxiously: ‘You did tell James he mustn’t on any account allow him to run loose, didn’t you, cousin?’
‘Not only did I tell him, but so did you,’ Alverstoke replied, sitting down beside her. ‘Grosvenor Place, Roxton.’
‘The thing is, you see,’ confided Frederica, as the carriage-door was shut, ‘he has not yet grown accustomed to all the London traffic, and he doesn’t understand that he must stay on the flagway. And, of course, when he sees a cat on the other side of the street, or another dog, perhaps, he dashes across, all amongst the chairmen and the carriages, creating the most shocking commotion, because he makes the horses shy, and puts one to the blush!’
‘I can readily believe it! What the deuce made you bring him to London?’
She regarded him in astonishment. ‘Why, what else could we do?’
‘Could you not have left him in charge of – I don’t know! – your gardener – gamekeeper – bailiff?’
‘Oh, no!’ she cried. ‘How can you think we would be so heartless? When he saved Jessamy’s life, just as if he knew – which Charis vows he did – that he owed his own life to Jessamy! Myself, I suspect that he doesn’t remember it at all, for he isn’t in the least afraid of going into water – but three of the village boys threw him into the pond with a brick round his neck, when he was a very young puppy, poor Luff! So Jessamy plunged in after him – and never did I see such a dreadful object as he was, when he came into the house, carrying Luff! Dripping wet, and blood all over his face, because his nose was bleeding, and such a black eye!’
‘A fighter, is he?’
‘N-no – well, only when something of that nature happens, which makes him so burningly angry that he goes in, Harry says, like a tiger. He doesn’t care for boxing nearly as much as Harry does, and I believe he hasn’t very good science – if you know what I mean?’
The Marquis, a distinguished exponent of the noble art, begged her to explain the term.
She wrinkled her brow. ‘Well, it means skill, I think. Not mere flourishing! Oh, and standing up well, and – and showing game, and – oh, yes! – being very gay! Though how anyone could be gay under such circumstances I can’t conceive! I expect Harry is, because he is naturally a gay person, but not Jessamy. No, not Jessamy.’
She fell silent, apparently brooding over Jessamy. Idly amused, Alverstoke said, after a few moments: ‘Is Jessamy the sober member of the family?’
‘Sober?’ She considered this, the wrinkles deepening on her brow. ‘No, not sober, precisely. I can’t describe him, because I don’t understand him myself, now that he is growing up. Mr Ansdell – our Vicar – says that he has an ardent soul, and that I need not be in a worry, because he will become far more rational presently. He means to enter the Church, you know. I must own that I thought this was because of his Confirmation, and that the fit would pass. Not that I don’t wish him to become a clergyman, but it seemed so very unlikely that he would be. He was used to be the most adventurous boy, for ever getting into dangerous scrapes, besides being hunting-mad, and much cleverer in the saddle than Harry – and Harry is no slow-top! Harry told me himself that there was no need to give Jessamy jumping powder, because he throws his heart over any fence his horse can clear! And that was not mere partiality, for the Master told a particular friend of mine that Jessamy was the best horseman, for his age, of any in South Herefordshire!’
Alverstoke, whose interest in Miss Merriville’s brothers was, at the best, tepid, murmured, in a voice which would have informed those who knew him best that he was rapidly becoming bored: ‘Ah? Yes, I seem to recall that when I had the felicity of making his acquaintance I formed the impression that he was – if not hunting-mad, decidedly horse-mad.’
‘Oh, yes!’ she agreed. ‘And every now and then he runs wild, just as he was used to do – only then his conscience never troubled him, and now it does!’ She sighed, but, an instant later, smiled, and said: ‘I beg your pardon! I have been running on like a tattle-box.’
‘Not at all!’ he said politely.
‘I know I have – and about something which is no concern of yours. Never mind! I won’t do so any more.’
He was aware of feeling a twinge of remorse: it prompted him to say, in a warmer voice: ‘Do they worry you so much, these brothers of yours?’
‘Oh, no! Sometimes – a little, because there’s no one but me, and I am only their sister, besides being a female. But they are very good!’
‘Have you no male relatives? I think you spoke of some guardian, or trustee – a lawyer, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, Mr Salcombe! Yes, indeed, he has been most helpful and kind, but he’s not a guardian. Papa didn’t appoint one, you see. We were in dread that the younger ones might be made Wards in Chancery, but Mr Salcombe contrived to avert that danger. I’ve heard people complain that lawyers are shockingly dilatory, but for my part I am excessively thankful for it! He kept on writing letters, and arguing about legal points, until Harry came of age, and could assume responsibility for the children. You would have supposed that he must have wished us all at Jericho, for it went on for months, but he seemed to enjoy it!’
‘I don’t doubt it! He appears to have your interests at heart: doesn’t he keep a hand on the reins?’
‘Manage the boys, do you mean? No: he is not – he is not the sort of person who understands boys. He is a bachelor, and very precise and oldfashioned. The boys call him Old Prosy, which is odiously ungrateful of them, but – well, you see?’
He smiled. ‘Most clearly!’
‘And the only male relative we have is my Aunt Scrabster’s husband. I am only slightly acquainted with him, but I know he wouldn’t be of the least use. He is a very respectable man, but he’s town-bred, and all his interest is in commerce.’
‘Unfo
rtunate – but I daresay your brother Harry will relieve you of your care,’ he said lightly.
There was an infinitesimal pause before she answered: ‘Yes, of course.’
The carriage was drawing up, and a moment later it came to a halt in front of Lady Buxted’s house. He was glad of it. He had missed neither Frederica’s hesitation nor the note of constraint in her voice, and he had thought that it would not be long before she demanded his advice, and even his active help, in the task of guiding her young brothers. She was quite capable of it; and while he was just as capable of withering any such attempt with one of his ruthless set-downs he did not much wish to do this. He liked her. She was unusual, and therefore diverting; she was not a beauty, but she had a good deal of countenance, and an air of breeding which pleased him; and her sister was a ravishing diamond whom he was perfectly willing to sponsor into the ton. There would be flutters in more dovecots than the one he was about to enter, and that would provide him with some entertainment.
Lady Buxted was at home, and in the drawing-room, her two elder daughters bearing her company. When the visitors were announced, she rose in her stateliest way, and rather deliberately set aside the tambour-frame which held her embroidery before moving forward to meet Frederica. She favoured her with a hard stare, two fingers, and a cold how-do-you-do. Frederica showed no signs of discomposure. She just touched the fingers (as Alverstoke noted with approval), dropping a slight curtsy as she did so, and saying, with her frank smile: ‘How do you do, ma’am? Cousin Alverstoke has been so obliging as to bring me to call on you, which I have been anxious to do – to thank you for your kindness, in being willing to lend us your countenance! My sister would have come with me, but she is laid up with a feverish cold, and begs me to offer her apologies.’
Lady Buxted thawed a little. She had by this time taken in every detail of Frederica’s appearance; and the harrowing suspicion that Miss Merriville would prove to be one of those ripe and dashing beauties to whom Alverstoke was so regrettably attracted, vanished. Having realised that Frederica was neither a beauty nor in the first bloom of her youth, her ladyship was able to regard her with an impartial eye, and even to do justice to her. She would have nothing to blush for in her protégée: the girl had pretty manners, a certain air of breeding; and she was dressed with neatness and propriety. So it was quite graciously that her ladyship told her daughters that they must come and be made known to their cousin; and while the three young ladies made rather laborious conversation she drew Alverstoke a little apart, saying that Frederica seemed a well-behaved girl, and that she would do her best for her. ‘I do not, however, engage to find a husband for her,’ she warned him. ‘With no fortune, and no extraordinary degree of beauty, she cannot expect to make more than a respectable marriage, you know. If she hopes to find a husband by moving in the first circles, she is flying too high.’