She hardly knew how to keep her countenance. She had not met George, but if his youngest sister were to be believed he was a lively young gentleman, already bidding fair to become one of those choice spirits ripe and ready for any form of jollification, and resenting nothing so much as what he called his brother’s jobations. Nor had the result of a grave lecture addressed to Felix been happy. Not only had it banished from Felix’s head all contrition for having alarmed his sisters, but it had instantly transformed Jessamy into a hot partisan. All his bristles up, Jessamy had demanded to be told what right Cousin Buxted had to shove his oar in; and although he had later offered Buxted a stiff apology for this incivility he cordially agreed with Felix that the fellow was an encroaching windsucker, a prosy bore, and, probably, a slow-top into the bargain.
Remembering this incident, Frederica was obliged to choke down a chuckle before she responded: ‘I daresay you are right, cousin, but if ever I should be married it won’t be because I wish to provide my brothers with a – with a mentor!’
‘I only said that because I thought it might be – because I thought you might regard my offer more favourably!’
The humble note in his voice touched her, but she shook her head; and when he began, in rather stilted language, to enumerate and describe the various excellent qualities in her character which had excited at first his admiration, and then his ardent desire to make her his wife, she checked him even more decidedly, saying kindly, but with a little amusement: ‘I am very much obliged to you, cousin, but pray say no more! Only think how much your mama would dislike such an alliance!’
He looked grave, and sighed; but replied: ‘I hope I am not lacking in respect for my mother, but in such matters a man must decide for himself.’
‘Oh, no, you must not marry to disoblige her! Recollect how much she depends on you!’
‘You must not think I am unmindful of my duty to her, or that I make you an offer without long and careful consideration,’ he said earnestly.
Her eyes danced. ‘No, indeed! No one could think that! I’m excessively flattered – I can’t tell you how much! – but the long and short of it is that I’m not hanging out for a husband – in fact, I don’t in the least wish to change my single state! It suits me very well: far better than I should suit you, Carlton, believe me!’
He looked disconsolate, and said nothing for several moments. But after turning the matter over in his mind, he smiled, and said: ‘I have been too previous, for which you must blame the natural impatience of a man in love. I fancy that your thoughts have hitherto been so wholly devoted to the interests of your family that you have had none to spare for your own future. I shall say no more on this head now, but neither shall I despair.’
He then took his leave; and with real nobility Frederica forbore to regale Charis with an account of the interlude. She was not tempted to tell anyone of Mr Moreton’s offer, for it was simply made; and she liked him too well to betray him. She declined it as gently as she could; but when he sighed, and said, with a faint smile: ‘I feared it!’ her eyes twinkled irrepressibly.
‘And now are quite cast-down.’
‘Well, of course I am!’
‘But also just a trifle relieved! Confess!’
‘Miss Merriville! No, I swear I’m not!’
‘You will be,’ she assured him. ‘You know how comfortably you go on as a bachelor, and how very much you would dislike to be tied to a wife’s apron-strings.’
He laughed a little ruefully, but denied it. ‘I shouldn’t dislike being tied to your apron-strings.’
‘Or to play the mentor to my brothers?’ she asked, quizzing him. ‘You would be obliged to include them in your household, you know!’
‘Yes – at least, won’t they live with your eldest brother?’
‘Oh, no! Poor Harry! They would drive him distracted! He is too young for such a charge – too young to command either respect or obedience. Besides, he and Jessamy would be at outs within a sennight!’
‘I see. Well, I know nothing about rearing boys, but I would do my best!’ he said heroically.
She laughed, and held out her hand to him. ‘Even though your blood runs cold at the very thought of it! How kind you are, my dear friend! Thank you! What a fix you would be in if I did accept your offer! I shan’t, however, so you may be easy!’
He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Not quite that. May I still, and always, count myself your friend?’
‘Indeed, I hope you will,’ she replied cordially.
She could not help laughing a little, when he had gone, but kindly. There had been enough dismay in his face, swiftly though he had recovered himself, to strengthen her belief that it would not be long before he was thanking providence for his escape. The intrusion into his care-free existence of two such enterprising young gentlemen as Jessamy and Felix provided her with a vision that appealed instantly to her sense of humour. Only Buxted, she thought, could make sadder work of bridling them. Alverstoke could do it, and without rousing even the shadow of hostility, because they had decided, for inscrutable reasons, that he was a person eminently worthy of respect. But at this point her musings came to an abrupt halt. She was obliged to give herself a mental shake, renewing a resolve not to think about Alverstoke at all. This was not easy. Whether he knew it, or not, he had developed an uncomfortable habit of intruding upon her thoughts; and to allow him to do so could only bring her to fiddlestick’s end. That was certain; and she hoped she had enough commonsense to realise it. Enough pride, too, not to add to the number of his victims. He was a confirmed bachelor – far more so than Darcy Moreton, who carried a warm heart in his breast. There was no warmth in Alverstoke, and no softness. If he was kind it was for his own ends; when it pleased him to make himself agreeable he could be the most delightful of companions; but his treatment of his sisters, and of anyone who bored him, was ruthless. Hard, cold, and selfish: that was Alverstoke! And a rake into the bargain, if the on-dits were true. Probably they were, but one must be just, even to such an abandoned character: he had shown no signs of the rake in his dealings with her, or with her lovely sister. She had on one occasion suspected him of trying to get up a flirtation, but had soon decided that she was mistaken. Moreover, it was only fair to acknowledge that although he had consented to sponsor her and Charis with no other motive than a malicious wish to infuriate his sister Louisa, he had been extremely kind to Jessamy and Felix as well. Still being just to his lordship, she recalled the expedition to Hampton Court, which must surely have been intolerably boring to him; the readiness with which he had rescued Lufra from an untimely end; and the skill with which he had handled Jessamy. It was impossible to discover in these activities any base, ulterior motive: he had behaved as though he really were their guardian, so that she had come, insensibly, to regard him as one to whom she could turn in any difficulty. This vexed her, for she had not previously looked for support or advice; and she had a shrewd notion that if she were to maintain her own strength she must not allow herself to fall into the habit of depending upon his. For some unknown reason it amused him, at present, to befriend the Merrivilles; but he might grow bored at any moment, shrugging them off as easily as he had adopted them. For what, after all, she asked herself, did she know about him? Nothing much beyond what the gossips recounted: not even if he liked her above the average! Sometimes she had been encouraged to think that he did; but at other times, when he let half the evening slip by at some assembly before strolling over to exchange a few words with her, she had been convinced that he regarded her with indifference. Which, when one thought the matter over dispassionately, was in all likelihood the truth; for if the truly dazzling beauties who showed themselves perfectly ready to receive his addresses bored him (as they demonstrably did), how much more must he be bored by a country-cousin endowed with no more than passable good-looks, and long past the first blush of her youth? Indeed, when she considered the handsome Mrs Parracombe, or the dashing widow who was commonly thought to be his latest flirt,
she could only be surprised that he continued to interest himself in her affairs. Had she been told that she was rapidly becoming an obsession with him, she would have been incredulous.
Seventeen
The Marquis, in fact, was behaving with unusual circumspection, careful to give the tattle-mongers no food for gossip. Well-aware of his notoriety, of the scandalous on-dits which would instantly attend the least sign he gave of having formed a partiality for Miss Merriville, he was taking inordinate pains to shield her from envious, or merely malicious tongues. To satisfy the curiosity of those who might wonder why he was gratifying so many hostesses by appearing at their balls, drums, and assemblies, he set up the dashing Mrs Ilford as his flirt, knowing that the lively widow’s charms were equalled by her shrewdness: the Marquis, man-of-the-town though he might be, had no desire to break hearts; and the objects of his gallantry had never yet included guileless innocents. In general, he had ignored the handkerchiefs thrown to him, but he had his own, remorseless way with any over-bold damsel who disgusted him by too-obviously setting her cap at him. He would indulge her with a brief, desperate flirtation, conducted under the envious or the shocked eyes of her contemporaries, and, at their next encounter, fail to remember her name, or even that he had met her before. These merciless tactics had earned for him the reputation of being dangerous, and caused prudent parents to warn their daughters against encouraging his advances. They even caused his closest friend to remonstrate with him once or twice, but Mr Moreton’s accusation of cruelty was productive of nothing but a contemptuous smile, and a coldly uttered hope that the victim had learnt her lesson. From the hour of his come-out, the Marquis had been a matrimonial prize, but the years had not taught him to accept this position with equanimity, to tolerate the schemes of matchmaking mamas, or to be amused by the lures cast out by their ambitious daughters. Since the day of his discovery that his first love would have been as ready to marry a hunchback possessed of his rank and fortune as himself, he had grown steadily more hardened in cynicism, until, at the age of seven-and-thirty, when Frederica thrust herself into his life, he had no more intention of saddling himself with a wife than of throwing himself into the Thames.
But Frederica had seriously ruffled the calm waters of his agreeable existence. Not quite immediately, but soon enough, he had found himself strongly attracted to her, and in a way that was strange to him. The only women who had previously interested him were the well-born flirts, with whom it was amusing to dally, and the barques of frailty with whom he enjoyed more intimate relations. He felt no affection for any of these ladies, and not the smallest wish to establish with any one of them a more permanent connection. To be leg-shackled to a female who, however lively or beautiful she might be, would inevitably become a bore within a very few months was a fate too hideous even to be contemplated. He did not wish for female companionship; and still less did he wish to saddle himself with the trials and responsibilities that attended the married state.
Then came Frederica, upsetting his cool calculations, thrusting responsibilities upon him, intruding more and more into the ordered pattern of his life, and casting him into a state of unwelcome doubt. And, try as he would, he could discover no reason for this uncomfortable change in himself. She had more countenance than beauty; she employed no arts to attract him; she was heedless of convention; she was matter-of-fact, and managing, and not at all the sort of female whom he had ever wished to encourage. Furthermore (now he came to think of it), she had foisted two troublesome schoolboys on to him, which was the last thing in the world he wanted!
Or had she? A rather rueful smile flickered at the corners of his lordship’s mouth as he considered this point. No: she had not. He had allowed himself to yield to the blandishments of Felix (detestable imp!); then Jessamy had got himself into a scrape (tiresome young chub!), and had turned to him for help, which, naturally, had to be given to him; but it would really be quite unjust to blame Frederica for these happenings. She had been as cross as crabs over Jessamy’s affair, top-lofty little pea-goose that she was! Top-lofty, gooseish, managing, no more than passably good-looking: why the devil did he like her so much?
Unconsciously following the example Frederica had set, he began to do her justice, trying to discover what quality in her it was which had jerked him out of his idle hedonism into a state of nagging uncertainty. It was a pleasant exercise, but it brought him no nearer to solving the problem. He liked her composure, her frankness, the smile in her eyes, her ready appreciation of the ridiculous, the gay courage with which she shouldered burdens too heavy for a girl to bear, the way she caught herself up guiltily on a cant phrase culled from her brothers’ vocabularies, the intent look which came into her face when she was pondering a ticklish question, the unexpected things she said, and – but what was there in all this to disrupt his present life, and to place his untrammelled future in jeopardy? Nothing, of course: she had certainly aroused in him feelings he had not known he possessed, but she could be no more than a passing fancy.
A frown gathered on his brow as he thought this over. The devil of it was that the more he saw of her the stronger grew the feeling he had for her, which was not love (an emotion which belonged to one’s salad-days), nor yet mere liking. Call it affection! It caused him to think about her far too much for his peace of mind; and (really, he must be growing senile!) to be constantly aware of a wish to lift the burdens from her shoulders. As matters stood, he was powerless to render her any but the most trifling assistance, and none at all in what he guessed must be the greatest of her present anxieties. He had suspected at the outset that she had underestimated the expenses of a London season; and when his experienced eye detected, beneath velvet trimming on a drapery of Albany gauze, the evening dress which had already undergone several transformations, he was very sure that she was beginning to feel purse-pinched. He thought, savagely, that every available groat was squandered on Charis. He was too well-versed in such matters not to recognise that Charis too wore dresses which had been subtly altered to present a new appearance, but he quite unjustly supposed that the cunning hand at work had been Frederica’s, even going to the length of picturing her slaving over her stitchery until the candles guttered in their sockets. Had he been told that the drudgery, as well as the inspiration, belonged to the younger sister (only she did not think it drudgery), he would have been amazed to the point of incredulity, for he had long since decided that Charis had nothing to recommend her but her undeniable beauty. In his lordship’s prejudiced eyes, she lacked what the ton called that certain sort of something, which meant, in a word, quality, and which characterised Frederica. It was apparent, he thought, in whatever Frederica did: from the air with which she wore her furbished-up gowns, to the assurance with which she received visitors in the shabby-genteel house she had hired for the season. But he wanted to remove her from Upper Wimpole Street, and to place her in surroundings worthier of her, furnishing her at the same time with every extravagant luxury, and enough pin-money to enable her to purchase a new gown whenever she chose to do it. And, with all his wealth, the only assistance he had been able to render her was the discharge of Jessamy’s and Lufra’s trifling debts! There was the possibility that he might be granted the opportunity to render further assistance of the same kind, but even that would fall a long way short of what he would like to do for her.
His frown deepened. That eldest brother of hers was likely to prove an encumbrance rather than a support to her. There was no harm in the boy, but if he was not as volatile as his father he had quite as little sense of responsibility. He would probably settle down happily on his Herefordshire estate in a year or two; but at present he was clearly bent on enjoying his first London-fling, and was perfectly willing to leave the conduct of his household, the management of his young brothers, and all the problems that attached to a family living on straitened means, in Frederica’s capable hands. The Marquis had been keeping an unobtrusive eye on him; and he believed that it would not be long before Harry found h
imself in Dun territory. He seemed, mercifully, to have no taste for gaming, so that the Beau Traps on the look out for well-breeched greenheads from the country cast their lures in vain, and very soon abandoned him for likelier prey. Harry could conceive of few duller or more unprofitable ways of spending the evening than in one of the gaming-hells against which Mr Peplow had warned him. It would certainly be agreeable to win a fortune, but he was shrewd enough to guess that fortunes were not won by those who played with a set of persons described by his friend as Greek banditti.
Horses, however, were a different matter. If one were a judge of horseflesh (which Harry prided himself he was); studied the form; kept an eye on Cocker, to see how the odds stood; carefully watched how the Tulips of the Turf were betting their money at Tatt’s and knew when to hedge off, there was every chance that one would come off all right. On the Monday following his arrival in London, he had gone with Mr Peplow to Tattersall’s; and thereafter became a frequent visitor to the subscription room. As he liked the sport more for its own sake than for the money that could be won by backing winners, he went to any race meeting held within reach of the city, driving himself and Barny in a curricle which, acting on the advice of Endymion Dauntry, he had bought (really dog-cheap) in Long Acre. The pair of sweetgoers he acquired to draw the curricle had not been quite so cheap; but, as he rather guiltily pointed out to Frederica, it was false economy to buy cheap prads which would inevitably turn out to be stumblers, or limpers, or incurable millers.
She agreed to this, suppressing the impulse to protest against his extravagance. She was prompted in some measure by the knowledge that criticism from his sister would not be well received; and to a far greater degree by a realisation of the expenditure she was herself incurring. Graynard had supplied the money for this London season, and Graynard belonged not to her, but to Harry. She allowed herself to do no more than beg him, half-laughingly, not to outrun the constable. He said impatiently: ‘Oh, fiddle! I’m not a pauper! Do you expect me to drive job-horses, like a once-a-week beau? Why should I?’