Not only had Harry accepted this stricture meekly: he had furnished Jessamy with the money to pay for his journey; charged him with a reassuring message for Frederica; joked Charis out of the dismals; and had even promised to take care of Lufra. ‘And he didn’t call Luff that misbegotten mongrel, either!’ said Jessamy.
‘That was indeed kind of him,’ responded Alverstoke gravely.
‘Yes. Well, he is kind! I mean, he never tries to bullock one, or comes the ugly if one provokes him, which I daresay most elder brothers would.’ He sighed, and added wistfully: ‘I wish I might have brought Luff here, but they wouldn’t have permitted me to do so, on the stage, would they?’
The Marquis, mentally rendering thanks to Providence for having refrained from adding the task of preserving Farmer Judbrook’s herd from Lufra’s onslaughts to his other duties, said, with as much sympathy as he could infuse into his voice: ‘No, I am afraid they wouldn’t. But you have the comfort of knowing that he will be well cared for while you are away.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Jessamy naïvely. ‘Owen has promised me that he will feed him, and exercise him.’
If Frederica was not wholly pleased to know that her aunt had washed her hands of her young relations, she received the news philosophically, telling Alverstoke that perhaps it was just as well that she had retired to Harley Street. ‘For it is not at all helpful to be scolding all the time, just as if any of this were poor Charis’s fault! She doesn’t mean everything she says, and I don’t doubt she will keep her eyes on things, even if she has taken up residence with my Aunt Amelia. Charis will be much happier with Harry, and I know he will take good care of her. The only thing is –’
She broke off, a worried frown in her eyes; and, after a moment, Alverstoke said: ‘What is the only thing, Frederica? My blockish young cousin?’
A tiny smile acknowledged that he had scored a hit, but she replied: ‘Whatever it is there’s nothing I can do about it, so it would be stupid to tease myself.’
He said no more, knowing that her thoughts were concentrated on Felix. Charis’s future was a matter of indifference to him, except as it affected her sister, so he was content to let the matter drop. He was much inclined to think that Endymion was indulging a fit of gallantry that would be as fleeting as it was violent; if the affair proved to be more serious than he supposed, and Frederica was troubled by it, he would intervene, and without compunction. His lordship, in fact, previously ruthless on his own behalf, was now prepared to sacrifice the entire human race to spare his Frederica one moment’s pain. Except, perhaps, the two youngest members of the family she loved so much: Jessamy, concealing his chagrin at being allowed so little share of the nursing, and humbly holding himself in readiness to fetch, carry, run errands, or to perform any task which was required of him; and Felix – little devil that he was! – who was depending on his strength, and could be quietened by his voice. No: he wasn’t prepared to sacrifice Jessamy or Felix: he had become attached to the infernal brats – though he was damned if he knew why.
During the next two days he had no leisure, much less inclination, to consider this problem. Fulfilling the doctor’s prophecy, Felix’s fever mounted; and although Alverstoke maintained his imperturbable demeanour he entertained the gravest fears. That Frederica shared them he knew, though she never spoke of them, or showed a sign of agitation. She was invincibly cheerful, and apparently tireless; but when he saw how strained her eyes were, and how drawn her face, he wondered how long it would be before she collapsed.
But in the early hours of the third day, when he entered the sickroom, he found it strangely quiet. So critical did he feel Felix’s condition to be that he had not left the farm that evening. He checked now upon the threshold, filled with foreboding. Felix was lying still, neither muttering, nor twitching; and Frederica was standing by the bed. She turned her head at the sound of the opening door; and Alverstoke, seeing that tears were rolling down her face, went quickly forward, saying involuntarily: ‘Oh, my poor girl – !’
Then he saw that she was smiling through her tears. She said simply: ‘He is asleep. The fever broke. Suddenly I saw that he was sweating, and I knew! Cousin, we’ve done the thing!’
Twenty-four
With Felix out of danger, and slowly winning back to strength, life at Monk’s Farm underwent several changes. It was no longer necessary to keep a constant watch over him; and although Frederica, sleeping on the truckle-bed in his room, might be obliged to get up three or four times during the night to attend to him, she no longer needed either relief or assistance; nor, during the day, was it imperative for her to remain always within call. He slept a great deal, and was docile when awake, too weak to display any of his customary recalcitrance: a circumstance which made Jessamy, permitted at last to share the task of nursing him, so uneasy that he sought counsel of the Marquis. ‘For I don’t wish to alarm Frederica, sir,’ he explained. ‘Only it does seem to me very unlike him! I don’t mean because he does what you or Frederica bid him, because he would, of course. But he does what I say he must, and doesn’t even argue! You don’t think, do you, sir, that his brain is affected?’
Preserving his countenance, the Marquis reassured him; but he was not wholly satisfied until the day when Felix had to be coaxed to swallow his medicine, and apostrophised him as the greatest beast in nature. ‘So now I know all’s right!’ he told the Marquis radiantly. ‘I daresay he will soon be throwing the glass at me!’
‘Well, if it will afford you pleasure I hope he may,’ said his lordship. ‘Warn him not to throw it at me!’
Another change was provided by Knapp. After a struggle with his pride, he allowed the boredom he was suffering at the Sun, and his jealousy of Curry, who spent his days at the farm, in attendance on the Marquis, to overcome his reluctance to demean himself, and offered his services.
So Felix, quite unimpressed, was waited on by a valet of rare quality; the kitchen quarters were dignified by the presence of a refined personage of great condescension, in whom Miss Judbrook recognised a gentleman’s gentleman of the first stare; and Frederica, as she told the Marquis, found herself with nothing to do.
It might have been expected that his lordship would now have returned to London, but this was a change which had not taken place. He continued to put up at the Sun, under conditions to which he was in no way accustomed, and to spend his days at Monk’s Farm. As soon as Frederica felt it safe to leave Felix in his brother’s charge for an hour or two, he persuaded her to take the air in his phaeton; and, later, when she had recovered from her exhaustion, to go with him for strolling walks. She was very ready to do so; she talked to him with the ease of long-standing friendship; she consulted him on any problem that arose; but her entire lack of consciousness showed him that it had not entered her head to regard him in the light of a suitor. He could not help wondering if she treated him as she might an elder brother, or even (a lowering thought!) an uncle.
His own doubts were at an end. The more he saw of her the more he loved her, and as he had never loved any woman before. Not the most beautiful of his mistresses had inspired him with a desire to shield her from every adverse wind; he had never pictured the most amusing of his well-born flirts presiding over his several establishments; and far less had he contemplated a permanent relationship with any of these ladies. But after knowing her for little more than two months Frederica had so seriously disturbed the pattern of his life that he had been cast into a state of indecision: a novel experience which had not been at all agreeable. When he was pitchforked into her little brother’s fantastic adventure he had still been in a state of uncertainty; since then he had spent more than a week in close companionship with her, and under conditions as unromantic as they were uncomfortable, and all his doubts were resolved: he wished to spend the rest of his life with her, because she was the perfect woman he had never expected to encounter.
His lordship, in fact, had fallen deeply in love. He was also undergoing yet another new experience: Frederica s
howed no sign of returning his regard. He knew that she liked him; once or twice he had dared to hope that the feeling she had for him was becoming more than mere fondness, but he could never be sure of this, or forget that on the only occasion when he had given her the faintest reason to suspect him of gallantry she had instantly set him at a distance. It seemed a long time ago; she might have changed her mind; but since he had then, and for the succeeding weeks, been unable to make up his own mind, he had never made any attempt to fix his interest with her. In the situation in which they had found themselves, when she joined him at Monk’s Farm, it would have been both stupid and improper to have embarked on courtship. On the one hand, no moment could be more ill-chosen; on the other, it must (if she repulsed him) have created embarrassment between them, while his assistance in the task of nursing Felix had been so indispensable.
But Felix had survived, and was on the mend, making it unnecessary for himself to remain in Hertfordshire. The Marquis, yielding to impulse, resolved to put his fate to the touch.
He had accompanied Frederica on a rambling walk, and they had paused by a stile before retracing their steps. Leaning on the topmost bar, she stared ahead, a troubled look on her face.
‘Frederica!’ said his lordship, recklessly taking the plunge.
She paid no heed; but when he repeated her name she turned her head, and said: ‘I beg your pardon! I wasn’t attending! Did you say something to me, cousin?’
‘Not yet!’ he replied. ‘I was merely trying to recall your attention! What were you thinking about so deeply?’
‘I was trying to remember the name of an excellent jelly which Mrs Ansdell – our Vicar’s wife, you know – recommended to me when Jessamy and Felix were so pulled by the measles,’ she said seriously. ‘It did them a great deal of good, and I think it would be just the thing for Felix now, if only I could – Oh, I have it! Dr Ratcliffe’s Restorative Pork Jelly! How could I be so stupid? Now, what have I said to make you go into whoops?’
‘Nothing in the world!’ responded the Marquis, still laughing.
‘Well, what did you wish to say to me?’ she demanded, her brow puckered in a puzzled frown.
‘Nothing in the world, Frederica!’ he said again. ‘How fortunate that you should have remembered the name of this jelly! Shall I go at once to Hemel Hempstead to procure it for you?’
‘No, very likely you wouldn’t be able to. If Dr Elcot approves, I shall write to Harry, and ask him to bring me some.’
‘Oh, is Harry to visit us?’ he asked.
‘Yes – didn’t I tell you? Curry brought me a letter from the receiving-office this morning. He writes that he can come post, and be in London again in time to dine with Charis. He would have come immediately, you know, if Jessamy had not dissuaded him, which was very right. It could only have overset him to have seen Felix then, and there was nothing he could have done, because he is very rarely ill himself, and hasn’t a notion of what to do for sick persons. But naturally he is anxious to come now, and I shall tell him he may do so, but must not allow Charis to accompany him. I am sorry for it, and should dearly love to see her, but we cannot have her sick on our hands as well!’
‘Certainly not!’ Alverstoke said, startled. ‘Er – should we?’
‘Well, quite out of sorts for a day or two, at all events. On account of the post-chaise,’ she explained. ‘You know what those yellow bounders are! She would be queasy before ever they reached Edgware.’
His lordship, recognising that it was still not the moment to make a declaration, very wisely refrained, and, as they wended their way back to the farm, talked to her on indifferent subjects.
Harry, who arrived in due course, bringing with him a supply of Dr Ratcliffe’s Restorative Pork Jelly, was quite unmanned at the sight of Felix, so thin and white, and so languid; and it needed the united endeavours of Frederica and Alverstoke to convince him that the boy was not lying at death’s door. He was inclined to think that Frederica took too lighthearted a view of the case, and was so insistent that a London practitioner should be sent for – even saying that he, and not she, was the poor little fellow’s guardian – that Alverstoke was impelled to come to her rescue, drawing him apart, and explaining to him, with wonderful patience, why it would be both unnecessary and inadvisable to call in another doctor at this stage. Harry did not look to be perfectly satisfied, but he brightened when Alverstoke suggested that if Felix did not pluck up as fast as he should, when he was carried home, Harry should certainly consult a London physician.
To see Felix had not been Harry’s only reason for posting down to Monk’s Farm: he wished to discharge his debt to the Marquis. ‘You have been put to a great deal of expense, sir, and I am much obliged to you for acting on my behalf,’ he said punctiliously. ‘I should like, if it is convenient to you, to give you a draft on my bank.’
There was a mulish look about his mouth, and the hint of a challenge in his eyes, but the Marquis, who had foreseen the demand, took the wind out of his sails by responding affably: ‘Oh, perfectly! I’ll hand you the reckoning when I return to London. Do you want it in detail, or will a Dutch one suffice?’
‘No, no, of course I don’t want it in detail, sir!’ Harry exclaimed, ludicrously disconcerted. ‘I only meant – that is to say, you won’t forget, will you?’
‘If I do, you must remind me,’ said the Marquis.
With this Harry had to be content; but he took care to tell Frederica that she must instruct Dr Elcot not to present his bill to Alverstoke. ‘I’ve brought you a roll of flimsies,’ he said, ‘and if you should need any more of the ready, mind you write to me for it, for I won’t have Alverstoke standing the nonsense! A pretty fellow I should be not to look after my own brothers and sisters!’
She agreed, but said: ‘I wish you had not been obliged to – and you ought not!’
‘Gammon!’
‘No, it’s the truth. I should be more beforehand with the world. I thought, you know, that Graynard would have paid for everything, but living in London, and going to so many ton-parties, has cost much more than I was prepared for.’
‘Oh, pooh! Who cares?’
‘I do – indeed, I am dreadfully mortified! I never meant to be a charge on you, Harry! I shall pay it back to you, but I fear I may be forced to draw on you.’
‘Freddy, will you stop talking such flummery? Anyone would suppose I was on the rocks!’
‘No, I know it’s not as bad as that, but I’m very sure it isn’t high tide with you. I daresay you may have debts, too.’
‘Nothing to signify!’ he said, with a betraying flush. ‘You needn’t worry your head over that! As for your expenses, I can always raise the wind, you know: Salcombe will manage it for me.’
‘Do you mean, sell you out of the Funds? No, that he shan’t!’
‘Oh, you may depend upon it Salcombe will know of some other way! What’s the figure?’
‘My dear, I’m not yet on the rocks either! I was looking ahead – merely warning you that I might be obliged to demand your assistance! The thing is that I must not keep Felix in London, and I hired the house there for six months. I thought we might have stayed there during the summer, living very economically, which we could well do, when the season is over. But I have been talking to Dr Elcot, and he advises me to take Felix out of town until he is perfectly recovered. The racket and all the excitements of London won’t do for him: I shall have to take the greatest care of him, you see, not letting him tax his strength. He is going on very prosperously, but rheumatic fever, as we know, can sometimes leave certain weaknesses behind it.’
‘Mama!’ he exclaimed. ‘Good God, Freddy, he must and shall be seen by a London doctor! One who is bang up to the hub!’
‘Yes, that’s what I feel, too. Indeed, Dr Elcot has himself recommended me to do so, before I leave London. So we will ask Sir William Knighton to call in Upper Wimpole Street as soon as Felix is well enough to travel, which won’t, I hope, be long now – particularly in Alverstoke’s ca
rriage, which is the most luxurious one I ever was in! And then, if Sir William approves the scheme, I mean to remove to some quiet, unfashionable place – perhaps by the sea? Only I must take Charis and Jessamy as well, of course, and I am afraid it may cost a good deal, even if we can find a cheap lodging. Harry, will you discover which of the seaside resorts would be the best, and go there to find an eligible lodging-house for us? Or hire a furnished house, if you think none of the lodgings suitable?’
But this Harry did not feel himself competent to do. He thought it would be better for Frederica to choose the lodgings herself, handsomely offering to escort her on this exploratory trip.
She did not press the matter, reflecting that it might indeed be unwise, not to say foolhardy, to leave the choice of lodgings to his uninstructed judgment. She asked him instead for news of Charis. He said she was not to tease herself, for Charis was going on tolerably well; but he admitted that her spirits were not high. She was wearing black gloves, of course, and had excused herself from attending any of the parties to which she and Frederica had been invited. No: he did not think she was moped precisely; and as for being lonely, much cause there was for that! Lord, the knocker was never still! Which reminded him that he had meant to ask her who the devil was the queer touch who was for ever on the doorstep, enquiring after Felix, handing Buddle flowers and billets for Charis, and in general making a curst cake of himself? A regular counter-coxcomb: Nutley, or some such name.
‘Oh, dear! Our neighbour,’ said Frederica despairingly. ‘A very respectable young man, but – but encroaching! Not that I altogether blame him, because I know very well that Charis – not in the least meaning to do so, but because she is such a soft-hearted goose – did encourage him! I have tried to hint him away –’