Frederica

XV

Upon the following morning, the Marquis received a letter from Frederica, thanking him for his kind offices, and expressing her regret that he should have been put to so much trouble on Jessamy’s behalf. He read it appreciatively, knowing very well that its civility hid — or was meant to hide — intense mortification. She acknowledged it, when, two days later, he met her at an assembly. She said, in answer to his quizzing accusation: “Oh, no, no, no, not cross, but so deeply mortified! After all my protestations —! I do most sincerely beg your pardon!”

“Nonsense! What had you to do with it?”

“Oh, everything!” she sighed. “I brought him to London against his wish, and I’ve neglected him for Charis. I ought not to leave him so much to his own devices.” She thought this over, and added candidly: “Not that he would like it if I were to thrust my company on him too frequently. In fact, it would irk him past bearing. He is a — a very solitary person, you know. And that’s my fault too: I expect I should have at least made a push to cure him of that.”

“You would have been wasting your time. I wish you will explain to me why you are making such a heavy matter of a trivial and perfectly understandable episode? He, of course, was bound to do so, at this stage of his career, but why should you?”

“Oh, I don’t!” she said quickly. “If he hadn’t turned to you instead of to me I should have been excessively diverted! But it does vex me that he should have dragged you into the affair. Yes, and although he gets upon his high ropes if I question him, and says it is no concern of mine, but quite his own business, I am persuaded you must have paid for all the damage he did, and that I cannot bear!”

“Nor could he, so I have merely lent him the necessary sum — in return for his promise that he will abate his studies a trifle. Yes, I know you are burning to reimburse me immediately, but that, let me tell you, would be a high piece of meddling — and, if I were to allow you to do it, which I shan’t — destructive of the good I rather think I may have achieved.”

She looked at him, her eyes warm with gratitude. “Indeed you have! I was afraid that he would have fallen into dejection, for in general he always does so when he has kicked up a lark, but this time he is more aux anges than in despair. I wish you might have seen him when he rode up to our door on your horse, and called me out to admire its points! So proud and happy! I won’t meddle, but at least let me thank you!”

“No, the subject has begun to bore me. Tell me, instead, who’s the dashing blade with Charis?”

Her eyes travelled to her sister, who was waltzing with a lively young gentleman, obviously of the first stare of a la modality, and even more obviously bent on fixing Ms interest with her. “Mr Peter Navenby. We met him at Lady Jersey’s party. She told me he no sooner set eyes on Charis than he begged her to present him. There’s nothing unusual in that, of course, but he has become extremely particular in his attentions, and — which I think most significant! — he prevailed upon his mother to pay us a morning visit! I liked her so much! What’s of more consequence is that she liked Charis. I collect, from something she said to me, that her dread is to see him snapped up by some horridly mercenary girl on the catch for a rich husband — which she instantly perceived Charis is not!” She looked anxiously at Ms lordship. “It would be an eligible match, wouldn’t it?”

The Marquis, who was surveying Mr Navenby through his quizzing-glass, said: “Young Navenby, is he? Oh, a most eligible match! He has all the advantages of birth, and a respectable fortune — prospective, of course, but we must hope his father won’t be long-lived.”

“I don’t hope anything of the sort!” said Frederica, flushing angrily. “An — an abominable thing to say — even for you, my lord!”

“But I thought you were determined to marry Charis to a fortune!”

“I am not, and nor did I ever say so. I wish to see her comfortably established — which is a very different matter to scheming for titles and fortunes! What I do not wish for her is a handsome muttonhead like your cousin, whose fortune is as small as his brain! I shall be very much obliged to you if you will nip that affair in the bud!”

He looked rather amused, but merely said: “You must have been listening to my cousin Lucretia. Let me reassure you! Endymion was not born without a shirt. He inherited quite an easy competence.”

Conscious of having let her annoyance betray her into a very improper speech, she said stiffly. “I shouldn’t have spoken as I did about your cousin. I beg your pardon!”

“Oh, I’ve no objection!” he replied indifferently. “I have really very little interest in Endymion, and not the smallest intention of interfering in his concerns. So you won’t have to be obliged to me. That should at least afford you some consolation.” He glanced mockingly at her as he spoke, but she had turned her face away, biting her lip. “Well? Doesn’t it?”

“No. You made me fly into a miff, and snap your nose off, but I didn’t mean to offend you. I hope I am not so ungrateful!”

“You haven’t offended me, and I don’t want your gratitude,” he said. Startled by the harsh note in his voice, she looked up at him, doubt and a little dismay in her face. His was inscrutable, but after a moment he smiled, and said, in his usual languid way: “Gratitude is another of the things which I find a dead bore.”

“Then you must take care not to give me cause to feel it,” she replied.

He had transferred his attention again to Charis, and said abruptly: “A budding Tulip, young Navenby. Am I to understand that you have abandoned hope of her milky suitor?”

“Yes, entirely! You were perfectly right: he’s nothing but an air-dreamer! Do but look at him now! — he is seated beside Mrs Porthcawl, watching Charis with the most ridiculous smile on his face! He doesn’t care a rush that she should be dancing with Navenby!”

“True!” he agreed. The quizzing-glass came into play again, sweeping the room until it found its object. “So unlike my muttonheaded cousin!”

“Well, he is muttonheaded!” she said defiantly.

“I never denied it. I even refrained from retaliating in kind.”

An irrepressible dimple peeped in her cheek, but she replied with dignity: “You mean, I collect, that my sister isn’t — isn’t blue, or — or very clever — ”

“You may so phrase it, if you choose. Your sister, Frederica, is a beautiful pea-goose — and well you know it!”

Since an innate honesty forbade her to refute this charge, all she could think of to say was: “The more reason for her to marry a man of sense, and judgment!”

“You may be right. Does that description fit young Navenby? I shouldn’t have thought it, but again you may be right. I know nothing about him, after all, and it never does to judge by appearances, does it?”

“Of all the detestable persons I ever met — ” She stopped, gave a gasp, and said in a tone of strong resolution: “No. I won’t say it! But I daresay you may guess whom I mean!” she added, her feelings overcoming her.

“No, I haven’t a notion: do tell me!” he invited.

She caught her breath on a choke of laughter, and turned from him, with considerable relief, to greet Darcy Moreton, who had just come up to them. The Marquis lingered only to exchange a few words with Mr Moreton before strolling away to join a group gathered round Lady Jersey. He was apparently unaware of the interest he had aroused by singling out the elder Miss Merriville, and sitting beside her for quite twenty minutes; but he had been observed throughout by several pairs of eyes: some curious, some jealous, and some cynical; and no one had failed to notice that for a large part of this tune he had been watching the younger Miss Merriville. Some thought that it would be rather too bad if he were to make that beautiful innocent his next victim; others wondered if he had at last met his fate; and a few ladies, some of whom had cherished secret hopes that their daughters might find favour in his eyes, were unequivocally disgusted. Amongst these was Lady Buxted. She had no axe to grind; she had been as anxious as her elder sister to see Alverstoke suitably married, and his presumptive heir cut out, but from the moment of setting eyes on Charis she had taken the Merrivilles in strong dislike. She was convinced that the blame for Jane’s lack of success lay at Charis’s door; and the compliments she received on her prot6gees’ delightful manners and excellent style very soon made her hate Frederica as much as Charis. She had been forced to launch them into the ton, and was now able to wash her hands of them; but even this agreeable circumstance was spoilt for her by the ease and rapidity with which they had found their feet. She might tell herself that the hostesses who invited them to their parties only did so to oblige their noble guardian, but she knew very well that it was untrue. Everyone liked the Merrivilles, as the Countess Lieven, with a faint, malicious smile, informed her.

“For my part, I consider them a great deal too coming,” she told her elder sister. “Charis’s namby-pamby airs don’t impress me; and as for Frederica, as she calls herself, I daresay you’ve noticed how positively bumptious she is!”

“No,” said Lady Jevington bluntly, “I haven’t. Very unaffected, pretty-behaved girls, both of them. Charis is a beautiful ninnyhammer; but I believe Frederica to be a young woman of superior understanding.”

“Oh, most superior!” said Lady Buxted, her eyes snapping angrily. “On the catch for a husband! I wonder you should be so taken by her insinuating ways! I knew what her object was within a week of making her acquaintance!”

“Ah!” said Lady Jevington. “So Buxted is making up to her, is he? I’ve several times been told as much, but I never listen to on-dits. Make yourself easy, Louisa! Nothing will come of it!”

Her colour much heightened, Lady Buxted retorted: “No! Not if I have anything to say in the matter!” The condescending smile on her sister’s face exacerbated her into adding: “I have no fears for Carlton: none at all! But I wonder how you will like it, my dear Augusta, when you find yourself with your beautiful ninnyhammer as your sister-in-law!” She perceived that these words had produced an impression, and continued triumphantly: “How is it possible that you, who believe yourself to be so long-headed, can have failed to notice that Vernon scarcely took his eyes off that girl last night?”

Lady Jevington opened her mouth, shut it again, and, after subjecting her sister to an incredulous stare, said:

“You are a fool, Louisa!”

Meanwhile, the Misses Merriville, their thoughts far removed from matrimonial conquests, were warmly welcoming the head of the family, exclaiming joyfully at his unexpected arrival in Upper Wimpole Street, hugging him, kissing him, thrusting him into the easiest chair in the drawing-room, procuring refreshment for him, and greeting Ms sudden appearance with all the fond delight to be expected of two loving sisters.

Inevitably, it was Frederica who first came to earth, and who demanded to know what had brought him to London. Fortifying himself with a long drink from the tankard she had just handed him, he met her anxious gaze with an engaging grin, and said: “Oh, I’ve been rusticated!”

“Harry! Oh, no!” she cried, dismayed.

“Yes, I have — Barny too! You know: Barny Peplow, a particular friend of mine — a great gun!”

She had not so far been privileged to meet Mr Pep-low, but her brother’s enthusiastic praise of that young gentleman had long since inspired her with foreboding. But it was Charis who nettled Harry, by uttering in soft but stricken accents: “Oh, dear! What can be done?”

“Nothing is to be done! What a goose you are!” returned Harry impatiently. “You needn’t look so Friday-faced either of you! Anyone would think I’d been sent down for good! Of course I haven’t been! Only for the rest of this term!”

“But why, Harry?” Frederica asked, by no means reassured.

He laughed. “Oh, nothing very much! Just a bit of bobbery! We weren’t the only ones in it, either. The thing was we were rather full of frisk. It was after old George’s birthday party: George Leigh, I mean, though you don’t know him either, do you? A famous fellow! So there was a bit of riot and rumpus — and that’s how it was! Nothing to throw you into high fidgets, I promise you!”

Her anxious mind relieved of its worst fears, she agreed to this, and asked him no further questions knowing well that these would only set up his back. Experience had also taught her that while she understood and sympathized with schoolboys’ pranks, she would never be able to understand what Harry and his friends found to amuse them in their revel-routs, which seemed invariably to start with what he called a spread, or (as she gathered) a wine-party; and to end in horseplay as senseless as it was destructive.

“As a matter of fact,” said Harry ingenuously, “I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to come down, just to make sure all’s right here. There’s no saying but what you might have got into a scrape, and I am the head of the family!”

Charis giggled; but Frederica, though the ready laughter sprang to her eyes, responded, in a much-moved tone: “How kind of you, Harry! Of course, it was your duty to be rusticated!”

“Now, Freddy —!” he protested, his lips quivering in spite of himself. “I didn’t say that!”

“I should think not indeed!” said Charis, highly diverted by this exchange. “When we have been fixed in London for more than a month, and there are only a few weeks left of the term! What a Banbury-man you are, you dearest, horridest creature!”

He laughed back at her, but said: “Well, I do think I ought to keep my eye on you all. You’re neither of you up to snuff, you know, and you were never before in London.”

“There, I must own, you have the advantage of us,” agreed Frederica.

“Good gracious, when was Harry in London?” asked Charis, in innocent surprise.

“I don’t precisely remember, but it was some years ago. Aunt Scrabster invited him, because of being his godmother, and he spent a whole week in Harley Street, and was shown all the sights — weren’t you, Harry?”

He grimaced at her. “That’s quite enough, Freddy! Lord, how my uncle did drag me about, and to the stuffiest places! But the thing is that I’ve learnt a great deal since I went up to Oxford, and I fancy I’ve a pretty fair notion of what’s o’clock. And I’ll tell you one thing I don’t like, and that’s this house!”

“No, nor do we, but in spite of its shabby furniture, and its unfashionable situation, we contrive to move in the first circles, I promise you!”

“I know that, and I don’t like it above half. It was this fellow, Alverstoke, who brought that about, wasn’t it? I never heard of him in my life until you wrote that he was a cousin of ours, but I can tell you this! — I know a great deal about him now, and I must say, Frederica, I can’t understand how you came to put yourself under his protection! You ain’t in general so bird-witted!”

“But, Harry, what can you mean?” exclaimed Charis. “He has been so very kind and obliging! You can have no notion!”

“Oh, can’t I?” he retorted. “Well, that’s where you’re out, because I have! Kind and obliging! I daresay!”

“Yes, and particularly so to the boys! Are you thinking that he is very starched-up? He does appear to be, and I know that some people say he is odiously haughty, and cares only for his own pleasure, but it isn’t so, is it, Frederica? Only think of his taking Felix all over that foundry, and arranging for him to see the New Mint, besides letting Jessamy ride that lovely horse!”

“Lord Alverstoke was under an obligation to Papa,” said Frederica coolly. “It was on that account that he consented — not very willingly! — to act as our guardian.”

“Guardian? He’s no guardian of mine!” interrupted Harry, up in arms.

“Certainly not. Or of mine! How should he be, when we are both of age?”

“Yes, well — oh, you don’t understand!”

“I assure you I do! You’ve been told that he’s a shocking rake — ”

“Is he?” interpolated Charis, her eyes widening. “I had thought a rake would have been very different! Well, I know they are! They try to get up flirtations, and put one to the blush by the things they say, and — oh, you know, Frederica! Cousin Alverstoke isn’t at all like that. Indeed, I’ve often thought him dreadfully strict!”

“Yes, for ever preaching propriety, and giving one a scold for not behaving as though one had but just escaped from the school-room,” said Frederica, with considerable feeling. “Make yourself easy, Harry! Whatever may be Alverstoke’s reputation, he cherishes no improper designs where we are concerned! Nor did we come out under his aegis. It’s true that he invited us to a ball which he gave in honour of his niece, but it was his sister, Lady Buxted, who fired us off, as they say.”

He did not look to be perfectly satisfied; but as Jessamy came in at that moment the subject was allowed to drop. Jessamy looked grave when he learned the reason for Harry’s arrival, but he only said, when warned that his senior wanted no jobations from him: “Certainly not!”

“And none of your moralizing speeches either!” said Harry, eyeing him in some suspicion.

“You needn’t be afraid of that. I have no right to moralize,” replied Jessamy, sighing.

“Hey, what’s this?” Harry demanded. “Don’t tell me you’ve been kicking up riot and rumpus, old sobersides!”

“Something very like it,” Jessamy said heavily, the scene in Piccadilly vivid in his memory.

Both his sisters cried out at this; and by the time Harry had been regaled by them with the story of the Pedestrian Curricle, and had gone into shouts of laughter, Jessamy had begun to think that it had not been so very bad after all, and was even able to laugh a little himself, and to tell Harry about the adventure’s glorious sequel, dwelling with such particularity on the points of Alverstoke’s various hacks and carriage-horses that the ladies soon bethought themselves of tasks in some other part of the house, and withdrew.

When the subject had been thoroughly discussed, Harry acknowledged that it was certainly handsome of the Marquis to place his hacks at Jessamy’s disposal, and gratified his brother by adding: “Not that he’d anything to fear. I’ll say this for you, young ‘un: you’ve as neat a seat and as light a hand as anyone I know.”

“Yes, but he didn’t know that!” said Jessamy naively.

Harry grinned, but refrained from comment. You never knew how Jessamy would take it, if you made game of him, and he thought it rather beneath himself to set up the boy’s bristles. Besides, he wanted to know more about the Marquis. Jessamy was six years his junior, but he had a good deal of respect for his judgment, and a somewhat rueful dependence on his ability to detect weakness of moral character. If Jessamy erred, it would not be on the side of tolerance.

But Jessamy had little but good to say of the Marquis. He understood why Harry should be anxious, and owned that he had wondered, at first, if Alverstoke meant to dangle after Charis. “It’s no such thing, however. He doesn’t seem to me to pay much heed to her. He did take her driving in the park once, but Frederica told me he only did so as a sort of warning to some horrid rip that was making up to her; and he doesn’t send her flowers, or haunt the house, like Cousin Endymion!”

“Cousin who?” demanded Harry.

“Endymion. Well, that’s what we call him, and, according to Frederica, we are connected with him in some way or another. He’s Cousin Alverstoke’s heir, and in the Life Guards. Nutty on Charis, but there’s no need to worry about him! He’s a big, beef-witted fellow: no harm in him at all — but lord, what a cloth-head! Then there’s Cousin Gregory — he’s one of Cousin Alverstoke’s nephews; and Cousin Buxted — but he comes to sit in Frederica’s pocket; and — ”

“Here, how many more of them?” interpolated Harry, startled.

“I don’t know precisely. It does seem odd suddenly to find oneself with dozens of cousins one never knew existed, doesn’t it?”

“Damned odd!”

“Yes, but they are cousins, or, at all events, connections of ours: they acknowledge it!”

Harry shook his head, but said: “Well, I suppose it’s all right and tight. Did you say one of them was making up to Frederica?”

“Yes, it’s the greatest joke!” replied Jessamy, fully appreciating his brother’s incredulity. “And the best of it is that he’s such a dead bore that — ” He stopped, and frowned. “I shouldn’t say that of him,” he said. “He’s a very respectable man. Kind, too, and thinks just as he ought. Only, somehow, he makes you want to go off and knock up a lark when he starts moralizing. I know that’s wrong, but it does make me see what Cousin Alverstoke meant when he said I should make a better parson if I did fall into scrapes.”

This disclosure made a stronger appeal to Harry than anything else Jessamy had said in the Marquis’s favour. He declared himself anxious to make his acquaintance, even going so far as to say that he sounded as if he had a lot of rumgumption.

“Well, I daresay you will be taking the girls to balls, so you’re bound to meet him.”

“Taking the girls to balls?” echoed Harry, horrified. “No, by Jupiter! That I won’t!”

Nothing would move him from this decision. To the persuasions of his sisters he responded that he had outgrown his evening-dress, and would be dashed if he wasted his blunt on a new rig; that he expected to be fully engaged with his friend Barny; that he rather thought he might take a bolt to Herefordshire, just to be sure all was well at Graynard; and, as a clincher, that he was such a bad dancer that he would only disgrace them if they dragged him to any of their assemblies.

They were disappointed, but not surprised. Harry, who closely resembled Charis, could never disgrace them, however badly he danced, for besides his fair, handsome face and well-made person, he had a considerable degree of lively charm; but Harry, alas, had no taste for fashionable life, and no ambition to acquire the London touch. He was ripe for any spree (as he phrased it) with his friends; but it was easy to see that it would not be many years before he settled down very happily to the life of a sporting squire.

If anything had been needed to confirm him in his resolution it was supplied by Miss Winsham, acidly expressing the opinion that the least he could do to atone for his rustication was to make himself useful to his sisters. Ten minutes in his aunt’s company were enough to set Harry, in general the most easy-going of mortals, at dagger-drawing. Frederica, seeing the spark in his blue eyes, and the mulish look about his mouth, intervened; and allowed some time to elapse before she ventured to suggest that if he wished to make Alverstoke’s acquaintance he could be sure of doing so by escorting his sisters to Lady Sefton’s forthcoming squeeze.

But Harry had an answer to that. Little though he might like doing the pretty amongst all the smarts and fribbles of the ton, he hoped he was not rag-mannered. Rather cool, he said, to depend on a chance meeting for the opportunity to pay his respects to the Marquis! He had given the matter some thought; and since it appeared that Alverstoke had placed them all under an obligation he felt that it behooved him to pay a formal visit in Berkeley Square not merely as a gesture of civility, but to discharge Jessamy’s debt.

“Well, I own I should be glad if you could do so,” said Frederica, “but I don’t think he will let you! I expect you are quite right in thinking that you should pay him a morning visit, but, whatever you do, Harry, don’t let it be before noon! Jessamy and I have both invaded his house before he had left his dressing-room, and for a third Merriville to do so would be quite dreadful!”

“What a paltry fellow!” exclaimed Harry scornfully.

But when, strictly adhering to Frederica’s advice, he presented himself in Berkeley Square, one glance was enough to convince him that whatever epithet might be used to describe the Marquis, paltry was very fair and far off indeed.

As luck would have it, he arrived at Alverstoke’s house just as Alverstoke emerged from it, exquisitely attired in a blue coat of Weston’s tailoring, the palest of pantaloons, the snowiest of neckcloths, and Hessian boots so highly polished that they glinted in the sunshine. Harry, pausing with one foot on the first of the shallow steps leading up to the door, received an instant impression of tremendous elegance, but not for a moment did it occur to him that he was gazing at a veritable Tulip of the Ton. That coat of blue superfine was moulded over magnificent shoulders; and those clinging pantaloons in no way concealed the swell of muscles in his lordship’s powerful thighs which unmistakeably proclaimed the athlete.

The Marquis, also pausing, but at the top of the steps, looked down at his unexpected visitor. His brows were slightly raised, but after a swift, keen scrutiny, they sank, and he smiled, saying: “Don’t take the trouble to introduce yourself! Unless I am very much mistaken, you roust be Harry Merriville.”

Harry acknowledged it, too well-accustomed to be recognized by his resemblance to his lovely sister to feel surprise at his lordship’s acumen. His lordship, correctly interpreting the look of revulsion in his face, gave him further proof of it. “There is a great family-likeness between you all,” he said smoothly. “Come in, and tell me what brings you to London! Not that I need ask! For how long are you sent down?”

Since his tone held nothing but sympathetic interest, Harry saw no reason to take umbrage, and replied, with his frank, attractive smile: “Oh, only for the rest of the term, sir. It was nothing — just fun and gig! But the Bagwig was feeling out of curl, and he chose to cut up stiff. But I’m detaining you! Perhaps you have an engagement?”

“It’s not of the smallest consequence,” replied the Marquis, relinquishing his hat, his gloves, and his cane into his footman’s hands, and leading the way into the library. “You shall drink a glass of sherry with me, and tell me in what way I can serve you.”

“Good God, sir, none at all!” said Harry, shocked. “It seems to me that you have done a great deal for my family already. I came merely to thank you for your kind offices.”

“How very civil of you! But pray don’t!”

“Yes, that’s all very well,” objected Harry, “but for the life of me I can’t see that we have the least claim upon you, sir!”

“You are forgetting our relationship.”

“It ain’t a case of forgetting, for I never knew of it,” said Harry bluntly. “Frederica says you are our cousin, but I’ve a strong notion she’s shamming it!”

“You wrong her. Our relationship is a trifle remote, perhaps, but we — er — meet somewhere on the family tree, I assure you.”

“Well, that might be, I daresay,” conceded Harry doubtfully. “I never took much interest in the family tree myself, but of course I know that everyone has hosts of relations one’s never met in one’s life.”

“And some of them such very Queer Nabs!” murmured his lordship.

“Yes, by Jove, aren’t they just?” exclaimed Harry, with considerable feeling. He burst out laughing at the quizzical look in the Marquis’s eye. “Oh, I don’t mean you, sir! How could I? But only think of my Aunt Seraphina! Not that she’s an unknown relation — I only wish to God she were! I daresay you are acquainted with her?”

“I am, and you have all my sympathy.” Harry nodded, but said: “Oh, well! She don’t come the ugly with the girls, and they must have somebody to play gooseberry, I suppose.” He waited, while Wick-en, who had entered the room, set a heavily embossed silver tray down at his master’s elbow; but when he had accepted a glass of sherry from his host he said: “The thing is, sir, that if we are only remotely related there’s no reason in the world why you should be troubled with any of us, and I don’t like it at all that my sister Frederica should have jockeyed you into it! Which,” he added shrewdly, “I’ll go bail she did!”

“Oh, no!” replied his lordship. “I collect you were not aware that I was under an obligation to your father.”

“No, I wasn’t,” said Harry.

“How should you be?” said his lordship, with the sweet, discomfiting smile which rarely failed to depress pretension.

Harry knew an impulse to ask in what way his erratic parent had contrived to place this unquestionable out-and-outer under an obligation, but the smile warned him that any such enquiry would be an impertinence. He refrained, therefore; but after drinking a little sherry made a recover, and said, his chin lifting a little: “However that may be, sir, I must feel myself greatly indebted to you. Not only for sponsoring my sisters, which — which is a debt I can’t repay, but for coming so kindly to my young brother’s rescue. That debt I can repay, and — and wish to do immediately! In fact, that forms a part of my errand to you, so will you tell me, if you please, what was the sum which you were obliged to spend on Ms behalf?”

“I am afraid you will have to hold me excused,” replied his lordship apologetically. “For one thing, I don’t know: my secretary settled the business; and, for another, I lent Jessamy the sum, whatever it may have been, upon certain terms.”

“Yes, sir — he told me, and — and I’m very much obliged to you! Though why the silly gudgeon didn’t bring his coverthack to London, instead of making a dashed martyr of himself, or even hire a horse — ”

“I hardly think he would care for a job-horse. And since he is determined not to incur the expense of a horse and a groom in London, may I suggest that you leave well alone?”

Harry flushed. “I beg your pardon, but it isn’t well, sir! I mean, there’s no reason why Jessamy should be so much beholden to you: he should have applied to me, because I’m his guardian, not you!”

“Oh, I haven’t the smallest intention of usurping your authority!” the Marquis assured him.

“It isn’t so much that — well, as a matter of fact, it’s my sister who has the younger ones in charge,” confessed Harry. “But when it comes to letting my brother — my ward! — run into debt — no!”

“Ah, that is a matter which lies between you and him, and in no way concerns me! Give him a thundering scold — if you feel it to be your duty!”

“What, when I’ve been sent down myself?” exclaimed Harry. “I’m not such a mawworm! Besides,”

he added frankly, “I’ll be damned if I give my head to Jessamy for washing!”

The Marquis smiled. “Then, I repeat, leave well alone!” Then he saw that Harry was looking far from satisfied, and the amusement deepened in his eyes. “Or you can stand surety, if you feel he won’t redeem the debt,” he said.

Harry stiffened; and replied in rather a gritty voice: “I have no fear of that, sir!”

“No, nor have I.”

“What I do fear,” said Harry, slightly mollified, “is that he’ll very likely run himself aground over the business.”

“In that case,” replied his lordship, “it will be your duty — as his guardian — to bring him about again. I can’t agree, however, that it is a likely contingency. I believe the sum involved to have been quite trifling. Meanwhile, he is happily employed every morning, exercising one or other of my hacks, instead of addling his brain with overmuch study. Really, it is I who stand in his debt: I had liefer by far entrust my horses to him than to any groom.”

“Yes, indeed!” Harry said warmly. “He’s got a maggot in his head over some things, but he’s a clipping rider, I promise you! In the hunting-field, I mean! No need to be afraid he won’t keep your hacks well in hand!”

“Then, since our minds are now relieved of care, we needn’t discuss the matter further,” said his lordship. “What are your own plans? Are you making a come-out too?”

Harry’s mind was not quite relieved of care, but, partly from diffidence, and partly from an innate dislike of responsibility, he let the subject drop, assuring the Marquis instead that he had no desire to make a come-out. He added that he did not think it would be (under the circumstances) quite the thing. “I shall be visiting a friend, and going about with him a good deal, I daresay.”

“I see. Keep away from the — er — sluiceries of Tot-hill Fields, and if you end up in a Watch-house, with your pockets to let, send a message here, not to Upper Wimpole Street: I’ll bail you out.”

“Thank you! But I don’t anticipate — ”

“One never does,” murmured his lordship. “These things happen to one, however, and it is just as well to be prepared.” He looked thoughtfully at his young guest. “I recall that your sister told me once that you are fond of boxing: if you have a fancy to attend Jackson’s school — it’s in Bond Street, No. 13 — send this in to him! He will pay particular attention to you.” He drew out his card-case as he spoke, scrawled something on one of the visiting-cards he abstracted from it, and nicked it over to Harry.

“Oh, by Jupiter!” Harry exclaimed, catching it, and eagerly deciphering the scrawled message. “That’s devilish good of you, sir! I’m excessively obliged to you! I’m no better than a moulder, of course, but I am very partial to the sport! Thank you very much! Though why you should concern yourself with me, I’m damned if I know!” He coloured hotly, and added, in apologetic accents: “I mean — well, all this gammon about being under an obligation to my father —!”

“The charm of novelty,” replied his lordship, bringing the interview to an end by rising from his chair. “Since I assumed the role of guardian — titular, of course! — of your enterprising brothers, I haven’t known what might happen next. Hitherto I have always known precisely what would happen next: a dead bore, believe me!”

With this, Harry had to be content. He took a punctilious leave of the Marquis, and went off, unable to decide if he liked him, or disliked him.

The Marquis had no such doubts. Within ten minutes of making Harry’s acquaintance, he had recognized in him not only his father’s merits, but also his failings. A pleasing boy, with frank, well-bred manners, whom it was impossible not to like; but one who lacked strength of character, and would always be amiably ready to let another shoulder his responsibilities.

And why the devil should I shoulder them? the Marquis demanded of himself. I must have windmills in my head!