Frederica

V

Upon the following day Mr Charles Trevor sustained a shock. Not twenty minutes after the Marquis’s agent-in-chief had deposited on his desk a mass of reports and accounts which it was Mr Trevor’s enviable duty to reduce to such proportions as would be tolerable to their noble employer, the Marquis strolled into his office, saying: “Good morning, Charles. Do you know of any foundries in Soho?”

“Foundries, sir?” said Mr Trevor, stunned by so unprecedented an enquiry.

“Something to do with the casting of metals, I fancy,” explained the Marquis, levelling his glass at the litter of papers on the desk. “Good God, Charles, why have you never told me how overworked you are? What, in the name of abomination, is all this?”

“Only quarter-day, sir!” said Charles, laughing. “Coleford has been with me — knowing that if he were to give these papers to your lordship you wouldn’t read a word of them! But — foundries? Do you — do you wish for information about them?” An idea occurred to him; his eyes kindled, and he asked: “Is there to be some question raised? Do you mean to speak on it, sir?”

“Really, Charles, what extraordinary things you do ask me!” said his lordship. “My dear boy, is it likely that I should feel the smallest desire to do so?”

“No, sir,” responded Mr Trevor frankly. “Indeed, I didn’t know you were interested in such matter!”

The Marquis sighed, and shook his head. “Alas, I have frequently suspected that you believe me to be a very frippery fellow!”

“Yes, but — I mean, no, of course I don’t, sir!” said Mr Trevor, correcting himself in a hurry.

“You do, Charles: you do! And you are perfectly right,” said his lordship mournfully. “I have no interest in foundries. However, it is never too late to mend, and I am now about to cultivate an interest in them. Or am I? Now I come to think of it, it isn’t foundries, but pneumatic lifts. Do you know anything about pneumatic lifts?”

“No, sir, I don’t. But I do know when you are roasting me!”

“You wrong me, Charles. Somewhere in Soho there is a foundry which contains a pneumatic lift. I wish to see it. Tear yourself away from all these deplorable documents, and arrange it for me, dear boy!”

“Yes, sir — certainly!” said Mr Trevor mechanically.

“I was persuaded I might rely upon you. I own, it disappoints me a trifle to find you ignorant on the subject of pneumatic lifts, but perhaps you have instead made a study of boilers and propellers?”

Mr Trevor, eyeing him in speechless astonishment, shook his head.

“Come, come, Charles!” said his lordship reprovingly. “This must be set right! How can you expect to make your mark in the world if you make no attempt to keep abreast of the times? You shall take a trip down river on a steamboat, to learn about these things.”

His much-tried secretary said roundly: “Much obliged to you, sir, but I’m not an engineer, and I don’t wish to learn about boilers! And as for going on a steamboat, I’ll be da — I’d as lief not!”

“Well, I’m not an engineer either,” said his lordship. “And, like you, I’ll be damned if I go on a steamboat. But I do hope you won’t be, for something tells me that it will shortly be one of your duties.”

Half-laughing and wholly bewildered, Charles said: “But why, sir? I know you’re funning, but — ”

“No such thing! When you have met my latest acquaintance — ah, a young cousin of mine! — you will perceive that this is no matter for idle joking.”

“Latest — a cousin?” stammered Charles. “Sir, I beg pardon, but what can you mean?”

The Marquis, pausing in the doorway, looked back, to say, with one of his quizzical smiles: “You should know, my dear boy: it was you who edged me on to visit his sisters. So, if you find yourself accompanying my cousin Felix on a steamboat cruise, you will have come by your just deserts. But you were quite right about Charis: a pearl past price!”

The door closed behind him, and Mr Trevor was left to make what he could of this. It was not very much, for while he could readily believe that the Marquis, struck by the younger Miss Merriville’s beauty, had formed the intention of making her the object of one of his fits of gallantry, he could not, by any stretch of his imagination, believe that he would go to the length of providing for her brother’s entertainment merely to fix his interest with her. He seldom found it necessary to exert particular pains to attach an attractive female, since most of them, thought Charles disapprovingly, were on the scramble for him. If he did receive a rebuff he shrugged, and passed on, for he flirted for the sake of amusement, and any tendre that he might feel was neither lasting nor profound. As for putting himself out, as he now seemed to be doing, that was so very unlike him that Charles, who believed himself to be pretty well acquainted with his lordship, had to own that he was baffled to account for it. It did not occur to him that his lordship had yielded to the blandishments of a persistent urchin; and if such a notion had crossed his mind he would have dismissed it as an absurdity.

Meanwhile, the Marquis, driving himself in his curricle, was on his way to Grosvenor Place. He arrived there to find his sister’s landaulet drawn up outside her house, and his sister, accompanied by her two elder daughters, on the point of stepping into it. “In the nick of time, I perceive!” he remarked. “Delay your departure for five minutes, Louisa!”

Lady Buxted, in whose breast her defeat at his hands still rankled, bade him a cold good-morning, and added that she had not the least guess what could have brought him to visit her.

His groom having run to the horses’ heads, Alverstoke flung off the rug that covered his legs, and descended lightly from the curricle, saying: “How should you?” He looked her over critically. “Accept my compliments! That’s a good rig, and I like your neck-ruff.”

Lady Buxted might deplore her frivolous brother’s a la modality, but she could not help preening herself a little. It was not often that her taste won his approbation. She touched the little ruff of goffered lawn which supported her chin, and said: “My fraise, do you mean? I’m indeed flattered to meet with your approval, Alverstoke!”

He nodded, as though he took this for granted, but addressed himself to his nieces. “You two — Jane, and — Maria, is it? — wait for your mother in the carriage! I shan’t keep her many minutes.”

Lady Buxted, by no means relishing this cavalier treatment of her daughters, was torn between a desire to send her brother about his business, and a rampant curiosity. Curiosity won; and she turned to go back into the house, saying, however, that five minutes were all she could spare. He vouchsafed no response, but followed her up the steps, and into the dining-room. Lady Buxted did not invite him to sit down.

“Well, what is it?” she asked. “I have a great deal of shopping to do, and — ”

“More, even, than you bargained for, I daresay,” he interrupted. “Take that eldest girl of yours to your dressmaker, and tell her to make a ball-dress for her! And, for the lord’s sake, Louisa, don’t let it be white, or pale blue, or pink! She’s as bran-faced as ever she was, and the only thing for it is to rig her out in amber, or jonquil, or straw!”

The unexpected hope which this command rekindled in Lady Buxted’s breast made it easy for her to overlook the animadversion on Miss Buxted’s freckles. Surprise almost took her breath away, but she managed to utter: “Alverstoke! Do you mean — can you mean — that you will give a ball for her?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” he replied. He added: “Upon terms, dear Louisa!”

She scarcely heeded this rider, but exclaimed: “Oh, my dear Vernon, I was positive I could depend on you! I knew you were bantering me! What a wicked freakish wretch you are! But I shan’t scold you, for I know it is just your way! Oh, Jane will be cast into transports!”

“Oblige me, then, by telling her nothing about it until I’m out of reach!” said his lordship acidly. “And do, for God’s sake, abate your own ecstasies! I prefer your jobations to your raptures! Sit down, and I’ll tell you what I want you to do!”

She looked for a moment as though she was on the brink of answering him in kind, but only for a moment. The prospect of bringing Jane out at a magnificent ball for which she would not be called upon to disburse as much as a halfpenny made it easy for her to ignore his lordship’s incivility. She sat down, throwing open her olive-brown pelisse.

“To be sure! How much we have to discuss! Now, when shall it be? I am inclined to think that it would be best to fix on a date at the beginning of the season.”

“That’s fortunate: it will be next month. Three weeks from now, let us say.”

“April! But you cannot have considered! May is the month for the really tonnish parties!”

“No, is it indeed?” he mocked. “And does it occur to you that May is already overcrowded with balls, routs, and assemblies of every description?”

“There is that, of course,” she agreed, frowning over it. “But in only three weeks the season will barely have begun!”

“It will begin, then, at Alverstoke House,” he replied coolly. “And if you imagine, Louisa, that we shall find ourselves thin of company, let me reassure you!”

She was well aware that he was one of the leaders of fashion, but the top-loftiness of this remark made her long to give him a set-down. She refrained, saying instead: “I hardly know how I shall contrive! All the arrangements — ”

“Don’t give them a thought! They won’t fall on you. Let Charles Trevor have a list of those you wish to be invited: that is all you have to do.”

She said, with a touch of asperity: “Since the ball is for my daughter, I assume I shall be the hostess!”

He regarded her thoughtfully. “Why, yes! You may be the hostess, but the ball won’t be wholly for Jane’s benefit. Lucretia will bring her elder girl to it, and — ”

“Chloë!” she ejaculated, stiffening. “Do you dare to tell me, Alverstoke, that I owe this — this change in your sentiments to That Woman’s cajolery?”

“No, you owe it to an unforeseen and damnably troublesome circumstance. Do you recall Fred Merriville?”

She stared at him. “Fred Merriville? Pray, what has he to say to anything?”

“The poor fellow has nothing to say: he’s dead, alas!”

Her colour was rising ominously. “I beg you won’t try to play off your tricks on me, Alverstoke! I’m sure it’s nothing to me whether he’s dead or alive!”

“Unfortunately it has a great deal to do with me. He consigned his family to my — er — protection. When I tell you that there are no fewer than five of them — ”

“Do you mean that he made you their guardian?” she interrupted.

“No, thank God! it’s not as bad as that. He commended them to my care. Two of them are of age, but — ”

“For heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed. “He must have been out of his senses! You, of all persons! What in the world made him do so?”

“Well,” said his lordship, succumbing to the promptings of his particular devil, “he thought I was the best of my family.”

“Oh, did he?” snapped Lady Buxted. “No doubt! It is precisely what he would think, for a more rackety, ramshackle, care-for-nobody I hope I may never see! I remember him! A handsome ne’er-do-well! What he must have cost his parents I shudder to think! And, to crown all, when they had contrived to arrange an advantageous marriage for him, what must he do but run off with the daughter of some paltry provincial! They washed their hands of him, and I don’t wonder at it. Not that I was ever acquainted with them, but it was one of the on-dits of the town. I believe he came into the property later, and I don’t doubt he gamed that away too. As for leaving his family to your guardianship, it’s of a piece with the rest! I strongly advise you to repudiate them!”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, but I can’t, in honour, do that,” he answered smoothly. “I owed him a debt, you see, which I never found the opportunity to repay.”

“You owed Merriville money? Fiddle! He never had sixpence to bless himself with, while as for you — ”

He interposed, and in accents of distaste. “You should have married a merchant, Louisa. I feel sure he would have admired you: I do not! Do you never think of anything but money? Is it quite beyond your power to understand that there are more important obligations than monetary ones?”

Her eyes shifted under the contempt in his, but she said angrily: “Yes, it’s all very well for you to talk in that imposing style, as rich as you are! If you stood in my shoes, you would sing a different tune!”

“Don’t pitch that gammon to me!” he said. “You forget that I was one of Buxted’s executors! He left you very well to pass, my dear sister. No, don’t fly into one of your pelters! Really, I didn’t come to break a straw with you! Indeed, I’m willing — if you lend me your aid in the matter of the Merrivilles — to grease the wheels of Jane’s come-out for you. I imagine you mean to present her at one of the Drawing-rooms?”

These beautiful words checked Lady Buxted on the brink of giving free expression to her wrath. They could only mean that Alverstoke was prepared to defray the shocking expense of a Court dress for his niece. If he gave at all, he would give handsomely; and her ladyship, doing some rapid calculations in her head, realized that the cost of such a Court dress as she had herself worn at her presentation could be made to cover the additional expense of several crape and muslin dresses, suitable for a maiden to wear at Almack’s, in her first season. This reflection, though it did not slay her resentment, made it possible for her to swallow the unwise words hovering on her tongue, and to say, with mere pettishness: “I can’t conceive what Merriville can have done to put you in his debt!”

“That, Louisa, is something I prefer not to divulge,” said the Marquis. Mindful of his instructions, and with a demon of mischief lurking in his eyes, he added: “Particularly not to my sisters!”

She was not perceptive, but it was perhaps fortunate that she was not looking at him. All she said was: “I collect he helped you out of some disgraceful scrape. So now you feel obliged to further his children’s interests! It must be the first time in your life you have recognized any obligation! To be sure, one might have supposed that there were others, nearer to you, and with greater claims upon you, who would have excited your benevolence — How many children did you say he had?”

“Five. Three sons and two daughters — orphans, residing at the moment in Upper Wimpole Street, in the care of their aunt, who, I understand, assumed this charge upon the death of Merriville’s wife, some ten years ago. The eldest son is of age, and at Oxford; but it is his sister who — unless I very much mistake the matter! — rules the roost! I think she is some four-and-twenty years of age, and — ”

“Means to hang on to your sleeve! I wish you joy of your obligation! Do you mean to support all the family?”

“I don’t mean to support any of the family, nor have I been asked to do so. You can’t imagine, Louisa, how refreshing I find this! With the boys I have nothing to do. All that Miss Merriville requires of me is that I should render what assistance I can to introduce her, and her sister, to the ton.”

She was eyeing him narrowly. “Indeed! No doubt Miss Merriville is very beautiful? But I need not ask!”

“Quite a well-looking young woman, but I should hardly describe her as beautiful,” he replied indifferently. “That don’t signify: she’s not on the catch for a husband. Her ambition is to achieve a respectable marriage for her sister, who is the prettier of the two. Whether she can contrive to do it I think doubtful, her fortune being small, but that’s not my concern: my debt will have been discharged when I — with your assistance — have launched the pair of them into society.”

“Pray, what do you expect me to do?” she demanded.

“Oh, nothing very arduous! You will introduce them at my ball, as our cousins, escort them to Almack’s, when you take Jane there, and — ”

“Almack’s, indeed!” she exclaimed. “I wonder that you should not have warned your protégée that she is aiming at the moon! Or do you mean to procure cards for her, perhaps?”

This piece of heavy sarcasm glanced off his armour. “No, I couldn’t. But you can, Louisa, with two bosom-bows amongst the patronesses — as you have so frequently informed me!”

“Procure cards for Fred Merriville’s daughters? You are asking a great deal too much of me! A couple of penniless girls, living in Upper Wimpole Street, who are not our cousins! I think it the outside of enough that you should include them in a ball to mark Jane’s come-out, and as for taking them to Almack’s — No, Vernon! I don’t wish to be disobliging, but — ”

“My dear Louisa, say no more!” he interrupted, picking up his hat. “I wouldn’t, for the world, ask you to do anything you dislike! Forget the whole affair — in fact, forget that I came to see you today! I’ll take my leave of you now.”

She started up, temper and alarm fighting for supremacy in her. “Wait, Alverstoke!”

“No, I’ve stayed too long already. Think of your daughters, left to kick their heels in the carriage!”

“That doesn’t signify! But you must — ”

“Well, it doesn’t signify to me, I must confess. What does signify is the waste of my own time. I really can’t be expected to spend the whole day on this tiresome business, so, if I want to see Lucretia before she retires to her sofa, to recruit her strength after the morning’s exertions, I must go immediately.”

She caught his arm, digging her fingers into it. “No! Vernon, if you dare to appoint That Woman as your hostess —!”

“Unhand me, sister!” he said flippantly. “I do dare, and such is my amazing mettle that your threats have no power to daunt me. By the way, why should they?”

“I would never forgive you! Never!” she declared. “Only consider for a moment! What concern of mine are these wretched girls? Why should — ”

“No concern at all,” he replied, removing her clutch from his arm.

“I haven’t even met them,” she urged despairingly. “Oh, how detestable you are!”

He laughed. “Yes, but not bird-witted — as you are, Louisa! Come, now, make up your mind! Will you do as I ask, or will you not?”

She stared up into his face, trying to discover some sign of relenting in it. He was smiling, but she knew that smile. She said, rather grittily, but with dignity: “Naturally I am only too ready to do what I may to oblige you. Whether I can get tickets for Almack’s for two girls of whom I know nothing — though if they are presentable I will endeavour to do so — ”

“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 conventional 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 realize 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.