Frederica Read online

  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 moralising speeches either!’ said Harry, eyeing him in some suspicion.

  ‘You needn’t be afraid of that. I have no right to moralise,’ 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 naïvely.

  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 clothhead! 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 moralising. 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 behoved 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 must be Harr