Frederica Read online

  He flushed, and, as he bowed over her extended hand, stammered a disclaimer. Her ladyship was very good, but quite mistook the matter! He was the merest whipster, as Cousin Alverstoke would tell her!

  ‘Oh, no! He says you have a – a bit of the drag about you! How do you do, Carlton? I am delighted to see you, but you had liefer go to watch what they are doing to the balloon than talk to an aunt, so you shall give me your place for a while.’

  There seemed to be no reason why her ladyship should not have occupied Jessamy’s place, but Lord Buxted, taking his smiling dismissal in good part, forbore to point this out to her. He handed her into the carriage, and turned to look up at his uncle, saying humorously: ‘I can guess what – or perhaps I should say who! – has brought you here in such excellent time, sir!’

  ‘Yes, an irresistible force. But what the devil brought you here so early?’

  ‘Oh, much the same cause!’ said Carlton, glancing towards Jessamy, who was paying no heed to him, his attention being divided between his lordship’s horses, and his lordship’s groom. He continued, lowering his voice: ‘I knew that our young cousin there would want to see everything, from the start, and would think himself very hardly used if we had arrived only in time to watch the actual ascension!’

  A deadly, and all too familiar boredom crept over the Marquis; an acrid rejoinder hovered on his lips, but remained unspoken. As his derisive eyes scanned his nephew’s countenance he realised that the pompous young slow-top was sincere: he believed in all honesty that he was giving Jessamy a high treat; and, as his next words proved, he had taken pains to render it as instructive as it was exciting.

  ‘Knowing that I should be expected to answer all manner of questions, I took the precaution of consulting my Encyclopaedia yesterday,’ Buxted said. ‘I must own that I became quite absorbed in the subject! The information was not quite up-to-date, but the adventures of the first ballooners held me positively spellbound! I have been entertaining my companions with an account of Professor Charles’s experiments. I daresay Jessamy will be able to tell you the height to which he rose on one occasion, eh, Jessamy?’ he added, raising his voice.

  He was obliged to repeat the question before he could divert Jessamy’s attention from the leader to whom he was addressing soft blandishments, and even then it was Alverstoke who supplied him with the answer.

  ‘Two thousand feet,’ he said, coming to Jessamy’s rescue. ‘Not for nothing have I endured your brother’s company this day, Jessamy! So don’t attempt to tell me that Lunardi filled his balloon with gas procured from zinc; or that Tyler ascended half-a-mile, at Edinburgh; or even that Blanchard once came to rest in an oak-tree, because I am already fully informed on these and a great many other matters!’

  ‘Ah, Felix has an enquiring mind!’ said Buxted, smiling indulgently. ‘Where is the little rascal?’

  ‘Probably taking an active part in the excessively tedious preparations within the enclosure.’

  ‘I hardly think he will have contrived to gain admittance, but perhaps we should go to see that he isn’t in mischief, Jessamy. I daresay you too will like to watch the bag being filled,’ said Buxted kindly.

  He turned away, to suggest that the ladies might care to go with them; and Jessamy, looking up at the Marquis, said: ‘I wish I were in Felix’s shoes! Your grays too! Did he ask you to drive him behind a team, sir? I told him you would not, so now he’s got a point the best of me. Little ape! – Yes, Cousin Buxted, I’m coming!’

  The ladies having declined the offered treat, Buxted and Jessamy went off together; but it was not many minutes before Jessamy returned. Alverstoke, who had alighted from the phaeton, and was standing talking to Frederica, turned his head. ‘Murdered him?’ he enquired.

  Jessamy was betrayed into a laugh, which he instantly checked, saying: ‘No, no! But there was no bearing it, so I made an excuse to come away. It was bad enough when he would prose on for ever about these intolerable aeronautics – just as though I hadn’t heard enough of them from Felix! – but when he got to reading Felix a lecture, and begging those men’s pardons for having permitted him to plague them, I knew I should be at dagger-drawing with him, if I stayed! So I didn’t.’

  ‘Is Felix plaguing them?’ asked Frederica. ‘Ought I to fetch him away?’

  ‘He wouldn’t come – particularly now that Cousin Buxted has told him to do so! Saying that people engaged on important matters didn’t want “little boys” under their feet. That set up Felix’s bristles in a trice, I can tell you! Well, can you wonder at it?’

  ‘A very ill-judged remark,’ agreed Alverstoke gravely.

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t call him a little boy to his face, now would you?’

  ‘Of course he wouldn’t!’ said Eliza, her eyes dancing. ‘I distinctly recollect that he called him, this very day, an abominable young thatchgallows!’

  ‘Exactly so, ma’am!’ said Jessamy. ‘He wouldn’t care a straw for that, any more than he cared for my telling him that he was a disgusting little scrub! But to call him a little boy – ! Why, I wouldn’t do so, no matter how angry I might be!’

  ‘I collect,’ said Frederica, in a resigned voice, ‘that the pains Charis and I took to send him out in good trim were wasted.’

  ‘He looks like one of the scaff and raff,’ said Jessamy candidly. ‘But as for getting under those men’s feet – ! They like him, Frederica! And even if they didn’t it’s no concern of Buxted’s! What right has he to behave as if he were our guardian? Pinching at one in that – that kind way which gets up one’s back till –’ He stopped, clipping his lips together, and after a moment’s struggle said: ‘I shouldn’t say so. He is a very respectable man, and – and he bore me no malice when I was shockingly uncivil to him. I am determined not to let him provoke me again. So I came away.’

  ‘Very proper,’ said Alverstoke. ‘Did you learn when the balloon is going to make its ascension?’

  ‘No, sir. That is, I heard someone say that there is very little wind, and I believe they were discussing whether to make the flight, or to postpone it. But I wasn’t really attending.’

  ‘Then I wish you had been!’ said Alverstoke. ‘I find this affair quite as tedious as you do, and should be delighted to withdraw from it. O my God! – if it is postponed Felix will expect me to repeat this performance!’

  Frederica laughed. ‘Don’t be alarmed! I won’t let him tease you to bring him here again.’

  ‘An empty promise! He will assure you – and me too! – that he has no intention of teasing me, and –’

  ‘He will just ask you!’ interpolated Eliza.

  ‘Yes – or offer it to me as a high treat, and look like an orphan without means of support if I decline it,’ said his lordship bitterly.

  ‘Playing off his tricks!’ said Jessamy. ‘Of course he will do so, when he knows he can bamboozle you, sir! Why don’t you give him a set-down?’

  ‘Instead of encouraging him to think he can depend on you for every indulgence!’ agreed Frederica. ‘Jessamy, do you think you should perhaps bring him away? I daresay they must be wishing him at Jericho!’

  Jessamy shook his head, saying with a reluctant smile: ‘No, they ain’t. One of them told Cousin Buxted that he was making himself useful! As a matter of fact, he’s getting as much encouragement as he gets from Cousin Alverstoke – and, lord, won’t he be intolerable for weeks to come!’

  ‘It would be a waste of breath, I imagine, to say that I have never offered him encouragement, nor, I might add, perceived the smallest need to do so!’ said Alverstoke. He saw that his nephew was approaching, and greeted him with a demand to know how much longer they were to be kept waiting.

  ‘Oh, not for long now, I fancy!’ responded Buxted. ‘I have been talking to the chief aeronaut, a very agreeable man! There are two of them, you know. This one – Oulton, I believe his name is – has been telling me a number of interesting facts concerning the difficulties and dangers of ballooning: the unexpected currents of air at high al