Frederica Read online

  ‘But –’

  He sighed wearily: ‘If you are wondering what people may say, let me assure you the likeliest comment will be that it is just like me to rid myself of my troublesome wards by packing them all off to Alver at the earliest opportunity.’

  ‘You always contrive to leave me without a word to say. I don’t feel I ought to yield, but I shall, because it would be just the thing for Felix, and for Jessamy, too. It is high time I made them my chief concern. I’ve neglected them for Charis, and it was very wrong of me. Quite – quite useless, as well. I hoped so much that she would have contracted an eligible alliance!’

  ‘Don’t despair! She may yet do so.’

  She agreed, but she knew that she would be unable to give Charis another London season, and her voice lacked conviction.

  ‘There is one other matter which I wish you will consider,’ Alverstoke said. ‘I don’t know what your thoughts may be on the subject, but I am of the opinion that it is time the boys were provided with another tutor – particularly Jessamy. That he should be grateful for such help as so indifferent a scholar as I am can give him tells its own tale. As for Felix, if Harry means to send him to school in the autumn, he should be prepared – and, in any event, he has run wild for long enough. Oh, don’t look so harassed, my dear! It is for you to decide: I am merely offering you my advice – thereby rendering myself even more abominable!’

  She shook her head. ‘No, that you are not! You are very right, and it is a further proof of my neglect that I shouldn’t have attended to the matter weeks ago. Tell me what will be best for me to do! If we were to be fixed in London, I imagine it would be an easy matter, but –’

  ‘The best thing for you to do is nothing, but to leave it to me to find a tutor scholarly enough to satisfy Jessamy, yet not so steeped in scholarship that he cannot enter into Jessamy’s other interests; too old to fall in love with Charis, but not so old as to be a dead bore to the boys –’

  ‘Stop, stop!’ she cried, throwing up her hands in mock dismay. ‘An impossible task! And even if it were not I shouldn’t ask it of you, cousin!’

  ‘But how is this?’ he enquired, raising his brows. ‘You did ask it of me!’

  ‘I? Asked you to undertake to engage a tutor for my brothers? That would be the outside of enough! I never did so!’

  ‘When I first made your acquaintance, Frederica, you told me that if I became the boys’ guardian it would be proper for me to do so. You added that there was no reason why I shouldn’t be useful. Remember?’

  ‘No. If I said it I could only have been funning. And my memory is reasonably good – unlike yours, dear sir!’

  ‘Mine is erratic,’ he said imperturbably. ‘I remember only what interests me. I shan’t presume to engage a tutor, but if I can discover an eligible candidate I shall send him to wait on you when you return to London.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said meekly. ‘I only wish you may not find it a most wearisome task!’

  He was quite sure that he would, but events proved him to be wrong. On the day after his arrival in Berkeley Square, when he was going through some papers with his secretary, he said casually: ‘By-the-by, Charles, I suppose you don’t number amongst your acquaintance anyone willing to undertake the education of Jessamy and Felix? Quite a temporary arrangement – let us say, for three months.’

  ‘Well, no, sir, unless –’

  He paused, and Alverstoke, lifting his eyes from the document in his hand, saw that he was looking embarrassed. ‘Unless what?’ he asked. ‘You don’t mean to tell me that you do know of such a man?’

  ‘N-no, sir. That is, it did occur to me that Septimus might be the very person. But I hardly like to put him forward, and I beg you won’t hesitate to –’

  ‘Septimus?’

  ‘My brother, sir. He is working for a Fellowship, but I know he meant to seek a post as crammer during the Long Vacation, and I should think he would prefer this one to any other – particularly as you mean to establish the Merrivilles at Alver. He could ride over every day, and continue to live at home, which would please my father.’

  ‘Charles, you are a prince of secretaries!’ said Alverstoke. ‘Write to him immediately! That is, if you think he won’t flinch from the task of coping with two such – er – enterprising pupils?’

  Charles laughed: ‘Lord, no, sir! He’ll like ’em – and I’m pretty confident that they’ll like him. He’s the best of good fellows – no muffin, I promise you! He plays all manner of games, and is fond of field-sports too.’ He caught himself up, flushing. ‘You must judge for yourself, sir! Don’t take my word for it!’

  ‘My dear boy, when have you ever misled me? Invite him to come up on a visit next week! I fancy Felix will be well enough to travel by then, so that he will be able to make Miss Merriville’s acquaintance. Which reminds me that I must call in Upper Wimpole Street tomorrow, to give Charis the latest news of Felix. Don’t let me forget!’

  Charis, meanwhile, had been passing through a variety of emotions. Her first agitation had been soothed by Harry’s bracing treatment; but it had been succeeded by alternating fits of hope and despair, not on Felix’s account, but on her own; and by rapid transitions from bliss to dejection. When Endymion was with her (which he frequently was), her troubles were forgotten: he loved her, and he was a rock of strength. To a dispassionate observer his strength might seem to lie partly in his magnificent physique, and partly in his optimistic pronouncements, but Charis was not a dispassionate observer. When Endymion said that she was not to get into the hips, because everything would be all right and tight; or nobly, if rather vaguely, that she must leave it all to him, she was comforted, never doubting the wisdom or the resolution of so God-like a creature. Doubt assailed her when he was not present, not of his perfection, but of the possibility that they would succeed in their aim. Alverstoke assumed the proportions of a malignant magician, who could cause Endymion to be carried out of reach by the waving of a wand; and Frederica was transformed from her beloved sister into her implacable enemy. Fortunately, perhaps, Frederica’s absence, coupled with his own light duties, made it possible for Endymion to visit her often enough to save her senses from becoming wholly disordered. When he presented himself in Upper Wimpole Street it was on the pretext of visiting Harry, or as escort to Chloë, and however suspicious Buddle might be he could scarcely refuse to admit him. Harry, having decided that he was a right one, connived at these manoeuvres, but behaved with what he considered to be the greatest propriety, never absenting himself from the drawing-room for more than half-an-hour when Endymion was in the house. As for Chloë, deeply sympathetic, and attached almost as fondly to Charis as to her brother, she was ready at all times to provide Endymion with an excuse for presenting himself in Upper Wimpole Street. In this, providence came to her aid, in the guise of influenza. Mrs Dauntry, laid low by this malady, suffered an attack compared with which all other persons’ attacks were as nothing. Assured of the attendance of her maid and of her devoted cousin, she excluded her daughters from her bedchamber, consigning them to the care of Miss Plumley and of Diana’s governess. But as Chloë had emerged from the schoolroom, and Miss Plumley was fully occupied in the sickroom, neither of these ladies placed any bar in the way of her friendship with Charis, or her expeditions under her brother’s aegis.

  It was otherwise with Miss Winsham, who, learning from Mrs Hurley how often Endymion was to be found in Upper Wimpole Street, instantly took Charis to task, scolding her so severely that Charis burst into tears, and completing the work of disintegration by warning her that she would be wise to put Endymion out of her head, since Frederica would never consent to such a marriage.

  The news, brought by Harry, that Frederica was bent on removing her family from London, struck dismay into both the star-crossed lovers’ hearts. Endymion, the first to recover, said stoutly that he could very well contrive to post down to Ramsgate, or any such seaside resort, to steal (little though he liked such shuffling behaviour) clandestine m