Frederica Read online

  She was so much astonished that she could only stare at him. He pressed her hand reassuringly before he released it, repeating: ‘I promise you!’

  She found her voice. ‘Not married? Not, Mr Trevor?’

  ‘No, no! It – er – came to nothing!’

  ‘Oh, thank God!’ she cried. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s with Mrs Dauntry at present, but I trust she will be able to return here tomorrow. I thought, since she had a valise, that it would be best for her not to come home tonight. On account of the servants, you know.’

  ‘With Mrs Dauntry?’ she said, quite bemused. ‘But how – why – ?’

  ‘Charles, how the devil do you come to be mixed up in the affair?’ demanded Alverstoke.

  ‘Well, it’s rather a long story, sir!’

  ‘Are you going to tell me that you knew of this deplorable scheme?’

  ‘Good God, no, sir! I came into it by accident. Surely you don’t imagine –’

  ‘No, of course he doesn’t!’ interrupted Eliza. ‘Sit down, and tell us all about it before I expire with curiosity! Oh, I beg your pardon, Frederica!’

  ‘Never mind begging Frederica’s pardon!’ said his lordship. He met his secretary’s stern gaze, and smiled. ‘You must forgive me, my dear boy. I have reached the stage when nothing has the power to surprise me, you see. What was the accident which brought you into it?’

  Relaxing, Mr Trevor seated himself, and, after a moment’s consideration, said: ‘I had better tell it you from the start, I think. You’ll remember, sir, that you desired me to attend to a matter of business, which took me to the Temple? Well, I did so, this morning. On my way back I suddenly saw Dauntry, in the churchyard of St Clement Danes. It seemed an odd place to find him in, but the thing that most struck me was that he had a portmanteau with him. Still, it wasn’t any business of mine, and I was just about to go on my way when a hack drove up to the church, and out jumped your brother, Miss Merriville! And the next instant he handed Miss Charis Merriville down, and pulled out a valise from the hack.’

  ‘Was she crying?’ enquired his lordship.

  ‘I don’t know; but I could see she was rather agitated, by the way she was clinging to Merriville’s arm.’

  ‘I expect she was crying,’ said his lordship, in a satisfied tone.

  ‘Cousin Alverstoke, if you say one more word – ! Pray go on, Mr Trevor!’

  ‘Well – I guessed then, of course. I never was in their confidence, but I did know that Dauntry and Miss Merriville were very much attached to each other, and also that you, ma’am, were opposed to the match.’

  ‘I daresay you had that from Chloë,’ remarked his lordship blandly.

  ‘A great many people knew it,’ said Frederica, pointedly ignoring this interpolation. ‘So what did you do, sir?’

  Charles, a trifle flushed, threw her a grateful look. ‘At first, I didn’t do anything,’ he confessed. ‘For one thing, I was pretty well bowled out; and, for another, I didn’t know what to do! It was very awkward, you know. I hadn’t the least right to interfere, particularly when her brother was with her. By the time I’d made up my mind that I ought to make a push to stop them doing such an imprudent thing, they had been inside the church for several minutes. So I ran across the street, and went in after them. There was no one there, except them, and the curate, and the verger, and the curate had begun the service. Which was a bit of a facer, because I couldn’t walk up to them, and say I wanted to speak to them, or call out: ‘Wait a minute!’ or anything of that nature. Not when the service had begun, and with the verger glaring at me! I’m not in orders myself, but my father is, and my eldest brother, and the idea of making a scene in church fairly made me shudder! So I sat down at the back, trying to think what I should do, and of course I remembered the just cause or impediment bit, and waited for it.’

  ‘Charles!’ said Eliza, awed. ‘You didn’t get up and say there was an impediment?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Well, I said, “Yes, I do!” I don’t think the curate had ever had such a thing happen to him before, because he was so flabbergasted he just stood there with his mouth open, and by the time he’d collected his wits enough to order us all into the vestry there was such a rumpus that nobody paid any heed to him. What with Dauntry roaring out that I’d no right to meddle, and wanting to know what the devil I meant by it; and Merriville flying into a passion, and saying that there wasn’t any impediment, and that he was Miss Merriville’s lawful guardian; and Miss Merriville in hysterics, it was the most shocking scene. And I’m bound to own that I said a few things myself – quite forgetting where I was! However, we went into the vestry at last, and things quietened down, because Dauntry was in such a stew over Miss Merriville, that he was too busy trying to soothe her to go on abusing me.’

  ‘Did he succeed?’ asked Alverstoke.

  ‘No, but Merriville did. He threw a glass of water in her face.’

  ‘Quite right!’ nodded Frederica.

  ‘Well, I daresay it was,’ said Charles dubiously. ‘The only thing was that, though it did stop the vapours, it made her cry, and that led to a fresh uproar, because Dauntry came to cuffs with Merriville for doing it, and Merriville said he would do what he chose to his own sister, and so they fell into a quarrel. Which was quite a good thing, because I was able to draw the curate aside, and – and smooth him down a trifle.’

  ‘Charles,’ said Alverstoke, much moved, ‘I have never done you justice! It must be the diplomatic service for you!’

  Charles blushed, and laughed. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t very successful, sir! He was as mad as fire – and no one could blame him! But the main thing was that he said he refused to perform the ceremony, no matter whether there was an impediment or not, because we were a set of infidels, and a lot more to that tune. Then Merriville said he washed his hands of the whole affair, and since I’d played boots with everything I could damned – I mean, he told me I could now be responsible for the rest. And he flung off in a rage. That was a good thing too.’

  ‘A very good thing!’ said Frederica. ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘Well, I managed to persuade the curate to permit us to stay in the vestry until Miss Merriville had recovered. And once I’d got rid of him, and Miss Merriville had stopped crying, I – I talked to them! Showing them how improper it was, and so on. Then Dauntry said that he hadn’t been quite easy about it from the start, and after a while it came out that he thought you, as well as Miss Merriville, would do what you could do to separate him from Miss Charis, sir.’

  ‘Mea culpa! I gave him a hint not to be so particular in his attentions!’

  ‘Yes, he told me about that, but I think he had the notion fixed in his head long before then. Well – I ventured to tell him that I was pretty sure you wouldn’t care a rush if he married Miss Merriville, but you’d cut up stiff if he went about it in a havey-cavey way.’

  ‘How well you understand me, my dear boy! Did he fear I should instantly reduce him to penury?’

  ‘Oh, no! He said he was going to sell out, and try his hand at farming. In the Shires,’ added Mr Trevor demurely.

  ‘Good God! Then, if he was ready to face having his allowance stopped, what was he afraid of? What the devil did he think I could do to stop his marriage?’

  ‘He appeared to think,’ said Mr Trevor, his countenance wooden, ‘that you would contrive to get him sent abroad on a diplomatic mission.’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence, before both the ladies fell into gusts of merriment.

  ‘But I told him,’ said Mr Trevor, ‘that I rather fancied it would be beyond your power.’

  ‘You might well!’ said Alverstoke, who had sunk his brow on his hand.

  ‘I also told him – and I hope you won’t object, sir – that what he ought to do was to tell you the whole, and – and trust to you to make all right with Mrs Dauntry.’

  ‘And with me?’ asked Frederica.

  ‘Well, yes!’ he confessed. ‘I did say that! Wh