Frederica Read online

  ‘Yes, and these men had better come in too,’ said Frederica.

  ‘Certainly, ma’am – if you wish them to do so,’ responded Wicken. ‘But I venture to think that they will be quite comfortable in the hall.’

  With this opinion even the cowman was in the fullest agreement, but Frederica would have none of it. ‘No, for they too wish to speak to his lordship,’ she said. She then invited the hatchet-faced lady to sit down; and Wicken, not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid betraying his emotions, held the door for the rest of the party to enter the room.

  James, meanwhile, had gone up the stairs to the Marquis’s dressing-room, and had tapped on the door. It was a very soft, deprecating tap, the Marquis being notoriously ill-disposed towards persons seeking admittance to his room before noon; and he was obliged to tap again, a little more loudly. He was not invited to enter, but the door was opened to him by his lordship’s very superior valet, who appeared to regard his intrusion as a form of sacrilege, demanding to know, in an outraged undervoice, what he wanted.

  ‘It’s urgent, Mr Knapp!’ whispered James. ‘Mr Wicken said I was to tell his lordship!’

  These words acted, as he had felt sure they must, as a passport. Knapp allowed him to step into the room, but adjured him, still in an undervoice, not to stir from the door, or to make the least sound, until he was bid. He then trod silently back to the dressing-table, at which my lord was seated, engaged in the important task of arranging his neckcloth.

  Only his sisters had ever stigmatised Alverstoke as a dandy. He adopted none of the extremes of fashion which made the younger members of this set ridiculous, and which would certainly have disgusted Mr Brummell, had that remarkable man still been the arbiter of taste in London. Mr Brummell, obliged by sordid circumstances to retire to the Continent, was living in obscurity, but the smarts of his generation had not swerved from the tenets he had laid down. Alverstoke, three years his junior, had encountered him in his flamboyant salad days, and had been swift to discard every one of his colourful waistcoats, his flashing tie-pins, and his multitude of fobs and seals. A man whose raiment attracted attention, had said Mr Brummell, was not a well-dressed man. Clean linen, perfectly cut coats, and the nice arrangement of his neckcloths were the hall-marks of the man of ton, and to these simple rules Alverstoke had thenceforward adhered, achieving, by patience and practice, the reputation of being one of the most elegant men on the town. Disdaining to adopt the absurdities of starched shirt-points so high that they obscured his vision and made it impossible for him to turn his head, and such intricacies as the Mathematical or the Oriental ties, he evolved his own style of neckwear: discreet, yet so exquisite as to arouse envy in the breasts of the younger generation.

  James was well aware of this; and, since his secret ambition was to rise to the position of a gentleman’s gentleman, Knapp’s admonition was unnecessary. For no consideration would he have disturbed the Marquis at such a moment; and he saw nothing at all to provoke laughter in the Marquis’s attitude: he was only sorry that he had not arrived in time to see the dexterous turn his lordship gave the foot-wide muslin cloth before it was placed round his collar. This had obviously been successful, for Knapp had laid aside the six or seven neckcloths he had been holding in readiness to hand the Marquis if his first attempts should be failures; and that gentleman was now gazing at the ceiling. Fascinated, James watched the gradual lowering of his chin, and the deft pressing into permanent shape of the creases thus created in the snowy muslin. In an expansive moment, Knapp had once told him that all his lordship did, to achieve those beautiful folds, was to drop his jaw some four or five times. It had sounded easy, and it looked easy; but his budding sartorial instinct told James that it was not easy at all. He held his breath while the operation was in progress, only letting it go when the Marquis, having critically inspected the result of his skill, laid down his hand-mirror, and said: ‘Yes, that will do.’

  He rose, as he spoke, and, as he slid his arms into the waistcoat Knapp was holding, looked across the room at James. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Begging your lordship’s pardon, it’s Miss Merriville – wishful to see your lordship, immediate!’ disclosed James. ‘On a matter of urgency!’ he added.

  The Marquis looked faintly surprised, but all he said was: ‘Indeed? Inform Miss Merriville that I will be with her directly. My coat, Knapp!’

  ‘Yes, my lord. In the book-room, my lord, I believe.’

  Having in this masterly manner disclaimed all responsibility for his superior’s deviation from the normal, James withdrew circumspectly. Knapp remarked, as he shook out a handkerchief, and presented it to Alverstoke, that he wondered why Wicken should not have shown Miss Merriville into the saloon; but Alverstoke, picking up his quizzing-glass, and passing its long ribbon over his head, merely said Wicken probably had his reasons.

  Several minutes later, looking precise to a pin in a dark blue coat which appeared to have been moulded to his form, very pale pantaloons, and very highly polished Hessian boots, he came down the stairs to find Wicken awaiting him. ‘Why my book-room, Wicken?’ he enquired. ‘Don’t you think my cousin worthy of being taken up to the saloon?’

  ‘Certainly, my lord,’ responded Wicken. ‘But Miss Merriville is not alone.’

  ‘So I should suppose.’

  ‘I was not referring to the female accompanying her, my lord. There are three other persons, whom I thought it more proper to usher into the book-room than the saloon.’

  Having been acquainted with his butler from his earliest youth, Alverstoke did not fall into the error of supposing that the unknown persons came of the professorial class. Others, less familiar with Wicken, might think his countenance sphinx-like, but it was plain to Alverstoke that he profoundly disapproved of Miss Merriville’s escort. ‘Well, who are they?’ Alverstoke asked.

  ‘As to that, my lord, I’m sure I shouldn’t care to say, though two of them appear, from their raiment, to be employed in some official, but menial, capacity.’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Alverstoke.

  ‘Yes, my lord. There is also a Dog – a very large dog. I was unable to recognise the breed.’

  ‘Is there, by God! I wonder what the deuce –’ he broke off. ‘Something tells me, Wicken, that danger awaits me in the book-room!’

  ‘Oh, no, my lord!’ said Wicken reassuringly. ‘It is not, I fancy, a fierce animal.’

  He opened the door into the book-room as he spoke, and held it for Alverstoke. He then suffered a slight shock, for, as Alverstoke paused on the threshold, surveying the assembled company, Lufra, who was lying at Frederica’s feet, recognised in him the agreeable visitor whose magical fingers had found the precise spot on his spine which he was unable to attend to himself, and scrambled up, uttering a high-pitched bark, and launched himself forward. It was only for a moment that Wicken thought he meant to attack the Marquis; but the hatchet-faced lady, blind to the flattened ears and furiously waving tail, screamed, and called on all to witness that she had said it from the start: the creature was savage, and ought to be shot.

  The Marquis, restraining Lufra’s ardour, said: ‘Thank you! I’m much obliged to you, but that’s enough! Down, Luff! Down!’

  The park-keepers exchanged significant glances: no doubt about it: the dog belonged to the Marquis right enough. Frederica, feeling that Lufra had done much to atone for his bad behaviour, rose, and went towards Alverstoke, saying: ‘Oh, cousin, you can’t think how glad I am to find you at home! This vexatious dog of yours has embroiled me in such a scrape! I declare, I’ll never offer to take him out for you again!’

  To her profound relief, he took this without a blink, merely saying, as he bent to pat Lufra: ‘You shock me, Frederica! What has he been doing?’

  Three persons told him, in chorus. He interrupted them, saying: ‘One at a time – if I am expected to understand the matter!’

  Frederica, and the cowman, were silenced; but the hatchet-faced lady was made of sterner stuff. She said that