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
people might talk about Barcelona collies if they chose, but that she for one didn’t believe a word of it, and that it was coming to something when one couldn’t go for an airing in the park without being attacked by savage dogs.
The Marquis had recourse to his deadliest weapon: he raised his quizzing-glass to his eye. Strong men had been known to blench when that glass had been levelled at them. The hatchet-faced lady did not blench, but speech was withered on her tongue. The Marquis said: ‘You must forgive me, ma’am: I have a lamentably bad memory, but I believe I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance? Cousin, pray introduce me!’
Frederica, who was rapidly revising her first, unfavourable opinion of him, replied promptly: ‘I can’t, because I haven’t the least notion who she may be, or why she would come here. Unless it was to assure herself that you are indeed my cousin, which she seemed to doubt!’
‘It doesn’t appear to be an entirely adequate reason,’ he said. ‘However, if, for some reason hidden from me, ma’am, you wish for reassurance on this point, you have it! Miss Merriville and I are cousins.’
‘I’m sure it’s of no interest to me, my lord!’ she returned, reddening. ‘What’s more, if I hadn’t thought it my duty to do so, I shouldn’t have come! Or if I hadn’t seen as plain as plain that the moment Miss Merriville talked about her cousin the Marquis those – those two toadeaters were ready to let that vicious animal attack everyone in the park!’
Faint, protesting sounds came from the park-keepers, but the Marquis ignored them. ‘I had no idea he was so dangerous,’ he remarked. ‘I trust you sustained no injury, ma’am?’
‘I didn’t say he attacked me! But –’
‘He didn’t attack anyone!’ struck in Frederica.
‘Oh, indeed? And I daresay he didn’t knock down a poor little boy, and frighten all those sweet innocents out of their wits? Oh, no!’
Frederica laughed. ‘No, he didn’t knock the little boy down. To be sure, the children were scared of him at first, but as soon as they understood that he only wanted to play with them they very soon recovered their wits. In fact, they begged me to bring him to the park again tomorrow!’
‘It was my cows he attacked!’ interposed the cowman. ‘And you saying as how he was herding them, miss, being as he was bred to do so, in Spain! Which he never was! I never been to Spain meself, nor I ain’t wishful to do so, me not holding with furriners, but what I say, and stand to, is that cows is cows, all the world over, and not even a benighted heathen wouldn’t train a dog to scatter a herd like that nasty brute done! Mr Munslow there, begging your lordship’s pardon, ups and says he was a mongrel; but all I says is that he ain’t no collie, Barcelona nor otherwise!’
The younger park-keeper was understood to say, twisting his hat between his hands and casting an imploring look at the Marquis, that no offence had been meant, but that Miss had said that the dog was a Barcelona collie, which he couldn’t believe, not if he lived to be a hundred, no matter (drawing a resolute breath) who told him different.
‘So I should hope,’ said the Marquis. ‘He is nothing of the sort, of course.’ He turned his head towards Frederica, and said in a voice of weary boredom: ‘Really, cousin, you are too shatterbrained! He is a hound, not a collie; and what I told you was not Barcelona, but Baluchistan! Baluchistan, Frederica!’
‘Oh, dear! So you did! How – how stupid of me!’ she replied unsteadily.