‘Certainly not, if I have anything to say in the matter! One of my people can take him back to Upper Wimpole Street: I’ll see to it! Sit down! – I shan’t keep you waiting many minutes.’
He left the room as he spoke, but although the second footman ran all the way to the stables it was rather more than twenty minutes later that Frederica was handed into his lordship’s town carriage. The protesting yelps of Lufra, held in leash by James, followed her; but she resolutely ignored their frantic appeal, merely saying anxiously: ‘You did tell James he mustn’t on any account allow him to run loose, didn’t you, cousin?’
‘Not only did I tell him, but so did you,’ Alverstoke replied, sitting down beside her. ‘Grosvenor Place, Roxton.’
‘The thing is, you see,’ confided Frederica, as the carriage-door was shut, ‘he has not yet grown accustomed to all the London traffic, and he doesn’t understand that he must stay on the flagway. And, of course, when he sees a cat on the other side of the street, or another dog, perhaps, he dashes across, all amongst the chairmen and the carriages, creating the most shocking commotion, because he makes the horses shy, and puts one to the blush!’
‘I can readily believe it! What the deuce made you bring him to London?’
She regarded him in astonishment. ‘Why, what else could we do?’
‘Could you not have left him in charge of – I don’t know! – your gardener – gamekeeper – bailiff?’
‘Oh, no!’ she cried. ‘How can you think we would be so heartless? When he saved Jessamy’s life, just as if he knew – which Charis vows he did – that he owed his own life to Jessamy! Myself, I suspect that he doesn’t remember it at all, for he isn’t in the least afraid of going into water – but three of the village boys threw him into the pond with a brick round his neck, when he was a very young puppy, poor Luff! So Jessamy plunged in after him – and never did I see such a dreadful object as he was, when he came into the house, carrying Luff! Dripping wet, and blood all over his face, because his nose was bleeding, and such a black eye!’
‘A fighter, is he?’
‘N-no – well, only when something of that nature happens, which makes him so burningly angry that he goes in, Harry says, like a tiger. He doesn’t care for boxing nearly as much as Harry does, and I believe he hasn’t very good science – if you know what I mean?’
The Marquis, a distinguished exponent of the noble art, begged her to explain the term.
She wrinkled her brow. ‘Well, it means skill, I think. Not mere flourishing! Oh, and standing up well, and – and showing game, and – oh, yes! – being very gay! Though how anyone could be gay under such circumstances I can’t conceive! I expect Harry is, because he is naturally a gay person, but not Jessamy. No, not Jessamy.’
She fell silent, apparently brooding over Jessamy. Idly amused, Alverstoke said, after a few moments: ‘Is Jessamy the sober member of the family?’
‘Sober?’ She considered this, the wrinkles deepening on her brow. ‘No, not sober, precisely. I can’t describe him, because I don’t understand him myself, now that he is growing up. Mr Ansdell – our Vicar – says that he has an ardent soul, and that I need not be in a worry, because he will become far more rational presently. He means to enter the Church, you know. I must own that I thought this was because of his Confirmation, and that the fit would pass. Not that I don’t wish him to become a clergyman, but it seemed so very unlikely that he would be. He was used to be the most adventurous boy, for ever getting into dangerous scrapes, besides being hunting-mad, and much cleverer in the saddle than Harry – and Harry is no slow-top! Harry told me himself that there was no need to give Jessamy jumping powder, because he throws his heart over any fence his horse can clear! And that was not mere partiality, for the Master told a particular friend of mine that Jessamy was the best horseman, for his age, of any in South Herefordshire!’
Alverstoke, whose interest in Miss Merriville’s brothers was, at the best, tepid, murmured, in a voice which would have informed those who knew him best that he was rapidly becoming bored: ‘Ah? Yes, I seem to recall that when I had the felicity of making his acquaintance I formed the impression that he was – if not hunting-mad, decidedly horse-mad.’
‘Oh, yes!’ she agreed. ‘And every now and then he runs wild, just as he was used to do – only then his conscience never troubled him, and now it does!’ She sighed, but, an instant later, smiled, and said: ‘I beg your pardon! I have been running on like a tattle-box.’
‘Not at all!’ he said politely.
‘I know I have – and about something which is no concern of yours. Never mind! I won’t do so any more.’
He was aware of feeling a twinge of remorse: it prompted him to say, in a warmer voice: ‘Do they worry you so much, these brothers of yours?’
‘Oh, no! Sometimes – a little, because there’s no one but me, and I am only their sister, besides being a female. But they are very good!’
‘Have you no male relatives? I think you spoke of some guardian, or trustee – a lawyer, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, Mr Salcombe! Yes, indeed, he has been most helpful and kind, but he’s not a guardian. Papa didn’t appoint one, you see. We were in dread that the younger ones might be made Wards in Chancery, but Mr Salcombe contrived to avert that danger. I’ve heard people complain that lawyers are shockingly dilatory, but for my part I am excessively thankful for it! He kept on writing letters, and arguing about legal points, until Harry came of age, and could assume responsibility for the children. You would have supposed that he must have wished us all at Jericho, for it went on for months, but he seemed to enjoy it!’
‘I don’t doubt it! He appears to have your interests at heart: doesn’t he keep a hand on the reins?’
‘Manage the boys, do you mean? No: he is not – he is not the sort of person who understands boys. He is a bachelor, and very precise and oldfashioned. The boys call him Old Prosy, which is odiously ungrateful of them, but – well, you see?’
He smiled. ‘Most clearly!’
‘And the only male relative we have is my Aunt Scrabster’s husband. I am only slightly acquainted with him, but I know he wouldn’t be of the least use. He is a very respectable man, but he’s town-bred, and all his interest is in commerce.’
‘Unfo
rtunate – but I daresay your brother Harry will relieve you of your care,’ he said lightly.
There was an infinitesimal pause before she answered: ‘Yes, of course.’
The carriage was drawing up, and a moment later it came to a halt in front of Lady Buxted’s house. He was glad of it. He had missed neither Frederica’s hesitation nor the note of constraint in her voice, and he had thought that it would not be long before she demanded his advice, and even his active help, in the task of guiding her young brothers. She was quite capable of it; and while he was just as capable of withering any such attempt with one of his ruthless set-downs he did not much wish to do this. He liked her. She was unusual, and therefore diverting; she was not a beauty, but she had a good deal of countenance, and an air of breeding which pleased him; and her sister was a ravishing diamond whom he was perfectly willing to sponsor into the ton. There would be flutters in more dovecots than the one he was about to enter, and that would provide him with some entertainment.