Another sob shook Charis. ‘Alas, it’s worse than you know! And I have the gravest fear that Endymion will be torn from me!’
‘No, that’s coming it much too strong!’ said Harry, revolted. ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk such balderdash! Torn from you indeed! By Frederica, I collect!’
‘Oh, no, no! By Cousin Alverstoke!’
He stared. ‘What the devil has he to do with it?’
‘Endymion is his heir,’ replied Charis mournfully.
‘Well, what if he is?’ With a stirring of his earlier suspicion, he said: ‘Is he dangling after you himself?’
She looked astonished. ‘Alverstoke? Good gracious, no! He likes Frederica better than me, but he isn’t dangling after either of us. I expect, if he ever does marry, it will be someone of high rank and fortune, for everybody says that he is very proud, besides being of the first consequence. You may depend upon it that he means Endymion to do the same. And so does Endymion’s mama. She is determined he shall make a brilliant match: Chloë told me so. She is his sister, you know, and the dearest girl! She says that Mrs Dauntry is always on the look-out for a suitable heiress. One can’t wonder at it, or blame her. He is not rich, you see, and if Cousin Alverstoke ceased to make him an allowance he would be quite poor. I shouldn’t care a straw for that, and he says he wouldn’t either, but – oh, Harry, he has been used to live in the first circles, and to ride splendid hunters, and not to consider expense very much, and I am so afraid he would hate to be obliged to make and scrape!’
Harry was beginning to think that Frederica was wiser than he had at first supposed; but since he knew Charis would start to cry again if he said so he sought for something consoling to say instead, finally achieving: ‘Well, I see no occasion for you to be thrown into gloom! Ten to one Alverstoke won?
?t raise any objection. After all, he hasn’t tried to interfere, has he?’
‘He doesn’t know,’ said Charis, refusing to be comforted. ‘Mrs Dauntry suspects, but Chloë says she is hoping it is only a horrid flirtation. But if Frederica was aware of my sentiments, and begged Cousin Alverstoke to intervene – !’ She shuddered, and clasped her hands tensely together. ‘You see, he could, Harry! He could arrange for Endymion to be sent abroad, for instance, and then I think I should die. Oh, my dear brother, there’s no one to help us but you, and I count on your support!’
By this time Harry was heartily regretting that he had been rusticated. There seemed to be every prospect of finding himself embroiled in just the sort of situation he would most wish to avoid. He said uneasily: ‘Yes, but I don’t see what I can do.’
Charis did not appear to have any very clear idea either, for while, in one breath, she begged him not to divulge her confidence to Frederica, in the next she charged him with the office of persuading her to look with a kindly eye upon Endymion, and to forbid her to approach Alverstoke.
By no stretch of the imagination could Harry conjure up a vision of himself forbidding Frederica to do that, or anything else; but he naturally did not say so. Nor did he tell Charis that while it was not wholly impossible that Frederica would be swayed by his persuasion it was extremely unlikely that she would be. He said instead that he would do his best, and faithfully fulfilled his promise at the first opportunity that offered. He told Frederica that he wouldn’t wonder at it if Endymion, whom he described as a trump, and quite up to the hub, wasn’t just the man for Charis.
‘A trump!’ exclaimed Frederica. ‘Because he’s a Melton man, and has an eye to a hound? Harry, how can you be so absurd? He’s nothing but a handsome moonling!’
‘Oh, he don’t want for sense!’ said Harry. ‘I don’t say he’s one of the longheaded ones, but – dash it, Freddy! there’s precious little in Charis’s cockloft!’
She was unable to deny this, but said: ‘The more reason for her to marry a man of superior sense! Surely you must perceive – Harry, I do beg of you not to encourage her in this nonsense! You must know what she is! She may have been dazzled by his appearance – I don’t know, but I think it very likely, for I will allow him to be a remarkably fine young man, and she has, most unfortunately, seen him in full regimentals – but if he were to be removed from her sight she would very soon forget all about him! My dear, you cannot, in all seriousness, wish your sister to throw herself away on a personable nodcock of small fortune and no prospects worthy of a moment’s consideration!’
‘I don’t know that,’ objected Harry. ‘He’s Alverstoke’s heir, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, at present he is. But when Alverstoke marries, and has sons, what then, pray?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think he would!’ said Harry. ‘Well, he’s quite old now, isn’t he?’
‘Old?’ she ejaculated. ‘If you consider a man of seven-and-thirty old, you must be a bigger greenhead than I knew! He is in the prime of life!’
Slightly taken aback, he said: ‘Well, past the age of falling into Parson’s mousetrap, at all events! I should think he must be a confirmed bachelor, wouldn’t you? Dash it, there must have been hundreds of females on the scramble for him any time these dozen years, and more!’
She replied, in a colourless voice: ‘Very likely!’ and immediately turned the subject, asking him if he did not feel that Mr Navenby, with all the advantages of birth, fortune, and amiability, would be an ideal husband for Charis.
Unfortunately, Harry had not taken a fancy to Mr Navenby. Having himself no ambition to sport a figure in the world of fashion, he was much inclined to regard with contempt even such mild aspirants to dandyism as Mr Navenby. He exclaimed: ‘What, that bandbox creature? I should hope Charis would have more sense than to marry him! Why, Dauntry is worth a dozen of him!’
Knowing that any attempts to persuade Harry that an addiction to sport was not the most desirable quality to be looked for in a husband would be useless, Frederica said no more: a restraint which enabled him to feel that he had discharged his obligation to Charis, and might now, with a clear conscience, turn his attention to matters of more immediate importance.
Chief amongst these was the absolute necessity of presenting Alverstoke’s card at No. 13 Bond Street, where John Jackson had for many years given lessons in the art of self-defence. Harry had not been born when Jackson, in the last of his three public fights, had beaten the great Mendoza in exactly ten and a half minutes, but, like every other young amateur (or indeed, professional), he could have described in detail each round of this, and Jackson’s two previous encounters; and he was well aware of the unique position held, and maintained without ostentation, by the pugilist whose pleasant manners and superior intellect had earned for him the sobriquet of Gentleman. Anyone, upon payment of a fee, could get instruction at No. 13 Bond Street, but by no means everyone could hope to engage the attention of Gentleman Jackson himself, as Harry, armed with Alverstoke’s card, hoped to do. If he had had any doubts of the value of this talisman, they would have been dissipated by the reverence with which his knowledgeable friend, Mr Peplow, inspected it. Alverstoke, said Mr Peplow, was a noted amateur of the Fancy: none of your moulders, but a boxer of excellent science, who was said to display to great advantage, and was always ready to take the lead in milling. A Corinthian? No: Mr Peplow, frowning over it, did not think that his lordship belonged to that, or any other, set. He was certainly a top-sawyer, and a first-rate fiddler: might be said, in fact, to cap the globe at most forms of sport; he was extremely elegant, too: trim as a trencher, one might say; but in an unobtrusive style of his own which never included the very latest quirks of fashion. ‘The thing is,’ said Mr Peplow confidentially, ‘he’s devilish high in the instep!’ Too young to know that the Marquis had taken Mr Brummell for his model, he added: ‘Sets his own mode. Never follows another man’s lead. Always been one of the first in consequence, you see, and holds himself very much up. Mind, I don’t mean to say he’s one of those stiff-rumped fellows who think themselves above their company – though he can give some pretty nasty set-downs, by all accounts!’
‘Do you like him?’ demanded Harry.
‘Me?’ exclaimed Mr Peplow, scandalised. ‘Good God, Harry, I’m not acquainted with him! Only telling you what people say!’
‘Well, he didn’t give me one, and my young brothers swear he’s a great gun: they ain’t a bit afraid of him!’
‘Oh! Oh, well, you’re related to him, ain’t you?’
‘Yes, but that has nothing to say to anything! One of his nephews is dangling after my sister Charis – some sort of a cousin of mine! Gregory – Gregory Sandford, or Sandridge: I don’t know! – but it didn’t seem to me as if he knows Alverstoke well enough to get as much as a common bow in passing from him! Which makes me wonder –’ He broke off. Mr Peplow, with exquisite tact, forbore to press him; and was rewarded by a burst of confidence. ‘Well, I won’t scruple to tell you, Barny, that what with his indulging Jessamy and Felix, as he does, and giving me his card, for Jackson, I can’t help wondering if he’s dangling after Charis too!’