‘I should suppose that she had little choice in the matter. I find Carlton intolerably boring, but I’ll say this for him: he’s not afraid of Louisa’s tongue, and he doesn’t knuckle down to her. Or so I collect, from the complaints she has from time to time poured into my unwilling ears.’
‘I had not credited him with so much spirit. Do draw up beside the carriage! I should like to pursue my acquaintance with Frederica.’
He complied with this request, backing the phaeton into place on the right of the landaulet, so that although the high perch of the phaeton made it impossible for his sister to shake hands with Frederica she was able to exchange greetings with her, and might have maintained a conversation had she not decided that to be obliged to talk to anyone sitting so far above her would soon give Frederica a stiff neck. Jessamy had descended from the landaulet, and, with an awkward gallantry, helped her to climb down from her seat, when she expressed her intention to enjoy a comfortable cose with his sisters. She smiled upon him, saying: ‘Thank you! You, I believe, are Jessamy – the one who handles the reins in form! How do you do?’
He flushed, and, as he bowed over her extended hand, stammered a disclaimer. Her ladyship was very good, but quite mistook the matter! He was the merest whipster, as Cousin Alverstoke would tell her!
‘Oh, no! He says you have a – a bit of the drag about you! How do you do, Carlton? I am delighted to see you, but you had liefer go to watch what they are doing to the balloon than talk to an aunt, so you shall give me your place for a while.’
There seemed to be no reason why her ladyship should not have occupied Jessamy’s place, but Lord Buxted, taking his smiling dismissal in good part, forbore to point this out to her. He handed her into the carriage, and turned to look up at his uncle, saying humorously: ‘I can guess what – or perhaps I should say who! – has brought you here in such excellent time, sir!’
‘Yes, an irresistible force. But what the devil brought you here so early?’
‘Oh, much the same cause!’ said Carlton, glancing towards Jessamy, who was paying no heed to him, his attention being divided between his lordship’s horses, and his lordship’s groom. He continued, lowering his voice: ‘I knew that our young cousin there would want to see everything, from the start, and would think himself very hardly used if we had arrived only in time to watch the actual ascension!’
A deadly, and all too familiar boredom crept over the Marquis; an acrid rejoinder hovered on his lips, but remained unspoken. As his derisive eyes scanned his nephew’s countenance he realised that the pompous young slow-top was sincere: he believed in all honesty that he was giving Jessamy a high treat; and, as his next words proved, he had taken pains to render it as instructive as it was exciting.
‘Knowing that I should be expected to answer all manner of questions, I took the precaution of consulting my Encyclopaedia yesterday,’ Buxted said. ‘I must own that I became quite absorbed in the subject! The information was not quite up-to-date, but the adventures of the first ballooners held me positively spellbound! I have been entertaining my companions with an account of Professor Charles’s experiments. I daresay Jessamy will be able to tell you the height to which he rose on one occasion, eh, Jessamy?’ he added, raising his voice.
He was obliged to repeat the question before he could divert Jessamy’s attention from the leader to whom he was addressing soft blandishments, and even then it was Alverstoke who supplied him with the answer.
‘Two thousand feet,’ he said, coming to Jessamy’s rescue. ‘Not for nothing have I endured your brother’s company this day, Jessamy! So don’t attempt to tell me that Lunardi filled his balloon with gas procured from zinc; or that Tyler ascended half-a-mile, at Edinburgh; or even that Blanchard once came to rest in an oak-tree, because I am already fully informed on these and a great many other matters!’
‘Ah, Felix has an enquiring mind!’ said Buxted, smiling indulgently. ‘Where is the little rascal?’
‘Probably taking an active part in the excessively tedious preparations within the enclosure.’
‘I hardly think he will have contrived to gain admittance, but perhaps we should go to see that he isn’t in mischief, Jessamy. I daresay you too will like to watch the bag being filled,’ said Buxted kindly.
He turned away, to suggest that the ladies might care to go with them; and Jessamy, looking up at the Marquis, said: ‘I wish I were in Felix’s shoes! Your grays too! Did he ask you to drive him behind a team, sir? I told him you would not, so now he’s got a point the best of me. Little ape! – Yes, Cousin Buxted, I’m coming!’
The ladies having declined the offered treat, Buxted and Jessamy went off together; but it was not many minutes before Jessamy returned. Alverstoke, who had alighted from the phaeton, and was standing talking to Frederica, turned his head. ‘Murdered him?’ he enquired.
Jessamy was betrayed into a laugh, which he instantly checked, saying: ‘No, no! But there was no bearing it, so I made an excuse to come away. It was bad enough when he would prose on for ever about these intolerable aeronautics – just as though I hadn’t heard enough of them from Felix! – but when he got to reading Felix a lecture, and begging those men’s pardons for having permitted him to plague them, I knew I should be at dagger-drawing with him, if I stayed! So I didn’t.’
‘Is Felix plaguing them?’ asked Frederica. ‘Ought I to fetch him away?’
‘He wouldn’t come – particularly now that Cousin Buxted has told him to do so! Saying that people engaged on important matters didn’t want “little boys” under their feet. That set up Felix’s bristles in a trice, I can tell you! Well, can you wonder at it?’
‘A very ill-judged remark,’ agreed Alverstoke gravely.
‘Well, you wouldn’t call him a little boy to his face, now would you?’
‘Of course he wouldn’t!’ said Eliza, her eyes dancing. ‘I distinctly recollect that he called him, this very day, an abominable young thatchgallows!’
‘Exactly so, ma’am!’ said Jessamy. ‘He wouldn’t care a straw for that, any more than he cared for my telling him that he was a disgusting little scrub! But to call him a little boy – ! Why, I wouldn’t do so, no matter how angry I might be!’
‘I collect,’ said Frederica, in a resigned voice, ‘that the pains Charis and I took to send him out in good trim were wasted.’
‘He looks like one of the scaff and raff,’ said Jessamy candidly. ‘But as for getting under those men’s feet – ! They like him, Frederica! And even if they didn’t it’s no concern of Buxted’s! What right has he to behave as if he were our guardian? Pinching at one in that – that kind way which gets up one’s back till –’ He stopped, clipping his lips together, and after a moment’s struggle said: ‘I shouldn’t say so. He is a very respectable man, and – and he bore me no malice when I was shockingly uncivil to him. I am determined not to let him provoke me again. So I came away.’
‘Very proper,’ said Alverstoke. ‘Did you learn when the balloon is going to make its ascension?’
‘No, sir. That is, I heard someone say that there is very little wind, and I believe they were discussing whether to make the flight, or to postpone it. But I wasn’t really attending.’
‘Then I wish you had been!’ said Alverstoke. ‘I find this affair quite as tedious as you do, and should be delighted to withdraw from it. O my God! – if it is postponed Felix will expect me to repeat this performance!’
Frederica laughed. ‘Don’t be alarmed! I won’t let him tease you to bring him here again.’