Джорджетт Хейер - Frederica

“Have no fear!” said the Marquis, addressing himself to the cowman. “The matter shall be suitably adjusted! Ah, come in, Charles!”

Mr Trevor, considerably astonished by the scene that met his eyes, said: “You sent for me, sir?”

“I did, yes. This Baluchistan hound of mine, which my cousin offered to exercise for me, has been getting me into trouble. I regret to say that he — er — forgot himself amongst the cows in Green Park.”

Mr Trevor might have been momentarily staggered, but he was by no means slow-witted, and it did not need the warning glance directed at him from under his employer’s lazy eyelids to put him on his guard. He said calmly that he was sorry to hear it; and when he looked at the Baluchistan hound, who was sniffing interestedly at his legs, only the faintest twitch at the corners of his mouth disturbed the gravity of his expression.

“Just so!” said his lordship. “I knew you would be shocked, and I’m persuaded I can leave the matter in your hands.” He smiled, and added softly: “You are always to be depended on, Charles!” He then turned to the complainants, and said: “Mr Trevor will settle everything to your satisfaction, I trust, so go with him to his office! Ah! — two of the Deputy Ranger’s people, Charles, and the herdsman!”

He nodded dismissal to his visitors. They departed willingly, having correctly interpreted his words to mean that suitable largesse would presently be distributed amongst them, and feeling that Mr Trevor would be an easier man to deal with than the Marquis.

Charles signed to them to precede him out of the room, and when they had filed past him, lingered for a moment, looking at Frederica. “How much damage did he do, Miss Merriville?”

Emerging from her handkerchief, Frederica showed him not a tearful but a laughing countenance. “Oh, I don’t think he hurt the cows at all, because we caught him before he had time to!”

“In that case, then — ”

“No, Charles!” interposed the Marquis. “My sole desire is to be rid of the business, and this is not the moment to be clutch-fisted!”

“Oh, I’ll see to it that you’re rid of it, sir!” said Charles cheerfully, and withdrew.

“Well, what an excellent young man!” said Frederica.

“He is, isn’t he?” agreed Alverstoke.

She looked up at him. “Yes, and you too! You were truly splendid, and I am very much obliged to you! Oh, and I do beg your pardon for having embroiled you! The thing was, you see, that they threatened to impound Luff, and only think what the consequences might have been! That was why I said he belonged to you.” A gurgle of laughter rose in her throat. “L-like P-puss in Boots!”

“Like what?” he demanded.

“M-my cousin the M-Marquis of Alverstoke!” she explained. “You know!”

“No doubt I am extremely dull-witted, but I — ”

He broke off, as enlightenment dawned on him, and the frown left his brow. “Oh! — the Marquis of Carabas!”

“Of course! And it answered! Except with that horrid creature you gave such a set-down to! I never in my life heard anything so ruthlessly uncivil, but I must own that I enjoyed it!” She began to laugh again. “Oh, but you nearly overset me when you said Luff was a Baluchistan hound! And so you shall be, you bad dog!”

Gratified, Lufra reared himself on his hind legs, and licked her face. She pushed his forepaws off her knees, and got up. “You are a shameless commoner!” she informed him. She raised her eyes to Alverstoke’s and held out her hand. “Thank you!” she said, smiling at him. “I must go now. You will tell me, won’t you, how much Mr Trevor was obliged to pay those men?”

“Just a moment!” he said. “You haven’t explained to me how it comes about that you were walking alone, cousin.”

“No,” she agreed. “But then, you haven’t explained to me how it comes about that that is your concern, have you?”

“I am perfectly ready to do so, however. Whatever may be the accepted mode in Herefordshire, in London it won’t do. Girls of your age and breeding don’t go about town unaccompanied.”

“Well, in general I don’t do so, and, naturally, I would never permit Charis to. But I’m not a girl. I daresay you might think me one, being yourself so much older, but I promise you I ceased to be a young miss years ago! And, in any event, I am not answerable to you for my actions, Cousin Alverstoke!”

“Oh, yes, you are!” he retorted. “If you expect me to launch you into society, Frederica, you will conform to society’s rules! You’ll either do as I bid you, or I shall wash my hands of you. If you are determined to set the world in a bustle, find another sponsor!”

She flushed, and her lips parted. But whatever stinging reply she had been about to utter she suppressed, closing her lips firmly. After a pause, she managed to smile, and to say: “I daresay you would be very happy to wash your hands of us, after today’s adventure.”

“Oh, no!” he said coolly. “You may put that out of your mind!”

“That is precisely what I can’t do, though I wish very much that I could, because it almost slays me to be compelled to keep my tongue between my teeth!” she told him. “I should dearly love to come to cuffs with you, my lord, but I’m not sunk quite below reproach — though I must say I think you are!” she added frankly.

“But why?” he asked, beginning to be amused.

“Because you knew very well when you pinched at me in that odious way that I was too much obliged to you to give you a set-off!”

He laughed. “Do you think you could?”

“Yes, to be sure I could! I can say very cutting things when I’m put into a passion.”

“I’ll endure them!”

She shook her head, a dimple peeping in her cheek. “No, I’ve come down from the boughs now. To own the truth, I think I flew into them because my aunt says exactly what you did: nothing makes one so cross as knowing one is in the wrong, does it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

She looked surprised, but decided not to pursue the matter. “Well, I’ll try not to put you to the blush. The case is that Charis has one of her colds, and Jessamy, you know, works at his books every morning: that’s why Charis and I take Luff out walking. He needs a great deal of exercise — more than he can get in London, poor fellow!”

“Then why not Felix, or your maid?”

“I haven’t a maid — not an abigail, I mean. Only the housemaids, and they are all town-bred, and it is the greatest bore to go out walking with any of them, because they will dawdle, or say their shoes hurt them. I would have taken Felix, only that he was set on visiting a Mechanical Museum, and he would have been glumpish all the way if I had insisted on his bearing me company. Oh, pray don’t frown! I won’t do it again!”

“You need a footman,” he said, still frowning.

“What, to protect me? Luff does that, I promise you!”

“To wait on you — carry your parcels — deliver your letters.”

“I suspect you mean I need one to add to my consequence!”

“That too,” he replied.

She looked thoughtful, and presently smiled, rather ruefully. “To present a respectable appearance, as Buddle says! He wished me to bring Peter to London, but I left him at Graynard, because, for one thing, Mr Forth was anxious to hire him; and, for another, it seemed such an unnecessary expense. However, I own I have felt the want of a footman, on Buddle’s account: he’s too old for these horrid London houses.”

“Is the expense a bar?” he asked bluntly.

“Oh, no! I’ll hire a footman, and he can take the place of the maid who at present helps Buddle.”

“No, leave it to me!” he said. “Hiring footmen — London footmen — is no work for green girls.”

“Thank you: you are very obliging! But there is no reason why you should be put to that trouble.”

“I shan’t be. Trevor will find a suitable man, and send him to see Buddle.”

“Then I shall be very much obliged to him.” She held out her hand again. “Now, I’ll say goodbye, cousin.”

“Not yet! Unless you have some urgent business to attend to, I suggest you allow me to drive you to visit my sister. She wishes to make your acquaintance, and this seems a good opportunity to take you to see her.”

Startled, she said: “Oh, but Charis —! Surely she should go too? Won’t Lady Buxted think it very uncivil — when she has consented to introduce her at your ball?”

“No, how should she, when the circumstances are explained to her? She would think it far more uncivil of you to delay making this visit of ceremony.”

“Yes, but Charis will be well again in a day or two!”

“I sincerely hope so. Unfortunately, I am off to Newmarket tomorrow, and shall be away for a sennight. To postpone the visit until we shall be within a fortnight of the ball would be beyond the line of being pleasing, believe me!”

She looked dismayed. “Indeed it would! Oh, dear, she would suppose us to be quite without conduct, wouldn’t she? But I’m not dressed for it!”

He put up his glass, and surveyed her through it. She was wearing a hair-brown pelisse, with orange-jean half-boots, and a neat little hat trimmed with a single ostrich plume curling over its brim. He lowered his glass. “I see nothing amiss,” he said.

“You may not, but you may depend upon it that Lady Buxted will write me down as a positive dowdy! I’ve worn this pelisse any time these past two years!”

“It will be quite unnecessary to tell her so.”

“Yes, indeed it will!” she said warmly. “She will know it at a glance!”

“How should she, when I did not?”

“Because she’s a female, of course! Of all the stupid questions to ask —!”

His eyes were alight with wicked laughter. “You underrate me, Frederica! I am far more conversant with feminine fashions than my sister, I promise you! Must I prove it to you? Very well, then! Your pelisse is not fashioned according to the latest mode; your boots are made of jean, not of kid; and you furbished up your hat with a feather dyed orange to match them. Am I right?”

She scanned him, gravely, but with interest. “Yes — and so, I suppose, was Aunt Scrabster.”

“Oho! Did she warn you to beware of such a sad rake as I am. You’ve nothing to fear from me, Frederica!”

That made her give one of her chuckles. “Oh, I know that! I’m not nearly pretty enough!” Her clear gaze remained fixed on his face, but a crease appeared between her brows. “Charis is,” she said thoughtfully. “But — but although you call me green, cousin, I’m more than seven, you know. You wouldn’t!”

“How can you know that?” he asked, quizzing her.

“Well, to be sure, I’m not very familiar with rakes — in fact, I never met one before! — but I’m not such a wet-goose that I don’t know you are a gentleman — however uncivil you may be, or whatever improper things you may say! I daresay that sort of carelessness comes of having been born into the first rank.”

He was so much taken aback that for a moment he said nothing. Then a wry smile twisted his mouth, and he said: “I deserved that, didn’t I? Accept my apologies, cousin! May I now escort you to my sister’s house?”

“Well…” she said doubtfully. “If you think she won’t — Oh, no! You are forgetting Luff! Pretty cool, to walk into Lady Buxted’s drawing-room, leading a — a country dog! I won’t do it!”

“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!”