Frederica (15 page)

His cold gaze rested on Wicken’s face, but James, the first footman, and Walter, his subordinate, quaked in their buckled shoes. Wicken, who was made of sterner stuff, replied with majestic calm: “Yes, my lord. Every effort has been made to do so. Unfortunately, the Animal refused to leave the premises, either with Walter, or with James. I regret to inform your lordship that when pressure was brought to bear he turned quite Nasty—even with Me! I thought it best to tie him up to the banister, awaiting your lordship’s return. Otherwise,” he said, outdoing the Marquis in frigidity, “he would have scratched the library-door down.”

“What a revolting creature you are!” said Alverstoke, addressing himself, much to the relief of his footmen, to Lufra. “No, no, down, damn you,
down
!
Where is Mr Trevor?” As he spoke, his eyes alighted on his secretary, who had that instant emerged from his office at the back of the house, and was surveying the scene with something perilously like a grin on his countenance. “Oh, you’re there, are you? Then, for God’s sake,
do
something about this abominable mongrel!”

“
Mongrel,
sir?” responded Mr Trevor, in astonished accents. “I thought he was a—”

“Don’t try me too far, Charles! You thought nothing of the sort! Why haven’t you seen to it that he was restored to his owner?”

“Well, I did my best, sir,” said Charles. “But he wouldn’t go with me either.”

“Now tell me that he tried to savage you, and you will have gone your length!” said Alverstoke, repulsing Lufra’s adoring advances.

“Oh, no, he didn’t do that! He merely squatted on his haunches!” said Charles cheerfully. “By the time I had dragged him as far as Davies Street I judged it to be time to return, no fewer than three kindly females having exclaimed at my brutality to a dumb creature. Besides, I was exhausted!”

“Why the devil didn’t you bundle him into a hack?”

“We did make the attempt—all four of us—but he’s not the sort of dog you
can
bundle, sir—unmuzzled! That was when Walter got bitten. I daresay we
might
have contrived to get him into the hack, but we none of us fancied a drive in his company. The thing was that his mistress left him here, and here he was determined to remain until she reclaimed him.” Meeting Alverstoke’s eyes with the utmost blandness, he added: “I believe these Baluchistan hounds are famous for their fidelity, sir.”

“Oh, do you indeed?” said his lordship wrathfully.

“So I have always understood,” said Charles. He watched Lufra paw the Marquis imperatively, and a happy thought occurred to him. “Perhaps he would consent to go with you, sir?” he suggested.

“A little more, and you will find yourself dismissed with ignominy, Charles! If you imagine that I am going to lead this misbegotten cur through the streets of London you must be out of your mind!” He turned towards his footmen, so swiftly that they had no time to wipe the appreciative grins from their faces. Having reduced both to a state of rigid imbecility by the mere power of his eye, he said: “One of you—oh, no, you are already wounded, are you not, Walter?—You, James, may betake yourself to Upper Wimpole Street! Desire Master Jessamy Merriville to be so good as to come here to collect his dog immediately!”

But even as these words left his lips a bell was heard to clang in the nether regions, and the knocker on the front door was plied with enough violence to make his lordship wince. Walter moved to open the door, and was almost swept off his feet by the tempestuous entrance of Master Jessamy Merriville, with his brother at his heels.

“I’ve come for my dog—is his lordship at home? I must—Down, Luff!
Sit
!—Oh, sir, is that you? I do beg your pardon! I am
excessively
sorry, and I jumped into a hack and came the
instant
Frederica told me, because I knew what must have happened, and how she can have supposed that Luff would go off with a stranger—but females are such nodcocks!
Pray
forgive me!”

“Not at all!” said his lordship. “I am delighted to see you! In fact, I was on the point of sending one of my people to summon you, none of them being able to persuade Luff to leave the house.”

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t, of course! I do hope he didn’t bite anyone? He isn’t
savage,
but if he thought anyone was trying to steal him—”

“Ah, so that was it!” said his lordship. “He was labouring under a delusion, but I daresay that was Walter’s fault, for not making the matter plain to him. My dear boy, don’t look so concerned! Walter
likes
being bitten by large dogs, and so does Wicken—don’t you, Wicken?”

“The Animal, my lord,” replied Wicken, with dignity, “did not go so far as to bite Me.”

“He will, if you keep on calling him the Animal. Well, Felix, how do you do? What brings
you
here?”

“I wanted to see you, sir—
particularly
!”
replied Felix, smiling engagingly up at him.

“You terrify me!”

Jessamy, who was receiving Walter’s bashful assurance that he had sustained no more than a flesh wound, turned at that, and said rather hotly: “I never meant him to plague you, sir! He
would
come, and I was afraid that if I pushed him off the step he would very likely fall under the wheels of some other vehicle, so I was obliged to pull him into the hack. And that was Frederica’s fault too! If she hadn’t said that you were going to Newmarket tomorrow—”

His irrepressible brother interrupted this speech without ceremony, recommending him to stop being a regular jaw-me-dead. He then raised deceptively angelic eyes to Alverstoke’s face, and said: “You
promised
to take me to see the pneumatic lift, Cousin Alverstoke, and I thought p’raps you had forgotten, and I ought to remind you.”

The Marquis could not remember having given any such promise; and he said so. His youthful admirer dealt summarily with this caveat, saying: “Yes, you did, sir! Well, you said
We’ll see
!
and that’s the same thing!” Jessamy gave him a shake. “It’s nothing of the sort! If you don’t hold your tongue, I promise you I’ll give you pepper presently!”

“Hoo!” said Felix disrespectfully. “Try it, and see if you don’t get one in the bread-basket!”

Observing the angry flush in Jessamy’s cheeks, the Marquis judged it to be prudent to intervene, which he did, by saying: “Before you embark on this mill, let us repair to my book-room to partake of refreshment! Wicken, I don’t know what our resources may be, but I rely on you to conjure up suitable refreshment for my guests!”

Jessamy, his flush deepening, said stiffly: “You are very good, sir, but we won’t—we won’t trespass upon your hospitality. I came only to fetch Luff, and—and to repay whatever sum it may have cost you to save him from being impounded! We—we need no refreshment!”

“Yes, we do!” objected Felix. He directed his seraphic gaze, strongly suggestive of a boy suffering from starvation, upon Wicken, and said politely: “If you please!”

“
Felix
!”
exploded Jessamy.

But Wicken, not more hardened than his master against the wiles of schoolboys, visibly unbent, saying benevolently: “To be sure you do, sir! Now, you go into the book-room like a good boy, and you shall have some cakes and lemonade! But mind now!—you mustn’t tease his lordship!”

“Oh,
no
!”
responded Felix soulfully. “And
then
will you take me to that foundry, Cousin Alverstoke?”

A choking sound reminded the Marquis of his secretary’s presence in the background. He turned his head, smiling with false sweetness, “Ah! If I was not forgetting you, dear boy!” he said, with gentle malice. “Pray come with us into the book-room! I wish to make my—er—wards known to you: Jessamy, and Felix—Mr Trevor!” He waited while the boys, mindful of their manners, executed two bows before shaking hands with Mr Trevor, and then marshalled the party into his library, saying, as soon as the door was closed: “You’ve put yourself in fortune’s way, Felix: Mr Trevor knows far more than I do about pneumatic lifts, and is the very man to take you to the foundry.”

“You are too nattering, sir!” said Charles promptly. “I am very sure I don’t!”

“Well, you can’t know less!” said his lordship, in an undervoice charged with asperity.

“Yes, but you said you would take me
yourself,
Cousin Alverstoke!”

Hot with embarrassment, Jessamy besought his brother to stop plaguing his lordship to do what anyone but a gudgeon could see he didn’t want to do. This had the effect of causing Felix to direct a look of heartrending reproach at the Marquis, and to say, in the voice of one mortally wounded: “I thought you
did
want to, sir. You
said
—”

“Yes, of course I do!” interrupted his lordship hastily. “But it so happens that I was about to drive to Richmond, to try the paces of my new team. How would you like to go with me there, instead of to the foundry?”

“Oh,
no
!”
protested Felix.

This was too much for Jessamy. He exclaimed passionately: “You clodpole! You—you stupid little looby! Liefer visit a foundry than sit behind those bang-up grays we s-saw drive up to the house? You must have rats in your garret!”

“I like machines better than horses,” said Felix simply.

In the interests of peace, the Marquis intervened yet again. “Well, there’s no disputing about taste. If your heart is set on the foundry, the foundry it shall be. Do you want to inspect the grays, Jessamy? Go and talk to my groom about them! You may tell him that I shan’t need them after all today.”

“Oh!—Thank you, sir! I
would
like to take a look at them!” Jessamy said, his scowl vanishing.

With a passing admonition to Felix to keep Luff quiet, he hastened out of the room. By the time he returned, Felix was consuming a hearty meal of plum cake, washed down by copious draughts of lemonade; and eagerly (if sometimes a trifle thickly) holding forth on blast-pipes and safety valves. Mr Trevor, dredging from the depths of his memory such elementary knowledge of the principles governing steam-power as he had happened to acquire during the course of his career, was labouring manfully to keep pace with him; and the Marquis, lounging at his graceful ease in a wing-chair, was observing him with a smile of unholy amusement.

With the entrance of Jessamy, the conversation took an abrupt turn. Adjuring Felix not to be a dead bore, he favoured the Marquis with his enthusiastic opinion of the grays. “Complete to a shade!” he said. “Deep, broad chests, light necks, and their hocks perfectly straight! And the quarters so well let-down! I never saw such a well-matched team—and they go well together, too! Your man drove me round the Square behind them—he thought you would not object to it!—and I particularly liked their forward action! High-steppers may be all very well for barouches and landaulets, but for a phaeton, or a curricle, or even a mere gig, I prefer the forward action, don’t you, sir?”

“I do,” agreed Alverstoke. “Have some lemonade!”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” said Jessamy, taking the glass from Charles Trevor’s hand. “No, no cake—thank you!”

“It’s a
good
one!” said Felix, generously wishing his elder to share the treat.

Ignoring this interpolation, Jessamy drank his lemonade, and said: “If you please, sir, what did you give those men—the park-keepers, and the cowman?”

“Never mind that!” replied Alverstoke. “I am going to Newmarket tomorrow, and shall be away for a sennight, but when I return to London I shall try out those grays: would you like to go with me?”

The answer was plainly to be read in Jessamy’s sudden flush, and kindling eyes. He gasped: “
Sir
—.’”

but, an instant later, his countenance hardened, and he said: “I would like it very much, sir—but—but—I
must
repay you for the sum you expended to save Luff!”

This declaration confronted Alverstoke at once with a novel situation, and a dilemma. No other member of his family had ever felt it incumbent upon him (or her) to repay the sums he had from time to time disbursed: all too many of them demanded unlimited largesse as a right; and not two hours previously he had registered a silent vow to decline to assume the smallest responsibility for Fred Merriville’s sons. That was one thing. He now discovered that it was quite another to allow a stripling to hand over to him, out of what he guessed to be a small allowance, whatever sum Charles Trevor had been obliged to spend on Lufra’s behalf. Fighting against fate, he said: “Believe me, it is quite unnecessary! I neither know nor care what it cost to redeem Lufra—and if you badger me on this very boring matter I shall not invite you to go with me when I try out my new team!”

There was a moment’s tense silence; then Jessamy raised his eyes, no longer glowing, but uncomfortably austere. “Very well, sir,” he said quietly. “Will you tell me, if you please, what I owe you?”

“No, young Stiff-rump! I will not!”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but there is no reason that I know of why you should be obliged to pay for my dog’s trespass.”

“Then you cannot be aware that your father—er—commended you all to my care,” replied his lordship, driven into the last ditch.

“My sister told me something of the sort,” said Jessamy, frowning, “but I don’t see how that can have been, for I know he left no Will.”

‘‘Since the matter was between him and me. it would be astonishing if you did see how it came about. It doesn’t concern you. As for Luff’s misdemeanour, I wish to hear no more about it. Don’t take him into the Green Park again!”