Frederica (51 page)

“No, ma’am, I know I shouldn’t, not with my palpitations,” said Mrs Hurley. “But I thought it my duty to let you know at once!”

This time-worn phrase, which in general heralded the disclosure of a very minor household disaster, did not strike dismay into Frederica’s bosom. She said: “Oh, dear! Is something amiss? Come into the drawing-room, and tell me about it!”

“Dear knows, Miss Frederica,” said Mrs Hurley, following her into the room, “I wouldn’t trouble you with it, with all the trouble you have to worrit you already, if I didn’t feel in my bones that you’d wish to be told immediately.”

Broken china
!
thought Frederica.

“But,” pursued Mrs Hurley, “the instant Jemima brought it to me, her only being able to read print—and not much of that either—I said to myself: ‘Doctor or no doctor, Miss Frederica must see this at once!’ Which is what it’s my belief you weren’t meant to do, ma’am. And nor you would have if I hadn’t sent Jemima up to Miss Charis’s room to take down the curtains to be washed, for the room was swept and the bed made while Miss Charis was at her breakfast, so that there was no reason for her to think anyone would go into it again this morning.”

“Miss Charis?” Frederica said sharply.

“Miss Charis,” corroborated Mrs Hurley. “There was this, laying on the dressing-table, and Jemima, thinking it was a letter for the post, brought it down to me. It’s for you, Miss Frederica.”

“For me—!” Frederica almost snatched it out of the housekeeper’s hand.

“And Miss Charis’s brush and comb aren’t on the table, nor the bottle of scent you gave her, ma’am, nor anything that
should
be on it,” pronounced the voice of doom inexorably.

Frederica paid no heed, for the information was unnecessary. The letter in her hand had evidently been written under the stress of strong emotion. It was freely blotched with tears, and largely illegible, but its opening sentence stood out boldly.

Dearest, ever-dearest Frederica,
Charis had written, with painstaking care,
By the time you read this I shall be married, and many miles away.

After that, the writing deteriorated into a wild scrawl, as though Charis, having made this promising beginning, had not known how to continue, and had finally dashed off the rest in a hurry.

But the beginning was all that mattered to Frederica. She stood staring at the words until they danced before her eyes, unable, in the first moments of sickening shock, to believe their incredible message.

Mrs Hurley’s hand on her arm recalled her to her senses. “Do you sit down, Miss Frederica, my dear!” Mrs Hurley said. “I’ll fetch you up a glass of wine directly: no need to tell Buddle!”

“No, no, I don’t want a glass of wine! I must think—I must think!”

She allowed herself to be pushed into a chair, and tried to decipher the rest of the letter. It seemed to consist entirely of pleas for forgiveness, mingled with assurances that only desperation could have driven the writer to take so dreadful a step. At first glance, Charis appeared to have subscribed herself,
Your wicked Charis;
but closer scrutiny revealed that the word was not
wicked,
but
wretched.
Frederica thought bitterly that
wicked
more exactly described her sister.

She raised her eyes to Mrs Hurley’s face. “Hurley—I don’t know what can be done—if anything, but say nothing of this, I beg of you!”

“Certainly not, ma’am! That you may depend on!”

“Thank you. You have guessed, of course.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve guessed, ma’am!” said Mrs Hurley grimly. “
And
I know whose door to lay it at! If
some
people, naming no names, had attended to their rightful duty, instead of picking quarrels, and flouncing out of the house so highty-tighty, it would never have happened, because that great Jack-of-legs couldn’t have come here, like he used to, in spite of anything I said to her, which I did, and Buddle too! So now she’s eloped! Oh, dear, dear, however could she do such a thing? Not but what they say what’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh, and it’s what her poor, dear mother did, after all!”

“Oh, if I could think what’s to be done!” Frederica said, unheeding. “There must be
something
—though I feel almost inclined to let matters run their course! To do such a thing, and at such a time—! No, no, what am I saying? If I had been kinder, more sympathetic—!” She started up. “Hurley, I must see Lord Alverstoke! If anyone can help me, he will! Tell Owen to fetch a hack, while I run up for my bonnet and gloves: there’s no time to waste in sending for the carriage!” She stopped, halfway to the door. “No, I can’t! I was forgetting. Sir William Knighton!”

“Just what I was thinking myself, Miss Frederica,” said Mrs Hurley. “There’s a carriage coming up the street at this very moment, which was what put me in mind of the gentleman. Now, is it going to pull up at our door, or—yes, it is!”

Frederica hurried over to her desk, and sat down at it, dragging a sheet of writing-paper towards her, and dipping the pen in the ink. “I’ll write to him!” she said. “Wait here, Hurley, and take it down to Owen! Tell him to carry it to Alverstoke House immediately—in a hack! It’s not yet twelve o’clock: his lordship won’t have left the house. Tell Owen it is to be given into his lordship’s own hand—not left with the butler, or one of the footmen!
Is
it Sir William?”

“Well, he has a bag in his hand, as you’d expect, ma’am,” reported Mrs Hurley, from the window, “but he doesn’t
look
like a doctor, dressed as nattily as he is! Ah! Now Buddle has let him in, so it must be him, you having given orders you was not at home to visitors!”

“Oh, heavens, he will be upon me in a trice!” said Frederica distractedly. She signed her name quickly to the very brief note she had written, and had just sealed it with a wafer, set all askew, when Buddle announced Sir William.

She arose, handed the missive to Mrs Hurley, and, summoning to her aid every ounce of her self-command, moved forward to meet Sir William.

If he thought her civility forced, and her answers to his questions disjointed, he must have assumed her to be suffering from shyness, she supposed, or from dread of what his verdict might be, for he did not seem to be at all surprised at being confronted with a lady who said: “Yes—no—I can’t remember—let me think!” He was not even impatient; and under his calming influence she very soon regained her composure, thrusting Charis to the back of her mind, concentrating her attention on what was being said to her.

He was quite as successful in his handling of Felix. Encountering a hostile scowl, he said, with his pleasant smile: “How do you do? Yes, I am another bacon-brained doctor—as though you hadn’t been plagued enough already!”

The scowl vanished; Felix blushed, and shook hands. “How do you do, sir? But I’m
perfectly
well again, I promise you, and there was no
reason
for my sister to have sent for you!”

“Well, you certainly look to be going on in a capital way,” agreed Sir William. “However, since I’m here I may as well take a look at you, don’t you think?”

Felix submitted. At the end of the examination, he demanded to be told whether he might get up, to which Sir William replied: “Yes, of course you may. It would do you a great deal of good to go out into the fresh air, so I suggest that your—brother, is it?—takes you out for a drive round the Park. Abominably stuffy, is it not? But I understand you are going down to Somerset: how much I envy you!”

Frederica, directing an enquiring look at Jessamy, received a nod in answer, and led Sir William back to the drawing-room.

He stayed for some twenty minutes, and relieved her mind of one at least of its cares. The possibility of repercussions could not be disregarded, but he considered it to be remote, provided his instructions were faithfully carried out. He paid a graceful compliment to Dr Elcot, and wrote out a prescription to replace Elcot’s medicine, saying that, excellent though that was, he fancied that his own might perhaps be more beneficial now that Felix was convalescent; and went away, recommending her, with his understanding smile, not to fidget herself over the boy. “For that, you know, would fidget him!” he said. “I have written down the name and direction of a Bath practitioner in whom you may repose complete confidence. But I don’t anticipate that you will require his services!”

Meanwhile, Owen had given Frederica’s letter into the Marquis’s hand. He had found him on the point of setting out with his sister for Somerset House, the Lady Elizabeth having recollected that she had not yet visited the Royal Academy Exhibition: a scandalous omission which, as she positively
must
bring her extended visit to an end on the following day, had instantly to be repaired. Having no respect for his lordship’s matutinal habits, she swept them aside, telling him that after deserting her for the better part of her stay the least he could do to atone was to escort her to Somerset House.

The Marquis spread open the single sheet, read Frederica’s note at a glance, and nodded dismissal to Owen. Lady Elizabeth, her eyes on his face, said: “What is it, Vernon? Not Felix?”

He handed her the note. “I don’t know. You will have to excuse me from accompanying you to Somerset House, Eliza: pray accept my apologies!”

“Don’t be such a gaby! I am coming with you! Vernon, I am dreadfully afraid that some accident must have befallen one of them!
I
beg you will come here immediately. I have no time to write more, but will explain when I see you. Pray do not delay
!
Poor girl, she is plainly distracted with worry!”

“Yes. Therefore, let us not delay!” he answered curtly.

They reached Upper Wimpole Street just as Frederica, having, as one in a dream, seen her brothers set off for their drive, had mounted the stairs again to the drawing-room, and was once more trying to decipher Charis’s letter. When Alverstoke entered the room, which he did unannounced, going up the stairs two at a time, and leaving his sister to follow him, she looked up eagerly, and sprang to her feet. “I knew you would come!” she said thankfully. “I beg your pardon for sending you such a hurried note—you see, Sir William was at the door, and I had no time—”

“Never mind that!” he interrupted. “What is it, Frederica? Felix?”

“No, no! he’s better—Sir William thinks he will soon be quite stout again. It is far, far worse—no, not
that,
but—”

“Gently, my child, gently!” he said, taking her hands, and holding them in a strong clasp. “If I am to help you, just tell me what has happened! And without flying into a grand fuss!”

Lady Elizabeth, arriving on the threshold in time to hear this blighting command, blinked, but Frederica, regaining control over herself, conjured up the travesty of a smile, and said: “Thank you! I am behaving very badly. I don’t think even you can do anything. I don’t know why I begged you to come, except that it was the first thought that came into my head—before I had had time to consider .... But I am afraid it is useless.” “And still I am in the dark,” said Alverstoke. “I’m sorry! I can scarcely bring myself to tell you—Cousin Eliza! I beg your pardon! I didn’t see—”

“That’s of no consequence, my dear. I came to help you, if I could, but I think you would prefer to talk to Alverstoke alone, and if that is so, I’ll go away,” Eliza said.

“No. You are very kind! I had hoped to have kept it secret, but I see now how impossible that must be.” She drew a painful breath. “You see,—Charis has—has eloped with Endymion!”

Eliza gasped; but Alverstoke said, with no perceptible loss of calm: “Have you proof of this? I should not have supposed that Charis would consent to any such exploit; and if Endymion persuaded her into it I can only say that I have been strangely mistaken in my reading of his character. A high stickler, my blockish cousin, Frederica!”

Mutely she held Charis’s letter out to him. He took it, and, after one glance at it, groped for his quizzing-glass. Eliza, drawing Frederica to the sofa, said: “My dear, surely you must be mistaken? You can’t mean that you believe them to have gone to Gretna Green?”

“I think it must be so,” Frederica replied. “Where else could—”

“Then you may stop thinking it!” interposed Alverstoke, looking up from the letter. “Where have your wits gone begging, Frederica?
By the time you read this I shall be married, and many miles away.
My dear girl, even such a henwitted female as Charis could not suppose that she could be transported to the Border within an hour or two! How fortunate that she didn’t bedew the start of this hubble-bubble effusion with her tears!”

“Then where
can
they have gone?” demanded Frederica.

“That I haven’t yet discovered. I should doubt whether I ever shall, but one never knows: something may yet emerge.”

“Nothing but what she might as well have spared herself the trouble of writing,” said Frederica, sighing.

He said nothing, continuing to frown over the letter for several minutes, while Eliza, possessing herself of Frederica’s hand, sat patting it soothingly. Silence reigned, until the Marquis broke it. “Ah!” he said. “Not
licorice,
but
licence
!
The clue to the labyrinth is now in our hands, Frederica! It’s a pity the pen spluttered at the preceding word, but no doubt it is
special.
Your sister, my love, has married my blockish cousin by special licence. Whether or not this constitutes an elopement I am not yet in a position to say, but it really doesn’t signify. The case is not desperate, nor will it be incumbent upon me to pursue the couple to the Border—a prospect, I must acknowledge, which filled me with repugnance. All we have to do is to throw dust in the eyes of the quizzes and tittle-tattlers. It will afford me great pleasure to do so! I wonder who told Endymion that he could be married by special licence?” Frederica sat up. “But he couldn’t!” she said. “Charis is not of age!”