Frederica (10 page)

“Means to hang on to your sleeve! I wish you joy of your
obligation
!
Do you mean to support
all
the family?”

“I don’t mean to support
any
of the family, nor have I been asked to do so. You can’t imagine, Louisa, how refreshing I find this! With the boys I have nothing to do. All that Miss Merriville requires of me is that I should render what assistance I can to introduce her, and her sister, to the ton.”

She was eyeing him narrowly. “Indeed! No doubt Miss Merriville is very beautiful? But I need not ask!”

“Quite a well-looking young woman, but I should hardly describe her as beautiful,” he replied indifferently. “That don’t signify: she’s not on the catch for a husband. Her ambition is to achieve a respectable marriage for her sister, who is the prettier of the two. Whether she can contrive to do it I think doubtful, her fortune being small, but that’s not my concern: my debt will have been discharged when I—with your assistance—have launched the pair of them into society.”

“Pray, what do you expect
me
to do?” she demanded. “Oh, nothing very arduous! You will introduce them at my ball, as our cousins, escort them to Almack’s, when you take Jane there, and—”

“Almack’s, indeed!” she exclaimed. “I wonder that you should not have warned your protégée that she is aiming at the moon! Or do
you
mean to procure cards for her, perhaps?”

This piece of heavy sarcasm glanced off his armour. “No, I couldn’t. But you can, Louisa, with two bosom-bows amongst the patronesses—as you have so frequently informed me!”

“Procure cards for Fred Merriville’s daughters? You are asking a great deal too much of me! A couple of penniless girls, living in Upper Wimpole Street, who are
not
our cousins! I think it the outside of enough that you should include them in a ball to mark Jane’s come-out, and as for taking them to Almack’s—No, Vernon! I don’t wish to be disobliging, but—”

“My dear Louisa, say no more!” he interrupted, picking up his hat. “I wouldn’t, for the world, ask you to do anything you dislike! Forget the whole affair—in fact, forget that I came to see you today! I’ll take my leave of you now.”

She started up, temper and alarm fighting for supremacy in her. “Wait, Alverstoke!”

“No, I’ve stayed too long already. Think of your daughters, left to kick their heels in the carriage!” “That doesn’t signify! But you must—” “Well, it doesn’t signify to me, I must confess. What does signify is the waste of my own time. I really can’t be expected to spend the whole day on this tiresome business, so, if I want to see Lucretia before she retires to her sofa, to recruit her strength after the morning’s exertions, I must go immediately.”

She caught his arm, digging her fingers into it. “No! Vernon, if you
dare
to appoint That Woman as your hostess—!”

“Unhand me, sister!” he said flippantly. “I do dare, and such is my amazing mettle that your threats have no power to daunt me. By the way, why should they?”

“I would never forgive you! Never!” she declared.

“Only consider for a moment! What concern of mine are these wretched girls? Why should—”

“No concern at all,” he replied, removing her clutch from his arm.

“I haven’t even
met
them,” she urged despairingly. “Oh, how detestable you are!”

He laughed. “Yes, but not bird-witted—as you are, Louisa! Come, now, make up your mind! Will you do as I ask, or will you not?”

She stared up into his face, trying to discover some sign of relenting in it. He was smiling, but she knew that smile. She said, rather grittily, but with dignity: “Naturally I am only too ready to do what I may to oblige you. Whether I can get tickets for Almack’s for two girls of whom I know nothing—though if they are presentable I will endeavour to do so—”

“That’s better!” he said, still smiling, but very much more pleasantly. “Rig Jane out in the first style of elegance, and send me a Dutch reckoning: I don’t want to know the particulars. I’ll bring Miss Merriville to visit you. I daresay you may like her: she doesn’t want for sense—or determination! Don’t neglect to send Charles that list!”

On this admonition he took his departure, revolving in his mind various stratagems whereby the younger Miss Merriville could be excluded from the forthcoming visit to Grosvenor Place without opposition from her masterful sister.

In the event, the problem was solved rather sooner than he had expected, and not by him. Providence, in the guise of the dog Lufra, brought Frederica to Alverstoke House two days later, unaccompanied by Charis, and at what his lordship, no early riser, considered to be an unseasonable hour.

Since Jessamy adhered strictly to his self-imposed rule of studying every morning, his sisters had taken it upon themselves to exercise Lufra in his stead. They took him for long walks, exploring London; and if he had not tugged so hard on the end of a leash, or had behaved with more circumspection when released from it, their enjoyment of these expeditions would have been unalloyed. Country-bred, they were accustomed to much longer walks than could be achieved in London; everything was new to them; and they sallied forth whenever the weather permitted, Frederica in charge of Lufra, and Charis armed with a Pocket Guide. They viewed, from outside, the edifices, monuments, and mansions to which this invaluable book directed them, even penetrating into the City, where they attracted much attention, but were never once accosted. Not the most impudent of coxcombs cared to approach two damsels accompanied by a large and shaggy dog, straining at his leash, and exhibiting between his panting jaws a set of splendid teeth.

But two days after Alverstoke’s victorious engagement in Grosvenor Place Charis awoke with a sore throat and a tickling cough; and although she came down to breakfast she was speedily hustled back to bed, Miss Winsham declaring, at her third sneeze, that she had caught one of her feverish colds, and that unless she wished to succumb to an inflammation of the lungs, she would instantly retire to her bedchamber.

This she did; and while Miss Winsham, having ordered the cook to make a bread-pudding and some water-gruel, was preparing a saline draught for the sufferer, Frederica escaped from the house, knowing that if she told her aunt that she was going for her usual walk she would be obliged to endure a scold for thinking that she could behave as freely in London as in Herefordshire. Miss Winsham would certainly try to persuade her to take one of the maid-servants with her, or Felix; but as Frederica considered herself to be past the age when a chaperon was necessary, and had already discovered that London servants were by no means partial to long, brisk walks, she thought it prudent to slip away, telling no one but Buddle where she was going. Buddle shook his head, and tut-tutted; but beyond suggesting that Master Felix should accompany her he made no attempt to deter her. And as Felix had already wheedled her into giving him half-a-crown, which was the price of admission to Merlin’s Mechanical Museum (open every day from eleven until three), his sister wisely declined to issue an invitation which he would certainly have refused.

Her destination was the Green Park. Neither she nor Charis had yet visited it, the Pocket Guide not deeming it worthy of more than a glancing reference. It did, indeed, describe in enthusiastic detail the Temple of Concord, erected there as part of the pageantry of the Peace celebrations in 1814, but as this temporary structure had been demolished, Charis thought, four years later, that the Green Park was hardly worth a visit.

But Frederica, undeterred by the Guide Book’s tepid praise of the park’s “several pleasant promenades,” decided to take Lufra there for his walk, rather than to the more fashionable Hyde Park, where the saunterers were too much inclined to ogle fair pedestrians.

Towed through the streets by her canine friend, she reached the Bath gate in a somewhat heated condition, and was glad to be able to release him from the leash to which he showed no sign of growing accustomed. He bounded ahead, and began to quest to and fro, his plebeian tail carried on high, and his nose hopefully seeking the trail of a possible rabbit. When Frederica strolled round the reservoir at the north-east corner of the park, he brought her a likely stick, and invited her to throw it into the water for him to retrieve; but when she declined to take part in this sport he went off again, and was delighted to discover that the moving objects he had dimly perceived at some little distance away were three children, playing with a brightly coloured ball. He liked children, and he liked chasing after balls: he advanced upon the group, with his tail waving, and his ears expectantly cocked. He was a large dog, and his rapid descent upon the party proved too much for the fortitude of the youngest member, a small girl, who burst into a wail of fright, and fled to the protection of a nursemaid, who was enjoying a gossip with a friend in the lee of the shrubbery surrounding the Ranger’s Lodge. Lufra was puzzled, but turned his attention to the younger of the two boys, who was holding the ball, and uttered an encouraging bark. Whereupon Master John, throwing manly pride to the winds, dropped the ball, and made off after his sister as fast as his fat little legs would carry him. The elder boy stood his ground, gritting his teeth. Lufra pounced on the ball, tossed it and caught it, and finally spat it out at this stalwart’s feet. Master Frank let his breath go, and shouted after his juniors: “He only wants to play with us, you—you pudding-hearts!” He then, rather cautiously, ventured to pick up the ball, and hurled it as far as he could. This was not very far, but Lufra, taking the will for the deed, dashed after it, and brought it back to him. Master Frank, much emboldened, gave him a shy pat. Lufra licked his chin, and a promising friendship was on the point of being inaugurated when the nursemaid shrieked to Master Frank not to touch that nasty, fierce dog. Master John, having tripped and fallen on his face, set up a bellow; and by the time Frederica came running up an animated and noisy scene was in full swing, the nursemaid shrilly scolding, the two younger children crying, and Master Frank rebelliously refusing to abandon his low-born playmate.

Peremptorily called to heel, Lufra came, bringing the ball with him. Frederica took it from him, and cut short the unbridled complaint of the nursemaid by saying in the voice of one who had for years ruled a large household: “That will do! You forget yourself!” She then looked at Master John, and said: “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself when you fell down? Of course,
I
know you wouldn’t cry because my dog tried to play with you, for I can see that you are quite a
big
boy, but do, pray, shake hands with him, to show that you didn’t mean to be uncivil when you ran away from him! Sit, Luff, and give a paw!”

Obedient to the pressure of her hand, Lufra did sit, and obligingly waved one of his forelegs. Master John’s loud laments ceased abruptly. He stared in astonishment at Lufra. “
Doggie
shake hands?” he demanded incredulously.

“To be sure he does!”

“With me!” said Master Frank. “
I’m
not afraid of him!”

Stung, Master John declared that Doggie did not wish to shake hands with him; and by the time this question of precedence had been settled, and both boys had solemnly clasped Lufra’s paw, Miss Caroline was jealously claiming her right to share the honour. Frederica then gave the ball back to Master Frank, and parted from the family, pursued by a darkling look from their attendant, and by the children’s adjurations to bring Doggie back next day.

She went on her way, unperturbed by the incident, which merely confirmed her in the belief that London-children, acquainted only with the lap-dogs cosseted by their mamas, were much to be pitied; and it was not until she had rounded the shrubbery shielding the Ranger’s Lodge that it was suddenly and forcibly borne in upon her that the Pocket Guide had betrayed her: it had made no mention of a small herd of cows, with their attendant milkmaids, which (as she later discovered) were a well-known feature of the park. Not only did they provide urban eyes with a charmingly rural picture, but their attendants, all attired in the conventional garb of milkmaids, dispensed glasses of warm milk to anyone prepared to disimburse the very moderate sum demanded for the privilege of drinking milk fresh from the cow.

Too late did she realize the treachery of the Pocket Guide: Lufra, ranging ahead of her, perceived the herd before she did, and stopped for an instant in his tracks, his ears on the prick, and his bristles rising. The matron of the herd, standing within a few feet of him, lowered her head menacingly; and Lufra, either unable or unwilling to distinguish between the males and the females of the species, uttered a blood-curdling sound, midway between a bark and a growl, and launched himself into battle.

VI

A lesser woman would have fled at this stage, abandoning Lufra to his fate, for the ensuing scene was truly appalling. To the accompaniment of screams from milkmaids, nursemaids, and several elderly ladies, Lufra committed the enormous crime of stampeding a herd of milch-cows. He did not, indeed, repeat the heroic act which had earned him his name, but, finding that the cows fled before him, he scattered them, enjoying the only sport which had so far been offered him in London.

No thought of escaping so much as crossed Frederica’s mind, but by the time she had managed, with the help of the head cowman and two of the Deputy-Ranger’s menials, to catch and to secure the wholly unrepentant hound, she knew that her case was desperate. All about her was a scene of carnage; one of the elderly ladies had succumbed to hysterics; another was demanding that a constable should be instantly sent for; the cowman was calling down curses on her head; and the park’s custodians were declaring their fixed resolve to impound Lufra, pending his certain execution. To make matters worse, the nurse with whose charges Lufra had disported himself came hurrying up, attracted by the commotion, and lost no time in deposing that he had savagely rushed upon the children, frightening the poor little dears out of their wits, stealing their ball, and causing Master John to fall flat on his face grazing his hands and soiling his nankeens.