Frederica (11 page)

“Fudge!” said Frederica scornfully.

Neither the cowman nor the park-keepers paid much heed to the nursemaid’s testimony. The cowman was only concerned with his cattle; and the park-keepers, observing the flattened ears and waving tail with which Lufra greeted his youthful friends, did not for a moment suppose him to be savage. They recognized in him all the signs of an overgrown and outrageous mongrel, young enough to be ripe for mischief; and, in other circumstances, they would have taken a lenient view of his misdemeanour. But the rules governing London parks were strict; the hatchet-faced old griffin who was adjuring them to summon a constable, her weaker sister who was still in the throes of nervous spasms, various citizens who declared that such dangerous brutes ought never to be permitted to roam at large, and a bevy of nursemaids unanimous in demanding vengeance on the wild animal which had shattered for ever the nerves of their gently-born charges, prompted them to take an extreme view of the case. Confronted on the one hand with a number of persons bent on reporting the incident to the Deputy-Ranger, and on the other by a delinquent mongrel owned by a Young Person unattended by a footman, or a maid, they saw their duty clear before them: Lufra, the elder of the two awfully told Frederica, must be handed over to them, to be kept in custody until a magistrate should pronounce his fate.

Lufra, misliking both his tone and his purposeful advance, stopped panting, and rose, bristling, and intimating by a warning growl that any attempt to attack Frederica would be undertaken at the park-keeper’s peril: a warlike display which excited the cowman to demand his summary execution, and caused the park-keeper to order Frederica to “bring that dawg along o’

me!”

Amongst the assembled persons none but the cowman knew better than Frederica how unpardonable was Lufra’s crime. One glance at this individual’s inflamed countenance was enough to convince her that an appeal addressed to him would be waste of breath. Inwardly quaking, she said: “Take care! This dog belongs to the Marquis of Alverstoke! He is
extremely
valuable, and if anything were to happen to him his lordship would be very angry indeed!”

The younger park-keeper, who had formed his own, not inexpert, opinion of Lufra’s lineage, said bluntly: “Gammon! No Markiss never bought ‘
im
!
‘E’d be dear at a grig! ‘E’s a mongrel, that’s what ‘e is!”

“A
mongrel
?”
exclaimed Frederica. “Let me tell you that he is a pure-bred Barcelona collie, brought to England at—at
enormous
expense! I am sorry that he should have chased the cows, but—but he was merely trying to
herd
them! The breed is used for that purpose in Spain, and—and he is not yet accustomed to English cows!”

“Trying to
herd
them?” gasped the cowman. “I never did, not in all my life! Why, you’re as bad as he is!”

The younger park-keeper had no hesitation in endorsing this verdict. He said that Miss was coming it too strong, adding that while he knew nothing about Barcelona collies he did know a mongrel when he saw one. He also said, sticking to his original point, that, in his opinion, no Markiss never bought such a dog as Lufra.

“Indeed!” said Frederica. “And, pray, are you acquainted with my cousin, the Marquis of Alverstoke?”

“What impudence!” ejaculated the hatchet-faced lady. “Calling yourself a Marquis’s cousin, and jauntering about the town alone! A likely story!”

After a good deal of argument, during which the younger park-keeper supported the hatchet-faced lady, the cowman said (several times) that Marquis or no Marquis any damage done to his cows must be paid for, and the elder park-keeper temporized, a sturdy citizen in a snuff-coloured frock-coat, proffered the suggestion that the Marquis should be applied to for corroboration of Miss’s story.

“A very excellent notion!” declared Frederica warmly. “Let us go to his house immediately! It is quite close, in Berkeley Square.”

Left to himself, the elder park-keeper would at this stage have abandoned the affair. If the young lady was willing to seek out the Marquis it seemed to him to prove that she really was his cousin; and although he knew that this did not affect the issue he was very unwilling to proceed further in the matter. Properly speaking, of course, the Marquis—
if
he was the dog’s owner—was liable for a fine, let alone what Mr Beal’s head cowman might claim from him by way of damages; but when you were dealing with lords you wanted to be careful. The younger park-keeper, who was the recipient of this confidence, became suddenly thoughtful; but the cowman grimly accepted Frederica’s invitation, saying that he would have his rights even if the dog belonged to the Queen—meaning no disrespect to her; and the hatchet-faced lady, her eyes snapping, said that if the park-keepers didn’t know their duty she did, and would bring the affair to the notice of the Ranger. There seemed nothing for it but to go with the young lady. The hatchet-faced lady announced that she too would go, and that if—which she doubted—a Marquis was forthcoming she would give him a piece of her mind.

The door of Alverstoke House was opened by a footman. He was a well-trained young man, but his eyes, when they perceived the cavalcade awaiting admittance, showed a tendency to start from their sockets. Frederica, carrying the situation off with a high hand, said, with a friendly smile: “Good-morning! I do trust his lordship has not yet gone out?”

The footman, Ms eyes starting more than ever, replied, in a bemused voice: “No, miss. That is,—”

“Thank goodness!” interrupted Frederica. “I don’t wonder at it that you should be astonished to see me so—so heavily escorted! I’m surprised at it myself. Be so good as to tell his lordship that his cousin, Miss Merriville, is here, and desires to speak to him!”

She then stepped into the house, inviting her companions, over her shoulder, to follow her; and such was her assurance that the footman stood aside instinctively, offering no other opposition to the invasion of his master’s house by a set of regular rum touches than the stammered information that his lordship was still in his dressing-room.

“Then tell him, if you please, that the matter is of some urgency!” said Frederica.

“Would you—would you care to see his lordship’s secretary, miss?” said the footman feebly.

“Mr Trevor?” said Frederica. “No, thank you. Just convey my message to his lordship!”

The footman had never heard of Miss Merriville, his lordship’s cousin, but her mention of Mr Trevor’s name relieved his mind. He thought she must be his lordship’s cousin, though what she was doing in such queer company, or why she should have brought a couple of park-keepers and an obvious bumpkin to Alverstoke House he could not imagine. Nor did he know what to do with the ill-assorted visitors, for while it was clearly incumbent upon him to conduct Miss Merriville and her female companion to the saloon he could not feel that either his lordship, or the august and far more terrible Mr Wicken, would be pleased to discover that he had also ushered Miss Merriville’s male attendants into this apartment.

He was rescued from this social dilemma by the dignified appearance on the scene of Mr Wicken himself. Thankful for the first time in his life to see his dread mentor, he hurriedly informed him that it was Miss Merriville—my lord’s cousin—wishful to see my lord!

James the footman might not have heard of Miss Merriville, but Wicken was not so ignorant. He, with his lord’s valet, his steward, his housekeeper, and his head groom knew all about the Merrivilles; and what they referred to as his lordship’s latest start had been for days the main topic for discussion in the Room. Nor was Wicken ever rocked from his stately balance. He bowed to Miss Merriville, impassively surveyed her retinue, and moved across the hall to open the door into the library. “His lordship shall be informed, ma’am. If you will be pleased to take a seat in the book-room? And you, ma’am, of course,” he added graciously, bestowing a suitable bow on the hatchet-faced lady, whom he had written down as a governess, or, possibly, a paid companion.

“Yes, and these men had better come in too,” said Frederica.

“Certainly, ma’am—if you wish them to do so,” responded Wicken. “But I venture to think that they will be quite comfortable in the hall.”

With this opinion even the cowman was in the fullest agreement, but Frederica would have none of it. “No, for they too wish to speak to his lordship,” she said. She then invited the hatchet-faced lady to sit down; and Wicken, not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid betraying his emotions, held the door for the rest of the party to enter the room.

James, meanwhile, had gone up the stairs to the Marquis’s dressing-room, and had tapped on the door. It was a very soft, deprecating tap, the Marquis being notoriously ill-disposed towards persons seeking admittance to his room before noon; and he was obliged to tap again, a little more loudly. He was not invited to enter, but the door was opened to him by his lordship’s very superior valet, who appeared to regard his intrusion as a form of sacrilege, demanding to know, in an outraged undervoice, what he wanted.

“It’s urgent, Mr Knapp!” whispered James. “Mr Wicken said I was to tell his lordship!”

These words acted, as he had felt sure they must, as a passport. Knapp allowed him to step into the room, but adjured him, still in an undervoice, not to stir from the door, or to make the least sound, until he was bid. He then trod silently back to the dressing-table, at which my lord was seated, engaged in the important task of arranging his neckcloth.

Only his sisters had ever stigmatized Alverstoke as a dandy. He adopted none of the extremes of fashion which made the younger members of this set ridiculous, and which would certainly have disgusted Mr Brummell, had that remarkable man still been the arbiter of taste in London. Mr Brummell, obliged by sordid circumstances to retire to the Continent, was living in obscurity, but the smarts of his generation had not swerved from the tenets he had laid down. Alverstoke, three years his junior, had encountered him in his flamboyant salad days, and had been swift to discard every one of his colourful waistcoats, his flashing tie-pins, and his multitude of fobs and seals. A man whose raiment attracted attention, had said Mr Brummell, was
not
a well-dressed man. Clean linen, perfectly cut coats, and the nice arrangement of his neckcloths were the hallmarks of the man of ton, and to these simple rules Alverstoke had thenceforward adhered, achieving, by patience and practice, the reputation of being one of the most elegant men on the town. Disdaining to adopt the absurdities of starched shirt-points so high that they obscured his vision and made it impossible for him to turn his head, and such intricacies as the Mathematical or the Oriental ties, he evolved his own style of neckwear: discreet, yet so exquisite as to arouse envy in the breasts of the younger generation.

James was well aware of this; and, since his secret ambition was to rise to the position of a gentleman’s gentleman, Knapp’s admonition was unnecessary. For no consideration would he have disturbed the Marquis at such a moment; and he saw nothing at all to provoke laughter in the Marquis’s attitude: he was only sorry that he had not arrived in time to see the dexterous turn his lordship gave the foot-wide muslin cloth before it was placed round his collar. This had obviously been successful, for Knapp had laid aside the six or seven neckcloths he had been holding in readiness to hand the Marquis if his first attempts should be failures; and that gentleman was now gazing at the ceiling. Fascinated, James watched the gradual lowering of his chin, and the deft pressing into permanent shape of the creases thus created in the snowy muslin. In an expansive moment, Knapp had once told him that all his lordship did, to achieve those beautiful folds, was to drop his jaw some four or five times. It had sounded easy, and it looked easy; but his budding sartorial instinct told James that it was not easy at all. He held his breath while the operation was in progress, only letting it go when the Marquis, having critically inspected the result of his skill, laid down his hand-mirror, and said: “Yes, that will do.”

He rose, as he spoke, and, as he slid his arms into the waistcoat Knapp was holding, looked across the room at James. “Well?” he asked.

“Begging your lordship’s pardon, it’s Miss Merriville—wishful to see your lordship, immediate!” disclosed James. “On a matter of urgency!” he added.

The Marquis looked faintly surprised, but all he said was: “Indeed? Inform Miss Merriville that I will be with her directly. My coat, Knapp!”

“Yes, my lord. In the book-room, my lord, I believe.”

Having in this masterly manner disclaimed all responsibility for his superior’s deviation from the normal, James withdrew circumspectly. Knapp remarked, as he shook out a handkerchief, and presented it to Alverstoke, that he wondered why Wicken should not have shown Miss Merriville into the saloon; but Alverstoke, picking up his quizzing-glass, and passing its long ribbon over his head, merely said Wicken probably had his reasons.

Several minutes later, looking precise to a pin in a dark blue coat which appeared to have been moulded to his form, very pale pantaloons, and very highly polished Hessian boots, he came down the stairs to find Wicken awaiting him. “Why my book-room, Wicken?” he enquired. “Don’t you think my cousin worthy of being taken up to the saloon?”

“Certainly, my lord,” responded Wicken. “But Miss Merriville is not alone.”

“So I should suppose.”

“I was not referring to the female accompanying her, my lord. There are three other persons, whom I thought it more proper to usher into the book-room than the saloon.”