‘Just so!’ he said sympathetically. ‘I think we had better part, don’t you?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Lady Buxted, with suppressed passion, ‘I think you must be the most odious, unnatural creature that ever drew breath! No doubt if it had been Endymion who had applied to you you would have been all compliance!’
These bitter words appeared powerfully to affect the Marquis, but after a stunned moment he pulled himself together, and recommended his sister, in faint but soothing accents, to retire to bed with a paregoric draught. ‘For you are sadly out of curl, Louisa, believe me! Do let me assure you that if ever Endymion should ask me to give a ball in his honour I shall take steps to have him placed under restraint!’
‘Oh, how detestable you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘You know very well I didn’t mean – that what I meant – that –’
‘No, no, don’t explain it to me!’ he interrupted. ‘It is quite unnecessary, I promise you! I perfectly understand you – indeed, I’ve done so for years! You – and I rather fancy, Augusta too – have persuaded yourself that I have a strong partiality for Endymion –’
‘That – that moonling!’
‘You are too severe: merely a slow-top!’
‘Yes, we all know that you think him a positive pattern-card of perfection!’ she said angrily, kneading her handkerchief between her hands.
He had been idly swinging his quizzing-glass on the end of its long riband, but was moved by this interjection to raise the glass to one eye, the better to survey his sister’s enflamed countenance. ‘What a very odd interpretation to put upon my words!’ he remarked.
‘Don’t tell me!’ retorted Lady Buxted, in full career. ‘Whatever your precious Endymion wants he may have for the asking! While your sisters –’
‘I hesitate to interrupt you, Louisa,’ murmured his lordship untruthfully, ‘but I think that extremely doubtful. I’m not at all benevolent, you know.’
‘And you don’t make him an allowance, I collect! Oh, no, indeed!’
‘So that’s what’s wound you up, is it? What a very hubble-bubble creature you are! At one moment you revile me for behaving scaly to my family, and at the next you come to cuffs with me for honouring my obligations to my heir!’
‘That block!’ she ejaculated. ‘If he is to become the head of the family I shan’t be able to bear it!’
‘Well, don’t put yourself into a taking on that score!’ he recommended. ‘Very likely you won’t be obliged to bear it, for the chances are that you’ll predecease me. I can give you five years, you know.’
Lady Buxted, unable to find words adequate to the occasion, sought refuge in a burst of tears, reproaching her brother, between sobs, for his unkindness. But if she thought to soften his heart by these tactics she was the more mistaken: amongst the many things which bored him feminine tears and recriminations ranked high. Saying, with unconvincing solicitude, that if he had guessed that she was out of sorts he would not have inflicted his presence on her, he took his leave, sped on his way by the fervently expressed hope of his sister that she would at least live to see him come by his deserts.
She stopped crying as soon as the door shut behind the Marquis; and might have recovered some degree of equanimity had not her elder son chosen to come into the room a few minutes later, to ask her, with a sad want of tact, whether his uncle had been visiting her; and, if so, what he had had to say to her proposal. Upon learning from her that Alverstoke had been as disobliging as she had always known he would be, he looked grave, but said that he could not be sorry, for, having thought the matter over carefully, he could not like the scheme.
Lady Buxted’s disposition was not a loving one. She was quite as selfish as her brother, and far less honest, for she neither acknowledged, nor, indeed, recognised her shortcomings. She had long since convinced herself that her life was one long sacrifice to her fatherless children; and, by the simple expedients of prefixing the names of her two sons and three daughters by doting epithets, speaking of them (though not invariably to them) in caressing accents, and informing the world at large that she had no thought or ambition that was not centred on her offspring, she contrived to figure, in the eyes of the uncritical majority, as a devoted parent.
Of her children, Carlton, whom she rather too frequently alluded to as her First-Born, was her favourite. He had never caused her to feel a moment’s anxiety. From being a stolid little boy, accepting his mama at her own valuation, he had grown into a worthy young man, with a deep sense of his responsibilities, and a serious turn of mind which not only kept him out of the scrapes into which his livelier cousin Gregory fell, but which made it quite impossible for him to understand what Gregory, or any other of his contemporaries, found to amuse them in their larks and revel-routs. His understanding was moderate, and his processes of thought as slow as they were painstaking, but he was not at all conceited, merely priding himself on his commonsense. Nor was he jealous of George, his younger brother, whose intelligence he knew to be superior to his own. He was, in fact, proud of George, thinking him a very needle-witted boy; and although his lucubrations had shown him that such ardent spirits as George’s might well lead that promising youth from the path of virtue, he never divulged this apprehension to his mother, or informed her of his intention to keep a watchful eye on George, when George’s schooldays came to an end. He neither confided in her, nor argued with her; and not even to his sister Jane had he ever uttered a word of criticism of her.
He was four-and-twenty years of age, but as he had as yet shown no disposition to assert himself it came as an unpleasant surprise to his mother when he said that he knew of no reason why Jane’s come-out ball should be held at his uncle’s house, and at his expense. He sank rapidly in her affection; and, her temper being already exacerbated, they might soon have been at dagger-drawing if he had not prudently withdrawn from the engagement.
He was grieved to discover presently that Jane partook of her mother’s sentiments upon this occasion, asserting that it was detestable of Uncle Vernon to be so disobliging, and so hardfisted as to begrudge the expenditure of a few hundred pounds.
‘I am persuaded, Jane,’ said Buxted gravely, ‘that you have too much propriety of taste to wish to be so much beholden to my uncle.’
‘Oh, fiddle-faddle!’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘Pray, why shouldn’t I be beholden to him? I’m sure it’s no more than his duty, after all!’
His upper lip seemed to lengthen, as it always did when he was displeased; he said in a repressive voice: ‘I make every allowance for your disappointment, but I venture to think that you will find a party here, in your own home, very much more enjoyable than a vast rout at Alverstoke House, where more than half the guests, I daresay, would be quite unknown to you.’
His second sister, Maria, who, with her own come-out in view, was quite as indignant as Jane, was unable to contain herself, but barely waited for him to come to the end of his measured speech before demanding why he talked such gammon. ‘More enjoyable to hold a nip-farthing ball here, with no more than fifty persons invited, than to make her first appearance at Alverstoke House? You must be all about in your head!’ she told his lordship. ‘It will be the shabbiest affair, for you know what Mama is! But if my uncle were to give a ball, only think how magnificent it would be! Hundreds of guests, and all of the first consequence! Lobsters, and aspic jellies and – and Chantillies, and creams –’
‘Invited to the ball?’ interpolated Carlton, with ponderous humour.
‘And champagne!’ struck in Jane, paying no heed to him. ‘And I should have stood at the head of the great staircase, with Mama, and my uncle, in a white satin gown, trimmed with rosebuds, and pink gauze, and a wreath!’
This beautiful vision caused tears to well into her eyes, but failed to arouse enthusiasm in either Maria or in Carlton, Maria objecting that with her freckles and sandy hair she would look like a quiz; and Carlton saying that he wondered at it that his sisters should think so much of worldly trumpery. Neither thought
it worth while to reply to this; but when he added that for his part he was glad Alverstoke had refused to give the ball, they were quite as much incensed as had been their mama, and far more vociferous. So he went away, leaving his sisters to deplore his prosiness, quarrel about rosebuds and pink gauze, and agree that while their uncle was detestable it was probably Mama’s fault, for setting up his back, which neither damsel doubted for an instant that she had done.
Two
When the Marquis entered his house, some time later, one of the first things that his eyes alighted on was a letter, lying on one of a pair of ebony and ormolu pier tables. Its direction was written in large and flourishing characters, and the pale blue wafer which sealed it was unbroken, Mr Charles Trevor, the Marquis’s excellent secretary, having recognised at a glance that it emanated from one or other of the frail beauties temporarily engaging his lordship’s erratic attention. Relinquishing his hat, his gloves, and the lavishly caped driving-coat which had excited Miss Kitty Buxted’s admiration, into the hands of the footman waiting to receive them, he picked up the letter, and strolled with it into the library. As he broke the wafer, and spread open the crossed sheet, an aroma of ambergris assailed his fastidious nostrils. An expression of distaste came into his face; he held the letter at arm’s length, and groped for his quizzing-glass. Through this, he scanned the missive in a cursory way, before dropping it into the fire. Fanny, he decided, was becoming an intolerable bore. A dazzling creature, but, like so many prime articles, she was never satisfied. She now wanted a pair of cream-coloured horses to draw her barouche; last week it had been a diamond necklace. He had given her that, and it would serve for a farewell gift.
The sickly scent with which she had sprinkled her letter seemed to linger on his fingers; he was carefully wiping them when Charles Trevor came into the room. He glanced up, and seeing the look of surprise on that young gentleman’s face very kindly explained to him that he disliked ambergris.
Mr Trevor offered no comment, but comprehension was writ so large upon his face that Alverstoke said: ‘Just so! I know what you are thinking, Charles, and you are perfectly right: it is time I gave the fair Fanny her congé.’ He sighed: ‘A nice bit of game, but as birdwitted as she’s avaricious.’
Again Mr Trevor offered no comment. He would have been hard put to it to have made one, for his thoughts on the delicate subject were tangled. As a moralist, he could only deplore his employer’s way of life; as one deeply imbued with chivalrous ideals, he pitied the fair Fanny; but as one who was fully aware of the extent of his lordship’s generosity towards the lady, he was obliged to own that she had no cause for complaint.
Charles Trevor, one of the younger members of a large family, owed his present position to the circumstance of his father’s having been appointed, when newly ordained, to the post of tutor and general mentor to the present Marquis’s father, accompanying him on a protracted Grand Tour. A comfortable living was not his only reward: his noble pupil remained sincerely attached to him; stood as godfather to his eldest son; and reared his own son in the vague belief that the Reverend Laurence Trevor had a claim upon his patronage.
So, when the Reverend Laurence had ventured to suggest to the present Marquis that Charles was a suitable candidate for the post of secretary, Alverstoke had accepted him with far more readiness than Charles had felt in becoming a member of his household. Charles had no desire to enter the Church, but he was a young man of serious mind and unimpeachable morals, and nothing he had heard of Alverstoke led him to expect that his appointment would prove to be anything but a mortification of the flesh. But as he had, besides commonsense, a good deal of filial affection, and knew that to a clergyman of moderate substance it was no easy task to provide for a sixth son, he kept his misgivings to himself, assured his father that he would do his best not to disappoint his expectations, and derived what consolation he could from the reflection that when he was an inmate of Alverstoke House he must surely find it easier to discover and to grasp a golden opportunity than while he kicked his heels in a country parsonage.
Since his taste ran to politics, the golden opportunity had not so far offered itself, the Marquis not sharing his ambition, and consequently making infrequent appearances in the Upper House; but he was allowed to write such brief speeches as his patron felt that it behoved him to utter, and even, now and then, to favour him with his own political convictions.
Furthermore, he had found it quite impossible to dislike Alverstoke. While he was given no reason to suppose that Alverstoke was interested in his concerns, he found him to be as unexacting as he was amiable, and never disagreeably high in the instep. Comparing notes with a college-friend, in a similar situation, whose employer appeared to regard him as a cross between a black slave and an upper servant, Charles knew himself to be fortunate. Alverstoke could give an annihilating snub to some encroaching mushroom, but if his secretary erred he raked him down in a manner which was unexceptionable, since it conveyed no suggestion of social superiority. Charles’s friend had curt commands flung at him; Charles received civil requests, generally accompanied by one of his lordship’s more attractive smiles. Try as Charles would, he could not resist Alverstoke’s charm, any more than he could withhold admiration for his horsemanship, and his proficiency in a great many sporting activities.
‘I collect,’ said the Marquis, faint amusement in his eyes, ‘from your hesitant air and sheepish demeanour, that you feel it to be your duty to put me in mind of yet another obligation. Take my advice, and don’t do it! I shall take it very unkind in you, and very likely fly up into the boughs.’
A grin dispelled the gravity of Mr Trevor’s countenance. ‘You never do, sir,’ he said simply. ‘And it isn’t an obligation – at least, I don’t think it is! Only I thought you would like to know of it.’
‘Oh, did you? In my experience, whenever those words are uttered they are the prelude to something I would liefer not know.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Trevor ingenuously, ‘but I wish you will read this letter! As a matter of fact, I promised Miss Merriville that you would!’
‘And who,’ demanded his lordship, ‘is Miss Merriville?’
‘She said you would know, sir.’
‘Really, Charles, you should know me better than to suppose that I carry in my head the names of all the –’ He stopped, his brows drawing together. ‘Merriville,’ he repeated thoughtfully.
‘I believe, sir, some sort of connection of yours.’
‘A very remote sort! What the devil does she want?’
Mr Trevor offered him a sealed letter. He took it, but said severely: ‘You would be very well served if I put it into the fire, and left you to explain how it was that you were not, after all, able to see to it that I read it!’ He broke the seal and opened the letter. It did not take him long to master its contents. He raised his eyes when he came to the end, and directed a look of pained enquiry at Mr Trevor. ‘Are you a trifle out of sorts, Charles? On the toodle last night, and not feeling quite the thing today?’
‘No, of course not!’ said Mr Trevor, shocked.
‘Well, what, in heaven’s name, has made you suddenly queer in your attic?’
‘I’m not! I mean –’
‘You must be. Never before, in the three years of our association, have you failed to make my excuses to my more importunate relatives! As for encouraging the dirty dishes amongst them –’
‘That I am persuaded they are not, sir! I fancy they may not be affluent, but –’
‘Dirty dishes,’ repeated his lordship firmly. ‘When one considers that my sister believes herself to be living quite out of the world in Grosvenor Place, what can one think of persons owning to Upper Wimpole Street? And if –’ he glanced down at the letter again – ‘and if this F. Merriville is the daughter of the only member of the family with whom I ever had the slightest acquaintance you may depend upon it she hasn’t a souse, and hopes I may be so obliging as to remedy this.’
‘No, no!’ Mr Trevor said.
‘I hope I know better than to encourage such persons as that!’
‘So do I,’ agreed his lordship. He lifted a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Friends of yours, Charles?’
‘I never saw them before in my life, sir,’ replied Mr Trevor stiffly. ‘I should perhaps assure your lordship that I should consider it grossly improper to try to introduce any of my friends to your notice.’
‘Well, don’t poker up about it! I really didn’t mean to insult you,’ said Alverstoke mildly.
‘No, sir, of course not!’ Mr Trevor said, mollified. ‘I beg pardon! The thing is – Well, I had best explain to you how it came about that I did meet Miss Merriville!’
‘Do!’ invited Alverstoke.
‘She brought the letter herself,’ disclosed Mr Trevor. ‘The carriage drew up just as I was about to enter the house – you see, you gave me very little to do today, so I thought you wouldn’t object to it if I went out to purchase some new neck-cloths for myself!’
‘Now, what can have put such an idea as that into your head?’
Another grin was drawn from his staid secretary. ‘You did, sir. Well, the long and short of it is that Miss Merriville got down from the carriage, the letter in her hand, as I was mounting the steps. So –’
‘Ah!’ interpolated Alverstoke. ‘No footman! Probably a job-carriage.’
‘As to that, sir, I don’t know. At all events, I asked her if I could be of service – telling her that I was your secretary – and we fell into conversation – and I said that I would give you her letter, and – well –’
‘See to it that I read it,’ supplied Alverstoke. ‘Describe this charmer to me, Charles!’
‘Miss Merriville?’ said Mr Trevor, apparently at a loss. ‘Well, I didn’t notice her particularly, sir! She was very civil, and unaffected, and – and certainly not what you call a dirty dish! I mean –’ He paused, trying to conjure up a picture of Miss Merriville. ‘Well, I don’t know much about such things, but it seemed to me that she was dressed with elegance! Quite young, I think – though not in her first season. Or even,’ he added reflectively, ‘in her second season.’ He drew a long breath, and uttered, in reverent accents: ‘It was the other one, sir!’