Frederica (19 page)

“Very likely not—in fact, almost certainly not,” said the Marquis. “What gave you the notion that Endymion’s wishes interest me?”

That was the sort of remark, reflected Mr Trevor, which made his lordship so incalculable. He could repel and attract at one and the same time. Nothing could be more alienating than the cold indifference he showed towards the members of his family; nothing more endearing than the consideration he gave to the probable wishes of his secretary. He could, with a shocking want of delicacy, include amongst his guests a lady who would certainly set his sisters in a bustle of virtuous indignation; but when he commanded his secretary’s attendance, as though it were a part of his duties, Mr Trevor knew very well that all that was expected of him was that he should enjoy himself, and act, in the manner of an aide-de-camp, as a secondary host.

He had never doubted that he would enjoy the ball, for this was a treat which seldom came in his way; and, thanks to the Marquis’s intervention, he was now able to look forward to the dinner with pleasurable anticipation.

The first guests to arrive were the Jevingtons, bringing the eligible Mr Redmure in their train. Lady Jevington made her appearance regally attired, wearing a magnificent and very ugly diamond tiara, and in a mood of overpowering graciousness. This found instant expression when Alverstoke said: “I fancy I need not introduce Charles to you, Augusta?” She replied at once, holding out her hand to Mr Trevor, and bestowing upon him a smile of rare condescension: “Indeed, no! Well, Charles, how do you do? And how is your worthy father? And your dear mama? Such an age since I have seen them! you must tell me all about them!”

He was spared this necessity by the arrival, first of the Buxted party, and next, following hard upon their heels, of Mrs Dauntry and Chloë, Mrs Dauntry looking remarkably handsome in one of the cringing gowns which she habitually wore, and which so well became her slender figure. This one, which Lady Buxted mentally priced at fifty guineas, and Lady Jevington at rather more, was of lilac spider-gauze over an under-dress of rose satin. She too wore a diamond tiara, by no means so imposing as the heirloom which crowned Lady Jevington, but far more delicately made. Over it she had cast one of her lace veils; lilac kid gloves (French, and not a penny less than five guineas, thought Lady Buxted indignantly) covered her arms; she carried a painted fan in one hand; and a frivolous little reticule hung from her wrist. The other hand she extended to Alverstoke, murmuring: “Dear Vernon!” As he gratified her, and infuriated his sisters, by raising it to his lips, she turned her huge sunken eyes towards those fulminating ladies, and acknowledged them by a faint, sweet smile which held affection but not so much as a hint that she regarded either as her hostess. “Dear Vernon!” she repeated. “Am I late? How naughty of me! But I know you will forgive me! And here is quite your most constant admirer!—Chloë, my darling!”

Miss Dauntry, who had attained her seventeenth birthday three days earlier, dropped a schoolgirl’s curtsy, as much surprise as alarm in her heart-shaped face. Her mama having omitted to inform her that she considered her formidable cousin in the light of a fairy godfather, she was thrown off her precarious balance, and looked anxiously at Mrs Dauntry for guidance. The Marquis, observing her dismay, said affably: “And for how long have I been—how did you phrase it, Lucretia? Ah, yes!—
first oars
with you, Chloë? Or haven’t I been?”

“Oh,
no
!”
she answered ingenuously. She then blushed hotly, and stammered: “I don’t mean—that is,—Well, I don’t know you very well, c-cousin!”

He smiled. “Good girl! It clearly behooves me to cultivate your acquaintance, doesn’t it?” He then took pity on her embarrassment, and handed her over to Charles Trevor, in whose unalarming company she soon recovered her complexion. The Marquis, critically surveying her, said, in his abrupt way: “A pretty child, and may well improve. A pity she takes after her father, rather than after you, Lucretia. She’ll never be a beauty, but she’s a taking little thing. My compliments on her dress: your choice, I fancy!”

Mrs Dauntry was pleased by this tribute, which was indeed well-deserved. She had expended much time and thought, as well as a great deal of money, on the deceptively simple dress Chloë was wearing; and with unerring good taste, she had chosen for her a primrose muslin, which was far more becoming to her than the conventional white, or the pale blues and pinks generally considered suitable for girls. She had big brown eyes and brown hair, and a warm, creamy skin, which white or blue turned to sallow. Her figure was still immature, and she lacked height, but she would pass anywhere for a pretty girl, decided Alverstoke. Which was more than could be said for Miss Buxted, cutting a deplorable figure in an over-trimmed dress, and with a wreath of pink roses on her head. Wiser counsels had not prevailed with Jane: she had been determined on roses and pink gauze; and she had inherited her mother’s shrewish disposition, and was capable of sulking for days together, Lady Buxted had allowed her to have them. The Marquis eyed her with distaste, disliking her artificial titter as much as her appearance. A plain girl, and would soon become bracket-faced: Louisa would never be able to turn her off.

Louisa and Augusta had their heads together. Augusta was making enquiries about the Merrivilles, and blandly expressing her surprise at learning that Louisa had undertaken to chaperon them. “My dear Augusta, I felt it to be my duty,” said Lady Buxted. “There was Vernon, quite at a stand, as you may suppose! So like Fred Merriville to have cast the whole family on his hands! If I had not come to the rescue, I don’t know what would have become of the girls, because their aunt is quite eccentric—very blue, you know!—and detests going into society.”

“Indeed!” said Lady Jevington, receiving this explanation with obvious scepticism. “How grateful Alverstoke must be! And what are they like? No doubt very beautiful!”

“Oh, dear me, no! I have met only the elder: quite a good-looking girl, but I shouldn’t describe her as a beauty. I believe the younger sister is the prettier of the two. Vernon, did you not tell me that Miss Charis Merriville is pretty?”

“Very likely,” he responded. “
I
think her so, at all events. You must tell me how she strikes you, dear Louisa!”

At that moment, Wicken announced Miss Merriville, and Miss Charis Merriville, and there was no need for Lady Buxted to tell her brother how Charis struck her, for the answer was plainly written in her face. Frederica entered the room a little in advance of her sister, and paused for a moment, glancing swiftly round. The impression she created was one of elegance. Not even the Alexandrian cap could make her look in the least like a dowager; but the fashion of her orange-blossom crape, with its bodice cut in the Austrian style, the shawl of Albany gauze, caught up over her elbows, the sparkle of diamonds round her throat, and, above all, her quiet assurance, clearly showed that she neither was, nor considered herself to be, a girl in her first bloom. She had more the appearance of a young matron, with several years’ experience behind her.

Only for a few seconds did she come under the scrutiny of her host’s relations; and it was not she who brought to an abrupt end the various conversations in progress. It was Charis, entering the room in her wake, who stunned the assembled company into silence, caused even the stolid Lord Buxted to cut a sentence off in mid-air, and made Lord Jevington wonder (as he afterwards disclosed to his austere Viscountess) if he really was attending a party at Alverstoke House, or asleep and dreaming.

Lady Jevington, a just woman, did not blame him: Miss Charis Merriville was unquestionably the embodiment of a dream. A slender snow-maiden, dressed all in white, a wreath of lilies of the valley in her shining hair, and no touch of colour about her except that which was supplied by the gold of her curls, the deep blue of her eyes, and the delicate rose of her cheeks and lips. No man could be blamed for thinking that he beheld a celestial vision. Exquisitely gowned, too! thought her ladyship, bestowing her silent approval on the slim three-quarter dress of sarsnet, fastened with pearl rosettes (procured, had she but known it, at a fascinating shop in the Pantheon Bazaar), and worn over an underdress of shimmering ivory satin. Charis’s only ornament was the single row of pearls inherited from her mother: precisely the thing, further approved Lady Jevington, for a girl to wear in her first season. No more than she blamed her lord for an enthusiasm quite unbecoming to his years did she blame her volatile son, the Hon. Gregory Sandridge, for his dropped jaw, and riveted gaze. The girl was lovely, judged by any standards. Lady Jevington, her Anna eligibly betrothed, was able to feel quite sorry for poor Louisa, so obviously taken-in by Alverstoke, and so foolishly betraying her fury in her glaring eyes and reddened checks. Easy to see, of course, why Alverstoke had accepted the charge laid upon him! Far too young for him, and in every way unsuitable, but no need to worry about that: he would become bored by her within a month. Not very much need to worry about Gregory either: he would fall in and out of love for some years yet before he formed a lasting attachment; and if Charis’s charms proved stronger than his passion for sport his mama had no doubt of her ability to detach him from the girl. But how very well served poor Louisa would be, if her staid Carlton succumbed to Fred Merriville’s daughter! When she thought of Louisa’s grasping, nip-cheese ways, her spiteful temper, and the unjustifiable demands she made upon Alverstoke, Lady Jevington could not even find it in her to blame her disgraceful brother for having bamboozled her so wickedly.

As Alverstoke moved forward to greet his wards, Chloë, her rapt gaze fixed on Charis, breathed: “Oh ...! How
beautiful
she is! like a fairy princess!”

Mr Trevor glanced down at her, and nodded, smiling.

“Well, my children?” said the Marquis paternally. Frederica’s eyes twinkled, but she replied calmly: “How do you do, cousin?” and passed on immediately to Lady Buxted. “How do you do, ma’am? May I make my sister known to you? Charis, Lady Buxted—our kind protectress!”

Lady Buxted pulled herself together, forcing a smile to her lips, and giving her hand to Charis, dropping a slight, graceful curtsy before her. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, for not accompanying my sister when she visited you,” Charis said, in her soft voice. “I was so sorry!”

“To be sure, you were laid up with a cold, or some such thing, were you not? Well, now I must introduce you to my sister, Lady Jevington,” responded Lady Buxted, rigidly cordial, and well-aware that Augusta had guessed how abominably she had been hoaxed, and was rejoicing in her discomfiture. The graciousness with which Augusta met the Misses Merriville confirmed her in this belief; and she was left to derive what consolation she might from the reflection that That Woman must be as deeply chagrined by the arrival on the scene of a transcendent beauty as she was herself.

But Mrs Dauntry, who had never been known to betray such unworthy emotions as anger or resentment, received the sisters with even more graciousness than had Lady Jevington, summoning Chloë to be introduced to her new cousins, and subsequently drawing Alverstoke’s attention to the charming picture Charis and Chloë made, as they sat talking together on a small sofa at the end of the room. Well within hearing of the Ladies Jevington and Buxted, she described them as the prettiest girls in the room, which, as Frederica stood outside this category, gently paid off several old scores, the only other girls present being Miss Dandridge, and Miss Buxted. “Not,” she added, with her wistful smile, “that I mean to compare them, for even to
my
partial eyes my little Chloë is a farthing to the sum of your lovely Charis. My dear Alverstoke, she will have half London at her feet!” She laughed, and looked archly up at him. “What enemies you will win to yourself amongst some of our matchmaking mamas! If my Chloë were not far too young to be thinking of marriage, I am sure I should be one myself!”

Deeply appreciative, the Marquis had just time to respond: “Admirable, dear Lucretia!” before his attention was claimed by the arrival of the Seftons.

The last of the guests to arrive was Endymion, who came in, looking like a handsome, overgrown schoolboy detected in crime, and stammering an apology for his tardiness. He begged his cousin’s pardon, and—with a deprecating glance round the room—everyone’s! He had been on guard-duty—Cousin Vernon would understand—But at this point he broke off, suddenly seeing Charis, and stood staring at her in undisguised admiration until somewhat acidly recalled from this trance by Lady Jevington, who said that she believed he was already known to my Ladies Jersey and Sefton. This made him start, flush up to the roots of his hair, and utter some incoherent apologies, as he bowed to their ladyships. Fortunately, both were amused rather than offended, for although Lady Sefton was too good-natured to take umbrage, Lady Jersey was a very high stickler indeed. Endymion was saved from one of her set-downs, partly because he was, in general, extremely punctilious, as well as being just the sort of handsome young man of breeding whom any hostess was happy to invite to her balls and assemblies; and partly because the Fanes and the Dauntrys had (as she phrased it) known one another for ever. One of her closest childhood friends had been Alverstoke’s youngest sister: that Poor Eliza, who had married a mere Mr Kentmere, and almost vanished from the London scene; and although Alverstoke, four years senior to the fascinating Sally Fane, had never been amongst the aspirants to her hand and fortune, she frankly owned that she had a tendre for him, and ranked him amongst her oldest friends. He was some ten years younger than the Earl of Jersey, but well-acquainted with him, both being Harrovians, and rivals on the Turf and the hunting-field; and both residing, when in London, in Berkeley Square: a circumstance which, according to Lady Jersey, not only made them neighbours, but posed an insoluble problem: if invited to a dress-party at Alverstoke House, was it more proper to call out one’s carriage, or to demean oneself by walking some fifty yards to the party?