Frederica (36 page)

“Oh no! It is the greatest misery to me!” Charis agreed.

“Ay, and so it is to me, seeing you by scraps and not getting on in the least,” said Endymion gloomily. “I’ll tell you what, Charis: we must talk about it—decide what’s to be done, you know. Dashed if I won’t bring Chloë and Diana to see the balloon tomorrow! Ay, that’s the barber! You can tell your sister you wish to speak to Chloë: no harm in that! I’ll play least-in-sight, and while everyone’s watching the balloon we’ll slip off together. Shouldn’t think it will be difficult: bound to be a devilish crowd in the park.”

“No, no!” she said distressfully. “If you bring your sisters to see the ascent, you must promise not to come
near
me! Felix has persuaded Lord Alverstoke to take him there, and you may depend upon it that he will bring his carriage as close to ours as he may!”

“Alverstoke going to watch a balloon go up?” exclaimed Endymion incredulously. “You’re bamming!”

“No, indeed I’m not! He is taking Lady Elizabeth too, so you see—!”

“He must be getting queer in his attic! Well, I mean to say—!
Alverstoke
!
Why the deuce must he take it into his head to come and play boots with everything? What a dam—what a dashed thing! Seems to me the end of it will be that we shall have to take a bolt to the Border!”

“
Endymion
!”
she uttered, in shocked dismay. “You
couldn’t
ask me to do anything so dreadful! You’re joking me! It would be beyond everything!”

“Yes, I know it would. My Colonel wouldn’t like it, either. But we can’t stand on points for ever, love! Got to bring ourselves about somehow!”

“We will—oh, I know we shall succeed in the end! Hush, here comes Lord Wrenthorpe!”

XIX

When Knapp drew back the blinds in his master’s bedroom upon the following morning, the Marquis was first revolted by the sight of brilliant sunshine, and then by his valet’s announcement that it was a beautiful day. He had hoped for rain, gales, or even snow: anything, in fact, which would make a balloon ascension impossible. But a cloudless sky met his gaze; and when, hope dying hard, he asked Knapp if it was not very still and windless, Knapp replied, with all the air of one bearing good tidings: “Just a nice, light breeze, my lord: what you might call a perfect June day!”

“You are mistaken!” responded his lordship. “At what time does this damned balloon make its ascension?”

“At two o’clock, my lord—according to what Master Felix told Wicken,” said Knapp demurely.

“And you may depend upon it,” said his lordship, “that that brat will be upon the doorstep on the stroke of noon!”

But when he himself emerged from his dressing-room at noon he found that young Mr Merriville had arrived some little time earlier, and was discussing a hearty luncheon under the aegis of Lady Elizabeth. Owing to the exertions of his sisters, he was impeccably attired in spotless nankeens, his best jacket, and a freshly laundered shirt; with his nails scrubbed, and his curly locks brushed till they glowed. Between mouthfuls of mutton-pie, he was initiating his hostess into the mysteries of aeronautics. He greeted Alverstoke with acclaim, explaining that he had come to the house perhaps a little early because he knew that he and Cousin Elizabeth wouldn’t wish to reach the park too late to obtain a good place for the phaeton. Upon receiving a somewhat embittered rejoinder, he at once subjugated his lordship by saying anxiously: “You do
wish
to go, don’t you, sir?”

“Yes—but you are a vile and an abominable young thatchgallows!” said his lordship.

Accepting this as a compliment, Felix bestowed a seraphic smile upon him, and applied himself again to the pie.

“Also,” said his lordship, levelling his glass at the loaded plate, and slightly shuddering, “a bacon-picker!”

“I know. Sir, do you know how they were
used
to fill balloons, and how they
now
do it?”

“No,” said Alverstoke. “I’ve no doubt, however, that I soon shall.”

He was right. From then on Felix, who had acquired a tattered copy of the
History and Practice of Aerostation,
maintained a flow of conversation, largely informative, but interspersed with eager questions. He sat wedged between Alverstoke and Eliza in the phaeton; but since he addressed himself exclusively to Alverstoke, Eliza was able to sit back at her ease, listening with amusement and some surprise to her brother’s very creditable answers to the posers set him by his youthful admirer. Felix, though much indebted to Cavallo’s
History,
had discovered that it was deplorably out-of-date, which, as he ingenuously told Alverstoke, was disappointing, since he felt that there was a great deal he did not yet know about aeronautics. And what was the peculiar virtue of silk, which made it a better covering for balloons than linen?

From the properties of silk to the intricacies of valves was a short step, but it was one which seemed to Eliza to sweep her companions into a foreign language. Abandoning all attempt to grasp the subject, she withdrew her attention, until it was reclaimed by Felix, who startled her by expressing a wistful desire to float through the air attached to a parachute. She exclaimed: “What an appalling thought! I should be frightened out of my life!”

“No, why, ma’am?” he said. “Only fancy what it must be like! Cousin Alverstoke says he once saw a man giving displays: I wish
I
had!”

They had by this time entered the park; and when they reached the site of the ascension Felix was delighted to see that, although the balloon was already tethered, the casks of hydrogen, from which the bag would presently be inflated by means of a hosepipe, were still being assembled within the roped-off enclosure. He drew a deep breath of gratification, demanded of Alverstoke if he wasn’t
now
glad they had started early, jumped down from the phaeton, and made all haste towards the scene of activity.

“I do hope he won’t meet with a repulse!” remarked Eliza. “It would quite ruin his day!”

“From what I know of him he is more likely to meet with quite unnecessary encouragement,” replied Alverstoke. “They took him to their bosoms at the foundry, to which it was my fate to escort him; and he appears to have had a similar success on the steam-boat he once boarded. He has a thirst for information on all forms of mechanical invention, and, for his age, a remarkable grasp of the subject.”

“You too seem to know more about such things than I had suspected!”

“No more than any other man of moderate understanding. I am now going to withdraw into the shade of the trees—no matter how anxious you may be to remain as close as possible to the enclosure!”

She laughed. “I shall be thankful—though I fear Felix will think it very poor-spirited of us!”

Early though it was, they had not been the first of the spectators to arrive. A number of persons had gathered round the enclosure already; and several carriages had taken up positions under the shade of the trees. Amongst these was Lady Buxted’s landaulet: a circumstance which made Eliza ejaculate: “Good God, isn’t that Louisa’s carriage? I wonder how she was induced to lend it? She detests the Merrivilles, you know.”

“I should suppose that she had little choice in the matter. I find Carlton intolerably boring, but I’ll say this for him: he’s not afraid of Louisa’s tongue, and he doesn’t knuckle down to her. Or so I collect, from the complaints she has from time to time poured into my unwilling ears.”

“I had not credited him with so much spirit. Do draw up beside the carriage! I should like to pursue my acquaintance with Frederica.”

He complied with this request, backing the phaeton into place on the right of the landaulet, so that although the high perch of the phaeton made it impossible for his sister to shake hands with Frederica she was able to exchange greetings with her, and might have maintained a conversation had she not decided that to be obliged to talk to anyone sitting so far above her would soon give Frederica a stiff neck. Jessamy had descended from the landaulet, and, with an awkward gallantry, helped her to climb down from her seat, when she expressed her intention to enjoy a comfortable cose with his sisters. She smiled upon him, saying: “Thank you! You, I believe, are Jessamy—the one who handles the reins in form! How do you do?”

He flushed, and, as he bowed over her extended hand, stammered a disclaimer. Her ladyship was very good, but quite mistook the matter! He was the merest whipster, as Cousin Alverstoke would tell her!

“Oh, no! He says you have a—a bit of the drag about you! How do you do, Carlton? I am delighted to see you, but you had liefer go to watch what they are doing to the balloon than talk to an aunt, so you shall give me your place for a while.”

There seemed to be no reason why her ladyship should not have occupied Jessamy’s place, but Lord Buxted, taking his smiling dismissal in good part, forbore to point this out to her. He handed her into the carriage, and turned to look up at his uncle, saying humorously: “I can guess what—or perhaps I should say
who
!—has brought you here in such excellent time, sir!”

“Yes, an irresistible force. But what the devil brought
you
here so early?”

“Oh, much the same cause!” said Carlton, glancing towards Jessamy, who was paying no heed to him, his attention being divided between his lordship’s horses, and his lordship’s groom. He continued, lowering his voice: “I knew that our young cousin there would want to see everything, from the start, and would think himself very hardly used if we had arrived only in time to watch the actual ascension!”

A deadly, and all too familiar boredom crept over the Marquis; an acrid rejoinder hovered on his lips, but remained unspoken. As his derisive eyes scanned his nephew’s countenance he realized that the pompous young slow-top was sincere: he believed in all honesty that he was giving Jessamy a high treat; and, as his next words proved, he had taken pains to render it as instructive as it was exciting.

“Knowing that I should be expected to answer all manner of questions, I took the precaution of consulting my
Encyclopaedia
yesterday,” Buxted said. “I must own that I became quite absorbed in the subject! The information was not quite up-to-date, but the adventures of the first ballooners held me positively spellbound! I have been entertaining my companions with an account of Professor Charles’s experiments. I daresay Jessamy will be able to tell you the height to which he rose on one occasion, eh, Jessamy?” he added, raising his voice.

He was obliged to repeat the question before he could divert Jessamy’s attention from the leader to whom he was addressing soft blandishments, and even then it was Alverstoke who supplied him with the answer.

“Two thousand feet,” he said, coming to Jessamy’s rescue. “Not for nothing have I endured your brother’s company this day, Jessamy! So don’t attempt to tell me that Lunardi filled his balloon with gas procured from zinc; or that Tyler ascended half-a-mile, at Edinburgh; or even that Blanchard once came to rest in an oak-tree, because I am already fully informed on these and a great many other matters!”

“Ah, Felix has an enquiring mind!” said Buxted, smiling indulgently. “Where is the little rascal?”

“Probably taking an active part in the excessively tedious preparations within the enclosure.”

“I hardly think he will have contrived to gain admittance, but perhaps we should go to see that he isn’t in mischief, Jessamy. I daresay you too will like to watch the bag being filled,” said Buxted kindly.

He turned away, to suggest that the ladies might care to go with them; and Jessamy, looking up at the Marquis, said: “I wish I were in Felix’s shoes! Your grays too! Did he ask you to drive him behind a team, sir? I told him you would not, so now he’s got a point the best of me. Little ape!—Yes, Cousin Buxted, I’m coming!”

The ladies having declined the offered treat, Buxted and Jessamy went off together; but it was not many minutes before Jessamy returned. Alverstoke, who had alighted from the phaeton, and was standing talking to Frederica, turned his head. “Murdered him?” he enquired.

Jessamy was betrayed into a laugh, which he instantly checked, saying: “No, no! But there was no bearing it, so I made an excuse to come away. It was bad enough when he
would
prose on for ever about these intolerable aeronautics—just as though I hadn’t heard enough of them from Felix!—but when he got to reading Felix a lecture, and begging those men’s pardons for having permitted him to plague them, I knew I should be at dagger-drawing with him, if I stayed! So I didn’t.”

“
Is
Felix plaguing them?” asked Frederica. “Ought I to fetch him away?”

“He wouldn’t come—particularly now that Cousin Buxted has told him to do so! Saying that people engaged on important matters didn’t want ‘little boys’ under their feet. That set up Felix’s bristles in a trice, I can tell you! Well, can you wonder at it?”

“A very ill-judged remark,” agreed Alverstoke gravely.

“Well,
you
wouldn’t call him a
little boy
to his face, now would you?”

“Of course he wouldn’t!” said Eliza, her eyes dancing. “I distinctly recollect that he called him, this very day, an abominable young thatchgallows!”

“Exactly so, ma’am!” said Jessamy. “He wouldn’t care a straw for that, any more than he cared for my telling him that he was a disgusting little scrub! But to call him a
little boy
—!Why,
I
wouldn’t do so, no matter how angry I might be!”