Page 28 of Frederica

He then took leave of Alverstoke, and proceeded on his way, feeling none of the amazement or the apprehension which tortured his mother and his astute Cousin Louisa, but accepting with perfect equanimity Alverstoke’s explanation of the interest he felt in the unknown Merrivilles.

Any faint hope that Alverstoke might have cherished that he would be denied admittance to the foundry perished at the outset. His estimable secretary had not failed to pave the way for him: no sooner had he presented his card than every door, metaphorically speaking, was flung wide, and the head of the foundry, attended by various senior satellites, was hastily summoned to conduct him all over the building. This extremely competent person not only declared that he was honoured by his lordship’s visit, but assured him also of his readiness to explain the intricacies of whatever piece of modern machinery it was that had attracted his lordship’s curiosity: a promise which convinced Felix that his instinct had not misled him when it had prompted him to reject the offer of Mr Trevor’s escort. ‘He would never have done it for Mr – Mr Thingummy!’ he whispered triumphantly.

By what his lordship considered to be a rare stroke of good fortune, the manager of the foundry was not only the progenitor of a large family, but had failed to discover in any of his sons a trace of his genius. Within five minutes of making the youngest Merriville’s acquaintance he recognised in him a kindred spirit; and from then on the Marquis was allowed, much to his relief, to sink into the background. He followed meekly in the wake of the enthusiasts; and the tedium of the expedition was alleviated for him by Felix, in whom he found himself taking an unexpected interest. He knew little, and cared less, about blowing-machines or pneumatic lifts, but he very soon realised that the questions Felix put to their guide showed sufficient knowledge to command that expert’s respect. He began to think that there was more to Felix than he had at first supposed; and he was not surprised when, at the end of their exhaustive tour of the foundry, the manager ventured to congratulate him on that young gentleman’s remarkable understanding. He was aware of a flicker of pride in his protégé, and that did surprise him.

As for Felix himself, it was evident that nothing in his experience had ever come within striking distance of the high treat he had enjoyed. Rendered almost inarticulate by the speculations engendered in his busy brain by the information he had acquired, he could only stammer out his gratitude, and express (anxiously) the hope that Cousin Alverstoke had also enjoyed himself. ‘J-Jessamy said you didn’t w-want to come, but you did, sir, d-didn’t you?’

‘To be sure I did!’ replied the Marquis, perjuring his soul without hesitation.

‘And even if you didn’t, you m-must have been interested!’ said Felix, with a brilliant smile.

The Marquis agreed to this too. He then summoned up a hackney, and put Felix into it, directing the jarvey to drive him to Upper Wimpole Street, and at the same time bestowing a guinea upon Felix: largesse so handsome as to deprive the recipient of all power of speech until the jarvey had whipped up his horse, and to make it necessary for him to lean perilously out of the window of the hack to shout his thanks to his benefactor.

Nine

While the Marquis was enjoying a hedonistic sojourn at Cheveley, attending the Second Spring Meeting at Newmarket every day, and watching his promising filly, Firebrand, win a Subscription race against strong competition, the Merriville ladies were busy with the preparations necessary for their forthcoming appearance at the Alverstoke Ball, slightly, but not (except for one incident) very seriously harassed by the exploits of the scions of the family. Finding his brother immersed in his studies, and his sisters in frills and furbelows, Felix sought amusement on his own account. He remembered that the Marquis had said that Mr Trevor should go with him to Margate on the steam-packet; but when he called at Alverstoke House to remind Charles of this promise, he was disappointed t

o learn that Charles, having been granted leave of absence, had gone out of town. This was disappointing; but Felix thought that he might at least go down to the river to watch the packet steam away. That, as he afterwards explained, was all he had meant to do; and if the day had not been so fine, the paddle-wheels so fascinating, and the fare to Margate so moderate (if one did not object to the Common Cabin), that was all he would have done. But the combination of these circumstances, coupled with the wealth jingling in his pocket, had proved to be too much for his virtuous resolve to do nothing which Frederica might not quite like. If the guinea bestowed upon him by the Marquis was not intact, at least enough of it was left to enable him to disburse nine shillings for the privilege of spending a great many hours on a crowded boat, in the company of a set of far from fashionable persons, most of whom his more fastidious brother would have stigmatised as members of the Great Unwashed. Besides, he had made the acquaintance, on the quay, of the marine engineer, a bang-up fellow! To have missed such a chance of widening his knowledge would have been flying in the face of providence: he was sure that Frederica wouldn't have wished him to do that!

In fact, he had spent very little time in the Common Cabin: his real enthusiasm and his happy knack of making friends wherever he went stood him in good stead, and the ship's company had taken him to their hearts. That was certainly fortunate, as Frederica recognised, when she suitably recompensed the burly individual who restored him to her next day, for he would otherwise have been obliged to spend the night on the beach, the sum left in his pocket not being sufficient to pay for a lodging in Margate. So he had offered his services to the Captain (yet another bang-up fellow), and after being given a rare trimming he had been allowed to remain on board, and had been brought back to London as a stowaway: a circumstance which seemed to afford him the highest gratification.

He was very sorry, he said disarmingly, to have alarmed his family; and he was ready to accept any penalty Frederica might impose on him.

But as it was obvious that not the most severe punishment would outweigh in his mind the bliss of his stolen holiday, with the privilege of being sea-sick on the way from Margate to Ramsgate, and becoming smirched from head to foot with oil and grime, Frederica imposed no penalty, merely begging Jessamy to keep a watch on him. Unlike Charis, who had a great deal of sensibility, and had spent a sleepless night, listening for the truant's return, and conjuring up hideous visions of the accidents which might have befallen him, she had remained (in spite of some inevitable qualms) outwardly calm, adducing, when reproached by Charis, the numerous occasions when Felix, having thrown his loving sisters into agonies of apprehension, had reappeared, not a penny the worse for some hair-raising adventure. In this view she was supported by Miss Winsham, who said that the dratted boy was like a cat: you might fling him as you chose, but he would always land on his feet.

Jessamy, torn between disapproval and secret admiration of his junior's enterprise, accepted the charge laid upon him, and forbore to give Felix (much to that young gentleman's surprise) more than a mild scold. Fixed though his resolve was not to fritter away his time in London, he frequently knew an impulse to cast aside his books, and to sample at least some of the recreations offered by the Metropolis. Frederica's request furnished him with an unassailable excuse for yielding to his baser self; and although he did drag Felix up the three hundred and forty-five steps of the Monument, informing him, when, for the sum of sixpence apiece, they stood on the iron balcony at the top, that it was twenty-four feet higher than Trajan's Pillar, that was the first and last educative expedition of a memorable week. Once Felix had ascertained that the New Mint, with its powerful steam-engines, and its gas-lighting, could only be visited by special recommendation, he was perfectly ready to enjoy some less improving sights, such as the lions and tigers at Exeter 'Change; an Aquatic Representation at Sadler's Wells; a roaring melodrama at the Surrey Theatre; and a sparring-match at the Fives-Court, in St. Martin's Street. But at this point Jessamy's uncomfortable conscience intervened, and he refused to take Felix either to a burletta, or to the Cock-pit Royal. Never having seen a more exciting theatrical performance than some Scenes from Shakespeare, enacted at Christmas in his godfather's house, he had been carried away by the melodrama, and had turned a deaf ear to his conscience, which had whispered to him that in taking Felix to the Surrey Theatre he had exposed his tender mind to corruption; but when he saw the company assembled in the Fives-Court there was no possibility of ignoring his conscience, which positively shouted at him that he was not only leading his young brother into haunts of vice but was himself in danger of succumbing to the wicked lures of London. Such counter-attractions as St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower, or Bullock's Museum having been unequivocally scorned by Felix, he had the happy notion of proposing a trip from the Paddington Basin by passage-boat on the Grand Junction Canal to Uxbridge; and Felix might have been obliged to submit to this voyage (which, to one who had experienced the joys of the steam-packet, could not be anything but a dead bore), had he not discovered, in his guide-book, the existence of the Peerless Pool. This spacious bathing-place, with its covered bath, its bowling-green, its library, and its fish-pond, was situated in Moorfields, behind Bethlehem Hospital. Jessamy, who was beginning to know his London, suspected, from its location, that it might not be a genteel resort; but when he learned that it had formerly been known as the Perilous Pond, from the number of persons who had been drowned while swimming in it, his objections to visiting it naturally vanished. He readily agreed to go there, mentally resolving, however, not to allow Felix to plunge into the Pool until he had satisfied himself (by experiment) that it was reasonably safe for him to do so. But as the Perilous Pond had long since been converted into a bathing-place of perfect safety, and was, on a brisk spring day, quite deserted, the brothers tacitly decided to postpone swimming in it until rather later in the season.

Felix naturally told the rest of the family about the Peerless Pool, and how he and Jessamy had made up their minds to go there again, when the weather became warmer; but when he was alone with Jessamy he said that he didn't mean to tell them about the visit to the Fives-Court. ‘You know what females are!' he said. ‘They'd very likely set up a screech – just as if there was any harm in watching a good mill!'

These lighthearted words were the final blow to his brother's sensitive conscience. They made Jessamy realise that not only had he too taken care to say nothing about the visit to the Fives-Court, and the Surrey Theatre, but that he had crowned his iniquity by teaching Felix (by his own example) to be deceitful. The austere expression, dreaded by his family, hardened his eyes, and thinned his lips; and he said: ‘No, but I shouldn't have taken you there, and I mean to tell Frederica about it. There was no harm in the bouts themselves, but in the company – the betting – the – well, never mind, but it was very wrong of me to introduce you into such a place!'

‘Oh, fudge – Jessie!' said Felix disgustedly.

He was prepared for battle, but although Jessamy's eyes flashed he ignored the insult, and turned away.

Frederica, when the tale was manfully disclosed to her, took a lenient view. She did not think that a twelve-year-old boy stood in much danger of being corrupted by witnessing either an exciting melodrama, or a bout of fisticuffs; and even when Jessamy told her that there had been aspects to the melodrama which were decidedly immoral, she said, with strong commonsense: ‘I don't suppose he paid the least attention to what may have been a trifle warm: all he cared for was the adventure! Of course it wouldn't do to make a practice of taking him to see such plays, but don't tease yourself, Jessamy! You've done him no harm at all, depend upon it! As for the boxing, I think it perfectly horrid, but I know very well that gentlemen of the first consideration see nothing wrong with it. Why even your godfather –'

‘It wasn't the boxing, but the company,' Jessamy said. ‘I didn't know – but I might have guessed! – that I, who mean to enter the Church, was leading my little brother into bad ways!'

Recognising the signs of what her brother Harry rudely called the Early Christian Martyr, Frederica said hastily: ‘Nonsense, Jessamy! You are refining too much upon it! You may have noticed the company, but all Felix cared for was the fights.'

‘It seems to me,' said Jessamy heavily, ‘that ever since we came to London you have thought of nothing but ball-dresses for Charis, and – worldly things!'

‘Well, if I didn't think of them, who would?' she replied. ‘Someone must do so, you know, or where should we be?' She looked quizzically at him. ‘Never mind moralising, my dear, but try for a little worldly sense yourself, and stop encouraging our neighbour to haunt us!'

‘Haunt us!' he repeated, frowning. ‘If you mean that he is friendly and obliging –'

‘I don't, goose! I mean that he is dangling after Charis, and fast becoming a great nuisance.'

‘If you don't like him, why don't you tell Charis to keep a proper distance? Very pretty behaviour it would be for me to be giving him a set-down! Besides, why should I? He speaks to Charis with the greatest respect, I promise you. What's more, it was I who became acquainted with him, days before he met Charis!'

Her eyes danced, but she said gravely: ‘So it was!'

‘And his mother came to visit you, too, which I thought very kind and civil! Why were you so starched up? Yes, and why did you fob her off when she invited us all to dine, and spend a snug evening in their house? Isn't she a respectable person?'

‘Eminently so, I daresay, but it would not do to become intimate with that family, or with their friends. To be plain with you, Jessamy, they may be good, worthy people, but they aren't up to the rig! Mrs Nutley's patronage cannot give us consequence – in fact, it would be excessively harmful! Her manners, you know, are not distinguished, and, from what Buddle tells me, Mr Nutley is a very ungenteel person.'

‘Buddle!' he ejaculated.

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