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‘Well, he is muttonheaded!’ she said defiantly.
‘I never denied it. I even refrained from retaliating in kind.’
An irrepressible dimple peeped in her cheek, but she replied with dignity: ‘You mean, I collect, that my sister isn’t – isn’t blue, or – or very clever –’
‘You may so phrase it, if you choose. Your sister, Frederica, is a beautiful pea-goose – and well you know it!’
Since an innate honesty forbade her to refute this charge, all she could think of to say was: ‘The more reason for her to marry a man of sense, and judgment!’
‘You may be right. Does that description fit young Navenby? I shouldn’t have thought it, but again you may be right. I know nothing about him, after all, and it never does to j
udge by appearances, does it?’
‘Of all the detestable persons I ever met –’ She stopped, gave a gasp, and said in a tone of strong resolution: ‘No. I won’t say it! But I daresay you may guess whom I mean!’ she added, her feelings overcoming her.
‘No, I haven’t a notion: do tell me!’ he invited.
She caught her breath on a choke of laughter, and turned from him, with considerable relief, to greet Darcy Moreton, who had just come up to them. The Marquis lingered only to exchange a few words with Mr Moreton before strolling away to join a group gathered round Lady Jersey. He was apparently unaware of the interest he had aroused by singling out the elder Miss Merriville, and sitting beside her for quite twenty minutes; but he had been observed throughout by several pairs of eyes: some curious, some jealous, and some cynical; and no one had failed to notice that for a large part of this time he had been watching the younger Miss Merriville. Some thought that it would be rather too bad if he were to make that beautiful innocent his next victim; others wondered if he had at last met his fate; and a few ladies, some of whom had cherished secret hopes that their daughters might find favour in his eyes, were unequivocally disgusted. Amongst these was Lady Buxted. She had no axe to grind; she had been as anxious as her elder sister to see Alverstoke suitably married, and his presumptive heir cut out, but from the moment of setting eyes on Charis she had taken the Merrivilles in strong dislike. She was convinced that the blame for Jane’s lack of success lay at Charis’s door; and the compliments she received on her protégées’ delightful manners and excellent style very soon made her hate Frederica as much as Charis. She had been forced to launch them into the ton, and was now able to wash her hands of them; but even this agreeable circumstance was spoilt for her by the ease and rapidity with which they had found their feet. She might tell herself that the hostesses who invited them to their parties only did so to oblige their noble guardian, but she knew very well that it was untrue. Everyone liked the Merrivilles, as the Countess Lieven, with a faint, malicious smile, informed her.
‘For my part, I consider them a great deal too coming,’ she told her elder sister. ‘Charis’s namby-pamby airs don’t impress me; and as for Frederica, as she calls herself, I daresay you’ve noticed how positively bumptious she is!’
‘No,’ said Lady Jevington bluntly, ‘I haven’t. Very unaffected, pretty-behaved girls, both of them. Charis is a beautiful ninnyhammer; but I believe Frederica to be a young woman of superior understanding.’
‘Oh, most superior!’ said Lady Buxted, her eyes snapping angrily. ‘On the catch for a husband! I wonder you should be so taken by her insinuating ways! I knew what her object was within a week of making her acquaintance!’
‘Ah!’ said Lady Jevington. ‘So Buxted is making up to her, is he? I’ve several times been told as much, but I never listen to on-dits. Make yourself easy, Louisa! Nothing will come of it!’
Her colour much heightened, Lady Buxted retorted: ‘No! Not if I have anything to say in the matter!’ The condescending smile on her sister’s face exacerbated her into adding: ‘I have no fears for Carlton: none at all! But I wonder how you will like it, my dear Augusta, when you find yourself with your beautiful ninnyhammer as your sister-in-law!’ She perceived that these words had produced an impression, and continued triumphantly: ‘How is it possible that you, who believe yourself to be so long-headed, can have failed to notice that Vernon scarcely took his eyes off that girl last night?’
Lady Jevington opened her mouth, shut it again, and, after subjecting her sister to an incredulous stare, said: ‘You are a fool, Louisa!’
Meanwhile, the Misses Merriville, their thoughts far removed from matrimonial conquests, were warmly welcoming the head of the family, exclaiming joyfully at his unexpected arrival in Upper Wimpole Street, hugging him, kissing him, thrusting him into the easiest chair in the drawing-room, procuring refreshment for him, and greeting his sudden appearance with all the fond delight to be expected of two loving sisters.
Inevitably, it was Frederica who first came to earth, and who demanded to know what had brought him to London. Fortifying himself with a long drink from the tankard she had just handed him, he met her anxious gaze with an engaging grin, and said: ‘Oh, I’ve been rusticated!’
‘Harry! Oh, no!’ she cried, dismayed.
‘Yes, I have – Barny too! You know: Barny Peplow, a particular friend of mine – a great gun!’
She had not so far been privileged to meet Mr Peplow, but her brother’s enthusiastic praise of that young gentleman had long since inspired her with foreboding. But it was Charis who nettled Harry, by uttering in soft but stricken accents: ‘Oh, dear! What can be done?’
‘Nothing is to be done! What a goose you are!’ returned Harry impatiently. ‘You needn’t look so Friday-faced, either of you! Anyone would think I’d been sent down for good! Of course I haven’t been! Only for the rest of this term!’
‘But why, Harry?’ Frederica asked, by no means reassured.
He laughed. ‘Oh, nothing very much! Just a bit of bobbery! We weren’t the only ones in it, either. The thing was we were rather full of frisk. It was after old George’s birthday party: George Leigh, I mean, though you don’t know him either, do you? A famous fellow! So there was a bit of riot and rumpus – and that’s how it was! Nothing to throw you into high fidgets, I promise you!’
Her anxious mind relieved of its worst fears, she agreed to this, and asked him no further questions, knowing well that these would only set up his back. Experience had also taught her that while she understood and sympathised with schoolboys’ pranks, she would never be able to understand what Harry and his friends found to amuse them in their revel-routs, which seemed invariably to start with what he called a spread, or (as she gathered) a wine-party; and to end in horse-play as senseless as it was destructive.
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Harry ingenuously, ‘I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to come down, just to make sure all’s right here. There’s no saying but what you might have got into a scrape, and I am the head of the family!’
Charis giggled; but Frederica, though the ready laughter sprang to her eyes, responded, in a much-moved tone: ‘How kind of you, Harry! Of course, it was your duty to be rusticated!’
‘Now, Freddy – !’ he protested, his lips quivering in spite of himself. ‘I didn’t say that!’
‘I should think not indeed!’ said Charis, highly diverted by this exchange. ‘When we have been fixed in London for more than a month, and there are only a few weeks left of the term! What a Banbury-man you are, you dearest, horridest creature!’
He laughed back at her, but said: ‘Well, I do think I ought to keep my eye on you all. You’re neither of you up to snuff, you know, and you were never before in London.’
