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Mutely she held Charis’s letter out to him. He took it, and, after one glance at it, groped for his quizzing-glass. Eliza, drawing Frederica to the sofa, said: ‘My dear, surely you must be mistaken? You can’t mean that you believe them to have gone to Gretna Green?’
‘I think it must be so,’ Frederica replied. ‘Where else could –’
/> ‘Then you may stop thinking it!’ interposed Alverstoke, looking up from the letter. ‘Where have your wits gone begging, Frederica? By the time you read this I shall be married, and many miles away. My dear girl, even such a henwitted female as Charis could not suppose that she could be transported to the Border within an hour or two! How fortunate that she didn’t bedew the start of this hubble-bubble effusion with her tears!’
‘Then where can they have gone?’ demanded Frederica.
‘That I haven’t yet discovered. I should doubt whether I ever shall, but one never knows: something may yet emerge.’
‘Nothing but what she might as well have spared herself the trouble of writing,’ said Frederica, sighing.
He said nothing, continuing to frown over the letter for several minutes, while Eliza, possessing herself of Frederica’s hand, sat patting it soothingly. Silence reigned, until the Marquis broke it. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Not licorice, but licence! The clue to the labyrinth is now in our hands, Frederica! It’s a pity the pen spluttered at the preceding word, but no doubt it is special. Your sister, my love, has married my blockish cousin by special licence. Whether or not this constitutes an elopement I am not yet in a position to say, but it really doesn’t signify. The case is not desperate, nor will it be incumbent upon me to pursue the couple to the Border – a prospect, I must acknowledge, which filled me with repugnance. All we have to do is to throw dust in the eyes of the quizzes and tittle-tattlers. It will afford me great pleasure to do so! I wonder who told Endymion that he could be married by special licence?’
Frederica sat up. ‘But he couldn’t!’ she said. ‘Charis is not of age!’
‘Do you mean that you suspect Endymion obtained a licence by telling lies about Charis’s age?’ demanded Eliza. ‘I don’t believe it! Why, that’s a serious offence!’
‘No, that is not what I suspect,’ he responded. ‘Endymion may be a cloth-head, but he is not a scoundrel, my dear Eliza! He would neither marry Charis by special licence, nor across the anvil, without her guardian’s consent.’
‘Well, if you are not her guardian, who is?’
He did not reply. He was watching Frederica, a look of amusement in his face as he saw her stiffen.
‘Harry!’ she uttered. ‘Harry!’
‘Well?’
She got up quickly, the incredulity in her eyes turning to wrath. ‘How could he? Oh, how could he? Helping Charis to a disastrous marriage – helping her to deceive me – knowing what my feelings were – ! And she! No wonder she sat crying all through breakfast! With this on her conscience!’
‘Did she?’ said his lordship, interested. ‘She certainly wept all over this letter. What an inexhaustible flow! Do you suppose she was still weeping when she joined Endymion at the altar?’
‘I neither know nor care!’ snapped Frederica, who had begun to pace about the room, as though her rage had to find a physical outlet.
‘No, nor anyone else!’ agreed Eliza. ‘Really, Vernon, how can you be so flippant? This is not a farce!’
‘It bears a strong resemblance to one!’ he retorted.
‘Would you think so if it concerned one of your sisters?’ asked Frederica fiercely.
‘My dear, I should be sure of it! Louisa, for instance? No, I think I prefer Augusta in the rôle.’
She gave a gasp, and choked on an irrepressible gurgle of laughter.
‘That’s better!’ he said encouragingly. ‘Shall we now consider the matter without quite so much heat?’
She did not answer; but after a moment or two she went back to the sofa, and sat down again. ‘If what you think is true, there is nothing to be done, is there? If I had had time to have read that letter more closely – to have considered it – I should have known it was useless to suppose that you could prevent a marriage which must already have taken place.’ She smiled rather wanly. ‘In fact, I sent for you to no purpose at all! I beg your pardon, cousin!’
‘Oh, not to no purpose at all!’ he said. ‘It is certainly quite out of my power to prevent the marriage, but I trust I can prevent you, Frederica, from making a mull of it! What we must do, you and I, is to make all tidy. I’m well aware of your sentiments: you wished Charis to contract what the world calls an eligible alliance, and you believed that you could bring this about.’
‘And why shouldn’t she have done so?’ intervened Eliza. ‘Charis is a most beautiful girl, with charming manners, and great sweetness of disposition. If her understanding is not extraordinary, pray, how many gentlemen care for clever women?’
‘There was only one reason why she shouldn’t have done so,’ he replied. ‘She lacked the ambition to contract such an alliance, or even to sport a figure in society.’ He smiled at Frederica, a little mockingly. ‘You never would believe that, would you? Yours was the ambition – oh, not for yourself! I don’t think you have ever wasted a thought on yourself! – and it was you who delighted in the admiration she won. She didn’t, you know. She told me once that she preferred the country to London, because in London people stared so! She prefers country parties to London ones, because she thinks it more comfortable to dance with her friends than with strangers. This, from a girl who had nearly every prize in the Marriage Mart dangling after her! I’ve never concealed from you that I think her a lovely and excessively boring wet-goose, but I’ll say this for her: she hasn’t an ounce of conceit!’
‘I didn’t wish her to contract a brilliant marriage – only one which – But there’s nothing now to be gained by repeating what I’ve told you before!’
‘I haven’t forgotten. You wanted her to be comfortable. But her notion of comfort isn’t yours, Frederica. She’s a persuadable girl, and I daresay she might have obliged you by marrying young Navenby, if she had not met and fallen in love with Endymion.’
‘And she would have been happy!’
