“That’s fortunate: it will be next month. Three weeks from now, let us say.”
“April! But you cannot have considered! May is the month for the really tonnish parties!”
“No, is it indeed?” he mocked. “And does it occur to you that May is already overcrowded with balls, routs, and assemblies of every description?”
“There is that, of course,” she agreed, frowning over it. “But in only three weeks the season will barely have begun!”
“It will begin, then, at Alverstoke House,” he replied coolly. “And if you imagine, Louisa, that we shall find ourselves thin of company, let me reassure you!”
She was well aware that he was one of the leaders of fashion, but the top-loftiness of this remark made her long to give him a set-down. She refrained, saying instead: “I hardly know how I shall contrive! All the arrangements — ”
“Don’t give them a thought! They won’t fall on you. Let Charles Trevor have a list of those you wish to be invited: that is all you have to do.”
She said, with a touch of asperity: “Since the ball is for my daughter, I assume I shall be the hostess!”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “Why, yes! You may be the hostess, but the ball won’t be wholly for Jane’s benefit. Lucretia will bring her elder girl to it, and — ”
“Chloë!” she ejaculated, stiffening. “Do you dare to tell me, Alverstoke, that I owe this — this change in your sentiments to That Woman’s cajolery?”
“No, you owe it to an unforeseen and damnably troublesome circumstance. Do you recall Fred Merriville?”
She stared at him. “Fred Merriville? Pray, what has he to say to anything?”
“The poor fellow has nothing to say: he’s dead, alas!”
Her colour was rising ominously. “I beg you won’t try to play off your tricks on me, Alverstoke! I’m sure it’s nothing to me whether he’s dead or alive!”
“Unfortunately it has a great deal to do with me. He consigned his family to my — er — protection. When I tell you that there are no fewer than five of them — ”
“Do you mean that he made you their guardian?” she interrupted.
“No, thank God! it’s not as bad as that. He commended them to my care. Two of them are of age, but — ”
“For heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed. “He must have been out of his senses! You, of all persons! What in the world made him do so?”
“Well,” said his lordship, succumbing to the promptings of his particular devil, “he thought I was the best of my family.”
“Oh, did he?” snapped Lady Buxted. “No doubt! It is precisely what he would think, for a more rackety, ramshackle, care-for-nobody I hope I may never see! I remember him! A handsome ne’er-do-well! What he must have cost his parents I shudder to think! And, to crown all, when they had contrived to arrange an advantageous marriage for him, what must he do but run off with the daughter of some paltry provincial! They washed their hands of him, and I don’t wonder at it. Not that I was ever acquainted with them, but it was one of the on-dits of the town. I believe he came into the property later, and I don’t doubt he gamed that away too. As for leaving his family to your guardianship, it’s of a piece with the rest! I strongly advise you to repudiate them!”
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, but I can’t, in honour, do that,” he answered smoothly. “I owed him a debt, you see, which I never found the opportunity to repay.”
“You owed Merriville money? Fiddle! He never had sixpence to bless himself with, while as for you — ”
He interposed, and in accents of distaste. “You should have married a merchant, Louisa. I feel sure he would have admired you: I do not! Do you never think of anything but money? Is it quite beyond your power to understand that there are more important obligations than monetary ones?”
Her eyes shifted under the contempt in his, but she said angrily: “Yes, it’s all very well for you to talk in that imposing style, as rich as you are! If you stood in my shoes, you would sing a different tune!”
“Don’t pitch that gammon to me!” he said. “You forget that I was one of Buxted’s executors! He left you very well to pass, my dear sister. No, don’t fly into one of your pelters! Really, I didn’t come to break a straw with you! Indeed, I’m willing — if you lend me your aid in the matter of the Merrivilles — to grease the wheels of Jane’s come-out for you. I imagine you mean to present her at one of the Drawing-rooms?”
These beautiful words checked Lady Buxted on the brink of giving free expression to her wrath. They could only mean that Alverstoke was prepared to defray the shocking expense of a Court dress for his niece. If he gave at all, he would give handsomely; and her ladyship, doing some rapid calculations in her head, realized that the cost of such a Court dress as she had herself worn at her presentation could be made to cover the additional expense of several crape and muslin dresses, suitable for a maiden to wear at Almack’s, in her first season. This reflection, though it did not slay her resentment, made it possible for her to swallow the unwise words hovering on her tongue, and to say, with mere pettishness: “I can’t conceive what Merriville can have done to put you in his debt!”
“That, Louisa, is something I prefer not to divulge,” said the Marquis. Mindful of his instructions, and with a demon of mischief lurking in his eyes, he added: “Particularly not to my sisters!”
She was not perceptive, but it was perhaps fortunate that she was not looking at him. All she said was: “I collect he helped you out of some disgraceful scrape. So now you feel obliged to further his children’s interests! It must be the first time in your life you have recognized any obligation! To be sure, one might have supposed that there were others, nearer to you, and with greater claims upon you, who would have excited your benevolence — How many children did you say he had?”
“Five. Three sons and two daughters — orphans, residing at the moment in Upper Wimpole Street, in the care of their aunt, who, I understand, assumed this charge upon the death of Merriville’s wife, some ten years ago. The eldest son is of age, and at Oxford; but it is his sister who — unless I very much mistake the matter! — rules the roost! I think she is some four-and-twenty years of age, and — ”
“Means to hang on to your sleeve! I wish you joy of your obligation! Do you mean to support all the family?”
“I don’t mean to support any of the family, nor have I been asked to do so. You can’t imagine, Louisa, how refreshing I find this! With the boys I have nothing to do. All that Miss Merriville requires of me is that I should render what assistance I can to introduce her, and her sister, to the ton.”
She was eyeing him narrowly. “Indeed! No doubt Miss Merriville is very beautiful? But I need not ask!”
“Quite a well-looking young woman, but I should hardly describe her as beautiful,” he replied indifferently. “That don’t signify: she’s not on the catch for a husband. Her ambition is to achieve a respectable marriage for her sister, who is the prettier of the two. Whether she can contrive to do it I think doubtful, her fortune being small, but that’s not my concern: my debt will have been discharged when I — with your assistance — have launched the pair of them into society.”
“Pray, what do you expect me to do?” she demanded.
“Oh, nothing very arduous! You will introduce them at my ball, as our cousins, escort them to Almack’s, when you take Jane there, and — ”
“Almack’s, indeed!” she exclaimed. “I wonder that you should not have warned your protégée that she is aiming at the moon! Or do you mean to procure cards for her, perhaps?”
This piece of heavy sarcasm glanced off his armour. “No, I couldn’t. But you can, Louisa, with two bosom-bows amongst the patronesses — as you have so frequently informed me!”