She was not immediately obliged to answer him, for at that moment her butler came in, with such refreshments as he considered suitable to the occasion. While he set the heavy tray down on a side-table, and informed the Marquis in the confidential voice of the privileged retainer that he had ventured to bring up the Mountain as well as the sherry, she had time in which to reassemble her ideas, and also to observe, in some dudgeon, that her brother had chosen to visit her in breeches and topboots: attire as regrettably informal as his entrance. That his boots were highly polished, his neckcloth arranged to a nicety, and his coat, which fitted him like a glove, clearly cut by a master, only served to increase her displeasure. She felt that if his general indifference had extended to his appearance she could have forgiven him for not thinking it necessary to honour her by assuming the correct dress for paying morning visits. But no one who looked as elegant as he invariably did, or whose style was copied by so many gentlemen of fashion, could possibly be indifferent to matters of mode. Indeed, she had once demanded, in a moment of exasperation, if he cared for anything but his clothing. To which he had replied, after subjecting the question to consideration, that although his clothes were naturally of paramount importance, he also cared for his horses.
He had gone across the room to the side-table; and, as the butler withdrew, he turned his head, saying: “Sherry, Louisa?”
“My dear Vernon, you should surely know by now that I never touch sherry!”
“Should I? But I have such a shockingly bad memory!”
“Not when you wish to remember anything!”
“Oh, no, not then!” he agreed. He looked across at her, and at sight of her tightened lips and rising colour, laughed suddenly. “What a chucklehead you are, dear sister! I never yet cast my line over a fish that rose more readily to the fly than you do! What is it to be? The Malaga?”
“I will take half a glass of ratafia, if you will be so good as to pour it out for me,” she answered stiffly.
“It does considerable violence to my feelings, but I will be so good. What an appalling thing to drink at this hour! Or, indeed, at any hour,” he added reflectively. He brought the glass to her, moving in his leisurely way, but with the grace of the born athlete. “Now, what is it this time? Don’t beat about the bush! I don’t want my horses to take cold.”
“I wish you will sit down!” she said crossly.
“Very well, but do, for God’s sake, cut line,” he replied, choosing an armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace.
“It so happens, Alverstoke, that I do desire your assistance,” she said.
“That, dear Louisa, I apprehended when I read your letter,” he retorted, with horrid affability. “Of course, you might have summoned me to stun me with one of your rake-downs, but you couched your missive in such affectionate language that that suspicion was banished almost instantly from my mind, leaving me with the only alternative: that you wanted me to do something for you.”
“I should be grateful, I collect, that you remembered that I had written to ask you to visit me!” she said, glaring at him.
“You can’t think, Louisa, how strongly tempted I am to accept your gratitude with a becoming smirk!” he told her. “But never shall it be said of me that I stole another man’s honours! Trevor gave me the office.”
“Do you mean to tell me that Mr Trevor read my letter?” demanded Lady Buxted indignantly. “Your secretary?”
“I employ him to read my letters,” explained his lordship.
“Not those written by your nearest and dearest!”
“Oh, no, not them!” he agreed.
Her bosom swelled. “You are the most abom — ” She stopped, with a gasp; visibly wrought with herself; and contrived, by a heroic effort, to force the smile back to her lips, and to say, with a tolerable assumption of amusement: “Wretch! I shan’t allow you to take a rise out of me! I want to talk to you about Jane!”
“Who the devil is — Oh, yes, I know! One of your girls!”
“My eldest daughter, and, let me remind you, your niece, Alverstoke!”
“Unjust, Louisa, I needed no reminder!”
“I am bringing the dear child out this season,” she announced, ignoring the interpolation. “I shall present her, of course, at one of the Drawing-rooms — if the Queen holds any more, but they say her health is now so indifferent that — ”
“You’ll have to do something about her freckles — if she’s the one I think she is,” he interrupted. “Have you tried citron-water?”
“I didn’t invite you to come here to discuss Jane’s appearance!” she snapped.
“Well, why did you invite me?”
“To ask you to hold a ball in her honour — at Alverstoke House!” she disclosed, rushing her fence.
“To do what?”
“I know very well what you are going to say, but only consider, Vernon! She is your niece, and what place could be more suitable for her come-out ball than Alverstoke House?”
“This house!” he responded, without hesitation.
“Oh, don’t be so disagreeable! I am persuaded they could not dance above thirty couples in this room, and only think of all the fuss and botheration!”
“I am thinking of it,” said his lordship.
“But there can be no comparison! I mean, here, where I should be obliged to remove all the furniture from my drawing-room, besides using the dining-room for supper, and the parlour for the ladies’ cloaks — and Alverstoke House, where there is such a splendid ballroom! And it is my own old home, too!”
“It is also my home,” said the Marquis. “My memory is occasionally faulty, but I retain the liveliest recollection of what you so rightly term the fuss and botheration that attended the balls given there for Augusta, for yourself, and for Eliza, and my answer, dear sister, is No!”
“Have you no proper feeling?” she said tragically.
He had drawn an enamel snuff-box from his pocket, and was critically studying the painting on its lid. “No, none at all. I wonder if I made a mistake when I purchased this? I liked it at the time, but I begin to find it a trifle insipid.” He sighed, and opened the box, with a practised flick of his thumb. “And I most assuredly do not like this mixture,” he said, inhaling an infinitesimal pinch, and dusting his fingers with an expression of distaste. “You will say, of course, that I should have known better than to have permitted Mendlesham to thrust his Sort upon me, and you are perfectly right: one should always mix one’s own.” He got up. “Well, if that’s all, I’ll take my leave of you.”
“It is not all!” she uttered, her colour much heightened. “I knew how it would be, of course — oh, I knew!”
“I imagine you might, but why the devil you wasted my time — ”
“Because I hoped that for once in your life you might show some — some sensibility! some apprehension of what is due to your family! even some affection for poor Jane!”
“Rainbow-chasing, Louisa! My lack of sensibility has distressed you for years; I haven’t the least affection for your poor Jane, whom I should be hard put to it to recognize, if I met her unawares; and I’ve yet to learn that the Buxted are members of my family.”
“Am I not a member of your family?” she demanded. “Do you forget that I am your sister?”
“No: I’ve never been granted the opportunity to forget it. Oh, don’t fly off the hooks again — you can have no notion how bracket-faced you look when you get into one of your pelters! Console yourself with my assurance that if Buxted had left you purse-pinched I should have felt myself obliged to let you hang on my sleeve.” He looked mockingly down at her. “Yes, I know you’re about to tell me that you haven’t sixpence to scratch with, but the plain truth is that you are very well to do in the world, my dear Louisa, but the most unconscionable pinch-penny of my acquaintance! Now, don’t nauseate me by prating of affection! You’ve no more for me than I have for you.”