Lady Buxted had expressed the fear that a ball held at short notice, and before the season’s various entertainments were in full feather, might be thin of company, but by the time she went down to supper she knew that not one of the forthcoming routs, balls, or assemblies would excel this one in magnificence or distinction; and she was torn between pride and resentment. Her odious brother had lifted a finger, and the ton had flocked to his house, precisely as he had foretold. That was, naturally, exactly what she had wanted, but it infuriated her nevertheless: it would have done him a great deal of good to have met with a few crushing rebuffs. He had admittedly granted her the opportunity to launch Jane into the highest and most fashionable circles, but that had not been his object: he had meant to launch the Merriville girls into those circles, and he had done it. At least half-a-dozen hostesses had begged her to bring her charming protégées to their projected parties — her protégées indeed! — and, to crown all, Sally Jersey had promised them vouchers for Almack’s, and had had the effrontery to adjure her — her! — to bring them to the Assembly Rooms! “And your own — Jane, is it? — of course!” had said Lady Jersey, with a graciousness which had made Lady Buxted yearn to box her ears. “I’ll send a voucher — yes, truly I will! And if I don’t, remind me, Louisa! You know how shatter-brained I am!”
When Lady Buxted remembered impertinent little Sally Fane, a wretched schoolroom-miss to whom she had administered a number of well deserved set-downs, the delicacies her brother’s French cook had prepared for the refreshment of his guests turned to ashes in her mouth. At that moment, nothing would have afforded her more pleasure than to have given Sally yet another set-down. But, whatever rage might possess her soul, at no time did Lady Buxted lose sight of the main chance. No mother with a daughter to dispose of eligibly could afford to disdain the patronage of Lady Jersey, the acknowledged Queen of London’s most exclusive club, known to the irreverent as the Marriage Mart. So Lady Buxted, her appetite destroyed, had felt herself obliged to accept Sally’s offer with a smile as false and as sweet as the one lilting on Sally’s mouth.
Only one annoyance was spared her on that night of mingled triumph and chagrin: Alverstoke invited neither of his wards to stand up with him. Other eyes than Lady Buxted’s were watching curiously to see what he would do; but the owners were relieved or disappointed, according to their dispositions, to see that the only ladies he led on to the floor were those of rank or seniority. He did, indeed, pause to exchange a few words with Frederica, but there was nothing to be made of that, for he managed, in spite of his indolence, to speak to every one of his guests.
“Satisfied, Frederica?” he enquired.
She replied impulsively: “I don’t know how to thank you! Indeed I am satisfied!” Her sudden smile dawned. “It’s my night of triumph, don’t you think? I knew Charis had only to be seen to be appreciated!” She added anxiously, as he said nothing: “It isn’t just my partiality, is it? She has made a hit, hasn’t she?”
“Decidedly. Do you ever spare a thought for anyone but Charis?”
“Why, of course I do!” she exclaimed, rather shocked. “I think about all of them, only at this present time, you know, I do think about her more than about the others, because she is my most pressing concern.”
He looked curiously at her. “Have you no concern for yourself, Frederica?”
“For myself?” she said, wrinkling her brow. “Well, if there were any need for me to be concerned I should be — naturally! As it is — ”
“I should have said, any thought for yourself,” he interrupted. “You’ve called this your night of triumph merely because Charis has made a hit; but it appears to me that you have been solicited to dance quite as often as Charis.”
She laughed. “Yes — isn’t it diverting? I’ve been positively overwhelmed: my partners hoping that if they are very civil and attentive I may be moved to present them to ray sister!”
“You are a strange creature,” he commented.
He passed on, with a nod, and a slight smile, as Buxted came up to lead Frederica into a set of quadrilles.
She was puzzled by his lordship’s last remark, but wasted very little time in considering what its implication might be, and none at all in wondering whether the various gentlemen who had begged her to stand up with them a second time really did so with a view to becoming acquainted with her sister. She would have been incredulous had she been told that amongst the many who were demonstrably lost in admiration of Charis there were several persons who found her the more attractive of the two sisters.
Amongst these was Mr Moreton, who cocked a quizzical eyebrow at Alverstoke, and demanded to know what sort of a rig he was running.
“None at all,” responded Alverstoke coolly.
Mr Moreton sighed. “Dear boy, you can’t think — no, damn it, you really can’t think to ride on my back! Neither of the explanations offered me for your sponsorship of Merriville’s daughters is at all acceptable to me. On the one hand I learn that you are under an obligation to Merriville; on the other, that you have fallen a victim to the divine Charis’s beauty. Doing it rather too brown, Ver!”
“Oh, why?” countered his lordship. “Think of the beauties to whom I’ve fallen a victim, Darcy!”
“I am thinking of ’em. Ripe ‘uns, every one!” said Mr Moreton.
“Ah, but did you ever see such perfection of features and figure?”
“No, I’ve seldom met with a lovelier widgeon,” replied Mr Moreton ruthlessly. “The thing is, my taste don’t run to sweet simpletons — and nor, dear boy, does yours! The elder sister’s the filly for my money. She don’t want for sense, and she ain’t just in the ordinary style. Not your style, however, so why have you taken the pair of ‘cm under your protection?”
“What else could I do, when Merriville had — er — commended them to my care?”
“Having put you under an obligation! No, Ver!” protested Mr Moreton. “Of all the brummish stories I ever heard —! You were never on more than common civility terms with him!”
“Perhaps,” murmured his lordship, “I yielded to a compassionate impulse.”
“A what?” gasped his best friend. “Oh, did you think I never did so?” said his lordship, the satirical glint in his eyes extremely pronounced. “You wrong me! I do, sometimes — not frequently, of course, but every now and then!”
“Oh, no, I don’t wrong you!” retorted Mr Moreton grimly. “I daresay there’s very little you wouldn’t do for anyone that was a friend of yours — well, good God, don’t I know it? If you think I don’t know that it was you who pulled poor Ashbury out of ebb-water — ”
“I must suppose that you believe you know what you are talking about,” interrupted Alverstoke, with considerable acerbity, “but I do not! What’s more, Darcy, you’re becoming a dead bore! If you must have the truth, I’m shouldering Merriville’s daughters into the ton to annoy Louisa!”
“Well, that’s what I thought,” said Mr Moreton, unmoved. “Only it don’t explain why you took a schoolboy to visit some foundry or other!”
That surprised a crack of laughter out of Alverstoke.
“Felix! Well, if ever you should meet him, Darcy, you’ll know why I took him over that foundry!”
Another who had formed a very good opinion of the elder Miss Merriville was Lord Buxted: a circumstance which his mother regarded with mixed feelings. She was naturally relieved to know that he had not (like his doltish cousin) fallen instantly under the spell of Charis’s beauty; but she had viewed with disfavour the unusual animation with which he had conversed with Frederica during dinner, and with definite hostility his subsequent behaviour. Not content with standing up with her for a full hour, during two country dances, he had shown a disposition to gravitate towards her between dances, which would have alarmed Lady Buxted very much, had he not later described Frederica to her as a conversable female with a good deal of common-sense. As he added that he thought her by no means a bad-looking young woman, Lady Buxted was able to allay her alarm with the reflection that such temperate praise scarcely argued any very marked degree of admiration.