“But, Harry, what can you mean?” exclaimed Charis. “He has been so very kind and obliging! You can have no notion!”
“Oh, can’t I?” he retorted. “Well, that’s where you’re out, because I have! Kind and obliging! I daresay!”
“Yes, and particularly so to the boys! Are you thinking that he is very starched-up? He does appear to be, and I know that some people say he is odiously haughty, and cares only for his own pleasure, but it isn’t so, is it, Frederica? Only think of his taking Felix all over that foundry, and arranging for him to see the New Mint, besides letting Jessamy ride that lovely horse!”
“Lord Alverstoke was under an obligation to Papa,” said Frederica coolly. “It was on that account that he consented — not very willingly! — to act as our guardian.”
“Guardian? He’s no guardian of mine!” interrupted Harry, up in arms.
“Certainly not. Or of mine! How should he be, when we are both of age?”
“Yes, well — oh, you don’t understand!”
“I assure you I do! You’ve been told that he’s a shocking rake — ”
“Is he?” interpolated Charis, her eyes widening. “I had thought a rake would have been very different! Well, I know they are! They try to get up flirtations, and put one to the blush by the things they say, and — oh, you know, Frederica! Cousin Alverstoke isn’t at all like that. Indeed, I’ve often thought him dreadfully strict!”
“Yes, for ever preaching propriety, and giving one a scold for not behaving as though one had but just escaped from the school-room,” said Frederica, with considerable feeling. “Make yourself easy, Harry! Whatever may be Alverstoke’s reputation, he cherishes no improper designs where we are concerned! Nor did we come out under his aegis. It’s true that he invited us to a ball which he gave in honour of his niece, but it was his sister, Lady Buxted, who fired us off, as they say.”
He did not look to be perfectly satisfied; but as Jessamy came in at that moment the subject was allowed to drop. Jessamy looked grave when he learned the reason for Harry’s arrival, but he only said, when warned that his senior wanted no jobations from him: “Certainly not!”
“And none of your moralizing speeches either!” said Harry, eyeing him in some suspicion.
“You needn’t be afraid of that. I have no right to moralize,” replied Jessamy, sighing.
“Hey, what’s this?” Harry demanded. “Don’t tell me you’ve been kicking up riot and rumpus, old sobersides!”
“Something very like it,” Jessamy said heavily, the scene in Piccadilly vivid in his memory.
Both his sisters cried out at this; and by the time Harry had been regaled by them with the story of the Pedestrian Curricle, and had gone into shouts of laughter, Jessamy had begun to think that it had not been so very bad after all, and was even able to laugh a little himself, and to tell Harry about the adventure’s glorious sequel, dwelling with such particularity on the points of Alverstoke’s various hacks and carriage-horses that the ladies soon bethought themselves of tasks in some other part of the house, and withdrew.
When the subject had been thoroughly discussed, Harry acknowledged that it was certainly handsome of the Marquis to place his hacks at Jessamy’s disposal, and gratified his brother by adding: “Not that he’d anything to fear. I’ll say this for you, young ‘un: you’ve as neat a seat and as light a hand as anyone I know.”
“Yes, but he didn’t know that!” said Jessamy naively.
Harry grinned, but refrained from comment. You never knew how Jessamy would take it, if you made game of him, and he thought it rather beneath himself to set up the boy’s bristles. Besides, he wanted to know more about the Marquis. Jessamy was six years his junior, but he had a good deal of respect for his judgment, and a somewhat rueful dependence on his ability to detect weakness of moral character. If Jessamy erred, it would not be on the side of tolerance.
But Jessamy had little but good to say of the Marquis. He understood why Harry should be anxious, and owned that he had wondered, at first, if Alverstoke meant to dangle after Charis. “It’s no such thing, however. He doesn’t seem to me to pay much heed to her. He did take her driving in the park once, but Frederica told me he only did so as a sort of warning to some horrid rip that was making up to her; and he doesn’t send her flowers, or haunt the house, like Cousin Endymion!”
“Cousin who?” demanded Harry.
“Endymion. Well, that’s what we call him, and, according to Frederica, we are connected with him in some way or another. He’s Cousin Alverstoke’s heir, and in the Life Guards. Nutty on Charis, but there’s no need to worry about him! He’s a big, beef-witted fellow: no harm in him at all — but lord, what a cloth-head! Then there’s Cousin Gregory — he’s one of Cousin Alverstoke’s nephews; and Cousin Buxted — but he comes to sit in Frederica’s pocket; and — ”
“Here, how many more of them?” interpolated Harry, startled.
“I don’t know precisely. It does seem odd suddenly to find oneself with dozens of cousins one never knew existed, doesn’t it?”
“Damned odd!”
“Yes, but they are cousins, or, at all events, connections of ours: they acknowledge it!”
Harry shook his head, but said: “Well, I suppose it’s all right and tight. Did you say one of them was making up to Frederica?”
“Yes, it’s the greatest joke!” replied Jessamy, fully appreciating his brother’s incredulity. “And the best of it is that he’s such a dead bore that — ” He stopped, and frowned. “I shouldn’t say that of him,” he said. “He’s a very respectable man. Kind, too, and thinks just as he ought. Only, somehow, he makes you want to go off and knock up a lark when he starts moralizing. I know that’s wrong, but it does make me see what Cousin Alverstoke meant when he said I should make a better parson if I did fall into scrapes.”
This disclosure made a stronger appeal to Harry than anything else Jessamy had said in the Marquis’s favour. He declared himself anxious to make his acquaintance, even going so far as to say that he sounded as if he had a lot of rumgumption.
“Well, I daresay you will be taking the girls to balls, so you’re bound to meet him.”
“Taking the girls to balls?” echoed Harry, horrified. “No, by Jupiter! That I won’t!”
Nothing would move him from this decision. To the persuasions of his sisters he responded that he had outgrown his evening-dress, and would be dashed if he wasted his blunt on a new rig; that he expected to be fully engaged with his friend Barny; that he rather thought he might take a bolt to Herefordshire, just to be sure all was well at Graynard; and, as a clincher, that he was such a bad dancer that he would only disgrace them if they dragged him to any of their assemblies.
They were disappointed, but not surprised. Harry, who closely resembled Charis, could never disgrace them, however badly he danced, for besides his fair, handsome face and well-made person, he had a considerable degree of lively charm; but Harry, alas, had no taste for fashionable life, and no ambition to acquire the London touch. He was ripe for any spree (as he phrased it) with his friends; but it was easy to see that it would not be many years before he settled down very happily to the life of a sporting squire.
If anything had been needed to confirm him in his resolution it was supplied by Miss Winsham, acidly expressing the opinion that the least he could do to atone for his rustication was to make himself useful to his sisters. Ten minutes in his aunt’s company were enough to set Harry, in general the most easy-going of mortals, at dagger-drawing. Frederica, seeing the spark in his blue eyes, and the mulish look about his mouth, intervened; and allowed some time to elapse before she ventured to suggest that if he wished to make Alverstoke’s acquaintance he could be sure of doing so by escorting his sisters to Lady Sefton’s forthcoming squeeze.