“Well, if it will afford you pleasure I hope he may,” said his lordship. “Warn him not to throw it at me!”
Another change was provided by Knapp. After a struggle with his pride, he allowed the boredom he was suffering at the Sun, and his jealousy of Curry, who spent his days at the farm, in attendance on the Marquis, to overcome his reluctance to demean himself, and offered his services.
So Felix, quite unimpressed, was waited on by a valet of rare quality; the kitchen quarters were dignified by the presence of a refined personage of great condescension, in whom Miss Judbrook recognized a gentleman’s gentleman of the first stare; and Frederica, as she told the Marquis, found herself with nothing to do.
It might have been expected that his lordship would now have returned to London, but this was a change which had not taken place. He continued to put up at the Sun, under conditions to which he was in no way accustomed, and to spend his days at Monk’s Farm. As soon as Frederica felt it safe to leave Felix in his brother’s charge for an hour or two, he persuaded her to take the air in his phaeton; and, later, when she had recovered from her exhaustion, to go with him for strolling walks. She was very ready to do so; she talked to him with the ease of long-standing friendship; she consulted him on any problem that arose; but her entire lack of consciousness showed him that it had not entered her bead to regard him in the light of a suitor. He could not help wondering if she treated him as she might an elder brother, or even (a lowering thought!) an uncle.
His own doubts were at an end. The more he saw of her the more he loved her, and as he had never loved any woman before. Not the most beautiful of his mistresses had inspired him with a desire to shield her from every adverse wind; he had never pictured the most amusing of his well-born flirts presiding over his several establishments; and far less had he contemplated a permanent relationship with any of these ladies. But after knowing her for little more than two months Frederica had so seriously disturbed the pattern of his life that he had been cast into a state of indecision: a novel experience which had not been at all agreeable. When he was pitchforked into her little brother’s fantastic adventure he had still been in a state of uncertainty; since then he had spent more than a week in close companionship with her, and under conditions as unromantic as they were uncomfortable, and all his doubts were resolved: he wished to spend the rest of his life with her, because she was the perfect woman he had never expected to encounter.
His lordship, in fact, had fallen deeply in love. He was also undergoing yet another new experience: Frederica showed no sign of returning his regard. He knew that she liked him; once or twice he had dared to hope that the feeling she had for him was becoming more than mere fondness, but he could never be sure of this, or forget that on the only occasion when he had given her the faintest reason to suspect him of gallantry she had instantly set him at a distance. It seemed a long time ago; she might have changed her mind; but since he had then, and for the succeeding weeks, been unable to make up his own mind, he had never made any attempt to fix his interest with her. In the situation in which they had found themselves, when she joined him at Monk’s Farm, it would have been both stupid and improper to have embarked on courtship. On the one hand, no moment could be more ill-chosen; on the other, it must (if she repulsed him) have created embarrassment between them, while his assistance in the task of nursing Felix had been so indispensable.
But Felix had survived and was on the mend, making it unnecessary for himself to remain in Hertfordshire. The Marquis, yielding to impulse, resolved to put his fate to the touch.
He had accompanied Frederica on a rambling walk, and they had paused by a stile before retracing their steps. Leaning on the topmost bar, she stared ahead, a troubled look on her face.
“Frederica!” said his lordship, recklessly taking the plunge.
She paid no heed; but when he repeated her name she turned her head, and said: “I beg your pardon! I wasn’t attending! Did you say something to me, cousin?”
“Not yet!” he replied. “I was merely trying to recall your attention! What were you thinking about so deeply?”
“I was trying to remember the name of an excellent jelly which Mrs Ansdell — our Vicar’s wife, you know — recommended to me when Jessamy and Felix were so pulled by the measles,” she said seriously. “It did them a great deal of good, and I think it would be just the thing for Felix now, if only I could — Oh, I have it! Dr Ratcliffe’s Restorative Pork Jelly! How could I be so stupid? Now, what have I said to make you go into whoops?”
“Nothing in the world!” responded the Marquis, still laughing.
“Well, what did you wish to say to me?” she demanded, her brow puckered in a puzzled frown.
“Nothing in the world, Frederica!” he said again. “How fortunate that you should have remembered the name of this jelly! Shall I go at once to Hemel Hempstead to procure it for you?”
“No, very likely you wouldn’t be able to. If Dr Elcot approves, I shall write to Harry, and ask him to bring me some.”
“Oh, is Harry to visit us?” he asked.
“Yes — didn’t I tell you? Curry brought me a letter from the receiving-office this morning. He writes that he can come post, and be in London again in time to dine with Charis. He would have come immediately, you know, if Jessamy had not dissuaded him, which was very right. It could only have overset him to have seen Felix then, and there was nothing he could have done, because he is very rarely ill himself, and hasn’t a notion of what to do for sick persons. But naturally he is anxious to come now, and I shall tell him he may do so, but must not allow Charis to accompany him. I am sorry for it, and should dearly love to see her, but we cannot have her sick on our hands as well!”
“Certainly not!” Alverstoke said, startled. “Er — should we?”
“Well, quite out of sorts for a day or two, at all events. On account of the post-chaise,” she explained. “You know what those yellow bounders are! She would be queasy before ever they reached Edgware.”
His lordship, recognizing that it was still not the moment to make a declaration, very wisely refrained, and, as they wended their way back to the farm, talked to her on indifferent subjects.
Harry, who arrived in due course, bringing with him a supply of Dr Ratcliffe’s Restorative Pork Jelly, was quite unmanned at the sight of Felix, so thin and white, and so languid, and it needed the united endeavours of Frederica and Alverstoke to convince him that the boy was not lying at death’s door. He was inclined to think that Frederica took too lighthearted a view of the case, and was so insistent that a London practitioner should be sent for — even saying that he, and not she, was the poor little fellow’s guardian — that Alverstoke was impelled to come to her rescue, drawing him apart, and explaining to him, with wonderful patience, why it would be both unnecessary and inadvisable to call in another doctor at this stage. Harry did not look to be perfectly satisfied, but he brightened when Alverstoke suggested that if Felix did not pluck up as fast as he should, when he was carried home, Harry should certainly consult a London physician.
To see Felix had not been Harry’s only reason for posting down to Monk’s Farm: he wished to discharge his debt to the Marquis. “You have been put to a great deal of expense, sir, and I am much obliged to you for acting on my behalf,” he said punctiliously. “I should like, if it is convenient to you, to give you a draft on my bank.”
There was a mulish look about his mouth, and the hint of a challenge in his eyes, but the Marquis, who had foreseen the demand, took the wind out of his sails by responding affably: “Oh, perfectly! I’ll hand you the reckoning when I return to London. Do you want it in detail, or will a Dutch one suffice?”