Frederica

by Georgette Heyer

  He flushed, and, as he bowed over her extended hand, stammered a disclaimer. Her ladyship was very good, but quite mistook the matter! He was the merest whipster, as Cousin Alverstoke would tell her!

  ‘Oh, no! He says you have a – a bit of the drag about you! How do you do, Carlton? I am delighted to see you, but you had liefer go to watch what they are doing to the balloon than talk to an aunt, so you shall give me your place for a while.’

  There seemed to be no reason why her ladyship should not have occupied Jessamy’s place, but Lord Buxted, taking his smiling dismissal in good part, forbore to point this out to her. He handed her into the carriage, and turned to look up at his uncle, saying humorously: ‘I can guess what – or perhaps I should say who! – has brought you here in such excellent time, sir!’

  ‘Yes, an irresistible force. But what the devil brought you here so early?’

  ‘Oh, much the same cause!’ said Carlton, glancing towards Jessamy, who was paying no heed to him, his attention being divided between his lordship’s horses, and his lordship’s groom. He continued, lowering his voice: ‘I knew that our young cousin there would want to see everything, from the start, and would think himself very hardly used if we had arrived only in time to watch the actual ascension!’

  A deadly, and all too familiar boredom crept over the Marquis; an acrid rejoinder hovered on his lips, but remained unspoken. As his derisive eyes scanned his nephew’s countenance he realised that the pompous young slow-top was sincere: he believed in all honesty that he was giving Jessamy a high treat; and, as his next words proved, he had taken pains to render it as instructive as it was exciting.

  ‘Knowing that I should be expected to answer all manner of questions, I took the precaution of consulting my Encyclopaedia yesterday,’ Buxted said. ‘I must own that I became quite absorbed in the subject! The information was not quite up-to-date, but the adventures of the first ballooners held me positively spellbound! I have been entertaining my companions with an account of Professor Charles’s experiments. I daresay Jessamy will be able to tell you the height to which he rose on one occasion, eh, Jessamy?’ he added, raising his voice.

  He was obliged to repeat the question before he could divert Jessamy’s attention from the leader to whom he was addressing soft blandishments, and even then it was Alverstoke who supplied him with the answer.

  ‘Two thousand feet,’ he said, coming to Jessamy’s rescue. ‘Not for nothing have I endured your brother’s company this day, Jessamy! So don’t attempt to tell me that Lunardi filled his balloon with gas procured from zinc; or that Tyler ascended half-a-mile, at Edinburgh; or even that Blanchard once came to rest in an oak-tree, because I am already fully informed on these and a great many other matters!’

  ‘Ah, Felix has an enquiring mind!’ said Buxted, smiling indulgently. ‘Where is the little rascal?’

  ‘Probably taking an active part in the excessively tedious preparations within the enclosure.’

  ‘I hardly think he will have contrived to gain admittance, but perhaps we should go to see that he isn’t in mischief, Jessamy. I daresay you too will like to watch the bag being filled,’ said Buxted kindly.

  He turned away, to suggest that the ladies might care to go with them; and Jessamy, looking up at the Marquis, said: ‘I wish I were in Felix’s shoes! Your grays too! Did he ask you to drive him behind a team, sir? I told him you would not, so now he’s got a point the best of me. Little ape! – Yes, Cousin Buxted, I’m coming!’

  The ladies having declined the offered treat, Buxted and Jessamy went off together; but it was not many minutes before Jessamy returned. Alverstoke, who had alighted from the phaeton, and was standing talking to Frederica, turned his head. ‘Murdered him?’ he enquired.

  Jessamy was betrayed into a laugh, which he instantly checked, saying: ‘No, no! But there was no bearing it, so I made an excuse to come away. It was bad enough when he would prose on for ever about these intolerable aeronautics – just as though I hadn’t heard enough of them from Felix! – but when he got to reading Felix a lecture, and begging those men’s pardons for having permitted him to plague them, I knew I should be at dagger-drawing with him, if I stayed! So I didn’t.’

  ‘Is Felix plaguing them?’ asked Frederica. ‘Ought I to fetch him away?’

  ‘He wouldn’t come – particularly now that Cousin Buxted has told him to do so! Saying that people engaged on important matters didn’t want “little boys” under their feet. That set up Felix’s bristles in a trice, I can tell you! Well, can you wonder at it?’

  ‘A very ill-judged remark,’ agreed Alverstoke gravely.

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t call him a little boy to his face, now would you?’

  ‘Of course he wouldn’t!’ said Eliza, her eyes dancing. ‘I distinctly recollect that he called him, this very day, an abominable young thatchgallows!’

  ‘Exactly so, ma’am!’ said Jessamy. ‘He wouldn’t care a straw for that, any more than he cared for my telling him that he was a disgusting little scrub! But to call him a little boy – ! Why, I wouldn’t do so, no matter how angry I might be!’

  ‘I collect,’ said Frederica, in a resigned voice, ‘that the pains Charis and I took to send him out in good trim were wasted.’

  ‘He looks like one of the scaff and raff,’ said Jessamy candidly. ‘But as for getting under those men’s feet – ! They like him, Frederica! And even if they didn’t it’s no concern of Buxted’s! What right has he to behave as if he were our guardian? Pinching at one in that – that kind way which gets up one’s back till –’ He stopped, clipping his lips together, and after a moment’s struggle said: ‘I shouldn’t say so. He is a very respectable man, and – and he bore me no malice when I was shockingly uncivil to him. I am determined not to let him provoke me again. So I came away.’

  ‘Very proper,’ said Alverstoke. ‘Did you learn when the balloon is going to make its ascension?’

  ‘No, sir. That is, I heard someone say that there is very little wind, and I believe they were discussing whether to make the flight, or to postpone it. But I wasn’t really attending.’

  ‘Then I wish you had been!’ said Alverstoke. ‘I find this affair quite as tedious as you do, and should be delighted to withdraw from it. O my God! – if it is postponed Felix will expect me to repeat this performance!’

  Frederica laughed. ‘Don’t be alarmed! I won’t let him tease you to bring him here again.’

  ‘An empty promise! He will assure you – and me too! – that he has no intention of teasing me, and –’

  ‘He will just ask you!’ interpolated Eliza.

  ‘Yes – or offer it to me as a high treat, and look like an orphan without means of support if I decline it,’ said his lordship bitterly.

  ‘Playing off his tricks!’ said Jessamy. ‘Of course he will do so, when he knows he can bamboozle you, sir! Why don’t you give him a set-down?’

  ‘Instead of encouraging him to think he can depend on you for every indulgence!’ agreed Frederica. ‘Jessamy, do you think you should perhaps bring him away? I daresay they must be wishing him at Jericho!’

  Jessamy shook his head, saying with a reluctant smile: ‘No, they ain’t. One of them told Cousin Buxted that he was making himself useful! As a matter of fact, he’s getting as much encouragement as he gets from Cousin Alverstoke – and, lord, won’t he be intolerable for weeks to come!’

  ‘It would be a waste of breath, I imagine, to say that I have never offered him encouragement, nor, I might add, perceived the smallest need to do so!’ said Alverstoke. He saw that his nephew was approaching, and greeted him with a demand to know how much longer they were to be kept waiting.

  ‘Oh, not for long now, I fancy!’ responded Buxted. ‘I have been talking to the chief aeronaut, a very agreeable man! There are two of them, you know. This one – Oulton, I believe his name is – has been telling me a number of interesting facts concerning the difficulties and dangers of ballooning: the unexpected currents of air at high al
titudes, the delicacy of the valve, the hazards of descending in a strong wind when the grapnels have frequently been known to tear away whole bushes, so that the balloon swiftly reascends – to name only a few! One needs to be intrepid indeed to venture into the sky: I don’t scruple to say I would not do so for the world!’

  ‘No, indeed!’ said Charis, shuddering.

  ‘The speed to which they attain, too!’ he continued. ‘Conceive of travelling at fifty miles an hour! But that, it seems, cannot be seen today, for there is too little wind. I fear that nothing more than a short flight will be attempted, unless, of course, a stronger current is encountered as the balloon rises. I wonder, Charis, if you know to what enormous – one might say incredible – heights they have been known to rise?’

  ‘Felix told me, half-a-mile. Oh, I hope they will not do so today! It terrifies me only to think of it!’

  The Marquis, interpreting with fiendish accuracy the expression on his nephew’s countenance, said: ‘Come, come, Carlton! Surely you can’t be such a clunch as to have hoped to astonish Felix’s sister? If she has been attending, for the past week, to his instructive discourse, she must be very well able to recite all the statistics to you!’ He glanced at Charis, with a smile that drew a soft laugh from her. ‘But I do beg you won’t, Charis!’

  ‘Oh, no, how could I? I am too stupid to understand such things!’

  ‘Or perhaps your little brother didn’t perfectly understand all that he tried to tell you!’ said Buxted. ‘It is not the height which constitutes the danger, but the delicacy of the valve, which controls the height. Owing to the atmospheric pressure the cord attached to it has to be operated with great caution. If the valve cannot be sufficiently opened the place of descent may be missed. If, on the other hand, it is opened, and cannot be closed again, the gas escapes with such violence that the balloon collapses so rapidly that it falls to the earth with fatal velocity!’

  Fortunately, since Charis had turned pale at the thought that she might be going to witness so terrible a disaster, Jessamy created a diversion by exclaiming: ‘Look! they have begun to fill it!’

  And, indeed, the silken bag, which had previously been spread on the ground, could now be seen, rising above the heads of the crowd. As it swelled and mounted it drew gasps of admiration from the spectators, for although those who had had the curiosity to observe it at close quarters knew that its classically-shaped boat was painted in blue and red, with a scroll-work of gold, it was not until the bag began to fill that the huddle of colours on the ground resolved themselves into vertical stripes of red and white, with a blue band, like a sash, running across them.

  ‘Your ordeal is nearly over, cousin!’ said Frederica.

  Before he could reply they were both startled by a hoarse shriek from Charis. Frederica turned quickly, just in time to see her pointing hand drop, and to catch her as she sank into a swoon. She looked round in alarm, and saw that the balloon, released from its moorings, was swiftly soaring upwards, with a small figure clinging, monkey-like, halfway up one of the dangling ropes which had tethered it to the ground. She sat rigid, so paralysed with dread that she could neither speak nor move. Her eyes, drenched with horror, remained fixed on Felix’s diminishing form; and she was unaware either of the noise made by the crowd of startled onlookers, or of the shocked silence which had fallen upon her companions.

  That silence was broken by Jessamy. As white as Charis, he croaked suddenly: ‘They are pulling him up! Don’t try to climb, you little fool! Don’t – ! O God! he’ll never keep his hold!’

  He buried his face in his hands, but raised it again, as Alverstoke said coolly: ‘Yes, he will. Steady, my child! They are hauling him up fast.’

  His gaze, like Frederica’s, never wavered from Felix, already a tiny, indistinguishable figure against the sky. The suspense lasted for seconds that seemed hours. Buxted said: ‘I can’t see! I can’t make out … !’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ cried Jessamy, his lips trembling. ‘They’re pulling him into the boat! Oh, well done, you little brute, you little devil! Just wait till I get my hands on you! Just wait!’ He then sat down abruptly on the grass, and ducked his head between his knees.

  Alverstoke, mounting the step of the landaulet, grasped Frederica’s wrist. ‘Come!’ he said authoritatively. ‘You are not going to faint! He’s quite safe now.’

  Buxted, also suffering, like Jessamy, from reaction, ejaculated: ‘Safe? Upon my word, sir, if you think it safe to be –’

  ‘Be quiet, cloth-head!’ interrupted Alverstoke, with so much menace in the glance he cast upon his nephew that that well-meaning young man almost quailed.

  Frederica pulled herself together. She said, out of a dry throat but with a calmness to match Alverstoke’s: ‘No, I never faint.’ Becoming aware of Charis, limp against her shoulder, she said: ‘Charis! My – my wits must have gone begging! I forgot – !’

  ‘Take this!’ said Eliza, producing a vinaigrette from her reticule. ‘No, never mind! lay her back against the squabs! I’ll attend to her! For heaven’s sake, Vernon, what’s to be done?’

  ‘Revive Charis!’ he recommended.

  ‘That’s not what I meant!’ she snapped, untying the ribbons of Charis’s bonnet, and casting this modish confection aside. ‘Frederica, change places with me, or let Vernon hand you out of the carriage!’

  Still dazed by shock, Frederica yielded to the compulsion of Alverstoke’s hand, and climbed down from the landaulet. Her knees were shaking so much that she was glad to cling to his arm. She tried to smile, and said: ‘I beg your pardon: I am being very stupid! I don’t seem to be able to think, but you will know what I should do! Tell me, cousin!’

  ‘There is nothing you can do,’ he replied.

  She stared rather blindly at him for a moment, but then said: ‘Nothing! You are right, of course. Nothing! I don’t even know – Cousin, where are they going? It’s an object with aeronauts, isn’t it, to discover how far they can travel?’

  ‘So I believe, but you need not let that alarm you! They will be quite as anxious to set Felix down as you are to recover him! I can’t tell you where that will be, but from the direction of what little wind there is I should suppose they will descend somewhere in the region of Watford.’

  ‘Watford! Is not that a considerable distance?’

  ‘No, less than twenty miles. They will hardly dare to risk a landing until they are clear of the metropolis, and all the environs, you know. It is one thing to make an ascent from Hyde Park, but quite another to bring their infernal balloon down in an area dotted all over with towns and villages.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I see. I had not realised … And they are bound to take every care – don’t you think?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  She managed to summon up a smile. ‘I am not afraid of accident – not much afraid of it! But Lord Buxted has been telling us that the cold becomes intense at high altitudes, and I do fear that! You see, although he is perfectly stout, Felix does catch cold more easily than most, and it goes to his chest. He is not of a consumptive habit: our doctor at home calls it bronchitis, and says he will very likely grow out of it, but I – I can’t forget how ill he was, two years ago, when he suffered a very bad attack. And he has gone up there in that thin jacket – !’ She stopped, and again forced herself to smile. ‘I am being foolish. There is nothing anyone can do.’

  ‘There is nothing we can do, but you may depend upon it that the balloonists will wrap him up.’

  He spoke in his habitual tone of cool unconcern, and it had its effect: she was insensibly reassured. On Buxted it also had its effect, but a different one. He said angrily: ‘Good God, sir, is that all you can find to say in this dreadful situation?’

  Alverstoke looked at him, his brows lifting. ‘That’s all,’ he replied. He saw Buxted’s hands clench themselves into fists, and smiled faintly. ‘I shouldn’t,’ he advised him.

  For a moment it seemed as if Buxted would yield to impulse; but he mastered himself. His face was s
till much flushed, and he said with suppressed passion: ‘Are you ignorant of the dangers that boy is exposed to, or insensate?’

  ‘Neither,’ said Alverstoke. ‘I’m glad to see you have some red blood in you, but if you don’t keep your tongue between your teeth I shall be strongly tempted to let some of it!’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, both of you!’ exclaimed Eliza. ‘Charis listen to me! – Felix is safe! There is nothing to cry for – do you hear me? Come, now!’

  But Charis, recovering consciousness, had broken into hysterical sobs, and seemed to be unable either to check them, or to understand what Eliza was saying to her.

  ‘Vapours!’ said Alverstoke. ‘It needed only that! Now we shall have a mob gathered round us!’

  Frederica, stepping quickly up into the carriage, said: ‘Let me come there, cousin, if you please! Soothing will only make her worse.’

  As she spoke, she pulled Charis out of Eliza’s arms, and dealt her one deliberate slap across her cheek, which startled the rest of the company almost as much as its recipient. Charis caught her breath between a sob and a whimper, and stared up out of frightened, tear-drenched eyes into her sister’s purposeful countenance. ‘Felix!’ she uttered. ‘Oh, Felix, Felix! Oh, Frederica!’

  ‘Stop!’ Frederica commanded. ‘Not another word until you are able to control yourself!’

  Eliza, who had got down from the carriage, remarked, in an undervoice to her brother: ‘Well, that seems to have done the thing, but it was rather drastic! After all, the poor child has had a dreadful shock, and one can see that she has a great deal of nervous sensibility.’