Frederica by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page A

are an improper person?”
    “Sunk below reproach!” he responded promptly.
    She broke into a chuckle. “Oh, humbug! I don’t believe it! Even poor Papa wasn’t as bad as that!”
    “Even poor Papa ...!” he said. He found his quizzing-glass, and raised it to one eye, studying her through it with the air of a man who had encountered a rare specimen.
    Quite impervious to this scrutiny, she said: “No, though I believe he was shockingly wild before he met Mama—and I must own that to have run off with her, as he did, was not at all the thing! It has always seemed very odd to me that Mama should have consented, for she was of the first respectability, you know, and so very—so very good! However, I believe that people who are passionately in love frequently do the oddest things—and I have sometimes thought that she was very persuadable. Not that I knew her very well, because she died soon after Felix was born, but Charis is her image, and she is persuadable! And, of course, they were both so young! Only fancy!—Papa came of age just a week before I was born! I can’t imagine how he contrived to support a family, for his father cut him off without a groat, and I shouldn’t think he pursued any gainful occupation. But he abandoned all his rackety ways after he married Mama; and considering that they had caused my grandparents to feel the greatest anxiety and embarrassment I must say that I think it was wickedly unjust of them not to have welcomed Mama into the family!”
    The Marquis preserved a tactful silence. His recollections of the late Mr Merriville, whom he had met not so very many years previously, hardly tallied with the picture conjured up of a reformed character.
    “And, for my part,” continued Miss Merriville, “I think they were very well served for their unkindness when both my grandfather, and my Uncle James, who was the heir, were carried off by typhus within a day of each other! That was how Papa came into the property—and just in time for Harry to be born at Gray-nard! And after him, of course, Charis, and Jessamy, and Felix.” She broke off, seeing the Marquis blink, and smiled. “I know what you are thinking, and you are perfectly right! All of us but Harry have the most ridiculous names! I assure you, they are a great trial to us. Nothing would do for Mama, when I was born, but to saddle me with Frederica —after Papa, you know. Then there was Harry, because Mama was Harriet. And Papa chose my sister’s name, because he said she was the most graceful baby he had ever seen. Jessamy was named after his godfather; and Felix was a fancy of Mama’s—because we were such a happy family! Which, indeed, we were—until Mama died.” She paused again, but almost immediately resumed, giving her head a tiny shake, as though to cast off a bad memory, and saying, in a lighter tone: “So we had to make the best of our absurd names! And Jessamy and I exchanged vows never to call each other Jessie, and Freddy, and never to permit the others to do so either.”
    “And don’t they?”
    “No—well, almost never! I must own that Felix does sometimes say Jessie, but only when Jessamy is on his high ropes; and in private Harry occasionally calls me Freddy—but not to torment me! And he never calls Jessamy Jessie, no matter how much Jessamy may have provoked him, because he is four years older, besides being the head of the family, and he would think it very shabby conduct to nettle Jessamy into a fight, when he knows he could drop him in a trice. Not but what Jessamy is full of pluck, Harry says, but—Oh, dear, how I am running on, and without saying anything to the purpose! Where was I?”
    “I rather think you had reached the point of your mother’s death.”
    “Oh, yes! Well—the effect of that was very dreadful. I believe—indeed, I know—that Papa was so shattered that they feared for his reason. I was too young to understand, but I remember that he was ill for a long time—or so it