A Little Folly (4 page)

But Miss Rose’s determination to be ignored and slighted was not yet satisfied; and there must be a good deal more fuss about her taking a glass of wine, and her insisting that she did not expect such a privilege, before the matter was done, Miss Rose in this demonstrating the peculiar talent of those who proclaim their absence of self-esteem for getting a lot of attention by pretending they never get any.

The dinner passed pleasantly enough; but it was large and rich, neither Valentine nor Louisa being at all experienced in the planning of such things, and both of them inclined to liberality; and the wines in particular took their toll of Valentine. Louisa was just hesitating over that awkward responsibility of the hostess, of rising and inviting the ladies to retire, and wondering whether a parade-ground bark of ‘Drawing-room – quick march!’ might answer, when Valentine rose to his feet.

‘I hope you will give me leave to say something,’ he announced. ‘It is this. I wish to apologise. Not for myself, but for – well, let us say only that most of you, indeed all of you, have at some time been subjected to unpleasantness, even insult, from a certain quarter, in this household. At the time I refer to, it did not lie in my power to express my regret for these proceedings; but now it does, and without for a moment wishing to speak ill of – of anyone, I must convey to you that sincerest regret, and to assure you that
those
times are quite gone.’ Valentine’s eye fell wanderingly over the company: their silence seemed rather to encourage than dismay him; and he was just embarked on a ‘Furthermore …’ when Mr Tresilian got up and clasped his arm in an access of warmth and gratitude, which almost looked like a determination to press him back into his seat before he could say any more.

Louisa took her cue to lead the ladies out, trusting that Mr Tresilian would be vigilant over the port; and though there were only Mrs Lappage, Miss Tresilian and Miss Rose to be entertained, all well known to her, she presided over the tea-things in some confusion, and not without some startling crashes, as if she were going at her task with hammer and chisel. In truth she was so unaccustomed to wine that the very little she had taken had dizzied her head; and beyond that, she was not as comfortable with the occasion as she had hoped to be. Acting the hostess felt strange; the very house felt strange with this unprecedented company in it; she wanted everyone to be easy and contented, but could not be so herself. Part of her regretted Valentine’s outburst – yet she would have fiercely defended him against anyone who had questioned its propriety. Altogether she was in a thoroughly mixed state of feeling over their new enterprise of living.

It required only a little conversation with Mrs Lappage, however, to restore her to a consciousness of its one great advantage. That lady talked tactfully around the matter of Valentine’s little speech – conveyed as delicately as she could that she did not take it amiss in the slightest, and that if it had been up to her, there would have been some much stronger expressions, and that when it came to
apology
, there had long been an apology due to Valentine and Louisa from a certain quarter; and then, brightening, appraised Louisa with a glance, and cried: ‘But there, we look to happier times, as Valentine said, and I see
those
in your bright looks, my dear. Such a skin! And I like excessively the way you have trimmed your gown – that is the newest mode, I should think.’

‘If it is, I have hit on it most luckily, for I know nothing of the newest modes,’ Louisa answered frankly. ‘Valentine spoke of my having a new gown from Exeter, but I – I had an idea for making something pretty of this one.’ In truth she had scrupled to accept, because the voice of her father still spoke in her, sternly reproving the notion of fligging herself up in new clothes as soon as mourning was over.

‘Ah, but you know how to dress, my dear, and that’s something that no amount of new purchases can grant. All I can say is, I’m sure Mr Lynley will be as well satisfied with your looks as I am. You will know, of course – none better – that he is just returned to Hythe.’

‘I know of it, ma’am,’ Louisa said, after a moment.

‘Well! I run ahead of myself, no doubt – I always do,’ Mrs Lappage said, studying her closely. ‘It’s my failing. But when I observe that the relation between you and Mr Lynley is spoken of as a settled thing, I base my information not on gossip – heaven protect me from
that
– but simply from common report.’

‘The relation between Mr Lynley and I—’ Louisa faltered, performing more noisy tricks with the tea-things.

‘It is not strictly accorded the title of an engagement – I think those cups have not been properly dried, my dear, and that’s why they are so slippery. No, not exactly an engagement, and of course in the late solemn circumstances all such things must lie in abeyance, but there is a general expectation, shall we say? Now pray, my dear Louisa, don’t suppose that I mention it from any desire to draw you out about the matter, because assuredly I do not.’

Mrs Lappage omitted to say why in that case she did mention it; and only went on smiling curiously into Louisa’s face, so that she was forced to reply.

‘There is certainly no engagement, ma’am, nor anything like it.’

‘Ah!’

‘I hardly know what to say. If the gossip— I beg your pardon, if the common report is that an understanding of any kind exists between me and Mr Lynley, then it is very wide of the mark; and I cannot think where such a report may have begun.’

‘Can’t you, my dear? I can. It is what I have suspected since the matter began to be talked of. To be sure, I should not even allude to this, here in this house, and with you and Valentine so circumstanced as you are – but, no, I will say it. I know very little of Mr Lynley beyond what everyone knows – that he is rich, and proud, and rather unaccommodating in his manner – but I do know that he was a favourite with your late father. And so I have always said to myself: It is of
his
arranging, whatever else may be the truth of it. Meaning no disrespect, of course. Now, I say nothing of your own inclinations on the question, my dear Louisa, because I know nothing of them: it may be that in
this
case at least, they coincide with those of your father. – Certainly Mr Lynley is a very handsome gentlemanlike man, and is spoken well of generally, though his being so much approved in
that
quarter does, I confess, a little prejudice me against him. But no more of that. Anything your natural candour might move you to tell me about it, I would, of course, be honoured to hear but otherwise I disclaim all interest in the subject.’

Louisa was at a loss how to answer: Mrs Lappage’s inquisitiveness, though wholly good-natured, was inquisitiveness nonetheless; and her very decided feelings about Mr Lynley were such as she did not wish to share. They were so much her own, and no one else’s: the one rock of certainty, amidst all the tides and cross-currents of feeling that had swept her about since her father’s death. In many other regards, she knew, she was still Sir Clement Carnell’s daughter – anxious to placate, doubtful of her own wisdom, and quick to suppose herself in the wrong. But in regard to Pearce Lynley, she was no other than Louisa – a thinking, feeling woman, who could not submit to have her whole future decided for her in a manner so contrary to her taste, understanding and heart.

That someone so well informed about the business of her neighbours as Mrs Lappage could speak of an engagement was a shock – but a bracing one. It renewed Louisa’s determination.

‘My father did, as you say, ma’am, hold Mr Lynley in high regard – and I cannot deny that he spoke of the match as a possible and desirable thing. But this is to leave out of account the feelings of both parties; and those, of course, no one else can direct.’ As she spoke Louisa was conscious of a wish to make it plain that, even if her father had lived, she would not have supinely fallen in with his wishes – she was not such an abject being as
that
. The question thus raised, of how then she would have resisted her father, she could only answer by telling herself she would have found a way – which was as much as to say, she would have hoped for it. A tendency to equivocate had long been a part of Louisa’s nature: she could well remember one of her governesses trying to teach her the division of numbers, and her own eager reply on being told that three did not go into two, that it surely would with a little persuasion.

None of this could she convey to Mrs Lappage; she, however, was so happily absorbed in digesting the first delicious information that any more would have surfeited even her appetite.

The gentlemen were not long in rejoining them, and a glance assured Louisa that Valentine had drifted into a dreamy rather than a talkative state. The pianoforte was opened; and Louisa, being an ardent listener but an indifferent performer, was content to surrender it to Kate Tresilian, who played with skill and taste; and with a soft touch appropriate to her quiet character, and much appreciated by that large class of gentlemen, like Mr Lappage, whose enjoyment of music was enhanced by unconsciousness. Louisa invited Mr Tresilian to the seat beside her. She wished to say something in gratitude for his intervention at the dinner-table, but without suggesting that Valentine had done anything reprehensible; and when the moment came, in the applause following his sister’s first piece, all she could manage was: ‘Of course it was not ill-meant, you know. Not at all.’

Mr Tresilian only nodded.

‘And I do not think anyone took it so,’ she pursued. ‘I’m sure everyone understands that it was one of those things that simply – comes out, and there is no help for it; and better it comes out than be suppressed. Come, you are Valentine’s best friend,’ she added, as he continued grave and silent, ‘you, I’m sure, would be the last to disapprove him.’

‘I do not,’ he said. ‘But it sounds rather as if you are trying to convince yourself.’

‘Now you are being provoking, Mr Tresilian, but it won’t work,’ she said serenely, and then, with rather less serenity: ‘After all, it was in part a defence of
you
.’

‘Indeed! I am not aware of any need to be defended.’

‘Well – considering that my father could be, at times, rather less than sensitive to your position.’

‘At times? All the time,’ he said, with a little twist of a smile.

‘Very well, then. That is what anyone with a sympathetic interest in you must deplore, without any omission of respect to my late father’s name.’

‘Well, it’s a curious thing. His raillery never troubled me in the slightest, because it was all based on a false supposition – that I must regret the past.’

‘And you do not?’ Louisa said, with an interest she could not conceal – for it was unlike Mr Tresilian to refer to the subject, still more to make a disclosure about it.

‘Except in one particular,’ he said, after a moment – then seemed to repent even of this candour; and his sister beginning to play again, he took the opportunity to retreat deep into silence.

This was tantalising – rather touching also. Louisa was so accustomed to thinking of Mr Tresilian’s marriage as disastrous, and his bride’s early death as a sort of release, that she had never stopped to consider that perhaps
there
lay the real sadness: that even if the girl had made him unhappy, he might not have loved her a whit the less, and might have given anything to keep her by him. Still, he was a man so little given to the indulgence of emotion, except about the iniquities of ships’-chandlers and the fresh smell of a north-easter, that Louisa could not be sure. The one plain and unmistakable preoccupation of his present life was his attachment to Kate, and the cherishing protectiveness with which he regarded her. – Her dearest wish must be his. In this might lie the regret; for while Kate, with a faint blush, was now embarked upon Valentine’s favourite song, and Valentine was gazing wistfully in her direction, Louisa suspected that his gaze was fixed on objects far more distant and beguiling than a girl he had known since childhood singing, ‘Oh, had my love ne’er smiled on me’.

M
r Lynley was home: there was no doubting that, for where an ordinary person would have relied on general report to disseminate this news among his neighbours, and indeed would not have supposed it as of more than mild interest to them, Mr Lynley’s self-consequence required that he announce it. So thought Louisa, as Valentine laid before her the precisely written note in which Pearce Lynley presented to the Carnells his compliments, reassured their anxious minds that he was safe returned from the wild shores of Nottinghamshire, and promised to call on them at his earliest convenience.

‘I doubt, however, that I will be his principal object in calling,’ Valentine said. ‘So never fear, Louisa – when he comes, I shall leave the two of you alone as soon as may be.’

‘Valentine, this is not an occasion for jesting.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Her brother smiled, but his look was penetrating. ‘My dear Louisa, I suspect you are more averse to Mr Lynley than you have confided even to me. Which I quite understand: when our father was here, you were forced to be circumspect on the matter, simply to avoid trouble – especially as that trouble was all too often deflected on me. Oh, yes,’ he took her hand, ‘I know you often suffered more so that I should suffer less. I remember well when I tore a hole in the knee of my breeches, and you responded by tearing your petticoat quite in half, so that you would come in for the scolding; and we were little children then.’

‘And yet you still got the worst of it,’ she said, squeezing his hand, and feeling sadly happy, or happily sad – the emotion would not stay still.

‘Well, perhaps. But the important thing is, Louisa, those days are gone – and everything that went with them. We are entirely free, to choose and decide as we will.’

‘Yes … though I do wonder, Valentine – can one ever be entirely free in that way?’

‘Oh, you’ve been reading too much Byron.’ He laughed, and she left unspoken the lofty and indisputable reply that one could never read too much Byron. ‘But now
here
is a communication that promises much more satisfaction. It follows so exactly on my own dearest wishes – I was never more glad of a letter in my life. – It is from our cousins.’

‘Our cousins!’ repeated Louisa, not so much in surprise as to try the unfamiliar word on her lips: for that she and Valentine had such things was as certain as the fact that they had never been allowed to think of them as such; and she turned attentively to the letter that Valentine handed her.

‘It has been my greatest regret – powerless though we were to alter it – that a friendly acquaintance with Mama’s family was denied us,’ Valentine said. ‘It is not merely the deprivation to us, but the discourtesy, even the insult, offered to them – and beyond that, to Mama’s memory. It has been in my mind how to repair the damage, and now comes this most opportune overture from the Speddings themselves.’

It was not the case that they had never seen these cousins: there had been a single occasion, when they were small, and before their father had quite retired to Pennacombe – a visit to London, and a call upon their relatives in Hill Street, of which Louisa could only remember that the two children of the house had tried to play with them, and had given up under the double discouragement of the little Carnells not being permitted to, and not knowing how to. – They were the offspring of Lady Carnell’s sister, who had chosen a husband for his wealth and liberality, rather than his strength of character. Mr Spedding had died a few years since, leaving his widow and grown children very comfortably circumstanced; and from London Mrs Spedding had persisted in occasional civilities to the Carnells, writing her congratulations on Valentine’s coming-of-age, or conveying new-year’s greetings – all of which elicited the same response from Sir Clement: a stubborn silence, and a swift tearing of paper. He considered his late wife’s kin a foolish, indulgent, fashionable set and, being the man he was, had doubtless told them so; and he could never sufficiently praise his own prudence in keeping Valentine and Louisa away from their contagion, nor cease to congratulate himself on having plucked his wife away from their pernicious influence.

The letter was jointly signed by Tom and Sophie Spedding, but written by the latter. It was easy and good-natured, but lacking nothing in delicacy: the Carnells’ loss, and the probable lessening of its worst pains, and the Speddings’ difficulty in expressing their condolences, all were gently and lightly touched on, with a swift transition to a happier theme: the Speddings were staying at Lyme, no great distance away, Tom having taken a fancy that sea air at the very doubtful beginning of the spring would do him good; and it had done him good to the extent of his catching several colds, all of which, according to him, would have come out much worse otherwise: and now it wanted only one thing for the perfect restoration of his health. Sophie joined in his wish – to call upon their cousins at Pennacombe, and renew, or perhaps begin, an acquaintance they had long desired. They were travelling post, and if the Carnells could recommend a decent inn in the vicinity, they hoped to be with them in a few days – always excepting that if their cousins should wish instead to put this letter straight on the fire, they would not be offended in the least.

‘Very friendly – very pleasant,’ Louisa concluded. ‘I should like to see them, certainly.’

‘I sense a hesitation.’

‘No, no – but I hope they will not be disappointed in
us
. They sound so very assured – so comfortable in the world, as is only natural for them, having lived in it.’

‘Oh, as to that, I do not think we need to fear being found wanting,’ Valentine said, with a faintly vexed laugh. ‘We may not have lived in the world, but I hope for my part that I am not lacking in all assurance – in knowledge of how to acquit myself in society; really, I should consider myself a contemptible being else.’

Louisa, seeing his pride was touched, did not press the point, saying instead: ‘Well, it will be, as you justly remark, a gratification to be able to know Mama’s family at last. They ask about an inn. Do you suppose the Seven Stars …?’

‘It might do very well, if this were a distant connection, but as it is not so, and these are our nearest kin, who would in normal circumstances never have thought of an inn if they were in the district of Pennacombe – why, I see no reason why we should not invite them to stay here. Indeed, I feel it would be remiss if we did not. Certainly they do not angle for it – but in normal society, you know, the invitation would be such an accepted thing that it would hardly need extending.’

‘Would it? No, Valentine, I am not in the least contradicting you. I simply don’t know. We have so little means of comparison.’

‘Exactly, and what I mean to demonstrate, Louisa, is that in our innovations we are only doing what others do. – Others who have lived in the world, I mean, and have not been so dreadfully confined to the same spot, the same circle, the same expectations. Oh, we have James and Kate Tresilian as an example, yes, with their eternal walking everywhere, and James deep in the talk of the wharf-side, and Kate with her music and books: this is very well. I do not disdain it, for a quiet life suits them: they have the art of limited contentment. But that won’t do for me, and I have a strong suspicion it does not excite you either.’

‘They do seem at ease with life, though – or, at least, not greatly desiring any change in it. Perhaps that is the definition of happiness.’

‘Or of mere animal resignation,’ said Valentine, with his most pricked, high-coloured look. ‘But, no, don’t mistake me, I think Tresilian the best of fellows, and I have the greatest of respect for Kate.’

Poor Kate! was Louisa’s thought. If she still entertained hopes, this must end them. To excite in a man a state of violent loathing was, as any novel-reader knew, to stand in a fair light of winning him at last; but no woman could ever recover from the humiliation of being respected.

‘I shall write our cousins at once,’ Valentine went on briskly, ‘inviting them to consider Pennacombe their home for as long as they choose. And we must have guest bedrooms prepared – no fire-screen, of course.’

Though Louisa was deeply curious about their cousins, and very ready to meet them, she could not yet enter wholly into his enthusiasm for the encounter. – There was first the matter of Mr Lynley, which divided her between relish and dread; for as the meeting approached, she found her triumphant resolution tending to trickle away at the corners, and to be displaced by a wish that she might somehow avoid the whole question altogether. He came to Pennacombe, however, the next morning.

The circumstances were, perhaps, unfortunate. Louisa had a pet cat, which she had secured against her father’s dislike of any domestic animals that did not come bounding up to you with a dripping corpse in their jaws by creating an entirely false impression of her as a great mouser. Sukey, having talents in another direction, had some weeks ago given birth to a litter of kittens, one of which was promised to Kate Tresilian. She and Mr Tresilian came that morning, armed with a basket, the chosen household addition having already approved its future mistress, to the extent that as soon as it saw her it chewed her finger and became riotous. The lawn immediately behind the house was the half-grown kitten’s favourite arena, and there Kate and Louisa, attended with some masculine foot-dragging by Valentine and Mr Tresilian, went to find it.

With such an audience the kitten could not help but display all its tricks of stalking, running sideways, and climbing – this last with the result that it found itself in the lower branches of the crab-apple tree, and unable to get down. Mr Tresilian, sighing, made an attempt to climb up to it, but the spindly branches groaned ominously at his weight.

‘No, James, you are too heavy – you’ll fall,’ cried Kate. ‘Oh, what are we to do? Hark how she cries!’

‘Cats can generally get down, you know, even when they look as if they can’t,’ said Valentine, laying a tentative hand on the lowest branch, seemingly equally doubtful of its bearing his weight, and the effect of climbing on his new superfine corbeau coat.

As the kitten was likeliest to let her approach it, and she was not heavy, Louisa decided the task was hers: she sprang up, and was reaching out to the animal almost before Valentine could call out to her to be careful. In a moment she had the squirming bundle safely tucked under her arm. Now came the descent, which, on looking down, she found to be further, and more difficult, than she had anticipated. A dizzy glance showed her the faces of Valentine, looking crossly anxious, Kate, looking amazed, and Mr Tresilian, wryly amused. Her pride overcame her alarm – it would be too ridiculous to have to be rescued in turn – and crying, ‘No, no need,’ to Valentine’s declaration that he was going to fetch a ladder, she scrambled down, completing the descent with a jump that she flattered herself appeared easy and graceful, though it sent such a stinging shock through the soles of her feet that she had to bite her lip to stop herself yelping aloud.

She concealed her pain amid Valentine’s reproaches and Kate’s thanks, though Mr Tresilian’s grey, observant eye seemed to suspect it; and then, on turning towards the house, had the disagreeable surprise of seeing Mr Pearce Lynley standing in the window of the breakfast-parlour, with an expression on his face suggestive of his having witnessed the entire spectacle.

‘Ah, you have a visitor,’ Mr Tresilian said. ‘Come, Kate, stow that wild beast in the basket, and let’s be off.’

‘Oh, won’t you stay?’ Louisa urged.

‘Why? Mr Lynley hasn’t come here to see us,’ Mr Tresilian said.

‘But consider how it will look, if you go away without speaking to him – at least to give him good day.’

‘It will not look like anything,’ he said in his most phlegmatic way; and he and Kate departed by the shrubbery-path, leaving Louisa to her fate, and to the difficulty of getting into the house without limping.

In the breakfast-parlour Mr Lynley stood ready with his crisp bow and short words of greeting: tall, well-dressed, smoothly barbered – absolutely in possession of himself and of the room, though it was not the room in which callers were usually received, as he was prompt to point out.

‘The girl showed me in here, for some reason. I did not recognise her. New, I think. It allowed me, at any rate, to view your activities in the garden. Miss Carnell, I hope you took no hurt.’

‘None at all, thank you, sir,’ Louisa said, reaching her seat with relief.

‘One would have supposed the job more apt for a servant,’ Mr Lynley went on, seating himself and glancing critically around the room. ‘You have not suffered a general exodus from the kitchens, I hope. I have known it happen: when the strong hand of the master is removed, they miss it, and fancy themselves disaffected, and are often wilful enough to take themselves off to a worse place.’

‘I don’t know about a strong hand – but of course Pennacombe
has
a master, Mr Lynley,’ Valentine said, quite temperately.

‘To be sure: and I wish you well of it, Mr Carnell. Naturally anything more approaching to congratulation must be inappropriate in the circumstances. Even at the distance of many months, commiseration has the precedence. – I hope you are bearing up against your loss. It was no common one: men of Sir Clement’s character are not often to be encountered. The news was a very great grief to me.’ All this was pronounced with marble calm. ‘My sorrow was the more intense in that I could not be here to pay my respects, and to offer you whatever service I might, at a time when you must have been sorely in need.’

‘Thank you, Mr Lynley,’ Louisa said, ‘but we managed tolerably without you.’

‘If it had only lain in my power to return to Devonshire,’ Mr Lynley continued, taking no more notice of this than of a clock striking the hour, ‘but Mrs Poulter was so ill, and her affairs so in need of direction, that I could not be spared.’

‘Your grandmother is recovered now, I hope,’ Valentine said.

‘Her health is not secure, but the crisis is past. It is important that she suffer no agitation of the nerves.’