A Little Folly (14 page)

As promised, Georgiana and her governess Miss Bowen were there also; but Louisa had failed to observe Lieutenant Lynley in the throng – and was sensible of a certain disappointment, which turned abruptly to surprise. – Francis Lynley was by her side. She had been expecting to see his red coat, as her look must have shown. He glanced down at his plain black, and said, with a faint smile: ‘Yes, I have put off regimentals. My sick-furlough will become discharge soon enough – but in truth I abandoned the red coat because I am tired of people coming up and congratulating me.’

‘I suppose it is very natural, when we are celebrating victory.’

‘I am not sure I did anything to contribute to it. My foot arrested the progress of a musket-ball, which might otherwise have lodged in an innocent tree or fence-post: there is that. Well, shall we get over the civilities about a delightful evening, and so on? They do get in the way of what one really wants to say.’

‘I can happily dispense with them. What
do
you want to say, Lieutenant Lynley?’

‘Oh, ever since we met in the park, I have wanted to convey to you the full strength of my amazement. I have at last encountered the fabled Miss Carnell – a creature as rare and incredible as a real military hero.’

Louisa faltered. – His face, with its wryly twisted lips, was alive with expression, in complete contrast to his brother’s: yet still she was uncertain how to read it. ‘I had no idea I was such a monster,’ she said dubiously.

‘Think of mermaids and enchantresses rather. May I take you in to supper? You look perturbed. It is only my rather nonsensical way of saying I have heard a good deal about you.’

Between doubt and fascination, she gave him her arm. His limp, as they went in, was very noticeable; but she did not think his lean figure any the worse for it.

‘You probably know my brother and I are not generally on the warmest of terms,’ he pursued when they were seated. ‘But we do correspond, you know: indeed, for two people who do not understand each other in the slightest, we rub along pretty well. And the great theme of his letters – besides my own shortcomings, on which there can never be enough to say – has long been Miss Carnell of Pennacombe. I had only the vaguest memory of you from my residence at Hythe: your family were very little seen about; and this only increased my curiosity to behold the object of such singular praises. Do I speak out of turn?’

‘No: that is, I hardly know what to say. I am not sure whether you are in earnest.’

‘Dear God, I hope I am never that; but I am not making a game of you, I assure you. Nor of my brother’s attachment – though it is so little in Pearce’s way to be liberal with the expression of his feelings that I had to do a little reading between the lines to be certain of it.’

‘Lieutenant Lynley, this is all very difficult.’ Not the least difficulty was accommodating the idea of Pearce Lynley praising her: if there were praise to be bestowed, she had always supposed he reserved it to himself, for his condescension in noticing her. ‘While my father was alive, there was some promotion of a match between Mr Lynley and myself, because it was his wish – but that is really all I can say. Certainly – though I do not doubt you – I have never had reason to believe that your brother’s attachment was such, in kind or degree, as to be at all troubling to him.’

‘I do understand you. He always spoke of it as such a settled thing that I wondered whether it was so settled after all. And as we are being so thoroughly and improperly frank, Miss Carnell, I may as well add that there has lately been an alteration in Pearce, from which I collect there has been an alteration in his expectations. In short, I suspect he has been refused. This, of course, is the moment at which you may well decline to speak of the matter, deplore my impudent curiosity, and sever the acquaintance: by all means do; but let me at least help you to some of this excellent pie before I withdraw discomfited.’

She shook her head, laughing a little sorely. ‘I will not have any pie – but I shall not send you away either. – A glass of that Madeira, though, if you will be so good. You have spoken the truth of it, Lieutenant Lynley: the attachment was – was not mutual; and I am only a little concerned, from what you have said, that your brother was made more unhappy by the matter than I had supposed.’

‘Oh, as to that, it is difficult to tell with Pearce. I know he thought very highly of you: but if I can say this with respect, I wonder whether he can continue to think highly of anyone who has refused to give his merits the proper adoration. Certainly you have knocked him back, and his pride is hit. But I would not be uneasy. A woman is entitled to some conquests, surely.’

‘I don’t know – I fear I shall sound priggish, but I am not happy with this notion of conquests,’ she said, recalling Sophie’s hints in the park. ‘It is altogether too warlike – though perhaps I should not say that to a soldier.’

‘Now this is what has given me such pause,’ he said, sitting back and contemplating her. ‘Because you are not at all how I had fancied you. – And please, don’t embarrass me with the title of soldier. It was something I did because I couldn’t think of anything else, and it was nine-tenths humbug and one-tenth fear.’

‘If you say so – though I am sure you ought to be more proud than ashamed.’ With irresistible curiosity she added: ‘Then how
did
you fancy me?’

‘Oh, rather along Pearce’s lines, translated. Somewhat grand and unapproachable.’ He lowered his voice. ‘In truth, rather like that imposing creature he is sitting with. That
is
the famous Miss Astbury, is it not?’

‘It is.’ Louisa glanced over to see that Mr Lynley and Miss Astbury were conversing with ease, if not animation: though that was hardly to be expected. ‘But I cannot help wondering, Lieutenant Lynley, if I am not grand and unapproachable, what that makes me instead. Insignificant and humble, perhaps.’

‘You must determine that for yourself,’ he said, with his narrow, cat-like look. ‘I shall only say that I did not expect to like you very much. Well! Miss Astbury is actually smiling. Pearce must be exerting himself. He can
be
pleasant, you know: it is only that somehow he does not see the need for it. It would not be such a great surprise if he chose to pursue a golden dolly like that.’

‘No – you do not think so? Your brother has an ample fortune.’

‘Just so – but I am sure, like all of us, he would be happy to have more. He has often spoken of going into Parliament, which is an expensive business. And Miss Astbury would not be above his touch, you know. For all her airs, I understand the gentility of her family does not go back very far; whereas the Lynley name is ancient and irreproachable. Lord, the Lynley name: how much I have heard of it. And then a man who has been refused will often seek to demonstrate that other women find him thoroughly acceptable. This is only human nature – of which my brother, despite plentiful evidences to the contrary, is certainly a sharer.’

Louisa looked again at Mr Lynley and Miss Astbury in colloquy, with a peculiarly mixed emotion that she could not identify. Though she quickly dispensed with any suggestion that by these attentions he might succeed in inclining her either to jealousy or regret, she could not be flattered that his affections for her, which his brother had represented as more powerful than she had guessed, might be so quickly superseded.

‘Well, you know him a good deal better than I,’ she said, with rather strained carelessness. ‘And I may as well say, Lieutenant Lynley, that you are not at all what I expected either.’

‘Ah, no horns or cloven hoof, eh? No, you need not try to explain, Miss Carnell. If my brother has mentioned me at all, I’m sure it is in terms of disapproval; and by Pearce’s standards, they are I dare say entirely warranted. If there is a black sheep of the Lynley family, I must accept the title. I was never able to measure up to my father, or to Pearce, and perhaps I did not try enough. But I would contend for being a
grey
sheep. I have never settled to anything very well: that I cannot deny. I would say it was in my nature, if I did not loathe people who talk about things being in their nature, and get so tremendously interested in themselves. I have never been able to keep hold of money, but then I have never laid out vast sums of it either. Gaming I find dull, and in the regiment I was accounted a poor fellow because I could not drink my bottle without turning green. That inability to apply myself extends, I fear, to vice. I should very much like to be a complete rogue: at least it would mean I had finished something.’

The picture of his being unable to equal the expectations of his family was one that struck forcibly on Louisa’s mind, knowing his brother, and remembering her own father. ‘But you applied yourself to the army, surely – even if it was not something you would have freely chosen.’

‘Well, I did not desert. If you will allow me to take a little pride in that, then thank you: believe me, I will take any pride that is going. I confess I often wished to – but it requires a particular kind of courage to desert, so I chose instead to cultivate the art of dodging and ducking.’ He put away his plate scarcely touched: he seemed to find food uninteresting. ‘But you are too good-natured, Miss Carnell – or else more impervious to gossip than any normal person can be. It must have been well known in Devonshire that I was much with my grandmother – and then, suddenly, not.’

‘I confess I am too curious to deny it. But that was all that was positively known.’

‘And a great deal more speculated, no doubt,’ he said, with a harsh, clouded look. ‘Forgive me – the whole business is something I cannot recall with equanimity, perhaps because no one comes out of it well, least of all me. I was very young: my grandmother, Mrs Poulter, spoilt me excessively: there is an end of the excuses. She has always been generous; and at that time she extended her kindness to a young woman of the district, whose late father had been a poor curate, and was distressed for means. Mrs Poulter had her there several times a week to read to her, and do a little sewing – anything, in fact, for which she could pay her, without the degradation of charity. You may possibly guess the rest. The young woman and I formed an attachment – or fell in love – or took a liking to one another, which the romanticising of youth and inexperience were quick to elevate into something beyond its true level: choose as you will. Nothing would satisfy us but an elopement: fortunately our preparations, which were hopeless enough, were discovered, and we were prevented.’

‘You say fortunately. – Do you regret this scheme, then?’

‘Regret? Absolutely. It was folly and nonsense. We would not have done well together at all; and as for what we were to live on, I had no firmer notion than a hope that my grandmother would do something for us. Yes, it is rather sad and grubby, is it not? But I suspect I had some confused idea that at last I was striking out on my own, and deciding for myself, and so on. Well, as soon as it was known, Pearce hastened up to Nottinghamshire, and took charge. He had not long succeeded my father to the estate, and was determined to show himself master of every situation. As indeed he was, and always has been: I do not quarrel with that: if I say I wish there were a
little
fallibility in his nature, it is probably because I recognise too much in my own.’

It was a relation intensely interesting to Louisa: she could well imagine Pearce Lynley
taking charge
, and the picture was not one that softened her feelings towards him. ‘But what happened? Were you forcibly separated?’

‘Ah, now you are looking for a tale of unfeeling tyranny, in which my wrongs are painted in the liveliest colours. No: I was read a great lecture on responsibility, which was probably sensible, if lacking a little in sympathy: my grandmother, whose distress at the whole episode is what I most blush to recall, took the girl aside, and represented to her the recklessness of the project. We were both made to feel the abuse of trust that we had demonstrated; and I was despatched to London, to read in the chambers of the most appallingly dull lawyer that ever sharpened a pen. I mean that he was dull when he was drunk, which was most of the time: when he was sober, he was only ferocious.’

‘What became of the girl?’

‘Oh, for a time we were rebellious enough to correspond, in spite of its being forbidden – or, rather, because of it; but it is wearying being on the high horse all the time, and we could not keep it up. I understand, from my grandmother, that she married an attorney’s clerk in the end. There: now I have talked about myself sufficiently for three bores, and you have borne it very well, so let us turn to the weather, or the Duke of Wellington.’

‘You talked because I asked; and I do not find it a grubby story in the least.’

‘Well, don’t go looking for heroes and villains in it, because there aren’t any. What I don’t like about it, if I may sound one note of self-pitying complaint, is that I have never been allowed to be anything other than that idiot stripling of nineteen, though now I am nearly five-and-twenty, and have seen men get their heads shot off, and may have killed some myself, though all I ever did was fire blindly in the smoke and pray for it to end. I am quite fenced off from my grandmother, as if I will take some disastrous advantage of her, when she is a perfectly sensible woman, who knows well what she is about. As for Georgiana, I think she would almost like me if she dared, but she turns into a ramrod in my presence.’

‘And now you are to be taken charge of again, I collect.’

‘Pearce has said so, has he? No, Miss Carnell, don’t fear you have committed an indiscretion.’ Lieutenant Lynley laughed gently. ‘His responsibilities are, I know, always the great theme of his conversation, and he chooses to see me as the weightiest of them all. Well, let it be so, if it pleases him. For now I want only to enjoy my freedom from that detestable army: hear some talk that is not all boasting and oaths, and see sights more elegant than a private’s back cut in pieces by a flogging.’

‘You would not contemplate a return to Hythe?’

Lieutenant Lynley shrugged. ‘I think I should rather like it. I have been a wanderer enough to value the idea of a home, though black sheep are not supposed to think that. But as for Pearce and I residing together …’ He shook his head, his face darting with wry bemusement. ‘And then, you know, if he does marry – as I don’t doubt he will, for he may surely take his pick – I should be even more
de trop
. No, I think a better course for me would be – well, the same course. I shall try to marry, and marry well. Does that not sound sensible?’