A Little Folly (19 page)

Mr Lynley, as befitted a man both athletic and self-controlled, danced well: that improvement in his manner which she had noted, though it was far from making him effusive, was still present; and she wondered, as an idle fancy, what she would have made of him if this had been their first introduction.

‘Miss Astbury is having heavy work with her partner,’ she remarked. ‘He looks as if he would be more comfortable on the parade-ground.’

He smiled slightly. ‘Fortunately she has more than enough grace and elegance to compensate.’

‘She is much admired. By some, I conceive, for her fortune; but by others for her qualities. My acquaintance with her is so little developed I cannot judge; but you, I collect, have come to know her better, Mr Lynley.’

‘I have taken great pleasure in the acquaintance. Miss Astbury has sense, talents, and a steadiness of temper that must command the admiration of all but the most trifling minds.’

‘And she is thoroughly moral,’ Louisa said, recalling Miss Astbury’s censures on Byron.

‘I could not approve anyone, man or woman, who is not,’ said Mr Lynley, with something of his old distant look. ‘However, if you would place me among her idolaters, I must disappoint you. I would not speak disrespectfully of the lady who is, despite her aunts, really our hostess: I would only say that the sum is less than the many parts: the impression she makes is strong, but not deep or lasting.’

Louisa was surprised at this; and wondered if Mr Lynley had received a more significant rebuff from Miss Astbury than the loss of the first dance for him to be finding imperfections in her.

‘Still, she would be a great catch, for any man who could win her,’ she said.

‘Indeed. And all the more important that he should not be dazzled. A man must know truly what he wants, or suffer to have it revealed to him too late.’

‘I am glad to hear you admit at least the possibility of a man not entirely knowing what he wants,’ said Louisa, studying him, ‘and would be even more glad to know that this understanding was extended to your brother.’

He looked coldly at that: but the dance separated them before he could reply; and when they rejoined, he had retreated into silence, which she expected to be lasting. On the dance ending, however, he did not lead her back to her seat but, with a gentle pressure, detained her.

‘There is perhaps more understanding between Francis and me, Miss Carnell, than you are inclined to give credit for. I have in the past, as head of the family and guardian of my grandmother’s interests, found more to deplore than to applaud in his general conduct. But natural affections persist alongside our sterner judgement: we still love where we cannot wholly approve. This, I am sure, you are well placed to comprehend.’

Louisa had no doubt that Mr Lynley had heard the tattle surrounding Valentine and Lady Harriet; but she wished she could hear this confirmation of it without a blush. ‘Certainly: and well spoken, indeed, Mr Lynley. I only think it a pity that you do not show this natural affection which you claim to feel.’

‘I show it in the best way I know, by seeking to direct him in the most propitious courses.’

She sighed. ‘And then you are surprised when he does not wish to be directed. Really, Mr Lynley, I—’

‘Miss Carnell.’ He startled her by seizing her hand: he was not a seizing man; but there was much that was altered about him, not entirely to her comfort. ‘I know in the past I have tended to speak to you, on serious matters, in a way that may have appeared sharp – peremptory. As if I do not, did not know how to value feeling. Please believe that – though I hope I always did – I am learning to value it better, and more generously. If you will believe this, then allow me simply in that spirit to allude to my continued solicitude for you – without reference to the past; and to say, out of that solicitude, that I cannot view your growing intimacy with my brother – its rapidity, its heedlessness – without the strongest misgivings.’

Was this all? He had begun speaking – yes, feelingly, she would have said; but the warning against his brother seemed merely part of his old high-handedness.

‘Very well, Mr Lynley: tell me why.’

He appeared – surprisingly again – to be struggling to express himself. ‘I do not think,’ he said at last, ‘that Francis has a disposition for happiness – either to enjoy it, or communicate it.’

‘If that is so, then the answer is surely to be looked for in the influences operating on his life to produce such a disposition.’ And she would have added that if it were so, there was more in it to interest than to repel. – But Louisa was silenced by a new apprehension of intensity: in Mr Lynley’s urgent gaze, and the force with which he retained her hand. Much was revealed. The blow she had inflicted on him had been felt, she could now believe, in his heart as well as his pride. It had made him more open and spontaneous – but his feeling had also been unhappily distorted into the pettiness of jealousy. He must vilify and denigrate his own brother, rather than see her merely on familiar terms with him: must prejudice her against him, rather than allow her to make up her own mind about Francis Lynley’s character. So, he was directing her still: more subtly – but with just as little regard for her judgement. Her view of him was both enlarged and diminished; and in this confusion she sought only to escape from him.

‘Mr Lynley, you had better let me go. You must consider – you of all people – the propriety of appearances.’

‘I do not care for that,’ he said, astonishing her again, ‘if I could only know that you have at least listened—’

‘Listened? Certainly. The habit of a lifetime is not to be so easily broken.’

She disengaged her hand, and walked away. They were certainly conspicuous on that empty floor, as the flurry of speculative glances confirmed. Her first impulse was to find Valentine – her heart was particularly inclined towards him now – but he was not to be seen. Part of her urged against seeking out Lieutenant Lynley straight away; but when her eye fell on him seated alone, she felt more strongly the absurdity of his brother’s admonitions. To hear him talk, she was dangerously besotted: yet she found she was able to approach Francis Lynley with perfect composure, with no heart-flutterings or leapings – no pangs – no untoward eagerness, or fear that she would be tongue-tied in his presence. Yes, she was partial; and she felt that she had met no other man quite like him: but if this was love, it was a very much more rational business than she had supposed. It was refreshing, she found, to float free of these received ideas. And when Lady Carr materialised in front of her, and began introducing two very stupid-looking, doll-eyed females to Lieutenant Lynley, she was really very little vexed at the unwarranted interruption, and was able to take a seat quite calmly, and refuse several gentlemen the next dance with only a touch of peevishness.

The sight of The Top lounging towards her was above all unwelcome; but he showed no inclination to dance, and indeed in his tightness of starch was probably unable to.

‘Here we are again, Miss Carnell, and hang me if I know why, for I never saw a flatter set!’ he cried, leaving his customary pause for laughter; but as she did not feel impelled to fill it, he went on, staring about the room: ‘Well, she has netted a few of the
ton
, but that roasts no eggs for me: I have been having some conversation with the Golden Miss Astbury, and it’s as I thought: she is
not
all the crack. Her grandfather’s fortune was begun with warehouses, you know; and for all her airs, she positively smells of the shop! If she thinks she can gammon me, she is fair and far off!’ And with some more graceful remarks about his hostess’s ancestry, which she was disinclined to answer, he lounged away in a cloud of pomade and exclamation-marks.

Sophie appeared at her side, lamp-eyed, fanning herself vigorously, and, nodding in the direction of Mr Tresilian, whispered: ‘I shall get that man to an avowal yet, my dear – trust me.’

Louisa rather doubted it, at least tonight, for Mr Tresilian appeared thoroughly abstracted; but she was sufficiently alarmed to ask her cousin: ‘And, Sophie, what then?’

‘Oh, my dear, you look too far ahead. After all, never tell me
you
haven’t discovered the sheer delight of the chase now. And though I am very far from a bluestocking, I do observe that it is the only time we women stand in any sort of advantage to men: it is our one authority. For once married – well, look at poor Harriet, with no more rights than her abominable husband’s goods and chattels. Not that he has any.’

This was a new view of the matter; still, Louisa would rather have seen Mr Tresilian, with his general uprightness and honesty, exempted from the game. – But she had no more thought to bestow on this, as a parting in the crowd revealed Lieutenant Lynley, standing apart and looking very dull.

‘Ah!’ he said, brightening a little at the sight of her; but the shadows did not entirely lift. ‘Those women have talked my head off. Everything, they tell me, is agreeable, delightful and enchanting. There was very little to be said once I had agreed to those dubious propositions, but they went on and said it all again. Come and be silent with me, and stare disdainfully at the world.’

‘Must I be entirely silent? I would wish to say something to lift your spirits.’

‘There I must beg you to refrain. A good proper dose of low spirits is something to be indulged and luxuriated in, like a cold. Have you never known the true pleasure of a cold? I cannot doubt it. Not a heavy cold, or a persistent cold: no, one that you know will be gone in a few days, and in the meantime you may sniffle and cosset yourself by the fire, and reply to solicitous enquiries, with a sigh, that you are a little better – not much; and you will try to eat a bit of that something choice they offer you, though you are afraid you will not be able to taste it. There – be truthful – have I not described to you the highest human felicity?’

‘I don’t know about the
highest
,’ she said, smiling, ‘but I am glad you have lifted your own spirits by talking of it.’

‘No, no. You have done that. It is just your presence that restores me: there is my sovereign remedy. A great responsibility for you, I admit – to be always had recourse to, like a bottle of smelling-salts.’ The liveliness in his face sank a little. ‘In truth, I have been condemning myself for a very hypocrite. I was so blithe about my incapacity for dancing – but watching
you
dance has altered that.’

‘I hope – I hope not the fact that I danced with your brother—’

‘Not that. Lord, you make quite a handsome couple. But I saw how beautifully you do it; and it has even set me to cursing the Frenchman who fired that shot, though I have never felt any animosity to him before, and indeed, for all I know, it might have been one of our own.’

She hardly knew what to say; but then, as the music struck up again, an impulse seized her, and she brushed away the feeble little caution that trailed in its wake. ‘Do you recollect the steps of the Boulanger? The figures, the position of the hands? Then trust me. We shall dance it, you and I; and what that French or English bullet prevents, I shall supply: I shall do the going down the set, the leaping and turning, for both of us.’

With an expression of some bemusement, he consented. They took up a position a little away from the set, near the musicians; and the doubt left his look as she showed how they could contrive: while he stood, she danced round him, taking and crossing his hands at the right moments, and merely facing him, on her toes and smiling, at those parts of the dance where they would have been separated. Soon his delight was as keen as hers; and if part of his relish lay in the fact that, as he remarked to her, they were being most scandalously stared at, she was not immune to that aspect of the pleasure herself.

‘This is the best mode of dancing of all,’ he said, as they drew close, ‘for it means I never have to surrender my partner.’

They performed the proper bow and curtsy as the dance ended, and he led her to a seat – passing on the way Mrs Murrow, who could only gape and make inarticulate sounds, as if surprise had robbed her of the last vestiges of intellect. Here, however, Louisa felt the first check on her spirits, as she saw that Kate Tresilian had been sitting out, and with a more downcast look than even the presence of Miss Rose at her side could account for. It was unlike Mr Tresilian to leave her if she were unengaged: Louisa looked about for him, and at last discerned him in the vestibule, beyond the double doors – with him, the slighter figure of Valentine. They appeared in heated discussion – even argument.

By the time she reached the vestibule, Valentine was nowhere in sight; and Mr Tresilian was pacing about, high-shouldered, his hands stuffed in his pockets, and his uncropped hair in a very disordered state.

‘Mr Tresilian? Whatever is the matter?’

His pale eyes came to rest on hers, uncomfortably, for just a moment, before he resumed his pacing.

‘I have got at cross with your brother.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Gone. That is what our little disagreement was about. I saw him slipping out, and pursued him. I demanded to know why he could not for once spend a whole evening in our company, he replied that he did not have to answer to me for his movements, and so on. It was as unedifying as most quarrels are.’

‘It is a pity,’ Louisa said hesitantly, trying to read his expression, ‘but perhaps, you know, he had another engagement—’

‘Nonsense. Who goes to a ball when they have another engagement? My disappointment was Kate’s. He appeared to be in thorough enjoyment of her society – had as good as asked her for the next set – and then made himself scarce without a word. It was not well done. Oh, I know what is drawing him away; and I was so vexed with him that I came out with it. I asked him if he were going to Lady Harriet’s house. He did not need to answer: his look was enough. Then I wanted to know how much, just in round figures, he has lately thrown away at her faro-table. He informed me it was none of my business: which I dare say is true.’ Mr Tresilian pulled up before a bust, representing a gentleman dressed in the novel combination of a full-bottomed wig and a toga, and glowered at it. ‘But that is not the worst of his folly, in associating with that woman: as he well knows.’ He turned to Louisa. ‘As you well know also.’