A Little Folly (22 page)

Much depended on Lady Harriet: on her fulfilling her promise to meet him, and adding her entreaties hard upon the heels of Louisa’s. Add to these Valentine’s letter – if he could be prevailed upon to write it – and the sum might be sufficient to draw Colonel Eversholt back from the brink. She was not sanguine, but she allowed herself at least to entertain the more promising proposition. The alternative, after all, could only be thought of with anguish, as fruitless as it was dispiriting.

Colonel Eversholt, punctilious but unspeaking, escorted her downstairs, and then with a bow left her. She found the waiter, who seemed to have missed her, and who made up for lost time by staring at her harder than ever, while she vainly requested him to send for a hackney.

‘Let me do that,’ said a voice at her ear, and Francis Lynley took her arm. ‘I am no great genius, heaven knows, but I have not entirely lost the use of my wits like this fellow.’

‘Oh! Lieutenant Lynley – I did not expect to see you here.’

He looked amused. ‘I fancy my presence at Silver’s is a little more likely than yours.’ His glance followed the broad back of Colonel Eversholt.

‘If you would be so good as to get me a hackney, thank you: and – it is very difficult, but if you could pretend you had
not
seen me, I would be very much obliged.’

‘Oh, I am exceptionally good at forgetting things,’ he said easily, as they went out to the yard. ‘And I may as well be direct, and say I have heard the tales about your brother and Lady H. – Faro’s Daughter, as they call her: a great nuisance to you, I collect. It is all the talk of the town, meaning it will be all forgotten in a sennight.’

She sent up a fervent prayer that it would; and was grateful again for Francis Lynley’s constitutional aversion to leaping to judgement. At the same time she felt a selfish pang that this unhappy business was detaining her from his company.

‘You have enabled me to get away from those dull fellows, besides,’ he went on. ‘They are from my regiment, so we feel obliged to clap each other’s shoulders, and pretend we remember more about each other than we do. On that subject, or near it, there is to be an Exhibition of Grand Historical Transparencies, no less, at the Pantheon next week. Pictures of the principal battles of the late war, you know – I dare say they will be hysterically fanciful. No one cowering behind walls and wishing it would all stop. I am engaged to take Georgiana to it on Monday. Will you come with us? We shall be properly chaperoned, you see. Georgiana is the very last person in the world to stand any nonsense.’

‘I should like it, indeed – if—’

‘If you are not otherwise engaged, of course. And if society does not lose its ridiculous fascination with the war by then, which would be quite sensible. At least the Allied sovereigns are going home soon, to resume their peaceful task of tyrannising their subjects. Well: I shall
hope
to see you then. It should be amusing, though not up to our dance at the Astbury ball – I do not think anything can come up to that.’

He hailed a hackney, and handed her into it – his parting look curious, but full of his own peculiar regard. All thoughts of the ball, though they came back vividly enough, were to be banished: they excited too great and too pressing a confusion of feeling for her peace, when every effort of self must be bent on one end; and she might have said the same for Lieutenant Lynley himself.

At Hill Street she found, alas, no such fixity of purpose in Valentine in the succeeding days. At times he was lively and defiant, and spoke of the clearing of innocent names in grand terms; more often he was subdued, his voice hollow, his face ashen. Louisa did her best to rouse and cheer him; but his temper had always had a tendency to the heights or the depths, whenever it was tried; and this trial was so exceptional that she must accept the impotency even of her persuasions. Mr Tresilian exerted himself likewise, but with limited success. Where there were things to be done – more legal consultations, a first essay at obtaining a defence counsel – he managed to brisk Valentine into doing them: but the letter he had urged remained long unwritten, and when at last Valentine completed it, there was so little of accommodation in it that Mr Tresilian sighed and said it had better not be sent. As grim, tight, tense day succeeded day, with the sun blazing unrelentingly on London – that high summer which is equal parts glare and wilting – even Mr Tresilian seemed to despair of lifting Valentine’s spirit: he pursued much of the business, where possible, by himself, and sometimes seemed to take a pleasure in talking nonsense with Sophie, as a relief from the brooding shadow that consumed the rest of his time.

Once, pricked by a new thought, Louisa caught him at the door as he was leaving after dinner.

‘I have fifteen thousand pounds,’ she said.

‘I know it.’

‘If Valentine has need, it is his.’

Mr Tresilian started a little: then said quietly. ‘It would sadly hurt your marriage prospects.’

‘I have no fears on that score.’

He seemed to be studying her: but the brassy evening light was directly behind him, and his expression hard to discern. ‘Your independence, then.’

‘I could not contemplate my independence if Valentine lost his.’

Suddenly Mr Tresilian pressed her hand: his own was agreeably cool in the stickiness. ‘I do not believe it will come to that,’ he said, and was gone.

If he doubted she was in earnest, she found no such doubts when she questioned her own heart. The enterprise of living that had begun the day they disposed of the fire-screen was a joint venture, which neither partner was to abandon: the bond that had joined them since infancy was not to be severed by such circumstances as these. She was not so unrealistic as to suppose either of them would adjust easily to poverty – but she was prepared for the struggle; and she continued some days in a state of firm, sober preparation. Sometimes still her mind was swept with anxiety and fear: then the ordinary business of living, of dressing and eating, seemed both precious and absurd; and to undertake an excursion of pleasure, even so mild as the visit to the Transparencies she was invited to make with Francis and Georgiana Lynley, appeared irresponsibly frivolous. But no: she sent him a note confirming that she would go: to do otherwise, she felt, would be to declare defeat and surrender – and the time for that was not yet. The thought of Francis Lynley – unshockable, wry, unconventional – was besides a light against this new darkness. When the appointed day came, she was impatient for two o’clock, the time of their meeting – but impatience was entirely displaced by astonishment at the events of the morning.

Pearce Lynley called at Hill Street. With him – actually on his arm – was the governess, Mary Bowen.

M
rs Spedding was too well-bred, and too careful of the ageing effects of facial expressions, to betray her surprise; but Sophie was all agog: and Louisa, looking from Mr Lynley to Miss Bowen, and finding nothing changed in them, and yet everything changed, was half convinced she was asleep, and that any moment some reliable dream-turn, like the entrance through the window of the King or the discovery that she was clad only in her nightdress, would fully assure her of the fact.

‘Mrs Spedding, I have of course had the honour of introducing Miss Bowen to you before,’ Mr Lynley said, when they were seated. ‘But the introduction has not been made as I should wish it to be made. You have known Miss Bowen as my sister’s governess.’ He smiled – a little nervously, to be sure, but a smile nonetheless; and then turned the smile in the direction of his companion. ‘I shall be very glad for you to know her on quite other terms – as my intended bride.’

Mrs Spedding, after the first speechless moment, supplied all the congratulation that courtesy required, and that her good nature was very ready to offer: Sophie exclaimed it was the most delightfully romantic thing she ever heard; and Louisa was left at last with the consciousness that she was the only one who had not spoken. Mr Lynley’s gaze turned to her, but she could not quite meet it, though she must accept now that she was not about to sprout wings, or manifest any such comforting evidence of her being sound asleep.

‘Mr Lynley, this is most – tremendous news,’ she got out: swiftly she concluded that she might have chosen a better adjective, but none would come to mind.

‘Mary and I appreciate that it may, to general appearance, seem sudden,’ Mr Lynley went on, with some – not all – of his usual composure: his colour was too high, his eyes too bright for that. ‘So we have taken it upon ourselves to call on our close acquaintance to convey it, before the formal announcement. Such are the peculiar circumstances – well, I will leave it to your candour to infer them. We have till lately stood in a very different relation, of course. That that relation was superseded by something else – by my growing esteem for Miss Bowen’s qualities, and the ripening of that esteem into affection, and the strongest attachment – you may see: but our respective situations threw in its way various difficulties – difficulties under which she laboured the most severely, until I took courage, by frankness, by unvarnished declaration, to end them.’

The look he bestowed on Mary Bowen was a glowing one; and she, with a glance no less feeling but speaking plainly and directly as ever, said: ‘You will understand, situated as I was, that I did not dare to hope. I scarcely even dared to feel. But when Mr Lynley asked me, I had no doubt of my answer, any more than of my own name.’

‘Well, I am sure it is the most charming news, indeed,’ cried Mrs Spedding. ‘Nothing gives me greater pleasure to see young people engaged to be married; and I only hope you will set an example to my two. But where is it to be? In town, or in Devonshire? Of course I should wait for the formal announcement to know all this, but I am a monstrous curious creature.’

‘In town, we think,’ Mr Lynley answered. ‘Though Devonshire, of course, shall be our home. There is one of the many pleasures I anticipate – presenting Hythe Place to its new mistress.’

And mighty lucky she would be considered to land it, Louisa thought: such at least would be the tart remark on many a tongue, when it was known that Pearce Lynley had married his sister’s governess. She would be presented as a little schemer who had used every wile to trap him – but, no, not for long. A very short acquaintance with Mary Bowen must reveal her to be no minx; and that the attachment was a real one was evident in their every glance – evident, moreover, in the very fact that Pearce Lynley had overcome all his loftiness and pride to win a woman whose position was so much beneath it. Louisa was still adrift on a tide of astonishment, but not without grasping at some spars, some hand-holds of understanding, as she regarded the couple. She recalled his including Miss Bowen at dinner – to impress
her
, she had thought in her ignorance: recalled the odd moments of tense awkwardness between them, which she had ascribed to Mr Lynley’s unyielding temper, but which now appeared as the probable result of two people falling in love and not daring to recognise it. Francis Lynley’s account of Miss Bowen’s giving notice, and his brother’s persuading her to stay, must be traced to the same cause; and then there was that new warmth and impulsiveness in Mr Lynley’s manner – which, once more, she had attributed to his continuing attachment to her. Here was a great deal to take in: she kept it at a distance for now, conscious that some of it wore a perplexing, chastening aspect; and what she could not above all contemplate without unease was speaking with Pearce Lynley alone. But she knew he wanted to: several times his eyes turned to her, with a serious urgency; and when opportunity came, with Sophie, who loved weddings almost as much as proposals, eagerly showing Miss Bowen a fashion-paper with the latest bridal modes, he took it at once, seating himself close by Louisa, and addressing her in a confidential voice.

‘Miss Carnell, I do not flatter myself that you have any more or less reason to feel the surprise at this news, which must be general among my acquaintance. But I do consider you as having a particular right to know more of the circumstances.’

‘Right, Mr Lynley? Dear me, I do not think I have any right,’ she said, in what was meant to be a serenely pleasant tone, but which sounded to her own ears like the squawk of a captain’s parrot.

‘You are very good – but it is after all not so very long ago that I was paying you my addresses: though it does seem a long time, somehow,’ he added, with a fond glance at Mary Bowen, looking unimpressibly through patterns of lace. ‘Paying you what I was pleased to call my addresses, at any rate. You put me properly right on that score, though I was unconscionably slow to see it. Indeed, Miss Carnell, in the happiness which I have attained, I have a great deal to thank you for.’

‘Thank me? Really, Mr Lynley, I cannot see how,’ she said, relieved to find her voice, if not exactly level, no longer avian.

‘No? You surely recall taking me to task over my high-handed way with governesses. I thought you merely sentimental and indulgent at the time; and I think it is one of those subjects on which we would never wholly agree – but something of it must certainly have lingered, for when Miss Bowen came along I took a little more trouble to apprise myself of her circumstances, and to consider her as a human creature, and not merely in the light of an employee. – But it is more than that. You taught me how to feel – or, rather, how to understand what I felt. Your father had designed us for each other; and it was only with time that I came to realise that in going along with those designs, I had not consulted my own feelings any more than I had consulted yours. I simply did not know what I wanted: but I assumed I did.’

‘I see,’ Louisa said, in great confusion: it was curious, to say the least, to have someone tell you in such warm, tender and generous fashion that they had never loved you.

‘Now
she
knows what she wants,’ he said, with another fond glance at Miss Bowen. ‘There is such an admirable firmness and honesty. I remember when she first came to us, and I took issue with some little matter relating to Georgiana’s lessons. No ground was given: her clear-sighted mind fixed on the truth, and set it before me. So I – I admitted myself in the wrong.’

‘I had the highest esteem for Miss Bowen’s mental powers, but I did not suppose them capable of miracles,’ said Louisa, with more lightness than she felt.

‘You have earned the right to satirise me, and I am reassured that you still feel able to do so. Mary, of course, is of a more serious turn of mind; it is where we strongly agree. The influence of her upbringing is naturally to be felt there.’

‘Has she family living?’ Louisa asked, from a curiosity that she was instantly sure must sound like malice.

‘Her mother: she lives in Wiltshire, on a small annuity presented to her by the late marquis, her father’s employer. It is to be hoped the distance will not be an object to her coming to us at Hythe, whenever she wishes.’ He looked keenly at her. ‘I well know there will be voices exclaiming at the inequality of the match: but Mary’s connections, if not high, are respectable; and I hope I may count myself able to set a value on character, and not merely on rank and place.’

She did not doubt it: there was everything to suggest he had chosen freely, happily, and even wisely; and viewing the matter objectively, as she was striving to, there was surely cause for rejoicing that Pearce Lynley, too, had broken free of his bounds, and begun his own enterprise of living. ‘I congratulate you, and wish you very well, Mr Lynley,’ she said evenly. ‘And though I still cannot think I merit your confidence, I thank you for it.’

‘Thank
you
,’ he said earnestly; and then, after a slight hesitation: ‘Indeed I am so happy, that I would wish to undo even the minor occasions of unhappiness. – When we spoke at the Astbury ball, I was intemperate in my expressions about my brother. Please forgive, and forget them. Francis has created in me the habit of anxiety – I will say no more than that; but I was wrong to imply that you are not in perfect command of your own feelings, and able to form your own judgement.’

Pearce Lynley apologising to her: here was a fitting conclusion to a morning of wonders, Louisa thought, as the happy pair took their leave; but such a flippant formulation did not accord with her real feeling – whatever that was. She wanted time and space to examine it, and could hardly endure the conversation of Sophie, which was all of veils and honeymoons; and was glad at last to set out for the Pantheon alone, Mrs Spedding having offered her the use of her carriage.

Even here her thoughts were scattered: it was too close for the hood, but without it the stabbing of the sun, this damnable sun, was painful. She supposed she was not the first woman to feel a certain piqued deprivation at the loss of a suitor she had never cared for: nor, probably, the first to be sensible of a little mortification that the force of her charms could be so quickly got over, and so easily replaced. But she might have borne these reflections more philosophically, if they had not come so wretchedly entangled with Mr Tresilian’s accusations at the Astbury ball. Power, he had said – a relish for power had animated her in her relations with Pearce and Francis Lynley. Well, her power over Pearce Lynley, if such it had been, was now decidedly overthrown; and according to Mr Tresilian, she should now be having a temper-fit to rival a thwarted Bonaparte. No: she felt nothing of the kind, or at least the degree. Probably the great shadow of disaster hanging over her and Valentine was sufficient to place it in the proper perspective. And, indeed, in thinking of that she found, at the centre of her feeling, a kind of wistful envy of Pearce Lynley. He had cast off early influence, and followed the promptings of the heart against the pull of caution and prudence – yet not to ruinous effect. It showed that it was possible, revealed a harmony of thought and feeling that aroused in her a vague but powerful longing, and a wish that it might not be, for her and Valentine, too late.

Hazy as these ideas were, she felt she might be able to communicate them to Francis Lynley. But when at last she saw him among the moving throng in the vast domed hall of the Pantheon, she found a disappointment in his heavy and cheerless looks that was not much assuaged by his conversation.

‘So, I do not doubt you have heard the news, for Pearce said he was to call on you, and what Pearce says he will do he will do.’ He offered a meaningless smile. ‘Quite a shock, is it not? I have been kicking myself for not marking the signs of it earlier – but, truth to tell, the notion of Pearce doing anything uncommon or interesting is so very fantastical that I never even began to entertain it.’

‘I was never more surprised in my life,’ Louisa said. ‘But there, his choice is made; and altogether, in temper and disposition, I fancy they are not unsuited.’

‘You have that right. And here’s poor Georgiana, who must see her governess turn into her sister-in-law: deuced odd for you, Georgy.’

‘It will be odd at first, but I do not much mind it,’ Georgiana said, ‘for I like Miss Bowen a good deal, as I might not like a stranger marrying into the family.’

‘Lord. When
you
take the rational and sensible view, then there is no hope for any of us,’ Lieutenant Lynley said mordantly. ‘Well, here are the Transparencies: not quite as silly as one could wish, but they will do.’

The great mural-size paintings, lit from behind, were certainly colourful in every sense: Lord Nelson seemed to have taken his famous vanity to the extreme of wearing rouge; but what Louisa chiefly wondered at, as she passed along the scenes, was how it had ever taken so long to win the war – for the French seemed always to be on the ground being bayoneted, an operation the British seemed to find so easy that they winked and smoked clay-pipes while they were doing it. Lieutenant Lynley laughed at them, but half-heartedly; and was soon recurring to the theme of his brother’s engagement.

‘Really he is a marvel: one can only admire. I am trying to imagine the trouble, the brouhaha, the wailing and gnashing of teeth if
I
were to announce I was going to marry the governess – but no, imagination fails, it is beyond all scope. Yet how Pearce carries it off! How he bears all before him! Believe me, I was entirely sincere in my congratulations, if only for that.’

‘Does it really displease you, then?’ Louisa asked. ‘You do not like Miss Bowen?’

‘Oh, she is well enough. She scares me: but, then, I always expected that a bride chosen by Pearce would scare me. As
you
well know, from our first meeting,’ he said, with a fleeting smile. ‘But the fagging thing is, I must find myself a new berth somewhere, at some time soon. Not that I am unwelcome, no, no: Pearce has explicitly said that I must always consider their home my own. Which is handsome: he can be handsome. And I am being the opposite – ugly, ungracious, call it what you will – when I say, to you at least, that I cannot bear the thought of sharing in that sober felicity. One or other of them, I fear, will always be correcting me: if not my conduct, then my grammar.’