A Little Folly Read online

  Valentine was all shining animation; and though Louisa, from the agitations of the evening, was unable to match it, she experienced a moment of leaping thankfulness. – Yes: let them get away, far away from the scene of this horribly unsettling business with Mr Lynley. Another moment’s reflection reminded her that he also was planning a removal to London; but, then, that was different: there he would be one among a multitude, here a continued neighbour, presence, and irritant.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘I hardly know. Yes – yes, I should like to go of all things. But how long? Where would we stay?’

  ‘With the Speddings, of course. Tom is most insistent that he return our hospitality – will not be easy until we accept. And for as long as we like. You know they are not the sort of people to set quibbling limits. To be sure, we shall only come in for the end of the season – but, then, they say town will be very different this summer: none of the usual deadness, with the peace celebrations coming on; so it could hardly be better.’ He kissed her and sprang up. ‘Well, we shall speak more of it tomorrow. Lady Harriet has promised me one more dance.’

  Louisa lay long in the dark, listening to the sounds of a party coming to a close – hilarity turning a little quarrelsome, and fiddles going out of tune. The transformation of the house struck her afresh – her own transformation no less: she saw, as if beholding another person from outside, the abandonment of caution and submissiveness, the adoption of boldness and independence; to these were added visions of London, as vague as they were grand, which presently melted into dreams. Such a tumultuous activity of dreams did she have that night, in fact, that she woke late more exhausted than refreshed.

  The subject of a removal to London was already under discussion when she joined the others at breakfast. Every voice was for it: and Louisa had nothing to urge against the project. The first impulse of last night – to quit a place where something troubling had happened – was present in maturer form: the change must be of benefit in raising her spirits and diverting her thoughts, so that she would not be forever dwelling on it, and making her company tedious for others. In its train came a very real excitement at an idea that promised so much of novelty and interest: to see places that her reading had painted before her mind’s eye in almost fabulous colours: to go into society, not through the imaginative accompaniment of a novel-heroine, but in her real self; and the cheerful encouragement of her cousins, their ready engagement for the unstinting welcome that would be extended by her aunt Spedding, and the relish with which they set forth plans for the Carnells’ entertainment while in town, were not to be resisted. She was soon joining in, not only in acquiescence but in actively considering dates and times and travelling arrangements; and, in this pleasant flurry, she was able to give only passing attention to a little inner voice, which told her that what she was really doing was escaping from her father.

  Lady Harriet, though good-humoured enough, could not participate entirely in their elation. She smiled, but sighed also; and on their quitting the breakfast-room, spoke aside to Louisa.

  ‘I am afraid I have been a check on your spirits, Miss Carnell. Pay no heed to it. The fact is, I like it so well at Pennacombe that I cannot contemplate a removal without sorrow. Here there has been peace and cordiality – that is, I have been fortunate enough to feel it –’ with a gentle touch on her arm ‘– though I fear my presence has not always occasioned it. As for returning to London, it is a thing I must do, rather than a thing I wish to do. But it will be some recompense if I can count on my new friends there – though even in that there will be alteration. In town I must lose the person I have been here, and find the old one I despised.’

  She said no more in this strain, however; and once preparations were thoroughly under way, became lively. – The sheer stimulation of change, perhaps; or perhaps the compensations she spoke of impressed themselves more vividly on her mind, for she spent much time in conversation with Valentine, discussing the best means of travelling, and describing what was to be expected in town at this part of the season, to his evident fascination.

  At last the day was fixed for their departure: Valentine, with some impatience, occupied himself with instructions for the steward and housekeeper during their absence; and its soon being given out that the Carnells were to leave Pennacombe, callers came to give friendly wishes. Mrs Lappage was among the first, and the most sincere.

  ‘It is quite what I have always wished, my dear, that you and Valentine, Mr Carnell I should say, should see something of society; and indeed if I were truthful, I would say it was a great pity that two handsome young people of fortune should have been forced to wait till now, because of the unfeeling obstinacy prevailing in a certain quarter. But I shall not allude to that. However, I shall miss you, my dear: indeed, we shall be quite depleted in the district, for as you may know – as indeed no one is better placed to know – Mr Lynley leaves shortly for London also. Whether you may see anything of him in town I can hardly conjecture – as I’m sure that depends on a great many things, you know, which are really none of my affair.’

  ‘It is possible we may do – only by chance,’ was Louisa’s answer: which gave Mrs Lappage such delightful room for speculation that she could hardly wait to prod Mr Lappage awake so she could go home and take possession of it.

  There was no call from Mr Lynley himself: only a short note presenting his compliments, wishing Mr and Miss Carnell a safe journey, and announcing his own departure next week, for a residence in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. He expressed no hopes or wishes of waiting upon them in town; an omission which was so far from a disappointment to Louisa that she considered this note the most satisfying communication from Mr Lynley she had ever received.

  The day before their own removal, the Carnells and their guests fulfilled a promise, and called at The Ridings, the Tresilians’ house near Teignmouth. In this there was, for Louisa, always pleasure: there was nowhere quite like it. Old Mr Tresilian, on coming to wealth and gentility, had built his house out of sight of the sea, as if to assert that he belonged now to the country and not the port; but his son had added, just behind the house, a round tower with steps leading to a platform, whence the sea was visible, and where he spent many contented hours with a telescope. It had been one of Sir Clement’s favourite jests that this building might have been called Tresilian’s Folly, if the term had not already been appropriated by the fellow’s marriage; but even he must have perceived this as harsh, for he only repeated the sally to Mr Tresilian himself once or twice a month, and always added that he meant no harm by it.

  The old merchant had built likewise in a formal style, the severity of which extended to the grounds; but since coming into the inheritance, Mr Tresilian had softened this appearance with profuse planting and trellises, seats and arbours, so that what had been chill and stony was generous and woody; and within, he had indulged his taste for the curious, filling the lofty rooms with collections from all across the seas, from maps and engravings to shells and corals. He had fitted out also a handsome music-room for Kate, complete with a portrait of Handel, signalling transcendent genius in the usual way, by his wearing a very loose coat while holding a pen.

  Here the Carnells and their guests were made comfortably welcome. Mr Tresilian was an attentive host, and Sophie a most satisfying guest to be shown the curious collections – vastly interested in everything, not shrinking from the Turkish sword but wanting to take it down from the wall and flourish it about, and very ready to climb the steps of the tower and train his telescope on the sea, while he pointed out the beauties of Teignmouth harbour, including the masts of one of his own ships. Yet for much of the time he seemed deep in thought, or rather deeper than usual: and even a little dejected. When they all came to take a walk about the gardens, Louisa manoeuvred herself so that it was her arm he took. It was not that she wished to separate him from Sophie: rather, she wished to satisfy herself as to how much, or if at all, his affections were engaged. Simple curiosity
accounted partly for this – but there was concern also; for delighted though Sophie clearly was with Mr Tresilian’s company and with his house, all her thoughts, all her conversation these last days had been fixed upon London, with an anticipation of unalloyed pleasure, and with only such regrets at leaving Devonshire as were natural on quitting a place where pleasant times had been passed, and pleasant new acquaintance made.

  ‘So the enterprise of living quickens,’ he remarked, with his eyes on the grass.

  ‘Yes: but it is nothing wild, after all. We are only going to stay in London with our cousins. We have come to know them so well that it seems rather natural than otherwise.’

  ‘They are agreeable people,’ he said reluctantly, glancing back at Tom, who was inflicting on Miss Rose all the agony of his unfeigned politeness and attention. ‘Not at all like you and Valentine, though.’

  ‘Do you mean in agreeableness, or in some other quality?’

  ‘I mean that they seem to have no fear of life.’

  ‘Neither do I – or at least I should hope not.’

  Mr Tresilian gave her a short, sceptical look. ‘I think it is salutary to have a little,’ he said, and fell silent.

  ‘It is surely allowable to follow the impulse of the heart sometimes,’ she resumed.

  ‘If you are looking to me to disapprove of your project, so that you can be grand and defiant about it, I must disappoint you. A scheme to London sounds very well: it will be worth seeing this summer, I hear. Visiting dignitaries, reviews and parades. Junketings. Ah, I’m glad of the opportunity to say that word. Let me do it again. Junketings … No.’ His face fell. ‘Not so good this time. One should never take a second sip from the cup of pleasure. Valentine: I am a little uneasy about Valentine.’

  Louisa looked at her brother, who was walking some distance ahead with Lady Harriet on his arm. ‘Are you? I cannot comprehend why,’ she said, with such a sensation that, if it were not uneasiness, was something wonderfully like it.

  ‘He is headstrong. Let him fix on an idea and he will not be moved from it. Whereas you may talk high-flown nonsense like one of Byron’s creatures, but you remain a rational being at heart.’

  ‘I think there is a compliment there somewhere, but it is very well disguised. Well, you may be assured, Mr Tresilian, that whilst we are in town I shall try not to let the nonsensical overwhelm the rational. But if you are troubled at not having Valentine under your eye, who do you not essay a visit to London yourself ? Then you and Kate might enjoy the junketings also.’

  ‘London? No, no. I have far too much business on hand here to consider anything like that. No, indeed.’ Again she found something telling in the very promptness of the refusal, and the frowning silence that followed. ‘Besides,’ he resumed, ‘Pearce Lynley is going also, I hear – so you will not lack for the comfort of the familiar.’

  ‘Even if I wanted it, I should not seek it there.’

  ‘Ah!’ he said on a long bass note; and then in his most cryptic manner: ‘You are doing it all, then … Well, all I can say is, it will be damnably odd without you.’

  ‘It is damnably odd to be going,’ Louisa said, experiencing a shiver that was only partly excitement. ‘I hope London will not open its mouth and eat me up.’

  ‘The other way around, I should think,’ said Mr Tresilian. A short distance ahead Valentine and Lady Harriet were crouching by the fish-pond, pointing and laughing together. Mr Tresilian sighed. ‘A pretty picture. I do not like to disturb it; but I had better be true to my character, and take him aside for some dull, heavy words about being prudent, and mindful of the temptations of London and whatnot.’

  In the subsequent rearrangement of the party, Louisa found herself walking with Kate Tresilian; and in her paleness of cheek and muted utterance were to be read all the disappointment that in another young woman might have proclaimed itself to the skies. If the strength of Mr Tresilian’s feeling for Sophie was still inscrutable, no such doubt attached to Kate’s, on the prospect of Valentine’s going away.

  Kate, however, tried to speak composedly on the event that was giving her pain. ‘You will be gone a good while, I dare say.’

  ‘Our cousins are kind enough to invite us for as long as we wish to stay. But, of course, we shall not remain in town for ever.’

  Kate smiled faintly; and looked as if it would seem so, for her.

  ‘I was asking your brother whether he might not contemplate an excursion to London at some time,’ Louisa said tentatively. ‘He was not much inclined to it – though I fancy your inclination would weigh much more heavily with him.’

  ‘I should like to see London,’ Kate said, with a little shake of her head, ‘but – I know this is absurd – I misdoubt whether I would be homesick, if I stayed long; and of course one cannot see it all in a few days.’ Her eyes on Valentine and Lady Harriet, she added: ‘And we know no one there. Your cousins, I dare say, have a good deal of acquaintance in society.’

  ‘I dare say. But for my part I do not mean to be impressed by society, unless it truly is impressive. And I doubt we shall reach so very high, after all: no royal levees, or anything like that.’

  ‘But you never know,’ Kate said, brightening in spite of herself, ‘you might even see the Prince Regent.’

  ‘Well, we might see a part of him: of course one could not see him all in a few days.’

  This occasioned in Kate one of her quiet, helpless fits of laughter; and when she had squeezed and cajoled herself back to sobriety, she said curiously: ‘I wonder how much, exactly, you have to eat to become so prodigiously fat? And if you indulge an appetite so much, does it not sicken? It is a strange pleasure, indeed, that must be pursued until it becomes a positive pain to you.’

  Strange, certainly: but as they took their leave, and Kate gave Valentine her hand with brief, white, sad confusion, and watched him turn eagerly to hand Lady Harriet into the carriage, Louisa thought it was not so very strange: or so very uncommon.

  She sat up late that evening, talking with Valentine, whose spirits were unquenchable; and of his interview with Mr Tresilian, he said only with a pitying smile: ‘I did not tell him so, of course, but really Tresilian is turning quite the old woman. I almost felt I should promise him to wear a flannel waistcoat, and sew my purse into my pocket.’ After he had gone to bed Louisa extinguished the candles, then sat on for a while, reflecting that this was the very room where she and Valentine had made their decision about the fire-screen, and about the enterprise of living. Of the many changes since that day, passing swiftly through her mind, it was the internal that struck her with most force. ‘And all changes for the better,’ she said aloud; but the sound of her own voice, in the silent blackness, afflicted her peculiarly, and she hurried to bed.

  Chapter X

  Travelling post to London was, as Valentine pronounced, the only way. It was many years since either the Pennacombe coach or coachman had ventured further than Exeter; and going by post-chaise was, besides, swift, dashing and comfortable – everything indeed to arouse Sir Clement’s mistrust.

  The degree of comfort was, Louisa found, somewhat overstated. The heroines of novels were always whirling along in post-chaises, but the whirling never seemed to include such bumping, joggling, lurching and bone-aching; nor was there complete relief to be found in the two nights they spent at inns – establishments that, though reputable, seemed to have become thoroughly infused with old gravy, from the rafters to the bed-sheets. The enforced confinement with companions that such long travel required was also, she found, a great test of tolerance; though after three days on the road, she hoped she was no worse affected to them than in finding a good deal of the town tattle exchanged by Sophie and Lady Harriet rather vacuous, and in considering that Tom’s habit of genial smiling might easily have been restricted to four or five hours a day, without any risk to his general amiability.

  Under such circumstances, the wonder of her arrival in London was tempered with relief at their having got there at all: the
great straggle of suburbs, where everything was either falling down or being new-built, the river with its teeming of craft, the dome and spires of the City heaving up through the smoke, all received from her a weary hastiness of admiration that must wait its time for proper expression. After a fierce battle with an army of hackneys, they drew up at last before the Spedding house in Hill Street, in all its substantial gentility.

  ‘Going away is delightful – but still there is nothing like coming home,’ cried Sophie. ‘Now, Harriet, I will not hear any more of it. You simply must dine with us, and rest yourself a little, before you even think of returning to Jermyn Street. Now I insist: and if you refuse, I shall become fierce. I am terrible when I am fierce, you know.’

  ‘No. It is only postponing it,’ Lady Harriet said, with a grey smile.

  ‘Let me add my own entreaties,’ put in Valentine. ‘After such a long, fagging journey, Lady Harriet, going home alone to an empty house is the very worst thing for your health and spirits.’

  ‘You must not suppose me so fragile, Mr Carnell,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘indeed you must not. Besides, you are a family party: you and Miss Carnell have your aunt to meet. I have played the cuckoo in the nest long enough.’

  She would not be moved; and with a brief nod at Sophie’s assertion that they would see each other again soon, she drove away in the first of the chaises, while the small luggage was being brought down from the other. This, indeed, was all Louisa would have thought to bring; but Valentine had insisted that people who did things in style always had a great deal of luggage, and so there were several trunks being sent on by the public coach – which, containing as they did some of his best shirts and waistcoats, he had then been anxious about all the way, and continually imagining being tipped into ditches, or despatched to Lisbon by short-sighted postmasters.

  The Spedding house was richly fitted out: nothing was wanting either in comfort or elegance; and their aunt, Mrs Spedding, who received them in a drawing-room full of lustrous reflections, was as welcoming and hospitable as Tom and Sophie had promised.