A Little Folly Read online

  It was a close, noisy occasion. ‘Just the sort of crush I like,’ Sophie declared on their going in; but the unseasonably warm weather made Louisa wish for a little less crush, and a little more air; wearing a train, and being unaccustomed to managing it, she experienced several times the startling immobility of having it trodden on. Lady Carr was a little nervous woman, as much occupied with promoting her guests’ comfort as Mrs Murrow was in detracting from it; but the chief attention of both was devoted to their niece. Miss Astbury was indeed the queen of the evening. Louisa was in due form introduced; and several minutes of talk ensued, being nothing much beyond civil enquiries, commendation of Mrs Spedding’s qualities, and agreement on the happy prospects of the peace. We are always apt to find fault with the manners of those handsomer and wealthier than ourselves: – still Louisa could not warm to her. She was very tall, slender and glacially fair: her bare, thin-muslined Grecian costume, complete with sandals, showed her to great advantage, and even rendered her Christian name – Parthenope – rather appropriate than awkward; but there was about her a deadly sort of haughtiness that could not please. It was understood that Miss Astbury, in preparation for her entrance into society, had been polished at the best schools; and Louisa could not help feeling that the polish had been too liberally applied, with results that glared rather than shone.

  Valentine seemed scarcely more impressed. ‘Quite the beauty – and thoroughly conscious of it too,’ he remarked. ‘Well, I have had my audience, and I gladly give place to the rest of the eager courtiers, lining up to kiss the ring. Great heaven, a man must be dead to all self-respect, who can go crawling after her and her guineas like that. I say, Tom, isn’t that The Top over there? Now he has more sense, at any rate.’

  Louisa had heard this singular name mentioned before as a close friend of Tom’s, but had thought she must be mistaken, and that it actually referred to one of their fashionable places of resort, like The Corner and The Finish. But soon she was being introduced to the gentleman who rejoiced in this sobriquet. ‘Bellingham is the name,’ Tom explained, ‘but to everyone of the ton he is simply The Top, you know: no one would think of calling him anything else.’

  ‘I should think not!’ said The Top; who was a very crisp-starched, high-booted gentleman, not young, and rather fleshy, wearing such a tightly tailored coat that Louisa doubted it could be taken off in the usual way at all, but must be escaped from with applications of bear’s-grease, and perhaps a rope. ‘Now come to the mark, Spedding, what in the name of blazes do you call that?’

  With an appalled glance he indicated Tom’s cravat, which to Louisa’s eye only looked slightly more complicated than usual.

  ‘Why, it’s the Imperial,’ Tom said, a little doubtfully.

  ‘Is it indeed! Lord, Spedding, that’s doing it too brown! Unless I miss my tip, you’ve been studying for it in the fashion-papers! Look at your friend Carnell there – that’s the way to wear it. Imperial indeed! Never heard such a Banbury tale!’ The Top concluded with a short metallic laugh; and turning to Louisa, continued: ‘Well, Miss Carnell, what do you say to this precious squeeze? A dead bore, is it not? But I felt I had to see the famous Miss Astbury for myself. Wouldn’t have been half surprised if she’d turned out to be a shocking quiz! The fact is, for all her blunt she’s not of the first stare. So I told young Rivers, who’s dangling after her: not up to the scratch for the son of a marquis, even if he is lodging in Queer Street just now. Too much splashing at Lady Harriet Eversholt’s faro-table! He should learn to bet like a gentleman: always stand up after the first five hundred. What do you say, Miss Carnell?’

  ‘I am afraid I cannot be easy at the thought of anyone betting five hundred pounds on the turn of a card,’ she said frankly.

  ‘You think me pitching it rum!’ he said, in his hard-smiling way. ‘Not a bit – happens every day! Oh, my dear Miss Carnell, I could tell you a tale or two!’

  She was sure he could; and it only took a little longer in his company to convince her that none of them would be interesting. He was, she supposed, very much the man of fashion, and could understand that someone of Tom’s tastes would admire him; but it surprised her to see Valentine deferring to a man in whose character there appeared so little of substance. His talk soon moved on to horseflesh, pugilism, single-stick and ratting-matches, in all of which he was as expert as in the finer points of shirt-linen and boot-blacking: but of thought and feeling there seemed nothing; and though she gathered he was accounted a great wit, she could not devise wherein the reputation rested, unless in his habit of saying things in abrupt slang, and peppering everything with audible exclamation-marks.

  He did not remain long at the reception, declaring that it was such a bore it put him flat in the dismals; and afterwards, on Tom’s asking how she liked him, she could only say: ‘He is certainly very well dressed.’

  ‘That he is,’ said Tom, reverently. ‘The absolute nonpareil. I feel a proper tomnoddy about the Imperial. I thought it didn’t look right.’

  ‘Tell me, when you get to know The Top very well, can you address him more familiarly? Can you simply call him The?’

  Tom seemed about to give the question serious consideration; but Valentine smiled and said: ‘He is a little extravagant, to be sure. But he is a man who knows a great deal of the world, and a capital companion, all in all. He has the entrée everywhere.’

  Louisa made no demur at this: loyalty to Valentine remained her first consideration, and if his tastes and pleasures were not her own, she was not about to reproach him for it. But from the conversation of The Top she drew one anxiety. Lady Harriet’s faro-bank, and the large stakes laid there, appeared to her mind for the first time as a reality, and not as a yardstick of worldly toleration. She hoped that Valentine and Tom did not take it in during their nocturnal jaunts; and she was almost ready to ask Tom about it: – but she made the mistake, on Tom’s enquiring again what she thought of his friend, of referring to him as a dandy; and this set him off on such a painstaking explanation of the subtle differences between a dandy, a swell, a beau, a buck, a blood and a Corinthian that she gave it over.

  There was a further distraction. – Sophie took her aside, and astonished her with the information that several gentlemen to whom she had not been introduced were longing to meet her, and several more to whom she had been introduced had been warm in their praises.

  ‘No – you are funning,’ was all Louisa could say; for as far as she was conscious of herself at all, she suspected she was hot and cross-looking, and inclined to say very stupid things.

  ‘Not in the least: I never joke about the important matters of life, my dear – and you may ask Valentine, if you like, for he heard them too. No, the Golden Miss Astbury is not to have the field all to herself, believe me.’

  This Louisa could not believe: and it was on the tip of her tongue to say that where Miss Astbury was Golden, Miss Carnell could claim only the title of Bronze, or perhaps Tin; but on second thoughts, she reflected that she had known sufficient disparagement over the years, without turning it on herself. She would not allow praises to go to her head: – but they might be allowed to reach as far as her eyes, which, when she saw herself reflected in the hall mirror as they left, certainly seemed uncommonly bright.

  Chapter XII

  Mrs Spedding’s avowal that she would be glad to meet Mr Pearce Lynley of Hythe Place was something that lay in abeyance, very happily to Louisa’s mind: there were so many other things to gladden her aunt, she felt, that there was no need for a reminder. – Fortune, however, decreed otherwise. On Sunday afternoons it was Mrs Spedding’s fashionable habit to drive in Hyde Park, where she was always certain of seeing a great number of acquaintance, and of styles of bonnet and mantle to be admired and sought on the next shopping-expedition. Louisa and Sophie accompanied her in the barouche, while Tom and Valentine rode alongside: Tom having secured from a friend the loan of a mount for his cousin that he described, with more enthusiasm than intelligibility, as ‘the p
rimest goer, excepting the little feather on her legs’. Valentine looked extremely well as a horseman, and quite the equal of any of the smart young bloods riding the ring; and this particular Sunday Louisa was just reflecting on how far they had come from the staid retirement of Pennacombe when the emblem of that past appeared before her.

  It was Pearce Lynley: – with him, a young man in regimentals, and his sister Georgiana. All three were mounted, Georgiana on a pony that looked as prettily ill-tempered as herself: the fourth of the party, a young woman, walked beside her. There was no escaping the introduction. Tom was already hailing Mr Lynley, before Louisa’s eyes met his. He coloured slightly, and snapped at his horse’s reins, though the animal was quiet: how much was revealed in her own expression she could not tell, but the force of the tingling, unhappy memory that the sight of him revived surprised her; and she realised how effectively the London adventure had worked in suppressing it, and how signally it had failed to replace agitation with indifference.

  For now all was outward civility. Valentine introduced Mrs Spedding, and Louisa had the small satisfaction of observing that Mr Lynley, taking in her dress, carriage and manner, could not fault her in point of respectability. Meanwhile her own attention turned, with sharp interest, to the young officer, whom Mr Lynley introduced as his brother Francis. In him there was nothing to be seen of Pearce Lynley’s remote, finished handsomeness: there was a want of symmetry in his dark, thin face with its prominent jaw; but something both keen and sardonic in his looks drew the eye. And when he heard her name, a glance of intense curiosity lighted first on her, and then on the marmoreal face of his brother.

  ‘Miss Lynley,’ concluded Mr Lynley’s introductions: apparently the young woman accompanying her no more merited a name than a mount. Louisa could only suppose her the new governess that had been sought, and pitied her: though her pale, composed look suggested she had already cultivated stoicism.

  Like her children, Mrs Spedding was very ready to find everyone agreeable; and Mr Lynley being impressive besides, and having known her late sister in Devonshire, nothing was wanting for her to take to him thoroughly. Soon she was speaking of the musical party she was to hold at Hill Street the next evening, for which a famous harpist had been engaged, and extending an invitation to the Lynleys to join them. While Mr Lynley was still bowing his stiff acknowledgements, his brother spoke for the first time.

  ‘Georgiana would greatly like that, I think: she is very fond of music.’

  ‘Oh, is Miss Lynley out?’ cried Mrs Spedding. ‘In that case, I should be even more delighted.’

  ‘Miss Lynley is not out, in the sense that she is able to accept evening engagements in town,’ Mr Lynley said, in his most repressive tone. ‘However, the case of a musical party is, I allow, somewhat different: if she may be properly accompanied by her governess, ma’am, I do not see the harm in it: thank you.’

  ‘I am glad to know you are a lover of music too, my dear,’ Mrs Spedding said to Georgiana, who was looking half pleased and half sulky, ‘for I am devoted to it; and you may be sure of hearing the very best, for this harpist has played before the Prince, I hear, and was taught by Mr Handel himself.’

  ‘She must be prodigiously old, in that case, Mama,’ said Sophie, ‘for Mr Handel died some sixty years ago. Perhaps it was Mr Haydn.’

  ‘Really? I was absolutely convinced it was Mr Handel – but I am sure you are right, my dear. And so you knew my poor dear sister, Mr Lynley? It is a lasting regret with me, that I was never able to see her at Pennacombe.’

  ‘I recall Lady Carnell as an estimable lady, ma’am,’ was the short reply.

  ‘I can never look at my niece without bringing her to mind, and seldom without a sad tear,’ Mrs Spedding said, turning to Louisa with a countenance altogether cheerful. ‘It is the sweet shape of the face – and those very expressive dark eyes; do you not agree, Mr Lynley?’

  ‘Anyone who has seen either lady must acknowledge these and other merits,’ Mr Lynley said – as near to handsomely as was possible to him. ‘Miss Carnell, I hope you find the London air as agreeable to you as your looks suggest.’

  To find him courteous, even in his steely way, cast her into such confusion that she flew to the opposite extreme, and said without warmth: ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Lynley. But you have made an omission – there is one of your party you have not introduced.’

  This he plainly did not like at all; and she saw Francis Lynley looking satirically up at him from under his arched brows. But he recovered himself, and said: ‘My apologies. Miss Bowen – lately joining our household as Georgiana’s governess.’

  If he was discomfited, however, Miss Bowen did not appear at all gratified by Louisa’s intervention on her behalf: she merely inclined her head, and resumed her appearance of fixing her mind at a great distance. Perhaps, indeed, she was as chilly in her way as her employer, and so was well matched with – Louisa would not say the family; for she suspected, even on so slight an acquaintance, that Lieutenant Lynley differed a good deal from both his brother and sister.

  With compliments on both sides, the two parties moved on; and Louisa was left to ponder on why Mr Lynley had accepted Mrs Spedding’s invitation, when it must be thrusting him back into the society of the woman who had rejected him, and whom he had apparently forsworn with all the unbending resentment of a proud nature. Politeness: the prompting of his brother on Georgiana’s behalf, which had rather pushed him into a corner: a self-respecting determination to show that he was perfectly equal to being in her company: – all these answers she considered, without finding satisfaction. It was Sophie who as they drove on confided in her ear a different possibility.

  ‘Oh, my dear girl, how Mr Lynley still looks at you! I am afraid you have made a conquest there, more lasting than any of Bonaparte’s.’

  Louisa started in surprise, and was very ready to call this nonsense – yet not with such a reflex of discomfort as would formerly have been the case. – She felt more sure of herself. Let him come to Hill Street: she was better able to meet him on this neutral ground than at Pennacombe, where long habit made him proprietorial: he might see for himself that she was faring very well, where he had darkly hinted that she would do very ill. As for his feeling towards her, she could not believe it was as Sophie represented it; but if it were even partly true, a voice spoke in her to say that a little deprivation and suffering would do no harm at all to someone so entirely unaccustomed to them as Pearce Lynley.

  The next day, before the musical party that was to put these conclusions to the proof, there came unexpected news. Valentine, opening his letters as they sat after breakfast, came upon one from Mr Tresilian.

  ‘Here’s a wonder! Hark to this, Louisa. “My dear Valentine, I hope this finds you et cetera.” His words, I am not summarising. “Believe me, I am as grateful for your letters as if you had written any.” He doesn’t mean it, of course,’ Valentine said laughing, very heartily, and looking around, ‘and you know, Louisa, since we came to town there really has hardly been a moment. – Well, he goes on. “Tell your sister that when she talked of our going to London, she planted a seed that has grown into a mighty oak. Or a middling sort of oak at any rate. – Kate, Miss Rose and I are hey-ho for London. Though I detest the notion of being hey-ho for anything, and I hope that the moment I declare myself hey-ho you will, as Miss Rose would say, drop me off a cliff directly. Still, we are coming. The times are exceptional. I want to see my banker, for Boney’s fall has set off fireworks in the funds, and I’m afraid of them, and want to be sure. And then you have all the Crowned Heads of Europe, and generals and whatnot arriving, and we shall not see such a thing again, and Kate must not miss it. It’s the Tsar of Russia coming that has decided it for me, and Kate too. It is one thing to see a king, another to see a tsar – or, as Miss Rose insists on calling him, a Star. Her English tongue is affronted by the reversal of those letters. We come by the stage. Expect us in four days. If you know of a decent lodging, I will be obliged. Yours, Jame
s Tresilian.”’ Valentine, impatiently smiling, tossed the letter down in front of Louisa. ‘A decent lodging! That will be hard to find, with town so full of company. I’ll ask Tom. The Top, too. Coming by the public stage – dear God, they will be an age upon the road. – I do wish Tresilian would go at life with a little more style.’

  ‘Still, it will be a great pleasure to see him again,’ Louisa murmured, picking up the letter for herself, and smiling over the postscript: Acorn, I meant, not seed. Dunderhead, ‘Kate too.’

  ‘To be sure – though let that be an end of our Devonshire acquaintance descending on us, else we shall have Mrs Lappage knocking at the door next, and we shall feel we never escaped at all.’

  Sophie protested at this; for her part, she would have them all come to town – nothing could be nicer: and she went on to describe Mr Tresilian in vivid and comprehensive terms to her mother, recalling with especial delight the view of one of his ships from his tower look-out. Mrs Spedding listened avidly, and said she could not wait to meet him: – and, doubtless, stored away the impression that Mr Tresilian was a small, talkative clergyman, who lived in a forest.