A Little Folly Read online

  All this was intriguing: but Louisa’s first object was the resumption of her acquaintance with Francis Lynley. Whether his inclinations ran in the same direction, she was not at first sure: he appeared in lively spirits, and was universally civil, even listening to a long anecdote of Tom’s, full of people he had never heard of, with nothing more ironical than a slight twist of his eyebrow. But when it was time to go in to dinner, Lieutenant Lynley was prompt to secure the place by her side; and once there to announce: ‘There: now I am easy. I have done my duty, put on a respectable imitation of a normal human creature – and now, with you, I can be as black and savage as I like.’

  ‘I am flattered – or I think I am, at any rate. Are you feeling black and savage about anything in particular? Or is it a general disaffection?’

  ‘Oh, name anything you like. These crowned and ribboned boobies parading about the town – have you seen them? Tell me frankly what you thought.’

  ‘Well, it was only from a distance; but I thought the King of Prussia looked exactly as a King of Prussia would – as if he lives in cold rooms full of busts. The Tsar, I thought, looked rather sad.’

  ‘Ah!’ he said, crookedly smiling. ‘Absolute autocrat of a vast country – any amount of serfs to lash when he takes the fancy – and yet he is not happy. This must say something about us, though I hardly know what. Oh, I don’t mind them, though it will be a great relief when they scuttle back to their palaces, and we can go back to hating all foreigners equally. No, the cause of my disaffection, like most, is purely selfish. Pearce and I have been disagreeing splendidly. He is anxious for me to take up some position in the world, and I am anxious lest I find myself doing anything of the kind.’

  ‘Surely there must be something. You are free now of soldiering, which you have told me you did not like; and not to like something implies a preferred alternative.’

  ‘Does it now? I wish I could be so sure. I have a dreadful fear that if I were manacled in a damp dungeon – add some poisonous toads to it, if you like – and a fairy were to appear, and effect my magical release, I should still be a little stumped as to where exactly she should whisk me.’

  ‘This is discontent indeed: – such, I would venture, as can only be expressed by someone who is reasonably content after all. The truly miserable are silent.’

  ‘Miss Carnell, you are rather terrifying: I mean, in your good sense. You remind me of a Portuguese doctor I knew when I was in the Peninsula – the only medical man I ever came across who was not a humbug. An officer of my regiment had been very sick with fever, and though the worst was past, nothing the army surgeons could do would restore his health. The Portuguese – round, fat, genial fellow, whiff of garlic, waxed moustache – took a good look at him, told him not to worry, and prescribed at least one bottle of Madeira a day and general good living. It worked admirably.’

  ‘I am glad I remind you of someone so pleasant – though I can only hope the garlic and the moustache are not the chief triggers of association.’

  ‘This will not do – you are cheering me up, and laughter spoils the indulgence of a black mood most abominably. I shall be frank: I would like some sort of position. If there was one that involved, say, taking up a comfortable post at Charing Cross or the Strand, and simply watching everything that passed, and perhaps making a note of anything particularly interesting – sad – piquant – absurd – why, then I should consider myself perfectly and happily placed. But the positions Pearce means are those in which something is required of you; and that’s where I turn to a man of jelly.’

  At the other end of the table, a certain conscious look about Mr Lynley suggested he heard his name mentioned; but whether from pride, or in his new accommodating spirit, he did not glance their way.

  ‘Surely,’ Louisa said, ‘you do not doubt you have abilities.’

  ‘It’s a curious thing: I would like nothing better than to show them – only I fear they would not pass muster with Pearce. That’s why it is easier to stick to being a good-for-nothing fellow. He expects that: we know where we are. But if I were to try to be something more, I might disappoint him – and that is above all what I cannot contemplate. Absurd for a great fellow of four-and-twenty – but with Pearce I never feel that: I am forever a boy, looking up at him. And I did look up, you know, most adoringly.’

  ‘It is not absurd at all. The influences of our childhood and youth cannot be underestimated, I believe: those are the experiences that shape us, far beyond their immediate power.’

  ‘Do you mean there is no escaping them?’

  ‘I think we must make the conscious decision to do so.’

  ‘You speak feelingly. – I never knew your father, beyond our exchanging greetings here and there – or, rather, he barked at me, and I squeaked in return. But I understood he was something of a Tartar. Pearce was always full of his praises, but I read between the lines of those. So, Miss Carnell, have you escaped? An impertinent question, I know, but they are the only interesting ones.’

  ‘I consider I am my own woman, now,’ she said carefully. ‘I think that can be said with no disrespect to anyone.’

  ‘It should be said without fear or favour – it should be proclaimed. But you dismay me with this talk of decisions. It suggests effort, which I am always unwilling to make.’

  ‘Well, what of your scheme of making a rich marriage? That will not be achieved without some application.’

  ‘True,’ he said, pushing away his plate with his most saturnine look. ‘And there lies my obstacle. The whole business of love-making disgusts me. All its language and gesture is so miserably outworn: so tritely dramatic. I wish I could talk to my mythical bride as I do to you. Oh, you do not bridle, or look for compliments, or suppose there is something tremendous and apocalyptic about a man and a woman enjoying each other’s society. And there, at the risk of sounding intolerably self-pitying, Pearce has the better of me again. I think he will find his golden dolly first. He appears very much taken with Miss Astbury, you know. He has called at Portman Square several times, and the other day was actually seen driving with her in the park – suitably chaperoned, of course: that aunt of hers who looks as though she has been kept in a trunk, or ought to be.’

  ‘Mrs Murrow,’ Louisa said, suppressing a smile. ‘You are very unkind.’

  ‘Oh, I can do a good deal worse than that. Now, as far as one can tell beneath Miss Astbury’s excessively icy surface, she views him with a certain degree of favour likewise. But it is curious – I am not sure his heart is entirely in it.’

  If this were a tribute to her continued power over Pearce Lynley, she was not sure how she felt about it – yet it was undeniably interesting. ‘Well, I do not suppose his heart needs to be, in such a match. After all, your own project of marrying well surely does not require it.’

  ‘Ah, I fear you have taken me too much at my word. I estimate that roughly half the things I say I do not mean – though I would be hard pressed myself to tell which half is which. No: if it were a love-match, it would be a very different matter.’ For a moment he looked serious: then he shrugged with his little irritable laugh. ‘Or so I conjecture. It is one of those fruitless but intriguing speculations, like the distance between the stars, or the annual number of lies told in Parliament.’

  He was not an easy dinner companion – but one whose society very much absorbed her: the time passed too quickly, and she regretted having to leave the table to the gentlemen, and retire to the comparative insipidity of the drawing-room. There was, however, the chance to speak to Mary Bowen: Louisa had bought a volume of Wordsworth, and was getting on pretty well with it, though she was not convinced that a flower could produce quite such transcendent effects on the soul, no matter how hard you looked at it. But Miss Bowen seemed not in spirits: she said she was glad Louisa was enjoying the book, and fell silent.

  ‘Miss Lynley, I think, is in very good looks, and her address is particularly pleasing now,’ Louisa went on, meaning a sincere compliment to Miss Bowen
’s tutelage; for Georgiana was conversing with Mrs Spedding in quite a normal fashion, and had not stamped her foot once.

  ‘Oh – yes: one hopes so,’ Miss Bowen said, coming out of abstraction. ‘She is at a difficult age.’

  ‘To be sure. Still, there must be a satisfaction …’ Louisa faltered: Miss Bowen’s look was so bleak.

  ‘Satisfaction, did you say?’ The surprising eyes flashed upon her, then turned away. ‘I know nothing of that.’

  Louisa hesitated. ‘Are you – are you not happily placed here, Miss Bowen?’

  For the merest moment Miss Bowen’s reserve seemed on the point of yielding – then it was gone, her face resumed its distantly dutiful expression, and she said: ‘Thank you, I am very happily placed,’ in such tones as discouraged any further conversation.

  Louisa pitied her: could only suspect that her real treatment in Mr Lynley’s employ was far from the indulgence that her being included at dinner was designed to suggest. Soon, however, her thoughts were in a happier train. – Lieutenant Lynley was the first to rejoin them: he sat first beside Sophie, but very soon found an opportunity to move to the place beside Louisa.

  ‘There – now I cannot be accused of monopolising you, and have spoilt several gossipy letters. “Lieutenant Lynley was very particular in his attentions to Miss Carnell” – oh, scratch it out. – You look a little troubled. Will you confide in me? Though don’t if the trouble is very tedious.’

  ‘Oh, I was a little concerned for Miss Bowen: she seems rather hipped.’

  ‘Poor creature: I begin to suspect that is her natural expression. I have tried to talk to her, but given it up. She is so very guarded – I am half afraid of her. I can never be comfortable with a companion who will not give something away, for then one can never gain an advantage over them.’

  Louisa’s attention was then claimed by Lieutenant Lynley, so fully that Mary Bowen was forgotten: until, soon after the tea was drunk, she looked up to find that Miss Bowen was gone. – Pearce Lynley was just closing the drawing-room door, with a tight-lipped and forbidding expression, which remained on his face some time after he had resumed his seat by Mrs Spedding. Something had occurred, it seemed: whether it had been some error of conduct on Miss Bowen’s part, which had caused him to repent of his bold experiment in leniency, Louisa could not tell – but she thought it likely. As a reminder of the exacting arrogance of his nature, it was timely: for the image of his driving with Miss Astbury had imprinted itself on her mind with unexpected force; and if the glance he presently threw towards her and his brother were as displeased, even as jealous, as it appeared, then very well. – She thought Francis Lynley infinitely the superior; and though she quickly dismissed Sophie’s whispered remark in the carriage as they drove home – ‘My dear, I do believe you are beginning to be in love with Lieutenant Lynley!’ – it occurred to her that if she were to fall in love with him a little, it would be a very proper blow to Pearce Lynley’s pride; and such as it would be a pleasure as well as a virtue to administer.

  Chapter XV

  The Tresilians being established in their new lodgings, it was incumbent that they call upon them – so pronounced Sophie, high priestess of the mysteries of calling. Tom accompanied her and Louisa to Lombard Street, not only out of civility but curiosity, for he declared with a faint shiver that he had never been so far east of town in his life; though as a novelty it must have disappointed, for the district appeared respectable, the people looked perfectly normal, and there was a sad scarcity of vulgarians sitting on piles of money or making bargains in the street while wearing excessively large top hats.

  On the way Sophie rallied Louisa again about her fascination with Lieutenant Lynley.

  ‘Oh, not that I blame you: I could easily be half in love with him myself,’ she went on. ‘There is something about him that compels – and though he can be very charming, there is an exciting sort of suspense about that because sometimes he will cut it quite off, and go into a dark mood and seem not to care a hang for you. But, then, for someone to be too changeable is not pleasant; and so he shall not dislodge my dear Mr Tresilian from the first place in my affections. Certainly there is not that sparkle in Mr Tresilian – but his blunt, dry way is just as engaging; and it is always to be relied upon. If there were an earthquake or a volcano, you know, I should expect to find Mr Tresilian quite unchanged.’

  ‘Really, Sophie, you do talk a deal of gammon and humdudgeon,’ said Tom, who had plainly been in The Top’s company recently. ‘First place in your affections indeed! There must be a round dozen of gentlemen squeezing into that place, and that’s only to speak of this week. And it won’t do, you know, to be adding Tresilian to your list of beaux in that way. He’s a sober sort of fellow, not your drawing-room gadfly; and it is doing no justice to his character, or credit to your sense, to pretend otherwise.’

  Fond as she was of Sophie, there was much in this with which Louisa felt ready to concur, though she did not suppose Sophie would take the slightest notice of it; but her cousin, instead of answering Tom in their usual tit-for-tat fashion, flushed and gazed out of the carriage window, before saying quietly: ‘You know a great deal about waistcoats, Tom; but nothing of the thing that beats beneath them, commonly called a heart. Mr Tresilian is different, and I have heart enough to feel it.’

  There was something new and significant in this, which threw Louisa into a state of perturbation she could hardly account for. All her previous feelings about the relation between Sophie and Mr Tresilian, ranging from curious speculation to mild disquiet, were overthrown by a great negative. – This must not be. There was everything that was wrong, there was nothing that was right, in such a prospect as seemed to be afforded, of Sophie’s setting herself seriously at Mr Tresilian; and of his responding in kind, which was rendered probable by his evident fascination with her, and by that resemblance to his late wife, which Louisa’s fancy had converted into a certainty. In this tumult she entered the tall, frowning house in which the Tresilians had the first floor – the very foreignness of the place to everything she connected with them increasing her ominous sense of a great mistake hovering; but once received into the rather pleasant rooms, observing Kate’s gentle smile of welcome, Miss Rose’s particular contentment in finding a draught to sit in, and Mr Tresilian being pleased at the visit, but not excessively pleased, her fears began to subside. Sophie soon commenced beguiling him – yet only, it seemed, in the usual way, and employing the same weapons she fired at any number of potential conquests; and Mr Tresilian seemed rather preoccupied than otherwise.

  At length, when Sophie was looking over some new music that Kate had purchased, and both were trying to explain to Tom that the black notes were not the same as the black keys on the pianoforte, Mr Tresilian spoke to Louisa aside.

  ‘I need to talk to you privately. Can you contrive to meet me? Say Berkeley Square at noon.’

  ‘An assignation, Mr Tresilian? Very public – and hence very provocative,’ she said, recalling his words in the theatre. But she failed to elicit a smile; neither did she feel as light-hearted as she sounded; and as they returned to Hill Street, she began to fear that no words could have been more ill-chosen.

  It was a simple enough matter to slip out to Berkeley Square at the appointed time: everyone was allowed to come and go as they liked in the Spedding household, and the footman at the door wore a consciously tactful look, as one accustomed to a world of flirtations and little intrigues. At this Louisa felt some irritation. Must the human heart only skim across such insubstantial surfaces? The clouded brow, the mercurial speech of Francis Lynley, which were continually recurring to her mind, surely suggested otherwise.

  Mr Tresilian, soon to be seen briskly walking towards her across the sun-bleached square, appeared to have regained some of his usual equanimity; but taking her arm he began without preamble: ‘I hope you were not alarmed: I mean no great secrets – but still it was impossible to speak of it earlier. – I have been another jaunt with Valentine,
which is why I look so deathly, and why this sunshine is an abomination.’ He frowned: not so much at the sun, she thought, as at her. ‘Did you know he has been going almost every night to Lady Harriet’s faro-house?’

  ‘I – I hardly know how to answer that question, Mr Tresilian.’

  ‘A bafflingly complex one, I admit. Try narrowing it down to yes or no.’

  ‘It is not something he has spoken to me about,’ she said, recovering herself. ‘Nor would I expect him to. How Valentine chooses to spend his time is, you know, quite his own affair.’

  ‘I see. – You will not, then, want an account of the evening I spent with him there: night, rather. And morning, come to that.’

  ‘You seem to think I should,’ she said, greatly disliking her own brittle tone: but it was the thin ice on the deepest unease. ‘But, come, as to his going almost every night, I cannot devise how you know that, from the evidence of a single occasion.’

  ‘Because he is treated as quite a fixture there, and appears quietly proud of the fact. Certainly, once was enough for me: I never knew anything so wearisome. I had not even the entertainment of The Top to divert me. Apparently he goes there a good deal, but just now they tell me – what was it? Ah, yes, his pockets are to let. Oh, yes, they all talk like that: but they are poor things compared to The Top: they cannot keep up that meticulous, unvarying idiocy.’