A Little Folly Page 18

  ‘But, Mr Tresilian, if it was merely dull, I do not see the need for this—’

  ‘It was dull for me, because I do not like throwing away money on the turn of a card. And that is all there is to faro: it is a game of pure chance. But they all talk solemnly of their luck running with them or against them, as if there were such a thing. Otherwise they are a mixed set: young gallants with half-broken voices, liverish old roués still in hair-powder. They gather about a great mahogany table, drinking rather indifferent wine, while this decayed little man, who looks like a notary laid low by fraud, deals the cards. And there is a great brute in rusty livery who goes about trimming the candles, and minding admittance at the door.’ Mr Tresilian grunted. ‘High life indeed!’

  The picture was, she was compelled to admit, not a pretty one: though allowances must be made, she thought, for the sturdy prejudices of Mr Tresilian, who was after all a little of the puritan. ‘And what of Lady Harriet? What does she do?’

  ‘Plays the hostess: and I mean plays, for this is the great pretence she must carry off, in case the magistrates look in – that these are simply her friends, gathering for an evening of elegant society, which happens to include cards. So she tries to make conversation, and stop them quarrelling and swearing too many oaths; and this she must keep up till three and four in the morning, which is when the play is deepest. And it is plain that none of them, with one notable exception, holds her in the slightest respect, or considers her as anything but the convenient provider of a gaming haunt.’

  ‘I pity her,’ Louisa said, shaking her head.

  ‘Yes: it is a great pity to see a woman with such advantages, and no lack of intelligence, finding no other resource than such barren stupidity,’ he said, with more harshness than sympathy.

  ‘You spoke of an exception. – You must mean Valentine.’

  ‘Aye: he is quite the courtier to her,’ Mr Tresilian said; and then fixed his grey eyes on the distance, as if contemplating a sea with an ominously heavy swell on it.

  ‘Well, so he has always been. Perhaps it is unfortunate – in the eyes of the world, which is always quick to judgement. But I am sure there is a nobility in his feeling, which—’

  ‘Yes, no doubt there is, but nobility has a hard time of it in that establishment, believe me. And I would be easier if he could contrive to play the knight-errant without squandering his money. Yes, he plays. He did not go at it like some of those fools, at least while I was there; but I heard one of them remark that he was devilish close-fisted tonight; and I calculate he must have lost near a hundred guineas before I could persuade him home.’

  Louisa stopped dead. ‘A hundred? But that is terribly deep play surely. I should not be able to sleep if I lost so much.’

  ‘I should not be able to sleep for crying. But I dare say it is small beer in those sorts of circles, where wins and losses of thousands are gaily talked of. I don’t like it – but if he is set upon throwing good gold away, I cannot prevent him.’

  ‘I suppose, again, it is a way of rendering service to Lady Harriet,’ Louisa said doubtfully: the strong sun was oppressive, and seemed to scatter her thoughts like rolling coins.

  ‘Hm. You have not heard the worst of it. Very late there came a great knocking and commotion at Lady Harriet’s door. The liveried brute tried to keep the interloper out, but he was brushed aside, and the next moment he was in the room. – Lady Harriet’s husband: Colonel Eversholt. So I very soon collected, as he began announcing the fact very loudly – and adding, equally loudly, that he had every right to be under this roof, and we had none. I hardly know how to describe him to you: if I say impressive, I may give an idea that is too favourable.’

  ‘I know: I have met him. – Go on, Mr Tresilian.’

  ‘Have you? I hope when you made the acquaintance he was not so foxed as I saw him last night. Not incapable, though: not ungovernable, despite his being in such a passion. There was something mighty purposeful about him. He abused Lady Harriet broadly for blackening his name, and further lowering it by maintaining such a resort of vice as this: – still, he was insistent on the injury done to him as a deserted husband, and claimed that he had done everything to achieve a reconciliation: urged her to give up these flagrant courses and return to him. The brute was hovering, but as the colonel said quite coolly that he would shoot him if he advanced a step, he kept his distance. It was all very uncomfortable.’

  ‘Uncomfortable!’ said Louisa, aghast. ‘I should think it a good deal more than that. But as for shooting – he is known, surely, as a great braggart, and then he was drunk … What did –’ she stopped herself saying Valentine ‘– what did Lady Harriet do?’

  ‘Bore it all very quietly: asked him to leave, which of course he would not; barely trembled, though no doubt she is used to him. She did choose to marry him, after all.’

  It was not the first matrimonial choice to be an honest mistake, Louisa thought – but she would not say so to him; and her mind was occupied with an anxious surmise about what was to come next.

  ‘Well, it was Valentine who stood up to him at last. – Oh, he was quite restrained: he is learning to carry his wine, and he was moderate in his expressions; said he was a guest in Lady Harriet’s house, and as such considered her word was law, and if she had asked him to leave, he would have done so at once; urged the colonel to consider what was due to her as a lady and to himself as a gentleman. You wince.’

  ‘The sun. He did not – he did not attempt anything rash?’

  ‘He did not come to blows, or bare his breast to the colonel’s pistol, if that is what you mean. But such is the man’s reputation, and his evident temper, that any interference may be regarded as rash. Colonel Eversholt demanded to know his name, and what he meant by coming between him and his wife. That was when Valentine coloured up, and told him he was damned well not wanted there – and then I thought I had better try my four-penn’orth, as it was turning a little ugly. I spoke up very Devonshire, and made a great noise about wanting to win back my losses at the faro-table, not having long left in Lunnon, and how the colonel was spoiling the game: how I knew the law right enough, and if this house was let in the lady’s name he had no rights there, and I’d fetch the Watch if he didn’t leave us be. It diverted his attention, at least; but I don’t know how it might have gone on, if Lady Harriet had not at last promised him faithfully she would see him tomorrow; and with that he left, still very bitter, and glaring like a cockerel at everyone. But especially at Valentine.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ breathed Louisa, feeling her heart return to its accustomed place, after a short residence in her mouth. ‘I was almost about to wish that Valentine were not so generous in his feelings – but that is surely a terrible thing to wish.’

  ‘No, a sensible one. I told him so. I was afraid we might have a falling-out over it, but it had to be done. The fact is, if he sets himself up as Lady Harriet’s protector, then he must expect people to see him as – yes, her protector in the other sense; and no amount of railing against the shallow proprieties of society, I told him, will alter it.’

  ‘You do not believe he—’ She stopped again: unable to move, or speak further, so acutely divided was she between shock and embarrassment; though the chief portion of embarrassment lay in the fact that she had secretly, and very deep down, wondered this herself.

  ‘I do not believe,’ he said in a low tone. ‘And not only because of the vehemence of his protests when I said it. I simply consider he has too much sense and delicacy for that. But there, we did not quite fall out in the end: he was able to soothe himself at last by laughing at me, and saying I was a sad, blundering innocent. Rather like having your father back, in a way.’

  ‘He does not mean it, you know,’ Louisa said, with laughing pain.

  ‘Your brother is almost as dear to me as – well, almost anyone,’ said Mr Tresilian, urging her on towards Hill Street. ‘Which is fortunate, as if I did not love him so well I could shake him. Well, there it is. I
do not think I shall be invited to the faro-house again: which is no great distress to me.’

  Louisa was already resolving inwardly that she must speak to Valentine herself; but his last words woke an alarm in her. ‘Mr Tresilian, you will not quite give up on Valentine, will you?’

  ‘Why, do you suppose he will not manage without my wise old saws?’ he said, with a penetrating look. ‘But, no, assuredly I will not. Though I cannot prevent him giving up on me.’

  ‘That will not happen,’ she said: she was determined that it would not; her own influence with Valentine must be exerted to prevent it. ‘And thank you for telling me. Though I have not been easy in talking about him behind his back.’

  ‘Nonsense. If that were the rule, there would never be any conversation at all.’

  They were turning into Hill Street. Something he had said struck her, even through the cloud of her present perturbation. ‘Mr Tresilian, when my father used to say those things to you: did you truly not mind?’

  He studied the distance again, this time rather as if the swell on the sea had subsided to a surprising calm. ‘I was always thinking of something else,’ he said.

  He would not come in; and in a moment she had reason to be grateful for that. – Valentine, most rarely for him, was home, so she could approach him alone.

  No amount of discretion or care could render this easy; and the task was harder in that she did not wish to make Mr Tresilian appear a tattle-tale. – But she had forgotten the intuitive understanding that had always joined her to her brother – perhaps because it had been less in evidence of late; she had barely begun to speak before he laid down his newspaper and reached out for her hand.

  ‘You are going to read me a lecture. You have been talking to Tresilian. – No, no, I am not angry in the least; and I do not mean that about a lecture, because that’s not in your nature. Or his, Lord bless him. But you are troubled. Come. Tell me where the trouble lies.’

  ‘It lies perhaps in my remaining a cautious country sort of creature after all. I did not suppose you went out a-nights to Bible-readings; and Tom gambles, I know, because I have heard him talk about it – at least, something about his cursed luck with the bones, which I presume are dice, unless there is a much more sinister side to Tom than we ever guessed. – But, Valentine, gaming for high stakes alarms me.’

  ‘So it would me, if I were differently situated, or if the stakes were really high, or if I were one of those unfortunates who simply cannot leave off. But I have, thank heaven, an ample independence; and as for what I have lost at the faro-table, it is nothing to what many young men lay out on fancy high-perch curricles and bloodstock. Or look at Tom’s tailor-bills: I like to be well dressed, but a few good coats are enough. Sometimes, besides, I win: not so often as I lose, I know that, for that is the nature of gaming – but I make it up here and there. In novels and plays, I know, young men are always ruining themselves at the tables; but in real life one must be spectacularly foolish to do any such thing. – Truly, you must not be uneasy about it. Tresilian may be: but as he will be the first to admit, he does not like town or its ways, and as soon as he and Kate have had their fill of sights, they will happily quit it.’

  ‘I shall try not to be uneasy,’ she said, studying him: despite the hot weather, which had turned Mr Tresilian sailor-brown, his complexion wore the paleness of a man who lived by candlelight. No less handsome, however; and Kate was not the only young woman she had seen casting aching glances in his direction, though all were received with the same indifference. ‘And perhaps if you, in the same spirit, were to try not to make me uneasy: if, now and then, you were to ask yourself, Would this make my country-cautious sister uneasy?, then—’

  ‘I know what it is,’ he said, smiling. ‘I think neither you nor Tresilian would be quite so concerned if it were any other faro-bank than Lady Harriet’s.’

  ‘I have a good deal of affection for Lady Harriet, and I am sorry for her situation. But one cannot deny it is a difficult – a delicate situation. Valentine, I heard about Colonel Eversholt.’

  His smile remained, but his cheekbones seemed to grow sharper. ‘Tresilian is becoming a regular old gossip. Well, I dare say the morsel was too juicy to be resisted. Colonel Eversholt is, as I hope Tresilian conveyed to you, the most abominable man. If it were only violence and bluster – but there is manipulation too. I understood Lady Harriet a good deal better, simply from that one encounter. A last encounter, I hope.’

  ‘Apparently she did promise to meet him.’

  ‘Aye, so she did. It was undertaken to save her guests from more discomfort; but I know, from what she has told me, that her heart is now quite closed against him, beyond the possibility of reconciliation.’

  ‘Yet they cannot remain otherwise than married,’ she said gently and distinctly. ‘I do not know much about these things, but surely divorce is only to be obtained by the very highest and wealthiest, and only then with the greatest trouble and injury to reputation. And even a formal separation does not free her—’

  ‘My dear Louisa, you sound like a lawyer. Yes, no doubt these things are true; but they have very little to do with the natural feelings of the human heart. And it is those I am concerned with. Anything I can do to spare, to sweeten and to soothe those feelings in Lady Harriet, I will do. But you need not fear me in any danger. I have moved in the world a little, you know: I am no greenhorn. I am aware that the pleasure I take in Lady Harriet’s society, is one that malicious tongues would convert to a baser meaning. Let them: it would be beyond their understanding in any case. This will sound monstrous egotistical, but she reminds me of myself.’

  ‘I see there is a resemblance; but I do not think you could carry off bare shoulders as she does.’

  ‘You laugh, but I know you are still uneasy. The fact is, though she is obliged to maintain herself in a fashion that propriety deplores, and though her name is a dubious one to the Pearce Lynleys of the world, she is rather innocent than otherwise. She was long a dreamer, gazing at the world through the glass of wistful imagination: wishing to find a place in it, yet half doubting that it could ever be hers. The early influence that accustomed her to being lonely and disregarded was shaken off, perhaps, when she ran away to be married to that man – yet I don’t know: I fancy it was only a sort of interruption, and inside she is still the same open, trusting creature whose neglect made such a rash choice almost inevitable. She is simply bewildered at what her life has become. I know what it is like to inhabit dreams – as you surely do; and we who have woken to a brighter, better reality at last may surely have a heart to feel for her, who stepped out into the broad sunlit prospects, only to find them turned into dark passages that lead nowhere.’

  This was spoken with such a combination of warmth and delicacy – was so revealing of everything that was honourable, just and sympathetic in her brother’s nature – that Louisa could not in conscience press him further without seeming to set a low value on those very qualities which, above all, she loved and esteemed in him. Some disquiet remained, especially from the glitter in his eyes when he mentioned Colonel Eversholt; but all had been said that could be said; and any disposition in her to renew the subject was lost in the surprise that greeted his next words.

  ‘And after all, Miss Country-caution, what of you and Francis Lynley?’ He grinned at her look. ‘There, I have caught you. No, no, I mean nothing of reproach, unless you were to find it in the fact that people are talking. And when do they ever do anything else? For my part I know little of him, but he seems well-bred enough, and notably human next to his brother. I surmise that to be a younger brother to Pearce Lynley must be a trial to any character, and the wonder is that he has not turned out a thorough scapegrace.’

  ‘Lieutenant Lynley is no sort of scapegrace,’ Louisa said promptly, ‘and he would be very ready to prove it, if he were ever to be accorded any measure of trust or confidence.’

  ‘You are partial,’ Valentine said, smiling. ‘No, no, I don’t mind it in the
least. We are partial creatures, you and I, Louisa; and I for one am glad of it. To be sure, the more you incline to him, the more you put Pearce Lynley’s nose out of joint – but I do not suspect the operation of any such feeling.’

  ‘Valentine, I do not incline to Lieutenant Lynley. – That is, I find much that is interesting in him, alongside much that is difficult and perplexing; though that is hardly to be wondered at, given his situation. But that is all: my heart is entirely secure, thank you; and as for my feeling for Pearce Lynley, I simply have none of any kind – none.’

  All this was spoken with the greatest calmness: – yet Louisa discovered such a confusion of emotion within her that she was even glad to have their colloquy ended by the arrival home of Mrs Spedding, accompanied by her friend Mrs Murrow: who saluted them in typical fashion by remarking that they both looked as if they were sickening for something, and she only hoped she wouldn’t catch it.

  While Valentine applied himself to the stony task of conversing with the visitor, Louisa tried to tell herself that she had done her best with him; but she could not escape a feeling that, rather than persuading, she had been persuaded.

  Chapter XVI

  Louisa’s anxieties about Valentine’s association with Lady Harriet and her faro-house were far from allayed by his tender assurances. The sensation remained of a strange distance between them, across which she gestured in vain; neither could she find perfect repose in Mr Tresilian’s renewed undertaking to watch over him. Instead she found herself relying on the unsteady, even feverish comfort of distraction – which in London, this exceptional summer, was plentiful. The celebrations were coming to a head, with fireworks, regattas and military reviews among the public spectacles; and having made a large acquaintance in a society turned frenziedly sociable, Louisa found never a day, or part of a day, without its engagements.