A Little Folly Page 22

  ‘I must – I shall go mad lingering here, and gnawing over everything. It will do me no good, nor this intolerable business in hand,’ he said, and at Louisa’s look, or the look he chose to see, he added: ‘I want only air and a change of scene. I do not mean there. If you will simply allow me to go to the club with Tom, it is all I engage for.’

  She guessed from his asperity that he was mentally addressing Mr Tresilian rather than her; and quietly acceded. Still, she could not sleep until she had heard him come in – at a reasonable hour, which suggested he had kept his promise – and even after that, lay long awake. She feared that the worst part of this for Valentine was his separation from Lady Harriet: that even now he was not seeing the matter straight, in all its gravity and momentousness.

  Mr Tresilian was back the next morning and, after presenting only the briefest compliments to the Speddings, bore Valentine off again. There was the lawyer to see; and letters to be written, not only to the colonel but to Valentine’s banker and the steward at Pennacombe, so that the state of his finances could be assessed. Mr Tresilian was all blunt briskness, as he had need to be, so despondent was Valentine’s mood; but he found a moment in the hall before leaving to address Louisa.

  ‘And what of you? You bear up well, I hope.’

  ‘Certainly. I have to.’

  He nodded his understanding. ‘Well, things may yet be retrieved. But it is a sad interruption for you.’

  He did not say of what; and she presumed he referred to his accusation about her ‘game’ with the Lynley brothers. Well, it was to be hoped he would find time to reflect on that. How mean, how petty those strictures appeared, now something so truly destructive was upon them! But, then, he had not seemed himself that night; and she wondered if the entanglement with Sophie had been preying on his spirits. She would have warned him against it – but she was not so eager as others to take on the gratifying role of dispenser of advice.

  In the meantime she had conceived a scheme of her own that might be instrumental in Valentine’s salvation. It was entirely her own – not to be mentioned to anyone. There would be – from Mr Tresilian surely, and Valentine probably – heavy objections. But men, she considered, did not understand everything: they knew all about the best roads to take, but never thought of the path across the fields. What she had in mind could not, she felt, harm their cause: it might even be the deciding factor: let events reveal. It meant she must cry off again from spending the morning with her aunt and Sophie – whose eyes glinted when she was told.

  ‘My dear, town has made you a delightfully mysterious creature! Well, let me just mention that we intend calling on the Lynleys today; and if you like, I can apologise for your strange absence, at least to one of the gentlemen – I shall not say both.’

  ‘I fear no misunderstanding in that quarter,’ she answered calmly.

  Louisa perfectly recollected the address at the head of Colonel Eversholt’s letter; and once the Speddings were gone, she dressed with particular care, then took a hackney there.

  Chapter XVIII

  Silver’s Hotel, off the Strand, proved to be a very masculine establishment: sporting and military in character – leathery and horsy; the yard filled with curricles and gigs, and bow-legged men smacking their palms with riding-crops and talking about rigs and turn-outs. There were more of the same in the public rooms, along with half-pay officers lounging and smoking and drowsing over newspapers, and young bucks after the pattern of The Top, working hard to perfect the cold, vacant smirk that would establish them at the pinnacle of fashion. Louisa found that, apart from the barmaid in the tap-room, she was the only woman there; and when she gave her name to the waiter, and asked if Colonel Eversholt would see her, she received a vast stare, and the most dubious nod ever accorded. He returned to tell her the gentleman was out; and stared harder when she said she would wait in the coffee-room, and asked him to notify her when the colonel returned.

  She was prepared to wait, however long it took; but she was not quite prepared for the interest she excited. The waiter came back every quarter-hour or so, simply to stare at her again; and every lounger and strutter took her in at his leisure – which was the one thing they all seemed to have an abundance of, though lacking any notion of how to make use of it. At last she took up one of the newspapers: it had nothing in it she would have called news; instead abundant reports of famous guns, close-run battle royals, estimable gamecocks, fillies and hacks, all so dull and bewildering that she might as well have essayed reading Latin. It struck her, however, as she sat on through the vinous fug and the loud, hard talk, that the spheres of the male and the female were much more profoundly separate than was commonly realised; and it seemed less surprising that so many marriages turned out unhappily, when the two creatures involved came from such different worlds.

  The morning had almost worn away, and with it her resolution, when at last the waiter appeared with Colonel Eversholt at his side.

  ‘Miss Carnell. I am told you wish to see me.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Colonel Eversholt.’

  The waiter would have upheld his privilege of standing and staring: but a look from the colonel sent him scurrying away.

  ‘You come alone?’ Colonel Eversholt said. His manner, his expression betrayed nothing but a neutral politeness; but Louisa already believed him more given to self-command than his reputation indicated – and felt it made him more, not less, formidable.

  ‘Yes, sir – and on a matter of some urgency, which is why I have waited on you here. As the matter is also of some delicacy, I would be glad if we were able to speak confidentially.’

  ‘Certainly. That can hardly be done here: I have a set of rooms upstairs, but you may doubt the propriety of attending me there. Speaking for myself, I can only say that I am a man of honour: that in itself should obviate any scruple. If, however, you had brought your maid—’

  ‘I have no maid, Colonel, and I rest absolutely secure in your honour.’

  He bowed: the little pursing of his lips as he led the way suggested that he was rather susceptible to compliment, but she cautioned herself against overdoing it.

  His sitting-room was everything she expected of a hotel lodging – well-appointed in a faintly shabby way; and she noted how very little impress of himself he had placed on it. He was after all, she thought, a man without a fixed home. But her eye fell quickly on a miniature portrait propped on the mantelshelf. – It was of Lady Harriet. He followed her gaze, and frowned; and for a moment she felt herself a great intruder and meddler, before she recovered her purpose.

  ‘Colonel Eversholt, you are probably aware of what has brought me here,’ she began, trying to keep her voice level and calm. ‘My brother and I have no secrets from one another; and given the – the purpose you have avowed to him in your letter, there can be no question of secrecy. If you hold to that purpose, then in time it will be rather a matter of the greatest and most pitiless publicity.’

  ‘That is the case: yes. And it might have been better if your brother had thought of it before he subjected me to the humiliating publicity attendant on his consorting with my wife.’ Colonel Eversholt went from restraint to vehemence with startling suddenness: indeed, he seemed even to have surprised himself, for he coughed and smoothed back his thick wings of hair with a slightly unsteady hand. For the first time she detected a faint smell of liquor. ‘But I must say, Miss Carnell, I wonder at your hardihood, in coming here to talk of such things. The mention of them is extremely repugnant to my feelings – and must be still more so to a young woman situated as you are. But let me guess: your brother has sent you to try what youth and beauty may do in extenuation of his mortal offence.’

  ‘My brother knows nothing of my coming here, Colonel. I may as well say, as you will hear it soon enough, that he certainly intends contesting any such suit as you threaten to bring, on grounds of his, and the lady’s, complete innocence.’

  ‘Indeed? I wish him well of that.’ The colonel did not sit: he stood l
arge and braced by the fireplace, his eyes on the ashes, as if seeing there an emblem of his situation. ‘There is, my dear madam, plentiful evidence to the contrary, much though it grieves me to offend your innocence by saying so. I fear your brother may have misled you: a deception that I fear must be added to the catalogue of his trespasses.’

  ‘As I said, sir, Valentine and I have no secrets from one another. I know well that he has been a frequent habitué of Lady Harriet’s faro-bank: that he has been seen with her in public. I myself saw them together at the theatre – and thought it very ill-advised. But if you were to understand, sir, a little more of Valentine’s history, his character, then I hope you would begin to see that a quite different interpretation may be placed on this evidence. I do not deny,’ she hurried on, as his chin went sharply up, ‘that his conduct has been indiscreet and imprudent – that it has indeed laid him open to such imputations. But I am all the more able to believe his earnest protestations of innocence, from having viewed the progress of his acquaintance with Lady Harriet since her stay at Pennacombe – and having viewed him from a youth in which such an acquaintance was entirely outside his scope.’

  ‘Come, now, Miss Carnell. If you would seek to persuade, you had better not try to delude. Whatever might be my private feelings about Mr Carnell, I know he is a gentleman of good family, with an estate of five thousand a year. This does not place him out of Lady Harriet’s circle – as far as acquaintance goes.’

  He had made sure, she noted, of assessing Valentine’s fortune. ‘Certainly – under the usual circumstances. But my brother and I shared an exceptionally sheltered upbringing, Colonel, under the tutelage of a father with strong, even eccentric views about the liberty, or lack of it, to be extended to young people; and the greatest mistrust of society. Until his death last year we had known nothing grander than the odd country assembly: we had never visited a watering-place, let alone London; we had never even received company at Pennacombe.’

  ‘Indeed. It is all the more regrettable that your father’s jealous care should produce, in his son at least, such unhappy results,’ Colonel Eversholt said, in his softest, most implacable tones.

  ‘It was a care that – not to speak ill of my father – was I fear likely to produce some distortion. But I do not mean in the direction of excess. I feel that I can say this to you, Colonel, because I know a little of the history of your and Lady Harriet’s marriage.’

  She half expected an eruption: but he only inclined his head. It reminded her, curiously, of being in the drawing-room of the rectory at Pennacombe, where Dr Sayles’s large and temperamental hound would lie by the hearth, unperturbed by loud noises or sudden movements, but twitching and growling at the most trifling gesture or quiet remark.

  ‘From what I understand,’ she went on, feeling uncommonly dry-mouthed, ‘there was much that was unfortunate in the disposition of Lady Harriet’s family – an alternation between neglect and vindictiveness; and when she married the gentleman, the perfectly eligible gentleman of her choice, both she and he were to suffer quite unnaturally.’

  ‘You are well informed,’ he said: then shrugged. ‘To be sure, it was common knowledge. We were shockingly robbed of our expectations.’

  ‘And this is what I mean by the distortion of early influences. You and Lady Harriet married, I am sure, in good faith and for love, and could not conceive how any other construction could be laid upon it. What the world sees, and what we see, may be entirely different. So it is with Valentine. Colonel Eversholt, I truly believe that what Valentine feels for Lady Harriet, as it has always been since she first came to Pennacombe, is admiration: admiration in the purest sense, like a courtier to a queen. He had never known anyone like her, and was dazzled, and remains so, I think – to such an extent that he is blind to the appearances of propriety, and shocked to find that anyone can view his relation with her in any other light than that of chivalry.’

  Colonel Eversholt gazed soberly at her for several seconds; then burst into a shout of laughter. ‘Oh, dear me. Oh, Miss Carnell, forgive me, but I really cannot help myself.’ The laughter stopped abruptly, though a sort of smile remained. ‘Your upbringing, at least, must have been positively cloistered if you can believe such a transparent fiction about the nature of your brother’s admiration. No, I am afraid he has been trading on your trusting good nature, madam: and so more shame to him.’

  Louisa hesitated for a moment before the plunge. ‘Colonel Eversholt, I have of course only heard one side of the story concerning your marriage. But I do believe you still love Lady Harriet.’ She mentally added the qualification after your fashion.

  He flushed. ‘I do not care for the turn this conversation is taking. I should be sorry to have to use the term impudence to a lady whom I have hitherto found it easy to respect.’

  ‘And I am sorry to press you in this way – but there is so much at stake for us, as you surely know, that I must dispense with formalities. They are after all not much observed, I think, in the debtor’s prison. I cannot conceive how you would wish to see – how you could bear to see Lady Harriet placed under all the humiliating scrutiny of a crim-con suit.’

  ‘Plainly you cannot conceive it, Miss Carnell, because you accord nothing to my sense of honour. I do not choose to make a parade of it, but the injury to my sense of honour is great: indeed it is intolerable.’

  Ten thousand pounds, however, would make it tolerable, she thought; but she must be careful not to allow these thoughts to show on her face: he was no fool. ‘I hope I am not insensible to such a feeling, sir. And I would not have addressed you thus, if I had not believed you susceptible to just those kind of finer feelings – honour, delicacy, and perhaps the peculiar chivalry that has inspired my brother to his unfortunate association with Lady Harriet.’

  ‘I am very far from convinced that this finer feeling exists on his part,’ the colonel said, throwing her a shrewd look. ‘But let us suppose that it does: why, then, the chivalry? It is traditionally extended to women in distress. Is it thus that he sees my wife? Does he consider her the wronged and deserted one? Does he, in fact, take her part against me?’

  ‘If so, then – then it is in the same idealistic spirit, I am sure,’ Louisa said desperately, ‘and of course no one is in a position to judge the rights and wrongs of such a situation except the parties themselves. But, Colonel, Valentine has – as I have – so very little experience of these things, and of the way the world moves, that his errors are rather to be expected than wondered at.’ She found a moment to wonder, indeed, what Valentine would make of this countrified innocent she was painting him: she doubted he would like it at all – but with luck he would never know. ‘And I believe that he will absolutely undertake to forgo the society of Lady Harriet, permanently, if by that road an understanding may be reached.’

  He smiled greyly. ‘Do you really believe that, or do you wish to believe it? Oh, Miss Carnell, you must not misunderstand me. I am far from welcoming the noisome attention, the scandal, the ignorant notice that must be taken of both my wife and myself by a recourse to law: it is entirely loathsome to me. But there is no other resort, it seems to me, for a man in my position.’

  ‘But if I may venture to suggest – there is another: that of believing my whole-hearted assurance that my brother is guilty of nothing more than ill-judgement. A belief that once accepted offers you a further comfort: that of knowing Lady Harriet to be entirely innocent also.’

  ‘Ah, a comfort: when half the town believes otherwise.’ Frowning, Colonel Eversholt drew out his watch. ‘Your pardon, Miss Carnell, I have an engagement; and it is besides too repulsive to my feelings further to talk of these things.’ Suddenly he offered her what seemed a genuine smile. ‘I will say, however, that I do not think I could have endured it even thus far, with anyone else. Your brother is more fortunate in his advocate than his conduct deserves. But I make no undertakings, madam, other than to assure you I will think on what you have said. Nothing in it presently inclines me to any
other course than injured nature demands; but you have my word that I will not dismiss it from my mind.’

  With this, as he opened the door and stood waiting, Louisa had to be content: but she was far from thinking it the worst result that could have been achieved. His pride and pomposity she must allow for: the greed and cupidity that Mr Tresilian attributed to him was unlikely to be easily conquered. But she was not hopeless of successfully appealing to his feeling for Lady Harriet: she had observed that he did not once allow his eyes to rest on her portrait, which seemed to her as revealing as if he had sighed over it. And if alongside that she had introduced a little doubt that his suit would be successful, then some breach had been made in what she had feared was an impassable wall; and she even dared to think it possible, though not probable, that his simple humanity might be reached through the same opening.

  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.