A Little Folly Page 9
‘I am sorry, Mr Lynley, but I cannot accept your word, or anyone’s, on such a matter. I would be most perturbed if someone were to decline my acquaintance, simply because someone else had told them they must do so. I must know the grounds on which you seek to make this prohibition; but I should add that Valentine and I know Lady Harriet’s circumstances pretty well.’
‘That I crave leave to doubt,’ he said, frowning down at her. ‘But since you compel me, I must ask whether you know why Lady Harriet travels alone, though her husband is living.’
‘Certainly: Lady Harriet is separated, though not formally, from her husband – Colonel Eversholt, an equerry in the royal household.’
Mr Lynley’s eyebrows rose. ‘He has been an equerry, though my understanding is his services are no longer required, such is his reputation. – But surely you have said enough, Miss Carnell, to corroborate me; and if you have not reflected seriously on this, as I can only conclude you have not, then I urge you to do so now. The separation is not, as you remark, made formal, which consigns Lady Harriet to a very dubious status – a married woman, yet one who goes about independently. But even a woman legally separated from her husband – even one nobly born – cannot be an entirely unobjectionable figure in society. There is a loss of that complete respectability, which a young person in your position cannot too strictly enjoin as a condition of your acquaintance.’
‘Mr Lynley, I hope I shall never begin setting conditions on my acquaintance – unless that they be pleasant and amusing. And if this is all you have to urge against Lady Harriet, then assuredly you have wasted your time. I am sorry for that, and I would be more sorry if you had undertaken these researches at my request, instead of by your own choice.’
‘You astonish me. I can only suppose your want of experience, and Mr Carnell’s likewise, has inclined you to this liberality of judgement; that it proceeds from an innocence of what is fitting, rather than a disregard of it. If such is the case, I must be sensible that further enlightenment may give you pain; but I cannot do justice to my conscience without telling you all. Miss Carnell, the circles in which Lady Harriet has been accustomed to move are those to which tolerance would accord the title fashionable, though I should rather call them rakish. Believe me, I have no pleasure in speaking of this; but how do you suppose Lady Harriet supports herself ?’
‘Oh, she is obliged to keep a faro-bank,’ Louisa said, with the easiest unconcern.
Mr Lynley stared; but he quickly recovered at least the appearance of composure and, shaking his head, said in a tone of superior forbearance: ‘Well, well, I perceive you have heard those words, but plainly have not attached any proper meaning to them. If you knew—’
‘I know very well what a faro-bank is, Mr Lynley,’ cried Louisa, all the more indignant because he had inadvertently touched on the truth. ‘And I dare say it is not what some people would consider respectable; but then we are country-bred, and may perhaps be narrow in our views about such things. My chief feeling is that it is a great pity Lady Harriet has to live in that way: it does not alter my opinion of her in any other direction. If you do not wish to continue in her acquaintance, then that is up to you: I do not consider myself in the least entitled to direct your choice – any more than you are entitled to direct mine.’
Her anger on Lady Harriet’s behalf, though real enough, was now diverted into a much stronger channel: against Pearce Lynley, against all the presuming arrogance with which he oppressed her, against all the harsh, cold certainty he represented – and even, perhaps, against that one overbearing influence, which until now she had only permitted herself to regret. – Finding herself on the verge of actual bitterness against her father shocked her: she was silent, where she had meant to go on. – Mr Lynley’s look of high mortification sufficiently revealed how unexpected, and ungratifying, had been her rebuff of what he doubtless considered his good offices: whether he read a more flattering remorse in her silence she could not tell – for at that moment Valentine entered the room.
‘Oh! hullo, Lynley, I didn’t know you were here,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Have you heard the news? I had it from old Jarrett, who had just come from Teignmouth, where there was a cutter just put in from London – in short, it is as certain as anything: Bonaparte has signed the instrument of abdication. It is all over – we have peace at last. A wonder, is it not? I must send to Dr Sayles about having the church bells rung – and there must be a bumper of ale for everyone in the village. I wonder if there are any fireworks to be had hereabouts – Tresilian might know. Now, you must positively engage to dine with us tomorrow: we must mark the occasion in the proper manner.’
Mr Lynley signalled his acceptance with short thanks, and a shorter bow: whether from the prospective moral pollution of dining at the same table with Lady Harriet, or from the continued discomposure of his conversation with Louisa, he could not be easy; and after a very few remarks, which in their suppressive tone could hardly have been further from Valentine’s generous elation, he took his leave.
‘He is a stiff-necked fellow,’ Valentine said, ‘but I mean to have a large party, so he will be well diluted. Well, what grand wisdom has he been handing down to us today, Louisa? Or was he paying you those compliments I know you take so much delight in?’
Louisa laughed, or tried to; and turned the conversation back to the news of the peace. She decided, almost instantly, not to repeat to her brother what Mr Lynley had said. His indignation on Lady Harriet’s behalf would surely be greater than her own; and something – perhaps the tedious voice of caution, which she still could not stifle – told her that it could do no good to engender in Valentine’s heart any warmer feeling towards Lady Harriet than he already possessed.
Chapter VIII
A mere dinner, to celebrate the great news of victory and peace, could not satisfy Valentine. For much of that day and the next he was engaged in riding about the neighbourhood and into Teignmouth, personally to deliver invitations, and to secure the services of a small band of musicians. – There was to be dancing at Pennacombe after dinner. The ceremony and parade of a formal ball must await another time: it had indeed been one of his many projections; but he was far from considering this mode of arranging an entertainment inferior. There was a spontaneity and flexibility in it that was much to his taste; and it raised a willing response, especially among the young people of the district, for whom short notice only added to the prospective excitement of such an evening, little to be encountered outside the accustomed winter balls of Newton Abbot.
He had cast his net wide; and the sons and daughters of lawyers, land-agents and merchant-captains were bidden welcome to the hospitality of Pennacombe House, with a freedom that would have appalled its late master. Valentine even suffered a moment of anxiety himself, in which his natural liberality contended with his wish of appearing well in the eyes of their visitors; but it was quickly got over. The Speddings were much more sociable than exclusive, and inclined to like large parties; and Lady Harriet, continuing in revived spirits, commended his plan fully, and with such lively looks as might have led him to increase the number of guests, if there had been anybody left to invite.
Of the dinner guests, James and Kate Tresilian were the first to arrive – but without Miss Rose, who had insisted on staying at home. She had protested that she would be quite superfluous in such a large gathering: – had probably foreseen, indeed, that there her settled purpose of being overlooked might be too fully realised, and had calculated that in deliberately absenting herself from a special occasion lay her best means of ensuring she would be missed, thought about and worried over, to the general detriment of the Tresilians’ pleasure. With Kate, certainly, she appeared to have succeeded.
‘I do think it a pity that she is sitting there alone.’ She sighed. ‘I ought to have stayed at home with her: it was rather selfish of me to have come.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Tresilian. ‘Miss Rose will be having a thoroughly pleasant evening. She can put out candle
s and make do with one, and decline to have a fire lit or the cloth laid just for her, and indulge in every discomfort.’
‘These are surely circumstances in which age must accommodate youth,’ Valentine said. ‘Respect for our elders is a very good thing – but it might be more willingly given if our own feelings were respected in turn. I should have hated the thought of you missing the music and dancing, Miss Tresilian – you who are so fond of it; and I hope you will promise me the favour of the first two dances, as earnest of your intention to enjoy yourself, and not be put out by any such reflections.’
Kate assented with a readiness that, in a young woman less inclined to quietness of temper and more inclined to display, would have rendered unmistakable the strength of feeling behind it. Louisa certainly did not mistake it, and nor, she was sure, did Mr Tresilian; but how much Valentine saw, how much or how little he meant to distinguish Kate by this attention, could not be determined. – He was off again in a moment, to welcome another guest, and to exert himself in nervous, happy sociability.
‘Well, there will be a regular crush after dinner,’ Mr Tresilian said to Louisa, watching him go. ‘Does this mean, by the by, that I now have to ask you for the first two dances?’
‘Why should you think that?’
‘I don’t know. Symmetry, I suppose.’
‘Do not allow that to trouble you, Mr Tresilian. I am content for us to be a little lopsided, rather than put you through such agony.’
‘Mind, Pearce Lynley has the first claim anyhow.’ At her look he went on: ‘Well, does he not? It is common knowledge that Sir Clement favoured him; and now he is back in the county, and being generally attentive to you, one draws the obvious conclusions.’
Somehow there was more to dislike in hearing this from Mr Tresilian’s lips than any other: perhaps because she was used to plain truth from him. – But with this in mind, indeed, she gathered courage to ask: ‘Tell me, Mr Tresilian, what do you think of Mr Lynley?’
‘Think of him? I should have to ask you precisely why you sought my opinion before I could answer that.’
‘Now I must ask you why that is the case, and we shall just go round in pointless circles.’
‘Rather like dancing, in fact. Oh, I think well enough of Mr Lynley: he has committed no murders that I am aware of, and he gives me good-day quite as if I were human. I cannot conceive what else you want from me. You surely do not seek to be influenced in any direction, now that the liberty of choice is yours. If I disliked him, I hope that would have no more bearing on your own feeling than the fact that your father liked him.’
‘To be sure it would not,’ she said, a little disconcerted. ‘Only – only our feelings always are influenced, surely: it is no simple matter to disentangle them.’
‘You want me to tell you that you are right, and I am not going to. My own rule with feelings is always to mistrust them. Now we had better stop talking about Mr Lynley, for he is here.’
He was – and there was an end of Louisa’s peace. She was curious, in a savage sort of way, to observe how he would greet Lady Harriet. There was certainly a further degree of aloofness – which seemed to extend also to Tom and Sophie. But after a few moments she discerned what was chiefly troubling him and making him prowl so unconscionably about the room, and bestow his pale stare even on innocent Mrs Lappage, who attempted a civil enquiry about his sister. – They were receiving in the summer parlour, the large drawing-room having been swept clear of furniture for the dancing: it could be glimpsed across the passage, whenever a guest arrived, in all its inviting vacancy; and there Mr Lynley’s gaze kept returning, with a hardening expression of disapproval on each occasion.
This brought Louisa’s vexation with him to a sharper point; and when he made his bow, she could barely return his civilities. These were brief indeed, however, and he at once went on: ‘I appear to be under some species of misapprehension. Mr Carnell was good enough to ask me to dine. Yet I see preparations suggestive of a ball.’
‘Not a ball. But dancing, yes, after dinner. We mean to have a good deal of company, you know, in tribute to the exceptional news.’
‘I see,’ was all his answer; but he resumed his pacing, and his hauteur increased to the extent that even Tom came away from speaking to him with a slightly crushed look, and remarked to Louisa: ‘Splendid fellow. A little on the high ropes, perhaps, but still. Sterling fellow at bottom, I feel sure,’ and he was obliged to look at himself several times in the pier-glass, and reassure himself as to the sweep of his hair and the set of his cravat, frontally and in profile, before he could be quite composed again.
It should have been – in many respects was – a convivial dinner: Valentine as host was on his best mettle, the Speddings lively company as ever, and everyone inclined to the cheerful and celebratory spirits that the occasion naturally called for; but there was an exception, and it was an exception that Louisa could not long contemplate without feelings so powerful, so heated, as to threaten their breaking out if she did not quickly wrest her attention elsewhere. – To behold Pearce Lynley distributing his cold looks, quelling the exuberance of his neighbours, and creating a peculiar patch of shade at his end of the brightly lit table was almost more than she could endure. It brought on a sensation, as unpleasant as it was tortuously complex, of her father’s still being with them. She heard again the grating voice of reproof, felt again the tight tension of being studied and weighed, tasted again the dry, coppery mouth that always impeded her before one of his long sardonic questionings, with a vividness unequalled since the first distracted weeks after his death. That Mr Lynley should have introduced such a feeling, where there should only have been comfort and pleasantness, seemed the heaviest charge against him yet; and she found her ingrained inclination to make the best of matters, and to round sharp edges with caution and tact, giving way before an anger that was no less potent for being diffuse in its object, and uncertainly divided between past and present.
The interval after dinner was not long: plainly Valentine had discouraged the gentlemen from sitting over their wine, when there was dancing to be had; and soon the hall was busy with new company, Valentine no less busy in greeting them, and there began a general removal to the transformed drawing-room, where the musicians were trying over patriotic airs apt to the occasion. Such a concentration of eager, chattering youth Pennacombe had never seen: all was animation and delightful nervousness, all was flickering glances, choked laughter, adjusting of head-dresses, flexing of toes in dancing-pumps; and every eye was on Valentine moving among them as host – here and there, among those unaccustomed to such splendour, with momentary apprehension: but it was momentary indeed, and gave way to gratified and admiring looks. To Valentine’s natural charm was added a new ease learned from the Speddings, and Louisa had at least the true satisfaction, in the intervals of her mounting vexation, of hearing her brother commended on all sides, and even seeing him promptly fallen in love with, in several quarters where the name of Carnell would formerly have excited only a fearful curiosity.
The whole scene, meanwhile, was observed with the most patent distaste by Mr Lynley. His determination to hold himself aloof from the proceedings was observed by Mr Tresilian, going in with Louisa, who remarked to him with amiable gloom: ‘You do not intend dancing, Mr Lynley? Very wise. No more do I. A man of my years must allow the roast mutton and his stomach to get on tolerable terms before he thinks of moving about.’
Mr Lynley lowered his brows at the mere mention of the word stomach; and Louisa entertained herself for a moment in wondering what alternative might be deemed acceptable, or whether in Mr Lynley’s world the very existence of such a thing was altogether denied. But this could not long divert her from her real disgust with his conduct, which was only heightened by his concluding another raking glance about the room with a short bow to her, and the words: ‘I do not intend dancing, certainly. My invitation here comprehended no such thing. However, I will dance with you, Miss Carnell, if you wish it.’
He caught something new in her tone and expression: his own was perturbed, though he tried to recover himself. ‘Believe me – Miss Carnell, it is very far from a matter of obligation—’
‘Surely the lady must always be the judge of whether an attention is flattering or otherwise,’ she said, cutting him off. The music struck up, the set was beginning to form, and she was almost too put out to dance herself: – but that would be yielding Mr Lynley an advantage; and so she stood up with a very young and anxious midshipman who had been hesitating about asking her, and who found the question abruptly decided by her seizing his hand and fairly hauling him into the set.
Insufferable man! And insufferable the unfeeling tyranny that had matched her with him! With such dark and explosive feelings upon her, she was afraid her poor midshipman must soon be regretting his choice: but she could not lighten her demeanour. Even Mr Tresilian came in for a little of her irritation: she wished he would not pretend to be older than he was, and sit out in that stupid way, when he was more than the equal of the various young puppies and striplings taking the floor. If pleasure was to be found, it was in the sight of the evident delight with which Kate Tresilian danced the first pair with Valentine: yet even that must be witnessed with a divided hope – either that her delight was not too great, or that Valentine meant more by it than was apparent.