Flirtation & Folly

by Elizabeth Rasche

  “I wish you had said as much on Sunday.ˮ

  The captain cast his eyes down and laid his hand on Marianne’s, which still held his arm. “I ought to have done so. I cannot explain what happened to me when I saw you, Miss Mowbrey. I find myself very…ˮ He hesitated. “Very anxious for your good opinion. I let the desire for your good opinion draw me into a deception, and now I have lost the favour of your approval, perhaps forever.ˮ

  It was an overly dramatic thing for him to say, but Marianne rather liked it. She met his eyes.

  “Can you forgive me?”

  “I am sure my forgiveness is of no consequence.ˮ There! That was exactly what a heroine would say.

  “It is of the greatest consequence, to me,” he said, again in that serious tone.

  Marianne’s heart fluttered, and she smiled. “Then I suppose I had better give it to you.ˮ She remembered how she had omitted explaining her reluctance to speak to Mr Glass when Mr Hearn was smiling at her in approval. She could not blame Captain Pulteney for doing something so similar. Really, it showed just how alike they were—both eager to please, perhaps a little too eager.

  Marianne felt elated as he led her to the carriage. She could not help but think the way he had begged her pardon was charming. How strange that after the trials of dining with an apothecary, listening to the endless sermonising of a vicar, and being teased and vexed by two fashionable ladies and her own aunt, the evening should turn to something beautiful at the last. For Marianne, the captain’s brief conversation felt the height of romance. She could even congratulate herself on appearing a little bit witty and attractive to him, and so she did so, all the way back home to Aunt Harriet’s.

  Marianne liked creeping into the window seat of Aunt Harriet’s sitting room. The small space overlooked the street and, if she drew the yellow drapes behind her, she felt herself divided from the rest of the pristine house and pressed against London’s bosom instead. There, she could sketch scenes of the street below. At the moment, two unruly children were alternating between kicking snow at each other and taking bites of meat pies sold by a man with a squealing wooden cart. Marianne had sketched the cart yesterday, but today her efforts focused on the sprays of snow launched by the children. It was another picture she would not be able to display—its subject matter hardly matched up to the sedate flowery landscapes other ladies laboured over.

  But sketching in the window seat was much more entertaining than sitting next to Aunt Harriet and embroidering, even if the cold seeping through the glass embraced her like a vampire from one of her books. The luxury of sliding her pencil across creamy pages without haste intoxicated her fingers. She could never have had such time to herself at home—there, she always had incessant appeals from bored children and unending scrap gathering to make the most of her father’s slender means. At the rectory, Marianne was busy, responsible, and tirelessly moral; here, however, she could live the life of a heroine.

  Like most heroines who hide themselves away, Marianne uncovered mysteries in her aunt’s behaviour. Her aunt had spoken of business several times, but Marianne had assumed she meant the idle pursuits of rich ladies—canvassing for subscriptions to charities, or organising Sunday schools. From her time in the window seat, Marianne discovered her aunt meant business of a more substantive nature. Her steward and lawyer often called, and although both made a pretence of advising her, Aunt Harriet seemed unusually independent—and uncommonly confident—in making her own financial choices.

  For better or for worse, Aunt Harriet always remembered to summon her niece if the call was social rather than business. So when the butler announced Lady Angela, whose late father was the Earl of Kerrington, Marianne obediently closed her sketchbook, parted the yellow drapes, and moved to stand next to her aunt. A moment later, the lady appeared and dipped a regal curtsey. Marianne examined her during her aunt’s introductions.

  Now she understood why Jenny had scoffed at the idea of Lady Angela having a suitor. Although she was only in her thirties, Lady Angela appeared much older. Her face was pinched and covered with lines, and her lips drew tight into a sour smile or a remarkably grotesque frown depending on her mood. The exaggeration of her expressions made Marianne think of an ill-made puppet clamouring for attention.

  Lady Angela’s attire made up for her exaggerations by displaying a proper and understated style in inexpensive muslin. She wore no jewellery except a gold cross which gleamed against her sallow skin.

  The beginning of the visit was consumed in ordinary conversation about the recent snow and the length of Marianne’s visit. Marianne had grown accustomed to the tedium of making morning calls—then, at least she had the pleasure of scrutinising the homes of the people she and her aunt visited while the conversation meandered about. Receiving social calls had no such consolation, however. She was wishing she dared to introduce some more interesting topic when Lady Angela pre-empted her.

  “I suppose you have heard about Mrs Knowlton,” she said, her brown eyes lighting up. Marianne did not want to think of the gleam as malicious, but it was difficult to construe Lady Angela’s glee otherwise. “She and Mr Peters have gone off.” She gave a vehement nod. “I know you did not believe she would ever be so wicked, but I told you it would be so.”

  Aunt Harriet did not seem inclined to argue. “What foolishness! She cannot expect to be received anywhere.” Her wrinkled fingers drew a needle through the fancy work she kept on hand for polite visits, and quickly fashioned two neat roses along its border.

  “Oh, it goes further than that. The story is only half-told.” Lady Angela’s sour smile split her face further, revealing small, even teeth like yellowed ivory. “After they spent a fortnight at Weymouth together, he left for his family’s seat. And now he has flatly refused to have anything to do with her. She has been altogether abandoned in Weymouth, with hardly a penny to pay the bills, either. What a fool she has been! Now she feels the weight of her wrong-doing, I daresay.”

  Marianne could not restrain her sympathy. “Poor woman!”

  Lady Angela laughed. “See a little more of the world, Miss Mowbrey, and you will not cry ‘poor woman’ any longer. When a woman casts off her dignity and pursues a man, she will get what she deserves. Mrs Knowlton had a reasonable husband—not a pleasant man, of course, but no cruel master—and she threw her marriage and home away for a few pretty compliments and wistful sighs. Indeed, I do not pity her. She allowed her lesser nature to overcome her more noble feelings.”

  “They overcame her common sense, I should say,” Aunt Harriet said. She drew out the red embroidery silk to check its length and then continued her fluid stitches. Loops of silk were thrown up and pulled tight again and again, blooming into a third rose as perfect as the first two.

  “Perhaps she was in love,” Marianne said. She could not bear the tone of Lady Angela’s voice, as if she was condemning the woman and congratulating herself all in one maliciously joyful manner.

  “A lady of good breeding never allows her affections to be engaged by an unworthy object, Miss Mowbrey.”

  “But perhaps she did not know he was unworthy.”

  Lady Angela pushed her scrawny shoulders back, and the golden cross bounced slightly on her yellowed skin. “Had she inquired properly into his background, she would have been enlightened as to his character. A man who errs in regard to a lady has always done so before, somewhere in his past.”

  Irritation pushed Marianne further than was wise. “Logically, I think you will find that cannot be so. Someone must be the first.”

  “Marianne, you seem to forget she was married already. I hope you do not mean to defend a married woman who deserts her family,” Aunt Harriet said. “I daresay Lady Angela knows more of this matter than you do.”

  Given the alarming grimace on Lady Angela’s face, Marianne found it easier to retract her statement than she had expected. “I beg your pardon, Lady Angela,” she said.

  The lips slowly diminished in length, but the unholy light in Lad
y Angela’s eyes remained. “I quite understand.” Her cold tone was patronising. “A young lady new to London has many fanciful notions. I can only hope your aunt will steer you wisely through the many temptations you will encounter, Miss Mowbrey. It appears you have a passionate nature that can only lead you astray.”

  Marianne thought of the novels Lady Angela reportedly read, full of romance and tender pleading, but said nothing.

  Lady Angela continued, “Harriet, I do not suppose you are going out today?”

  Aunt Harriet rose. “Of course. Please permit me to set you down at home. It will be on my way.”

  “Oh, if it will be convenient,” Lady Angela said. She spoke as if she did not care, but gathered up her reticule and fan with alacrity before she turned to Marianne. “I do not keep a carriage. I dislike the confinement of a carriage and find walking so pleasant and beneficial for the body. I take care to walk as often as I can.”

  Marianne wondered why, if that was the case, she had practically suggested Aunt Harriet drop her at home, but again she said nothing.

  “Jenny is getting your basket, Lady Angela. I must retrieve something from my room, and then we can leave,” Aunt Harriet said. She disappeared through the door, leaving Lady Angela and Marianne in an uncomfortable tête-à-tête.

  Lady Angela stiffly rose from her seat. “Your aunt is kind enough to provide me with a few jellies from her cook,” she said at last. “Usually, I care nothing for jellies, but these are very soothing to my throat. Good day, Miss Mowbrey.” She stalked out of the room.

  Marianne waited a moment, but curiosity—or perhaps a chagrined disinclination to be too unnerved by the older woman—drove her to peer into the hallway. Jenny, or Jeannette, as Marianne now tried to call her, was holding a woven basket as she spoke in a low tone to the lady. Marianne could not hear the words, but Jeannette sounded quick and eager. Finally Aunt Harriet descended, and Marianne returned to her seat on the sofa. The front door shut with an emphasis that resounded through the house. Jeannette sauntered into the sitting room.

  “How George slams that door! I can’t bear it, or him,” the maid said, throwing a glance backwards that held both the contempt of a fine lady’s maid and the half-intrigued consideration of a coquette.

  “I cannot bear Lady Angela. Is she always like that?” Marianne said. A proper heroine would not slander a guest, but Marianne was finding it difficult to hold her ground as a saintly maiden.

  “Always,” Jeannette said, clearly more preoccupied in finding out if George had moved close enough to the sitting room to warrant scolding him for the door.

  “She is a horrible old woman.”

  “Of course she is, Miss Mowbrey.” Jeannette turned away from the door, giving up the pursuit George for the time being, and schooled her face into a solemn expression for Marianne’s sake. “But you ought not say so where snoops like George might hear, though. And she isn’t that old, really,” Jeannette said.

  Marianne suddenly realised that Mrs Walters, the Wrumpton friend who had taken in Belinda for the Season, must be a similar age, only better preserved in her happy marriage and social éclat than Lady Angela’s yellowed husk was in solitude and lesser circles. It was simply another example of how important it was to marry well and shine in society. Marianne’s irritation faded.

  “I suppose not,” she said. “I lost my temper, that’s all. I do not know how you bear speaking to her, Jeannette. Jellies for her throat! I never heard of such a thing.”

  She was about to return to her perch in the window seat when the butler appeared and announced the Stokeses. Mrs Stokes was dressed in a dark blue merino cut fashionably snug around the bosom and loose elsewhere, and she completed her outfit with a few ladylike trimmings and a matching reticule. Her two daughters looked equally ladylike, albeit to Marianne they still looked like a plump rose and a rosebud—especially as Miss Stokes’s plumpness was loosely bound in pale pink muslin and Miss Emily’s firmness was wrapped in a slightly darker shade of muslin.

  Marianne took in every detail of their attire. Her dress at Aunt Cartwright’s party had not impressed them—quite the opposite!—but she was sure her dress today was more original than theirs. True, her gown was an ordinary white muslin, but she had had the dressmaker arrange pleats of fabric into small fan-like shapes placed at one hip and the opposite shoulder. If the Stokeses approved, perhaps it would set a stir among other Londoners.

  From the side glance and cool amusement Mrs Stokes threw at it, the older woman found it no threat to her daughters’ pre-eminence. “How pleasant to see you, Miss Mowbrey,” she said.

  “Dear Miss Mowbrey!” Miss Emily exclaimed as she strode forward and clasped Marianne’s hands. “What an age it has been! And what news we have! We have been given the most delightful invitation.”

  “We are to ride in curricles to Richmond Park with Lady Sweetser and her friends on Wednesday,” Miss Stokes said. She shifted her skirts languidly, almost as if to direct attention to the difference between her sister’s exuberance and her own lazy pleasure—and to recommend the latter. If Miss Emily noticed, she did not care in the least.

  “It will be heavenly. Indeed, I expect twenty angels at least to descend from above and parade alongside each curricle all the way there,” Miss Emily said, merriment lighting her eyes. “I know you only engage in real friendship, the kind that delights in the good of others, Miss Mowbrey, or I would not tell you, lest you die of envy.” There was a touch of wickedness to her smile. Marianne could not tell if she was taunting her.

  “I will try not to be envious,” she said, “but have you forgotten that we were to go to Bond Street together on Wednesday?”

  “What a pity!” Miss Stokes said. “We must apologise, Miss Mowbrey. Of course we will not be able to attend you as we had planned.”

  “It is a pity.” Mrs Stokes’ smile commiserated with Marianne in perfect politeness.

  “Well, one day will do as well as another,” Miss Emily said. “We shall make it Thursday instead, or perhaps next week, if we have an engagement on Thursday.” When Marianne looked disappointed, Miss Emily’s voice hardened. “I cannot blame you if you are very angry. Indeed, how can you bear waiting even a day to get at that dreadful dressmaker! Why, look at the fright she has put you in today. It looks as though two sails have been pinned to you. Perhaps she thought you were a man-of-war.” She giggled.

  “They are not like sails, they are fans.” Deep down, Marianne felt wrong to even try to justify the dress she had created. Miss Emily sounded so sure it was hideous, and surely she would know. She had not liked Marianne’s other dress, either. What if all of London was secretly sneering at Marianne in her strange gowns? Why had she dreamt she knew anything about fashion, anyway?

  “You are so good to speak up in her favour, but really you must not spare any compassion for her. A dressmaker who does not know her work ought to be dropped altogether,” Miss Emily said. She smoothed one sleeve of her pink gown as if to reassure herself she had no such difficulties as ill-made dresses.

  “At any rate, we will try to attend you to Bond Street before Mrs Cartwright’s next supper party,” Miss Stokes said. “We are to bring our cousin there, did you hear?”

  Marianne turned to Miss Stokes, grateful for her change of subject. “I did not hear. What is your cousin like?”

  “Horrid!” Miss Emily said, tossing her head. Mrs Stokes’s lips pursed in disapproval, but Marianne suspected it was more at the breach of etiquette than the sentiment in her daughter’s remark. “She is Miss Martha Brophy, and she is not even a real cousin. She was the daughter of somebody who married a cousin of ours—or a cousin of a daughter who married—I cannot remember it all, but be assured she is no blood relation. She is staying with her sister, a rather genteel sort of person who married well, but her sister has grown tired of her and pushed her upon us for a few weeks. I cannot say Miss Brophy is genteel.”

  “What is the matter with her?” Marianne took a kind of comfort that their
ridicule had turned upon someone else, and she was to have a share in the superiority. Her conscience pricked her, but the desire to please the two Stokes sisters had gained too great an ascendancy for the pinprick to hurt her.

  “Why, she is Irish, for one thing. And she has red hair. I defy anyone to call it auburn, even in the most sentimental ballad. It is red as red. And she makes a great deal of noise.”

  “By that, Emily means she talks almost as much as her,” Miss Stokes said in amusement.

  Miss Emily laughed. “Perhaps. But I have the sense to fall quiet when it suits, and she never does. What a bore!”

  Mrs Stokes seemed to recognise the impropriety of her daughters’ criticism and changed the subject. “There is to be another new person at the table. Mr Hearn is to bring his particular friend, Mr Frederick Lowes.”

  “Is he a pleasant person?”

  Miss Emily tilted her head, as if considering. “By that you mean—or ought to mean—is he young, handsome, and rich? The answer is yes to all three. He is rather a rattle, though, and not half so clever and charming as Captain Pulteney.” Her chestnut eyes burned with humour—and perhaps something else—when she added, “But of course neither of them could mean anything to you. You have your Mr Glass, after all.”

  “You seem to delight in vexing me,” Marianne said, but she took it in good humour. She did not take it in good humour when Miss Emily spotted her sketchbook and seized upon it.

  “You draw! You must let me see. I am an excellent critic,” she said, flipping through the pages despite Marianne’s mumbled protests. Perhaps she thought them the usual meaningless protests of ladies with skills, but in Marianne’s case, she truly did dread the Stokeses examining her drawings, and with good reason.