Flirtation & Folly

by Elizabeth Rasche

“My dear Miss Mowbrey,” Sir William said. His voice was kindly, but it felt patronising to Marianne. “I know you have felt…pain…at the way some of your eccentricities have been received in London. I assure you that Kent is very different. No one minds peculiarities much in the countryside.”

  That certainly had not been Marianne’s experience, but she tried to give Kent the benefit of the doubt. “That is not what concerns me, Sir William. Indeed, I am very much obliged to you—only I cannot, cannot accept.” She swallowed. “You deserve a wife who will appreciate you and the home you offer fully. I am afraid I am not that woman.”

  He looked puzzled, but in his gentlemanliness he did not press the issue. He simply bowed and escorted her back. The bars of shadow from between the windowpanes fell over them as they passed, alternating with the hot glow of candlelight through the panes themselves.

  When they parted, Marianne hung back in the milling crowd near the windows and did not try to seek any acquaintance. She simply stood there, staring out at the shining stone of the patio through the window and feeling like an actress who had hidden backstage after a ridiculous performance. Did Harry feel anything like this, now that he had committed himself to his own path? She had not expected the pursuit of her dream to feel so lonely.

  June 1812

  Swirls of dust trailed after the carriage as it bounced down the road to Sweetser Park, but in the distance, thunder signalled that the roads would not remain dusty for long. London in June had swells of dust of its own, of course, but Marianne had bade goodbye to those with a regret nostalgic enough for Mr Hearn.

  Aunt Harriet had been poleaxed when she learned that Marianne had declined a proposal from Sir William, and almost as surprised when Belinda announced she had persuaded Lady Sweetser to take Marianne on trial as a companion.

  “You must have lost your head completely, Marianne,” her aunt said. Marianne had expected a torrent of scolding to come next, but Aunt Harriet simply shook her head—and hugged her. “Thank heaven I taught you something about money. It appears you will need it, if you turn your nose up at all your suitors.”

  She found herself wondering how much of her aunt’s sympathy was due to some similar choice in her own past. “I owe you a great deal.” Marianne’s voice cracked, and she was almost as surprised as Aunt Harriet at the tears leaking from her eyes. “You gave me a beautiful Season, Aunt Harriet. I know I did not make the use of it I might, but I will treasure it in my heart as the happiest time of my life.”

  “Well, it was not so bad as I expected, having you here.” Aunt Harriet gave a sniff, but for once it was not a noise of irritation or disdain, and she dabbed at her own eyes with the tips of her fingers. “Do not tell your mother that, of course, or she will be sending all your siblings in a post-chaise.”

  The memory made Marianne smile. Aunt Cartwright’s reaction had held much more equanimity: she merely reminded Marianne to know her constitution well enough to avoid the fevers plaguing the countryside near Sweetser Park.

  The chance to be Lady Sweetser’s companion was a good one. Lady Sweetser already had the company of her own daughter and Belinda, of course, but Belinda was only on a visit before some as yet unknown—but inevitable—marriage, and Lady Sweetser was equally sure Lucy would find someone to marry soon as well. That left an opening for a gentlewoman to live with Lady Sweetser—if she could win the lady’s approval.

  Martha had returned to Ireland, but Marianne vowed to keep up the friendship with letters. That one happy day of feminine gossip and shopping with Martha lit up Marianne’s time in London like a beacon. For that day, she had been herself—and liked for it—not caring much what other people thought. Marianne could not help but wonder if she had not flirted so much with Sir William when she first arrived, perhaps he would have settled his attentions on Martha instead. Her selfishness may have ruined Martha’s chances, and Martha had been a real friend.

  As a companion, Marianne would have the chance to return to London with Lady Sweetser when the Season came again, but she doubted she would make any new friends while at Sweetser Park. Lady Lucy was too insipid, and companions did not have many chances to go outside the home. I shall have to make friends with the pugs.

  Marianne alternated between keeping the window of the carriage shut tight against the swirls of giddy dirt, and opening it in an endeavour to dilute the smell of the Sweetser pugs and the afternoon heat of late June. It would have been musty enough inside the carriage were there only Sultan and Sultana to inhabit it, and now Sultana’s puppies added their bit to the general odour.

  Sultan, more used to occupying a carriage seat in the plush Sweetser family carriage than the floor of a hired conveyance, growled where he lay atop Belinda’s foot. Sultana had the unenviable privilege of riding in the box with puppies strewn all over and beside her, but she appeared satisfied enough with her litter not to mind being squashed with them. Occasionally she made a throaty sound halfway between a growl and a bark of contentment.

  That sound was not unlike the one coming from Lady Sweetser’s maid, who slept with her slumberous nose angled as far from the box of puppies at her side as the flimsy, shuddering wall of the post-chaise would permit.

  Marianne and Belinda sat on the opposite side of the carriage and passed the time gossiping, peering out the windows to look for Lady Sweetser’s more stately barouche as it led the way, and arguing over which puppy was most desirable. Belinda—and Lady Lucy, who descended from her mother’s barouche to check on the puppies at each posting station—favoured the runt. To Marianne, he had no appreciable qualities besides being the smallest, but Belinda and Lady Lucy cried out with joy over his every sleepy motion. Marianne rather liked one of the awkward-looking females. The puppy did not look like much, but she clambered over her mother’s body in an effort to reach the top of the mound again and again. Marianne liked her persistent exploration.

  The maid settled into a deeper and quieter sleep, and Belinda returned to the thread of gossip she had been delightedly winding most of the trip. “You say you do not believe it, Marianne, but ’tis all too true. Mr Stokes’s income was impressive once, but he made bad investment after bad investment, they say, and of course Mrs Stokes refused to retrench. Who would? It would have meant an end to everything: they would have had to leave London, or else descend to a neighbourhood no one would visit.”

  “But they will have to do so now, if what you say is true,” Marianne said. “If Mr Stokes is truly bankrupt—ˮ

  “Or he has grown awfully poor. I can’t remember which, and it hardly matters.” Belinda pushed herself back in her seat. The movement must have jostled Sultan over her foot, for he emitted a sharp bark before settling down again, this time capturing both Belinda’s feet beneath him. “Oh, Sultan! Never mind, we are almost there. What do you think Emily will do, Marianne? You know her better than I.”

  Marianne wished she could see Miss Emily, and not just to hear the truth of the matter. The lady must be in sore need of a friend now. If Marianne had defied etiquette enough to question her about Mr Stokes’s income, perhaps she could have helped in some way. Now it was too late. “I have not the least notion.”

  “How Miss Stokes must be thanking the heavens! I think she must have had an inkling of the trouble, for the moment she got engaged to Mr Wilkes-Sutton, she went far and wide crowing over how generous and high-minded he was. Nobody ever thought him the least bit generous before, but we all thought he must have allowed her to have something very nice in the marriage settlements. People do strange things in love, you know.” Belinda’s smile betrayed some secret experience with the fact, but she did not volunteer it. “Now I think she was just being clever. Once he heard there were to be no settlements, no dowry, nothing at all—well, he could hardly back out of the wedding after Miss Stokes made him famous for his generosity. She’s safe enough.”

  “I suppose that is something.” Marianne did not think it sounded like a promising beginning for Miss Stokes and her mate, but it was tru
e that Miss Stokes need not endure the privations the other Stokeses must be experiencing.

  “There, look! It’s Mr Nabbles’s curricle,” Belinda said. She brushed the curtains further aside and peered out eagerly. “Now that’s a fellow who will never go bankrupt. He has pocketfuls to pass out amongst his acquaintances, and always a secret pocket or two just for an emergency.”

  It pained Marianne to hear Belinda speak so carelessly of poor Mr Nabbles, who had doubtless fished for an invitation to Sweetser Park to see Belinda there. “Do not laugh at him, Belinda.”

  “Who is laughing? I am delighted to know he has good sense and will not crash into the dust as Mr Stokes did. He was so pleased I managed to get you a position here—he admires sisterly kindness.” Belinda must have glimpsed a hint of the reason why Marianne was displeased, for she added, “Oh, you need not fear for his precious heart, Marianne, for the gentleman scarcely owns one.”

  “You must know he is coming particularly to see you.”

  “La, everybody does that. Mr Hearn told you just the same thing about Mr Lowes.” Belinda’s smile of satisfied vanity was too artless to be as distasteful as it should. “I daresay every gentleman I have ever flirted with will appear and languish at my feet. I shall have to pawn a few of them off on Lucy.”

  “Not on me?” Marianne was amused, but she did not know if she ought to take offence that all Belinda’s romantic charity would devolve upon the insipid Lucy Sweetser.

  “Lady Sweetser would not like her companion to have beaux.”

  The carriage halted, which halted the conversation as well. Sultan jumped up and began barking; in the distance the sound of other dogs barking hummed in the air, whether in answer to or as provocation of Sultan’s noise, Marianne could not tell. A footman jolted open the carriage door, and Sultan led the way out into the blessedly fresh air of Sweetser Park.

  The house itself stretched out in a long, grey-stoned rectangle, as if it devoted itself to the dimension of length and paid mere civilities to height and depth. Green lawns boasted a few odd collections of flowers and shrubs, but mostly wound themselves over hillocks and between paved pathways. The contrast of the linear house and the winding effulgence of nature would have suited a drawing-master’s instructive landscape, and the white Grecian folly that topped a hill where the lawns met the forest would have crowned the picture.

  Marianne could admire the scene, but a small part of her heart sighed when she saw that idle country walks were likely to be the main entertainment provided, and the erratic grumble of thunder in the sky promised even that pleasure would be denied for now.

  It is still better than being home. Whatever her disappointments, Marianne would find a way to make life as a companion work. London, and its heart-rending dreams of glory and fashion, had pulled her to the heights of emotion and then the crush of despair; now, with her failure, she had to live with the deadness left over. No, not deadness. I shall not permit it to be deadness.

  Lady Sweetser had descended from her coach and was commanding the servants with a serene, indifferent omnipotence, like a Jupiter too accustomed to being obeyed to bother hefting a thunderbolt. The sky above was not so certain of its supremacy, and threw bright flashes at the horizon as dark clouds swam their way over the park. Lady Lucy cringed at the lightning, but she made no effort to go inside until her mother satisfied herself with the unloading of the vehicles.

  “Now, this way,” Lady Sweetser said at last. “We shall see if my dear husband has torn himself away from his blue books long enough to prepare for our arrival.” Lord Sweetser had come ahead, ostensibly to read up for a matter he intended to bring forward in the House of Lords, but also perhaps to avoid the long weeks of caravanning from London with a large party of guests and dogs. On ushering in the group, however, Lady Sweetser was confronted by the butler, who murmured in a secretive undertone that Lady Sweetser’s surprise made irrelevant.

  “Mr Lowes is here?” she exclaimed, annoyance suffusing her face. Even from the drawing room, Mr Lowes must have heard her, for he hurried out with helpless appeal in his eyes. His hair had been coiffed to an impressive stateliness, but his face betrayed a strange insufficiency. He always looked pale, but today his skin looked almost ghostly, aside from a livid flush highlighting his cheeks. His eyes had sunken into deep hollows traced with purple.

  “Forgive me for calling on you so soon upon your arrival, Lady Sweetser,” he said, and although he pretended to speak to the hostess, his dark eyes fixed on Belinda with desperation.

  “Upon my arrival! Before it, you mean, Mr Lowes,” Lady Sweetser said in a stern voice. “Do not pretend you came to see my husband. I daresay he abandoned you in ten minutes and went off to do something parliamentary.”

  “Oh, Lady Sweetser—ˮ The petition was addressed to her, but it was clearly Belinda he appealed to.

  “I cannot bear a lovesick swain without tea first. Even if he were mine,” Lady Sweetser said, thawing a little as she saw what could not be avoided must be endured. “Come and sit down, and Hawkins will bring tea momentarily, I daresay. Where are the puppies?”

  The maid who had ridden with Belinda and Marianne obligingly stepped forward and proffered the box. Sultana had long since emerged to stroll about with her mate, so the box was not the heavy burden it had once been.

  “They can go in the green room, I suppose, next to the Mowbrey girls. You will not mind sharing a room, I suppose, dear Belinda? The pugs will do quite well in the green bedroom, and Mr Nabbles is in the green and grey, and I want to save the yellow oneˮ—Lady Sweetser hesitated—“for another guest. Most of our guest-rooms are being refurnished, you know, so we are dreadfully put upon.”

  The emotional note reminded her of Mr Lowes’s untimely visit, and she fixed him with a glare before leading the way into the drawing room. She did not seem to require any answer from Belinda about the suitability of sharing, and did not even conceive of one from Marianne.

  Yes, this makes the pugs my best odds for friendship. Marianne took her place in the drawing room and folded her hands. I will be a proper companion to you, Lady Sweetser, and save my affections for a beast that can return them. The smallest of smiles warmed Marianne’s lips.

  That visit from Mr Lowes became the first of many. On most days, once he could be certain his friends had finished breakfasting, he rode over and inserted his presence among the Sweetser’s guests. Mr Hearn, who was staying with a friend not far from the village inn, spent his days following the gentleman farmer on his rounds and his evenings dining at Sweetser Park. Lady Sweetser seemed pleased enough to receive them both in the evenings when it filled the chairs at her sumptuous dining table, but she surveyed Mr Lowes’s sunken eyes with distaste whenever she saw him in the clear light of day.

  She showed an unnatural dislike of talking about the fever in the village, and it did not take long for Marianne to take her cue as a companion and reassure her that there was no danger of infection coming to Sweetser Park. Lady Sweetser insisted Lucy was too delicate to risk any exposure, but Marianne suspected her thoughts were filled with fear for herself foremost. The dominant presence which made Lady Sweetser the talk of London—and subjugated her guests—quivered at the contemplation of a sick-room.

  Her fears turned out to be partly justified, for after a few weeks they received word from the village inn that Mr Lowes was too ill to come to Sweetser Park that day. He had indeed contracted the fever, but his note assured them that he would soon be on his feet again and better than before. Such reassurances carried little weight with Lady Sweetser, who exclaimed again and again to her guests that Mr Lowes was a monster of iniquity to have subjected them to the slightest risk. She forbade any interaction between her guests and Mr Lowes, lest contamination spread to Lucy. Indeed, her commands might have become even more oppressive had two guests not arrived to distract her from the danger.

  One of these guests was the one intended for the yellow room, and Lady Sweetser announced her arrival with a hint of embar
rassment, the only sign of such a feeling Marianne had ever seen in her. “I know I said I would take you on trial for a while, Miss Mowbrey,” Lady Sweetser said one morning as she delicately set down her cup of chocolate at the breakfast-table. “And of course I am. But I do feel I must give dear Miss Emily—Miss Stokes, I mean, now her sister is wed—a chance at the position.”

  “Miss Stokes?” Marianne was too surprised to set down her own cup so smoothly, and the surface of chocolate rippled and threw up sloshes at the lip of the cup.

  “Poor dear! You know her situation, Miss Mowbrey. Her parents are much distressed and cannot look after her, and her elder sister’s new husband is disinclined to invite Miss Stokes to stay with them.”

  Marianne doubted Miss Stokes needed anyone to look after her, but probably this was Lady Sweetser’s polite way of glossing over Miss Stokes’s need for a paid position. “Of course I will be glad to see Miss Stokes.” She could not bring herself to say she was glad to have any competition for the role she had laid out for herself, but Marianne tried to focus on the agreeable fact that she would be on hand to comfort her friend and commiserate her misfortune.

  Miss Stokes’s arrival soon dispelled those dreams, however. Any dramatic scenes of bosom friends falling into each other’s arms and bewailing their fates proved idle fantasies, much like Marianne’s other dreams of heroism. If anything, Miss Stokes’s hauteur and chilliness had increased, and she put off Marianne’s embraces with a cool look. There was no chink in her armour to reveal she was the slightest bit inconvenienced by her father’s bankruptcy and, unlike Marianne, she persisted in presenting her visit at Sweetser Park as a sign of friendliness to Lady Sweetser, not as a trial for the position of her companion. Marianne doubted many of the guests were fooled—Mr Nabbles in particular hummed to himself with an unimpressed purse of the lips whenever Miss Stokes offered the pretence—but apparently it satisfied some need in her to cling to the vestiges of the glamorous life she once held.