Love & Folly

by Sheila Simonson

  Jean's eyes dropped but her jaw set in a mutinous line.

  "I won't go into exile," Owen exclaimed. "I've done nothing wrong. It's the laws that are unjust. You said so yourself, my lord."

  "I did." Tom leaned against the long table, arms folded. "I believe they are wrong. If you'd acted openly and honestly, on your own, I'd swallow the embarrassment of your being in my employ when the Runners came for you. As it is, I'm afraid you'll have to forego the pleasure." He spoke almost mildly but Elizabeth perceived he was very angry indeed.

  "Pleasure!"

  "Sensation, if you prefer."

  The two men stared at one another and Owen's eyes dropped first.

  Jean said hysterically, "You cannot exile Owen, Clanross! I love him!"

  Oh, Jean, Elizabeth thought. Don't be a fool.

  A long silence ensued, broken only by Jean's sobs. At last Tom said carefully, "If your feelings are engaged, Jean, I'm very sorry for you."

  "They are, they are!"

  "Elizabeth."

  Elizabeth started.

  "Will you and Maggie take Jean from the room and see to her comfort? I'll come to you later."

  Elizabeth rose. Eventually she and Maggie, who had begun to weep in sympathy, led the sobbing girl from the book room. Elizabeth wanted to console Jean, then strangle her and throw her body to the ducks, but that was an impractical course of action.

  * * * *

  If Clanross had not been in the room Johnny would have milled Owen Davies down. Fury cramped his muscles and hazed everything in red. He sat in his chair and seethed.

  For a while no one moved. At last Owen rose and made his way to the window, which was open. "I know what you're thinking, my lord," he said in a muffled voice.

  "I doubt it."

  "You accused me of seeking the notoriety of a trial. I did not. I writ the poem. What I writ needed writing. It's a good poem, whatever her ladyship may say."

  "What does her ladyship say?"

  "She accused me of plagiarisms!"

  Clanross said in less frigid tones, "That was intemperate of her. I daresay she spoke in the heat of the moment."

  Owen clutched at his forehead. "What does it matter? I'm done for. If you had not forbid it, I would have gone down to London myself. When Lady Jean suggested that she convey the poem, I was at my wit's end. Perhaps it was weak in me to agree. Certainly I didn't foresee that she would give the poem over to anyone but my friend."

  "Why did you not foresee it? You must know young ladies are not allowed to roam freely through the stews of Soho in search of young men."

  "Is it a low neighbourhood?" Owen asked with such palpable surprise that Johnny's red haze began to fade. Surely the man could not be that naive.

  Clanross explained how very low the neighbourhood had sunk, adding, "I daresay you don't know London well."

  Owen groaned. "Since I came down from Oxford I've spent a year in Wales writing and a year as secretary to a gentleman resident in Bath. I've never lived in London."

  "Then perhaps your mistake was an honest one. Since my expressed opinions led you to imagine I would not object to your poem, I can understand your trying to see it into print without consulting me."

  "You said you favoured a free press."

  "I do." Clanross sighed. "I know my sister-in-law's impetuous nature, and I can believe you were caught up in her enthusiasm, though the fact that you're five years older than she makes that hard to credit. What sickens me, Davies, is that you used your presence in my household as an opportunity to trifle with Lady Jean's feelings."

  "I do not trifle!" Owen held out an imploring hand. "Upon my honour, sir, we could not help ourselves!"

  "And the thought of Jean's blood and wealth didn't enter your head?"

  "No!" Owen cried passionately. "It did not! She was so kind, so beautiful. When I perceived that she was not entirely indifferent I could not forebear to speak. My feelings burst forth. I shall worship Lady Jean forever."

  Johnny heard this speech with considerable confusion. It was just possible Owen was sincere.

  "I honour her," Owen was saying in a low, trembling voice. "I would cut off my hand sooner than hurt her."

  "An impressive declaration," Clanross said dryly. "Then you can have no objection to leaving for Upper Canada."

  Owen sank onto the nearest chair. "What?"

  "You claim you don't want to hurt Jean. Surely you must see that being called as a material witness in a criminal case would harm her."

  "And what of Mag...Lady Margaret?" Johnny's voice sounded hoarse in his own ears. "She would be called, too, subjected to the insinuations of counsel in a publick court. The two of them went, unescorted, to seek out a man in his private quarters. Are you so high-minded you don't know what would be said? For Godsake, they'd be ruined. Both of them."

  "You must go, Davies," Clanross said heavily. "It's a bad business and I'm sorry for it, but there it is."

  Owen looked from one to the another. "Must I?"

  "You needn't imagine you'll be exiled for ever. In a year or so the prosecutions will ease and you may return without penalty." Clanross touched his shoulder. "I'm aware of my own responsibility in this. I'll send for you as soon as may be."

  "Very well, I'll go." Owen buried his face in his hands.

  21

  A fortnight passed in wretched inaction. The weather was hot and mutinous, like Jean's mood. Maggie felt her twin's anguish deeply, and, worse, her twin's withdrawal of confidence.

  The most dramatic development was Owen's removal from Brecon to the rectory. Clanross had called on the rector and his wife to explain that Owen must leave the country. Once Clanross made it clear that the alternative was a trial, Mr. Davies resigned himself to his son's exile. His wife proved less persuadable. Owen was her favourite and she let her feelings be felt. Prudence had so far prevented her from spreading her outrage abroad among her friends and neighbours, but she blamed Clanross for leading her son astray. She insisted that Owen live at home until he was compelled to leave for the wilds of Upper Canada. She was said to be knitting warm things.

  Maggie grieved for the mother deprived of her child, but she mourned the effects of Owen's removal on Jean more. Although Owen continued to ride up to Brecon every morning, he worked in the library only a few hours each day and that was all Jean saw of him. Everyone else felt the advantage of Owen's absence--the level of tension at dinner lowered noticeably--but Maggie's twin withdrew into brooding silence.

  When Jean requested a separate bedchamber, Maggie was stricken. She had done nothing to cause Jean's grief, yet Jean was treating her like a stranger. Maggie's resolve not to abet a private meeting between Owen and her sister wavered.

  Clanross and Johnny went down to London again, something to do with records of the charity Owen would be carrying to Clanross's agent. They returned within three days, however, and both men took to joining the girls and Owen in the book room as they worked on the nearly completed catalogue. Maggie could not help thinking Owen's despair was less black than Jean's.

  "Have you read this yet, Davies?" Clanross handed the poet a slim volume.

  In the previous days Owen had read all of the American voyages in the Brecon first edition of Hakluyt's Principle Navigations. He exclaimed over Frobisher, Cabot, and Hudson, and sketched out a verse-drama of discovery. He also went about quoting such references to North America as he had unearthed in the works of other poets. "Oh, my America, my New-found Land," was a line Maggie remembered because it seemed to refer not to the continent but to the poet's lover, an unsettling thought.

  Owen took the volume from Clanross and leafed through it. "Cartier's account of the Iroquois! I've been looking for it. By Jove, they're fierce devils. I'd like to see an Iroquois warrior." He went to the window and soon lost himself in the book.

  Jean watched him from somber grey eyes. Maggie watched Jean.

  * * * *

  "Jaysus!"

  Emily started. "What is it?" She had been dozing
off and on since they left Chacton.

  Peggy's head blocked Emily's view from the window of Sir Henry's carriage. "Jaysus, it's the Prado," the nurse muttered.

  "Do move over, Peggy. Are we in sight of Brecon?" Emily eased the sleeping Harry onto the seat, half rose, and peered around Peggy's shoulder. Persuaded by a jab in the ribs, Peggy made room.

  Ahead of the two carriages--far off and well above them--floated an enormous ice palace. Emily blinked. It did not vanish. Tom's travelling carriage, which contained Richard, Matt, Amy, and Tommy, momentarily blocked her view. Again the vision appeared. The arrogant Palladian facade was broken by a double flight of steps, curving out to embrace the carriageway that swept up to it. The afternoon sun glinted from an acre of tall windows, two tiers of them. A balustraded parapet in the doric mode masked any hint of chimneys.

  Emily could make out a tiny figure at the head of the stairs, but that was the only sign of humanity in the entire neoclassical expanse. Then the carriages entered a gracefully placed wood and the house was lost to view. Emily sank back on her seat, her stomach in a cold knot. She had been told that Brecon was not as vast as Blenheim. In all conscience it was vast enough.

  Peggy and Phillida burst into excited questioning. They woke Sally, who wailed to be fed. Harry also woke and Peggy and Phillida were distracted into answering his questions. It was clear that the Earl of Clanross's principal seat lay still some miles off, so Emily attended to her daughter's appetite and tried not to give way to panick.

  The journey from Mayne Hall had been accomplished in great comfort, and at great expense. Travelling was a costly enterprise, especially for a large party. Tom had sent his carriage and Emily's father had also insisted that they employ his, so Richard had engaged to keep the three oldest children out of mischief in one, whilst Emily and the two servants dealt with the babies in the other. McGrath had gone off to Cork the week before and Emily determined to revel in Peggy's services. Phillida was an afterthought, probably a mistake, though she could be trusted to hold Sally occasionally without dropping her.

  They had stopped one night at the Conway town house in London. By dint of imagining herself in Grillon's Hotel, Emily survived the shock. It was not like the house in Winchester.

  Richard took her to a play at Drury Lane. She enjoyed the novelty of an evening in her husband's sole company--they occupied the Conway box and were ogled--but she couldn't help noticing she was dressed like a provincial dowdy. Her gown was new. Mme. Hebert in Winchester had assured her it was à la mode. Mme. Hebert had lied.

  Emily hoped she was not vain or unduly concerned about appearances but now, brooding over the looming ice palace, she couldn't help wishing she had accepted Richard's offer of a week's shopping in London before the journey.

  Sally lapsed into contented sleep. Peggy and Phillida held Harry to the window. The carriage lumbered on. If I were a great lady, Emily reflected, tidying her blue travelling dress, I would be preparing witty bons mots for the amusement of my hostess and her fashionable, if mettlesome, sisters. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind.

  There was a lake. The carriage slowed for the long pull up the slope upon which the palace sat and Emily had leisure to consider which child would drown him or herself in the ornamental water. Harry espied ducks and commented at length. Peggy and Phillida exclaimed.

  When the carriage drew to a halt at last, Emily was full of dread and foreboding. A footman in livery opened the door and pulled down the steps, assisting Emily to alight. Perhaps the figure she had spotted on the stairway had been a sentinel. Since she had first. glimpsed Brecon, a large party had assembled at the front entrance. Among them she recognised only Johnny Dyott and Tom.

  Tom came down to her, hand extended. She took it and held her face up to be kissed. "Snug cottage you have here, my lord."

  He laughed and led her up the stairs to a tall woman with chestnut hair and brown eyes, who held out her hand, too.

  "I'm glad you've come in spite of everything," Lady Clanross said warmly but obscurely. "I've been wanting to welcome you and your children to Brecon for a long time now."

  Emily murmured something she hoped was appropriate and was introduced to two red-haired damsels in spotted muslin. It was fortunate Lady Margaret wore her hair short. Otherwise, Emily would have been unable to tell the two young ladies apart. They had freckles and Tom's grey eyes, and Emily remembered they were his remote cousins. Lady Clanross resembled neither her sisters nor her cousin-husband, but she was a handsome woman and, of course, handsomely gowned. Emily's blue travelling dress was crumpled, grimy, and five years out of date. Mme. Hebert had a great deal to answer for.

  In the bustle of greeting everyone, Johnny and a phalanx of footmen had handed down the older children, Richard, Peggy, Phillida, and the babies.

  Emily was relieved to see that the magnificence about them had subdued Matt and Amy. Tommy clung to Richard's leg.

  It was clear that Lady Clanross had given considerable thought to their reception. Emily, escorted by the obliging Lady Margaret, saw the babies safely to the nursery--and Amy and the boys to the reopened schoolroom in which three still younger Conway sisters and a competent-looking governess awaited them. Then she was guided to the room she and Richard were to share.

  Guided was the operative verb. She would never have found the door. The long hallway was full of doors, all exactly alike. Nor was "room" the right word. She and Richard had been given a suite with a vast dressing room and, in the bedchamber, a huge four-poster swagged in new satin. The dressing room was pink, the bedroom ivory with framed watercolors the chambermaid said had been executed by the twins' mother. A vase of damask roses reposed on the dressing table.

  The maid had unpacked Emily's trunk. She laid out a fresh muslin gown, announcing that her name was Polly and she would be at Emily's service during her sojourn at Brecon. The girl had also brought hot water for washing, and fresh towels. She curtseyed when Emily thanked her and sent her off. Although the maid seemed obliging and not at all haughty, permitting a stranger to undress her at that juncture would have been beyond Emily's powers.

  Before Emily could climb into the enormous armoire and hide with her thumb in her mouth, Richard appeared, looking cheerful.

  "Lord, Richard, why did I agree to come? I'm terrified!"

  He removed her bonnet, laid it on the dressing table, and kissed her soundly. "Nonsense, you've taken the citadel by storm. Is Tommy frightened?"

  "I think not. I told Amy to stay with him. The governess seemed kind and very interested in him."

  Richard expelled a sigh. "Good. Tea in half an hour, madam. Shall I undo your buttons?"

  Emily submitted. She told him of the maid and her own confusion, and he made small jokes that cheered her sufficiently to wash and dress. He had engaged a footman to leave a trail of crumbs, he said solemnly, so they could find their way to Lady Clanross's withdrawing room.

  * * * *

  Elizabeth awaited her guests behind a battery of tea things. Maggie came in full of laughter. She had revisited the schoolroom and found their sisters and the three new inmates absorbed in a marathon of spillikins at which young Tommy seemed especially adept.

  "It's kind of you to see to the children, Maggie." Elizabeth was amused. Something was bringing out Maggie's domesticity with a vengeance.

  "Matt and Amy want to go riding in the morning and my sisters have promised to join them. I may have Jem saddle Joybell, too. A sedate plod round among the ponies would suit me."

  Elizabeth touched the brewing teapot. Still very hot. Fisher and a footman were waiting her call for hot water. "Be sure to ask Jem Fosse to accompany you, at least until he can form a judgement of the other children's skills."

  "May I ask Johnny?"

  "Certainly. And Jean."

  Maggie nodded, resigned to be tactful. Elizabeth did not really object to Johnny and Maggie taking a morning ride round the park together, but neither she nor Maggie wished to offend Jean's sensibilities, which were stil
l tender.

  As if cued, Jean drifted in looking vague.

  Elizabeth greeted her in tones she knew were over-hearty. "You may take charge of the bread and butter."

  Jean sighed. "Very well."

  Elizabeth was about to favour her sister with a crisp lecture on the perils of self-induced melancholy when Tom entered, followed almost at once by the Falks and Johnny. She saw everyone seated and served, and set herself to make Mrs. Falk feel at home.

  Emily Falk was prettier than Elizabeth had expected her to be, small-boned and only a little plump. She had speedwell blue eyes and a humourous look about the mouth that promised tolerance.

  "Maggie says your three eldest and my sisters have taken to each other."

  "That's a comfort." Mrs. Falk smiled at Maggie, who blushed and offered her a plate of cakes.

  "What think you of Brecon?" Elizabeth ventured. This question was her private test of a guest's mettle.

  Emily Falk took a sip of tea. "I was thinking I'm happy not to have charge of the servants. You must keep a regiment."

  Elizabeth smiled. Not a witty answer but commend ably frank. "Thirty-seven, indoors."

  Mrs. Falk shuddered.

  "However, I'm fortunate in my housekeeper. Mrs. Smollett was trained by my stepmother, and maman was both exacting and experienced. I daresay Mrs. Smollett will desert me someday to open an hotel in London."

  "Like Grillon's?"

  Elizabeth laughed. "In that rococo style, yes. I'll show you the Dower House one of these days. I daresay you saw it as you passed the gate house."

  Mrs. FaIk admitted to having dozed as they passed the lodge.

  "Then I shall certainly show you the Dower House. My father left me the use of it, and it's much more to my taste than Palladian palaces. Before Tom and I went to Italy, I thought we might live there and close Brecon. However, that was not practicable. My sisters and their governess are happy there."

  "I'd like to see their establishment. Tom tells me Miss Bluestone is a notable educationist."