Friendship and Folly: The Merriweather Chronicles Book I

by Meredith Allady

  Clive and Sir Warrington had, by some happy arrangement, drawn far enough ahead to escape such awkwardness, and Ann thought, from their bearing, and the gestures made by Clive, that he must be describing to the other the superior execution to be expected of his father’s mount. She became sure of it, when he began to point to an object some distance ahead, and then, at some hesitation or confusion of his companion, to point once again, more explicitly. A glance back over his shoulder, directed smilingly at Julia, accompanied by an almost furtive one by Sir Warrington, directed at his brother, at once gave solidity to the question forming in Ann’s mind; but scarcely had the idea of a match presented itself, than it was scattered in astonishment, at hearing Mr. Lenox call out to Clive, with an inflection so different from the one he normally employed, that for a startled instant she did not realize who it was, that had spoken in that tone of ignore-me-at-your-peril command.

  Clive, being neither deaf nor foolhardy, pulled up at once, the race a stillborn thing, and sat with reddening ears, listening to Mr. Lenox’s sharply delivered opinion of young men who abandoned the ladies entrusted to their care, to indulge in foolish contests, unmindful of the notoriety such displays must draw upon the entire party, or of the pain and anxiety the ladies might be occasioned, should an accident befall one of the contestants.

  Ann and Julia, who were used, at least in the country, to seeing Clive dash off in a race with anyone who gave him the least encouragement, and took no more notice of it other than to discuss with each other the probable victor, listened to this speech with feelings of surprised embarrassment, perhaps nearly as great as Clive’s. In other circumstances, nothing is more certain, than that he would have raised mockingly scandalized brows, and thrown himself on their mercy with a show of elaborate penitence, even as they amusedly hastened to explain the true state of affairs to his misguided critic.

  Mr. Lenox made such a reaction impossible. There was something in his demeanor, an energy and seriousness, that precluded his concern being dismissed as merely the pompous interference of one whose own notions of propriety have been offended. Under its influence, Clive begged Ann and Julia’s pardon, too shaken even to smile at the muddled sentences of acceptance and exculpation he received in reply. And poor Sir Warrington! I have as yet said nothing of his reaction, but my reader cannot have doubted the effect of his brother’s words on him. The imputation of thoughtlessness completely crushed him, and the possibility of having, in one swoop, committed an offense against Miss Parry, and merited the contempt of his hero, was enough to render him one large, scarlet-faced, unintelligible apology for the rest of the ride.

  There was no escaping his contrition, and Ann gazed longingly to where Clive rode once more up ahead, in a sober fashion quite unlike himself, perhaps symptomatic of his chastened frame of mind. Mr. Lenox, having first assured himself of “the ladies entrusted to his care” being safely bored to death by his brother’s anguished incoherence, after a few minutes advanced by degrees to ride beside Clive. Ann hoped that Clive would have recovered sufficiently to resent the high-handedness of the rebuke, and meet any overtures with chill magnanimity; and she noted with approval, that as Mr. Lenox approached him, his back looked gratifyingly stiff. But stiffness became merely good posture with depressing rapidity, and soon he was seen to nod, and smile, and when the other offered his hand, Clive took it at once, as if he said, “I did you an injustice before, for which I beg your pardon. Now we understand each other,” so that Ann perceived, with a sigh, that they were like to end the morning in perfect accord. She supposed that Clive really could not be blamed, for failing to hold it against a man, that he had shown more concern for the sensibilities of Clive’s sister, than Clive himself had done.

  In this, however, she erred; or rather, in attributing the swift return of accord to Clive’s sense of justice, and whatever charm of manner Mr. Lenox might be thought to possess, she erred. Instead, an explanation had been given for the warmth of the rebuke, which so entirely satisfied Master Parry, that thereafter he only wondered at its mildness. Mr. Lenox had not charged him with secrecy--else it had never been known--but he had made the explanation as a private amends, for a too public reproof, confiding in Clive’s discretion, that he would not lightly expose what the other had gone to some trouble to conceal. Nor was his confidence misplaced. But no sooner were they free of Lenoxes, than Ann began to grumble. The officious absurdity of the charge, was as nothing compared to the way in which Mr. Lenox had left them at the mercy of his brother’s interminable remorse. Julia’s suggestion, that unnecessary as it may have been, and inconvenient as to consequences, Mr. Lenox had nevertheless been prompted by consideration for themselves, and was thus deserving of their gratitude, Ann utterly discounted. Her back ached, and her head rang; she was weary and cross, and of all things she most abominated that false chivalry, which pretends concern for those of the weaker sex, whilst in fact doing nothing but place increased burdens upon them.

  Here Clive, probably moved almost as much by a desire to prove them both wrong, as to justify Mr. Lenox, gave them succinctly to understand, that that gentleman’s urgency had been prompted neither by misplaced consideration, nor false chivalry, but rather by a wish that his brother should not begin the day, by being thrown from his horse, and injured or killed.

  The incredulous silence produced by this assurance endured for a full five seconds, and the rest of the journey back to Merrion House was hardly sufficient to appease the girls’ curiosity. At first Clive was reluctant to say anything further; but he was soon made to see, that if Mr. Lenox had wished the matter to be secret, he should have enjoined silence; and that if Clive had wished to preserve a confidence, he should never have spoken at all: after which presentation, he gave no further difficulty.

  It seemed (he began) that Sir Warrington’s poor horsemanship was equaled only by his fearlessness, and the despondency that overcame him at any intimation of his true incompetence. These had all combined to make it a matter requiring no little skill, to preserve unbroken both his neck and his good-spirits. He had labored for improvement for some five years now, and despite having previously cracked his leg, his wrist, and his head, persisted in believing that a little more practice, a trifle firmer grip, would see him nearly qualified for Astley’s. The answer, at least in London, had been Curran; and no doubt an Irish slug of equal handsomeness was eating its head off in the baronet’s stables at home.

  In light of this, Clive invited them to imagine Mr. Lenox’s alarm, upon the advent of Mr. Parry’s mare. Julia bit her lip, and looked distressed; but Ann could not help thinking, that Mr. Lenox had made things a deal harder for himself than he need, by his refusal to explain himself at the beginning. In fact, (she could not help pointing out), the brothers were an excellent illustration of Lord Chesterfield’s pronouncement upon the difficulty of establishing a golden mean in the matter of reserve: the one “imprudently communicative” of all he knew, and the other “ridiculously mysterious” concerning trifles. As for Mr. Lenox, continued she, “a few moment’s private talk with Mr. Parry aside, or a few written lines sent to Merrion House, would have at once seen all danger immediately removed. ”

  This notion was at once assailed by her companions, who argued against it, first, that Mr. Lenox would have seen no need for warnings, whilst Curran was in command; and second, that afterward, from the very unexpectedness of the exchange, he would have found it impossible to utter them without at the same time openly declaring the baronet’s ineptitude, the very thing he was desirous of avoiding. “If you must apportion blame to one of them,” added Julia, “I think it will have to be Sir Warrington, for having failed to tell his brother beforehand what was intended--I do not think in this instance he can be accused of ‘communicating all he knew’! Do you not recall how strangely Mr. Lenox acted at first? We thought him offended, when it was merely that he had just received unpleasant news, and has not yet had time to master his feelings.”

  Remembering her own observations
on that head, Ann could not deny the first part of this speech; but she also considered that Mr. Lenox had displayed perfect mastery of his feelings, allowing them to appear with just sufficient force to wreck every one’s comfort, and accomplish his own ends; however, she did not say so. Nor, when Julia began to urge this latest event, as proof of the complete amity existing between the brothers, ”whatever society might hint to the contrary,” did Ann say anything of what she was thinking: which was, that because a man did not wish to see a close relative brained before his eyes, it did not then follow that he must rejoice in, or promote, the success of his matrimonial endeavors.

  Ann said nothing, as Galileo said nothing: because she saw that to speak would be but to invite disbelief, exasperation, and perhaps even uncomfortable consequences. His carefulness for his brother had fixed in Julia’s mind, more firmly than ever, the worthiness of Mr. Lenox. Not only had he granted Kitty a seat in his carriage for some three or four streets, but now he had effectually prevented his brother from gaining the ephemeral attention of the beau monde (“…and this is the very spot where poor Sir What’s-his-name fell from his horse and broke his neck last month”); he could not be otherwise than admirable.

  The discovery that his ostentatious concern for the welfare of herself and Ann had been no more than an excuse, or at best, only a secondary concern, appeared to have no effect upon Julia; his acumen, his compassion and his temper had all been vindicated at once, and she could not very well have appeared more pleased, had her own reputation been in question. She returned again and again to the subject, first to the difficulty of the situation, then to the forbearance he had shown, when the temptation to utter unpalatable truths must have been strong indeed; and she could not sufficiently admire the patience and delicacy with which he had handled it all, with no other aim than to spare his brother pain and mortification. Every paean had Ann imagining it the last; but the next moment always found Julia seizing on some new way in which Mr. Lenox had displayed his character to advantage.

  Ann could not help reflecting, that it was entirely too bad of him, to be presenting himself as estimable, when he had manifestly no desire to be esteemed. But the next moment she absolved him of this, from the recollection that all his care had been indirect in nature; that he had done his best to be misunderstood, and paint himself in opprobrious colors; and that he owed his present good standing entirely to Clive’s unsolicited defense. Indeed, he could scarcely have shown more ingenuity in framing his words and deeds for misconstruction, had he been a dramatist intent on seeing the complexity of his plot preserved until the last scene.

  It was at this point that Ann was visited by a revulsion of feeling against Mr. Lenox; or at least, against his behavior. It had been gradually increasing as she listened, though with but half an ear, to her friends’ flow of praise; now, abruptly, it culminated in an almost violent resolution, that his nonsensical, apprehension-driven, bush-or-bear resentment must come to an end. If he did not wish to be in the company of the Parrys, he need not; but it was no longer permissible that he should find fault with Julia for acting with simple kindness toward a young man, who had done nothing worse than give her his whole heart and devotion.

  Having made her resolve, it did not take Ann long to decide that she herself must be the one to confront Mr. Lenox with the unacceptable nature of his conduct. She could scarcely expect a meeting of this sort to be undertaken by one of the Parrys, who, apart from feeling themselves under obligation to him, were ill-suited to prosecute his crimes against them, from never having acknowledged themselves injured in the first place. And Ann was the readier to brave the gentleman’s displeasure (a thing which, when not emboldened by feelings of vexation, she rather dreaded doing), from the hope that by working to improve matters between him and the Parrys, she might in some measure atone for all the trouble she had brought upon her friends, through one means or another.

  **

  Chapter XXVI

  Ann saw her path mapped out before her very clearly. She would, for once, follow the ways and precepts of her mother: she would be the essence of tact. Subtlety would be bound for a sign on her hand, and a frontlet between her eyes. She would refuse to become embroiled in digressions and excuses. Nothing, nothing at all, should betray her into indignation and hasty speech. She would make her point wittily, discreetly, but allowing him no doubt as to the petty light in which his motives and actions stood revealed; and afterward immediately turning the conversation, as if unaware of having said anything capable of giving offense, she would leave him with no recourse but to mask his anger with civility, until such time as he would have leisure to examine her words in private. Then, of course, he would see their truth, and either be struck to the heart and mend his ways out of genuine contrition, or else his pride, writhing at the imputation of meanness, would dictate a swift adjustment in his behavior. The third alternative, that he might be so gravely offended, as to depart in wrath swearing never again to darken the door of Merrion House, of course presented itself punctually, but finding that Ann would not admit it even for a moment, it soon took itself off. Of the two eligible options, she naturally gave preference to the former, but either was acceptable. She had it all arranged in her head. The very next day was to mark the downfall of his unwarranted reserve, the exposure of his irrational folly.

  And so it might have, had they not awakened to a sky the color of ashes, and a rain determined to soak every inch of London until its edges blurred, and every thing became unpleasantly formless, like a grimy sponge left forgotten in the bathwater. All that day this untimely deluge continued, and the next afternoon bringing a slight lightening of the gloom, the Parrys sallied forth between the puddles in search of sunshine, and a bookseller’s. Ann, whose hip had displayed a distinct antipathy for damp weather since her fall, chose to remain at Merrion House, and thus was there to be found in the drawing-room, wound in shawls before a fire, when Mr. Lenox came to call.

  Her first impulse, when apprised of his coming, was to use the absence of the Parrys as a justification, and excuse herself, for she was comfortably situated, and really did not wish for company--or at least, not such a troublesome form of it; her second was, that this was an opportunity to speak with him privately, a mollia tempora which she was not likely to meet with again, and it would be foolish of her indeed to dismiss it. Thus torn between the urgings of comfort and duty, she gave herself no time to listen to either, but hastily instructed the servant to show him in, before comfort could manage to set up such a howl against duty, as to quite drown its voice. She was then thrown into a frenzy of preparation, and tried at one and the same time to collect the papers and magazines strewn about her, and unwind her person from the accumulated shawls, with the result, that she accomplished neither very well, and hearing steps at the door, sprang up from the sofa, to discover that she was still a good deal more entangled than she had thought. Being a trifle stiff from sitting so long, she overbalanced at once, and with a small shriek, was about to stretch her length on the carpet, when Mr. Lenox entered the room.

  “I seem destined to catch the ladies of this household,” said he, righting her; and with the assistance of the servant, soon had her unswaddled without further outrage to her dignity.

  The shawls having been borne away in disgrace, she resumed her seat with face aflame, and her wits tossed in all directions; but remembering her determination to let nothing deflect her from her purpose, she put away all thought of postponement, and whilst affecting to listen to his reason for calling--which was, to deliver, on behalf of his mother, a request for the Parrys and herself to dine with them the next evening--she was instead using the time, to straighten up her thoughts into some sort of order, that she might select just the right note, on which to begin her admonitions. She did not strike it at once, but took the time to thank him for the invitation, and explain that she was sure the Parrys would be delighted to accept, obligations always permitting etc. etc., in a manner she flattered herself was quite calm and u
nhurried, and gave no indication of the fright she had just sustained, at the discovery that she had no idea just when the Parrys had left, or when they were expected back. She thought they had not been gone long--and never, within memory, had Mr. Parry been extracted from a bookseller’s in under an hour--but still, she could not be sure; and so it was with a slightly feverish third eye on the clock, that she began to nudge the conversation around to the dialogue she had prepared. She was helped by the fact that Mr. Lenox, having dispensed his message, seemed in no urgency to depart, but having learned of the Parrys’ expedition, sat talking, mainly of books, thus enabling her to bring the conversation about to the desired point quite naturally.

  She had settled in favor of example rather than more direct reproof, and had therefore selected a number of episodes, from fiction and from life, illustrative of the foolishness of unreasonable behavior, with particular attention to that form of it, which sees nothing wrong in visiting resentment upon those, innocent and even ignorant of the offense, to which they owe their drubbing. To this end, she had decided to reference (as well as Hamlet, Manfred and suchlike) the history, which had come to her knowledge, of a young man of good family, who, upon being refused by the lady of his choice, became so peevish with all the world, that his servants grew reluctant to perform their ordinary duties, from the habit he had acquired, of suddenly taking it into his head to rail at them for merely doing those things he had beforehand instructed them to do, and hurling things at them in a manner injurious to mental tranquility. This shocking behavior happily came to an end, upon his valet’s breaking his leg through one of these fits of temper; and having been forced to tie his own cravats, and squeeze into his coats and boots with only the awkward assistance of a hastily acquired and understandably skittish replacement for several weeks, he at last came to the conclusion, that pretty girls were as common as field mice, but the goodwill of a competent valet was not to be trifled with. Upon which realization he went and earnestly begged the man’s pardon, vowing to double his wages, and never behave in such a silly, violent manner again, if only the man would return to his service; and as far as I know, he has remained faithful to his vow, and lives peacefully, though singly, as a respected magistrate in _____shire.