Friendship and Folly: The Merriweather Chronicles Book I

by Meredith Allady

  Sir Warrington, I am confident it will not astonish my readers to learn, was by no means satisfied with this turn out of events. He gazed from one to the other, with such open disappointment and perplexity, that Ann at once saw the necessity of attaching herself to him for the remainder of the call, in order to keep him from declaring every thought in his head. She fell to marveling again, that he had ever managed to refrain from making his brother know his real intention in coming to London, with such a ‘babbling countenance’, with so little ability to dissemble at his command; and at length came to the conclusion, that perhaps Mr. Lenox was himself responsible for his continued deception, from his clear dislike of discussing the matter. Being against the whole idea of the journey, he had probably referred to it as little as possible, and gone about securing his brother’s safety from ambitious maidens with the same unspoken efficiency with which he frustrated Sir Warrington’s design of imperiling his neck on a high-spirited mount.

  Thus, in this quiet manner, did the momentous meeting pass away, with sentiments and prospects still clouded by uncertainty. Ann confessed within herself to being privately as dissatisfied as Sir Warrington had openly shown himself to be, but her case was the better, in that, knowing the cause, she was able to entertain some expectation of its removal. She was even sanguine enough to anticipate, that every day would see an improvement in Kitty’s health, and that every mark of improvement in her body, would be accompanied by a similar strengthening of her mind, which would soon enable her to withstand the expansion of her sister’s affections, and subsequent “loss,” with no more than a reasonable display of misery. Great, then, was Ann’s consternation, when the next morning saw no amelioration of the invalid’s condition; nor yet the next. She suffered no more attacks, it is true; but the one had so entirely deprived her of vitality, as to introduce the suspicion that this forbearance was merely the result of her frame being, for the moment, incapable of summoning the necessary force to generate another. She did not weep, she did not utter reproaches or pleas, or in anyway seek to persuade her sister to one course of action over another: she only lay in the bed, as still as a corpse prepared for burial, and said “please” and “thank you” and “so very sorry to give everyone such trouble,” looking as if her spirit remained in any way attached to its earthly temple only by clinging desperately to the ribbons on her night-dress, and that the slightest disturbance would waft it straightway into Heaven.

  Julia made very sure that there should be no such disturbance. She had recovered her peace, and though she uttered no word of renunciation, Ann became more and more convinced, that her friend had once again given up Mr. Lenox in her heart, and had no longer any expectation of seeing a happy resolution to her attachment. Had he lived in the next county, or even on the same island, there might have been some hope of their eventual union; a mere five or six years might have proved sufficient space for Kitty to adapt to the horrid novelty of the situation. But Burndall laid claim to Mr. Lenox, just as Merriweather did to Julia, and Ann perfectly understood her friend’s reluctance to meet Mr. Lenox with any sort of openness, knowing that the euphoria of any divulgence of feeling must shortly be followed by such a declaration as, “I am certainly glad this has all been made plain between us. Now, if you will be content to return home for half a dozen years or so, I promise to write you directly I am persuaded anything can come of it without endangering my sister’s life.”

  Julia might be calm in the face of such a disappointment, such a dismissal of her dreams, but Ann could not be. Her mind felt like a lion roaming about, seeking whom it could devour: she wanted to pounce on the situation, and shake it to pieces, in the process rending all the constricting bands that pulled Julia along her present self-denying course. But one could not be cross with Kitty. In the past, Ann had often made the attempt, only to abandon it in the end, as an impossible task; one could be cross, even enraged, with the results of Kitty’s weaknesses, but not with herself. Julia clearly could not, sitting hour after hour at her sister’s side, reading to her, seeking to make her comfortable, to persuade her to eat something; making all the while special efforts to appear as complaisant if she had no other thought in her head, but to see Kitty over this slight indisposition, that they might all return the sooner to Merriweather.

  Once only, did Ann approach the subject with Julia, wishing to share with her the frustrations of her own heart; not from a belief that such an exchange would accomplish any particular good, but because prowling emotions must always seek out a vent of some sort, be it only a brief testing of the bars set up against them. Seeing Julia look more than ordinarily pensive, she boldly asked her what it was she thought on.

  For a moment Julia appeared rather taken aback by this sudden query, but after a pause she replied, with a small smile, that she had been thinking on a blackberry patch.

  This reply, not unnaturally, at once destroyed any notion Ann harbored, of how the conversation was to proceed; though further inquiry revealed, that the subject was not as unrelated to her purpose as she at first assumed. The berry patch in question was not just any one, but a patch of particular location and history, once found in the garden at the back of the Parrys’ house at Clapham. Julia explained that she had been remembering a time when she was quite small, and had wandered away from all adult authority, to eat her way slowly and unheedingly into the very midst of this rather large accumulation of thorns and fruit. At length realizing her position, she had attempted to extract herself from it, only to be caught and held more tightly with every movement she made. In a very short time she grew so frenzied with rage and frustration at being thus circumscribed, that she began to lash out blindly at the branches, tearing and pushing her way to the edge of the thicket, until at last she tumbled free. Victory, indeed, had been won, but at the cost of arms, face, and ankles, all scratched and bloodied; her dress plucked and torn in a hundred places; and her hat, lost in the melee, now triumphantly held captive in the thick of the enemy.

  “But you were free,” said Ann.

  “Yes, I was; but several of the wounds became inflamed, and I was miserable for a week. Grandmama Merrion, who was staying with us at the time, because Clive had just been born and Mama was rather ill, held me on her lap while all the thorn-splinters were removed, and after she had dried my tears she told me that she wished me to remember this, when I grew older, and was tempted to fight my way free from some difficulty. She pointed out that my father had heard my cries for help, and if I had only been patient for a few minutes longer, he should have found me, and he and the gardener could have used the hedge scissors, and freed me. I was no more than four at the time, but I have never forgotten the sound of her voice as she talked to me that day, and how she would not let the nursemaid hold me, and said she did not care if her dress was ruined: she proposed, said she, to comfort her granddaughter, and her garment would simply have to bear up under the knowledge that it was not of primary consideration with her. It is, indeed, almost the only memory I have of my Grandmama Merrion, for she died not four months afterward.”

  This short history had somehow the effect of banishing from Ann any desire to acquaint Julia with her own impatience. She resolved that if her friend could subdue herself to stand quietly in the midst of thorns, awaiting deliverance, in whatever form it took (and Ann knew Julia well enough to be sure that it was no simple, physical rescue that she anticipated), then she, Ann, could surely shut up her own lions: or at least, keep them from growling.

  She had beforehand been rather loathe to sit with Kitty, for fear her impetuous tongue would say something it ought not; but after this conversation she felt competent to withstand any such temptation, and accordingly persuaded Julia and Lady Frances, in many instances, to give over this more sedentary occupation to herself, that they might be freed to perform the many other more taxing duties, which all seemed to be coming upon them as their departure neared. It struck Ann as a trifle odd, that it should suddenly have occurred to so many of their Warwickshire n
eighbors, that the Parrys, in the last week of their stay in town, must have so much time on their hands, as to stand in need of further requests for obscure items that were only to be found in London, in order to fill up all the hours; but so, apparently, it did.

  Kitty said nothing about the change in companions, but accepted Ann’s care with as much weak gratitude as she had her family’s. She did not seem to mind what was done, or not done, for her; and though she never complained, Ann often thought, that she would have been just as satisfied, had they left her entirely alone with her own troubled thoughts--which thoughts, Ann was tolerably assured, were what she privately entertained, whenever she appeared to be respectfully listening to whatever volume was being read to her. Ann did not object to being thus discreetly ignored, but she could not help wondering, if the fault perhaps lay with the volumes chosen. Pilgrim’s Progress and Camilla were all very well, but it was Ann’s belief that a volume of sermons directed particularly toward the value of unselfishness in sibling relationships, might prove to be more arresting to the attention of the invalid. But though she found an unaccountable number that talked of the wickedness and futility of discontent at the ways of Providence, for some reason, she discovered that the clerics of the past and present had preached precious few messages against young ladies who prevented their sisters from getting married by becoming ill and politely declining away to nothing beneath a counterpane.

  If Kitty had difficulty in holding her thoughts to what was being read, Ann had as much; and one morning, having gone through an entire chapter without being able to recall one incident in it five minutes later, she decided, that if it was a matter of indifference to Kitty what words were diffused into air, then she, Ann, might as well choose something that held her own interest, and forthwith she rose and went to the desk where Lady Frances had been earlier writing letters, and had left a stack of those to which she had been replying, under a weight. Ann wanted particularly one sent the past week, by Major Merrion, which had been read aloud to everyone in the drawing room one evening, before going to reside in Lady Frances’s workbasket. It had been a letter of singular interest to Ann, for it related some rumors that changes might soon be made to the location of the regiments, and she had longed to read it again for herself. Knowing there could be no objection, she now fetched it, and resuming her seat, began to reread the letter (which covered many sheets) silently. She had almost done, when she was interrupted by a quiet query from the bed, where Kitty had apparently but just noticed the cessation of the novel. She explained the substitution, and upon Kitty’s request, willingly undertook to start again from the beginning, and read the letter aloud. When she had done, she looked up to find Kitty’s head turned on the pillow, and her eyes fixed on Ann, in a peculiar fashion. Quite startled, she asked sharply if anything was the matter; if Kitty felt another attack coming on? Kitty seemed not even to hear her, but actually raised herself up a little in the bed, and still with her eyes fixed in that odd way, said, in a low but urgent tone, “Ann, Ann, we must tell Stacey.”

  Ann was very much taken aback, but after a moment asked what it was, that Kitty thought Lord Merivale must be told.

  “Why,” she replied, “he must be told to come here. He must come. I do not know why I did not think of it before. It must be because I have not been feeling well.” And she passed a white hand unsteadily over her brow. “You will help me, Ann, will you not? I do not think I am able to write it myself. He will understand.”

  Ann wished to know, with ill-concealed discomfort, what it was she was expected to write.

  “Just that he is needed here, and he will please to come as soon as he can. I will sign it--I think I can do that, if you will bring it here and hold the board when you are done.”

  This seemed a very abrupt, graceless sort of missive to send off, even to someone as accommodating as Lord Merivale; however, it was no affair of Ann’s how Kitty wished to summon her cousin, and so she scrupulously followed her directions, and then held the note to be signed, afterward sealing it up and delivering it to a footman who, Kitty informed her, was used to running all her father’s postal errands.

  All this furious activity (furious, at any rate, compared to what had taken place in Kitty’s room over the past few days) being finished, and Kitty having again lapsed into the polite semi-slumber in which she endured the passage of hours, Ann carefully replaced the letter back under the weight and took up the neglected novel, wishing that she had never ventured the change, and reflecting a trifle crossly that it was just like Kitty, that of all the amusing incidents and matters of national and personal interest to be found in her uncle’s letter, she had ignored them all, and instead plucked from it the one or two passing references he had made to his nephew.

  **

  Chapter LIII

  Rather to Ann’s surprise, Mr. Parry and Lady Frances raised no objection against Kitty’s hasty decision to send for her cousin. Ann had thought that they must disapprove of his being summoned in this almost peremptory fashion, and so uselessly: for how could his coming serve any purpose other than to increase the difficulties of the situation? Kitty might confide that his presence would answer for every ill, but Ann could not see that Julia, having forfeited the lover of her own choice, was at all likely to find immediate consolation in the one chosen for her by her sister.

  But Lady Frances, far from disapprobation, displayed only satisfaction at the intelligence. Moreover, she seemed to feel that there would be no obstacles to his coming, or that at any rate he would contrive to overcome them, and do as his cousin requested. Ann, however, felt that it was unreasonable to suppose that an officer would be allowed to throw his brushes in a bag and go haring across the country every time his family expressed a desire to see him. Or perhaps I should say, Ann hoped that this was so.

  Nevertheless, Lady Frances’s and Kitty’s certainty had its effect on her, and she began to make plans accordingly. At all costs, she decided, she must speak with Lord Merivale before he saw Kitty; and if she failed in this effort, she must then contrive to speak with him privately afterwards, before he had any opportunity to execute his cousin’s commission--which was, Ann had not the slightest doubt, that he go at once and offer his obliging and agreeable heart to Julia. Ann rehearsed so many variations of her conversation with him in her head, as to be quite satisfied, that whatever “diamond-buckle promises” he might make to Kitty (a phrase of the late Lady Meravon’s, signifying any vow impulsively made, designed to please, and wholly impractical), he must, under the influence of Ann’s arguments, swiftly be forced to perceive the wisdom of repealing them. Ann was not so presumptuous, particularly in light of recent experience, as to rate either her prognosticative, or her persuasive powers above the average; but she really saw no reason why, having been talked into making his proposals by one young lady, Lord Merivale should then make any difficulty over being talked out of them by another.

  As it happened, all her excellent plans very nearly came to naught, from the circumstance of his arriving rather sooner than she had expected, or indeed felt was reasonable. Far be it from her to deplore the speed and efficiency of His Majesty’s Mails, but she could not help thinking that it was somewhat unseemly for a viscount, even a slight one, to dispatch himself as easily as if he had been a single foolscap sheet in a well-franked cover. In consequence of this immoderate haste, Ann was not sufficiently on her guard, and was so far from suspecting any immediate call on her vigilance, that she had allowed herself to be inveigled away from her post at Kitty’s side in order to assist Lady Frances in some preparation or other; and as the room where they were was situated at the back of the house, it was but the coming of the housekeeper, to ask if an apartment should be made ready for his lordship, that apprised Ann of his presence. Her heart gave an unpleasant bound, and she seized the opportunity of Lady Frances’s speaking to Mrs. Adams, to slip away on an unintelligible murmur of excuse, and fled down halls and up stairs, pausing only to catch her breath for a moment before enter
ing Kitty’s room. She found that Lord Merivale was indeed come, and had pulled a chair up beside the bed, in which Kitty was sitting up, with more color in her face than anyone had seen in many a day.

  She looked up as Ann entered, and, scarcely giving her space to reply to Lord Merivale’s greeting, urged her at once to come and see the beautiful silk shawl he had brought to her; and when Ann had duly approached to finger and gaze, and conceal her remaining shortness of breath under the guise of speechless admiration, Kitty delighted in showing off the intricacy of the cone pattern, and praising the taste and kindness of its giver. (Ann could not help the rather acerbic thought, Major Merrion’s previous similar gift would now, as a matter of course, be relegated to ‘second best’, though to Ann’s mind it was the more elegant.) Lord Merivale, having offered his chair to Ann and had it firmly refused, then did nothing but stand and smile, and look pleased with the success of his present, until Kitty, turning again to him, inquired how it was that he came to know of her illness--for it was due to such knowledge, it seemed, that he had purchased the kashmir. He replied, that Lady Frances had written a letter to himself and “Tor” in which mention had been made of it, and he hinted an affectionate reproach, that she had said nothing of it in her own note. This hint effectually served to turn Kitty’s mind from the wonders of Indian embroidery, to the intended purpose of her cousin’s evocation, and her face grew serious on the instant, as, laying her treasure carefully aside, she said, in a low voice, “Then--you know of the trouble that has come. You know about--Mr. Lenox.”