Sweet's Folly

by Fiona Hill

  “That other note you hold,” Claude continued, “is it for me as well?”

  “It is for your father, sir,” Boothby corrected. “From the Misses Deverell, I think. No doubt a word of thanks for his hospitality.”

  “Very well, then,” said Claude. “Well, be off! I am sure my father does not care to await your pleasure in receiving his correspondence.”

  Mr. Boothby bowed, too enured to Mr. Kemp’s ill-treatment even to feel offended. As he departed, Mr. Kemp took a book from the writing desk and sat down with it to read. He would keep Mrs. Blackwood waiting a few hours, he thought. No doubt her anxiety would prove useful to him.

  Mr. Boothby had been correct in guessing the origin of the second note he held, but he little suspected that its senders were at that moment in the coach-house of Colworth Park, engaged in persuading a rather large dog to lie under a lap-robe on the floor of a carriage.

  “But there are so many carriages!” Mercy had cried when they entered the cavernous structure. Large, shadowy coaches surrounded them, several covered with cloths and evidently in disuse, but three quite prepared for an excursion. “Are you quite certain this is the one he will take?”

  “Not quite certain,” Prudence admitted, “but it does seem the most likely. Don’t you agree? It is not the most formal, nor yet the rudest.”

  “If you say so,” she returned fretfully.

  “I say so. Now, Fido,” Prudence went on, giving a mighty shove to the animal, “this is where you must stay. We agreed upon it!” she added, for she had had a long talk with Fido regarding his mission before they had left Bench Street.

  “He does not seem to care for it,” Mercy observed.

  “Obstinate thing! Go on, go on!”

  “Prudence!” Mercy simply hated to see anyone pushed to do anything. She never had been able to do it.

  “He will go,” Prudence muttered grimly, shoving at the beast again. “He will and he will and he will! Now, won’t you, dear Fido?”

  The poor beast stared dumbly at her, then yelped twice.

  “I know, I know—but we’ve been through all that already,” Prudence wheedled. “You will be home tonight, my dearest; I promise you.”

  “Is he worried?” Mercy said.

  “He dislikes being from home again, and especially here. That nasty butler left him in this very coach-house for hours and hours, until I saved him.”

  “You mustn’t mind, Fido,” Mercy coaxed reassuringly. “It really is for a very good cause, and—and I’ll have Mr. Morley prepare a special bone for you, with a ribbon on it, if you’ll cooperate.”

  Fido jumped into the carriage and lay down.

  “Now the lap-robe,” Prudence said, arranging it over the dog. “Don’t whimper, poor thing.”

  “No, don’t,” said Mercy, and kissed his nose before it disappeared under the robe.

  “Just remember to stay where you are until the carriage has gone some ways—a mile or two, at least. It won’t do to have Sir Proctor find you until he’s too far from home to leave you behind. Do you understand?”

  Fido’s tail thumped up and down several times, which looked quite comical as he was now completely covered with the lap-robe.

  “There’s a dear doggie,” Prudence said. She was about to continue, but Mercy thought she heard something, and the two old ladies lifted their skirts and fled the place precipitously. They were lucky enough to escape detection, and went home together to ready the house for Squire Kemp’s expected visit. He had not yet answered their note, but they felt sure he would not fail them.

  The household of Sweet’s Folly, far from being prepared for visitors, was at that moment quite on its ears, and threatened to remain in such condition for a good long while. Emily Blackwood, locked into the sitting-room adjacent to her bed-chamber, yet held her hands over her ears in an instinctive (and, of course, fruitless) effort to keep from hearing her father’s words reverberate in her mind. Poor Mrs. Blackwood, the weary look in her eyes more noticeable now than ever, hovered fretfully near the door of her husband’s study, hoping to catch some hint of his humour (or at least some sign of life) from within. Dr. Blackwood had been closeted alone (and apparently idle) in that apartment for some thirty minutes now, ever since he had dismissed Emily so explosively. Mrs. Blackwood would have visited her daughter, rather than hanging about uselessly at this closed door, but she had been forbidden to do so. The hour for dinner was approaching, and she did not know what to tell the cook. She had not been present at the interview that had begun all this, nor did she know what matter it had been concerned with; she only knew that there had been a storm, and that now both husband and daughter were barred to her.

  Dr. Blackwood had no particular reason for concealing from his wife the cause of the uproar. In due time he would tell her; only now his fury was such that he did not care to do so. He had instructed her to stay away from Emily only because he desired to punish that young lady, and he did not wish her to be comforted by her mother’s consolations. The discussion he had had with Emily had gone ill almost from the very start: there was no detail of her covert actions—from entering the competition to doing so under an alias—that did not enrage him thoroughly. It had been difficult enough while she confessed what she had already done; when she revealed what her hopes were at present, a genuine tempest had arisen.

  “Am I to understand, miss, that now, having committed outrage upon outrage, you petition me for permission actually to go to London and avail yourself of this—prize, or scholarship, or whatever you may call it?”

  Emily had recovered some of her courage; she was too busy to be frightened at the moment. “Yes, sir,” she said evenly.

  “You have the impudence, the audacity, the—thundering heavens, the stupidity to make such a request?” he bellowed. He rose from the chair behind his writing-table, where he had hitherto been seated, and stood towering over his daughter. She met his eye squarely, which was a brave, but perhaps not a prudent, thing to do, since it only infuriated her father the more. “Allow me to remind you of several trifles, my good miss,” he continued, still shouting. “Your education—your music lessons, and dancing lessons, and elocution and drawing and French lessons—these were not paid for so that you might lavish your talents on a roomful of idle, smocked daubers. Your masters and mistresses and governesses were not engaged to keep you safe and sound until such time as you should choose to abandon good society for the ranks of scapegrace artificers! Your wardrobe, the dressing of your hair, the polishing of your manner, and a thousand other details of your up-bringing were not intended to convey you gracefully into the very depths of Bohemia! Perhaps you thought they were, Mademoiselle Artiste (and the word ‘artiste’ oozed from his lips as if it were covered with slime), but they were not! Not, I tell you! NOT!”

  Miss Blackwood said nothing for some moments, hoping her father would turn the time to good account by composing himself somewhat.

  “With all due respect, sir,” she began—though here her father interrupted her to say “Bah”—“if you did not desire me to become an artist, for what reason did you provide me with drawing instruction?”

  “You talk like a child,” he said disgustedly, apparently not in the least calmer. “Every young lady of breeding learns to draw. It is one of the accomplishments expected in a wife, as you perfectly well know.”

  “And pray, of what use is the cultivation of such a talent in a female if she is destined only to keep house and have babies?”

  “It is—it is—I don’t know what use it is, but damn, every lady at Almack’s can draw, and play and sing as well. It makes no difference if she never once picks up a pencil or sits to a virginal or opens her mouth after she is married. They are accomplishments; they are expected and an end unto themselves.”

  “Then is it not cruel to encourage these ladies to dabble in art, yet not to allow them to study it seriously?”

  “Miss Blackwood, I feel under no compulsion to explain to you the conventions of society.
They are what they are and we bend to them. A young woman of the ton who steps a quadrille most neatly does not become an opera-dancer; no more does she who can pen a ditty run off with Lord Byron. Thus it is and thus it has ever been, for all I know, and I’ll be hanged before I see you turned into a gypsy!”

  “An artist is not a gypsy, sir,” said Emily, with some dignity. “Miss Linwood of Leicester Square exhibits her art-work to all manner of gentry, and nobility too, and is in no wise despised by them.”

  “Miss Linwood of Leicester Square is not my daughter,” he countered, reverting to a line of argument that has doubtless been used by parents to their children since the Flood, at least. “What she does is not my concern. What you do, on the other hand, is my intimate concern, and by God I’ll see you married and with child before this year is out. That will stop your damned painting!”

  Emily drew a long breath: this was worse than anything she had expected. She had been prepared for a refusal, but not for a plan that would otherwise encroach upon her freedom. “Whom shall I marry, sir?” she asked rather grimly.

  “You may marry Claude Kemp,” he returned.

  “Claude Kemp abominates me.”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “Not at all ridiculous. He loathes me, and is dangling after Honoria as plainly as can be.”

  “Well and no wonder,” he roared all at once. “Honoria is what a woman should be—quiet, neat, pretty, and refined. While you, with your wild schemes, and won’t dress your hair, and streaked with paint head to toe, and smelling to heaven of turpentine—” Dr. Blackwood’s objections to his daughter’s habits poured out in a steady stream, leaving grammar and common sense far behind. Emily bore it as patiently as she could. It was no matter to her; at least she knew for certain that Mr. Kemp would never do anything like marry her. This was not the point, anyway. She only wanted to go to London. She let her father rave without listening to him.

  “… and he will dangle after you,” he was saying, when she finally began to heed him again. “There’s nothing wrong with you some care and clothing won’t correct. He’ll dangle and offer and be your husband—that he will or my name’s not Charles Blackwood!”

  Emily had not heard enough of this last to respond to it. However, she saw no way of turning the argument back to its original head—and no advantage to herself even if she did so—and so she merely stood before her father in silence.

  “I trust I will never hear a word of this nonsense again,” Dr. Blackwood said severely.

  Emily said nothing.

  “Miss—?” he said, waiting with glaring eyes and a terrible frown.

  Emily remained silent.

  Dr. Blackwood came very near striking her, but checked himself at the last moment. “Go to your room, obstinate, fool-hardy girl. And keep to it until you are ready with a promise and an apology. You will take your meals there until you do—alone.”

  And thus the interview had terminated, both parties forming solitary armed camps in opposite parts of Sweet’s Folly.

  The gentleman whose name they had mentioned, meantime, was enjoying himself much better than did these two. He had called upon Honoria shortly past two, and had contrived to persuade her that they must take an outing in his carriage, in order to ensure that their colloquy would not be interrupted.

  “I am not quite certain—” Honor had said anxiously, her brow wrinkling as she thought of Alexander.

  “Please, Mrs. Blackwood. You do not look quite well, either, and I am sure some air will prove salubrious to you.”

  “Very well, if you think so,” she agreed at last. Mr. Kemp smiled. He had driven over in the carriage expressly with this excursion in mind; generally he rode. The rain having stopped at last, and the weather open, all things in nature and in man appeared to him to conspire with his effort.

  “I know you will feel better directly,” he assured her. She directed Traubin to bring her her cloak and bonnet, wrote a brief note for Alexander in case he should ask for her, and set out with Mr. Kemp.

  “I think nothing is more pleasant than a drive in mild weather,” said he, when he had given his orders to the coachman. “Don’t you?”

  “It is very pleasant. I do enjoy riding, too, however … and an open carriage might be more suitable to an airing,” she suggested. She had not realized he had brought a closed coach with him; it did not please her to find herself situated alone with him in a closed one.

  “I am desolate that I did not take the calash,” he lied. “We so rarely use it any more.”

  “It is of no moment,” she murmured politely. “And how is your good father?”

  “Very well, I think. He goes to your aunts’ this evening, I believe. Did you know?”

  “I did not. How very interesting. I suppose they must have formed a friendship, then. At least poor Aunt Mercy’s accident had some good result.”

  “Yes. Accidents—and even more so, coincidences—are curious things. Are you quite warm? Not at all chilly?” he added.

  She grew nervous, as she had before, at the thought of how he might try to warm her, and was about to reply with something unmistakably discouraging, when she seemed to notice some movement in a lap-robe that lay upon the floor. She had remarked before that it was not folded, as it ought to be, and had even thought she saw it twitch, but she had attributed this to the jolting motion of the coach. “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, “but is it possible there is something—or someone—under that lap-robe?”

  “Under—? I should not think so!” he answered. To oblige her, however, he leaned down to the floor and pulled at a corner of the robe.

  The robe growled.

  “This is extraordinary!” said Claude, tugging at the corner he held. The robe snarled, and resisted.

  “But what on earth—?” He stooped and removed the lap-robe from the end that did not growl. Fido, of course, was revealed, though the silly dog did not realize it yet, his eyes being still covered and his mouth full of lap-robe.

  “Fido!” cried Honoria gaily. She did not care how or why he had come to be there; she only knew she was happy to see him. She had regretted her drive in the closed carriage more with every yard they travelled. “What are you doing here, silly darling?”

  Fido, recognizing her voice, let go the lap-robe and jumped up onto her knees, yelping joyfully.

  “How in Heaven’s name did he come to be here?” Claude asked, much vexed. His clearest remembrance of Fido was of the evening when the mongrel had bounded into the squire’s study, all paws and tongue and waggling tail. His relationship with the beast had not improved from that time. Besides all that, it might prove extremely inconvenient to have an animal along on this particular outing—any animal, no matter how sweet. For Claude cherished a design that he had hoped to set into action very shortly.

  “I can’t imagine,” Honor said truthfully. Fido was attempting to jump into her lap, for which feat he was rather too large and the carriage somewhat too small. “Now, now, dear doggie,” she reproached him fondly, and put her arms round him as best she could.

  Mr. Kemp groaned audibly.

  “You are not frightened of him, I trust, sir?”

  “O no—not frightened. Though I do think Fido and I are not on the best of terms. We had a falling out once, as it were. I did the lion’s share of the falling myself.”

  “O, Fido, did you knock Mr. Kemp over? You bad dog! He’s very strong,” she added to Claude, who already knew it too well.

  “Yes,” he agreed. He drew away from the dog and leaned back into a corner of the carriage, placing his elbow on the window frame and leaning his handsome head on his hand. He regarded Fido and Honor warily from the corner of an eye, and endeavoured to determine what was best to do. All this while the carriage had not ceased to move, and especially to jolt, as the recent rains had revealed a number of rocks in the lane that the coachman evidently found himself unable to avoid. A particularly violent lurch interrupted Mr. Kemp’s reflections rudely and threw him up a
gainst the joyous Fido.

  “I beg your pardon,” he was saying to the dog, as one begs pardon without thinking of a door-jamb or a lamp-post that has been encountered accidentally. Mr. Kemp’s unnecessary courtesy, however, was repaid most discourteously by dear Fido who, taking umbrage at being squashed so suddenly, bit Mr. Kemp on the arm. There was more confusion now even than before in the carriage: Honoria began an instant and steady stream of apologies and inquiries; Fido, excited by whatever it was that was happening, barked monotonously and enthusiastically on a high pitch; and Mr. Claude Kemp became aware that his arm was bleeding.

  “Damme, if this beast is rabid I’ll shoot him,” he exclaimed upon perceiving his wound. “I’ll shoot him, anyway!”

  “Are you hurt? What must I do? Coachman, coachman!” Honoria cried, beating furiously against the roof of the carriage to attract the driver’s attention. “What can he be thinking of?” she demanded in exasperation, when the driver did not turn round.

  “Damme, damme, and damnation!” Claude remarked. “A fine seduction this. He’ll not answer you,” he flung at last at the frantic Honoria.

  “Why not?” asked she, at the same time reaching for Claude’s arm in order to examine the bite.

  Mr. Kemp pulled the arm from out of her grasp and muttered, “He has orders not to.” Honoria was left to ponder this extraordinary explanation while Claude rapped loudly at the cab with his good arm, and called for a halt.

  The coachman heard him and the vehicle slowed to a stop.

  “Where are we?” asked Honoria, suddenly distracted by the unfamiliar landscape in which they had stopped. “This—this is the road to Tunbridge Wells, is not it? I thought we were to drive along the lanes near Pittering—”

  “Never mind, enough of that now,” Claude snapped. Everything had begun so propitiously! How had it all gone astray? “That dog,” he said ominously, “that dog will hang before this day’s work is done or my name’s not—”

  “Sir!” Honoria broke in. “He is not to blame at all. It was you who collided with him so startlingly. I am very sorry, and I hope you are not much hurt, but there is no sense in blaming Fido.”