Sweet's Folly

by Fiona Hill

  “Claude Kemp is here. Alex, I wish you will receive him with me.”

  “What on earth for?” he inquired, annoyed.

  “For—because—” she faltered. “Because I wish you will, that is all.”

  “Honoria, this is doing it a bit too brown.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Receive him alone. There is nothing improper in it, and certainly no need to maintain a pretence of unity before him.”

  “But he frightens me,” she protested sincerely.

  Alexander’s mouth pulled into a dissatisfied curve. “I am sure your fears are quite unfounded. Go and speak with him. I will come if you cry out.”

  “Alex, really,” she said, ready to weep.

  “Alex, really what?” he exclaimed, his voice breaking from its previous evenness. “My wife, go and visit with your friend. He is come to see you. And when you have done with him, there is a matter I wish to discuss with you regarding our future together.”

  “What is it? Tell me now,” she begged anxiously.

  “It will wait.” His tone was positively grim, and she feared to provoke him further. She promised to come to him the moment Mr. Kemp had gone, and went to the parlour alone.

  “Mrs. Blackwood, you look very well today,” said Claude, with an exaggerated bow.

  “And you seem in very high spirits, sir,” she returned.

  “I am; I am, madam. I perceive I may expect London to be gayer than ever this season. The prospect is delicious.”

  Here was something Dr. Blackwood did not know, or had forgot at least. Claude Kemp passed every season in London; in fact, kept a town-house there expressly for that purpose. The unfortunate doctor, instead of delivering his son and daughter-in-law from evil, had thrust them directly towards it.

  “If you mean my husband’s and my intention to escort Miss Blackwood there,” she began, “then your—but how do you come to know of it?” she broke off. “It was decided only yesterday.”

  “Mr. Jepston of Sweet’s Folly keeps in close communication with the doctor’s tiger,” he began, smiling his cheerless, intelligent smile. “That tiger, you see, is quite intimate with the second upstairs maid at Colworth. That maid, moreover, is the niece of our good Mrs. Cafferleigh, who for her part shares all her bits of gossip with our Boothby, who in turn occasionally transmits them to me. And so I had it from Boothby, as it were. It is an excellent intelligence-gathering system, I think, far better than what Wellington employs no doubt.”

  “I will take care to preserve my secrets from Mr. Jepston,” said Honoria. “It is quite chilling.”

  “Pittering is a small place,” Mr. Kemp reminded her, “as I believe I once observed to you.”

  This sidelong allusion to one of his offers for her reminded Honoria that she disliked Kemp’s company, and had some reason to distrust him now as well. “How is your arm, sir?” she inquired civilly.

  “A trifle tender, but much improved, thank you.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  “If it gladdens you, I will take care to mend even more quickly than I’d planned to.”

  She smiled woodenly at this gallantry and sat in silence.

  “I am afraid our explanation was delayed yet again, yesterday,” he observed.

  “I trust it is no longer necessary.”

  He shrugged. “No, in fact it is not. The nature of the cause of Miss Blackwood’s rather—ah, erratic behaviour is now known to me, and all the neighbourhood too, I should think. As for your husband’s—well, I can guess.”

  “Mr. Kemp,” Honor broke in hurriedly. “I do not wish to be rude, but may I ask what is the reason of your call today? I have many things to accomplish before we begin our journey to London.”

  “I would not keep you from them for the world,” said he, smiling icily. “I merely wished to promise you my assistance, should you need any, in London, though perhaps,” he added unkindly, “your husband’s connexions there will see to your welfare adequately.”

  “Mr. Kemp, how long were you eavesdropping at that door?” she demanded sharply, burning with resentment and anger.

  “I did not eavesdrop, but only waited for a convenient pause to enter,” said he, with false dignity. “And I heard enough, if that is what you wonder.”

  “Enough for what?” she spat back at him.

  “Enough to know why your relations with your husband might be—strained.”

  “Mr. Kemp, I must ask you to leave,” she said, rising with an attempt at appearing threatening.

  He looked rather amused than frightened. “I go down to London next week,” he said calmly, standing when she did. “I will look forward to seeing you there, if I am not so happy as to do so here.”

  “Traubin will see you out,” was all she said, and rang the bell.

  “It will not be necessary,” he returned airily. He bowed low once more and obligingly quitted the room, prudently omitting to kiss her hand. Honoria sat down to compose herself a moment forcing herself to breathe deeply and think with clarity. Really, it was too dreadful of him to behave so—so familiarly with her. She felt quite humiliated—degraded, almost—and decided at last that Emily’s poor opinion of him was in no way exaggerated. She made shift to calm herself, but succeeded only in growing more and more outraged at his conduct. One thing was certain: Mr. Kemp should see neither hide nor hair of her in London. It was a very large place, from all she had heard, and she had no intention of frequenting the society he graced. That decision made, she was able to turn her thoughts to Alexander. She had no notion what he wished to discuss, but she thought it wise to prepare herself for something disagreeable. He had looked very ominous indeed when he requested the interview. However, her curiosity got the better of her before she could restore herself to serenity, and she hastened to the library and knocked as full of hope as one might expect a young woman to be—and not the least bit ready for what she heard.

  Chapter X

  “This affair of Emily’s,” Alexander commenced, when brief courtesies had been exchanged and Honoria comfortably settled in the velvet chair, “gives us an opportunity of implementing a plan I have been pondering some while.” He paused, turning over a pencil in his hands and regarding it gravely.

  “And what is that?” his wife prodded.

  “That is, the establishment of separate households for you and myself.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She was certain she had misunderstood him.

  “It has been borne in upon me increasingly, since our removal to this house, that the relations presently existing between you and me do not justify our sharing a residence,” he explained tonelessly. “You requested me to marry you; I did marry you; in the eyes of the law we live together in a sanctified state of marriage. To less jaundiced eyes, however,” he continued, with a rather cynical grimace, “it is quite clear we have no business doing so. My presence here only hampers your—amusements, and yours only obliges me to keep regular hours that are sometimes inconvenient to my studies. Quite simply, I propose to engage two sets of rooms in London: one for my sister and yourself, and one for me.”

  Honoria could do nothing but gasp while her eyes filled with tears.

  “You say nothing,” he observed. “Am I to conclude this scheme is acceptable to you? There is no need to apprise my parents of it,” he added, “if that troubles you.”

  Honoria’s first instinct was to bend to his will, accept his terms uncomplainingly, and comfort herself when she might be private again with a very great deal of crying. After all, if Alexander could no longer suffer her company, then what right had she to inflict it upon him? He had been very kind to marry her; she had stipulated no further obligations when that arrangement had been made; therefore to complain would be to assert privileges that she knew did not belong to her. She began to say, “as you like,” in an exceedingly muffled voice, when all at once her experience of that morning—when Mrs. Traubin had been forced to cede to her own will—returned to her and checked her. �
�I cannot like it,” she amended presently. “No doubt you have every right to institute such a state of affairs, but if you do so it will be in opposition to my desires—not at all, as you suggest, to oblige me.”

  It was Alexander’s turn to be surprised. “If you speak sincerely, as indeed you seem to—I do not understand you, Honoria.”

  “It is not necessary that you understand me,” she returned, a bit giddy with her new-found power. “It is only necessary that you hear what I say and believe it. If you suggest the establishment of separate households to oblige me, you mistake my sentiments.”

  “I thought you had been delighted!” he exclaimed.

  “I am not a triangle, Alex,” said she. “You cannot manipulate me so easily as you do your diagrams and figures.”

  “I do not seek to manipulate you,” he countered, “but only to puzzle out your nature. When we married—”

  “I fear my nature is not so constant as that of a point or a plane.”

  “Not above half,” he replied. His voice and features had lost that grim expression they had had earlier. He ran his slender fingers through his golden locks, and lapsed into abstracted silence.

  “What will you do?” Honor asked, when some time had gone by with nothing said between them. She began now to feel anxious: perhaps she would have done better, after all, to have bowed to his will quietly.

  “Do?” he repeated, rousing himself from his meditation.

  “About the rooms in London,” she prompted, sounding bolder than she felt.

  “O! I suppose I must take a single town-house,” he answered. He looked at her with a wide, open regard, as if surprised that she should ask.

  “O!” said she, her tone quite as startled as his. Now that she had got her way, she did not know what to do with it. It was the first time she had prevailed in a decision of any import: she found the experience frightening, and immediately began a retreat into her former, more wonted, mode of behaviour. “But you are quite certain?” she entreated. “I do not—my presence in the town-house will not embarrass you?” she added, and coloured deeply.

  “Why should it?” he inquired.

  This was all much, much too confusing for Honor. Not only had she imposed her will upon her husband, but it seemed now she was to receive no punishment for having done so. In fact, he looked not in the least displeased—only distracted, as he so often had in the past.

  “I don’t know,” she said lamely. “I suppose I may as well see about dinner now, if you will excuse me.”

  “Of course; pray go on—” he murmured, gesturing vaguely towards the door. He was as perfectly confused as she, and had no notion what had passed between them, or what it meant about their marriage. His well-regulated mind, however, would not allow him to concentrate for long upon a problem containing so many variables, and he turned, in time, to his work, leaving the question still unsolved.

  And so it was that when, in due course of time, Alexander quitted Pittering Village and journeyed alone to London, he did so with the intention of engaging a single town-house, suitable for a small family, in an acceptably modish quarter of London. A very brief period of enquiry satisfied him, however, that he could not be over-nice in what he considered a sufficiently stylish neighbourhood, for indeed the greater part of the more eligible houses had been engaged by earlier comers. By the time he returned to Pittering, however, he was able to assure all concerned that they were to dwell in a very snug little house in Albemarle Street, a house of no great dimensions, but well proportioned and appointed. This news was received with indifference by Emily, who cared not where they lived, so long as they lived in London; and with great pleasure by Honoria, whose godfather resided at no great distance from there. Alexander’s departure had caused her some sorrow, but his absence was not prolonged and she had been more than adequately occupied during it. For one thing, Corinna Blackwood had insisted on visiting the local dressmaker repeatedly—Emily and Honor in tow—and having carried out for them a number of garments that, she emphasised, were indispensable in London. Neither girl had a ballgown fit to wear, for of course they had no occasion to wear one in Pittering; moreover, their bonnets were all of the chip-straw country type, and therefore had to be replaced by others at the milliner’s. Mrs. Blackwood was astute enough, however, to realize that the bulk of the young ladies’ wardrobes ought to be purchased in London itself, for no matter how carefully she chose, there could never be anything in Pittering equal in quality and style to what was available in London. Therefore she made sure to invite Honoria frequently to tea at Sweet’s Folly, where she conducted a series of lectures designed to impress upon the girls the importance of proper dress and the means by which it might be achieved. In addition, she imparted to them what little she recalled of London customs and proprieties, for she had been to the great city once only, and that when she was a young girl.

  “I protest, Mamma has grown more wearisome than the dancing master!” said Emily at the end of one of these edifying sessions. The master to whom she referred had been engaged to give the young ladies some concentrated instruction in the most recent ball-room figures.

  “It will all be done soon enough,” Honor comforted her. So long as it would end in her visiting London, Honoria was willing to go through fire and ice. Everything was proceeding very well, in her estimation: she had contrived somehow to avoid any interviews with Claude Kemp after their last, most disagreeable one, and now he was gone out of the neighbourhood for the season. Her godfather had replied to her letter with quite a cordial note, albeit a brief one, informing her that though he himself was too much engaged with government affairs to devote a great deal of time to her and her party, his daughter Lady Jane Sperling might be applied to with any enquiries or requests. Alexander had dropped his frigid formality since their rather peculiar colloquy in his library, and had reverted to his old distracted air, which, though it had once irked her excessively, she now found most comforting in its familiarity. Naturally he still kept to his couch in the study, but this seemed a positively cheerful arrangement when contrasted with the one he had threatened.

  What with one thing and another, the month allotted to them in which to prepare for their sojourn simply flew by. The trunks were packed and sent; Maria and the Traubins, who were to serve the party in London, were dispatched some days before the Blackwoods’ departure; Alex and Honoria stopped at Sweet’s Folly in the interim, where they were somewhat gloomily welcomed and entertained by Dr. Blackwood.

  “I suppose you think London is all gaiety and uproar,” he grumbled one morning at breakfast. He stared with saturnine solemnity at Honor, and continued, “It is not. A very great deal of town-life consists of dirt, and noise, and unpleasant sights such as you’ve never witnessed here in the country. And you will find yourself obliged to wait upon people you despise—and be courteous to them, too—and welcome them into your home.”

  The doctor’s moroseness could not depress his daughter-in-law, however. “I expect all things have their good and bad qualities,” she replied lightly.

  The good doctor said, “Humph,” and continued to warn her of how disagreeable town was likely to be until she excused herself to visit her aunts. “For we shall be gone scarcely a day from now, and I fear I shall have no other opportunity of telling them good-by,” she said apologetically.

  Dr. Blackwood popped the final morsel of a biscuit into his mouth, and waved her away irritably.

  “Till dinner,” she said cheerfully, with a graceful curtsey, but he was too dissatisfied with the state of things to be coaxed out of his bad humour so easily.

  Prudence and Mercy Deverell had taken the news of their niece’s present departure with their customary equanimity, and they continued to appear tolerably unruffled during this last farewell call.

  “What is she come for?” Mercy asked sweetly of her sister, when Honoria had been admitted to the cramped parlour and given a cup of tea. “Don’t gnaw at my skirt, Muffin—there’s a dear thing.”

&
nbsp; “She says she is going to London,” Prudence told her.

  “I know she is going to London,” said Mercy. “She informed us of that very thing not three weeks ago. Honoria, have you forgot? You told us you were going to London,” she concluded, with the mildest tone of reproach possible.

  “I do remember, Aunt Mercy,” Honor assured her. “I only came to say good-by, this time, for we leave on the day after tomorrow.”

  “O! Is that all, then? Well, good-by, my dear,” said Mercy obligingly, casting a side-long glance at Prudence as if to say, “I think our dear Honoria’s wits are failing her.”

  “Good-by,” Honor said uncomfortably; now she felt as if she ought to get up and depart immediately, even though she had just come. She too turned her eyes towards Prudence.

  “That nice Kemp boy will be in London by now,” said that lady, perceiving that some remark was wanted from her. On an impulse, she added persuasively, “Honor dear, are you very certain you hadn’t rather marry him than Alexander Blackwood?”

  “But I have married Alexander Blackwood!” she objected.

  “O! So you have. Ah, well,” Prudence went on, gesturing vaguely, “it was only a passing thought, after all.” She had been thinking, of course, of how to win her way into Squire Kemp’s coffers.

  “Aunt Prudence, I must say—well, what a very peculiar question!” she ended, feeling more and more unsettled by this curious conversation. The little household in Bench Street had never seemed half so odd when she lived in it as it did now.

  “Not a peculiar question at all,” Mercy spoke up suddenly, feeling that she must fly to the defence of her sister, even against so gentle an attacker as Honoria. “A very straightforward question, on the contrary. Hadn’t you rather marry Claude than Alex? So very clear! So elegantly phrased!”

  Young Mrs. Blackwood gazed in astonishment at her aunts, but said nothing.

  “Claude’s hair is of a purer gold than Alexander’s,” Mercy went on, as if this somehow explained her sister’s question. Nor would she be silent until she had had an answer of Honoria. “Well, is not it?” she demanded.