A Little Folly

by Jude Morgan

  A shadow – a slight shadow – remained. Valentine began to resemble himself a little more, during the course of the next couple of days: he talked freely, paid attention to his dress, and took an interest in those small matters of life that had been swallowed up in the threat to his future. He had promised faithfully to abjure the society of Lady Harriet: he remained fully sensible that there was no alternative, and that his association with her had brought him close to ruin, and Louisa was certain the promise was kept. But sometimes he gave way to downcast looks, to sighs, and to speculations on how Lady Harriet was faring: he would ask Sophie if she had seen her friend about, and what were her looks; and altogether revealed that he was not in a way to forgetting her. It made Louisa a little impatient – but impatience did not crowd out understanding; and she was above all concerned that Mr Tresilian should not be hard on him. These little lamentations Mr Tresilian heard with a barely concealed disgust; and once he growled that if he heard that woman’s name once more, he would imitate Miss Rose’s example and drop himself off a cliff.

  ‘He is not unthankful, believe me,’ Louisa urged him at last. ‘He knows the great reprieve he has had – knows I am sure that his involvement with her was ill-judged. But the feelings are not so easily or so soon to be commanded. They are like – well, they are like trailing plants, profuse and untidy.’

  ‘Pruning-scissors are the answer to that,’ Mr Tresilian said, with a grim mime. Louisa smiled; but Mr Tresilian was unsoftened: and she began to feel that the caution, the silent watchfulness that he continued to exercise after the first burst of relief was excessive. There seemed about him a new reserve – a deepening of abstraction: several times, when calling, he appeared on the brink of saying something, either to Valentine, or to herself, which he then relented of, and buried in his breast. Louisa felt it was a little hard that the heart should always be on sentry-go; and when she mentioned that the Speddings had an invitation to a masquerade ball next week, and she hoped to go too, his response made her a little irritable in return.

  ‘Are you now? I should have thought— Well, never mind.’

  ‘What should you have thought, Mr Tresilian? Surely there are no perils here. This is nothing to do with – that other matter. That is all settled—’

  ‘Yes, let us hope so. Indeed, I wish everyone would see it so, and draw the appropriate conclusions.’

  She hesitated. ‘But you said – did you not – that there was nothing further to be feared from that quarter – from the colonel?’

  ‘I do not fear anything but the consequences of unbridled folly. Those have been averted once. No one in his right senses steers back into a storm,’ he said coolly, walking away.

  She wondered if he meant a reproach to her, for taking up engagements so soon after the dizzying reversals of menace and release; but other than adopting a hair-shirt and throwing ashes on herself, she did not know what he expected her to do. She was every moment grateful for the removal of that terrible threat; and in that spirit was inclined to value every pleasure, and relish every experience. Caution: it was Mr Tresilian’s strength but also, she felt, his weakness – deriving perhaps from his early marriage. She wondered, too, if he were a little out of sorts from being no longer useful.

  Yet his words did not go unheeded. The precariousness of their security had certainly been revealed to them by this late imbroglio: and whilst their escape was a matter for celebration, it must surely prompt reflection also. A reminder, and an occasion for a soberer mood, came in the shape of a caller at Hill Street, an earnest gentleman much involved with an association for the relief of debtors. Afterwards Tom and Sophie groaned that he was the most shocking bore; but the memory of Westminster Hall, and the sensation of being dwarfed in its shadow, were sufficiently strong for Louisa to send him a banker’s draft in donation, and to make the equally important transaction of counting her blessings.

  As for the masquerade, she remained in two minds. She wondered if Lieutenant Lynley were going: then interrogated herself as to why that should make a difference. If Valentine wished to go, she thought, that might decide it; for she wished them to be together as much as possible, as they had been before the episode of the Eversholts. But they, alas, remained his one theme. She tried to divert his thoughts to other channels; but she feared that while his head told him that he must consider the welfare of Lady Harriet as nothing to do with him, his heart said otherwise; and that the unhappiness of infatuation would considerably outlast the elation of his escape.

  Though Valentine continued to solicit intelligence of Lady Harriet from Sophie, it was with little result; for Sophie, while temperamentally inclined to divulge any information that came her way, admitted that though she was not absolutely dropped as a friend, she heard little of her nowadays, and saw less. She was all the more eager, then, to share a piece of news that must excite interest; and fairly burst upon Louisa and Valentine with it, as they sat by the open drawing-room windows trying to catch a little breeze in the stifling noon.

  ‘What a pair you look! But I have something that will revive you. And is it not curious, by the by, that I never suffer from the heat? Tom says it is because I am such a wisp of a thing, and that if we have a summer storm I must be careful not to perish in it, like a mayfly. Well, and what do you suppose is the news? Will it be believed that poor Lady Harriet is actually reconciled with the colonel?’

  Valentine started up. ‘Reconciled – what do you mean? That is surely impossible. You mean they have come to some accommodation – some agreement to a legal separation—’

  ‘As for the accommodation, that is most definitely under one roof,’ said Sophie, with her most impish look. ‘I have it on the strongest authority – an intimate of both Lady Harriet and the colonel, from his time at the Palace. They are properly reconciled, and vow to place past misunderstandings behind them, and live henceforth peaceably as man and wife; and as they have both been in indifferent health, they have left broiling London behind them, and taken a house at Hampstead – a very pretty house, it seems, right on the salubrious heights. Well! you know me – the last thing I am is credulous: I must be fully satisfied of proofs before I catch at a tale; and so I went to Jermyn Street, very hardily, and rang the bell. And it is assuredly so: the faro-house is all shut up, except for a servant to mind it; but Harriet had left me a sweet little note – though very short – wishing me well, and saying that she and her husband were gone into a country retirement, and did not anticipate an early return to town. Is it not amazing? I shall not refer to knocking me down with a feather, for Tom would no doubt say that is easily enough achieved at any time. How lucky you are, Louisa, not to have a brother who is forever saying disobliging things about you.’

  Louisa had remarked with alarm the rapid changes in Valentine’s expression throughout this narration; and felt that she had better say something, for Sophie was cheerfully awaiting a response. Sophie could hardly have been quite unaware of Valentine’s inclination towards her friend; but she lived so thoroughly in a world of flirtation, of takings and likings, all conducted at the most superficial level, that she had placed it there most comfortably, and did not suspect she touched any dangerous depths.

  ‘You are sure there is no misunderstanding?’ Louisa said, trying to sound easy and unconcerned. ‘After all, there is such a deal of gossip about the Eversholts generally, and things can become so garbled—’

  ‘Just as I thought, until I had her note,’ Sophie said, ‘but that leaves no doubt of it. I have been puzzling over it exceedingly; and can only conclude that it is as it appears – love has overcome all that division can do. For, you know, I never felt that Harriet’s heart was quite closed against him, despite all his iniquities: I fear we women are sad geese in that way.’

  ‘But what can have caused the change?’ Louisa murmured, as Valentine snapped to his feet and began pacing the room.

  ‘It may be that the colonel has promised a thorough reformation – as he has done before, to be sure,’ sai
d Sophie. ‘Only this time he has carried conviction. Perhaps he has come to a proper appreciation of what he has lost; after all, there are many men who would consider that in Harriet they possessed the dearest treasure. And perhaps he really does intend a change for the better. I should like to think that it can happen, you know – that the worst rogue can be reformed. We mortals should all like to be given the benefit of the doubt. I sound quite holy today, don’t I? I did pass St Martin’s church on my way home, and very nearly went in, or thought about it anyhow, which may account for it.’

  Valentine left the room; and Louisa, concealing her own agitation, stayed talking with Sophie as long as she was able, gleaning nothing more than these bare facts of the Eversholts’ taking a house at Hampstead, together with a general opinion that Lady Harriet’s faro-bank must have been exceptionally profitable for them to afford it – before at last seeking her brother alone.

  She found him, to her perturbation, seated at the writing-desk: the pen was mended, but the sheet of paper before him was as blank and white as his expression. She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Town tattle,’ she said quickly. ‘No one knows better than us how to disregard it—’

  ‘No.’ He patted her hand, with a brief tender smile. ‘Bless you, Louisa, you do it very well, but you know that’s not true. They are certainly gone together; and the question I must answer, or go mad, is why.’

  ‘It is a question— Oh, Valentine, after all that has happened, it is a question that should not concern you.’

  ‘It is a question I must answer or go stark mad, so there we are,’ he said, avoiding her eyes. ‘For God’s sake, she left that man – she exposed herself to all the indignity and difficulty of the unsupported wife, because she could not bear his treatment of her, of which, from our late intimacy, our late friendship, I know more than you may suppose. What could make her return to him now? It is incredible – intolerable.’

  ‘Whatever her reasons – and I do not deny that I greatly wonder at it myself – still it is not for us to enquire into them. Above all, not for you, Valentine.’

  He shook his head, and scored deep lines across the letter-paper. ‘I had thought you would understand me, Louisa. You always did before.’

  There was a wound in this, which she would have been more able to feel if anxiety had not taken the first place – anxiety that he would do something rash, which might overturn all that had been achieved. Her thoughts flew to Mr Tresilian: – but he, she was afraid, would not be forbearing, and she must trust to her gentler persuasions.

  ‘You knew her, certainly, very well, and had a keen sympathy for all her distresses,’ she said. ‘But we must consider – we cannot, and should not know all the circumstances, surrounding so private a thing as a marriage; and between man and wife there may be many complexities of feeling, which it is beyond us to penetrate.’

  ‘I speak of simplicities of feeling. The simple disbelief and abhorrence this must arouse in all but the most jaded and cynical heart. She could not do it of her own free will, Louisa. There must have been some form of coercion – some overwhelming pressure: I cannot conceive what, but I do not doubt that that man would consider nothing beneath him, no lie or trick or subterfuge, in the pursuit of his will.’ Valentine tore the page across and sprang to his feet. ‘I must know – I cannot rest until I know the truth of it. It is no manner of use writing: he will be sure to supervise her correspondence.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Ride out to Hampstead, of course. Seek an interview.’

  ‘Valentine, this is madness. Have you forgotten the terrible threat that was but lately hanging over you? Do you not see that if you go after them now they are reconciled, and seek to thrust yourself upon them, you will be reawakening those worst suspicions in the colonel’s mind, with still greater force? I beg you, Valentine, consider your future: consider us.’

  Her appeal was not wholly without its effect; his lips quivered – but still he shook his head, and persisted: ‘It cannot be as it appears. Sophie must have it wrong. It may well be that they are both at Hampstead: many people are repairing there for the air just now. They may even have ended up in the same large house-party, by unlucky management. Aye, now that seems more likely. Let me only ride out there – I undertake to speak to neither of them, only to ask around, to discover the true facts – and I shall be contented.’

  Louisa doubted that; and she thought his whole plan folly – but seeing that he would not be diverted from it, and that he might pursue it independently of her once her back was turned, she proposed a compromise. If he really insisted on going to Hampstead, she must go with him: hers would be the enquiries, and she would take one of Mrs Spedding’s cards with her, for greater disguise. Beyond that she could not look: she deeply regretted indulging him even this far, but saw no help for it.

  As for her own feeling about the Eversholts, she would very willingly have never thought about them again; but being brought to it, her suspicion was that her own intervention, however indirectly, had brought them together. She had urged Lady Harriet to a meeting, in which the innocence of her relations with Valentine was to be canvassed: she had impressed that same innocence on Colonel Eversholt, perhaps with something like success: feelings must have been discussed between them, misunderstandings perhaps cleared away, and a new start possibly appeared to them in the aftermath. Such had never been her intention: all her aim had been to save Valentine; and if this reconciliation had been an additional consequence, then very well. – She saw in it no matter for praise or blame, or responsibility: they were, as Mr Tresilian would say, a grown man and woman.

  Louisa was no rider; and once Valentine, with some reluctance, had acceded to her going with him, he proposed the hire of a post-chaise, and hurried her to the livery-stables at Red Lion Yard. The chaise was procured with fortunate despatch: but every delay was agony to him; he could barely keep still while the horses were put into the traces, and once on the road he urged the driver to such a speed as was quite impossible while they were yet in the city streets, and would only sit back once they were past the Camden Town turnpike and struck the open highway.

  ‘We should have asked Sophie for more particulars,’ he said suddenly, with a stricken look. ‘We only know of this handsome house on the heights – nothing more.’

  ‘We are sure to discover something,’ Louisa said. ‘Hampstead is a sort of spa, and visitors like the Eversholts will be noticed.’

  ‘That’s so. I remember Tom saying he took a cure there, and preferred it to Bath. There will surely be a visitors’ book, or something of that kind.’

  The air was certainly clear and clean after the heat of the city, and at any other time Louisa would have found it wonderfully refreshing: but the oppression of her spirits was not to be blown away by breezes; and nor could they be lifted by the pleasant sight of the heathery slopes, green woods and water-flashes presented by their approach to Hampstead. The resort was plainly well populated: there were many strollers, invalids in chairs, children bowling hoops – but the two he sought, as Valentine’s frantic glance revealed, were not to be seen. Fortunately their coachman knew Hampstead well, and without asking put up at the yard of the Green Man, by Well Walk; and as this appeared a principal inn and hotel of the place, Louisa thought her simplest course was to make enquiries there.

  ‘No, Valentine, I had better do it. Please, stay in the chaise. I shall not be long.’

  She was not: nothing could have been easier, she found, than gaining intelligence of distinguished visitors to Hampstead. The housekeeper of the inn, of whom she first made enquiry, was not sure about the colonel, though she could swear to at least one major; but the landlord, bustling her aside, was able quickly to assure Louisa that Colonel and Lady Harriet Eversholt were certainly in residence – had taken Norlees House, above Whitestone Pond, and had been good enough to patronise the Green Man for its stabling; and a gentleman passing through civilly chimed in, to the effect that he knew them well, or ra
ther by sight: that they had tried the waters, and twice been seen in the Great Room.

  It was not, then, to be doubted. Louisa hardly knew how to tell Valentine, for fear of his reaction; but at last, rejoining him in the chaise, she chose simply to relay the information, and watch his face.

  His lips thinned: but all he said, after a short struggle, was: ‘Let us go and look at this Norlees House.’

  ‘You will not present yourself there, Valentine,’ she said. ‘I will not endure it.’

  ‘No: I only want to see it,’ he said, quite mildly. So their coachman sought directions, and presently brought them up a winding road to pull up before the wicket-gate of an elegant white house, more villa than mansion; and with its prettily flowering gardens, espaliers and snug arbours, more lovers’ bower than either.

  Valentine gazed: said at last, ‘I see,’ and rapped on the roof, to Louisa’s breathless relief, to tell him to drive on.

  On the return journey, he was wholly silent until they again reached the Camden Town turnpike, where the groan of the gate seemed to rouse him from the deepest thought. He blinked around him, and said distinctly: ‘Well, I know how it is, now. It is altogether sadder than I could have supposed.’

  Louisa, taking this for an admission that he had recognised the truth of the Eversholts’ reconciliation, and was resigned to it, reached for his hand; but ignoring that, and sitting up with energy, he went on: ‘She has done it to save me. It is magnificent, and dreadful. Apprised of her husband’s intentions for a law-suit that might ruin me, she has sacrificed herself: she has overcome very natural aversion, every consciousness of the wrongs done her, and delivered herself once more to him, so that that blow should not fall on me. Dear God, I can hardly bear to think of it: though if anything can make it tolerable, it is the knowledge that she is all and more than I thought her – a heroine, indeed, in tender selflessness. What pain and humiliation it must have cost her! And how little he deserves her, who can win back his wife by such vicious means! – for I am almost sure that was his intention all along. But she has spared me by not sparing herself. It was a curse that she ever saw me – but no, no, I will not say that: I will never say that.’