Flirtation & Folly

by Elizabeth Rasche

  “I see.” Mr Lowes pondered the comments as if they were profound truths derived from incisive, unceasing study. He ambled off, making no pretence at a polite goodbye, and trod on two ladies’ feet as he passed, deep in thought.

  “Fool,” Mr Hearn snapped. His irritation with Mr Lowes had removed the last of any awkwardness between himself and Marianne.

  “Is he a fool to love my sister?” Marianne asked, teasing. “Or is it that you disapprove of her liking whatever is expensive and fashionable?”

  “How could I?” he said, his tone short. “You are the same yourself.”

  Flinching, Marianne tried to deny it. “I have specific tastes, and a degree of sentiment.” Admittedly, her idea of sentiment was all wrapped up in novels, unlikely to satisfy the nostalgic Mr Hearn. She could not fool herself very far about her high-mindedness, however. An exasperated sigh escaped her. “I suppose I do put too much weight on fashion and wealth,” she said, though it stung to admit it. “It’s—hard. Every novel’s heroine winds up rich and fashionable, and yet the heroines all insist they do not care for such things in the least.”

  “Is that what you really want? To be a heroine?” Mr Hearn seemed amused.

  “I suppose I want life to feel adventurous.” She smiled up at him. “All heroines get excitement and change, whether they want it or not. If you knew Wrumpton, you would understand me better. It is dull beyond belief.”

  “I daresay Wrumpton is really not that different from Hearn Hall, in essentials,” Mr Hearn said. “Country houses, settled lives.”

  “What you long for is exactly what I cannot stand,” said Marianne.

  “Is it really living in a country house you hate?” Mr Hearn’s black eyes bored into hers. “Perhaps you simply associate them with the drudgery you experienced as a child.”

  “And perhaps you simply associate them with the happiness you experienced as a child. I do not think you see any more clearly than I, Mr Hearn. Nostalgia blinds.”

  His lips thinned at her waspish tone. “I daresay it does, a little. But at least I chase something I actually had. You chase a foolish novel’s vision of something that never was and never could be.”

  “Are you saying I could never be beautiful and witty? Accomplished? Heroic?” Marianne’s anger was getting the better of her, and even the awareness of genteel eyes around her could not moderate her tone.

  “I’m saying that being any of those things has nothing to do with fashion, nor does traipsing after a sharp-clawed creature like Emily Stokes.” Mr Hearn had the presence of mind to take a deep breath, and Marianne unthinkingly copied him. She found she had enough courage in her to speak a hard truth, one she had resisted for too long.

  “I suppose her claws are a little sharp,” she said, considering. “Indeed, I am not altogether certain she is a friend at all.”

  “I am glad you see that much. Finally,” he said, but the smile on his lips took the sting from his words. “You have better friends, Miss Mowbrey. Miss Brophy, your aunt—ˮ He paused. “And myself. Who cares for more than a good home and real friends?”

  His remark made it easier to ask the questions that had been haunting Marianne ever since she caught sight of Belinda. “Speaking of family, have you met my sister yet, Mr Hearn? What do you think of her?”

  Mr Hearn sniffed. “I met her. We were in a cluster with Sir William and Mr Nabbles, and a few other people. They were talking about growing populations and how more and more are moving from farms to cities all over the world.” He tilted his head to look at Marianne. “Miss Belinda seemed to think Philadelphia was a Greek city.”

  Although successful in repressing a snicker, Marianne could not help her smile. “Belinda thought America too vulgar to pay much attention to its geography.”

  Mr Hearn’s nod showed his appreciation that Marianne knew the location of the city. She was touched by his generosity in allowing her a tiny victory in comparison with her sister. Of course, no gentleman would really hesitate to choose a beautiful girl with dash and style over an awkward, plain woman who knew American geography, but it was a victory nonetheless.

  “I suppose India must have fared even worse with her.” He chuckled.

  “I do not think she ever even attempted to learn anything about India. I read a few books about it—ˮ She flushed when she realised she might be trying to show off. “Well, whatever one reads, it cannot compare to having been there. I have learned more about India from you—more real things, I mean.”

  “Perhaps some of those books about India were novels,” Mr Hearn said in a teasing tone.

  “Oh, no, I have never seen novels about India.”

  “Is it not the place for a heroine?” They both laughed. They chatted a few minutes longer, and when Sir William joined them, Marianne found herself oddly disappointed, despite the older man’s courtly efforts to please her. When the two men began comparing notes on country life in Ireland and Kent, Marianne felt her interest decline, and she stepped back.

  “Fields and hay bales? How excruciating,” a voice said.

  Marianne turned to discover Miss Emily behind her. The match in sentiment filled Marianne with relief. “I am so glad I am not the only one who finds it dull,” Marianne said in a low tone, although Mr Hearn’s point about associating the countryside with drudgery rankled in her mind. Miss Emily, head lifted high, scanned the crowd with a lofty disinterest. She appeared as if she had just barely given Marianne enough attention to note her remark, but Marianne suspected it was all an act. More sharp claws! But I am beginning to understand you, Miss Emily.

  “London is the only place that matters,” Miss Emily said. Her casual air was a little too well-studied. “I daresay even a country girl like yourself could hardly bear to talk of farming now. You have grown so much, Marianne. Think of how pathetically you sighed at the corners of society a few months ago! And now you are at Sir William’s ball, which, although I admit is terribly tedious, must be acknowledged as respectable, socially speaking.”

  To her amusement, Marianne realised Miss Emily’s hauteur and stinging ‘compliments’ did not hurt Marianne in the least. For the day, at least, something of Mr Hearn’s armour had strapped to her skin. She could simply listen and feel a mild satisfaction that Miss Emily felt the same as Marianne—tired of the country, jealous of Belinda, annoyed with the captain’s flippant flirtations. It must be so much harder for Miss Emily, who really did have the style and manner proper for a London lady, to be outshone by a thoughtless, giddy country miss like Belinda.

  “It is the sort of place I dreamed of being for years,” Marianne said. Taking the arm of Miss Emily, who permitted the advance with a reassuring nonchalance, Marianne began to walk with her just as they had hours earlier, though she no longer clung to the young woman’s arm, and a similar independence was budding in her mind. Although Marianne’s spirits had crashed into the dust since their first triumphant stroll around the ballroom, she decided she had recovered somewhat in chatting with Mr Hearn. Of course, it still hurt that Belinda had stolen the admiration of the whole ball, and that she was yet again rated far beneath her sister in beauty and charm, but that made the relief of Mr Hearn’s friendship bubble up like a cool spring from underground, a slick, soothing balm that eased her hurts.

  “I don’t doubt it. Augusta and I would feel the same, if we had been trapped in the countryside like you and Martha. Oh, that appalling Martha!” Clearly the Irish cousin was still an acute annoyance. “You are preparing yourself for something better, my dear Marianne. You sought out good adviceˮ—probably she meant her own—“and moulded yourself by it. But Martha has done nothing. She is still just as silly and vulgar as she was in her hovel in Ireland. And poor Augusta and I cannot be rid of her! Mama says that she will stay with us until the end of the Season, unless we can get her married.”

  Miss Emily’s intonation indicated what she thought the likelihood of marriage was. “Lady Sweetser has invited us on another excursion to Richmond next week, but Augus
ta and I do not know whether we dare go, if Martha’s vulgarity is to persecute us the entire way. Lady Sweetser must be so troubled by it, but as she cannot invite us without inviting Martha, she puts up with her for our sake. What a giving nature!”

  “Perhaps I could help.” In response to Miss Emily’s lifted eyebrows, Marianne said, “I could invite Martha to spend the day of Lady Sweetser’s excursion shopping with me. Perhaps she would prefer to do that rather than ride with you to Richmond.”

  Miss Emily released Marianne’s arm to clap her hands in delight. “Such a generous creature you are! No person in her right mind would choose anything over the presence of dear Lady Sweetser, but Martha is just the sort of bumpkin who will jump at your idea. What a clever thought! You must ask her at once, and I will find Augusta and relieve her suffering.”

  After a few steps, Miss Emily suddenly halted and returned, her face clouded with a solemn pity. “But are you sure you can do it? Can you bear to spend so much time with my cousin? You know how horrid she is.” The hesitation seemed sincere, a real impulse of Miss Emily’s better nature, however twisted by her prejudice against Martha.

  “I will be pleased to have her. It will be no trouble at all.”

  “How gracious,” Miss Emily murmured, with a touch of her hand to Marianne’s arm. Then she strode away, leaving Marianne feeling pleased but embarrassed that she received credit for delicacy and sacrifice that she was not due. Really, there was nothing wrong with Martha but a slight uncouthness and volubility of spirits. Miss Emily made it seem as though Marianne was about to be guillotined in her stead. The homage did add a satisfying air of heroism to the idea, however, and Marianne felt a dramatic self-satisfaction as she looked for Martha. Martha’s exuberant acceptance did nothing to discourage Marianne’s good opinion of herself. The red-haired girl was all too delighted to be sought out for her company, and quickly inveighed against Lady Sweetser’s riding excursion.

  “I should get nothing but sneers if I went, in any case,” Martha said, with no trace of resentment. “Shopping with you will be much more fun. Where shall we go?” The two young ladies spent a few happy minutes arranging the details, and when Aunt Harriet’s carriage was called, Marianne hurried to the foyer to join her aunt with a glow of self-approbation suffusing her.

  The glow diminished as she went outside into the hushed darkness. There, her sister Belinda was orbited by several gentlemen, each eager to assist her into the shadowed black hump of Mrs Walters’ carriage. A footman held a lamp aloft, and in its light Marianne could see Belinda’s face flushed with pleasure, the pink of her cheeks and gown enfolding her like a halo of rosy fairy enchantment. Mr Lowes pressed forward to take Belinda’s arm, but Captain Pulteney easily stepped in front of him and secured the prize. Something he said made Belinda’s laugh ring out over the cobblestones and into the foyer, and Marianne shuddered. Whatever fairy spell allowed Belinda to enthral and delight, it seemed to cast wreaths of spiny, jealous vines about Marianne’s heart.

  It took three days for Marianne to recover her spirits after Sir William’s ball—three days of polite visits, peaceful sketching, studying ledgers with Aunt Harriet, and the increasing tedium of French and music lessons. Although the lessons had been growing more and more tiresome, she was making improvements, however slow. Marianne would sooner have bitten her tongue off than admit to Aunt Harriet that she had begun to dislike the routine of primly positioning tired wrists and conjugating verbs. In novels, of course, the transformation of a dull country girl into a shining debutante was that of a blossom opening to the sunlight of knowledge—a smooth, easy process due to the heroine’s natural ability. Marianne’s transformation, if there was one, far better resembled the slow, ceaseless banging of a hammer on hot iron.

  At first, long hours of practise had the charm of novelty—the blows of the hammer were new and startling and, better yet, they held forth a hope that the raw, molten material would someday be transformed into a gleaming rapier. Now, that hope had dwindled into a pathetic desire not to be too ugly a shovel or poker when the blacksmith was done. Her French was serviceable, but not sweet and warbling. Her performance at the pianoforte dutifully plinked out correct notes, but without any heartfelt expression.

  Occasionally Marianne wondered if she could use her sketching to better effect her transformation into a woman of fashion. Perhaps she could somehow win acclaim in London for her drawings. But displaying art beyond the domestic scene was not the sort of pursuit often permitted to ladies, and the few ladies who did exhibit produced the same pastel landscapes and painfully polite portraits that had always disgusted Marianne. She was better off leaving her drawing to spare moments and putting her monumental efforts into transforming herself. After all, Marianne herself was the work of art she truly wanted to display before the world.

  Three days had passed, and the joys of sauntering arm-in-arm with Miss Emily—and humiliations of falling into the shade of Belinda—faded into a bland mishmash of remembered drama. If Marianne’s emotions had settled somewhat with her daily efforts at transformation, the emotions stirred in other hearts remained livid and striking. In her next visit, Lady Angela made it clear the sting of her wounds had not faded.

  “My dear Harriet,” Lady Angela said, her eyes lit up with ire. Her dress was a faded blue merino, a little heavy for the weather now that spring was imminent in the air.

  Aunt Harriet greeted her in return, albeit less effusively, and invited the woman to sit with them.

  “What a delightful creature your sister is, Miss Mowbrey,” Lady Angela said. “So very sociable. She is clearly adept at managing a great many conversations at once, all with gentlemen, even.”

  Marianne averted her gaze, uncertain what to say.

  “And so pretty! Why, the men gush about Madame Vittoria and the divine Esme on the stage, but I am sure they are nothing to your sister’s beauty. She must have been very popular in your little town.”

  “I daresay she had flocks of fools about her,” Aunt Harriet said curtly, “but I do not know why you trouble yourself to mention it, Lady Angela.” Marianne could not tell if she was annoyed on Belinda’s behalf or her own.

  “Only because I am so curious about her. Such a fascinating little thing. Do tell me all about her, Harriet.” Her dark eyes fixed on Aunt Harriet, and Marianne had the hurtling sensation of narrowing in, as if an eagle had just fixed on a faraway mouse.

  “I scarcely know her, yet,” Aunt Harriet replied.

  Marianne was reminded that Belinda had yet to pay a visit to either of her aunts. She struggled to think of something mild and pleasant to say about her sister, something innocuous.

  “My sister plays the pianoforte, a little.” Not often, and not very well, but she did play the battered one in the rectory when it was raining too hard to walk to the village.

  “A musician! I am sure I suspected the temperament,” Lady Angela said, jumping on the fact with a greedy dive. “Flippant, spontaneous, flighty, but so in tune with those around her. Why, everyone at the ball noticed her and admired her. It must have pleased you so much, Miss Mowbrey.” Lady Angela had a mouth, not a beak, but it narrowed and hardened enough to add to her avian appearance.

  “It certainly did,” Marianne said, forcing a smile.

  “I knew it must.” Lady Angela smirked. “After all, a well-behaved young lady is a pearl beyond price. I have heard such sad stories of young women with no sense, no decorum, wandering about the streets at night, you know, with gentlemen.”

  Marianne’s breath caught. It was impossible that Lady Angela could have known anything about her walk with Mr Hearn—and yet, why else insert such a strange remark into the conversation except to needle her? A coincidence, she reassured herself, but she still felt uneasy.

  “Belinda seems well enough, from what I saw of her,” Aunt Harriet said. “It is very kind of you, Lady Angela, to take notice of her.”

  “Hmph.” Lady Angela allowed herself to be partly mollified, but upon rememberi
ng something, she ruthlessly reopened the wounds—her own, and Marianne’s. “She has no need of the praise of a lady like myself, of course—not with Mrs Walters traipsing after her and lauding her to the skies. How that woman dotes on the girl! I heard nothing from Mrs Walters except paeans about Belinda Mowbrey’s taste, Belinda Mowbrey’s beauty, Belinda Mowbrey’s sweetness, Belinda Mowbrey’s charm. I am sure you would never spoil a girl with pretty words, Harriet.”

  “Certainly not.” Aunt Harriet replied in a matter-of-fact way, ignorant of any deficiency. She gave a quick nod at Marianne, as if the girl were to be congratulated for having such a sensible aunt. It was only deep within Marianne that the shameful longing for approving words and, yes, even the admittedly mindless gushing of Mrs Walters lurked. Perhaps it would indeed have been bad for her to be living with a woman who praised her day and night, but Marianne could not deny the attraction of it.

  Her aunt continued, “But Belinda will learn soon enough how little the admiration of London means. London seeks novelty to worship and to laugh at, and as soon as the novelty wears off, the laughter and worship fall off, too. Marianne got a little bit of attention when she first arrived, as well—the Stokeses fairly sought her out—and now you see that palling. And Mr Hearn was ridiculed day and night for his Irish accent when he first came, but now nobody notices it. The world turns.” She gave a dismissive sniff for the vagaries of fashion.

  Marianne listened in wonderment. Mr Hearn—laughed at? She supposed there was an awful prejudice against anything Irish, but she never guessed it had hurt him that much in London. It still stung a little to hear it suggested that the Stokeses had merely sought her out of novelty, but Marianne had to admit it seemed true.

  Lady Angela took no notice of Aunt Harriet’s remarks. “It is not just Mrs Walters who was fussing over Belinda Mowbrey,” she said, irritation getting the better of her discretion. “Poor Captain Pulteney was driven hither and yon by her teasing and coaxing! He is no fool in general, but he certainly played the part at the ball.”