Flirtation & Folly

by Elizabeth Rasche

  Her yellowed cheeks flushed with the realisation that she had revealed some small predilection in his favour. “Not that anyone cares what a young soldier does. He is a nobody. But it is an example of the kind of silly things silly people encourage.”

  The rectory side of Marianne—the Christian, obedient side—insisted that she defend her sister and spare her family further humiliation. The London side of her—self-interested, ambitious—took a mild satisfaction in hearing someone detail the faults of Belinda. Marianne struggled with what to say. Should she object and say Belinda was not silly? But she was. Should she say it was not Belinda’s fault she was pretty and charming? It was neither her fault, nor to her credit—but how painful it would be to state it, how dreary!

  In the end she let Lady Angela’s flow of venom wash over her without resistance. Aunt Harriet seemed amused by the noblewoman’s rancour. She occasionally stuck an oar into the stream of poison and redirected it, only to have the ripples slip over and churn back into their previous channel. Lady Angela’s entire visit might have been devoted to a painstaking critique of Belinda Mowbrey, had it not been for one timely entrance: that of Belinda herself.

  The butler announced Belinda Mowbrey with a subtle smile that hinted he knew how Lady Angela’s visit had been going, but Belinda bounded into the room with no apparent notion of any dislike. She curtseyed and greeted each in turn, aided by Marianne’s quick reminder of Lady Angela’s name.

  After a frigid, tiny nod of the head—more like an icicle cracking and shifting without falling—Lady Angela turned from Belinda to give an effusive goodbye to Aunt Harriet, something far friendlier than Marianne had ever seen from her before. Then Lady Angela resumed her freezing deportment and stalked out of the room.

  Belinda stared after her in silence for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Aunt Harriet, who was that dreadful woman? Lady Angela? She dressed like a cheap seamstress, not a lady.” Belinda giggled.

  “Lady Angela is a friend of mine, Belinda,” Aunt Harriet said, becoming very still.

  “A friend? Well, I do not think she will be any friend of mine,” Belinda said with humour. “Mean, ugly, and poor. Not much to recommend her to me for a friend!”

  “Belinda!” Aunt Harriet drew herself upright, her brow furrowed. “I will not hear insults against my friend and your elder. Of course she has faults, as we all do. But she has had a very hard life and deserves your compassion.”

  “What happened exactly, Aunt?” Marianne asked. It was hard to imagine any life justifying Lady Angela’s vituperative scorn.

  Aunt Harriet sat down again, briefly straightening her skirts, and took on the lecturing tone Marianne knew from their talks about money. “She was the daughter of a viscount who died of apoplexy. At the time, his two sons—fools, each of them—were touring France, right before the revolution, and they both died there. Angela was just out of the schoolroom when they all died. Her family home, along with the title, went to a distant relation, and she was left with no friends and nothing to live on. The only thing her father left her was the furniture in the home, which she was about to sell for a pittance to the stingy fellow who inherited the house.

  “I convinced her she could get a better deal if we had a private auction of the effects. A woman of fashion for whom I had done a monetary favour agreed to host the auction and make it look select, and by the end of it, Lady Angela had enough to settle in London.” A note of pride entered Aunt Harriet’s voice. “Lady Angela believes she is repaying me by gracing me with her presence periodically, and I allow her to believe so. She thinks I brag to all my friends that I am visited by Lady Angela.” A small smile creased her features.

  Belinda made a scoffing noise, but Aunt Harriet spoke over her. “She may be nothing to brag about, but she is the daughter of a peer with very little to live on, and that means she endures a great deal of suffering. I have watched her sour over time as the pressures of spinsterhood and a lack of fortune shaped her.” A sigh escaped her. “She was always a bit prudish, but she became much more so when she had to live on a confined income and no gentlemen showed interest anymore.”

  “Then you let her continue to visit you out of…pity,” Marianne said. “You do not even like her.”

  “I may not like her, but there is still something meaningful in her. Everyone matters. I am looking into some old debts owed to her father. He did not think them worth following up on, but then, he thought he would have sons to take care of Lady Angela upon his death. If I can recover a little of the money, she will not be so pinched, and her character may improve likewise.”

  “La, what a saint you are, Aunt!” Belinda said. “But I would not raise any hope that the old gnat will stop her buzzing.”

  Although she would not have expressed it so crassly, Marianne had to agree. She could feel sympathy for the noblewoman, but doubted she had much kindness left in her.

  Belinda picked up Marianne’s sketchbook so that she could sit beside her. The combination of Belinda’s sweet scent—all rose water and powder—with the worn, broad-leafed book clasped in her lap, made Marianne feel oddly vulnerable. She had no fear that Belinda would spoil the sketchbook. Her sister held it delicately, but never lifted the cover. Marianne’s drawing was old news to Belinda, but despite her lack of interest, Belinda seemed to treat the book with respect. It doubled the guilt Marianne felt over listening to Lady Angela denounce her sister with such complacency.

  “Well, Belinda, which number are you?” Aunt Harriet asked. “My sister has nine children, does she not? Where do you come in?” Marianne had long since grown used to her aunt’s pretence. Aunt Harriet had far too good a head for numbers to be forever forgetting how many there were. She liked to posit a lower number so that she could feign shock at hearing the real one.

  “I am the fourth of ten, Aunt Harriet,” Belinda said cheerfully. “You know Marianne is the first, and then come our two clergymen brothers, Edward the Prim and Harry the Wild, and then comes me.”

  “Ten! I cannot imagine how they manage it!”

  “Oh, Mama and Papa muddle through, somehow,” Belinda said. “And if they cannot, I shall not be there to fuss about it. I am never going back to Wrumpton.” When she tugged off her bonnet, her golden curls—carefully pinned back—bounced like splashes of light.

  “Oh, you have it all planned out, have you?” Aunt Harriet said. Her tone was apparently idle, but Marianne could sense the underlying annoyance.

  “Certainly—well, enough to be going on with. Some gentleman or other will ask me to marry him, and then we shall settle in London and laugh all day long.” Belinda laughed now, as if to demonstrate, and the curls jostled applause.

  “I suppose you think you have prospects.” Aunt Harriet’s voice continued in seeming amiability.

  “There is Mr Nabbles, who is splendidly rich. And Mr Lowes, who is dying for love of me. And Mr Cox would fall on his knees and thank heaven if I so much as let him hold my hand. And best of all, now there is this Captain Pulteney—ˮ

  “You must have been flirting a great deal to line up so many eligible options,” Aunt Harriet said, the first note of clear disapproval entering her tone.

  “La! As if a woman could get married without flirting! The more you flirt, the more eligible options you collect, just as you say, Aunt Harriet.” Belinda showed no consternation or offence, just simple pleasure at being able to gossip about herself. It was one of the most irritating—and endearing—things about her: Belinda was too light-hearted to take much notice of any disapprobation. Being so well convinced of her right to do as she pleased, she marked the frowns of those around her, when she noticed them at all, as signs of discontent within themselves, and thus nothing to do with her. In Belinda’s view, people scolded her when they had slept poorly, or had indigestion, or tormented themselves with useless principles—not when Belinda had done anything materially wrong.

  Belinda’s serene indifference to criticism may have buoyed her, but Aunt Harriet was firmly grou
nded in the practical, and it gave her better footing than most in the effort to scold. “Your flirting sounds a good deal wasted, Belinda. How do you know these gentlemen—if I can even term Mr Cox a gentleman—can support a wife, or even wish one? Men can deceive.”

  “Oh, I know all about that. That’s why I always get my maid to ask the gentlemen’s manservants about them. They can tell you quick enough who has the ready.”

  Aunt Harriet’s mouth twisted at the slang, but she refrained from commenting on it in pursuit of more important errors. “Ridiculous, Belinda. Servants are well paid to lie. You had much better ask his tradesmen instead. It is their business to know what a man’s worth.”

  “So it is! That is good advice, Aunt Harriet.” Belinda’s brilliant smile, all pearly teeth and plump lips, probably mollified miffed suitors by the score, but Aunt Harriet was far better mollified by the suggestion that her niece would take her advice. Marianne felt uncomfortable with her family’s blunt discussion of husband-hunting and money, but she had learned that the discomfort soon wore off, and the gems of good sense remained. Was this further proof that London was vitiating her morals and decorum? The rectory version of Marianne would never have entertained the idea of scrutinising a man’s affairs to find out his assets.

  Belinda wrinkled her nose. “Of course, there is such a disaster shadowing me now, I will have to flirt twice as hard to get anybody to fall in love with me. Can you guess what it is, Aunt Harriet?”

  Belinda’s flippancy was already wearing away some of her aunt’s mollification. “I am sure I cannot.”

  “Somehow a rumour of my age has gone about, and more than one lady has charged me with being twenty years old. Twenty years old! What a dreadful thing to say! And it is true, which makes it even worse.” Belinda lifted and dropped her hands expressively.

  Marianne cleared her throat. “I am afraid that’s my fault, Belinda. I told the Stokes sisters your age.”

  “Oh, that is too cruel, Marianne. You know I could pass for sixteen if you would not speak against me.” She did look hurt for a moment, but then she patted Marianne’s hand. “Never mind. Luckily, Mrs Walters is ready to swear a hundred times a day that she saw me in my cradle not seventeen years ago, so I think I can live it down.”

  “Pshaw,” Aunt Harriet said, at a loss to better express her disapproval.

  “Will you show me your bedchamber, Marianne? I have a little time before the carriage comes back for me.” Belinda rose, and Marianne obeyed.

  “I hope you will visit your Aunt Matilda as well, Belinda, while you are in the area,” Aunt Harriet said. It was clear she disliked Belinda’s company, yet could not let her slip away without grasping at her and delivering another piece of advice.

  “Oh, I have already. What horrors! She was wearing the ugliest hat. The brim was all pushed back as if it had been blown back by the surprise of seeing me.” She giggled. “It certainly could not have been blown back by the wind, for I hear she never goes anywhere.”

  “She seldom does,” Aunt Harriet said, but she allowed the two nieces to go upstairs. Marianne could see hints of waspish condemnation—of slang, flirting, silliness, and disrespect of elders—swimming in her aunt’s face; the effort to let Belinda escape a tirade must have been formidable.

  Nothing hinted at the state of Mrs Walters’s London house so well as Belinda’s indifference to the gilt frames, trim wainscoting, and solid, carved mahogany that adorned the hallways and rooms as they passed upstairs to Marianne’s room. While Marianne still felt a rush of heady luxury whenever she squeezed the silken coverlet on her bed or traced the neat arabesques of her dressing table with her fingers, Belinda apparently had accustomed herself to far greater luxury in the social circle she inhabited. It could not be that Belinda did not care for such things. Marianne remembered her sister feeling the same frustration with the fraying edges and warped wood of the rectory that she had endured. But Belinda had moved past poverty into the ton of London, whereas Marianne was still inching her way into a lesser circle.

  What exactly did Mrs Walters’s house look like? A tingle of envy made its way into Marianne, but she shoved it back down into the depths of her mind. She had already spent too much time feeling disgusted with Belinda after the ball, and then allowed Lady Angela to sneer at her without saying a word in her defence. She ought to make amends to Belinda as best she could.

  “Now, let me see what you got,” Belinda said, throwing open the wardrobe doors and emptying the contents of her shelled jewellery box on the bed. Her hands deftly moved from muslin to merino, ring to bracelet, taking a quick but thorough inventory. Marianne watched her, half annoyed, half amused.

  “I thought you wanted to see me, not my clothes.”

  “And why not have a look at them both? It will do no harm.” Most of the gowns were thrown aside without much inspection, but one white muslin—one of Miss Emily’s choosing—achieved the honour of being held up to Belinda’s own figure as she glanced at the mirror. “This is nice. But some of these are frightfully strange, Marianne. What are all these little wings here?” She gestured at the dress adorned with fan shapes, the one Miss Emily had dubbed ‘the man-of-war at full sail’.

  “Just an idea I had,” Marianne said. Christian humility forced her to add, “It did not work out. People laughed.”

  “Oh, it is strange, yes, but it could be appealing. Of course people will needle you about it if they sense your uncertainty. La! Wear it to the next concert, and I shall talk it up as something fetching. That is all you need—one pretty lady looking like she’s wild with envy about it.” Belinda laughed.

  “Will that not be deceitful?” It was strange Marianne should protest so much for the sake of morals, given her previous worries that she had cast such quibbles to the winds in her London pursuits. But something about being with Belinda again brought back all the stodginess, all the cool, deliberate prudence and dull responsibility Marianne thought she had left behind. Marianne did not know whether to be glad or resentful at the resurrection of her Wrumpton self.

  “No more than fashion in general is,” Belinda said. “Oh, but I nearly forgot! Speaking of fashion, I bought you a present.” She rummaged through the pile of clothing to retrieve her reticule and extracted from it a fan. The lacquered sticks gleamed, while the leaves were a plain, cream-coloured silk of high quality.

  Marianne’s face lit up. “How kind, Belinda! It is beautiful.” For once, Marianne felt honest and real with her sister. She took the dainty fan into her hands and turned it over, admiring each side.

  “I thought you could paint the leaves,” Belinda said. “You were always good at that sort of thing.”

  Warmth swelled in Marianne’s chest. “I will love painting it. Thank you, Belinda.” The gentle spring of silk pushed back against her fingers as she smoothed it. “But it must have cost so much! Papa only gave you twenty pounds for pin money.” Marianne knew now how little that was for London prices and delights.

  “Oh, I borrowed money from the milliner. She does not mind.”

  “Borrowed!” Marianne’s chest froze, and she forced herself to take a deep breath. “You borrowed from a milliner?”

  “And a few other tradespeople. I run up bills, mostly, but a few of them give me a bit of ready cash when I need it. Mrs Walters is very generous and all that, but a lady must have a thousand things a day, and I cannot always be asking Mrs Walters for things.” Belinda took a look at her sister’s face and started to laugh. “You look nearly apoplectic. You need not worry. ’Tis a common practice to make arrangements with milliners and dressmakers—at least, for ladies like myself.” Her meaning would have been unclear if not for Belinda’s self-approving glance in the mirror.

  “They let you run up debts because you are pretty?”

  Belinda smiled. “Give them their due, Marianne. ’Tis not just prettiness they invest in. They know I am likely to make a good match with a wealthy man, and pay them back. In fact, the better dressed I am, the better a match I
am likely to make, and thus the more money the tradespeople are likely to make from me. Everybody benefits.”

  The moments of rapport with her sister were so fragile and so unusual that Marianne hesitated to disturb them. Belinda had never given her a present on a whim before. They were two country girls from a dull, ugly town, thrust into the whirl and splendour of London, both determined to remain in the giddy life of novelty and adventure. And Marianne had already carped at her sister for other faults, an unwelcome reappearance of the bitter, resentful version of herself where it was not wanted, not even by herself.

  But Marianne could not help thinking of her mother struggling in the rectory, and how Aunt Harriet had washed her hands of her. If Aunt Harriet had pressed harder to teach her, perhaps life in the rectory would have turned out differently for the Mowbreys. Perhaps her mother would not have developed such habits of idleness and poor management. If Marianne spoke plainly to Belinda, perhaps she could ward off some dismal fate threatening her.

  “But what if you do not get married?” Marianne said.

  Belinda gave her a bland smile. “Oh, of course they know there is a risk. Little difficulties do sometimes occur.”

  “You think they would not press the debt, if you did not marry?”

  Belinda tossed the gown she was holding down onto the bed in an impatient gesture. “How should I know? It will never happen, Marianne. I can marry any time I choose. The only question is which gentleman.” She folded her arms and threw a haughty glare at Marianne. “I suppose you want to give me the fan back now. Of course you think me too irresponsible to do anything properly. You cannot even take a gift from me without scolding me for it.”

  “It is a lovely gift,” Marianne said quietly. She made no attempt to return the fan, and after a moment, Belinda relaxed.