Love & Folly

by Sheila Simonson

  Jean and Owen had contrived one brief conversation alone since her return. He was pleased that the poem had reached his friend, grateful to her. She did not have the courage to tell him she had not placed the manuscript in his friend's hands.

  When she told him of the peril she and Jean had stood in, Owen was inclined to regard her as a heroine. She knew she was indulging vanity to bask in his admiration--if she was a heroine, so was Maggie--but she couldn't help herself. His praise bathed her in a warm glow. She longed to pour out her feelings to him, to reach a real understanding, but there was no opportunity.

  Clanross was taking a great interest in Owen's catalogue these days. He left the two, of them together in the bookroom only when Maggie, Elizabeth, or Miss Bluestone was there.

  Nor could Jean and Owen walk the grounds without company. Mostly their companion was Maggie. Jean didn't have the heart to rebuff Maggie whilst her sister looked so dispirited.

  After the ride to the pavilion, however, Jean felt real concern that Maggie's injury had addled her wits. So great was her concern that she spoke almost absently when Owen asked if she thought he should read the georgics to everyone that evening. Maggie and Johnny had been thick as thieves. Surely Maggie would be glad to see Johnny at the birthday dinner.

  Jean waited until her sister had had time for a good rest, then entered the bedchamber. The drapes were drawn and the light dim.

  "Maggie..."

  "What is it?"

  "I want to talk."

  Maggie stirred on the pillows. "All right."

  Jean pulled a chair to the head of the bed. "You've always liked Johnny Dyott. I thought you'd be glad to hear he was coming. What's wrong?"

  Maggie flung her arm over her eyes.

  "Tell me, Mag."

  "He won't speak to me. Whenever he saw me after the riot, he called me Lady Margaret: He despises me." She began to weep.

  Alarmed, Jean rose and bent over her. "Johnny was a little angry with us, of course, but I'm sure he likes you very much." That she had forfeited Johnny's esteem she knew well enough. She remembered his questions in the hackney.

  "We were friends before," Maggie sobbed. "He confided in me. I love him and now it's all ruined."

  "I didn't know," Jean said slowly.

  "Know what?" Maggie choked on a sob.

  "That your feelings were engaged."

  Maggie only cried harder.

  "I really didn't," Jean insisted, alarmed. "I'm sorry, Mag, but why didn't you tell me?"

  Maggie was heard to mutter that it wasn't romantical.

  "Like Owen, do you mean?"

  Maggie gave an assenting sniff. "But I love Johnny. I want to marry him."

  Jean had been leaning over her sister. Now she sat down hard on the chair. Though her love for Owen was a rare, crystalline blossom, the idea of marriage to him had scarcely crossed her mind. Marriage was some thing that would happen in the dim future. She would marry Owen, of course. When he was famous like Byron and ready to settle down. Settle down. The phrase weighed on her mind like lead. "Are you sure?"

  Maggie gulped and nodded. "I'll never love another man as I love Johnny. I'm... I was comfortable with him."

  Jean blinked. Comfortable? What did comfort have to do with the course of true love? "I wish you'd told me," she repeated.

  Maggie hiccoughed. "I wanted to be sure. I thought we would go on as we were for ever. Now everything's spoilt. He'll be polite."

  "Oh, Mag, I'm sorry." Jean felt helpless to console Maggie and curiously distant from her. How could her twin, her lifelong confidante, have conceived so strange an idea of love?

  They had discussed the subject at length, and Maggie had always agreed with Jean's opinions. They had admired the same fictional heroes and the same love songs. Of course, Maggie was not poetic. Jean had assimilated that difference long ago. Maggie was down-to-earth, practical. But love. Surely one could not be practical about love.

  Yet Maggie said she loved Johnny, and her grief was a powerful argument that she spoke the truth.

  "Tell me what I can do to help," Jean said humbly.

  Maggie rose on one elbow. "Release me from my promise."

  "About Owen's poem?" Jean licked dry lips. "I can't."

  "I have to tell Johnny the truth."

  "But don't you see, Johnny is Owen's enemy. He'd betray Owen."

  "He would not." Maggie glowered.

  "I don't mean he'd lay an information. Nothing like that. But he'd feel obliged to tell Clanross. Clanross is his employer. And Clanross would send Owen away. I couldn't bear it, Maggie." Tears blurred Jean's vision. "I couldn't."

  Maggie flopped back on the pillow. "It doesn't matter. Johnny won't want to speak to me privately in any case."

  Jean could think of no reply. And no solution. if only she could have a long talk with Owen alone, if he knew of Maggie's feelings, surely he would agree that she should tell... No. It was too much to ask.

  "I'm sorry," she said again. "It's not fair."

  Maggie did not reply.

  15

  The days before Jean and Maggie's eighteenth birthday tried Elizabeth's patience, never her strong suit, à la outrance.

  Maggie languished. She moped and complained of the headache until Elizabeth, genuinely alarmed, sent for the apothecary and Charles Wharton of Hazeldell in sequence. The apothecary prescribed rest and laudanum. Charles prescribed exercise and fortifying broths.

  Charles was a childhood friend and the surgeon who had saved Tom's life three years before. Elizabeth had a great regard for his medical opinion. He did not think Maggie was of a consumptive habit, which relieved Elizabeth's mind. Nevertheless Maggie kept to her couch.

  Jean was by turns sullen and overexcited. Her desire for private meetings with Owen Davies shone out clear as day. Even with Tom's aid, Elizabeth was hard put to keep track of Jean.

  Above all, the weather and the lengthening daylight frustrated Elizabeth's astronomical observations. That fact alone would have left her restive. It did not help that Tom was palpably tiptoeing about her sensibilities.

  She was glad her husband was home, touched by his pleasure in his sons, and grateful that he was willing to watch over Owen Davies, but she wished he would come out forthrightly with whatever was on his mind.

  Finally she took the bit in her teeth and confronted him. They had just come from a lively afternoon session with the babies. Tom followed her into her dressing room and watched as she brushed her hair, preparatory to putting it up for dinner. He liked her hair, which was plain chestnut. Glossy as chestnuts, he said. He had been retailing some minor accomplishment of the Honourable Richard. She interrupted him ruthlessly.

  "Dickon is clearly destined for great things. What is on your mind, Tom?"

  His brows shot up. "The state of the nation?"

  "Try again."

  "Maggie's megrims."

  She shook her head.

  "You're a hard woman to please."

  Elizabeth smiled. She had always liked his sparring style. "If you don't tell me what's troubling you, Tom, I shall imagine horrors." She stroked the brush through her hair and the air crackled. Electrical.

  "Horrors?"

  "You've sunk your fortune in shares of a steam-driven railroad and the engineer has gone bankrupt."

  His grey eyes gleamed with amusement.

  "You plan to leave me for Lady Holland."

  "Guess again."

  Elizabeth set down the brush. "I knew how it would be. You've taken up hot-air-balloon navigation and mean to cross the Channel in a wicker basket."

  Tom laughed aloud. He was notoriously prone to motion sickness and would be the last man on earth to take up hot-air ballooning.

  "I wish my face were not an open book," he said ruefully, when his mirth subsided. "I've done an unforgivable thing, Elizabeth."

  "Yes?"

  "I've invited Richard Falk to bring his family to Brecon for the month of August. Well, from the end of July."

  Elizabeth
digested that. "Perfidy."

  He was shamefaced but still amused. "I know very well you'll be wanting to work at the telescope, my dear. It's an unconscionable imposition. Fortunately, Richard has not yet accepted. His affairs are still unsettled."

  "It might do," Elizabeth mused.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I meant to invite Willoughby and Bella." Watching in her pier glass, she saw him grimace. He did not like Willoughby Conway-Gore who, until the birth of their sons, had been his heir. Elizabeth was mildly fond of Willoughby's wife, but a month of Willoughby would have been more than enough for her, too.

  "Why invite anyone at all?"

  "I shall need reinforcements, you see, if the king goes through with his foolish divorce and you're compelled to sit in the Lords nonstop. I like Colonel Falk. He's a sensible man and I think he has a kindness for Jean and Maggie."

  "Whew."

  She cocked her head inquiringly.

  "Not every one takes to Richard. He's an acquired taste."

  "I daresay. However, he strikes me as quick-witted and commonsensical. You'll allow that anyone dealing with Owen and my sisters ought to display both qualities."

  "Indeed."

  "I don't know Mrs. Falk, of course."

  "Emily Falk is an agreeable woman."

  Elizabeth turned and faced him directly. "Will she require to be entertained? I do mean to work at the telescope. I'm sure Colonel Falk will find ways to amuse himself, but a lady who feels her hostess is slighting her can be dispiriting company."

  Tom smiled. "That's the last word I'd use to describe Emily. And she doats on children. She has five of her own to occupy her, if our sons and our sisters lose their charm."

  "Lord, chaos in the nursery."

  "Her Sally is a trifle younger than the boys, and Harry, I think, a year older, so there are only two young Falks still in the nursery. Tommy, my godson, is six or seven. Amy is just Georgy's age, and the eldest, Emily's son, is twelve."

  Elizabeth brooded. "If I were to put Jean and Maggie in charge of the older children..."

  Tom shot her a mock salute. "Napoleonic, Elizabeth."

  She sighed. "Napoleon met his Waterloo. The girls would probably balk at so obvious a diversion. However, I shall write Mrs. Falk at once and second your invitation."

  He came to her, took her face in both hands and kissed her soundly. "I wish I might witness your every skirmish."

  Her spirits fell. "I wish you might, too. There is an eclipse of the sun I particularly wished to observe in your company."

  He took her hand in his own. "I give you my oath, queen or no queen, divorce or no divorce, I shall be with you for the eclipse of the sun."

  Elizabeth pressed his hand to her cheek. "I'll hold you to your promise, sir."

  * * * *

  Johnny reached Brecon the day before the twins' birthday dinner. During the coach ride he had rehearsed several eloquent speeches designed to restore him to Maggie's confidence. When he arrived at Brecon late in the afternoon, however, he found that Maggie was abed with the headache and did not plan to show herself that evening.

  That was a facer.

  The company at Brecon had swelled, and the dinner that evening stretched interminably, probably owing to the presence of the Whartons and the Conway-Gores. Mrs. Conway-Gore was witty and handsome enough to distract any man from his mutton, but her husband, a Conway cousin, struck Johnny as a coxcomb.

  A waspish exquisite in very high shirt points and very tight knee breeches, Willoughby Conway-Gore soon drove the gentlemen from their port. They rejoined the ladies to discover Lady Clanross riffling through the stack of musick on the pianoforte. She was bent, it seemed, on an evening of song.

  Bella Conway-Gore had a clear, well-trained soprano and an obliging temper. She sang three of the new Italian airs, then volunteered to play for the others. Charles Wharton and Lady Clanross persuaded Owen Davies to join them and the four singers were soon delighting the company with their harmonies. Owen had a true Welsh tenor and he exercised it to much applause.

  Johnny no longer saw Davies as a rival, but he could not help wishing the Muses' darling would strangle in his artfully negligent neckcloth. No such happy chance occurred.

  Clanross listened with evident enjoyment. Once Johnny swallowed his chagrin, he might have, too, for the singers' voices blended well and he liked musick. Unfortunately, he had chosen to sit beside Mrs. Wharton, and she kept up a gentle babble of inanity that made concentration difficult. He was obliged to lend her at least half an ear.

  Though it was hard to believe, Mrs. Wharton was Witty Willoughby's sister. She was a pretty woman with the remains of what must have been remarkable beauty overlaid with plumpness. She was clearly enciente as well. Had she said anything sensible Johnny would have given her his attention, but she was as near to being witless as made no difference. She had two clever children and a clever husband and she told Johnny all about their cleverness, illustrating her tiny points with endless anecdote.

  Trying to look interested, Johnny let his mind wander to the twins. Jean was listening to the singers--or possibly just to the leading tenor--with rapt attention. She had avoided speaking to Johnny at dinner, though she sat on his left. He supposed she had not yet forgiven him for the cross-examination he subjected her to in the hackney.

  Had Maggie forgiven him? Her absence was not a propitious omen. His spirits sank as the singers' voices rose.

  How could he assure her, without offending her loyalty, that he knew her sister had led her into the escapade in London? Maggie was by nature sweet, biddable, trusting. If only she would place her trust in him, he would wear it like a favour.

  That was a good phrase. He tasted it. Perhaps he was not a wild Welsh poet, but he could turn a phrase. But what good would his eloquence do him if Maggie would not listen?

  "'...and for bonnie Annie Laurie,'" Owen warbled, "'I would lay-hay me doon and dee.'"

  Indeed.

  "...oil of cloves," Mrs. Wharton was saying earnestly. "It is your only remedy for sore gums."

  "Er, yes," Johnny murmured.

  At that point Willoughby Conway-Gore mutinied. Though he was not so boorish as to say so directly, he made it clear he had had enough of Scottish warbling. He meant to indulge in a rubber or two of whist, if Elizabeth did not object, and where the deuce were the playing cards?

  It was that kind of evening. Johnny played whist with an inattentive mind and he and his partner, the charming Mrs Conway-Gore, were soundly trounced. The Whartons departed. The ladies retired. Mr. Conway-Gore bullied the earl into a game of piquet for chicken stakes.

  That was enough for Johnny. He excused himself and went up to his bedchamber, convinced that he should have stayed in London.

  He rose early with a plan of action. It had come to him in the night, as good things often do. Still in his nightshirt, he pawed through his travelling secretary, and found pen, paper, sealing wax and the not-bad sonnet. He began to write.

  * * * *

  Possibly because she had spent the better part of two weeks lolling about in a darkened bedchamber, Maggie also woke early. Her eyes opened and would not shut. It was her eighteenth birthday, the sun shone, and Johnny Dyott lay beneath the same roof, even if he did despise her. She stared solemnly at the canopy. Jean was sound asleep.

  It was even too early for the servants to be stirring. Maggie clenched her eyes shut and willed herself back to sleep. Silently she recited five verses of "Marmion." She turned on her side and put a pillow over her head, but it was no use and her flailing about was beginning to disturb Jean.

  Resigned, she slipped from the bed. Jean said "Mmmn?" and settled in like a hare in its form, but she did not wake and Maggie tiptoed into the dressing room.

  As she brushed her short curls she caught a glimpse of white near the bottom edge of the door. A letter. Probably Owen plotting a tryst with Jean. Maggie rose and retrieved the envelope. It was sealed with a plain wafer. She turned it over. "Lady Margaret,"
it said in Johnny's neat script.

  Maggie's pulse thrummed. She broke the seal hastily and a slip of lighter paper fell to the carpet. She picked it up and ran to the dressing table, both papers clasped to her bosom.

  "My dear Maggie," it began.

  Maggie, not Lady Margaret! She smoothed the creamy sheet, scarcely daring to believe her eyes. Her fingers trembled.

  Do daisies unclose betimes on their birthdays? If I were any kind of poet, and the enclosed sonnet will show you plainly I am not, perhaps I could put into words how very much I wish you well on this bright morning. I know you have been ill and dare not hope that you may join me in the formal garden before breakfast, but, when you do read this, know that I saw the day's eye open and thought of you. The best of happy birthdays, sweet marguerite.

  Your friend and devoted servant, J. Dyott.

  "Oh, my word!" Maggie whispered.

  The sonnet. She had forgot the sonnet. She picked up the other sheet. The poem was called "The Pearl," another play on her name. It said pleasant, flattering things in neat iambic lines that even rhymed. Maggie had never heard of anything half so romantical--and it was addressed to her, not to Jean.

  She let the sonnet flutter to the surface of the table and stared at her flushed face in the mirror. Her grey eyes shone and her mouth formed a rosy O. And she was still in her night rail and robe!

  Leaping to her feet, she dashed to the window, flung it up, and craned out, but she could see only a tiny corner of the garden. Would he wait? He had to wait.

  As she scrambled into her green walking dress it occurred to Maggie that she had never in her life dressed alone. Before they had Lisette's services to themselves, she and Jean had always buttoned one another's buttons and hooked one another's hooks. Probably she was putting herself together all sidewise. She swallowed a giggle.

  She fastened her stockings and slid into a pair of stout shoes, smoothed her hair, and blew a kiss at her excited reflection in the glass.

  She was halfway out the door when she remembered the papers lying on the dressing table. She retrieved them and slipped them into the pocket of her skirt. For once she was going to have a secret. Jean would have to pry it from her.