The Folly

by M C Beaton

  As if in answer to her wishes for a handsome partner, no sooner was the dance over and the supper dance announced than a gentleman was bowing before her. Rachel hesitated just a moment.

  She had expected to be led into supper after this dance by Charles. Perhaps, she thought furiously, if Mama had not arrived so late, there would have been time for Charles to have asked her. She realized the gentleman in front of her was looking at her quizzically and waiting for her reply.

  She dropped a low curtsy and said, “I am delighted, sir.”

  And then she took a proper look at him. He was a stranger to the neighbourhood; she had not seen him before. He was of medium height with thick brown hair fashionably cut, which gleamed in the candle-light with red glints. His square, regular face was deeply tanned.

  Suddenly mindful of the conventions, Rachel said, as he led her to the floor, “We have not been introduced, sir.”

  “I thought such conventions were only for London balls.”

  “No, I assure you.”

  He led her to the Master of Ceremonies, Squire Blaine, and said, “Pray introduce me to this beautiful lady.”

  “Certainly,” said the squire. “Miss Beverley, may I present Mr. Hercules Cater, whom I met earlier today. Mr. Cater is a sugar planter from the Indies. Mr. Cater, the star of our county, Miss Rachel Beverley of Brookfield House.”

  “There we are,” he said gaily, leading her to the centre of the floor. “Now we are all that is respectable.”

  The dance was a quadrille, which many people in the county still did not know how to perform, and so there was only one set: Rachel and Mr. Cater, Charles and Minerva, the general and Lady Beverley, and Belinda and George Santerton.

  It gladdened Rachel’s heart to notice how ungracefully Minerva danced. Her own partner, Mr. Cater, danced with ease and grace, drawing applause from the audience by performing an entrechat, quite in the manner of the bon ton who employed ballet masters to teach them elaborate steps.

  Miss Trumble watched the dancers. She was glad the general was dancing with Lady Beverley. For had the general chosen her, Miss Trumble, for the supper dance, then, the governess knew, her mistress would have done everything in her power to ruin the evening for everyone else.

  And then she noticed Lady Evans sitting in a quiet corner and made her way there.

  “Ah, Letitia,” said Lady Evans, who was wearing an enormous turban instead of one of her usual giant caps. “Come and sit by me, for I am become bored.”

  “You must not call me Letitia in public,” admonished Miss Trumble, sitting down beside her. “If it bores you so much, why do you come?”

  “Curiosity. I was anxious to see Miss Santerton with my own eyes. I have heard so much about her.”

  “Indeed! I am so out of the world, I have heard nothing at all. How old is she, would you say?”

  “I know her exact age. She is one of the Sussex Santertons. Good family. Minerva is twenty-eight.”

  “So old, so beautiful, and not married! No money?”

  “The Santertons are as rich as Croesus.”

  “So what is the problem?”

  “Minerva Santerton is a widow.”

  “Then why is she called Santerton?”

  “It is a dark story. She married Sir Giles Santerton, a first cousin. They were married only a little over a year when Sir Giles was found drowned in a pond on his estate. Now, he had been heard quarrelling with Minerva—evidently they fought like cat and dog—on the morning of the day he died. Also, when his body was pulled from the water, he had a lump the size of an egg on his head. There were a few nasty rumours.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as that his wife had hit him on the head and pushed him to his death. But Giles’s father was and is the local magistrate and shuddered at the idea of scandal, and he had not been overfond of his son in any case, and so nothing more was said about the whole business and the rumours died away. My friend, Mrs. Tullock, who knows the family and is of Sussex, went to the funeral and said Minerva cried most affectingly and even fainted at the graveside.”

  “But she was introduced to the Beverleys as Miss Santerton!”

  “The death took place four years ago. After a period of mourning, Miss Santerton appeared once more on the social scene. She seems determined to be regarded as a débutante.”

  “At her age, and apparently never having been married, she is in danger of being damned as an ape-leader.” Spinsters were still believed to be damned when they died to lead apes in hell.

  “I think she is still in a way out for revenge on the dead Giles by acting as if the marriage never happened,” said Lady Evans.

  “Why did she marry him if she hated him that much?”

  “Her mother was dead and her father, considerably older than the mother, mark you, was an awful old tyrant. He arranged the marriage, he and Giles’s father.”

  “But a first cousin…” protested Miss Trumble.

  “Oh, they were married by a bishop, and one can always bribe a bishop. Now take that fellow dancing with Rachel. He is a Mr. Cater, a sugar planter, and said to be enormously wealthy. Good parti.”

  “All these people arriving out of nowhere,” murmured Miss Trumble. “And I had the stage so nicely set.”

  “What’s that, hey?”

  “Nothing of importance,” said Miss Trumble sadly. “Nothing important at all.”

  Rachel found Mr. Cater pleasant company at supper. She judged him to be in his mid-twenties, certainly nearer her age than Charles Blackwood. “And what brings you to Hedgefield?” she asked.

  “Curiosity. I met someone out in the West Indies who spoke of the beauties of Mannerling, and finding time on my hands, I decided to travel into the country and perhaps see the place for myself.”

  “Mannerling,” echoed Rachel, her face lighting up.

  “You know the place well?”

  “Of course; it was our family home until some years ago.” Her large eyes shone. “It must be the most beautiful place in the world.”

  “I have already spoken to the present owner, Mr. Charles Blackwood. He has kindly allowed me to visit Mannerling and see for myself.”

  “Oh, it is so wonderful. Such an air of peace and elegance. I miss it so much. We were happy there. Who told you of Mannerling?”

  “An elderly gentleman, Lord Hexhamworth.”

  “Ah, yes, he was a friend of my father and was always invited to our balls. We had wonderful balls.”

  “Mr. Blackwood seems much taken with Miss Santerton.”

  Rachel looked down the long table to where Charles sat with Minerva.

  “Yes,” she agreed, but impatiently. For some reason she wanted to forget the existence of Charles Blackwood and the glorious Minerva, who made her feel small and provincial. “The last ball we had at Mannerling,” she went on, “was the finest. The walls were draped with silk, and a double row of footmen lined the grand staircase, each man carrying a gold sword.”

  “That is extravagance to rival the Prince Regent!”

  “It was so very fine.” She gave a little sigh. “But we have accepted our new life and are relatively happy.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Blackwood can be persuaded to let you show me the delights of Mannerling.”

  “That would not be fitting. Besides, I would feel like an interloper.”

  “And yet your beauty in a beautiful house would surely be fitting.”

  “Thank you, sir, for the compliment. Do you stay long in England?”

  “Several months. I have not been home this age.”

  “Tell me about your life in the Indies.”

  At first she listened, fascinated, to the tales of hurricanes and heat, of hard labour and the rewards of being a plantation owner. But when he began to complain of the laziness of his black slaves, Rachel began to feel uncomfortable. Miss Trumble had lectured them on the evils of slavery. And yet she had up until that point found the company of this easygoing Mr. Cater pleasant.

  “You o
bviously do not believe in all this talk of freedom for slaves,” she said at last.

  Something flickered through the depths of his eyes and he said with a light laugh, “It may seem brutal to you here, in your sheltered world of England. But you would soon change your views were you in the West Indies. Sugar must be harvested and white skins are not up to labouring in the sun.”

  “Possibly,” agreed Rachel. “But slaves!”

  He smiled indulgently. “You are a very modern young lady. But tell me more about Mannerling.”

  And in her enthusiasm in describing her old home, Rachel forgot for the rest of the evening about those slaves.

  Charles Blackwood had to admit to himself that he was becoming quickly fascinated by the beautiful Minerva. He had not invited either Minerva or her brother to stay; they had invited themselves. At first he had been irritated, for the acquaintanceship was slight and they had not asked if they could stay, had simply sent an express to say they would be arriving. George Santerton was a bore and a fool, but the glorious Minerva more than made up for her brother’s deficiencies.

  The intense blue of her eyes, the gold of her hair, the swell of her bosom, and the way those magnificent eyes lit up with laughter went straight to his heart. He had planned never to marry again, but Minerva would make such a beautiful ornament in his beautiful home.

  But there were Mark and Beth to consider before he even thought of presenting them with a new mother. His fury at his late wife’s infidelity had made him neglect them. He realized that now and he was immensely grateful to Miss Rachel Beverley of Brookfield House for having brought that neglect to his attention. His eyes strayed to Rachel. She seemed to be enjoying the company of that stranger, Cater. If the man was as rich as rumour already had it, then perhaps yet another of the Beverley sisters would make a good marriage. He hoped she would find someone worthy of her. He could not in his heart blame the Beverleys for their reported machinations in trying to reclaim their home. The girls were very young and the plunge from riches to a sort of genteel straitened circumstances must have been hard. There was a soft glow about Rachel when she was happy that seemed to make Minerva’s charms, by contrast, look like hard brilliance. He gave himself a mental shake. Minerva was speaking. “I quite dote on your children,” she said. “I feel it is a great tragedy that I have none of my own.”

  “Perhaps you may yet have children,” he said lightly. “You may marry again.”

  “When one has made a bad mistake, or rather, one’s father has forced one into an unhappy marriage, then one is not anxious to marry again.”

  He looked at her with quick sympathy. “I understand what you mean. But there are good people in this world.”

  Her eyes caressed his face. “I am beginning to think there are.”

  He felt a little chill, a sense of withdrawal. Like all men, he wanted to be the hunter, not the hunted.

  “How long do you plan to stay at Mannerling?” he asked abruptly.

  To his horror, those beautiful eyes of hers filled with tears. “Alas,” she said brokenly, “I told George we had been too forward in coming. We will leave as soon as possible.”

  He immediately felt like a brute. “My dear Miss Santerton, you and your brother are welcome to be my guests for as long as you wish.”

  She dabbed at her eyes. “Too kind,” she said. “I must do something to repay you. Your poor children, I am sure, would appreciate some feminine company. I would be prepared to spend some time with them.”

  “As to that, although I do thank you for your offer, the matter is attended to. Mark and Beth go daily to Brookfield House to be educated by the governess there, an estimable woman, and they also have the company of the Beverley girls.”

  “Ah, yes, the Beverleys,” she said in a low voice. “You do not think the many scandals attached to that unfortunate family will affect your children?”

  “I have heard all the scandals and no, I do not. They are very happy.”

  “Mmm. Oh, well, if you are satisfied…I mean, I trust the girls are not using the children to ingratiate themselves with you.”

  “Hardly. Miss Rachel gave me my character over my neglect of Mark and Beth.”

  “We shall see,” said Minerva. “We shall see.”

  The ball wound to its close. Rachel had not been asked to dance by Charles Blackwood and she felt it was something of a slight, for he had danced with both Lizzie and Belinda, a Belinda who, Rachel thought, had flirted quite outrageously.

  She felt suddenly tired. The room was overwarm, faces were flushed, and quite a number of the gentlemen were drunk. But she knew her mother would not leave the ball until the general did. Rachel reflected that she had never seen her mother look so animated before. She still had a handsome figure and a neat ankle. She had rouged her face with two bright circles, despite Miss Trumble’s advice to the contrary, in an effort to banish the pallor caused by long bouts of imaginary illness when she was mured up in her bedchamber. But Rachel noticed how the general’s eyes kept straying to where Miss Trumble sat against the wall, and feared ructions ahead. Lady Beverley would have been shocked could she have guessed that the general’s reason for not taking Miss Trumble up for a dance was because he feared she might make life difficult for her governess.

  At last Rachel, dancing a second dance with Mr. Cater, saw the Mannerling party leave and knew that they could now go home. Mr. Cater sought out Lady Beverley and gained her permission to call.

  “He would do very well for you, Rachel,” said Lady Beverley in the carriage on the road home.

  “You go too fast, Mama,” pleaded Rachel wearily. “I know very little about the gentleman except that he owns sugar plantations in Barbados in the West Indies. He employs slaves.”

  “I should be very surprised if he did not, my child. How else is the sugar to be harvested?”

  But Rachel did not feel like entering into an argument on the rights and wrongs of slavery with her mother. The next day was Sunday, so there would be no visit from the Blackwood children, although they could expect to see the Blackwoods in church.

  When Rachel was brushing out her hair before going to bed, Miss Trumble quietly entered the room.

  “You look worried, Rachel. Was Mr. Cater not to your liking?”

  “He is a very pleasant man. But he keeps slaves. The slave-trade was abolished, or so you told us.”

  “The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807,” said Miss Trumble. “But this act, be it remembered, did not abolish slavery but only prohibited the traffic in slaves. So that no ship should clear out from any port in the British dominions after May the first, 1807, with slaves on board, and that no slave should be landed in the colonies after March the first, 1808.”

  “So why is there still slavery?”

  Miss Trumble sat down with a weary little sigh. “The product is now home-grown, just like the sugar. Slavery has been going on so long that there are black children growing up into slavery.”

  “It distresses me,” said Rachel in a low voice.

  “Many things in this wicked world distress me,” said the governess. “But you are not going to reform a plantation owner. Should you marry him, all you could do would be to see that the slaves were well-housed and fed and not ill-treated. With the education I have given you, you would be well-equipped to educate them. But in order to go to such a situation on the other side of the world, you would need to be very much in love. Arranged marriages often work out quite comfortably in England, but it would be different there. There would be so many stresses and strains.”

  “It looked very much tonight as if our Mr. Charles will make a match of it with Miss Santerton.”

  “I do hope not.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “A feeling, that is all. I think there is an instability of mind there.”

  Rachel gave a little shrug. “Where such beauty is concerned, I am sure a little madness would not even be noticed.”

  “Perhaps,” said Miss Tr
umble.

  At church in the morning, with the congregation heavy-eyed after the ball the night before, Rachel noticed that the Santertons were there, Minerva and Charles looking very much a couple. Mr. Stoddart, the vicar, preached in a monotonous voice. “I do wish that little man would end. Is he going to prose on forever?” Minerva’s voice sounded in the church with dreadful clarity. Mr. Stoddart flushed, but smiled down at the Mannerling party in an ingratiating way and brought his sermon to an abrupt close.

  Outside the church, where ladies clutched their bonnets in a frisky, blustery wind, Mary took hold of Rachel’s arm in a confidential way. “It looks as if Mannerling will soon have a new mistress. And so suitable!”

  Rachel felt irritated and depressed at the same time. At that moment, the wind came to her rescue and whipped Mary’s straw bonnet from her head and sent it scuttling off among the tombstones, with Mary in pursuit.

  At least Isabella will soon be with us, thought Rachel, her eyes straying to where Charles Blackwood was escorting Minerva to the Mannerling carriage. Charles had not spoken to her or acknowledged her presence.

  She did not know that Charles had had every intention of speaking, not only to her, but to various other parishioners, but that Minerva’s hand on his arm had been like a vice and that, outside the church, she had instantly claimed that the sermon had given her a headache and that she wanted to return “home.”

  As his carriage drove off, he saw that new fellow, Hercules Cater, approach the Beverley family and saw a smile of welcome on Lady Beverley’s thin lips.

  Though he was finding Minerva a heady and enchanting beauty, she was beginning to annoy him. He did not like the unspoken and yet calm assumption of brother and sister that he should propose to Minerva.

  Lady Beverley had invited Mr. Cater back to Brookfield House for a cold collation. Miss Trumble had planned to find out as much as she could about the young man, but Lady Beverley was annoyed that Charles had not spoken to her and blamed the presence of the governess. Lady Beverley always had to have someone to blame. And so she gave Miss Trumble several tasks to perform, telling her that her presence was not needed in company. Miss Trumble went in search of Barry.