Sweet's Folly

by Fiona Hill

  Unfortunately, their departure left the young Blackwoods alone. For a moment, both stood near the doorway, looking round the room as if to get acquainted with it. Then Honor chose an armchair near the fireplace, and started towards it. At the same instant, Alex also chose that armchair and approached it. They bumped into one another in the middle of the room, and both jumped back, apologizing and smiling strained smiles. Honoria was uncomfortably conscious that such a ridiculous accident would never have occurred if she and Alex dared to look directly at each other more frequently. For several seconds they stood together wordlessly, each gesturing at the chair as if to invite the other to sit down. In the end, neither of them took it, and they settled opposite one another on wooden chairs that looked, and were in fact, much less agreeable than the disputed one.

  In short while it became necessary to say something.

  “What a cheerful fire that is!” Honor remarked, looking into the blaze. “How good of the Traubins to think of it.”

  “Yes, very cheerful,” said Alex, nodding at it and stretching his hands out towards the grate with an exaggerated gesture. “Warm, too,” he added, smiling.

  “O, very warm, I’m sure,” Honor replied, and wondered how it was that she never ever was reduced to such inanities, except with her husband. “And tea in a moment! So very kind of them. Just what one needs with all this wet.” For it had continued grey and rainy for above a month now.

  “O yes, tea is the perfect beverage,” said Alex. “It has indeed been very wet. Cold, too.”

  Conversation wavered between high points such as this one and low points where nothing was said at all between them for minutes together, until finally tea had come, and had been drunk, and had been cleared, and had been forgot. Honoria, pasting a bright smile on her unwilling lips, felt it time at last to rise and she stood, saying, “I must go and tidy my things. Do remember, won’t you, supper at eight-thirty.”

  “O yes, supper,” said he amiably. “We shall want it by then, won’t we? I’ll go off and have a look round the library again. My desk must be set in order if I am to work tonight.”

  The two of them left the parlour, Honoria reflecting that although it was most discouraging to know her husband meant to work tonight as usual, it was probably a good deal better than if he knew no way of distracting himself at all. She descended the stairs and turned into the bed-chamber, which contained among other things one very large, postered bed, and one rather narrow couch. She had been aware there was only one bed-room in Stonebur Cottage from the first, and the thought of what that meant had troubled her all during the move, but on each occasion of its recurrence she had reminded herself severely that they must face up to this facet of marriage sooner or later, and it was probably better to do so sooner. Alexander had said nothing about having to share a chamber with her as yet, so she assumed that he must have no objection, at least. In this she was not quite correct.

  The hours they spent apart from one another that evening passed industriously and quickly enough. They met for supper at eight-thirty in the dining-parlour, to engage in a conversation that was so obviously stilted and awkward that the fact of Traubin’s witnessing most of it quite embarrassed poor Honor. After supper Mrs. Traubin suggested coffee in the parlour, and they accordingly reentered that apartment together. The next half-hour, with nothing to do but sip coffee, and conversation utterly impossible, seemed to Honor the most tedious of her whole life. How things would get better, she did not know, but get better they must, she thought.

  “Alexander,” she said at last, introducing an intimate topic more from despair than from daring, “do you mean to sit up late to work, as you did at Sweet’s Folly?”

  “I had intended to,” said he obligingly, “but if there is any thing you would prefer—”

  “O no, you must do your work, of course. But it occurs to me to tell you—in case you should like to know—that I can sleep quite well with a candle lit, or a lamp. What I mean is, I shall probably be asleep already by the time you come—you come to bed”—she said these last words in a faltering, dying whisper—“and you might be afraid to disturb me when you enter. But you are very unlikely to—you see …” Her words hesitated and halted.

  “Have we but one bed-chamber then?” asked Alex, as if surprised. “But this is very bad; I shall be certain to inconvenience you, no matter what you say. Poor Honor! How kind you are to pretend it doesn’t matter—”

  “But it doesn’t!” said she, horrified at the thought of what he might say next. “It doesn’t at all!”

  “But it must,” he insisted. “I shall sleep upstairs, with the servants.”

  “You can’t,” she gasped, adding lamely, “There are only just rooms enough for them as it is.”

  “Then I shall stay right here,” said he cheerfully, patting a cushion of the sofa on which he sat as if to try its firmness. “I’ve often thought I should like to sleep on a sofa,” he went on, with a gallant smile.

  “But no—Alexander, please! Whatever should Mrs. Traubin think?” These words escaped her without her quite meaning to say them.

  “Well, I don’t think she would think of it at all,” he began.

  “Please, I beg of you,” she broke in. “It—it distresses me too much.”

  Alex, perceiving at last that her dismay was real, agreed to sleep in the bed-chamber. “But I shan’t wake you up by climbing into—no, no. There is a couch in there, is there not? I shall sleep there,” he said firmly.

  This seemed so vastly preferable to the alternatives he had suggested that she agreed to it with alacrity. They parted again, Alex to do his work, Honoria to become familiar with the kitchens, and to make the acquaintance of the fourth servant, a young girl named Maria who was to help out everywhere. She would have liked to play on the pianoforte, but was afraid this would disturb her husband, and at last decided to retire at eleven o’clock. Alex came in some two hours later. She was awake, but dared not say anything to him, so she shut her eyes tightly and tried to breathe evenly. A few minutes after he had entered, she was aware of a red glow inside her eyelids, as if someone held a candle before her face, but she was afraid of further awkwardness with her husband and still pretended to sleep.

  In a moment the glow disappeared. It had been Alex, cautiously holding a candle aloft to illuminate his wife’s sweet countenance. He had wished to see her once more that night. However, Honoria had no means of knowing this.

  Chapter VII

  “Good riddance to the both of them,” Sir Proctor muttered gruffly to Boothby, who stood waiting in the doorway for permission to leave his master.

  Mr. Boothby bowed.

  “The lot of them, I should say,” the baronet continued. “Dogs, females … Hah! Like to turn this household on its ears, that’s what.” Mr. Boothby bowed again.

  “But you say they’re quite gone?” Sir Proctor demanded.

  “Quite gone, sir.”

  “And the carriage we sent them home in? Has it returned?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Well, let me know when it has,” said the squire. “I won’t rest easy till I know. Pack of screaming females … idiotic. Not keeping a carriage, either—what are they about? Madness, not keeping a carriage. Every tradesman’s wife in Pittering keeps a carriage!”

  “I believe the Deverells’ circumstances are somewhat straitened,” Mr. Boothby said patiently, thinking briefly of the dinner waiting for him in the kitchen. It seemed to him Sir Proctor was making even more of a fuss over the departure of the guests than he had over their arrival, a fact that struck him as odd, at first. A little reflection, however, resulted in a strong suspicion that the baronet—despite his testy professions of relief—was rather sorry to see the sisters leave. Poor man! He’d made such a nasty old institution of himself; no doubt he felt positively embarrassed at discovering a taste for company. These charitable thoughts on Mr. Boothby’s part were rudely interrupted by their subject.

  “Well, then, go on, go on, can’
t you? Off about your business, man! You may have all day to loiter about chatting, but I certainly have not. Hah! Rascals and rogues,” the old gentleman expostulated, while Boothby made his most obsequious bow and disappeared. Left alone, Sir Proctor cleared his throat. “Chess at tea-time, doggies in the parlour … enough to make a well man sick,” he said disgustedly, for the benefit of no one in particular. He continued to mutter complaints for several minutes, and indeed took up the refrain once more when word was brought him that the borrowed carriage had been returned. He really was quite lonely.

  The borrowers of that coach, meantime, were in the midst of a most happy return to their home in Bench Street. Miss Prudence had once absented herself from Colworth Park to visit her dear small friends, but Mercy, of course, had been unable to do so. Consequently, though the sight of her beloved house alone was enough to bring tears to her eyes, her reunion with its furry occupants was enough to make nearly anyone cry.

  “O, my dear Zeus!” cried she to the sheep-dog who jumped on her first. “And Apollo, and Pandora! Niobe! (Some three years before this time the Deverell sisters had grown tired of thinking of names for their pets, and had called them all after mythological figures. They had grown weary of that, too, within five or six months, and had returned to more traditional methods.) Come and kiss your poor auntie! O, yes, please do.” She opened her frail arms to all of them, kneeling on the floor, and rose only when Prudence reminded her there were the cats to be said hello to as well. Then she went into the tiny parlour, and kissed every feline in turn.

  “Ah, my dear sister! Muffin has got quite fat! Look how fat Muffin has got!” she exclaimed similarly on each cat and kitten to Prudence, who was also engaged in greeting and caressing all members of the menagerie.

  “Did I kiss Tiger?” Mercy asked, after nearly half an hour of this. “I think I did kiss Tiger. I think I kissed them all, the darling soft things. O, I could kiss them again, all day. I declare I did not know till this moment how much I missed them.”

  Prudence, though she was enjoying her home-coming almost as much as her sister, settled herself on the ancient Confidante and invited Miss Mercy to do the same. “For you can’t go on saying hello all day,” she said, “even though you would like to. We’ve work to do, you know,” she added rather sternly.

  Mercy sighed a little and bowed to the elder’s will. “Muffin, you sit on my lap now, won’t you? What sort of work have we to do?” she added.

  “But our campaign,” said Prudence. “You haven’t forgot, have you? The welfare of these innocents—we must attend to it.”

  “O yes,” said the other, a little sadly. “It isn’t proceeding too very well after all, is it?”

  “Certainly not as we had hoped.”

  “No, certainly not. Not at all. Certainly not,” Mercy repeated, in order to say something on the topic her sister wished to discuss. “Not at all. Certainly not—”

  “No, not at all,” Prudence interrupted impatiently. “But lamenting it won’t help things, now, will it?”

  “Not if you say it won’t,” Mercy replied obligingly.

  “Not at all!” said Prudence.

  “No, not at all. Certainly not—”

  “Pray, Mercy! Do be quiet for a moment.”

  “O. Yes! Quiet for a moment,” Mercy answered. These campaign deliberations frightened her; she always felt she was expected to say something, and she never knew anything to say. “Certainly.”

  “Mercy, hush!”

  Tears crept into Mercy’s eyes, but she blinked them back. Really, she would be very happy when all this nonsense was settled.

  “I think our original scheme has failed, and must be abandoned,” Prudence began musingly.

  “O, certainly! A terrible failure,” said Mercy, who could not entirely recall what the original scheme had been.

  “So we must devise another,” the elder sister continued.

  “O, another! The very thing. I protest, Prue, you make my head swim when you think so—so decisively.”

  “Now we have attempted to gain Sir Proctor’s support by involving him romantically with you.”

  “So we did, indeed,” Mercy said promptly. “But do you know, Prudence, I don’t quite think we achieved our object—”

  “No, we did not! Naturally not. That is what I just said.”

  “O,” the younger sister answered, somewhat taken aback. “No, naturally not. No, it is quite natural when you think of it. We did not achieve our goal, naturally. We attempted—”

  “Therefore we must find another means to induce the squire to attach himself to our cause,” said Prudence, ignoring her completely this time. “And I believe our best hope is to win his affections through our small friends themselves. That is most direct, and may yet be possible.”

  “O, it may, it may. Indeed! It may yet be possible,” Mercy seconded enthusiastically. “Our best hope, doubtless. The most direct …” she continued, adding, “I don’t suppose you would wish to—would you explain that once more, my dear?”

  “We must teach the squire to love our small friends,” said Prudence, obliging her sister in spite of the fact that she had not listened to her. “Somehow … Do you think he liked Fido?”

  “The squire? But most certainly he liked Fido. Naturally he did. I like Fido, too. Fido is a good dog, a very good doggie. I like Fido. Sir Proctor likes Fido—”

  “Then we shall encourage the acquaintanceship,” Prudence broke in.

  “Excellent thought! Prudence! You do astound me,” said Mercy. “And how—how precisely shall we do so?”

  “We must think of a way,” Prudence responded.

  “O, think of one. Yes, dear Prue! Very good. Think of one.”

  “Think,” Prudence repeated, and the two old ladies sat and thought for a very good long while, Mercy continually punctuating their silence with “Ummms” and “Ahs” in order to let her sister know that she was thinking her hardest.

  The very first person to call on Mrs. Blackwood of Stonebur Cottage was the last person that lady wished to see. Mr. Claude Kemp, Esquire, visited the young Blackwoods on the day following their removal to Stonebur, and succeeded (if such was his object) in disturbing the mistress of that place quite thoroughly.

  “Traubin has taken your cloak, I see,” said Honoria, upon being summoned to the hall. She was rather in a pucker at that moment, having come directly from an interview with Maria, the young woman who had been engaged to serve as her abigail and to help the Traubins. It seemed Maria was frightened of the dark. Mrs. Traubin had given her a single candle for her room last night, and had forbidden her to take another; as a consequence, Maria had slept very ill, indeed, if at all. She considered nothing could be more cruel than Mrs. Traubin’s behaviour (Honoria secretly agreed) and, driven by despair, had dared to address the mistress directly with her grievance. It was left to poor Honor—who had not slept well herself—to console Maria and assure her of a generous supply of candles in future, and then to conciliate Mrs. Traubin, who considered that she had acted only in her employers’ interests, and was not at all pleased to learn of Maria’s bold application to Mrs. Blackwood. Though she had done all she could, Honoria feared that Mrs. Traubin might hold a grudge against the girl on account of the incident, and make her life at Stonebur unpleasant. This was on her mind as she greeted Mr. Kemp.

  “Your butler was most hospitable,” said Kemp, smiling his cheerless smile. “In fact, I had meant only to leave my card, yet he welcomed me so congenially, I felt I might step in after all.”

  “I am so glad you did,” Honoria lied, knowing nothing else to do. “Please come up to the parlour,” she added, leading the way.

  “A charming little house,” he remarked as they climbed the steps, stressing the word “little.” Honoria noticed the emphasis, and thought it unnecessary.

  “Shall I go and call Alexander?” she inquired.

  “But he must be at his studies, I think,” Mr. Kemp objected smoothly. “I could not think of breaki
ng in upon him so rudely.”

  “I could,” Honoria muttered, made brave by her annoyance. She had never before disturbed her husband at his work—except that ill-fated night at Sweet’s Folly—but such was her dislike of being alone with Claude that she was willing to do so now.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing at all,” she said, for she instantly regretted her words. “May I get you some coffee?” she asked. “Perhaps some tea? Or sherry—”

  “Coffee will be delightful,” he broke in. “Will you join me?”

  “Join—? O, yes, if you like,” she said distractedly. It worried her to be alone with Kemp; now she wondered what Alex would think, were he to enter unexpectedly. “And Alexander, too, I think he must take coffee as well; he will like a respite from his monograph.”

  “As you like,” said Claude, bowing. “However, there was a matter I hoped to discuss—” he began, and paused, ending, “but it will wait.”

  Honoria had risen to ring for coffee, and was returning to her chair. She turned in her way and looked at him inquiringly.

  “You look very well today,” said Claude, one of the few truthful statements he had made since entering the cottage. Despite her restless night, and her anxieties, Honoria’s appearance really was charming. She wore a dove-grey morning gown with ivory edging round the cuffs and hem, the long sleeves drawn in tight at the elbows and wrists, and the collar becomingly trimmed with lace. Her agitation had only increased the rosiness of her cheeks, and sleeplessness had given her a hint of languor that did not detract from her looks.

  “Thank you,” she said, a trifle peevishly, for she was aware he had purposely piqued her curiosity and then declined to satisfy it. Traubin arrived in response to the bell and was directed to bring coffee for three. “You mention something you wished—to discuss, perhaps, with me?” she said, prompting him though she felt it would be wiser not to.