by Jude Morgan
No: all was dubiety and confusion; and more than once on that heavy day did she come close to wishing they had never come to London. The supreme thankfulness that they had been preserved from ruin reigned still, but its power was diminished by these unhappy consequences: Valentine unable to reconcile himself to the truth of his association with Lady Harriet, and the painful estrangement from Mr Tresilian. And she could only think of them, wearily: she could not unburden herself with speech. Valentine, when he was home, remained darkly absent, and would not speak to her except on trifling matters; and even if she had been able to confide in her aunt or her cousins, she could not have expected understanding there. Louisa realised, as evening dragged to a close, that the person she had most been accustomed to turn to, when she needed to talk rather than chat or converse, was Mr Tresilian: the very person from whom she was now cut off. Certainly Valentine had said she might do as she liked, in regard to him – but such an awkwardness between the families was not easily overcome. Mr Tresilian plainly supposed that he was not welcome, either to brother or sister, as he did not call that day: nor did the next morning bring him – to a disappointment that Louisa could hardly credit in her own breast; for she hardly knew how she would address him.
Distraction came, in what seemed at first the most promising manner. – They were invited to dine at the Lynleys’. There, surely, in the sharp playfulness, the ripple and prickle of Francis Lynley’s company, she would find a relief for overstrung feelings. It was true that there was first the embarrassment of Valentine’s declining to go with them, and her anxiety about how he would comport himself in the meantime; and once arrived at Brook Street, she must confront another perplexity. – Pearce Lynley was all cordiality in his welcome, all attentiveness in his hospitality, and all glowing pride in being able to receive as an honoured guest his future bride – for as a matter of propriety, Mary Bowen had removed to another lodging until they should be married. Certainly Mr Lynley would never be an easy host: there remained too much correctness and seriousness in his manner; and she did not suspect there would be an abundance of laughter in the household of the future Mr and Mrs Lynley. Still, Louisa must confront the fact that she had misjudged him. There was more flexibility, more humanity than she had supposed – or than she had wished to suppose. For she saw that he had borne the insuperable handicap of being approved by her father: and no degree of charm and amiability, she realised, could have overcome that. It was a chastening reflection. In perseveringly resisting influence, she had been influenced. – When, she wondered, could one escape it, and begin thinking for oneself?
‘Never,’ was Lieutenant Lynley’s reply, when she put this question to him, in more general terms, at dinner. ‘Abandon all hope of that. We are fixed from the cradle.’
‘Thank you. You have recommended me to a course of despair.’
‘I am glad to have performed the service, and would do it for all the world if I could,’ he said, and applied himself to his wine. He looked at his most dark and saturnine; and the few further remarks she elicited from him confirmed that he was in the lowest of spirits, and still wholly preoccupied with the matter of his brother’s marriage, which he spoke of in the same withering terms as he had employed at the Pantheon. Louisa was disappointed: it seemed to her, in her own dejected mood, that there was surely self-indulgence in this; and she told herself, given this unsteadiness of temper, this captious yielding to the emotions of the moment, that it was very fortunate she was not in love with him. She was unequal to the task of lifting both his spirits and her own; and resigned his entertainment to Sophie, who was seated on his other side, and who was always quite content to go on being fascinating without any visible result.
The next day began no more propitiously, with Valentine absent from breakfast after another late night, and the Tresilians’ manservant bringing over a book that Louisa had lent to Kate. In other circumstances she might have taken no notice of this; but now it was impossible not to see it as a signal of their lasting estrangement: and all it needed now, Louisa thought, as she returned the volume to its place on the shelf in her room, was a call from Mrs Murrow to seal the morning’s gloom. Prompt upon that came the knock at the door, followed by Mrs Murrow’s complaining voice in the hall; and Louisa had to consult her reflection in her mirror to make sure that she was not absolutely grimacing, before she joined the company downstairs.
‘Well, and here’s the other one!’ was Mrs Murrow’s greeting: so unaccommodating even for her, and accompanied by such a baleful stare, that Louisa suspected something out of the common was amiss. ‘He didn’t make you privy to it, I dare say. Or perhaps he did, which makes it even worse.’
‘There, my dear friend, I have told you not to agitate yourself over it,’ said Mrs Spedding, all smiling placidity. ‘And as for Louisa, I do not think she does know what we have been talking of, and she must be quite mystified.’
‘Oh, let me tell it, Mama, for it is the most delicious thing,’ cried Sophie. ‘Louisa, will you believe that Valentine has actually made a proposal of marriage to Parthenope Astbury? Is it not capital? Is it not beyond anything marvellous?’
Louisa, supposing some kind of joke, looked from her cousin to her aunt, and then to Mrs Murrow: who seemed to find a world of gloomy satisfaction in her expression, for she resumed: ‘Ah, indeed, you might well look so shocked, Miss. It has quite set us all by the ears. My sister has been obliged to take a posset and lie down this morning, for she is not strong: though she is a good deal stronger than me, I must say – and how I have borne up I cannot think.’
‘You poor thing, I am exceedingly sorry for your trouble,’ said Mrs Spedding, ‘but it is nothing so very exceptional, you know: Lord, there will be more proposals than that for your dear niece, I’ll be bound, before she is settled.’
‘So there will: I can hardly bear to think of it,’ sighed Mrs Murrow; and then, directing the full force of her sourness at Louisa: ‘But proposals, it is to be hoped, for which there has been some preparation – some due attentions paid, some evidence given of a proper attachment: that was how it was in my day.’
‘It was certainly very sudden – but that is all we know, my dear,’ Mrs Spedding said. ‘It is not as if Miss Astbury and my nephew are quite unacquainted: why, when I had my little musical party, with the lady who performed so brilliantly on the trombone—’
‘Harp, Mama,’ put in Sophie.
‘Was it a harp, dear? I have a strong recollection it was a trombone – but I am sure you are right. Well, on that occasion I recall Valentine and Miss Astbury talking together for a good while: and I am sure there must have been others. Louisa, perhaps,’ Mrs Spedding said, twinkling, ‘could tell us a tale or two if she chose.’
Louisa was still so astonished by this intelligence that she could hardly frame a reply. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Spedding, I— Do you mean, had I any knowledge of Valentine’s intentions? I did not, certainly. But perhaps I am not understanding this aright. You mean that Valentine actually made a proposal in form, to Miss Astbury?’
‘Last evening – at Mrs Challender’s rout,’ said Sophie, eagerly. ‘He was very proper, and asked Lady Carr’s leave to pay his addresses – and mighty surprised she was, for she had never an inkling that he thought anything of Miss Astbury, and no more did I, nor Tom, and plainly neither did you. Is it not the most famous thing? I can hardly wait to quiz him about it!’
‘It was— I collect the proposal was refused,’ Louisa said faintly.
‘You may be sure of that,’ said Mrs Murrow. ‘And pretty summarily, you may be sure. My niece, thank heaven, is not the sort of goose to say yes to the first man who asks her: leave alone when it is done with such precipitancy – such a want of decorum. How she is contriving to support her spirits, I cannot think.’
‘But, my dear friend, you told me Miss Astbury was in fine fettle, and hardly discomposed by it at all,’ smiled Mrs Spedding.
‘So she is: but how she is, I cannot think; and I am most grievo
usly overset by it all.’
‘Well, but you feel things so keenly, my dear,’ Mrs Spedding said, patting her hand. ‘I do not think we need to look further than your sweet niece’s exceptional beauty, and the impressionable heart of my nephew’s ardent youth. I can remember being young very well – and some people have been kind enough to say, I hardly seem past the first bloom of youth myself; and these things happen. I hope Miss Astbury, if she cannot be flattered, is at least not put out; and I hope Valentine is not too badly disappointed. I dare say everyone involved will be able to laugh about it, before very long.’
Louisa was grateful for her aunt’s emollient character; but she feared it would be long indeed before such an unaccountable incident could be a subject of amusement, at least in her own case. If all had been well with Valentine, this rash proposal to a woman for whom he had shown little admiration would have been thoroughly disconcerting; and knowing his current state of mind, she could not think of it without the deepest perturbation and bafflement. Was it perhaps the wild throw of the disillusioned lover, trying to show he was unwounded and heart-free? But the lover of Lady Harriet he could never be, and no such demonstrations could be expected to have any effect on her. Nor could she imagine him deciding to abandon his romantic temperament, and turning with a shrug to the path of worldliness. – This haste, this suddenness: this indifference to the possibility of appearing abject or absurd: none if it was like him, and all of it alarmed her.
Fortunately the arrival of another caller enforced a change of subject, and furnished a distraction for Mrs Murrow’s mind, if such it could be called, in that the caller bore the outlandish name of Mr Smithson, which she must have repeated to her several times before she could overcome her incredulous distaste at it. Still, it seemed to Louisa an intolerable time before the departure of the visitors freed her at last to run upstairs and knock at Valentine’s door.
He was up, and dressed, his hair combed: he was sitting by the window, handsome and graceful as ever – but so pale. Even his hands had a papery look.
‘I have just seen the Murrow leave,’ he said, quite gently, ‘so I suppose you know about it.’
‘Yes. And I am so very glad the answer was a negative, Valentine. I could not have endured such an icy sister-in-law.’ It was the only way she knew how to begin.
‘I suppose they are all clacking about it.’
‘It would be surprising if they did not. But, then, you have been clacked about, as you so elegantly put it, a good deal lately. And it will all presently die down, if—’
‘If I choose to let it.’ He gave an ashen smile. ‘We always did understand each other, didn’t we? I fear in this, however, I have quite passed your understanding.’
‘Certainly I could not believe you in love with Miss Astbury. So I suppose something else was in your mind last evening. Beyond that I cannot go.’
‘She took it rather well, in truth. Considering that it was very near a piece of impudence. But I thought – as far as I was thinking anything at all – that it was worth a try: that it was no more rash, for example, than throwing down a stake at a gaming-table.’ A little raw colour appeared on his cheekbones. ‘Or a faro-bank.’
‘But surely no better as a cure for unhappiness.’
‘Unhappiness? Well, I suppose that is a sort of term for it. – Louisa, I think you will despise me. Be assured I do so myself, more than you can conceive. I must have money. My bank-balance is horribly inclined to the wrong side of the ledger. Where did it go? You can guess, I am sure.’
With forced calmness she said: ‘Lady Harriet’s faro-bank. But, Valentine, can it be so much? I thought you did not play deep.’
‘That is how one begins: but then small stakes begin to appear very contemptible, and one seeks higher excitements … I did not, thank heaven, become quite addicted to it. No, my addiction –’ with a flinching look ‘– lay elsewhere in that house. But, still, the damage was done. I have lost so much that I cannot see any way to get myself clear: that is, to meet my obligations. And so, I thought: try it. Do as others do: have a fling at a rich marriage: what is there to lose? The spirit of mercenary coldness is everywhere, it is universal. Nothing else is expected. Oh, it was ridiculous, to be sure. But I had nothing to fear from a refusal.’
‘Valentine, I do not despise you. I am only anxious for you. You say you cannot meet your obligations: do you mean you have large debts?’
‘Large, no. If I were to slink home to Devonshire at once, and live quietly and prudently at Pennacombe for the next year, then I should be in no great difficulty. But there is an exception. I can hardly call it a debt: it is more an absolute, unbreakable obligation. And the money for that I cannot realise.’
‘Do you mean – do you mean Mr Tresilian? The three thousand pounds?’
She saw him wince at the name. ‘That is the sum. Somehow I must get it, soon – it is imperative, Louisa, and if I do not—’
‘But, Valentine, consider: this is James Tresilian. I know you are – much at odds with him just now; but in justice, think of the man you know. He will never press you to repay it: he gave it freely, and wished you never to know of it: whatever else you think of him, you cannot suppose this.’
‘Justice – aye, you are right to speak of justice,’ Valentine said, jumping to his feet and pacing the room. ‘Oh, Louisa, Tresilian was right – shamingly right – and the injustice is mine. It is an injustice I can scarcely bear to think of – and that is why I must, must repay him. It cannot restore me to his regard, but it is all I can do to atone. – There. You are thinking, Here is Valentine being capricious again. First he is all obstinacy, now he is all repentance. No, no, you would do well to think it. I know it is how I must appear: it is how I appear to myself, God help me. I should have been fair to him before now: but, of course, I know best, I must have the evidence before my eyes. Well: I have been properly rewarded. I have seen them, Louisa.’ With visible exertion he turned to her, and nakedly met her eyes. ‘I went out to Hampstead again, yesterday. God knows with what intention. Well, yes, probably to confront them: to hear it from Lady Harriet’s lips that it had all been a cruel charade, and – no. I didn’t want that, I wanted her to say it was not so, she was blameless, forced to it by her husband: Valentine, forgive me. Something like that. Curious how our folly increases – how we gallop as we near the cliff-edge. Well, it did not come to that. I was most quietly, neatly disabused. It needed no confrontations. While I was gathering my courage, and my fine speeches, to go up to Norlees House, I wandered into the pleasure-garden by Well Walk; and there, among quite a numerous company, were Lady Harriet and the colonel. I was able to observe them very easily, very well. They were looking over the play at the bowling-green: arm in arm: smiling and laughing, and admiring a lucky hit; but above all, most absorbed in each other. At length they strolled on to the tea-house, where there were some seats in the shade, and he handed her to one, and they kissed. And then I came away.’
‘Oh, Valentine, I am indeed sorry. Sorry that you should have to see it in that way. – And yet I hope you understand me when I say that I am not sorry also. I am even glad – if it means I can have my brother back.’
‘Instead of the foolish, self-deluding coxcomb, eh?’ he said, a little savage; but he allowed her to take his hand in hers.
‘No: he was always Valentine. Even in his feeling for Lady Harriet – which has brought him to such pain that I dearly hope it may be soon overcome. Not quickly, not overnight: no one could expect that.’
‘I fancy Tresilian does – or wishes it,’ Valentine said, grimacing. ‘But, then, his eyes were opened long before mine. And there was I, convinced that in my feeling for Lady Harriet— Well, I thought, Here is something that does not belong to the world. It cannot be ticketed or consigned to the appropriate place. Very well, I confess I was a good way to being in love with her. But it was a love that I knew could not be fulfilled, and in that, you know, there was the most curious kind of beauty … And all the time it d
id belong to the world – in the most grubby, sordid fashion imaginable.’
‘I think we all belong to the world, in the end, no matter how we try to rise above it.’
‘Is it so? I still wish it were not. But I trust your word. You have been much more sensible than I, in our enterprise of living, Louisa. I admire you. You have not been careless of your heart – left it exposed to the dangers of betrayal and predation. You have always known what you are about.’
She shook her head, faintly smiling. She only hoped it was true: – certainly she could not imagine being confronted with such a terrible revelation of her own blindness as Valentine had been.
‘Great heaven, what must Tresilian think of me?’ he said fiercely, prowling about again. ‘Don’t answer it. – You will speak for him, of course, say that his regard is unchanged. Perhaps it is – but surely deep down he must despise me. I think in truth that was why I was so severe on him. Because I could hardly bear to think of losing his good opinion, almost above anyone’s.’ He raised his eyes to her, looking very young. ‘The only thing worse would be to lose yours.’
‘That will not be. I recall the old Valentine too well: indeed, I think I see him before me now. I fancy the other Valentine’s last act was that rather – hasty approach to Miss Astbury. Whatever would you have done if she had accepted?’
‘Lord knows. – Well, no: I would have thought, Very well, now I can pay Tresilian back. After that would come the lifetime of unhappiness of a mercenary marriage. At that mad moment I would have accepted the bargain.’
‘This debt means so very much to you. Valentine, as I said before, my money is yours. Take it, and pay Mr Tresilian at once, if it will make you easy.’
‘No, no. This is letting my folly rebound on you. It would reduce your independence and choice: and were they not the very things we set out to enjoy, when we threw away the fire-screen, that day at Pennacombe? How long ago that seems, and how little it has turned out as we expected … ! No, Louisa, bless you but no. I cannot pay Tresilian the debt. But what I can do is approach him: ask him if he will consider an arrangement, a term, perhaps over five years, in which it may be repaid.’
