Friendship and Folly: The Merriweather Chronicles Book I (12 page)

The ride back to Merrion House lacked animation. Ann was submerged in gloom by this further instance of having been the means of bringing trouble upon her friends. Kitty was likewise silent, doubtless caught between her growing apprehensions, and her fear of appearing to insult Ann by giving voice to them. Only Lady Thomasin, irritated by the dispirited atmosphere, spoke at all, and that but to say, variously and at length, that next time she took them some where it would be to a funeral, so that she might see how their behavior differed; and to express her opinion that it would do Kitty good to go about and meet more people, and lose some of her die-away airs. Lady Thomasin “would not criticize Kitty’s parents for the world, but it had often seemed to her that they were far too lenient with Kitty’s myriad tears and swoonings! She did not mean to be harsh, but some problems must be faced, and to her mind this invitation might prove to be just the thing!”

At any other time these inopportune, but on the whole, temperate, comments would have resulted in their proceeding along the streets to an accompaniment of quiet sobbing. But it seemed that Kitty was too engrossed by a contemplation of the dreadfulness of her future, to pay her great-aunt’s censures any but the most surface attention, and so the journey ended in tri-cornered silence.

I see no reason to dwell on the pitiful scene that followed upon Kitty’s learning that the evening in question was already promised, as far as her parents and Julia and Clive were concerned, to the family of the distant relation who had called that day, and that no hope of its being altered could be entertained, due to the limited nature of the relatives’ stay in town. All reasonable counsels by her family, that she had only to explain the prior engagement and decline the invitation with civility, were met with the desolate reminder that she had “told Mrs. Robinson that she would go if she
could
; and the
could
being still existent, she had no honorable reason to cry off.” No one, save Kitty, saw in the murmurs of conditional agreement that had been wrested from her trembling lips, a binding promise to attend Mrs. M_____’s party. She was urged to reconsider the matter; Ann was particularly earnest to persuade her that there could be no benefit to her going, when it would bring nothing but agitation to herself, and at best only a mild satisfaction to the Robinsons. Ann did not scruple to utterly sink her cousin’s reputation, by saying that Mrs. Robinson’s graciousness was all the work of a moment, a twist of paper in the fire, quickly lit, quickly extinguished: no sooner had she done pressing an invitation, than it entirely flew from her mind, and occasioned her great surprise if it was later taken up. Kitty was not at all affronted by the implication that she was easily dismissed from mind, but she would only shake her head in response to all that was said, and whisper sadly that Ann did not understand, which was no more than the truth. The pleas and expostulations of her siblings met with similarly obstinate hopelessness--and Ann began to suspect that Lady Thomasin’s homeward censures had, after all, reached Kitty, even in her misery. Had Mr. Parry or Lady Frances taken the business into their own hands and told Kitty they did not think it wise for her to go, and forbade it, Kitty would have wept with joy and gratitude at having the matter so happily resolved for her; but Mr. Parry had made inquiries, and having ascertained that Mrs. M_____’s parties were well-known for their unexceptionableness, and the respectable nature of her guests and entertainment, he perhaps deliberately left his daughter to the mercy of her own will.

Ann, being privately convinced that Kitty had been rendered more than ordinarily incapable of resistance by the memory of Lady Thomasin’s aspersions, and a subsequent feeling that to withdraw now must reflect ill on her parents, decided to confide her (Ann’s) suspicions to Lady Frances. She had every reason to suppose that her words were heeded, and Kitty reassured; nevertheless, no interdict was issued, and Kitty continued to make preparations for the day, as one disposes of one’s goods, when facing a ride to Tyburn. It at length occurred to Ann that perhaps Kitty’s parents were engaged in one of their sporadic attempts to convince their daughter that Decisiveness was not one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and that the world would not come to a sudden fiery end upon the utterance of the words “No, thank you.”

Ann came to this conclusion with dismay, for she saw clearly that, as the one whose lamentable connections had precipitated the crisis, it would be her duty to accompany Kitty as Chief Protector and Hedge, and defend her against all the appalling dangers of the evening, such as being obliged to speak to someone she did not know, or give an opinion. Faced with this dreary prospect, Ann indulged in the shameless hope that Kitty’s fears would, in the end, triumph over her principles.

Alas! Fear, for once, did not carry the day. Ann made her offer, very disappointed and cross, but concealing it to perfection--and suffered the discomposure, of being fervently embraced, and thanked as the best, the kindest friend in all the world.

And in her confusion, she entirely forgot the advisability of sending round to her cousin’s household her own acceptance of his wife’s indiscriminate invitation.

**

I come now to a portion of this narrative for which I must beg from my readers not only leniency, and the employment of a charitable spirit, but also the determination to suspend for a moment that critical faculty which is so prone to check one in the full course of fictional enjoyment, with objections such as: “It is highly improbable that the Black Monk could have strangled Aurelia in the library and five minutes afterward have been seen in the inner chamber. It is against several natural laws which at the moment I cannot quite recall. In short, I do not find this at all credible; this cannot have happened precisely as the author would have me believe.”

Now, I do not ask my reader to believe in sinister, sepulchral monks--or even in a young lady who would agree to marry a gentleman, fully understanding that he desires to wed her only that he might talk to her with greater frequency of his dead sweetheart: I merely request that when I state that the morning before Mrs. M_____’s party was spent by the Parry’s and Ann at Exeter Change, and that Ann, in her eagerness, stood and walked for many hours with no thought of the consequences, that my reader give place to both charity and credulity, and impute to her only the possession of a faulty memory, or a foolish optimism, and not a Machiavellian heart.

Often did the Parrys ask if she was tiring, and on several occasions, even when she denied it, shortly afterward Lady Frances or Julia would be quietly overcome by fatigue, and seek a chair, bearing Ann along with them to keep them company; but always was she fidgety, convinced that they rested but for her, and very soon would persuade her companion to rise and press on to the next shop, or go in search of this or that object she had heard about. She became conscious of her indiscretion before even they left the Change, but the discomfort was not yet bad, and from unwillingness both to confess her folly, and to curtail any projected pleasure of the day, agreed cheerfully, when applied to, that a necessary concomitant of spending a good deal of their own and others’ money---for they had quite two pages of articles to be purchased on behalf of those Warwickshire neighbors who seldom came to town--was a visit to a confectioner’s (Perry’s, of course), and afterwards, as they happened to be passing within a street or two of it, a brief foray into a circulating library. There, after a considerable search, Mr. Parry discovered a neglected but quite fascinating volume, and a fair quantity of dust (both of which he took back to Merrion House), Lady Frances and Julia found several acquaintances, and Ann found a seat. But it was not a very comfortable one, and in any event it was too late for a mere chair to bring much relief. It was here that she became aware of the full extent of her foolishness. It was not that she had ever forgotten her commitment for that evening: this would have been almost impossible, for the entire outing had had as its unacknowledged origin, the Parrys’ desire to divert Kitty from the contemplation of her coming ordeal. Knowing this, Ann realized the absolute imperativeness of appearing in all respects perfectly well, at least until the next morning, when her outraged frame might take what vengeance it liked.

In accordance with this resolve, when she was summoned from her abstraction by the intelligence that Mr. Parry was actually ready to depart, she rose with alacrity; stepped into the carriage with the tolerable assumption of a spring; and joined gaily in the chatter all the way home. Once at Merrion House she did allow herself the luxury of a sofa, but was always careful to keep her work, or a book, as an excuse for her position, and not to recline in an exhausted fashion, or shift about overmuch, which would have given her away at once. The result of all this careful dissembling, was that when she eventually arose, and announced brightly to Kitty that she thought it was approaching the time when they ought to dress, Lady Frances snipped off a thread, and said that if by “dressing” Ann meant for them to understand her intention of finally retiring to bed, she thought it an excellent plan; but that if Ann had any notion that she would be allowed to dress for anything else, when she could scarcely hold up a book from being in pain, then she could dismiss it at once. Ann protested; I may even say she protested vigorously; but as she was enabled to speak only a few sentences before bursting into tears of weariness and chagrin, her protests were perhaps not very convincing. Certainly they were not heeded.

Kitty uttered no word of reproach or complaint; she accepted Ann’s apologies with gentle phrases, automatically kind. But she sat very still, and turned very pale. Bolstered by Ann’s promised company, she had been bearing up fairly well in the face of her swift-approaching trial, but at this development all her alarms returned tenfold. Once again she was urged to cry off, and eventually heartened her family by murmuring a number of syllables indicative of weakened purpose. These, however, required much more time to harden into outright denial, than was vouchsafed them in the hour or so before the arrival of the Robinson’s carriage.

Kitty’s only support was in remembering the loquacity of Mrs. Robinson. In this, she placed all her hope of getting through the evening with any sort of comfort. If she could only stay in that lady’s shadow, she thought it might be possible to reach the end of the evening, without ever being called upon for any thing other than the occasional nod of agreement.

What was her astonishment and dismay, then, upon entering the carriage, to perceive, not the dependably effusive woman whose invitation had occasioned all her distress, but only the Miss Robinsons, with whom she had not exchanged one word, and whose company she had dreaded, deeming them to have even less conversation than herself. She was never so close to retreat as in that moment when first she saw the interior of the carriage, for even under ordinary conditions the smallest change in plan was abhorrent to her; but she was already in, and the door was shut, and they were rolling away before anything could be said or done. Had the driver not been so impetuous, had he waited only an hour or two before starting, it really seems not unreasonable to suppose that Kitty would have made up her mind to stay home, and this history have had a very different ending.

She sank onto the seat, overcome by the manner in which all things seemed to be working together against her, and was further daunted by finding herself the object of openly critical regard. The girls’ eyes were not precisely hostile, but they conveyed a certain amount of discontent that she should have found her way into their carriage. She managed a faint query as to the location of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, and Miss Robinson, after a moment in which it she gave no sign of having even heard the question, at length accorded Kitty the information that, “Papa never had intended to come; and Mama decided she had rather play cards at home than listen to some foreigner shrieking out ancient ballads.” The sisters then glanced at each other, and smiled, as if finding in the words a private source of amusement, which they alone could comprehend.

All manner of questions and protestations might properly have found expression here--but of course, Kitty expressed none of them. She rarely ventured a question without a deal of encouragement beforehand, and not even the most optimistic could have read, in the way Miss Robinson and her sister continued to silently scrutinize their guest, any slightest intent to encourage. Her attire interested them particularly, and having looked at it most carefully from neck to hem, Miss Robinson summed up their conclusions with the words, “Your dress is very plain. I suppose your family believes there is something sinful about pretty garments.” The exquisite wit and brilliancy of this observation was not lost upon either of the sisters, and they both burst into appreciative giggles; the puzzled and almost incredulous look with which Kitty received it, only added to their enjoyment, and their hilarity enlivened the journey for a considerable distance. Kitty was at first merely bewildered: it was true that her dress was simply cut, without ribbons or frills; but it was made of a very fine white muslin, and even Clive had noted that it looked well; and her shawl was a beautiful garment, not at all plain, given to her by her Uncle Torial upon his return from India. As for the other part of the remark, why, the girls had seen Mama and Julia when they came to dinner that time (and Julia had been wearing that lovely dress with the roses--Kitty remembered it clearly) so there could be nothing rational behind the words at all. In fact, the remark had been so entirely absurd, that, unless one postulated the fabulous theory of willful rudeness, the only possible explanation was that Miss Robinson had been joking--as, indeed, the sisters’ merriment confirmed. Having reached this conclusion, Kitty realized that she had been remiss, and belatedly allotted the jest a smile. It was a small and uncertain smile, but there could be no doubt of its good-humor, and, seeing it, her companions were made suddenly aware that the jest was really not as good as they had thought; they sobered with wonderful quickness, and even appeared somewhat disgruntled.

Kitty could only be glad, for she had found their laughter not at all infectious. But relief had scarcely arrived before it was banished again, as the sisters, perceiving that impertinence was thrown away on a guest of such surpassing dullness, began to speak to one another as if she were not there.

In any other company this exclusion would have delighted Kitty, and been seen by her as a merciful release from the anxiety of being any moment required to speak; but the Miss Robinsons so thoroughly ignored the presence of a third party, as not only to hold a tete a tete, but an exceedingly frank one. Their discourse was largely concerned with all manner of apparel and adornment--how much this item was desired, and how much that one cost, and how wretchedly Miss So-and-so had looked in one almost identical--and the parties Miss Robinson would attend next year, and the gentlemen she would meet, the dances she would dance. In dwelling upon the privileges of her approaching debut, Miss Robinson clearly sought to animate her sister to further heights of envy, and Miss Georgina was not one to cheat her, by failing to feel all that was proper in this respect. But seeing she could do nothing to hasten the coming of her own social joys, she made the best of her disappointment, by laboring diligently to diminish the pleasure the other took in her own. She, too, began to envision the come out, and found uncommon amusement in the thought of her sister, unaware that despite all efforts she looked a perfect fright, and unable to get any dances, except with elderly gentlemen who kept stepping on her feet, because they were busy looking across the room at someone else. Miss Robinson was induced by these predictions, to move the talk to an even more intimate plane, and responded with a devastating animadversion on her sister’s teeth, and the repellent structure of her nose. Miss Georgina replied in kind, and their speech became steadily more acrimonious, so that Kitty was made to blush, and blush again.

She was horrified, not only by the freedom with which they abused each other before a stranger, but at their doing so at all. The Parry siblings might have disagreements (though Kitty herself never did, and her entreaties were frequently the means of bringing quarreling factions to their senses); but never in this vicious fashion did they seek to cut up each other’s happiness, or sweepingly denigrate the judgement and taste of another. She marveled at the lack of shame displayed by the sisters; she would have as soon gone out with mud on her face, or come to dinner in her nightclothes, as imagine exposing the more unpleasant traits of her character in this way.

**