Friendship and Folly: The Merriweather Chronicles Book I (34 page)

Ann was very much taken aback, but after a moment asked what it was, that Kitty thought Lord Merivale must be told.

“Why,” she replied, “he must be told to come here. He must come. I do not know why I did not think of it before. It must be because I have not been feeling well.” And she passed a white hand unsteadily over her brow. “You will help me, Ann, will you not? I do not think I am able to write it myself. He will understand.”

Ann wished to know, with ill-concealed discomfort, what it was she was expected to write.

“Just that he is needed here, and he will please to come as soon as he can. I will sign it--I think I can do that, if you will bring it here and hold the board when you are done.”

This seemed a very abrupt, graceless sort of missive to send off, even to someone as accommodating as Lord Merivale; however, it was no affair of Ann’s how Kitty wished to summon her cousin, and so she scrupulously followed her directions, and then held the note to be signed, afterward sealing it up and delivering it to a footman who, Kitty informed her, was used to running all her father’s postal errands.

All this furious activity (furious, at any rate, compared to what had taken place in Kitty’s room over the past few days) being finished, and Kitty having again lapsed into the polite semi-slumber in which she endured the passage of hours, Ann carefully replaced the letter back under the weight and took up the neglected novel, wishing that she had never ventured the change, and reflecting a trifle crossly that it was just like Kitty, that of all the amusing incidents and matters of national and personal interest to be found in her uncle’s letter, she had ignored them all, and instead plucked from it the one or two passing references he had made to his nephew.

**

Rather to Ann’s surprise, Mr. Parry and Lady Frances raised no objection against Kitty’s hasty decision to send for her cousin. Ann had thought that they must disapprove of his being summoned in this almost peremptory fashion, and so uselessly: for how could his coming serve any purpose other than to increase the difficulties of the situation? Kitty might confide that his presence would answer for every ill, but Ann could not see that Julia, having forfeited the lover of her own choice, was at all likely to find immediate consolation in the one chosen for her by her sister.

But Lady Frances, far from disapprobation, displayed only satisfaction at the intelligence. Moreover, she seemed to feel that there would be no obstacles to his coming, or that at any rate he would contrive to overcome them, and do as his cousin requested. Ann, however, felt that it was unreasonable to suppose that an officer would be allowed to throw his brushes in a bag and go haring across the country every time his family expressed a desire to see him. Or perhaps I should say, Ann
hoped
that this was so.

Nevertheless, Lady Frances’s and Kitty’s certainty had its effect on her, and she began to make plans accordingly. At all costs, she decided, she must speak with Lord Merivale before he saw Kitty; and if she failed in this effort, she must then contrive to speak with him privately afterwards, before he had any opportunity to execute his cousin’s commission--which was, Ann had not the slightest doubt, that he go at once and offer his obliging and agreeable heart to Julia. Ann rehearsed so many variations of her conversation with him in her head, as to be quite satisfied, that whatever “diamond-buckle promises” he might make to Kitty (a phrase of the late Lady Meravon’s, signifying any vow impulsively made, designed to please, and wholly impractical), he must, under the influence of Ann’s arguments, swiftly be forced to perceive the wisdom of repealing them. Ann was not so presumptuous, particularly in light of recent experience, as to rate either her prognosticative, or her persuasive powers above the average; but she really saw no reason why, having been talked into making his proposals by one young lady, Lord Merivale should then make any difficulty over being talked out of them by another.

As it happened, all her excellent plans very nearly came to naught, from the circumstance of his arriving rather sooner than she had expected, or indeed felt was reasonable. Far be it from her to deplore the speed and efficiency of His Majesty’s Mails, but she could not help thinking that it was somewhat unseemly for a viscount, even a slight one, to dispatch himself as easily as if he had been a single foolscap sheet in a well-franked cover. In consequence of this immoderate haste, Ann was not sufficiently on her guard, and was so far from suspecting any immediate call on her vigilance, that she had allowed herself to be inveigled away from her post at Kitty’s side in order to assist Lady Frances in some preparation or other; and as the room where they were was situated at the back of the house, it was but the coming of the housekeeper, to ask if an apartment should be made ready for his lordship, that apprised Ann of his presence. Her heart gave an unpleasant bound, and she seized the opportunity of Lady Frances’s speaking to Mrs. Adams, to slip away on an unintelligible murmur of excuse, and fled down halls and up stairs, pausing only to catch her breath for a moment before entering Kitty’s room. She found that Lord Merivale was indeed come, and had pulled a chair up beside the bed, in which Kitty was sitting up, with more color in her face than anyone had seen in many a day.

She looked up as Ann entered, and, scarcely giving her space to reply to Lord Merivale’s greeting, urged her at once to come and see the beautiful silk shawl he had brought to her; and when Ann had duly approached to finger and gaze, and conceal her remaining shortness of breath under the guise of speechless admiration, Kitty delighted in showing off the intricacy of the cone pattern, and praising the taste and kindness of its giver. (Ann could not help the rather acerbic thought, Major Merrion’s previous similar gift would now, as a matter of course, be relegated to ‘second best’, though to Ann’s mind it was the more elegant.) Lord Merivale, having offered his chair to Ann and had it firmly refused, then did nothing but stand and smile, and look pleased with the success of his present, until Kitty, turning again to him, inquired how it was that he came to know of her illness--for it was due to such knowledge, it seemed, that he had purchased the kashmir. He replied, that Lady Frances had written a letter to himself and “Tor” in which mention had been made of it, and he hinted an affectionate reproach, that she had said nothing of it in her own note. This hint effectually served to turn Kitty’s mind from the wonders of Indian embroidery, to the intended purpose of her cousin’s evocation, and her face grew serious on the instant, as, laying her treasure carefully aside, she said, in a low voice, “Then--you know of the trouble that has come. You know about--Mr. Lenox.”

Lord Merivale looked a little in suspense at this, as if he did not dare agree to such an equivocal statement, delivered, as it was, in a tone which implied all manner of dire clarifications; for if he indeed knew anything of “Mr. Lenox,” the intelligence must necessarily have come from sources less likely to depict that young man’s attachment to Julia in the light of a monstrous crime against humanity. At last, however, he ventured to say that “he understood there was some possibility of a match between Mr. Lenox and his cousin Julia.”

He could scarcely have devised a sentence more appalling to Kitty’s sensibilities. To hear her worst terror thus articulated, and without agitation, by the very one summoned to avert such a catastrophe--to hear the word “match” placed in such dreadful proximity to her sister’s name, bearing with it even a suggestion of some sort of mutual attachment--these things were enough to remove all hesitation from her lips. She begged him to sit down again--and Ann having discreetly crept into a chair on the opposite side of the room, out of Kitty’s sight, he did so--and then began breathlessly to relate to him, the true and remarkable account of how Mr. Lenox, being an intelligent, good-natured man of excellent character, had yet wormed his way into the affections of an unsuspicious and innocent family under the auspices of a misunderstanding between himself and his brother, and was now engaged in ruthlessly crushing underfoot the hearts of those who had welcomed him so trustingly into their home.

This narrative, though impassioned, was marred by a certain obscurity, which allowed Lord Merivale, at one point, to become almost indignant against Mr. Lenox, for pressing his suit upon a young lady whose reluctance was only too plain, when he could not help being aware of the discomfort and distress that must be hers at having to refuse him, and refuse him repeatedly. (Since Lord Merivale was the sort of man who hesitated to repeat a request for the salt-cellar, if his initial petition went unheeded, his revulsion at this supposed importunity was perfectly understandable.) But Mr. Lenox having been cleared of this particular charge, Lord Merivale abandoned his fleeting warmth with relief, as something that sat unnaturally upon him, and caused him great unease while it remained.

To have been made to stop, in the midst of reciting a harrowing tale, in order to defend the behavior of the villain, was vexing enough; but Kitty must have been otherwise disappointed by her cousin’s reception of her news, for, while serious and sympathetic, it fell yet a good deal short of the kind of violent consternation that the occasion obviously demanded. Not only this, but when she at length drifted into something approaching a conclusion, he inexplicably asked, after some hesitation, and with every appearance of confusion, if Julia did not, then, have any desire to marry Mr. Lenox, supposing that he ever actually came to the point of making her an offer?

Ann had taken up her work so that she might have something to look down at, and hide her expression; but the promptness and fervency of Kitty’s negative shocked her into lifting her head to stare, as for one horrid instant she believed her friend guilty of brazen dishonesty: for surely no one who had been witness to the radiance of that first second of comprehension, could have the least doubt as to Julia’s true opinion on the matter. Almost Ann opened her mouth to give a contradiction; but before she could do so, she recollected that at the moment of Julia’s self-revelation, Kitty’s head had in all likelihood already been descending in a graceful arch toward the fire-screen; and since then, certainly nothing had been said or done in her presence to suggest to her the extent to which her sister’s affections were, in fact, engaged. This was a fortunate recollection, for in the pause while Ann examined it, she was also able to recall her commitment to complete discretion so long as Lord Merivale remained in his cousin’s company.

This commitment was made a little harder the next minute, for he accepted Kitty’s testimony without question--for who, of course, should be more in the secret of one another’s feelings, than two devoted sisters?--but then went on to say, with due apologies, that he did not yet wholly understand why the affair should have given everyone such trouble. True, there must necessarily be distress for Mr. Lenox, and evidently for Sir Warrington as well, in the rejection of his proposal, and no small discomfort for Julia, in the rejecting; but while trusting he did not treat the matter lightly, he felt bound to say, that it was a distress neither uncommon, nor generally fatal. “’Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love’--nor young women, for having refused it.”

Kitty was not diverted by this remark, and at once crushed all further attempts at levity by earnestly assuring her cousin, with tears in her eyes, that it was not a matter for jesting: Julia was very unhappy indeed; Kitty had never seen her more so. Ann was a little surprised by this declaration, for she had thought Julia’s demeanor before her sister to be a model of benevolent disguise; but she supposed Kitty knew her sister too intimately to be entirely fooled, even when she wished to be.

Lord Merivale looked properly contrite at this tearful reprimand. But still, he confessed, he could not understand it. Had not Julia, in the past, been forced to tell a number of other estimable young men that she could not marry them, and not then suffered the kind of unhappiness, which her sister claimed for her now?

“Oh,” exclaimed Kitty, “but it was not the same--it was not at all--those gentlemen were too young, or they did not really know her well, or she knew they would not suit for one reason or another, and so she was very sorry to have to refuse them--but--but Mr. Lenox was not like that; it is altogether different--Julia is--and then, we are all are so very grateful to him.”

Lord Merivale mused silently after this speech for so long, that Kitty grew alarmed, and begged to know what he was thinking, so that finally he asked, with obvious reluctance, “Was she absolutely certain that Julia’s misery was the result of her intention of refusing Mr. Lenox? Perhaps, esteeming him as highly as she did (and from a feeling of gratitude, as Kitty had mentioned)--was it not possible that she had made up her mind to accept him? And that, consequently, it was the prospect of being separated from those she loved by so many miles, that was making her wretched?”

Ann expected that Kitty would be cast into a panic by the mere proposal of an idea so terrible; but apparently she was so confident of her sister’s resolve against Mr. Lenox, that in this respect, she was not to be alarmed. “Oh no,” said she, with only mild agitation. “Oh no, she does not mean to marry him. She has spoken to me of--of ‘when we are returned to Merriweather,’ and things of that nature. But she must not be made to tell him so, it would be too unkind.” She reached out and took one of his hands, holding it with both her own as she fixed her eyes on his face, and said in a voice that somehow both entreated and commanded, “Dear, dear Stacey, we must not let her be hurt any more.”

Lord Merivale, all his doubts of the precise nature of the problem being now assured away, naturally expressed his complete accord with this program, and only wondered how it might best be accomplished. It was not long before he produced the tentative suggestion that someone from Julia’s family should go to Mr. Lenox and explain how matters stood. “But I do not know precisely how such a sensitive business is to be broached. The strict truth, of course, must be told, but how is one to frame it? ‘Sir, I have come to inform you that while Julia Parry has for you feelings of the very deepest esteem and friendship, for certain reasons she finds herself quite unable to marry you, and is made wretched because of it. I beg that you will not further wring her heart by forcing her to tell you so.’ This is assuredly the bare truth of the matter, but I cannot help feeling that such a presentation is a trifle lacking in grace. Your father has a great deal of address; perhaps he could fashion the request more felicitously. What is your opinion?”

Ann could see that Kitty trembled for the success of her schemes if her father were to be thus needlessly introduced into them, for her brow grew troubled at this speech, and she looked away a little, as one of her hands released his, to smooth nervously over the shawl; but before she could contrive a reasonable objection, her cousin had put his own interpretation on her reluctance, and said, with an air of some surprise,

“Do you think perhaps it will not serve? I do not know Mr. Lenox very well, but he seemed a kind and sensible man, and if he has a true regard for Julia, will not the knowledge that she is distressed by his present course, be sufficient to stop him from continuing on in it to the immeasurable increase of her grief?”

Still Kitty was unable to find a suitable reply, and in her agitation gripped her cousin’s hand so tightly that the tips of her fingers turned even whiter, while her other hand stilled on the shawl; and again reading her silence in his own way, after waiting a good while, Lord Merivale eventually shook his head and said, in a voice very serious, and not a little troubled, “Well, if such a consideration carries no weight with him, I do not see that the slightest reliance can be placed on his attachment to her. Of what caliber is a ‘love’ that will not surrender its own imagined rights and desires for the good of the beloved? The feelings that prompt such behavior as that, have many names, but love is not one of them.” And again he paused, and again received no response, so that after a very long silence--or so it seemed to Ann--he sighed, and touching Kitty’s distressed fingers with his free hand, said quietly, “I hope you wrong him--indeed,
I believe
you wrong him--and that his love for Julia is a true love, and that, no matter the cost to himself, he will in this matter act on those principles which, he has abundantly demonstrated, rule him in all other aspects of his life.”