Friendship and Folly: The Merriweather Chronicles Book I (35 page)

He spoke with an evident desire to comfort and reassure his cousin, and with a conviction that moved even Ann, who knew that due to his ignorance of the true nature of the situation his words had no true significance. But Kitty showed no sign of being comforted, and Ann began to share Lord Merivale’s bewilderment at her behavior, for there was no generous agreement from her even now, no eager explanation of the true meaning of her reticence; indeed, she only drew away, slowly putting away his hands, that she might lower her head over her own, as though assailed by a renewal of that weakness that had kept her lying abed for so many days. Ann arose in concern, but before she could take more than a step, Lady Frances entered the room, and glancing over the scene, addressed her nephew in a tone of gentle chiding, saying that Kitty had not yet regained her strength, and had he not better defer the rest of their conversation till a later time, when she would feel more the thing?

“Dear Aunt Frances,” said Lord Merivale, rising at once, with his usual compliant smile, “you are right, as always. Come, Ann; let us take ourselves off, and allow Kitty space to recover from such tumultuous companions.”

**

This was a most promising beginning for the execution of Ann’s proposed countermandering, for Lady Frances was left behind to see Kitty made comfortable, and they proceeded slowly down the hall “in search of family,” at Lord Merivale’s suggestion. But Ann was still hesitating over which one to introduce, of the numerous conversations she had invented beforehand, when “family”--or at least two members of it, and an annex: in other words, Louisa, Margaret and Gerard--found
them
. Lord Merivale was at once dragged off, a willing captive to their affection, and Ann was granted time to come to the conclusion, that in fact she had nothing yet to countermand.

Lord Merivale certainly possessed an entirely false notion of the situation, courtesy of his poor, self-deceived cousin, but he had returned no disastrous promises, and, indeed, his conversation with Kitty had been conducted along more sensible lines than Ann had dared hope. Ann suspected that Kitty herself must be rather dismayed at the manner in which it had concluded, without ever having approached to the subject of Lord Merivale’s offering his own supremely eligible hand. True, he had declared himself perfectly willing to discourage Mr. Lenox from making any proposals of his own, but Ann, while disliking the scheme, had full confidence in Mr. Lenox’s ability to deal with such a piece of presumption as it deserved. If Lord Merivale were so unwise as to confront him, Ann did not doubt that his lordship would be sent, very firmly, about his business--which was, more properly, in Kent, making diffident suggestions to his subordinates, and writing gently amusing letters to his aunt, and not interfering in matters about which he knew very little. But of course, it would be better if he were to return from whence he came without having plagued either Julia
or
Mr. Lenox, and if Ann were not
given
an opportunity to discourage a visit to Berkeley Square she had every intention of
contriving
one. However, having reflected at length upon the conversation between the cousins, she could not perceive that a course of action had been decided upon at all, and since she was almost certain that Lord Merivale would never adopt a course that his cousin had not absolutely approved, Ann felt excused for praying that Kitty should remain just a trifle indisposed, until he took his leave the following morning.

To her considerable astonishment, Heaven appeared for once in accord with her own wishes, and the report that Lady Frances made, when at last she joined them, was that Kitty was feeling very low, and after Mr. Parry left her, she was to have no more visitors until the next day. Lady Frances seemed much affected by this rather mild relapse, and though not in any way downcast, yet she kept wiping away stray tears as if she did not know precisely why they continued to fall, but could do nothing to stop them. Shortly afterwards Ann saw Lord Merivale in conversation with his aunt, and wondered if perhaps he was begging her forgiveness for having thoughtlessly kept his cousin talking past her strength. If so, he received a full and gracious pardon, for she kissed his cheek very heartily, and for the rest of the evening was laughingly insistent that he stay near her and “remain common property,” instead of “becoming the acquisition of one or two enterprising and ruthless speculators.”

They sat down to a family dinner, for the Spenhopes had already fled town, and without requests or hints, or any diminution of mutual goodwill, three whole days had yet passed, without sight of a Lenox; a greater period of abstinence, at least on Sir Warrington’s part, than at any time since Mr. Lenox had taken his first reluctant step over the threshold with an inanimate Kitty in his arms. It was the general, though unspoken opinion, that this absence was due to Sir Warrington, though enforced by Mr. Lenox: for though the former had shown himself entirely willing to come and be openly disconsolate in the drawing-room, the latter had strange, restrictive notions of what was acceptable behavior in a caller, and their last two visits had ended somewhat precipitously, upon his realizing that Sir Warrington could not be brought into agreement with him on this point of etiquette.

So the evening passed off in tolerable comfort, and in the morning Ann arose with an easier mind than she had done since sending off Kitty’s note, and listened to Lord Merivale discuss his journey with Mr. Parry over the breakfast table, with feelings of absolute benignity. These persisted until approximately five minutes before his departure, at which time she happened to pass by Kitty’s room, and could not help overhearing the words, “But do you not think it is perhaps too early to call on him?”

She stopped at once, and heard Lord Merivale reply that he had called on the Lenoxes at an even earlier hour the last time he was in town, and had found Mr. Lenox perfectly ready to receive him. He then took affectionate leave of his cousin, and emerged to find Ann, leaning dumbly, like a forgotten broom, against the doorjamb. She fancied he may have shaken her unresisting hand, and uttered a farewell and the usual wishes, before walking away down the hall and into the embrace of his aunt, with whom he descended the stairs, leaving Ann standing once more in the wreck of schemes gang severely a-gley.

At length, filled with nearly equal parts resignation and vexation, she continued down to view the knot of Parrys assembled on the front steps, waving a wistful Godspeed to the back of their relative’s carriage, and soliloquize within herself on the futility of ever attempting to improve the lives of her friends. In the face of the partial, and, ultimately, complete failure of all her efforts during the past seven months, she could only deduce, that Providence had no opinion of those who set themselves up in competition.

**

So wholly unanticipated was this latest blow to her acumen, so final a reversal of all her plottings, that Ann was quite unable to support her spirits under it, and became as sunk in melancholy, as if her own dearest matrimonial hopes were being steadily trimmed away instead of her friend’s. She could scarcely bear to witness Julia’s own serenity of countenance, whether real or assumed; and the sound of Lady Frances heaping vague encomiums on the head of the “dear boy” who had just departed, or the children’s mourning of the brevity of his stay, at length provoked her to seek out Kitty as the most fitting companion for her megrims. But here as well she encountered some slight disappointment, for despite the evidence of eyes and complexion, which plainly declared that Kitty had spent the greater part of her night in activities less refreshing than sleep, she nevertheless seemed to Ann to have acquired a measure of quietude, which had certainly not been hers previous to her cousin’s visit. Ann, knowing that Kitty’s present ease of mind must be the result of having successfully sent that cousin on an errand of highly impertinent meddling into the happiness of her sister, came very near being cross with her, and took up
Pilgrim’s Progress
with discontented hands, ready to read the reflections of Mrs. Bat’s Eyes in tones of suitable acrimony.

Kitty listened to her courteously for a time, but at length, at Ann’s pausing to make some comment on the recitation of Mr. Greatheart, Kitty turned her head on the pillow to look at her companion more directly, and said, “That is like
you
, Ann. You are always eager to help, at whatever cost to yourself, and never seem to grow impatient with us, no matter how tiresomely we may behave.”

As Ann had shortly before been entertaining some very impatient and querulous thoughts indeed, she colored deeply at this undeserved tribute, and could produce no other response than an almost involuntary, “Oh, no!”

But Kitty was for once undaunted by a denial, and gently persevered: “And I have never yet thanked you as I ought, for all the days you have spent reading to me, and talking to me, when I felt so low, and must have been a sad, unsatisfactory sort of object to care for. It was not that I did not
feel
grateful, but I was so miserable in myself, that I could not seem to keep my mind from dwelling on my own troubles long enough to consider how greatly I must be adding to the ones of those around me.”

This was nonsense; an easier, more appreciative invalid never existed than Kitty; and so Ann earnestly assured her. But Kitty could not be happy until she had asked, and received, “dear Ann’s forgiveness for all her selfishness”; and even this did not completely content her, for when Ann, her emotions rather fluttered by this exchange, would have returned to the destruction of the Giant Maul as a means of providing them some space for recovery, Kitty was so clearly not attending, that she stopped after a few paragraphs, and laid aside the volume, preparing herself to grant any number of unnecessary absolutions.

But Kitty did not even speak for a time, and lay without looking at Ann, to whom it appeared she was breathing with increased distress. Ann did not, at this stage, have much fear of another attack, but she held her own tongue with difficulty, and kept a watchful eye on the bell-rope. She could not help starting when at last Kitty broke the silence, for she did so abruptly, more as if she could no longer refrain from giving voice to her thoughts, than as if she had any real desire to do so, with the consequence that sentences burst forth in some confusion, many of them no more than half-prepared, and sadly out of order.

“Did Stacey show you--” she began. “That is--I thought I heard--but I could have been mistaken--Did you--I wish I--Oh, Ann, I am afraid.” And in truth she looked so frightened that Ann rose and went to her side, urgently requesting the reason for her uneasiness. She returned Ann’s clasp with hands that trembled, but clearly struggled for more composure as she replied, “I think--it is Mr. Lenox. I heard someone at the front door; I am sure I did. He has come--to show her the letter.”

Ann began to share in Kitty’s trepidation, as she asked after the writer and contents of this obviously significant epistle.

“I wrote it,” was the disquieting reply. “I wrote it last night, as I could not sleep, and Stacey delivered it for me this morning. I had thought he might have told you of it, since you were here when he--you are so forbearing, Ann, you never ask questions--but you must have wondered what steps I would take--but I suppose he was in too great of a hurry to be away; I know it must have inconvenienced him dreadfully to come as he did, though he did not say it. There is a draft there, in Mama’s workbasket. I think it is not greatly dissimilar to the final letter. You may read it, if you wish.”

Ann did not await a second invitation. My reader may perhaps imagine the many sensations that fought within her breast as she retrieved a much-folded sheet of paper from under a box of silks, and walked with it over to the window. There, she opened it carefully, took in the first line, politely addressing Mr. Lenox, and with a final glance at Kitty, now lying back again with closed eyes, she read the following words, executed in an erratic hand that showed plainly the writer’s frailty and agitation:

“I did not wish to write this letter, but I find I must. I write concerning my sister Julia. Many gentlemen have claimed to love her, but I have known her nearly seventeen years, and have had a much better opportunity to come to the truest estimation of her worth and dearness, than those who know nothing of her but how well she dances, or how beautiful she looks when she is smiling at them. In the past, many of these gentlemen have caused her grief by declaring that they could only attain felicity in this life, if she made a decision which would almost certainly shipwreck her own. I was often very indignant against them, for requiring of her what she could not give without pain to herself. I was confident that I loved her better than they.

“I have recently been shown that perhaps I do not. I became afraid that I was in danger of losing Julia’s daily company, and by indulging my own feelings, promoted their assault on my health to such an extent, that I may have forced her to choose between her happiness and my own; and being Julia, she could not do otherwise than choose in my favor.

“I cannot tell you that Julia loves you. She has not opened her heart to me, because I did not want to see it. I can only say, that if my indisposition, my behavior, has in any way modified hers toward you, then I beg your forgiveness for it, and hers as well. I have been selfish; I am being selfish still, for I know that I cannot be truly happy, if she is not. More--I know she will not resent the preference--I find I would much rather live the rest of my life without her, beloved as she is, than with a bad conscience, the disappointment of my family, and the disapprobation of my God.

“And so, my patient rescuer, if it is indeed your desire to marry my sister, and to know what is in her heart toward you, I can do you no better office than to recommend that you come to Merrion House and give her this letter, and observe her as she reads it. You will at once be able to tell from her face, whether my wishing you success in your application (and I do, my dearest Julia, with all my heart) brings her delight, or consternation: for she has the truest, most honest face in the world, and her joy shines through in a manner that no one can mistake."

There was no signature on the draft. Ann folded up the letter, and then unfolded it again, scarcely knowing what she did. Her eyes flew to the bed; then to the door, longingly; then back to the bed, to find Kitty’s open, and fixed on her. Seeing Ann’s obvious anxiety to be gone, she actually essayed a wavering sort of smile, and said, “Go, then, Ann--see if he has really come. And--do not forget to return and tell me what you find.”

Never, since her fall, had Ann given so little thought to the descent of a staircase; she could not remember afterward if she walked, ran, or floated: certainly, when she at last stood outside the drawing-room, her heart beat as if she had raced there. She pressed her hand against her chest to calm it, and found she still held the letter; no matter. The door was ajar, but no sound came from within. Had Kitty’s ears--and fears--deceived her, or had Mr. Lenox gone first to see Mr. Parry in the library, or had he come and perhaps already gone? All these thoughts swept through Ann’s head as she reached for the door. She thought she heard her name called, very softly--but was she a well-trained dog, that she should respond to the sound of her name at such a moment as this? Her fingers touched the handle, she pulled it toward her; she advanced her head to peer around the corner--

Two ruthless hands grasped her above the elbows and lifted her away from the door, and as she was borne irresistibly toward the library a censorious voice hissed in her ear: “Miss Northcott! I am inexpressibly horrified! Have you no sense of Decorum? Of Dignity? Or, failing that, have you not the slightest twinge of Sensibility in your button-making soul?”

Ann was undismayed by Clive’s reproofs, and went with her captor with perfect docility, for in that one instant she had seen enough: a gentleman standing (in a cinnamon-colored coat) with his back to the entrance, and Julia, facing him with a letter held forgotten in her hands, her tear-bright eyes raised to his, glowing like an illumination lit to celebrate the coming of peace to the whole earth forever and ever, and no attention to spare if the entire French Army had been peering around the door.

**