Love & Folly (20 page)

"I daresay you don't like to dismiss McGrath because of his wife." Pegeen McGrath was the
children's, nurse.

Falk said coolly, "I don't want to dismiss McGrath because he served me faithfully for thirteen
years."

"Oh. Was he your bâtman?"

"More than that." Falk sounded as if he might, for once, launch into reminiscence, but he didn't.
After a moment he closed the window, turned, blinking, and came back to the table. His lectern reposed at
one end and Johnny sat at the other.

The colonel began to mend his pen, He made an awkward business of it, and Johnny wondered if
he ought to help.

Before he could rise, Falk had dipped the pen in the inkwell and struck out a line. "I'll have to
think of something for Jerry. Have you had your fill of publick executions?" Johnny had risen at dawn that
morning, which was May Day, to witness the execution of Thistlewood and the chief Cato Street
conspirators. The colonel had declined to join him.

"I left before the hangman did his work," Johnny confessed.

"Wise man."

"It was shocking--the crowd, I mean. Some of them were respectable people."

Falk's lip curled.

"Well-dressed families," Johnny said indignantly, "men and women and children, gossiping and
chatting as if they were at a picnic."

"I hear the more advantageous posts of observation went for half a crown."

"More. Much more."

"It must have been a great consolation to Thistlewood to know his end met with genteel applause.
Such is civilisation."

"My father," Johnny offered, "says spectacles of that sort are a salutory deterrent to
crime."

Falk frowned. "Have you ever witnessed a flogging?"

"No."

"I was compelled to in India. My colonel marched us out in hollow square and forced us to watch
every bloody blow. It made me sick as a cat, and I swore I'd resign my commission sooner than order such a
punishment. Fortunately, I was not required to." He scowled at his manuscript. "In my opinion flogging
and hanging are no deterrent to hardened offenders. They haven't the imagination to fancy themselves at the
gridiron or they wouldn't act brutally in the first place. The others, the bystanders, are merely
sickened--except for the ghouls, your respectable men and their respectable families who pay to see wretches suffer.
That's a kind of sickness, too."

Johnny felt he had to defend his father's opinion. "But the crime was so appalling!"

"The intent was appalling," Falk said precisely. "The crime did not take place."

"But they... Thistlewood resisted arrest."

"Would you not, if you knew you would infallibly be hanged and beheaded?"

There was no answer to that. Johnny drew a letter from the pile before him. For a time both men
worked in silence. Colonel Falk was finally the end of volume three. Heavy tomes interleafed with slips of
paper covered in notes littered his end of the table.

Johnny penned four letters of thanks and set up a meeting in July between Clanross and a retired
sergeant who could not find employment. The man had three children and his wife was expecting a fourth.
They subsisted on a pension of six shillings a week. It occurred to Johnny to wonder if they might not starve
before July.

Surely not. The letter had been written by the man's neighbour, a barber-surgeon. The sergeant
had friends.

"Blast!" Falk threw down his pen. "I've no head for this today. Come for a walk, Dyott. I'm sick
of my own company."

Johnny did not have to be persuaded. He sealed the letters, which already had Clanross's frank,
and rose from his seat, shrugging into the coat he had thrown over the chair-back.

The May air moved with enough breeze to dispel the usual London haze. The two men walked in
silence. Colonel Falk had the loose stride of an infantryman used to covering twenty miles in a day's march.
Johnny tried to keep up. When they had traipsed through the park--it was not a fashionable hour to be
strolling along the Serpentine--they headed back to Grosvenor Square by way of upper Brook Street.
Within sight of the Conway town house Falk halted.

"There's a coffeehouse in Audley Street where I catch up on the newspapers. Do you care to take
a cup?"

Johnny's leg was aching. He was ready to sit down and not choosy where. He nodded. His own
coffee house, a club of sorts, lay in Bond Street, and he was a member of Brooks's, too, but that was too far
off.

The coffeehouse proved quietly unfashionable. Colonel Falk read
The Times
rapidly,
toying with his coffee cup. Johnny was content to sip and rest his leg. Beyond the plain windows, the street
was almost empty. A pair of dandies minced by, one in lavender, the other in fawn inexpressibles. Half a
dozen carriages and a high perch phaeton drawn by a team of matched bays rattled by. Johnny watched the
horses out of sight.

Colonel Falk laid the paper on the small table and took a sip of the thick black coffee. "I was
surprised when you didn't join the party at Brecon, Dyott. Gratified," he added hastily. "Relieved.
Grateful. If you'd gone off, I'd be neck-deep in begging letters. Still, I rather expected you to see the young
ladies safely home."

Johnny felt his cheeks go hot. "Do you think I should have?"

"Only if you meant to fix your interest with Lady Margaret," Falk said in dulcet tones.

Johnny stared. In the course of the riot, as the girls were swept away by the crowd, he had
realized his preference was for Maggie, not Jean. The idea was still so new it startled him. "How the devil
did you know? Am I so obviously doating?"

"No. I had the advantage of Emily's acute eye. She told me you were taken with one of the twins.
I wondered which, so I watched. It's no concern of mine, Dyott, but I must say you have excellent taste.
They are charming young women, high-couraged as a pair of Arab colts."

"And such speaking eyes!"

"And such flaming hair!" The mockery was kindly. "I'm bound to say I still can't tell one from the
other."

"Oh... There's a world of difference." Johnny could have explained how unlike Maggie was to
Jean, but it would have taken him the rest of the afternoon. He fiddled with the newspaper. "I daresay you
think me presumptuous to hope."

The colonel's eyebrows rose. "Hope is never presumptuous."

"But she... Lady Margaret is the daughter of an earl."

"You can't imagine Tom would object to the connexion." He finished his coffee.

"But Lady Clanross."

Falk said slowly, "I don't know her ladyship at all well, but she doesn't strike me as foolishly
ambitious for her sisters. Why the diffidence, Dyott? You're well born, well educated, and reasonably
prosperous, and you cut a good figure. What more could a young lady wish for?"

Johnny groaned. "Sonnets."

Falk grinned. "I thought Lady Jean was the one smitten with the poet."

"She is. But any young girl wants romance. I think I have Mag-- Lady Margaret's friendship. Or I
thought I did until I found they'd gone off to a clandestine assignation." Gloom, never far off these days,
swept over Johnny again. Maggie's failure of trust had jolted him awake. Her lack of confidence in him had
stunned and hurt him to a degree that caused him to examine his own feelings. He needed Maggie's
trust.

Falk made a clucking noise with his tongue. "Assignation. What a word."

"It was clandestine behaviour."

"They wanted adventure. What could be more natural?"

"Perhaps you're right, but I thought Maggie trusted me!" Johnny burst out, too distressed to
notice the impropriety of referring to his lady without her style.

"If she had told you of her plans you would have. prevented them. And her loyalty to her sister is
surely admirable."

"Perhaps," Johnny grudged. He took a sip of cold coffee.

"Why don't you buy a seat on the next mail coach and try for an explanation? Faint heart never
won a fair lady."

"I couldn't," Johnny muttered. "I'd look a fool."

"Nothing ventured nothing gained. I seem to be expressing myself in adages today. That doesn't
augur well for the next chapter. I'd best stop before I say the course of true love never did run smooth." He
rose. "Leg rested?"

Johnny nodded and stood up, too. He felt some resentment that Falk should be reading his mind
so easily. On the other hand, it was a relief to speak of his, feelings.

Outside in the bright sunlight his mood lightened. After all, the colonel had not despised his
pretentions. They strolled toward Grosvenor Square.

Falk chuckled. "I'm a fine one to be spurring you into action. I was so pigeon-livered I had to wait
for Emily to propose to me."

Johnny stared. "She didn't!"

"Indeed she did. She blushed like a Spanish sunrise, bless her, but she got the words out." He was
back at his loping stride again. Johnny had to quick-march to catch up. He tried to imagine the sweetly
conventional Emily Falk proposing marriage to her mad satirist, but his fancy failed him.

When they entered the house, they found the second post had come. Johnny had a letter from his
father demanding to know, absolutely and finally, when Johnny meant to take Holy Orders. A living worth
two thousand pounds a year had fallen vacant near Grantham.

Johnny's other epistle was from Lady Clanross. She asked him to come to Brecon for the twins'
birthday celebration. They were still sunk in gloom, Maggie particularly. And their eighteenth anniversary
ought to be a festive occasion. Would he bring the packet of sheet musick she had forgot? She remained his
obliged servant, Elizabeth Conway.

Johnny would. He wrote her at once, and that evening he went to the book room, took out his
new steel pen, and composed a careful, filial letter to his father explaining his decision not to enter the
church. Afterward he felt so much better he tried his hand at a sonnet. It was not half bad.

* * * *

"Johnny writes he will come in time for the dinner party." Elizabeth leaned forward and patted
the new mare's neck. Her favourite mount, Josephine, had had to be put out to pasture and Elizabeth wasn't
yet sure of Andromeda. That was the mare's name.

Tom held Paloma to a walk. Maggie, Jean, and the poet on a borrowed Pegasus, had gone on
ahead. "Do you think Maggie's headaches are owing to the injury or to Johnny's absence?"

"A bit of both." Elizabeth's smile faded as she caught sight of the rest of the party at the far end of
the avenue of beeches. They had dismounted by the pavilion and Owen was reciting again. She could tell by
the gestures. Maggie appeared to be examining the deep red of a rhododendron bloom, but Jean was
listening to him in the attitude of an acolyte.

"It will wear off."

"Jean's infatuation? I hope it may. Her other fancies were shorter lived, except when she was in
love with you." She shot him a sidelong glance.

He grinned. "I think you're trying to put me to the blush."

"Impossible!"

"Wasp!"

They laughed. "Race you?" Elizabeth challenged.

His eyes gleamed and he settled his round hat more firmly over his brow. "You're on, my
lady."

Paloma was still Paloma and outdistanced the new mare easily. Tom had dismounted by the time
Elizabeth reached the pavilion. The younger people gaped at their headlong elders.

"Andromeda is a slug," Elizabeth announced, a trifle breathless. She slid to the ground and Jean
took her reins. "Shall I give her to Maggie?"

Jean smiled.

Maggie made a face. "I'm faithful to Joybell till death us do part. Keep your beastly slug."

That showed some spirit. Maggie was still pale, but the cropped hair suited her and a delicate pink
tinged her cheeks. Perhaps she was recovering. Elizabeth gave her a sisterly grin.

After a moment Maggie smiled, too.

Tom had been leading Paloma round the pavilion. Paloma, a very black dove indeed, was inclined
to be hot in hand. She had been known to lash out at the end of a ten mile run; however, she looked calm
enough at the moment. The girls' mounts and Owen's nag swished their tails as Tom tied Paloma to the
railing. She munched a clump of harebells.

Owen watched the proceedings with the air of one who had been interrupted.

"I hope your georgics are doing well," Elizabeth said politely.

He shrugged. "Well enough, considering my heart is not in pastoral scenes. I wish I might go to
London."

There was no answer to that and Elizabeth made none.

Tom said, "Richard Falk writes that he has finished his history. He is gone down to
Hampshire."

"Then Johnny's alone in London." Maggie bit her lip.

"Not for long," Elizabeth said cheerfully. "He'll be here for the birthday celebration." She had
meant to leave Johnny's coming as a surprise, but Maggie wanted cheering
now
.

She glanced at the girl. Maggie clasped her hands and looked agitated.

Jean said, "It's good of him to go to the trouble. I hope you don't mean to ask the little girls to
dine with us."

"I thought you would prefer to take tea with our sisters and keep the dinner party strictly
grown-up."

Jean nodded. "And dancing afterward?"

"If you like. Miss Bluestone will play for you, I'm sure. Willoughby and Bella have agreed to
come, and the Whartons."

"Lord, Cecy Wharton can't dance in her state."

Elizabeth frowned at her. "True, but it doesn't become you to say so, Jean. Is there anyone else
you'd like me to ask?"

"Let's keep the numbers small," Maggie muttered. "May we go back? I have the headache."

Elizabeth's heart sank. Perhaps Johnny Dyott wasn't the cure for Maggie's megrims after all.

Maggie's reception of the news that Johnny was coming back to Brecon baffled her twin,
too.

Jean had been terrified by her sister's injury and concerned when recurring headaches kept Maggie
abed half the time. As the details of the riot receded from Jean's memory, however, she was inclined to feel
that the risk she and Maggie had run was well worth the prize.