Indiscretion (10 page)

glancing up at her from lowered lids, thought she did not look displeased. ‘Hey, well, there are worse fellows about, I dare say. Cut. So: your deal. But he’s unsteady
—
that’s his failing.’

‘Perhaps. And yet I think he might be less unsteady, if he were securer. I think anything in the nature of uncertainty is bad for him. If he were sure of your regard, ma’am, he would surely be more settled in his temper.’

‘Hm! So I am to follow
your
recommendations now, am I?’

Caroline shrugged casually, her eyes on her cards. ‘I am merely remarking how it strikes me: it’s of no moment.’ And soon she turned the conversation as if it really were, congratulating herself on an adroit move; and had the satisfaction of hearing Mrs Catling speak of her nephew almost indulgently before they retired.

But there was an unlucky sequel. The next day, in place of their usual call, came a note of apology from Matthew and Maria. It was Mr Leabrook who brought it to West Street: he had parted with them at the Old Ship that morning, and remarked pleasantly that Matthew was going to get that haystack hair of his cut, and Maria to shop for some small necessaries. ‘So, I said I was happy, idle fellow that I am, to be their envoy,’ he concluded, with a genial smile
—
which faded as he saw the mask of Mrs Catling’s black fury descend.

Caroline was used to this, and registered only a weary regret at the hours of ill-temper to come. For Mr Leabrook it was a new and disconcerting experience to witness his hostess apparently petrifying before his eyes into a graven image of some implacable pagan deity whose department dealt with blood, death, revenge, and despair.

Terrible stillness and silence characterized this apparition, laced with a brooding menace that Caroline had seen reduce strong men to milksops, and cleave the tongues of the most urbane talkers to their mouths. But it did speak occasionally.

‘I want my hussif,’ it pronounced, after allowing Mr Leabrook to talk himself to a perplexed standstill on every subject under the sun without the slightest response. The shadowed eyes turned to Caroline, and there was a twitch in the stony cheek. ‘Why you should be so slow to oblige me in this matter I cannot think. It is not simply that
your remuneration is ample and your duties light: it is the reflection that any well-disposed person would surely be prompt in such little civilities to an elderly lady that confirms my reluctant opinion of your increasingly
spoilt, saucy
disposition.’

Mrs Catling’s voice rose on the last words to a soft snarl, which Caroline, jumping up to do her bidding, saw Mr Leabrook’s handsome face react to first with amazement, then with distaste. Sheer bafflement had made her slow to move; for if her employer possessed one of those tidy needle-cases known as hussifs, she had certainly never seen it; and the idea of Mrs Catling
sewing
was strange as a dream. Nor did she know where to look for it
—
but she was not about to stir Mrs Catling’s wrath by asking. She proceeded by trial and error, moving towards the bureau whilst keeping an eye on the old lady’s expression. It darkened, so she hived off towards the window-chest, where the faintest of growls informed her she was on the wrong track. There remained a little japanned table with a single drawer
—
could it be? The fearful goddess was still. Caroline looked in, steeling herself for a roar. But she was in luck: there was the hussif, a little case of shagreen, looking as if it had never been touched. She handed it over. A lesser tyrant would have felt the need to do something with it: not Mrs Catling, who glanced at it, then deliberately tossed it aside.

It was to Mr Leabrook’s credit that he hung on for a good half-hour, during which Mrs Catling maintained her mulish ill-humour as diligently as if it were something worth doing. Caroline came in for some more reproof. The sunlight was hurting Mrs Catling’s eyes and setting off one of those headaches to which anyone who had the slightest care for her would know she was prone; but it apparently did not occur to her companion, who might be supposed at least to pretend such a care even if only for the look of the thing, to draw the curtain across, this being too much like effort for her pert and missish nature; and so on. Caroline’s spirits did not quite sink under it. There was the blessed consideration that today was her half-day: this afternoon she would be free. And there was some relief in the mere presence of Mr Leabrook, who had sense enough to realize that any attempts to intercede on Caroline’s behalf would only make her situation worse. His cool grey eyes missed nothing, however.

Mrs Catling’s mood did not sweeten after his departure. For long it seemed she might even deny Caroline her half-day; but as granting it allowed her to appear neglected and illused, she let her companion go at last. It was Caroline’s habit on these afternoons to take a dawdling walk about the town, finishing up at Crawford’s circulating-library. Today she varied her exercise by descending to the beach and striding its length very vigorously, the sea-breeze blowing in her face and carrying safely away what a lip-reader might have discerned as a string of rich and heartfelt curse-words.

When she came up to the town again, she was refreshed and all in a glow. The brilliancy of her complexion caught the eye of more than one visitor to the circulating-library, which with its coffee-room, reading-room, and even music was the resort of much company: a starched and creaking dandy who was conning the satirical prints, perhaps in hope of finding himself caricatured there, lifted his quizzing-glass to her, and an officer of the Hussars gave her such a glance as quite infuriated the well-bosomed young mistress on his arm, who recalled his attention to the trinket-cabinets with some savagery, and made him at once buy her something she did not want. Caroline’s attention was all for the books: the means of escape furnished by reading was grown more vital to her; and she was just exulting at having procured the first volume of Lady Caroline Lamb’s
Glenarvon,
which everyone was talking of, when her eye fell upon Mr Richard Leabrook.

He was outside, looking idly in at the bow-window. He appeared bored, but that expression lifted, flatteringly, on catching sight of her; and when she came out, he was waiting. ‘Miss Fortune. If we are going the same way, may I walk with you? I should add that I am not going anywhere in particular.’

‘No more am I, sir. So it will be curious to see how we go on!’

‘Indeed — but to be serious — I would not impose. You may have compelling reasons for seeking the relief of solitude this afternoon: reasons I will no further allude to than to say I entirely understand them, and to add that I admire your patience and forbearance.’

‘Thank you — but I have had enough solitude now, and would be glad of your company. You allude very delicately, sir, and yet you need not. Mrs Catling was fierce upon me today, and will be again, no doubt, some other day: that’s her way. I put up with it because that is what I am there for; and as the man said when he fell off the cliff for the third time, use is everything.’ Caroline was the more breezy, perhaps, because she did not want to be pitied.

‘Well, I had a notion she was formidable, from my friends the Downeys. Whom I saw not long ago, by the by, at Dutton’s. I dropped a hint that their absence today from their aunt’s had caused a certain acrimony in that quarter. Matthew despaired. It had seemed that the one thing sure to displease his aunt was to call
every
day: he had been reproved for it before on Brighton visits
—
it looked like taking her time for granted, and so on. Poor fellow: now he will have to work at making up lost ground again. You do not, I think, share this inflammable temper, Miss Fortune — and yet you are related to the lady by some connection?’

‘No
—
not by family. The late Colonel Catling was officer of my father’s regiment; and so my father besought Mrs Catling’s interest on my behalf, having no other means to establish me.’

‘Ah
—
he was in the Peninsula?’

‘Yes
—
he was made captain before Talavera, and was wounded. I long ago lost my mother, and my father has had to do his best for me, without other resources.’ Again with a strong resistance to being pitied, she added: ‘He might have done a great deal worse, for my situation is quite eligible
—
I do not complain of it.’

‘To be sure
—
and there are no terms short of the utmost respect and honour that may be accorded a hero of the war,’ Mr Leabrook said, with a brief bow. ‘It is curious and regrettable that, just a year after we were all thrilling to the news of Waterloo, the scarlet coat should come to be so little regarded. For myself I have always held the soldier’s profession in high esteem: I could have liked to follow the drum, indeed
—
but, heyo, there is no military tradition in my family. We are squireish. Dare I say, a little too much so? To you, I dare. Because I believe that you, Miss Fortune, are as much attached to the pleasures of the town as I am.’

‘Oh, you make me sound like a toper, or gambler, or worse!’ Caroline said, laughing. ‘How do you know that I am not fond of butter-making, and dogs, and tea and spillikins before an early bed?’

‘From your lips, it all sounds charming,’ said he readily, ‘but I know that you would prefer the din of the Strand
—
the hugger-mugger of Vauxhall — the parade of Rotten Row. How?’ he added at her look. ‘How do we know the cat will like the hearth-rug and the cream?’

‘And so now I am a tabby,’ Caroline said, with a sigh. ‘These are a very moral sort of compliments, Mr Leabrook, for there is not the least danger of my growing conceited from them.’

‘Still,’ he said amused, ‘you do not deny it. But then I only spend a part of my time in London, and if I spent more no doubt it would fatigue me. Brighton is very well in its way; but now my carriage is mended, and has arrived here today, and that has set me wondering whether I should not be leaving. The luxury of choice, I know,’ he added, with a sharp glance at her. ‘I did not intend lingering, and yet part of me is disinclined to go: all very odd and vexing, is it not? What do you think I should do?’

‘You can best determine, sir, whether there is anything to hold you here,’ Caroline replied. She spoke a little more calmly than she felt
—
but only a little. While he was a most attractive man, and it seemed that this flirtation must shade at some point either into indifference or seriousness, still there was no high excitation or suspense in her. Strolling and talking in this way did very well; and so they might have gone on much longer, comparing places they knew in London, and gently disputing about books and plays, had not the weather intervened. It had been a fitful summer, liable at any time to drenching rain, and now down it came. They took shelter in a draper’s shop, and when the rain slackened temporarily, whilst showing every sign of being a fixture for the day, Caroline decided she had better run for home.

‘May I ask if I will see you at the Castle ball on Monday night?’ he asked, before she darted off.

‘That depends on whether your terrible
ennui
has taken you away by then,’ she said, glinting a smile at him, ‘but I will certainly be there.’

If there were ever any doubt of Richard Leabrook’s attending the ball at the Castle, it was resolved by Mrs Catling, who invited him to be one of her party for the evening. The others, of course, were the Downeys, on whom she had inflicted a new refinement of torment by an extravagant and even supernatural sweetness of manner the day after their mistake, complete with such an airy puzzlement as to why Matthew should possibly feel he had anything to apologize for that that unfortunate young gentleman could only gape like a
trout: Caroline, whom she was treating quite normally again; and a
rather staggery vague old crony of the late Colonel’s, blue-faced from wine, who was newly arrived at Brighton, and inclined to profess himself Mrs Catling’s Vassal and Slave with a gallantry somewhat debased by repetition, and quite vitiated by drooling lips. But Mrs Catling received these compliments very complacently; observing, as she sat in state having her stone-coloured locks dressed by the Shrewmouse, that he was related to half the best families in the kingdom.

It was now the height of the Brighton season: every lodging was taken, and every species of carriage was to be seen bowling along the Royal Crescent, the Marine Parade, and the Steyne; and the Monday evening ball at the Castle Assembly Rooms was so well subscribed that there was quite a crush going in at the inn-passage, made worse by the determination of everyone who aimed at fashion not to be early.

‘A sad squeeze,’ Maria remarked to Caroline, fastidiously gathering up her train where it had touched on the gritty flagstones, and I’ll lay odds that half the people here have been ready for hours, and just peeping out of their windows waiting for their neighbours to leave. Well! this is something more like.’

The ballroom was magnificent in size, with a ceiling forty foot high, and stately in its mouldings, columns and frieze, all brilliantly lit by great chandeliers each as big as a barrel. Filled with company, it was however very noisy, the violins only a thin filigree of sound around the solid babble of talk, and very stuffy and hot: many older gentlemen were already looking cross, and fidgeting to be off to the card-room; and generally there was that degree of discomfort and inconvenience inseparable from social pleasures, and which in normal circumstances would be judged unendurable.

Caroline came here with a light heart and a willingness to enjoy herself that was not fretted by any conditions. Mr Leabrook had been much in her mind, and as Mrs Catling had given her permission to dance with any of her party, she looked forward to taking the floor with him. She had no doubt of his dancing as elegantly as he did everything else, and the prospect of standing up with a man whose good looks and distinguished manners must draw the eye even in such company was one her vanity could not resist. Splendid he certainly looked this evening, in a coat of superfine corbeau-grey, white marcella waistcoat, and cream breeches and stockings revealing a length and shape of leg to make stubbier gentlemen despair.

But she had decided that she was not going to make herself unhappy over him. The sum of his handsomeness, charm, and flattering attention was a substantial one; but the very fact that she found herself coolly adding these up suggested that she was not so captivated as to place her heart in any peril. He engaged her for the first pair of dances, and the third, and was every bit as graceful a partner as she had supposed; and she did not at all dislike the envious glances she received from young ladies who were ten times more fashionable, and a hundred times richer than herself. Still, there could be no monopolizing her in such a place; and whilst having to dance a quadrille with the drooling old soldier was something of a trial, she was quite happy to stand up with Matthew for the fifth.

He was in good spirits; and, on her remarking so, said with a smile, ‘Aye
—
a letter has done that. Such a small thing as a letter is, and such worlds of happiness it can open up! I need not tell you, Miss Fortune, who it is from. The confidences you extracted from me the other day will supply the sacred name, which I hesitate to pronounce in so public a place.’

‘To be sure,’ said Caroline, feeling too cheerful to protest that the confidences he had poured out to her had hardly been
extracted,
‘very wise. I hope that person is well, Mr Downey.’

‘She is,’ he said eagerly, ‘she is wonderfully well, I thank you
—
that is, she says so in the letter
—
I speak from that evidence only, of course
—
but then if she were not well, she would hardly be able to dissemble it even in writing, for she is like myself, quite incapable of disguise. And it is a communication so full of warmth and tenderness and patience that it has truly kindled my spirits. Affairs such as these I usually chafe at
—
their irksome formality oppresses me
—
but tonight I do not at all mind it. Strange effect from a square of paper!’

‘So it is,’ she agreed cordially, ‘and I found the same effect myself this very morning.’ Her father had written one of his rare letters
—
to her surprise, from Bath. He had fallen in with an old bachelor comrade who was going to try the waters, and had offered him a share of his board and lodging for the price of his company; and Captain Fortune, considering himself safe there now from creditors, had accepted; and he was obviously having the time of his life, for he could hardly take a turn through Sydney Gardens without hailing half a dozen familiar faces. But Caroline had a chance only of saying a little of this: Matthew smilingly told her that he was very glad, and then reverted to the subject of his own letter, thereby signalling that he shared the common preference for talking over listening.

Soon after this she would gladly have sat down a while, so overheated did she feel; and Maria was in worse case, having adopted the fashion of long sleeves, which she protested made her feel as if she were baking like a closed pie, though in truth she looked as coolly composed as ever. But Caroline had not been fanning herself long before the Master of Ceremonies approached her, and offered an introduction to a mild young man with a long chin and a feeble whisker, who said that he really did not dance, and proceeded to prove it through an excruciating cotillion. But he was, she gathered, very eligible; and this attention from the lordly M.C. was an indication that, if not quite the belle, she was making an impression. So Mr Leabrook murmured in her ear, as she took her seat again.

‘I suppose I should be honoured
—
but now we have been introduced, that man can ask me again! And what if they have waltzing? I
do not think I could bear it!’

‘From that I shall be your preserver,’ Mr Leabrook said, laughing, ‘and as for waltzing, I believe the M.C. is old-fashioned, and still disapproves it. My wish, Miss Fortune, is to claim you again, but that uncanny perception of mine tells me you are fagged for the moment. Come
—
that chair is narrow
—
I see a sofa over there by the wall, and I can navigate you to it.’

He led her skilfully through the press, saw her comfortably seated on the sofa, then melted away, to return shortly with a glass of claret-cup that was very welcome. While she drank it he sat on the edge of the sofa, watching her in an attentive silence, which at last she taxed him with.

‘Are you out of spirits, Mr Leabrook? You are rather abstracted. Unless you have forgotten my name and are desperately trying to think of it
—
that has happened to me
—
I find mentally going through the alphabet helps to jog the memory, though of course if the name is Young or Yates it takes an unconscionable time to get there
—’

‘I was never in better spirits,’ he said, gently but distinctly, ‘and I very well know your name, Miss Caroline Fortune. I have been thinking of it a good deal.’

‘Have you indeed? You decidedly must lack things to occupy your mind, sir. A course of improving literature is needed. What would you say to Fordyce’s
Sermons?
’

‘Nothing I can repeat to a lady. You were right upon the mark the other day, you know, when you spoke of my
ennui.
In truth I am half dead from it!
‘

‘Dear me. And which half do I have the honour of addressing now, Mr Leabrook?’

‘It is only in the present company that the tedium is banished. And that has set me thinking, and wondering. About you, Miss Fortune.’

‘Has it?’ Caroline said
—
an answer that failed sadly of wit, but had at least the virtue of being intelligible, unlike the strangled gurgle that was all she had feared she could produce. Feared
—
for something seemed to have changed: Mr Leabrook lounged beside her as composedly as ever, but she felt his attention upon her tightening. And she knew now, if she had not known before, that if he were about to become serious with her, she must deeply regret the alteration: that it was not what she wanted.

Mr Leabrook seemed to find nothing in her silence or awkward looks to disconcert him, however; and proceeded in his soft yet precise voice, like the purposeful padding of cat’s feet. ‘I fancy myself an indifferent good judge of people. Dull sticks and prigs and prudes above all I can spot a good way off, because they bore me so. Likewise, I know when I meet their opposite. You, I imagine, would waltz very well, Miss Fortune: you would find nothing shocking about it, nor suppose that the pressure of a man’s arm about your waist would kill you.’

‘I had no idea I was so transparent,’ she said, regarding him doubtfully.

‘It depends who is looking. And you and I have the measure of each other, do we not?’ Without waiting for an answer, his eyes still fixed on hers, he pursued: ‘Brighton is very well: I like it for a time
—
but it is not the whole of life, as you know. I have had pleasant company here with Matthew and Maria, but they will be leaving soon enough: Matthew must return to the dreary law for the Michaelmas term, and their mother will surely want Maria. So I shall not linger once they go. And it occurs to me to wonder
—
my dear Miss Fortune, why should you be left behind? I have mentioned my carriage. It is fast, and well-upholstered, and you will find it comfortable. Let me take you away in it.’

‘Take me away, sir? Where do you mean I am to go?’

‘Away from here — from Mrs Catling — from grinding dreariness and mean subordination!’

‘Well: I hardly know whether to be flattered or perturbed that you see me as so desperately in need of rescuing, Mr Leabrook. Do you suppose me so fragile that, if I wished to flee Brighton, I could not find the coach fare myself, and make my own way?’

‘Of course I do not suppose you fragile in the least,’ he said, chuckling, ‘but you do right to reprove me for not speaking plainer, even though you know well what I mean. The carriage, Miss Fortune, is to contain the two of us
—
you and I, together. There is a moon. We might even go tonight.’

Caroline found her breath quite stopped in her throat, and when she struggled to speak, there came a gasp that she did not like: it sounded girlish and overwhelmed; and she was neither.

‘Do you mean a Gretna elopement, sir? A romantic fancy
—
I would say even fantastical
—
for you well know I have no stern guardian reserving my hand for another suitor.’ She looked levelly at him. ‘But I think you do not mean that.’

‘Nothing so conventional,’ he said, renewing his smile after a bare moment. ‘Conventional
—
and trite and narrowly respectable
—
the exact qualities that I do
not
find in you, Miss Fortune. We go
—
where, who knows? London, to be sure. There is the greatest felicity coupled with the least observation. We may do as we please: taste all that the town has to offer. To say no more, I find this a delicious prospect; and so, I flatter myself, do you.’

‘“Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove ...
”,’
she recited flatly. ‘I cannot remember the poet’s name, but the sentiment is apt, I think.’

‘It is very apt,’ he said, with warmth, ‘and my confidence was not misplaced
—
you
do
understand me.’

‘Oh, yes, I do, sir. I understand very well. Forgive me
—
I am just trying to recollect how the verses continue. After all the pleasures have been proved, I mean: what then? I am almost sure they do not say. Poetry is often very vague like that. Life is more inclined to go on.’

‘Yes
—
curse it. And that is why I truly believe one must always seize the day’

‘And gather ye rosebuds, and come kiss me sweet and twenty, and all the rest of it. I am afraid I must have a prosaic mind, Mr Leabrook: it will keep asking
what then?’

He shrugged. ‘What then? I protest against the dull phrase. Think how much happiness has been lost by a timid preoccupation with consequences!’

She was now so very disgusted with him that she feared she could not moderate her tone. But she mastered herself, for it was important that he understand in what the disgust consisted: that she took no prim, missish offence, but could not submit to be treated as if her life was of no account.