Free A Little Folly by Jude Morgan

quite as severe with me as I dare say I deserve for imposing her presence on you.’
    The lady thus presented murmured with a faint smile that she mustn’t talk nonsense. She was certainly no widow, or not a recent one, judging by her dress, and might have been no more than twenty-five or -six; but she gave a curious impression, as she moved forward to touch Louisa’s hand, of stepping out of a pool of shadow, despite the high brightness of the spring day.
    ‘There can be no consciousness of imposition on our part, Lady Harriet, only honour,’ said Valentine, with a bow; and though she thanked him cordially, in a voice both low and musical, she seemed glad to retire into the background again as they went into the house, and surrender the chief claim of attention to the Speddings.
    ‘And here is Pennacombe at last,’ said Sophie, ‘and not at all as I had pictured it in my mind – which is a shocking piece of fudge because unknown places, and people too, never are as one pictures them, and it would be very surprising if they were. It would quite turn one into a gypsy fortune-teller. – Only I had imagined it handsome but not so light and airy – and you have the sweetest view across the park. Just before the turnpike we saw a most imposing place in the distance, but so very grey and frowning I rather hoped it was not Pennacombe. I fancied that staying there one would feel quite incarcerated.’
    ‘That would be Hythe Place,’ Valentine said, with a shrewd glance at Louisa. ‘Certainly it is one of the finest seats in the county, but it is not to everyone’s taste.’
    ‘Splendid situation – but this, you know, is quite the thing,’ said Tom Spedding, seating himself with all the care and deliberation that tight buckskins, narrow-waisted coat and starched cravat compelled. ‘I was never happier to be in a place in my life. And as for meeting you at last, our very own cousins, I cannot conceive anything more agreeable. Almost feel as if I’m dreaming! For, you know, I did dream about it, just the other night at Lyme – didn’t I, Sophie?’
    ‘So you did, Tom; though that was the dream that ended unpleasantly – do you remember? – with the tiger chasing you.’
    ‘So it was. Wretched beast. Sure it’s going to catch me one day,’ Tom said, his face only briefly falling, before assuming again its expression of sunny good temper. ‘Fancy a great fellow of four-and-twenty dreaming about a tiger. Fierce one too. Teeth and claws and all. What do you think of that ?’ And, with a look of amiable surprise at himself, he began a slow-dawning laugh of deep enjoyment, in which it was impossible not to join.
    ‘But now we are remiss,’ Sophie said, having slapped her brother’s knees, ‘for though I know Mama wrote you when we read of your father’s decease in the newspaper, we should not let this occasion pass without expressing our condolences.’
    ‘Heavens, no,’ said Tom. ‘Dreadful thing. Never more shocked in my life.’
    ‘And when I wrote Mama last week, she was most particular in her reply that we convey to you her kindest compliments and sincerest hopes that you are recovering from your loss. And now I shan’t say any more: for I well remember after poor Papa died that in the end one hardly knew what to do with the commiserations. It all became rather mechanical – and then one felt guilty, because no matter how much one missed that person, still it was only human nature that one was not thinking of them all of the time.’
    There was an understanding and a delicacy in this, which reinforced the conviction in Louisa’s mind, that she was going to get along with their cousins very well. Valentine looked equally as pleased; and if there was any discomfort, it was in the presence of Lady Harriet Eversholt. Not that she did or said anything to create awkwardness: she joined in the conversation a little, civilly answering Valentine’s enquiries about how she found Lyme, and whether it had