Bath Tangle

13

A letter from Lady Theresa followed hard upon the announcement in the Gazette. It was unfranked, so that Serena was obliged to pay for the privilege of reading two crossed pages of lament and recrimination. Not even his sister could have felt Rotherham’s engagement more keenly. Lady Theresa took it as a personal insult, and laid the blame at her niece’s door. As for Lady Laleham, no words could describe the shameless vulgarity of her conduct. From the moment of her having brought her chit of a daughter to town, she had lost no opportunity to throw her in Rotherham’s way—but who would have supposed that a man of his age would succumb to mere prettiness and an ingenuous tongue? Lady Theresa prophesied disaster for all concerned, and hoped that when Serena was dying an old maid she would remember these words, and be sorry. Meanwhile she remained her affectionate aunt.

Two days later Mrs Floore was the recipient of a letter from London. She met Serena in the Pump Room, her face wreathed in smiles, and pressed upon her a letter from Emily, begging her to read it. “Bless her heart, I’ve never had such a letter from her before, never!” she declared. “So excited as she is—why, she’s in downright transports! But you’ll see for yourself!”

Serena took the letter with some reluctance, but the old lady was obviously so anxious that she should read it that she made no demur.

It was neither well written nor well expressed, but it owed nothing to any manual: the voice of Emily spoke in every incoherent but ecstatic sentence. Serena thought it the effusion of a child; and could almost have supposed that she was reading a description of a promised treat rather than a girl’s account of her betrothal. Although Rotherham’s name occurred over and over again, it was always in connection with his rank, his riches, the fine houses he owned, the splendid horses he drove, and the envy the conquest of him had aroused in other ladies’ breasts. He had driven with her in the Park, in his curricle, which had made everyone stare, because he was said never to drive females. When he took them to the opera it was like going out with a Prince, because he had his own box in the best place imaginable, and everyone knew him, and there was never any delay in getting into his carriage, because as soon as the lackeys saw him coming they ran out to call to the coachman, and so they had not to wait in the vestibule, or to say who they were. Rotherham House, too! When Grandma saw it, she would be astonished, and wonder to think of her little Emily the mistress of such an establishment, giving parties in it, and standing at the head of the staircase with a tiara on her head. There were hundreds of servants, some of them so genteel you would take them for visitors, and all the footmen in black satin knee-breeches. Then there was Delford Park, which she had not yet seen, but she believed it to be grander even than Milverley, and how she would go on in such a place she couldn’t think.

So it went on, conveying to Serena the picture of an unsophisticated child, dazzled by riches, breathless at finding herself suddenly the heroine of a fantastic dream, intoxicated by her own staggering success. There was not a word to indicate that she had formed an attachment; she was concerned not with Ivo Barrasford, but with the Marquis of Rotherham.

Serena hardly dared look up from these pages, so clearly did they convey to her the knowledge that affection had played no part in one side at least of this contract. It seemed impossible that Mrs Floore could detect anything in the letter but the excitement of a flattered child; and it was a hard case to know what to say of so disquieting a communication.

“Well?” Mrs Floore said. “What do you think of that, my dear?”

Serena gave her back the folded sheets. “She is a little carried away, ma’am, which is not to be marvelled at. Perhaps—”

“Ay, that she is!” chuckled Mrs Floore. “So excited and happy as she is! Lord, he’s regularly swept her off her feet, hasn’t he? Lord Rotherham this, and Lord Rotherham that till you’d think there wasn’t another soul in London! Which you can see there isn’t, not in her eyes! Well, I don’t know when I’ve been in higher croak myself, and the relief it is to me, my dear, you wouldn’t credit!” She dived into her reticule for her handkerchief, and unashamedly wiped her eyes. “You see what she writes, my lady, about me visiting her in her grand house! Bless her sweet heart! I shan’t do it, but only to know she wants me to makes up for everything!”

Serena said all that was suitable, and left the old lady in a blissful dream of vicarious grandeur. She did not mention the letter to Fanny, and tried to put it out of her own mind. It recurred too often for her comfort; again and again she found herself dwelling upon all its implications, foreseeing nothing but disillusionment in store for such an ill-assorted couple, and wondering, in astonished disgust, how Rotherham could have been fool enough not to have perceived the feather-brain behind a charming face.

It was a week before she received an answer to her letter to him. The London mail reached Bath every morning between the hours of ten and twelve, and the letter was brought up from the receiving office half an hour after she had set forth on a picnic expedition under the nominal chaperonage of a young matron of her acquaintance. Fanny could not think it proper to make one of a party of merry-makers. She would not go herself, and tried timidly to dissuade Serena. But Serena seemed to be fast recovering the tone of her mind, and was bent on amusement. She might almost have been said to have been in outrageous spirits, gay to dissipation. Fanny lived in dread of her suddenly deciding to go to balls again, and impressed upon Major Kirkby the necessity of his preventing so imprudent a start. He made a hopeless gesture: “What can I do?”

“She must mind what you say!”

He shook his head.

“Oh, yes, yes!” Fanny cried. “If you were to forbid her—”

“Forbid her! I?” he exclaimed. “She would most hotly resent it! Indeed, Lady Spenborough, I dare not!”

“She could not resent it from you!”

He flushed, and stammered: “I have no right—When we are married—Not that I could ever seek to interfere with her pleasure! And surely,” he added, in an imploring tone, “it cannot be wrong, if she does it?”

She saw that he shrank from arousing Serena’s temper, and was too deeply sympathetic to press him further. She could only pray that Serena would stop short of public balls, and beg her to behave with discretion while under Mrs Osborne’s casual chaperonage. Serena, setting upon her copper curls the most fetching of flat-crowned villager-hats of white satin-straw with a cluster of white roses, cast her a wicked look out of the corners of her eyes, and said meekly: “Yes, Mama!”

So Serena, squired by her Major, sallied forth on a picnic expedition; and Fanny, presently glancing through the day’s mail and seeing one letter with Rotherham’s name on the cover, was obliged to contain her soul in patience until such time as Serena should return to Laura Place. This was not until dinner-time, and then, instead of immediately reading the letter, she put it aside, saying: “Fanny, have I kept you waiting? I do beg your pardon! Order them to serve dinner immediately: I’ll be with you in five minutes!”

“Oh, no! Do read your letters first! I could not but notice that one has Rotherham’s frank upon the cover, and you must be anxious to know how he receives the news of your engagement!”

“I am more anxious that you should not be kept waiting another moment for your dinner. I don’t think it’s of the least consequence whether Rotherham likes it or not: he cannot reasonably refuse his consent to it. I’ll read what he has to say after we’ve dined.”

Fanny could almost have boxed her ears.

But when Serena at last broke the wafer, and spread open the single sheet, the Marquis’s message proved to be a disappointment. Fanny watched Serena read it, herself quite breathless with anxiety, and could not forbear saying eagerly: “Well? What does he say? He does not forbid it?”

“My dear, how should he? He makes no comment upon it, merely that he will be at Claycross next week, and will visit Bath on Thursday, for one night, to discuss with me the winding up of the Trust. We will invite him to dine here, and Hector too.”

“But is that all he has to say?” demanded Fanny incredulously.

“You don’t know his style of letter-writing! This is a typical example of it. Oh, he thanks me for my felicitations, of course, and says that it will be proper for him to make the acquaintance of Major Kirkby before giving his formal consent to my marriage.”

“Then at least he doesn’t mean to be disagreeable about it!” said Fanny, considerably relieved.

But when, on the following Thursday, Rotherham was ushered into the drawing-room, this comfortable conviction left her. He looked to be in anything but a complaisant mood. The sardonic lines about his mouth were marked, and a frown drew his black brows into a bar across his face. He was dressed with propriety, in an evening coat and knee-breeches, but, as usual, there was a hint of carelessness about his appearance, as though the pattern of his waistcoat or the set of his neckcloth was a matter of indifference to him. He greeted her un-smilingly, and turned to meet Serena.

She had chosen to dignify the occasion by arraying herself in a gown which had been made for her by Bath’s leading modiste, and never before worn. It was a striking creation, of black figured lace over a robe of white satin, the bodice cut low, and the train long. With it she wore her diamond earrings, and the triple necklace of pearls her father had given her at her coming-of-age. She looked magnificent, but the comment she evoked from the Marquis was scarcely flattering. “Good God, Serena!” he said, as he briefly shook her hand. “Setting up as a magpie?”

“Just so! I collect it doesn’t find favour with you?” she retorted, a spark in her eye.

He shrugged. “I know nothing of such matters.”

“No one, my dear Rotherham, having once clapped eyes on you, could doubt that!”

With nervous haste, Fanny interrupted this promising start to one of the interchanges she dreaded, “Lord Rotherham, I must introduce Major Kirkby to you!”

He turned to confront the Major, whom he had not previously seemed to notice. His hard eyes surveyed him unrecognizingly. He put out his hand, saying curtly: “How do you do?”

Never, thought Fanny, could two men have formed a stronger contrast to each other! They might have served as models for Apollo and Vulcan, the one so tall and graceful, classically featured, and golden-haired, the other swarthy and harsh-faced, with massive shoulders, his whole person suggesting power rather than grace. In looks, in deportment, in manners there could be no comparison: the Major far outshone the Marquis.

“We have met before, sir,” the Major said.

“Have we?” said Rotherham, the bar of his brows lifting slightly. “I’ve no recollection of it. When, and where?”

“Upon more than one occasion!” replied the Major, steadily meeting that hard stare. “In London—seven years ago!”

“Indeed? If it is seven years since we met, I must hold that to be a sufficient excuse for having forgotten the circumstance. Did you form one of Serena’s court?”

“Yes. I did,” said the Major.

“Ah, no wonder, then! I never disintegrated the mass into its component parts.”

This time it was Serena who intervened. “I informed you, Rotherham, that the attachment between us was of long-standing date.”

“Certainly you did, but you can hardly have expected me to have known that it was of such long-standing date as that. I had, on the contrary, every reason to suppose otherwise.”

Serena flushed vividly; the Major held his lips firmly compressed over hard-clenched teeth; Fanny flung herself once more into the breach. “I have not felicitated you yet, Lord Rotherham, upon your engagement. I hope you left Miss Laleham well?”

“Well, and in great beauty,” he replied. “You remind me that she desired me to convey all sorts of messages to you both. Also that I stand in your debt.”

“In my debt?” she repeated doubtfully.

“So I must think. I owe my first introduction to Miss Laleham to you, and consider myself much obliged to you.”

She could not bring herself to say more than: “I wish you both very happy.”

“Thank you! You are a notable matchmaker. Lady Spenborough: accept my compliments!”

She had never been more thankful to hear dinner announced.

While the servants were in the room, only indifferent subjects were discussed. It was second nature to Serena to promote conversation, and to set a party going on the right lines. No matter how vexed she might be, she could not fail in her duties as a hostess. Fanny, seated opposite to her, nervous and oppressed, wondered and admired, and did her best to appear at ease. She had never yet been so in Rotherham’s presence, however. At his most mellow, he made her feel stupid; when he sparred with Serena for an opening, she felt quite sick with apprehension. The Major saw it, and, chancing to meet her eye, smiled reassuringly at her, and took the earliest opportunity that offered of sliding out of a discussion of the restored King of Spain’s despotic conduct, and turned to ask her quietly if she had succeeded in her search for a birthday present likely to appeal to the taste of her youngest sister. She responded gratefully, feeling herself protected; and Serena, seeing her happily rengaged in abusing the Bath shops, and describing her hunt for a certain type of work-box, was content to let drop the subject of Spain, which she had chosen because it was one on which the Major could speak with authority. Rotherham sat for a moment, listening to Fanny but surveying the Major from under his frowning brows; then he turned his head towards Serena, and said: “I imagine Lady Theresa will have told you of Buckingham’s duel with Sir Thomas Hardy? An odd business! The cause is said to be some offensive letters written to and about Lady Hardy. Anonymous, of course, but Hardy held Buckingham to be the author.”

“Persuaded by her ladyship! Of that I am in no doubt! I don’t credit a word of it! Does anyone?”

“Only the inveterate scandalmongers. The character of a gentleman protects Buckingham, or should.”

“I think so indeed! But tell me, Ivo! how does the antiquated courtship progress? My aunt wrote of having seen their Senilities flirting away at some party or other!”

He replied, with a caustic comment which made her burst out laughing; and in another moment they were in the thick of the sort of conversation Fanny had hoped might be averted. Rotherham seemed to have recovered from his ill-humour: he was regaling Serena with a salted anecdote. Names and nicknames were tossed to and fro; it was Rotherham now who had taken charge of the conversation, Fanny thought, and once again she was labouring to keep pace with it. There was something about the Duke of Devonshire dining at Carlton House, and sitting between the Chancellor and Lord Caithness: what was there in that to make Serena exclaim? Ponsonby too idle, Tierney too unwell, Lord George Cavendish too insolent for leadership: what leadership?

“I thought they had made no way this session!” Serena said.

“The reverse! Brougham threw the cat among the pigeons, of course. By the by, Croker came out admirably over the attack on the Navy Estimates: he was offered a Privy Councillor’s office as a result, but declined it.”

“Are you interested in politics, Major Kirkby?” said Fanny despairingly.

“Not in the least!” he replied, in cheerful accents.

“For shame, Hector!” Serena rallied him.

He smiled at her, but shook his head. “You will have to instruct me!”

“You have been interested in more important matters, Major,” said Rotherham, leaning back in his chair, the fingers of one hand crooked-round the stem of his wineglass.

“I don’t know that. Certainly politics have not come in my way yet.”

“You must bring him in, Serena. The Party needs new blood.”

“Not I!” she returned lightly. “How odious it would be of me to try to push him into what he does not care for!”

“You will do it, nevertheless.”

“Do you care to wager on that chance?”

“It would be robbing you. You will never be able to keep your talents buried.” He raised his glass to his lips, and over it looked at the Major. “Serena was made to be a political hostess, you know. Can you subdue her? I doubt it.”

“She knows I would never try to do so.”

“Good God!” said Rotherham. “I hope you are not serious! The picture you conjure up is quite horrifying, believe me!”

“And I hope that Hector knows that you arc talking nonsense!” Serena said, stretching out her hand to the Major, and bestowing her most brilliant smile upon him.

He took the hand, and kissed it. “Of course I do! And you know that whatever you wish me to do I shall like to do!” he said laughingly.

Rotherham sipped his wine, watching this by-play with unexpected approval in his face. The second course had come to an end, and, in obedience to a sign from Serena, the servants had left the room. Fanny picked up her fan, but before she could rise, Serena said: “Have I your consent and approval, Ivo?”

“Certainly—unless I discover that the Major has a wife in Spain, or some other such trifling impediment. When do you propose to be married?”

“It cannot be until I am out of mourning. I don’t feel it would be proper even to announce the engagement at this present.”

“Most improper. It will be as well, however, since the control of your fortune will pass from my hands to his, if I have some talk with him on this subject.”

“Yes, pray do!” she said cordially. “And I wish you will tell me what I may count on, Ivo! I never made the least inquiry, you know, because to know the precise sum I might have enjoyed, but for that abominable Trust, would have made my situation the more insupportable.”

“About ten thousand a year,” he replied indifferently.

“Ten thousand a year?” repeated the Major, in an appalled voice.

Rotherham glanced at him across the table. “You may call it that. It is not possible to be quite exact. It is derived from several sources, which I shall presently explain to you.”

“But—Good God, how can this be? I knew, of course, that some disparity between our fortunes there must be, but this—!”

“I own, I had not thought it would be as much,” said Serena, mildly surprised.

“But there must have been an entail!” the Major exclaimed, as though snatching at a straw of hope. “Such an income as that represents—” He broke off, in the throes of calculation.

“Something in the region of two hundred thousand,” supplied Rotherham helpfully. “All that belongs to the Carlow family naturally goes with the title. This fortune was inherited by the late Earl from his mother, and belonged absolutely to himself.”

“Yes, I knew that,” said Serena. “Papa always told me I should inherit my grandmother’s property, but I supposed it to be a comfortable independence merely. I call this a very respectable fortune, don’t you, Fanny?”

“I should not know what to do with the half of it!” Fanny said, awed.

Rotherham smiled. “Serena will know. The strongest likelihood is that she will run into debt.”

“I should wish it to be tied up!”

These words, vehemently uttered, made Serena look at the Major in great surprise. “Why, what can you mean, love? You can’t suppose I shall do anything so absurd as to run into debt! I assure you I am not so improvident! Rotherham, I have not the remotest guess why you should laugh in that detestable way! I was never in debt in my life!”

He threw her a glance of mockery. “You must forgive me, Serena! I wish you will tell me how you contrived, on the seven hundred pounds a year which I, in my ignorance, thought you spent on your attire, to maintain that expensive stable of yours.”

“You know very well that Papa bought all my horses!” she said.

“Just so,” he agreed. “Now you will be obliged to buy your own.”

“Which I can well afford to do, and remain excellently mounted!”

“Certainly you can, but you will have to take care, you know! It won’t do to be paying nine hundred guineas for some showy-looking bay you are glad to part with on any terms at the end of your first day out on him.”

Wrath flamed in her eyes and her cheeks. “Were you never taken in over a horse?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he said reflectively. “But I can’t recall that I ever paid a fancy price for an animal which—”

“Be quiet!” she shot at him. “All those years ago—when I was still green—! Only you would cast it up at me still, Rotherham! Do I make mistakes now? Do I?”

“Oh, not as bad as that one!” he said. “I’m prepared to bet a large sum on your having paid too much for that mare I saw at Milverley, but—”

She was on her feet. “If you dare—if you dare tell me again she’s too short in the back—!”

“Serena, for heaven’s sake!” begged the Major. “You are distressing Lady Spenborough! What the deuce does it matter if Lord Rotherham chooses to criticize the mare?”

She paid not the slightest heed, but drove home her challenge. “Well, my lord? Well?”

“Don’t try to browbeat me, my girl!” he replied. “I tell you again, too short in the back!” He looked at her, his eyes glinting. “And you know it!”

She bit her lip. Her eyes strove with his for a moment or two, but suddenly she burst into laughter, and sat down again. “Of all the odious creatures—! Perhaps she is a trifle too short in the back—but only a trifle! You need not have been so unhandsome as to provoke me into exposing myself to my betrothed!”

The glint was still in his eyes, but he said: “The temptation was irresistible to see whether you would take the fly. Console yourself with the reflection that you never look more magnificent than when in a rage!”

“Thank you! I don’t admire myself in that state! What were we saying, before we fell into this foolish dispute?”

“Major Kirkby had expressed a desire that your fortune should be tied up. If I am not to provoke you again, I will refrain from applauding so wise a suggestion.”

“You are mistaken,” the Major said. “There was no thought in my head of keeping Serena out of debt! I should wish it—or the better part of it, at all events!—to be tied up in such a way that neither she nor I can benefit by it!”

“But, my dearest Hector!” cried Serena. “You must be mad!”

“I am not mad. You haven’t considered, my darling! Do you realize that your fortune is almost ten times the size of mine?”

“Is it?” she said. “Does that signify? Are you afraid that people will say you married me for my money? Why should you care for that, when you know it to be untrue?”

“Not only that! Serena, cannot you see how intolerable my position must be?”

“No, how should it be so? If I used it to alter your way of life, of course it would be quite horrid for you, but I promise you I shall not! It will be in your hands, not in mine, so if I should run mad suddenly, and wish to purchase a palace, or some such thing, it will be out of my power to do so.”

He gave a laugh that had something of a groan in it. “Oh, my dear, you don’t see! But Lord Rotherham must!”

“Oh, yes! Shall I refuse my consent to your marriage?”

“I wish to God you would!”

“Well, so do not I!” said Serena. “Hector, I do see, but indeed you are too quixotic! I daresay we shan’t spend it—not all of it, I mean—but why should I give it up? Besides, who is to have it if we don’t? Rotherham? My cousin? You can’t expect me to do anything so crackbrained as to abandon what is my own to them or to anyone!”

“That was not in my head. Of course I would not ask you to give your fortune away! I don’t even ask you to tie up the whole. But when it comes to the settlements, could we not create a new Trust, Serena?”

She was puzzled. “I see no sense in that. What sort of a Trust had you in mind?”

“Not—not an unusual one!” he stammered, thrown off his balance by her entire lack of comprehension. He saw that Fanny was looking at him in innocent inquiry, and said hastily: “This is not the place—or the occasion! I believe that when I have talked the matter over with Lord Rotherham he will agree as to the propriety of what I have to suggest.”

“But it has nothing whatsoever to do with Rotherham!” Serena said indignantly. “What are you suggesting?”

“Don’t be so bird-witted, Serena!” said Rotherham impatiently. “What I understand Major Kirkby to mean, is that your fortune should be tied up in your children.”

“In my children!” she exclaimed. “Is that what you indeed meant, Hector? Good gracious, why could you not say so?”

“Because this is neither the place nor the occasion,” said Rotherham. “He told you so.”

“Well, if it is not, you did not seem to think so!”

“No, but that was because I lack delicacy.”

She laughed. “Or would waste none upon me? You know, Hector, I think I would rather not tie up all my fortune in my children.”

“Not all! I’m not so unreasonable as that! But if you kept for yourself a tenth—Serena, could you not be content with that, with what you have now, and what I can give you?” the Major said pleadingly.

She said without hesitation: “With that, or far less, if I was obliged to, my love! But—but I am not obliged to, and I do think that it would be quite ridiculous of us to choose to live on a smaller income than we need! Suppose I did get into debt, or that we had a sudden need for a large sum of money? My dear, it would drive us both into a frenzy to think we had been so foolish as to put it out of our power to draw upon my fortune!”

Rotherham gave a crack of laughter. “Admirable common sense, Serena! I trust for both your sakes you will succeed in bringing Major Kirkby round to your way of thinking. You have, after all, several months in which to argue the matter.”

“Oh, yes, let us not talk of it any more tonight!” Fanny begged, getting up from her chair. “It is so very difficult for you both!”

The Major moved to the door, and opened it. Fanny paused beside him, looking up into his face, and saying with a wistful smile: “You will find an answer to the problem—I am quite certain that you will!”

His grave face relaxed; he returned the smile, but with an effort. She and Serena went out of the room, and he shut the door behind them, and turned to confront Rotherham.