Bath Tangle

4

Fanny’s hope was soon proved to be ill-founded. Two days later, Serena, who had been walking in the park, returned to the Dower House to find a strange carriage standing in the stableyard. Even as she recognized the crest on the panel, Rotherham came out of the stable, and, after the curtest of greetings, said abruptly: “That mare of yours is too short in the back.”

“Nonsense!” she replied.

“I never talk nonsense about horseflesh.”

She laughed, putting back the hood from her bright hair. “I have a wager with myself that I will once meet you without quarrelling, so let us agree that the mare is by far too short in the back, has weak hocks as well, and very likely a spavin forming.”

A smile glimmered; he said, in a milder voice: “Where have you been walking? I should have thought it too dirty a day to lure you out for any other exercise than hunting.”

She stifled a sigh. “Don’t speak of hunting! I believe they met today at Normansholt, and have been thinking that the scent must be running breast-high. How comes it that you are not out?”

“Augusta commanded me to escort her here instead.”

“I pity you! Is she with Fanny? I must go in.”

He began to walk with her towards the house, the long skirt of his driving coat of white drab brushing his ankles. “Do you continue to stable your other horses at Milverley?” he demanded.

She hesitated. “I might have done so, but no!”

“Where, then?”

“Why, the truth is I’ve sold ’em!” she said lightly.

He looked thunderstruck. “Sold them! Good God, am I to understand that your cousin would not house them for you?”

“By no means! He was perfectly willing to do so, but it would be a great piece of nonsense for me to be keeping half a dozen hunters I can’t use eating their heads off in the stable; and since Jane doesn’t ride I thought it best to be rid of them. Besides, were we not agreed—such an event you cannot have forgotten!—that I cannot, in my present circumstances, afford to maintain a string of hunters?”

He was very much vexed, and said roughly: “Don’t talk that stuff to me! Why the devil didn’t you apply to me? If you need money for such a reason as that, you may have it!”

“Out of your pocket, Ivo?”

“Nonsense! You are a rich woman!”

She was surprised, and a good deal touched. “My dear Ivo, I know as well as you do that it is not in your power to contravene the Trust! I am not so bird-witted as you must think me! I had all that out with Mr Perrott long since.”

“Let me tell you, Serena, that these independent ways of yours are not at all becoming!” he said angrily. “Consulting Perrott—! There was not the least need!”

She smiled. “You have convinced me that there was every need! Thank you, Ivo, but I am persuaded you must perceive how improper it would be for you to be franking me!”

“No such thing! If I lend you money, be sure I shall keep strict account of it, and expect to be repaid in due course!”

“Ah, but Papa warned me never to get into the hands of moneylenders!” she retorted, laughing at him. “No, no! Say no more! Indeed, I am not ungrateful, but I don’t care to be behindhand with the world! As for my horses—why, yes! it cost me a pang to part with them, but that is all done with now, and I promise you I don’t repine any more. Pray go in, and tell Lady Silchester that I shall be with her directly! I must not appear in all my dirt!”

She vanished into the house as she spoke; after a scowling moment, he followed her, cast his driving coat and hat on to a chair, and joined his sister and Fanny in the drawing-room.

When Serena presently entered the room, she had changed her walking dress for a robe of clinging black crape, made high to the throat, and relieved only by a little ruff of goffered lawn. The sombre hue seemed to enhance the whiteness of her skin; if Fanny, in her weeds, was ethereally fair, she, with her flaming locks and creamy complexion appeared magnificent.

Lady Silchester, already, though only two years older than her brother, a formidable matron, stared, and exclaimed: “Upon my word, Serena, I never saw you looking better!”

“Do we take that for praise, or censure?” demanded Rotherham.

“Oh, you need not try to frown me down! Serena knows I always speak my mind! How do you do, Serena? I am glad to find you and Lady Spenborough so comfortable. Though I daresay you are a trifle cramped. How do your cousins go on at Milverley? I suppose I shall be obliged to call. I fancy I never met Hartley’s wife. Lady Theresa warns me I shall find her to be no great thing. However, I should not wish to be uncivil!”

“My dear Lady Silchester, if you do not know enough of my aunt at this date—! Jane is perfectly amiable, I assure you.”

“Well, I am happy to hear you say so. It would be excessively disagreeable for you to be living so close if she were not. Not that I mean to say it is not the horridest thing, whatever she may be like. I shan’t enlarge on that head, but I feel for you most sincerely, Serena.”

“Thank you.”

“The stupid way things have been left, too!” pursued the lady. “Most thoughtless and awkward! I can’t think what Spenborough could have been about! If I have been asked once, I have been asked a dozen times if you and Rotherham mean to make it up. You need not fear! I have told everyone there is no question of that People are so impertinent!”

“As you say!” Rotherham struck in.

“Oh, you mean I am, I suppose!” she said, quite unmoved. “You need not glare at me in that murdering way: I hope I know Serena well enough not to stand on ceremony with her.”

“Certainly you do!” replied Serena, amused. “Do scotch the rumour! There’s not a word of truth in it”

“So Rotherham has been telling me. I’m very glad to know it. Not that I’m not fond of you, my dear, but it would never have done! You have a great deal too much spirit for Rotherham. Lady Spenborough and I were saying only a few minutes ago that nothing but a meek little mouse will do for him.”

“I am obliged to you both!” said Rotherham.

Scarlet with confusion, Fanny said, “Oh, no! I didn’t—that is, it was Lady Silchester who—”

She was mercifully interrupted by the entrance of a servant, and got up, saying: “Oh, to be sure—! Lady Silchester, you’ll take a nuncheon! Shall we remove into the breakfast-parlour?”

Serena, who was shaking with laughter, said, as the embarrassing guest was shepherded out of the room: “I should be sorry for the mouse!”

He grinned ruefully. “So should I, indeed! Augusta is abominable!”

They joined the other two in the breakfast-parlour, where a noonday repast of cold meat and fruit had been set on the table; but they had hardly taken their seats when the sound of carriage-wheels was heard; and in another few minutes the butler came in to inform Fanny that Lady Laleham and Miss Laleham were in the drawing-room.

Fanny was obliged to excuse herself to her guests. She was surprised that Lybster, in general fully to be relied on, should not have denied her; and when he had closed the parlour door behind her, administered a gentle reproof. But it seemed that he had done his best to exclude the unwanted visitors, saying that he believed my lady to be engaged. He had been overborne. Lady Laleham had begged that a message might be carried to my lady: she would not detain her above a minute. With a sinking heart, Fanny entered the drawing-room.

It was as she had foreseen it would be. Lady Laleham, a handsome, fashionably dressed woman, with very correct manners, and an air of great assurance, had plainly no intention of making her visit a brief one. She came forward, full of apologies and protestations. There was a recipe for pickling pears which she had promised quite a fortnight ago to give to dear Lady Spenborough’s housekeeper. She dared not guess what Lady Spenborough must have been thinking of her, “Only, from one cause and another, it went out of my head. I believe you desired to have it immediately, too, which quite covers me with shame! I have it with me here, but felt that a word of explanation was due to you.”

Fanny had no recollection of having expressed a desire to be given the recipe; but she accepted it, with a civil thankyou.

“I so much dislike persons who make promises only to break them. But I must not keep you! I collect you have friends with you. Did I not see the Rotherham carriage in your yard?”

There was nothing for it but to admit it, and to invite the two ladies to join the party in the breakfast-parlour. With only a little show of reluctance, Lady Laleham allowed herself to be persuaded. Fanny believed she had come for no other purpose.

Nothing could have exceeded the lady’s aplomb when she reached the parlour. It was quite unnecessary for Fanny to introduce her. “Yes, indeed I am acquainted with Lady Silchester! How do you do? I believe the last time we met was at the Ormesbys’ ball: such a crush, was it not? Ah, Lord Rotherham! Don’t disturb yourself, I beg! It is quite shocking to be invading your party in this unconscionable way, but Lady Spenborough would have it so! To own the truth, it falls out very fortunately that I should find you here, for I have been wanting to see you.”

“Indeed!” he said, a strong inflexion of surprise in his voice.

“Yes, for my eldest son informs me that Gerard Monksleigh is quite a particular friend of his, and will be staying with you for Christmas. Nothing will do but that I must get up a little party for these flighty young people! I should like so much to ask Mrs Monksleigh if she will not bring her daughters to it, but how this may be done when I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance I know not, unless you will come to my aid, Lord Rotherham!”

He returned a civil answer, but could not take it upon himself to commit his cousin. Lady Silchester said: The girls want to go to the Assembly at Quenbury. I don’t know how Cordelia Monksleigh likes it for Susan and Margaret, but I’m by no means sure I care to let Caroline go. Serena! What do you think of the scheme? Would you advise it?”

Serena, who had placed Emily Laleham in a chair between her own and Rotherham’s, saw the sparkle in the girl’s big, pansy-soft eyes as they were turned anxiously towards her, and smiled, saying: “I never attended the Quenbury Assemblies myself, but I should think there could be no harm in them.”

“A dead bore,” said Rotherham. “You will meet no one there whom you know, and, unless you have a taste for being toad-eaten, will do better to remain at home.”

“You are too severe,” interposed Serena, with a good deal of meaning in her voice.

“Well, so I would,” said his sister, “but now the girls have taken the notion into their heads it is very hard to know what to do. It is a great pity they can’t dance at Claycross, but with only Elphin and Gerard between the three of them, that won’t answer. As long as there are no waltzes or quadrilles I daresay Silchester would not object to Caroline’s going. Elphin will he there, after all, and if the company should be too mixed he must dance with his sister.”

“An evening of rare pleasure for both,” commented Rotherham.

A stifled giggle made him glance down at the enchanting face beside him. A look, half of mischief, half of consternation was cast up at him. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” gasped Emily, in a frightened undervoice.

“Not at all! When I choose to be witty I like to receive just acknowledgment. Do you mean to go to this Assembly?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I do hope—but I’m not precisely out yet, and perhaps Mama won’t permit me.”

“What is the significance of being precisely out?”

“Don’t quiz her!” said Serena, perceiving that she was at a loss to know how to answer. “She will be precisely out when she has been presented. When is it to be, Emily?”

“In the spring. Mama will give a ball!” she said, in an awed tone. “At least,” she added naively, “it is Grandmama really, only she won’t come to it, which I think is a great shame.”

Rotherham looked amused, but before he could probe into the mystery of this speech, which Serena feared was his intention, his notice was claimed by Lady Laleham, seated on his left hand.

“What do you say, Lord Rotherham? Your sister and I find that we share the same scruples, but I fancy I have hit on a scheme to make it unobjectionable for our giddy young people to attend the Assembly. Do you not agree that if we make up our own party between us it will solve the problem?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

With this unenthusiastic assent she was satisfied, and began at once to engage Lady Silchester’s co-operation.

Rotherham turned again to Emily, and found her face upturned, quite pink with excitement, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, thank you!” she breathed.

“Are you so fond of Assemblies?”

“Yes, indeed! That is to say, I don’t know, for I was never at one before.”

“Not being precisely out. Do you live in Quenbury?”

“Oh, no! At Cherrifield Place! Don’t you know it? You came by it this morning!”

“Did I?”

“Yes, and Mama knew it must be you, because of the crest. We were at the gate, meaning only to walk into the village, but Mama said we would come here instead, because there was a recipe she wished to give Lady Spenborough.”

“Providential!”

She was puzzled, and, scared by the satirical note in his voice, was stricken to silence. Serena, a trifle unsteadily, said: “Well, I hope you will enjoy the Assembly, and have a great many partners.”

“Within the limits of exclusiveness,” interpolated Rotherham, meeting her eye.

She frowned at him, knowing him to be quite capable of saying something outrageous enough to be understood by his innocent neighbour. Fortunately, since he met the frown with a bland look she knew well. Lady Laleham, having achieved her object, now judged it to be good tactics to take her leave. Her carriage was called for, and she bore her daughter off, well pleased with the success of her morning’s campaign.

“I never meet that woman but I smell the shop,” observed Lady Silchester calmly. “I wish I may not be her dear Augusta Silchester hereafter!”

“You are well served for having been fool enough to have mentioned the Assembly,” said her brother.

“Very true. I shall have the headache, and send Caroline with Cordelia.”

“I believe she knew you were here, and that is why she came!” declared Fanny, very much ruffled.

“She did!” Serena said, her eyes dancing. “That absurd child let the secret out in the most innocent fashion imaginable! How I contrived to keep my face I don’t know! Well for her Mama was not attending!”

“A pretty little dab of a girl,” said Lady Silchester. “Not enough countenance, but she’ll take very well, I daresay. Dark girls are being much admired just now. Depend upon it, her mother means her to go to the highest bidder. They say Laleham is pretty well at a standstill.”

“What I want to know,” said Rotherham, “is why Grandmama won’t be at the ball which she is to give.”

“I was in dread that you would ask her!” Serena said.

“I shall discover it at the Assembly, when you are not there to spoil sport.”

“You will not go to the Assembly!” she exclaimed incredulously.

“Certainly I shall.”

“Having a taste for being toad-eaten?” she quizzed him.

“No, for Miss Laleham’s artless conversation!”

“Ah, she won’t gratify you! You have frightened her away!”

“She must be lured back to hand.”

“No, no, it would be too bad of you! You might wake expectations in Mama’s bosom, moreover!”

“Irresistible! I shall come out on the side of my niece and my wards, and you will hear next that I am not by half as disagreeable as they had supposed.”

She laughed, but could not believe him to be serious. However, the next visitor to the Dower House was Mrs Monksleigh, who drove over from Claycross on Christmas Eve, and disclosed that the Assembly scheme was now a settled thing. “I own, I thought it would come to nothing, and so I warned the girls. I’m sure I was never more astonished than when Rotherham said he saw no harm in it, and as for Susan, she was ready to drop! I expected he would have given her one of his set-downs, but he was perfectly amiable!”

Mrs Monksleigh was the relict of a military man, who had left her with six children and a competence judged by his family to be respectable, and by her, inadequate. She was a very goodnatured woman, but having, unfortunately, less than common sense, she had never been able to teach herself habits of economy. There was a want of management in her house which led to a succession of financial crises driving her quite distracted, and never failing to exasperate Rotherham. He was not her cousin, but her husband’s; and, in addition to being her Trustee, was joined with her in the guardianship of her children. She could neither understand why her poor husband had made such a choice, nor cease to bewail it. No one could have been more unacceptable to her! He was a man of no sensibility, and impatient temper, and had so little affection for his cousin’s children that it was a question whether he knew them apart. His decrees were imperious, and issued without the smallest regard for her wishes; himself a man of huge fortune, he had no comprehension of the difficulties confronting those left to maintain the elegances of life upon a mere pittance. He always thought she should have been able to manage better! It was he who had insisted on Gerard’s being sent to school, although her own dear Dr Ryde had pronounced the poor little fellow’s constitution to be too delicate for the rigours of Eton. She could not believe that he would have cared if Gerard had died of it. Miraculously, Gerard had survived; and Charlie, of course, had always been very stout, so that she had no fears for him; but now Rotherham was saying that it was time poor little Tom was sent to join his brother. Do as she would, she could not make him understand the shocking expense of having two sons at Eton. There was no end to the calls on her purse: she was sure the fees were the least part of the whole. As for the girls, beyond saying that he saw no reason why Susan should be presented at a Drawing-room, and annihilating Margaret by telling her that when she could address him without prefixing her remarks with a giggle he might attend to her, he never noticed them. Very likely he had forgotten that little Lizzie even existed: he could certainly never remember her name.

The Carlow ladies listened, and sympathized, and agreed that it was a hard case, Fanny rather more sincerely than Serena. Serena could perceive that there might be something to be said in Rotherham’s defence. He made too little allowance, she believed, for the difficulties besetting a woman left with six children on her hands; but she, like him, was intolerant of folly, and Mrs Monksleigh was so very foolish! But she thought him less than kind to Gerard, of whom he was contemptuous; and quite indifferent to the younger members of the family. This opinion was shared by Lady Silchester, who excused it, however, by saying that gentlemen always dislike to be plagued by children, and that no one could expect such a thorough sportsman as Rotherham to take to Gerard, who had no taste for sport, a very bad seat, and far too little spirit. But even she could not pretend that her brother had shown the smallest sign of approval when the more robust Charlie, upon the occasion of his only visit to Delford, had given evidence of such spirited behaviour as led him into the performance of every kind of prank, from trying to bestride his guardian’s more unmanageable horses to falling off the stable roof, and breaking his collarbone. All he had said was that Charlie might think himself fortunate that he had broken his collar-bone, and that he would be damned if ever he saddled himself with the whelp again.

“So Augusta quite mistakes the matter when she says he would like poor Gerard better if he were bolder, and didn’t stand so much in awe of him,” complained Mrs Monksleigh. “I’m sure no boy could be holder than Charlie, for he is for ever in a scrape, and he never minds a word anyone says to him, but that doesn’t please Rotherham either! I assure you, Lady Serena, I live in dread of his making Rotherham angry while we are at Claycross, for I know he wouldn’t hesitate to use the poor boy with dreadful harshness, which I have told him I utterly forbid. Indeed, I thought all was lost yesterday, when that most disagreeable keeper made such a commotion about Charlie’s putting a charge of shot into his leg. Just as though it had not been an accident! Of course, it was wrong of Charlie to take the gun without leave, but the man was only very little hurt, after all! Rotherham said in the most menacing way that he would teach Charlie a lesson, and I could feel one of my spasms coming on, only Augusta told Rotherham he was a great fool not to have locked up the gunroom when he had an imp like Charlie to stay, and said surely he could not wish me to fall into strong hysterics, and so it passed off, and I was truly grateful to Augusta.”

Even Fanny could not help laughing at this ingenuous history, although she did not appreciate, as Serena instantly did, the masterly nature of Lady Silchester’s strategy. She wondered at Mrs Monksleigh’s having dared to leave Charlie to his own devices while she came to the Dower House; but it appeared that Mrs Monksleigh had not dared, She had brought him with her, but she had not wished Fanny to be troubled with him, and had prevailed upon Gerard to take charge of him. The carriage had set them both down at Cherrifield Place. Gerard Monksleigh and Edgar Laleham were up at Cambridge together, in the same year and at the same college. Mrs Monksleigh hoped that Lady Laleham would not object to her having sent Charlie with his brother. Serena did not think that she would object to anything that strengthened the connection with Claycross.

They saw no more of the Claycross party until the night of the Assembly, when, to their surprise, Rotherham walked in on them midway through the evening. His satin knee-breeches and silk stockings made Serena exclaim: “Then you did go to the Assembly!”

“I did, and am there now, in the card-room—or so I hope Cordelia may believe!”

She raised her brows. “The bird would not come to hand?”

“On the contrary! But a driven bird, scared into the model of insipid propriety. I stood up for the two first dances with her, and all the conversation I could get out of her was “Oh Lord Rotherham!” and “Oh, yes, Lord Rotherham!” and once, by way of a change, “Exactly so, Lord Rotherham!” So I tried the effect of telling her she was taking the shine out of all the local beauties, but as that elicited nothing more encouraging than “How can you, Lord Rotherham?” I drew no more coverts, but came instead to take formal leave of you and Lady Spenborough. My party breaks up tomorrow, and I must be in London by the end of the week.”

“Good God, Ivo, do you mean to tell me that Emily is the only girl you have honoured with an invitation to dance? Not even your niece, or Susan, or Margaret?” cried Serena, scandalized.

“They would thank you for that suggestion as little as I do.”

“But it was most improper—quite abominable!” she said hotly. “Just what sets people’s backs up! It would have been bad enough to have danced only with the ladies of your own party. That would have made everyone say merely that you were disagreeably haughty! But to single out one girl, and she not of your own party—! Ivo, it is the height of insolence, and a great piece of unkindness to Emily besides!”

“Not at all!” he retorted, with a curling lip. “Her mother did not think so, I promise you!”

“That is worse than all the rest! You know very well what she is! There are no bounds to her ambition! Depend upon it you have now raised the most absurd expectations in her breast, turned that unfortunate child into an object of envy and speculation, all for sport! No, Fanny, I will not be hushed! There is something so particularly displeasing in the whole business! You may argue it as you will, Rotherham, but it was very ill done! I could name you a dozen girls, all, I daresay, at the Assembly tonight, as worthy of your notice as Emily Laleham! But no! You have been playing the great man, condescending to grace a country Assembly—for anything I can tell, though I should be sorry to think it of you, amused to see what a flutter was caused by your mere presence!”

“You need not think it!” he struck in, his cheeks whitened, and a pulse throbbing beside his thinned mouth.

“Indeed, I believe it to be a kind of unthinking arrogance, but it does you no credit, Rotherham! If you went to a public Assembly, you had no choice but to behave with civility towards all! You might have danced with no one, since your excuse for going there was only to indulge your young guests with a ball, but for a whim to single out one girl—and she by far the loveliest!—and then to stroll away, as though you thought yourself above the rest of the company—oh, no, Ivo, how could you? Every feeling is offended!”

“I thank you! You have quite a turn for the high dramatic! No doubt you expect me now to return for the express purpose of conferring upon two or three other damsels the singular honour—if such you do indeed consider it!—of standing up with me!”

“It is what my father would have done in such a situation, for he was most truly the gentleman!” she said, a sob rising in her throat. “I should think the better of you!”

“I care nothing for your opinion of me!” he snapped. “Lady Spenborough, have you any commissions for me to execute in London? I shall be most happy!”

“Oh, none, thank you!” she said faintly.

“Then I will take my leave! Your most obedient servant, ma’am!”

A formal bow, one scorching glance thrown at Serena, and he was gone.

“Oh, dear!” said Fanny, pressing her hands to her temples. “I feel quite sick! And, oh, Serena, we never thought to offer him so much as a glass of ratafia!”