Bath Tangle

7

The call was paid, though without the suggested prelude; and the welcome accorded to the ladies was so good-natured and unaffected that Fanny was brought to acknowledge that however vulgar Mrs Floore might be she had a great deal of drollery, and was certainly no toad-eater. She declined a civil invitation to return the visit, saying, with paralysing candour, that it was one thing for their ladyships to visit in Beaufort Square whenever they felt so inclined, and quite another for them to be entertaining her in Laura Place, and very likely making all their acquaintance wonder what kind of company they had got into.

Since this was very much what Fanny had been thinking she instantly turned scarlet, and stammered an inarticulate protest, which made her hostess tell her very kindly that there was no need for her to flush up, because facts were facts, and no getting round them, and in any event she was grown so stout that it was as much as she cared to do to walk to the Pump Room and back. “And as for calling a chair, I give you my word I never do so without I expect the poor fellows carrying me to drop down dead between the shafts, which would be a very disconcerting thing to happen,” she added.

Serena laughed. “Very well, ma’am, it shall be as you wish! But pray believe we should be happy to see you in Laura Place!”

This won her a glance of decided approval from their fellow-guest, a gentlemanly-looking young man of some thirty years of age, who had been sitting with Mrs Floore when they were announced. It was to be inferred, since he had not been sent packing, that Mrs Floore considered him worthy to meet her distinguished visitors. She introduced him as Ned Goring, the son of her late husband’s business partner, who had ridden over from Bristol to pay his respects to her; and it soon transpired that the redoubtable old lady had inherited, besides two fortunes, considerable interest in her father’s soap factory, and her husband’s shipyard. Young Mr Goring, a junior partner in the latter, evidently regarded her with respect and affection; and when, in the course of conversation with him, Serena said something about her liking Mrs Floore so much, he replied in his blunt way: “Everyone must who knows her, I think. I never knew anyone with a kinder heart, or a sounder understanding.”

She warmed to him, knowing the world well enough to realize how many men in his position, having achieved through education a greater gentility than was aspired to by their fathers, would have found it necessary to have excused a friendship with one so frankly vulgar as Mrs Floore. That lady being fully occupied with Fanny, Serena took pains to draw Mr Goring out. She very soon discovered that he had been educated at Rugby and at Cambridge, and liked him the better when he replied, in answer to an inquiry: “Yes, I am pretty well acquainted with George Alplington, but since I entered my father’s business our ways have lain apart. How does he go on? He is an excellent fellow!”

“Very expensively!”

He laughed. “Ah, I was used to tell him he would end up a Bond Street beau! Then, of course, he would make some opprobrious mention of tar, that being the only commodity to be used in my trade which he knew of, and it was a chance if either of us emerged from the argument without a black eye!”

At this point, Fanny rose to take leave, and the party broke up, Serena shaking hands with her new acquaintance, and expressing the friendly hope that they might meet again. As she walked back to Laura Place beside Fanny, she observed: “I liked that young man, did not you? There was something particularly pleasing about his manners, which I thought very easy and frank. He has an air of honest manliness, too, which, in these days of fribbles and counter-coxcombs, I own I find refreshing!”

A new terror reared itself in Fanny’s head; the weekly letter to Mama was painstakingly inscribed, and contained no reference to Beaufort Square.

However, nothing more was heard of Mr Goring. Serena’s friendship with Mrs Floore prospered, but in a mild way that resolved itself into an occasional call, and frequent meetings in the Pump Room, when sometimes conversation was exchanged, and sometimes no more than cordial greetings. The next occurrence to enliven the routine of Bath life was an unexpected visit from Rotherham. Fanny and Serena, coming in one sunny afternoon in April, after walking for an hour in the Sydney Gardens, were greeted with the intelligence that his lordship had been awaiting them in the drawing-room for some twenty minutes or more. Fanny went to take off her bonnet and pelisse, but Serena chose to go immediately to the drawing-room, and entered it, saying: “Well! This is a surprise! What brings you to Bath, Rotherham?”

He was standing before the small wood-fire, glancing through a newspaper, but he cast this aside, and came forward to shake hands. His expression was forbidding, and the tone in which he answered her decidedly acid. “I shall be grateful to you, Serena, if you will in future be so good as to inform me of it when you intend to change your habitation. I learned of this start by the merest chance.”

“Good gracious, why should I?” she exclaimed. “I suppose I need not apply to you for permission to come to Bath.”

“You need not! Responsibility for your movements was spared me. You are free to do as you please, but since I am your Trustee you would save me annoyance, and yourself inconvenience, if you will advertize me when you wish new arrangements made for the payment of your allowance! I imagine it would not suit you to be obliged to send all the way to Gloucester for any monies you might need!”

“No, to be sure it would not!” she agreed. “It was stupid of me not to have recollected that!”

“Quite featherheaded!”

“Yes, but the thing is that I have a considerable sum by me, and that is how I came to forget the matter. What a fortunate circumstance that you should have put me in mind of it! I must write to ask Mr Perrott to make a new arrangement too, or who knows when I may find myself in the basket?”

“As it is he who collects the larger part of your income, it would certainly be as well.”

“Could you find no one in town with whom to pick a quarrel?” she asked solicitously. “Poor Ivo! It is too bad!”

“I am not picking a quarrel. It would surprise you, I daresay, if I told you that I rarely quarrel with anyone but yourself.”

“Ah, that’s because very few people have the courage to pick up your gauntlet!” she said, smiling.

“An amiable portrait you draw!”

“But a speaking likeness!” she countered, a laughing challenge in her eye.

He shook his head. “No: I choose rather to prove you wrong. We won’t quarrel this time, Serena.”

“As you wish! Will you alter the arrangement for my tiresome allowance, if you please?”

“I have already done so. There is the direction,” he replied, handing her a piece of paper.

“Thank you! That was kind of you. I am sorry to have been so troublesome. Did you come all the way from town just for that?”

“I had business at Claycross,” he said curtly. “You seem to be comfortably established here. How do you go on?”

“Very prosperously. It was a relief to escape from Milverley.”

He nodded, but made no comment, merely saying, after a brief, keen scrutiny of her face: “Are you well? You look a trifle peaked.”

“If I do, it is because black doesn’t become me. I mean to lighten my mourning, and have ordered a charming grey gown.”

“You are mistaken.”

“What, in going into half-mourning?”

“No, in thinking black does not become you. Are you sure that Bath agrees with your constitution?”

“Yes, indeed! Now, don’t, I beg of you, Rotherham, put it into Fanny’s head that I am looking hagged! I think I did become a little out of sorts, but Bath will soon set me to rights.” She glanced at him, and added, with difficulty: “I have not learned yet not to miss Papa. Don’t let us speak of that! You know how it is with me! I don’t care to talk of what so much affects me, and making a parade of grief is of all things the most repugnant to me.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied, “You need not be afraid. I have nothing to say on that subject, for there is nothing to be said. Your aunt, by the by, charged me with all manner of messages to you. I met her at the Irebys’ party a couple of nights ago. It is wonderful, Serena, how much she likes you when a hundred miles or so separates you from her!”

She laughed. “Very true! My love to her, if you please, and tell her that I quite depend upon her letters for the latest on-dits. Where are you putting up, Ivo? Do you make a long stay in Bath?”

“At the York House. I return to town tomorrow.”

“How shabby! You will stay to dine with us at least! We keep unmodishly early hours here, I warn you.”

He hesitated. “I can hardly sit down to dinner with you in my riding dress, and I brought no other.”

“Ah, so you did mean to pick a quarrel with me!” she rallied him. “Fanny will pardon your top-boots, and I hope you don’t mean to stand on ceremony with me!” She turned her head, as Fanny came into the room, and said: “Here is Rotherham, so full of punctilio he will not dine with us in his riding dress! Persuade him, Fanny, while I make myself tidy!”

She returned presently to find them apparently in perfect charity with one another, Rotherham having been so obliging as to furnish Fanny with all the latest news of the Royal Marriage preparations. Since it was rarely that he had been known to pander to such feminine curiosity, Serena could only suppose that he was determined on amiability. Nothing occurred during the evening to make her change her mind. He indulged Fanny’s taste for gossip, without betraying too much contempt for it; and entertained Serena with a pungent description of what he described as the flutter in the Whig dovecot. Both ladies were pleased, and if an elliptical reference, which made Serena’s eyes dance, was incomprehensible to Fanny, or the conversation turned on Mr Canning’s journey home from Lisbon, she had her embroidery-frame to occupy her, and was merely glad to see Serena in such spirits. Such phrases as: “Pretty well to be employing a frigate for one’s pleasure!” and: “Never was there such a job!” put her forcibly in mind of agonizing evenings at Milverley, or in Grosvenor Square, when she had been obliged to strain every nerve in the effort to follow just such conversations. It was no longer her duty to do so, and she could only be thankful.

Her wandering thoughts were reclaimed presently, for the talk seemed to have switched from the despotic behaviour of someone called Ferdinand, to a subject of more interest. Rotherham was asking Serena who was at present visiting Bath.

“My dear Ivo! At the start of the London season? None but dowdies!”

Fanny protested that she was too severe, but Serena laughed, and shook her head. “General Creake, old Lady Skene, Mrs Piozzi, Madame D’Arblay and her set: Mrs Holroyd, Mrs Frances, Miss Bowdler—need I continue?”

“You need not, indeed! I had hoped you might have found some more enlivening company.”

“I have!” Serena said.

“I mistrust that smile,” Rotherham said dryly. “Who is it?”

“I’ll tell you one day. At present my lips are sealed!” she replied, with an air of mock solemnity.

“That means, I imagine, that you know well I should disapprove.”

“I daresay you might, but very likely you would not, and in any event it doesn’t concern you.” She glanced mischievously at Fanny, and added: “I find the acquaintance excessively enlivening!”

“But Lady Spenborough does not?”

“Fanny has such grand notions! Besides, she is my mama-in-law, and feels it to be her duty to chaperon me very strictly!”

“Now, Serena—!”

“I don’t envy her that task. I shan’t gratify you by trying to discover the mystery, but I wish you will take care what you are about.”

“I will. It is not precisely a mystery, only, although I daresay I might safely tell you about it, I believe I ought not, at this present.”

He looked frowningly at her, but said nothing. She began to talk of something else, and the subject was not again mentioned until Rotherham took his leave. Serena having run out of the room to fetch a letter which she desired him to frank, he said abruptly: “Don’t let her run into some scrape! You could not prevent her, I suppose: I know that headstrong temper!”

“Indeed, you are mistaken!” Fanny assured him.

He looked sceptical, but was prevented from saying more by Serena’s coming back into the room with her letter.

“There it is,” she said, laying it upon the writing-table, and opening the lid of the standish. “Cousin Florence will be very much obliged to you for saving her at least sixpence.”

He took the pen she was holding out to him, and dipped it in the ink. “Shall I carry it to London, and post it there?”

“If you please. I wish you might have stayed longer in Bath, though.”

“Why? To have made the acquaintance of the Unknown?” he said, scrawling his name across the corner of her letter.

She laughed. “No—though I want very much to present you to the Unknown! To ride with me, merely. You never think a fence too high for me, or beg me to have a care!”

“In the saddle I think you very well able to take care of yourself.”

“This is praise indeed!”

He smiled. “I never denied your horsemanship, Serena. I wish it were possible for me to stay, but it is not. This curst ball looms ahead of me!”

“What ball?”

“Oh, did I not tell you? I am assured it is my duty to lend Rotherham House to Cordelia, so that she may launch Sarah, or Susan, or whatever the girl’s name may be, upon the world with as much pomp as possible. I am unconvinced, but when it comes to Augusta adding her trenchant accents to Cordelia’s plaintive ones I am against the ropes, and would give a dozen balls only to silence the pair of them.”

“Good God! Upon my word, I think it is amazingly good-natured of you, Ivo!” Serena said, quite astonished.

“Yes, so do I!” he replied.

He departed, and the ladies were left to marvel over this new and unexpected turn, Fanny declaring that she would never have believed he could be brought to do so much for his unfortunate wards, and Serena saying: “I certainly never thought of his giving a ball for Susan, but I have sometimes suspected that he does a great deal more for them than he chooses to divulge.”

“I’m sure I never thought so! What put it into your head?”

“Well, it crossed my mind, when Mrs Monksleigh was complaining of his having insisted on her sending the boys to Eton because it was where their father was educated, that he could not have compelled her to do so, which she vows he did, unless it was he, and not she, who was to bear the cost of it. Only consider what that must be! Three of them, Fanny, and Gerard now at Cambridge! I am persuaded Mrs Monksleigh could not have contrived it, even had she had the least notion of management, which she has not!”

Fanny was much struck, and could only say: “Well!”

“It is not so wonderful,” Serena said, amused. “Nor need it make you feel, as I see it does, that you have grievously misjudged him! He is so rich that I daresay he would not notice it if he were paying the school-fees of a dozen children. I shall feel I have misjudged him when I see him showing his wards a little kindness.”

“Well, if he is giving a grand ball for Susan, I call it a great deal of kindness!” said Fanny, with spirit.

Except for various formal notices in the London papers, they heard nothing more of the ball until the arrival of Lady Theresa’s next letter to her niece. Lady Theresa had taken her third daughter to the function, but it did not seem as though she had enjoyed it, in spite of the many compliments she had received on Clarissa’s beauty, and the gratifying circumstance of her never having lacked a partner. Any pleasure Lady Theresa might have derived from the ball had been destroyed by the sight of Cordelia Monksleigh, in a hideous puce gown, standing at the head of the great stairway to receive the guests. She had been unable to banish the reflection that there, but for her own folly, might have stood Serena, though not, she trusted, in puce. Moreover, had Serena been the hostess it was to be hoped, that the company would have been more exclusive. What could have induced Rotherham to have given Cordelia Monksleigh carte blanche, as there was no doubt he had done, was a matter passing Lady Theresa’s comprehension. Had anyone told her that she would live to see That Laleham Creature storming Rotherham House (heavily underscored), she would have laughed in his face. But so it had been; and if Serena had seen her positively flinging her chit of a daughter at all the eligible bachelors, besides forcing herself on the notice of every distinguished person present, she might, at last, have regretted her own folly, wilfulness, and improvidence.

“Well, well, well!” commented Serena, much appreciating this impassioned missive. “I wonder what Mrs Floore will have to say about it? For my part, I can’t but admire the Laleham woman’s generalship! To have stormed the Rotherham stronghold is something indeed! How angry Lady Silchester must have been! I wish I had been present!”

Mrs Floore, encountered on the following morning in the Pump Room, echoed these sentiments. “To think of my granddaughter at a party like that, for I’ve read all the notices, my dear, and there was never anything like it! Lord, Sukey will be as proud as an apothecary and I’m sure I don’t blame her! Say what you will, she gets what she’s set her heart on, my Sukey! And Emma being solicited to stand up with lords and honourables and I don’t know what besides! Depend upon it, Sukey will have got a lord in her eye for Emma already! Well, and if he’s a nice, handsome young fellow I hope she may catch him!”

“I expect she will, ma’am,” said Serena, laughing.

“Yes, but I don’t trust her,” said Mrs Floore. “She’s a hard, ambitious woman, my dear. Mark my words, if a Duke with one foot in the grave, and cross-eyes, and no teeth, was to offer for that child, Sukey would make her accept him!”

“Oh, no!” protested Serena.

“No,” said Mrs Floore. “She wouldn’t, because I should have something to say to it!”

“Very rightly! But I don’t think there is such a Duke, ma’am.”

“It’ll be as well for him if there isn’t,” said Mrs Floore darkly.

Serena left her brooding vengefully, and went off to change a book at Duffield’s Library, on Milsom Street. This accomplished, she left the library, almost colliding on the doorstep with a tall man, who fell back instantly, saying: “I beg your pardon!”

Even as she looked quickly up at him he caught his breath on a gasp. She stood gazing almost incredulously into a face she had thought forgotten.

“Serena!” he said, his voice shaking. “Serena!”

More than six years slid from her; she put out her hand, saying as unsteadily as he: “Oh, can it be possible? Hector!”