Bath Tangle (16 page)

‘Well, I don’t know that I like the sound of that, to start with!’ said Mrs Floore dubiously. ‘If he’s a racing man, that means betting, and I’ve got one gamester on my hands already, and I don’t want another!’

Fanny was too overcome by the thought of Rotherham’s being on Mrs Floore’s hands to venture on a response. Serena laughed out, and said: ‘Don’t be alarmed, ma’am! Rotherham’s fortune is extremely large, and he is a great deal more addicted to boxing, and shooting, and hunting than to gaming!’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear you say so, my dear. Not that I hold with boxing, because it’s low, and not the sort of thing I should expect a Marquis to be fond of. However, Ned tells me it’s quite the established mode amongst the smart beaux, and at all events he won’t go dragging Emma into boxing-saloons. But if he thinks to make her go out shooting and hunting with him it won’t do at all! Why, she’d be frightened to death!’

‘I expect, ma’am, that he must be aware that – she doesn’t share his tastes in that direction.’

‘If he don’t know it now he will the very first time he sees her crying her eyes out all because the cat’s got hold of a mouse!’ said Mrs Floore. She looked piercingly at Serena. ‘Tell me this, my dear! How old is he?’

‘He is thirty-eight,’ replied Serena calmly.

‘Thirty-eight! Lord, that’s more than twenty years older than she is!’ cried Mrs Floore, aghast.

‘True. He is not cross-eyed, however,’ Serena said, with a faint smile.

‘Well, if he isn’t, I should like to know how it comes about he wasn’t snapped up years ago!’ said Mrs Floore tartly. ‘He isn’t queer in his attic, is he?’

‘Far from it! His understanding is excellent, and he does not suffer from any infirmity whatsoever.’

‘Come, that’s better!’ said Mrs Floore, relieved. ‘Is he handsome?’

‘No. I should rather call him striking, ma’am. Certainly not handsome.’

‘Do you know him well, my dear?’

Fanny cast an anxious glance at Serena. After a moment’s hesitation, Serena replied: ‘Very well. I have known him all my life.’

‘There! What did I tell you?’ Mrs Floore demanded of her escort. ‘
I
knew which shop to come to! So now you answer me this, my lady, if you’ll be so good, and that I know you are! – Is he the sort of man that’ll make my Emma a good husband?’

‘Indeed, I hope so, ma’am! He can give her – a great position, wealth, consequence –’

‘I know that,’ interrupted Mrs Floore grimly. ‘And it ain’t what I asked you, my dear!’

Aware that not only Mrs Floore’s gaze was fixed upon her but Mr Goring’s also, Serena said: ‘Dear ma’am, you must not question me so closely, if you please! I think you cannot be aware that I was once engaged to Lord Rotherham myself!’

Mr Goring’s gaze now became intent; Mrs Floore was so much surprised that she nearly dropped her wineglass. ‘You?’ she gasped. ‘Lord bless my soul! Goodness gracious! Well, I declare! That’s
one
thing Sukey didn’t see fit to tell me – if she knows it!’

‘The engagement – and its termination – were in all the newspapers, ma’am,’ Serena replied, her colour heightened.

‘Ay, they would be,’ nodded Mrs Floore. ‘It’s a lesson to me to read the Court page, which I don’t mind telling you I’m not in the habit of doing. Well, I’m sure I beg your pardon, my dear – not but what if I
had
known of it I’d still have asked you for your opinion of the gentleman, though I wouldn’t have done so but in private. Certainly not with Ned Goring sitting in the room, as I hope you’ll believe!’

‘I don’t see that my being in the room makes any difference at all,’ said Mr Goring unexpectedly. ‘I’ll go away, if you like, but, whether I go or whether I stay, don’t ask her ladyship any more questions, ma’am!’

‘Thank you!’ Serena said, smiling at him. ‘But it is very natural that Mrs Floore should wish to know why I cried off from the engagement. It was for no reason, ma’am, that precludes him from making some other female a perfectly respectable husband. The truth is that we found we did not suit. Our dispositions were too alike. Each of us, in fact, is autocratic, and neither of us has the sweetest of tempers. But a gentler woman than I am would not provoke Rotherham as I did, and might, I daresay, be very content to be his wife.’

‘Yes, and I daresay this carpet is content to be trodden on!’ retorted Mrs Floore. ‘A man should be master in his own house: I’ve got nothing to say against that, as long as he don’t interfere in what’s no business of his! But if I find this Marquis don’t know the difference between master and tyrant, not one penny will I settle on Emma, and we’ll see what he and Sukey have to say to
that
!’

‘I’m afraid, ma’am, that Emily’s fortune is a matter of indifference to him.’

‘Oh, it is, is it? Well, if Emily’s been pushed into this against her will, I’ll go up to London, and tell his lordship who I am, and what I mean to do, which is to hire a house in the best part of the town, and set up as his grandma! And we’ll see if
that’s
a matter of indifference to him!’ declared the old lady triumphantly.

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 unsmilingly, 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 engaged 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.’