Bath Tangle (5 page)

‘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 good-natured 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 disliked 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 collar-bone. 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 bolder 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!’

It was hardly to be expected, Serena thought, that the several ladies of their acquaintance in the neighbouring district would spare her a description of the Boxing Day Assembly, and greatly did she dread being obliged to listen either to animadversions on Rotherham’s manners, or to bitter criticisms of Lady Laleham’s encroaching ways. But the weather saved her. A week of incessant rain made quagmires of all the roads, and rendered the paying of morning-calls ineligible. They were undisturbed by visitors at the Dower House until Spenborough had himself driven there one afternoon to announce to the ladies Jane’s safe delivery of a son.

He was a fond and an excellent father, and could scarcely have been more delighted if the child had been his first son, instead of his fourth. Fanny and Serena tried to say all that was expected of them, and succeeded so well that he found himself very much in charity with them both, and confided to them that the happy event had relieved his mind of considerable anxiety. ���For, you know, with the shock of my cousin’s sad death, and all the exertion of disposing of the house, and the bringing of the children to Milverley, there is no saying what might have happened. But Jane is equal to anything!’

They reiterated their congratulations; he beamed, and thanked, and said: ‘Extremely obliging! I knew you would be glad, and determined you should be the first to be informed of the event. We mean the child to be given the name of Francis, and we hope, Lady Spenborough, that you will consent to be one of his sponsors!’

Fanny, quite pink with pleasure, said that she would be most happy; and Serena, seeing that she was really gratified, determined to forgive Jane for cutting up the South Lawn into a formal flower-garden, and even suggested that Hartley should stay to dine at the Dower House. He needed no persuasion; a message was sent to the stables; another to the kitchen; and he sat down in a wing-chair beside the fire to discuss, over several glasses of sherry, the doctor’s opinion of Jane’s constitution, the midwife’s admiration of her fortitude, and the very diverting things the elder children had said upon being informed that God had sent them a new brother.

It was some time before these topics had been talked out, but at last he could think of no more to say on them. He said that he must not go boring on, complimented Fanny on her cook’s way of dressing a haunch of venison, and suddenly remarked: ‘So Rotherham took his guests to the Assembly on Boxing Day! I wouldn’t believe it when Dr Cliffe told me so, but it seems to be true enough. I saw Orrell the other day, and he vouched for it. A queer start, wasn’t it?’

‘It was a scheme got up for the entertainment of the young people,’ said Fanny calmly.

‘Ay, so I understand. No harm, of course, but I shouldn’t have thought Rotherham the man to condescend so far. I am not particularly acquainted with him, but he has always seemed to me pretty high in the instep: one of your haughty care-for-nobodies! However, Orrell assures me he was very civil and amiable. That Laleham woman was mightily set up by his standing up with her daughter, and not seeming to care for anyone else, but walking off to the card room immediately. Orrell says it was a study to look at the faces of the other mamas! But he came back at tea time, took in his cousin, and afterwards solicited some girl that had no partner to stand up with him, which was thought to be very good-natured in him, and lowered the Laleham crest a trifle! This Rhenish cream is most excellent, Lady Spenborough: a capital dinner! I shall tell Jane I get nothing so good at Milverley!’

Fanny could not help glancing across the table to see whether Serena partook of her own astonishment. She could detect nothing in her face but a look of approval; and when, after Spenborough had left them, she ventured to ask her if she had not been very much surprised, she received a decided negative.

‘You were not? I own, I could hardly credit my ears. I had no notion that he cared so much for your opinion!’

‘No, indeed, and nor does he!’ Serena answered. ‘The outcome would have been the same whoever had taken him to task. When he does such things as that it is not from any
conscious
idea of his own consequence, or a contempt for persons of inferior rank, but from a sort of heedless arrogance, as I told him. He had the misfortune to lose his father when he was still a schoolboy: a most estimable man, I believe. Papa was used to say that everyone stood in great awe of him, because he was such a
grand seigneur
, but that pride in
him
didn’t lead him to offend people by any careless manners, but to treat everyone with the same punctilious courtesy.
We
should have thought him very stiff, I daresay, for he was held to be old-fashioned even when Papa was a young man. But Lady Rotherham was insufferably proud! You never knew her: I assure you, she was so puffed-up with conceit and consequence that there was no bearing it! She brought up all three of her children, and in particular, of course, Ivo, to believe themselves so superior that they might behave as they chose, since a Barrasford must be beyond the reach of censure! As for considering the feelings of others, such a notion can never have entered her head! Her selfishness was beyond anything, too! Everything, she thought, must give way to
her
whims. One cannot wonder at Ivo’s arrogance: the only wonder is that it should be unconscious – not rooted, as it was with her, in conceit! He was never taught to think of anything but his own pleasure, but his disposition is not bad, nor does he mean to offend the sensibilities of others. It is all heedlessness! If he can but be made to see that he has behaved badly, he is sorry for it at once.’

‘Oh, Serena! When I am sure he was ready to murder you for having presumed to tell him his conduct was not gentlemanly – !’

‘No, no, you are mistaken, Fanny!’ Serena said, laughing a little. ‘He didn’t wish to murder me, but himself! Oh, well, perhaps me, but much more himself! He knew what I said to be true, and that is what wounded his pride, and made him smart so.’

‘Do you think so?’ Fanny said doubtfully.

‘I know it! Don’t imagine that he instantly set about mending the matter because his conduct had given
me
an ill opinion of him! He did it because it gave
him
that ill opinion. He has the faults of his mother’s temper, but at the bottom he is more his father’s son than hers. Papa always held to it that with
that
upbringing, and all the toad-eating and nonsense that surrounded him when he was by far too young to perceive the folly of it, it said a great deal for his character that he grew up to care so little for pomp and dignity, and of all creatures to dislike most those that flatter him. You will never see Ivo in company with any of the odious hangers-on who fawn on great men, administering all the time to their vanity, you know. He holds such stuff in utter contempt. It was otherwise with his brother. If you had but seen Captain Lord Talbot Barrasford – in all the magnificence of silver lace, for he was a Hussar! – plainly thinking how much his regiment was honoured by his having joined it – ! I used to wonder how he contrived to maintain his precious dignity when compelled to quarter himself in some Spanish hovel. Oh, I should not be saying so
now
, I know! He fell in action, very gallantly, I believe, and if he was not much mourned, at least he must be respected. People say that Augusta was very like him, as a girl. But she had the good fortune to marry Silchester, who is a sensible man, and by the time I was old enough to become acquainted with her she was much as you see her today – with a good deal of Ivo’s unconcern with what people may be thinking, and quite unaffected. I don’t mean to say she does not know her own worth, but it is something she takes for granted, and scarcely thinks about.’

‘Oh, yes! She quite frightened me, at first, with her odd, blunt way of talking, but I have always found her perfectly kind, and have never doubted that
she
has a heart!’

Serena smiled. ‘None of the Barrasfords has what is generally meant when people speak of
warmheartedness
. If you mean, as I collect you do, that Rotherham’s nature is cold, I think I had rather say that it is fiery! He is a hard man, certainly. I shouldn’t turn to him for sympathy, but I have known him to be kind.’

‘I suppose, when you were betrothed, he must have been, but –’

‘Oh, no, not when he fancied himself to be in love with me! Far from it!’ Serena interrupted, laughing. ‘He would like to be much kinder in the execution of his duty as my Trustee than I could permit!’

‘Why, what can you mean? You yourself suspected that the arrangement was made at his instigation!’

‘Well, yes, while I was in such a rage, I did,’ admitted Serena. ‘Only, of course, I soon saw that it could not have been. I’m afraid it was poor Papa’s notion of a clever stroke. The match was so much of his making that he could not bear to abandon it.’

‘I know it was a splendid one, but did he care for that? It was not like him!’

‘Well, I suppose he must have cared a little, but the thing was that he liked Rotherham, and believed we should suit, because he was an honest man, and there was no flummery about either of us! You know what Papa was, when he had taken a notion firmly into his head! I don’t think anything could have brought him to believe that Ivo was as thankful to be out of a scrape as I was. I never supposed that the pair of them concerted this infamous scheme because Ivo wished to win me back, and as soon as I was cooler, I knew, of course, that Papa would not have done it to give Ivo an opportunity to be revenged on me.’

‘Revenged!’

‘Well,’ said Serena, reflectively wrinkling her nose, ‘he has not a forgiving nature, and there’s no denying I did deal his pride the most wounding blow when I cried off. So, when I heard Papa’s Will read, I thought – oh, I don’t know
what
I thought! I was too angry to think at all. And then I believed that he wouldn’t refuse to act because he meant to punish me for that old slight by using the power he had been given in a malicious way. To own the truth, I thought he would be pleased when he discovered that I had been obliged to sell my horses, but I was quite out! He was very much vexed, and tried to make me believe he could increase my allowance. But I had gone into that with Perrott, and I knew better – which vexed him more than ever! He would certainly have given me a larger allowance, and never told me it was his own money, and you will agree that however improper that may have been it was very kind!’

Fanny said in a wondering tone: ‘Perhaps he
is
fond of you, Serena!’

‘Yes, when he is not disliking me excessively. I never doubted it,’ said Serena coolly. ‘It is the sort of fondness one has for an old acquaintance, who shares many of one’s ideas and tastes. At the moment, however, I expect dislike has the upper hand. He will come about!’

Nothing was heard of Rotherham until the end of January. The weather continued to be dull, and wet, one leaden day succeeding the last, and exercising a depressive influence on the spirits. Fanny contracted a severe chill, and seemed unable wholly to shake off its effects. She continued very languid, complained of rheumatic pains, and found the days intolerably long. The novelty – for such she had felt it to be – of being mistress of her own house had worn off; and the monotony of the life she was leading made her fretful. The only variations that offered were the occasional visits of neighbours with whom she had nothing in common; and her only amusements were playing cribbage or backgammon with Serena, or going up to the great house to play with Jane’s children. The Countess always had a kind welcome for her, and she could be merry with the children; but a fatal flaw attached to her visits, and caused them to become less and less frequent. She could never be in Jane’s company without being obliged to listen to her complaints of Serena. She knew no way of silencing Jane. ‘I wish that you would drop Serena a hint,’ were words that always made her heart sink. It was not that Jane undervalued Serena, or was not sincerely attached to her, or was unsympathetic. No one, Jane was careful to assure her, in the calm voice of infallibility which so much exasperated Serena, had a greater regard for her, no one could be more certain of her wish to be of use to her cousin, or could more thoroughly appreciate the painful nature of her feelings,
but
– ! Gentle though she was, Fanny would have leapt to Serena’s defence, had she not felt, too often, that Jane had right on her side. As Hartley grew in self-confidence, he naturally depended on his cousin less and less. He inaugurated new customs without consulting her and, since he was inclined to be consequential, he contrived – unwittingly, Fanny believed – to convey the impression that he thought his innovations a vast improvement on anything that had been done by his predecessor. Fanny tried to convince Serena that he did not mean to seem to slight her father, but her attempts at peace-making only drew down the vials of Serena’s wrath upon her own head. Serena, fretting quite as much as Fanny at the boredom of her days, found an outlet for her curbed energy in riding about Milverley, detecting changes (none of them acceptable to her), discovering omissions, and chatting with tenants, or discussing improvements with the bailiff just as she had always done, and so rubbing up against her cousin half a dozen times in a week. To make matters worse, she was far more often right than he; and whereas he, lacking the late Earl’s geniality, was not much liked, she, inheriting it, was loved.

Serena, having more strength of character than Fanny, did not wilt under the trials that beset her, but tried to overcome boredom by throwing herself even more energetically, and much to her cousin’s dismay, into the Milverley affairs. Could she but have found a congenial companion with whom to exchange ideas, she might have refrained, but no such person seemed to exist in the immediate neighbourhood. She became increasingly impatient with Fanny; and the very fact that she seldom allowed her exasperation to appear exacerbated it. There were even days when she felt that she and Fanny conversed in different languages, and that she might almost have preferred to have been cooped up with her aunt. She would have found herself opposed to nearly every one of Lady Theresa’s opinions; but Fanny had no opinions. When Lady Theresa, an accomplished and conscientious correspondent, wrote that Lady Waldegrave was dying of water on the chest, Fanny could be interested, and would discuss the sad news at far greater length than Serena thought necessary; but when Lady Theresa informed her niece that retrenchment was all the cry now, and that it was an open secret the Opposition meant to launch an attack on the tax on income which the nation had endured for ten years, some saying that it would be proposed that the two shillings in the pound now exacted should be reduced by as much as half, Fanny had nothing to say beyond a vague: ‘Oh!’ As for Lavallette’s rescue by three British subjects, which, Lady Theresa asserted, was at the moment the only topic to be hotly discussed, she thought an escape very exciting, but never reached the smallest understanding of the wider aspects of the case.