Bath Tangle (18 page)

‘Yes, I’ve persuaded Fanny to forgo the drinking of her horrid waters, and to drive with me instead to Melksham Forest. I hope you give her credit for heroism!’

‘What, you don’t mean to drive in your phaeton?’

‘Most certainly I do!’

‘Serena, not alone, I do implore you!’

‘You and Fobbing will ride behind us, to protect us from highwaymen, and to set the phaeton on its wheels again when I have overturned it. I won’t do so above twice!’

There was nothing but nonsense to be got out of her, then or thereafter. She was in the gayest of moods all day, and at her most affectionate, yet when he parted from her he felt that he had not once come within touching distance of her.

He thought it wisest not to revert immediately to the vexed question of her inheritance, and when, after ten days, he ventured to raise the subject, she surprised him by listening without interruption to his carefully considered arguments, and by saying, when he had done: ‘Very well: let it be as you wish, my dear! After all, I don’t greatly care. Not enough, at all events, to make you uncomfortable. When the time comes, arrange it as you think proper!’

She would have banished the matter there; he could not. No sooner did she yield than he was torn by doubt. Rotherham’s words echoed in his mind: what right had he to insist on her relinquishing the means whereby she might live as she had always done? She listened with what patience she could muster, but exclaimed at last: ‘Oh, Hector, what are you at? You told me you cannot bear it if I use my fortune, and I submitted! Now you tell me you cannot bear to deprive me of it!’

‘Do I seem absurd? I suppose I must. I don’t wish you to
submit
, now or ever! I couldn’t do it on such terms as that. Only if you too desired it!’

‘No, that is asking too much of me!’ she cried. ‘I must have less than common sense if I
desired
anything so foolish!’

‘Oh, my dear, if it seems foolish to you, how could I let you make a sacrifice to my pride?’

She looked at him strangely. ‘Ask yourself how I could let you sacrifice your pride to my extravagant habits. I could tell you how easily I might do that! Don’t – don’t encourage me to rule you! I shall try to, you know. There! you are warned! Handsome of me, wasn’t it? Don’t let us speak of this again! Only tell me when you have decided what to do!’

They did not speak of it again. He thought of it continually; she seemed to have put it quite out of her mind. If her indifference was a mask, she never let it slip. She seemed to him to be in the best of health and spirits, so full of unflagging energy that it was he who sometimes felt tired, keeping pace with her. He told Fanny once, half in jest, half in earnest, that he never knew from one moment to the next where she would be, or what she might be doing. ‘I think,’ Fanny said, ‘that it is perhaps because she is very happy. She has always a great deal of energy, but I never saw her so restless before. She can’t be still!’

Mrs Floore noticed it, and drew her own conclusions. She bore down upon Fanny one day in the Pump Room, and, ruthlessly ousting young Mr Ryde, her most fervent admirer, from her side, lowered herself into the chair he had been obliged to offer her. ‘Well, I don’t doubt that’s one enemy I’ve made!’ she remarked cheerfully. ‘Between you, my lady, you and Lady Serena have got the men in this town so love-lorn that it’s a wonder the other young females ain’t all gone off into declines!’

Fanny laughed, but shook her head. ‘It is Lady Serena they admire, not me, ma’am!’

‘I don’t deny anyone would take her for a jam-jar, the way all these silly bumble-bees keep buzzing round her,’ agreed Mrs Floore, ‘but there’s some that like you better, if you’ll pardon my saying so! As for that young sprig that gave up his chair to me with the worst grace I ever did see, he makes a bigger cake of himself than ever the Major did, when he used to come day after day into this room, looking for her ladyship.’

‘Mr Ryde is only a boy, and dreadfully stupid!’ Fanny said hastily.

‘He’s stupid enough, I grant you. Which the Major is not,’ said Mrs Floore, cocking a shrewd eye at Fanny. ‘What I thought at first, my lady, was that
that
was just a Bath-flirtation. But, lord bless me, Lady Serena wouldn’t be in such a fine flow of spirits if that’s all it is! When is it to be, that’s what I’d like to know?’

Fanny, anything but appreciative of the wink so roguishly bestowed upon her, said as coldly as her tender heart would permit: ‘I am afraid I don’t know what you mean, ma’am.’

‘Keeping it a secret, are they?’ Mrs Floore shook with fat chuckles. ‘As though it wasn’t plain enough for a blind man to see! Well, if that’s how it is, I won’t ask any questions, my lady. I can’t help watching them, and having my own notions, though!’

The very thought of being watched by Mrs Floore was so objectionable to Fanny that she almost summoned up enough resolution to remonstrate with Serena on her imprudence. But before she had quite succeeded in doing so something happened to give the old lady’s thoughts another direction. Midway through July she once more had herself driven to Laura Place, announcing on arrival that such a piece of news as she had she couldn’t keep to herself, not if she died of it.

‘Which I very likely would have done, through going off pop, like a gingerbeer bottle,’ she said. ‘Who do you think will be staying with me before I’m more than a day older?’

Neither lady could hazard a guess, though Serena hugely delighted Mrs Floore by saying promptly: ‘The Prince Regent!’

‘Better than him!’ Mrs Floore declared, when she had recovered from the paroxysm into which this sally threw her. ‘Emma!’

‘Emily!’ Serena exclaimed. ‘Delightful, indeed! How pleased you must be! The Lalehams are in Gloucestershire again, then?’

‘No, that’s the best of it!’ said Mrs Floore. ‘Though heaven knows I shouldn’t be saying so, for the other poor little things – three of them, that is – are so full of the measles as never was! So Sukey stayed in London, with Emma, because there wasn’t a house to be had in Brighton, which she had a fancy for. Only it seems the Marquis don’t care for Brighton, so it was just as well, I daresay. Not that I’d ever want Emma to go and get ill with this nasty influenza that’s going about in London, which is what she did do, poor little soul! Not four days after they came back from this place, Delford, which Sukey tells me is the Marquis’s country home. Seat, she calls it, and I’m bound to say it don’t sound like a
home
to me. Well, it’s all according to taste, but you mark my words, my dear, when he gets to be as fat as I am – which I’m sure I hope he won’t – this Marquis will wish he hadn’t got to walk a quarter of a mile from his bedroom to get to his dinner! I shouldn’t wonder at it if that’s how poor Emma came to get ill, for she’s never been much of a one for long walks.’

‘Delford is very large, but Lady Laleham exaggerates a little, ma’am,’ Serena said, faintly smiling.

‘You can lay your life to that, my dear! Well, the long and the short of it is that she did take ill, and very sick she must have been, because Sukey writes that the doctor says she must go out of London, on account of her being regularly knocked up, and her nerves quite upset besides.’

‘I am so sorry!’ Fanny said. ‘So Lady Laleham is to bring her on a visit to you, ma’am?’

‘No!’ said Mrs Floore, a smile of delight spreading over her large face. ‘Depend upon it, Sukey would have taken her to Jericho rather than come to me! But
she’s
got the influenza now, so there’s no help for it but for her to send Emma down with her maid tomorrow! She’s coming post, of course, and see if I don’t have her blooming again in a trice!’

Emily, when encountered a few days later, certainly bore all the appearance of a young lady lately risen from a sickbed. The delicate bloom had faded from her cheeks; she was thinner; and jumped at sudden noises. Mrs Floore ascribed her condition to the rigours of a London season, and told Serena that she could willingly box her daughter’s ears for having allowed poor little Emma to become so fagged. Serena thought the explanation reasonable, but Fanny declared that some other cause than late nights must be sought to account for the hunted look in Emily’s wide eyes. ‘And it is not far to seek!’ she added significantly. ‘That wicked woman compelled her to accept Rotherham’s offer, and she is terrified of him!’

‘How can you be so absurd?’ said Serena impatiently. ‘Rotherham is not an ogre!’

But gentle Fanny for once refused to be overborne. ‘Yes, he is,’ she asserted. ‘I don’t scruple to tell you, dearest, that he frightens
me
, and I am not seventeen!’

‘I know you are never at ease with him, and a great piece of nonsense that is, Fanny! Pray, what cause has he given you to fear him?’

‘Oh, none! It is just – You cannot understand, Serena, because you are not at all shy, and were never afraid of anything in your life, I suppose!’

‘Certainly not of Rotherham! You should consider that if there is anything in his manner that makes you nervous he is not in love with you.’

Fanny shuddered. ‘Oh, that would be more terrifying than anything!’ she exclaimed.

‘You are being foolish beyond permission. I daresay the marriage was arranged by the Laleham-woman, and that Emily is in love with Ivo I most strongly doubt; but, after all, such marriages are quite common, and often succeed to admiration. If he loves her, he will very soon teach her to return his sentiments.’

‘Serena, I
cannot
believe that he loves her! No two persons could be less suited!’

Serena shrugged her shoulders, saying, in a hard voice: ‘Good God, Fanny, how many times has one seen a clever man wedded to a pretty simpleton, and wondered what could have made him choose her? Emily will not dispute with Rotherham; she will be docile; she will think him infallible – and that should suit him perfectly!’

‘Him! Very likely, but what of her? If he frightens her now, what will it be when they are married?’

‘Let me recommend you, Fanny, not to put yourself into high fidgets over what is nothing but conjecture! You do not know that he has frightened Emily. If she is a little nervous, depend upon it he has been making love to her. He is a man of strong passions, and she is such an innocent baby that I should not marvel at it if she had been scared. She will very soon overcome such prudery, I assure you!’ She saw Fanny shake her head, and fold her lips, and said sharply: ‘This will not do! If there was any truth in these freakish notions of yours, she need not have accepted his offer!’

Fanny looked up quickly. ‘Ah, you cannot know you don’t understand, Serena!’

‘Oh, you mean that she dare not disobey her mother! Well, my love, however strictly Lady Laleham may rule her, it is not in her power to force her into a disagreeable marriage. And if she is in such dread of her, she must welcome any chance to escape from her tyranny!’

Fanny gazed at her wonderingly, and then bent over her embroidery again. ‘I don’t think you would ever understand,’ she said mournfully. ‘You see, dearest, you grew up under such different circumstances! You never held my lord in awe. Indeed, I was used to think you were his companion rather than his daughter, and I am persuaded neither of you had the least notion of filial obedience! It quite astonished me to hear how he would consult you, and how boldly you maintained your own opinions and went your own way! I should never have dared to have talked so to my parents, you know. Habits of strict obedience, I think, are not readily overcome. It seems impossible to you that Lady Laleham could force Emily into a distasteful marriage, but it is not impossible. To some girls – to most girls, indeed – the thought of setting up one’s own will does not even occur.’

‘You encourage me to think that Emily will be the very wife for Rotherham!’ Serena replied. ‘And if you imagine, my dear, that he will give her any reason to be afraid of him, you are doing him an injustice. Though his manners are not conciliatory, he is, I must remind you, a gentleman!’

No more was said; nor did Emily, walking with Serena in the Sydney Gardens, appear to regret her engagement. In the intervals of exclaiming rapturously at the various amenities of this miniature Vauxhall, she chattered about the parties she had been to in London, and seemed to be full of such items of information as that the Queen had smiled at her upon her presentation, and that one of the Princesses had actually spoken to her.

‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ Serena asked.

‘Oh, yes, indeed! And we went several times to Vauxhall Gardens, and to the theatre, and a Review in Hyde Park, and Almack’s – oh, I am sure we must have been to everything!’ Emily declared.

‘No wonder you became so worn out!’

‘No, for I am not quite accustomed to so many parties. When one is tired, one doesn’t care for anything very much, and – and one gets into stupid humours – Mama says. And I had influenza. Have you ever had it, Lady Serena? It is the horridest thing, for it makes you excessively miserable, so that the least thing makes you cry. But Mama was very kind to me, and she let me come to stay with Grandmama, and, oh, it is so comfortable!’

‘I hope you are making a long stay with her?’

At this, the frightened look returned. Emily stammered: ‘Oh, I wish – I don’t know – Mama said…’

‘Your Mama will be thinking of your bride-clothes soon, no doubt,’ Serena said lightly.

‘Yes. I mean – Oh, not
yet
!’

‘When is the wedding-date to be?’

‘I – we – it is not decided! Lord Rotherham spoke of September, but – but I would like not to be married until I am eighteen! I shall be eighteen in November, you know, and I shall know how to go on better, don’t you think?’

‘What, because you are eighteen?’ Serena laughed. ‘Will it make such a difference to you?’

‘I don’t know. It is only that I seem not to know the things I should, to be a Marchioness, and I think I should try to learn how to be a great lady, and – and if I am not married till November perhaps I may do so.’

‘I cannot suppose that Lord Rotherham desires you to be in any way other than you are now, my dear Emily.’

There was no reply to this. Glancing at her, Serena saw that Emily was deeply flushed, her eyes downcast. She said, after a pause: ‘Do you expect to see Lord Rotherham in Bath?’

The eyes were quickly raised; the colour receded. ‘In Bath! Oh,
no
! The doctor said I must not be excited! Mama said she would explain to him. Besides – he must not meet Grandmama!’

‘Indeed!’ Serena said dryly. ‘May I ask if he is never to meet Mrs Floore?’

‘No, no! I could not
endure
it!’

‘I don’t wish to seem to criticize your mama, Emily, but you are making a mistake. You must not despise your grandmama.’

Emily burst into tears. Fortunately, one of the shady arbours with which the gardens were liberally provided was close at hand, and unoccupied. Having no desire to walk through a public place in company with a gustily sobbing girl, Serena guided Emily into the arbour, commanding her, in stringent accents, to compose herself. It was a little time before she could do this, and when her tears ceased to flow they left her face so much blotched that Serena kept her sitting in the arbour until these traces of emotion had faded. By way of diverting her mind, she asked her if she had enjoyed her visit to Delford. From the disjointed account Emily gave her of this, she gathered that it had not been wholly delightful. Emily seemed to waver between a glorious vision of herself ruling over the vast pile, and terror of its servants. She was sure that the housekeeper held her in contempt; she would never dare to give an order to the steward; and she had mistaken Lady Silchester’s dresser for a fellow-guest, which had made Mama cross. Yes, Lady Silchester had been acting as hostess for her brother. She was very proud, wasn’t she? There had been a great many people staying at Delford: dreadfully alarming people, who all looked at her, and all knew one another. There had been a huge dinner-party, too: over forty persons invited, and so many courses that she had lost count of them. Lord Rotherham had said that when next such a dinner-party was held at Delford she would be the hostess.

This was said with so frightened a look up into Serena’s face, the pansy-brown eyes dilating a little, that Serena was satisfied that it was not her bridegroom but his circumstances which had thrown Emily into such alarm. She wondered that Rotherham should not have realized that to introduce this inexperienced child to Delford under such conditions must make her miserably aware of her shortcomings. What could have induced him to have filled his house with exalted guests? He might have guessed that he was subjecting her to a severe ordeal; while as for summoning, apparently, half the county to a state dinner-party, and then telling the poor girl that in future she would be expected to preside over just such gatherings, Serena could think of nothing so ill-judged. Plainly, he had wanted to show off his chosen bride, but he should have known better than to have done it in such a way.

She found that Mrs Floore shared this opinion. She was hugely gratified to know that his lordship was so proud of her little Emma, but thought him a zany not to have realized how shy and retiring she was. Mrs Floore was in a triumphant mood, having routed her daughter in one swift engagement. Unfortunately for Lady Laleham, who wished to remove Emily from her grandmother’s charge as soon as she herself was restored to health, Sir Walter had suffered severe reverses, and these, coupled with the accumulated bills for her own and Emily’s expensive gowns, had made it necessary for her to apply to her mother for relief. Mrs Floore was perfectly ready to send her as much money as she wanted, but she made it a condition that Emily should be left in her charge until her own doctor pronounced her to be perfectly well again. Lady Laleham was obliged to accede to these terms, and Emily’s spirits immediately improved. A suggestion, put forward by her ladyship, that she should join her daughter in Beaufort Square was so bluntly vetoed by Mrs Floore that she did not repeat it.

‘Which I knew she wouldn’t,’ Mrs Floore told Serena. ‘She’s welcome to play off her airs in her own house, but I won’t have her doing it in mine, and so she knows! Well, my dear, I don’t deny Sukey’s been a rare disappointment to me, to put it no higher, but there’s a bright side to everything, and at least I have the whip hand of her. Offend me, she daren’t, for fear I might stop paying her the allowance I do, let alone cut her out of my Will. So now we must think how to put Emma in spirits again! I’ll take her to the Dress Ball on Monday, at the New Assembly Rooms, and Ned Goring shall gallant us to it. There’ll be nothing for Sukey to take exception to in that, nor his lordship neither, even if they was to know of it, which there’s no reason they should, because there’s no waltzing, you know, and not even a cotillion on the Monday night balls.’

‘But I thought Emily was to be very quiet!’ said Serena, laughing. ‘Was she not knocked up by balls in London?’

‘Ay, so she was, but it’s one thing to be going to them night after night, and never in bed till two or three in the morning, and quite another to be going to one of the Assemblies here now and then! Why, they never go on beyond eleven o’clock at the New Rooms, my dear, and only till midnight at the Lower Rooms, on Tuesdays! What’s more, it won’t do the poor little soul any good to be hipped, and to sit moping here with only me for company!

‘I’ll take her to the next Gala night at the Sydney Gardens, too, which is a thing I’ve never done yet, because this is the first time she’s visited me during the summer. I’ll be bound she’ll enjoy watching the fireworks, and so I shall myself.’

Serena, looking at that fat, jolly countenance, did not doubt it. Mrs Floore was in a rollicking humour, determined to make the most of her beloved granddaughter’s visit. ‘For it’s not likely she’ll ever stay with me again,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘However, she shall do what the doctor tells her she should, never fear! And one thing he says is that she mustn’t sit cooped up within doors this lovely weather, so if you would let her go walking with you sometimes, my lady, it would be a great kindness, and what she’d like a deal better than driving in the landaulet with me, I daresay, for that’s mighty dull work for a girl.’

‘Certainly: I shall be glad of her company,’ Serena replied. ‘Perhaps she would like to ride with me.’

This suggestion found instant favour with Mrs Floore, who at once made plans for the hire of a quiet hack. Emily herself was torn between gratification at being asked to ride with such a horsewoman as Lady Serena, and fear that she might be expected to leap all sorts of obstacles, or find herself mounted on a refractory horse. However, the animal provided for her proved to be of placid, not to say sluggish, disposition, and Serena, knowing her limitations, took her for just the sort of expeditions that would have suited Fanny. Whenever opportunity offered, she did her best to instruct Emily in the duties of the mistress of a noble household; but the questions shyly put to her by the girl, and the dismay which many of her answers provoked, did not augur very well for the future. She supposed that Rotherham, himself careless of appearances, disliking the formality that still obtained in many families of
ton
, was indifferent to Emily’s ignorance of so much that any girl of his own rank would have known from her birth.

August came, and still Emily remained in Bath. To any impartial observer, she seemed quite to have regained her bloom, but Mrs Floore, looking her physician firmly in the eye, said that she was still far from well. He was so obliging as to agree with her; and upon Emily’s happening to give a little cough, shook his head, spoke of the unwisdom of neglecting coughs, and prescribed magnesia and breadpudding as a cure.