Bath Tangle (2 page)

‘No! Oh, how very right you are!’ exclaimed Fanny, her brow clearing. ‘Agnes, too, would so particularly dislike it, I daresay!’

There was no time for more. The doors were again opened, and a number of funereally clad gentlemen were ushered into the room.

The procession was led by the eldest, and certainly the most impressive of these. Lord Dorrington, whose girth had upon more than one occasion caused him to be mistaken for the Duke of York, was brother to the first Lady Spenborough and from having a great notion of his own importance, and a strong disposition to meddle in other persons’ affairs, had appointed himself to the position of doyen to the party. He came ponderously into the room, his corsets slightly creaking, his massive jowl supported by swathe upon swathe of neckcloth, and, having bowed to the widow, uttering a few words of condolence in a wheezing voice, at once assumed the task of directing the company to various chairs. ‘I shall desire our good Mr Perrott to seat himself at the desk. Serena, my love, I fancy you and Lady Spenborough will be comfortable upon the sofa. Spenborough, will you take this place? Eaglesham, my dear fellow, if you, and ah – Sir – William, will sit here, I shall invite Rotherham to take the wing-chair.’

Since only Mr Eaglesham attended to this speech, only he was irritated by it. Precedency having been cast overboard, he had entered the library in Lord Dorrington’s ample wake. He was as spare as his lordship was corpulent, and wore the harassed expression which, the unkind asserted, was natural to Lady Theresa Carlow’s consort. Having married the late Earl’s sister, he considered that he had a better right than Dorrington to assume the direction of affairs, but he knew no way of asserting it, and was obliged to content himself with moving towards a chair as far distant as possible to that one indicated by Dorrington, and by muttering animadversions against pretentious and encroaching old popinjays, which were as soothing to himself as they were inaudible to everyone else.

The first in consequence was the last to enter the room, the Marquis of Rotherham, saying: ‘Oh, go on, man, go on!’ thrusting the attorney before him, and strolling into the library behind him.

His entrance might have been said to have banished constraint. The Lady Serena, never remarkable for propriety, stared incredulously, and exclaimed: ‘What in the world brings
you
here, I should like to know?’

‘So should I!’ retorted his lordship. ‘How well we should have suited, Serena! So many ideas as we have in common!’

Fanny, well accustomed to such exchanges, merely cast an imploring look at Serena; Mr Eaglesham uttered a short laugh; Sir William Claypole was plainly startled; Mr Perrott, who had drawn up the original marriage settlements, seemed to be suddenly afflicted with deafness; and Lord Dorrington, perceiving an opportunity for further meddling, said, in what was meant to be an authoritative tone: ‘Now, now! We must not forget upon what a sad occasion we are gathered together! No doubt there is a little awkwardness attached to Rotherham’s unavoidable presence here. Indeed, when I learned from our good Perrott –’

‘
Awkwardness?
’ cried Serena, her colour heightened, and her eyes flashing. ‘I promise you, I feel none, my dear sir! If Rotherham is conscious of it, I can only say that I am astonished he should choose to intrude upon a matter which can only concern the family!’

‘No, I am not conscious of it,’ responded the Marquis. ‘Only of intolerable boredom!’

Several pairs of eyes turned apprehensively towards Serena, but she was never a fighter who resented a knock in exchange. This one seemed rather to assuage than to exacerbate her wrath. She smiled reluctantly, and said in a milder tone: ‘Well! But what made you come, then?’

Mr Perrott, who had been engaged in spreading some documents over the desk, gave a little, dry cough, and said: ‘Your ladyship must know that the late Earl appointed my Lord Rotherham to be one of the Executors of his Will.’

That this intelligence was as unexpected as it was unwelcome was made plain by the widening of Serena’s eyes, as she turned them, in a look compound of doubt and disgust, from Rotherham to the attorney. ‘I might have guessed that that was how it would be!’ she said, turning aside in mortification, and walking back to her seat in the window embrasure.

‘Then it is a great pity you did not guess!’ said Rotherham acidly. ‘I might then have been warned in time to have declined the office, for which I daresay there could be no one more unsuited!’

She deigned no reply, but averted her face, fixing her gaze once more upon the prospect outside. Her cousin, wearing his new dignities uneasily, was inspired by his evil genius to assume an air of authority, saying in a tone of reproof: ‘Such conduct as this is quite unbecoming, Serena! Now that the late unhappy event has made me head of the family I do not scruple to say so. I am sure I do not know what Lord Rotherham must be thinking of such manners.’

He brought himself under the fire of two pairs of eyes, the one filled with wrathful astonishment, the other with cruel mockery.

‘Well, you can certainly be sure of that!’ said Rotherham.

‘For my part,’ said Dorrington, in a peevish voice, ‘I consider it very odd in my poor brother, very odd indeed! One would have supposed – however, so it has always been! Eccentric! I can find no other word for it.’

This provoked Mr Eaglesham, swelling with annoyance, to point out to his lordship the very remote nature of his connection with the late Earl. There were others, he took leave to tell him, whose claims to have been appointed Executor of the Will were very much nearer than his. Lord Dorrington’s empurpled cheeks then became so alarmingly suffused that Spenborough said hastily that the appointment of Lord Rotherham was perfectly agreeable to him, whatever it might be to others.

‘Obliging of you!’ said Rotherham, over his shoulder, as he crossed the room to where Fanny was still standing nervously beside her chair. ‘Come! Why do you not sit down?’ he said in his abrupt, rather rough way. ‘You must be as anxious as any of us, I daresay, to be done with this business!’

‘Oh, yes! Thank you!’ she murmured. She glanced fleetingly up at him, as she seated herself, faltering: ‘I am very sorry, if you dislike it. Indeed, I am afraid it may be troublesome to you!’

‘Unlikely: Perrott will no doubt attend to everything.’ He hesitated, and then added, in a still brusquer manner: ‘I should be making you speeches of condolence. Excuse me on that head, if you please! I am no great hand at polite insincerities, and give you credit for believing you cannot wish to figure as inconsolable.’

She was left feeling crushed; he walked away to a chair near the window in which Serena sat, and she, taking advantage of Sir William Claypole’s claiming his daughter’s attention at that moment, said: ‘You might give her credit for some natural sorrow!’

‘Dutiful!’

‘She was most sincerely attached to my father.’

‘Very well: I give her credit for it. She will soon recover from such sentiments, and must be less than honest if she does not feel herself to have been released from a most unnatural tie.’ He looked at her from under the heavy bar of his black brows, a satirical gleam in his eyes. ‘Yes, you find yourself in agreement with me, and don’t mean to admit it. If sympathizing speeches are expected of me, I will address mine to you. I am sorry for you, Serena: this bears hard on you.’

There was no softening either in voice or expression, but she knew him well enough to believe that he meant what he said.

‘Thank you. I expect I shall go along very tolerably when I have become – a little more accustomed.’

‘Yes, if you don’t commit some folly. On that chance, however, I would not wager a groat. Don’t shoot daggerlooks at me! I’m impervious to ’em.’

‘On this occasion at least you might spare me your taunts!’ she said, in a low, indignant voice.

‘Not at all. To spar with me will save you from falling into a green melancholy.’

She disdained to answer this, but turned again to look out of the window; and he, as indifferent to the snub as to her anger, took up a lounging position in his chair, and sardonically surveyed the rest of the company.

Of the six men present he gave the least impression of being a mourner at a funeral. His black coat, which he wore buttoned high across his chest, was at odd variance with a neckcloth tied in a sporting fashion peculiarly his own; and his demeanour lacked the solemnity which characterized the elder members of the party. From his appearance, he might have been almost any age, and was, in fact, in the late thirties. Of medium height only, he was very powerfully built, with big shoulders, a deep chest, and thighs by far too muscular to appear to advantage in the prevailing fashion of skin tight pantaloons. He was seldom seen in such attire, but generally wore top-boots and breeches. His coats were well-cut, but made so that he could shrug himself into them without assistance; and he wore no other jewellery than his heavy gold signet-ring. He had few graces, his manners being blunt to a fault, made as many enemies as friends, and, had he not been endowed with birth, rank, and fortune, would possibly have been ostracized from polite circles. But these magical attributes were his, and they acted like a talisman upon his world. His Belcher neckties and his unconventional manners might be deplored but must be accepted: he was Rotherham.

He was not a handsome man, but his countenance was a striking one, his eyes, which were of a curiously light gray, having a great deal of hard brilliance, and being set under straight brows which almost met. His hair was as black as a crow’s wing, his complexion swarthy; and the lines of his face were harsh, the brow a little craggy, the chin deeply cleft, and the masterful nose jutting between lean cheeks. His hands were his only beauty, for they combined strength with shapeliness. Any of the dandy set would have used all manner of arts to show them off: my Lord Rotherham dug them into his pockets.

Since Lord Dorrington and Mr Eaglesham showed no disposition to bring their acrimonious dialogue to an end, and Lord Spenborough’s polite attempts to recall them to a sense of their surroundings were not attended to, Rotherham intervened, saying impatiently: ‘Do you mean to continue arguing all day, or are we to hear the Will read?’

Both gentlemen glared at him; and Mr Perrott, taking advantage of the sudden silence, spread open a crackling document, and in severe accents announced it to be the last Will and Testament of George Henry Vernon Carlow, Fifth Earl of Spenborough.

As Serena had foretold, it contained little of interest to its auditors. Neither Rotherham nor Dorrington had expectations; Sir William Claypole knew his daughter’s jointure to be secure: and once Mr Eaglesham was satisfied that the various keepsakes promised to his wife had been duly bequeathed to her he too lost interest in the reading, and occupied himself in thinking of some pretty cutting things to say to Lord Dorrington.

Serena herself still sat with her face turned away, and her eyes on the prospect outside. Shock had at first left no room for any other emotion than grief for the loss of her father, but with the arrival of his successor the evils of her present situation were more thoroughly brought to her mind. Milverley, which had been her home for the twenty-five years of her life, was hers no longer. She who had been its mistress would henceforth visit it only as a guest. She was not much given to sentimental reflection, nor, during her father’s lifetime, had she been conscious of any deep attachment to the place. She had taken it for granted, serving it as a matter of duty and tradition. Only now, when it was passing from her, did she realize her double loss.

Her spirits sank; it was an effort to keep her countenance, and impossible to chain her attention to the attorney, reciting in a toneless voice and with a wealth of incomprehensible legalities a long list of small personal bequests. All were known to her, many had been discussed with her. She knew the sources of Fanny’s jointure, and which of the estates would furnish her own portion: there could be no surprises, nothing to divert her mind from its melancholy reflections.

She was mistaken. Mr Perrott paused, and cleared his throat. After a moment, he resumed his reading, his dry voice more expressionless than before. The words: ‘…all my estates at Hernesley and at Ibshaw’ intruded upon Serena’s wandering thoughts, and informed her that her share of the bequests had been reached at last. The next words brought her head round with a jerk.

‘…to the use of Ivo Spencer Barrasford, the Most Noble the Marquis of Rotherham –’

‘
What?
’ gasped Serena.

‘…in trust for my daughter, Serena Mary,’ continued Mr Perrott, slightly raising his voice, ‘to the intent that he shall allow her during her spinsterhood such sums of money by way of pin-money as she has heretofore enjoyed, and upon her marriage, conditional upon such marriage being with his consent and approval, to her use absolutely.’

An astonished silence succeeded these words. Fanny was looking bewildered, and Serena stunned. Suddenly the silence was shattered. The Most Noble the Marquis of Rotherham had succumbed to uncontrollable laughter.

Serena was on her feet. ‘Was my father out of his senses?’ she cried. ‘
Rotherham
to allow – !
Rotherham
to consent to my marriage! Oh,
infamous
, abominable!’

Her feelings choked her; she began to stride about the room, panting for breath, striking her clenched fist into the palm of her other hand, fiercely thrusting her uncle Dorrington aside when he attempted ponderously to check her.

‘Pray, Serena – ! Pray, my dear child, be calm! Abominable indeed, but try to compose yourself!’ he besought her. ‘Upon my word! To appoint a trustee outside the family! It passes the bounds of belief! I suppose I am not nobody! Your uncle! What more proper person could have been found to appoint? God bless my soul, I was never more provoked!’

‘Certainly one may say that eccentricity has been carried pretty far!’ observed Mr Eaglesham. ‘Very improper! I venture to say that Theresa will most strongly disapprove of it.’

‘It must be shocking to any person of sensibility!’ declared Spenborough. ‘My dear cousin, everyone must enter into your feelings upon this occasion! No one can wonder at your very just displeasure, but, depend upon it, there can be found a remedy! Such a whimsical clause might, I daresay, be upset: Perrott will advise us!’ He paused, looking towards the attorney, who, however, preserved an unencouraging silence. ‘Well, we shall see! At all events, the Will cannot be binding to Rotherham. It must be within his power to refuse such a Trusteeship, surely!’

‘
He!
’ The word burst from Serena’s lips. She swept round, and bore down upon the Marquis, as lithe as a wild cat, and as dangerous. ‘Was it your doing?
Was
it?’

‘Good God, no!’ he said contemptuously. ‘A pretty charge to saddle myself with!’

‘How could he do such a thing? How
could
he?’ she demanded. ‘And without your knowledge and consent? No! No! I don’t believe it!’

‘When you have come to the end of all this fretting and fuming, perhaps you may! Your father desired nothing so much as our marriage, and this is his way of bringing it about. It’s a cock that won’t fight, however!’

‘No!’ she said, cheeks and eyes flaming. ‘I will never be so enforced!’

‘Nor I!’ he said brutally. ‘Why, you featherheaded termagant, do you imagine that I wish for a wife upon such terms? You mistake the matter, my girl, believe me!’

‘Then release me from so intolerable a situation! To be obliged to beg
your
consent – !
Something
must be done! It must be possible! My whole fortune tied up – pin-money – Good God, how could Papa treat me so? Will you assign the Trust to my cousin? Will you do that?’

‘Poor devil, no! If I could, I would not! You would bully him into giving his consent to your marriage to the first wastrel that offered, only to break the Trust! Well, you won’t bully me, so make up your mind to that, Serena!’

She flung away from him, and resumed her restless pacing, tears of rage running down her face. Fanny went to her, laying a hand on her arm, saying, in a beseeching tone: ‘Serena! Dearest Serena!’

She stood rigidly, her throat working. ‘Fanny, don’t touch me! I am not
safe
!’

Fanny found herself being pushed unceremoniously aside. Rotherham, who had come up behind her, seized Serena’s wrists, and held them in a hard grasp. ‘You have edified us enough!’ he said harshly. ‘A little more conduct would be becoming in you! No, you will neither hit me, nor claw my eyes out! Be still, Serena, and think what a figure you make of yourself!’

There was a pause. Fanny trembled for the issue, herself a good deal distressed. The stormy eyes, shifting from Rotherham’s dark face, found hers. The glare went out of them. A shuddering sigh broke from Serena; she said: ‘Oh, Fanny, I beg your pardon! I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

‘No, no, never!’ Fanny cried.

Serena began unconsciously to rub the wrists which Rotherham had released. She glanced round the room, and gave a rather hysterical little laugh. ‘Indeed, I am very sorry! I am behaving so badly, and have thrown you all into embarrassment. Pray excuse me! Rotherham, I must see you before you leave Milverley: will you come to me, if you please, in the Little Drawing-room?’

‘At once, if you wish it.’

‘Oh, no! My senses are quite disordered still. You must give me time to mend my temper if I am not to be betrayed again into unbecoming warmth!’

She hurried out of the room, repulsing Fanny, who would have accompanied her, with a gesture, and a quick shake of her head.

Her departure unleashed the tongues of her relations, Mr Eaglesham deploring so passionate a disposition, and recalling his wife’s various pronouncements on the subject; Fanny firing up in defence; Dorrington ascribing the outbreak to Rotherham’s provoking manners; and Spenborough reiterating his determination to overset the clause. This at once led to further disputation, for Dorrington, while agreeing that the clause should be overset, resented Spenborough’s assumption of authority; and Mr Eaglesham, on general grounds, was opposed to any scheme of Dorrington’s. Even Claypole was drawn, though reluctantly, into expressing an opinion; but Mr Perrott, waiting with gelid calm for the discussion to end, met all appeals with noncommittal repressiveness; and Rotherham, his shoulders to the door, his arms folded across his chest, and one leg crossed negligently over the other, appeared to consider himself the audience to a farce which at once bored and slightly diverted him. It lasted too long for his patience, however, and he put a ruthless end to it, interrupting Dorrington to say: ‘You will none of you overset it, and you are none of you concerned in it, so you may as well stop making gudgeons of yourselves!’

‘Sir, you are offensive!’ declared Mr Eaglesham, glaring at him. ‘I do not hesitate to tell you so!’

‘Why should you? I don’t hesitate to tell you that you’re a muttonhead! I collect that you think her aunt the properest person to control Serena’s hand and fortune. You’d look mighty blue if you could succeed in foisting that charge on to Lady Theresa! What a trimming she would give you, by God!’

Lord Dorrington burst into a rumbling laugh which immediately set him coughing and wheezing. Mr Eaglesham, much incensed, opened his mouth to retaliate, and then, as the appalling truth of Rotherham’s words came home to him, shut it again, and seethed in silence. After regarding him sardonically for a moment or two, Rotherham nodded at the attorney, and said: ‘You may now read us the rest of this original document!’

Mr Perrott bowed, and replaced the spectacles on his nose. The Will contained no further surprises, and was listened to without comment. Only at the end of the reading did Rotherham unfold his arms, and stroll over to the desk, holding out an imperative hand. Mr Perrott put the Will into it; the stiff sheets were flicked over; in frowning silence the Marquis studied the fatal clause. He then tossed the document on to the desk, saying: ‘Ramshackle!’ and walked out of the room.

His departure was the signal for the break-up of the party. Mr Perrott, declining Fanny’s civil offer of hospitality, was the first to take leave. He was accompanied out of the library by the new Earl, who desired information on several points, and followed almost immediately by Mr Eaglesham, who was engaged to spend the night with friends in Gloucester; and by Lord Dorrington, who had had the forethought to bespeak dinner at one of his favourite posting-houses, and was anxious lest it should spoil. Fanny soon found herself alone with her father, who, with Spenborough, was remaining at Milverley until the morrow.

She awaited his first words with a fast-beating heart, but these, not surprisingly, were devoted not to her affairs but to Serena’s. ‘An awkward business!’ Sir William said. ‘Quite unaccountable! A strange man, Spenborough!’

She agreed to it, but faintly.

‘One cannot wonder at your daughter-in-law’s vexation, but I should be sorry to see any daughter of mine in such a passion!’

‘Oh, pray do not regard it, Papa! In general, she is so good! But this, coming as it does at
such
a moment, when she is in so much affliction and behaving so beautifully – ! The distressing circumstances, too – her previous connection with Rotherham – the most ungentlemanly language he used. She must be pardoned! She is so good!’

‘You astonish me! Your Mama was much inclined to think her not at all the thing. She has some odd ways! But there, these great ladies think they may behave as they please! I daresay she would tie her garter in public, as the saying goes!’

‘Oh, no, no! Indeed, you misjudge her, Papa! If she is an unusual girl, recollect that to dear Lord Spenborough she was more a son than a daughter!’

‘Ay! It is an unhappy thing for a girl to lose her mother! No more than twelve years of age, was she? Well, well! You are very right, my dear: allowances must be made for her. I am very sensible to it, particularly now, when I should have wished above all things that I could have brought your mother to you!’

Fanny was too much astonished at having her opinion deferred to by him to do more than murmur a confused assent.

‘It is an unfortunate circumstance that she should be lying-in when her presence must have been a comfort to you.’

‘Oh, yes! I mean – that is, it was so kind of her to have spared you to me!’

‘No question of that! I never knew your Mama to give way to crotchets of that kind. Besides, you know, a tenth lying-in is by no means the same thing as a first. One does not make a piece of work over it! She will be sadly disappointed, however, not to receive better news of you than I can carry to her. Not that my hopes were high. After three years, it was scarcely to be expected. A sad pity, upon all counts!’ She hung her head, blushing deeply, and he made haste to add: ‘I don’t mean to reproach you, my dear, however much I must wish it had been otherwise. I daresay Spenborough felt it?’

She replied in so suffocated a voice that only the words ‘always so considerate’ could be distinguished.

‘I am glad to hear you say so. It is no very pleasant thing to know that one’s possessions must pass into the hands of some trumpery cousin – no great thing, the new Earl, is he? – but I hold him to be as much to blame as you. What a freak, to contract inflammation of the lungs while the succession was still unsure! I never knew such improvidence!’ He sounded indignant, but recollected immediately to whom he spoke, and begged pardon. ‘There is no sense in dwelling upon the matter, to be sure. For
your
sake, it is a great deal to be regretted. Your rank must always command respect, but had you been the mother of a son your consequence would have been enhanced beyond anything, and your future decided. As things have fallen out, it is otherwise. I don’t know, Fanny, if you have any thoughts on this head?’

She gathered her forces together, and replied with tolerable firmness: ‘Yes, Papa. I have the intention of removing to the Dower House, with dear Serena.’

He was taken aback. ‘With Lady Serena!’

‘I am persuaded it is what Lord Spenborough would have desired me to do. She must not be deserted!’

‘I imagine there can be no question of that! She has her uncle, and that aunt who brought her out, after all! Spenborough, too, was saying to me this morning that he and my lady hoped she would continue to make this her home. I own, I thought it handsome of him. To be taking a firebrand into one’s family is not what
I
should choose!’

‘Hartley and Jane – Lord and Lady Spenborough, I mean, have been everything that is kind: Serena is fully conscious of it, but she knows it would not do. If you please, Papa, I believe it to be my duty to take care of Serena!’

‘
You
take care of
her
!’ he ejaculated, laughing. ‘I wish I may see it!’

She coloured, but said: ‘Indeed, it is she who has taken care of me, but I am her mother-in-law, and the most proper person to act as her chaperon, sir.’

He considered this, and yielded a reluctant assent. ‘It might be thought so indeed, but at your age – I don’t know what your Mama will say to it! Besides, the young lady, with that fortune at her back, will very soon be snapped up, temper and all!’

‘She has too strong a mind to be taken-in. I don’t fancy she will be married for a little while yet, Papa.’

‘Very true! Nothing of that nature can be contemplated for a year at least. You will keep strict mourning, of course. Your Mama was inclined to think that you should return to Hartland for that period, for however much you may be known as the Dowager Countess, my dear, it cannot be denied that you are by far too young to live alone. We had some notion that when you put off your mourning, and will no doubt be thinking of setting up an establishment of your own, you might take one of your sisters to live with you. But that is to look some way ahead, and I don’t mean to dictate to you! There is something to be said for this scheme of yours, after all. You have been used to be the mistress of a great house, my dear, and you would not like to be living at Hartland again, in the old way. No, I am much disposed to think that you have hit upon the very thing to make all straight! That is, if you believe that you can be comfortable with Lady Serena?’

‘Oh, yes! So
very
comfortable!’

‘Well, I should never have thought it! I only hope she may not get into a scrape. You will be blamed for it, if she does! Her character is unsteady:
that
was plain when she made herself the talk of the town by jilting Rotherham! You were still in the schoolroom, but I well remember what an uproar it caused! I believe the wedding-cards had actually been sent out!’

‘It was very bad, but, indeed, Papa, I honour her for her resolution in drawing back before it was too late! Dear Lord Spenborough wished the match to take place, but nothing, I am persuaded, could have been more ineligible!
He
liked Rotherham because he is such a great sportsman, and such a splendid rider to hounds, and he could never be brought to see that he would be a dreadfully harsh and disagreeable husband! He would have made Serena so unhappy! He is the most hateful man, and takes a delight in vexing her! You must have heard the way he speaks to her – the things he doesn’t scruple to say!’