Bath Tangle (3 page)

‘Ay! And I heard her too! A very improper style she uses towards him! Let me tell you, Fanny, that there is something very displeasing in that bold manner of hers! She expresses herself with a freedom I would not tolerate in one of
my
daughters.’

‘She has known him since she was a child – has never stood upon ceremony with him! If she is sometimes betrayed into unbecoming warmth, it is his fault, for so unkindly provoking her! And as for temper, I am sure he has a worse one than hers could ever be!’

‘Well, it’s plain you have a fondness for her, my dear,’ he said indulgently. ‘For my part, I would not be in Rotherham’s shoes at this moment for something! He may think himself fortunate if he comes off without a scratched face, I daresay!’

But when he joined her in the Little Drawing-room, Rotherham found Serena quite composed. He said, as he closed the door: ‘What now? Am I here to be entreated, or abused?’

She bit her lip, but said: ‘You would not be moved by either, I suppose.’

‘Not in the least, but I am quite at your disposal if you wish to continue quarrelling with me.’

‘I am determined not to do so.’

He smiled. ‘
That
resolution will be broken soon enough! What
do
you want, Serena?’

‘I wish you will sit down! Ivo, what is to be done?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You cannot mean to accept the Trust!’

‘Why not?’

‘Good God, one moment’s reflection must be enough to make you see how intolerable it would be! For both of us!’

‘I can see why you should think it intolerable, but why should I find it so?’

‘You don’t want for sense, so I suppose you are trying to provoke me! Can you doubt that the story will be one of the
on-dits
of the town within a week? My Uncle Dorrington will take care of that! Everyone will be talking about it, and laughing at it!’

‘This is a new come-out for you, Serena!’ he said admiringly. ‘You were never used to give a straw for what anyone might say of you!’

She flushed, and looked away. ‘You are mistaken. In any event, to have everyone watching us would be detestable!’

‘Let ’em watch! They will be tired of it by the time you are out of black gloves, and in the meanwhile it won’t worry me.’

‘To have everyone conjecturing?’

‘Lord, Serena, I’ve been food for conjecture any time these dozen years! There have been some very good stories made up about me, too.’

She looked despairingly at him. ‘I know this humour too well to suppose it is of the least use to continue talking. You mean to fob me off by pretending not to understand me.’

‘No, I don’t. I understand you very well, but you’re refining too much upon it. There’s nothing remarkable in my being appointed to be your Trustee: everyone knows I was one of your father’s closest friends, and no one will be surprised that he chose to name me rather than that old fool, Dorrington, or the rasher of wind your aunt married!’

‘No – if it had not been for that wretched engagement!’ she said frankly. ‘
That
is what makes it so intolerable! Papa’s intention is – is
blatant
!’

‘You can console yourself with the reflection that it is I, and not you, who will be a laughing-stock for the vulgar,’ he said grimly.

‘How can you talk so? I promise you, I don’t wish you to be put into such a position!’

‘Don’t waste a thought on it! I’m inured!’

‘Oh, how
odious
you are!’ she exclaimed, with suppressed violence.

‘
That
sounds more like you!’ he said cordially. ‘I thought it would not be long!’

She controlled herself with a strong effort, not lost on him, tightly gripping her hands together in her lap, and clenching her teeth on her lower lip.

‘Take care, Serena! you will go into strong convulsions if you bottle up so much spleen!’

She was always quick to perceive the ridiculous, and gave a gasp. Her eyes did indeed flash a challenge, but her sense of humour got the better of her temper, and she burst out laughing. ‘Oh – ! At least own that you would provoke a saint!’

‘I never tried to.
You
are no saint!’

‘No, alas!’ she sighed. ‘Come! don’t tease me, Ivo,
pray
! Is there
no
way of upsetting that infamous Will?’

‘I should imagine not. I’m no lawyer, however. Consult your father’s attorney! I warn you, he returned no very encouraging answers to your uncles, when they appealed to him. I daresay it might be upset if I were to contravene the Trust, but I shan’t.’

‘If you were to refuse to act – ?’

‘I shan’t do that either. You wouldn’t get control of your fortune if I did, and that’s what you chiefly want, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it is! My father gave me £250 pounds a year for pin-money, and that was very well while he lived, but how the
deuce
am I to support myself on such a sum?’

‘Don’t try to bamboozle me, my girl! Your mother’s fortune was settled on you.’

‘Ten thousand pounds, invested in the Funds! The whole of my income will be less than £700! Good God, Ivo, I daresay Papa must have spent as much on my hunters alone!’

‘Oh, more! He gave a thousand guineas for that flea-bitten gray which carried you so well last season. But you will hardly hunt this year!’

‘This year! No! But am I to be reduced to penury all the days of my life?’ she demanded. ‘What if I should remain a spinster? Has any provision been made for that contingency?’

‘No, none. I looked particularly at the Will to be sure of it,’ he replied. ‘A damned, ill-managed business – but I suppose he thought there was no fear the point would arise.’

‘He has certainly done his best to thrust me into marriage with the first man who is so obliging as to offer for me!’ she said bitterly.

‘You are forgetting something, my love!’

She looked mistrustfully at him. ‘No!
Your
consent must be obtained!’

‘Just so! But make yourself easy! I shan’t withhold it unreasonably.’

‘You would do anything to spite me!’

‘Well, if I do, you will have a very good case against me, and will no doubt be able to break the Trust. Meanwhile, let me give you a piece of advice! If you don’t wish to afford the world matter for gossip, assume the appearance at least of complaisance! How you came to make such a ninnyhammer of yourself, for all those fools to gape at, I know not! Rail at me in private if you choose, but in public behave so that the interested may believe you to be very well-satisfied with the arrangement, and see nothing in it but what is natural and comfortable.’

She was obliged to acknowledge the good sense of this advice. ‘But for the rest – ! How shall I do?
Can
I support myself on so little, Ivo?’

‘You
might
do so on much less, but from what I know of you you would not. But what is all this talk of supporting yourself? You don’t mean to set up your establishment, do you?
That
your father never intended!’

‘No, I don’t – but if I did you could not prevent me! At least I don’t have to win your odious consent for anything but marriage!’

‘You don’t, but if you indulged in any such folly your debts would very soon teach you the unwisdom of flouting my advice,’ he retorted.

Her bosom swelled, but she said nothing.

‘Well, what
do
you mean to do?’ he asked.

‘I shall remain with Lady Spenborough,’ she answered coldly. She discovered that he was frowning, and raised her brows. ‘Pray, have you any objection?’

‘No. No, I’ve no objection. You won’t feel yourself straitened, at all events, while you live under her roof, and
she
has been so handsomely provided for that she may well support you. But – here?’

‘At the Dower House. I perceive that that displeases you! You must be ingenious indeed if you can hit upon a plausible reason to account for your disapproval!’

‘I am not displeased, I don’t disapprove, and if you show hackle again without cause, you may expect to have your ears boxed as they never have been yet – more’s the pity!’ he said savagely. ‘Live where you choose! It’s all one to me. Have you anything more to say?’

‘No, I have not, and I should be very happy to think I need never say another word to you for as long as I live – and of all things in the world there is nothing –
nothing
– so abominable, and contemptible, and cowardly, and ungentlemanly as persons who walk out of the room when one is addressing them!’

He had opened the door, but at that he burst out laughing, and shut it again. ‘Very well! But I warn you I shall give as good as I get!’

‘You need not tell me that! If you don’t disapprove, why did you scowl so?’

‘My habitual expression, possibly. It was unintentional, I assure you. The thought in my mind was merely that it would be better for you to remove from this vicinity. To be situated at the Dower House cannot be anything but painful to you, Serena, believe me!’

She said impulsively: ‘Oh, I
beg
your pardon! But how could I guess you meant nothing but kindness?’

‘A home-thrust!’ he interjected.

‘No, no! I didn’t mean it so! Only, in general – but never mind that! I know it must be painful to remain here, but I think that is the kind of sensibility I ought to overcome. And, you know, Ivo, my cousin is not quite up to the trick!’

‘So I should imagine.’

‘He is a very good sort of a man in his way, and he wishes to do just as he ought, but although he has always been the heir-at-law he was not
bred
to succeed Papa, and I fancy he never expected that it would come to that, so what with that, and Papa’s not liking him above half, he has never been put in the way of things here, and the truth is that he’s not
fit to go
!’

‘What is that to the purpose?’

‘Why, don’t you see? I shall be able to help him in a thousand ways, and to school him a little, and to see that all goes on as it should!’

‘Good God! Serena, take my word for it, you would be very ill advised to undertake anything of the sort!’

‘No, you mistake, Ivo! It was my cousin’s own suggestion! He told me that he hoped I would remain at Milverley, and put him in the way of things. Of course I would never do
that
, but I was a good deal touched, and I don’t doubt I can be just as useful to him if I live with Fanny, at the Dower House.’

‘Nor do I!’ he said, with the flash of a wry grin. ‘If your cousin wants information, let him seek it of your father’s agent!’

‘I daresay he will, but although Mr Morley is an excellent person, he was not bred here, as I was! It is not a
part
of him! Oh – ! I express myself so clumsily, but
you
must surely know what I mean!’

‘I do!’ he said. ‘It is precisely what I meant when I counselled you to remove from this neighbourhood!’

It had been the wish of both Fanny and Serena to have removed themselves from the great house as soon as possible after the funeral; but in the event several weeks elapsed before they at last found themselves installed at the Dower House. This house, which stood on the fringe of the park, and at no great distance from the little town of Quenbury, was a pretty, old-fashioned building, which had been inhabited until some fifteen months earlier by Serena’s elder, widowed aunt. Upon the death of this lady, it had been lived in by an old servant only, the various schemes for its occupation by this or that distant relative having all of them, from one cause or another, fallen through. It was discovered that some repairs and renovations were needed to make it properly habitable. Serena ordered these to be set in hand immediately, forgetting her altered status at Milverley. Her cousin found her in conference with the estate carpenter in the dismantled drawing room at the Dower House, and when they rode back to Milverley together startled her by saying: ‘I am glad you have given your orders to Staines. If I had not been so much occupied yesterday, I should have desired him to come up to see you, and to do whatever you may require of him.’

She felt as though she had received a slap in the face, and gasped. ‘I beg your pardon!’

He assured her very kindly that there was not the least need of apology, but she was deeply mortified, knowing herself to have erred in a way that was most likely to cause resentment. She tried to make further amends; he said that he perfectly understood; reiterated his wish that she would always look upon Milverley as her home; and left her with a strong desire to hasten the preparations for her departure.

But even had the Dower House been ready for instant occupation, it would scarcely have been possible for her to have left Milverley. The task of assembling all her own and Fanny’s personal belongings proved to be a far more difficult and protracted one than she had anticipated. A thousand unforeseen difficulties arose; and she was constantly being applied to by her cousin for information and advice. She could not but pity him. He was a shy, unassuming man, more painstaking than able, who plainly found the unexpected change in his circumstances overwhelming. That he might succeed his cousin he had never regarded as more than a remote possibility; and since the Earl had shared this view, he had never been granted the opportunity to become familiar with all the details of a great estate. He came to it from a far more modest establishment, where he had been living in quiet content with his wife, and his youthful family, and for many weeks felt crushed by the appalling weight of fortune, lands, and title. In Serena’s presence, he had the uncomfortable sensation of being a nonentity, but he was really very grateful to her, and knew that he would have found himself in a worse case without her, since she could always explain the meaning of the mysteries uttered by such persons as agents and bailiffs. With these he had not learnt to be at ease. He knew himself to be under close observation; they assumed that he had knowledge which he lacked; he was afraid to appear contemptible by confessing ignorance; and relied on Serena to make all plain. She thought he would do better when he had his wife beside him, for it appeared, from the many references to Jane’s capabilities, that hers was the stronger character. But the new Countess was not coming to Milverley until their London house had been disposed of. She seemed to be very busy, and scarcely a day passed without her writing to know whether she should sell some piece of furniture, or send it to Milverley; what he wished her to do about the new barouche; whether she should employ Pickford’s to convey all their heavy cases to Milverley; and a dozen other problems of the same nature.

Serena found that she was obliged to spend several days in London. The preparation of the house in Grosvenor Square for its new owner could not be wholly entrusted to servants. Fanny, whom travel always made unwell, shrank from the journey; so Serena, undertaking to execute all her commissions, set out with no other escort than her maid, and in a hired post-chaise. It was a novel experience, all her previous journeys having been made either in her father’s company, or under the direction of a courier, but she was in no way daunted, finding it rather amusing to be paying her own shot at the posting-house in which she spent the night, contracting for the hire of horses and postilions, and ordering her own dinner. But Lady Theresa, whose guest she was, was shocked beyond measure, dared not guess what her father would have said, ascribed it all to her having cried off from her engagement to Rotherham, and recalled with approval her own girlhood, when she had never done so much as walk in the park at Milverley without having her footman in attendance.

It was painful to visit the house in Grosvenor Square under such altered circumstances, and disagreeable to discover that Lady Spenborough had already inspected it from cellars to attics. Serena was thunderstruck when this news was divulged to her by the housekeeper: she had not believed such conduct to be possible. There could be no denying that her ladyship had every right to go to the house, but there was a want of delicacy about the proceeding which gave a disagreeable impression, hard to shake off. It was excused by the Countess herself, who paid a morning-visit at Lady Theresa’s house in Park Street for the express purpose of explaining to Serena the peculiar exigency which had made it necessary for her to go to Grosvenor Square. All was glossed over, in a speech beginning with the words: ‘I daresay you must have wondered a little…’ but although Serena forgave she was unable to forget, and had never been in such sympathy with her aunt as when that lady later described the Countess’s behaviour as encroaching, and such as sank her below reproach. But Lady Theresa was not astonished, for she had never liked Jane. From the outset she had detected beneath the insipid formality of her manners a sort of shabby gentility which had quite given her a disgust of the young woman. She dressed badly, too, had no countenance, and grossly indulged her children.

It was not until November that Fanny and Serena were at last installed at the Dower House. So much preparation and bustle had been attached to the arrival at Milverley of Lady Spenborough and her hopeful family, and so many pinpricks had had to be endured, that Serena was able to agree wholeheartedly with Fanny, when she exclaimed, as they sat down to their first dinner in their new home: ‘Oh, how comfortable this is!’ Wearied out by all the exertions of the past weeks, she believed that she could be happy in her new surroundings, and looked forward with confidence to the future. The sensation of being uncomfortably cooped-up would pass when she grew more accustomed to living in small rooms; it would be amusing to mingle freely with such neighbours as she had previously received only on Public Days; she was sure she should find plenty to do and to be interested in.

Alas for such sanguine hopes! There were more trials to be endured than she had suspected. She had foreseen that the loss of her father’s companionship would be hard to bear, but not that she would find herself pining for things she would have voted, a year earlier, a great bore. In her world, winters were enlivened by visits: one expected to spend a week at Badminton, another at Woburn; one presided over shooting-parties, rode to hounds, and entertained a succession of guests. All this was at an end: she had never dreamed that she could miss it so intolerably. She recalled the many occasions on which she had inveighed against the necessity of inviting this or that person to stay at Milverley, but it would not do: that was the life to which she had been bred, and she could not easily relinquish it. Nor could she cross the threshold of Milverley without suffering a pang. Its occupation by her cousins seemed scarcely less deplorable than the invasion of Rome by the Goths. She knew herself to be unreasonable, and for a long time never confided even to Fanny the burning resentment that consumed her every time the new owners departed from some trivial but time-honoured custom. ‘We think,’ and ‘We prefer,’ were words too often heard on Jane’s tongue, uttered with a calm complacency which was in itself an offence. As for Hartley, it required a real effort for her to maintain friendly relations with anyone so unworthy to succeed her father. She acknowledged his wish to do right, she was aware of the difficulties that confronted him, but when he confessed himself to be no racing man, and divulged that he meant to dispose of his predecessor’s string, she could not have been more shocked if he had declared himself to have become a follower of Mahomet. She was not mollified by his considering it to be his duty to hunt a little: his horsemanship, judged by her standards, did him little credit.

Fanny saw how much she was chafed, and grieved over it, but could not enter into her sentiments. Her changed circumstances exactly suited Fanny. She had never felt herself at home at Milverley; the Dower House was just what she liked. A dining room suitable for the entertainment of no more than six persons, a pretty drawing-room, and a cosy breakfast parlour were infinitely preferable to her than half a dozen huge saloons, leading one out of the other; and the exchange of endless, echoing galleries for two neat halls, one over the other, was to her a gain. To consult with her housekeeper on such questions as how the mutton should be dressed for dinner, or pippins best preserved in jelly; to spend the morning in the stillroom, or in overlooking her linen, was exactly what she liked, and what Serena was no hand at at all. Indeed, Serena knew nothing of such matters. It was natural to her to command; she had reigned over her father’s household to admiration, triumphantly confuting the older ladies who had considered her too young to succeed in such a charge; but her notion of housekeeping was to summon the steward, or the groom of the chambers, and to give him a general direction. Had an ill-chosen dinner ever been sent to table, she would have taken instant steps to ensure that such an accident should not be repeated; but had she been required to compose a menu she would have been as hard put to it to do so as to boil an egg, or make up her own bed. As Fanny had been thankful to leave the reins of government at Milverley in her hands, so was she now content to let Fanny manage all the domestic affairs at the Dower House. She could only marvel that she should enjoy the task, and find so much to interest her in such restricted surroundings. But the more brilliant the parties at Milverley had been the more Fanny had dreaded them. Her disposition was retiring, her understanding not powerful, and her marriage had followed so swiftly on her emergence from the schoolroom that she had come to it with little knowledge of her husband’s world, and none at all of its personalities. Her grace and gentle dignity had supported her through many ordeals, and only she knew what nerve-racking work it had been, during the first months of marriage, to take part in conversations which bristled with elliptical references to events of which she was ignorant, or to persons whom she had never met. To receive a visit from Mrs Aylsham, from the Grange, or to listen to Jane’s anecdotes about her children, suited her very well. Serena could imagine nothing more insipid, and hardly knew how to sit through such sessions without yawning.

The Milverley ladies, though acquainted with most of the neighbouring gentry, had never been intimate with any. The gulf that lay between Milverley and more modest establishments was too great to allow of anything approaching a free exchange of hospitality; and although the 5th Earl had been affable to his neighbours, and Serena meticulous in the observances of civility, it was generally felt that a dinner or an evening party at Milverley called for no reciprocal invitation. On hunting days, if the last point had carried him far from Milverley, it was not unusual for his lordship to take his pot-luck in the house of some hunting-acquaintance. As often as not, he would have his daughter with him, the pair of them muddied to the eyebrows; and no guests, it was agreed, could have been less haughty, or easier to entertain. But after being passed from footman to footman on the way up the Grand Stairway at Milverley, traversing several saloons, being received in the Long Drawing-room by the Lady Serena, and sitting down to his lordship’s notion (genially expressed) of ‘just a neat, plain dinner,’ there were few ladies with minds of so lofty an order that they could contemplate without an inward shudder any formal return of such hospitality.

When the stepmother and daughter took up their residence at the Dower House, a good deal of diffidence was felt by the well-bred; and all but pushing persons of no sensibility waited to see what attitude they would assume towards their neighbours before thrusting upon them civilities which might be unwelcome.

‘With the result,’ said Serena, fully alive to the scruples operating on the minds of the delicate, ‘that we are left to the mercy of the Ibsleys, and that odious Laleham-woman, my dear Fanny! Oh, I must tell you that I came smash up against Mrs Orrell in Quenbury this morning, and taxed her openly with neglect! You know that unaffected way she has! She told me, with
such
a twinkle, that old Lady Orrell had said to her that she hoped she would not be in a hurry to leave cards on us, for
that
would be lowering herself to Lady Laleham’s level! You may imagine how I roared!’

‘Oh, did you tell her how happy we should be to receive her?’

‘To be sure I did! But you would have been shocked, Fanny! We enjoyed a delightful gossip, and made out between us that Lady Laleham’s beginnings must have been wholly vulgar! Don’t eat me! I know how much you affect her society!’

‘Now, Serena – ! You know very well – ! But what is one to do? Sir Walter Laleham’s having been a friend of your dear Papa’s makes it so impossible for us to snub her! I can’t conceive how he came to marry her!’

‘Oh, he was all to pieces, and she had a great fortune, or was a great heiress, or some such thing! I pity her daughters: she has them in complete subjection, and, depend upon it, she means them all to contract brilliant marriages! She may succeed with Emily, but I defy her to foist the freckled one on to anything better than a baronet.’