Bath Tangle (4 page)

‘How can you, Serena?’ protested Fanny.

‘I’m sure I could
not
!’

‘No, pray be serious! I daresay Anne will be quite as pretty as Emily in a year or two, and I do think Emily quite delightfully pretty, don’t you? Only I do hope she may not be persuaded into doing anything she doesn’t quite like.’

‘I’ll tell you what, Fanny: I shouldn’t wonder at it if all this toad-eating is directed to that end! Lady Laleham hopes to jockey you into sponsoring Emily!’

‘Oh, no, surely she could not? Besides, there is no need! She seems to know everyone, and to go everywhere!’

‘Franked by the Lalehams! Yes, but she’s as shrewd as she can hold together, and knows very well she is only tolerated. She is the kind of person one is obliged to invite to a rout-party, but never to a dinner for one’s friends!’

Fanny admitted the truth of this, but said: ‘Yet her manners are not at all vulgar, and she doesn’t precisely toad-eat one.’

‘Her manners have all the tiresome formality of those who dare not unbend for fear of appearing not quite the thing, and her toad-eating is of the most unendurable order of that ancient art! I swear I prefer the truckler to that ridiculous parade of grandeur! “You and I, dear Lady Spenborough…” “A woman of quality’s laugh, as we know, Lady Serena…” Ugh!’

‘Oh, yes, very bad! quite absurd! But I like Emily, do not you? She is such a lively girl, with such natural, confiding manners!’

‘Too easily quelled! It is a study to see her guilt-stricken countenance when Mama’s basilisk eyes admonish her! I will allow her to be both natural and beautiful, but if you have discovered more wit in her than may be stowed in your thimble, and leave room to spare, you have remarkable powers of discernment, my dear!’

‘Ah, but you are so clever, Serena!’ Fanny said simply.

‘I?’ exclaimed Serena incredulously.

‘Oh, yes! Everyone says so, and indeed it is true!’

‘My dear Fanny, what in the world are you at? I have not the smallest pretensions to anything more than common sense!’

‘But you have! You have a well-informed mind, and you always know what to say to people. Why, when the Castlereaghs were staying with us last year, I was quite lost in admiration at the way you contrived to talk to him! When I could think of nothing to say but the merest commonplace!’

‘Good gracious, what nonsense!
That
style of thing, I promise you, is nothing but a trick! You forget how long I have been knocking about the world. When you are as old as I am you will be doing the same.’

‘Oh, no! I never shall be able to,’ Fanny said, shaking her head. ‘I am quite as stupid as Emily Laleham, and I’m sure you must often be quite provoked by me.’

‘Never till this moment!’ Serena declared, with a slightly heightened colour, but in a rallying tone. ‘Good God, if ever I have another suitor I’ll take good care to keep him out of your way! You would make him believe me a blue-stocking, and after that, farewell to my chance of contracting even a respectable marriage!’

That made Fanny laugh, and no more was said. But Serena was shocked to realize how truly she had spoken. Much as she loved the gentle creature, she was sometimes provoked by her simplicity, and often longed for the companionship of someone with wits to match her own.

It was hard, too, to accustom herself to what she thought a dawdling way of living, and harder still to abandon her hunting. That, while she was in deep mourning, she must always have done, but she might, had either Fanny or her cousin shared her passion, have enjoyed some gallops. But Fanny was a very nervous horsewoman, willing to amble with her along the lanes, but cast into an agony of apprehension at the mere suggestion of jumping the smallest obstacle; and Hartley regarded horses as nothing more than a means of getting from one place to another.

She had felt herself obliged to send her hunters to Tattersall’s, retaining only one little spirting thoroughbred mare, which could be stabled at the Dower House. The stables there had not been built to accommodate more than six horses, and although Hartley had politely begged her to consider the Milverley stables as much her own as they had ever been her pride would not allow her to be so much beholden to him. Fanny, knowing what a grief it must be to her, was aghast, but Serena, who could not bear to have a wound touched, or even noticed, said lightly: ‘Oh, fiddle! What’s the use of keeping hunters one can’t ride? I can’t afford to have them eating their heads off, and I know of no reason why my cousin should!’

Shortly before Christmas, they received a visit from Lord Rotherham. One of his estates, not his principal seat, which was situated in quite another part of the country, but a smaller and more favoured residence, was Claycross Abbey, which lay some ten miles beyond Quenbury. He rode over on a damp, cheerless day, and was ushered into the drawing-room to find Serena alone there, engaged, not very expertly, in knotting a fringe. ‘Good God, Serena!’ he ejaculated, checking on the threshold.

She had never been more glad to see him. Every grudge was forgotten in delight at this visit from one who represented at that moment a lost world. ‘Rotherham!’ she cried, jumping up, and going to him with her hand held out. ‘Of all the charming surprises!’

‘My poor girl, you
must
be bored!’ he said.

She laughed. ‘Witness my occupation! To tears, I assure you! I was so extravagant as to send to London for a parcel of new books, thinking to be kept well entertained for at least a month. But having been so improvident as to swallow
Guy Mannering
almost at one gulp – has it come in your way? I like it better, I think, than
Waverley
– I am left with
The Pastor’s Fireside
, which seems sadly flat; a
History of New England
, for which I am not in the correct humour; a most tedious
Life of Napoleon
, written in verse, if you please! and, of all imaginable things, an
Enquiry into Rent
! Fanny has failed miserably to teach me to do tambour-work that doesn’t shame the pair of us, so, in desperation, I am knotting a fringe. But sit down, and tell me what has been going on in the world all this time!’

‘Nothing that I know of. You must have seen that Wellington and Castlereagh carried it against old Blucher. For the rest, the only
on-dits
which have come in my way are that Sir Hudson Lowe has his eye on a handsome widow, and that the Princess of Wales has now taken to driving about the Italian countryside in a resplendent carriage drawn by cream-coloured ponies. Rehearsing an appearance at Astley’s, no doubt. Tell me how you go on!’

‘Oh – tolerably well! What has brought you into Gloucestershire? Do you mean to spend your Christmas at Claycross?’

‘Yes: an unwilling sacrifice on the altar of duty. My sister comes tomorrow, bringing with her I know not how many of her offspring; and my cousin Cordelia, labouring, apparently, under the mistaken belief that I must be pining for a sight of my wards, brings the whole pack down upon me on Thursday.’

‘Good heavens, what a houseful! I wonder you should not rather invite them to Delford!’

‘I invited them nowhere. Augusta informed me that I should be delighted to receive them all, and as for taking Cordelia’s eldest cub into Leicestershire at this season, no, I thank you! I have more regard for my horses, and should certainly prefer Gerard not to break his neck while under my aegis.’

She frowned, and said, with a touch of asperity: ‘It is a pity you cannot be kinder to that boy!’

‘I might be, if his mother were less so,’ he responded coolly.

‘I think it is not in your nature. You have neither patience nor compunction, Ivo.’

‘On
your
tongue the stricture sits oddly, my dear Serena!’

She flushed. ‘I hope that at least I have compunction.’

‘So do I, but I have not seen it!’

Her eyes flashed, but she choked back a retort, saying, after a moment’s struggle: ‘I beg your pardon! You remind me – very properly! – that your conduct towards your wards is no concern of mine.’

‘Good science, Serena!’ he said approvingly. ‘I am now thrown in the close, and shall make no attempt to come up to time. You are at liberty to censure my conduct towards my wards as much as you please, but why waste these remarks on me? Cordelia will certainly drive over to pay you a visit, and will be delighted to learn your opinion of me: it is identical with her own!’

Fanny entered the room as Serena exclaimed: ‘Oh, can we never be for ten minutes together without quarrelling?’

‘I believe it has been rather longer than that, so we may plume ourselves upon the improvement,’ he replied, rising, and shaking hands with Fanny. ‘How do you do? You have no occasion to look dismayed: I came only to pay my respects, and have already stayed too long. I hope you are well?’

She had never known how to reply to such speeches as this, and coloured hotly, stammering that she was so glad – hoped he would stay to dine – they had not expected…

‘Thank you, no! I have no business with Spenborough, and paused here only on my way to Milverley.’

‘You need not vent your anger on poor Fanny!’ Serena said indignantly.

‘I have no compunction!’ he flung at her. ‘My sister spends Christmas at Claycross, Lady Spenborough, and has charged me to discover from you whether you are yet receiving visitors.’

‘Oh, yes! We shall be very happy to see Lady Silchester. Pray, assure her – ! It is most kind!’

He bowed, and took his leave of them. Fanny gave a sigh of relief, and said: ‘I am so thankful! Mrs Stowe tells me that the turbot had to be thrown away, and to have been obliged to have set an indifferent dinner before Lord Rotherham would have made me feel ready to sink!
How
he would have looked! What has put him out of temper?’

‘Must you ask? I did, of course!’

‘Dearest Serena, indeed you should not!’

‘No, I did mean not to quarrel, only I said something severe – Well! it was true enough, but I never thought it would touch him on the raw! I’m sorry for it, but I daresay if we had not quarrelled over that we should have done so over something else.’

‘Oh, dear! But perhaps he won’t visit us again!’ said Fanny hopefully.

Fanny’s hope was soon proved to be ill-founded. Two days later, Serena, who had been walking in the park, returned to the Dower House to find a strange carriage standing in the stableyard. Even as she recognized the crest on the panel, Rotherham came out of the stable, and, after the curtest of greetings, said abruptly: ‘That mare of yours is too short in the back.’

‘Nonsense!’ she replied.

‘I never talk nonsense about horseflesh.’

She laughed, putting back the hood from her bright hair. ‘I have a wager with myself that I will
once
meet you without quarrelling, so let us agree that the mare is by far too short in the back, has weak hocks as well, and very likely a spavin forming.’

A smile glimmered; he said, in a milder voice: ‘Where have you been walking? I should have thought it too dirty a day to lure you out for any other exercise than hunting.’

She stifled a sigh. ‘Don’t speak of hunting! I believe they met today at Normansholt, and have been thinking that the scent must be running breast-high. How comes it that you are not out?’

‘Augusta commanded me to escort her here instead.’

‘I pity you! Is she with Fanny? I must go in.’

He began to walk with her towards the house, the long skirt of his driving-coat of white drab brushing his ankles. ‘Do you continue to stable your other horses at Milverley?’ he demanded.

She hesitated. ‘I might have done so, but no!’

‘Where, then?’

‘Why, the truth is I’ve sold ’em!’ she said lightly.

He looked thunderstruck. ‘Sold them! Good God, am I to understand that your cousin would not house them for you?’

‘By no means! He was perfectly willing to do so, but it would be a great piece of nonsense for me to be keeping half a dozen hunters I can’t use eating their heads off in the stable; and since Jane doesn’t ride I thought it best to be rid of them. Besides, were we not agreed – such an event you cannot have forgotten! – that I cannot, in my present circumstances, afford to maintain a string of hunters?’

He was very much vexed, and said roughly: ‘Don’t talk that stuff to me! Why the devil didn’t you apply to me? If you need money for such a reason as that, you may have it!’

‘Out of
your
pocket, Ivo?’

‘Nonsense! You are a rich woman!’

She was surprised, and a good deal touched. ‘My dear Ivo, I know as well as you do that it is not in your power to contravene the Trust! I am not so bird-witted as you must think me! I had all that out with Mr Perrott long since.’

‘Let me tell you, Serena, that these independent ways of yours are not at all becoming!’ he said angrily. ‘Consulting Perrott – ! There was not the least need!’

She smiled. ‘You have convinced me that there was every need! Thank you, Ivo, but I am persuaded you must perceive how improper it would be for you to be franking me!’

‘No such thing! If I lend you money, be sure I shall keep strict account of it, and expect to be repaid in due course!’

‘Ah, but Papa warned me never to get into the hands of moneylenders!’ she retorted, laughing at him. ‘No, no! Say no more! Indeed, I am not ungrateful, but I don’t care to be behindhand with the world! As for my horses – why, yes! it cost me a pang to part with them, but that is all done with now, and I promise you I don’t repine any more. Pray go in, and tell Lady Silchester that I shall be with her directly! I must not appear in all my dirt!’

She vanished into the house as she spoke; after a scowling moment, he followed her, cast his driving coat and hat on to a chair, and joined his sister and Fanny in the drawing room.

When Serena presently entered the room, she had changed her walking-dress for a robe of clinging black crape, made high to the throat, and relieved only by a little ruff of goffered lawn. The sombre hue seemed to enhance the whiteness of her skin; if Fanny, in her weeds, was ethereally fair, she, with her flaming locks and creamy complexion appeared magnificent.

Lady Silchester, already, though only two years older than her brother, a formidable matron, stared, and exclaimed: ‘Upon my word, Serena, I never saw you looking better!’

‘Do we take that for praise, or censure?’ demanded Rotherham.

‘Oh, you need not try to frown me down! Serena knows I always speak my mind! How do you do, Serena? I am glad to find you and Lady Spenborough so comfortable. Though I daresay you are a trifle cramped. How do your cousins go on at Milverley? I suppose I shall be obliged to call. I fancy I never met Hartley’s wife. Lady Theresa warns me I shall find her to be no great thing. However, I should not wish to be uncivil!’

‘My dear Lady Silchester, if you do not know enough of my aunt at this date – ! Jane is perfectly amiable, I assure you.’

‘Well, I am happy to hear you say so. It would be excessively disagreeable for you to be living so close if she were not. Not that I mean to say it is not the horridest thing, whatever she may be like. I shan’t enlarge on that head, but I feel for you most sincerely, Serena.’

‘Thank you.’

‘The stupid way things have been left, too!’ pursued the lady. ‘Most thoughtless and awkward! I can’t think what Spenborough could have been about! If I have been asked once, I have been asked a dozen times if you and Rotherham mean to make it up. You need not fear! I have told everyone there is no question of that. People are so impertinent!’

‘As you say!’ Rotherham struck in.

‘Oh, you mean
I
am, I suppose!’ she said, quite unmoved. ‘You need not glare at me in that murdering way: I hope I know Serena well enough not to stand on ceremony with her.’

‘Certainly you do!’ replied Serena, amused. ‘Do scotch the rumour! There’s not a word of truth in it.’

‘So Rotherham has been telling me. I’m very glad to know it. Not that I’m not fond of you, my dear, but it would never have done! You have a great deal too much spirit for Rotherham. Lady Spenborough and I were saying only a few minutes ago that nothing but a meek little mouse will do for him.’

‘I am obliged to you both!’ said Rotherham.

Scarlet with confusion, Fanny said, ‘Oh, no! I didn’t – that is, it was Lady Silchester who –’

She was mercifully interrupted by the entrance of a servant, and got up, saying: ‘Oh, to be sure – ! Lady Silchester, you’ll take a nuncheon! Shall we remove into the breakfast-parlour?’

Serena, who was shaking with laughter, said, as the embarrassing guest was shepherded out of the room: ‘I should be sorry for the mouse!’

He grinned ruefully. ‘So should I, indeed! Augusta is abominable!’

They joined the other two in the breakfast-parlour, where a noonday repast of cold meat and fruit had been set on the table; but they had hardly taken their seats when the sound of carriage wheels was heard; and in another few minutes the butler came in to inform Fanny that Lady Laleham and Miss Laleham were in the drawing-room.

Fanny was obliged to excuse herself to her guests. She was surprised that Lybster, in general fully to be relied on, should not have denied her; and when he had closed the parlour door behind her, administered a gentle reproof. But it seemed that he had done his best to exclude the unwanted visitors, saying that he believed my lady to be engaged. He had been overborne. Lady Laleham had begged that a message might be carried to my lady: she would not detain her above a minute. With a sinking heart, Fanny entered the drawing-room.

It was as she had foreseen it would be. Lady Laleham, a handsome, fashionably dressed woman, with very correct manners, and an air of great assurance, had plainly no intention of making her visit a brief one. She came forward, full of apologies and protestations. There was a recipe for pickling pears which she had promised quite a fortnight ago to give to dear Lady Spenborough’s housekeeper. She dared not guess what Lady Spenborough must have been thinking of her. ‘Only, from one cause and another, it went out of my head. I believe you desired to have it immediately, too, which quite covers me with shame! I have it with me here, but felt that a word of explanation was due to you.’

Fanny had no recollection of having expressed a desire to be given the recipe; but she accepted it, with a civil thank-you.

‘I so much dislike persons who make promises only to break them. But I must not keep you! I collect you have friends with you. Did I not see the Rotherham carriage in your yard?’

There was nothing for it but to admit it, and to invite the two ladies to join the party in the breakfast parlour. With only a little show of reluctance, Lady Laleham allowed herself to be persuaded. Fanny believed she had come for no other purpose.

Nothing could have exceeded the lady’s aplomb when she reached the parlour. It was quite unnecessary for Fanny to introduce her.

‘Yes, indeed I am acquainted with Lady Silchester! How do you do? I believe the last time we met was at the Ormesbys’ ball: such a crush, was it not? Ah, Lord Rotherham! Don’t disturb yourself, I beg! It is quite shocking to be invading your party in this unconscionable way, but Lady Spenborough
would
have it so! To own the truth, it falls out very fortunately that I should find you here, for I have been wanting to see you.’

‘Indeed!’ he said, a strong inflexion of surprise in his voice.

‘Yes, for my eldest son informs me that Gerard Monksleigh is quite a particular friend of his, and will be staying with you for Christmas. Nothing will do but that I must get up a little party for these flighty young people! I should like so much to ask Mrs Monksleigh if she will not bring her daughters to it, but how this may be done when I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance I know not, unless you will come to my aid, Lord Rotherham!’

He returned a civil answer, but could not take it upon himself to commit his cousin. Lady Silchester said: ‘The girls want to go to the Assembly at Quenbury. I don’t know how Cordelia Monksleigh likes it for Susan and Margaret, but I’m by no means sure I care to let Caroline go. Serena! What do you think of the scheme? Would you advise it?’

Serena, who had placed Emily Laleham in a chair between her own and Rotherham’s, saw the sparkle in the girl’s big, pansy-soft eyes as they were turned anxiously towards her, and smiled, saying: ‘I never attended the Quenbury Assemblies myself, but I should think there could be no harm in them.’

‘A dead bore,’ said Rotherham. ‘You will meet no one there whom you know, and, unless you have a taste for being toad-eaten, will do better to remain at home.’

‘You are too severe,’ interposed Serena, with a good deal of meaning in her voice.

‘Well, so I would,’ said his sister, ‘but now the girls have taken the notion into their heads it is very hard to know what to do. It is a great pity they can’t dance at Claycross, but with only Elphin and Gerard between the three of them, that won’t answer. As long as there are no waltzes or quadrilles I daresay Silchester would not object to Caroline’s going. Elphin will be there, after all, and if the company should be too mixed he must dance with his sister.’

‘An evening of rare pleasure for both,’ commented Rotherham.

A stifled giggle made him glance down at the enchanting face beside him. A look, half of mischief, half of consternation was cast up at him. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ gasped Emily, in a frightened undervoice.

‘Not at all! When I choose to be witty I like to receive just acknowledgment. Do you mean to go to this Assembly?’

‘Oh, I don’t know! I do
hope
– but I’m not precisely out yet, and perhaps Mama won’t permit me.’

‘What is the significance of being
precisely
out?’

‘Don’t quiz her!’ said Serena, perceiving that she was at a loss to know how to answer. ‘She will be precisely out when she has been presented. When is it to be, Emily?’

‘In the spring. Mama will give a ball!’ she said, in an awed tone. ‘At least,’ she added naïvely, ‘it is Grandmama really, only she won’t come to it, which I think is a great shame.’

Rotherham looked amused, but before he could probe into the mystery of this speech, which Serena feared was his intention, his notice was claimed by Lady Laleham, seated on his left hand.

‘What do you say, Lord Rotherham? Your sister and I find that we share the same scruples, but I fancy I have hit on a scheme to make it unobjectionable for our giddy young people to attend the Assembly. Do you not agree that if we make up our own party between us it will solve the problem?’

‘Certainly,’ he replied.

With this unenthusiastic assent she was satisfied, and began at once to engage Lady Silchester’s co-operation.

Rotherham turned again to Emily, and found her face upturned, quite pink with excitement, her eyes sparkling. ‘Oh,
thank
you!’ she breathed.

‘Are you so fond of Assemblies?’

‘Yes, indeed! That is to say, I don’t know, for I was never at one before.’

‘Not being precisely out. Do you live in Quenbury?’

‘Oh, no! At Cherrifield Place! Don’t you know it? You came by it this morning!’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes, and Mama knew it must be you, because of the crest. We were at the gate, meaning only to walk into the village, but Mama said we would come here instead, because there was a recipe she wished to give Lady Spenborough.’

‘Providential!’

She was puzzled, and, scared by the satirical note in his voice, was stricken to silence. Serena, a trifle unsteadily, said: ‘Well, I hope you will enjoy the Assembly, and have a great many partners.’

‘Within the limits of exclusiveness,’ interpolated Rotherham, meeting her eye.

She frowned at him, knowing him to be quite capable of saying something outrageous enough to be understood by his innocent neighbour. Fortunately, since he met the frown with a bland look she knew well, Lady Laleham, having achieved her object, now judged it to be good tactics to take her leave. Her carriage was called for, and she bore her daughter off, well pleased with the success of her morning’s campaign.

‘I never meet that woman but I smell the shop,’ observed Lady Silchester calmly. ‘I wish I may not be her dear Augusta Silchester hereafter!’

‘You are well served for having been fool enough to have mentioned the Assembly,’ said her brother.