Bath Tangle (6 page)

Serena was beginning to think that she could even welcome Rotherham in his most quarrelsome mood when the post brought her a letter from him. It informed her in the curtest terms that Probate having at last been obtained, he should call at the Dower House some time during the following week, when he expected to be at Claycross, to explain to her the arrangements which had been made to enable her to draw her allowance as and when she should require it. He was hers, etc., Rotherham.

‘Oh, good God, still in the sullens!’ exclaimed Serena disgustedly tossing the single sheet on to the fire. ‘And what does he mean by saying coolly that he will call here
some
time next week? If he comes without having the civility first to discover when it will be convenient for us to receive him, Lybster shall say that we are neither of us at home! I will
not
endure his high-handed ways!’

Fanny looked alarmed, but, fortunately for her peace of mind, circumstances made it impossible for this amiable plan to be put into execution. Rotherham drove himself over from Claycross in his curricle, reaching the entrance to the grounds of the Dower House just as Serena, mounted on her mare, approached it from the opposite direction.

Rotherham reined in, and waited for her to come up. She was looking extremely handsome, in a severe black beaver hat of masculine style, with a high crown and a stiffly curled brim, but the expression on her face was decidedly stormy. Perceiving it, Rotherham instantly said: ‘Good-morning, Serena. Who is the latest unfortunate to have incurred your displeasure?’

‘My cousin,’ she replied curtly. ‘It is apparently enough for him to discover that some practice has been the custom at Milverley for years for him to overset it!’

‘I pity him!’ he said.

Her smouldering eyes, which had been running over the points of the two well-matched bays harnessed to his curricle, lifted to his face, and narrowed. ‘Is Lady Spenborough expecting you?’ she demanded. ‘She has not told me so, and I have had no letter from you since the one you wrote to inform me that you were coming to Claycross.’

‘You could hardly have done so, since I have not written another to you.’

‘It would have been more civil in you to have discovered when it would be convenient for us to receive you!’

‘Accept my apologies! It had not occurred to me that you would so soon be filling your days with engagements.’

‘Of course I am not! But –’

‘Have no fear! I do not expect to take up many minutes of your time.’

‘I hope not, indeed, but I am afraid you will be detained for longer than you may have bargained for. I must change out of my habit before I can attend to you. No doubt Lady Spenborough will be found in the drawing room.’

She wheeled the mare, and rode through the gateway. He followed her at his leisure, and within a few minutes was shaking hands with Fanny. She said something about sending to find Serena, and he interrupted her, saying: ‘I met her outside the gate, and the fiend’s own temper she was in. I don’t envy you!’

She replied, with dignity: ‘I am very much attached to Serena, Lord Rotherham.’

‘And resent my sympathy?’

‘I cannot think that you know – or have ever known – how to value her,’ she said, almost trembling at her own boldness.

‘Oh, I know her virtues!’ he responded. ‘She would have been well enough had she ever been broke to bridle.’

She could not trust herself to answer him. A slight pause ensued; he then said, with the abruptness which always disconcerted her: ‘Is she at loggerheads with Spenborough?’

She hesitated. He had picked up a book that lay on the table, and was idly flicking over the pages, but he raised his eyes from it, directing a piercing look at her. ‘Well?’

She was a little flustered by this compelling glance, and the imperative note in his voice. ‘It is often very painful to her. Lord Spenborough means to do right, but he is not always – does not always know how to tell her what he means to do – in a way that won’t offend her!’

‘I can guess! Spenborough’s a fool, and has the misfortune to succeed an excellent landlord.’

‘Indeed, he is fully conscious of that, and also I fear that his people do not like him as they like her!’

‘Inevitable. I told her at the outset to remove from this neighbourhood.’

‘Perhaps she should have done so,’ Fanny said sadly. ‘She is made to feel sometimes that he holds her Papa’s notions cheap. But I am sure he does not mean any such thing!’

‘Pretty well for a man who never came to Milverley but as a guest on sufferance! But it won’t do to bolster Serena up in such ideas as that!’

‘Oh, no, no! Nor would she ever say such a thing to him, or to anyone, except perhaps me! She is most loyal to him. Even when she disapproves of something he has done, and – and is told of it by one of our people – one of
his
people, I should say –’

‘Ay, there’s the rub, eh? You need not tell me she gives ’em no encouragement! I know Serena!’

‘Perhaps,’ said Fanny wistfully, ‘she will grow more accustomed to it, in time.’

‘She will never do so,’ he replied bluntly. ‘How do
you
go on with Hartley and his wife, Lady Spenborough?’

‘They are always very kind and civil, I assure you.’

‘It falls to your lot to keep the peace, does it? You will not succeed, and, I repeat – I don’t envy you!’

She said nothing, wishing that Serena would come in, and wondering how to entertain this uncomfortable guest. No topic of conversation occurred to her; after another pause, she said: ‘Perhaps I should send someone to find Serena. I am afraid something has detained her, or – or –’

He laughed suddenly. ‘No, don’t do that, I beg! Having fallen into her black books for not having craved her permission to call here today, I plunged rather deeper by assuring her that my business would not take up more than a few minutes of her time. This, I fancy, led her to suppose that I was in haste, and so she warned me that I should be kept waiting while she changed out of her habit. Do you care to wager any sum on the length of time she will take over that operation? I will lay handsome odds against the chance of her appearing under half an hour.’

‘Oh, dear!’ she exclaimed, looking more dismayed than amused. ‘Oh,
pray
do not quarrel again!’

‘Against that chance, I lay no odds at all. Are you moped to death here?’

She jumped nervously, startled by the sudden question. ‘Oh – ! No, no! Sometimes, perhaps – the weather has been so inclement! When the spring comes we mean to do great things with the garden. It had been sadly neglected, you know.’

He complimented her upon her show of snowdrops, saying they were more forward than those at Claycross; she was encouraged to pursue the topic; and in the safe discussion of horticulture twenty minutes were successfully spent. The butler then came in to announce that a nuncheon awaited my lady’s pleasure; and Fanny, desiring him to have a message carried to Lady Serena, conducted Rotherham to the breakfast-parlour. He continued to converse amiably with her: she thought she had seldom seen him so affably inclined, and was considerably astonished, since nothing, she felt, could have been more calculated to put him out of temper than Serena’s continued absence. When Serena did at last sweep into the room, she waited, with a fast-thudding heart, for the expected explosion. But Rotherham, rising, and setting a chair for Serena, said, in the voice of a man agreeably surprised: ‘
Why
, Serena, already? I had thought it would have taken you longer! You should not have hurried: there was not the least need!’

One look at Serena’s face had been enough to tell Fanny that she was in a dangerous mood. She quaked; but after a moment, while the issue trembled in the balance, Serena burst out laughing, and exclaimed: ‘Detestable man! Very well! if you are not in quarrelling humour, so be it! What’s the news in town?’

The rest of the visit passed without untoward incident: even, Fanny thought, pleasantly. Serena was lively; Rotherham conversable; and neither said anything to provoke the other. They parted on good terms; and Fanny, perceiving how much good the visit had done to Serena’s spirits, was even sorry that it would not soon be repeated. Rotherham was returning immediately to London, for the opening of Parliament, and was unlikely to be in Gloucestershire again for some time.

The ladies settled down again to the uneventful existence which was their lot, almost the only alleviation to the monotony being the frequent visits of Emily Laleham. Little though she had known it, Serena had for long been the object of Miss Laleham’s awed admiration. As a schoolroom miss, she had had glimpses of her, riding with her father, and had thought that surely no one had ever been more beautiful, or more dashing. She worshipped from afar, wove wonderful stories around her, in which she rescued the goddess from extremely unlikely perils, but never, in her wildest flights, had she imagined herself on terms of quite ordinary friendship with her. But Serena, amused by her ingenuousness, had encouraged her to repeat her visit to the Dower House. She needed no pressing, but thereafter was always finding excuses to call there.

But by the end of February even the mild diversion provided by Emily’s visits came to an end, for the Lalehams removed to London, Lady Laleham being quite unable to endure more than three months in the country. Only the schoolroom party remained in Gloucestershire, a house in the best part of town having been hired by Sir Walter for the season. ‘For my coming-out!’ said Emily proudly.

‘Very kind of Papa!’ smiled Serena.

‘Oh, yes! At least, it is Grandmama’s, of course. I wish she could be there to see me in my Court dress!’

‘Your grandmama doesn’t live in London, I collect?’

‘Oh, no, she lives in Bath! And I love her
dearly
!’ said Emily, in an oddly defiant voice.

March, coming in like a lion, saw Fanny the victim of neuralgia. Jane came to visit her, but this attention was marred by an air of graciousness which conveyed a strong impression of a great lady condescending to her humbler relations. Jane was beginning to assume consequential manners, and was unwise enough to tell Serena that she did not think it quite the thing for her to ride ‘all over the country’ with only a groom for companion. Spenborough could not like it. ‘I told him I would certainly drop a hint in your ear.’

‘Drop one from me in his!’ flashed Serena. ‘That I am not an attorney’s daughter on my preferment!’

The encounter was one of many. Uneasy tension lay between the two houses; there were frequent quarrels; Serena’s temper grew brittle, and several times she snapped at Fanny. Then, one wet afternoon, she found Fanny weeping softly beside the fire in her bedroom, and was aghast.

‘Fanny! Dearest Fanny, what is it?’

‘Oh, nothing, nothing!’ Fanny sobbed, trying to hide her face. ‘Pray, do not – ! I didn’t mean – It is just that I am a little low!’

Serena was on her knees before her, holding her hands comfortingly. ‘It is not like you! I’m sure there must be some reason – Oh, Fanny, it is not because I was cross?’

‘Oh, no! I never meant to vex you, only I am so stupid!’

Filled with remorse, Serena soothed and petted her back to tranquillity. ‘I am the most hateful wretch alive! To turn on you, merely because Hartley had enraged me! I don’t know what I deserve!’

Fanny dried her eyes. ‘It was silly of me. I know how hard it is for you to endure Hartley. And Jane is growing so conceited! Even I feel it, and it is much worse for you to have her behaving as though she had lived at Milverley all her life! Rotherham told me you ought not to live here, and he is quite right.’

‘Much he knows!’ said Serena scornfully.

‘But he does know, Serena. I have seen how much it rubs you, and it’s no wonder! I wish it were possible for us both to go away!’

‘But –’ Serena stopped suddenly. ‘Good God, what a pair of goosecaps we are!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why – oh, why the
devil
don’t we go away? It has been intolerable here ever since Christmas.
You
have been unwell,
I
have been cross, and the plain truth is that we are finding life a dead bore. We
will
go away!’

‘But we could not!’ gasped Fanny. ‘Not to London, while we are in mourning! I know Mama would say I ought not!’

‘Not to London, no! We could very well go to Bath, however.’

Fanny’s eyes widened. ‘Bath?’

‘Yes! And not even your mama will think it improper, because you will go there on the advice of Dr Cliffe, to drink the waters! We will hire a house for six months or so, and if we cannot go to the Assemblies, at least there will be the libraries, and the Pump Room, and –’

‘Serena!’ breathed Fanny, awed.

Serena laughed at her. ‘Well? Shall we do it?’

‘Oh, Serena,
yes
! Milsom Street – the shops – the London coach coming in – the Sydney Gardens – !’

‘And some faces other than our own to look at!’

‘Yes, indeed! Oh, what a delightful scheme! Now,
where
,’ said Fanny, her woes forgotten, ‘should you like to hire a house? And how must we set about it?’

The removal to Bath having been decided upon, nothing remained but to choose between lodgings there, or a furnished house. Fanny, unaccustomed to arranging such matters, would have wasted weeks in indecision, but it was otherwise with Serena. It was she who entered into all the negotiations, she who knew what would best suit them. Fanny had nothing to do but to agree; and if asked what were her own inclinations she could only say that she would like to do whatever Serena thought most proper. So Serena, remarking that to keep five indoor servants in idleness for several months would be a false economy, discarded all ideas of renting lodgings, and dispatched Lybster to Bath to inspect the various houses recommended by the agent. This resulted in Fanny’s signing a contract to hire, for six months, a house in Laura Place, which Lybster pronounced to be the most eligible of all he had seen. By the middle of March all the furniture at the Dower House was shrouded in holland covers, and Spenborough, who had spared no pains to assist the ladies in all the troublesome details of removal (even lending the late Earl’s enormous and antiquated travelling coach for the transport of servants and baggage), was able to heave a sigh of rather guilty relief.

Since Milverley lay only some twenty-five miles from Bath, the ladies accomplished the journey in the barouche. Fanny, fortified on the road by smelling-salts, declared that she had never made a journey more comfortably, and, instead of retiring instantly to bed to nurse a sick headache, was able, on their arrival in Laura Place, not only to inspect the house, but to change her dress for dinner, and to discuss with Serena the exciting news contained in a letter from Lady Theresa, which was found awaiting her. The Princess Charlotte was engaged to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg!

This was just the kind of news which Fanny enjoyed. Nothing could be more interesting than the approaching nuptials of the heiress presumptive to the throne; and when the heiress had already made a considerable stir by breaking her engagement to the Prince of Orange the new contract could not but provide food for a good deal of speculation. Fanny was not acquainted with the Princess, who had been kept very close; but she had met Prince Leopold during the rather premature Peace Celebrations in 1814: indeed, she was sure he had been present at the great rout-party they had given at Spenborough House for so many of the foreign notables. Did not Serena recall a handsome young man in that alarming Grandduchess’s train? She was persuaded he must be all that was most amiable; it was no wonder that the Princess should have preferred him to the Prince of Orange. Did not Serena agree that it must be a love-match?

‘So my aunt informs us,’ said Serena. ‘It seems not to be a match of the Prince Regent’s seeking, at all events. Indeed, it would be wonderful if it were! It may be very romantic – though I thought the young man a trifle dull, myself! – but a Saxe-Coburg can’t be considered any great thing for
such
an heiress! A younger son, too!’

But Fanny insisted that this was even an advantage, since a Prince without a principality would be content to live in England, instead, like the Prince of Orange, of insisting on taking the Princess Charlotte to live for some part of the year in his own domains. As for his being dull, she thought Serena judged too harshly. For her part, she liked his dignified manners, his air of grave reflection; and had felt, on the only occasion when she had met him, that the young Prince of Orange was nothing more than a rattle. And with such an undistinguished face and figure!

To read all the information about Prince Leopold’s career and his manifold perfections which was printed in the various newspapers and journals became one of each day’s first objects for Fanny. However little she might have to say on the subject of Brougham’s extraordinary attack on the Prince Regent, with its disastrous consequences to his Party, she had plenty to say on the shabby nature of the dukedom conferred on Prince Leopold, and perused with painstaking thoroughness all seven Articles of the proposed Marriage Settlement.

Bath was well provided with libraries, and these were considered to be amongst its most agreeable lounges. Most of them provided their subscribers with all the new English and French publications, monthly reviews, and other magazines, all the London papers, and some of the French ones. Fanny divided her patronage between Duffield’s, in Milsom Street, and Meyler & Sons, which conveniently adjoined the Great Pump Room. Here, every morning, she dutifully drank the waters, declaring that she derived immense benefit from them. Serena agreed to this, with suitable gravity, but thought privately that the orchestra, which discoursed music there, the shops in the more modish streets, and the constant procession of new faces, were of even greater benefit to her spirits.

Apart from one or two elderly persons, who had been acquainted either with the first Lady Spenborough, or with Lady Claypole, they had no acquaintance in the town. It was no longer a resort of high fashion, though still a very prosperous and genteel watering-place; and the most notable person to be encountered was Madame D’Arblay, who had been residing there all the winter. Fanny once found herself standing beside her at the ribbon counter in a shop on Gay Street, and was very much awed. The celebrated authoress had bought nothing more uncommon than an ell of black sarsenet ribbon; and nobody, Fanny assured Serena, could have supposed from her manners or her appearance that she had ever done anything out of the common way. Fanny had longed for the courage to introduce herself. ‘For
Evelina
, you know, was quite my favourite book, and I’m sure I was persuaded I could never love any gentleman one tenth as much as I loved Lord Orville!’

‘What a pity you did not tell her so! I daresay she would have been very much pleased,’ Serena said.

‘Yes, but I thought she might have wished me rather to have spoken about her last book,’ said Fanny naïvely. ‘Do you recall that author who dined with us once, and was affronted because your dear papa praised his
first
book, and never said a word about his others? And I couldn’t have talked to Miss Burney about
The Wanderer
, because it was so tedious I gave it up after the first volume!’

Upon their first coming to Bath, Serena had written both their names in the subscription-books at the Lower and the New Assembly Rooms. Fanny was doubtful of the propriety of this, but the worldly-wise Serena said: ‘Depend upon it, my dear, it would be foolish to do otherwise! In such a place as this it never does to offend the susceptibilities of the Masters of Ceremonies. We shan’t, of course, go to the balls, or even to the Card Assemblies, but after we have been in mourning for six months we might, I think, go to the concerts, if we wished.’

Fanny submitted, and soon found that her comfort was increased by the good-will of Mr Guynette of the Lower Rooms, and Mr King of the Upper. Neither of these gentlemen delayed to pay a call of ceremony upon the distinguished ladies in Laura Place, and each rivalled the other in civility. Had the Dowager Countess been as old as Mrs Piozzi, Bath’s latest resident, the visits would have been made; but the zealous gentlemen might not have felt it to be so incumbent upon them to render her so many little attentions, or to keep her so meticulously informed of any item of Bath news. Any Dowager Countess must command respect: one so touchingly youthful, so angelically fair, and with such gentle, unassuming manners might command devotion.

‘Fanny!’ said Serena, much amused by the frequent visits of the rival Masters, ‘if there should be a Mrs King or a Mrs Guynette, which I’m sure I hope there may not be, I shudder to think of the evil passions you must be arousing in their bosoms!’

‘I?’ exclaimed Fanny, startled. ‘Good God, what can you mean?’

Serena laughed at her. ‘Well, how many times have these assiduous gentlemen found it necessary to call in Laura Place? I swear I’ve lost count! There was Mr King, coming to promise you a secluded place if only you could be brought to attend some lecture or other at the Upper Rooms; there was Mr Guynette, bethinking himself that you might not know which are the best stables for your carriage-horses; there was the occasion when –’

‘Serena! Oh,
hush
!’ Fanny cried, blushing and aghast. ‘I’m sure they have both been very kind, but –’

‘Excessively kind! And so attentive! When Mr Guynette ran out of the Pump Room to summon a chair for you on Tuesday, only because three drops of rain had fallen, I began to think that it is you who need a chaperon, not I!’

‘Oh, I know you are funning, but indeed I wish you will not!’ Fanny said, distressed. ‘It would be so very unbecoming in me, and in them, too! And it is all nonsense! They feel it to be their duty to do everything in their power to make
any
visitor’s stay in Bath agreeable!’ A dreadful thought occurred to her; she fixed her innocent blue eyes on Serena’s face, and gasped: ‘Serena! I have not – I have not appeared
fast
?’

‘No, no!’ Serena said soothingly. ‘Just pathetic!’ She perceived that Fanny was seriously discomposed, and added: ‘Goose! I was only quizzing you!’

‘If I thought that I had seemed to be encouraging any gentleman to pay me undue attentions, it would be the most shocking thing, and would destroy all my pleasure in being in Bath!’

Serena reassured her, reflecting, not for the first time, that it was seldom wise to employ a rallying tone with her. The tone of her mind was serious, and she was more prone to be shocked than amused by encounters with more lively spirits. There could be no doubt that her air of youthful helplessness, coupled, as it was, with an ethereal beauty, had awakened chivalry in two middle-aged gentlemen, but Serena refrained from telling her so. Not the most severe critic could suspect her of flirtatiousness; and not for worlds would Serena have destroyed her pleasure in being in Bath.

This was very real. Looking at the shop windows, listening to the orchestra in the Pump Room, walking, on fine days in Sydney Gardens, noting each new face that appeared, speculating on the relationships and identities of the various
habitués
of the Pump Room, seemed to be just what she liked. She was sure the man who always wore a pink flower in his buttonhole must be the brother, and
not
the husband, of the fat woman with the yellow wig. There was a pronounced likeness: did not Serena agree? And had Serena noticed the bonnet with the green feathers which that odd-looking woman who dressed in such an antiquated style was wearing? She had seen it displayed in the window of that milliner’s in Milsom Street only last week, and with the most
shocking
price attached! Serena always returned satisfactory answers, but had she told the truth she would have said that she had never noticed the fat woman in the yellow wig, or the odd-looking woman either.

The fact was that the dawdling life in Bath suited Serena no better than life at the Dower House. Mingled with the ache in her heart for the loss of one who had been more a companion than a father, was a restlessness, a yearning for she scarcely knew what, which found its only relief in gallops over the surrounding countryside. Owing to the steepness of its streets, carriages were not much used in Bath, chairmen supplanting coachmen in the task of conveying ladies to balls and concerts. Fanny had entertained serious thoughts of sending home her barouche, and could not understand the impulse which prompted Serena, morning after morning, to escape from Bath, attended only by her devoted but critical groom, Fobbing, to the surrounding hills. She knew that Serena had a great deal of uncomfortable energy, but she never realized that her more protracted expeditions coincided with the arrival in Laura Place of one of Lady Theresa Eaglesham’s punctual letters; and certainly never suspected that these letters, which seemed to her to be tiresomely full of dull political news, made Serena feel that she had slipped out of the world. To Fanny, the loss of London dinner-parties where little was talked of but a Government crisis, or a victory over the Opposition, was a gain; and she could not conceive what there was to excite interest in the news that the Grenvilles and the Foxites were splitting, in consequence of Brougham’s speech. The fortunes of Whig and Tory were of far less moment to Fanny than the fear that her mama might send her sister Agnes to Bath, to bear her company.

This dread seriously impaired Fanny’s peace of mind, until it became apparent that Lady Claypole’s anxiety for the well-being of her married daughter was not of so urgent a nature as to prompt her either to go to Bath herself at the beginning of the London season, or to send thither a second daughter of rather more than marriageable age. Lady Claypole, with a third daughter straining at the schoolroom leash, would let no consideration interfere with her determination to achieve a respectable alliance for Agnes. She seemed to have abandoned all thought of a brilliant one, but hinted, in a crossed and double-crossed letter, that she cherished hopes of bringing a very worthy man of tolerable substance up to scratch. Fanny sighed over the letter, but was thankful to be spared Agnes’s companionship. An elder and jealous sister, who made up in learning what she lacked in beauty, and might be trusted to keep a censorious eye on her junior, could not add to her comfort. She infinitely preferred the society of her daughter-in-law, however little dependence Mama might place on dear Serena’s discretion. Mama could not approve of Serena. She said that she conducted herself as though the protection of a wedding-ring were hers, and had, at once, too great and too little a notion of her own consequence. Mama had seen her hob-nobbing with quite unworthy persons, as though she thought her rank absolved her from the necessity (indispensable to
every
unmarried female) of behaving with reserve. Mama sincerely trusted she might not draw Fanny into some scrape, and ended her letter with an earnest adjuration to her daughter not to forget what her own situation now was, or what respect was due to the relict of an Earl.

Fanny replied dutifully to this missive, but even as her pen assured Lady Claypole that she misjudged dearest Serena, a feeling of guilt made it tremble into a blot. Something told her that Mama would deeply disapprove of Serena’s latest friendship. Indeed, it could not be denied that Serena was hob-nobbing with a very ungenteel person.