Bath Tangle (20 page)

She rose quickly, and knelt beside him, putting her arms round him. ‘And mine! Oh, Hector, Hector, and mine! Oh, how wicked I have been! For I knew how much I loved you!’

They clung together, her head on his shoulder, his hand holding it there. Her tears fell silently; when she spoke again her voice had a resolute calm. ‘It cannot be, my dearest.’

‘No. I know it. Well for you to be saved from such a contemptible clodpole as I have proved myself to be!’ he said bitterly.

She drew his hand from her cheek, and held it. ‘You must not talk so. Or speak to me of what might have been. We must neither of us think of that ever again. Hector, we
could
not – !’

‘You need not tell me so. In me, it would be infamous!’

‘You will learn to be happy with Serena – indeed, you will, dearest! Just now it seems as though – but we shall grow accustomed, both of us! Where there is no question of
dislike
, one does, you see. I-I
know
that. Serena must never so much as suspect this!’

‘No,’ he said hopelessly.

She could not forbear to put her hand up, lightly stroking his waving fair hair. ‘There is so much in Serena that is true, not a part of your image! Her courage, and her kindness, and her generosity – oh, a thousand things!’ She tried to smile. ‘You will forget you were ever so foolish as to love me, even a little. Serena is cleverer than I am, and so much more beautiful!’

He took her face between his hands, and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Cleverer, and more beautiful, but so much less dear!’ he said, in an aching voice. He let her go. ‘Don’t be afraid! I have been a fool, but I hope I am a man of honour.’

‘I know, oh, I know! You have been a little shocked to find that Serena is not quite what you thought her, but you will recover, and you will wonder at yourself for not having perceived at once how much more worth loving she is than that stupid image you made! And she loves you, Hector!’

He was silent for a moment, staring at his clenched hands, but presently he raised his eyes to Fanny’s again, in a searching, questioning look. ‘Does she?’ he asked.

She was amazed. ‘But, Hector – ! Oh, how can you doubt it, when she has even said she will relinquish her fortune only to please you?’

He sighed. ‘Yes. I was forgetting. But it has sometimes seemed to me – Fanny, are you sure it is not Rotherham whom she really loves?’

‘Rotherham?’ The blankest incredulity sounded in Fanny’s voice. ‘Good God, what makes you think such a thing?’

‘I didn’t think it. But when he came here – afterwards – the suspicion crossed my mind that it was so.’

‘No, no, she could not! Oh, if you had ever heard what she says of her engagement to him you would not entertain such thoughts! They cannot meet without falling out! And he! Did you think he loved her still?’

‘No,’ he said heavily. ‘I saw no sign – it did not occur to me. He made no attempt to prevent our engagement. On the contrary! He behaved to me with a forbearance, indeed, a kindness, which I neither expected nor felt that I deserved! And his own engagement was announced before he knew of Serena’s.’

There was another long silence. Fanny rose to her feet. ‘She doesn’t care for him. Oh, I am sure she could not! It is the feeling for a man who was her father’s friend! If it were so – and you too – !’

He too rose. ‘She shall never, God helping me, know the truth! I must go. How I am to face her I know not! Fanny, I cannot do it immediately! There is some business at home which I should have attended to long since. I’ll go away. Inform her that I called to tell her I had a letter from my agent, that I mean to leave by the mail-coach this afternoon!’ He glanced at the gilded clock on the mantelshelf. ‘It leaves Bath at five o’clock, does it not? I have just time to pack my portmanteau, and to catch it.’

‘It will not do!’ she cried. ‘If you go away like this, what must she think?’

‘I shall come back. Tell her that it is only for a few days! I must have time to collect myself! Just at this moment –’ He broke off, caught her hands, and kissed them passionately, uttering: ‘My darling, my darling!
Forgive
me!’ Then, without another word, or a backward look, he strode quickly out of the room.

When Serena returned to Laura Place, it was nearly three hours later, and Fanny had had time to compose herself. She had fled to the security of her bedchamber as soon as she had heard the front door slam behind the Major, and had given way to uncontrollable despair. The violence of her feelings left her so exhausted that even in the midst of her agitating reflections, she fell asleep. She awoke not much refreshed, but calm, and if her spirits could not be other than low and oppressed and her cheeks wan, there were no longer signs to be seen in her face of a prolonged bout of crying.

Serena came in to find her seated in the window-embrasure, with a book lying open on her knee. ‘Fanny, have you been picturing me kidnapped, or lost, or dead on the road? I am filled with remorse, and why I ever consented to go to Wells with that stupid party I cannot imagine! I might have known it would be too far for comfort or enjoyment! Indeed, I did know it, and allowed myself
and
you to be victimized merely because Emily wanted to go, and could not unless I took her. Or so I thought, but, upon my soul, I fancy Mrs Beaulieu would have accepted her with complaisance even though she had met her but once before in her life! Her good-nature is really excessive: such a parcel of ramshackle people as she had permitted to join the party I never companied with in my life before! I assure you, Fanny, that with the exception of her own family, the Aylshams, young Thormanby, and myself, Mr Goring was the most creditable member of the expedition!’

‘Good heavens, did
he
go with you?’

‘He did, upon Mrs Floore’s suggestion. It was out of my power to refuse to sponsor him, and by the time I had run my eye over the rest of the party I was glad of it! He is not, perhaps, the most enlivening of companions, but he may be depended upon to maintain a stolid sobriety, and his joining us enabled me to dispense with Fobbing’s escort, for which I was thankful! I should have been in disgrace with Fobbing for a week, had he seen our cavalcade! I am well served, you will tell me, for not attending to Hector! He told me how it would be – though I
don’t
think he foresaw that I should spend the better part of my time in Wells in giving set-downs to one dashing blade, and foiling the attempts of another to withdraw me from the rest of the party!’

‘Dearest, how disagreeable it must have been! I
wish
you had not gone!’

‘Yes, so did I! It was a dead bore. We didn’t reach Wells until noon, for in spite of all the fine tales I was told it is a three-hour drive; and we spent four interminable hours there, resting the horses, eating a nuncheon, looking at the Cathedral, and dawdling about the town. And, that nothing might be lacking to crown my day, I allowed Emily to drive to Wells in a landaulet with the young Aylshams and no chaperon to check the sort of high spirits that inevitably attack a party of children of whom not one is over eighteen years of age! By the time she had reached Wells she was by far too full of liveliness for propriety, and ready to maintain an
à suivre
flirtation with the court-card who had ridden close to the landaulet all the way to Wells.’

‘Serena, you did not permit it? For
either
of you to be in a chain with such vulgar persons is shocking!’

‘Exactly so! I formed an instant alliance with the respectable Mr Goring, and between us we kept her under close guard. To do her justice, once away from the wilder members of the party she soon became sober again. But I gave her a tremendous scold on the way home, I promise you!’

‘Did you consider what Lord Rotherham would say to all this?’ Fanny asked, glancing fleetingly at her.

‘It was unnecessary: I knew!
That
was the gist of my scold, and it brought upon me a flood of tears, and entreaties not to tell him, or Mama.’

‘Tears and entreaties! Do you still say that she is not afraid of him, Serena?’

‘No, she is a good deal in awe of him, and I fancy he has frightened her,’ Serena replied coolly.

‘If he has done that, you will scarcely persist in believing that he loves her!’

Serena turned away to pick up her gloves. ‘I have every reason to believe, my dear Fanny, that he loves her
à corps perdu
,’ she said, in a dry voice. ‘Unless I much mistake the matter, it is the violence of his passion which has put her in a fright, not his withering tongue! Of
that
she stands in awe merely, and it is as well she should, for she is too giddy, and too often betrayed into some piece of hoydenish conduct. She was not thrown into a panic by rebuke, I’ll swear! She is too well-accustomed to it. For a man of experience, Rotherham has handled her very ill. If I did not suspect that he has realized it already, I should be strongly tempted to tell him so.’

‘
Serena!
’ Fanny protested, quite scandalized.

‘Don’t distress yourself! I fancy that is why he has not come to Bath to see Emily. No doubt Lady Laleham hinted him away: she at least is clever enough to know that with such a shy little innocent as Emily it would be fatal to set too hot a pace to courtship. I wonder she ever left them alone together except that I collect he was at first careful not to alarm a filly he must have known was as shy as she could stare, ready to bolt at one false move.’ Her lip curled. ‘He’s impatient, but I never knew him to be so on the box or in the saddle. I own, I am astonished that a man with such fine, light hands could have blundered so!’

‘Serena, I do beseech you not to talk in that horrid way!’ broke in Fanny. ‘Emily is not a
horse
!’

‘Filly, my love, filly!’

‘
No
, Serena! And whatever you may choose to imagine, it’s my belief he hasn’t come to Bath because he doesn’t know Emily is here. Recollect that Lady Laleham would not let him set eyes on Mrs Floore for the world! Depend upon it, she has fobbed him off – if it was necessary, which I don’t at all believe! – with some lie.’

‘Rotherham is well aware of Emily’s direction. She received a letter from him yesterday, written from Claycross,’ replied Serena. ‘Lady Laleham found another means of keeping him away from Bath, you see. I don’t doubt he will handle Emily with far more discretion when he meets her again – though I cannot think it wise of him to write, pressing for an early marriage, before he has soothed her maidenly fears. However, I trust I have to some extent performed that office for him.’

‘He is pressing for an early marriage?’ Fanny repeated.

‘Yes, why not?’ Serena said evenly. ‘He is very right, though he had better have seen her first. Once she is his wife, he will very soon teach her not to shrink from his embraces.’

‘How can you? Oh, how can you?’ Fanny exclaimed, shuddering. ‘When you know that she neither loves nor trusts him!’

‘She will rapidly do both. She is amazingly persuadable I assure you!’ Serena retorted. She glanced at the clock. ‘Do we dine at eight? How
tonnish
we become! I must go and make myself tidy. Does Hector dine with us tonight, or is he vexed with me for having flouted his extremely wise advice?’

‘You know he is never vexed,’ Fanny said. ‘But he doesn’t come to us tonight. He called this afternoon, to desire me to tell you that he was obliged to go into Kent for a few days, and meant to catch the mail, at five o’clock.’

‘Good heavens, what a sudden start! Has some disaster befallen?’

‘Oh, no! That is, I did not question him, naturally! But he said something about business which he had neglected, and his agent’s having written to tell him that it had become most urgent.’

‘Oh, I see! Very likely, I daresay. I recall that he told me once that he had come to Bath for a few weeks only. The weeks have turned into months! I hope he will despatch his business swiftly: how moped we shall be without him!’

‘Yes, indeed!’ Fanny agreed. Her voice sounded hollow in her own ears; she fancied Serena had noticed it, and made haste to change the subject. ‘Serena, if Rotherham comes to see Emily – and if he is now at Claycross you cannot doubt that he will! –’

‘I doubt it very much,’ Serena interrupted. ‘I understand he has been there for a fortnight, or more! He has neither visited Emily, nor suggested to her that he should. If you won’t allow my first answer to that riddle to be correct, perhaps he is trying to pique her. How good for him to be kept champing at the bit! I wish I might see it!’

‘Can it be that he has guests staying with him?’ said Fanny.

‘I have not the remotest conjecture, my dear!’ replied Serena. ‘Perhaps, since Lady Laleham is at Cherrifield Place again, he finds her company sufficiently amusing!’

But his lordship, although alone at Claycross, showed no disposition to fraternize with his future mother-in-law. He even omitted to pay her the compliment of leaving cards at Cherrifield Place, a circumstance which made her so uneasy that she bullied Sir Walter into riding over to Claycross to discover whether Rotherham had taken offence at Emily’s prolonged stay in Bath, and to reassure him if he had.

Sir Walter was a man of placid temperament, but he was also strongly opposed to any form of activity that seemed likely to cast the least rub in the way of his quite remarkable hedonism, and he resented this effort to compel him to enter into his wife’s matrimonial schemes. It was his practice to abandon home and children entirely to her management, partly because he was indifferent to both, and partly because argument was abhorrent to him. Having long outlived his fondness for his wife, he spent as little time in her vicinity as was possible, and was inclined to be aggrieved that his only reward for being so obliging as to spend a week under his own roof was to be hunted out on an embarrassing errand.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ declared Lady Laleham acidly, ‘whether you have a spark of affection for your children, Sir Walter!’

He was stung by the injustice of this speech, and replied indignantly: ‘Very pretty talking, upon my soul, when I’ve let you drag me down to this damned lazar-house! If coming to see the brats when they’re covered all over with spots isn’t being affectionate, I should like to know what is!’

‘Have you
no
desire to see your eldest daughter creditably established?’ she demanded.

‘Yes, I have!’ he retorted. ‘It’s a damned expense, puffing her off all over town, and the sooner she’s off my hands the better pleased I shall be.’

‘Expense!’ she gasped. ‘
Your
hands! And who, pray, paid the London bills?’

‘Your mother did, and that’s what I complain of. I’m not unreasonable, and if you choose to persuade the old lady to fritter away a fortune on presentation-gowns, and balls, and the rest of it, I’m not surprised she hasn’t sent me that draft.’

‘Mama has promised to send it when Emily is well again,’ Lady Laleham said, controlling herself with some difficulty.

‘Yes, provided you don’t take the girl away from her! A rare bargain, that! I shouldn’t be surprised if Emily never does get well, and then where shall we be?’

‘What nonsense!’ she said scornfully. ‘Emily shall come home the instant we are rid of these vexatious measles. Mama cannot withhold our daughter from us for ever!’

‘No, but she can withhold her money, which is a deal more to the point! If you weren’t stuffed so full of senseless ambition, Susan, you’d see whether the old lady wouldn’t be prepared to pay us a handsome sum to let her keep Emily for good!’

‘Emily,’ said his wife coldly, ‘will return to us precisely when I desire her to, and she will be married as soon afterwards as Rotherham chooses.’

‘Well, the odds are he won’t choose to marry her at all, if I get a clap on the shoulder, so take care you don’t out-jockey yourself, my lady!’ said Sir Walter.

‘You will not be arrested for debt, if that is what you mean, while your daughter is known to be betrothed to one of the richest peers in the land,’ she replied. ‘If the engagement were to be declared off, it would be another matter, no doubt. You will oblige me, therefore, by going to Claycross, and setting Rotherham’s mind at ease – if any suspicion lurks in it that Emily is reluctant to marry him!’

‘I don’t mind going to Claycross, because Rotherham has a devilish good sherry in his cellars; but if Emily bolted to your mother because she didn’t want to marry Rotherham it stands to reason she’ll come home if he cries off, and as soon as she does that the old lady will hand over the blunt. Which will be all the same to me. In fact, if she don’t like him, I’d as lief she didn’t marry him, for I’ve nothing against her, and I don’t like him myself.’

‘She does like him!’ Lady Laleham said swiftly. ‘She is very young, however, and his ardour frightened her. It was nothing but a piece of nonsense, I assure you! I blame myself for having allowed them out of my sight: it shan’t happen again.’

‘Well, you can make yourself easy on one count: Rotherham won’t cry off.’

‘I wish I might be certain of that!’

Sir Walter shook his head. ‘Ah, it’s one of the things I never could teach you!’ he said regretfully. ‘You will just have to take my word for it: a gentleman, my dear, doesn’t cry off from a betrothal.’

She bit her lip, but refrained from speech. Sir Walter was so much pleased with his triumph that he rode over to Claycross the very next day.

He was ushered into Rotherham’s library twenty minutes after Lord Spenborough, paying a ceremonial visit, had left it: a circumstance which possibly accounted for the expression of impatient boredom on his host’s face. He was accorded a civil, if unenthusiastic, welcome, and for half an hour sat talking of sporting events. Since this was his favourite subject, he might have continued to discuss for the remainder of his visit the form of various race-horses, and the respective chances of Scroggins, and Church, a reputedly tiresome customer, in a forthcoming encounter at Moulseyhurst. But when Rotherham rose to refill the glasses he said: ‘What news have you to give me of Miss Laleham?’

Reminded of his errand, Sir Walter replied: ‘Oh, tol-lol, you know! Better: decidedly better! In fact, she’s fretting to come home.’

‘What prevents her?’

‘Measles. Can’t have the poor girl coming out in spots! However, it won’t be long now! There aren’t any more of them to catch ’em. William was the last – no, not William! Wilfred? Well, I’ve no head for names, but the youngest of them, at all events.’