“Oh, yes! She quite frightened me, at first, with her odd, blunt way of talking, but I have always found her perfectly kind, and have never doubted that she has a heart!”
Serena smiled. “None of the Barrasfords has what is generally meant when people speak of warmheartedness. If you mean, as I collect you do, that Rotherham’s nature is cold, I think I had rather say that it is fiery! He is a hard man, certainly. I shouldn’t turn to him for sympathy, but I have known him to be kind.”
“I suppose, when you were betrothed, he must have been, but—”
“Oh, no, not when he fancied himself to be in love with me! Far from it!” Serena interrupted, laughing. “He would like to be much kinder in the execution of his duty as my Trustee than I could permit!”
“Why, what can you mean? You yourself suspected that the arrangement was made at his instigation!”
“Well, yes, while I was in such a rage, I did,” admitted Serena. “Only, of course, I soon saw that it could not have been. I’m afraid it was poor Papa’s notion of a clever stroke. The match was so much of his making that he could not bear to abandon it.”
“I know it was a splendid one, but did he care for that? It was not like him!”
“Well, I suppose he must have cared a little, but the thing was that he liked Rotherham, and believed we should suit, because he was an honest man, and there was no flummery about either of us! You know what Papa was, when he had taken a notion firmly into his head! I don’t think anything could have brought him to believe that Ivo was as thankful to be out of a scrape as I was. I never supposed that the pair of them concerted this infamous scheme because Ivo wished to win me back, and as soon as I was cooler, I knew, of course, that Papa would not have done, it to give Ivo an opportunity to be revenged on me.”
“Revenged!”
“Well,” said Serena, reflectively wrinkling her nose, “he has not a forgiving nature, and there’s no denying I did deal his pride the most wounding blow when I cried off. So, when I heard Papa’s Will read, I thought—oh, I don’t know what I thought! I was too angry to think at all. And then I believed that he wouldn’t refuse to act because he meant to punish me for that old slight by using the power he had been given in a malicious way. To own the truth, I thought he would be pleased when he discovered that I had been obliged to sell my horses, but I was quite out! He was very much vexed, and tried to make me believe he could increase my allowance. But I had gone into that with Perrott, and I knew better—which vexed him more than ever! He would certainly have given me a larger allowance, and never told me it was his own money, and you will agree that however improper that may have been it was very kind!”
Fanny said in a wondering tone: “Perhaps he is fond of you, Serena!”
“Yes, when he is not disliking me excessively. I never doubted it,” said Serena coolly. “It is the sort of fondness one has for an old acquaintance, who shares many of one’s ideas and tastes. At the moment, however, I expect dislike has the upper hand. He will come about!”
Nothing was heard of Rotherham until the end of January. The weather continued to be dull, and wet, one leaden day succeeding the last, and exercising a depressive influence on the spirits. Fanny contracted a severe chill, and seemed unable wholly to shake off its effects. She continued very languid, complained of rheumatic pains, and found the days intolerably long. The novelty—for such she had felt it to be—of being mistress of her own house had worn off; and the monotony of the life she was leading made her fretful. The only variations that offered were the occasional visits of neighbours with whom she had nothing in common; and her only amusements were playing cribbage or backgammon with Serena, or going up to the great house to play with Jane’s children. The Countess always had a kind welcome for her, and she could be merry with the children; but a fatal flaw attached to her visits, and caused them to become less and less frequent. She could never be in Jane’s company without being obliged to listen to her complaints of Serena. She knew no way of silencing Jane. “I wish that you would drop Serena a hint,” were words that always made her heart sink. It was not that Jane undervalued Serena, or was not sincerely attached to her, or was unsympathetic. No one, Jane was careful to assure her, in the calm voice of infallibility which so much exasperated Serena, had a greater regard for her, no one could be more certain of her wish to be of use to her cousin, or could more thoroughly appreciate the painful nature of her feelings, but—! Gentle though she was, Fanny would have leapt to Serena’s defence, had she not felt, too often, that Jane had right on her side. As Hartley grew in self-confidence, he naturally depended on his cousin less and less. He inaugurated new customs without consulting her and, since he was inclined to be consequential he contrived—unwittingly, Fanny believed—to convey the impression that he thought his innovations a vast improvement on anything that had been done by his predecessor. Fanny tried to convince Serena that he did not mean to seem to slight her father, but her attempts at peacemaking only drew down the vials of Serena’s wrath upon her own head. Serena, fretting quite as much as Fanny at the boredom of her days, found an outlet for her curbed energy in riding about Milverley, detecting changes (none of them acceptable to her), discovering omissions, and chatting with tenants, or discussing improvements with the bailiff just as she had always done, and so rubbing up against her cousin half a dozen times in a week. To make matters worse, she was far more often right than he; and whereas he, lacking the late Earl’s geniality, was not much liked, she, inheriting it, was loved.
Serena, having more strength of character than Fanny, did not wilt under the trials that beset her, but tried to overcome boredom by throwing herself even more energetically, and much to her cousin’s dismay, into the Milverley affairs. Could she but have found a congenial companion with whom to exchange ideas, she might have refrained, but no such person seemed to exist in the immediate neighbourhood. She became increasingly impatient with Fanny; and the very fact that she seldom allowed her exasperation to appear exacerbated it. There were even days when she felt that she and Fanny conversed in different languages, and that she might almost have preferred to have been cooped up with her aunt. She would have found herself opposed to nearly every one of Lady Theresa’s opinions; but Fanny had no opinions. When Lady Theresa, an accomplished and conscientious correspondent, wrote that Lady Waldegrave was dying of water on the chest, Fanny could be interested, and would discuss the sad news at far greater length than Serena thought necessary; but when lady Theresa informed her niece that retrenchment was all the cry now, and that it was an open secret the Opposition meant to launch an attack on the tax on income which the nation had endured for ten years, some saying that it would be proposed that the two shillings in the pound now exacted should be reduced by as much as half, Fanny had nothing to say beyond a vague: “Oh!” As for Lavallette’s rescue by three British subjects, which, Lady Theresa asserted, was at the moment the only topic to be hotly discussed, she thought an escape very exciting, but never reached the smallest understanding o[ the wider aspects of the case.
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 execu
tion. 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—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 n
o 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, coining 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.”
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