“You encourage me to think that Emily will be the very wife for Rotherham!” Serena replied. “And if you imagine, my dear, that he will give her any reason to be afraid of him, you are doing him an injustice. Though his manners are not conciliatory, he is, I must remind you, a gentleman!”
No more was said; nor did Emily, walking with Serena in the Sydney Gardens, appear to regret her engagement. In the intervals of exclaiming rapturously at the various amenities of this miniature Vauxhall, she chattered about the parties she had been to in London, and seemed to be full of such items of information as that the Queen had smiled at her upon her presentation, and that one of the Princesses had actually spoken to her.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” Serena asked.
“Oh, yes, indeed! And we went several times to Vauxhall Gardens, and to the theatre, and a Review in Hyde Park, and Almack’s—oh, I am sure we must have been to everything!” Emily declared.
“No wonder you became so worn out!”
“No, for I am not quite accustomed to so many parties. When one is tired, one doesn’t care for anything very much, and—and one gets into stupid humours—Mama says. And I had influenza. Have you ever had it, Lady Serena? It is the horridest thing, for it makes you excessively miserable, so that the least thing makes you cry. But Mama was very kind to me, and she let me come to stay with Grandmama, and, oh, it is so comfortable!”
“I hope you are making a long stay with her?”
At this, the frightened look returned. Emma stammered: “Oh, I wish—I don’t know—Mama said ...”
“Your Mama will be thinking of your bride-clothes soon, no doubt,” Serena said lightly.
“Yes. I mean—Oh, not yet!”
“When is the wedding date to be?”
“I—we—it is not decided! Lord Rotherham spoke of September, but—but I would like not to be married until I am eighteen! I shall be eighteen in November, you know, and I shall know how to go on better, don’t you think?”
“What, because you are eighteen?” Serena laughed. “Will it make such a difference to you?”
“I don’t know. It is only that I seem not to know the things I should, to be a Marchioness, and I think I should try to learn how to be a great lady, and—and if I am not married till November perhaps I may do so.”
“I cannot suppose that Lord Rotherham desires you to be in any way other than you are now, my dear Emily.”
There was no reply to this. Glancing at her, Serena saw that Emily was deeply flushed, her eyes downcast. She said, after a pause: “Do you expect to see Lord Rotherham in Bath?”
The eyes were quickly raised; the colour receded. “In Bath! Oh, no! The doctor said I must not be excited! Mama said she would explain to him. Besides—he must not meet Grandmama!”
“Indeed!” Serena said dryly. “May I ask if he is never to meet Mrs Floore?”
“No, no! I could not endure it!”
“I don’t wish to seem to criticize your mama, Emily, but you are making a mistake. You must not despise your grandmama.”
Emily burst into tears. Fortunately, one of the shady arbours with which the gardens were liberally provided was close at hand, and unoccupied. Having no desire to walk through a public place in company with a gustily sobbing girl, Serena guided Emily into the arbour, commanding her, in stringent accents, to compose herself. It was a little time before she could do this, and when her tears ceased to flow they left her face so much blotched that Serena kept her sitting in the arbour until these traces of emotion had faded. By way of diverting her mind, she asked her if she had enjoyed her visit to Delford. From the disjointed account Emily gave her of this, she gathered that it had not been wholly delightful. Emily seemed to waver between a glorious vision of herself ruling over the vast pile, and terror of its servants. She was sure that the housekeeper held her in contempt; she would never dare to give an order to the steward; and she had mistaken Lady Silchester’s dresser for a fellow guest, which had made Mama cross. Yes, Lady Silchester had been acting as hostess for her brother. She was very proud, wasn’t she? There had been a great many people staying at Delford: dreadfully alarming people, who all looked at her, and all knew one another. There had been a huge dinner-party, too: over forty persons invited, and so many courses that she had lost count of them. Lord Rotherham had said that when next such a dinner-party was held at Delford she would be the hostess.
This was said with so frightened a look up into Serena’s face, the pansy-brown eyes dilating a little, that Serena was satisfied that it was not her bridegroom but his circumstances which had thrown Emily into such alarm. She wondered that Rotherham should not have realized that to introduce this inexperienced child to Delford under such conditions must make her miserably aware of her shortcomings. What could have induced him to have filled his house with exalted guests? He might have guessed that he was subjecting her to a severe ordeal; while as for summoning, apparently, half the county to a state dinner-party, and then telling the poor girl that in future she would be expected to preside over just such gatherings, Serena could think of nothing so ill-judged. Plainly, he had wanted to show off his chosen bride, but he should have known better than to have done it in such a way.
She found that Mrs Floore shared this opinion. She was hugely gratified to know that his lordship was so proud of her little Emma, but thought him a zany not to have realized how shy and retiring she was. Mrs Floore was in a triumphant mood, having routed her daughter in one swift engagement. Unfortunately for Lady Laleham, who wished to remove Emily from her grandmother’s charge as soon as she herself was restored to health, Sir Walter had suffered severe reverses, and these, coupled with the accumulated bills for her own and Emily’s expensive gowns, had made it necessary for her to apply to her mother for relief. Mrs Floore was perfectly ready to send her as much money as she wanted, but she made it a condition that Emily should be left in her charge until her own doctor pronounced her to be perfectly well again. Lady Laleham was obliged to accede to these terms, and Emily’s spirits immediately improved. A suggestion, put forward by her ladyship, that she should join her daughter in Beaufort Square was so bluntly vetoed by Mrs Floore that she did not repeat it.
“Which I knew she wouldn’t,” Mrs Floore told Serena. “She’s welcome to play off her airs in her own house, but I won’t have her doing it in mine, and so she knows! Well, my dear, I don’t deny Sukey’s been a rare disappointment to me, to put it no higher, but there’s a bright side to everything, and at least I have the whip hand of her. Offend me, she daren’t, for fear I might stop paying her the allowance I do, let alone cut her out of my Will. So now we must think how to put Emma in spirits again! I’ll take her to the Dress Ball on Monday, at the New Assembly Rooms, and Ned Goring shall gallant us to it. There’ll be nothing for Sukey to take exception to in that, nor his lordship neither, even if they was to know of it, which there’s no reason they should, because there’s no waltzing, you know, and not even a cotillion on the Monday night balls.”
“But I thought Emily was to be very quiet!” said Serena, laughing. “Was she not knocked up by balls in London?”
“Ay, so she was, but it’s one thing to be going to them night after night, and never in bed till two or three in the morning, and quite another to be going to one of the Assemblies here now and then! Why, they never go on beyond eleven o’clock at the New Rooms, my dear, and only till midnight at the Lower Rooms, on Tuesdays! What’s more, it won’t do the poor little soul any good to be hipped, and to sit moping here with only me for company! I’ll take her to the next Gala night at the Sydney Gardens, too, which is a thing I’ve never done yet, because this is the first time she’s visited me during the summer. I’ll be bound she’ll enjoy watching the fireworks, and so I shall myself.”
Serena, looking at that fat, jolly countenance, did not doubt it. Mrs Floore was in a rollicking humour, determined to make the most of her beloved granddaughter’s visit. “For it’s not likely she’ll ever stay with me again,” sh
e said, with a sigh. “However, she shall do what the doctor tells her she should, never fear! And one thing he says is that she mustn’t sit cooped up within doors this lovely weather, so if you would let her go walking with you sometimes, my lady, it would be a great kindness, and what she’d like a deal better than driving in the landaulet with me, I daresay, for that’s mighty dull work for a girl.”
“Certainly: I shall be glad of her company,” Serena replied. “Perhaps she would like to ride with me.”
This suggestion found instant favour with Mrs Floore, who at once made plans for the hire of a quiet hack. Emily herself was torn between gratification at being asked to ride with such a horsewoman as Lady Serena, and fear that she might be expected to leap all sorts of obstacles, or find herself mounted on a refractory horse. However, the animal provided for her proved to be of placid, not to say sluggish, disposition, and Serena, knowing her limitations, took her for just the sort of expeditions that would have suited Fanny. Whenever opportunity offered, she did her best to instruct Emily in the duties of the mistress of a noble household; but the questions shyly put to her by the girl, and the dismay which many of her answers provoked, did not augur very well for the future. She supposed that Rotherham, himself careless of appearances, disliking the formality that still obtained in many families of ton, was indifferent to Emily’s ignorance of so much that any girl of his own rank would have known from her birth.
August came, and still Emily remained in Bath. To any impartial observer, she seemed quite to have regained her bloom, but Mrs Floore, looking her physician firmly in the eye, said that she was still far from well. He was so obliging as to agree with her; and upon Emily’s happening to give a little cough, shook his head, spoke of the unwisdom of neglecting coughs, and prescribed magnesia and bread-pudding as a cure.
Major Kirkby, finding that he was frequently expected to squire Emily as well as Serena, told Fanny that he was in a puzzle to discover what there was in the girl to endear her to Serena. A pretty little creature, he acknowledged, but gooseish. Fanny explained that it was all kindness: Emily had always looked up to Serena, and that was why Serena took pity on her. But the Major was not satisfied. “That is all very well,” he objected, “but she seems to believe herself to be in some sort responsible for Miss Laleham! She is for ever telling her how she should conduct herself in this or that circumstance!”
“I wish she would not!” Fanny said impulsively. “I would like Emily to conduct herself so awkwardly as to give Lord Rotherham a disgust of her, for I am persuaded she will be miserable if she marries him! How Serena can fail to see that, I know not!”
“I don’t think Serena cares for that,” he said slowly. “She appears to me to be wholly bent on training Miss Laleham to make Rotherham a conformable wife. I can tell you this, Lady Spenborough: she does not mean this engagement of his to be broken off.”
“But what concern is it of hers?” cried Fanny. “Surely you must be mistaken!”
“I asked her very much that question myself. She replied that it had been no very pleasant thing for him when she jilted him, and she would not for the world have him subjected to another such slight.”
Fanny looked very much surprised, but when she had thought it over for a minute, she said: “She has known him all her life, of course, and no matter how bitterly they quarrel they always seem to contrive to remain on terms with each other. But it is very wrong of her to interfere in this! I don’t believe Emily wants to marry Rotherham. She would not dare to tell Serena so, I daresay, and Serena takes care not to leave her alone with me, because she knows what my feelings are on that head.”
He smiled. “So if Serena interferes in one direction, you would be happy to do so in the other?”
“Oh, no, no! Only if Emily confided in me—if she should ask my advice—I would counsel her most strongly not to marry a man for whom she feels no decided preference! A man, too, so much older than herself, and of such a harsh disposition! She cannot be aware—even if he were as kind, as considerate as—” Her voice failed; she turned away her head, colouring painfully.
Unconsciously, he placed his hand over hers, as it lay on the arm of her chair, and pressed it reassuringly. It seemed to flutter under his. After a moment, it was gently withdrawn, and Fanny said, a little breathlessly: “I should not have spoken so. I don’t wish you to think that I was not most sincerely attached to Lord Spenborough. My memories of him must always be grateful, and affectionate.”
“You need say no more,” he replied, in a low voice. “I understand you perfectly.” There was a brief pause; then he said, with a resumption of his usual manner: “I am afraid you must sometimes be lonely now that Serena is so often with her tiresome protégée. I have a very good mind to give her a scold for neglecting you!”
“Indeed, you must do no such thing! I assure you, she doesn’t neglect me, and I am not at all lonely.”
It was true. Since she had emerged from her strict seclusion she had never lacked for company, and had by this time many acquaintances in Bath. She received and returned morning visits, attended one or two concerts, dined out several times, and even consented to appear at a few select rout-parties. She felt herself adventurous indeed, for she had never before gone alone into society. Before her marriage, she had dwelt in her mother’s shadow; after it, in her husband’s, or her stepdaughter’s. She was too well-accustomed to every sort of social gathering to feel the want of support, and only one circumstance marred her quiet enjoyment of Bath’s mild social life. Protected as she had been, she had never learnt how to hold her many admirers at a distance. She was not naturally flirtatious, and an elderly and fond husband, who knew his world, had taken care not to expose her to the temptations of fashionable London. Would-be cicisbeos, throwing out lures, had made haste to seek easier game after encountering one look from my Lord Spenborough; and Fanny had continued in serene unconsciousness that she was either sought or guarded. But so young and so divinely fair a widow exercised a powerful fascination over the susceptible, and she soon found herself in small difficulties. A shocked look was enough to check the advances of her more elderly admirers, but several lovelorn youths seriously discomposed her by the assiduity of their attentions, and their apparent determination to make her and themselves conspicuous. Serena would have known just how to depress pretensions, but Fanny lacked her lightness of touch, and, moreover, could never bring herself to snub a young gentleman who bashfully presented her with an elegant posy, or ran all over town to procure for her some elusive commodity which she had been heard to express a wish to possess. She believed that her circumstances protected her from receiving unwanted proposals, and comforted herself with the thought that the more violent of her adorers were too young to nourish serious intentions. It came as a severe shock to her, therefore, when Mr Augustus Ryde, the son of an old acquaintance of her mother’s, so far forgot himself as to cast himself at her feet, and to utter an impassioned declaration.
He had gained admittance to her drawing-room by offering to be the bearer to Fanny of a note from his gratified parent. He found Fanny alone, looking so pretty and so fairy-like in her clinging black robe and veil, that he lost his head. Fanny, having read Mrs Ryde’s note, said: “Excuse me, if you please, while I write an answer to Mrs Ryde’s kind invitation! Perhaps you will be so obliging as to deliver it to her.” She made as if to rise from her chair, but was prevented by Mr Ryde’s throwing himself on to his knees before her, and imploring her to hear him.
Startled, Fanny stammered: “Mr Ryde! I beg you—get up! You forget yourself! Oh, pray—!”
It was to no avail. Her hands were seized, and covered with kisses, and upon her outraged ears fell a tumultous torrent of words. Desperate attempts to check this outpouring were unheeded, possibly unheard. Mr Ryde, not content with laying his heart at her feet, gave her an incoherent account of his present circumstances and future expectations, swore eternal devotion, and declared his intention of plunging into the Avon if denied hope. Perc
eiving that she shrank back in alarm, shocked tears in her eyes, he begged her not to be frightened, and contrived to get an arm round her slim waist.
Into this ridiculous scene walked Major Kirkby, unannounced. He checked on the threshold, considerably astonished. One glance sufficed to put him in tolerably accurate possession of the facts. He trod briskly across the floor, as the disconcerted lover turned a startled face towards him, and Fanny gave a thankful cry. A hand grasping his coat-collar assisted Mr Ryde to rise swiftly to his feet. “You had best beg Lady Spenborough’s pardon before you go,” said the Major cheerfully. “And another time don’t come to pay a morning visit when you’re foxed!”
Confused, and indignant, Mr Ryde hotly refuted this suggestion, and tried somewhat incoherently to assure both Fanny and the Major of the honourable nature of his proposal. But Fanny merely hid her scarlet face in her hands, and the Major propelled him to the door, saying: “When you are five years older you may make proposals, and by that time you will know better than to force your attentions upon a lady whose circumstances should be enough to protect her from annoyance. Take yourself off! If you oblige me to escort you downstairs, I shall do so in a way you won’t care for.”
With these damping words, he pushed Mr Ryde out of the room, and shut the door upon him. “Stupid young coxcomb!” he remarked, turning again into the room. Then he saw that Fanny was by no means inclined to laugh the matter off, but was, in fact, excessively distressed and agitated, and he went quickly towards her, exclaiming in concern: “You must not take it so to heart! The devil! I wish I had kicked him downstairs!”
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