She tried to overcome her emotion, but as fast as she wiped the tears from her cheeks her eyes filled again. The novelty of the experience had upset her as much as its impropriety. She was trembling pitiably, and as pale as she had before been red. “How could he? How could he insult me so?” she sobbed.
“It was very bad, but he didn’t mean to insult you!” the Major assured her. To be sure, he deserves to be flogged for impertinence, but it was nothing more than a silly boy’s infatuation!”
“Oh, what must my conduct have been to have allowed him to suppose that such dreadful advances could be welcome to me?” wept Fanny. “Not one year widowed, and this—! I never dreamed—it never occurred to me—”
“No, no, of course it did not!” said the Major soothingly, dropping on one knee in precisely the spot vacated by Mr Ryde, and taking the widow’s hand in a comforting clasp. “You are not to be blamed! Your conduct has been irreproachable! Don’t—! I can’t bear to see you so unhappy, my—Lady Spenborough!”
“I beg your pardon—it is very silly!” Fanny choked, making heroic efforts to compose herself, and succeeding only in uttering a stifled sob. “I didn’t know how to stop him, and he kept on kissing my hands, and saying such things, and frightening me so! Indeed, I am very sorry to be so foolish! I am s-so very in-much obliged to you for s-sending him away! I can’t think w-what I should have done if you had not c-come in, for he—oh. Major Kirkby, he actually put his arm round me! I am so much ashamed, but indeed I never gave him the least encouragement!”
At this point, the Major, going one better than Mr Ryde, put both his own arms round the drooping figure, cradling it protectively, and saying involuntarily: “Fanny, Fanny! There, my darling, there, then! Don’t cry! I’ll see to it the young cub doesn’t come near you again! There’s nothing now to be frightened of!”
Quite how it happened, neither knew. The outraged widow, finding an inviting shoulder so close, sank instinctively against it, and the next instant was locked in a far more alarming embrace than she had been subjected to by the unlucky Mr Ryde. The impropriety of it did not seem to strike her. Her heart leaped in her bosom; she clung tightly to the Major; and put up her face to receive his kiss.
For a long moment they stayed thus, then, as though realization dawned simultaneously on each of them, Fanny made a convulsive movement to free herself, and the Major’s arms dropped from about her, and he sprang up, exclaiming: “Fanny! Oh, my God, my God, what have I done?”
They stared at one another, pale as death, horror in their faces. “I—I beg your pardon!” the Major stammered. “I didn’t mean—Oh, my darling, what are we to do?”
The colour came rushing back to her cheeks; so tender a glow shone in her eyes that it was all he could do not to take her back into his arms. But she said in a constricted voice:
“You were only trying to comfort me. I know you did not mean—”
“Fanny, Fanny, don’t say it! We could not help ourselves!” he interrupted, striding over to the window, as though he dared not trust himself to look at her. “The fool that I have been!”
Such bitter anguish throbbed in his voice that she winced, and bowed her head to hide a fresh spring of tears. A long silence fell. Fanny surreptitiously wiped her eyes, and said faintly: “It was my fault. You must forget—how silly I was. I don’t regard it. I know you cannot have meant it.”
“I think I must have loved you from the moment I saw you.”
“Oh, no, no! Hector, think what you are saying! You love Serena! All these years you have loved her!”
“I have loved a dream. A sickly, sentimental dream which only a moonstruck fool could have created! The vision I cherished—it was not of Serena! She was never like it!”
“No, not like your dream, but better by far!” she said quickly,
“Yes, better by far! She is a grand creature! I admire her, I honour her, I think her the most beautiful woman I ever beheld—but I do not love her!”
She pressed a hand to her temple. “How can this be? Oh, no it is not possible! It could not be!”
“Do you believe me to be mad?” he asked, coming away from the window. “How can I make you understand?” He sat down opposite to her, and dropped his head into his hands. “It wasn’t madness, but folly! When I knew her first—oh, I was head over ears in love with her! as ridiculous an object, I suppose, as that wretched boy I found with you just now! Separated from her, joining my regiment, as I did in the Peninsula, seeing no women other than camp-followers and Spanish peasants for months, there was nothing to banish Serena’s image from my memory. It was not enough to remember her: insensibly I laid coat upon coat of new and more dazzling paint upon my image! Her face I could not alter; her self I did! Perhaps I never knew it!” He looked up, a painful smile twisting his lips. “Were you ever given laudanum for an aching tooth, Fanny? Enough to make you believe your dreams were real? That was what Serena’s image was to me. Then—I met her again.” He paused, and sank his head in his hands again, and groaned. “Her face, more lovely even than I remembered it! her smiling eyelids, the music in her voice, her witchery, the very grace of her every movement—all, all as I had remembered them! I was in love again, but still in that insane dream! The woman beneath what blinded my eyes was a stranger to me. My image I had endowed with my own thoughts, my own tastes: Serena and I have scarcely a thought in common, and our tastes—” He broke off, with a mirthless laugh. “Well, you must know how widely divergent they are!”
“I know that you have sometimes been surprised—even disappointed, but you have been happy! Surely you have been happy?” Fanny said imploringly.
“I have been happy because of you,” he replied. Today I know that. I did not before. I was like a man dazzled by strong sunlight, and when my eyes grew accustomed, and I saw a landscape less perfect than I had imagined it, I shut them. I didn’t think it possible that my feeling for Serena could change. That you were the woman I loved I never knew until I had you in my arms, and realized that to let you go would be to tear the heart out of my chest.”
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, docs 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.
16
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 blue 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 suivie 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 C
laycross,” 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 dispatch his business swiftly: how moped we shall be without him!”
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