Bath Tangle

A formal bow, one scorching glance thrown at Serena, and he was gone.

“Oh, dear!” said Fanny, pressing her hands to her temples. “I feel quite sick! And, oh, Serena, we never thought to offer him so much as a glass of ratafia!”

5

It was hardly to be expected, Serena thought, that the several ladies of their acquaintance in the neighbouring district would spare her a description of the Boxing Day Assembly, and greatly did she dread being obliged to listen either to animadversions on Rotherham’s manners, or to bitter criticisms of Lady Laleham’s encroaching ways. But the weather saved her. A week of incessant rain made quagmires of all the roads, and rendered the paying of morning calls ineligible. They were undisturbed by visitors at the Dower House until Spenborough had himself driven there one afternoon to announce to the ladies Jane’s safe delivery of a son.

He was a fond and an excellent father, and could scarcely have been more delighted if the child had been his first son, instead of his fourth. Fanny and Serena tried to say all that was expected of them, and succeeded so well that he found himself very much in charity with them both, and confided to them that the happy event had relieved his mind of considerable anxiety. “For, you know, with the shock of my cousin’s sad death, and all the exertion of disposing of the house, and the bringing of the children to Milverley, there is no saying what might have happened. But Jane is equal to anything!”

They reiterated their congratulations; he beamed, and thanked, and said: “Extremely obliging! I knew you would be glad, and determined you should be the first to be informed of the event. We mean the child to be given the name of Francis, and we hope, Lady Spenborough, that you will consent to be one of his sponsors!”

Fanny, quite pink with pleasure, said that she would be most happy; and Serena, seeing that she was really gratified, determined to forgive Jane for cutting up the South Lawn into a formal flower-garden, and even suggested that Hartley should stay to dine at the Dower House. He needed no persuasion; a message was sent to the stables; another to the kitchen; and he sat down in a wing-chair beside the fire to discuss, over several glasses of sherry, the doctor’s opinion of Jane’s constitution, the midwife’s admiration of her fortitude, and the very diverting things the elder children had said upon being informed that God had sent them a new brother.

It was some time before these topics had been talked out, but at last he could think of no more to say on them. He said that he must not go boring on, complimented Fanny on her cook’s way of dressing a haunch of venison, and suddenly remarked: “So Rotherham took his guests to the Assembly on Boxing Day! I wouldn’t believe it when Dr Cliffe told me so, but it seems to be true enough. I saw Orrell the other day, and he vouched for it. A queer start, wasn’t it?”

“It was a scheme got up for the entertainment of the young people,” said Fanny calmly.

“Ay, so I understand. No harm, of course, but I shouldn’t have thought Rotherham the man to condescend so far. I am not particularly acquainted with him, but he has always seemed to me pretty high in the instep: one of your haughty care-for-nobodies! However, Orrell assures me he was very civil and amiable. That Laleham woman was mightily set up by his standing up with her daughter, and not seeming to care for anyone else, but walking off to the card-room immediately. Orrell says it was a study to look at the faces of the other mamas! But he came back at tea-time, took in his cousin, and afterwards solicited some girl that had no partner to stand up with him, which was thought to be very goodnatured in him, and lowered the Laleham crest a trifle! This Rhenish cream is most excellent. Lady Spenborough: a capital dinner! I shall tell Jane I get nothing so good at Milverley!”

Fanny could not help glancing across the table to see whether Serena partook of her own astonishment. She could detect nothing in her face but a look of approval; and when, after Spenborough had left them, she ventured to ask her if she had not been very much surprised, she received a decided negative.

“You were not? I own, I could hardly credit my ears. I had no notion that he cared so much for your opinion!”

“No, indeed, and nor does he!” Serena answered. “The outcome would have been the same whoever had taken him to task. When he does such things as that it is not from any conscious idea of his own consequence, or a contempt for persons of inferior rank, but from a sort of heedless arrogance, as I told him. He had the misfortune to lose his father when he was still a schoolboy: a most estimable man, I believe. Papa was used to say that everyone stood in great awe of him, because he was such a grand seigneur, but that pride in him didn’t lead him to offend people by any careless manners, but to treat everyone with the same punctilious courtesy. We should have thought him very stiff, I daresay, for he was held to be old-fashioned even when Papa was a young man. But Lady Rotherham was insufferably proud! You never knew her: I assure you, she was so puffed up with conceit and consequence that there was no bearing it: She brought up all three of her children, and in particular, of course, Ivo, to believe themselves so superior that they might behave as they chose, since a Barrasford must be beyond the reach of censure! As for considering the feelings of others, such a notion can never have entered her head! Her selfishness was beyond anything, too! Everything, she thought, must give way to her whims. One cannot wonder at Ivo’s arrogance: the only wonder is that it should be unconscious—not rooted, as it was with her, in conceit! He was never taught to think of anything but his own pleasure, but his disposition is not bad, nor does he mean to offend the sensibilities of others. It is all heedlessness! If he can but be made to see that he has behaved badly, he is sorry for it at once.”

“Oh, Serena! When I am sure he was ready to murder you for having presumed to tell him his conduct was not gentlemanly—!”

“No, no, you are mistaken, Fanny!” Serena said, laughing a little. “He didn’t wish to murder me, but himself! Oh, well, perhaps me, but much more himself! He knew what I said to be true, and that is what wounded his pride, and made him smart so.”

“Do you think so?” Fanny said doubtfully.

“I know it! Don’t imagine that he instantly set about mending the matter because his conduct had given me an ill opinion of him! He did it because it gave him that ill opinion. He has the faults of his mother’s temper, but at the bottom he is more his father’s son than hers. Papa always held to it that with that upbringing, and all the toad-eating “and nonsense that surrounded him when he was by far too young to perceive the folly of it, it said a great deal for his character that he grew up to care so little for pomp and dignity, and of all creatures to dislike most those that flatter him. You will never see Ivo in company with any of the odious hangers-on who fawn on great men, administering all the time to their vanity, you know. He holds such stuff in utter contempt. It was otherwise with his brother. If you had but seen Captain Lord Talbot Barrasford—in all the magnificence of silver lace, for he was a Hussar!—plainly thinking how much his regiment was honoured by his having joined it—! I used to wonder how he contrived to maintain his precious dignity when compelled to quarter himself in some Spanish hovel. Oh, I should not be saying so now, I know! He fell in action, very gallantly, I believe, and if he was not much mourned, at least he must be respected. People say that Augusta was very like him, as a girl. But she had the good fortune to marry Silchester, who is a sensible man, and by the time I was old enough to become acquainted with her she was much as you see her today—with a good deal of Ivo’s unconcern with what people may be thinking, and quite unaffected. I don’t mean to say she does not know her own worth, but it is something she takes for granted, and scarcely thinks about.”

“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.”