Bath Tangle

marriage deplorable. She would have been very much shocked could she have read his mind; quite horrified had she guessed the effect on him of what she had told him of Serena’s life and character. Her words bore out too clearly much that he had begun to realize; and with increasing anxiety he wondered whether Serena could ever be content with the life he had to offer her. But when he spoke of this to her, she looked surprised, and said: “Bored? Dear Hector, what absurdity is in your head now? Depend upon it, I shall find plenty to do in Kent!”

An item of news in the Courier made her ask him one day if he had ever had any thoughts of standing for election to Parliament. He assured her that he had not, but before he well knew where he was she was discussing the matter, making plans, sketching a possible career, and reckoning up the various interests at her command. In laughing dismay, he interrupted her, to say: “But I should dislike it of all things!”

He was relieved to find that she was not, apparently, disappointed, for he had had the sensation of being swept irresistibly down a path of her choosing. “Would you? Really? Then, of course, you won’t stand,” she said cheerfully.

When she talked of her life while he had been in the Peninsula, he was often reminded of Fanny’s words: Serena seemed to be related to so many people. “Some sort of a fifth cousin of mine,” she would say, until it seemed to him that England must be littered with her cousins. He quizzed her about it once, and she replied perfectly seriously: “Yes, and what a dead bore it is! One has to remember to write on anniversaries, and to ask them to dine, and some of them, I assure you, are the most shocking figures! Only wait until I introduce you to my cousin Speen! Fanny will tell you she sat, bouche béante, the first time she ever saw him, at one of our turtle-dinners! He arrived drunk, which, however, he was aware of, and begged her to pardon, informing her as a great secret that he was a jerry-sneak—which the world knows!—and might never be decently bosky when my lady was at home, so that he had determined while she was away never to be less than well to live!”

“An odious little man!” said Fanny, with a shudder. “For shame, Serena! As though you had not better relations than Speen!”

“True! If Hector should not be cast into transports by Speen, I shall take him to stay at Osmansthorpe!” Serena said mischievously. “Have you a taste for the ceremonious, my love? There, his lordship lives, en prince, and since his disposition is morose and his opinion of his own importance immense, the dinner-table is enlivened only by such conversations as he chooses to inaugurate. The groom of the chambers will warn you before you leave your room, however, what subject his lordship wishes to hear discussed.”

“Serena!” expostulated Fanny. “Don’t heed her, Major Kirkby! It is very formal and dull at Osmansthorpe, but not as bad as that!”

“If it is half as bad as that, I would infinitely prefer to make the acquaintance of Cousin Speen!” he retorted. “Must we really set out on a series of visits to all your relations, Serena?”

“By no means!” she answered promptly. “Order me to set them all at a distance, and you will be astonished to see with what a good grace I shall obey you! I should not care a button if I never saw most of them again.”

He laughed, but at the back of his mind lurked the fear that these people, deplorable or dull, formed an integral part of the only life she understood, or, perhaps, could be happy in. When he called in Laura Place one day, expecting to find her fretting at the rain, which had been falling steadily since dawn, and discovered her instead to be revelling in a scandalous novel, the conviction grew on him that the placid existence he had planned for them both would never satisfy her.

She gave him her hand, and one of her enchanting smiles, but said: “Don’t expect to hear a word from my lips, love! I have here the most diverting book that ever was written! Have you seen it? The chief characters in it are for the most part easily recognizable, and it is no great task to guess at the identities of the rest. I have not laughed so much for weeks!”

He picked up one of the small, gilt-edged volumes. “What is it? Glenarvon—and by an anonymous writer. Is it so excellent?”

“Good God, no! It is the most absurd farrago of nonsense! But I prophesy it will run through a dozen editions, because none of us will be able to resist searching either for ourselves or our acquaintance in it. Could you have believed it?—Lady Caroline Lamb is the author? The Lambs are all in it, and Lady Holland—very well hit off, I imagine, from all I have ever heard of her, but Papa disliked that set, so that I was never at Holland House—and Lady Oxford, and Lady Jersey, and poor Mr Rogers, whom she calls a yellow hyena! I must say, I think it unjust, don’t you? Glenarvon, of course, is Byron, and the whole thing is designed as a sort of vengeance on him for having cried off from his affaire with her.”

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “She must be mad to have done such a thing!”

“I think she is, poor soul! Never more so than when she tumbled head over ears in love with Byron! For my part, I was so unfashionable as to take him in instant aversion. How she could have borne with his insufferable conceit, and the airs he put on to be interesting, I know not—though I daresay if one could bear that dreadful Lamb laugh nothing would daunt one! Not but what I am extremely sorry for William Lamb, laugh as he may! If it is true that he stands by her, I do most sincerely honour him. I fancy she meant to portray him in a kindly way, but some of the things she writes of him may well make him writhe. She is so very obliging as to favour the world with what one can only take to be a description of her own honeymoon—so warm as to make poor Fanny blush to the ears! It can’t be pleasant for William Lamb, but it won’t harm him. For she portrays herself, in the character of Calantha, as an innocent child quite dazzled by the world, quite ignorant, wholly trusting in the virtue of every soul she met! Pretty well for a girl brought up in Devonshire House!”

“It sounds to be unedifying, to say the least of it,” the Major said. “Do you like such stuff?”

“It is the horridest book imaginable!” Fanny broke in. “And although I never did more than exchange bows with Lord Byron, I am persuaded he never murdered a poor little baby in his life! As for Clara St Everarde, who followed Glenarvon about, dressed as a page, if she is a real person too, and did anything so grossly improper, I think it a very good thing she rode over a cliff into the sea—though I am excessively sorry for the horse!”

“Observe!” said Serena, much entertained. “It is the horridest book imaginable—but she has read all three volumes!”

“Only because you would keep asking me if I did not think Lady Augusta must be meant for Lady Cahir (and I’m sure I don’t know!) and laughing so much that I was bound to continue, only to see what amused you so!”

The Major, who had been glancing through the volume he held, laid it down distastefully. “I think you have wasted your money, Serena.”

“Oh, I did not! Rotherham sent it to me in a parcel by the mail! I never thought to be so much obliged to him! He says nothing else is being talked of in town, which I can well believe.”

“Rotherham sent it to you?” he ejaculated, as much astonished as displeased.

“Yes, why not? Oh, are you vexed because he has written me a letter?” Serena rallied him. “You need not be! Not the most jealous lover, which I hope you are not, could take exception to this single sheet! He is the worst of letter-writers, for this is all he can find to say to me: My dear Serena, In case it has not come in your way I send you Lady C. Lamb’s latest attempt to set Society by the ears. She succeeds à merveille. Nothing else is talked of. The Lambs hoped to be rid of her at last, but W. Lamb stands firm. By the by, if Glenarvon’s final letter in this singular effusion is a copy of the original, you will agree I am eclipsed in incivility. I have some thoughts of visiting Claycross, and may possibly come to Bath next week, Yours, etc. Rotherham. You will agree that there is nothing to rouse your ire in that,” Serena said, tossing the letter on to the table. “Except,” she added thoughtfully, “that I had as lief he did not come to Bath. He would be bound to discover our secret, my love, and if he should be in one of his disagreeable fits there’s no saying how awkward he might not choose to make it for us. I’ll fob him off.”

“I could wish that you would not!” he replied. “For my part, I would choose to admit him into our confidence, if only that I might have the right to inform him that I am not very much obliged to him for sending you a novel which you describe as “rather warm”!”

“Good God, if that is the humour you are in, I will most certainly fob him off!” she cried. “How can you be so absurd, Hector? Do you believe me to be an innocent Calantha? Rotherham knows better!”

“What?” he demanded sharply.