Bath Tangle

Rotherham is something that quite baffles me. Hector!”

“Do you think that Serena is greatly concerned with Emily’s happiness?” he asked slowly. “It seems to me that it is Rotherham’s happiness which interests her.” He took the letter out of her hand, and unfolded it again. “I can’t and I won’t allow them to serve Ivo such a trick! It is unthinkable that he should be twice jilted, and this time for such a Bartholomew baby as Gerard—a silly boy that is half flash and half foolish, and his own ward besides!” He lowered the paper, and looked at Fanny. “If you ask me, my love, Emily might have eloped with Serena’s blessing had Rotherham not been in question! Lord, what a tangle!”

She stared up at him. “But, Hector, it isn’t possible! She told me months before she met you again that she had only once cared for anyone, and that he was you! And when you met—oh, Hector, you cannot doubt that she was in love with you again on that instant!”

He said ruefully: “I did not doubt it any more than I doubted my own feelings, Fanny.”

“Hector, I am persuaded you are mistaken! She could not love Rotherham! As for him, I have never seen a sign that he regretted the breaking of the engagement: indeed, far otherwise! He doesn’t care the snap of his fingers for her—well, has he not shown that he doesn’t, if we had needed showing? He has no tenderness for her, not even solicitude! He—”

“Do you think that Serena desires to be treated with solicitude, Fanny?” he asked, “It has sometimes seemed to me that nothing vexes her more.”

“Oh, no no!” she protested. “Not vexes her! She doesn’t like one to cosset her, but—” She stopped uncertainly. “Well, perhaps—But Rotherham does not even admire her beauty! Do you recall what he said when he dined here, and she was looking quite ravishing? He said she looked like a magpie—and that is precisely the sort of thing he always does say to her! Indeed, I am sure you are refining too much upon what she has written in that letter! Though she does not regret it, I believe she thinks that she didn’t use him well, which is why she must feel it so particularly, now that it seems as though he will be jilted a second time. For, of course, it was quite shocking to have cried off almost at the last moment. I can’t think how she had the courage to do it!”

“She doesn’t lack courage, Fanny,” he replied. He glanced at Serena’s letter again, and then laid it down on the table at Fanny’s elbow. “I suppose she will bring that foolish girl back. If they outwit her—I wonder? But they won’t! To own the truth, I can’t imagine her being outwitted by anyone!” He sighed faintly, but said with determined cheerfulness: “There is nothing to be done, my dear. We can only trust to this man, Goring, to take care of her. I had better leave you. If she returns in time for dinner, as she promises, will you send me word by your footman? If she does not—”

“If she does not,” said Fanny resolutely, “I shall set out myself!”

“Fanny, Fanny!” he said, half laughing. “No, my darling, you will not!”

“I must!” said Fanny tragically. “It is my duty, Hector! I know I shan’t find Serena, but as long as I am not in this house, I can prevaricate, and say I was with her! And I beg of you, Hector, don’t leave me here alone! I know Lord Rotherham will come here, and even when there is nothing on my conscience he puts me in a flutter! He will fix his eyes on my face, and ask me the most stabbing questions, and I shall betray all!”

“But, Fanny—!”

“Don’t—don’t, I implore you, say that I have only to decide what I shall tell him!” Fanny begged. “You must know that I am not at all clever, and when Rotherham bends that look upon me I become utterly bird-witted! Hector, I cannot be your wife, but I shall be your mother-in- law, and you cannot leave me to Rotherham’s mercy!”

He dropped on his knees beside her chair, gathering her hands in his, and kissing them again and again. “Fanny, Fanny, don’t!” he said unsteadily. “If you look at me like that, how can I—? Dearest, most foolish Fanny, there is no reason to think Rotherham will come to Bath today! I ought not to remain! Besides, I can’t keep your footman walking my horse up and down outside for the rest of the day!”

“Tell John to take him back to the stables!” she urged him. “Pray, love, don’t take away your support! If I must remain alone here, wondering what has become of Serena, and thinking every knock on the door to be Rotherham’s, my senses will become wholly disordered!”

He was not proof against such an appeal. He thought it not very likely that Rotherham would arrive in Bath that day, but he remained with Fanny, with a backgammon-board as chaperon.

And Fanny was quite right. Not very long after five o’clock, Lybster opened the drawing-room door, and announced Lord Rotherham.

Fanny was taken by surprise, neither she nor the Major having heard a knock on the street door. She had just lifted a pile of backgammon pieces, and she gave such a violent start that she dropped them, and they went rolling over the floor in several directions. The Major met her agonized look with a reassuring smile, and was near to bursting into laughter, so comical was her expression of dismay.

Rotherham, pausing halfway across the room, glanced keenly from one to the other of them, bent to pick up a piece that had come to rest against his foot, and said: “How do you do? I am afraid I have startled you, Lady Spenborough!”

“No—oh, no!” Fanny said, blushing, and rising to her feet. “That is, yes! I wasn’t expecting to see you! Oh, pray don’t trouble about those stupid pieces!”

He dropped three of them on to the board, and shook hands. “I understand Serena is out,” he said, turning to offer his hand to the Major. “When does she return?”

The look Fanny cast at the Major was eloquent. I told you so! said her eyes. He came at once to the rescue. “It would be a bold man who would dare to prophesy!” he said smilingly. “She has gone off on an expedition, with a party of her friends, and there’s no saying when they will get back to Bath.”

“Where has she gone to?”

To Fanny’s deep admiration, the Major replied without hesitation: “I believe there was some notion of trying to get as far as to the Wookey Hole.”

“I wonder you let her.”

This remark, though it sounded more of a comment than a criticism, shook the Major slightly. Fanny sprang loyally into the breach. “She will be sorry to have missed you. What a pity you did not advise us of your coming to Bath!”

“Oh, she won’t miss me!” said Rotherham. “I’ll wait for her—if I shall not be in your way?”

“No, no, not at all!” said Fanny, in a hollow voice. “Pray, won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you.” He chose a chair opposite to the sofa. “Don’t let me interrupt your game!”

“We had just finished. Do you—do you make a long stay in Bath?”

“I can’t tell. Has Miss Laleham also gone to the Wookey Hole?”

“I don’t know—that is, I forget whether—Oh, I expect she has!” said Fanny, feeling herself being driven into a corner. She knew that that unnerving gaze was fixed on her, and began with slightly trembling hands to put the backgammon-pieces into their box.

“By the by, has my eldest ward been seen in Bath?” asked Rotherham abruptly.

The Major was just in time to catch one of the pieces which, slipping from between Fanny’s fingers, rolled across the board to the edge. “Oh, thank you! So clumsy! G-Gerard, Lord Rotherham? I haven’t seen him. Did you expect to find him here?”

“I wasn’t sure. That’s why I asked you.”

Fanny found herself obliged to look up, and was lost. The compelling eyes held hers, but they were not frowning, she noticed. A rather mocking smile lurked in them. “I accept without question that you haven’t seen him, Lady Spenborough. Has anyone?”

“Are you talking of a boy called Monksleigh?” interposed the Major. “Yes, I’ve seen him. Serena introduced him to me. He said he was staying with friends outside the town.”

“He lied, then. Has he too gone to the Wookey Hole?”

“No, indeed he hasn’t!” Fanny said quickly. “He—he has left Bath, I believe!”

“Oh, my God, why did I never thrust some jumping-powder down his throat while there was still time to cure him of cow-heartedness?” exclaimed Rotherham, in accents of extreme exasperation. He got up abruptly. “He heard I was coming, and fled, did he? I wish you will stop fencing with me, Lady Spenborough! Sooner or later I am bound