Even Fanny could not help laughing at this ingenuous history, although she did not appreciate, as Serena instantly did, the masterly nature of Lady Silchester’s strategy. She wondered at Mrs Monksleigh’s having dared to leave Charlie to his own devices while she came to the Dower House; but it appeared that Mrs Monksleigh had not dared, She had brought him with her, but she had not wished Fanny to be troubled with him, and had prevailed upon Gerard to take charge of him. The carriage had set them both down at Cherrifield Place. Gerard Monksleigh and Edgar Laleham were up at Cambridge together, in the same year and at the same college. Mrs Monksleigh hoped that Lady Laleham would not object to her having sent Charlie with his brother. Serena did not think that she would object to anything that strengthened the connection with Claycross.

They saw no more of the Claycross party until the night of the Assembly, when, to their surprise, Rotherham walked in on them midway through the evening. His satin knee-breeches and silk stockings made Serena exclaim: “Then you did go to the Assembly!”

“I did, and am there now, in the card-room—or so I hope Cordelia may believe!”

She raised her brows. “The bird would not come to hand?”

“On the contrary! But a driven bird, scared into the model of insipid propriety. I stood up for the two first dances with her, and all the conversation I could get out of her was “Oh Lord Rotherham!” and “Oh, yes, Lord Rotherham!” and once, by way of a change, “Exactly so, Lord Rotherham!” So I tried the effect of telling her she was taking the shine out of all the local beauties, but as that elicited nothing more encouraging than “How can you, Lord Rotherham?” I drew no more coverts, but came instead to take formal leave of you and Lady Spenborough. My party breaks up tomorrow, and I must be in London by the end of the week.”

“Good God, Ivo, do you mean to tell me that Emily is the only girl you have honoured with an invitation to dance? Not even your niece, or Susan, or Margaret?” cried Serena, scandalized.

“They would thank you for that suggestion as little as I do.”

“But it was most improper—quite abominable!” she said hotly. “Just what sets people’s backs up! It would have been bad enough to have danced only with the ladies of your own party. That would have made everyone say merely that you were disagreeably haughty! But to single out one girl, and she not of your own party—! Ivo, it is the height of insolence, and a great piece of unkindness to Emily besides!”

“Not at all!” he retorted, with a curling lip. “Her mother did not think so, I promise you!”

“That is worse than all the rest! You know very well what she is! There are no bounds to her ambition! Depend upon it you have now raised the most absurd expectations in her breast, turned that unfortunate child into an object of envy and speculation, all for sport! No, Fanny, I will not be hushed! There is something so particularly displeasing in the whole business! You may argue it as you will, Rotherham, but it was very ill done! I could name you a dozen girls, all, I daresay, at the Assembly tonight, as worthy of your notice as Emily Laleham! But no! You have been playing the great man, condescending to grace a country Assembly—for anything I can tell, though I should be sorry to think it of you, amused to see what a flutter was caused by your mere presence!”

“You need not think it!” he struck in, his cheeks whitened, and a pulse throbbing beside his thinned mouth.

“Indeed, I believe it to be a kind of unthinking arrogance, but it does you no credit, Rotherham! If you went to a public Assembly, you had no choice but to behave with civility towards all! You might have danced with no one, since your excuse for going there was only to indulge your young guests with a ball, but for a whim to single out one girl—and she by far the loveliest!—and then to stroll away, as though you thought yourself above the rest of the company—oh, no, Ivo, how could you? Every feeling is offended!”

“I thank you! You have quite a turn for the high dramatic! No doubt you expect me now to return for the express purpose of conferring upon two or three other damsels the singular honour—if such you do indeed consider it!—of standing up with me!”

“It is what my father would have done in such a situation, for he was most truly the gentleman!” she said, a sob rising in her throat. “I should think the better of you!”

“I care nothing for your opinion of me!” he snapped. “Lady Spenborough, have you any commissions for me to execute in London? I shall be most happy!”

“Oh, none, thank you!” she said faintly.

“Then I will take my leave! Your most obedient servant, ma’am!”

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.”