“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.”

“I know it was a splendid one, but did he care for that? It was not like him!”

“Well, I suppose he must have cared a little, but the thing was that he liked Rotherham, and believed we should suit, because he was an honest man, and there was no flummery about either of us! You know what Papa was, when he had taken a notion firmly into his head! I don’t think anything could have brought him to believe that Ivo was as thankful to be out of a scrape as I was. I never supposed that the pair of them concerted this infamous scheme because Ivo wished to win me back, and as soon as I was cooler, I knew, of course, that Papa would not have done, it to give Ivo an opportunity to be revenged on me.”

“Revenged!”

“Well,” said Serena, reflectively wrinkling her nose, “he has not a forgiving nature, and there’s no denying I did deal his pride the most wounding blow when I cried off. So, when I heard Papa’s Will read, I thought—oh, I don’t know what I thought! I was too angry to think at all. And then I believed that he wouldn’t refuse to act because he meant to punish me for that old slight by using the power he had been given in a malicious way. To own the truth, I thought he would be pleased when he discovered that I had been obliged to sell my horses, but I was quite out! He was very much vexed, and tried to make me believe he could increase my allowance. But I had gone into that with Perrott, and I knew better—which vexed him more than ever! He would certainly have given me a larger allowance, and never told me it was his own money, and you will agree that however improper that may have been it was very kind!”

Fanny said in a wondering tone: “Perhaps he is fond of you, Serena!”

“Yes, when he is not disliking me excessively. I never doubted it,” said Serena coolly. “It is the sort of fondness one has for an old acquaintance, who shares many of one’s ideas and tastes. At the moment, however, I expect dislike has the upper hand. He will come about!”

Nothing was heard of Rotherham until the end of January. The weather continued to be dull, and wet, one leaden day succeeding the last, and exercising a depressive influence on the spirits. Fanny contracted a severe chill, and seemed unable wholly to shake off its effects. She continued very languid, complained of rheumatic pains, and found the days intolerably long. The novelty—for such she had felt it to be—of being mistress of her own house had worn off; and the monotony of the life she was leading made her fretful. The only variations that offered were the occasional visits of neighbours with whom she had nothing in common; and her only amusements were playing cribbage or backgammon with Serena, or going up to the great house to play with Jane’s children. The Countess always had a kind welcome for her, and she could be merry with the children; but a fatal flaw attached to her visits, and caused them to become less and less frequent. She could never be in Jane’s company without being obliged to listen to her complaints of Serena. She knew no way of silencing Jane. “I wish that you would drop Serena a hint,” were words that always made her heart sink. It was not that Jane undervalued Serena, or was not sincerely attached to her, or was unsympathetic. No one, Jane was careful to assure her, in the calm voice of infallibility which so much exasperated Serena, had a greater regard for her, no one could be more certain of her wish to be of use to her cousin, or could more thoroughly appreciate the painful nature of her feelings, but—! Gentle though she was, Fanny would have leapt to Serena’s defence, had she not felt, too often, that Jane had right on her side. As Hartley grew in self-confidence, he naturally depended on his cousin less and less. He inaugurated new customs without consulting her and, since he was inclined to be consequential he contrived—unwittingly, Fanny believed—to convey the impression that he thought his innovations a vast improvement on anything that had been done by his predecessor. Fanny tried to convince Serena that he did not mean to seem to slight her father, but her attempts at peacemaking only drew down the vials of Serena’s wrath upon her own head. Serena, fretting quite as much as Fanny at the boredom of her days, found an outlet for her curbed energy in riding about Milverley, detecting changes (none of them acceptable to her), discovering omissions, and chatting with tenants, or discussing improvements with the bailiff just as she had always done, and so rubbing up against her cousin half a dozen times in a week. To make matters worse, she was far more often right than he; and whereas he, lacking the late Earl’s geniality, was not much liked, she, inheriting it, was loved.

Serena, having more strength of character than Fanny, did not wilt under the trials that beset her, but tried to overcome boredom by throwing herself even more energetically, and much to her cousin’s dismay, into the Milverley affairs. Could she but have found a congenial companion with whom to exchange ideas, she might have refrained, but no such person seemed to exist in the immediate neighbourhood. She became increasingly impatient with Fanny; and the very fact that she seldom allowed her exasperation to appear exacerbated it. There were even days when she felt that she and Fanny conversed in different languages, and that she might almost have preferred to have been cooped up with her aunt. She would have found herself opposed to nearly every one of Lady Theresa’s opinions; but Fanny had no opinions. When Lady Theresa, an accomplished and conscientious correspondent, wrote that Lady Waldegrave was dying of water on the chest, Fanny could be interested, and would discuss the sad news at far greater length than Serena thought necessary; but when lady Theresa informed her niece that retrenchment was all the cry now, and that it was an open secret the Opposition meant to launch an attack on the tax on income which the nation had endured for ten years, some saying that it would be proposed that the two shillings in the pound now exacted should be reduced by as much as half, Fanny had nothing to say beyond a vague: “Oh!” As for Lavallette’s rescue by three British subjects, which, Lady Theresa asserted, was at the moment the only topic to be hotly discussed, she thought an escape very exciting, but never reached the smallest understanding o[ the wider aspects of the case.

Serena was beginning to think that she could even welcome Rotherham in his most quarrelsome mood when the post brought her a letter from him. It informed her in the curtest terms that Probate having at last been obtained, he should call at the Dower House some time during the following week, when he expected to be at Claycross, to explain to her the arrangements which had been made to enable her to draw her allowance as and when she should require it. He was hers, etc., Rotherham.