“Your Papa said that he would have liked him better if he had known any harm of him,” said Fanny dolefully.

This made Serena laugh, but she said: “Very true! He is virtuous and a dead bore! I am sure, the first Carlow to be so. However, my father had known it any time these dozen years, and might, had the matter seriously troubled him, have married again long before you were out of the schoolroom. To suppose that he married you only for the sake of an heir shows you to be a great simpleton. Heavens, will they never bring this carouse to an end? It is a full hour since the carriages returned!”

“Serena! Not a carouse!” Fanny protested. “How can you talk so?”

“To hold a feast over the remains of the departed is a custom that can only disgust any person of sensibility!”

“But, indeed it is only a cold collation!” Fanny said anxiously.

The doors at one end of the room opened softly, and the butler came in, with the intelligence that the funeral party was breaking up, carriages being called for, and Mr Perrott, his late lordship’s attorney, desiring him to carry his respects to my lady, and to ask if it would be convenient to her to receive him presently. Addressing himself to Serena, he volunteered the information that the funeral had been so well attended that several of the humbler mourners had found it impossible to force their way into the church, a circumstance which appeared to afford him consolation. Receiving from Fanny an assurance that she was ready to see Mr Perrott, he withdrew again.

The minutes lagged past. Fanny said faintly: “I don’t know why it should affect one so. The Will must be read, I know, but I wish it were over!”

“For my part, I think it a great piece of work to make!” said Serena. “Such a parade, such stupid formality, which there is not the least occasion for! The only persons who might wish to hear it read are those to whom my father has left private bequests, and they are not invited to be present! It can contain no surprises for you, or for me, or, indeed, for my cousin.”

“Oh, no! It is all my folly—and fearing to vex Papa! From what he said to me, I collect that he and Mama expect me to return home—to Hartland, I mean. He spoke as though it were certain. I said nothing, for there was no time—or perhaps I had not the courage,” she added, with a pitiful little smile.

“Tell me what you wish to do!”

“If it were my duty to return, I would do so,” the widow faltered.

“That does not answer my question! At Hartland, your wishes are of no account; here, surely, it has been otherwise!”

“Yes, indeed it has!” Fanny said, her eyes filling with tears. “It is that which makes me wonder whether it is perhaps naughtiness and self-will which prompts me to think that my first duty now is to you, and not to Papa!”

“If you can’t be comfortable without the assurance that you are doing your duty, let me tell you that my whole dependence is upon you—Mama!” Serena said, her voice prim, but irrepressible humour gleaming in her eyes. “If you are not to take me in charge, what is to become of me? I give you fair warning I won’t live with my Aunt Theresa, or with my Aunt Susan! And even I should hesitate to set up my own establishment without a respectable female to bear me company. Depend upon it, that would mean Cousin Florence! The Carlows and the Dorringtons would be as one in agreeing that the poor creature must be sacrificed.”

Fanny smiled, but said in a serious tone: “I can’t take you in charge, but I can be your chaperon, and although I am very silly I do think it would answer better than for you to be obliged to live with Lady Theresa, or even with Lady Dorrington. And if it is what you would like, dearest Serena, I cannot doubt that it is what your Papa would desire me to do, for he was fonder of you than of anyone.”

“Fanny, no!” Serena said, stretching out her hand impulsively.

“But it is not at all to be wondered at! You are so very like him. So I have quite made up my mind what I ought to do. Only I do hope that Papa will not order me, for it would be so very shocking to be obliged to disobey him!”

“He won’t do so. He must realize, though you do not that you are Lady Spenborough, not Miss Claypole! Moreover—” She stopped, but, upon receiving a look of inquiry, continued bluntly: “Forgive me, but I am persuaded neither he nor Lady Claypole will press you to return to them! With such a numerous family, and your elder sister still unwed—oh, no, they cannot wish for your return!”

“No! Oh, how very right you are!” exclaimed Fanny, her brow clearing. “Agnes, too, would so particularly dislike it, I daresay!”

There was no time for more. The doors were again opened, and a number of funereally clad gentlemen were ushered into the room.

The procession was led by the eldest, and certainly the most impressive of these. Lord Dorrington, whose girth had upon more than one occasion caused him to be mistaken for the Duke of York, was brother to the first Lady Spenborough and from having a great notion of his own importance, and a strong disposition to meddle in other persons’ affairs, had appointed himself to the position of doyen to the party. He came ponderously into the room, his corsets slightly creaking, his massive jowl supported by swathe upon swathe of neckcloth, and, having bowed to the widow, uttering a few words of condolence in a wheezing voice, at once assumed the task of directing the company to various chairs. “I shall desire our good Mr Perrott to seat himself at the desk. Serena, my love, I fancy you and Lady Spenborough will be comfortable upon the sofa. Spenborough, will you take this place? Eaglesham, my dear fellow, if you, and—ah—Sir William, will sit here, I shall invite Rotherham to take the wing-chair.”

Since only Mr Eaglesham attended to this speech, only he was irritated by it. Precedency having been cast overboard, he had entered the library in Lord Dorrington’s ample wake. He was as spare as his lordship was corpulent, and wore the harassed expression which, the unkind asserted, was natural to Lady Theresa Carlow’s consort. Having married the late Earl’s sister, he considered that he had a better right than Dorrington to assume the direction of affairs, but he knew no way of asserting it, and was obliged to content himself with moving towards a chair as far distant as possible to that one indicated by Dorrington, and by muttering animadversions against pretentious and encroaching old popinjays, which were as soothing to himself as they were inaudible to everyone else.

The first in consequence was the last to enter the room, the Marquis of Rotherham, saying: “Oh, go on, man, go on!” thrusting the attorney before him, and strolling into the library behind him.

His entrance might have been said to have banished constraint. The Lady Serena, never remarkable for propriety, stared incredulously, and exclaimed: “What in the world brings you here, I should like to know?”

“So should I!” retorted his lordship. “How well we should have suited, Serena! So many ideas as we have in common!”

Fanny, well accustomed to such exchanges, merely cast an imploring look at Serena; Mr Eaglesham uttered a short laugh; Sir William Claypole was plainly startled; Mr Perrott, who had drawn up the original marriage settlements, seemed to be suddenly afflicted with deafness; and Lord Dorrington, perceiving an opportunity for further meddling, said, in what was meant to be an authoritative tone: “Now, now! We must not forget upon what a sad occasion we are gathered together! No doubt there is a little awkwardness attached to Rotherham’s unavoidable presence here. Indeed, when I learned from our good Perrott—”

“Awkwardness?” cried Serena, her colour heightened, and her eyes flashing. “I promise you, I feel none, my dear sir! If Rotherham is conscious of it, I can only say that I am astonished he should choose to intrude upon a matter which can only concern the family!”

“No, I am not conscious of it,” responded the Marquis. “Only of intolerable boredom!”

Several pairs of eyes turned apprehensively towards Serena, but she was never a fighter who resented a knock in exchange. This one seemed rather to assuage than to exacerbate her wrath. She smiled reluctantly, and said in a milder tone: “Well! But what made you come, then?”

Mr Perrott, who had been engaged in spreading some documents over the desk, gave a little, dry cough, and said: “Your ladyship must know that the late Earl appointed my Lord Rotherham to be one of the Executors of his Will.”

That this intelligence was as unexpected as it was unwelcome was made plain by the widening of Serena’s eyes as she turned them, in a look compound of doubt and disgust, from Rotherham to the attorney. “I might have guessed that that was how it would be!” she said, turning aside in mortification, and walking back to her seat in the window-embrasure.

“Then it is a great pity you did not guess!” said Rotherham acidly. I might then have been warned in time to have declined the office, for which I daresay there could be no one more unsuited!”

She deigned no reply, but averted her face, fixing her gaze once more upon the prospect outside. Her cousin, wearing his new dignities uneasily, was inspired by his evil genius to assume an air of authority, saying in a tone of reproof: “Such conduct as this is quite unbecoming, Serena! Now that the late unhappy event has made me head of the family I do not scruple to say so. I am sure I do not know what Lord Rotherham must be thinking of such manners.”

He brought himself under the fire of two pairs of eyes, the one filled with wrathful astonishment, the other with cruel mockery.