“You need not tell me so. In me, it would be infamous!”

“You will learn to be happy with Serena—indeed, you will, dearest! Just now it seems as though—but we shall grow accustomed, both of us! Where there is no question of dislike, one does, you see. I—I know that. Serena must never so much as suspect this!”

“No,” he said hopelessly.

She could not forbear to put her hand up, lightly stroking his waving fair hair. “There is so much in Serena that is true, not a part of your image! Her courage, and her kindness, and her generosity—oh, a thousand things!” She tried to smile. “You will forget you were ever so foolish as to love me, even a little. Serena is cleverer than I am, and so much more beautiful!”

He took her face between his hands, and looked deep into her eyes. “Cleverer, and more beautiful, but so much less dear!” he said, in an aching voice. He let her go. “Don’t be afraid! I have been a fool, but I hope I am a man of honour.”

“I know, oh, I know! You have been a little shocked to find that Serena is not quite what you thought her, but you will recover, and you will wonder at yourself for not having perceived at once how much more worth loving she is than that stupid image you made! And she loves you, Hector!”

He was silent for a moment, staring at his clenched hands, but presently he raised his eyes to Fanny’s again, in a searching, questioning look. “Does she?” he asked.

She was amazed. “But, Hector—! Oh, how can you doubt it, when she has even said she will relinquish her fortune only to please you?”

He sighed. “Yes. I was forgetting. But it has sometimes seemed to me—Fanny, are you sure it is not Rotherham whom she really loves?”

“Rotherham?” The blankest incredulity sounded in Fanny’s voice. “Good God, what makes you think such a thing?”

“I didn’t think it. But when he came here—afterwards—the suspicion crossed my mind that it was so.”

“No, no, she could not! Oh, if you had ever heard what she says of her engagement to him you would not entertain such thoughts! They cannot meet without falling out! And he! Did you think he loved her still?”

“No,” he said heavily. “I saw no sign—it did not occur to me. He made no attempt to prevent our engagement. On the contrary! He behaved to me with a forbearance, indeed, a kindness, which I neither expected nor felt that I deserved! And his own engagement was announced before he knew of Serena’s.”

There was another long silence. Fanny rose to her feet. “She doesn’t care for him. Oh, I am sure she could not! It is the feeling for a man who was her father’s friend! If it were so—and you too—!”

He too rose. “She shall never, God helping me, know the truth! I must go. How I am to face her I know not! Fanny, I cannot do it immediately! There is some business at home which I should have attended to long since. I’ll go away. Inform her that I called to tell her I had a letter from my agent, that I mean to leave by the mail-coach this afternoon!” He glanced at the gilded clock on the mantelshelf. “It leaves Bath at five o’clock, docs it not? I have just time to pack my portmanteau, and to catch it.”

“It will not do!” she cried. “If you go away like this, what must she think?”

“I shall come back. Tell her that it is only for a few days! I must have time to collect myself! Just at this moment—” He broke off, caught her hands, and kissed them passionately, uttering: “My darling, my darling! Forgive me!” Then, without another word, or a backward look, he strode quickly out of the room.

16

When Serena returned to Laura Place, it was nearly three hours later, and Fanny had had time to compose herself. She had fled to the security of her bedchamber as soon as blue had heard the front door slam behind the Major, and had given way to uncontrollable despair The violence of her feelings left her so exhausted that even in the midst of her agitating reflections, she fell asleep. She awoke not much refreshed, but calm, and if her spirits could not be other than low and oppressed and her cheeks wan, there were no longer signs to be seen in her face of a prolonged bout of crying.

Serena came in to find her seated in the window-embrasure, with a book lying open on her knee. “Fanny, have you been picturing me kidnapped, or lost, or dead on the road? I am filled with remorse, and why I ever consented to go to Wells with that stupid party I cannot imagine! I might have known it would be too far for comfort or enjoyment! Indeed, I did know it, and allowed myself and you to be victimized merely because Emily wanted to go, and could not unless I took her. Or so I thought, but, upon my soul, I fancy Mrs Beaulieu would have accepted her with complaisance even though she had met her but once before in her life! Her good-nature is really excessive: such a parcel of ramshackle people as she had permitted to join the party I never companied with in my life before! I assure you, Fanny, that with the exception of her own family, the Aylshams, young Thormanby, and myself, Mr Goring was the most creditable member of the expedition!”

“Good heavens, did he go with you?”

“He did, upon Mrs Floore’s suggestion. It was out of my power to refuse to sponsor him, and by the time I had run my eye over the rest of the party I was glad of it! He is not, perhaps, the most enlivening of companions, but he may be depended upon to maintain a stolid sobriety, and his joining us enabled me to dispense with Fobbing’s escort, for which I was thankful! I should have been in disgrace with Fobbing for a week, had he seen our cavalcade! I am well-served, you will tell me, for not attending to Hector! He told me how it would be—though I don’t think he foresaw that I should spend the better part of my time in Wells in giving set-downs to one dashing blade, and foiling the attempts of another to withdraw me from the rest of the party!”

“Dearest, how disagreeable it must have been! I wish you had not gone!”

“Yes, so did I! It was a dead bore. We didn’t reach Wells until noon, for in spite of all the fine tales I was told it is a three-hour drive; and we spent four interminable hours there, resting the horses, eating a nuncheon, looking at the Cathedral, and dawdling about the town. And, that nothing might be lacking to crown my day, I allowed Emily to drive to Wells in a landaulet with the young Aylshams and no chaperon to check the sort of high spirits that inevitably attack a party of children of whom not one is over eighteen years of age! By the time she had reached Wells she was by far too full of liveliness for propriety, and ready to maintain an à suivie flirtation with the court-card who had ridden close to the landaulet all the way to Wells.”

“Serena, you did not permit it? For either of you to be in a chain with such vulgar persons is shocking!”

“Exactly so! I formed an instant alliance with the respectable Mr Goring, and between us we kept her under close guard. To do her justice, once away from the wilder members of the party she soon became sober again. But I gave her a tremendous scold on the way home, I promise you!”

“Did you consider what Lord Rotherham would say to all this?” Fanny asked, glancing fleetingly at her.

“It was unnecessary: I knew! That was the gist of my scold, and it brought upon me a flood of tears, and entreaties not to tell him, or Mama.”

“Tears and entreaties! Do you still say that she is not afraid of him, Serena?”

“No, she is a good deal in awe of him, and I fancy he has frightened her,” Serena replied coolly.

“If he has done that, you will scarcely persist in believing that he loves her!”

Serena turned away to pick up her gloves. “I have every reason to believe, my dear Fanny, that he loves her à corps perdu,” she said, in a dry voice. “Unless I much mistake the matter, it is the violence of his passion which has put her in a fright, not his withering tongue! Of that she stands in awe merely, and it is as well she should, for she is too giddy, and too often betrayed into some piece of hoydenish conduct. She was not thrown into a panic by rebuke, I’ll swear! She is too well accustomed to it. For a man of experience, Rotherham has handled her very ill. If I did not suspect that he has realized it already, I should be strongly tempted to tell him so.”

“Serena!” Fanny protested, quite scandalized.

“Don’t distress yourself! I fancy that is why he has not come to Bath to see Emily. No doubt Lady Laleham hinted him away: she at least is clever enough to know that with such a shy little innocent as Emily it would be fatal to set too hot a pace to courtship. I wonder she ever left them alone together—except that I collect he was at first careful not to alarm a filly he must have known was as shy as she could stare, ready to bolt at one false move.” Her lip curled. “He’s impatient, but I never knew him to be so on the box or in the saddle. I own, I am astonished that a man with such fine, light hands could have blundered so!”

“Serena, I do beseech you not to talk in that horrid way!” broke in Fanny. “Emily is not a horse!”

“Filly, my love, filly!”

“No, Serena! And whatever you may choose to imagine, it’s my belief he hasn’t come to Bath because he doesn’t know Emily is here. Recollect that Lady Laleham would not let him set eyes on Mrs Floore for the world! Depend upon it, she has fobbed him off—if it was necessary, which I don’t at all believe!—with some lie.”

“Rotherham is well aware of Emily’s direction. She received a letter from him yesterday, written from Claycross,” replied Serena. “Lady Laleham found another means of keeping him away from Bath, you see. I don’t doubt he will handle Emily with far more discretion when he meets her again—though I cannot think it wise of him to write, pressing for an early marriage, before he has soothed her maidenly fears. However, I trust I have to some extent performed that office for him.”