Bath Tangle

8

They stood hand-fasted, the gentleman very pale, the lady most delicately flushed, hazel eyes lifted wonderingly to steady blue ones, neither tongue able to utter a word until a testy: “By your leave, sir! by your leave!” recalled them to a sense of their surroundings, and made Major Kirkby drop the hand he was holding so tightly, and step aside, stammering a confused apology to the impatient citizen whose way he had been blocking.

As though released from a spell, Serena said: “After all these years! You have not altered in the least! Yes, you have, though: those tiny lines at the corners of your eyes were not there before, I think, and your cheeks were not so lean—but I swear you are as handsome as ever, my dear Hector!”

He smiled at the rallying note in her voice, but his own was perfectly serious as he answered, in a low tone: “And you are more beautiful even than my memories of you! Serena, Serena—! Forgive me! I hardly know what I am saying, or where I am!”

She gave an uncertain little laugh, trying for a more commonplace note. “You are in Milsom Street, sir, wholly blocking the way into Duffield’s excellent library! And the spectacle of a gentleman of military aspect, standing petrified with his hat in his hand, is attracting a great deal of attention, let me tell you! Shall we remove from this too public locality?”

He cast a startled glance about him, coloured up, laughed, and set his high-crowned beaver on his fair head again. “Oh, by God, yes! I am so bemused—! May I escort you—? Your maid—footman—?”

“I am alone. You may give me your arm, if you will be so good, but were you not about to go into the library?”

“No—yes! What can that signify? Alone? How comes this about? Surely—”

“My dear Hector, my next birthday, which is not so far distant, will be my twenty-sixth!” she said, placing her hand in his arm, and drawing him gently away from the entrance to the library. “Did I never go out without a footman in attendance when you knew me before? Perhaps I did not, since I was in my Aunt Theresa’s charge! She has the most antiquated notions! How long ago it seems! I was barely nineteen, and you were so proud of your first regimentals! To what exalted heights have you risen? Tell me how I should address you!”

His free hand came up to press her gloved fingers, lying so lightly in the crook of his left arm. “As you do! The sound of Hector on your lips is such music as I never hoped to hear again! There were no exalted heights: I have no more imposing title than that of Major.”

“It sounds very well, I promise you. Are you on furlough? You do not wear regimentals.”

“I sold out at the end of last year. You might not be aware—my elder brother has been dead these three years. I succeeded to the property at the time of Bonaparte’s escape from Elba, and but for that circumstance must have sold out two years ago.”

“I did not know—pray forgive me!”

“How should you?” he said simply. “I never dreamed that I could hold a place in your memory!”

She was struck to the heart, realizing how small a place had been held by him, and said haltingly: “Or I—that you should recall so clearly—after so long—!”

“You have never been absent from my thoughts. Your face, your smiling eyes, have been with me through every campaign!”

“No, no, how can you be so romantical?” she exclaimed, at once startled and touched.

“It is true! When I read of your engagement to Lord Rotherham—how can I describe to you what I suffered?”

“You saw that notice!”

“I saw it.” He smiled ruefully. “I was used, whenever a London newspaper came in my way, to search the social columns for the sight of your name! Absurd of me, was it not? The Morning Post that included that announcement was sent to me by my sister. She knew I had been acquainted with you, and thought I should be interested to learn of your engagement. She little guessed what passions were roused in me! I had prepared myself for your marriage to another; I could have borne it, I hope, with better command over my own sensations had it been any other than Rotherham!”

She looked up in surprise. “Did you dislike him so much? I had thought you scarcely knew him!”

“It was true: I met him perhaps three times only.” He paused, and she saw his well-moulded lips tighten. After a moment, he said: “I have always believed that it was he who separated us.”

She was startled. “Oh, no! Indeed, it wasn’t so! Why, how could it have been possible?”

“His influence over your father was brought to bear. I knew him for my enemy, Serena, from the outset.”

“No! Recollect how young you were! His manners are not conciliating, and that abrupt way he has, and the frowning look, made you think he disliked you. My father would not countenance the match from worldly reasons. He thought us, besides, too young, and—oh, I suppose he had even then set his heart on my marrying Rotherham!”

“Had he not allowed Rotherham to persuade him into the belief that we were not suited to one another, I cannot think he would have been so adamant! His affection for you was too great to admit of his sacrificing you to mere worldly ambition.”

“Perhaps he did think that, but that Ivo put it into his head I will not allow! Good God, Hector, why should he have done so?”

“When I read the notice of your engagement, I knew the answer to that enigma!”

“Nonsense! That came three years later! Ivo had no thought of marrying me then!” She flushed, and added: “I jilted him, you know.”

“I did know it. For you, it must have been painful indeed; for me—a relief I cannot describe to you! I knew then that your heart had not been engaged, that the match was made by your father, de convenance!”

She was silent for a moment, but said presently: “I hardly know how to answer you. Papa most earnestly desired it. He promoted it, but no more than that! There was no compulsion—no pressure exerted to make me—Hector, if it distresses you, I am sorry for it, but I should be sorrier still to deceive you! I was very willing: I fancied myself in love with Ivo. There! It is out, and you know now that I was not as constant as you.”

He said, in a moved tone: “It is what I always loved in you—your honesty I that fearless look in your eyes, a frankness so engaging—! But you did not love Rotherham!”

“No—a brief, bitterly fought campaign, that engagement of ours! I behaved shockingly, of course, but you may believe he was as well rid of me as I of him!”

Again he pressed her hand. “I couldn’t believe that. That you were well rid of him, yes! His temper, so peremptory and overbearing—”

“Oh, yes, but my own temper, you know, is very bad!” she said ruefully.

He smiled. “It is like you to say so, but it is not true, Serena.”

“I’m afraid you don’t know me.”

“Don’t I? If ever it was bad, there must have been great provocation!”

“I thought so, at all events,” she said, a gleam of fun in her eyes. “I always think so, whenever I lose it! That was one of the questions on which Rotherham and I could never agree!”

“I cannot bear to think of you subjected, even for so short a time, to that imperious, tyrannical disposition!”

She could not help laughing. “I wish he might be privileged to hear you! He would think it a gross injustice that you should have no pity for his sufferings!”

“I can believe it! Do you ever meet him now?”

“Frequently. There was no estrangement. We are very good friends, except when we are sworn foes! Indeed, he is my Trustee.”

“Your Trustee!” he said, looking as though he found the information shocking. “I knew how much attached to him Lord Spenborough was, but that he should have placed you in a position of such embarrassment—Forgive me! I should not be speaking to you so!”

“You mistake: I don’t find it embarrassing! To be sure, I was in such a passion when I first discovered how it was to be—But there were circumstances enough to enrage me! Never mind that! As for meeting Ivo, in the old way, neither of us has been aware of any awkwardness. It is the popular notion that I should be cast into blushes in Ivo’s presence, but either that’s a great piece of nonsense, or I am a creature sadly lacking in sensibility! I can’t be shy of a man I’ve known all my life! Since my father’s death, too, he seems sometimes to me like a link with—” She broke off. “But, come!—We have talked enough of me! Tell me of yourself! I long to hear of all your doings in Spain!”

“I don’t think I could ever hear enough of you,” he said seriously. “Nothing of any consequence has befallen me. Nothing until today! When I saw you, it was as though these six years and more had never been!”

“Oh, hush! I too was conscious of just that feeling, but it is nonsensical! Much has happened to both of us!”

“To you! I know well how great a tragedy your father’s death must have been to you. To have written to you would have been presumption: I could only wish that I had the right to comfort you!”

As always, she was rendered uncomfortable by spoken sympathy. She said: “Thank you. The shock was severe, and the sense of loss must remain with me for long and long, but you must not think me borne down by it, or out of spirits. I go on very well.”

“I know your indomitable courage!”

Her impulse was to check him. She subdued it, afraid of wounding him, and walked on beside him with downcast eyes while he continued talking of her father. That he truly understood the extent of her loss, and most sincerely entered into her feelings, she could not doubt. He spoke well, and with great tenderness: she would rather he had been silent.

He seemed to realize it, and broke off, saying: “It is painful for you to talk of it. I will say no more: what I feel—all that I cannot express—you must know!”

“Yes, I—You are very good, very kind! How glad I am I should have chosen to go to Duffield’s this very morning! Do you make a long stay in Bath?”

“I came to visit my mother, and arrived only yesterday. There are no calls upon my time, and I had meant to remain with her for a few weeks. Since my father’s death, she has resided here. The climate agrees with her constitution, and she derives benefit from the baths. She is a sad invalid, and seldom goes out, or—But are you living here too, Serena?”

“For a few months only, with my mother-in-law.”

“Ah! I knew that Lord Spenborough had married again, and feared that you must have been made unhappy.”

“No, indeed!”

“You live with Lady Spenborough? You like her? She is kind to you?” he said anxiously.

“Very!”

“I am very much relieved to hear you say so. I was afraid it might not be so. To have had a mama thrust upon you at your age cannot have been agreeable. Too often one hears of mamas-in-law domineering over the children of a previous marriage! But if she is truly motherly to you I can believe that you may be glad now that the marriage took place. Her protection must be a comfort to you.”

Her eyes began to dance, but she said demurely: “Very true! I look forward to presenting you to her. I hope you will not think her very formidable!”

“Will you let me call on you?” he said eagerly. “She will not object to it?”

“I am sure she will receive you most graciously!”

“There is something quelling in the very word!” he said, smiling. “As for dowager, that conjures up such a picture as might terrify the boldest! If she should wear a turban, I shall shake in my shoes, for it will remind me of a great-aunt of whom, as a boy, I lived in dread! When may I call on her? Where is your direction?”

“In Laura Place.” She looked round her suddenly, and burst out laughing. “Good God, do you know how far we have walked? Unless my eyes deceive me, we have reached nearly to the end of Great Pulteney Street! If I have at least led you in the right way it must have been by instinct! I have no recollection even of crossing the bridge!”

“Nor I,” he admitted, turning, and beginning to retrace his steps beside her. “I have been walking in a dream, I think. I could wish we were at the other end of the town, so that I need not part from you so soon. My fear is that when you leave me I shall wake up.”

“Major Kirkby, I begin to think you are turned into an accomplished flirt!”

“I? Ah, you are quizzing me! I never flirted, I think, in my life.”

“Good gracious, will you tell me that there is not one beautiful Spaniard left mourning your departure?”

He shook his head. “Not one, upon my honour!”

“I had no notion life was so dull in Spain!”

“I never saw one whom I thought beautiful,” he said simply.

They walked on, and were soon in Laura Place again. He parted from her at her door, lingering, with her hand in his, to say: Tell me when I may call on you!”

“When you wish,” she replied, smiling at him.

His clasp on her hand tightened; he bent to kiss it: and at last released it, and went striding away, as though he dared not trust himself to look back.

A minute later, Fanny was greeting Serena with relief. “Oh, I am so glad you are come in! I feared some accident had befallen, for you have been away this age and more! Good God, dearest! What has happened? You look as if a fortune had dropped on you from the sky!”

“Not a fortune!” Serena said, her eyes very bright and sparkling, and a smile hovering about her mouth. “Better than that, and by far more unexpected! I have met—an old acquaintance!”

“That would not make you look so! Now, be serious, love, I do beg of you!”

“Oh, I cannot be! You must hold me excused! Did you ever feel yourself a girl again, in your first season? It is the most delightful thing imaginable! I have told him he may call on us: pray be so obliging as to like him! It will be a study to see his face when I present him to you: he pictures you in a turban, Fanny!”

Fanny let her embroidery frame drop. “He?” Her face brightened suddenly. “Not—Oh, Serena, you don’t mean you have met that young man again? the man you told me you had loved—the only man you had loved?”

“Did I tell you so? Yes, it is he!”

“Oh, Serena!” sighed Fanny ecstatically. “How very glad I am! It is exactly like a romance! At least—Is he still single, dearest?”

“Yes, of course he is! That is to say, I never asked him! But there is no doubt! I wonder how soon he will think it proper to call on us? I fancy it will not be long!”

It was not long. Major Kirkby, in fact, paid his visit of ceremony upon the following day, arriving in Laura Place on the heels of a heavy thunderstorm. Lybster, relieving him of his dripping cloak and hat, sent Fanny’s page running to fetch a leather to rub over the Major’s smart Hessians, and permitted himself to scrutinize with unusual interest this visitor who was not deterred by inclement weather from paying morning visits. He had been informed that her ladyship was expecting a Major Kirkby to call sometime, but no suspicion had been aroused in his mind that the unknown Major might prove to be a visitor quite out of the common. If he had thought about the matter at all, the picture in his mind’s eye would have been of some middle-aged Bath resident; and when he opened the door to a tall, handsome gentleman, nattily attired, and not a day above thirty, if as old, he suffered a severe shock, and instantly drew his own perfectly correct conclusions. While the page wiped the mud from those well-cut boots, and the Major straightened his starched neckcloth, Lybster took a rapid and expert survey, contriving in a matter of seconds to ascertain that the long-tailed blue coat of superfine had come from the hands of one of the first tailors, that the Major had a nice taste in waistcoats, and knew how to arrange a neckcloth with modish precision. He had a fine pair of shoulders on him, and an excellent leg for a skin-tight pantaloon. His countenance, a relatively unimportant matter, came in for no more than a cursory glance, but the butler noted with approval that the features were regular, and the Major’s air distinguished. He led the way upstairs to the drawing-room, the Major following him in happy ignorance of the ferment of conjecture his appearance had set up.

A door was opened, his name announced, and he trod into an elegantly furnished apartment, whose sole occupant was a slender little lady, dressed all in black, and seated at the writing-table.

Taken by surprise, Fanny looked up quickly, the pen still held between her fingers. The Major checked on the threshold, staring at her. He beheld a charming countenance, with very large, soft blue eyes, and a mouth trembling into a shy smile, golden ringlets peeping from under a lace cap, and a general air of youth and fragility. Wild thoughts of having entered the wrong house crossed his mind; considerably disconcerted, he stammered: “I beg your pardon! I thought—I came—I must have mistaken the direction! But I asked your butler if Lady Spenborough—and he led me upstairs!”

Fanny laid the pen down, and rose to her feet, and came forward, blushing and laughing. “I am Lady Spenborough. How do you do?”

He took her hand, but exclaimed involuntarily: “The Dowager Lady Spenborough? But you cannot be—” He stopped in confusion, began to laugh also, and said: “Forgive me! I had pictured—well, a very different lady!”

“In a turban! Serena told me so. It is very naughty of her to roast you. Major Kirkby. Do, pray, be seated! Serena will be down directly. She was caught in that dreadful storm, and was obliged to change her dress, which was quite soaked.”

“Walking in this weather! I hope she may not have taken a chill! It was very imprudent.”

“Oh, no! She never does so,” responded Fanny placidly. “She was used to ride with her Papa in all weathers, you know. She is a famous horsewoman—quite intrepid!”

“Yes, so I believe. I never saw her in the saddle, however. Our—our former acquaintance was in London. You and she now reside here? Or, no! I think she told me you were here only for a visit.”

“Oh, yes! We have been living since Lord Spenborough’s death in my Dower House, at Milverley.”

“Ah, then, she has not been obliged quite to leave her home! I remember that she was much attached to it.” He smiled warmly at her. “When I read of Lord Spenborough’s death, I was afraid she might be obliged to live with Lady—with someone, perhaps, not agreeable to her!—I am sure she must be happy with you, ma’am!”

“Oh, yes! That is, I am very happy,” said Fanny naively. “She is so kind to me! I don’t know how I should go on without her.”

At that moment, Serena came into the room, her copper ringlets still damp, and curling wildly. As she closed the door, she said mischievously: “Now, what an infamous thing it is that you should have come when I wasn’t here to present you to my mama-in-law, sir! She has not terrified you, I trust?”

He had jumped up, and strode to meet her, taking her hand, and holding it for a minute. “What an infamous thing it was that you should have taken me in!” he retorted, smiling down at her with so glowing a look in his eyes that her own sank, and she felt her colour rising.

“It was irresistible! Are you satisfied that she is truly motherly?”

“Serena! You never said so!” cried Fanny indignantly.

“No, not I! It was Major Kirkby’s hope!”

He drew her forward to a chair beside the small fire, and placed a cushion behind her as she seated herself. She looked up, to thank him, and he said: “Do you know that your hair is quite wet?”

“It will soon dry beside this fire.”

“Are you always so reckless? I wish you will take care!”

She smiled. “Why, do I seem to you invalidish? It’s well you didn’t see me when I came in, for I don’t think there was a dry stitch on me!”

“Then perhaps it is as well. I should certainly have been anxious.”

“Fanny will tell you that I am never ill. Do you take cold every time you are caught in the rain?”

“No, indeed! I should not long have survived in Portugal! But that is another matter: you are not a soldier!”

She saw that he would not readily be persuaded that her constitution was not delicate, and was a little amused. It was not unpleasant to find herself an object of solicitude, so she said no more, leading him instead to talk of his experiences in the Peninsula. He stayed for half an hour, and then, very correctly, rose to take his leave. Fanny, as she shook hands with him, said, in her pretty, soft voice: “You know we cannot entertain in any formal style, Major Kirkby, but if you will not think it a bore to dine quietly with us one evening, we should be happy to welcome you.”

“A bore! I should like it of all things!” he said, “May I indeed do that?”

The engagement was made, and Fanny’s hand kissed. “Thank you!” the Major said, with a twinkle.

There was a good deal of meaning in his voice. Fanny gave a little choke of laughter, and tried to look demure.

He turned from her to Serena. “I think you are very fortunate in your mama-in-law! Shall I see you, perhaps, in the Pump Room tomorrow? Do you go there?”

“Very frequently—to watch Fanny screwing up her face, and most heroically drinking the water!”

“Ah! Then I shall meet you there” he said, and pressed her hand, and went away.

Serena glanced almost shyly at Fanny. “Well?”

“Oh, Serena, how very charming he is! You did not tell me the half! I think I never saw such kind eyes! He is so much in love with you, too!”

“He does not know me.”

“My dear!”

Serena shook her head. “Do you think he does? I am so much afraid—You see, he believes me to be—oh, so many excellent things which I am not! He has no notion of my shocking temper, or my obstinacy, or—”

“Serena, you goose!” Fanny cried, embracing her. “He loves you! Oh, and he will take such care of you, and value you as he should, and think nothing too good for you! He is the very man to make you happy!”

“Fanny, Fanny!” Serena protested. “He has not offered for me yet!”

“How absurd you are! When he can barely take his eyes off you! He will offer for you before the week is out!”