The fact was that the dawdling life in Bath suited Serena no better than life at the Dower House. Mingled with the ache in her heart for the loss of one who had been more a companion than a father, was a restlessness, a yearning for she scarcely knew what, which found its only relief in gallops over the surrounding countryside. Owing to the steepness of its streets, carriages were not much used in Bath, chairmen supplanting coachmen in the task of conveying ladies to balls and concerts. Fanny had entertained serious thoughts of sending home her barouche, and could not understand the impulse which prompted Serena, morning after morning, to escape from Bath, attended only by her devoted but critical groom, Fobbing, to the surrounding hills. She knew that Serena had a great deal of uncomfortable energy, but she never realized that her more protracted expeditions coincided with the arrival in Laura Place of one of Lady Theresa Eaglesham’s punctual letters; and certainly never suspected that these letters, which seemed to her to be tiresomely full of dull political news, made Serena feel that she had slipped out of the world. To Fanny, the loss of London dinner-parties where little was talked of but a Government crisis, or a victory over the Opposition, was a gain; and she could not conceive what there was to excite interest in the news that the Grenvilles and the Foxites were splitting, in consequence of Brougham’s speech. The fortunes of Whig and Tory were of far less moment to Fanny than the fear that her mama might send her sister Agnes to Bath, to bear her company.

This dread seriously impaired Fanny’s peace of mind, until it became apparent that Lady Claypole’s anxiety for the well-being of her married daughter was not of so urgent a nature as to prompt her either to go to Bath herself at the beginning of the London season, or to send thither a second daughter of rather more than marriageable age. Lady Claypole, with a third daughter straining at the schoolroom leash, would let no consideration interfere with her determination to achieve a respectable alliance for Agnes. She seemed to have abandoned all thought of a brilliant one, but hinted, in a crossed and double-crossed letter, that she cherished hopes of bringing a very worthy man of tolerable substance up to scratch. Fanny sighed over the letter, but was thankful to be spared Agnes’s companionship. An elder and jealous sister, who made up in learning what she lacked in beauty, and might be trusted to keep a censorious eye on her junior, could not add to her comfort. She infinitely preferred the society of her daughter-in-law, however little dependence Mama might place on dear Serena’s discretion. Mama could not approve of Serena. She said that she conducted herself as though the protection of a wedding-ring were hers, and had, at once, too great and too little a notion of her own consequence. Mama had seen her hobnobbing with quite unworthy persons, as though she thought her rank absolved her from the necessity (indispensable to every unmarried female) of behaving with reserve. Mama sincerely trusted she might not draw Fanny into some scrape, and ended her letter with an earnest adjuration to her daughter not to forget what her own situation now was, or what respect was due to the relict of an Earl.

Fanny replied dutifully to this missive, but even as her pen assured Lady Claypole that she misjudged dearest Serena, a feeling of guilt made it tremble into a blot. Something told her that Mama would deeply disapprove of Serena’s latest friendship. Indeed, it could not be denied that Serena was hobnobbing with a very ungenteel person.

The acquaintance had been struck up in the Pump Room, and in the oddest way. Upon several occasions, both she and Fanny had been diverted by the startling appearance presented by an elderly female of little height but astonishing girth, who, while she adhered, perhaps wisely, to the fashions of her youth, was not wise enough to resist the lure of bright colours. She had a jolly, masterful countenance, with three chins beneath it, and a profusion of improbable black ringlets above it, imperfectly confined by caps of various designs, worn under hats of amazing opulence. Serena drew giggling protests from Fanny by asserting that she had counted five ostrich plumes, one bunch of grapes, two of cherries, three large roses, and two rosettes on one of these creations. An inquiry elicited from Mr King the information that the lady was the widow of a rich merchant of Bristol—or he might have been a shipowner: Mr King could not take it upon himself to say. No doubt a very good sort of a woman in her way, but (her la’ship would agree) sadly out of place in such a select place as Bath. She was a resident, he was sorry to say, but he had never been more than distantly civil to her. Fabulously wealthy, he believed: for his part he deeply deplored the degeneracy of the times, and was happy to think he could remember the days when mere vulgar wealth would not have made it possible for a Mrs Floore to rub shoulders with my Lady Spenborough.

It might have been this speech, which she listened to with a contemptuous shrug, that inclined Serena to look with an indulgent eye upon Mrs Floore. The widow was a regular visitor to the Pump Room, and often, when not engaged in hailing her acquaintance, and laughing and chatting with them in cheerful but unrefined accents, would sit staring at Serena, in an approving but slightly embarrassing way. Serena, conscious of the fixed regard, at last returned it, her brows a little lifted, and was surprised to see the old lady nodding and smiling at her encouragingly. Considerably amused, she moved gracefully towards her. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I think you wish to speak to me?”

“That’s a fact, for so I did!” said Mrs Floore. “Though whether your ladyship would condescend to speak to me was more than I could tell! Not but what I’ve been watching you close, and for all you’re so tall and high-stepping, my lady, you’ve a friendly way with you, and you don’t look to me to be so haughty you hold your nose up at ordinary folk!”

“Indeed, I hope not!” said Serena, laughing.

Mrs Floore poked a finger into the ribs of a mild-looking man seated in a chair beside her, and said: “I don’t know where your wits have gone a-begging, Tom Ramford! Get up and offer your place to Lady Serena, man!”

In great confusion, Mr Ramford hastily obeyed this sharp command. His apologies and protestations were cut short, Mrs Floore saying kindly, but with decision: “There, that’ll do! You take yourself off now!”

“Poor man!” said Serena, as she seated herself. “You are very severe, ma’am! Pray, how do you come to know my name?”

“Lord, my dear, everyone knows who you are! I’ll wager you don’t know who I am, though!”

“You would lose, ma’am. You are Mrs Floore, a resident, I believe, of Bath,” Serena retorted.

The old lady chuckled richly, all her chins quivering. “Ay, so I am, and I’ll be bound you know it because you asked someone who the deuce that old fright could be, dressed in a gown with panniers!”

“I did ask who you might be, but I did not so describe you!” instantly responded Serena.

“Lord, I wouldn’t blame you! I’d look a worse fright if I was to stuff myself into one of these newfangled gowns you all wear nowadays, with a waist under my armpits and a skirt as straight as a candle! All very well for you, my lady, with the lovely slim figure you have, but I’ll tell you what I’d look like, and that’s a sack of meal, with a string tied round it! Ay, that makes you laugh, and I see that it’s quite true about your eyelids, though I thought it a piece of girl’s nonsense when I was told about it: they do smile!”

“Good God, who can have told you anything so ridiculous, ma’am?” demanded Serena, colouring faintly.

“Ah, that’s just it!” said Mrs Floore. “I daresay you’ve been wondering what made me wishful to become acquainted with you. Well, I’ve got a granddaughter that thinks the world of your ladyship, and by all accounts you’ve been mighty kind to her.”

“A granddaughter?” Serena repeated, stiffening suddenly in her chair. “You cannot mean that you are—But, no! Surely Lady Lale—the person who springs to my mind—was a Miss Sebden?”

“So she was,” agreed Mrs Floore affably. “Sebden was my first, and Sukey’s papa. I’ve had two good husbands, and buried ’em both, which is more than Sukey can boast of, for all the airs she gives herself!”

“Good gracious!” Serena exclaimed, wishing with all her heart that Rotherham could have been present, to share (as he certainly would) her own enjoyment. “Well, then, I am very happy to know you, Mrs Floore, for I have a sincere regard for little Emily Laleham. She has often taken pity on our dullness this winter, you know. We—Lady Spenborough and I—missed her sadly when she went to London.”

Mrs Floore looked gratified, but said: “That’s just your kindness, my lady, that makes you say so. I don’t deny I’m uncommonly partial to Emma, but I ain’t a fool, and I can see who it was that took pity, even if Emma hadn’t talked so much about you I was in a fair way to hating the sound of your name! Sukey—for Sukey she’s always been to me, and always will be, let her say what she likes!—sent her to spend the New Year with me, and it was Lady Serena this, and Lady Serena that till I’d very likely have had a fit of the vapours, if I’d been a fine lady, which I thank God I’m not, nor ever could be!”

“What an infliction!” Serena said, smiling. “I am astonished you should have wished to become acquainted with me, ma’am! I think, you know, that when she was only a child Emily thought me a very dashing female, because I was used to hunt with my father, and do all manner of things which seemed very romantical to her! I hope she may be wiser now that she knows me better. I fear I’m no model for a young female to copy.”

“Well, that, begging your pardon, is where you’re out, my dear!” said Mrs Floore shrewdly. “You’ve done Emma a great deal of good, and I don’t scruple to tell you so! She’s a good little soul, and as pretty as she can stare, but she hasn’t a ha’porth of common sense, and between the pair of them, Sukey, and that piece of walking gentility which calls herself a governess and looks to me more like a dried herring in petticoats, were in a fair way to ruining the poor child! But Emma, admiring your ladyship like she did, had the wit to see the difference between your manners and the ones her ma and that Miss Prawle was trying to teach her! Prawle! I’d Prawle her! “Grandma,” Emma said to me, “Lady Serena is always quite unaffected, and she is as civil to her servants as to Dukes and Marquises and all, and I mean to behave exactly like her, because she came over with the Conqueror, and is a great lady!” Which,” concluded Mrs Floore, “I can see for myself, though what this Conqueror has to say to anything I’m sure I don’t know!”

“Oh, no! Nor anyone else!” uttered Serena, quite convulsed.

“I promise you, I took no account of him,” said Mrs Floore. “The Quality have their ways, and we have ours, and what may be all very well for high-born ladies don’t do for the parson’s daughter, as you may say. All I know is that Emma will do better to copy the manners of an Earl’s daughter than her ma’s, and so I told her!”

Serena could only say: “Indeed, she need copy no one’s manners, ma’am! Her own are very pleasing, and unaffected.”

“Well, to be sure, I think so,” said Mrs Floore, beaming upon her, “but I’m no judge, though I did marry a gentleman! Oh, yes! Mr Sebden was quite above my touch, and married me in the teeth of his grand relations, as you may say. You might not think it to look at me now, but I was very much admired when I was a girl. Dear me, yes! Such suitors as I had! Only I took a fancy to poor George, and though my Pa didn’t like the match above half, George being too idle and gentlemanly for his taste, he never could deny me anything I’d set my heart on, and so we were married, and very happily, too. Of course, his family pretty well cast him off, but he didn’t care a button for that, nor for turning me into a grand lady. Mind you, when Pa died, and left his whole fortune to me, the Sebdens began to pay me a lot of civilities, which was only to be expected, and which I was glad of, on account of Sukey. Yes, I thought nothing was too good for my Sukey, so pretty as she was, and with her Pa’s genteel ways and all! Ah, well! I often think now that her brother wouldn’t have grown up to despise his ma, however much money had been spent on sending him to a fashionable school!”

A gusty sigh prompted Serena to say: “Indeed, I didn’t know you had had a son that died! I am so sorry!”