Rotherham looked amused, but before he could probe into the mystery of this speech, which Serena feared was his intention, his notice was claimed by Lady Laleham, seated on his left hand.

“What do you say, Lord Rotherham? Your sister and I find that we share the same scruples, but I fancy I have hit on a scheme to make it unobjectionable for our giddy young people to attend the Assembly. Do you not agree that if we make up our own party between us it will solve the problem?”

“Certainly,” he replied.

With this unenthusiastic assent she was satisfied, and began at once to engage Lady Silchester’s co-operation.

Rotherham turned again to Emily, and found her face upturned, quite pink with excitement, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, thank you!” she breathed.

“Are you so fond of Assemblies?”

“Yes, indeed! That is to say, I don’t know, for I was never at one before.”

“Not being precisely out. Do you live in Quenbury?”

“Oh, no! At Cherrifield Place! Don’t you know it? You came by it this morning!”

“Did I?”

“Yes, and Mama knew it must be you, because of the crest. We were at the gate, meaning only to walk into the village, but Mama said we would come here instead, because there was a recipe she wished to give Lady Spenborough.”

“Providential!”

She was puzzled, and, scared by the satirical note in his voice, was stricken to silence. Serena, a trifle unsteadily, said: “Well, I hope you will enjoy the Assembly, and have a great many partners.”

“Within the limits of exclusiveness,” interpolated Rotherham, meeting her eye.

She frowned at him, knowing him to be quite capable of saying something outrageous enough to be understood by his innocent neighbour. Fortunately, since he met the frown with a bland look she knew well. Lady Laleham, having achieved her object, now judged it to be good tactics to take her leave. Her carriage was called for, and she bore her daughter off, well pleased with the success of her morning’s campaign.

“I never meet that woman but I smell the shop,” observed Lady Silchester calmly. “I wish I may not be her dear Augusta Silchester hereafter!”

“You are well served for having been fool enough to have mentioned the Assembly,” said her brother.

“Very true. I shall have the headache, and send Caroline with Cordelia.”

“I believe she knew you were here, and that is why she came!” declared Fanny, very much ruffled.

“She did!” Serena said, her eyes dancing. “That absurd child let the secret out in the most innocent fashion imaginable! How I contrived to keep my face I don’t know! Well for her Mama was not attending!”

“A pretty little dab of a girl,” said Lady Silchester. “Not enough countenance, but she’ll take very well, I daresay. Dark girls are being much admired just now. Depend upon it, her mother means her to go to the highest bidder. They say Laleham is pretty well at a standstill.”

“What I want to know,” said Rotherham, “is why Grandmama won’t be at the ball which she is to give.”

“I was in dread that you would ask her!” Serena said.

“I shall discover it at the Assembly, when you are not there to spoil sport.”

“You will not go to the Assembly!” she exclaimed incredulously.

“Certainly I shall.”

“Having a taste for being toad-eaten?” she quizzed him.

“No, for Miss Laleham’s artless conversation!”

“Ah, she won’t gratify you! You have frightened her away!”

“She must be lured back to hand.”

“No, no, it would be too bad of you! You might wake expectations in Mama’s bosom, moreover!”

“Irresistible! I shall come out on the side of my niece and my wards, and you will hear next that I am not by half as disagreeable as they had supposed.”

She laughed, but could not believe him to be serious. However, the next visitor to the Dower House was Mrs Monksleigh, who drove over from Claycross on Christmas Eve, and disclosed that the Assembly scheme was now a settled thing. “I own, I thought it would come to nothing, and so I warned the girls. I’m sure I was never more astonished than when Rotherham said he saw no harm in it, and as for Susan, she was ready to drop! I expected he would have given her one of his set-downs, but he was perfectly amiable!”

Mrs Monksleigh was the relict of a military man, who had left her with six children and a competence judged by his family to be respectable, and by her, inadequate. She was a very goodnatured woman, but having, unfortunately, less than common sense, she had never been able to teach herself habits of economy. There was a want of management in her house which led to a succession of financial crises driving her quite distracted, and never failing to exasperate Rotherham. He was not her cousin, but her husband’s; and, in addition to being her Trustee, was joined with her in the guardianship of her children. She could neither understand why her poor husband had made such a choice, nor cease to bewail it. No one could have been more unacceptable to her! He was a man of no sensibility, and impatient temper, and had so little affection for his cousin’s children that it was a question whether he knew them apart. His decrees were imperious, and issued without the smallest regard for her wishes; himself a man of huge fortune, he had no comprehension of the difficulties confronting those left to maintain the elegances of life upon a mere pittance. He always thought she should have been able to manage better! It was he who had insisted on Gerard’s being sent to school, although her own dear Dr Ryde had pronounced the poor little fellow’s constitution to be too delicate for the rigours of Eton. She could not believe that he would have cared if Gerard had died of it. Miraculously, Gerard had survived; and Charlie, of course, had always been very stout, so that she had no fears for him; but now Rotherham was saying that it was time poor little Tom was sent to join his brother. Do as she would, she could not make him understand the shocking expense of having two sons at Eton. There was no end to the calls on her purse: she was sure the fees were the least part of the whole. As for the girls, beyond saying that he saw no reason why Susan should be presented at a Drawing-room, and annihilating Margaret by telling her that when she could address him without prefixing her remarks with a giggle he might attend to her, he never noticed them. Very likely he had forgotten that little Lizzie even existed: he could certainly never remember her name.

The Carlow ladies listened, and sympathized, and agreed that it was a hard case, Fanny rather more sincerely than Serena. Serena could perceive that there might be something to be said in Rotherham’s defence. He made too little allowance, she believed, for the difficulties besetting a woman left with six children on her hands; but she, like him, was intolerant of folly, and Mrs Monksleigh was so very foolish! But she thought him less than kind to Gerard, of whom he was contemptuous; and quite indifferent to the younger members of the family. This opinion was shared by Lady Silchester, who excused it, however, by saying that gentlemen always dislike to be plagued by children, and that no one could expect such a thorough sportsman as Rotherham to take to Gerard, who had no taste for sport, a very bad seat, and far too little spirit. But even she could not pretend that her brother had shown the smallest sign of approval when the more robust Charlie, upon the occasion of his only visit to Delford, had given evidence of such spirited behaviour as led him into the performance of every kind of prank, from trying to bestride his guardian’s more unmanageable horses to falling off the stable roof, and breaking his collarbone. All he had said was that Charlie might think himself fortunate that he had broken his collar-bone, and that he would be damned if ever he saddled himself with the whelp again.

“So Augusta quite mistakes the matter when she says he would like poor Gerard better if he were bolder, and didn’t stand so much in awe of him,” complained Mrs Monksleigh. “I’m sure no boy could be holder than Charlie, for he is for ever in a scrape, and he never minds a word anyone says to him, but that doesn’t please Rotherham either! I assure you, Lady Serena, I live in dread of his making Rotherham angry while we are at Claycross, for I know he wouldn’t hesitate to use the poor boy with dreadful harshness, which I have told him I utterly forbid. Indeed, I thought all was lost yesterday, when that most disagreeable keeper made such a commotion about Charlie’s putting a charge of shot into his leg. Just as though it had not been an accident! Of course, it was wrong of Charlie to take the gun without leave, but the man was only very little hurt, after all! Rotherham said in the most menacing way that he would teach Charlie a lesson, and I could feel one of my spasms coming on, only Augusta told Rotherham he was a great fool not to have locked up the gunroom when he had an imp like Charlie to stay, and said surely he could not wish me to fall into strong hysterics, and so it passed off, and I was truly grateful to Augusta.”

Even Fanny could not help laughing at this ingenuous history, although she did not appreciate, as Serena instantly did, the masterly nature of Lady Silchester’s strategy. She wondered at Mrs Monksleigh’s having dared to leave Charlie to his own devices while she came to the Dower House; but it appeared that Mrs Monksleigh had not dared, She had brought him with her, but she had not wished Fanny to be troubled with him, and had prevailed upon Gerard to take charge of him. The carriage had set them both down at Cherrifield Place. Gerard Monksleigh and Edgar Laleham were up at Cambridge together, in the same year and at the same college. Mrs Monksleigh hoped that Lady Laleham would not object to her having sent Charlie with his brother. Serena did not think that she would object to anything that strengthened the connection with Claycross.

They saw no more of the Claycross party until the night of the Assembly, when, to their surprise, Rotherham walked in on them midway through the evening. His satin knee-breeches and silk stockings made Serena exclaim: “Then you did go to the Assembly!”

“I did, and am there now, in the card-room—or so I hope Cordelia may believe!”

She raised her brows. “The bird would not come to hand?”

“On the contrary! But a driven bird, scared into the model of insipid propriety. I stood up for the two first dances with her, and all the conversation I could get out of her was “Oh Lord Rotherham!” and “Oh, yes, Lord Rotherham!” and once, by way of a change, “Exactly so, Lord Rotherham!” So I tried the effect of telling her she was taking the shine out of all the local beauties, but as that elicited nothing more encouraging than “How can you, Lord Rotherham?” I drew no more coverts, but came instead to take formal leave of you and Lady Spenborough. My party breaks up tomorrow, and I must be in London by the end of the week.”

“Good God, Ivo, do you mean to tell me that Emily is the only girl you have honoured with an invitation to dance? Not even your niece, or Susan, or Margaret?” cried Serena, scandalized.

“They would thank you for that suggestion as little as I do.”

“But it was most improper—quite abominable!” she said hotly. “Just what sets people’s backs up! It would have been bad enough to have danced only with the ladies of your own party. That would have made everyone say merely that you were disagreeably haughty! But to single out one girl, and she not of your own party—! Ivo, it is the height of insolence, and a great piece of unkindness to Emily besides!”

“Not at all!” he retorted, with a curling lip. “Her mother did not think so, I promise you!”

“That is worse than all the rest! You know very well what she is! There are no bounds to her ambition! Depend upon it you have now raised the most absurd expectations in her breast, turned that unfortunate child into an object of envy and speculation, all for sport! No, Fanny, I will not be hushed! There is something so particularly displeasing in the whole business! You may argue it as you will, Rotherham, but it was very ill done! I could name you a dozen girls, all, I daresay, at the Assembly tonight, as worthy of your notice as Emily Laleham! But no! You have been playing the great man, condescending to grace a country Assembly—for anything I can tell, though I should be sorry to think it of you, amused to see what a flutter was caused by your mere presence!”

“You need not think it!” he struck in, his cheeks whitened, and a pulse throbbing beside his thinned mouth.