He had not known it. Fanny, understanding his perplexity, tried to explain Serena to him. “Serena has so much strength of mind, Major Kirkby,” she said gently. “I think her mind is as strong as her body, and that is very strong indeed. It used to amaze me that I never saw her exhausted by all the things she would do, for it is quite otherwise with me. But nothing is too much for her! It was the same with Lord Spenborough. Not the hardest day’s hunting ever made them anything but sleepy, and excessively hungry; and in London I have often marvelled how they could contrive not to be in the least tired by all the parties, and the noise, and the expeditions,” She smiled, and said apologetically: “I don’t know how it is, but if I am obliged to give a breakfast, perhaps, and to attend a ball as well, there is nothing for it but for me to rest all the afternoon.”
He looked as if he did not wonder at it. “But not Serena?” he asked.
“Oh, no! She never rests during the daytime. That is what makes it so particularly irksome to her to be leading this dawdling life. In London, she would ride in the Park before breakfast, and perhaps do some shopping as well. Then, very often we might give a breakfast, or attend one in the house of one of Lord Spenborough’s numerous acquaintances. Then there would be visits to pay, and perhaps a race-meeting, or a picnic, or some such thing. And, in general, a dinner-party in the evening, or the theatre, and three or four balls or assemblies to go to afterwards.”
“Was this your life?” he asked, rather appalled.
“Oh, no! I can’t keep it up, you see. I did try very hard to grow accustomed to it, because it was my duty to go with Serena, you know. But when she saw how tired I was, and how often I had the headache, she declared she would not drag me out, or permit my lord to do so either. You can have no notion how kind she has been to me. Major Kirkby! My best, my dearest friend!”
Her eyes filled with tears; he slightly pressed her hand, saying in a moved tone: “That I could not doubt!”
“She has a heart of gold!” she told him earnestly. “If you knew what care she takes of me, how patient she is with me, you would be astonished!”
“Indeed, I should not!” he said, smiling. “I cannot conceive of anyone’s being out of patience with you!”
“Oh, yes!” she assured him. “Mama and my sisters were often so, for I am quite the stupidest of my family, besides being shy of strange persons, and not liking excessively to go to parties, and a great many other nonsensical things. But Serena, who does everything so well, was never vexed with me! Major Kirkby, if it had not been for her I don’t know what I should have done!”
He could readily believe that to such a child as she must have been at the time of her marriage life in the great Spenborough household must have been bewildering and alarming. He said sympathetically: “Was it very bad?”
Her reply was involuntary. “Oh, if I had not had Serena I could not have borne it!” The colour rushed up into her face; she said quickly: “I mean—I mean—having to entertain so many people—talk to them—be the mistress of that huge house! The political parties, too! They were the worst, for I have not the least understanding of politics, and if Serena had not taken care to tell me what was likely to be talked about at dinner I must have been all at sea! The dreadful way, too, the people of the highest ton have of always being related to one another, so that one is for ever getting into a scrape!”
He could not help laughing, but he said: “I know exactly what you mean!”
“Yes, but you see, Serena used to explain everybody to me, and so I was able to go on quite prosperously. And it was she who managed everything. She had always done so.” She paused, and then said diffidently: “When—when perhaps you might sometimes think her wilful, or—or over-confident, you must remember that she has been the mistress of her papa’s houses, and his hostess, and that he relied on her to attend to all the things which, in general, an unmarried lady knows nothing about.”
“Yes,” he said heavily “He must have been a strange man!” He caught himself up. “I beg pardon! I should not say that to you!”
“Well, I don’t think he was just in the common way,” she agreed. “He was very goodnatured, and easy-going, and so kind that it was no wonder everyone liked him. He was quite as kind to me as Serena, you know.”
“Oh! Yes, of—I mean, I’m sure he must have been,” he stammered, considerably taken aback.
She went on with her stitchery, in sweet unconsciousness of having said anything to make him think her marriage deplorable. She would have been very much shocked could she have read his mind; quite horrified had she guessed the effect on him of what she had told him of Serena’s life and character. Her words bore out too clearly much that he had begun to realize; and with increasing anxiety he wondered whether Serena could ever be content with the life he had to offer her. But when he spoke of this to her, she looked surprised, and said: “Bored? Dear Hector, what absurdity is in your head now? Depend upon it, I shall find plenty to do in Kent!”
An item of news in the Courier made her ask him one day if he had ever had any thoughts of standing for election to Parliament. He assured her that he had not, but before he well knew where he was she was discussing the matter, making plans, sketching a possible career, and reckoning up the various interests at her command. In laughing dismay, he interrupted her, to say: “But I should dislike it of all things!”
He was relieved to find that she was not, apparently, disappointed, for he had had the sensation of being swept irresistibly down a path of her choosing. “Would you? Really? Then, of course, you won’t stand,” she said cheerfully.
When she talked of her life while he had been in the Peninsula, he was often reminded of Fanny’s words: Serena seemed to be related to so many people. “Some sort of a fifth cousin of mine,” she would say, until it seemed to him that England must be littered with her cousins. He quizzed her about it once, and she replied perfectly seriously: “Yes, and what a dead bore it is! One has to remember to write on anniversaries, and to ask them to dine, and some of them, I assure you, are the most shocking figures! Only wait until I introduce you to my cousin Speen! Fanny will tell you she sat, bouche béante, the first time she ever saw him, at one of our turtle-dinners! He arrived drunk, which, however, he was aware of, and begged her to pardon, informing her as a great secret that he was a jerry-sneak—which the world knows!—and might never be decently bosky when my lady was at home, so that he had determined while she was away never to be less than well to live!”
“An odious little man!” said Fanny, with a shudder. “For shame, Serena! As though you had not better relations than Speen!”
“True! If Hector should not be cast into transports by Speen, I shall take him to stay at Osmansthorpe!” Serena said mischievously. “Have you a taste for the ceremonious, my love? There, his lordship lives, en prince, and since his disposition is morose and his opinion of his own importance immense, the dinner-table is enlivened only by such conversations as he chooses to inaugurate. The groom of the chambers will warn you before you leave your room, however, what subject his lordship wishes to hear discussed.”