“If you’ve seen the newspapers this morning, my lady, you won’t wonder what brings me here!”
“No, indeed: most—most interesting news, ma’am! You must be excessively pleased, I am sure!”
“Well,” said Mrs Floore, “I don’t deny it’s a fine thing to be marrying a Marquis, for I daresay they don’t grow on every tree, and a very odd sort of a woman I’d be if I didn’t feel puffed-up enough at this moment to burst my stay-laces. If Emma likes him, I’m very glad he is a Marquis; but if she don’t, he might be fifty Marquises, and still I’d say she’d be better off with a plain man she could like!”
“We must suppose that she does like him, ma’am,” Serena said smiling.
“Begging your pardon, my dear, we don’t have to suppose anything of the kind!” said Mrs Floore bluntly. “You know that daughter of mine, and so, I’ll be bound, does her ladyship! What poor little Emma might like is the last thing in the world she’d trouble her head about, and that’s the truth, small pleasure though it is to me to say such a thing of my own flesh and blood!”
Fortunately, since Fanny knew not what to reply to this forthright speech, Lybster came back into the room at that moment, so that she was able to create a diversion by supplying her guests with refreshment. Serena said: “No doubt you have had letters from them, ma’am?”
“I’ve had one from Sukey, my dear, but Emma’s not one for writing letters. And if she had written to me I wouldn’t know any more than I do now, because it’s my belief that Prawle made her learn off by heart a set of letters out of the Complete Letter-Writer, and told her never to use any other ones. As for Sukey, naturally she’s in high delight! In fact, anyone would think she was in love with this precious Marquis herself, for she gives him such a character that if I credited the half of what she writes I should very likely think he was an Archangel. So, since Ned, who happened to be with me when Roger came in with the newspaper and the letters, couldn’t tell me any more about him than that he was a famous sportsman, I made up my mind I’d come straight round to see you, Lady Serena, for, “Mark my words,” I said to Ned, “her ladyship will know all about him!” And you needn’t mind speaking out in front of him, my dear, any more than if he was my son, which I’m sorry to say he isn’t! What’s more, he’s pretty well acquainted with Emma, for he saw a great deal of her when she was staying with me, and went with us to the Assemblies, and the theatre, and such-like.”
Serena glanced at Mr Goring, but his countenance gave nothing away.
“Yes, Lord Rotherham is very well known in the world of sport, I believe,” Fanny said, in a colourless voice.
Mr Goring raised his eyes from the contemplation of the wine in his glass, and directed a level look at her.
“Well, I don’t know that I like the sound of that, to start with!” said Mrs Floore dubiously. “If he’s a racing man, that means betting, and I’ve got one gamester on my hands already, and I don’t want another!”
Fanny was too overcome by the thought of Rotherham’s being on Mrs Floore’s hands to venture on a response. Serena laughed out, and said: “Don’t be alarmed, ma’am! Rotherham’s fortune is extremely large, and he is a great deal more addicted to boxing, and shooting, and hunting than to gaming!”
“Well, I’m glad to hear you say so, my dear. Not that I hold with boxing, because it’s low, and not the sort of thing I should expect a Marquis to be fond of. However, Ned tells me it’s quite the established mode among the smart beaux, and at all events he won’t go dragging Emma into boxing-saloons. But if he thinks to make her go out shooting and hunting with him it won’t do at all! Why, she’d be frightened to death!”
“I expect, ma’am, that he must be aware that—she doesn’t—share his tastes in that direction.”
“If he don’t know it now he will the very first time he sees her crying her eyes out all because the cat’s got hold of a mouse!” said Mrs Floore. She looked piercingly at Serena. “Tell me this, my dear! How old is he?”
“He is thirty-eight,” replied Serena calmly.
“Thirty-eight! Lord, that’s more than twenty years older than she is!” cried Mrs Floore, aghast.
“True. He is not cross-eyed, however,” Serena said, with a faint smile.
“Well, if he isn’t, I should like to know how it comes about he wasn’t snapped up years ago!” said Mrs Floore tartly. “He isn’t queer in his attic, is he?”
“Far from it! His understanding is excellent, and he does not suffer from any infirmity whatsoever.”
“Come, that’s better!” said Mrs Floore, relieved. “Is he handsome?”
“No. I should rather call him striking, ma’am. Certainly not handsome.”
“Do you know him well, my dear?”
Fanny cast an anxious glance at Serena. After a moment’s hesitation, Serena replied: “Very well. I have known him all my life.”
“There! What did I tell you?” Mrs Floore demanded of her escort. “I knew which shop to come to! So now you answer me this, my lady, if you’ll be so good, and that I know you are!—Is he the sort of man that’ll make my Emma a good husband?”
“Indeed, I hope so, ma’am! He can give her—a great position, wealth, consequence—”
“I know that,” interrupted Mrs Floore grimly. “And it ain’t what I asked you, my dear!”
Aware that not only Mrs Floore’s gaze was fixed upon her but Mr Goring’s also, Serena said: “Dear ma’am, you must not question me so closely, if you please! I think you cannot be aware that I was once engaged to Lord Rotherham myself!”
Mr Goring’s gaze now became intent; Mrs Floore was so much surprised that she nearly dropped her wineglass. “You?” she gasped. “Lord bless my soul! Goodness gracious! Well, I declare! That’s one thing Sukey didn’t see fit to tell me—if she knows it!”
“The engagement—and its termination—were in all the newspapers, ma’am,” Serena replied, her colour heightened.
“Ay, they would be,” nodded Mrs Floore. “It’s a lesson to me to read the Court page, which I don’t mind telling you I’m not in the habit of doing. Well, I’m sure I beg your pardon, my dear—not but what if I had known of it I’d still have asked you for your opinion of the gentleman, though I wouldn’t have done so but in private. Certainly not with Ned Goring sitting in the room, as I hope you’ll believe!”
“I don’t see that my being in the room makes any difference at all,” said Mr Goring unexpectedly. “I’ll go away, if you like, but, whether I go or whether I stay, don’t ask her ladyship any more questions, ma’am!”
“Thank you!” Serena said, smiling at him. “But it is very natural that Mrs Floore should wish to know why I cried off from the engagement. It was for no reason, ma’am, that precludes him from making some other female a perfectly respectable husband. The truth is that we found we did not suit. Our dispositions were too alike. Each of us, in fact, is autocratic, and neither of us has the sweetest of tempers. But a gentler woman than I am would not provoke Rotherham as I did, and might, I daresay, be very content to be his wife.”
“Yes, and I daresay this carpet is content to be trodden on!” retorted Mrs Floore. “A man should be master in his own house: I’ve got nothing to say against that, as long as he don’t interfere in what’s no business of his! But if I find this Marquis don’t know the difference between master and tyrant, not one penny will I settle on Emma, and we’ll see what he and Sukey have to say to that!”
“I’m afraid, ma’am, that Emily’s fortune is a matter of indifference to him.”
“Oh, it is, is it? Well, if Emily’s been pushed into this against her will, I’ll go up to London, and tell his lordship who I am, and what I mean to do, which is to hire a house in the best part of the town, and set up as his grandma! And we’ll see if that’s a matter of indifference to him!” declared the old lady triumphantly.