Bath Tangle Read Free Page A

provoked Mr Eaglesham, swelling with annoyance, to point out to his lordship the very remote nature of his connection with the late Earl. There were others, he took leave to tell him, whose claims to have been appointed Executor of the Will were very much nearer than his. Lord Dorrington’s empurpled cheeks then became so alarmingly suffused that Spenborough said hastily that the appointment of Lord Rotherham was perfectly agreeable to him, whatever it might be to others.
    ‘Obliging of you!’ said Rotherham, over his shoulder, as he crossed the room to where Fanny was still standing nervously beside her chair. ‘Come! Why do you not sit down?’ he said in his abrupt, rather rough way. ‘You must be as anxious as any of us, I daresay, to be done with this business!’
    ‘Oh, yes! Thank you!’ she murmured. She glanced fleetingly up at him, as she seated herself, faltering: ‘I am very sorry, if you dislike it. Indeed, I am afraid it may be troublesome to you!’
    ‘Unlikely: Perrott will no doubt attend to everything.’ He hesitated, and then added, in a still brusquer manner: ‘I should be making you speeches of condolence. Excuse me on that head, if you please! I am no great hand at polite insincerities, and give you credit for believing you cannot wish to figure as inconsolable.’
    She was left feeling crushed; he walked away to a chair near the window in which Serena sat, and she, taking advantage of Sir William Claypole’s claiming his daughter’s attention at that moment, said: ‘You might give her credit for some natural sorrow!’
    ‘Dutiful!’
    ‘She was most sincerely attached to my father.’
    ‘Very well: I give her credit for it. She will soon recover from such sentiments, and must be less than honest if she does not feel herself to have been released from a most unnatural tie.’ He looked at her from under the heavy bar of his black brows, a satirical gleam in his eyes. ‘Yes, you find yourself in agreement with me, and don’t mean to admit it. If sympathizing speeches are expected of me, I will address mine to you. I am sorry for you, Serena: this bears hard on you.’
    There was no softening either in voice or expression, but she knew him well enough to believe that he meant what he said.
    ‘Thank you. I expect I shall go along very tolerably when I have become – a little more accustomed.’
    ‘Yes, if you don’t commit some folly. On that chance, however, I would not wager a groat. Don’t shoot daggerlooks at me! I’m impervious to ’em.’
    ‘On this occasion at least you might spare me your taunts!’ she said, in a low, indignant voice.
    ‘Not at all. To spar with me will save you from falling into a green melancholy.’
    She disdained to answer this, but turned again to look out of the window; and he, as indifferent to the snub as to her anger, took up a lounging position in his chair, and sardonically surveyed the rest of the company.
    Of the six men present he gave the least impression of being a mourner at a funeral. His black coat, which he wore buttoned high across his chest, was at odd variance with a neckcloth tied in a sporting fashion peculiarly his own; and his demeanour lacked the solemnity which characterized the elder members of the party. From his appearance, he might have been almost any age, and was, in fact, in the late thirties. Of medium height only, he was very powerfully built, with big shoulders, a deep chest, and thighs by far too muscular to appear to advantage in the prevailing fashion of skin tight pantaloons. He was seldom seen in such attire, but generally wore top-boots and breeches. His coats were well-cut, but made so that he could shrug himself into them without assistance; and he wore no other jewellery than his heavy gold signet-ring. He had few graces, his manners being blunt to a fault, made as many enemies as friends, and, had he not been endowed with birth, rank, and fortune, would possibly have been ostracized from polite circles. But