Oh, all comforters,
All soothing things that bring mild ecstasy,
Came with her coming.
—G. Eliot.
Frank Raban arrived that evening. The fires were burning a cheerful greeting; the table was laid in the library; his one plate, his one knife and fork, were ready. After all, it was home, though there was no one to greet him except the two grinning maidens. The dogs were both up at the lodge. As Frank was sitting down to dinner he saw something black lying in one of the windows. He picked it up. It was a glove. Becky roared with laughter when Frank asked her if it was hers; she was setting down a huge dish with her honest red hands. Her gloves! 'They were made o' cotton,' she said; 'blue, wi' red stitchens'.' She suggested that 'this might be t' young lady's; t' gentleman and t' young lady had come and had walked about t' house wi' James Brand.'
'What gentleman?—what young lady?' asked Raban.
'A pale-faced young lady in bla-ack cloathes,' said Becky. 'T' gentleman were called Sir Tummas. James Brand, he knawed.'
'Sir Thomas! A pale young lady in black!'
Frank stuck the little glove up on the tall chimney. It seemed a welcoming hand put out to greet him on his return. He had guessed to whom the glove belonged even before he saw a little inky D marked in the wrist.
'So she had been there!' While he had been away life in its fiercest phases had met him, and at such times people's own feelings and histories seem to lose in meaning, in vividness, and importance. When whole nations are concerned, and the life of thousands is the stake by which the game is played; then each private story seems lost, for a time, in the great rush of fate. Frank had been twice to the East during that winter. He had seen Jonah, he had disposed of his stores. The little yacht had done her work bravely, and was now cruising in summer seas, and Raban had come home to his sheep and his furrows—to his old furrows of thought; how curiously the sight of that little glove brought it all back once more.
As Frank rode along the lanes, it was difficult to believe that all was tranquil as it seemed. That no ambush was lurking behind the hedges; that the rumble of carts travelling along with their load from the quarry was no echo of distant guns; that no secret danger was to be dreaded. This was the second morning after his arrival. The sunshine which Dolly had liked seemed to him also of good omen. The lilacs were coming into flower, the banks were sparkling with flowers: primroses and early hyacinths, summer green and summer light were brightening along the road. Frank rode quietly along on his way to the Court, sure of a welcome from Lady Henley, for had he not seen Jonah? Bloom, little flowers, along the path; sing, little birds, from overarching boughs; beat, honest heart, along the road that leads to the goal of thy life's journey!
Lady Henley was the first person he saw when he rode into the park. Sunshiny though it was, she was tucked up in some warm furs and sitting on the lawn in front of the house.