"Yes; she was in the hall as he passed through on his way out. And it so happened that she let him in and out too when he came before. That is, if it is the same man."
"That's very odd."
"It did not happen here. We were at Tenby for a few weeks in the summer."
"I remember; you went there with the girls just when I went back to school."
"Jones was with us, and Richard. We had none other of our own servants. And Jones says that the same man did come then; that he stayed with your father for an hour or two; and that when he left, your father was depressed—almost as he was yesterday. I well remember that. I know that a man did come to him at Tenby; and—oh, Herbert!"
"What is it, mother? Speak out at any rate to me."
"Since that man came to him at Tenby he has never been like what he was before."
And then there was more questioning between them about Jones and her remembrances. It must be explained that Jones was a very old and very valued servant. She had originally been brought up as a child by Mrs. Wainwright, in that Dorsetshire parsonage, and had since remained firm to the fortunes of the young lady, whose maid she had become on her first marriage. As her mistress had been promoted, so had Jones. At first she had been Kitty to all the world, now she was Mrs. Jones to the world at large, Jones to Sir Thomas and her mistress and of late years to Herbert, and known by all manner of affectionate sobriquets to the young ladies. Sometimes they would call her Johnny, and sometimes the Duchess; but doubtless they and Mrs. Jones thoroughly understood each other. By the whole establishment Mrs. Jones was held in great respect, and by the younger portion in extreme awe. Her breakfast and tea she had in a little sitting-room by herself; but the solitude of this was too tremendous for her to endure at dinner-time. At that meal she sat at the head of the table in the servants' hall, though she never troubled herself to carve anything except puddings and pies, for which she had a great partiality, and of which she was supposed to be the most undoubted and severe judge known of anywhere in that part of the country.
She was supposed by all her brother and sister servants to be a very Crœsus for wealth; and wondrous tales were told of the money she had put by. But as she was certainly honest, and supposed to be very generous to certain poor relations in Dorsetshire, some of these stories were probably mythic. It was known, however, as a fact, that two Castle Richmond butlers, one out-door steward, three neighbouring farmers, and one wickedly ambitious coachman, had endeavoured to tempt her to matrimony—in vain. "She didn't want none of them," she told her mistress. "And, what was more, she wouldn't have none of them." And therefore she remained Mrs. Jones, with brevet rank.
It seemed, from what Lady Fitzgerald said, that Mrs. Jones's manner had been somewhat mysterious about this man, Mollett. She had endeavoured to reassure and comfort her mistress, saying that nothing would come of it as nothing had come of that other Tenby visit, and giving it as her counsel that the ladies should allow the whole matter to pass by without further notice. But at the same time Lady Fitzgerald had remarked that her manner had been very serious when she first said that she had seen the man before.