“I will go in now,” said Mr. Crawley, “and see if she still sleeps;” and then he entered the house, leaving the dean at the door still seated upon his horse. “He will be afraid of the infection, and I will not ask him to come in,” said Mr. Crawley to himself.
“I shall seem to be prying into his poverty, if I enter unasked,” said the dean to himself. And so he remained there till Puck, now acquainted with the locality, stopped at the door.
“Have you not been in?” said Robarts.
“No; Crawley has been at the door talking to me; he will be here directly, I suppose;” and then Mark Robarts also prepared himself to wait till the master of the house should reappear.
But Lucy had no such punctilious misgivings; she did not much care now whether she offended Mr. Crawley or no. Her idea was to place herself by the sick woman’s bedside, and to send the four children away;—with their father’s consent if it might be; but certainly without it if that consent were withheld. So she got down from the carriage, and taking certain packages in her hand made her way direct into the house.
“There’s a big bundle under the seat, Mark,” she said; “I’ll come and fetch it directly, if you’ll drag it out.”
For some five minutes the two dignitaries of the Church remained at the door, one on his cob and the other in his low carriage, saying a few words to each other and waiting till some one should again appear from the house. “It is all arranged, indeed it is,” were the first words which reached their ears, and these came from Lucy. “There will be no trouble at all, and no expense, and they shall all come back as soon as Mrs. Crawley is able to get out of bed.”
“But, Miss Robarts, I can assure—” That was Mr. Crawley’s voice, heard from him as he followed Miss Robarts to the door; but one of the elder children had then called him into the sick room, and Lucy was left to do her worst.
“Are you going to take the children back with you?” said the dean.
“Yes; Mrs. Robarts has prepared for them.”