Then the Canon said a word. "Of course no one wants to trouble him. I can speak at least for myself. I do not,—certainly. I have requested her ladyship to ask him whether he would wish me to call or not. If he says that he does, I shall expect him to receive me cordially. If he does not—there's an end of it."
"I hope you won't all of you turn against him," said the Marchioness.
"Turn against him!" repeated the Dean. "I do not suppose that there is any one who would not be both kind and courteous to him, if he would accept kindness and courtesy. It grieves me to make you unhappy, Marchioness, but I am bound to let you know that he treated me very badly." From that moment the Marchioness made up her mind that the Dean was no friend of the family, and that he was, after all, vulgar and disagreeable. She undertook, however, to enquire from her son on next Sunday whether he would wish to be called upon by his brother-in-law, the Canon.
On the following day Lady Alice went alone to Manor Cross,—being the first lady who had gone to the door since the new arrivals,—and asked for Lady Brotherton. The courier came to the door and said "not at home," in a foreign accent, just as the words might have been said to any chance caller in London. Then Lady Alice asked the man to tell her brother that she was there. "Not at home, miladi," said the man, in the same tone. At that moment Mrs. Toff came running through the long hall to the carriage door. The house was built round a quadrangle, and all the ground floor of the front and of one of the sides consisted of halls, passages, and a billiard-room. Mrs. Toff must have been watching very closely or she could hardly have known that Lady Alice was there. She came out and stood beside the carriage, and leaning in, whispered her fears and unhappi
nesses. "Oh! my lady, I'm afraid it's very bad. I haven't set eyes on the—the—his wife, my lady, yet; nor the little boy."
"Are they in now, Mrs. Toff?"
"Of course they're in. They never go out. He goes about all the afternoon in a dressing-gown, smoking bits of paper, and she lies in bed or gets up and doesn't do,—nothing at all, as far as I can see, Lady Alice. But as for being in, of course they're in; they're always in." Lady Alice, however, feeling that she had done her duty, and not wishing to take the place by storm, had herself driven back to Brotherton.
On the following Sunday afternoon the Marquis came, according to his promise, and found his mother alone. "The fact is, mother," he said, "you have got a regular church set around you during the last year or two, and I will have nothing to do with them. I never cared much for Brotherton Close, and now I like it less than ever." The Marchioness moaned and looked up into his face imploringly. She was anxious to say something in defence, at any rate, of her daughter's marriage, but specially anxious to say nothing that should not anger him. Of course he was unreasonable, but, according to her lights, he, being the Marquis, had a right to be unreasonable. "The Dean came to me the other day," continued he, "and I could see at a glance that he meant to be quite at home in the house, if I didn't put him down."
"You'll see Mr. Holdenough, won't you? Mr. Holdenough is a very gentlemanlike man, and the Holdenoughs were always quite county people. You used to like Alice."
"If you ask me, I think she has been a fool at her age to go and marry an old parson. As for receiving him, I shan't receive anybody,—in the way of entertaining them. I haven't come home for that purpose. My child will have to live here when he is a man."