CHAPTER XIII.
ANOTHER JOURNEY TO BOWES.
Mrs. Wilkinson did not leave her home for her long and tedious journey without considerable parade. Her best new black silk dress was packed up in order that due honour might be done to Lord Stapledean's hospitality, and so large a box was needed that Dumpling and the four-wheeled carriage were hardly able to take her to the railway-station. Then there arose the question who should drive her. Arthur offered to do so; but she was going on a journey of decided hostility as regarded him, and under such circumstances she could not bring herself to use his services even over a portion of the road. So the stable-boy was her charioteer.
She talked about Lord Stapledean the whole evening before she went. Arthur would have explained to her something of that nobleman's character if she would have permitted it. But she would not. When he hinted that she would find Lord Stapledean austere in his manner, she answered that his lordship no doubt had had his reasons for being austere with so very young a man as Arthur had been. When he told her about the Bowes hotel, she merely shook her head significantly. A nobleman who had been so generous to her and hers as Lord Stapledean would hardly allow her to remain at the inn.
"I am very sorry that the journey is forced upon me," she said to Arthur, as she sat with her bonnet on, waiting for the vehicle.
"I am sorry that you are going, mother, certainly," he had answered; "because I know that it will lead to disappointment."
"But I have no other course left open to me," she continued. "I cannot see my poor girls turned out houseless on the world." And then, refusing even to lean on her son's arm, she stepped up heavily into the carriage, and seated herself beside the boy.
"When shall we expect you, mamma?" said Sophia.
"It will be impossible for me to say; but I shall be sure to write as soon as I have seen his lordship. Good-bye to you, girls." And then she was driven away.
"It is a very foolish journey," said Arthur.