APPROACHES
Lady Eldridge came over to the Hall the next morning. Mrs. Eldridge received her with bright amiability. On the surface they were friends as before, but the desire for one another's company was less. They had not quarrelled and would not quarrel, but each of them knew now that the other had espoused the quarrel, and that it was beyond their powers to end it.
Lady Eldridge had brought news. William had taken a shooting in Suffolk, and she was going to join him there immediately, to get ready for their first party, to which, however, she had brought no invitation. "It has all been rather sudden," she said with a smile. "But William is like that. It is very good partridge country. He heard that the shoot was to be let, and ran down to see about it. It seemed to be just what he wanted, so he closed with them at once."
"Lord Crowborough told Edmund yesterday that he was buying a place in Suffolk," said Mrs. Eldridge. "Well, my dear, it will be dreadful to lose you, but under the circumstances at present I'm afraid we shouldn't get much pleasure out of one another here. Perhaps it's the best thing. Are you going to move your furniture there?"
"But William hasn't bought the place," said Lady Eldridge. "It is extraordinary what tales get about. He has only taken it for the season, furnished, of course. It's a very nice house, and his idea is that we shall go there this winter when we are not in London. But there is no idea of our giving up the Grange. I hope we shall be here next summer, and that everything will be happy again between us."
"I hope it will be," said Mrs. Eldridge with a sigh; "and I wish we didn't have to wait until next summer for it. Little things always seem to be happening to put us farther apart, and nothing ever happens to bring us closer together."
"There is one little thing that may help. William is sending Coombe up to Eylsham. A head gardener is wanted there, and he has got him the place. He won't come back here, even when our tenancy there ends."
So there was that trouble removed, but too late for it to have much effect. Colonel Eldridge, when he heard of it, expressed a modified satisfaction. "I'm glad to get the fellow out of the place," he said, "though I think the mischief he may have done is at an end. People here have taken his measure, and he doesn't seem to have turned anybody against me. It has happened to suit William to clear him out of here; if he had meant to satisfy me by doing it he'd have done it in a different way."
He expressed some doubt, also, as to whether Lord Crowborough's story wasn't true after all. "Eleanor hasn't seen him for a fortnight or more," he said. "She only knows what he has written to her. We know that the place is on the market. Very likely he has taken it for a time to see how it suits him; and if it does he will buy it. He hasn't told Eleanor that yet. I don't know that I've any reason to complain about it, if it is so. I suppose he wants landed property to support his new title, and he wouldn't be content to wait for Hayslope. My life is pretty well as good as his. At any rate there's no definite point in dispute left now between us. There's no need for him to turn his back on me any longer."
"Wouldn't he expect you to take the first step towards a reconciliation now?"