She smiled lazily as she wrote, but once she sighed so heavily that her daughter asked her if anything were amiss.
“No,” she replied. “I was only just wondering whether anybody in their senses could understand the nonsense I am writing. The editor’s orders are to make the thing sound French: I should lose my job if I wrote in plain English.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Dolly, “how tedious all that sort of thing seems! I wonder that you can bother with it.”
“I’ve got to,” her mother answered, with irritation. “I shan’t be able to give it up till you are married and off my hands.”
“Yes, so you are always telling me,” said Dolly; and therewith their silence was renewed.
Night had fallen when they set out for the manor, and the lane was intensely dark. They were guided, however, by the light in the window of the lodge at the gates; and from here to their destination they were accompanied by the gardener, who carried a lantern which flung their shadows, like great black monsters, across the high box-hedges flanking the main approach. From the outside the timbered house looked ghostly and forbidding; and by contrast, the front hall which they entered seemed wonderfully well-lit, though only lamps and candles and the flames of the log-fire served for illumination.
Here Jim came to them as they were removing their wraps, and Dolly could see by the expression on his face that her dress had his hearty approval. He led them into the library, where his late uncle’s books, arranged upon the high shelves, and the rather heavy furniture, presented a picture of solid dignity; and presently they were ushered into the panelled dining-room, where they sat down at a warmly lit table, under the silent scrutiny of a gallery of dead Tundering-Wests and that of a gaping village housemaid who appeared to be more or less moribund.
The food provided by Jim’s thoroughly incompetent cook was not a success, and when some rather tough mutton chops had followed a dish of under-boiled cod, which had been preceded by a huge silver tureen of lukewarm soup, their host felt that some words of apology were due to his guests.
“You must try to bear with the menu,” he laughed. “This is my cook’s first situation. She was recommended to me by Mr. Glenning, the vicar, as a girl who was willing to learn; but it only occurred to me afterwards that that was not much good when there was nobody to teach her.”