Lady Rotherwood gratefully said she should remember the invitation if they went to the south, as perhaps they should do that very spring.
‘And,’ said Ada, ‘you are not to be expected to remain long in this climate when you have a home like that awaiting you.’
‘Don’t call it home, Miss Mohun,’ he said. ‘I have not had that these many years; but I declare, the first sound of our county dialect, when I got out at the station, made my heart leap into my mouth. I could have shaken hands with the fellow.’
‘Then I hope you will remain here for some time. There is much wanting to be set going,’ said Jane.
‘So I thought of doing, and I had out a young fellow, who I thought might take my place—my partner’s son, young Stebbing. They wrote that he had been learning Italian, with a view to being useful to me, and so on; but when he came out, what was he but a fine gentleman—never had put his hand to a pick, nor a blasting-iron; and as to his Italian, he told me it was the Italian of Alfieri and Leopardi. Leopardi’s Italian it might be, for it was a very mottled or motley tongue, but he might as well have talked English or Double-Dutch to our hands, or better, for they had picked up the meaning of some orders from me before I got used to their lingo. And then he says ‘tis office work and superintendence he understands. How can you superintend, I told him, what you don’t know yourself? No, no; go home and bring a pair of hands fit for a quarryman, before I make you overlooker.’
This was rather delightful, and it further appeared that he could answer all Jane’s inquiries after her beloved promising lads whom he had deported to the Rocca Marina quarries.
They were evidently kindly looked after, and she began to perceive that it was not such a bad place after all for them, more especially as he was in the act of building them a chapel, and one of his objects in coming to England was to find a chaplain; and as Lord Rotherwood said, he had come to the right shop, since Rockquay in the spring was likely to afford a choice of clergy with weak chests, or better still, with weak-chested wives, to whom light work in a genial climate would be the greatest possible boon.
Altogether the evening was very pleasant, only too short. It was a curious study for Jane Mohun how far Lady Rotherwood would give way to her husband. She always seemed to give way, but generally accomplished her own will in the end, and it was little likely that she would allow the establishment to await the influx of Merrifields, though certainly Gillian had done nothing displeasing all that evening except that terrible blushing, for which piece of ingenuousness her aunt loved her all the better.
At half-past ten next morning, however, Lord Rotherwood burst in to borrow Valetta for a donkey-ride, for which his lady had compounded instead of the paddling and castle-building, and certainly poor Val could not do much to corrupt Fly on donkey back, and in his presence. He further routed out Gillian, nothing loth, from her algebra, bidding her put on her seven-leagued boots, and not get bent double—and he would fain have seized on his cousin Jane, but she was already gone off for an interview with the landlord of the most eligible of the two houses.
Gillian and Valetta came back very rosy, and in fits of merriment. Lord Rotherwood had paid the donkey-boys to stay at home, and let him and Gillian take their place. They had gone out on the common above the town, with most amusing rivalries as to which drove the beast worst, making Mysie umpire. Then having attained a delightfully lonely place, Fly had begged for a race with Valetta, which failed, partly because Val’s donkey would not stir, and partly because Fly could not bear the shaking; and then Lord Rotherwood himself insisted on riding the donkey that wouldn’t go, and racing Gillian on the donkey that would—and he made his go so effectually that it ran away with him, and he pulled it up at last only just in time to save himself from being ignominiously stopped by an old fishwoman!