Humfrey’s substantial person was ready to meet her at the
station, and the first glance dispelled her nervous tremors, and calmed the tossings of her mind in the habitual sense of trust and reliance. He thanked her for coming, handed her into the carriage, looked after her goods, and seated himself beside her in so completely his ordinary fashion of taking care of her, that she forgot all her intentions of rendering their meeting momentous. Her first inquiry was for his health, but he put it aside with something about feeling very well now, and he looked so healthy, only perhaps a little more hearty and burly, that she did not think any more of the matter, and only talked in happy desultory scraps, now dwelling on her little Owen’s charms, now joyfully recognizing familiar objects, or commenting upon the slight changes that had taken place. One thing, however, she observed; Humfrey did not stop the horse at the foot of the steep hill where walking had been a matter of course, when he had been a less solid weight than now. ‘Yes, Honor,’ he said, smiling, ‘one grows less merciful as one grows old and short-breathed.’
‘You growing old! you whom I’ve never left off thinking of as a promising lad, as poor old Mrs. Mervyn used to call you.’
He turned his face towards her as if about to say something very seriously, but apparently changing his intention, he said, ‘Poor old Mrs. Mervyn, I wonder how she would like the changes at Beauchamp.’
‘Are the Fulmorts doing a great deal?’
‘They have quite modernized the house, and laid out the garden—what I should call very prettily, if it were not for my love of the old Dutch one. They see a great deal of company, and go on in grand style.’
‘How do you get on with them?’
‘Oh! very well; I have dined there two or three times. He is a good-natured fellow enough, and there are some nice children, whom I like to meet with their nurses in the woods. I stood proxy for the last one’s sponsor; I could not undertake the office myself.’
‘Good-natured!’ exclaimed Nora. ‘Why, you know how he behaved at St. Wulstan’s. No more than £5 a year would he ever give to any charity, though he was making thousands by those gin-shops.’
‘Probably he thought he was doing very liberally.’