“Men always look worn after a Session,” said Lady Tyrrell.
“If this really makes him unhappy!”
“My dear Cecil, that’s the very proof of the necessity. If it makes him unhappy to go five miles away with his wife, it ought not. You should wean him from such dependence.”
Cecil had tears in her eyes as she said, “I don’t know! When I hear him sighing in his sleep, I long to give it up and tell him I will try to be happy here.”
“My dear child, don’t be weak. If you give way now, you will rue it all your life.”
“If I could have taken to his mother, I think he would have cared more for me.”
“No. The moment her jealousy was excited she would have resumed him, and you would have been the more shut out in the cold. A little firmness now, and the fresh start is before you.”
Cecil sighed, feeling that she was paying a heavy price for that fresh start, but her hands were too full for much thought. Guests came to dinner, Mrs. Poynsett kept more to her own room, and Raymond exerted himself to talk, so that the blank of the evenings was less apparent. The days were spent at the town-hall, where the stalls were raised early enough for all the ladies, their maids and footmen, to buzz about them all day, decking them out.
Mrs. Duncombe was as usual the guiding spirit, contriving all with a cleverness that made the deficiencies of her household the more remarkable. Conny and Bee Strangeways were the best workers, having plenty of experience and resource, and being ready to do anything, however hard, dusty, or disagreeable; and to drudge contentedly, with plenty of chatter indeed, but quite as freely to a female as to a male companion; whereas Miss Moy had a knot of men constantly about her, and made a noise which was a sore trial to Cecil’s heavy spirit all the first day, exclusive of the offence to her native fastidiousness. She even called upon Lady Tyrrell and Mrs. Duncombe to hold a council whether all gentlemen should not be excluded the next day, as spoiling the ladies’ work, and of no use themselves; but there were one or two who really did toil, and so well that they could not be dispensed with, and Mrs. Duncombe added that it would not do to give offence.
There was a harassed look about Mrs. Duncombe herself, for much depended on the success of her husband’s filly, Dark Hag. The Captain had hitherto been cautious, and had secured himself against heavy loss, so as to make the turf a tolerable speculation, on but the wonderful perfections of this animal had led him to stake much more on her than had been his wont; and though his wife was assured of being a rich woman in another week, she was not sorry for the multiplicity of occupations which hindered her mind from dwelling too much on the chances.