Mr. Dusautoy, having a year ago come out of the diocese where had been Albinia’s home, they had many common friends, and plunged into ‘ecclesiastical intelligence,’ with a mutual understanding of the topics most often under discussion, that made Albinia quite in her element. ‘A great Newfoundland dog of a man in size, and countenance, and kindness,’ thought she. ‘If his wife be worthy of him, I shall reck little of all the rest.’
Her tread the gayer for this resumption of old habits, she proceeded to Mrs. Meadows’, where the sensation created by her poor little basket justified Lucy’s remonstrance. There were regrets, and assurances that the girl could have come in a moment, and that she need not have troubled herself, and her laughing declarations that it was no trouble were disregarded, except that the old lady said, in gentle excuse to her daughter, that Mrs. Kendal had always lived in the country, where people could do as they pleased.
‘I mean to do as I please here,’ said Albinia, laughing; but the speech was received with silent discomfiture that made her heartily regret it. She disdained to explain it away; she was beginning to hold Mrs. and Miss Meadows too cheap to think it worth while.
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Meadows, as if yielding up the subject, ‘things may be different from what they were in my time.’
‘Oh! mamma—Mrs. Kendal—I am sure—’ Albinia let Maria flounder, but she only found her way out of the speech with ‘Well! and is not it the most extraordinary!—Mr. Dusautoy—so rude—’
‘I should not wonder if you found me almost as extraordinary as Mr. Dusautoy,’ said Albinia.
Why would Miss Meadows always nettle her into saying exactly the wrong thing, so as to alarm and distress the old lady? That want of comprehension of playfulness was a strangely hard trial. She turned to Mrs. Meadows and tried to reassure her by saying, ‘You know I have been always in the clerical line myself, so I naturally take the part of the parson.’
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Mrs. Meadows. ‘I dare say Mr. Dusautoy is a very good man, but I wish he would allow his poor delicate wife more butcher’s meat, and I don’t think it looks well to see the vicarage without a man-servant.’
Albinia finally made her escape, and while wondering whether she should ever visit that house without tingling with irritation with herself and with the inmates, Lucy exclaimed, ‘There, you see I was right. Grandmamma and Aunt Maria were surprised when I told them that you said you were an able-bodied woman.’
What would not Albinia have given for Winifred to laugh with her? What to do now she did not know, so she thought it best not to hear, and to ask the way to a carpenter’s shop to order some book-shelves.