“There is no need for you ever to go away,” he answered quietly. “This isn’t the time for speaking, but you may as well know it. Think it over, my Lady of the Land!”
He went away without waiting for an answer, and she stood in the porch, looking across to the lights of Crump starred steadfast on the frantic night, and her heart reached piteously across the cleaving water. Then, conscious of a great unwillingness to leave the wildness without, she went wearily into the house.
Even the most perfect of servants has his moments of temporary aberration, and when Mrs. Slinker came lightly down the stairs in clinging, gleaming, ivory satin, with pearls twisted round her head and pearls shining from her throat, it was scarcely surprising that the first footman should drop the steel poker and stare like a very kitchen-maid.
“She’s a bloomin’ bride!” he informed the underworld, when he had got himself (furtively staring to the furthest limit) safely out of reach. “A bloomin’ bride—that’s what she looked, and no mistake about it! Satin and ropes of pearls, and twinkly things on her shoes, and a colour like the light shining through that there ruby sugar-bowl! You take my word for it, she’s making up her mind to get married again—soon!”
“Then it’s Whyterigg,” announced the second, who had just reached the blissful stage at which he was permitted to make observations without being unduly snubbed. “I hung up his coat when he came, and there was a hard thing with corners in his pocket that couldn’t have been anything else but chocolates. He has a kind of white satin and ruby look about him, too. Bet you what you like it’s Whyterigg!”
“Rishwald’s running her hard,” the cook agreed. “My young man says his car’s always in the village, and Rishwald peering into shops and looking lost, and then rushing inside to buy things he can’t want anyhow if he thinks folks is looking at him. And last time he came he never touched that vol-o-vong I sent up extra-special. There’s bound to be something at the back of that. My aunt! she’s doing well for herself—first Crump and then Whyterigg! None so dusty for a horse-dealer’s daughter, is it?”
“I don’t believe she’ll take Whyterigg,” a quiet, refined-looking girl spoke up from beside the fire. “She’s only cared for one man all her life, and we all know who that is! I used to see a lot of Nettie Stone before she was sent away to finish her education, and she was in love with Anthony Dixon even then.”
“Go on—you and your Anthony Dixon!” the cook sniffed contemptuously. “As if anybody with a chance of Whyterigg would be cracked enough to give Dockerneuk a second thought! She’s travelled far enough from her Dockerneuk days, I’ll be bound. Satin for Anthony Dixon! Pearls! Twinkly things on her toes! A fat lot you know about it, to be sure. Rishwald it’ll be, you’ll see, and another slap in the eye for their precious county!”
Rishwald was distinctly of the same opinion, judging from the atmosphere of tender possession with which he instantly surrounded the bridal vision. He even forgot certain tea-spoons of quite historic importance, and was content to whisper illiterate nothings into a charming ear, while the footmen eyed him through the open dining-room door, and laid bets as to his probable chances.