He had never questioned the wisdom of his girl’s engagement, and, to the amazement of the unthinking neighbourhood, he had followed Stanley respectfully to the grave, showing no outward resentment against his daughter’s dead lover. Many people thought it strange and almost inhuman, but Deb understood. What he honoured was not the body of a wild young blackguard, but the representative of the race which he and his forefathers had served. He would have done the same had Slinker wrecked them both, body and soul.
He asked her the state of the market while she ate her late lunch, and drifted on to inquiries as to the folk she had met in the town. She mentioned several of his old cronies—that ground was safe enough—commenting on their health, business and conversation. Then at last came the question she dreaded.
“Anybody in from Crump?”
He had not meant to ask it, but you cannot put a question every Saturday for years without becoming more or less its slave. His thin hand clasped and unclasped nervously on his knee, but when once the sentence was spoken, he stood by it.
“Christian was in,” she replied, fixing an intent gaze on the mustard. “He was driving;—yes—the stanhope.” (Cars were nothing accounted of in the old man’s conservative eyes.) She tried to stop the next words, but they came in spite of her. “Stanley’s wife was with him.”
The stately old man crimsoned to his snowy hair.
“She is still there, then—that person—old Steenie Stone’s daughter? I heard she was stopping, but I did not believe it. I could not!”
“Mrs. Lyndesay would not let her go. They say she has taken a fancy to her. A somewhat embarrassing attention, I should think!” Deb smiled faintly, paused, and began again. “She—Stanley’s wife—wanted to know me.”
“To know you? You!” The old man was trembling, now. He struck his ebony stick sharply on the floor. “She presumed to demand an introduction? You did not grant it, of course?”
Deb shook her head, anathematising herself for opening the subject. “No, I did not.” Rising, she laid a hand on his shoulder, and turned him to the window. “The Highland cattle are coming down to drink. Do you remember where we got them?” (The old steward “we” still clung to the lips of both.) “Dixon says the hay crop is going to be first-rate, this year. When will you have the paddock cut?”