“Certainly—only too delighted—honoured—enraptured!” Savaury murmured, as fascinated as any rabbit by a boa-constrictor. “But you must admit it will be a little bit awkward.”
“Oh, well, I’ll bring Christian along as well,” she said kindly, “and then, if things are going wrong, you can shove him in between. Christian’s a beautiful buffer. Don’t you fret. We’ll worry through, somehow, and come up smiling. Wednesday? All right. You’re a duck!”
“I eat quite decently at table!” she called after him, as he turned rather blindly up the street, “and I don’t need introducing to a finger glass. And—oh, yes!—I always take a fork to sweets. Thought I’d better tell you—save you worrying, don’t you know!” and he could hear that she was still laughing as he stumbled, gasping, into the saddler’s, and gave a lengthy order for tea-cakes.
“So tiresome!” he condoled with himself, peering round the doorpost to make sure that the coast was clear before emerging. “Really a most distressing occurrence, not to say calamitous. And yet, without doubt, a decidedly pleasant woman! But, goodness gracious, how am I to tell Petronilla!”
Petronilla took it very well on the whole, being a woman of character, whose quietly-regal demeanour was equal to most situations; but it was a distinctly nervous host and hostess that waited their guests on Wednesday evening in the long, low-ceiled room, where the lamplight caught the flowers in the old punch-bowls, and the firelight rippled along the shining surface of chintz and deep-tinted china, and warmed the mellow delicacy of the miniatures on the walls.
“If only she would come first—Deborah, I mean!” Savaury agitated, all black and white and pink and silver, waving eyeglasses distractedly on the hearth-rug. “Then I could take her aside and just explain to her, while you kept the others away till she settled down. I wish you’d have let me tell her beforehand, just to get her broken in; and then—well, then——”
“Then she wouldn’t have come!” Petronilla finished serenely.
“Well, no, I don’t suppose she would. But you must admit it’s simply horrid, not to say painful! Suppose she won’t bow, or goes out and walks home in the mud? And I ordered such an extremely nice dinner!”
“She won’t do that. Deborah is too well-bred to make her hosts uncomfortable. What I’m wondering is how the High Sheriff will take the horse-dealer’s daughter. He’s a Radical, you know. And I’d quite forgotten that Crump used to owe Whyterigg a grudge—oh, dear! Still, it’s a very long time ago, and one can’t ask just anybody to meet Mr. Lyndesay, even if it is only Christian. But a horse-dealer’s daughter! Perhaps she’ll get on with the parson.”
“Don’t you pin your faith to the parson!” (Savaury seemed to have followed this curious speech with perfect ease). “Mrs. Stanley isn’t the parson-sort, from what I saw of her. Oh, I don’t mind anything if only Deborah doesn’t try to shoot her! I hope to goodness she’ll come first!”