She answered him soothingly as she carried off the pots to be washed in the back kitchen.
“Ay, well, it doesn’t matter, does it, one way or t’other? He’d have had to know, anyway, before so long. I must say I was a bit surprised to find you’d been so glib about it, but it makes no odds. He didn’t tell me it was all over the spot, but I might have guessed it. Folks always seem to know what you’re meaning to do a deal sooner than you do yourself!”
He picked up his hat from a side table, and moved towards the door. The impulse was strong in him to tell her of Machell’s application, but he restrained it, being uncertain of her attitude. He was longing for sympathy on the subject, despising himself as he did for the bitterness in his heart, and knowing that sympathy would assuage it. But she had never seemed to value his position as head gardener,—had, indeed, constantly made him feel that it was something to be ashamed of,—and he dared not risk the reference. Yet he lingered before going out, still playing about the question, as if hoping that something or other might occur to ease the trouble in his mind.
“I can’t say I’m best pleased to think Len’s been settling our business for us,” he said, as she came back into the kitchen. “He’s paid to attend to his own job, and not to go prying into ours.”
“He hasn’t settled it for us,—not he! We’ve settled it ourselves. And as for a bit of gossip and such-like, I don’t see how you’re going to keep folks from taking an interest in those about them.”
“I don’t look for Machell and the rest of the staff to go taking an interest in my private affairs.” He lifted his voice a little, and felt a flame rise in him as she laughed. This was the second time to-day that he had felt that sudden spurt of hate, and in his horror at its recurrence his bitterness deepened. He hastened to get outside the door in case the hate should suddenly decide to vent itself in angry words.
Mattie followed him to the threshold.
“It’d be queer if the whole place didn’t know I’d wanted to go!” she said briskly. “There’s been times, I’m sure, when I’ve felt like telling it all round England. It isn’t a crime, anyway,—not as far as I know. We’d a right to go if we liked. As for Machell, he’s a decent-enough lad. I don’t see why you’re so mad with him. Mrs. Machell’s a good little soul, too, though she hasn’t much about her. Let ’em talk if it pleases ’em! A deal o’ difference it’ll make to us what they’re saying and doing here, once you and me are a thousand miles away!”
She stopped to draw breath both for fresh laughter and fresh speech, and in the pause he managed to break away from her. He went slowly, it is true, still longing for the consolation which he had been denied, and bowed by her last words as though she had set a weight upon him. The thousand miles of which she had spoken were laid like lead about his neck. But he went, all the same.... By the time she was speaking again he had rounded the corner of the greenhouse and was lost to her. He heard her voice continuing for a moment, as if not even the consciousness of his departure could force it into silence, and then break as if something had snapped it. He walked on blindly, not heeding where he was going.
And neither of them had remembered the letter.