“We will meet again at dinner-time; the squire has asked me to dinner; it’s a sad occasion, but these things must be.”
It was not only a sad occasion, but a very tiresome occasion, John thought, some hours later, when he did meet the vicar again at the squire’s table. And not only the vicar, but Mrs. Layton also, who dined unasked at the Hall. She had indeed spent the day there, and was not a woman to know there was a meal going on in her son-in-law’s house without joining it. She, therefore, took her daughter’s place at the head of the table, also unasked, and talked a good deal to John Temple.
She was a brisk little woman, with a small thin face, and a sharp tongue. She might have been pretty once perhaps, when her eyes were not so hard, if that ever had been. Now she was certainly not pretty, nor sweet with any womanly grace. She had an eager, watchful look, as though always on the alert. She was watching John Temple, as she sat at the squire’s table, and talked to him; watching and speculating as to what he would do after the squire was gone.
“How is Mrs. Temple?” asked John, in a low tone, while the vicar was prosing on to the poor squire.
“Poor dear, what can I say?” answered Mrs. Layton; “she was wrapped up in him; yes, wrapped up. I consider it wrong myself, Mr. Temple, to make an idol of anything; all may go, all may go! My dear squire, may I trouble you for a little more of that salmon? It’s delicious.”
Mrs. Layton got her salmon, and ate her green peas with relish, and all the time went on enlarging about her daughter’s grief. She also tried to extract some information from John as to his past life, but here she signally failed. John was reticent and repressive, and probably, as she remarked afterward to her husband, “he had good reason to be.”
“And the vicar tells me you met Margaret Churchill to-day,” she said, presently. “Well, she’s a pretty girl, but I fear a sad flirt, a very sad flirt.”
“Pretty girls often get that character,” answered John, “because men naturally admire them.”
Mrs. Layton shook her head.
“But Margaret really goes too far,” she said. “Now there’s young Henderson of Stourton Grange, an excellent match for her, and far beyond what she might expect. Yet after letting him run after her for months, and encouraging him in every way, I’m told she’s actually refused him.”