Dinner was already far advanced, but a plate of something had been brought for Hugh, and he was eating it with what seemed like appetite. But Mrs. Owen knew better; it was a pretence of appetite probably. She had heard of that before. Besides, people who were going to be hung at 8 A.M. often ate excellent breakfasts. Hugh, so to speak, had been hung forty-eight hours ago, so this was less remarkable a feat.
But for the life of her she could not guess for certain, to her own satisfaction, what had happened. Months ago, when Canon Alington had returned, he had announced the incredibly swift recovery of his sister-in-law (meaning Agnes’s sister-in-law), and had expressed a grave but cheerful doubt whether she had ever suffered from consumption at all. “She will be well by May,” he had said. It was May now.
Oh, yes, there was something below these cards, and her poisonous provincial mind promised itself a treat of some kind. Already she was saying to herself that she never had liked “those Graingers.”
But there was a limitation clause here. She might still be devoted to “those Graingers” if this estrangement, whatever it was, was not disgraceful, especially if she was confided in, if she knew first. She determined to do her very best to know first. That made a lot of difference. Perhaps Hugh would confide in her if she showed how understanding, how sympathetic, how womanly (in the best sense of that word) she was.
“Dear Mr. Hugh,” she said, “but how we have missed you and your dear wife! Mannington has not been Mannington without you. She will soon rejoin you here, I trust?”
“Oh, no,” said Hugh; “she will be at Davos, at least I hope so, all the summer.”
To the mind of the real scandal-monger no remark is innocent. The trained vision can find concealment and equivocation everywhere. “At least I hope so”—what did that mean? It looked as if he did not know his wife’s movements, did not care, perhaps. Hugh’s innocence appeared probable to the poisonous mind, and the case began to look grave against Edith. Mrs. Owen began to recollect also that she had never liked “that Mrs. Grainger,” who had always held herself so much aloof. No wonder. But to her broad-minded view the innocent should never suffer with the guilty. Hugh should not lose his friends, as far as she was concerned.
“You are here for some time, Hugh?” asked his sister.
“I hardly know,” said he; “it depends on other people, and on circumstances. I shall ask people to come down here, and if they won’t (“If they won’t!” echoed Mrs. Owen to herself) I shall go away. I can’t live at Chalkpits all alone. All the same I could be very busy. I should fish and ride. I have to practise too, as I have a long engagement at Covent Garden in the summer. Edith begged me not to give it up. Of course I may have to.”
Mrs. Owen’s suspicions grew darker. She was sure Edith had done something dreadful. How gallant Hugh was about it! She was sure she could have behaved just like that, if the opportunity had come in her way. But it never had. She thought that Hugh was almost certain to confide in her.