To say that Sir Edmund and Lady Fergusson’s aches and twinges multiplied under their disappointments is to state the case with parsimony. They increased to such an extent that the two old coddlers saw graves yawning for them on every hand, and longed with a consuming longing—which was not the less because each had to hide it from the other for pride’s sake—for the solicitude and knowledge of the only man who knew them through and through—a longing so constantly consuming that there was nothing for it but to go to London or to fly the flag of truce. They hated London, but to capitulate was too undignified; and so for a while the Hall was empty.
By what chance the news of Rose’s flight reached Mrs. Stratton I have no notion. But in course of time she heard it, and I hardly need say did not deprive me of an opportunity of learning what her feelings were. I cannot give the exact words of her letter, because I tore it up quickly, but its spirit remains with me.
It was largely a fantasia of triumph on the motif “I told you so.” What could be expected, it asked scornfully, of such a bringing-up as the poor girl had had? When children are handed over to cynical and irreverent bachelors we must look for trouble. What chance had Rose of living a sound life after so much careless familiarity with me and my friends? And so on. It all pointed to the importance of steady self-sacrificing home-training. We might sneer at the old-fashioned ways as much as we liked, but they were the best, after all. Her own girls, Mrs. Stratton was thankful to say, had been brought up to respect religion and do their duty, but their training had made no difference to their natural brightness and joy. It was not necessary to be superior to conventionality in order to be gay!
Poor Milly Stratton! What a Benjamin’s portion of humble-pie was hers not long after, and how careful we should be to discourage tendencies to self-righteousness! If there is a good little cherub that sits up aloft filled with benevolent protectiveness for the simple sailor-man, there is no less surely a mischievous little imp, infinitely more watchful, whose mission in life is to detect the complacently virtuous and make things hot for them. Milly Stratton came very quickly within his sphere of action, poor woman.
Driving up the road just before lunch I saw a strange figure in the garden and was instantaneously conscious that she was unhappy. Why the set of the shoulders, the movement of the arms, of an unknown visitor seen among rose bushes at a considerable distance, should convey an impression of mental disorder, I cannot explain; nor am I a particularly good observer. All I can say is that in a flash I received the suggestion; and, as it happened, it was right.
On reaching the house I found that the stranger was Mrs. Stratton, who turned a distraught face to me as I approached her.
“Dr. Greville,” she said, “I am come both to ask your forgiveness and your advice.”
“Forgiveness?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, forgiveness. I was very hard on you many years ago, in that room there, on the night of the reading of poor Theodore’s will, and I was very hard on you the other day in a letter which I wrote about Rose.”
“That’s all right,” I assured her, adding that she certainly had had provocation on the first occasion, and no doubt also I was not very nice to her. I was younger then and perhaps too assertive: perhaps rather offensively proud of being selected by Theodore as his daughter’s guardian.