‘Oh lor,’ thought Sally, ‘now ’e’s goin’ to begin.’
§
That afternoon and evening were a triumph for her if she had known it, but all she knew was that she was counting the hours to next day, and Jocelyn, and the settling down at last to her home and her duties. The old man was her slave. Crippenham and everything in it was laid at her feet, and the Duke only lamented that it should be to this one of his houses that she had come, where he couldn’t, he was afraid, make her even decently comfortable. Positively at Crippenham there was only one bathroom. The Duke seemed to regard this as a calamity, and Sally listened with mild wonder to the amount he had to say about it.
‘Fair ’arps on it, don’t ’e, poor old gentleman,’ she remarked to Charles; and bending over to the Duke’s ear—Charles looked on in astonishment at the fearless familiarity of the gesture—she tried to convey to him that it wasn’t Saturday night till the next night, and that by then she’d be in Cambridge, so there was no need for him to take on.
‘Eh?’ said the Duke. ‘What does she say?’ he asked Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, ‘that it doesn’t matter.’
How very glad he was that his father was so deaf. Often he had found his deafness trying, but how glad he was of it now. Not Saturday night.... Charles fell silent. It was then Friday. Could it be that since the previous Saturday——?
The Duke, however, knew nothing of Sally except what his eyes told him, and accordingly he was her slave. When she presently went up to Laura’s room with the housekeeper, who had instructions to place everything of Lady Laura’s at Mrs. Luke’s disposal—Crippenham had no spare rooms, only a room each for the Duke, and Charles, and Laura, the other six or seven bedrooms being left unfurnished and kept locked up—and Charles, who from long practice could make his father hear better than anyone except Laura, settled down to telling him as much about Sally as he thought prudent, the old man listened eagerly, his hand behind his ear, drinking in every word and asking questions which showed that if he was really interested in a subject he still could be most shrewd.
He was delighted that Sally should have run away from her mother-in-law, said it was proof of a fine, thoroughbred spirit, and asked who her father was.
Charles said his name was Pinner.