III
“Theo-do-ra!” Drusilla’s broad cadence issued from the pantry window. Drusilla was the coffee-coloured maid of all work, who was serving temporarily as mouthpiece for Mrs. Trench. “Come home this minute, honey. You got to do an errand befoh lunch.”
Theodora reflected that there was time for twenty such errands. And her perplexity grew when, after a few minutes, she saw Eileen pass through the wicket gate to take Mrs. Ascott an embroidery pattern from an old number of the Self Culture magazine. She remembered distinctly that Mrs. Ascott had said she did not care particularly about it. That was a week ago. Why had mamma dragged it out now, and sent it over by Eileen?
With all her wizard penetration, the child had never glimpsed the deep windings of her mother’s mind. Mrs. Ascott could not be counted on to take a lively interest in two of the Trench children, and for the present Eileen was the focal point of her mother’s concern. More and more the conviction grew that this woman from the great outside world had been sent by Divine Providence to aid in bringing to swift climax what otherwise might have been a long drawn out affair.
Long engagements were dangerous. Sylvia had been engaged to Tom Henderson for two years. If she, Lavinia Larimore, had listened to Calvin, when he begged her to run away and be married, the night he proposed to her.... It was when she reached this stage in her silent soliloquy that she determined to have Drusilla call Theodora home, and send Eileen to Vine Cottage in her stead.
XIII Eyes Turned Homeward
I
It is improbable that Bromfield’s weekly paper would have yielded its meagre space for the chronicling of Eileen Trench’s engagement, had that important fact been divulged at home. There were other, more momentous things going on. The entire front page of each issue was plastered with the Stone sensation, which grew by melodramatic leaps to something like an international affair. Fournier Stone had been captured in Montreal, had broken from his captor and leaped into the river. At first it was thought that he had been drowned; but he was an agile swimmer, and it was reported that a man answering his description had been seen near Longueuil, an hour or two after his escape.