But this afternoon, setting forth to call on Mrs Sommers, with a pleasurable thrill of anticipation which the prospective society of the ladies would scarcely seem to justify, it entered her mind for the first time that Mrs Chadwick’s residence at the Hall must work some sort of change in the pleasant routine of their daily lives.
She was not sure that she approved of Mrs Chadwick. She was very sure, when she arrived and was shown into Mr Musgrave’s drawing-room, that she, disapproved of her. Mrs Chadwick was seated at the open window, although the day was cold, and she was smoking a cigarette. She threw the cigarette away on the visitor’s entrance, and smilingly apologised.
“I hope you don’t object to smoke,” she said. “It is an incurable bad habit with me.”
Miss Simpson did not object to smoke from the proper quarter—the proper quarter being as it issued from between the lips of the sterner sex, who were privileged in the matter of bad habits, which is a feminine fallacy that is slipping out of date; she very strongly objected to smoking when her own sex indulged in it—indeed, save for Mrs Chadwick, she had never seen a woman smoke. It was, she considered, a disgusting and unfeminine practice.
She murmured “Really!” And shaking hands somewhat frigidly, addressed herself pointedly to Mrs Sommers for the first few minutes after sitting down.
Mrs Chadwick caressed the pekinese, and watched the visitor with curious interest the while. It was not, however, in Mrs Chadwick’s nature to remain outside any conversation for long; and she gracefully insinuated herself into the talk, to Miss Simpson’s further surprise. She expected, when she took the trouble to show her displeasure, to see the object thereof properly quelled. That, too, is a characteristic of parish omnipotence. And, amazingly, Mrs Chadwick was already betraying a desire to interfere in Moresby arrangements.
“I visited the schools this morning,” she observed, breaking in on Miss Simpson’s gossip about the new schoolmaster, who, seemingly, gave every satisfaction, being a great improvement on his predecessor, who was, as Miss Simpson expressed it, a horrid Radical. “It was all very amusing. They are such quaint, blunt little people. I liked them. But the schools want pulling down and rebuilding. Everything is obsolete. The ceilings are too low and the ventilation inadequate. I am all for fresh air.”
She laughed at sight of Miss Simpson’s wooden expression, and at the shiver which ran through her narrow frame as she glanced meaningly at the wide-open window.
“Do you feel this too much?” she asked pleasantly, and obligingly drew the window partially down. “Mrs Sommers and I are seasoned; but we blow Mr Musgrave away at times.”
That, of course, accounted for the absence of the master of the house which Miss Simpson had regretfully noticed. The draughts and the smoke would naturally drive Mr Musgrave away; no self-respecting man would stand it.