On the following morning Mrs Chadwick introduced the subject of her departure. She did not expect Mr Musgrave to be overwhelmed with distress at the announcement of her intention; nor was he; nevertheless, with the memory of his overnight reflections flooding his brain, he did not feel the relief he imagined he would feel at the prospect of having his house to himself once more. He was, oddly enough, growing accustomed to Mrs Chadwick. When she was not personal she was decidedly interesting, and not infrequently amusing. And when she left he knew Belle purposed leaving also. It was not convenient for her to be away from home just then. She had come solely to oblige Mrs Chadwick, whose recognition of this service influenced her more than her pretended alarm of her host in hastening her arrangements.
“I am sorry you are thinking of returning already,” Mr Musgrave said, expressing only his sincere sentiments, and not obeying, as his visitor believed, the prompting of his habitual courtesy. “It appears to me that you have given yourself a very limited time, considering the magnitude of your undertakings. I would not have believed it possible that anyone could do so much in a week.”
“I came with all my plans cut and dried, you see; and my appointments with people were prearranged. The work at the Hall will be finished in less than two months, and we shall be settled in well before Christmas. I dislike delay.”
“Yes,” said Mr Musgrave, disliking haste equally. “Moresby inhabitants will be glad to see the Hall occupied again. They have been accustomed to look to the Hall for a lead.”
“They will get it, that’s certain,” Belle put in, smiling. “I am coming down on you at Christmas, John, to see the fun.”
“Of course,” he returned readily, though he looked a little doubtful at the mention of fun. “Christmas festivities are going out of fashion,” he added slowly. “I am not sure it is not as well that is so. Too much merry-making leads to unseemly behaviour. It unsettles the people.”
“If anyone behaves in an unseemly manner we will put his name in the Parish Magazine,” Mrs Chadwick said. “That punishment should act as a sufficient restraint on future occasions. The Parish Magazine is the only thing that appals me in Moresby. I mistrust that organ. I am informed that in every issue there appears a sonnet by an anonymous poet. Where in Moresby do you conceal a poet?”
She addressed this question to Mr Musgrave; but though she looked towards him expectantly, and waited a sufficient interval for his reply, there was no response forthcoming. Mr Musgrave evaded her glance, and appeared to regard the question as put generally, and the questioner as not expecting a reply. He looked, Mrs Chadwick observed, guilty.
So John Musgrave was an anonymous poet as well as a confirmed bachelor. She determined to read before leaving his house some of John Musgrave’s sonnets.