"Who's a disturbing of the good gentleman?" snapped Martha, "Pore dear, 'e'll have 'is shavin' water 'ot in future. How they can stand, brazen, an' ask wages beats me! An' she talkin' o' the waste o' water being a crime against the company--a water company, winter time, in Wales! Lord sakes!--if she run the cold off, as I bid her do; though 'er pantry tap was spoutin' into the pail a good 'arf hour while she was beguilin' Bate. No! Miss H'Aura! I wasn't goin' to lie for 'er more'n I cud 'elp, so I told master the stric' truth-an'-no-one-a-penny-the-worse, as the sayin' is."
"What did you tell him?" asked Aura rather wearily, for even Martha was getting on her nerves.
"I told him as revivals havin' bin too much for her body an' soul she was stoppin' at the inn, where she is, Miss H'Aura, and if she screech there as she screeched here some one 'll be in Bedlam before mornin'--an' so I told Bate."
This was the invariable epilogue to all Martha's diatribes.
"I suppose Mr. Cruttenden has returned?" asked Aura.
"As nice as nuts, an' is in with Master. I reely don't know, now I come to think on it, what we shud a-done this last week without 'im! Not but what 'is lordship----" she shot a quick glance at Aura--"Lord sakes! deary," she cried, "you do look weary-like. Go up to your bed, there's a duck, an' have a lie down--one can't never forget the face o' death till one's asleep."
'Death, and his brother sleep!...'
The words were in Aura's brain as she went upstairs, wondering why it was that now Ned was no longer beside her she felt far more disturbed, far more, in a way, ashamed about him, than she had done when he was beside her. Yes! even when he had been masterful and told her that it was all foolishness, that she knew she loved him.
The house seemed so familiarly quiet and peaceful that the turmoil of her mind became all unreal to her. Surely the least honest effort must suffice to bring back her old fearlessness of outlook.
Her birthday presents lay on the table, amongst them Ted's Shelley, open, curiously enough, at the "Adonais." Her eye glanced at the verses, became fascinated; she stood reading until with a sigh of infinite satisfaction she closed the book over those words: