“She calls me a good fellow, and—yes, I think she means it.”
They had slackened their steps a little as they drew near the bottom of the hill where The Chequers hid the entrance to Rishton Hall Farm. They had stopped altogether at the bottom to exchange these last few sentences before saying farewell. As his last words were succeeded by a moment’s pause, Mr. Brander glanced up the hill he had to climb to the Vicarage, and became aware of his brother’s portly figure descending the slope with measured steps toward them. His cheeks grew pale; the last gleam of vivacity died out of his face.
The change caused Olivia to look in the same direction, and to note that there was something judicial in the handsome vicar’s gait—something mildly apprehensive in the expression of his face. She felt an impulse of indignation against both husband and wife for their inexplicably rigorous attitude towards Vernon Brander and herself. At sight of his brother, Vernon, who seemed at once to grow cold and formal, raised his hat, and would have left her with a few words of farewell. But she held out her hand, and, as he took it with a flushing face, she retained his with a warm clasp, while she said—
“I am going to get papa to waylay you, Mr. Brander, as you come back from the Vicarage. You have never been inside the house since the day you played fairy godmother to me and poor Lucy. I want you to see the old house now we have made it again a home.”
“I shall be delighted, Miss Denison,” faltered poor Vernon, with one ear for her kindly words and the other for his brother’s deliberately approaching footsteps. “You are very kind to me,” he added, in a hasty undertone. Then in his usual voice, “Good-night,” said he, as she released his hand, and, with a bow to the vicar, turned to the farmyard gate.
With a few steps on either side—dignified in the one, hurried and nervous in the other—the brothers met. The elder passed his arm affectionately within that of the younger, and turned to walk up the hill with him.
“Evelyn began to be afraid you had forgotten us and our dinner in pleasanter society than ours,” said Meredith, in his genial voice.
If Vernon, as his nervous manner suggested, was afraid of his brother, the fault lay in his own conscience, and not in any coldness or harshness on the part of the Vicar of Rishton.
“No,” said Vernon, hastily; “I had not forgotten. Of course not. Miss Denison was annoyed by a rough as she was crossing the fields; I came up just in time—by the merest accident—and I could do no less than see her home.”
“Of course not. Not a very great penance either. What an extremely pleasant-looking girl!”