“Of course we, who knew him, didn’t think so. But there were plenty of unkind things said outside, you may be sure, miss.”
“How shocking!”
“And folks thought as the marriage would be broken off, for the Marquis was a good deal cut up about the gossip. But then Lady Sarah she stood up like a high-minded lady, and she said as how she didn’t allow such foolishness to disturb her for one moment. And she married him, and even married him the sooner for the talk. Which was handsome of her, and which Sir Robert he thought the world of in her, you may be sure.”
Rhoda nodded. From what she had seen of the flippant and vivacious flirt she wondered whether high-mindedness was really the quality to which Sir Robert owed her steadfastness.
There was a pause, and Mrs. Hawkes gave a deep sigh, which made Rhoda look at her, and perceive that an expression of the deepest disappointment was on the good woman’s features.
“I was in hopes as you would be able to tell something, something that would have cleared things up, miss,” she said.
Rhoda’s eyes filled with tears, while a hot blush rose to her cheeks. It was quite true that she did know something, just a little more than anybody else appeared to know, about the doings of that fatal night. But as it was nothing definite enough to absolve anybody or to convict anybody, she felt that wisdom lay in keeping that little to herself, for the present, at any rate.
“And so Lady Sarah was staunch, and earned Sir Robert’s gratitude?” she said, her constraint making her words sound rather stiff.
Mrs. Hawkes looked enigmatic for a moment, and then came a little closer.
“Seeing you know so much about them, I may tell you, in confidence, that it’s not been as happy a marriage as, from such a beginning, one might have hoped,” she said. “You see it was a disappointment there being only the one child, this poor boy that never was strong. And then, well, Lady Sarah’s tastes and Sir Robert’s they don’t seem to go well together. So my lady’s most often away, either in town or abroad for her health, and Sir Robert, he don’t seem to care to leave his house and his boy that he loves so much.”