“We hear everything,” and she laughed. “If you would like to know how, in this particular case, understand that the stable-boy’s father lives at a house where the lady’s-maid was taken to rest, and she related that her mistress was walking to Oakwood with a gentleman, whose description Jem recognised as yours. He brought home the lady’s name, and my maid conveyed it to me.”
“It is all true,” Wareham said gravely, “and I should have taken Miss Dalrymple by the short cut in front of the house, but that I was afraid of annoying Sir Michael. We went round by the wood instead.”
“And she was not hurt?” asked the girl, spreading out her hands to the blaze. “I should like to see her—to talk to her.”
“That is what she wishes very much. What do you think? Can she come?”
Ella shook her head. It was impossible.
“Perhaps,” she said, “she may be at church to-morrow, and if father is well enough I shall go. Did she speak of—Hugh?”
“And of Hugh’s family. Evidently when she came here she meant to have seen you all. But—as you say—it’s impossible.”
Wareham had also thought about the coming day, its delights and its dangers. Dear delight to look at her, danger lest he should fail in his promise. But here, he told himself, that could not happen; here, where Hugh’s face met him everywhere, here, where Hugh himself lay at rest, neither friend nor love could forget him. When the day arrived it was blustering and wet: Ella and he walked to church under drenched trees, and she wondered whether Miss Dalrymple would be there. Wareham could not doubt it. Nature would draw her to look at a grave. He felt it. He had a curious desire, too, for her to see the lines of old Forbes’ linking past centuries to present, from whom Hugh drew his brave blood. The Oakwood estates doubled, trebled the Firleigh ones, but Oakwood was a mushroom compared to Firleigh, and Lord Oakleigh’s a new title, while the other belonged to the soil.
Anne, however, was not there. He was disappointed, but excuses tripped promptly up. No other ladies came from the house, and to have seen Hugh’s grave in company with her jovial host would have been like sitting with a jester to view a tragedy. He was sure that Anne had done well to avoid it. Could he have taken her there! And a whisper suggested that Anne could generally arrange what she liked. He flung it from him. Here, after all that had passed, she must have walked warily, or have attracted curious eyes. Ella, too, Ella would have been jealous if Hugh had not his due. And the due meant much.
What Ella thought she did not say. The girl had a curiously reserved nature; it seemed so impossible for her to express her feelings, that she was not credited with many. Their walk back was silent; wind-driven rain beat in their faces, and splashed heavily from the trees, sodden flowers lay prostrate in the garden, an old grey dial turned its weatherbeaten face vainly upwards. Wareham tried to shake off the gloom.