"How happens it your eyes are so much sharper than mine?" asked Sir John, with a sneer. "I should like to know your secret, if it is so."
"How happens it?" echoed the housekeeper. "First, because I am a woman, and next, because you have a great stake in the matter. Men never see these things; and, when suspicions come across them, always fix upon the wrong person; and then, when they have much at stake, they are sure to be blind altogether, or to see crooked. I have not lived sixty years in the world for nothing, Sir John; and I know men and women both well."
She shook her head oracularly as she spoke; and, although in self-confidence there is something rather annoying to others, yet there is something very impressive too. If a person possessed of it have any talents, it is sure to double them in the estimation of others, while it may treble them in his own. Thus, at all events, something is gained. Even a fool does not suffer by that possession; for, if it does nothing else, it serves to cover his folly from the eyes of more modest fools than himself. Sir John Newark knew Mrs. Culpepper to be nearly as acute as she represented herself, and he took the rest for granted upon her own showing.
With renewed injunctions, then, to watch everything that passed, not only during his absence, but when he was in the house, he left her, and the old lady took up her account-book again, murmuring to herself, "The knave! He thinks that a hundred guineas will do everything."
CHAPTER XVIII.
Several day, passed, and the time elapsed which was requisite to bring an answer from London to Smeaton's letter addressed to Lord Stair. But none arrived, and rumours were thick and busy in the country, of dangerous proceedings in the north of England, and in Scotland. In the immediate neighbourhood of Ale Manor, however, the public mind seemed more quiet and tranquil. Some of the magistrates had relapsed into that careless indifference from which the intelligence of great dangers had aroused them; those of a firmer and more consistent character were tranquil from a sense of readiness and preparation for any event; and others, more keen, astute, and active, were vigorously carrying on the measures which they had previously resolved to take, but with as much quiet secresy as decision.
In the interior of Ale Manor House, the days passed almost without incident. Both Emmeline and Smeaton saw that they were watched, and put the greatest restraint upon their actions, words, and looks, that was possible with a courteous and kindly demeanour to each other.
Mrs. Culpepper glided about as usual; was seen here and seen there, when nobody expected her; and, by her quiet and demure manner, satisfied even Sir John Newark that she was obeying his orders implicitly.
Richard Newark was the only one who enlivened the scene with little agitations. From time to time, in his rash wild way, and with his figurative but not very choice language, he would touch so close on the well-concealed feelings of the lovers as to alarm them both, and then, darting gaily away to some other theme, leave them scathless. He kept his father in some anxiety too; for a greater portion than ever of his careless, almost reckless, spirit seemed to have entered into him. He contrived to tumble out of a boat into the water far out in the bay, and might have been drowned, as there was nobody in the skiff with him, had not swimming been acquired so early, and practised so continually, that it was almost as natural to him as walking. He burst a fowling-piece, also, by putting in a double charge in a moment of forgetfulness. But he escaped without injury, and only mourned over his shattered gun.
It is not to be supposed, however, that the restraint to which they were obliged to submit was otherwise than very painful to Smeaton and Emmeline. They did not see where it was likely to terminate. It was natural that the male lover should bear this state of things with more impatience than the lady; for women, even in very early life, have a sort of prescience that their portion is to endure without murmuring. Smeaton was almost tempted to cast off all reserve and follow what he felt to be a rash and even a dangerous course. None know, but those who have experienced it, how unbearable it is to be constantly in the presence of a beloved object without the opportunity, even by a whispered word or a glance of love, to tell the feelings that are busy in the heart.