'Oh, not at all! It is not more than a mile and a half; but for you, you had to come another mile and a half. It is fully that from here to Brookfield. But tell me, dear,' said Cecilia, clinging to her friend's arm, 'why have you not been over to see me before? It is not kind of you; we have been home from school now over a fortnight, and, except on the night of the dinner-party, I haven't seen you once.'
'I was coming over to see you last week, dear; but, to tell you the truth, mamma prevented me. I cannot think why, but somehow she does not seem to care that I should go to Dungory Castle. But for the matter of that, why did you not come to see me? I've been expecting you every day.'
'I couldn't come either. My sisters advised me—I mean, insisted on my stopping at home.'
'And why?'
'I really can't say,' replied Cecilia.
And now Alice knew that the Ladies Cullen hated Mrs. Barton for her intimacy with Lord Dungory. She longed to talk the matter out, but dared not; while Cecilia regretted she had spoken; for, with the quickness of the deformed, she knew that Alice had divined the truth of the family feud.
The sun fell like lead upon the short grass of the deer-park and the frizzled heads of the hawthorns. On the right the green masses of the oakwood shut in the view, and the stately red deer, lolling their high necks, marched away through the hillocks, as if offended at their solitude being disturbed. One poor crippled hind walked with a wretched sidling movement, and Alice hoped Cecilia would not notice it, lest it should remind her of her own misfortune.
'I am sure,' she said, 'we never knew finer weather than this in England. I don't think there could be finer weather, and still they say the tenants are worse off than ever; that no rent at all, at least nothing above Griffith's valuation, will be paid.'
'Do they speak much of Griffith's valuation at Dungory Castle?'
'Oh! they never cease, and—and—I don't know whether I ought to say, but it won't matter with you, I suppose?—mind, you must not breathe a word of this at Brookfield—the fact is my sisters' school—you know they have a school, and go in for trying to convert the people—well, this has got papa into a great deal of trouble. The Bishop has sent down another priest—I think they call it a mission—and we are going to be preached against, and papa received a threatening letter this morning. He is going, I believe, to apply for police.'