“No, indeed! Only that I might perhaps have stayed until Lord Gaywood came back, you know. For he went to buy it for me, and it does seem very hard that I must not have it after all!”
Harriet, quite dismayed, strove to the best of her ability to give Belinda’s thoughts a more proper direction. The Duke, a good deal amused, intervened, saying: “Useless, my love! If you would but do what you may to convince her that this last adventure must be kept a secret between the three of us, it would be very desirable!”
“It seems very dreadful to be teaching the poor child to deceive the young man!” Harriet replied, in an under-voice. “I own, it might be wiser—But to have a secret from the man to whom one is betrothed is very wrong, and surely quite against female nature!”
“Dear Harriet!” he said, finding her hand, and raising it to his lips. “You would not do so, I know! But if she blurts out the whole to these people—? For they are simple, honest folk, and could not understand, perhaps.”
“I will do what you think right,” she said submissively, and thereafter tried her utmost to impress upon Belinda the wisdom of banishing Lord Gaywood alike from her thoughts and her conversation. Belinda was so much occupied in ecstatically recognizing and pointing out to her companions remembered landmarks that it seemed doubtful whether she attended with more than half an ear to the kindly advice bestowed upon her, but she was a very persuadable girl, and by dint of Harriet’s dwelling strongly on her unfortunate contretemps with the Dowager she was soon brought to the conviction that her sudden descent upon Furze Farm was due not to any traffic with Lord Gaywood, but to her having broken a cherished Sevres bowl.
But when the chaise drew up by the farm, Harriet could almost have believed that these precautions had been needless. For Mr. Mudgley was just shutting the big white yard-gate, and he turned, and stood still to watch the chaise, with the setting sun behind him, striking on his uncovered head, and catching the auburn lights in his thick thatch of curly hair. He was still wearing his working-clothes, with his sleeves rolled up, and his shirt open to reveal the tanned, sturdy column of his throat, and he presented such a fine figure of a man that not even Harriet, with twenty years of strict training behind her, could wonder that Belinda no sooner saw him than she gave a little scream of joy, and, without waiting for the steps of the chaise to be let down tumbled headlong into his arms. It did not seem probable, after that, that any explanations would be asked for or proffered.
The Duke and his betrothed did not linger for many minutes at the farm. Mrs. Mudgley was sufficiently mistress of herself to do the honours of the house, but her son could scarcely be brought to take his eyes from his long-lost love, and Belinda, her eyes like stars and happy laughter bubbling on her lips, darted about, recognizing and exclaiming at first this object, and then that, and paid very little more heed to her late protectors than if they had been a part of the furnishings of the big kitchen.
“And I was conceited enough to fear that she liked me a little too well!” confided the Duke, once more bowling along in the chaise. “I am quite set down!”
“Do you know, Gilly,” said Harriet thoughtfully, “I am much inclined to think that Belinda is perhaps one of those people who are very pretty, and amiable, but do not care profoundly for anyone. It is very sad! Will Mudgley discover it, and be unhappy, do you think?”
“Why, no! She is good-natured, and affectionate, and although he may be an excellent fellow I do not imagine his sensibilities to be over-nice. They will deal very well together, I daresay. She will always be silly, but he appears to have considerable constancy, and we must hope that he will always be fond!”