But I could saddle the cob, my lord, and find him, I dessay!”
“No, I’ll wait for him,” said the Earl. “If he has been gone for two hours, I imagine he will soon return.” He turned his attention to Mrs. Allenby, who beamed, and dropped her third curtsy to him. He was evidently no stranger to her, so he said, if not with truth, at least with the kindliness which endeared him to his dependants: “Surely I remember you? I am very glad to see you again!”
“Oh, my lord!” gasped Mrs. Allenby: “To think you should remember after all this time! And me only third chambermaid when you was sent off to school! Well, I declare!”
The Earl smiled, and glanced enquiringly at her husband.
“Yes, my lord, that’s Allenby, which was used to work in the garden, but you wouldn’t remember him! ”said Mrs. Allenby, relegating her spouse to obscurity. “If only I’d known your lordship was coming to Evesleigh! Oh dear, Mr. Theo will be put about when he finds you here, and him not ready to receive you!”
Shaking her head over this, she ushered his lordship up the shallow steps to the front-door, and then into a parlour overlooking the carriage-sweep. She almost overwhelmed him with apologies for not having the drawing-room prepared for his reception, with promises of instant refreshment, and with solicitous enquiries after the state of his health. He got rid of her only by accepting her offer of home-brewed ale; and when he had drunk this she showed so marked a disposition to linger that he announced his intention of strolling out to look round the demesne.
It was fully an hour before Theo returned to the house. He came striding from the stables, and met his cousin on his leisurely way back from the shrubbery. At sight of that slim, elegant figure, still wearing a caped driving-coat, but with fair head uncovered, he called out: “Gervase! My dear fellow!” and hurried towards the Earl. “I had no notion you meant to come to Evesleigh!” he said. “If that fool of mine had had a grain of sense he would have fetched me an hour ago!”
“He would have done so, but I thought very likely he would miss you, and so told him not to go,” replied the Earl.
“Ay, that’s what he has just said to me. Has Mrs. Allenby looked after you? Why are you wandering about the garden? You should rather be resting in the parlour!”
“Oh, I am wandering in the garden because she looked after me only too well!”