“How very unfortunate! My kind compliments to him, Miss Beccles. Assure him of the happiness he will confer upon me if he chooses to honor my abode with his presence any time he should find himself in town! But not his dog! I have the greatest dislike of dogs. Is that you, Crawley? Is my chaise ready at last? One would have said it had to be fetched from the Antipodes! Miss Beccles, your very obedient servant! Do not forget to deliver my compliments and thanks to Mrs. Cheviot! Pray do not dream of coming to the door with me! If you were to catch a cold through any fault of mine I could never forgive myself!”
Quite dazed by this flow of gentle eloquence, she could only curtsy again and assure him that his messages should not be forgotten. He bowed himself out and was handed up into his chaise by Crawley, who then swathed several rugs round him and placed a hot brick from the kitchen at his feet.
“A hem good riddance!” said Barrow when the chaise had moved off down the drive. “Him and his quirks! What would he be wanting with that old clock, miss?”
“To have it set going for Mrs. Cheviot. I am sure it is very kind and she will be glad of it!”
“Have it set going!” exclaimed Barrow in a tone of strong disapproval. “That old clock’s been stopped these dunnamany years! I disremember when I knew that clock to tick!”
It was plain that he objected to having the existing state of affairs interfered with. Miss Beccles felt herself to be unequal to argument and merely repeated that it was very kind of Mr. Cheviot. She added that if Mrs. Barrow would make her some tea she would be glad of it, so Barrow took himself off kitchenwards, muttering against the officious ways of some visitors.
The relief of knowing Francis to have left Highnoons was so great that after she had drunk her tea and eaten some slices of bread and butter, Miss Beccles indulged herself with a nap in front of the parlor fire. She was roused by Nicky who came in just before three o’clock with the distressing intelligence that he had not yet succeeded in finding Bouncer, in spite of hunting all over Sir Matthew Kendal’s preserves and twice falling foul of his keepers. “But I thought I should come back to make sure all was well here,” he said, “and that fellow Cheviot not playing off any more of his tricks!”
“Oh, but he has gone, dear Mr. Nicky!” said Miss Beccles, hurriedly setting her cap straight “Such a mercy, is it not?”
“Gone!” he exclaimed, looking thunderstruck.
“Yes, and do you know, I cannot think it was ha who hit poor Mrs. Cheviot, for it was her having been struck down that made him take the resolve to leave us! But I was so thankful, for you know I could not like him, and Mrs. Barrow was growing so cross at being obliged to make so many jellies that I scarcely dared show my face in the kitchen!”