“He came with Mr. Francis one time,” mused Barrow. “He had some outlandish name but I don’t know what it was. Came to England in a basket of cabbages, he did.”
“Came to England in a basket of cabbages!”
“Adone-do, Barrow!” said his wife indignantly. “It was no such thing, ma’am!”
“It was what Mr. Eustace told me,” argued Barrow. “The Frenchy being naught but a baby, and went into the basket as snug as a mouse in a cheese, I dare say.”
“It was a cart full of cabbages, and to be sure he did not come all the way to England in it! It was at the start of that nasty revolution they had, ma’am, and they do say there was no way for decent folks, and the quality and such, to get away but by smuggling themselves out of the town in all manner of disguises, and such shifts.”
“Ay, no end to the outlandish tricks them Frenchies get up to,” nodded Barrow. “Not but what I don’t believe all I hear, and I always reckoned that was a loud one.”
“An émigré family! I see!” Elinor said. “I should have guessed it, indeed.”
“I don’t know what kind of a family it might be,” said Barrow cautiously, “but what should take him to come visiting Mr. Eustace at that hour of night? I never saw him above a couple of times in my life, and for all he’s a Frenchy he came in at the front door like a Christian.”
“I think he said that he was visiting friends in the neighborhood.”
Barrow seemed inclined to cavil at this. He scratched his chin. “Well, he’s not visiting his lordship, that’s sure. Nor he’s not at the Priory, for old Sir Matthew, he’s tedious set against all Frenchies. And he won’t be at Elm House, for a decenter couple of ladies than Miss Lynton and Miss Elizabeth you won’t find, and to be having gentlemen to stay is what they wouldn’t do. And if it’s the Hurst he meant, Mr. Frinton and his lady has gone up to London and won’t be back this se’nnight.”