“No, no!” said Joseph feebly. “Jest dropped in to blow a cloud, being as I was on me way to the Blue Boar! Yesterday evening, it was, and very nice and affable the Captain was. We got talking, and one thing leading to another he jest happened to mention that he was a military man.”
“You went there on purpose!” said Nell hotly. “Because he—because you thought—I wish to heaven you and Rose would remember that I am not a child!”
“No, Miss Nell, but you’re a young lady, and seeing as Sir Peter can’t look after you no more, like you ought to be—and Rose being an anxious sort of a female,” he added basely, “it seems like it’s me duty to keep me eye on things, as you might say!”
“I know you only do it out of kindness,” said Nell, “but I assure you it is unnecessary! You have no need to be anxious about me!”
“Jest what I says to Rose, missie! Them was me very words! ‘We got no need to be anxious about Miss Nell,’ I tells her. ‘Not now, we haven’t.’ That, out of course, was after I come home from the tollhouse.”
Miss Stornaway, fully and indignantly conscious of the unwisdom of attempting to bring to a sense of his presumption a servitor who had held her on the back of her first pony, extricated her from difficulties in an apple-tree, and, upon more than one occasion, rescued her from the consequences of her youthful misdeeds, accomplished the rest of the short journey in dignified silence.
Kellands Manor was an old and a rambling house, standing at no great distance from the pike road, which, in fact, ran through the Squire’s land. Its pleasure gardens, though well laid-out, were neglected, the shrubbery being overgrown, the flower-beds allowed to run riot, and the wilderness to encroach year by year on lawns once shaven and weedless. Miss Stornaway, unlike the one remaining gardener, looked upon this decay with indifference. Behind a crumbling stone wall an extensive vegetable plot was in good order; new trees had been planted in the orchard; and the home farm was thriving.
Miss Stornaway, walking up from the stables with her rather mannish stride, the tail of her worn riding-dress looped over her arm, entered the house through a side-door, and made her way down a flagged corridor to the main hall. From this an oaken staircase rose in two graceful branches to the galleried floor above. She was about to mount it when a door on one side of the hall opened, and her cousin came out of the library. “Oh, there you are, cousin!” he said, in the peevish tone which was habitual with him. “I have been in these past twenty minutes, and desirous of having a word with you.”
She paused, a hand on the baluster-rail, and one booted foot already on the first step of the stairway. “Indeed!” she said, looking down at him from her superior height, her brows lifting a little.
His was not an impressive figure, and he was never so conscious of this as when he stood in his magnificent cousin’s presence. He had neither height nor presence, and a strong inclination towards dandyism served only to accentuate the shortcomings of his person. Skin-tight pantaloons of an elegant shade of yellow did not set off to advantage a pair of thin legs, nor could all the exertions of his tailor disguise the fact that his narrow shoulders drooped, and that he was developing a slight paunch. His countenance was tolerably good-looking, but spoilt by a sickly complexion and the unmistakable marks of self-indulgence; and his rather bloodshot eyes seemed at all times incapable of maintaining a steady regard. He sported several fobs and seals, wore exaggeratedly high points to his collars, and fidgeted incessantly with snuff-box, quizzing-glass, and handkerchief.