She hurried away to her own bedchamber, to strip off the well-worn habit in which she spent the greater part of her days, and to put on instead a morning-gown of green velvet, not perhaps fashioned in the latest mode but not yet showing such signs of wear as would be perceptible to her grandfather. Ten minutes later she entered the dressing-room which formed an antechamber to Sir Peter’s big bedroom, and tapped on the door between the two. It was opened to her by Winkfield, who gave her a significant look, but said nothing, and at once went away, leaving her alone with her grandfather.
“Nell?”
She crossed the floor to the wing-chair that stood beside the wide fireplace. “Yes, sir. Now, don’t, don’t scold me, for I have passed the most amusing morning!” she said, bending to kiss Sir Peter’s brow.
He did not raise his head, which was sunk forward on his breast, but he glanced up at her under his brows, and lifted his right hand. The other was almost powerless, and lay lightly clenched on his knee. “Well?” he said.
His utterance was a little slurred, and he seemed to speak with a slight effort. He was the wreck of a once big man, the flesh having wasted away from large bones. His left side was semi-paralysed, and it was only with his valet’s assistance that he could move from his bed to a chair. He wore always a brocade dressing-gown, but every day it was Winkfield’s duty to arrange a freshly laundered neckcloth round his neck in the style he had adopted years earlier.
Nell took the hand held up to her, and sat down beside him. “Well! I conveyed our new gatekeeper to Tideswell, as you know, while Joseph took care of the pike.”
“H’m! I trust he behaved himself!”
“With all the propriety in the world, sir! You need not look so suspiciously: he is most truly the gentleman.”
“Much you know!” he grunted. “Playing off the airs of an exquisite, I daresay.”
“Oh, no! nothing of the kind! He’s a soldier, not a fribble, dearest! I thought his coat was very well cut, but it was quite plain, and put me in mind of the coats Jermyn used to wear.”