“It’s a perfect old barrack, Craven!” said Mrs. Black, with a shudder. “But I suppose it must be fearfully difficult to get furniture and such things up the cliff. However, if we make a shooting box of this place, decent furniture and pictures and things have got to be brought here. This room is like a draughty old barn.”
“So is the whole house,” said Mrs. Artress. “But the place is so delightfully romantic, and secluded and hidden, you know, that one can put up with drawbacks. I have had my hands full, I assure you, since I arrived here. How do you like the Wilderness, Miss Wynde?”
“It is romantic and secluded, as you say, Mrs. Artress,” answered Neva quietly, yet with a shade of hauteur. “Have you been here long?”
“I came direct from Hawkhurst, stopping only a day in London,” said Mrs. Artress. “I came by rail to Inverness, and there I chartered a fishing smack and loaded her with provisions and furniture, and bed and table-linen, and whatever else I fancied we were likely to need during our stay here. I had visited the Wilderness once when I was a girl, and knew about what we should require. I came on, sent away the sloop, and put the house in order. I have two women servants in the house, of the stolidest possible description. You will find it next to impossible to make them comprehend your soft southern tongue, Miss Wynde.”
Neva wondered if the last sentence contained a hidden meaning.
“It is September at Hawkhurst,” continued Mrs. Artress, with a shiver, “but here one might swear it was January, the mountain air is so cold. Will you go up to your rooms?”
“Yes,” responded Mrs. Black. “When do we dine?”
Mrs. Artress consulted a tiny jewelled watch, one of her recent acquisitions.
[“A half] an hour,” she said. “You won’t have time to dress. I’ll send one of the servants down the cliff to guide up the sailors with the luggage. But first I will show you to your rooms.”
She passed out into the hall, her train sweeping the floor with silken rustle. Mrs. Black linked her arm in Neva’s, but the young girl quietly withdrew her person from her enemy’s touch, and walked apart proudly, and with a shade of defiance. Thus they passed up the wooden stairs, Craven Black bringing up the rear.