“Why, it’s Jim!” she exclaimed in just the old way; and putting her cake in her saucer, she said, “I can’t shake hands with you, Jim, because my fingers are all over butter.”
Jim hardly knew whether to rejoice at her presence or to be dismayed by it.
“Why, Goose Girl,” said he, “whoever could have thought of seeing you here?”
“Aunt Caroline is here,” said she, “and Miss Burden, and Lord Cheriton too.”
“How strange that we should meet again like this!” said Jim, rather lamely.
Yet it was scarcely so strange as Jim thought it was. Aunt Caroline, in spite of her years and her increasingly difficult temper, still had certain houses open to her, and Barne Moor was one of them. Her store of energy was by no means exhausted; she liked still to keep in the world, to know what was doing; and she liked her rubber. It would not, perhaps, be strictly true to say that she was welcome at Barne Moor, but when Wales began to bore her she resolutely turned her face in that direction, because she knew that at that time Yorkshire would contain a choice collection of her friends and her enemies, and would be infinitely more diverting than Pen-y-Gros Castle or London itself in the absence of Parliament.
At Barne Moor Jim of course was a nobody, and was treated as such. His hostess, who was of the strain of the former Whig oligarchy, like so many to be found under that ample roof, was not so much exclusive as she was indifferent to those outside the circle. She was a ponderous, neutral kind of woman, who bullied her husband and had very definite views about religion. From the first Jim Lascelles did not find her in the last easy to get on with. It must be confessed that he did not try to get on with her particularly.
Still, during the time Jim spent at Barne Moor things did not go amiss. The Goose Girl was still the child of nature she had always been. The old woman of Hill Street was reasonably civil; quite as civil, in fact, as Jim expected her to be. Miss Burden, in a curiously delicate manner, showed that she understood the tragedy. As for Cheriton, who was an old friend of the house, and for some reason high in the esteem of everybody, he extended the same genial kindness to him that he had always done.
The only other of Jim’s acquaintances among the score or so people that were gathered under the hospitable roof of Barne Moor was George Betterton. No announcement had yet been made upon the subject, but it was common knowledge that “an arrangement” was likely to be forthcoming with a daughter of the house.
Jim Lascelles supposed that “the old sportsman” knew his own business best, but he rather hoped that “it wouldn’t come off.” In Jim’s opinion “George was a genuine fellow,” and Jim personally had not the least admiration for the fair Priscilla. For one thing he had to paint her to order; and that of course did not tell in her favor with the temperament of genius.