“Very well—that is, pretty well—indeed I can’t say I have—I’ve not been well—but time enough about that. And tell me—and tell me about this news—about Miss Kincton Knox—is it true—is there really an engagement?”
“I’ve left them—I came from Cambridge. Engagement! by Jove! I—I don’t know exactly what you mean.”
So said William, who was struck by something more in Aunt Dinah’s look and tone than could possibly arise from the contemplation merely of that engagement he had been fulfilling at Kincton.
“I—I heard—I thought—was not there—isn’t there”—Aunt Dinah paused, gazing dubiously on William—“I mean—something of—of—she’s very handsome—I’m told.”
“Going to be married to Miss Kincton Knox!—I assure you, if you knew her, such an idea would strike you as the most absurdly incredible thing the people who invented it could possibly have told you”—and William actually laughed.
“Ha!” exclaimed she, rather dismally—“that’s very odd—that is really very odd—it must have been a mistake—people do make such mistakes—it must—and you have heard of—Vi—it seems so odd—little Vi! There’s no mistake there, for Mr. Trevor has had a long conversation with me, and has written to her father, and we both approve highly. But—but about Miss Kincton Knox—it was an odd mistake, though I can’t say I’m sorry, because—but it does not signify now; you would never have waited, and so sure as you sit there, if you had not, you’d have regretted your precipitation all the days of your life.”
And thrice she nodded darkly on William, in such a way as to assure him that Henbane had been looking after his interests.
After dinner she ordered Tom to call Winnie Dobbs, who had already had her chat with William.
“Winnie,” said she, producing a large key from her bag, “you must go to the store-room and fetch one of the three bottles on the shelf.”
“We dust them every week, old Winnie and I,” said she as soon as Dobbs had gone. “They have been there fifteen years—Frontignac—the doctor ordered it—sillabubs in the morning, when I was recovering, and I don’t think they did me a bit of good; and we must open one of them now.”