Behold him, then, leaning back in his cab, and driving through glaring lamps, and dingy shops, and narrow ill-thriven streets, eastward and northward; and now, through the little antique village, with trembling lights, and by the faded splendours of the “Guy of Warwick.” And he sat up and looked out of the windows, as they entered the narrow road that is darkened by the tall overhanging timber of Mortlake grounds.
Now they are driving up the broad avenue, with its noble old trees clumped at either side; and with a shudder Sir Richard Arden leans back and moves no more until the cab pulls up at the door-steps, and the knock sounds through hall and passages, which he dared not so have disturbed, uninvited, a day or two before. Crozier ran down the steps to greet Master Richard.
“How are you, old Crozier?” he said, shaking hands from the cab-window, for somehow he liked to postpone entering the house as long as he could. “I could not come earlier. I have been detained in town all day by business, of various kinds, connected with this.” And he moved his hand toward the open hall-door, with a gloomy nod or two. “How is Martha?”
“Tolerable, Sir, thankye, considerin'. It's a great upset to her.”
“Yes, poor thing, of course. And has Mr. Paller been here—the person who is to—to——”
“The undertaker? Yes, Sir, he was here at two o'clock, and some of the people has been busy in the room, and his men has come out again with the coffin, Sir. I think they'll soon be leaving; they've been here a quarter of an hour, and—if I may make bold to ask, Sir,—what day will the funeral be?”
“I don't know myself, Crozier; I must settle that with my uncle. He said he thought he would come here himself this evening, at about nine, and it must be very near that now. Where is Martha?”
“In her room, Sir, I think.”
“I won't see her there. Ask her to come to the oak-room.”
Richard got out and entered the house of which he was now the master, with an oppressive misgiving.