"Is Mr. Lancaster married?"
"Not to my knowledge, miss," answered the cautious Mrs. Cushion. "He don't behave like a married man.... Not"—she added hastily, eager to give no wrong impression—"not that 'e's ever anything but most conformable; only there's a difference between them as is married and them as isn't. I'm sure you see it yourself, miss, though, to be sure, you're nothing like so set in your ways as some. If I was you, miss," said Mrs. Cushion, suddenly beaming upon me like a rosy sun in spectacles, "I shouldn't give up hope. Mr. Right may come along for you even yet. I 'ad a friend who married when she were fifty-nine.... To be sure, 'er 'usban' was bedridden, but 'e's living to this day, an' it's a good fifteen years ago."
"I don't think I should like a bedridden husband, Mrs. Cushion."
"You'll like whatever you gets, my dear, never you fear." And Mrs. Cushion bustled out with the tray, leaving me to the rather rueful reflection that her last speech was more complimentary to my stoicism than to my matrimonial prospects.
"Snig's" was an ideal place to work in: quiet without being lonely; fresh and bracing, yet seldom cold; beautiful with the homely, tender grace of pastoral England. The doctor and his wife "over to Winstone" were hospitable and kind, the villagers were friendly as only peasant folk in the remote Cotswolds still are; the vicar I always look upon as one of the most understanding and delightful people I've ever met. That autumn the squire and his large lively family were up in Scotland, but this only increased possibilities of work, and I stayed on at Snig's into October.
One day the vicar summoned me to luncheon. A friend from a distance had motored over, bringing with him his guests, a visiting parson and his wife, to see the church and the village, and he implored my presence "to keep Mrs. Robinson in countenance."
Not that anything of the kind was needed, for Mrs. Robinson turned out to be a most self-sufficient and didactic lady, with "clergyman's wife" writ large all over her. Her husband was of the conscientious, mentally mediocre type of parson, with much energy and no imagination; and luncheon seemed a very long meal. There appeared a curious dearth of topics of conversation, and for lack of something better the vicar explained my presence in Redmarley, mentioning that I had been living for the last two months with the excellent Mrs. Cushion—"who comes, I believe," he added, "from your part of the world."
"Caroline Cushion?" Mrs. Robinson demanded, with that air of cross-questioning a witness which made small-talk so difficult. "If it's Caroline Cushion, she did live in our parish, and she certainly wasn't 'Mrs.' then, but a middle-aged single woman. She left soon after my husband got the living, but I remember her quite well—she came into a house, or something, and went away to live in it."
"It's a curious coincidence," said the vicar easily, "but it can't be our Mrs. Cushion, for not only is she married, but she has grown-up sons to whom she is absolutely devoted."
"It's unlikely," said Mrs. Robinson, "that there could be two Caroline Cushions both coming from the same village, and both inheriting property at a distance. The matter should be looked into, for certainly with us she passed always as a single woman, and to the best of my belief had spent almost her whole life in the village. Is she a fairish woman, stout, with red cheeks?"