Suzette could hardly withhold her consent, her lover being so earnest. It was settled that the marriage should take place early in September; and this being decided, the current of life flowed smoothly on, Allan spending more of his days at Marsh House, The Grove, and Discombe, than in his own house, except when Lady Emily was with him.
Discombe was by far the most delightful of these three houses in out-of-door weather, pleasant as were Mrs. Mornington's carefully tended grounds and shrubberies, her verandah and spacious conservatory.
The gardens at Discombe had that delicious flavour of the old world, and that absolute seclusion which can never be enjoyed in grounds that are within ear-shot of a high-road. At Discombe the long grass walks, the walls of ilex and of yew, the cypress avenues, and marble temples were isolated amidst surrounding woods, nearly a mile away from the traffic of everyday life. There was a sense of quiet and privacy here, compared with which Marsh House and the Grove were scarcely superior to the average villa in a newly developed suburb.
The seasons waxed and waned; the month of May, when the woodland walks round Discombe were white with the feathery bloom of the mountain ash, and golden with the scented blossoms of the yellow azalea; and June, which filled the woodland avenues with a flush of purple rhododendrons, masses of bloom, in an ascending scale of colour from the deep bass of darkest purple to the treble of palest lilac; and July, with her lap full of roses that made the gardens as brilliant as a picture by Alma Tadèma.
"I always tell the gardeners that if they give me roses I will forgive them all the rest," said Mrs. Wornock, when Allan complimented her upon her banquet of bloom; arches of roses, festoons of roses, temples built of roses, roses in beds and borders, everywhere.
"But your men are model gardeners; they neglect nothing."
In this paradise of flowers Allan and Suzette dawdled away two or three afternoons in every week. Discombe seemed to Allan always something of an enchanted palace—a place upon which there lay a glamour and a spell, a garden of sleep, a grove for woven paces and weaving hands, a spot haunted by sad sweet memories, ruled over by the genius of love, faithful in disappointment. Mrs. Wornock's personality gave an atmosphere of sadness to the house in which she lived, to the gardens in which she paced to and fro with slow, meditative steps; but it was not an unpleasing sadness, and it suited Allan's mood in this quiet summer of waiting, while grief for the loss of his father was still fresh in his mind.
Lady Emily came to Discombe on several occasions, and now that Mrs. Wornock's shyness had worn off—with all those agitations which were inevitable at a first meeting—the two women were very good friends. It was difficult for any one not to take kindly to Lady Emily Carew, and she on her side was fascinated by a nature so different from her own, and by that reserve force of genius which gave fire and pathos to Mrs. Wornock's playing.
Lady Emily listened with moistened eyes to the Sonata Pathetica, and Mrs. Wornock showed a cordial interest in the Blickling Park and Woodbastwick cows—which gave distinction to the Fendyke dairy farm.
"Pure white, with lovely black muzzles—and splendid milkers!" protested Lady Emily. "I was taught that thing you play, dear Mrs. Wornock; but my playing was never good for much, even when I was having two lessons a week from poor Sir Julius. He was only Mr. Benedict when he taught me, and he was almost young."