‘That’s a sudden change,’ said the butler. ‘And where’s Mr. Treverton all this time? He didn’t ought to be out of doors in the dark, smoking his cigar, instead of keeping his wife company.’
‘No more he didn’t,’ said Mary, with indignation; ‘he ain’t my notion of a ’usband, leaving her to mope alone on her wedding day, poor dear! It’s my belief she’d been crying her eyes out just now, tho’ she was artful enough to keep her face turned away from me while she spoke. I dessay she’s made up her mind to take me abroad with her for company, because she feels she’ll be dull and lonesome with ’im.’
‘You’d better go and pack up your box,’ said the housekeeper, ‘and not stand gossiping there. What do you know of the ways of gentry, married or single, I should like to know? When you’ve been in service as long as I have you may talk.’
‘Well, I’m sure,’ cried Mary, indignantly, and then she expressed a hope that her soul was her own, even at Hazlehurst Manor.
Before half-past seven, Mary had packed her box, and had it conveyed to the hall. Mrs. Treverton’s trunks and bags had also been brought down. At a quarter to eight the carriage drove up to the door, an old-fashioned landau in which Jasper Treverton used to take his daily airing, drawn by a pair of big horses that had begun life at the plough. Since the lamps had been lighted no one had seen the bridegroom. The tea-things had been taken into the book-room, and the urn had hissed itself to silence, but no one had come there to take tea. Laura only came downstairs when the carriage was at the door.
‘Joe, run and look for Mr. Treverton,’ cried the butler to his underling.
‘Mr. Treverton will meet us at the station,’ Laura said, hurriedly; and then she got into the carriage, and called to Mary to follow her.
‘Tell Berrows to drive quickly to the station,’ she told the butler, and at the first crack of the whip the overfed horses swung the big carriage round, as if they meant to annihilate the good old house, and went off along the avenue with the noise of a Barclay and Perkins dray.
‘Well, I never did!’ exclaimed the housekeeper. ‘Fancy his meeting her at the station, instead of their going off together, sitting side by side, like true lovers.’
‘I’m afraid there’s not much true love about it, Martha,’ said her husband, sententiously, and then, waxing familiar, he said, ‘When you and me was married we didn’t manage matters so did we, my lass?’