‘Put on your bonnet, Mary, and run and see what you can do,’ said Eliza. And then, while Mary ran off, without stopping to put on her bonnet, Miss Sampson and the housemaid went upstairs together and took out lavender-scented linen, and decorated the spare room with all those pin-trays, china candlesticks, and pomatum pots, which went into retirement when there was no company.
‘Of course he has come to make her an offer,’ mused Eliza, as she lingered to give a finishing touch to the room, after the housemaid had gone downstairs.
‘He has waited a proper time after the old gentleman’s death, and now he has come down to ask her to marry him, and I dare say they will be married before the summer is over. It will be rather awkward for her to throw off such deep mourning all at once, but that’s her own fault for going into crape, just as if Mr. Treverton had really been her father! I put it down to pride.’
Miss Sampson had a knack of finding motives for all the acts of her acquaintance, and those motives were rarely of the best.
John Treverton’s chat with Mr. Sampson did not last more than ten minutes, friendly, and even affectionate, as was the lawyer’s reception.
‘I see you’re busy,’ said Treverton; ‘I’ll go and have a stroll in the village.’
‘No, upon my honour, I was just going to strike work. I’ll come with you if you like.’
‘On no account; I know you haven’t half finished. Dinner at six, as usual, I suppose. I’ll be back in time for a talk before we sit down.’
And before Mr. Sampson could remonstrate, John Treverton was gone. He wanted to see what Hazlehurst Manor was like in the clear spring light, framed in greenery, brightened with all the flowers that bloom in early May, musical with thrush and blackbird, noisy with the return of the swallows. Never had he so longed to look upon anything as he longed to-day to see the home of his ancestors, the home which might be his.
He walked quickly along the village street. Such a quaint little street, with never one house like another; here a building bulging forward, with bow windows below and projecting dormers above; there a house retiring modestly behind a patch of garden; further on an inn set at right angles with the highway, its chief door approached by a flight of stone steps that time had worn crooked. Such a variety of chimneys, such complexities in the way of roofs and gables; but everywhere cleanliness and spring flowers, and a purer air than John Treverton had breathed for a long time. Even this queer little village street, with its dozen shops and its half-dozen public-houses was very fair and pleasant in his town-weary eyes.