“I cannot think how Uncle George allowed himself to have an appointment at Salisbury this afternoon,” said Pamela. “I know he doats on music.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t doat upon it quite so well as to like to see his house turned topsy-turvy,” said Lady Millborough, who would have allowed every philanthropic scheme in the country to collapse for want of cash rather than suffer her drawing-room to be pulled about by amateur scene-shifters.
Mrs. Hillersdon and her party occupied a prominent position near the platform; but that lady was too clever to make herself conspicuous. She talked to the people who were disposed to friendliness—their numbers had increased with the advancing years—and she placidly ignored those who still held themselves aloof from “that horrid woman.” Nor did she in any way appropriate Castellani as her special protégé when the people round her were praising him. She took everything that happened with the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere, and may often be found among women whom the Vere de Veres despise.
All was over: the last of the carriages had rolled away. Castellani had been carried off in Mrs. Hillersdon’s barouche, no one inviting him to stay at the Manor House. Rollinson lingered to repeat his effusive thanks for Mrs. Greswold’s help.
“It has been a glorious success,” he exclaimed; “glorious! Who would have thought there was so much amateur talent available within thirty miles? And Castellani was a grand acquisition. We shall clear at least seventy pounds for the window. I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough for giving us the use of your lovely rooms, Mrs. Greswold, and for letting us pull them about as we liked.”
“That did not matter—much,” Mildred said faintly, as she stood by the drawing-room door in the evening light, the curate lingering to reiterate the assurance of his gratitude. “Everything can be arranged again—easily.”
She was thinking, with a dull aching at her heart, that to her the pulling about and disarrangement of those familiar rooms hardly mattered at all. They were her rooms no longer. Enderby was never more to be her home. It had been her happy home for thirteen gracious years—years clouded with but one natural sorrow, in the loss of her beloved father. And now that father’s ghost rose up before her, and said, “The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children, and because of my sin you must go forth from your happy home and forsake the husband of your heart.”
She gave the curate an icy hand, and turned from him without another word.
“Poor soul, she is dead-beat!” thought Rollinson, as he trudged home to his lodgings over a joiner and builder’s shop: airy and comfortable rooms enough, but odorous of sawdust, and a little too near the noises of the workshop.