“Gerard,” she said, and her eyes grew soft again as she filled them with his presence, “what is the use of letters that only tell half the truth?”
“It is a fair average,” he answered, gayly. “Why, even before the introduction of the penny-post man had discovered that the object of speech is to dissemble. A dumb man with expressive eyes would tell all his secrets. And there has been since the creation of the world no greater multiplier of falsehood than the penny-post.”
“A man who daren’t answer straight is bound to take refuge in nonsense,” replied the Dowager, feeling quite young and clever again. “I wasn’t speaking of the penny-post. What you say there is so like your father, Gerard. Don’t you remember how he used to declare that the breeding of centuries, after having come triumphant out of the French Revolution, had been killed in fifty years’ time by the railway and the penny-post? I have got that down in the Memoir. You remind me so much of your father, Gerard. I must show you what I have written since you went away.”
And then they began talking of many tender memories, and Ursula left them alone.
Gerard had resolved from the first to avoid anything that could have the appearance of a home-coming to Horstwyk. This sentiment Ursula, of course, understood. But there are no more powerless creatures in the world than its rulers, big or little. It was a case of the driver driven. For the population of the whole neighborhood made up its heavy mind to do honor to “the Hero,” as everybody seemed agreed to call him. It was an excellent opportunity of protesting against Ursula’s government, of glorifying the ancien régime, and of saluting the national flag; also it gave a great many nonentities a notable chance of displaying their importance: there would be speeches, and favors, and, best of all, wide-spread good cheer. Once a committee had been formed and subscriptions gathered, both Gerard and Ursula saw that resistance would be vain. So they gave in, separately and simultaneously, each with the best possible grace, and the Lady of the Manor promised flowers and a collation, and invited the gentry for several miles round. Also she drove with the Dowager to inspect the triumphal arches in course of erection at the distant limit of the Commune, on Horstwyk village square, at the Manor-house gates.
The appointed day dawned white with early heat, rippling over as the sun rose higher into the color-glories of triumphant June. The splendor of the cloudless morning lay almost like an oppression upon the drowsy pastures and the dusty roads. The washed and smartened crowds by the park gates and near the church shone visibly with heat and happiness. As always at the beginning of every public holiday, “the temper of the crowd was excellent:” the local reporter of the Drum Gazette remembered that stereotyped phrase without requiring to make a note of it.
The Manor-house carriage with Ursula inside met the train at the market-town station, and, by an irony of fate, she had to drive along the highway seated next to her brother-in-law. It was still stranger, perhaps, that this should be the single occasion on which she appeared since her widowhood, before all the country-side, in the rôle of Lady of the Manor. The “county families”—her cousins by marriage—gathered around her with abundance of malevolent curiosity.
Gerard was very silent and reserved; she saw how distasteful the whole ceremony was to him. He still looked ill, in dark clothing, with his military cross on his breast.