"Friend of your aunt's," he answered; he took her bag from her. "I have brought the trap, Janet thought you might be too delicate to walk." He chuckled to himself at the thought and picking up the reins climbed into the cart beside her. "Don't think Sally has been out twice since you left, see how fat she has got."
The little brown pony certainly answered to the implication. Her sides bulged against the shafts and bald patches were manifesting themselves, caused by the friction.
"What have you been doing then?" asked Joan; "why haven't you been out?"
"Nothing to go for," he answered, "and I have been too busy in the garden. Extended that bit down through the wood." The garden was his one great hobby.
"And Aunt Janet," Joan questioned, "she always used to like taking Sally out."
"I suppose that was when you were here;" he looked down at her sideways, "she missed you, I think, but she potters about the village sometimes." He relapsed into silence, and Joan could see that his thoughts were once more far away.
Several of the villagers came out as they passed through the little village street to bob greetings to the young lady of the manor, as they had always called Joan. Wrotham did not boast many county families; there was no squire, for instance. The Rutherfords occupied the old manor house and filled the position to a great extent, but they owned none of the land in the neighbourhood, and the villagers were not really their tenants. And beyond the Rutherfords there was no one in the village who could undertake parochial work except the vicar, a hard-working, conscientiously mild gentleman, with a small income and a large family. He could give plenty of spiritual advice and assistance, but little else; the old people and the invalids of the parish looked to Aunt Janet for soups and warm clothes and kindly interest.
Wrotham boasted a doctor too. As Joan remembered him he had been a gentleman of very rubicund complexion and rough manners. Village gossip had held that he was too fond of the bottle, but when sober he was kindly and efficient enough for their small needs. He had been unmarried and had lived under the charge of a slovenly housekeeper. As the Rutherfords drove past his house, a square brick building with a front door that opened on to the village street, Joan noticed an unfamiliar air of spruce cleanliness about the front door and the window blinds.
"Dr. Simpson has had a spring cleaning," she said, pointing out the transformation to Colonel Rutherford.
He came out of his reverie, whatever it was, and glanced at the house. "No," he said, "Simpson has left. There are new people in there. Grant is their name, I think. Young chap and his sister and their old mother. Came to call the other day; nice people, but very ignorant about gardens. Your aunt has taken a great fancy to the young man."