On the great day, but not till five o'clock, the belated invitation did at last arrive at the Grange, accompanied by a prettily worded sentence or two of apology and explanation as to a packet of unposted cards. The General and Mrs. Kemp, however, saw no reason to change the arrangement which had been made; more than once Mrs. Boringdon had chaperoned their daughter to local entertainments, and, most potent reason of all, every vehicle in the neighbourhood had been bespoken for something like a fortnight. If Lucy's father and mother wished to grace the ducal ball with their presence, they would have to drive there in their own dog-cart, and that neither of them felt inclined to do on a dark and stormy November night, though there were many to inform them that they would not in so doing find themselves alone!
Lucy Kemp had a strong wish, which she hardly acknowledged to herself, to see Mrs. Rebell and Oliver Boringdon together. The girl was well aware that Oliver's manner to her had first changed before the coming of this stranger to the Priory, but she could not help knowing that he now saw a great deal of Mrs. Rebell. She knew also that, thanks to that lady's influence, the young man was now free to see Madame Sampiero—that hidden mysterious presence who, if invisible, yet so completely dominated the village life of Chancton.
This, of course, was one reason why he was now so often at the Priory. Indeed, his mother complained to Lucy that it was so: "I suppose that, like most afflicted persons, Madame Sampiero is very capricious. As you know, in old days she would never see Oliver, and now she expects him to be always dancing attendance on her!"
Lucy implicitly accepted this explanation of the long mornings spent by her old friend at the Priory; but it may be doubted whether in giving it, Mrs. Boringdon had been quite honest. On making Mrs. Rebell's acquaintance, which she had not done till Barbara had been at Chancton for some little time, the mistress of the Cottage realised that the Priory now contained within its walls a singularly attractive woman.
The excuse which Boringdon made, first to himself, and then to his mother, concerning Madame Sampiero's renewed interest in village affairs, was one of those half-truths more easily believed by those who utter them than by those to whom they are uttered. During the fortnight Mrs. Boringdon was away, Oliver spent the greater part of each day in Mrs. Rebell's company; the after-knowledge of that fact, together with his avoidance of Lucy Kemp, made his mother vaguely suspicious. She also, therefore, was not sorry for the opportunity now presented to her of seeing her son and Mrs. Rebell together, but she would have liked on this occasion to be with them alone, and not in company with Lucy Kemp.
In this matter, however, her hand was forced. Boringdon, when bringing his mother's note to the Grange, told the truth, as indeed he always did; the taking of Lucy to Halnakeham Castle was Mrs. Rebell's own suggestion, and in making it Barbara honestly believed that she would give her good friend—for so she now regarded Oliver Boringdon—real pleasure. Also, she was by no means anxious for a drive spent in the solitary company of this same good friend and his mother—especially his mother. In Mrs. Boringdon, Barbara had met with her only disappointment at Chancton. There had arisen between the two women something very like antipathy, and more than once Mrs. Rebell had felt retrospectively grateful to James Berwick for having given her, as he had done the first evening they had spent together, a word of warning as to the mistress of the cottage.
Certain days, ay and certain hours, are apt to remain vividly marked, and that without any special reason to make them so, on the tablets of our memories.
Lucy Kemp always remembered, in this especially vivid sense, not only the coming-of-age ball of Lord Pendragon, but that drive of little more than half an hour, spent for the most part in complete silence by the occupants of the old-fashioned, roomy Priory carriage.