“Dog, dog won’t bite,” quoted Diana, and Marcus told her not to be irrelevant.
The oven wouldn’t heat itself, let alone water.
“Piggy won’t get over the stile—don’t worry,” said Diana; “it’s all too delicious. The station-master is still your brother, and Macpherson your keeper—”
Macpherson! Good idea! What about Mrs. Macpherson? Pillar would enquire. He enquired and came back to say she was a most respectable woman and had flour and tea and washing soda—
“If she would be so kind—” Marcus was beginning when Pillar respectfully broke in to say she would be kinder than that—moreover, she understood the stove. It could heat water and it could bake—the oven could. “It was just the puir gals from London who didna understand the ways of it.”
Pillar prided himself on his Scotch. He spoke it as well as many actors on the London stage speak it and with less effort.
When dinner-time came, into her own came Mrs. Oven. Whatever disappointment she had expressed, annoyance she had shown, she now proved that her cunning had not left her. There was a dinner and an excellent dinner. Women are wonderful creatures, and with the help of cows and hens there is no limit to what they can do if they set their minds to it.
Before Marcus and Diana went to bed that first night, when their fates as regarded beds and mattresses were still hid from them, Marcus called to Diana to come out. They stood in front of the lodge, Diana like a wraith in the moonlight—an exquisite visitant from another world.
“Listen!” said Marcus, and they heard the call of the cock grouse on the hillside, the weird cry of the plover, the soft rushing of the river, and it was all very, very good. And it would have been better still if that haunting question had not come back to torment the poor uncle. “Is she in love?” Did Elsie know of whom Diana was thinking as she stood there looking so horribly, so bound to be, in love?
“What are you thinking of?” he asked.