"Writing is such a bore," Olive said, drearily. "I hate writing. Is that the carriage waiting up there?"
"Yes," said Laura; "and how did you enjoy your travel? You look pale and tired."
"I am tired to death," Mrs. Wyndham said, impatiently, "and I have not enjoyed myself at all. Every place was stupid, and I am glad to be home! Do let us get out of this mob, Mr. Wyndham!"
Mr. Wyndham had paused for a moment to give some directions about the baggage, and his wife addressed him so sharply that Laura stared. Laura noticed during the homeward drive how seldom she spoke to her husband, and how cold her tone always was when she addressed him. But Mr. Wyndham did not seem to mind much. He talked to Laura—and Mr. Wyndham knew how to talk—and told her about their travels, and the places they had been, and the people they had met, and the adventures they had encountered.
"Olive reigned Lady Paramount wherever we went," he said, smiling (he never called her Mrs. Wyndham or "my wife," always Olive). "Our tour was a long succession of brilliant triumphs for her."
Olive merely shrugged her shoulders disdainfully, and looked at the swelling meadows as they drove along Redmon road. A beautiful road in summer time, and the Nettleby cottage was quite lost in a sea of green verdure, sprinkled with red stars of the scarlet-runners. Ann Nettleby stood in the door as they drove by in a cloud of dust—in that doorway where pretty Cherrie used to stand, pretty, flighty little Cherrie, whom Speckport was fast learning to forget.
And Redmon! Could Mrs. Leroy have risen from her grave and looked on Redmon, she might well have stared aghast at the magical changes. A lovely little villa, with miniature peaks and turrets, and a long piazza running around it, and verdant with climbing roses and sweetbrier. A sloping velvety lawn, on which the drawing-room and dining-rooms windows opened, led from the house to the avenue; and fair flower-gardens, where fountains played in marble basins, and bees and butterflies disported in the September sunshine, spread away on all sides. Beyond them lay the swelling meadows, the dark woods; and, beyond all, the shining sea aglitter in the summer sunshine. The groom came up to lead away the horse, and Mrs. Hill, in a black silk dress and new cap, stood in the doorway to receive them. The dark, sunless face of Olive lit up and became luminous for the first time as she saw all this.
"How pretty it is, Laura!" she said. "I am glad I am home."
The servants were gathered in the hall to welcome their master and mistress as they entered arm-in-arm. The upholsterer had done his work well, the drawing-room was one long vista of splendor, the dining-room almost too beautiful for eating in, and there was a conservatory the like of which Speckport had never seen before. Mrs. Wyndham had a suite of rooms, too—sleeping-room, dressing-room, bath-room, and boudoir—all opening into one another in a long vision of brightness and beauty, and there was a library which was a library, and not a mockery and a delusion, and was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Speckport had been shown the house, and pronounced it perfection.
Olive Wyndham forgot her languor and weariness, and broke out in her old delighted way as she went through it.