“Goodness me!” said she, “I thought it was master.”
“Where is the master?” asked Tom.
“Not come home, sir. He has not been in since he left this morning.”
It was all out. Instead of pitchpolling into Crabb Ravine and breaking his limbs, Bob Ashton had not got back from Worcester. It was very strange, though, what could be keeping him, and the Court was nearly in a commotion over it.
When we got back to the Farm, they were laying the table for the wedding-breakfast. Plenty of kickshaws now, and some lovely flowers. The ladies, helping, had their gowns turned up. This helping had not been in the evening’s programme; but things seemed to have been turned upside down, and they were glad to seize upon it. Jane and her sister, Mrs. West, sat alone by the drawing-room fire, never saying a word to one another.
“Johnny, I don’t half like this,” whispered Mrs. Todhetley to me.
“Like what, good mother?”
“This absence of Robert Ashton.”
I don’t know that I liked it either.