James handed his mistress a charming toy of pink moiré antique silk and point lace, mounted on a handle of carved ivory. Charlotte put it up before her face, and turned to accompany Maria.
Maria put her parasol up before her face, thankful that it might serve to shield it, if only partially, from the curious eyes of Prior’s Ash. Remembering the compliments that Prior’s Ash had been kind enough to pass on her “blind simplicity,” she would not exactly have chosen her present companion to walk through the streets with. Dame Bond, with her unsteady steps and her snuffy black gown, would have been preferable of the two.
“But,” thought Maria in her generosity, striving to thrust that other unpleasant feeling down deep into her heart, and to lose sight of it, “it is really kind of Mrs. Pain to be seen thus publicly with me. Other ladies would be ashamed of me now, I suppose.”
They stepped on. Maria with her parasol so close to her face that there was danger of her running against people; Charlotte turning herself from side to side, flirting the costly little pink toy as one flirts a fan, bowing and scraping to all she met. The dogs snarled and barked behind her; the carriage pranced and curvetted by their side; the unhappy James, his hands full with the horses, which refused to recognize any mastership except that of Mrs. Charlotte Pain. Altogether, it was a more conspicuous progress than Maria would have chosen. Thus they arrived at the Bank, and Maria held out her hand to Charlotte. She could not be otherwise than courteous, no matter to whom.
“I am coming in,” said Charlotte bluntly. “Take care what you are about with the horses, James.”
Maria led the way to the dining-room. All was as it used to be in that charming room; furniture, pictures, elegant trifles for show or for use; all was the same: except—that those things belonged now not to Maria and her husband, but were noted down as the property of others. Soon, soon to be put up for sale! Charlotte’s rich moiré antique came to an anchor on a sofa, and she untied the string of the gendarme hat, and pushed it back on her head.
“I am going to leave Prior’s Ash.”
“To leave Prior’s Ash!” repeated Maria. “When?”
“Within a week of this. Lady Godolphin’s coming back to the Folly.”
“But—Lady Godolphin cannot come back to it without giving you due notice to quit?” debated Maria.