But now she was really going. This was the last day of her sojourn at Prior’s Ash, and Charlotte was walking about unceremoniously, bestowing her farewells on any one who would receive them. It almost seemed as if she had only waited to witness the removal from the Bank of Mr. and Mrs. George Godolphin.
She walked along in exuberant spirits, nodding her head to everyone: up at windows, in at doorways, to poor people on foot, to rich ones in carriages; her good-natured smile was everywhere. She rushed into shops and chatted familiarly, and won the shopkeepers’ hearts by asking if they were not sorry to lose her. She was turning out of one when she came upon the Rector of All Souls’. Charlotte’s petticoats went down in a swimming reverence.
“I am paying my farewell visits, Mr. Hastings. Prior’s Ash will be rid of me to-morrow.”
Not an answering smile crossed the Rector’s face: it was cold, impassive, haughtily civil: almost as if he were thinking that Prior’s Ash might have been none the worse had it been rid of Mrs. Charlotte Pain before.
“How is Mrs. Hastings to-day?” asked Charlotte.
“She is not well.”
“No! I must try and get a minute to call in on her. Adieu for the present. I shall see you again, I hope.”
Down sank the skirts once more, and the Rector lifted his hat in silence. In the ultra-politeness, in the spice of sauciness gleaming out from her flashing eyes, the clergyman read incipient defiance. But if Mrs. Pain feared that he might be intending to favour her with a little public clerical censure, she was entirely mistaken. The Rector washed his hands of Mrs. Pain, as Lady Godolphin did of her step-son, Mr. George. He walked on, a flash of scorn lighting his face.
Charlotte walked on: and burst into a laugh as she did so. “Was he afraid to forbid my calling at the Rectory?” she asked herself. “He would have liked to, I know. I’ll go there now.”
She was not long reaching it. But Isaac was the only one of the family she saw. He came to her charged with Mrs. Hastings’s compliments—she felt unequal to seeing Mrs. Pain.