“I am sorry you should have inconvenienced yourself by coming out of your way to see us,” she said. “I trust you will not dream of giving yourself the trouble a second time.”
“Well, no, I don’t think I shall,” the visitor replied calmly. “I hear you are going to live at Pinnerton. I should be glad to show you the pictures, and anything else you care to see, if you come over some day. It’s not a very long walk over the fields.”
“Some of us go to Pinnerton nearly every day,” said Mrs Derwent, “but it is too far for me to walk. When I go, I drive. But I did not know there was a short cut to Pinnerton. We have always gone by the road.”
“I didn’t say to Pinnerton,” said the visitor. “I said from Pinnerton. I don’t live there, but I heard you were going to live there.”
“So we are,” Mrs Derwent replied, rather bewildered.
Evidently this could not be the Mrs Wandle, the Pinnerton Green Mrs Wandle, that was to say, and yet—she had distinctly said that she had been asked to call upon them.
“You used to live in our neighbourhood, I hear,” the stout lady proceeded. “Fleming, I think that was the name?”
“No,” Mrs Derwent replied rather sharply. If there was one thing in the world she cordially detested, it was to be confused with the Fleming family, whom she remembered, before they came to Fotherley, as very objectionable. “No, my name was Fenning. My father was vicar of Fotherley, and Mr Fleming, who succeeded him there, and was once his curate, had a small living in the neighbourhood.”
“Oh, indeed—yes, Fenning or Fleming. I knew it was some such name. Well, Mrs Flem— I beg your pardon, Mrs Derwent. If you like to come over some day when you are at Pinnerton, you can see through the house, even if I am not at home. I will leave orders. I can’t promise to go to see you at Pinnerton, for it’s quite out of my way. Even when I am at East Moddersham, I always go and come by the other side.”
“At East Moddersham?” said the Derwents to themselves, more completely perplexed than ever. “Did the Wandles visit there?”