“Half the year!” repeated Mrs. Baxter, “oh dear yes. Three quarters at least. We spend a month or two at the sea-side in summer. It suits very well, as it generally happens so that I want a little change just then. All the children except the twins were born in spring. And there’s nothing sets one up like the sea.”
Then there fell a little pause, Marion’s experience in the matters referred to by the lady, not being sufficiently extensive for her to hazard an observation in the presence of one evidently thoroughly “up” on the subject.
Mrs. Baxter swung herself round on her chair and scrutinized her surroundings.
“I never was in this street before,” she remarked. “I was afraid the coachman would never find the house, but the footman knew it, because his sister, who is a dressmaker, lives a little higher up. Mr. Baxter never likes me to go through back streets for fear of infections and those sort of things. But he made a point of my calling on you. More than a week ago he asked me to do him a favour, and this was what it was. I hope you haven’t stayed in for me though all this time? Mr. Baxter has taken quite a fancy to your husband, Mrs. Baldwin. So regular and steady in his hours, and quite a gentleman. He said so I assure you. ‘That young Baldwin is really quite a gentleman,’ he said to me.
Marion’s face flushed.
“I think perhaps Mrs. Baxter,” she began, “you hardly understand——.”
But the voluble little woman interrupted her.
“I was forgetting,” she exclaimed, “that Mr. Baxter wished me to fix a day for your dining with us. Just in a family way, nothing of a party. I thought most likely you would like better coming to luncheon, but he said it would be rather too far for your husband to walk backwards and forwards between business hours. He dines in town, I suppose? All the clerks do, I think. Of course we dine late. I don’t mean an early dinner. At six, we dine, and for once in a way, I daresay Mr. Baldwin could get away from business early. Will Wednesday do? I expect some of Mr. Baxter’s friends to be with us, so it will be quite a family party.”
“You are very kind,” Marion forced herself to say. “We have not gone into company at all since we came here, as I daresay you can understand.”
“Oh don’t make any apologies,” said Mrs. Baxter. “Of course I wouldn’t ask you except in an unceremonious way. Don’t trouble yourself about dressing or anything of that sort. You will do very nicely I am sure. A high black silk, or even a merino will do quite well. Of course I always wear a low dress, in the evening, but then that’s different.”