The baronet turned round to the long brown figure on the other side. “Alice has told me,” he said. “Lenny, is it possible? I did not think I could have recognised you after all these years.”
“Nor I you, my fine fellow,” said the Colonel. “I’d have passed you if I had met you in Bond Street, Markham; but meeting you here, and knowing it’s you, makes a great deal of difference. We’ve both of us altered in forty years.”
“Is it as long as that?” Sir William said. There was no pleasure in his face such as, these innocent ladies thought, should always attend a meeting with an old friend. But on the other hand he cast no doubt upon Colonel Lenny (as indeed how could he, seeing the Colonel’s name was in the Army List?), but addressed him unhesitatingly, and acknowledged him, which set the worst of Lady Markham’s fears at rest. “Go on,” he said, in an undertone to his daughter, then waved his hand to the pedestrians. “In ten minutes I shall be with, you,” he cried.
The rumbling of the fly had stopped; had it gone further contrary to all Alice’s anticipations? This idea gave her a little relief, but she was in so nervous a mood that the sudden jerk with which she urged the ponies forward once more upset To-to’s temper, who was his mistress’s favourite. He darted on through the lines of trees like a mad thing, wild with the jar to his delicate mouth and the vicinity of his stables.
“Do you want to break your own neck and mine?” Sir William said; “that pony will not bear the whip.”
“Why shouldn’t he bear it as well as Ta-ta?” said Alice; “is he to be humoured because he is the naughty one? It should be the other way.”
“It seldom is the other way,” said Sir William, moralising with a self-reference, though Alice did not understand it. “You spoke a greater truth than you are aware of. It is not the best people who are humoured in life. It is the naughty ones who get their way. If you make the worst of everything circumstances will yield to you: but act anxiously for the best and all the burden falls on your shoulders.”
“Papa! that is like Thackeray; it is cynical. I never heard you speak so before.”
“Nevertheless it is true,” said Sir William. His straight and placid brow was ruffled with care. “One does everything one can to be secure from evil, and evil comes.”
Could he be thinking about Paul? She turned her ponies (to their great disappointment) as soon as Sir William had stept out of the carriage. Charles indeed had to come to To-to’s head and lead him round, so unwilling was that little Turk to turn away from his comfortable stable again. “I will go back and bring mamma home, she was looking tired,” the girl said. She was impatient to make sure about the fly that had followed from the station, and the lady in the pink bonnet, and to be in the midst of it, at least, if anything were going to happen. Her mother was still a long way down the avenue. But Alice had scarcely turned when she perceived that there were three figures instead of two in the group she had so lately left. Three figures—and a brilliant speck of colour making itself apparent like a flag at the head of the little procession. Alice felt her heart rush to the scene of action more quickly than the ponies, which still resisted, tossing their little wicked heads. The lady with the pink bonnet had fallen into the advancing rank. She was tall, and that oriflamme towered over Lady Markham’s hat with its soft gray feathers. But their pace was quite moderate, unexcited, showing no sign of trouble. Lady Markham moved along with no appearance of agitation. Perhaps, after all, this new-comer, whoever she might be, had nothing to do with the absent brother, and was no messenger of evil tidings after all.