‘Is Anne too busy to see us now? I should just like to say how d’you do.’
‘Oh, if you will wait a little, I don’t doubt that you will see her. But I am sure you will excuse us now, as we had fixed to go out. We shall see you this evening. Mind you are here by seven o’clock,’ cried Mrs. Mountford, shaking her fingers at them in an airy way which she had learned ‘abroad.’ And Rose said, as they went out, ‘Yes, do come; I want to hear all about Mount.’ About two minutes after they left the room Anne came in. She had not turned into a spider or wasp, like Rose in her Paris costume, but she was much changed. She no longer carried her head high, but had got a habit of bowing it slightly, which made a curious difference in her appearance. She was like a tall flower bent by the winds, bowing before them; she was more pale than she used to be; and to Charley it seemed that there was an inquiry in her eyes, which first cast one glance round, as if asking something, before they turned with a little gleam of pleasure to the strangers.
‘You here?’ Anne said. ‘How glad I am to see you! When did you come, and where are you staying? I am so sorry that mamma and Rose have gone out; but you must come back and see them: or will you wait? They will soon be back;’ and once more she threw a glance round, investigating—as if some one might be hiding somewhere, Willie said. But his brother knew better. Charley felt that there was the bewilderment of wonder in her eyes, and felt that it must be a new experience to her that Cosmo should not wait to see her. For a moment the light seemed to fade in her face, then came back: and she sat down and talked with a subdued sweetness that went to their hearts. ‘Not to Mount,’ she said; ‘Heathcote is very kind, but I don’t think I will go to Mount. To Hunston rather—where we can see everybody all the same.’
‘What is the matter with Anne?’ Willie Ashley asked, wondering, when they came away. ‘It can’t be because she has lost her money. She has no more spirit left in her. She has not a laugh left in her. What is the cause of it all?’ But the Curate made no answer. He set his teeth, and he said not a word. There was very little to be got out of him all that day. He went gloomily about with his brother, turning Willie’s holiday into a somewhat poor sort of merry-making. And when they went to dinner with the Mountfords at night, Charley’s usual taciturnity was so much aggravated that he scarcely could be said to talk at all. But the dinner was gay enough. Rose, it seemed to young Ashley, who had his private reasons for being critical, ‘kept it up’ with Douglas in a way which was not at all pleasant. They had been together all the afternoon, and had all sorts of little recollections in common. Anne was much less subdued than in the morning, and talked like her old self, yet with a difference. It was when the party broke up, however, that Willie Ashley felt himself most ill-used. He was left entirely out in the cold by his brother, who said to him briefly, ‘I am going home with Douglas,’ and threw him on his own devices. If it had not been that some faint guess crossed the younger brother’s mind as to Charley’s meaning, he would have felt himself very badly used.
The Curate put his arm within his friend’s. It was somewhat against the grain, for he did not feel so amicable as he looked. ‘I am coming back with you,’ he said. ‘We have not had a talk for so long. I want to know what you’ve been after all this long while.’
‘Very glad of a talk,’ said Douglas, but neither was he quite as much gratified as he professed to be; ‘but as for coming back with me, I don’t know where that is to be, for I am going to the club.’
‘I’ll walk with you there,’ said Charley. However, after this announcement Cosmo changed his mind: he saw that there was gravity in the Curate’s intentions, and turned his steps towards his rooms. He had not been expected there, and the lamp was not lighted, nor anything ready for him; and there was a little stumbling in the dark and ringing of bells before they got settled comfortably to their tête-à-tête. Charley seated himself in a chair by the table while this was going on, and when lights came he was discovered there as in a scene in a theatre, heavy and dark in his black clothes, and the pale desperation with which he was addressing himself to his task.
‘Douglas,’ he said, ‘for a long time I have wanted to speak to you——’
‘Speak away,’ said the other; ‘but have a pipe to assist your utterance, Charley. You never could talk without your pipe.’
The Curate put away the offered luxury with a determined hand. How much easier, how much pleasanter it would have been to accept it, to veil his purpose with the friendly nothings of conversation, and thus perhaps delude his friend into disclosures without affronting him by a solemn demand! That would have been very well had Charley had any confidence in his own powers—but he had not, and he put the temptation away from him. ‘No, thank you, Douglas,’ he said, ‘what I want to say is something which you may think very interfering and impertinent. Do you remember a year ago when you were at the Rectory and we had a talk—one very wet night?’