Brownlow held his ground with all the imperturbability of a well-trained serving-man.
“Not at home, sir,” he repeated, steadily. “Perhaps you would like, sir, to leave a message? My mistress will be in to dinner.”
Batty closed the door of his Hansom with a crash that rang through the whole neighbourhood. He drove off furious. But still, after all the business of the day was done, he returned to the little house in Mayfair, feeling it impossible that Frederick could have the audacity to leave him another evening alone. He found Aunty again by herself, almost weeping over the insolence of the maids, with another careless dinner, indifferent service—altogether a contemptuous mode of treatment. “Hang me if I stand this!” he said, making off as soon as he had eaten his badly-cooked meal to his son-in-law’s club, resolute to find him, one way or another, and “to have it out with him.” Aunty remained behind in equally high dudgeon. She said to herself that “these Eastwoods” must have suborned the servants to be insolent to her. Thus, in the most unconsidered and, so to speak, innocent way did this unfortunate family forge against themselves the thunderbolt which was to strike them almost into social ruin. Frederick had certainly meant to avoid his wife’s relations, but not with any such determined and insolent purpose as Batty gave him credit for; and Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly did, indeed, run out of the house in order to avoid receiving the visit of Amanda’s father, but only from the impulse of the moment, without any concerted plan. And when it was done, compunctions rose within the breasts of the ladies. Mrs. Eastwood accused herself of her fault at dinner on the same night.
“Should you like me to call on—Miss Johnson, Frederick?” she said. “I am sorry that Nelly and I were so foolish. I am sure I have often received people I had as little sympathy with as Mr. Batty. Indeed, poor man, I have a great deal of sympathy with him. Should you like me to call on Miss Johnson?”
“Who on earth is Miss Johnson?” cried Frederick. “Aunty, do you mean? Why should you call on her? She has not any social pretensions, that I know of. Poor soul, to do her justice, she never went in for that sort of thing.”
“Then you think I need not call?” Mrs. Eastwood said, with a look of relief; “I confess I would rather not. Brownlow,” she said, some time after, “you will find a parcel in the library, addressed to Miss Johnson, at Mr. Eastwood’s. Will you take it to-night, or to-morrow morning? Leave it with my compliments, and say I hope to have the pleasure of calling before she leaves town. Perhaps it is better to say that,” added the diplomatist. “Things might occur to prevent our having the pleasure—but it is as well not to offend any one, unless we cannot help it.” She said this without the least idea that anything more than a breach of her own perfect good manners could be involved in offending the Batty family. She had wounded her own sense of right and wrong by avoiding Batty’s visit. It did not occur to her to think what effect her “rudeness” might have produced on him.
The parcel in the library contained a few books, some music, a fan, and a handkerchief, left at various times by Amanda at The Elms. Brownlow grumbled slightly, as he went down-stairs, at this commission.
“If a man is to be kept running of errands all day long, ’ow is ’is work to get done?” said Brownlow. Jane, the housemaid, not generally considered very “ready to oblige,” answered this appeal at once.
“It’s a fine evening,” she said, “and I’d like a walk. I’ll take ’em for you, Mr. Brownlow, and leave the message. My work’s done, and I’m sick of needlework. Don’t say a word about it. I’d like the walk.”
“There’s some one a-waiting, I make no doubt, under the lamp-post,” said Brownlow; and Jane had to bear the brunt of some raillery, such as abounds in the regions down-stairs. She took it very calmly, making no protestations.