This seclusion and isolation of East Cottage did not however last very long. Before the summer was over Sir Thomas, who, though he stood on his dignity sometimes, was very kind at bottom, began to feel compunctious about his solitary neighbour: now and then he would say something which betrayed this. ‘It worries me to think there is some one there who has been taken no notice of by anybody,’ he would say. ‘Of course it is his own fault—entirely his own fault.’ The next time one met him he would return to the subject. ‘What a lovely day! Everybody seems to be out-of-doors—except at East Cottage, where they have the blinds drawn down.’ This would be said with a pucker of vexation and annoyance about his mouth. He was angry with the stranger, and sorry, and did not know what to do. And I for one knew what would follow. But we were all very curious when we heard that Sir Thomas had actually called. The Stokes came running in to tell me one afternoon. ‘Oh, fancy, Mrs. Mulgrave, Sir Thomas has called!’ cried Lucy. ‘And he has been admitted, which is still greater fun,’ said Robert Lloyd, who was with them. I may say in passing that this was before Robert had passed his examination, when he was an idle young man at home, trying hard to persuade Lucy Stoke that he and she were in love with each other. Their parents, of course, would never have permitted such a thing for a moment, and fortunately there turned out to be nothing in it; but at present this was the chief occupation of Robert’s life.
‘I am very glad,’ said I. ‘I knew Sir Thomas never would be happy till he had done it.’
‘And oh, you don’t know what funny stories there are about,’ said Lucy. ‘They say he killed his wife, and that he is always thinking he sees her ghost. I wonder if it is true? They say he can never be left alone or in the dark; he is so frightened. I met him yesterday, and it made me jump. I never saw a man who killed his wife before.’
‘But who says he killed his wife?’
‘Oh, everybody; we heard it from Matthew the gardener, and I think he heard it at the “Barleymow,” and it is all over the place. Fancy Sir Thomas calling on such a person! for I suppose,’ said Lucy, ‘though you are so very superior, you men, and may beat us, and all that, it is not made law yet that you may kill your wives.’
‘It might just as well be the law: for I am sure there are many other things quite as bad,’ said Lottie, while Robert, who had been appealed to, whispered some answer which made Lucy laugh. ‘Poor man, I wonder if she was a very bad woman, and if she haunts him. How disappointed he must have been to find he could not get rid of her even that way!’
‘Lottie, my dear, here is Sir Thomas coming; don’t talk so much nonsense,’ said I hurriedly.
I am afraid however that Sir Thomas rather liked the nonsense. He had not the feeling of responsibility in encouraging girls to run on, that most women have. He thought it was amusing, as men generally do, and never paused to think how bad it was for the girls. But to-day he was too full of his own story to care much for theirs. He came in with dusty boots, which was quite against his principles, and stretched his long spare limbs out on the beautiful rug which the Stokes had worked for me in a way that went to my heart. That showed how very much pre-occupied he was; for Sir Thomas was never inconsiderate about such matters.
‘Well,’ he said, pushing his thin white hair off his forehead, and stretching out his legs as if he were quite worn out, ‘there is one piece of work well over. I have had a good many tough jobs in my life, but I don’t know that I ever had a worse.’
‘Oh, tell us what happened. Is he mad? Has he shut himself in? Has he hurt you?’ cried the Stokes.