“I would I could cheer you more,” she wrote; “of course I have not seen Isabel since January; but, unless she has changed, I do not think she will marry you. I am writing plainly you see, as you ask in your letter. But I can still say, God prosper you.”
As the spring went by and the summer came on, Isabel grew yet more silent. As the evenings began to lengthen out she used to spend much time before and after supper in walking up and down the clipped lime avenue between the east end of the church and the great gates that looked over the meadows across which the stream and the field-path ran towards East Maskells. Mr. Buxton would watch her sometimes from an upstairs window, himself unseen, and occasionally would go out and talk with her; but he found it harder than he used to get on to intimate relations; and he began to suspect that he had displeased her in some way, and that Mary Corbet was right. In the afternoon she and Anthony would generally ride out together, once or twice going round by Penshurst, and their host would torture himself by his own indecision as regards accompanying them; sometimes doing so, sometimes refraining, and regretting whichever he did. More and more he began to look forward to Mary’s coming and the benefit of her advice; and at last, at the end of June, she came.
Their first evening together was delightful for them all. She was happy at her escape from Court; her host was happy at the prospect of her counsel; and all four were happy at being together again.
They did not meet till supper, and even that was put off an hour, because Mary had not come, and when she did arrive she was full of excitement.
“I will tell you all at supper,” she said to her host, whom she met in the hall. “Oh! how late I am!” and she whirled past him and upstairs without another word.
“I will first give you the news in brief,” she said, when Anthony had said grace and they were seated, all four of them as before; and the trumpet-flourish was silent that had announced the approach of the venison.
“Mutton’s new chaplain, Dr. Bancroft, will be in trouble soon; he hath been saying favourable things for some of us poor papists, and hath rated the Precisians soundly. Sir Francis Knollys is wroth with him; but that is no matter.—Her Grace played at cards till two of the clock this morning, and that is why I am so desperate sleepy to-night, for I had to sit up too; and that is a great matter.—Drake and Norris, ’tis said, have whipped the dons again at Corunna; and the Queen has sworn to pull my lord Essex his ears for going with them and adventuring his precious self; and that is no matter at all, but will do him good.—George Luttrell hath put up a coat of arms in his hall at Dunster, which is a great matter to him, but to none else;—and I have robbed a highwayman this day in the beech woods this side of Groombridge.”
“Dear lady,” said Mr. Buxton resignedly, as the others looked up startled, “you are too swift for our dull rustic ears; we will begin at the end, if you please. Is it true you have robbed an highwayman?”