'No,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'I shall get a new maid when I go up to London in November. Forder has had round eyes for such a long time, and she is hopelessly stupid about doing my hair.'
Mrs. Ogilvie always spoke about her hair with a touch of defiance in her voice. It was so undisguisedly auburn that probably only Jane Erskine and Peter ever believed that it was not dyed.
'What were we talking about?' she said presently. 'Oh yes, I was saying that you were not tiresome although you are engaged to be married. You are not even quite uninteresting, although you are healthy and happy! All the same, I am going to try and persuade you and Peter to have the wedding sooner than you intended.'
'Why?' said Jane simply.
'I am sick of Bowshott,' said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. 'By the by, I believe I am going to make it over to you and Peter when you marry. Why should I act as custodian to a lot of grimy pictures, which don't amuse me the least bit in the world, or walk in these formal gardens, where I don't even meet a gardener after ten o'clock? A prison life would really be a pleasant change! I shall go to London when you are married; it is the only place—except Paris—where one lives. I must have the house in Berkeley Square painted. And, oh! there are heaps of things I want to do; must I really go into them all?
'When is the wedding to be?' asked old Lord Sherard, sinking on to the sofa beside Miss Erskine, when he and the other gentlemen returned from the dining-room.
'Jane and I have just been deciding that the wedding is to take place in the middle of October,' replied Mrs. Ogilvie in her cool, decisive voice.
Jane laughed and caught Peter's eye, and he drew her aside when he could, and asked for further confirmation of a change of plans of which he thoroughly approved.
There was no reason for delay; the building and repairing of the tower would hardly interfere with the other parts of the vast house. Jane, like Peter, was quite satisfied that their wedding should be at an earlier date than was at first suggested. They had known each other all their lives; why postpone the happy time when they should be married?
So wedding invitations were written and despatched, and wedding gowns were ordered, and wedding presents came in. Tenants presented silver bowls and trays, and servants gave clocks and illuminated addresses, and the Ogilvie family lawyer came down with his clerk to stay, and was hidden away somewhere in the big house, where he wrote busily all day, and made wills and transferred deeds, and wanted signatures for this thing and for that through half the autumn mornings.