“Well, I’ll talk it over with Sir John,” he said to Godfrey, who was on horseback in the drive. It was then he saw Jenny coming towards them out of the house.
“Wait a minute,” he said to her—“I want to speak to you.”
He was uncertain whether or not he ought to introduce the young farmer to his sister. Godfrey did not call himself a gentleman farmer—indeed he was inclined to despise the title—but he came of good old yeoman stock, and his name went back nearly as far as Alard into the records of Winchelsea.
“Jenny, this is Mr. Godfrey of Fourhouses—my sister, Miss Jenny Alard.”
Godfrey took off his soft hat. He had the typical face of the Sussex and Kent borders, broad, short-nosed, blue-eyed; but there was added to it a certain brownness and sharpness, which might have come from a dash of gipsy blood. A Godfrey had married a girl of the Boswells in far-back smuggling days.
He and Peter discussed the Snailham snapes a little longer—then he rode off, and Peter turned to Jenny.
“I didn’t know you’d come over,” he said, “and I wanted to talk to you a bit—it’s an age since I’ve seen you.”
He was feeling a little guilty about his attitude towards her and Jim Parish—he had, like all the rest of the family, tried to ignore the business, and he now realised how bitter it must have been to Jenny to stand alone.
“Vera told me that you’d broken off your engagement,” he added as they walked down the drive.
“So it was an engagement, was it?” said Jenny rather pertly.