“Lady Lansdowne, Sir Robert. Her ladyship bade us say that she wishes to see you urgently, sir.” The man, as well as the master, knew that the visit was unusual.
The baronet was a proud man, and he bethought him that the drawing-rooms, seldom used and something neglected, were not in the state in which he would wish his enemy’s wife to see them. “Where have you put her ladyship?” he asked.
“In the hall, Sir Robert.”
“Very good. I will come.”
The man hastened away over the bridge, and Sir Robert followed, more at leisure, but still quickly. When he had passed the angle of the church which stood in a line with the three blocks of building, connected by porticos, which formed the house, and which, placed on a gentle eminence, looked handsomely over the park, he saw that a carriage with four greys ridden by postillions and attended by two outriders stood before the main door. In the carriage, her face shaded by the large Tuscan hat of the period, sat a young lady reading. She heard Sir Robert’s footstep, and looked up, and in some embarrassment met his eyes.
He removed his hat. “It is Lady Louisa, is it not?” he said, looking gravely at her.
“Yes,” she said; and she smiled prettily at him.
“Will you not go into the house?”
“Thank you,” she replied, with a faint blush; “I think my mother wishes to see you alone, Sir Robert.”
“Very good.” And with a bow, cold but perfectly courteous, he turned and passed up the broad, shallow steps, which were of the same time-tinted lichen-covered stone as the rest of the building. Mapp, the butler, who had been looking out for him, opened the door, and he entered the hall.