“Certainly,” the landlady answered. She was a burly, red-faced, heavy-browed woman. “But you have come some way, ma’am. Will you not take supper with the gentleman?”
“No.”
He interposed.
“At least let us go in!” he repeated pettishly. And there was an agitation in his tone and manner not easy to explain, except on the supposition that in some way she had thwarted him. “We do not want to spend the night on the road, I suppose?”
She did not reply. But none the less, as she followed Mrs. Gilson to the door, was she wondering what ailed him. She was unsuspicious by nature, and she would not entertain the thought that he wished her to act otherwise than she was acting. What was it then? Save for a burly man in a red waistcoat who stood in a lighted doorway farther along the front of the inn, and seemed to be watching their movements with lazy interest, there were only the people of the inn present. And the red-waistcoated man could hardly be in pursuit of them, for, for certain, he was a stranger. Then what was it?
She might have turned and asked her lover; but she was offended and she would not stoop. And before she thought better of it—or worse—she had crossed the threshold. A warmer air, an odour of spices and lemons and old rum, met her. On the left of the low-browed passage a half-open door offered a glimpse of shining glass and ruddy firelight; there was Mrs. Gilson’s snuggery, sometimes called the coach office. On the right a room with a long table spoke of coaching meals and a groaning board. From beyond these, from the penetralia of kitchen and pantry, came faint indications of plenty and the spit.
A chambermaid was waiting at the foot of the narrow staircase to go before them with lights; but the landlady took the candles herself, and dismissed the woman with a single turn of the eye. A habit of obedience to Mrs. Gilson was the one habit of the inn, the one common ground on which all, from Tom Gilson to the smallest strapper in the stable, came together.
The landlady went ponderously up before her guest and opened the door of a dimity-hung chamber. It was small and simple, but of the cleanest. Hid in it were rosemary and lavender; and the leafless branches of a rose-tree whipped the diamond panes of the low, broad window. Mrs. Gilson lighted the two wax candles—“waxes” in those days formed part of every bill but the bagman’s. Then she turned and looked at the girl with deliberate disapproval.
“You will take nothing, ma’am, to eat?” she said.
“No, thank you,” Henrietta answered. And then, resenting the woman’s look, “I may as well tell you,” she continued, holding her head high, “that we have eloped, and are going to be married to-morrow. That is why I wished to be put in your charge.”