"Susan's getting almost silly with it," spoke the landlady, lowering her voice, as she glanced over her shoulder at the house. "She has all sorts of wild fancies in her head, poor girl; thinking--thinking----"
Mrs. Keen glanced at Miss Winter, and broke off. The words she had been about to say were these: "Thinking that Katherine, dead or alive, is still at Heron Dyke."
[CHAPTER VII.]
COMING TO DINNER
Miss Winter sat in her low chair by the window of her sitting-room in the north wing; for though she had abandoned her bedroom in that quarter, she still, on occasion, sat in that. A closed book lay on her lap, her chin was resting on the palm of one hand, and her eyes, to all appearance, were taking in for the thousandth time the features of the well-known scene before her. But in reality she saw nothing of it: her thoughts were elsewhere. This was Tuesday, the day fixed for Edward Conroy to dine at the Hall. How came it that his image--the image of a man whom she had seen but twice in her life--dwelt so persistently in her thoughts? She was vexed and annoyed with herself to find how often her mind went wandering off in a direction where--or so she thought--it had no right to go. She tried her hardest to keep it under control, to fill it with the occupations that had hitherto sufficed for its quiet contentment, but at the first unguarded moment it was away again, to bask in sunshine, as it were, till caught in the very act, and haled ignominiously back.
"Why must I be for ever thinking about this man?" she asked herself petulantly, as she sat this morning by the window, and a warm flush thrilled her even while the question was on her lips. She was ashamed to remember that even at church on Sunday morning she could not get the face of Edward Conroy out of her thoughts. The good vicar's sermon had been more prosy and commonplace than usual, and do what she might, Ella could not fix her attention on it. She caught herself half a dozen times calling to mind what Conroy had said on Thursday, and wondering what he would say on Tuesday. She had no intention of falling in love, either with him or with any other man; on that point she was firmly resolved. She and Maria Kettle had long ago agreed that they could be of more use in the world, of greater service to the poor, the sick, and the forlorn among their fellow-creatures, as single women than as married ones; and Ella, for her part, had no intention of letting any man carry her heart by storm.
Yet, after making all these brave resolutions, here she was, wondering and hesitating as to which dress she should wear, as she had never wondered or hesitated before; and when the clock struck eleven, she caught herself saying, "In six more hours he will be here." Then she jumped up quickly with a gesture of impatience. She was the slave of thoughts over which she seemed to have no control. It was a slavery that to her proud spirit was intolerable. She could not read this morning. Her piano appealed to her in vain. Her crewel-work seemed the tamest of tame occupations. She put on her hat and scarf, and, calling to Turco, set off at a quick pace across the park. Perhaps the fresh bracing air that blew over the sand-hills would cool the fever of unrest that was in her veins. Once she said to herself, "I wish he had never come to Heron Dyke!" But next moment a proud look came into her face, and she said, "Why should I fear him more than any other?"
Ella Winter has hitherto been spoken of as though she were Mr. Denison's niece; she was in reality his grand-niece, being the grand-daughter of an only sister, who had died early in her married life, leaving one son behind her. This son, at the age of twenty-two, married a sister of Mrs. Carlyon, but his wedded life was of brief duration. Captain Winter and his wife both died of fever in the West Indies, leaving behind them Ella, their only child.
Mrs. Carlyon, a widow and childless, would gladly have adopted the orphan niece who came to her under these sad circumstances, but Squire Denison would not hear of such a thing. He had a prior claim to the child, he said, and she must go to him and be brought up under his care. He had no children of his own, and never would have any: Ella was the youngest and last descendant of the elder branch of the family, and Heron Dyke and all that pertained to it should be hers in time to come, provided always that he, Gilbert Denison, should live to see his seventieth birthday. He had loved his sister Lavinia as much as it was in his nature to love anyone; and her son, had he lived, would, in the due course of things, have been his heir. But he was dead, leaving behind him only this one poor little girl. To Gilbert Denison it seemed that Providence had dealt very hardly by him in giving him no male heir to inherit the family honours. He himself would have married years ago had he anticipated such a result.
For six hundred years the property had come down from male heir to male heir, but now at last the line of direct succession would be broken. "If Ella had only been a boy!" he sighed to himself a thousand times: but Ella was that much more pleasing article--except from the heir-at-law point of view--a beautiful young woman, and nothing could make her anything else.