“Ah! Yes,” said the old man; “you may well say gratification. Why, I’ve known this young gentleman’s father ever since I can remember. Sam,” he added to the farmer, who had just come in, “I’m going to run away with our young friend here, we shall both take up our quarters at the inn for to-night. I see it is fairer now. Mrs Franklin, pray make yourself quite easy. I shall despatch a messenger at once to ‘The Shrubbery’ with full particulars. Good-night! Good-night!”
And so Mary and her mother were left to their own musings and conjectures, for the farmer and his family made no allusion afterwards to the events of the evening.
Chapter Five.
The Young Musician.
A Grand piano being carried into Mr Esau Tankardew’s! What next! What can the old gentleman want with a grand piano? Most likely he has taken it for a bad debt—some tenant sold up. But say what they may, the fact is the same. And, stranger still, a tuner pays a visit to put the instrument in tune. What can it all mean? Marvellous reports, too, tell of a sudden domestic revolution. The dust and cobwebs have had notice to quit, brooms and brushes have travelled into corners and crevices hitherto unexplored, the piano rests in a parlour which smiles in the gaiety of a new carpet and new curtains; prints have come to light upon the walls, chairs and tables have taken heart, and now wear an honest gloss upon their legs and faces; ornaments, which had hitherto been too dirty to be ornamental, now show themselves in their real colours. Outside the house, also, wonderful things have come to pass; the rocking doorstep is at rest, and its fellow has been adjusted to a proper level; ever-greens have taken the place of the old never-greens; knocker and door handle are not ashamed to show their native brass; the missing rails have returned to their duty in the ranks. The whole establishment, including its master, has emerged out of a state of foggy dilapidation. Old Molly Gilders has retired into the interior, and given place above stairs to a dapper damsel. As for the ghosts, they could not be expected to remain under such dispiriting circumstances, and have had the good sense to resort to some more congenial dwelling.
While gossip on this unlooked-for transformation was still flying in hot haste about Hopeworth and the neighbourhood, the families both at “The Firs” and “The Shrubbery” were greatly astonished one morning by an invitation to spend an evening at Mr Tankardew’s.
“Well,” said Mr Rothwell, “I suppose it won’t do to decline; the old gentleman means it, no doubt, as an attention, and it would not be politic to vex him.”
“I am sure, my dear,” said his wife, “I can’t think of going. I shall be bored to death; you must make my excuses and accept the invitation for the girls. I don’t suppose Mark will care to go; the old man seems to have a spite against him—I can’t tell why.”