Thus they parted company. “Why, Mr. Winterborne,” said the wagoner, when they were out of hearing, “that was She—Mrs. Charmond! Who’d ha’ thought it? What in the world can a woman that does nothing be cock-watching out here at this time o’ day for? Oh, going to Italy—yes to be sure, I heard she was going abroad, she can’t endure the winter here.”
Winterborne was vexed at the incident; the more so that he knew Mr. Melbury, in his adoration of Hintock House, would be the first to blame him if it became known. But saying no more, he accompanied the load to the end of the lane, and then turned back with an intention to call at South’s to learn the result of the experiment of the preceding evening.
It chanced that a few minutes before this time Grace Melbury, who now rose soon enough to breakfast with her father, in spite of the unwontedness of the hour, had been commissioned by him to make the same inquiry at South’s. Marty had been standing at the door when Miss Melbury arrived. Almost before the latter had spoken, Mrs. Charmond’s carriages, released from the obstruction up the lane, came bowling along, and the two girls turned to regard the spectacle.
Mrs. Charmond did not see them, but there was sufficient light for them to discern her outline between the carriage windows. A noticeable feature in her tournure was a magnificent mass of braided locks.
“How well she looks this morning!” said Grace, forgetting Mrs. Charmond’s slight in her generous admiration. “Her hair so becomes her worn that way. I have never seen any more beautiful!”
“Nor have I, miss,” said Marty, dryly, unconsciously stroking her crown.
Grace watched the carriages with lingering regret till they were out of sight. She then learned of Marty that South was no better. Before she had come away Winterborne approached the house, but seeing that one of the two girls standing on the door-step was Grace, he suddenly turned back again and sought the shelter of his own home till she should have gone away.
CHAPTER XIV.
The encounter with the carriages having sprung upon Winterborne’s mind the image of Mrs. Charmond, his thoughts by a natural channel went from her to the fact that several cottages and other houses in the two Hintocks, now his own, would fall into her possession in the event of South’s death. He marvelled what people could have been thinking about in the past to invent such precarious tenures as these; still more, what could have induced his ancestors at Hintock, and other village people, to exchange their old copyholds for life-leases. But having naturally succeeded to these properties through his father, he had done his best to keep them in order, though he was much struck with his father’s negligence in not insuring South’s life.
After breakfast, still musing on the circumstances, he went upstairs, turned over his bed, and drew out a flat canvas bag which lay between the mattress and the sacking. In this he kept his leases, which had remained there unopened ever since his father’s death. It was the usual hiding-place among rural lifeholders for such documents. Winterborne sat down on the bed and looked them over. They were ordinary leases for three lives, which a member of the South family, some fifty years before this time, had accepted of the lord of the manor in lieu of certain copyholds and other rights, in consideration of having the dilapidated houses rebuilt by said lord. They had come into his father’s possession chiefly through his mother, who was a South.