The stranger looked at Mrs Bowood for a moment without speaking; then she said: ‘Ah—oui, madame, as you say.’ Then she smiled, showing as she did so a very white and perfect set of teeth.
‘I am afraid that I shall not be able to attend to you for about half an hour,’ said Mrs Bowood in a tone that was half apologetic. ‘Perhaps you won’t mind waiting as long as that?’
‘I am at madame’s convenience. I am in no hurry at all. With madame’s permission, I will promenade myself in the garden, and amuse myself with looking at the beautiful flowers.’
‘Do so, by all means. I will send a servant to tell you when I am ready to see you.’
‘Merci, madame.’ The stranger in black bowed gracefully, deferentially even, and smiled again. Then taking up the skirt of her dress with one hand, she passed out through the French-window. She paused for a moment in the veranda to put up her black sunshade, and then she passed slowly out of sight. But as she walked she communed with herself: ‘This is fortunate—this will give me time. I must find some of the servants, and ask them to direct me. A great deal may be done in half an hour.’
Left alone, Mrs Bowood took up her pen and dipped it in the inkstand. ‘Really, many of these foreigners have very nice manners,’ she mused. ‘We have much to learn from them—not only in manners, but in the art of dress. That young person’s gown is made of quite ordinary material; but the style and fit are enough to make poor Madame Smithson die of despair.’ Then she took another dip and addressed herself to the continuation of her letter.
‘I have a long budget of news for you this week, my dear Dolly, and as yet, have by no means come to the end of it.
‘In our many conversations together, I think you must more than once have heard me mention Laura Dimsdale’s name, although you may possibly have forgotten the fact. Well, she has been staying at Rosemount for the last ten days. But in order that you may better understand the position of affairs, I will give you a brief résumé of her history.
‘You know, of course, that my father was a country doctor, and that after my mother’s death I kept his house for many years. When I first knew Laura Langton—that was her name before her marriage—she was a girl of ten, home for her holidays. Her father was vicar of the parish, and he and my father were well acquainted. Well, years went on, and Laura grew up into a very charming young woman. Although there was quite ten years’ difference in our ages, she and I were always the best of friends; and whenever she was at home, I used to have a good deal of her company. But by-and-by her school-days were over; and as she was like me, without a mother, she thought that she could not do better than follow my example, and become her father’s housekeeper. Soon after this took place, my father’s death sent me abroad into the world, and I left Chilwood for ever. But during the last summer I lived there, a certain Sir Frederick Pinkerton, a man about forty years old, used frequently to ride over to the vicarage—he was on a visit at some country-house in the neighbourhood—and village gossip would have it that he was in love with my pretty Laura. But if such were the case, nothing ever came of the affair. By-and-by, Sir Frederick went his way, and was no more seen in those parts.
‘Some two or three years later, I heard that Laura was married, and that her husband was Sir Thomas Dimsdale, a wealthy London merchant, forty years older than herself. I said to myself, when I heard the news, that I never could have believed Laura would have married merely for money or position. Later on, I heard the explanation. It appears that her father had been deluded into mixing himself up with certain speculations which were to make a rich man of him, and enable him to leave his daughter a big fortune; but instead of doing that, they simply ruined him. In this crisis, Sir Thomas came to the help of the ruined man. The vicar was extricated from his difficulties, and his daughter became Lady Dimsdale. Such bargains are by no means uncommon in society.