They entered the room together, smiling hopefully.
Mr Lloyd Hadleigh was standing at a window, hat in one hand, slim umbrella in the other, and staring hard at the shrubs. He had a way of staring hard at everything, and yet the way was so calm and thoughtful that he did not appear to see anything or anybody, and thus the stare was not offensive.
‘The guv’nor always seems to be dreaming about you when he looks at you, and you never know when he’s going to speak—that’s awk’ard,’ was the description of his expression given by Caleb Kersey, one of the occasional labourers on Ringsford.
He was a man of average height, firmly built; square face; thick black moustache; close cropped black hair, with only an indication of thinning on the top and showing few streaks of white. His age was not more than fifty, and he had attained the full vigour of life.
‘People talk about the fire and “go” of thirty,’ he would say in his dry way. ‘It is nonsense. At that age a man is either going downhill or going up it, and in either case he is too much occupied and worried to have time to be happy. That was the most miserable period of my life.’
Coldness was the first impression of his outward character. No one had ever seen him in a passion. Successful in business, he had provided well for the five children of a very early marriage. He never referred to that event, and had been long a widower without showing the slightest inclination to establish a new mistress at Ringsford.
He turned on the entrance of Madge and Philip, saluting the former with grave politeness; then to the latter: ‘There are some letters for you at home, Philip.’
‘Thank you, sir; but I have no doubt they can wait. I am to stay for dinner here.’
‘From the postmarks I judge they are of importance.’