“I hear the cottage is to let. Can you tell me where Mr. Pilgrim, the owner, lives. Somewhere on the Down, is it not?”
The man, an unpretentious, wet-nosed creature, crossed the grass plot, wiping his hands on a dirty apron.
“Mr. Pilgrim’s just ’ad an offer, miss.”
“Has he?”
“Well, we’re doin’ the repairs. I ’ave ’eard that Mrs. Murchison of Roxton ’ave taken it.”
“Dr. Murchison’s wife?”
The man nodded.
“How utterly vexatious. I suppose Mr. Pilgrim would not sell?”
“Don’t know, miss, I ’ain’t the authority to say.”
Parker Steel’s wife flicked her horse up with the whip and turned back to the main road, a woman with a grievance. Her companion in pink offered sympathy with a twitter. Being of the Steel faction, she was wise as to the friction between the households, and a friend’s grievance has always an element of wickedness for a woman.