Part 90 (1/2)

Send her up.”

Mrs. Inchbare made her appearance, courtesying deferentially; amazed at the condescension which admitted her within the hallowed precincts of Lady Lundie's room.

”Take a chair,” said her ladys.h.i.+p, graciously. ”I am suffering from illness, as you perceive.”

”My certie! sick or well, yer leddys.h.i.+p's a braw sight to see!” returned Mrs. Inchbare profoundly impressed by the elegant costume which illness a.s.sumes when illness appears in the regions of high life.

”I am far from being in a fit state to receive any body,” proceeded Lady Lundie. ”But I had a motive for wis.h.i.+ng to speak to you when you next came to my house. I failed to treat a proposal you made to me, a short time since, in a friendly and neighborly way. I beg you to understand that I regret having forgotten the consideration due from a person in my position to a person in yours. I am obliged to say this under very unusual circ.u.mstances,” added her ladys.h.i.+p, with a glance round her magnificent bedroom, ”through your unexpected prompt.i.tude in favoring me with a call. You have lost no time, Mrs. Inchbare, in profiting by the message which I had the pleasure of sending to you.”

”Eh, my leddy, I wasna' that sure (yer leddys.h.i.+p having ance changed yer mind) but that ye might e'en change again if I failed to strike, as they say, while the iron's het. I crave yer pardon, I'm sure, if I ha'

been ower hasty. The pride o' my hairt's in my powltry--and the black Spaniards' (as they ca' them) are a sair temptation to me to break the tenth commandment, sae lang as they're a' in yer leddys.h.i.+p's possession, and nane o' them in mine.”

”I am shocked to hear that I have been the innocent cause of your falling into temptation, Mrs. Inchbare! Make your proposal--and I shall be happy to meet it, if I can.”

”I must e'en be content wi' what yer leddys.h.i.+p will condescend on. A haitch o' eggs if I can come by naething else.”

”There is something else you would prefer to a hatch of eggs?”

”I wad prefer,” said Mrs. Inchbare, modestly, ”a c.o.c.k and twa pullets.”

”Open the case on the table behind you,” said Lady Lundie, ”and you will find some writing paper inside. Give me a sheet of it--and the pencil out of the tray.”

Eagerly watched by Mrs. Inchbare, she wrote an order to the poultry-woman, and held it out with a gracious smile.

”Take that to the gardener's wife. If you agree with her about the price, you can have the c.o.c.k and the two pullets.”

Mrs. Inchbare opened her lips--no doubt to express the utmost extremity of human grat.i.tude. Before she had said three words, Lady Lundie's impatience to reach the end which she had kept in view from the time when Mrs. Glenarm had left the house burst the bounds which had successfully restrained it thus far. Stopping the landlady without ceremony, she fairly forced the conversation to the subject of Anne Silvester's proceedings at the Craig Fernie inn.

”How are you getting on at the hotel, Mrs. Inchbare? Plenty of tourists, I suppose, at this time of year?”

”Full, my leddy (praise Providence), frae the bas.e.m.e.nt to the ceiling.”

”You had a visitor, I think, some time since of whom I know something? A person--” She paused, and put a strong constraint on herself. There was no alternative but to yield to the hard necessity of making her inquiry intelligible. ”A lady,” she added, ”who came to you about the middle of last month.”

”Could yer leddys.h.i.+p condescend on her name?”

Lady Lundie put a still stronger constraint on herself. ”Silvester,” she said, sharply.

”Presairve us a'!” cried Mrs. Inchbare. ”It will never be the same that cam' driftin' in by hersel'--wi' a bit bag in her hand, and a husband left daidling an hour or mair on the road behind her?”

”I have no doubt it is the same.”

”Will she be a freend o' yer leddys.h.i.+p's?” asked Mrs. Inchbare, feeling her ground cautiously.

”Certainly not!” said Lady Lundie. ”I felt a pa.s.sing curiosity about her--nothing more.”

Mrs. Inchbare looked relieved. ”To tell ye truth, my leddy, there was nae love lost between us. She had a maisterfu' temper o' her ain--and I was weel pleased when I'd seen the last of her.”

”I can quite understand that, Mrs. Inchbare--I know something of her temper myself. Did I understand you to say that she came to your hotel alone, and that her husband joined her shortly afterward?”

”E'en sae, yer leddys.h.i.+p. I was no' free to gi' her house-room in the hottle till her husband daidled in at her heels and answered for her.”