Part 37 (1/2)

It is tolerably late in the afternoon, and Mrs. Evans has just looked in. Being in her normal condition, she has at once sunk down upon a seat. Mr. Evans has sauntered in after her. He has not much that is beautiful in his life; and the sight of the garlanded church gives him a sort of pale pleasure, something akin to that produced by the luscious flow of his favourite poem. He could not stir a finger to produce the effect himself; but he likes it when it is done for him.

'What a size these gardenias are!' says Mrs. Evans, fingering the blossoms in a box of hothouse flowers reserved for the altar. 'From the Hartleys of course? They are double as big as milady's. I wonder how her gardener likes having all the prizes carried off from under his nose!

Dear me! what a thing money is! Burton, the butcher, told me the other day that five and twenty prime joints go into that house every week, beside soup-meat and poultry; and of course they have their own game and rabbits. Five and twenty prime joints, and a yacht that they can go round the world in! Not, I am sure, that I envy them _that_; for I am such a wretched sailor.'

Peggy makes no answer. Perhaps her attention is sufficiently occupied by the management of her long garland of cowslips, catchfly, and harebell; perhaps she has already heard, though not from Mrs. Evans, more about that world-girdling yacht than she cares to hear. She sighs, and her sigh is taken up and echoed in a deeper key by the Vicar; though whether his sigh is caused by regret at the sinful profuseness of a paris.h.i.+oner, or by a reflection upon the inequality of human destiny, that sends five and twenty prime joints into one man's kitchen, and sets a solitary leg of mutton spinning on another man's spit, may be best decided by those most acquainted with Mr. Evans's habitual turn of thought.

'It is a great disadvantage to a neighbourhood having a millionnaire in it,' pursues Mrs. Evans, going on contentedly with her trickle of talk; 'it sends up the price of everything--even eggs. I was saying so just now to Mrs. Bates at the Roupell Arms. I wanted to know whether she could let me have a dozen fresh ones. My hens are all sitting; and you would not believe the number of eggs we get through at the Vicarage--egg-puddings, and so on. Oh, by the bye,' with a change to an alerter key, 'from what she told me, I suppose that Lady Betty Harborough is expected at the Manor.'

The garland, whose dexterous disposition has cost Peggy ten minutes'

labour, drops suddenly loose and wavering--a long rope of flowers--in the air.

'Lady Betty Harborough!' she repeats slowly--'with milady away?--most unlikely. Oh, now I see!' with a sudden dawn of relief breaking over her face; 'now I understand how the report has arisen! The children are to arrive to-day, and so it was supposed that she must be coming with them--of course, of course!'

'No; it has nothing to say to the children,' rejoins the Vicar's wife cheerfully; 'and I cannot say that I have heard in so many words that she is coming. It was only' (looking cautiously down the aisle, and lowering her voice)--'I suppose one ought not to talk scandal in a church, but it really is such an open secret--that I concluded it must be so, because a friend of hers is expected.'

'A friend of hers!' repeats Peggy slowly, the blood rus.h.i.+ng to her cheek and brow, as she stands poised in s.p.a.ce, with the unfinished wreath still dangling forgotten before her.

'Rather more than a friend, I am afraid,' returns Mrs. Evans, with a significance by no means devoid of enjoyment. 'Dear me! I do not half like talking of it here; but, after all, the truth is the truth. To the Roupell Arms of all places, too! and there can be no mistake about it, for I have just seen his portmanteau with ”John Talbot, Esq.,” in large letters upon it; his man arrived in charge of it this afternoon, and he is to follow by a later train. It really is too barefaced, is not it? I could see that Mrs. Bates herself thought so though of course I did not breathe a word to her.'

Peggy has put out a hand to steady herself on the ladder, since, for a moment, church and heaped flower-baskets, guelder roses and lilac branches, whirl round with her. His portmanteau come, and he coming! It would be a pity then if to-day, of all days, she were to break her neck.

It is nearly three weeks since she had parted from him at the door of the Mitre, in the middle of a sentence which Freddy Ducane never gave him the chance to finish, or her to answer; and since then she has heard neither tale nor tidings of him. Why should she? Of course his octopus has him again. Poor fellow! no doubt from those hundred straggling polypus arms it is harder than she, with her life ignorance, can estimate to tear himself free. And yet he had said he was free; said so--yes. But men's words and their actions are not apt to tally very nicely; at least, the words and the actions of the only man with whom she has any intimacy are not. 'They are all alike,' she has said to herself, and so has gone heavily--a little more heavily perhaps for that bootless, barren morning meeting on the tower-top--about her daily work.

And now he is here--as good as here, at least--for does not his herald portmanteau make sure his approach?

'I wonder how he will like his quarters,' continues Mrs. Evans, with a rather malicious laugh. 'The beds are clean, I will say that for Mrs.

Bates; but how a man accustomed to a French _chef_ will enjoy her chops and rashers, is another question. She is very nervous about it herself, good woman!'

Peggy laughs; a little low laugh.

'Of course Lady Betty will make a pretence of coming to see her children,' pursues Mrs. Evans, warming with her theme; 'and indeed, after the escape that boy had, I cannot think how she can ever bear him out of her sight. And as milady and Freddy are both away, they will have the park all to themselves to philander in. It really is too barefaced.'

'Too barefaced, is it?' repeats Peggy, softly smiling, and staring at a great sheaf of sweet nancies that she has absently picked up.

'_Is it?_' echoes Mrs. Evans in astonishment; 'why, _is not it_? What other motive could bring him to such a dull village as this?'

'What indeed?' replies Peggy with emphasis, while the thought crosses her mind that she ought to feel mortified at its evidently never having come within the range of the Vicaress's possibilities that any one could visit a dull village in search of her. 'It cannot surprise her more than it does me,' she says to herself.

'One can only hope that he will be too uncomfortable to stay long,' says Mrs. Evans, slowly rising, and preparing to depart. 'Well, I wish I could help you' (this is a formula that recurs as often as do the festivals of the Church); 'but you are getting on capitally. Do you think that the font is quite as pretty as it was last year? I am so glad I sent the children to help you; do not overtire yourself.'

She strolls away, with the contented feeling of having done her part in the church decoration; but it is a couple of hours later before Peggy follows her example. It is nearly eight o'clock when, with stiff arms and tired legs, she enters the hall--embowered in spring blossoms, like the church she has just left--of the Red House. As she comes in Prue springs to meet her.

'Oh, Peggy, Peggy! have you heard?'

The elder sister's heart leaps. Prue understands. Prue is glad--gladder than she had had any conception that she would have been. Kind little Prue!

'Yes,' she falters, grateful surprised tears at her sister's sympathy rus.h.i.+ng to her eyes; 'yes, I have heard. Oh, Prue, how nice of you to be glad!'

'Nice of me to be glad!' repeats Prue in a tone of profound wonderment, her eyes growing round. 'Why is it nice of me? It would be very odd of me if I were not glad; but I do not see anything _nice_ about it. How did you hear? Has milady come back? Have you seen any one from the Big House? Why, I only got the letter by the second post.'