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Outside, in the hall, hardly lit at intervals by oil-lamps, a group could be seen advancing; in front Alice Puttenham and Mary, and behind, the Fox-Wilton party, Hester's golden head and challenging gait drawing all eyes as she passed along. But it was on Alice Puttenham that Rose's gaze was fixed.
"Naughty, naughty child: She has been absolutely forbidden to see him, the whole Fox-Wilton family have made themselves into gaolers and spies and she just outwits them all! Poor Alice Puttenham hovers about her trying to distract and amuse her and has no more influence than a fly. And as for the Rector, it would be absurd, if it weren't enraging!
First she was their schoolroom maid then she went back to them, when her husband died and John married, and was a kind of maid housekeeper. Nobody knew why Lady Fox-Wilton kept her so long. They tell you in the village she had a shocking temper, and wasn't at all a good servant. Afterward I believe she went to America and I think she died. But she was with them a long while.
Hester ran across the lawn in wide curves, playing with the dog, and arrived laughing and breathless beside the newcomer. Edith Fox-Wilton was a small, withered woman, in a widow's cap, who more than looked her age, which was not far from fifty. She had been pretty in youth, and her blue eyes were still appealing, especially when she smiled.
It was true that there was much friction and difference between Hester and the Fox-Wilton family; that Alice Puttenham's position and personality had always teased the curiosity of the neighbourhood; that the terms of Sir Ralph's will were perplexing; and that Meynell was Hester's guardian in a special sense, a fact for which there was no obvious explanation.
Hester is, you know, not very happy at home. I have my living, and some income of my own, independent of my father. Supposing he should object " "He would object," said Meynell quickly. "And Lady Fox-Wilton would certainly object. And so should I. And, as you know, I am co-guardian of the children with her." Then, as the lover quivered under these barbs, Meynell suddenly recovered himself.
A sudden exclamation from her companion caught her ear and a light musical laugh. Startled by something familiar in it, Mary looked across the stream. She saw on the farther bank a few yards ahead a young man fishing, and a young girl in white sitting beside him. "Hester! Miss Fox-Wilton!" the tone showed her surprise; "and who is that with her?"
"That child Hester!" Rose emerged suddenly from a mental voyage of recollection and conjecture. "Now one understands why Lady Fox-Wilton stupid woman! has never seemed to care a rap for her. It must indeed be annoying to have to mother a child so much handsomer than your own." "I think I am very sorry for Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton," said Catharine, after a moment. Rose assented.
Lady Fox-Wilton has often complained to me that she is perfectly unmanageable with her temper and her vanity! The worst conceivable wife for a clergyman! Really, Stephen " The master of the house pushed his plate away from him in speechless disgust.
She had gone out immediately after breakfast, with the maid who is supposed to be always with her. Then suddenly about an hour later one of the boys appeared, having seen this woman at the station and no Hester. The woman, taken by surprise young Fox-Wilton just had a few words with her as the train was moving off confessed she was going into Markborough to meet Hester and come back with her.
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