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But it was not to be denied that the new mistress of Beechcote was well endowed, as single women go. Fond mothers with marriageable sons might require some handling. But Mrs. Roughsedge's simple kindness soon baffled distrust. And Mrs. Colwood was beginning to talk freely, when suddenly the Vicar and Miss Mallory in front came to a stop. The way to the Vicarage lay along a side road.
Roughsedge's gray curls and motherly ways; and would consult her about servants and tradesmen with an eager humility. She liked the son, it seemed, for the parents' sake, nor was it long before he was allowed at his own pressing request to help in hanging pictures and arranging books at Beechcote. A girl's manner with young men is always a matter of interest to older women. Mrs.
A "Red Van" bursting with Socialist literature had that morning taken up its place on the village green; and Diana's poor housemaid, in payment for a lifetime's neglect, must now lose every tooth in her head, according to the verdict of the local dentist, an excellent young man, in Mrs. Roughsedge's opinion, but ready to give you almost too much pulling out for your money.
But Roughsedge's contempt for his brilliant and successful neighbor on the ground of selfish ambitions and unpatriotic trucklings was, in truth, much more active than anything Marsham had ever shown or felt toward himself. For in the young soldier there slept potentialities of feeling and of action, of which neither he nor others were as yet aware. Nevertheless, he faced the facts.
The young soldier had walked up to Beechcote immediately after luncheon, finding it impossible to restrain his impatience longer. Diana had not expected him so soon, and had slipped out for her daily half-hour with Betty Dyson, who had had a slight stroke, and was failing fast. So that Mrs. Colwood was at Roughsedge's discretion.
Roughsedge's visit, Diana had borrowed the local paper from Brown, and had read two of Oliver's speeches therein reported. As she looked up to the downs, or caught through the nearer trees the lines of distant woods, it was as though the whole scene earth and air were once more haunted for her by Oliver his presence his voice.
Hugh Roughsedge's leave had been prolonged, owing to a slight but troublesome wound in the arm, of which he had made nothing on coming home. No wound could have been more opportune more friendly to the doctor's craving for a daughter-in-law.
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