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"I shall not seem strange long," she said, "after I have stayed with you a few weeks, if you will let me stay with you." "Let you! Let you!" in a sort of gasp. Poor little Lady Anstruthers sank on to a settle and began to cry again. It was plain that she always cried when things occurred. Ughtred's speech from his window seat testified at once to that. "Don't cry, mother," he said.
"Do they invite this man?" "No. He probably would not go to their houses if they did. And he went away soon after he came into the title." "Is the place beautiful?" "There is a fine deer park, and the gardens were wonderful a long time ago. The house is worth looking at outside." "I will go and look at it," said Betty. "The carriage is out of order. There is only Ughtred's cart."
In the dungeon were found many carcasses, and the greater part of Ughtred's treasure served to enrich the victor.
The thought which had come to her seemed as Ughtred's locking of the door had seemed too wild for modern days. Lady Anstruthers saw her expression and understood it. She made a hopeless gesture with her small, bony hand. "Yes," she said, "it is just like that. No one would believe it. The worst cleverness of the things he does, is that when one tells of them, they sound like lies.
This," with a wave of her hand, taking in all they saw, "is beauty, and it ought to be happiness, and it must be taken care of. It is your home and Ughtred's " "It is Nigel's," put in Rosy. "It is entailed, isn't it?" turning quickly. "He cannot sell it?" "If he could we should not be sitting here," ruefully. "Then he cannot object to its being rescued from ruin."
Harness was to be repaired and furbished up, the big carriage and the old phaeton were to be put in order, and Master Ughtred's cart was to be given new paint and springs. "This is what she said," Fox's story ran, "and she said it so straightforward and business-like that the conceitedest man that lived couldn't be upset by it. 'I want to see what you can do, she says.
She could only discover how any advancing steps would be taken by taking them. "Why do you allow them to do it?" Lady Anstruthers looked away, but as she looked her eyes passed Ughtred's. "I!" she said. "There are so many other things to do. It would cost so much such an enormity to keep it all in order." "But it ought to be done for Ughtred's sake."
But she was here to take care of Rosy. She occupied a position something like that of a woman who remains with a man and endures outrage because she cannot leave her child. That thought, in itself, brought Ughtred to her mind. There was Ughtred to be considered as well as his mother. Ughtred's love for and faith in her were deep and passionate things.
What Betty gathered was that, after the long and terrible illness which had followed Ughtred's birth, she had risen from what had been so nearly her deathbed, prostrated in both mind and body.
"We?" he repeated. "Am I to have the pleasure," with a slight wryness of the mouth, "of finding Mr. Vanderpoel also at Stornham?" "No not yet. As I was on the spot, I saw your solicitors and asked their advice and approval for my father. If he had known how necessary the work was, it would have been done before, for Ughtred's sake."
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