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Alwynn walked on in silence; and after a time, always afraid of speaking much on the subject that was first in his own mind, he began to talk again on trivial matters, to tell her how he had met Dare that morning, and had promised on her behalf that she would sing at a little local concert which the Vandon school-master was getting up that week to defray the annual expense of the Vandon cricket club, and in which Dare was taking a vivid interest.
Alwynn was not accustomed. And this was Henry Dare's second son, the son by his French wife, who had been brought up abroad, of whom no one had ever heard or cared to hear, who had now succeeded, by his half-brother's sudden death, to Vandon, a property adjoining Slumberleigh. The eager foreign face was becoming familiar to Mr. Alwynn. Dare was like his mother; but he sat exactly as Mr.
Probably the rumor that they were coming here was only a blind, and they are doing a good business somewhere else. I am going home. I have had enough enjoyment for one evening. I should advise you to do the same." Dare winced, and did not answer, and Charles suddenly remembered that there were circumstances which might make it difficult for him to go back to Vandon.
The foreign gentleman, as all the village people called him, had by this time become quite an institution in the neighborhood of Vandon. Every one liked him, and he liked every one. Like the sun, he shone upon the just and unjust. He went to every tennis-party to which he was invited. He was pleased if people were at home when he called.
"I knew it. I divined it. I sacrifice myself. I give you back your promise. I say farewell, and voyage in the distance. I return no more to Vandon. There is no longer a home for me in England. I leave only behind with you the poor heart you have possessed so long!" She struggled to speak, but words failed her. She stood like one stunned after he had left her.
Charles, meanwhile, drove on to Vandon. The stable clock, still partially paralyzed from long disuse, was laboriously striking eleven as he drew up before the door.
A sudden access of pleasurable dignity came over him as he sat on the dining-table, the great mahogany dining-table, which still showed vestiges of a by-gone polish, and was heavily dented by long years of hammered applause. These ancestors of his! He would not disgrace them. A few minutes ago he had been wondering whether Vandon might not be let.
There's not a pot of dripping in the larder, or so much as a skin of lard. Where does it all go to? You ask Mrs. Smith; and how she sleeps in her bed at night I don't know!" Dare listened, nodded, made his escape, and did nothing. In the village it was as bad. Time, which had dealt so kindly with Vandon itself, had taken the straggling village in hand too.
In these days of great brand-new imitation of intensely old houses, where the amount of ground covered measures the purse of the builder, it is pleasant to come upon a place like Vandon, a quiet old manor-house, neither large nor small, built of ancient bricks, blent to a dim purple and a dim red by that subtle craftsman Time.
He was surprised, flattered, delighted, but entirely puzzled. The cottages were begun immediately. They were near the river, which divided the Slumberleigh and Vandon properties. Ruth often went to look at them.
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