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Updated: May 15, 2025
For two seconds Nigel Anstruthers would not have been surprised if he had without warning slapped his face, or knocked him over, or whirled him out of his chair and kicked him. He would not have liked it, but for two seconds it would have been no surprise. In fact, he instinctively braced his not too firm muscles. But nothing of the sort occurred.
As one splendid rattle shook the air he was surprised to hear a summons at the great hall door. Who on earth could be turning up at this time? His man Reeve announced the arrival a few moments later, and it was Sir Nigel Anstruthers. He had, he explained, been riding through the village when the deluge descended, and it had occurred to him to turn in at the park gates and ask a temporary shelter.
The situation, of course, WAS unusual. A beautiful young sister-in-law appearing upon the dark horizon of a shamefully ill-used estate, and restoring, with touches of a wand of gold, what a fellow who was a blackguard should have set in order years ago. That Lady Anstruthers' money should have rescued her boy's inheritance instead of being spent upon lavish viciousness went without saying.
"Let us go by all means. We should not, I suppose," with keen delight, "be 'butting in' upon Lady Anstruthers too early?" He was quite enraptured with his own aptness. "Like G. Selden, I should not like to 'butt in," he added. The scent and warmth and glow of a glorious morning filled the hour.
I confess to having gone so far as to make an inquiry or so. Sir Nigel Anstruthers is not often at Stornham. He is away now. It is plainly not he who is interested in repairs." "He is on the Riviera, in retreat, in a place he is fond of," Mount Dunstan said drily. "He took a companion with him. A new infatuation. He will not return soon."
Was all this real, or was she dreaming that she stood here at bay, her back against the chimney-wall, and this degenerate exulting over her, while Rosy was waiting for her at Stornham and at this very hour her father was planning his journey across the Atlantic? "Why did you not behave yourself?" demanded Nigel Anstruthers, shaking her by the shoulder.
"D'ye do, Wells," he said, and strode past him to speak to the footman who had come from Stornham Court with the carriage. The new and nervous little Lady Anstruthers, who was left to trot after her husband, smiled again at the ruddy, kind-looking fellow, this time in conscious deprecation.
Lady Alanby was polite to both of them, but she gave Nigel a rather sharp glance through her gold pince-nez as she greeted him. "Janey and Mary," she said to the two girls nearest her, "I daresay you will kindly change your chairs and let Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel sit next to me."
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."
I am trying to picture to myself what Lady Anstruthers will feel when she sees you. What were you like when she married?" Bettina sat down, smiling and looking, indeed, quite incredibly lovely. She was capable of a warmth and a sweetness which were as embracing as other qualities she possessed were powerful. "I was eight years old," she said.
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