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So Anne was to remain at Fareham, and after that one day's seclusion she gathered strength to be with the family as usual. Poor old Sir Philip treated her with a studied but icy courtesy which cut her to the heart; but Lady Archfield's hopes of seeing her son were almost worse, together with her regrets at her husband's dejection at the situation of his nephew and the family disgrace.
Thus they travelled back, as soon as the Doctor's Residence was ended, plodding through the heavy chalk roads as well as the big horses could drag the cumbrous coach up and down the hills, only halting for much needed rest at Sir Philip Archfield's red house, round three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth with a low wall backed by a row of poplar trees, looking out on the alternate mud and sluggish waters of Fareham creek, but with a beautiful garden behind the house.
Lady Archfield and her daughter each was instantly squired, but Mistress Woodford, a nobody, was left to keep as near them as she could, and gaze at the sparks of light of the beacons in the distance, thinking how changed the morrow would be to her. Presently a figure approached, and Charles Archfield's voice said, "Is that you, Anne? Did I hear my wife's voice?" "Yes, she is there."
For seven years Anne Woodford had kept Lucy Archfield's birthday with her, and there was no refusing now, though there was more and more unwillingness to leave Mrs. Woodford, whose declining state became so increasingly apparent that even the loving daughter could no longer be blind to it.
By and by she was sent for to Lady Archfield's room, and there she had again to share the grief and the fears and try to dwell on the glory and the hopes.
"Oh, I'll come, let me come! I'm so weary of sitting here. Thank you, Master Oakshott." Lady Archfield's remonstrance was lost as Peregrine helped the little lady out, and there was nothing for it but to follow her, as close as might be, as she hung on her cavalier's arm chattering, and now and then giving little screams of delight or alarm.
Lucy was never allowed a minute's conversation with her friend without being interrupted by a whine and complaints of unkindness and neglect. Lady Archfield's ill-usage, as the young wife was pleased to call every kind of restriction, was the favourite theme next to the daughter-in law's own finery, her ailments, and her notions of the treatment befitting her. And young Mr.
She saw, too, that her parents would be much disappointed and displeased if she made any resistance to so prosperous a settlement, and she was positively glad to be out of reach of Sedley's addresses. Such an entirely unenthusiastic acceptance was the proper thing, and it only remained to provide for Lady Archfield's comfort in the loss of her daughter.
Archfield's return, whereupon the glad father caused his grandson to carry each a full glass of wine to drink to the health of the young master. Anne had at first felt only the surpassing rapture of the restoration of Charles, but there ensued another delight in the security his recovery gave to the life of his son.
At that instant piercing screams, shriek upon shriek, rang through the court, and turning hastily round, Anne beheld a little monkey perched on Mrs. Archfield's head, having apparently leapt thither from the pole to which it was chained. The keeper was not in sight, being in fact employed over a sale of some commodities within. There was a general springing to the rescue.
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