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Updated: June 22, 2025
He went into the front drawing-room, shook hands with Mrs. Branston, and established himself with a permanent air beside the piano. Adela did not seem particularly glad to see him; and John Saltram, who had met him before in Cavendish-square, received him with supreme indifference. "I am blessed, as I daresay you perceive, Mr. Fenton, in my only son," Mrs.
She had sharp black eyes, very much like the jet beads with which her person was decorated, and with these she kept a close watch upon Mrs. Branston and Mr. Saltram when the two were talking together.
"I am deeply honoured by your confidence, Mrs. Branston," John Saltram answered, looking at her gravely with those weary haggard eyes, with the air of a man who brings his thoughts back to common life from some far-away region with an effort. "If my advice or assistance can be of any use to you, they are completely at your service. What is this business about which your solicitor bothers you?"
Branston felt herself independent, free to do a foolish thing, and ready to abide the hazard of her folly. So, upon the fourth day of her freedom, despairing of any visit from John Saltram, Adela Branston ordered the solemn-looking butler to send for a cab, much to the surprise of that portly individual.
Branston exclaimed, with a disappointed petulant look that was half-childish, half-womanly. "I cannot imagine what charm he finds in a dull village on the banks of the river. He has confessed that the place is the dreariest and most obscure in the world, and that he has neither shooting nor any other kind of amusement. There must be some mysterious attraction, Mr. Fenton.
We had several hours still to wait for the arrival of the post. For both of us the delay was a suspense; for me an almost agonising one. At length, at an unlooked-for moment, Branston did enter the room with the post-bag. There was a large letter, with the Feltram post-mark, addressed to Lady Knollys it was Doctor Bryerly's despatch; we read it together.
Branston," Miss Stiles said, turning round, "that the time one has to be careful with children after whooping-cough is when they seem practically well. Her little boy has just been ill with it, and she says he's recovered; but that's the time, as I tell her, when nine out of ten children die just when you think you're safe." "Oh dear," said Mrs.
Branston clasped her hands, with a faint cry of terror. "Very ill that means dangerously ill?" "Yes; for some time he was in great danger. I believe that is past now; but I am not quite sure of his safety even yet. I can only hope that he may recover." Hope that he might recover, yes; but to be a friend of his, Gilbert's, never more. It was a dreary prospect at best.
Branston returned slowly down the long room, and halted with out-turned pumps and a grave inclination before me, and the faintest amount of interrogation in the announcement 'Please,'m, she says she's the governess. 'The governess! What governess? Branston was too well-bred to smile, and he said thoughtfully 'P'raps,'m, I'd best ask the master?
And she would expect devoted affection from a second husband. She is full of romantic ideas, school-girl theories of life which she was obliged to nip in the bud when she went to the altar with old Branston, but which have burst into flower now that she is free." "Have you seen her often since her husband's death?" "Only twice; once immediately after the funeral, and again yesterday.
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