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Honeybone could not have looked more startled if the voice had been that of a ghost. Mark began to talk of going until Esther cut him short. "I don't think Mr. Starling will mind our being here so much as that," she said. Mrs.
Honeybone. "Mr. Starling is abroad?" Esther asked. The housekeeper nodded. "And when is he coming back?" she went on. "That's for him to say," said the housekeeper disagreeably. "He might come back to-night for all I know." Almost before the sentence was out of her mouth the hall bell jangled, and a distant voice shouted: "Nanny, Nanny, hurry up and open the door!" Mrs.
Honeybone debated with herself for a moment, until at last with a grunt of disapproval she came downstairs and opened the front door. The lily pool, now a lily pool only in name, for it was covered with an integument of duckweed which in twilight took on the texture of velvet, was an attractive place set in an enclosure of grass between high grey walls. "That's all there is to see," said Mrs.
Honeybone's face, wreathed in wistaria, looked down and demanded in accents that were harsh with alarm who was there. "I am the Rector's sister, Mrs. Honeybone," Esther explained. "I don't care who you are," said Mrs. Honeybone. "You have no business to go ringing the bell at this time of the evening. It frightened me to death." "The Rector asked me to call on you," she pressed.
Honeybone had already hurried off to greet her master; and when she was gone Mark looked at Esther, saw that her face was strangely flushed, and in an instant of divination apprehended either that she had already met the squire of Rushbrooke Grange or that she expected to meet him here to-night; so that, when presently a tall man of about thirty-five with brick-dust cheeks came into the close, he was not taken aback when Esther greeted him by name with the assurance of old friendship.
Mark did not feel much inclined to blunt his impression of the chapel by perambulating Rushbrooke Grange under the guidance of Mrs. Honeybone, the old housekeeper; but Esther perversely insisted upon seeing the garden at any rate, giving as her excuse that the Rector would like them to pay the visit.
The present squire is away. In the South Seas, I believe. But the housekeeper, Mrs. Honeybone, will show you round." It was in response to this advice that Mark and Esther set out on a golden May evening to explore Wych Maries.
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