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Walden's bones, and that Mr. Walden wishes Sir Morton Pippitt were miles away from him! They shouldn't have faced each other. But how very, very superior to all the lot Mr. Walden looks! he really IS handsome! he has such an intellectual head. There's Gigue chattering away to poor old Miss Fosby! oh dear! Miss Fosby will never understand him! What a motley crew!
Walden! why we've got the photograph of Rameses, taken after a few thousand years' decomposition had set in ha-ha- ha! And not bad looking not bad looking! rather wild about the eyes, that's all ha-ha! God bless my soul!" These choice observations of the knight Pippitt were brought to a happy conclusion by the marshalling of the guests into dinner.
It was the merest trifle that Sir Morton Pippitt should have brought his 'distinguished guests, including Marius Longford, to see John Walden's church and also have taken him to visit Maryllia in her own home; it was equally trifling that Longford, improving on the knightly Bone-Melter's acquaintance, should have chosen to import Lord Roxmouth into the neighbourhood through the convenient precincts of Badsworth Hall; it was a trifle that Maryllia should have actually believed in the good faith of two women who had formerly entertained her at their own houses and whose hospitality she was anxious to return; and it was a trifle that John Walden should, so to speak, have made a conventionally social 'slip' in his protest against smoking women; but there the trifles stopped.
Lord, Lord! What a mussy we ain't saddled with a poor snuffling, addle-pated, whimperin' man o' God like we 'ad afore you come 'ere what found all 'is dooty an' pleasure in dinin' with Sir Morton Pippitt up at the 'All!
Julian Adderley smiled faintly, and fixed a pair of rather fine grey eyes on Walden with a mute appeal, as one who should say with Hamlet 'These tedious old fools! Meanwhile Sir Morton Pippitt had secured the last member of his party affectionately by the arm, and continuing his stage whisper said: "Permit me, Mr. Walden! This is one of our greatest London literary lights!
Longford accepted the favour. "Who is this old fellow, Pippitt?" he asked "Any relation of the dead and gone Badsworth? How does he get Badsworth Hall? Doesn't he grind bones to make his bread, or something of that kind?"
Sir Morton Pippitt in a brand-new tweed suit surmounted by a very high, clean, stiff shirt-collar, was sitting at breakfast in what was formerly known as the 'great Refectory, a memory of the days when Badsworth had been a large and important monastery, but which was now turned into a modern-antique dining-room, and as he read, with the aid of his gold-rimmed spectacles, the curt, chill, severely polite letter of the 'new parson' he flew into a sudden violent passion.
Even Sir Morton Pippitt, smitten by compunction for certain selfish motives which had inspired him to serve Lord Roxmouth as a willing tool, was an indefatigable, almost daily enquirer as to Maryllia's condition, for though pompous, blusterous, and to a very great extent something of a snob, his nature was not altogether lacking in the milk of human kindness like that of his daughter Tabitha.
"Well, Sir Morton Pippitt spoke of you once in my hearing" he said "And a friend of his whom he brought to see the church, the Duke of Lumpton. Also a clergyman in this neighbourhood, a Mr. Leveson rector at Badsworth HE mentioned you, and presumed" here John paused a moment, "yes, I think I may say presumed to know yon personally." "Did he really! I never heard of him!" And she laughed merrily.
All the ill-natured gossip, all the slanderous tittle-tattle which had been started by Lord Roxmouth and fostered by Miss Tabitha Pippitt, ebbed and died away in the great wave of honest regret and kindly pity that pervaded the whole neighbourhood.
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