United States or Gambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She had half expected a boyish letter of apology, some friendly reassurance, some word at least of his return to Rodding Abbey. But she had heard nothing. She did not so much as know if he had returned or not. Neither had she heard from her friend Edmund Crowther. With a sense of keen disappointment she wrote to his home in the North to tell him of the change in her plans.
"You have said it!" he said, and sank unconscious upon the ground. "My good Mrs. Denys, it is quite fruitless for you to argue the matter. Nothing you can say can alter the fact that you took the children trespassing in the Rodding Park preserves against my most stringent commands, and this deplorable accident to the Squire is the direct outcome of the most flagrant insubordination.
Only that morning a letter from Avery had reached her, telling her of Jeanie's continued progress, and urging her to come and take her place for a little while. It was such a change as her tired soul craved, but she had not dared to tell her husband so. And now, it seemed, Jeanie's good time also was to be terminated. There was no doubt about it. Rodding did not suit the child.
From mother's help at the Vicarage to Lady Evesham of Rodding Abbey is a considerable leap, and she will be scarcely human if it does not turn her head." But Mrs. Lorimer merely smiled and said no more. She knew how little Avery was drawn by pomp and circumstance, but she would not vaunt her knowledge before one so obviously incapable of understanding. In silence she let the subject pass.
It was to complete this store that Avery had been down into Rodding that afternoon, and she was returning laden and somewhat wearied. The red light of a cloudy winter sunset lay behind her. Ahead of her, now veiled, now splendidly revealed, there hung a marvellous, glimmering star.
But, as Crowther knew, in going she accepted the hardest part; and the weeks that she then spent at Rodding Abbey waiting, waiting with a sick anxiety, left upon her a mark which no time could ever erase. When Crowther's message came to her at last, she was almost too crushed to believe. Everything was in readiness, had been in readiness for weeks.
The orchestra played fitfully in the hotel behind them, and now and then there came the sounds of careless voices and wandering feet. They themselves talked but little. Piers was in a dreamy mood, and his companion was plainly deep in thought. He spoke at length out of a long silence. "Did your grandfather say Rodding Abbey just now?" "Yes," said Piers, waking up.
Thus he delivered himself, and turned to go; but paused at the door to add, "Also, Mrs. Denys, will you be good enough to remember that it is against my express command that either you or any of the children should enter any part of Rodding Park during my absence. I desire that to be clearly understood." "It is understood," said Avery in a low voice.
The little ancient disreputable car had been repaired by Rodding, the village handyman, who by some conjuring trick had made it run again. Marjorie started it. She had made up her mind. She would go to Hurst Dormer, she would see Hugh and and quite what she would do she did not know.
The journey from Rodding to Stanbury Cliffs was not an easy one by rail, and parish matters were fortunately claiming his attention very fully just then. As he himself had remarked more than once, he was not the man to permit mere personal matters to interfere with Duty, and many a weak soul depended upon his ministrations.
Word Of The Day