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"I can't make her out!" said the mother plaintively. "Oh, Susy, do you know what's been going on? Lydia has been at Duddon at least six times this last fortnight and Lord Tatham has been here and nothing happens. And all the time Lydia keeps telling me she's not in love with him, and doesn't mean to marry him. But what's he doing?" Susan was looking dishevelled and highly strung.
Delorme had now turned away from Lydia to his hostess, and Lydia was talking to Squire Andover on her other side, a jolly old boy, with a gracious, absent look, who inclined his head to her paternally. Tatham knew very well that there was no one in the county who was more rigidly tied to caste or rank. But he was kind always to the outsider kind therefore to Lydia.
A vague but gnawing jealousy was fastening on Tatham day by day; and he had not been able to conceal it from his mother. Lydia was free of course she was free! But friends have their right too. "If she is really going that way, I ought to know," thought poor Tatham. Meanwhile Lydia herself would have been hard put to it to say whither she was going.
But Lydia was aware of the shrewd guessing of her family, and she did not suppose for one moment that Lady Tatham was ignorant of anything that had happened. Mrs. Penfold, scarcely kept in order by Susy, was in much agitation. She felt terribly guilty. Lady Tatham must think them all monsters of ingratitude, and she wondered how she could be so kind as to come and see them at all.
The girl's shyness seemed to have broken up. She was now talking fast, with smiles. Ah, no doubt they would have plenty to say to each other, as soon as they were together. It was one of the bitter-sweet moments of life. Lady Tatham steadied herself. "That is a sketch," she said mechanically, "by Burne-Jones, for one of the Pygmalion and Galatea series.
Don't let him! don't let him! And I ought I ought to have been told!" Faversham and Lydia approached her. But suddenly; putting her hands to her face, she ran to the French window of the library, opened it, and rushed into the garden. Tatham and his mother looked at each other aghast. "Run after her!" said Victoria in his ear. "Take this shawl!"
And of course he'll take to her, and offer to give her lessons or paint her or something. Then we can get her over lots of times!" Still dallying with these simple plans, Tatham arrived at Green Cottage, and tying up his horse went in to deliver his note. He had no sooner entered the little drive than he saw Lydia under a laburnum tree on the lawn. Hat in hand, the smiling youth approached her.
Occasions of friction constantly arose, but the determination on each side to have no more communication with the other than was absolutely necessary generally composed any nascent dispute; so long at least as Lady Tatham and a very diplomatic agent were in charge.
Miss A., without any compunction for me, has bestowed herself upon Harry Foker, with his fifteen thousand a year. I came in suddenly upon their loves, and found and left him in possession. "And you'll be glad to hear, Tatham writes me, that he has sold three of my fields at Fairoaks to the Railroad Company, at a great figure.
She was sketching in St. John's Vale, and you helped her fish something out of the water." "By Jove! so I did," he said, slowly. "Tatham?" He pondered. "Tell Lady Tatham I'm much obliged to her." And he went to sleep again. The next time he woke, he saw an unfamiliar figure sitting beside him. His hold upon himself seemed to have grown much stronger.
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