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This last detail was a contribution on the part of Major and Mrs. Trustcott, and it would have been ungracious to refuse. The Major, too, was sullen and resentful this morning, and growled at Gertie more than once. Even the weather seemed unpropitious as they set out together again soon after six. Rain had fallen in the night, yet not all the rain that there was overhead.
"What do you say to Trustcott?" he asked. "Will that do?" "Perfectly," said Frank. "Major and Mrs. Trustcott.... Well, shall we be going?" Frank had no particular views as to lodgings, or even to roads, so long as the direction was more or less northward. He was aiming, generally speaking, at Selby and York; and it seemed that this would suit the Major as well as anything else.
Then his face became animated again. "We must move your friend upstairs," he said. "If you will help, Mr. Trustcott, I will call my servant." It was about half-past nine that night that the doctor, having rung the bell in the spare bedroom, met his man at the threshold. "I'll sleep in this room to-night," he said; "you can go to bed. Bring in a mattress, will you?"
This evening, then.... I say, Jack!" Jack turned. "Jack, this is Major and Mrs. Trustcott, I told you of. This is my friend, Mr. er Mr. Jack." Jack bowed vaguely, overwhelmed with disgust. "Very happy to make your acquaintance, sir," said the Major, straightening himself in a military manner. "My good lady and I were resting here. Very pleasant neighborhood." "I'm glad you like it," said Jack.
"Of course I do.... Now be sensible, my dear fellow; go and fetch your friends. We'll manage somehow." Gregory to the porter's lodge. Make arrangements to put the woman up somewhere, either there or in a gardener's cottage. Then bring the man down here.... His name?" "Trustcott," said Frank. "And when you come back, I shall be waiting for you here."
"That's all right. Well, then Major what did we say? Trustcott? Ah, yes, Trustcott. Well, then, I think we might add 'Eleventh Hussars'; that's near enough. The final catastrophe was, I think, cards. Not that I cheated, you understand. I will allow no man to say that of me. But that was what was said.
So much, then, is all that I can say of the small, detached experiences that he passed through, up to the point when he came out one evening at sunset from one of the fields of Hampole where he had made hay all day, when his job was finished, and where he met, for the first time, the Major and Gertie Trustcott.
Then she threw that piece, too, into the dustpan. Mrs. Partington and Gertie had many of those mysterious conversations that such women have, full of "he's" and "she's" and nods and becks and allusions and broken sentences, wholly unintelligible to the outsider, yet packed with interest to the talkers. The Major, Mr. Gertie officially passed, of course, as Mrs. Trustcott always.
"The reason I'm writing is this: You remember Major Trustcott and Gertie, don't you? Well, I haven't succeeded in getting Gertie back to her people yet, and the worst of it is that the Major knows that there's something up, and, of course, puts the worst possible construction upon it. Parham-Carter knows all about it, too I've just left a note on him, with instructions.
The monk seemed to take a little more interest in him, and Frank took courage. "Yes," he said, "I'm an educated man. My name's Frank Gregory. I've got two friends out on the road up there a man and a woman. Their name's Trustcott and the woman " "No good; no good," said the monk. "No women." "But, brother, she really can't go any further. I'm very sorry, but we simply must have shelter.
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