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The Rhetts' house in Legare Street was about the same size as Vernons and equally old, but it had not the same charm, the garden was much larger than that at Vernons, but it had not the same touch of the past.
Her Majesty opened the ball with the Duke of Devonshire, dancing afterwards with Lord Morpeth and Lord Leveson in the last instance, "a country dance, with much vigour" and waltzing with Prince Albert. On the 2nd of December the party visited Haddon Hall, the ancient seat of the Vernons, where Dorothy Vernon lived and loved.
She led the way from the breakfast-room and passed into the hall. The spirit of Vernons inhabited the hall. One might have fancied it as a stout and prosperous gentleman attired in a blue coat with brass buttons, shorts, and wearing a bunch of seals at his fob. Oak, brought from England, formed the panelling, and a great old grandfather's clock, with the maker's name and address, "Whewel.
This belief, adopted passively, and as a thing of course, had had a very prejudicial effect upon Vernon's career. What mattered that he overenjoyed his youth, that the subordinate property of the Vernons, a paltry four or five thousand pounds a year, went a little too fast, the splendid estates of Laughton would recover all.
By the range this morning was seated an old coloured woman engaged in cutting up onions. This was Prue the oldest living thing in Vernons and perhaps in Charleston; she had been kitchen maid before Miss Pinckney was born, then cook, and now, long past work, she was just kept on. Twenty-five years ago she had been offered a pension and a cottage for herself but she refused both.
Vernons belonged to the Mascarenes, my mother brought it to my father as part of her wedding portion. The Pinckneys' old house was lost to us in the smash up after the war. So, you see, Phyl ought to be as much at home at Vernons as I am. Funny, isn't it, how things get mixed up and old family houses change hands?" "And when do you want to take her away?" asked Hennessey.
Vernons, the garden, the birds, the flowers, the blue sky, the sunlight, Meeting Street, the story of Juliet, Miss Pinckney, even old Prue. Memories, sounds, scents, and colours all formed part of the living thing that Frances Rhett had killed. "Leaving Charleston!" said Silas, speaking in a dazed sort of way. "Yes. I cannot stay here any longer."
All his adventures up to this had been little things involving at worst loss of life by accident. This was different; it involved his whole future and the future of the girl who had mastered his mind. Leaving Legare Street he reached Meeting Street and passed up it till he reached Vernons.
And mother said, "Yes, darling!" like a lamb, swallowing as it were spring chickens and cobby rolls at a gulp. It was impossible in giving the invitation to the Vernons to refrain from a hint at the magnificence of the preparations, though good manners would, of course, have prompted silence on such a point.
"It would be bad enough in an ordinary year, but to rend us apart from the Vernons oh, no, it's unthinkable!" "You have the Vernons near you all the year, dear. Aunt Maria only asks for eight weeks. There are occasions in life when it does not do to think only of our own pleasure." Silence.
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