“We had known him so long, Lady Milborough.”
“I wish you had never known him at all. Poor Louis! If he had only done what I told him at first, all might have been well. ‘Go to Naples, with your wife,’ I said. ‘Go to Naples.’ If he had gone to Naples, there would have been no journeys to Siena, no living at Casalunga, no separation. But he didn’t seem to see it in the same light. Poor dear Louis. I wish he had gone to Naples when I told him.”
While they were going backwards and forwards, looking at the cottage at Twickenham and trying to make things comfortable there for the sick man, Lady Milborough hinted to Nora that it might be distasteful to Trevelyan, in his present condition, to have even a sister-in-law staying in the house with him. There was a little chamber which Nora had appropriated to herself, and at first it seemed to be taken for granted that she should remain there at least till the 10th of August, on which day Lady Peterborough had signified that she and her husband would be ready to receive their visitor. But Lady Milborough slept on the suggestion, and on the next morning hinted her disapprobation. “You shall take them down in the carriage, and their luggage can follow in a cab;—but the carriage can bring you back. You will see how things are then.”
“Dear Lady Milborough, you would go out of town at once if I left you.”
“And I shall not go out of town if you don’t leave me. What difference does it make to an old woman like me? I have got no lover coming to look for me, and all I have to do is to tell my daughter-in-law that I shall not be there for another week or so. Augusta is very glad to have me, but she is the wisest woman in the world, and can get on very well without me.”
“And as I am the silliest, I cannot.”
“You shall put it in that way if you like it, my dear. Girls in your position often do want assistance. I dare say you think me very straightlaced, but I am quite sure Mr. Stanbury will be grateful to me. As you are to be married from Monkhams, it will be quite well that you should pass thither through my house as an intermediate resting-place, after leaving your father and mother.” By all which Lady Milborough intended to express an opinion that the value of the article which Hugh Stanbury would receive at the altar would be enhanced by the distinguished purity of the hands through which it had passed before it came into his possession;—in which opinion she was probably right as regarded the price put upon the article by the world at large, though it may perhaps be doubted whether the recipient himself would be of the same opinion.
“I hope you know that I am grateful, whatever he may be,” said Nora, after a pause.
“I think that you take it as it is meant, and that makes me quite comfortable.”
“Lady Milborough, I shall love you forever and ever. I don’t think I ever knew anybody so good as you are—or so nice.”
“Then I shall be more than comfortable,” said Lady Milborough. After that there was an embrace, and the thing was settled.
XCV
Trevelyan Back in England
Nora, with Lady Milborough’s carriage, and Lady Milborough’s coach and footman, and with a cab ready for the luggage close behind the carriage, was waiting at the railway station when the party from Dover arrived. She soon saw Hugh upon the platform, and ran to him with her news. They had not a word to say to each other of themselves, so anxious were they both respecting Trevelyan. “We got a bed-carriage for him at Dover,” said Hugh; “and I think he has borne the journey pretty well;—but he feels the heat almost as badly as in Italy. You will hardly know him when you see him.” Then, when the rush of passengers was gone, Trevelyan was brought out by Hugh and the courier, and placed in Lady Milborough’s carriage. He just smiled as his eye fell upon Nora, but he did not even put out his hand to greet her.
“I am to go in the carriage with him,” said his wife.
“Of course you are—and so will I and Louey. I think there will be room: it is so large. There is a cab for all the things. Dear Emily, I am so glad to see you.”
“Dearest Nora! I shall be able to speak to you by-and-by, but you must not be angry with me now. How good you have been.”
“Has not she been good? I don’t understand about the cottage. It belongs to some friend of hers; and I have not been able to say a word about the rent. It is so nice;—and looks upon the river. I hope that he will like it.”
“You will be with us?”
“Not just at first. Lady Milborough thinks I had better not—that he will like it better. I will come down almost every day, and will stay if you think he will like it.”
These few words were said while the men were putting Trevelyan into the carriage. And then another arrangement was made. Hugh hired a second cab, in which he and the courier made a part of the procession; and so they all went to Twickenham together. Hugh had not yet learned that he would be rewarded by coming back alone with Nora in the carriage.
The cottage by the River Thames, which, as far as the party knew, was nameless, was certainly very much better than the house on the top of the hill
