“Here’s Hugh!” said Priscilla, hurrying to the front door. And Mrs. Stanbury hurried after her. Her son Hugh was the apple of her eye, the best son that ever lived, generous, noble, a thorough man—almost a god!
“Dear, dear, oh dear! Who’d have expected it? God bless you, my boy! Why didn’t you write? Priscilla, what is there in the house that he can eat?”
“Plenty of bread and cheese,” said Priscilla, laughing, with her hand inside her brother’s arm. For though Priscilla hated all other men, she did not hate her brother Hugh. “If you wanted things nice to eat directly you got here, you ought to have written.”
“I shall want my dinner, like any other Christian—in due time,” said Hugh. “And how is Mrs. Trevelyan—and how is Miss Rowley?”
He soon found himself in company with those two ladies, and experienced some immediate difficulty in explaining the cause of his sudden coming. But this was soon put aside by Mrs. Trevelyan.
“When did you see my husband?” she asked.
“I saw him yesterday. He was quite well.”
“Colonel Osborne has been here,” she said.
“I know that he has been here. I met him at the station at Exeter. Perhaps I should not say so, but I wish he had remained away.”
“We all wish it,” said Priscilla.
Then Nora spoke. “But what could we do, Mr. Stanbury? It seemed so natural that he should call when he was in the neighbourhood. We have known him so long; and how could we refuse to see him?”
“I will not let anyone think that I’m afraid to see any man on earth,” said Mrs. Trevelyan. “If he had ever in his life said a word that he should not have said, a word that would have been an insult, of course it would have been different. But the notion of it is preposterous. Why should I not have seen him?”
“I think he was wrong to come,” said Hugh.
“Of course he was wrong;—wickedly wrong,” said Priscilla.
Stanbury, finding that the subject was openly discussed between them, declared plainly the mission that had brought him to Nuncombe. “Trevelyan heard that he was coming, and asked me to let him know the truth.”
“Now you can tell him the truth,” said Mrs. Trevelyan, with something of indignation in her tone, as though she thought that Stanbury had taken upon himself a task of which he ought to be ashamed.
“But Colonel Osborne came specially to pay a visit to Cockchaffington,” said Nora, “and not to see us. Louis ought to know that.”
“Nora, how can you demean yourself to care about such trash?” said Mrs. Trevelyan. “Who cares why he came here? His visit to me was a thing of course. If Mr. Trevelyan disapproves of it, let him say so, and not send secret messengers.”
“Am I a secret messenger?” said Hugh Stanbury.
“There has been a man here, inquiring of the servants,” said Priscilla. So that odious Bozzle had made his foul mission known to them! Stanbury, however, thought it best to say nothing of Bozzle—not to acknowledge that he had ever heard of Bozzle. “I am sure Mrs. Trevelyan does not mean you,” said Priscilla.
“I do not know what I mean,” said Mrs. Trevelyan. “I am so harassed and fevered by these suspicions that I am driven nearly mad.” Then she left the room for a minute and returned with two letters. “There, Mr. Stanbury; I got that note from Colonel Osborne, and wrote to him that reply. You know all about it now. Can you say that I was wrong to see him?”
“I am sure that he was wrong to come,” said Hugh.
“Wickedly wrong,” said Priscilla, again.
“You can keep the letters, and show them to my husband,” said Mrs. Trevelyan; “then he will know all about it.” But Stanbury declined to keep the letters.
He was to remain the Sunday at Nuncombe Putney and return to London on the Monday. There was, therefore, but one day on which he could say what he had to say to Nora Rowley. When he came down to breakfast on the Sunday morning he had almost made up his mind that he had nothing to say to her. As for Nora, she was in a state of mind much less near to any fixed purpose. She had told herself that she loved this man—had indeed done so in the clearest way, by acknowledging the fact of her love to another suitor, by pleading to that other suitor the fact of her love as an insuperable reason why he should be rejected. There was no longer any doubt about it to her. When Priscilla had declared that Hugh Stanbury was at the door, her heart had gone into her mouth. Involuntarily she had pressed her hands to her sides, and had held her breath. Why had he come there? Had he come there for her? Oh! if he had come there for her, and if she might dare to forget all the future, how sweet—sweetest of all things in heaven or earth—might be an August evening with him among the lanes! But she, too, had endeavoured to be very prudent. She had told herself that she was quite unfit to be the wife of a poor man—that she would be only a burden round his neck, and not an aid to him. And in so telling herself, she had told herself also that she had been a fool not to accept Mr. Glascock. She should have dragged out from her heart the image of this man who had never even whispered a word of love in her ears, and should have constrained herself to receive with affection a man in loving whom there ought to be no difficulty. But when she had been repeating those lessons to herself, Hugh Stanbury had not been in the house. Now he was there;—and what must be her answer if he should whisper that word of love? She
