"Oh, she couldn't, she looks so sweet. Here comes Mr. Farley back from his little walk. Shall we ask him if he thinks it possible that any one doesn't love you?"

Margaret turned and blazed at her. "Please be silent," she said; "you may not mean it, but you say things that are simply dreadful, and they sound as if you said them on purpose."

"I'll ask Tom about it when he comes to-morrow; and I'll make him come and see you again if I can." Lena put on an air of being puzzled and a little injured. "But we have not seen each other for three days and I want him for myself, just as Mr. Garratt wants you."

Margaret went forward and put her hand on Hannah's arm. "She's doing it on purpose, Hannah," she said, with distress in her voice, "and because she sees that it vexes you, and that I hate it."

Lena was enjoying herself immensely. "I have made you angry again," she said; "but you look splendid, just as you did in London. Isn't she beautiful, Miss Barton?"

Hannah could hardly bear it. "I have never been able to see it," she said, as her mother and Mrs. Lakeman entered.

Dawson Farley was standing by the porch. "Are you likely to come to London again, Miss Vincent?" he asked.

"I hope I shall, and soon," Margaret answered; and then she went on eagerly, "I heard that you saw Miss Hunstan first when she walked on the stage holding up a princess's train?"

Mr. Farley looked at her curiously. "There is a princess in my new piece," he said. "Do you want to come and hold up her train?"

"I should love it!" she answered, and walked up the gra.s.s-covered path with him.

Meanwhile Mrs. Lakeman, too, was amusing herself. "And what do you think of your step-father's chance of coming into the t.i.tle?" she asked of Hannah.

Mrs. Vincent's lips locked closely together, but she said nothing.

"What t.i.tle?" Hannah looked up quickly.

Mrs. Lakeman felt that here was quite a new sensation: she had always been a gambler in sensations, an inveterate speculator in effects.

"You know that your step-father will be Lord Eastleigh when his brother dies?"

"I know nothing about it. Why has a mystery been made of it?"

"There has been no mystery made of it," Mrs. Vincent said, firmly. "I don't suppose father will take up the t.i.tle, and, anyway, it needn't be spoken of while the one who has it lives. It seems like hurrying him into his grave."

But Hannah was not to be silenced. "I suppose this is why we never heard anything of his relations," she said. "Was he ashamed of us?"

"Such a thing never entered his head," Mrs. Vincent answered.

"And why did this brother, who has got a t.i.tle, go hiding himself in Australia? Did he do something he oughtn't to have done?"

"He never did anything but spend his money too quickly," Mrs. Lakeman answered. "He made an unlucky marriage, of course--dear old Cyril; but heaps of men do that. We must be going, Mrs. Vincent. Some people are coming to tea--the Harfords from Bannock Chase; do you know them?"

"I see them in church, but we have not their acquaintance," Mrs. Vincent answered. Mrs. Lakeman told Dawson Farley afterwards that she said it with the air of a d.u.c.h.ess who had refused to call upon them.

"When are you going to be married, dear?" she asked Margaret, as she got into the fly. "George Stringer and Tom told us about Mr. Garratt."

"It's all a mistake--" Margaret began, with pa.s.sionate distress in her voice.

"Don't tease her," Lena cooed, "she doesn't like it."

Mrs. Lakeman looked at her with an air of worldly wisdom and said, significantly, "I should wait if I were you. You'll be able to do better when your father returns." She opened her parasol, which was lined with lilac silk--and framed her face in it. "Good-bye, Mrs. Vincent, I'm so glad to have seen you." She made a last effort to put some feeling into her voice and almost succeeded.

But Mrs. Vincent only said "Good-bye," and turned away almost before the fly had started.

XVIII

Breakfast was always half an hour later on Sundays. Margaret had spent the early hours in writing to her father, telling him of the impossibility of remaining any longer at Woodside Farm unless the relations between Mr. Garratt and Hannah were definitely settled.

Something would have to be done, and immediately, but he was not to be distressed about her. She meant to go to Miss Hunstan and to take her advice. Perhaps if she could gather courage she would consult Sir George Stringer, but it was Miss Hunstan on whom she relied, she even asked her father to direct his next letter to her care just on the chance. The morning was sultry, the notes of the birds were languid, there was not a stir among the branches though the scent of flowers came stealing upwards from the bed against the house. She went to the window and leaned forward to catch any pa.s.sing breeze that might chance to wander by. Suddenly Mrs. Vincent and Hannah came out of the porch and stood just a few yards below her. Hannah was evidently continuing a conversation.

"Well, I've no patience with them, mother, fine folks giving themselves airs and ashamed to say who they are and what they've done; lord, or no lord, he shall see that I don't care for his ways, nor for Margaret's either." All the same there was in Hannah's heart an odd feeling of curiosity. What would happen to her when her step-father was Lord Eastleigh? What would the country people say to her, the people who now and then, most politely, it is true, asked her to accept a present for herself when they paid a quarter's account. And Mr. Garratt, what would he say? He would surely know that Margaret, with her stuck-up ways, would not look at him now. Most likely he would think himself lucky to get Hannah, since she would gain a reflected importance. But she wasn't sure, on the whole, if she wanted him any longer, and yet it would be something to make sure of a man. She couldn't bear going over to Petersfield and seeing women younger than herself, whom she remembered as girls, walking out with their husbands, or nursing their children, while she remained a spinster. "I do wonder what Mr. Garratt will have to say to it all," she said, aloud, without meaning it.

"He'll see it's no good caring for Margaret," Mrs. Vincent said.

"Why should he? Not that he does care," Hannah answered, quickly. "She isn't any better than she was yesterday, nor than I am. For my part, I think this t.i.tle business will make us the laughing-stock of the place."

"There is no occasion to speak of it; it's no one's business but our own."

"I never was one for secrets."

"Neither was I," said Mrs. Vincent. "But I have always found that there was more in silence than in talk. I hope you and Mr. Garratt will settle up soon, Hannah, for these quarrels make me miserable."

"It's Margaret's fault, not mine," Hannah answered, doggedly. "After all, mother, whatever's said, you know that I'm fond of you. If there had been no strangers about all these years, and I'd had the taking care of you by myself, I could have been content enough without any thought of marrying."

"Jealousy is such a poor thing, Hannah."

"We ourselves are poor things in the sight of the Lord, mother. If Margaret would once come to see that she might be different."

Margaret, above, could stand it no longer. "It's so mean to be listening here," she said to herself; "and though Hannah was horrid last night she is rather better this morning, and she's fond of mother. Oh, I'm so glad that she loves her." Then she raised her voice and called out, "Good-morning, mother. I can hear all you say. Let us have a happy Sunday, Hannah. I won't look at Mr. Garratt; I will be thoroughly disagreeable to him if that will please you." At which Hannah answered, not without a trace of amiability and with the flicker of a smile:

"You had better come down to your breakfast; for my part, I never know why we are so late on Sunday mornings." As she spoke, Towsey tinkled a bell to show that the simple meal was ready.

When the breakfast was over and the things were put away as usual, there was the getting ready in best clothes, and the starting of Hannah and Mrs. Vincent across the fields for church. Mr. Garratt was not coming till mid-day, and for the first time Hannah took an interest in Margaret's movements.

"I suppose you are going to the wood as usual?" she asked.

"I'm going there with a book," Margaret answered.

Then, with anxiety in her voice, Hannah said: "I wish you'd take a book that would do you some good."

"It can't do me any harm." Margaret was delighted at finding Hannah a little softer than usual. "I'm going to take _Paradise Lost_--it's a poem."

"It sounds very appropriate," Hannah said, solemnly.

Margaret blinked her eyes in astonishment, and wondered if Hannah were making a joke, and on the Sabbath, too! Perhaps, as most people are influenced by worldly matters, protest to the contrary as they will, Hannah was somewhat soothed in her secret mind at yesterday's revelations concerning the Vincent family. To be sure, the Australian brother had gone away, according to Mrs. Lakeman, because he made an unlucky marriage. And Gerald Vincent had lived quietly for twenty years at Woodside Farm: perhaps he, too, considered his marriage unlucky, and in his heart looked down on her and her mother; but even that would not undo the fact of the relationship, or prevent the step-daughter of Lord Eastleigh from being counted a more important person than hitherto when she went to Petersfield. There were moments when Hannah had visions of herself as an aristocrat in an open carriage driving through a park, or going to court in a train and feathers; she had often heard that people wore trains and feathers when they went to court. Nonsense and vanity she called it, but the momentary vision of herself trailing along and the white plumes nodding from her head was pleasant all the same.

"Well, we'll see when he comes back," she thought, as she walked across the fields with her mother. "If he isn't going to call himself Lord anything, and is going to live on here all the same, I may as well marry Mr. Garratt and be done with it--that is, if he behaves himself properly. He's getting a good business round him at Guildford, and we'll hardly rank as tradespeople when they know who I am. Mother," she said, aloud, "you'll not be staying on at the farm if what this Mrs. Lakeman said is true, and father comes back with a t.i.tle?"