As the chaise emerged from the end of the avenue of limes, where the railed pasture gave way to smoother lawns and shrubberies, and the drive entered its long curve up to the front of the house—a Palladian structure not too ruthlessly improved and added to by the younger Wyatt—Charles felt himself truly entering upon his inheritance. It seemed to him to explain all his previous idling through life, his dallying with religion, with science, with travel; he had been waiting for this moment… his call to the throne, so to speak. The absurd adventure in the Undercliff was forgotten. Immense duties, the preservation of this peace and order, lay ahead, as they had lain ahead of so many young men of his family in the past. Duty—that was his real wife, his Ernestina and his Sarah, and he sprang out of the chaise to welcome her as joyously as a boy not half his real age.

He was greeted in return, however, by an empty hall. He broke into the dayroom, or drawing room, expecting to see his uncle smilingly on his feet to meet him. But that room was empty, too. And something was strange in it, puzzling Charles a moment. Then he smiled. There were new curtains—and the carpets, yes, they were new as well. Ernestina would not be pleased, to have had the choice taken out of her hands—but what surer demonstration could there be of the old bachelor’s intention gracefully to hand on the torch?

Yet something else had also changed. It was some moments before Charles realized what it was. The immortal bustard had been banished; where its glass case had last stood was now a cabinet of china.

But still he did not guess.

Nor did he—but in this case, how could he?—guess what had happened to Sarah when she left him the previous afternoon. She had walked quickly back through the woods until she came to the place where she normally took the higher path that precluded any chance of her being seen from the Dairy. An observer would have seen her hesitate, and then, if he had had as sharp hearing as Sarah herself, have guessed why: a sound of voices from the Dairy cottage some hundred yards away down through the trees. Slowly and silently Sarah made her way forward until she came to a great holly bush, through whose dense leaves she could stare down at the back of the cottage. She remained standing some time, her face revealing nothing of what passed through her mind. Then some development in the scene below, outside the cottage, made her move… but not back into the cover of the woods. Instead she walked boldly from out behind the holly tree and along the path that joined the cart track above the cottage. Thus she emerged in full view of the two women at the cottage door, one of whom carried a basket and was evidently about to set off on her way home.

Sarah’s dark figure came into view. She did not look down towards the cottage, towards those two surprised pairs of eyes, but went swiftly on her way until she passed behind the hedge of one of the fields that ran above the Dairy.

One of the women below was the dairyman’s wife. The other was Mrs. Fairley.

24

“It is monstrous. Monstrous. I cannot believe he has not lost his senses.”

“He has lost his sense of proportion. But that is not quite the same thing.”

“But at this juncture!”

“My dear Tina, Cupid has a notorious contempt for other people’s convenience.”

“You know very well that Cupid has nothing to do with it.”

“I am afraid he has everything to do with it. Old hearts are the most susceptible.”

“It is my fault. I know he disapproves of me.”

“Come now, that is nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense. I know perfectly well that for him I am a draper’s daughter.”

“My dear child, contain yourself.”

“It is for you I am so angry.”

“Very well—then let me be angry on my own behalf.”

There was silence then, which allows me to say that the conversation above took place in Aunt Tranter’s rear parlor. Charles stood at the window, his back to Ernestina, who had very recently cried, and who now sat twisting a lace handkerchief in a vindictive manner.

“I know how much you love Winsyatt.”

How Charles would have answered can only be conjectured, for the door opened at that moment and Aunt Tranter appeared, a pleased smile of welcome on her face.

“You are back so soon!” It was half past nine of the same day we saw Charles driving up to Winsyatt House.

Charles smiled thinly. “Our business was soon… finished.”

“Something terrible and disgraceful has happened.” Aunt Tranter looked with alarm at the tragic and outraged face of her niece, who went on: “Charles had been disinherited.”

“Disinherited!”

“Ernestina exaggerates. It is simply that my uncle has decided to marry. If he should be so fortunate as to have a son and heir…”

“Fortunate… !” Ernestina slipped Charles a scalding little glance. Aunt Tranter looked in consternation from one face to the other.

“But… who is the lady?”

“Her name is Mrs. Tomkins, Mrs. Tranter. A widow.”

“And young enough to bear a dozen sons.”

Charles smiled. “Hardly that. But young enough to bear sons.”

“You know her?”

Ernestina answered before Charles could, “That is what is so disgraceful. Only two months ago his uncle made fun of the woman to Charles in a letter. And now he is groveling at her feet.”

“My dear Ernestina!”

“I will not be calm! It is too much. After all these years…” Charles took a deep breath, and turned to Aunt Tranter. “I understand she has excellent connections. Her husband was colonel in the Fortieth Hussars and left her handsomely provided for. There is no suspicion of fortune hunting.” Ernestina’s smoldering look up at him showed plainly that in her mind there was every suspicion. “I am told she is a very attractive woman.”

“No doubt she rides to hounds.”

He smiled bleakly at Ernestina, who was referring to a black mark she had earlier gained in the monstrous uncle’s book. “No doubt. But that is not yet a crime.”

Aunt Tranter plumped down on a chair and looked again from one young face to the other, searching, as ever in such situations, for some ray of hope.

“But is he not too old to have children?”

Charles managed a gentle smile for her innocence. “He is sixty-seven, Mrs. Tranter. That is not too old.”

“Even though she is young enough to be his granddaughter.”

“My dear Tina, all one has in such circumstances is one’s dignity. I must beg you for my sake not to be bitter. We must accept the event with as good a grace as possible.”

She looked up and saw how nervously stern he was; that she must play a different role. She ran to him, and catching his hand, raised it to her lips. He drew her to him and kissed the top of her head, but he was not deceived. A shrew and a mouse may look the same; but they are not the same; and though he could not find a word to describe Ernestina’s reception of his shocking and unwelcome news, it was not far removed from “unladylike.” He had leaped straight from the trap bringing him back from Exeter into Aunt Tranter’s house; and expected a gentle sympathy, not a sharp rage, however flatteringly it was intended to resemble his own feelings. Perhaps that was it—that she had not divined that a gentleman could never reveal the anger she ascribed to him. But there seemed to him something only too reminiscent of the draper’s daughter in her during those first minutes; of one who had been worsted in a business deal, and who lacked a traditional imperturbability, that fine aristocratic refusal to allow the setbacks of life ever to ruffle one’s style.