“Emily,”—as wheels rattled up the avenue,—”is that the fishmonger’s cart?”
“No,” answered Emily at the window; “it is the butcher.”
“His attitude toward the women here has made my joy,” Lady Maria proceeded, smiling over the deep-sea fishermen’s knitted helmet she had taken up. “He behaves beautifully to them all, but not one of them has really a leg to stand on as far as he is responsible for it. But I will tell you something, Emily.” She paused.
Miss Fox-Seton waited with interested eyes.
“He is thinking of bringing the thing to an end and marrying some woman. I feel it in my bones.”
“Do you think so?” exclaimed Emily. “Oh, I can’t help hoping—” But she paused also.
“You hope it will be Agatha Slade,” Lady Maria ended for her. “Well, perhaps it will be. I sometimes think it is Agatha, if it’s any one. And yet I’m not sure. One never could be sure with Walderhurst. He has always had a trick of keeping more than his mouth shut. I wonder if he could have any other woman up his sleeve?”
“Why do you think—” began Emily.
Lady Maria laughed.
“For an odd reason. The Walderhursts have a ridiculously splendid ring in the family, which they have a way of giving to the women they become engaged to. It’s ridiculous because—well, because a ruby as big as a trouser’s button is ridiculous. You can’t get over that. There is a story connected with this one—centuries and things, and something about the woman the first Walderhurst had it made for. She was a Dame Something or Other who had snubbed the King for being forward, and the snubbing was so good for him that he thought she was a saint and gave the ruby for her betrothal. Well, by the merest accident I found Walderhurst had sent his man to town for it. It came two days ago.”
“Oh, how interesting!” said Emily, thrilled. “It must mean something.”
“It is rather a joke. Wheels again, Emily. Is that the fishmonger?”
Emily went to the window once more. “Yes,” she answered, “if his name is Buggle.”
“His name is Buggle,” said Lady Maria, “and we are saved.”
But five minutes later the cook herself appeared at the morning-room door. She was a stout person, who panted, and respectfully removed beads of perspiration from her brow with a clean handkerchief.
She was as nearly pale as a heated person of her weight may be.
“And what has happened now, cook?” asked Lady Maria.
“That Buggle, your ladyship,” said cook, “says your ladyship can’t be no sorrier than he is, but when fish goes bad in a night it can’t be made fresh in the morning. He brought it that I might see it for myself, and it is in a state as could not be used by any one. I was that upset, your ladyship, that I felt like I must come and explain myself.”
“What can be done?” exclaimed Lady Maria. “Emily, do suggest something.”
“We can’t even be sure,” said the cook, “that Batch has what would suit us. Batch sometimes has it, but he is the fishmonger at Maundell, and that is four miles away, and we are short-‘anded, your ladyship, now the ‘ouse is so full, and not a servant that could be spared.”
“Dear me!” said Lady Maria. “Emily, this is really enough to drive one quite mad. If everything was not out of the stables, I know you would drive over to Maundell. You are such a good walker,”—catching a gleam of hope,—“do you think you could walk?”
Emily tried to look cheerful. Lady Maria’s situation was really an awful one for a hostess. It would not have mattered in the least if her strong, healthy body had not been so tired. She was an excellent walker, and ordinarily eight miles would have meant nothing in the way of fatigue. She was kept in good training by her walking in town, Springy moorland swept by fresh breezes was not like London streets.
“I think I can manage it,” she said nice-temperedly. “If I had not run about so much yesterday it would be a mere nothing. You must have the fish, of course. I will walk over the moor to Maundell and tell Batch it must be sent at once. Then I will come back slowly. I can rest on the heather by the way. The moor is lovely in the afternoon.”
“You dear soul!” Lady Maria broke forth. “What a boon you are to a woman!”
She felt quite grateful. There arose in her mind an impulse to invite Emily Fox-Seton to remain the rest of her life with her, but she was too experienced an elderly lady to give way to impulses. She privately resolved, however, that she would have her a good deal in South Audley Street, and would make her some decent presents.
When Emily Fox-Seton, attired for her walk in her shortest brown linen frock and shadiest hat, passed through the hall, the postboy was just delivering the midday letters to a footman. The servant presented his salver to her with a letter for herself lying upon the top of one addressed in Lady Claraway’s handwriting “To the Lady Agatha Slade.” Emily recognised it as one of the epistles of many sheets which so often made poor Agatha shed slow and depressed tears. Her own letter was directed in the well-known hand of Mrs. Cupp, and she wondered what it could contain.
“I hope the poor things are not in any trouble,” she thought. “They were afraid the young man in the sitting-room was engaged. If he got married and left them, I don’t know what they would do; he has been so regular.”
Though the day was hot, the weather was perfect, and Emily, having exchanged her easy slippers for an almost equally easy pair of tan shoes, found her tired feet might still be used. Her disposition to make the very best of things inspired her to regard even an eight-mile walk with courage. The moorland air was so sweet, the sound of the bees droning as they stumbled about in the heather was such a comfortable, peaceful thing, that she convinced herself that she should find the four miles to Maundell quite agreeable.
She had so many nice things to think of that she temporarily forgot that she had put Mrs. Cupp’s letter in her pocket, and was halfway across the moor before she remembered it.
“Dear me!” she exclaimed when she recalled it. “I must see what has happened.”
She opened the envelope and began to read as she walked; but she had not taken many steps before she uttered an exclamation and stopped.
“How very nice for them!” she said, but she turned rather pale.
From a worldly point of view the news the letter contained was indeed very nice for the Cupps, but it put a painful aspect upon the simple affairs of poor Miss Fox-Seton.
“It is a great piece of news, in one way,” wrote Mrs. Cupp, “and yet me and Jane can’t help feeling a bit low at the thought of the changes it will make, and us living where you won’t be with us, if I may take the liberty, miss. My brother William made a good bit of money in Australia, but he has always been homesick for the old country, as he always calls England. His wife was a Colonial, and when she died a year ago he made up his mind to come home to settle in Chichester, where he was born. He says there’s nothing like the feeling of a Cathedral town. He’s bought such a nice house a bit out, with a big garden, and he wants me and Jane to come and make a home with him. He says he has worked hard all his life, and now he means to be comfortable, and he can’t be bothered with housekeeping. He promises to provide