“Never.”
“She is not an old family friend, then,—or anything of that sort?”
“Oh, dear, no.”
“Because,” said Arabella, “it is so odd how different people get together sometimes.” Then Dorothy explained that Mr. Trevelyan and her brother Hugh had long been friends.
“Oh!—of Mr. Trevelyan,” said Camilla. “Then it is he that has sent his wife to Nuncombe, not she that has come there?”
“I suppose there has been some agreement,” said Dorothy.
“Just so; just so,” said Arabella, the meek. “I should like to see her. They say that she is very beautiful; don’t they?”
“My brother says that she is handsome.”
“Exceedingly lovely, I’m told,” said Camilla. “I should like to see her,—shouldn’t you, Mr. Gibson?”
“I always like to see a pretty woman,” said Mr. Gibson, with a polite bow, which the sisters shared between them.
“I suppose she’ll go to church,” said Camilla.
“Very likely not,” said Arabella. “Ladies of that sort very often don’t go to church. I dare say you’ll find that she’ll never stir out of the place at all, and that not a soul in Nuncombe will ever see her except the gardener. It is such a thing for a woman to be separated from her husband! Don’t you think so, Mr. Gibson?”
“Of course it is,” said he, with a shake of his head, which was intended to imply that the censure of the church must of course attend any sundering of those whom the church had bound together; but which implied also by the absence from it of any intense clerical severity, that as the separated wife was allowed to live with so very respectable a lady as Mrs. Stanbury, there must probably be some mitigating circumstances attending this special separation.
“I wonder what he is like?” said Camilla, after a pause.
“Who?” asked Arabella.
“The gentleman,” said Camilla.
“What gentleman?” demanded Arabella.
“I don’t mean Mr. Trevelyan,” said Camilla.
“I don’t believe there really is,—eh,—is there?” said Mr. Gibson, very timidly.
“Oh, dear, yes,” said Arabella.
“I’m afraid there’s something of the kind,” said Camilla. “I’ve heard that there is, and I’ve heard his name.” Then she whispered very closely into the ear of Mr. Gibson the words, “Colonel Osborne,” as though her lips were by far too pure to mention aloud any sound so full of iniquity.
“Indeed!” said Mr. Gibson.
“But he’s quite an old man,” said Dorothy, “and knew her father intimately before she was born. And, as far as I can understand, her husband does not suspect her in the least. And it’s only because there’s a misunderstanding between them, and not at all because of the gentleman.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Camilla.
“Ah!” exclaimed Arabella.
“That would make a difference,” said Mr. Gibson.
“But for a married woman to have her name mentioned at all with a gentleman,—it is so bad; is it not, Mr. Gibson?” And then Arabella also had her whisper into the clergyman’s ear,—very closely. “I’m afraid there’s not a doubt about the Colonel. I’m afraid not. I am indeed.”
“Two by honours and the odd, and it’s my deal,” said Miss Stanbury, briskly, and the sharp click with which she put the markers down upon the table was heard all through the room. “I don’t want anybody to tell me,” she said, “that when a young woman is parted from her husband, the chances are ten to one that she has been very foolish.”
“But what’s a woman to do, if her husband beats her?” said Mrs. Crumbie.
“Beat him again,” said Mrs. MacHugh.
“And the husband will be sure to have the worst of it,” said Mr. Crumbie. “Well, I declare, if you haven’t turned up an honour again, Miss Stanbury!”
“It was your wife that cut it to me, Mr. Crumbie.” Then they were again at once immersed in the play, and the name neither of Trevelyan nor Osborne was heard till Miss Stanbury was marking her double under the candlestick; but during all pauses in the game the conversation went back to the same topic, and when the rubber was over they who had been playing it lost themselves for ten minutes in the allurements of the interesting subject. It was so singular a coincidence that the lady should have gone to Nuncombe Putney of all villages in England, and to the house of Mrs. Stanbury of all ladies in England. And then was she innocent, or was she guilty; and if guilty, in what degree? That she had been allowed to bring her baby with her was considered to be a great point in her favour. Mr. Crumbie’s opinion was that it was “only a few words.” Mrs. Crumbie was afraid that she had been a little light. Mrs. MacHugh said that there was never fire without smoke. And Miss Stanbury, as she took her departure, declared that the young women of the present day didn’t know what they were after. “They think that the world should be all frolic and dancing, and they have no more idea of doing their duty and earning their bread than a boy home for the holidays has of doing lessons.”
Then, as she went home with Dorothy across the Close, she spoke a word which she intended to be very serious. “I don’t mean to say anything against your mother for what she has done as yet. Somebody must take the woman in, and perhaps it was natural. But if that Colonel What’s-his-name makes his way down to Nuncombe Putney, your mother must send her packing, if she has any respect either for herself or for Priscilla.”
Chapter XVI.
Dartmoor
The well-weighed decision of Miss Stanbury respecting the Stanbury-Trevelyan arrangement at Nuncombe Putney had been communicated to Dorothy as the two walked home at night across the Close from Mrs. MacHugh’s house, and it was accepted by Dorothy as being wise and proper. It amounted to this. If Mrs. Trevelyan should behave herself with propriety in her retirement at the Clock House, no further blame in the matter should be attributed to Mrs. Stanbury for receiving her,—at any rate in Dorothy’s hearing. The existing scheme, whether wise or foolish, should be regarded as an accepted scheme. But if Mrs. Trevelyan should be indiscreet,—if, for instance, Colonel Osborne should show himself at Nuncombe Putney,—then, for the sake of the family, Miss Stanbury would speak out, and would speak out very loudly. All this Dorothy understood, and she could perceive that her aunt had strong suspicion that there would be indiscretion.
“I never knew one like her,” said Miss Stanbury, “who, when she’d got away from one man, didn’t want to have another dangling after her.”
A week had hardly passed after the party at Mrs. MacHugh’s, and Mrs. Trevelyan had hardly been three weeks at Nuncombe Putney, before the tidings which Miss Stanbury almost expected reached her ears.
“The Colonel’s been at the Clock House, ma’am,” said Martha.
Now, it was quite understood in the Close by this time that “the Colonel” meant Colonel Osborne.
“No!”
“I’m told he has though, ma’am, for sure and certain.”
“Who says so?”
“Giles Hickbody was down at Lessboro’, and see’d him hisself,—a portly, middle-aged man,—not one of your young scampish-like lovers.”
“That’s