dearest Anne,
If you do not mean to return to Londonbefore next week, pray allow me to come to you. I must see you at once. I have a thousand things to say. Be merciful and tell me I may come.
E NSLEY
Anne rang her bell, opened the ebony lap-desk, wrote “Come,” on a clean sheet, folded, directed, and sealed it. Susannah arrived to collect it a moment later. Then Anne summoned Lizzie to help her bathe and dress for dinner.
Curiously, Miss Guilfoyle found herself almost looking forward to her guests from Fevermere. When Maria (neatly and soberly dressed as usual) went in to tell her they had arrived, she was delighted to hear Anne actually singing, and to see her robed in a delicate gown of celestial blue, with a bandeau to match.
“Enter, enter, my dear,” trilled Anne, looking over her shoulder while Lizzie put a finishing touch to her golden curls. “Quite rested now, I hope? My reliance is all on you, you know, to make this evening ‘go.’ Not but what,” she added mischievously, “I am sure Mrs. Highet is a brilliant conversationalist. Like her son.”
“You seem happier,” observed Mrs. Insel, wisely letting this slur pass without comment.
“Who would not be happy, who has one hundred Shropshire cows to call her own?” Anne hopped up from her chair, sneezed, provisioned her reticule with a second handkerchief, and tucked her arm under Maria’s. “Oh, Ensley will come to see us soon,” she remarked carelessly, as they strolled to the stairs. “I have invited Celia and Charles as well. Is there any other person you would like to have? Some one hardy, with a sense of comedy?”
A few more light observations such as these and they were in the snugly fitted Green Parlour, saying good eveningto their guests. Henry Highet, quite correctly attired now in a blue coat, a white waistcoat, and black pantaloons, stood and bowed rather deeply. His cravat puzzled Anne a little—it appeared to have started life as a Noeud Gordien , yet ended with more than a hint of the Bergami twisted into it—but even with her disposition to find fault in him, she could not help but be favourably struck by the regularity of his strong features, the mobility of his mouth, the freshness of his high colour, and the liquidity of his sleepy-lidded eyes. His black hair, she noticed now, he wore rather long. It curled (without encouragement, she supposed) en Cherubin . The blue coat fitted his broad shoulders well, if not perfectly, and he was so tall as quite to tower over her when he had finished bowing. His was not, all in all, a style of handsomeness that had ever interested Anne (as she noted silently); but she had to confess it was impressive.
Now Mr. Highet gave his slow smile and introduced his mother, who had also risen when the ladies came in. Mrs. Highet was discovered to be an immensely gawky person, tall, large-boned, almost hulking. It was difficult to imagine how a woman could have gone through so much of her life—Miss Guilfoyle judged her to be above sixty years of age—yet acquired so little of gracefulness; but there she was. The strong features she had passed on to her son still survived in her wrinkled face but, as so often happens with women, what suited and enhanced him made her plain. Anne thought she caught a shrewd glimmer in the mother’s eye which was not to be found in the son’s. The ladies shook hands. Anne was surprised to notice her own hand was damp. Her mind began to tick. Might a cold make one’s hands damp? She could hardly be worriedabout meeting an elderly country widow, she reflected. But then why—
Her thoughts were turned from this confusing channel by the intrusion of Mrs. Insel’s voice. Maria was thanking the Highets for accepting the invitation to dine, describing to the old lady all the various, generous feats her son had performed the night before, expressing her delight in knowing them…Anne listened with a guilty apprehension that she herself ought to have been saying
If you do not mean to return to Londonbefore next week, pray allow me to come to you. I must see you at once. I have a thousand things to say. Be merciful and tell me I may come.
E NSLEY
Anne rang her bell, opened the ebony lap-desk, wrote “Come,” on a clean sheet, folded, directed, and sealed it. Susannah arrived to collect it a moment later. Then Anne summoned Lizzie to help her bathe and dress for dinner.
Curiously, Miss Guilfoyle found herself almost looking forward to her guests from Fevermere. When Maria (neatly and soberly dressed as usual) went in to tell her they had arrived, she was delighted to hear Anne actually singing, and to see her robed in a delicate gown of celestial blue, with a bandeau to match.
“Enter, enter, my dear,” trilled Anne, looking over her shoulder while Lizzie put a finishing touch to her golden curls. “Quite rested now, I hope? My reliance is all on you, you know, to make this evening ‘go.’ Not but what,” she added mischievously, “I am sure Mrs. Highet is a brilliant conversationalist. Like her son.”
“You seem happier,” observed Mrs. Insel, wisely letting this slur pass without comment.
“Who would not be happy, who has one hundred Shropshire cows to call her own?” Anne hopped up from her chair, sneezed, provisioned her reticule with a second handkerchief, and tucked her arm under Maria’s. “Oh, Ensley will come to see us soon,” she remarked carelessly, as they strolled to the stairs. “I have invited Celia and Charles as well. Is there any other person you would like to have? Some one hardy, with a sense of comedy?”
A few more light observations such as these and they were in the snugly fitted Green Parlour, saying good eveningto their guests. Henry Highet, quite correctly attired now in a blue coat, a white waistcoat, and black pantaloons, stood and bowed rather deeply. His cravat puzzled Anne a little—it appeared to have started life as a Noeud Gordien , yet ended with more than a hint of the Bergami twisted into it—but even with her disposition to find fault in him, she could not help but be favourably struck by the regularity of his strong features, the mobility of his mouth, the freshness of his high colour, and the liquidity of his sleepy-lidded eyes. His black hair, she noticed now, he wore rather long. It curled (without encouragement, she supposed) en Cherubin . The blue coat fitted his broad shoulders well, if not perfectly, and he was so tall as quite to tower over her when he had finished bowing. His was not, all in all, a style of handsomeness that had ever interested Anne (as she noted silently); but she had to confess it was impressive.
Now Mr. Highet gave his slow smile and introduced his mother, who had also risen when the ladies came in. Mrs. Highet was discovered to be an immensely gawky person, tall, large-boned, almost hulking. It was difficult to imagine how a woman could have gone through so much of her life—Miss Guilfoyle judged her to be above sixty years of age—yet acquired so little of gracefulness; but there she was. The strong features she had passed on to her son still survived in her wrinkled face but, as so often happens with women, what suited and enhanced him made her plain. Anne thought she caught a shrewd glimmer in the mother’s eye which was not to be found in the son’s. The ladies shook hands. Anne was surprised to notice her own hand was damp. Her mind began to tick. Might a cold make one’s hands damp? She could hardly be worriedabout meeting an elderly country widow, she reflected. But then why—
Her thoughts were turned from this confusing channel by the intrusion of Mrs. Insel’s voice. Maria was thanking the Highets for accepting the invitation to dine, describing to the old lady all the various, generous feats her son had performed the night before, expressing her delight in knowing them…Anne listened with a guilty apprehension that she herself ought to have been saying
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