When they left the mill she asked Annie to come home to tea with her,
saying, as if from a perception of her dislike for the young fellow, that
Jack was going to Boston.
They had a long evening together, after Mr. Wilmington took himself off
after tea to his study, as he called it, and remained shut in there. Annie
was uneasily aware of him from time to time, but Lyra had apparently no
more disturbance from his absence than from his presence, which she had
managed with a frank acceptance of everything it suggested. She talked
freely of her marriage, not as if it were like others, but for what it was.
She showed Annie over the house, and she ended with a display of the rich
dresses which he was always buying her, and which she never wore, because
she never went anywhere.
Annie said she thought she would at least like to go to the seaside
somewhere during the summer, but "No," Lyra said; "it would be too much
trouble, and you know, Annie, I always did hate _trouble_. I don't
want the care of a cottage, and I don't want to be poked into a hotel, so
I stay in Hatboro'." She said that she had always been a village girl, and
did not miss the interests of a larger life, as she caught glimpses of them
in South Hatboro', or want the bother of them. She said she studied music a
little, and confessed that she read a good deal, novels mostly, though the
library was handsomely equipped with well-bound general literature.
At moments it all seemed no harm; at others, the luxury in which this life
was so contentedly sunk oppressed Annie like a thick, close air. Yet she
knew that Lyra was kind to many of the poor people about her, and did
a great deal of good, as the phrase is, with the superfluity which it
involved no self-denial to give from. But Mr. Peck had given her a point
of view, and though she believed she did not agree with him, she could not
escape from it.
Lyra told her much about people in Hatboro', and characterised them all so
humorously, and she seemed so good-natured, in her ridicule which spared
nobody.
She shrieked with laughter about Mr. Brandreth when Annie told her of his
mother's doubt whether his love-making with Miss Northwick ought to be
tacit or explicit in the kissing and embracing between Romeo and Juliet.
"Don't you think, Annie, we'd better refer him to Mr. Peck? I _should_
like to hear Mr. Brandreth and Mr. Peek discussing it. I must tell Jack
about it. I might get him to ask Sue Northwick, and get her ideas."