When the autumn set in, Alice was in Scotland learning to shoot; and
Lydia was at Wiltstoken, preparing her father's letters and memoirs
for publication. She did not write at the castle, all the rooms in
which were either domed, vaulted, gilded, galleried, three-sided,
six-sided, anything except four-sided, or in some way suggestive of
the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," and out of keeping with the
associations of her father's life. In her search for a congruous
room to work in, the idea of causing a pavilion to be erected in the
elm vista occurred to her. But she had no mind to be disturbed just
then by the presence of a troop of stone-masons, slaters, and
carpenters, nor any time to lose in waiting for the end of their
operations.
So she had the Warren Lodge cleansed and lime washed,
and the kitchen transformed into a comfortable library, where, as
she sat facing the door at her writing-table, in the centre of the
room, she could see the elm vista through one window and through
another a tract of wood and meadow land intersected by the high-road
and by a canal, beyond which the prospect ended in a distant green
slope used as a sheep run. The other apartments were used by a
couple of maid-servants, who kept the place well swept and dusted,
prepared Miss Carew's lunch, answered her bell, and went on her
errands to the castle; and, failing any of these employments, sat
outside in the sun, reading novels. When Lydia had worked in this
retreat daily for two months her mind became so full of the old life
with her father that the interruptions of the servants often
recalled her to the present with a shock. On the twelfth of August
she was bewildered for a moment when Phoebe, one of the maids,
entered and said, "If you please, miss, Bashville is wishful to know can he speak to
you a moment?"
Permission being given, Bashville entered. Since his wrestle with
Cashel he had never quite recovered his former imperturbability. His
manner and speech were as smooth and respectful as before, but his
countenance was no longer steadfast; he was on bad terms with the
butler because he had been reproved by him for blushing. On this
occasion he came to beg leave to absent himself during the
afternoon. He seldom asked favors of this kind, and was of course
never refused.
"The road is quite thronged to-day," she observed, as he thanked
her. "Do you know why?"
"No, madam," said Bashville, and blushed.
"People begin to shoot on the twelfth," she said; "but I suppose it
cannot have anything to do with that. Is there a race, or a fair, or
any such thing in the neighborhood?"