Lady Cumnor had so far recovered from the violence of her attack, and
from the consequent operation, as to be able to be removed to the
Towers for change of air; and accordingly she was brought thither
by her whole family with all the pomp and state becoming an invalid
peeress. There was every probability that "the family" would make a
longer residence at the Towers than they had done for several years,
during which time they had been wanderers hither and thither in
search of health. Somehow, after all, it was very pleasant and
restful to come to the old ancestral home, and every member of the
family enjoyed it in his or her own way; Lord Cumnor most especially.
His talent for gossip and his love of small details had scarcely
fair play in the hurry of a London life, and were much nipped in the
bud during his Continental sojournings, as he neither spoke French
fluently, nor understood it easily when spoken. Besides, he was a
great proprietor, and liked to know how his land was going on; how
his tenants were faring in the world. He liked to hear of their
births, marriages, and deaths, and had something of a royal memory
for faces. In short, if ever a peer was an old woman, Lord Cumnor
was that peer; but he was a very good-natured old woman, and rode
about on his stout old cob with his pockets full of halfpence for
the children, and little packets of snuff for the old people. Like
an old woman, too, he enjoyed an afternoon cup of tea in his wife's
sitting-room, and over his gossip's beverage he would repeat all that
he had learnt in the day. Lady Cumnor was exactly in that state of
convalescence when such talk as her lord's was extremely agreeable
to her, but she had contemned the habit of listening to gossip so
severely all her life, that she thought it due to consistency to
listen first, and enter a supercilious protest afterwards. It had,
however, come to be a family habit for all of them to gather together
in Lady Cumnor's room on their return from their daily walks, or
drives, or rides, and over the fire, sipping their tea at her early
meal, to recount the morsels of local intelligence they had heard
during the morning. When they had said all that they had to say (and
not before), they had always to listen to a short homily from her
ladyship on the well-worn texts,--the poorness of conversation about
persons,--the probable falsehood of all they had heard, and the
degradation of character implied by its repetition. On one of these
November evenings they were all assembled in Lady Cumnor's room.
She was lying,--all draped in white, and covered up with an Indian
shawl,--on a sofa near the fire. Lady Harriet sate on the rug, close
before the wood-fire, picking up fallen embers with a pair of dwarf
tongs, and piling them on the red and odorous heap in the centre of
the hearth. Lady Cuxhaven, notable from girlhood, was using the blind
man's holiday to net fruit-nets for the walls at Cuxhaven Park. Lady
Cumnor's woman was trying to see to pour out tea by the light of one
small wax-candle in the background (for Lady Cumnor could not bear
much light to her weakened eyes); and the great leafless branches of
the trees outside the house kept sweeping against the windows, moved
by the wind that was gathering.