Perhaps she maligned him, perhaps the jar had stood there for three years - since Harry's last visit to the estate, when she had not accompanied him. And yet Harry did not smoke strong tobacco. She wandered to the shelves where great leather-bound volumes stood in rows, books that nobody ever read, and she made a pretext of taking a volume down and glancing through it, while the servant continued to polish the candlesticks.
"Are you a reader, William?" she said suddenly.
"You have gathered I am not, my lady," he said, "because the books in those shelves are coated with dust. No, I have never handled them. But I will do so tomorrow. I will take them all down and dust them well."
"You have no hobby then?"
"Moths interest me, my lady, I have quite a fine collection in my room. The woods round Navron are excellent for moths." And with that she left him. She wandered out into the garden, hearing the children's voice. Really the little man was an oddity, she could not fathom him, and surely if it was he who read Ronsard in the night watches he would have browsed amongst these books, at least once or twice, out of curiosity.
The children called her with delight, Henrietta dancing like a fairy, and James, still very unsteady, rolling after her like a drunken sailor, and the three wandered into the woods to gather bluebells. The flowers were just appearing in the young green, short and stubby and blue; next week or the week after there would be a carpet for them to lie upon.
So the first day passed, and the next, and the one after, Dona exulting in her new-found freedom. Now she could live without a plan, without a decision, taking the days as they came, rising at noon if she had the mind or at six in the morning, it did not matter, eating when hunger came upon her, sleeping when she wished, in the day or at midnight. Her mood was one of lovely laziness. She would lie out in her garden hour after hour, her hands behind her head, watching the butterflies as they frolicked in the sun, and chased one another, and had their moment; listening to the birds intent upon domestic life among the branches, so busy, so ardent, like newly-wed couples proud of their first home polished as a pin. And all the while the bright sun shone down upon her, and little mackerel clouds scurried across the sky, and away in the valley beneath the woods there was the river, the river which she had not found yet, because she was too idle, because there was so much time; one day, quite soon, she would go down to it, early one morning, and stand in the shallows barefoot and let the water splash upon her, and smell the muddied river smell, pungent and sweet.
The days were glorious and long, the children were browning like little gypsies. Even Henrietta was losing her town ways, and consented to run with naked feet upon the grass, to play leap-frog, to roll on the ground as James did, like a puppy.
They were playing thus one afternoon, tumbling and falling upon Dona, who lay on her back with her gown anyhow and her ringlets in mad disorder (the disapproving Prue safely within the house), and as they pelted one another with daisy heads and honeysuckle, there came to Dona, warm and drugged, and foolish with the sun, the ominous sound of hoof-beats in the avenue, and presently a clatter into the courtyard before the house, and the jangle of the great bell. And horror upon horror there was William advancing towards her on the grass, and a stranger following him, a large, burly creature with a florid face and bulbous eyes, his wig over-curled, slashing at his boots as he walked with a gold-knobbed cane.
"Lord Godolphin to see you, my lady," said William gravely, no whit abashed at her appearance, so tattered, so disgraceful. She rose to her feet at once, pulling at her gown, patting her ringlets: how infuriating, how embarrassing, and what a damnable intrusion. The creature stared at her in dismay, no wonder; well he must endure it, perhaps he would go the sooner. And then she curtsied, and said: "I am enchanted to see you," at which he bowed solemnly and made no reply. She led the way into the house, catching sight of herself in the mirror on the wall; there was honeysuckle behind her ear, she left it there obstinately, she did not care. And then they sat down on stiff chairs and stared at each other, while Lord Godolphin nibbled his gold-knobbed cane.
"I had heard you were in residence," he said at length, "and I considered it a duty, or rather a pleasure, to pay my respects as soon as possible. It is many years since you and your husband condescended to visit Navron. In fact, I may say you have become strangers. I knew Harry very well when he lived here as a boy."
"Indeed," said Dona, fascinated suddenly by the growth at the side of his nose; she had only just noticed it. How unfortunate, poor man. And then she glanced away quickly, for fear he should realise she was looking, and "Yes," he continued, "I may say that I used to count Harry as among my dearest friends. But since his marriage we have seen so little of him, he spends his time in Town."
A reproach to me, she thought, very natural of course, and "I am sorry to say Harry is not with me," she told him, "I am here alone, with my children."
"That is a great pity," he said, and she answered nothing, for what was there to say?
"My wife would have accompanied me," he continued, "but she does not enjoy very good health at the moment. In short…" He paused, uncertain how to continue, and Dona smiled. "I quite understand, I have two small children myself," at which he looked a little abashed, and bowed. "We hope for an heir," he said, and "Of course," said Dona, fascinated once again by that growth at the end of his nose. How distressing for his wife, how did she endure it? But Godolphin was talking again, saying something about his wife being very glad to welcome her at any time, there were so few neighbours, and so on, and so forth. How boring and heavy he was, thought Dona, was there no middle course between this solemn pompous pretentiousness and the vicious frivolity of Rockingham? Would Harry become like this if he lived at Navron? A great turnip, with eyes that said nothing, and a mouth like a slit in a suet pudding. "I was hoping," Godolphin was saying, "that Harry would have given some assistance in the county. You have heard of our troubles, no doubt."
"I have heard nothing," said Dona.
"No? Perhaps you are too remote here for the news to reach you, though the talk and chatter has been rife for miles around. We have been vexed and harried, almost at our wits' end, in fact, with acts of piracy. Goods of considerable value have been lost at Penryn, and along the coast. An estate of my neighbour's was sacked a week or so ago."
"How distressing," said Dona.
"It is more than distressing, it is a positive outrage!" declared Godolphin, his face reddening, his eyes more bulbous than ever, "and no one knows how to deal with it. I have sent up complaints to London, and get no reply. They send us a handful of soldiers from the garrison at Bristol, but they are worse than useless. No, I can see that I and the rest of the landowners in the county will have to band ourselves together and deal with the menace. It is very unfortunate that Harry is not at Navron, very unfortunate."
"Can I do anything to help you?" asked Dona, digging her nails into her hand to stop herself from smiling: he looked so provoked, so highly indignant, almost as though he blamed her for the acts of piracy.
"My dear lady," he said, "there is nothing you can do, except ask your husband to come down, and rally round his friends, so that we can fight this damned Frenchman."
"Frenchman?" she said.
"Why, yes, that's the plague of it," he said, almost shouting in his anger; "the fellow's a low sneaking foreigner, who for some reason or other seems to know our coast like the back of his hand, and slips away to the other side, to Brittany, before we can lay our hands on him. His craft is like quicksilver, none of our ships down here can catch him. He'll creep into our harbours by night, land silently like the stealthy rat he is, seize our goods, break open our stores and merchandise, and be away on the morning tide while our fellows are rubbing the sleep out of their eyes."