A Fatal Silence, Vol. 2 (of 3) by Florence Marryat

A TRIUMPHANT RETURN.

Amongst Mrs Measures' most intimate friends was Lady Bristowe. She did not live in Deepdale, but at a big place called Tor Abbey, some miles distant, and as she was the widow of Admiral Sir Thomas Bristowe, and had a large income, the country people considered her to be a very grand lady indeed. In reality she was a very uninteresting personage. Her fat, soft, foolish face, with its triple chins, was always good-natured and smiling, but her intellect was at the lowest ebb, and she was ready to be swayed by every contrary wind of doctrine, and to believe all that was told to her. Had it not been, indeed, for the sagacity of her companion, Miss Sarah Brennan, Lady Bristowe would have been oftener taken in than she was. Miss Brennan was a sharp, keen woman, between thirty and forty years of age, with a suspicious nature, an evil tongue, and a propensity for the society of the lower classes. She was half a lady's maid and half a companion, of sufficient unimportance to be thrust in the background whenever it was convenient for her employer to do so, and yet considered good enough to sit with Lady Bristowe, and take her meals at table, whenever there was no one better to be procured. For, with all her riches, her ladyship was a lonely woman, and wanted an object in life. She had but one child -- a son, who was in the Royal Navy, and generally away at sea -- and she soon tired of her country amusements, her poultry yard and flower garden and pet spaniels, when she had no one but Miss Sarah Brennan to talk to about them. It was this reason that had made her take to driving over to see Mrs Measures much oftener than was convenient to that busy little woman. She would be just looking over the vicar's linen, perhaps -- or making a cake for Sunday, or superintending the pickling of gherkins, or the boiling of raspberry jam -- when up the vicarage drive would come rolling the open barouche of Lady Bristowe, with its grand bay horses and its pompous men-servants, and her ladyship's portly figure occupying all the front seat, while Sarah Brennan sat at the back, with a couple of Blenheim spaniels. But Mrs Measures had never had the heart to repulse her ladyship's friendship. She was too good-natured to do so, and Lady Bristowe was too good-natured for anyone to be angry with. She beamed with good-nature. She pressed her benefits on those she liked, until it became impossible to refuse them. And her fat, foolish face would shake with laughter over the silliest story or the feeblest joke, whilst her companion sat opposite, with hard, stony eyes and tightly compressed lips, the very model of a dangerous and unsympathetic woman. Naturally Mrs Measures soon confided the history of Hal Rushton's love and marriage to Lady Bristowe. She had called one day when the vicar's wife was on the point of going over to Highbridge Hall, and she had told her all about it. Not _quite_ all, perhaps, for she omitted two of the leading incidents, one being Paula Stafford's quarrel with the churchwardens, the other that Hal's father's widow was such a low and uneducated person. Mrs Measures considered herself justified in withholding these facts, since she did not see the use of repeating them, nor what business they were of anyone but the parties concerned. So Lady Bristowe was left to imagine that the pretty school teacher had relinquished her situation on purpose to marry the handsome young farmer, and she thought it a most romantic story. Indeed, she became quite enthusiastic about it, and all the more so because Paula had turned out to be the daughter of a naval officer. The Royal Navy was Lady Bristowe's ‘fetish. ' Her father and her brothers had all been sailors. She had married a sailor, and her only child was a sailor, so that to pick up anything that had belonged to the navy in Deepdale seemed like treasure-trove in her eyes. She became quite anxious for the return of the bride and bridegroom, that she might become personally acquainted with young Mrs Rushton, and bestow some of her favours upon her.