Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/491

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CONDUCTED BY ""
 * No. 21..
 * SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1869.
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was a powerful man, who had great influence in most things, but he could not get his letters delivered at Westhope before eleven o'clock. Not that he had not tried. He had, as he expressed it, "put on all kinds of screws," but he could not manage it, and if he had had to wait for the regular delivery by the walking postman it would have been much later. A groom, however, always attended at the nearest post-town on the arrival of the London mail, and rode over with the Westhope letter-bag, which was unlocked by the butler, and its contents distributed. There was never much curiosity or anxiety about letters exhibited at Westhope, at least amongst the members of the family. Of course young visitors had occasional faint flutterings of interest about a certain portion of their correspondence, but they were too true to the teachings of their order to allow any vulgar signs of excitement to be visible; while the letters received by Lord and Lady Hetherington were too uniformly dull to arouse the smallest spark of emotion in the breast of any one, no matter how excitably inclined. Lady Caroline Mansergh's correspondence was of a different kind. A clever woman herself, she was in the habit of writing to, and receiving letters from, clever people, but they simply contained gossip and small-talk, which might be read at any time, and which, while pleasant and amusing when taken in due course, did not invite any special eagerness for its acquisition. In a general way, Lady Caroline was quite content to have her letters brought to her in whatever room she might happen to be, but on this Wednesday morning she was seated at the window as the post-bag-bearing groom came riding up the avenue, and a few minutes afterwards she stepped out into the hall, where the butler had the letters out on the table before him, and ran her eye over them.

There it was! that plain, square letter, addressed to him in the firm, plain hand, and bearing the Brocksopp postmark! There it was, his life-verdict, for good or ill. Nothing to be judged of it by its appearance—firm, square, and practical; no ridiculous tremors occasioned by hope or fear could have had anything to do with such a sensible-looking document. What was in it? She would have given anything to know! Not that she seemed to be in the least anxious about it. She had asked where he was, and had been told that he was at work in the library. He was so confident of what Miss Ashurst's answer would be, that he awaited its arrival in the most perfect calmness. Would he be undeceived? Lady Caroline thought not just yet. If the young woman were, as Lady Caroline suspected, playing a double game, she would probably find some excuse for not at once linking her lot with Walter Joyce's—her mother's ill-health seemed expressly suited for the purpose—and would suggest that he should go out first to Berlin, and see how he liked his new employment, returning later in the year, when, if all things seemed convenient, they could be married. She was evidently a clever girl, and these were probably the tactics she would pursue. Lady Caroline wondered whether she was right in her conjecture, and there was the letter, a glance at which would solve her doubts, lying before her! What a ridiculous