On Good
Friday they had driven laboriously in a waggonette to Royston, where
they had visited the hermit's cave in company with other grandees of
their village, and held a stately picnic on the downs. They had
returned, the gentlemen of the party slightly flushed with brandy and
water from the various hostelries on the home journey, and the ladies
severe, with watercress on their laps. Accordingly, on the Saturday,
Mrs. Nugent had thought it better to stay indoors and dispatch her
husband to the scene of the first cricket match of the season, a
couple of miles away.
At about five o'clock she made herself a cup of tea, and did not wake
up from the sleep which followed until the evening was closing in. She
awoke with a start, remembering that she had intended to give a good
look between the spare bedroom that had been her daughter's, and
possibly make a change or two of the furniture. There was a mahogany
wardrobe ... and so forth.
She had not entered this room very often since the death. It had come
to resemble to her mind a sort of melancholy sanctuary, symbolical of
glories that might have been; for she and her husband were full of the
glorious day that had begun to dawn when Laurie, very constrained
though very ardent, had called upon them in state to disclose his
intentions.
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