"That was very good of you," said Celia, warmly.
"Oh, well, whenever I see Susie, I think of my own girlhood and its
temptations, and say to myself, like the man whose name I can't
remember, 'but for the grace of God, there goes Constance Gridborough.'
Here we are!"
They had covered the long drive, and reached a house almost as grand as
the hall. As at the Hall, there was a superfluity of servants, and one
would have thought the little Exmoor was an elephant by the way in which
a couple of grooms sprang forward to his diminutive head. The old lady,
leaning on a stick and the arm of a footman, led Celia into the house.
While lunch was in progress the old lady talked in the same friendly and
familiar way, as if she had known Celia for years.
"I suppose you're a college girl? Wiggins, help Miss Grant to some
chicken. You must make a good lunch, for I am sure you must be hungry.
Father and mother living?"
"No," said Celia, quietly.
"That's sad," commented her ladyship. "And so you're thrown on your own
resources. Well, they look as if they'd stand by you. I'm glad you've
come to the Hall, now I find that you're not a blue-stocking and don't
wear spectacles. Yes, I'm glad, for I've rather taken a fancy to you. I
like healthy young things, and you look as if you were a part of the
morning. Sounds like poetry out of one of your wretched books."
"And now," said Celia, after a while, "I must be going, Lady
Gridborough. I have been away quite a long time."
"You must come again," said the old lady.
"Do you think," said Celia, hesitatingly, as she slipped on her jacket,
"that the young woman, Susie, as you call her, would let me go to see
her sometimes? I should like to."
"Yes, my dear," said her ladyship, with a nod which showed she was
pleased. "Go and see her, by all means. You're a girl of about her own
age, and she may open her heart to you. A sad business--a sad business,"
she murmured. "And what makes it more sad for me is that I knew the
young man."
She paused and appeared as if she were hesitating, then she said: "Look here, my dear, it's scarcely a story for your ears; but I've no
doubt it will come to them sooner or later, and so I may as well tell
you. This place, where I have another house, where Susie Morton lived is
called Bridgeford. She was in service with me, and a young gentleman who
lodged in the village--he was studying engineering--made her
acquaintance. I suspected nothing. Indeed, he was supposed to be in love
with the daughter of the rector, Miriam Ainsley. I thought it was going
to be a match, but they were both poor, and the girl suddenly married a
young nobleman, a man I disliked very much, a wastrel and a
ne'er-do-well. But there were stories about this other young man who was
supposed to be in love with her, and perhaps they came to her ears, and
drove her to the other man, though it was a case of out of the
frying-pan into the fire. The young engineer left the place suddenly,
and disappeared, and everybody attributed poor Susie's downfall to him."