Fancy Mr. Somerled, in the midst of his worry, remembering that I might want to give money to Mrs. West's servants! He doesn't seem the sort of man who would think of little things like that, but I begin to see already that it isn't easy to guess what he is like really, unless he chooses to let one do so. As we were on the way to the house, he said to me in a low tone, "Here's an installment of what I owe you for your brooch," and quickly he slipped a lot of gold and silver into my hand, making my fingers shut round the coins.
"But you haven't got the brooch yet," I whispered back.
"I'll trust you," he said, in an absent-minded way, as already his thoughts had rushed off to something else. And no wonder!
I gave a ten-shilling piece to the maid, with a grand air which must have impressed her, because she treated me almost respectfully after that, and secretly smuggled down my ugly bundle to the front gate, where, in a few minutes more, Mr. Somerled's big car came to fetch us away. Some one must have been sent to fetch it, and there were a few crumbs on the chauffeur's coat, which made me fancy he'd been called away in the midst of his luncheon, poor man. He must have been surprised, but he had that ineffable marble-statue look which I've noticed on the faces of grand coachmen driving high-nosed old ladies in glittering carriages through the streets of Carlisle. Heppie says that the true test of a well-trained servant is to show no emotion in any circumstances whatever; so I suppose this big chauffeur, whose name is Vedder, must be very well trained indeed. He is a strange looking man, but very smart, and, being a Cockney, carefully puts all his "h's" in the wrong place. If he forgets to do this, he goes back and pronounces the word over again. He travelled to America from London to be Mr. Somerled's coachman years ago, and then he learned how to drive a motor-car and be a mechanic, because he couldn't bear to have his master tearing over the earth with any one else. Mr. Somerled told me all this, coming from the railway station, when he was bringing me to Moorhill Farm.
Mr. Norman saw us off, and was very cast down as Mr. Somerled's luggage was put on the car, but he was so loyal to his sister, that he would not say much except, "I'm sorry!" over and over again.