And at that moment a carriage was driven
past, whose servants wore the green and tan liveries of the Forcuses. One
of the two ladies seated in the carriage, with a look of surprise on her
face, leant eagerly forward and bowed to the men at the gate. Mr. Boult,
taken unaware, made a dash at his hat, Gibbon, bare-headed, did not so
much as bend his neck in response to the salutation, but his face grew
leaden-white.
"Slap up turn-out! I suppose their carriages are always dashing by?" Mr.
Boult said; for the road on which the Laburnums stood was that which led
to Cashelthorpe.
He was generally at work at the back of the house, and could not say how
often they passed, Gibbon said.
"You'd rather be looking at your three-yard-square of croquet-lawn than at
Deleah Day in the Forcuses' carriage, Gibbon?"
Gibbon plucked a leaf from the hedge and put it in his mouth, but made no
reply to the facetious remark.
"What are they doing, driving their horses, and dragging out their
servants in the middle of a Sunday afternoon?"
They went sometimes, in the afternoon, to a service at the Cathedral,
Gibbon, who in spite of being habitually at the back of the house
evidently knew something of the Forcuses' movements, was able to
communicate.
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