"And I'll help finish the tarts," said Grace, cheerfully.
"I don't know about that," said her father. "'Tisn't quite so much in
your line as it is in your mother-law's and mine."
"Of course I couldn't let you, Grace!" said Giles, with some distress.
"I'll do it, of course," said Mrs. Melbury, taking off her silk train,
hanging it up to a nail, carefully rolling back her sleeves, pinning
them to her shoulders, and stripping Giles of his apron for her own use.
So Grace pottered idly about, while her father and his wife helped on
the preparations. A kindly pity of his household management, which
Winterborne saw in her eyes whenever he caught them, depressed him much
more than her contempt would have done.
Creedle met Giles at the pump after a while, when each of the others
was absorbed in the difficulties of a cuisine based on utensils,
cupboards, and provisions that were strange to them. He groaned to the
young man in a whisper, "This is a bruckle het, maister, I'm much
afeared! Who'd ha' thought they'd ha' come so soon?"
The bitter placidity of Winterborne's look adumbrated the misgivings he
did not care to express. "Have you got the celery ready?" he asked,
quickly.
"Now that's a thing I never could mind; no, not if you'd paid me in
silver and gold. And I don't care who the man is, I says that a stick
of celery that isn't scrubbed with the scrubbing-brush is not clean."
"Very well, very well! I'll attend to it. You go and get 'em
comfortable in-doors."
He hastened to the garden, and soon returned, tossing the stalks to
Creedle, who was still in a tragic mood. "If ye'd ha' married, d'ye
see, maister," he said, "this caddle couldn't have happened to us."
Everything being at last under way, the oven set, and all done that
could insure the supper turning up ready at some time or other, Giles
and his friends entered the parlor, where the Melburys again dropped
into position as guests, though the room was not nearly so warm and
cheerful as the blazing bakehouse. Others now arrived, among them
Farmer Bawtree and the hollow-turner, and tea went off very well.
Grace's disposition to make the best of everything, and to wink at
deficiencies in Winterborne's menage, was so uniform and persistent
that he suspected her of seeing even more deficiencies than he was
aware of. That suppressed sympathy which had showed in her face ever
since her arrival told him as much too plainly.