Thursday was the day the house received, which Nell had known since the third morning and had never seen tested, because in ten days nobody had come.
Somebody came on the tenth. Nell was in the hall at half past eleven with the ledger under her arm when the bell went and Perrin opened the door to a woman in a wet mantle with a card in her glove, and Sibyl was down the stairs and across the flags before the card had left the glove.
“Mrs Oldroyd. How very good of you. Her grace is not receiving today.”
“I did write.”
“You did, and she was sorry, and she is not strong in the autumn,” Sibyl said. “I shall tell her you came. Perrin, Mrs Oldroyd’s carriage.”
It took ninety seconds. The door shut. The hall got its rain-light back, and Sibyl went up the stairs with the card,…
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