He called again the following week with his steward's revised plans under his arm. And the week after that, he brought her twice to evening concerts and once to a dinner at Lady Merrifield's house, where the table had been arranged by someone who did not know they were not, in fact, betrothed. He did not correct the arrangement. Neither did she.
I sat at the far end and observed, which is the particular privilege of vicars and furniture. I watched him at those evenings the way I watch a man in a sermon who has suddenly heard something he did not expect to hear: the slight stiffening, the involuntary attention. He watched her hands when she spoke. He listened to her with a completeness that most men reserve for financial reports.
When a Lord Selborne made a remark about young widows learning their place, Ashworth set down his glass with a precision that was somehow louder than a shout and said something so quietly that only those nearest heard it. Lord Selborne did not repeat the remark.
It was at the Harwich garden party six weeks on that I saw the moment clearly.
Cecily had been cornered near the rose trellises by two of the wedding ladies who were deploying the particular cruelty of women who say kind things in a tone that means the opposite. Ashworth was across the lawn. I watched him look at her, read her face from forty feet, and begin moving.
He did not hurry. That was what I remember. A hurrying man betrays calculation. He simply crossed the grass as though that corner of the garden were always where he had meant to be, offered her his arm without a word of explanation, and said to the ladies in a pleasant voice that was somehow final, "You will forgive us. Mrs. Hawthorne has promised me this walk."