"You are not a bother," Rafferty said. He meant it straightforwardly. It came out with more weight than he intended, the way things sometimes do when you mean them too simply. And then, because he was a man who filled silences with the nearest available practical matter, he said, "You have been here often enough coming and going, that the household has begun to expect it."
It was not a criticism. It was not an invitation, either. It was simply what was true, said without thought for how it would land. He saw the moment he said it that it had landed wrong.
Adelaide looked at him for a half-second, her eyes changing in that way they did, going from open to careful, and then she said, quite evenly, "I understand. I will take Hegel back another way in future." She held out the lead. "Good morning, Your Grace."
"Miss Thornton—"
"Thank you for allowing him off the grounds," she said pleasantly, which was worse than if she had been cold.
She handed him the lead, turned around, and walked back up the lane with the particular composure of someone who is not going to give you the satisfaction of seeing what you've done. Rafferty stood at the east gate with the lead in his hand and watched her go. Hegel sat down heavily and gave him a look.
"I know," Rafferty said.
Hegel gave him the look for a little while longer.
"I know," Rafferty said again.
November came in gray and cold, which it always did, and the Somerfield grounds went bare in stages—the lime trees first, then the oaks, then the kitchen garden stripped back to the root vegetables and the late brassicas that stood in rows like a diminished army. The days shortened; Rafferty worked. He was very productive in November. He completed the drainage project on the lower meadow, which involved two weeks of work with the estate's laborers and a solution that was, he acknowledged to Oldwin, nearly identical to what Adelaide had suggested based on her father's drainage records. He reviewed the winter accounts. He responded to four letters from his mother, which was four more than usual, all of them about the Ashby situation, which was over. He attended to all the things that required attending to.
He did not attend to the east gate. He went around it.
Hegel sat at the east gate every morning at approximately ten o'clock. He sat there for twenty minutes and then he came inside. He did not make any sound about it. He simply sat there as a matter of principle and then came in, went to his place by the library fire, and slept with the long composure of a creature who has stated his position and requires no further discussion.