She simply comes into the story for a moment, and then goes
out of it; but her part is an important one.
She is like the watchman who announces the coming of Agamemnon;
Clytemnestra sharpens her ax at the news, and the fatal bath is prepared
for the _anax andron_. The tragedy moves on; the house of Atreus falls,
and the wrath of implacable gods bellows across the heavens; meanwhile,
the watchman has gone home to have tea with his family, and we hear no
more of him. There are any number of morals to this.
Mrs. Ashmeade comes into the story on the day Patricia went to
Lichfield, and some weeks after John Charteris's arrival at Matocton.
Since then, affairs had progressed in a not unnatural sequence. Mr.
Charteris, as we have seen, attributed it to Fate; and, assuredly, there
must be a special providence of some kind that presides over country
houses--a freakish and whimsical providence, which hugely rejoices in
confounding one's sense of time and direction.
Through its agency, people unaccountably lose their way in the simplest
walks, and turn up late and embarrassed for luncheon.
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