She blushed again, but this time with pleasure. “Oh, I am so glad you don’t dislike the things I’ve done! I told you I wouldn’t meddle, but I thought you might not object to it if I set some things to rights — not changing them, but making them the same again! Only Charlotte said that she scarcely recognized the house, and, although she assured me she liked it, I could see she did not, and that put me in a regular quake!”
“Charlotte’s a goose!” he said, forgetting that he had dreaded to see even a torn rug replaced. He gave her hand a squeeze, before releasing it, and getting up from the table. “Let us go to the library! Have you given that smart new curtains as well?”
“No, no, I haven’t touched it!” she said quickly. “I thought, perhaps, that, if you don’t dislike it, we might have new curtains made, but none of the colours on the pattern-cards I’ve yet had sent me are at all like what I think these old ones must have been.”
“I fancy they were a sort of mustard,” he said, frowning in an effort of memory. “Pray don’t inflict that on me again! I know I thought them very ugly when my mother first had them hung.”
This cool repudiation of his mother’s taste, which she had striven so zealously to copy, almost made her gasp. She suspected him of having said it merely to reassure her; but when they reached the library he looked at the curtains, and pulled a grimace. “Very dingy! Odd that I shouldn’t have noticed it. I suppose one grows accustomed. What shall we hang in their stead?”
Much heartened, she produced her pattern-cards. None of the materials she had thought the most suitable met with more than qualified approval, but when he saw a scrap of red brocade he instantly said: “That’s the one!”
She had expected him to choose a more sober colour, but when he took the brocade over to the corner where the K’ang-hsi bowl had been placed she understood, and applauded his choice. Then she said, knowing that it would please him: “I give you due warning, though, my lord! — you won’t relish the bill! You’ve chosen the most expensive pattern that’s been sent me.”
“Oh, dear, have I? But it’s the only one I like! What’s the figure?”
“About fifty pounds: I can’t tell precisely until I know the measurements.”
“How shocking! But more shocking, don’t you think, to dishonour my bowl with anything shoddy? We’ll have it.” He gave the pattern back to her, and sank into his favourite chair, stretching out his legs with a sigh of content, and saying: “How comfortable to be at home again! And not to be obliged to play whist, or take part in a charade. Tell me what has been happening while I was away!”
Chapter XVII
three days later Julia came to Fontley. Lord Oversley’s seat was situated north of Peterborough, and so within easy distance of Fontley. Julia rode over, accompanied by Rockhill and two of her friends: Miss Kilverley and her brother, an inarticulate and sporting young gentleman who reminded Jenny of Adam’s cousin Osbert. Julia explained that the visit was unpremeditated. “We set out to visit Croyland Abbey,” she said, “but when Mary — you do remember Mary, don’t you? — learned how near we were to Fontley nothing would do for her but to ride on to pay you a visit!”
Jenny, who remembered Miss Kilverley as one of Julia’s satellites, somewhat grimly observed this retiring damsel’s blush, and look of startled enquiry, but said, as she shook hands: “Yes, I remember you very well. How do you do?”
“Abominable to have taken you by surprise!” Julia said gaily. “But I couldn’t resist!”
“Why should you?” Jenny returned. “I’ll have a message sent down to Lynton directly: we are getting in the last of the harvest, you know, and he’s helping on one of the farms.”
“Helping?” Julia echoed.
“Yes,” said Jenny, with her small, tight smile. “Dressed up in a smock too, which I can’t say becomes him. But that’s his notion of enjoyment! I’ve this instant come back from taking him a nuncheon. Plum cake and beer iswhat the reapers get at this hour, but beer he can’t stomach: it makes him bilious. Now, do you all step this way, and partake of a nuncheon too!”
When Adam came in he found the visitors in the Prior’s Parlour, still sitting over the remains of a light repast. He greeted Julia with the ease of long friendship, but he could not keep the warmth from his eyes when they rested on her. She gave him her hand, a smile that was wistful in her own eyes, but a quizzing speech on her lips, “Your smock, Fanner Giles! Where is it? I am disappointed!”
“Ah, the farmer always puts off his smock when he has company!” he retorted. He shook hands with Rockhill. “How do you do? And — ?” A lift of the eyebrow put Jenny in mind of her duty; she performed the necessary introduction; and had the satisfaction of seeing him engage the rather shy young couple in a conversation that he soon made general. She had herself no talent for welding ill-assorted persons into one party, and since the Kilverleys were frightened of Rockhill, suspecting him of satire every time he uttered one of his languid remarks, they had been largely silent until Adam’s arrival. But in a very few minutes they were chatting happily about the day’s expedition, Miss Kilverley joining Julia in rapturous appreciation of the beauties of Croyland, and Mr Kilverley deriving entertainment from Rockhill’s disclosure that the Abbey had been founded by King Ethelbald.
Upon Miss Kilverley’s expressing the hope that she might be allowed to see a little more of Fontley, Adam replied: “Why, certainly! But you will be disappointed, I’m afraid. We don’t compare with Croyland, you know.”
“Oh — ! That lovely arch!” she protested. “And is not this room very ancient?”
“Well, it has always been called the Prior’s Parlour,” he admitted. “Part of the outer wall is thought to be original, but the house is more Tudor than mediaeval.”
“Don’t disparage it on that account!” Julia said. “I have sometimes thought that all the ages meet in it, and have indulged the fancy that one might see monks in the gallery that used to be the dortoire; a lady in a farthingale vanishing through a doorway; or a cavalier, with his lace and love-locks, going before one down a corridor.”
“Orlando Deveril, for instance?” said Adam, regarding her in tender amusement “None of my worthier forebears ever pleased you half as well as that chucklehead!”
She winced. “How can you talk so? You should be proud of him!” She turned to her friend. “You will see his portrait presently! the noblest countenance, and with such melancholy eyes — as though he knew himself to be fated! I told you: he is the one who raised a troop, and rode with it to the King’s assistance!”
“And subsequently got it cut to pieces in its first engagement,” interpolated Adam. “The kind of officer, Miss Kilverley, always to be found heroically exposed to the enemy’s fire. We suffered under just such an one last year: very gallant — and no general for the Light Bobs!”
She was uncertain whether to laugh or to be shocked; Julia said: “You are funning, but I don’t care for jokes on such a subject!”
“Well,” said Jenny, bringing the discussion to a prosaic end, “I’m glad to say I haven’t seen him, which I’m thankful for, because I shouldn’t like it if Fontley was haunted, and you may depend upon it there’s not many of the servants would remain above a sennight if they took it into their heads they might come on a monk round a corner.” She rose, saying: “If we’ve all finished, we’ll go up to the gallery, shall we?”
She nodded to Adam to escort the party, and would have followed had not Rockhill, lingering beside her, said: “Do you wish to go too? I’m persuaded you’d find it a dead bore — as I should, being perfectly well-acquainted with Fontley’s antiquities. Let us leave Lynton to his irreverences, and take a turn about the gardens!”
She was a little surprised, but perfectly willing. As they walked down the vaulted corridor to the Great Hall, she asked him if he were staying with the Oversleys at Beckenhurst.