Tony spoke to the vet's wife and Mr. Partridge from the shop; then he was joined by the vicar.
``Lady Brenda is not ill I hope?''
``No, nothing serious.'' This was the invariable formula when he appeared at church without her. ``A most interesting sermon vicar.''
``My dear boy, I'm delighted to hear you say so. It is one of my favourites. But have you never heard it before?''
``No, I assure you.''
``I haven't used it here lately. When I am asked to supply elsewhere it is the one I invariably choose. Let me see now, I always make a note of the times I use it.'' The old clergyman opened the manuscript book he was carrying. It had a limp black cover and the pages were yellow with age. ``Ah yes, here we are. I preached it first in Jelalabad when the Coldstream Guards were there; then I used it in the Red Sea coming home from my fourth leave; then at Sidmouth ... Mentone ... Winchester ... to the Girl Guides at their summer rally in 1921 ... the Church Stage Guild at Leicester ... twice at Bournemouth during the winter of 1926 when poor Ada was so ill ... No, I don't seem to have used it here since 1911 when you would have been too young to enjoy it. ...''
The vicar's sister had engaged John in conversation. He was telling her the story of Peppermint ``... he'd have been all right, Ben says, if he had been able to cat the rum up, but mules can't cat, neither can horses ...''
Nanny grasped him firmly and hurried him towards home. ``How many times have I told you not to go repeating whatever Ben Hacket tells you? Miss Tendril didn't want to heart about Peppermint. And don't ever use that rude word `cat' again.''
``It only means to be sick.''
``Well Miss Tendril isn't interested in being sick ...'' As the gathering between porch and lych gate began to disperse, Tony set off towards the gardens. There was a good choice of button-hole in the hot houses; he picked lemon carnations with crinkled, crimson edges for himself and Beaver and a camellia for his wife.
Shafts of November sunshine streamed down from lancet and oriel, tinctured in green and gold, gales and azure by the emblazoned coats, broken by the leaded devices into countless points and patches of coloured light. Brenda descended the great staircase step by step through alternations of dusk and rainbow. Both hands were occupied, holding to her breast a bag, a small hat, a half finished panel of petit-point embroidery and a vast disordered sheaf of Sunday newspapers, above which only her eyes and forehead appeared as though over a yashmak. Beaver emerged from the shadows below and stood at the foot of the stairs looking up at her.
``I say can't I carry something?''
``No, thanks, I've got everything safe. How did you sleep?''
``Beautifully.''
``I bet you didn't.''
``Well I'm not a very good sleeper.''
``Next time you come you shall have a different room. But I daresay you won't ever come again. People so seldom do. It is very sad because it's such fun for us having them and we never make any new friends living down here.''
``Tony's gone to church.''
``Yes, he likes that. He'll be back soon. Let's go out for a minute or two, it looks lovely.''
When Tony came back they mere sitting in the library. Beaver was telling Brenda's fortune with cards. ``... Now cut to me again,'' he was saying, ``and I'll see if it's any clearer. ... Oh yes ... there is going to be a sudden death which. will cause you great pleasure and profit. In fact you are going to kill someone. I can't tell if it's a man or a woman ... yes, a woman ... then you are going to go on a long journey across the sea, marry six dark men and have eleven children, grow a beard and die.''
``Beast. And all this time I've been thinking it was serious. Hullo, Tony, jolly church?''
``Most enjoyable; how about some sherry?''
When they were alone together, just before luncheon, he said. ``Darling, you're being heroic with Beaver.''
``Oh, I quite enjoy coping--in fact I'm bitching him rather.''
``So I saw. Well I'll look after him this afternoon and he's going this evening.''
``Is he, I'll be quite sorry. You know that's a difference between us, that when someone's awful you just run away and hide, while I actually enjoy it--making up to them and showing off to myself how well I can do it. Besides Beaver isn't so bad. He's quite like us in some ways.''
``He's not like me,'' said Tony.
After luncheon Tony said, ``Well if it would really amuse you, we might go over the house. I know it isn't fashionable to like this sort of architecture now--my Aunt Frances says it is an authentic Pecksniff--but I think it's good of its kind.''
It took them two hours. Beaver was well practised in the art of being shown over houses; he had been brought up to it in fact, ever since he had begun to accompany his mother, whose hobby it had always been, and later, with changing circumstances, the profession. He made apt and appreciative comments and greatly enhanced the pleasure Tony always took in exposing his treasures.
It was a huge building conceived in the late generation of the Gothic revival, when the movement had lost its fantasy and become structurally logical and stodgy. They saw it alclass="underline" the shuttered drawing room, like a school speech-hall, the cloistral passages, the dark inner courtyard, the chapel where, until Tony's succession, family prayers had been daily read to the assembled household, the plate room and estate office, the bedrooms and attics, the watertank concealed among the battlements; they climbed the spiral staircase into the works of the clock and waited to see it strike half past three. Thence they descended with ringing ears to the collections--enamel, ivories, seals, snuff boxes, china, ormolu, cloisonnй; they paused before each picture in the oak gallery and discussed its associations; they took out the more remarkable folios in the library and examined prints of the original buildings, manuscript account books of the old abbey, travel journals of Tony's ancestors. At intervals Beaver would say, ``The So-and-sos have got one rather like that at Such-and-such a place,'' and Tony would say, ``Yes, I've seen it but I think mine is the earlier.'' Eventually they came back to the smoking room and Tony left Beaver to Brenda. She was stitching away at the petit-point, hunched in an armchair. ``Well,'' she asked, without looking up from her needlework, ``what did you think of it?''
``Magnificent.''
``You don't have to say that to me, you know.''
``Well, a lot of the things are very fine.''
``Yes, the things are all right I suppose.''
``But don't you like the house?''
``Me? I detest it ... at least I don't mean that really, but I do wish sometimes that it wasn't all, every bit of it, so appallingly ugly. Only I'd die rather than say that to Tony. We could never live anywhere else, of course. He's crazy about the place ... It's funny. None of us minded very much when my brother Reggie sold our house--and that was built by Vanburgh, you know ... I suppose we're lucky to be able to afford to keep it up at all. Do you know how much it costs just to live here? We should be quite rich if it wasn't for that. As it is we support fifteen servants indoors, besides gardeners and carpenters and a night watchman and all the people at the farm and odd little men constantly popping in to wind the clocks and cook the accounts and clean the moat, while Tony and I have to fuss about whether it's cheaper to take a car up to London for the night or buy an excursion ticket ... I shouldn't feel so badly about it if it were a really lively house--like my home for instance ... but of course Tony's been brought up here and sees it all differently ...''
Tony joined them for tea. ``I don't want to seem inhospitable, but if you're going to catch that train, you ought really to be getting ready.''