After Raunce told him and he had expressed regret he stood there awkward so to speak. Charley took his chance.
‘And how are the salmon trout running sir?’ he asked.
‘Salmon trout? No fishin’ yet. Close season.’
‘And Master Dermot sir?’ Raunce enquired without a flicker.
‘Very fit thank you very fit. He’s in the eleven. I’ll find me own way thank you Arthur.’
‘Not a sausage, not a solitary sausage,’ Raunce muttered at his back referring to the fact that he had not been tipped.
He waited for Mrs Tancy behind the closed door, presumably so as to have nothing to do with Michael who stood outside to take over this lady’s pony and trap.
‘I’m late,’ she said when she did come. ‘I’m late aren’t I?’ she said to them both. ‘Could you?’ she asked Michael handing him the reins. ‘Oh Punch there now!’
For the cob with lifted tail was evacuating onto the gravelled drive. One hundred donkey cart loads of washed gravel from Michael’s brother’s pit had been ordered at Michael’s suggestion to freshen the rutted drive where this turned inward across the ha-ha. Gravel sold by Michael’s brother Patrick and carted by Danny his mother’s other son who had thought to stop at the seventy-ninth load the donkey being tired after it was understood that Mrs Tennant would be charged for the full hundred.
Michael ran forward to catch Punch’s droppings before these could fall on the gravel which he had raked over that very morning.
‘Asy,’ he said as though in pain, ‘asy.’
‘The dear man he should not have bothered,’ Mrs Tancy remarked in a momentary brogue.
With a pyramid steaming on his hands Michael glared about at the daffodil sprouted lawn Then he shambled off till he could scatter what he carried on the nearest border. Meantime Charley, looking his disgust, stood at the pony’s hazy violet eyes. After a moment of withdrawal Punch began to nose about his pocket.
‘The cob is looking well Madam,’ he brought out.
‘Isn’t he, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘Well thank you Arthur,’ she said slipping a British threepenny bit into his hand and sailed past with not so much as a thank you for Michael.
When there were guests to lunch the servants had theirs afterwards. So it was not until ten past two that Raunce sat down in Mr Eldon’s chair. He carved savagely like a head-hunter. They ate what he gave them in haste, silent for a time. Then Charley thought to ask,
‘That Captain Davenport? Now where would I have heard he seeks after treasure in a bog?’
He got no answer.
‘Do they dig for it,’ he went on, ‘or pry long sticks into the ground or what?’ he mused aloud.
‘Are you thinking you’ll have a go?’ Kate said.
‘Now there was no cause to be pert my girl,’ he said. ‘Why goodness gracious me,’ he remarked to Edith, ‘whatever are you blushing for?’
She looked as though she was going to choke. If he had only known she was stricken by embarrassment. She knew very well that the last time the lady had been over to view the excavations Mrs Jack returned without her drawers. And it was with not a single word. They had vanished, there was not a trace. To turn it perhaps, she said to the lampman,
‘What d’you know Paddy?’
‘Why here we are sitting and we never thought of him,’ Kate said. ‘Come on now. You’d know Clancarty.’
He made no answer. But he laughed once, bent over his dish.
‘Clancarty Paddy,’ Kate tried again, ‘Mr Raunce is asking you?’
Charley watched Edith. He said under his breath, ‘it’s funny the way she blushes but then she’s only a kid.’
‘Are they makin’ a search?’ Kate went on and she fixed her small eyes unwavering on Edith. The lampman made no reply. He seldom did.
Edith while she blushed hot was picturing that wet afternoon Mrs Jack had last been over to Clancarty. While Mrs T. and her daughter-in-law were on with their dinner Edith had been in the younger woman’s room busily clearing up. She hung the thin coat and skirt of tweed which held the scent used, she put the folded web of shirt and stockings into drawers of rosewood. She laid the outdoor crocodile skin shoes ready to take down to Paddy. She tidied the towels then went to prepare that bed, boat-shaped black and gold with a gold oar at the foot. She moved softly gently as someone in devotion and handled the pink silk sheets like veils. The curtains were drawn. Then all that she had to do was done. Those oil lamps were lit. But she stuck a finger in her mouth, looked about as if she missed something. Then she searched, and faster. She had gone through everything that was put away faster and faster. When she was sure those drawers Mrs Jack had worn to go out were astray her great dark eyes had been hot to glowing.
‘I’ll wager they had everything of gold,’ Raunce said, still on about the excavations.
‘And wore silk on their legs,’ said Edith, short of breath.
‘Don’t talk so silly,’ Miss Burch took her up. ‘They never put silk next to themselves in those days my girl. It wasn’t discovered.’
‘Did they have silk knickers then Paddy,’ Kate asked giggling.
‘I never heard such a thing,’ Miss Burch replied. ‘You’ll oblige me by dropping the subject. Isn’t it bad enough to have dinner late as it is,’ she said ‘You just leave the poor man alone. You let him be.’
Bert spoke. ‘The nursery never had much of theirs,’ he said. ‘I must’ve took back the better part of what I carried up.’
‘Oh dear,’ cried Raunce in the high falsetto he put on whenever he referred to Nanny Swift.
‘You should have seen ‘er,’ Bert added.
Both girls giggled softly while Charley still in falsetto asked whose face, holy smoke.
‘Now that’s quite enough of that,’ Miss Burch said firm. There was a pause. ‘I knew Mrs Welch had been upset,’ she went on, ‘and now I perceive why, not that I’m trying to excuse those potatoes she just gave us,’ she said All of them listened. She seemed almost to be in good humour. ‘They were never cooked,’ she added, ‘and I do believe that’s why they put salt on spuds,’ looking at Paddy, ‘but I’ll say this, those precious peacocks of yours would have spurned ‘em.’
Right to the last meal Mr Eldon had taken in this room it had been his part to speak, to wind up as it were, almost to leave the impress of a bishop on his flock. This may have been what led Charley to echo in a serious tone,
‘Miss Swift is a difficult woman whilst she’s up in her nursery. But she can be nice as you please outside.’
‘That’s right,’ Miss Burch said, ‘and as I’ve often found, take someone out of their position in life and you find a different person altogether, yes.’
The two girls looked at one another, a waste of giggling behind their eyes again.
‘But our potatoes this afternoon were not fit for the table,’ Raunce said to Miss Burch.
‘Thank you Mr Raunce,’ she replied. In this way for the first time she seemed to recognize his place.
‘Well look sharp my lad,’ he said to Bert. He appeared to ooze authority. ‘Holy Moses see what time it is.’
He hastened out like a man who does not know how long his new found luck will hold. Also he had to make his first entry in the red notebook, to record the first tip. He put the date under Mrs Tancy’s name, and then ‘3d’. ‘Wonder what happened in that six months gap,’ he murmured to himself about Mr Eldon’s last date, ‘she’s been over to lunch many a time since and he’ll have had the old dropsy out of her. He was losing grip not entering it, that’s what,’ he added aloud. Then he laid the books aside.
He first addressed an envelope. ‘To Mrs William Raunce,’ he wrote in pencil, ‘396 May Road Peterboro’ Yorks’ and immediately afterwards traced this with a pen. Next he began on the letter, again in pencil.