Part 27 (2/2)
David proved himself such a very satisfactory incoming tenant that the Colonel insisted upon his staying to lunch and hastened off into the cellar to find a bottle of old Marsala, of which he proposed that they should partake with a dry biscuit before Mr. Merridrew's departure.
Sylvia sank into a low chair with a little exclamation of despair.
”Now daddy's done it!” she exclaimed. ”Are you hungry, Mr. Thain?”
”Not very--yet,” David replied, glancing at his watch. ”You see, it's only half-past eleven.”
”Because,” she said impressively, ”there are exactly three rather skinny cutlets in the house. All the servants left this morning--'all', I said. We only have two!--and an old woman from the village is coming up at half-past twelve to cook them. One was for me and two were for father. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do?”
David smiled.
”Well,” he observed, ”I was distinctly asked to luncheon, and I accepted. Haven't you anything--”
”Anything what?” she asked patiently.
”Tinned in the house, or that sort of thing?” he suggested, a little vaguely.
”Of course we haven't,” she replied. ”Don't you know that we are all packed up and leaving to-morrow? It's the biggest wonder in the world that we have any biscuits to eat with that precious Marsala.”
”Why not,” he proposed hopefully, ”put on your hat and motor into Fakenham with me? I suppose there is a butcher's shop there. We can buy something together.”
She sprang to her feet.
”And you can choose exactly what you like!” she exclaimed. ”Mr. Thain, you are delightful! That is the best of you Americans. You are full of resource. I shan't be a minute getting a hat and a pair of gloves.”
David strolled about the gardens of his new demesne until Sylvia reappeared. She had pinned on a blue tam-o'-shanter and was wearing a jersey of the same colour.
”I shall love a spin in your car!” she exclaimed. ”And you drive yourself, too. How delightful!”
They swung off through the more thickly wooded part of the park, driving in places between dense clumps of rhododendrons, and coming unexpectedly upon a walled garden, neglected, but brilliant with spring and early summer flowers.
”Isn't it queer to have a garden so far away from the house,” the girl remarked, ”but I dare say you've heard that the late Marquis of Mandeleys was mad about underground pa.s.sages. There is one existing somewhere or other to the summer house in that garden from the Abbey, and lots of others. I am not at all sure that there isn't one to Broomleys.”
”Haven't you been afraid sometimes lest the ghosts of the dead monks might pay you an unexpected visit?”
She shook her head.
”They always held the funeral services in the chapel,” she explained, ”but the burying place is at the side of the hill there. You can see the Mandeleys vault from here.”
”And the cypress trees,” David pointed out. ”I wonder how old they are.”
”The American of you!” she scoffed. ”You ought to love Mandeleys--and Broomleys. Everything about the place is musty and ancient and worn out. You know the Marquis, don't you?”
”Slightly,” David a.s.sented.
”Is he really human,” she asked, ”or is he something splendidly picturesque which has just stepped out of one of the frames in his picture gallery? I can never make up my mind. He is so beautiful to look at, but he doesn't look as though he belonged to this generation, and why on earth they ever used to call him 'The Wicked Marquis' I can't imagine. I've tried him myself,” she went on ingenuously, ”in no end of ways, but he treats me always as though I were some grandchild, walking on stilts. Of course you're in love with Lady Let.i.tia?”
”Must I be?”
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