Part 15 (1/2)

Percival turned about. They had reached the boundary of the Manor grounds and he pointed through the trees. ”Is that where you live, Mr.

Amber?”

”Yes, I live in there. Look here, now, here's a nice thing! You're growing up nearly as big as me and you've never been to see me. That's not friendly, you know.”

”Oh, but I've wanted to, you know,” Percival cried. ”We don't often come this way, you see, do we, Aunt Maggie?”

He bounded across the road to squint through the wooden paling that surrounds the Manor park, and Mr. Amber gave a little sigh and turned to Aunt Maggie.

”How Percival grows, Miss Oxford! And what a picture, what a picture!

You know, he recalls to me walking these lanes twenty years ago, with just his counterpart in looks and spirits and charm--ah, well! dear me, dear me!” And he began to mumble to himself in the fas.h.i.+on of old people whose thoughts run more easily in the past than in the present, and to walk around poking with his stick in a fas.h.i.+on that was his own.

He referred to Roly, Aunt Maggie knew. ”You never forget him, do you?”

she said gently. She also was devoted to a memory. ”You never forget him?”

”No--no,” said Mr. Amber, poking around and not looking at her.

”Certainly not--certainly not.”

Percival's voice broke in upon them, announcing his observations through the fence. ”I say, you've got a lovely garden to play in, you know,” he called.

They turned from thoughts that had a common element to the bright young spirit in whom those thoughts found a not dissimilar relief.

”Well, it's not exactly my garden,” Mr. Amber replied in his deliberate way. ”I live there just like Honor lives with you. She looks after the cooking and I look after the books, eh? Would you like to see my books?”

”Picture books?”

”Why, yes, some have got pictures. Yes, there are pictures in some.

And fine big rooms, Percival. You would like to see them.”

Percival turned an excited face to Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Maggie smiled.

He took Mr. Amber's hand. ”Thank you very much indeed,” he said. ”I tell you what, then. I will see your books and then I think you will let me play in your garden, please, if you please?”

Mr. Amber declared that this was a very fair bargain. ”Come in and have some tea, Miss Oxford. Mrs. Ferris will be glad to see you. She finds housekeeping very dull work, I am afraid, with only me to look after.”

Aunt Maggie did not reply immediately. Percival looked at her anxiously. He observed signs of ”thinking,” and thinking might be fatal to this most engaging proposition. ”If you possibly could, Aunt Maggie!” he pleaded.

But it was Mr. Amber's further argument that persuaded her. His words acutely entered the matter with which she was occupied. ”You know, Percival must be the only soul in the countryside that hasn't seen the Manor,” he urged. ”It was the regular custom for any one who liked to come up in the old days. You recollect the Tenant Teas in the summer?

Why, it's his right, I declare.”

A little colour showed on her cheeks. ”Yes, it is his right,” she said.

III

Percival was to enjoy another right before the day was out. The decision to accept Mr. Amber's invitation once made, he had whooped ahead through the Manor gates and flashed up the long drive at play with a game of his own among the flanking trees. A n.o.ble turn in the avenue brought him within astonished gaze of the house, and, very flushed in the cheeks, he came racing back to his elders.

”I say, it's a perfectly 'normous house you live in, Mr. Amber.”

”Aha!” cries old Mr. Amber, highly pleased. ”I knew you would like it, Master Percival!”

”Why, I call it a _castle!_” Percival declares.