“Very well, then, that brings me to what I am going to propose. This is a letter from Lord Luxellian. I think you heard me speak of him as the resident landowner in this district, and patron of this living?”
“I—know of him.”
“He is in London now. It seems that he has run up on business for a day or two, and taken Lady Luxellian with him. He has written to ask me to go to his house, and search for a paper among his private memoranda, which he forgot to take with him.”
“What did he send in the letter?” inquired Elfride.
“The key of a private desk in which the papers are. He doesn’t like to trust such a matter to anybody else. I have done such things for him before. And what I propose is, that we make an afternoon of it—all three of us. Go for a drive to Targan Bay, come home by way of Endelstow House; and whilst I am looking over the documents you can ramble about the rooms where you like. I have the run of the house at any time, you know. The building, though nothing but a mass of gables outside, has a splendid hall, staircase, and gallery within; and there are a few good pictures.”
“Yes, there are,” said Stephen.
“Have you seen the place, then?”
“I saw it as I came by,” he said hastily.
“Oh yes; but I was alluding to the interior. And the church—St. Eval’s—is much older than our St. Agnes’ here. I do duty in that and this alternately, you know. The fact is, I ought to have some help; riding across that park for two miles on a wet morning is not at all the thing. If my constitution were not well seasoned, as thank God it is,”—here Mr. Swancourt looked down his front, as if his constitution were visible there—“I should be coughing and barking all the year round. And when the family goes away, there are only about three servants to preach to when I get there. Well, that shall be the arrangement, then. Elfride, you will like to go?”
Elfride assented; and the little breakfast-party separated. Stephen rose to go and take a few final measurements at the church, the vicar following him to the door with a mysterious expression of inquiry on his face.
“You’ll put up with our not having family prayer this morning, I hope?” he whispered.
“Yes; quite so,” said Stephen.
“To tell you the truth,” he continued in the same undertone, “we don’t make a regular thing of it; but when we have strangers visiting us, I am strongly of opinion that it is the proper thing to do, and I always do it. I am very strict on that point. But you, Smith, there is something in your face which makes me feel quite at home; no nonsense about you, in short. Ah, it reminds me of a splendid story I used to hear when I was a helter-skelter young fellow—such a story! But”—here the vicar shook his head self-forbiddingly, and grimly laughed.
“Was it a good story?” said young Smith, smiling too.
“Oh yes; but ’tis too bad—too bad! Couldn’t tell it to you for the world!”
Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chuckling privately at the recollection as he withdrew.
They started at three o’clock. The gray morning had resolved itself into an afternoon bright with a pale pervasive sunlight, without the sun itself being visible. Lightly they trotted along—the wheels nearly silent, the horse’s hoofs clapping, almost ringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed the level ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbed ultimately by the white of the sky.
Targan Bay—which had the merit of being easily got at—was duly visited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which not twenty consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the domain of Lord Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick neck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a little boy standing behind her.
“I’ll give him something, poor little fellow,” said Elfride, pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. From the interior of her purse a host of bits of paper, like a flock of white birds, floated into the air, and were blown about in all directions.
“Well, to be sure!” said Stephen with a slight laugh.
“What the dickens is all that?” said Mr. Swancourt. “Not halves of banknotes, Elfride?”
Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. “They are only something of mine, papa,” she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt out, and, assisted by the lodge-keeper’s little boy, crept about round the wheels and horse’s hoofs till the papers were all gathered together again. He handed them back to her, and remounted.
“I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?” she said, as they bowled along up the sycamore avenue. “And so I may as well tell you. They are notes for a romance I am writing.”
She could not help colouring at the confession, much as she tried to avoid it.
“A story, do you mean?” said Stephen, Mr. Swancourt half listening, and catching a word of the conversation now and then.
“Yes; The Court of Kellyon Castle; a romance of the fifteenth century. Such writing is out of date now, I know; but I like doing it.”
“A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, he would be taken in.”
“Yes; that’s my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is, that I mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper when I am on horseback; and I put them there for convenience.”
“What are you going to do with your romance when you have written it?” said Stephen.
“I don’t know,” she replied, and turned her head to look at the prospect.
For by this time they had reached the precincts of Endelstow House. Driving through an ancient gateway of dun-coloured stone, spanned by the high-shouldered Tudor arch, they found themselves in a spacious court, closed by a façade
