“Dear aunt, what would you have me do? I cannot go and thank him publicly in the name of the town. That would be still more unbecoming; and I am sure I hope they will not do all the dreadful things in the church that you speak of. I love the old monuments, and like lolling much better than bare forms.”
So she would laugh the matter off; but if she could not be induced to talk of Lord Blandamer, she thought of him the more, and rehearsed again and again in daydreams and in night-dreams every incident of that momentous Saturday afternoon, from the first bars of the overture, when he had revealed in so easy and simple a way that he was none other than Lord Blandamer, to the ringing down of the curtain, when he turned to look back—to that glance when his eyes had seemed to meet hers, although she was hidden behind a blind, and he could not have guessed that she was there.
Westray came back from London with the scheme of restoration reconsidered and amplified in the light of altered circumstances, and with a letter for Lord Blandamer in which Sir George Farquhar hoped that the munificent donor would fix a day on which Sir George might come down to Cullerne to offer his respects, and to discuss the matter in person. Westray had looked forward all the week to the appointment which he had with Lord Blandamer for five o’clock on the Saturday afternoon, and had carefully thought out the route which he would pursue in taking him round the church. He returned to Bellevue Lodge at a quarter to five, and found his visitor already awaiting him. Miss Joliffe was, as usual, at her Saturday meeting, but Anastasia told Westray that Lord Blandamer had been waiting more than half an hour.
“I must apologise, my lord, for keeping you waiting,” Westray said, as he went in. “I feared I had made some mistake in the time of our meeting, but I see it was five that your note named.” And he held out the open letter which he had taken from his pocket.
“The mistake is entirely mine,” Lord Blandamer admitted with a smile, as he glanced at his own instructions; “I fancied I had said four o’clock; but I have been very glad of a few minutes to write one or two letters.”
“We can post them on our way to the church; they will just catch the mail.”
“Ah, then I must wait till tomorrow; there are some enclosures which I have not ready at this moment.”
They set out together for the minster, and Lord Blandamer looked back as they crossed the street.
“The house has a good deal of character,” he said, “and might be made comfortable enough with a little repair. I must ask my agent to see what can be arranged; it does not do me much credit as landlord in its present state.”
“Yes, it has a good many interesting features,” Westray answered; “you know its history, of course—I mean that it was an old inn.”
He had turned round as his companion turned, and for an instant thought he saw something moving behind the blind in Mr. Sharnall’s room. But he must have been mistaken; only Anastasia was in the house, and she was in the kitchen, for he had called to her as they went out to say that he might be late for tea.
Westray thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half which the light allowed him for showing and explaining the church. Lord Blandamer exhibited what is called, so often by euphemism, an intelligent interest in all that he saw, and was at no pains either to conceal or display a very adequate architectural knowledge. Westray wondered where he had acquired it, though he asked no questions; but before the inspection was ended he found himself unconsciously talking to his companion of technical points, as to a professional equal and not to an amateur. They stopped for a moment under the central tower.
“I feel especially grateful,” Westray said, “for your generosity in giving us a free hand for all fabric work, because we shall now be able to tackle the tower. Nothing will ever induce me to believe that all is right up there. The arches are extraordinarily wide and thin for their date. You will laugh when I tell you that I sometimes think I hear them crying for repair, and especially that one on the south with the jagged crack in the wall above it. Now and then, when I am alone in the church or the tower, I seem to catch their very words. ‘The arch never sleeps,’ they say; ‘we never sleep.’ ”
“It is a romantic idea,” Lord Blandamer said. “Architecture is poetry turned into stone, according to the old aphorism, and you, no doubt, have something of the poet in you.”
He glanced at the thin and rather bloodless face, and at the high cheekbones of the water-drinker as he spoke. Lord Blandamer never made jokes, and
