Chapter 1

Mr Davidson was spending the first week in January alone in a country
town. A combination of circumstances had driven him to that drastic
course: his nearest relations were enjoying winter sports abroad,
and the friends who had been kindly anxious to replace them had an
infectious complaint in the house. Doubtless he might have found
someone else to take pity on him. “But,” he reflected, “most of them
have made up their parties, and, after all, it is only for three or
four days at most that I have to fend for myself, and it will be just
as well if I can get a move on with my introduction to the Leventhorp
Papers. I might use the time by going down as near as I can to
Gaulsford and making acquaintance with the neighbourhood. I ought to
see the remains of Leventhorp House, and the tombs in the church.”

The first day after his arrival at the Swan Hotel at Longbridge was
so stormy that he got no farther than the tobacconist’s. The next,
comparatively bright, he used for his visit to Gaulsford, which
interested him more than a little, but had no ulterior consequences.
The third, which was really a pearl of a day for early January, was
too fine to be spent indoors. He gathered from the landlord that a
favourite practice of visitors in the summer was to take a morning
train to a couple of stations westward, and walk back down the valley
of the Tent, through Stanford St Thomas and Stanford Magdalene, both
of which were accounted highly picturesque villages. He closed with
this plan, and we now find him seated in a third-class carriage at 9.45
A.M., on his way to Kingsbourne Junction, and studying the map of the
district.

One old man was his only fellow-traveller, a piping old man, who seemed
inclined for conversation. So Mr Davidson, after going through the
necessary versicles and responses about the weather, inquired whether
he was going far.

“No, sir, not far, not this morning, sir,” said the old man. “I ain’t
only goin’ so far as what they call Kingsbourne Junction. There isn’t
but two stations betwixt here and there. Yes, they calls it Kingsbourne
Junction.”

“I’m going there, too,” said Mr Davidson.

“Oh, indeed, sir; do you know that part?”

“No, I’m only going for the sake of taking a walk back to Longbridge,
and seeing a bit of the country.”

“Oh, indeed, sir! Well, ’tis a beautiful day for a gentleman as enjoys
a bit of a walk.”

“Yes, to be sure. Have you got far to go when you get to Kingsbourne?”

“No, sir, I ain’t got far to go, once I get to Kingsbourne Junction.
I’m agoin’ to see my daughter, sir. She live at Brockstone. That’s
about two mile across the fields from what they call Kingsbourne
Junction, that is. You’ve got that marked down on your map, I expect,
sir.”

“I expect I have. Let me see, Brockstone, did you say? Here’s
Kingsbourne, yes; and which way is Brockstone--toward the Stanfords?
Ah, I see it: Brockstone Court, in a park. I don’t see the village,
though.”

“No, sir, you wouldn’t see no village of Brockstone. There ain’t only
the Court and the Chapel at Brockstone.”

“Chapel? Oh, yes, that’s marked here, too. The Chapel; close by the
Court, it seems to be. Does it belong to the Court?”

“Yes, sir, that’s close up to the Court, only a step. Yes, that belong
to the Court. My daughter, you see, sir, she’s the keeper’s wife now,
and she live at the Court and look after things now the family’s away.”

“No one living there now, then?”

“No, sir, not for a number of years. The old gentleman, he lived there
when I was a lad; and the lady, she lived on after him to very near
upon ninety years of age. And then she died, and them that have it
now, they’ve got this other place, in Warwickshire I believe it is, and
they don’t do nothin’ about lettin’ the Court out; but Colonel Wildman,
he have the shooting, and young Mr Clark, he’s the agent, he come over
once in so many weeks to see to things, and my daughter’s husband, he’s
the keeper.”

“And who uses the Chapel? just the people round about, I suppose.”

“Oh, no, no one don’t use the Chapel. Why, there ain’t no one to go.
All the people about, they go to Stanford St Thomas Church; but my
son-in-law, he go to Kingsbourne Church now, because the gentleman at
Stanford, he have this Gregory singin’, and my son-in-law, he don’t
like that; he say he can hear the old donkey brayin’ any day of the
week, and he like something a little cheerful on the Sunday.” The
old man drew his hand across his mouth and laughed. “That’s what my
son-in-law say; he say he can hear the old donkey,” etc., _da capo_.

Mr Davidson also laughed as honestly as he could, thinking meanwhile
that Brockstone Court and Chapel would probably be worth including
in his walk; for the map showed that from Brockstone he could
strike the Tent Valley quite as easily as by following the main
Kingsbourne-Longbridge road. So, when the mirth excited by the
remembrance of the son-in-law’s _bon mot_ had died down, he returned to
the charge, and ascertained that both the Court and the Chapel were of
the class known as “old-fashioned places,” and that the old man would
be very willing to take him thither, and his daughter would be happy to
show him whatever she could.

“But that ain’t a lot, sir, not as if the family was livin’ there; all
the lookin’-glasses is covered up, and the paintin’s, and the curtains
and carpets folded away; not but what I dare say she could show you
a pair just to look at, because she go over them to see as the morth
shouldn’t get into ’em.”

“I shan’t mind about that, thank you; if she can show me the inside of
the Chapel, that’s what I’d like best to see.”

“Oh, she can show you that right enough, sir. She have the key of the
door, you see, and most weeks she go in and dust about. That’s a nice
Chapel, that is. My son-in-law, he say he’ll be bound they didn’t have
none of this Gregory singin’ there. Dear! I can’t help but smile when I
think of him sayin’ that about th’ old donkey. ‘I can hear him bray,’
he say, ‘any day of the week’; and so he can, sir; that’s true, anyway.”

The walk across the fields from Kingsbourne to Brockstone was very
pleasant. It lay for the most part on the top of the country, and
commanded wide views over a succession of ridges, plough and pasture,
or covered with dark-blue woods--all ending, more or less abruptly,
on the right, in headlands that overlooked the wide valley of a great
western river. The last field they crossed was bounded by a close
copse, and no sooner were they in it than the path turned downward
very sharply, and it became evident that Brockstone was neatly fitted
into a sudden and very narrow valley. It was not long before they had
glimpses of groups of smokeless stone chimneys, and stone-tiled roofs,
close beneath their feet; and, not many minutes after that, they were
wiping their shoes at the back door of Brockstone Court, while the
keeper’s dogs barked very loudly in unseen places, and Mrs Porter, in
quick succession, screamed at them to be quiet, greeted her father, and
begged both her visitors to step in.