“They’re your holes,” he capitulated, and together Bobbie, Delsie and deVigne dashed back to the Cottage. Lady Jane and Sir Harold were not far behind them, to view the impluvia for themselves.
There was no danger that the work had already been done. A sort of informal holiday had been declared at both the Hall and the Dower House, with every maid and footman who could possibly evade his duties there to see Watling command his crew in the interesting feat of lifting the trees. As the employers were unaware of this holiday, however, the observers drifted off rather quickly.
“I knew I could smell brandy in this orchard,” Jane declared, sniffing the air.
“What you was smelling was decaying apples,” her husband pointed out. “They ferment, my dear. You recall we often have a grouse or pheasant drunk from eating them fly against the windows and break his neck.”
“Yes, and you will have fish drunk from the remains of brandy swimming into the walls of your hole and breaking their necks,” Jane said, to show she was not convinced of any error on her part, “If they have necks.”
“Fish do not have necks,” Sir Harold informed her, and was summarily cut off when he proceeded to tell her what they did have. The morning was spent in examining the secret hiding place, and as Mrs. Grayshott had no servants at all, the party repaired to the Hall for luncheon.
“Have you thought of what you will do with the money?” Harold asked Delsie.
“It will be used for some charitable purpose,” she answered.
“Oxford could use it,” he suggested. “You might set up a bursary in Andrew’s name, or buy the Tatford Library Collection that is going up for auction.”
“I like the idea of a bursary,” she said, considering. “To help some poor but bright student further his education. Andrew was a Cambridge man. It ought to go to Cambridge, not Oxford.”
“I daresay you could get the Tatford Library for twenty-five hundred,” Sir Harold persisted.
“I wonder if Cambridge would rather have that than a bursary,” was her highly unsatisfactory reply.
“Cambridge? What would Cambridge want with a classical library? Oxford is the place to study the classics,” he said.
“Then I shall make it a bursary,” she decided, appearing not to notice that his aim was to secure the money for his own school. “The Andrew Grayshott Memorial Bursary it will be called.”
Sir Harold opened his mouth to object, but was interrupted by his wife, who suggested “the Brandy Bursary” would be a suitable nickname. Discussion then turned on providing Mrs. Grayshott with some temporary help till she managed to hire servants, and deVigne offered the resumption of Nellie’s and Olive’s services.
“I’ll send a footman over so you have a man about the house,” Jane added.
With this settled, it was time for the Grayshotts to go home. Miss Milne and Bobbie were called, and Jane and Harold went back to the Dower House.
As the carriage wended its familiar way down the lane to the post road, Delsie said to her stepdaughter, “Are you happy to be coming home at last?”
“Yes, but I’ll like it better when we’re all living together at the Hall. Uncle Max has five kittens in the barn.”
Max cleared his throat, and ran a finger around his collar.
“What do you mean? We are not moving to the Hall,” Delsie said to her daughter.
“Uncle Max says we are. Didn’t you, Uncle Max?”
“That is not exactly what I said,” he parried.
With a barely concealed smile, Miss Milne said that perhaps Lord deVigne would give Bobbie one of his kittens.
“I don’t want one. I want them all,” she replied.
“Precocious. You are turning into a woman already,” her uncle complimented her.
At the Cottage, Miss Milne took her charge upstairs, and Mrs. Grayshott at once rounded on deVigne. “You know I promised Andrew faithfully I would look after Roberta. I hope you have not been giving her the idea she is to go to you. I don’t know how you think I should allow it, when the main reason I married Andrew was to provide a guardian for her.”
“You were not listening very carefully. What she said was that we would all be living together at the Hall.”
Having a very good inkling as to his meaning, the widow blushed up to her eyes, and pointed out that such a scheme was entirely ineligible, for a widow in no way related to him to be moving into a bachelor’s establishment.
“That is true, and we would have to arrange some relationship,” he answered reasonably.
“There is no way it could be arranged.”
“One suffers to think of a schoolteacher having so little use of her wits. It could be arranged very easily by our marrying.”
“You would do anything to get hold of Roberta!” she accused him.
“Yes, I am quite determined to get my clutches on Roberta!” he agreed, smiling. “I am resigned to having that charge thrown at my head every time you feel out of sorts, which happens remarkably often, by the by. But so long as we both know it is merely a stick to beat me with, I am willing to accept it.”
“I wonder at your lack of propriety! Andrew scarcely cold in his grave-”
“He must be cooled down considerably. It is December, after all.”
“I was speaking metaphorically.”
“That’s what I get for making up to a schoolmistress. How long must we wait?”
“Till hell freezes over.”
“That should cool him down all right. Do you mean we must wait out the whole year?”
“I meant nothing of the sort!”
“Good, I think six months more than enough myself.”
“You know I didn’t mean that.”
“I am ravished at your eagerness, but really we ought to wait till you are at least in half mourning, don’t you think?”
“You are being purposely obtuse. I can’t possibly marry you! Two marriages in one year. It is monstrous.”
“True, but it is already December, and will soon be next year. We’ll consign your nominal marriage to Andrew to this year, and-”
“Yes, I see what you are about. Trying to rush me into it again, before I have time to think. Don’t forget to point out all the advantages that will accrue me. A domineering, mulish husband who doesn’t even stick at drugging and kidnapping me, a vastly superior home, a title-”
“You’re doing a pretty good job of convincing yourself. Only think, never again to be called by the odious name of Mrs. Grayshott. That must bear heavily on the side of the advantages.”
“We would be laughingstocks in the village,” she objected weakly, and looked hopefully to him for refutation.
“They could well do with a few laughs in Questnow. Things are remarkably flat in the winter. Of course it bothers me enormously what Mr. Umpton and Miss Frisk think, and I’m sure you too shrink from doing anything they would dislike.”
“It would almost be worth putting up with you to see Umpton stare.”
“No price is too high to pay for that sort of a treat. We’ll call on him together, and both watch him stare,” he answered gravely, his lips only a little unsteady.
“I said almost worth it. Jane warned me-not that you haven’t already locked me up in a room and beat me.”
“No, no, not beat! Be fair. A crack on the skull is not a beating. I save that for after the wedding. Or were you speaking metaphorically again, referring to my having bested you in the matter of rooting you out of the Cottage last night?”
“You cheated anyway.”
“I took a slightly unfair advantage.” He advanced toward her and removed the driving cape from her shoulders, tossing it on a chair. “I don’t mean to do so again, Delsie,” he said, looking at her intently, with all the levity gone from his voice. “I was horrified when I saw what I had done to you last night. Indeed, ever since this smuggling business reared its ugly head I have regretted dragging you into it.” He touched the plaster on her forehead, and ran one finger slowly down her cheek. “Can you forgive me for that?”