It had made him hop; he was hopping all round the room, with little cries of “Golly.”
Frampton continued. “Are you doing anything to-morrow? Got a meeting with Roger? Well, I want you to put him off and come with me. We’ll go over it all and see what can be done. What d’ye think of the place? Like it, hey?”
“Golly,” Marcham said, “I didn’t know there was anything like this at Mullples. It isn’t figured in Perkins? What’s the roof like?”
“None too good, I expect. Perkins never got as far west as Mullples; he never touched Stubbington Hundred. I’ve just looked.”
Marcham was a man of great reading in his profession and had a memory.
“Wait a minute, now,” he said. “Mullples Manor. I do know something about it. There’s a theatre or something of that sort in the garden. A man wrote a letter about it to the Architectural, and said he couldn’t get in to see it.”
“That’s the place. The theatre stands. This is the snap of it.”
“That’s a beautiful place. Is the roof of that gone?”
“No. It’s dry as a bone. It’s been a kennels and then a fowlhouse. You have to keep your hounds and poultry dry.”
Marcham took photograph after photograph and seemed to eat them with his eyes.
“Well, what d’ye think?” Frampton asked. “Don’t be so damned critical.”
“Critical? I like that. You fill me with fizz and ask me why I’m sober. But these photographs look as though it needed seeing to. What’s it really like? Falling down?”
“It’s none too good, anywhere,” Frampton said. “The brook’s in the cellar, by the sound of it. No, they’ve let the place go to wreck.”
“But why did they let it get into this state? They could have sold it.”
“I expect they were always stupid and proud,” Frampton said. “The hounds were the important thing to them, not the house. Lately, I should think he’s clung on to it from sheer funk, of having nowhere to go, if he gets out of it. It’s mortgaged, and if the thing’s sold he won’t get much more than will pay the charge.”
“What will happen to him? The workhouse?”
“Well, what else is a chap like that good for? He can’t work with his hands and hasn’t any head; he’s just human scrap, with a poor, sour devil of a daughter. But come on, now; fall to. This is my idea of what ought to be done.”
He settled on to the plans as a bloodhound on to the trail; he was clear and forceful; and drove his enthusiasm into Marcham’s mind. Marcham was soon hopping about the room crying: “Golly; I see exactly what to do there. Now, how would this be?” Then he would rapidly sketch his suggestion, and give an estimate of the cost. He had a quick eye for a map, and saw from the big scale map all sorts of things which might be done. He also had a shrewd sense of the numbers of people needed to run the house and gardens, and where and how to house them.
“When will you know that you’ve got the house?” he asked at length.
“As soon as I can wring it out of them.”
“Will you get vacant possession by Christmas?”
“I mean to try. The chap will need some booting probably which I don’t mind if he gets.”
“Say you get the house clear at Christmas,” Marcham said, “that will mean work in the winter; short days and very likely frost. When do you want to be moving in?”
“I want to be married in July,” he said, “and I want the house to be finished and in apple-pie order before then, with all the men out to hell from it, and none of your little messes in the flowerbeds. You’ll have to get treble shifts on to it, but you’ll get it done.”
Marcham did not relish being bullied. He was thinking, that Mullples was a long way from any centre; men and gear would have to travel far to get to it. The nearest station was twelve, or more miles away. It would be a costly matter putting Mullples in order. Still, that was Mansell’s look-out: he was rich enough. He knew his patron well enough to know, that any suggestion of difficulty would lose him the job, which was attractive to him. He knew, too, exactly how to put Mansell into good humour. “Who have you got in mind for the walls?” he asked.
“Who says I’m going to decorate the walls?” Frampton asked.
“I know you won’t have them bare,” Marcham said, “so the sooner we can get the big rooms ready for the painters the better. How many frescoes have you in mind?”
“The big room, the dining-room, my study and my bedroom: four. I’ve been on the telephone about them. I’ll get the measures with you to-morrow and get them to get on with the cartoons.”
“Fine,” Marcham said. “I see this map marks a chapel here. Is that anything?”
“No; but it’s on the property and it’ll need tidying up. A few bits of wall are above ground.”
“Will you have all the water rights? Can you do what you like with the brooks?”
“Yes; and with the lake and with the springs. Oh . . . and then, here in this covert I want a watcher’s cottage. I mean to make this a bird sanctuary.”
“Spirr Wood; good name; fine,” Marcham said. “I’ll just make a note of that. A red brick bungalow idea, made to look sylvan.”
“That’s the idea,” Frampton said.
“Any sheds or outhouses or so?” Marcham asked. “But we can go into that on the spot. Fine. I say, I do hope that the roof’s pretty good.”
“I think the whole house is pretty bad,” Frampton said.
“Well then, I tell you what,” Marcham said, “I do hope it won’t rain to-morrow. If there is one sound I hate, it’s rain falling into a fine old house.”
“It won’t rain to-morrow,” Frampton said. “The glass is rising. It is going to be a lovely day to-morrow. And now, what d’ye say to a pot of hot grog and to bed. I’m going to rout you out of here at eight to-morrow. You’ll be called at six-thirty.”
At eight the next morning, just as the beauty of the day was beginning to show, they were off and away to Mullples, to infuriate the sick man, by their insistence on getting at parts of the roof that he didn’t know the way to, and angering the daughter by their laying of sacrilegious measures on the walls. She had not been used to energetic men, during her life on earth, and the sight of two was, therefore, the more revolting.
Marcham, when fired, was a man of the utmost keenness. The sight of Mullples was more than enough to fire him.
“By Jove. My Golly,” he kept crying, “what a place. And I’d never heard of it. Except just the mention of the theatre. By Jove. My good Golly. I do hope you’ll get this place. Golly, look at that front; and then the details. O, my Jove and Golly.”
Of course, Frampton got the place. Margaret felt for the fall of the Knares-Yocksirs. She pleaded for gentle treatment for them.
“Fram,” she said, “I’ve been worrying about the Knares-Yocksirs. They’ll have very little to live upon when their house has gone and their debts on it are paid. All that they have will hardly bring them fifty pounds a year, between them.”
“I know it,” he said, “and they’re not worth fifty pounds a year, between them.”
“Yes, they are, Fram,” she said. “Everybody is.”
“I deny that,” he said. “But go on, my Peggy. D’you want me to find him a job in the gun works? I won’t, nor the woman; they’re unemployable.”
“No, no; they’re not. She was born to some position in the county, but she has accustomed herself to a good deal, to cook, and run the house, and be a nurse, and so forth; she’s proved herself.”
“I hate that kind of woman,” he said. “She’s no use to anyone, and is sour with it.”
“Now, Fram,” she said, “we are going to be wonderfully happy; might not some little share of our happiness come to them?”