So they left London in Standish's car early in the afternoon, and the bishop was still explaining how his efforts had been misdirected by unfortunate circumstances. How (he freely admitted) he had been mistaken in thinking that Hilda Doffit, a housemaid, was the notorious and light-fingered Piccadilly Jane; and had been led thereby into several equivocal positions. Then, on the night he genuinely did see Louis Spinelli in the geranium beds, his conduct had been misinterpreted by Colonel Standish, due to somebody's idiotic prank at playing ghost on the Reverend George Primley.
This prank, it must be confessed, roused the interest and approval of Hugh Donovan. He looked forward to meeting the person, whoever it might be, who had taken advantage of a poltergeist's notoriously rowdy habits to throw ink at the vicar. But it seemed evident that Colonel Standish was not yet satisfied, and had his own secret doubts about the bishop's conduct.
They made good time through the countryside, and at four o'clock they had turned off the London road at a village called Bridge Eight. It was a hot, still afternoon. The road wound through dips and hollows, overhung by maple trees; and bees from the hedgerows were always sailing in through the wind screen and driving Standish wild. Towards the west Donovan could see the smoky red roofs of the suburbs round Bristol; but this was rural scenery of the thatched-roof and cowbell variety. Here were rolling meadows, frothing yellow with buttercups, and occupied by cows that looked as stolid as a nudist colony. Here were rocky commons, and unexpected brooks, and dark coppices massed on the hillsides. And, as usual when he ventured into the country, Donovan began to get good resolutions. He breathed deeply. He removed his hat and let the sunlight burn his hair to an uncomfortable state. This was health.
He could look back on New York with a mild pity. What asses people were! To be shut into a hot apartment, with twenty different radio programs roaring in your ear; with every light shaking to the thunder of parties on each floor; with children yelling along Christopher Street, and papers blown in gritty over-hot winds, and the rumble of the Sixth Avenue L rising monotonously over the clatter of traffic. Sad. Very sad. Already he could picture his poor friends staggering in and out of cordial shops; wasting their substance by depositing nickels in the slot machines, pulling the lever, and getting only a row of lemons for their pains. Tonight, round Sheridan Square, one poor friend would be measuring out gin drops, with the fierce concentration of a scientist, into a glass jug containing half-a-gallon of alcohol and half-a-gallon of water. Others would be thirstily waiting to drink it, poor devils. Then they would forget to eat dinner, and make love to somebody else's girl, and get a bust in the eye. Sad.
Whereas he… The bishop was saying something about Thomas Aquinas, and his son eyed him benevolently as the car sped on. Whereof he…
There should be no more of that. He would rise with the thrush (at whatever hour that exemplary bird does begin raising hell outside your window). He would go for long walks before breakfast. He would decipher inscriptions on gravestones, and meditate on the fallen tower, like those fellows who write the pleasant essays, and who never have any base impulse to go and get plastered at the nearest pub.
And he would listen to quaint bits of philosophy from rustics — those fellows who always tell the local legends to the writers. "Aye" he could hear an old graybeard saying, "aye, it were twenty year come Michaelmas that poor Sally Fewerley drownded herself in yon creek, and on moonlight nights…" Excellent. He could already see himself leaning on his ash stick in the twilight as the story was told, looking with sad eyes at the brook, and musing on the villainy of those who drink alcohol-and-water in cities, and then come out and seduce poor girls all over the countryside, and make them drown themselves in brooks. He had worked himself into a high state of virtue, when he was suddenly roused by a hail from the roadside. "What ho!" cried a voice. "What hoi" He roused himself, putting on his hat again to shield his eyes from the sun, as the car slowed down. They had come through a cluster of houses, the largest of which was a white-washed stone pub bearing the sign of the Bull, and turned to the left up a long low hill. Midway up on the right was a little square-towered church, a miniature of great age, with flowers round it and the gravestones built up close to its porch. At the crest of the hill the road ran straight for a quarter of a mile; and, far away to the left, Donovan could see acre upon acre of parkland, enclosed along the road by a low stone wall. In the middle of the park lay a vast, low stone house, with its eastern windows glowing against the gold sky.
But the hail had come from closer at hand. On the opposite side of the road, just past the top of the hill, stood a timbered house of the sort that used to be called black-and-white. Its frontage was enclosed by a box hedge as high as a tall man's head. An iron gate in the hedge bore a name plate in small, severe black letters, HANGOVER HOUSE. Leaning on this gate, and gesturing at them with a pipe, stood the lounging man who had called out.
"What ho!" he repeated. "What ho!’
Donovan noticed that his father closed disapproving jaws, but the colonel uttered a grunt of pleasure or relief and swung the car towards the gate. The amiable figure proved to be a lean young man, not many years older than Donovan himself, with a long face, a square jaw, a humorous eye, and tortoise-shell glasses pulled down on a long nose. He was dressed in a loud blazer, soiled gray trousers, and a khaki shirt open at the neck. With one hand he shook the ashes out of his dead pipe, and the other held a glass containing what looked very much like a cocktail.