“Come, Jeannie,” said Arthur, “it will end in our taking Buckingham Palace, but no matter!”
The house in question was not exactly Buckingham Palace, but within a few days they had taken it. Miss Fortescue drove in to see it, after bargaining that the horses should not be used again the whole of the next day, and made up her mind to stay at any rate with Jeannie and Arthur for a week or two. As she also indicated which room she would like, and chose a paper for it, it may be supposed that her “week or two” did not mean less than a week or two. The rent was not prohibitive, the garden was charming, and the house stood in a side street where traffic was scanty, and looked out behind over the Cathedral, and Canons, as Jeannie said, really hung on their garden wall like ripe plums.
A day or two later rumours began to spread through Wroxton that the Aveshams were coming to live there, and discussion raged. The Colonel knew they were not.
“I should think, sir, if my cousins were coming, I should not be the last to be informed of it. Just gossip, sir, mere gossip—I wonder at you for paying any attention to it.”
He scarcely even believed the assurance of the owner of 8 Bolton Street that he had actually let it to them, for as soon as Mr. Hanby had left the room he burst out:
“A mere ruse, sir, to send up the value of the house, by making people think that the aristocracy want to take it. Transparent, transparent!”
But he did not feel quite easy about it in the depths of his gallant heart, and he thought again how awkward it would be if it were true.
CHAPTER III
A fortnight later Jeannie, Miss Fortescue, and Arthur were all staying at the Black Eagle Hotel, employed in settling in. Morton had been let, but let unfurnished, and in order to avoid the expense of storing, it was laid upon them that they should cram as much furniture into 8 Bolton Street as it would possibly hold. Thus from morning to night the greater part of the street was congested with Pantechnicon vans, and Jeannie and Arthur might be seen many hours a day measuring wardrobes, and finding for the most part that they would not go into any of the rooms. Miss Fortescue sat in a large chair in the middle of the street and made scathing comments on the appearance and behaviour of the others.
“I little thought,” said this magisterial lady one day, “that the time would come when I should see my nephew in his shirt-sleeves wrestling with towel-horses in the Queen’s highway.”