Sophy soothed her agitation with the assurance that she had come prepared to find the house in disarray, and stepped into the hall. This was a large apartment, paneled and low pitched, from which, at one end, a handsome staircase of oak rose in easy flights to the upper floors of the house. The chairs were all shrouded in Holland covers, and a film of dust lay over the gate-legged table in the center of the room. The air struck unpleasantly dank, and a large patch of damp on one wall made this circumstance easily understandable.
“We must open all the windows and light fires!” Sophy said briskly. “Has the Marquesa — has a Spanish lady arrived yet?”
She was assured that no Spanish lady had been seen at the manor, a circumstance for which the Claverings seemed to think they deserved to be congratulated.
“Good!” said Sophy. “She will be here presently, and we must strive to make things a little more comfortable before we admit her. Bring some wood and kindling for this fire, Clavering, and do you, Matty, pull off these covers! If there is no tea in the house, I am sure there is some ale! Bring some for Lord Charlbury, if you please! Charlbury, I beg your pardon for inviting you to so derelict a house! Wait, Clavering! Are the stables in decent order? I don’t wish the chaise to drive away, and the horses must be baited and rubbed down, and the postboys refreshed!”
Lord Charlbury, abandoning his scruples to enjoyment of this situation, said, “Will you permit me to attend to that matter for you? If Clavering will show me the way to your stables — ?”
“Yes, pray do so!” said Sophy gratefully. “I must see which rooms are most fit to be used, and, until we have a fire lit here, it will be most uncomfortable for you.”
His lordship, correctly interpreting this to mean that he would be very much in the way if he stayed in the house, went off with Clavering to lead the postboys to the stables, happily still watertight and under the charge of an aged pensioner, whose rheumy eye perceptibly brightened at the sight of even such cattle as job horses. A stout cob, and a couple of farm horses, were the only occupants of the commodious stables, but the pensioner assured him that there was both bedding and fodder enough and further undertook to regale the postboys in his own cottage, which adjoined the stables.
Lord Charlbury then strolled about the gardens until some heavy drops of rain drove him back to the house. There he found that the covers had been taken off the chairs in the hall, a duster employed, and a fire lit in the gigantic hearth.
“It is not really cold,” said Sophy, “but it will make everything appear more cheerful!”
His lordship, dubiously eyeing the puffs of smoke issuing from the fireplace into the room, agreed to this meekly enough, and even made a show of warming his hands at the small blue flame showing amidst the coals. A more violent gust of smoke caused him to retreat, seized by a fit of coughing. Sophy knelt to thrust a poker under the black mass, raising it to let the draught through. “It’s my belief there may be a starling’s nest in the chimney,” she observed dispassionately. “Mathilda, however, says fires always smoke for a while when the chimneys are cold. We shall see! I found some tea in one of the cupboards in the pantry, and Mathilda is bringing it to us directly. She had no notion it was there. I wonder how long it has laid hidden in the cupboard?”