“On the contrary, it suits me very well. I am able to fancy myself in a house of my own, and can enter the Tower by the door into the Chapel Court, if I choose, and so escape being commanded to furnish my aunt with the details of where I have been, or where I am going!”
“Good God! Will it be my fate to endure such examinations?”
“My aunt,” said Theo, with a lurking twinkle, “likes to know all that one does, and why one does it.”
“You terrify me! I shall certainly not remain at Stanyon above a week!”
But his cousin only smiled, and shook his head, and left him to ring for his valet.
When the man came, he brought with him a can of hot water, and a warming-pan. The Earl, staring at this, said: “Now, what in thunder are you about?”
“It appears, my lord,” responded Turvey, in a voice carefully devoid of expression, “that extremely early hours are kept in this house — or, as I apprehend I should say, Castle. The servants have already gone to bed, and your lordship would hardly desire to get between cold sheets.”
“Thank you, my constitution is really not so sickly as you must think it! Next you will bring me laudanum, as a composer! Set the thing down in the hearth, and don’t be so foolish again, if you please! Have they housed you comfortably?”
“I make no complaint, my lord. I collect that the Castle is of considerable antiquity.”
“Yes, parts of it date back to the fourteenth century,” said the Earl, stripping off his shirt. “It was moated once, but the lake is now all that remains of the moat.”