“I have need of you, Uncle Ben. I shan’t eat nor sleep unless you tell me that I shall get Alfie.”
“Sir Geoffrey instructed me just now to tell you something very different. You are to find another young man.”
Her face fell dolorously. Fishpingle’s eyes twinkled, and his square chin obtruded itself.
“But I tell you, Prudence, to do nothing of the sort.”
She laughed.
“I shall obey you, uncle.”
Like Alfred, she burst into song as she flitted down the corridor.
Fishpingle locked the tin box and put it away. Then he saw to it that Alfred and the second footman, a singularly raw youth, were diligently at work in the pantry. The second footman had been taken, so to speak, from the plough-tail because Sir Geoffrey had stood sponsor for him, and it was an idiosyncrasy of the Squire’s to keep an eye upon his god-children, rather to the disgust of Fishpingle, who set an inordinate value upon old plate, and much to the amusement of Lady Pomfret. Having rated the second footman soundly, Fishpingle went into the dining-room, where a small table in the big oriel window was laid for two. Upon the walls hung portraits of dead and gone Pomfrets, and in the centre of the room stood the great mahogany table at which many of them had made merry. Fishpingle frowned as his eyes rested upon the portrait of Sir Guy Pomfret, the present baronet’s grandfather, a gentleman of fashion, who had played skittles with a fine fortune. Beside him, painted by the same artist, hung the portrait of Lady Alicia, his kind friend and protector. He owed his education to this stately dame, and much else beside. Fishpingle smiled pleasantly at her.
Having satisfied himself that the luncheon table was in order, he opened one of the casement windows and gazed placidly at the park, which sloped with charming undulations to the Avon. His glance lingered with affection upon the ancient yews thriving amazingly upon a thin, chalky soil. They had been here before the Pomfrets! There was a particular yew in Nether Applewhite churchyard mentioned in Doomsday Book. Out of some of these yews had been fashioned the bows of Crécy and Agincourt.