“Chapel? Oh, yes, that’s marked here, too. The Chapel; close by the Court, it seems to be. Does it belong to the Court?”
“Yes, sir, that’s close up to the Court, only a step. Yes, that belong to the Court. My daughter, you see, sir, she’s the keeper’s wife now, and she live at the Court and look after things now the family’s away.”
“No one living there now, then?”
“No, sir, not for a number of years. The old gentleman, he lived there when I was a lad; and the lady, she lived on after him to very near upon ninety years of age. And then she died, and them that have it now, they’ve got this other place, in Warwickshire I believe it is, and they don’t do nothin’ about lettin’ the Court out; but Colonel Wildman, he have the shooting, and young Mr Clark, he’s the agent, he come over once in so many weeks to see to things, and my daughter’s husband, he’s the keeper.”
“And who uses the Chapel? just the people round about, I suppose.”
“Oh, no, no one don’t use the Chapel. Why, there ain’t no one to go. All the people about, they go to Stanford St Thomas Church; but my son-in-law, he go to Kingsbourne Church now, because the gentleman at Stanford, he have this Gregory singin’, and my son-in-law, he don’t like that; he say he can hear the old donkey brayin’ any day of the week, and he like something a little cheerful on the Sunday.” The old man drew his hand across his mouth and laughed. “That’s what my son-in-law say; he say he can hear the old donkey,” etc., da capo.
Mr Davidson also laughed as honestly as he could, thinking meanwhile that Brockstone Court and Chapel would probably be worth including in his walk; for the map showed that from Brockstone he could strike the Tent Valley quite as easily as by following the main Kingsbourne-Longbridge road. So, when the mirth excited by the remembrance of the son-in-law’s bon mot had died down, he returned to the charge, and ascertained that both the Court and the Chapel were of the class known as “old-fashioned places,” and that the old man would be very willing to take him thither, and his daughter would be happy to show him whatever she could.
“But that ain’t a lot, sir, not as if the family was livin’ there; all the lookin’-glasses is covered up, and the paintin’s, and the curtains and carpets folded away; not but what I dare say she could show you a pair just to look at, because she go over them to see as the morth shouldn’t get into ’em.”
“I shan’t mind about that, thank you; if she can show me the inside of the Chapel, that’s what I’d like best to see.”
“Oh, she can show you that right enough, sir. She have the key of the door, you see, and most weeks she go in and dust about. That’s a nice Chapel, that is. My son-in-law, he say he’ll be bound they didn’t have none of this Gregory singin’ there. Dear! I can’t help but smile when I think of him sayin’ that about th’ old donkey. ‘I can hear him bray,’ he say, ‘any day of the week’; and so he can, sir; that’s true, anyway.”