That old house in the midst, with its wonderful twisted chimneys and broken wall, was once the home of the extinct Welyshams of Swale. But the name of Welysham, embedded in the history of Lowshire and still renowned in India, is forgotten in Riff. Their old house, fast falling into ruins, is now used as a farm, until Roger can get leave to restore it, or pull it down. The sky looks in at the upper rooms. No one dare go up the wide oak staircase, and Mrs. Nicholls' chickens roost on the carved balustrade of the minstrels' gallery.
We will go there next.
Mrs. Nicholls, the devoted nurse of all the Manvers family and the principal treble in the choir, had married at a portly age the tenant-farmer at Swale, and Annette was having tea with her on this particular afternoon, and hearing a full description, which scorned all omissions, of the last illness of Mr. Nicholls, who had not been able "to take a bite in his head" of anything solid for many weeks before his death.
"And so, miss," said Mrs. Nicholls philosophically, "when he went I felt it was all for the best. It's a poor thing for a man to live by suction."
Annette agreed.
"Swale seems quite empty this afternoon," she said, possibly not unwilling to change the subject. "There is hardly a soul to be seen."
"I expect they've all gone to Sir Harry's 'lection tea," said Mrs. Nicholls. "I used to go while Nicholls was alive, and very convenient it was; but Sir Harry don't want no widders nor single spinsters—only wives of them as has votes."
Politics were not so complicated twenty years ago as they are now. Those were the simple days when Sir Harry Ogden, the Member, urbanely opined that he was for Church and State, and gave tea shortly before the election to the wives of his constituents. And the ladies of Swale and Riff, and even the great Mrs. Nicholls, thought none the worse of their Member because there was always a sovereign at the bottom of the cup.
"Mr. Black wants to start a Mothers' Meeting in Swale," continued Annette. "He asked me to talk it over with you. I know he is hoping for your nice parlour for it, so beautiful as you always keep it."
Mrs. Nicholls was softened by the compliment to her parlour, the condition of which was as well known as that Queen Victoria was on the throne, but she opined that there had been a deal too much "argybargy" already among the Swale matrons about the Mothers' Meeting, and that she did not see her way to joining it.