“Yes,” he agreed, “it looks at its best, doesn’t it? If Ryder was more here, he’d have gone in for restoring it by now; and, inside, I must say, it would be an improvement, though it would almost seem a pity to tear down that ivy. I looked over it this morning.”
“Oh, did you?” said Frances. “It is getting to be almost a survival. The day must come, I suppose, for overhauling it, if it is to hold its own much longer. Papa says the masonry is becoming very bad. I should like to see it really well done, though I am heathen enough to have a queer affection for it as it stands.”
“Do the visitors from Craig Bay come up here?” Mr Littlewood inquired.
“Not regularly,” Frances replied. “There is a very modern, tidy little church near the station. Were you thinking of funds for restoring this one when you spoke of the visitors? Our old vicar is too old, I suppose, to take any interest in doing it up, otherwise something might be done.”
“Oh, funds can’t be the difficulty,” said Mr Littlewood quickly. “Ryder Morion has far more money than he knows what to do with. I dare say he has restored other people’s churches more than once; that sort of thing is rather in his line.”
“Then, why doesn’t he begin at home?” asked a clear voice, startling them a little. It was Eira’s. Frances and Mr Littlewood, gazing at the church, which stood just outside the park wall in the opposite direction from Fir Cottage, had not observed that the two younger girls had retraced their steps some little way, and now were standing close behind them.
Again Frances felt annoyed, though she could not help being glad that this time the offender was not Betty. But her companion was on his guard: he answered gently, in a matter-of-fact tone, of itself conciliatory, “You may well ask. I shall tell Ryder what I think about it when I see him,” he said. “Why, he has never been here that any of you can remember, has he?” There was no immediate reply. It was, naturally enough, a trifle mortifying that on the few occasions—rare enough, it must be allowed—on which the owner of Craig-Morion had visited the place, he had taken no notice, direct or indirect, of his kindred at Fir Cottage. But the three sisters were nothing if not candid—candid and ingenuous in a very unconventional degree—and the silence was almost immediately broken by Frances’ clear, quiet voice.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “he has been here several times for a few days together, but we don’t know him at all, not even by sight.” Again Mr Littlewood anathematised his bad luck.
“Really?” he said, with apparent carelessness.
“I can’t call him exactly a genial person,” he went on, “and you know, I suppose, that his wife died a few years ago, which has not made him less of a recluse. All the same,”—for the young man was on common ground with his new friends so far as a constitutional love of candour goes—“all the same, I’m very much attached to him. He’s been a good friend to me in more ways than one.”