“Of course not,” laughed Pendleton’s good-natured wife. “I only tried to protect you. Crofts is a fearfully long-winded inquisitor.”
“I think I am the best judge—” began he, but the door closed, cutting short his speech and her laugh.
There were thirteen servants in the room when the tale was made. The dessert dishes from luncheon had not been removed. Crofts sat at the head of the board; I was inconspicuous in the curtained recess of the window where Belvoir had sat at breakfast-time.
From this vantage-point I had my first glimpse of the grounds immediately east of the House. I saw an unexpected lawn with lovely flower-patches extending to the kitchen-gardens. On both sides were topless and toppled walls much gnawed by time, clearly a portion of the ancient, much vaster edifice of which Highglen House is a survival. A group of well-preserved square stone buildings about thirty yards away on my right were, of course, the stables and garage.
The half-dozen women-servants and two elderly men-servants, besides the magisterial Blenkinson, were in chairs along the inner side of the room, while the other men stood with marked differences of composure before the screens that guarded the entrance to the pantries and the kitchen. The number of “below-stairs” folk would have been much greater, of course, had not the Pendletons requested their guests not to bring personal servants. Thus we men all valeted ourselves, and for the ladies the staff of maids had to “go round.”
Pendleton began bluntly: “It’s about this foolishness of Parson Lolly.”
Blenkinson lifted the lid of one eye, the better to observe the master of the House. “And did you mean to say, sir, if I may make so bold, that any of us have anything to do with the honfortunate affair?”
“Everything, everything!” said Crofts, and to allay a hum of dismay and dignity offended, hastily added, “Oh, don’t misunderstand, please. I mean just this: this Parson Lolly—this ridiculous Parson Lolly—of course, we don’t believe in any such nonsense. What I want to do is to get from each one of you, if you can pull yourselves together and give plain, straightforward statements—I want to find the origin of this folk-tale—this fairy-story—from each one of you—that is—do you see?”
“Can’t say as we do—speakin’ for me at least,” drawled a gaunt tawny-faced man in a leather coat and vest and corduroy riding-breeches, a cartridge-belt hanging over his arm. His voice had the pleasant modulation of this countryside, with a little chirruppy uptilt at the end of each phrase.
“Hughes, I expected—you see, of course, that it’s that common talk of you—all of you—and such as you, that spreads such wild, romantic, and unfounded legends through the countryside. Now, a man four hundred years old—which of you has seen such a man?”