“It was in Tatshire, a Benedictine House,” Marcham said; he knew this kind of thing. “There’s nothing left of the priory, is there?”
“No.”
“I thought not,” Marcham said. “I’d have seen it, if there had been.”
Frampton rang the bell. When the maid came, he asked:
“Did a roll of papers come from the station for me?”
“They’ve just come, sir,” the maid said.
“Those are the large-scale plans,” he said. “I telephoned to London for them to be put on the express and sent on: that’s a good service. Come along then, Marcham, and we’ll have some coffee and I’ll show you the idea.” As he led the way out of the room, he said: “The people who got the priory at the suppression built a manor. That’s the main problem now.”
He led the way to the study next door which he shared with his father. It was a long, low room, with two big oak tables, one for himself, one for his father. Both the long walls were covered with book-shelves. Above these was a frieze in raised relief, coloured proper, representing fallow deer, in covert, and in the open, resting, moving, grazing or running. It was a work of great spirit, done by a young man in whose work and future he had believed. The only other work of art in the room was a bronze head of his father, a powerful thing, but impossible as a likeness.
He took a chair at his table, and opened a packet of photographs just in from the local photographers, opened the plans, rolled them flat, and plucked a chair to his side for Marcham.
“Sit ye down,” he said; “and now look here. This is the place; first appearance of the landed gentry. Monks out, gents in. Here are the photos; took them myself to-day. The chap who got it, pulled down the church and built himself a pretty nice house from it. It’s all gone galley-west with neglect. This is the Tudor bit: like it? What d’ye say to the porch? Make you hop?”
It had made him hop; he was hopping all round the room, with little cries of “Golly.”
Frampton continued. “Are you doing anything to-morrow? Got a meeting with Roger? Well, I want you to put him off and come with me. We’ll go over it all and see what can be done. What d’ye think of the place? Like it, hey?”
“Golly,” Marcham said, “I didn’t know there was anything like this at Mullples. It isn’t figured in Perkins? What’s the roof like?”
“None too good, I expect. Perkins never got as far west as Mullples; he never touched Stubbington Hundred. I’ve just looked.”
Marcham was a man of great reading in his profession and had a memory.
“Wait a minute, now,” he said.
“That’s the place. The theatre stands. This is the snap of it.”
“That’s a beautiful place. Is the roof of that gone?”
“No. It’s dry as a bone. It’s been a kennels and then a fowlhouse. You have to keep your hounds and poultry dry.”
Marcham took photograph after photograph and seemed to eat them with his eyes.
“Well, what d’ye think?” Frampton asked. “Don’t be so damned critical.”
“Critical? I like that. You fill me with fizz and ask me why I’m sober. But these photographs look as though it needed seeing to. What’s it really like? Falling down?”
“It’s none too good, anywhere,” Frampton said. “The brook’s in the cellar, by the sound of it. No, they’ve let the place go to wreck.”
“But why did they let it get into this state? They could have sold it.”
“I expect they were always stupid and proud,” Frampton said. “The hounds were the important thing to them, not the house. Lately, I should think he’s clung on to it from sheer funk, of having nowhere to go, if he gets out of it. It’s mortgaged, and if the thing’s sold he won’t get much more than will pay the charge.”
“What will happen to him? The workhouse?”
“Well, what else is a chap like that good for? He can’t work with his hands and hasn’t any head; he’s just human scrap, with a poor, sour devil of a daughter. But come on, now; fall to. This is my idea of what ought to be done.”
He settled on to the plans as a bloodhound on to the trail; he was clear and forceful; and drove his enthusiasm into Marcham’s mind. Marcham was soon hopping about the room crying: “Golly; I see exactly what to do there. Now, how would this be?” Then he would rapidly sketch his suggestion, and give an estimate of the cost. He had a quick eye for a map, and saw from the big scale map all sorts of things which might be done. He also had a shrewd sense of the numbers of people needed to run the house and gardens, and where and how to house them.
“When will you know that you’ve got the house?” he asked at length.
“As soon as I can wring it out of them.”
“Will you get vacant possession by Christmas?”
“I mean to try. The chap will need some booting probably which I don’t mind if he gets.”