Christmas at Candleshoe by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page A

reach that too.
    Mr Armigel discourses on certain passages of violence in the history of Candleshoe. From generation to generation the place itself has slumbered, and its owners with it. But the chronicle shows an intermittent streak of wildness among its younger sons. It is two or three of these who have, upon certain unedifying occasions, streaked the page with blood. Others have taken their waywardness to sundry remote corners of the globe, and among these – Mr Armigel intimates – an equal rashness has produced rather more that is laudable.
    Mrs Feather inquires about the present heir. Grant compresses his lips, reading into this a clear proof of his mother’s intention. Mr Armigel replies that the air is generally accounted wholesome, and the exposure of the mansion particularly well adapted to making the best of the winter sunshine. Grant decides that this is a cunning old man. He even suspects that there may be some plan to put Candleshoe on the market, and that any persons of evident substance straying within its policies are liable to be conducted to the owner and entertained with an eye to possible business. This however scarcely allays his anxieties about his mother’s conduct. Her mind may be moving in the same way. And if they are both wrong, some humiliating situation may ensue.
    But now the house is squarely before them. It is undoubtedly a gem. The plainness of the front is relieved by a central and two flanking bays, and the fine proportions of the whole are accented by the weathered stone with which the mellow brick is bonded at the major perpendiculars. There is a terrace with a crumbling arcade and a flight of steps leading down into the gardens; above the main entrance is a great dim sundial with its gnomon gone, like a battered pugilist; crowning the whole is a lettered balustrade carrying some pious Latin inscription the whole length of the building. They climb the steps, finding the broken treads only uncertainly amid weeds and moss; the main doorway is narrow, and its sides are polished by the friction of centuries of broad shoulders and hurrying elbows; on their left is a buttery hatch and on their right a high carved screen with a little staircase leading to a gallery. They pass through an opening in this screen hung with a curtain so ancient that it seems woven of dust, and find themselves in the great hall of Candleshoe Manor.
    The greatness is relative. Lord Scattergood’s octagon room could digest the place without noticing. But it remains a big hall, with a dais and a lofty bay window at the far end, a fireplace with a massive dog-grate, and a ceiling of elaborately moulded plaster. On the oak-panelled walls a variety of pictures – portraits and mythological scenes that have alike retreated behind a brown haze of varnish – jostle with boars’ heads, foxes’ masks, pikes, shields, and muskets.
    There is a great deal of stuff lying about. This – Grant sees at once – makes the real point of contrast with the octagon room. That room – although very conceivably whole bevies of Spendloves smoke their pipes in it after business hours – has taken on the air of a museum; there is a great deal of stuff there too; but it is ranged and ordered, so that on each object one expects to see a little label. Here, if you are not careful, you will trip over things or bump your head. There is a lot of armour tumbled about in one corner, as if a knight in haste to get into the lists has been rummaging for a hauberk with a good snug fit. Near this a tall armoire stands open. It has been adapted – perhaps two hundred years ago – to the purposes of a wardrobe, and it contains an odd jumble of doublets and riding-cloaks and breeches, mud-bespattered and antique of cut. On the dais is a long refectory table. One end of this, extending into the bay window, catches the last warmth of the day and is laid with some elaboration for two, with silver plates and tankards, and apples in a great silver-gilt