The Five-Minute Marriage by Joan Aiken Read Free Book Online

stars! I feel as if I was a duchess. ”
    They took their way along the Kent Road, and then through Maidstone and Charing. At Delphie ’ s request Bodkin drove the horses at an easy pace; she by no means wished to exhaust Mr. Browty ’ s team by unnecessary fast work, for Bodkin had given her to understand that they could comfortably reach Chase by late afternoon. So they paused here and there to breathe the horses, and took a nuncheon at the inn of a small village called Hollingbourne; Jenny would have preferred a grander place, perhaps the Angel at Maidstone, which had greatly taken her fancy by its handsome appearance, but Delphie, always practical, wished to conserve as much as possible of Mr. Browty ’ s money, in case her relations were unwilling or unable to receive them, and they were obliged to spend the night at an inn. Besides, she felt that she herself would greatly prefer the humbler, more unassuming establishment. She was not at all used to going about and dining in public places. In fact, to Delphie, who had been obliged to keep steadily at work in London, day in, day out, ever since she had left school, the country was a complete and delightful novelty: every object interested her; she exclaimed over the beauty of the green thorn hedges, still pearled and spangled with white; she was enchanted by the birdsong, the burgeoning woods, the late primroses and early bluebells along the banks of the highway, the white roads of Kent, and the neat thatched and timbered villages through which they passed.
    “ Pho, pho! ” said the traveled Jenny. “ This is nothing , let me tell you! You ought to see South End, where Sister and I went for a few days last August. There ’ s a place for you! There ’ s bands—and donkeys—and a promenade—and a Kiosk—why this is just fields and fields full of sheep—there ’ s nothing to it. ”
    But Delphie could not imagine anything prettier than the green and flowery Kentish landscape.
    However, when they passed a signpost that said, “ Cow Green 7 miles, ” and presently came to another pointing sideways off the highway along what was evidently a private roadway through parkland, which simply said, “ Chase, ” her good spirits abated and her courage began to falter.
    “ Never mind, dearie, ” said Miss Baggott, observing that the bright color whipped into Delphie ’ s cheeks by fresh air and interest in the things about her had vanished again, leaving them uncommonly pale. “ Ne ’ mind! Perhaps your great kinsfolk are from home, and there will be nowt to worry about. Didn ’ t you say that Lord Bollington had a mort of other houses? He might be at any of ‘ em. Then, ” she added hopefully, “ we could go back to Maidstone and stop at the Angel! ”
    But when the narrow white road took a turn, elbowing past a stand of oak woods all misty with bluebells, and brought them in sight of Chase Place, she changed her tune.
    “ A moat ! A real moat! Battlements! A tower! Why, it ’ s better than Hampton Court. Lor bless me, only think that I should be coming to stop in such a bang-up place! ”
    Chase Place was not precisely a castle, but it had some of a castle ’ s adjuncts; it was certainly much more than a mere house. Big, rambling, many-chimneyed, and gray, it lay inside an indubitable moat; there was a keep, with turrets, evidently left over from a Norman residence on the same spot; the main part of the building looked to be sixteenth-century, however. It sat snugly in a hollow, facing southward, and the approach road had to describe a half-circle to reach the front entrance. The surrounding green land was studded all over with sheep and half-grown lambs, and their bleating filled the air. The gardens of Chase, if gardens there were, must, Delphie surmised, be on the western or northern side of the house; from this aspect the green pastureland swept right to the moat.
    At length Bodkin, slowing down, pulled his team to a halt on this side of the bridge