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Wonder filled it as she rode home to Bayfield, and by the bridge she reined up Mercury as if to take her bearings in an unfamiliar country.
To-day the prisoners two hundred in all crowded the floor, the stairs, even the deep gallery above; but on the south side, facing the staircase, two heavy curtains had been looped back from the atrium, and there a ray of wintry sunshine fell through the glass roof upon the famous Bayfield pavement and the figure of Narcissus gravely expounding it.
I have not the slightest doubt that our Bayfield elms are the ragged survivors of an immense forest a forest which covered the whole primaeval face of Somerset on this side of the fens, and through which Vespasian's road-makers literally hewed their way.
It was a whole week now since Charles had visited Bayfield, but she had encountered him that morning in Axcester High Street as she passed up it on horseback with her brothers. She recalled his salute, his glance at her, and down-dropped eyes; she wondered what point Narcissus and he had discussed, and blamed herself for not having found courage to ask. . . . The stable clock struck ten.
Here were screens and rich Turkey rugs, and here the Bayfield household ordinarily had the lamps set after dinner and gathered before the fire, talking little, enjoying the long pauses filled with the hiss of logs and the monotonous drip and trickle of water in the penumbra.
It contained a set of the Bayfield drawings exquisitely cut in stone; and within the cover was wrapped a lighter parcel addressed to Miss Dorothea Westcote a rose-tree, with a packet of seeds tied about its root. No letter accompanied the gift, at the sentimentality of which she found herself able to smile.
But the scene impressed her sharply, and she carried away a very lively picture of it. The old Roman villa had been built about a hollow square open to the sky, and this square now formed the great hall of Bayfield. Deep galleries of two stories surrounded it, in place of the old colonnaded walk.
All the tongues of Rumour agreed that the Bayfield entertainment had been a success, and Endymion Westcote received many congratulations upon it at the next meeting of magistrates. "Nonsense, nonsense!" he protested lightly. "One must do something to make life more tolerable to the poor devils, and 'pon my word 'twas worth it to see their gratitude. They behaved admirably.
But few partners had ever sought her in the ballroom; her only drawings which anyone ever asked to see were half-a-dozen of the Bayfield pavement, executed for Narcissus' monograph; and her harp she played in her own room. Now and then Endymion would enquire how she progressed with her music, would listen to her report and observe: "Ah, I used to do a little fiddling myself."
But she soaked the root carefully in warm water, and smiled again at herself, as she planted it at the foot of the glacis beneath her boudoir window the very spot where Raoul had fallen. Against expectation for the journey had sorely withered it the plant throve. She lived to see it grown into a fine Provence rose, draping the whole south-east corner of Bayfield with its yellow bloom.
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