Part 15

"Why, was there a cemetery there?" asked Mrs. Norton, looking mildly interested.

She, by the way, doesn't much care for ruins. She says they're so untidy.

You and I travelled till our money threatened to give out in the noble cause of sight-seeing, but I never realized history quite so potently even in Italy as I do in England. Yet that's not strange, when you think how tiny England is, compared with other countries, and how things have gone on happening there every minute since the Phoenicians found it a snug little island. Its chapters of history have to be packed like sardines, beginning down, down, far deeper than Kipling's "twelve coffins."

One Surrey village telleth another, just to slip through in a motor-car, though none could ever be tiresome in the telling; but if one stopped to hear the real story of each one, how different they would all be! There would be grand chapters of fighting, and mysterious chapters of smuggling--oh, but long ones about smuggling, since most of the manors and half the old cottages have "smugglers' rooms," where the lace and spirits used to be hidden, in their secret journey from Portsmouth to London. It's difficult to believe in these thrilling chapters now, in the rich, placid county, where the only mystery floats in the veil of blue mist that twists like a gauze scarf around the tree trunks in the woods, and the only black spots are the dark downs in the distance, with the sky pale gold behind them.

You would love motoring, not only for what you do see, but for what you nearly see, and long to see, but can't--just as Dad used to say "Thank God for all the blessings I've never had!" Why, every road you don't go down looks fantastically alluring, just twice as alluring as the one you are in. You grudge missing anything, and fear, greedily, that there may be better villages with more history beyond the line of your route. It's no consolation when Mrs. Norton says, "Well, you can't see everything!" You want to see everything. And you wish you had eyes all the way round your head. It would be inconvenient for hair and hats, but you could manage somehow.

We had to go through Petworth, a most feudal-looking old place, reeking of history since the Confessor, and mentioned in the Domesday Book (I do so respect towns or houses mentioned in the Domesday Book!), and if it had been the right day we could have seen Lord Leconsfield's collection of pictures, some of the best in England; but it was the wrong day, so we sailed on out of Surrey into Sussex, and arrived at Bignor.

All I knew about Bignor was that I must expect something amazing there. Sir Lionel asked me not to read about it in the books of which we have a travelling library in the car--one at least for each county we shall visit. He said he "wanted Bignor to be a surprise" for me; and it is odd the way one finds oneself obeying that man! Not that one's afraid of him, but--well, I don't know why exactly, but one just does it. We didn't stop in the village, though there was the quaintest grocery shop there you can imagine, perfectly mediaeval; and in the churchyard yew trees grand enough to make bows for half the archers of England--if there were any in these days. We went on to quite a modern-looking farmhouse, and Sir Lionel said, "I am going to ask Mrs. Tupper if she will give us a little lunch. If she says 'yes,' it's sure to be good."

"I don't know any Tuppers, Lionel," objected Mrs. Norton. "Who are they?"

"Relatives of Martin Tupper, if that name recalls anything to your mind," said he.

Mrs. Norton had a vague idea that she had been more or less brought up on extracts from Martin Tupper, and seemed to associate him with Sundays, when, as a child, she hadn't been allowed to play. But that didn't explain how Lionel happened to know connections of his in a Sussex farmhouse. Besides, he couldn't possibly have seen them for more than fifteen years.

"That is true, and I only saw them once, even then," he admitted. "But Mrs. Tupper had been here for a good many years, engaged in the most delightful work, which you will hear about by and by; and I'm sure she is here still, and will be for many more years to come, because I don't want to imagine the place without her."

Mrs. Norton said no more, and her brother knocked on the door of the farmhouse, which stood hospitably open. In a minute, a dear old white-haired lady appeared, and instantly her face lighted up.

"Why, if it isn't Mr. Pendragon--I mean Sir Lionel--come back to see us again!" said she.

Sir Lionel grew red with pleasure, at being remembered by her, for apparently he hadn't at all expected it. He seems to forget that he is a celebrity, and generally doesn't like being reminded of the fact, but he was pleased that Mrs. Tupper had read about him in the papers from time to time, and had never forgotten his face.

She said she would be delighted to provide us with lunch, if we didn't mind a simple one; and then she would have gone on to say something which would have given the "surprise" away, if Sir Lionel hadn't stopped her.

We had delicious country things to eat, with real Surrey cream and apple dumplings. They did taste good after the elaborate French cooking in London, by way of contrast! Then, when we had finished, Sir Lionel said, "Now, Mrs. Tupper, can you take us for a stroll round the farm?"

That didn't sound exciting, did it? We walked out, and it seemed a very nice farm, but nothing remarkable. As we wandered toward some sheds, in a field of mangolds, Sir Lionel made us look up at a big hill, and said, "There was a Roman camp there. If you'd stood where you stand now, on a quiet night in those times, you could have heard the clanking of armour or the soldiers quarrelling over their dice. Here Roman Stane Street ran, and chariots used to stop to bring the latest news from Rome to the owner of the villa."

"Was there a villa?" asked Mrs. Norton, who thinks it polite to ask her brother questions, whether she is interested or not.

"Let's take a look into this shed," said he, by way of answer. And, there, protected by that rough roof, was a great stretch of splendid mosaic pavement. It was done in circular compartments of ornamentation, and in one was a beautiful head of Ganymede--in another, Winter. Alas, I shouldn't have known what they were if I hadn't been told, but I would have known that they were rare and wonderful.

This was the "surprise." This was the secret of Bignor; but it wasn't nearly all. There were lovely broken pillars, and lots more pavements, acres of mosaic, it seemed; for the villa had been large and important, and must have been built by a rich man with cultivated taste. He knew how to make exile endurable, did that Roman gentleman! Standing in his dining-hall, I could imagine him and his fair lady-wife sitting at breakfast, looking out from between white, glittering pillars at the Sussex downs, grander than those of Surrey, reminding me of great, brave shoulders raised to protect England. Now we knew what Mrs. Tupper's "delightful work" was! For forty-nine years she has cleaned the mosaic pavement of the vanished Roman villa, all of which were discovered by the grandfather of the present owner of the farm. Never once has she tired of looking at the mosaics, because, as she explained to us, "one doesn't tire of what is beautiful." There speaks true appreciation, doesn't it? Only a born lover of the beautiful could have said that so simply.

There was an Italian, a man from Venice, repairing the mosaic. He could hardly speak a word of English, and beamed with a sudden smile when I asked him some question in his native tongue. We talked awhile, and I translated several things he said to Sir Lionel and his sister. I'm ashamed to confess, dear, that I was pleased to show off my poor little accomplishment, and proud because I knew one thing which our famous man didn't. Wasn't that low of me?

"Well, you weren't disappointed in my surprise, I think?" said Sir Lionel, when we were starting away at last.

I just gave him one look. It really wasn't necessary to answer.

As we flashed on, through country always exquisite, and over perfect roads, I could think of nothing but Bignor, until suddenly, after passing through a long aisle of great beeches, like an avenue in a private park, a tremendous bulk of stone looming at me made me jump, and cry out, "Oh!"

Sir Lionel turned his head long enough for half a smile. "Arundel Castle," he said.

It's lucky for me that Mrs. Norton doesn't know much about any part of England except her own home, and the homes of her particular friends, or else she would always be explaining things to me, and I should hate that. It would be like having purple hot-house grapes handed out to one impaled on the prongs of a plated silver fork. I should have wanted to slap her, if she had told me I was looking at Arundel Castle, but I was grateful to her brother for the information. This was a wickedness in me; but if you knew how I felt, having started out from the Ritz expecting a quiet day's run through one or two of the garden counties of England, to come like this, bang into the midst of Roman villas, and under the shadow of a tenth-century castle-keep, maybe you'd excuse my morals for being upset.

You can't have centuries roll away, like a mere cloud of dust raised by your motor, and be perfectly normal, can you? I tried to seem calm, because I hate to be gushing and school-girlish (for Ellaline's sake, I suppose, as it can't make any difference what her Dragon thinks of me), but I'm pretty sure he saw that I was rather "out of myself" over all his surprises.

He stopped the motor, and we sat for a long time gazing up at the towers beyond the green and silver beeches--a pile of battlemented stone, looking like the Middle Ages carved in granite, yet more habitable to-day than ever before.