That Would Be a Fairy Tale - By Amanda Grange Page 0,7

was dotted with weeds, it was true, and the lawns beyond it were unkempt, but across the ha-ha, that useful ditch which separated the house from the park and prevented the animals from wandering too close, the deer at least kept the grass short.

Above them large oaks, fully leaved, rippled in the breeze.

‘Ready,’ said Alex, looking up from his meal. ‘As soon as I’ve finished my breakfast, I am going to visit Miss Cicely Haringay.’

‘I’m glad to see you’re building up your strength.’ Roddy looked meaningfully at Alex’s plate of bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried eggs.

Alex laughed. ‘Something tells me I’m going to need it. Charitable spinsters are not my favourite people, and charitable spinsters who were born with silver spoons in their mouths . . . ’

He let the sentence tail away.

‘She may not be so bad,’ said Roddy, spreading a thick layer of marmalade on his toast.

‘Oh, no? She’s already interfered with my running of the Manor, and I haven’t even met her yet.’

‘How on earth has she done that?’ asked Roddy, pausing with his piece of toast half way to his mouth.

‘By customarily allowing the Sunday school children to hold their annual picnic on my lawns. I had a visit from a Mrs Murgatroyd yesterday afternoon,’ Alex explained to Roddy, ‘shortly after I arrived. She told me - told me, mind you, didn’t ask me - that the Sunday school picnic, which is in a few weeks’ time, will be held, as usual, at the Manor. And when I told her that it might not be convenient she fixed me with a gimlet eye and said the Haringays had always allowed the Sunday school children to hold their picnic here, and that she knew Miss Haringay would be most put out if the custom did not continue.’

Roddy laughed. ‘You’ll have to expect some of that sort of thing, you know,’ he said reasonably.

‘But I don’t have to like it. Nor do I have to like the idea of mixing with the Mrs Murgatroyds of this world.’

‘Was she really that awful?’

‘Worse. I’ve no use for her kind. They’re rich and idle, and they think they have the right to tell everyone else what to do. It would be bad enough if their own lives were perfect, but they’re not. Far from it. The landed classes have all kinds of faults. They run up debts and never bother paying their bills - Haringay’s a prime example. The man’s family had lived here for time out of mind, but did that mean he paid his way? No. He thought he was too good for such things, I’ve no doubt, like the rest of his kind. Bought everything on credit and the poor shopkeepers who supplied his goods were put out of business.’

‘Be fair. You don’t know Haringay put anyone out of business.’

‘And you don’t know he didn’t,’ returned Alex.

‘And anyway, his daughter can’t be so bad,’ said Roddy, between mouthfuls of toast. ‘She did pay all his debts when he died. That’s why she had to sell the Manor.’

‘And was mighty glad to get rid of it, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He looked round the beautiful but neglected room. The paintwork was shabby and in the far corner it had peeled off, whilst round the fireplace it had become discoloured with smoke from the coal fire. The windows, having shrunk and expanded many times over the centuries with the damp and the heat, did not fit properly and rattled gently in the breeze. ‘It’s a draughty great barn of a place with no modern conveniences. Miss Cicely Haringay knew what she was doing when she sold the Manor. She got rid of a white elephant and settled herself snugly in the Lodge.’

He turned his attention back to his breakfast.

‘I hope you were polite to her. Mrs What’s-her-name from the Sunday school, I mean,’ said Roddy, reaching for another piece of toast.

‘Mrs Murgatroyd? Yes, I was polite. Though it stuck in my throat to be polite to someone like that.’ He grimaced. ‘She’s exactly the sort of woman who made Katie’s life such a misery when she was a parlour-maid. And exactly the kind of person who was so eager to believe that Katie was a thief when the Honourable Martin Goss’ – he gave a mirthless laugh at the idea of Martin Goss being honourable – ‘dropped the bracelet he had stolen into Katie’s apron so that his guilt should not be discovered. If there’s one thing I’m grateful for,