Read Lord Mullion's Secret for Free Online

lesser status than Swithin Gore and other retainers to be judged of a hereditary order. This doesn’t mean that Lord Mullion addresses more than a brief greeting to Swithin about half-a-dozen times in the twelvemonth. But he is aware of the lad, and would miss him if he cleared out – just as he would miss the disappearance from the castle of some inconsiderable piece of furniture that has been about for a long time.
    Swithin, being clever, is aware of all this, but doesn’t trade on it. He thinks that the Wyndowes, within the bounds set by the monstrous social injustices to which they subscribe, treat him decently enough, and probably did so from the start. He knows, without having to be told by Lady Patience, that if he makes a properly respectful approach to Lord Mullion access will be granted to him immediately and his ideas about a changed course of life will be entertained and sized up. But he knows he is still going to hesitate about this. He has somehow grown very fond of Mullion (although not of its wallflowers and other biennials in particular), and even if Lady Patience (Patty, he calls her to himself) were banished to Peru for keeps he would himself he reluctant to quit the place for good. He has a nebulous notion that he might even be trained to run it in the exalted station of its proprietor’s agent – which, given the know-how, he believes he would be perfectly capable of doing. The snag about this daydream is Lord Wyndowe (whom he has no disposition to think of as Cyprian). Lord Wyndowe, as his father’s heir, is only a heartbeat away from owning Mullion Castle and much else. And Swithin doesn’t care for young Lord Wyndowe at all.
    These thoughts, and certain others of a more elusive cast, were in Swithin’s mind as he prepared to knock off for dinner. But there were more immediate and practical matters to think of as well. Heavy rain-clouds were banking up in the west, and it looked as if the afternoon would see drenching summer rain. Pring had declared that it would infallibly hold off till nightfall. If this dogmatism proved unjustified Pring would be in a bad temper, and disposed in consequence to direct his subordinates to tasks as boring and disagreeable as he could think up. But there were various means of circumventing him here, in the deploying of which Swithin had developed considerable cunning. He was giving his mind to this as he walked down the drive in the direction of the main gates, some distance beyond which lay the cottage where he lodged. The route took him past the tennis court. Here he found something that arrested his attention.
    On the previous afternoon there had been a tennis party going on. It had been his business to keep away from it, but he had heard a good deal of shouting and chatter and laughter, as well as the regular clop-clop of the balls, as he wheeled a gigantic amount of compost from one place to another. The net had now been let down and everything tidied up, except in one particular. On a garden chair lay a racket, with its press tossed down beside it. And also on the grass were a blazer, a sweater, and a long woollen scarf garishly striped. That was Cyprian Wyndowe, and the colours on display were no doubt a species of tribal emblem associated either with King’s College, Cambridge, or with his lordship’s earlier place of education. Lord Wyndowe didn’t merely chuck things around all over the place; he expected them to be collected and fawningly brought back to him by whoever found them, much as if the entire staff of the castle were so many spaniels, retrievers, or similar canine serfs.
    Swithin looked at these objects, and then looked up at the sky. There could now be no doubt about the rain; it might come pouring down at any moment. Swithin had no call to notice Lord Wyndowe’s bits and pieces, but in the circumstances it seemed churlish and even bloody-minded to ignore them. He decided to collect them, proceed on his