Once a Week Part 42

"You _must_ recognise the church," I said, pointing to it. "If you don't, it proves either that you never lived at Hilderton or that you never sang in the choir. I don't know which thought is the more distressing. Now what about this place? Is this it?"

Celia peered up the drive.

"N-no; at least I don't remember it. I know there was a walnut tree in front of the house."

"Is that all you remember?"

"Well, I was only about six----"

Peter and I both had a slight cough at the same time.

"It's nothing," said Peter, finding Celia's indignant eye upon him.

"Let's go on."

We found two more big houses, but Celia, a little doubtfully, rejected them both.

"My grandfather-in-law was very hard to please," I apologized to Peter.

"He pa.s.sed over place after place before he finally fixed on Hilderton Hall. Either the heronry wasn't ventilated properly, or the decoy ponds had the wrong kind of mud, or----"

There was a sudden cry from Celia.

"This is it," she said.

She stood at the entrance to a long drive. A few chimneys could be seen in the distance. On either side of the gates was a high wall.

"I don't see the walnut tree," I said.

"Of course not, because you can't see the front of the house. But I feel certain that this is the place."

"We want more proof than that," said Peter. "We must go in and find the walnut tree."

"We can't all wander into another man's grounds looking for walnut trees," I said, "with no better excuse than that Celia's great-grandmother was once asked down here for the week-end and stayed for a fortnight. We----"

"My _grandfather_," said Celia coldly, "_lived_ here."

"Well, whatever it was," I said, "we must invent a proper reason. Peter, you might pretend you've come to inspect the gas-meter or the milk or something. Or perhaps Celia had better disguise herself as a Suffragette and say that she's come to borrow a box of matches. Anyhow, one of us must get to the front of the house to search for this walnut tree."

"It--it seems rather cheek," said Celia doubtfully.

"We'll toss up who goes."

We tossed, and of course I lost. I went up the drive nervously. At the first turn I decided to be an insurance inspector, at the next a scout-master, but, as I approached the front door, I thought of a very simple excuse. I rang the bell under the eyes of several people at lunch and looked about eagerly for the walnut tree.

There was none.

"Does Mr.--er--Erasmus--er--Percival live here?" I asked the footman.

"No, sir," he said--luckily.

"Ah! Was there ever a walnut--I mean _was_ there ever a Mr. Percival who lived here? Ah! Thank you," and I sped down the drive again.

"Well?" said Celia eagerly.

"Mr. Percival _doesn't_ live there."

"Whoever's Mr. Percival?"

"Oh, I forgot; you don't know him. Friends," I added solemnly, "I regret to tell you there is _no_ walnut tree."

"I am not surprised," said Peter.

The walk home was a silent one. For the rest of the day Celia was thoughtful. But at the end of dinner she brightened up a little and joined in the conversation.

"At Hilderton Hall," she said suddenly, "we always----"

"H'r'm," I said, clearing my throat loudly. "Peter, pa.s.s Celia the walnuts."

I have had great fun in London this week with the walnut joke, though Celia says she is getting tired of it. But I had a letter from Peter to-day which ended like this:--

"By the way, I was an a.s.s last week. I took you to Banfield in mistake for Hilderton. I went to Hilderton yesterday and found Hilderton Hall--a large place _with_ a walnut tree. It's a little way out of the village, and is marked big on the next section of the map to the one we were looking at. You might tell Celia."

True, I might....

Perhaps in a week or two I shall.

DEFINITIONS

As soon as we had joined the ladies after dinner Gerald took up a position in front of the fire.

"Now that the long winter evenings are upon us," he began----

"Anyhow, it's always dark at half-past nine," said Norah.

"Not in the morning," said Dennis, who has to be excused for anything foolish he says since he became obsessed with golf.

"Please don't interrupt," I begged. "Gerald is making a speech."

"I was only going to say that we might have a little game of some sort.

Norah, what's the latest parlour game from London?"

"Tell your uncle," I urged, "how you amuse yourselves at the Lyceum."

"Do you know 'Hunt the Pencil'?"