... Indeed, Maisie rather
liked the unwonted sense of space and freedom which was given by this easy
access to the world without; and, as the windows were secured by great shutters
and fasteners, she had no counterbalancing fear lest a nightly burglar should
attempt to carry off her little pearl necklet or her amethyst brooch, instead of
directing his whole attention to Mrs. West's famous diamond tiara.
She moved naturally to the window. She was fond of nature. The view it disclosed
over the Weald at her feet was wide and varied. Misty range lay behind misty
range, in a faint December haze, receding and receding, till away to the south,
half hidden by vapour, the Sussex downs loomed vague in the distance. The
village church, as happens so often in the case of old lordly manors, stood
within the grounds of the Hall, and close by the house. It had been built, her
hostess said, in the days of the Edwards, but had portions of an older Saxon
edifice still enclosed in the chancel. The one eyesore in the view was its new
white tower, recently restored (or rather, rebuilt), which contrasted most
painfully with the mellow grey stone and mouldering corbels of the nave and
transept.
"What a pity it's been so spoiled!" Maisie exclaimed, looking across at the
tower. Coming straight as she did from a Merioneth rectory, she took an
ancestral interest in all that concerned churches.
"Oh, my dear!" Mrs. West cried, "please don't say that, I beg of you, to the
Colonel. If you were to murmur 'spoiled' to him you'd wreck his digestion. He's
spent ever so much money over securing the foundations and reproducing the
sculpture on the old tower we took down, and it breaks his dear heart when
anybody disapproves of it. For some people, you know, are so absurdly opposed to
reasonable restoration."
"Oh, but this isn't even restoration, you know," Maisie said, with the frankness
of twenty, and the specialist interest of an antiquary's daughter. "This is pure
reconstruction."
"Perhaps so," Mrs. West answered. "But if you think so, my dear, don't breathe
it at Wolverden...
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