Ampersand Papers Read Free

tea in the Old Stables: 60p
     
    The Ampersand men were particularly tickled by the final bit of information and its price-tag. But Lady Ampersand wisely censored it, pointing out that if several char-à-bancs full of trippers were thus enticed to Treskinnick the village women who would have to be hired to slop them out their tea would demand an outrageous wage, so that the venture must be a dead loss. Lord Skillet, who had long ago ceased trying to make his mother see a joke, reluctantly concurred in the deletion.
    During the next few months perhaps as many as half a dozen hardy explorers penetrated to Treskinnick Castle. Of these the yet bolder ascended to the muniment room, looked around them, and took their departure cautiously but in evident haste. It became known that the present Lord Ampersand was mad, that his heir was madder, and that among their aberrations had to be numbered a wholly perverted sense of humour. Quite soon the learned became discouraged, and the family was left in peace.

2
     
    ‘Here is a letter from Agatha,’ Lady Ampersand said at breakfast one morning. (Agatha was Lady Ampersand’s sister.) ‘She encloses a cutting from The Times .’
    ‘What should she do that for?’ In Lord Ampersand’s head it had been established long ago that Agatha was a damned interfering woman. ‘ The Times comes into the house every day. I notice it regularly on the table in the hall. And Ludlow looks at it when he irons it, and tells me if anybody’s dead.’ Ludlow was the marquess’ butler. ‘As it happens, nobody has died for years, so your sister can’t have sent you an obituary. So what is it? Not some rubbish about Archie being had up again for speeding, I hope.’
    ‘Nothing of the kind. It’s about somebody called Shelley. A poet.’ Lady Ampersand gave thought to this. ‘ The poet,’ she emended concessively. ‘He was in the books at school.’
    ‘Shelley? I know all about him.’ It pleased Lord Ampersand to show his wife from time to time that he was quite on the ball. ‘Years ago, when I was at the House–’
    ‘I thought you’d never been to the House, Rollo. Or not after taking your seat.’
    ‘Not the House of Lords, my dear. The House. Christ Church.’
    ‘Oh, I see. The Oxford one. Of course.’ Lady Ampersand was a little at sea. ‘And you met Shelley? How interesting!’
    ‘Certainly not. Shelley was dead. He must have been, since there was this memorial to him. That’s what I’m telling you about.’
    ‘Yes, Rollo. Do go on.’
    ‘Once, when I was up at the House, I strayed into one of the colleges. I can’t think why.’
    ‘But isn’t the House Christ Church? Isn’t that just what you’ve said?’
    ‘Of course it is. One ought to know these things, my dear.’
    ‘And isn’t Christ Church one of the colleges?’
    ‘Certainly not. I was there for three years, and I don’t recall such a suggestion ever being made. I strayed into one of the colleges, as I say, and there was this memorial to Shelley. Uncommonly indecent thing.’
    ‘Would he have been one of the professors?’
    ‘Something of the kind, no doubt. But what is this stuff in The Times about him?’
    ‘It says he had a circle.’
    ‘Shelley had a circle? Doesn’t make sense. Might as well say that Shelley had a triangle. Or a trapezoid or a rhombus.’ Lord Ampersand had brilliantly recovered these figures from studious Eton days.
    ‘A set, Rollo. Shelley had a set . He came of very decent people in Sussex, it seems, although his father was only the second baronet. And some of his set were of really good family. Lord Byron was one of them. The sixth Lord Byron. He wrote even more poetry than Shelley did.’
    ‘Long-haired crowd, eh?’ It was plain that Lord Ampersand was not favourably impressed. ‘You still haven’t told me why Agatha has unloaded this rubbish on you. Ludlow, take away this toast. It’s burnt.’
    Ludlow, whose attendance at the breakfast-table was one of his employer’s