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My buttoned up self was taken back down the hall to the dining room that occupied the western wing. The hall was a long, wide room with a buffet against the right-hand wall. A large fireplace kept away the cool chill of the morning. On the wall opposite the fire was a line of windows that looked out on the front of the house. A well-manicured lawn stretched for some hundred feet before ending in an eight-foot tall hedge that surrounded the yard and disappeared around either side of the house to become the garden in the side and rear.
Light streamed into the room, casting its warmth on the thirteen chairs that occupied the table. At the head of the table opposite the door sat the lord. He rose at our entrance and drew out the chair that stood to his right where a place had been s
