Chapter FiveThey breakfasted in the dining-room. Candida wouldn’t have believed it possible, but it was even gloomier by daylight. The Miss Benevents appeared to take a certain pride in the fact.
‘It is one of the original rooms, and as you see, it looks out towards the hill.’ Miss Olivia might have been introducing a View.
It would have been difficult to avoid seeing the hill, since there was no more than twenty feet between it and the two narrow windows. The intervening space was paved in stone. It formed a small square court-yard with figures in each corner and a rather larger one in the middle. The one in the middle represented a naked lady brooding over an urn. All the figures, as well as the paving-stones, had acquired a film of damp green slime.
‘This is the oldest part of the ho
