“Lord Lynborough presents his compliments to her Excellency the Marchesa di San Servolo. Lord Lynborough has learnt, with surprise and regret, that his servants have within the last two days been warned off Beach Path, and that a padlock and other obstacles have been placed on the gate leading to the path, by her Excellency’s orders. Lord Lynborough and his predecessors have enjoyed the use of this path by themselves, their agents, andservants, for many years back—certainly for fifty, as Lord Lynborough knows from his father and from old servants, and Lord Lynborough is not disposed to acquiesce in any obstruction being raised to his continued use of it. He must therefore request her Excellency to have the kindness to order that the padlock and other obstacles shall be removed, and he will be obliged by this being done before eight o’clock to-morrow morning—at which time Lord Lynborough intends to proceed by Beach Path to the sea in order to bathe. Scarsmoor Castle; 13th June.”
“Lord Lynborough presents his compliments to her Excellency the Marchesa di San Servolo. Lord Lynborough has learnt, with surprise and regret, that his servants have within the last two days been warned off Beach Path, and that a padlock and other obstacles have been placed on the gate leading to the path, by her Excellency’s orders. Lord Lynborough and his predecessors have enjoyed the use of this path by themselves, their agents, andservants, for many years back—certainly for fifty, as Lord Lynborough knows from his father and from old servants, and Lord Lynborough is not disposed to acquiesce in any obstruction being raised to his continued use of it. He must therefore request her Excellency to have the kindness to order that the padlock and other obstacles shall be removed, and he will be obliged by this being done before eight o’clock to-morrow morning—at which time Lord Lynborough intends to proceed by Beach Path to the sea in order to bathe. Scarsmoor Castle; 13th June.”
THEreception of this letter proved an agreeable incident of an otherwise rather dull Sunday evening at Nab Grange. The Marchesa had been bored; the Colonel was sulky. Miss Gilletson had forbidden cards; her conscience would not allow herself, nor her feelings of envy permit other people, to play on the Sabbath. Lady Norah and Violet Dufaure were somewhat at cross-purposes, each preferring to talk to Stillford and endeavouring, under a false show of amity, to foist Captain Irons on to the other.
“Listen to this!” cried the Marchesa vivaciously. She read it out. “He doesn’t beat about the bush, does he? I’m to surrender before eight o’clock to-morrow morning!”
“Sounds rather a peremptory sort of a chap!” observed Colonel Wenman.
“I,” remarked Lady Norah, “shouldn’t so much as answer him, Helena.”
“I shall certainly answer him and tell him that he’ll trespass on my property at his peril,” said the Marchesa haughtily. “Isn’t that the right way to put it, Mr Stillford?”
“If it would be a trespass, that might be one way to put it,” was Stillford’s professionally cautious advice. “But as I ventured to tell you when you determined to put on the padlock, the rights in the matter are not quite as clear as we could wish.”
“When I bought this place, I bought a private estate—a private estate, Mr Stillford—for myself—not a short cut for Lord Lynborough! Am I to putup a notice for him, ‘This Way to the Bathing Machines’?”
“I wouldn’t stand it for a moment.” Captain Irons sounded bellicose.
Violet Dufaure was amicably inclined.
“You might give him leave to walk through. It would be a bore for him to go round by the road every time.”
“Certainly I might give him leave if he asked for it,” retorted the Marchesa rather sharply. “But he doesn’t. He orders me to open my gate—and tells me he means to bathe! As if I cared whether he bathed or not! What is it to me, I ask you, Violet, whether the man bathes or not?”
“I beg your pardon, Marchesa, but aren’t you getting a little off the point?” Stillford intervened deferentially.
“No, I’m not. I never get off the point, Mr Stillford. Do I, Colonel Wenman?”
“I’ve never known you to do it in my life, Marchesa.” There was, in fact, as Lynborough had ventured to anticipate, a flush on the Marchesa’s cheek, and the Colonel knew his place.
“There, Mr Stillford!” she cried triumphantly. Then she swept—the expression is really applicable—across the room to her writing-table. “I shall be courteous, but quite decisive,” she announced over her shoulder as she sat down.
Stillford stood by the fire, smiling doubtfully. Evidently it was no use trying to stop the Marchesa; she had insisted on locking the gate, and she would persist in keeping it locked till she was forced, by process of law or otherwise, to open it again. But if the Lords of Scarsmoor Castle really had used it without interruption for fifty years (as Lord Lynborough asserted)—well, the Marchesa’s rights were at least in a precarious position.
The Marchesa came back with her letter in her hand. “ ‘The Marchesa di San Servolo,’ ” she read out to anadmiring audience, “ ‘presents her compliments to Lord Lynborough. The Marchesa has no intention of removing the padlock and other obstacles which have been placed on the gate to prevent trespassing—either by Lord Lynborough or by anybody else. The Marchesa is not concerned to know Lord Lynborough’s plans in regard to bathing or otherwise. Nab Grange; 13th June.’ ”
The Marchesa looked round on her friends with a satisfied air.
“I call that good,” she remarked. “Don’t you, Norah?”
“I don’t like the last sentence.”
“Oh yes! Why, that’ll make him angrier than anything else! Please ring the bell for me, Mr Stillford; it’s just behind you.”
The butler came back.
“Who brought Lord Lynborough’s letter?” asked the Marchesa.
“I don’t know who it is, your Excellency—one of the upper servants at the Castle, I think.”
“How did he come to the house?”
“By the drive—from the south gate—I believe, your Excellency.”
“I’m glad of that,” she declared, looking positively dangerous. “Tell him to go back the same way, and not by the—by what Lord Lynborough chooses to call ‘Beach Path.’ Here’s a letter for him to take.”
“Very good, your Excellency.” The butler received the letter and withdrew.
“Yes,” said Lady Norah, “rather funny he should call it Beach Path, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know whether it’s funny or not, Norah, but I do know that I don’t care what he calls it. He may call it Piccadilly if he likes, but it’s my path all the same.” As she spoke she looked, somewhat defiantly, at Mr Stillford.
Violet Dufaure, whose delicate frame held an indomitableand indeed pugnacious spirit, appealed to Stillford; “Can’t Helena have him taken up if he trespasses?”
“Well, hardly, Miss Dufaure. The remedy would lie in the civil courts.”
“Shall I bring an action against him? Is that it? Is that right?” cried the Marchesa.
“That’s the ticket, eh, Stillford?” asked the Colonel.
Stillford’s position was difficult; he had the greatest doubt about his client’s case.
“Suppose you leave him to bring the action?” he suggested. “When he does, we can fully consider our position.”
“But if he insists on using the path to-morrow?”
“He’ll hardly do that,” Stillford persuaded her. “You’ll probably get a letter from him, asking for the name of your solicitor. You will give him my name; I shall obtain the name of his solicitor, and we shall settle it between us—amicably, I hope, but in any case without further personal trouble to you, Marchesa.”
“Oh!” said the Marchesa blankly. “That’s how it will be, will it?”
“That’s the usual course—the proper way of doing the thing.”
“It may be proper; it sounds very dull, Mr Stillford. What if he does try to use the path to-morrow—‘in order to bathe’ as he’s good enough to tell me?”
“If you’re right about the path, then you’ve the right to stop him,” Stillford answered rather reluctantly. “If you do stop him, that, of course, raises the question in a concrete form. You will offer a formal resistance. He will make a formal protest. Then the lawyers step in.”
“We always end with the lawyers—and my lawyer doesn’t seem sure I’m right!”
“Well, I’m not sure,” said Stillford bluntly. “It’s impossible to be sure at this stage of the case.”
“For all I see, he may use my path to-morrow!”The Marchesa was justifying her boast that she could stick to a point.
“Now that you’ve lodged your objection, that won’t matter much legally.”
“It will annoy me intensely,” the Marchesa complained.
“Then we’ll stop him,” declared Colonel Wenman valorously.
“Politely—but firmly,” added Captain Irons.
“And what do you say, Mr Stillford?”
“I’ll go with these fellows anyhow—and see that they don’t overstep the law. No more than the strictly necessary force, Colonel!”
“I begin to think that the law is rather stupid,” said the Marchesa. She thought it stupid; Lynborough held it iniquitous; the law was at a discount, and its majesty little reverenced, that night.
Ultimately, however, Stillford persuaded the angry lady to—as he tactfully put it—give Lynborough a chance. “See what he does first. If he crosses the path now, after warning, your case is clear. Write to him again then, and tell him that, if he persists in trespassing, your servants have orders to interfere.”
“That lets him bathe to-morrow!” Once more the Marchesa returned to her point—a very sore one.
“Just for once, it really doesn’t matter!” Stillford urged.
Reluctantly she acquiesced; the others were rather relieved—not because they objected to a fight, but because eight in the morning was rather early to start one. Breakfast at the Grange was at nine-thirty, and, though the men generally went down for a dip, they went much later than Lord Lynborough proposed to go.
“He shall have one chance of withdrawing gracefully,” the Marchesa finally decided.
Stillford was unfeignedly glad to hear her say so; he had, from a professional point of view, no desire fora conflict. Inquiries which he had made in Fillby—both from men in Scarsmoor Castle employ and from independent persons—had convinced him that Lynborough’s case was strong. For many years—through the time of two Lynboroughs before the present at Scarsmoor, and through the time of three Crosses (the predecessors of the Marchesa) at Nab Grange, Scarsmoor Castle had without doubt asserted this dominant right over Nab Grange. It had been claimed and exercised openly—and, so far as he could discover, without protest or opposition. The period, as he reckoned it, would prove to be long enough to satisfy the law as to prescription; it was very unlikely that any document existed—or anyhow could be found—which would serve to explain away the presumption which user such as this gave. In fine, the Marchesa’s legal adviser was of opinion that in a legal fight the Marchesa would be beaten. His own hope lay in compromise; if friendly relations could be established, there would be a chance of a compromise. He was sure that the Marchesa would readily grant as a favour—and would possibly give in return for a nominal payment—all that Lynborough asked. That would be the best way out of the difficulty. “Let us temporise, and be conciliatory,” thought the man of law.
Alas, neither conciliation nor dilatoriness was in Lord Lynborough’s line! He read the Marchesa’s letter with appreciation and pleasure. He admired the curtness of its intimation, and the lofty haughtiness with which the writer dismissed the subject of his bathing. But he treated the document—it cannot be said that he did wrong—as a plain defiance. It appeared to him that no further declaration of war was necessary; he was not concerned to consider evidence nor to weigh his case, as Stillford wanted to consider the Marchesa’s evidence and to weigh her case. This for two reasons: first, because he was entirely sure that he was right; secondly, because he had no intention of bringing thequestion to trial. Lynborough knew but one tribunal; he had pointed out its local habitation to Roger Wilbraham.
Accordingly it fell out that conciliatory counsels and Fabian tactics at Nab Grange received a very severe—perhaps indeed a fatal—shock the next morning.
At about nine o’clock the Marchesa was sitting in her dressing-gown by the open window, reading her correspondence and sipping an early cup of tea—she had become quite English in her habits. Her maid re-entered the room, carrying in her hand a small parcel. “For your Excellency,” she said. “A man has just left it at the door.” She put the parcel down on the marble top of the dressing-table.
“What is it?” asked the Marchesa indolently.
“I don’t know, your Excellency. It’s hard, and very heavy for its size.”
Laying down the letter which she had been perusing, the Marchesa took up the parcel and cut the string which bound it. With a metallic clink there fell on her dressing-table—a padlock! To it was fastened a piece of paper, bearing these words: “Padlock found attached to gate leading to Beach Path. Detached by order of Lord Lynborough. With Lord Lynborough’s compliments.”
Now, too, Lynborough might have got his flush—if he could have been there to see it!
“Bring me my field-glasses!” she cried.
The window commanded a view of the gardens, of the meadows beyond the sunk fence, of the path—Beach Path as that man was pleased to call it!—and of the gate. At the last-named object the enraged Marchesa directed her gaze. The barricade of furze branches was gone! The gate hung open upon its hinges!
While she still looked, three figures came across the lens. A very large stout shape—a short spare form—a tall, lithe, very lean figure. They were just reaching the gate, coming from the direction of the sea. The two first were strangers to her; the third she had seenfor a moment the afternoon before on Sandy Nab. It was Lynborough himself, beyond a doubt. The others must be friends—she cared not about them. But to sit here with the padlock before her, and see Lynborough pass through the gate—a meeker woman than she had surely been moved to wrath! He had bathed—as he had said he would. And he had sent her the padlock. That was what came of listening to conciliatory counsels, of letting herself give ear to dilatory persuasions!
“War!” declared the Marchesa. “War—war—war! And if he’s not careful, I won’t confine it to the path either!” She seemed to dream of conquests, perhaps to reckon resources, whereof Mr Stillford, her legal adviser, had taken no account.
She carried the padlock down to breakfast with her; it was to her as a Fiery Cross; it summoned her and her array to battle. She exhibited it to her guests.
“Now, gentlemen, I’m in your hands!” said she. “Is that man to walk over my property for his miserable bathing to-morrow?”
He would have been a bold man who, at that moment, would have answered her with a “Yes.”
AN enviable characteristic of Lord Lynborough’s was that, when he had laid the fuse, he could wait patiently for the explosion. (That last word tends to recur in connection with him.) Provided he knew that his adventure and his joke were coming, he occupied the interval profitably—which is to say, as agreeably as he could. Having launched the padlock—his symbolical ultimatum—and asserted his right, he spent the morning in dictating to Roger Wilbraham a full, particular,and veracious account of his early differences with the Dean of Christ Church. Roger found his task entertaining, for Lynborough’s mimicry of his distinguished opponent was excellent. Stabb meanwhile was among the tombs in an adjacent apartment.
This studious tranquillity was disturbed by the announcement of a call from Mr Stillford. Not without difficulty he had persuaded the Marchesa to let him reconnoitre the ground—to try, if it seemed desirable, the effect of a bit of “bluff”—at anyrate to discover, if he could, something of the enemy’s plan of campaign. Stillford was, in truth, not a little afraid of a lawsuit!
Lynborough denied himself to no man, and received with courtesy every man who came. But his face grew grim and his manner distant when Stillford discounted the favourable effect produced by his appearance and manner—also by his name, well known in the county—by confessing that he called in the capacity of the Marchesa’s solicitor.
“A solicitor?” said Lynborough, slightly raising his brows.
“Yes. The Marchesa does me the honour to place her confidence in me; and it occurs to me that, before this unfortunate dispute——”
“Why unfortunate?” interrupted Lynborough with an air of some surprise.
“Surely it is—between neighbours? The Castle and the Grange should be friends.” His cunning suggestion elicited no response. “It occurred to me,” he continued, somewhat less glibly, “that, before further annoyance or expense was caused, it might be well if I talked matters over with your lordship’s solicitor.”
“Sir,” said Lynborough, “saving your presence—which, I must beg you to remember, was not invited by me—I don’t like solicitors. I have no solicitor. I shall never have a solicitor. You can’t talk with a non-existent person.”
“But proceedings are the natural—the almost inevitable result—of such a situation as your action has created, Lord Lynborough. My client can’t be flouted, she can’t have her indubitable rights outraged——”
“Do you think they’re indubitable?” Lynborough put in, with a sudden quick flash of his eyes.
For an instant Stillford hesitated. Then he made his orthodox reply. “As I am instructed, they certainly are.”
“Ah!” said Lynborough drily.
“No professional man could say more than that, Lord Lynborough.”
“And they all say just as much! If I say anything you don’t like, again remember that this interview is not of my seeking, Mr Stillford.”
Stillford waxed a trifle sarcastic. “You’ll conduct your case in person?” he asked.
“If you hale me to court, I shall. Otherwise there’s no question of a case.”
This time Stillford’s eyes brightened; yet still he doubted Lynborough’s meaning.
“We shouldn’t hesitate to take our case into court.”
“Since you’re wrong, you’d probably win,” said Lynborough, with a smile. “But I’d make it cost you the devil of a lot of money. That, at least, the law can do—I’m not aware that it can do much else. But, as far as I’m concerned, I should as soon appeal to the Pope of Rome in this matter as to a law-court—sooner, in fact.”
Stillford grew more confidently happy—and more amazed at Lynborough.
“But you’ve no right to—er—assert rights if you don’t intend to support them.”
“I do intend to support them, Mr Stillford. That you’ll very soon find out.”
“By force?” Stillford himself was gratified by the shocked solemnity which he achieved in this question.
“If so, your side has no prejudice against legal proceedings. Prisons are not strange to me——”
“What?” Stillford was a little startled. He had not heard all the stories about Lord Lynborough.
“I say, prisons are not strange to me. If necessary, I can do a month. I am, however, not altogether a novice in the somewhat degrading art of getting the other man to hit first. Then he goes to prison, doesn’t he? Just like the law! As if that had anything to do with the merits!”
Stillford kept his eye on the point valuable to him. “By supporting your claim I intended to convey supporting it by legal action.”
“Oh, the cunning of this world, the cunning of this world, Roger!” He flung himself into an arm-chair, laughing. Stillford was already seated. “Take a cigarette, Mr Stillford. You want to know whether I’m going to law or not, don’t you? Well, I’m not. Is there anything else you want to know? Oh, by the way, we don’t abstain from the law because we don’t know the law. Permit me—Mr Stillford, solicitor—Mr Roger Wilbraham, of the Middle Temple, Esquire, barrister-at-law. Had I known you were coming, Roger should have worn his wig. No, no, we know the law—but we hate it.”
Stillford was jubilant at a substantial gain—the appeal to law lay within the Marchesa’s choice now; and that was in his view a great advantage. But he was legitimately irritated by Lynborough’s sneers at his profession.
“So do most of the people who belong to—the people to whom prisons are not strange, Lord Lynborough.”
“Apostles—and so on?” asked Lynborough airily.
“I hardly recognise your lordship as belonging to that—er—er—category.”
“That’s the worst of it—nobody will,” Lynborough admitted candidly. A note of sincere, if whimsical, regret sounded in his voice. “I’ve been trying for fifteen years. Yet some day I may be known as St Ambrose!” His tones fell to despondency again. “StAmbrose the Less, though—yes, I’m afraid the Less. Apostles—even Saints—are much handicapped in these days, Mr Stillford.”
Stillford rose to his feet. “You’ve no more to say to me, Lord Lynborough?”
“I don’t know that I ever had anything to say to you, Mr Stillford. You must have gathered before now that I intend to use Beach Path.”
“My client intends to prevent you.”
“Yes?—Well, you’re three able-bodied men down there—so my man tells me—you, and the Colonel, and the Captain. And we’re three up here. It seems to me fair enough.”
“You don’t really contemplate settling the matter by personal conflict?” He was half amused, yet genuinely stricken in his habits of thought.
“Entirely a question for your side. We shall use the path.” Lynborough cocked his head on one side, looking up at the sturdy lawyer with a mischievous amusement. “I shall harry you, Mr Stillford—day and night I shall harry you. If you mean to keep me off that path, vigils will be your portion. And you won’t succeed.”
“I make a last appeal to your lordship. The matter could, I believe, be adjusted on an amicable basis. The Marchesa could be prevailed upon to grant permission——”
“I’d just as soon ask her permission to breathe,” interrupted Lynborough.
“Then my mission is at an end.”
“I congratulate you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, you’ve found out the chief thing you wanted to know, haven’t you? If you’d asked it point-blank, we should have saved a lot of time. Good-bye, Mr Stillford. Roger, the bell’s in reach of your hand.”
“You’re pleased to be amused at my expense?” Stillford had grown huffy.
“No—only don’t think you’ve been clever at mine,” Lynborough retorted placidly.
So they parted. Lynborough went back to his Dean, Stillford to the Marchesa. Still ruffled in his plumes, feeling that he had been chaffed and had made no adequate reply, yet still happy in the solid, the important fact which he had ascertained, he made his report to his client. He refrained from openly congratulating her on not being challenged to a legal fight; he contented himself with observing that it was convenient to be able to choose her own time to take proceedings.
Lady Norah was with the Marchesa. They both listened attentively and questioned closely. Not the substantial points alone attracted their interest; Stillford was constantly asked—“How did he look when he said that?” He had no other answer than “Oh—well—er—rather queer.” He left them, having received directions to rebarricade the gate as solidly and as offensively as possible; a board warning off trespassers was also to be erected.
Although not apt at a description of his interlocutor, yet Stillford seemed to have conveyed an impression.
“I think he must be delightful,” said Norah thoughtfully, when the two ladies were left together. “I’m sure he’s just the sort of a man I should fall in love with, Helena.”
As a rule the Marchesa admired and applauded Norah’s candour, praising it for a certain patrician flavour—Norah spoke her mind, let the crowd think what it would! On this occasion she was somehow less pleased; she was even a little startled. She was conscious that any man with whom Norah was gracious enough to fall in love would be subjected to no ordinary assault; the Irish colouring is bad to beat, and Norah had it to perfection; moreover, the aforesaid candour makes matters move ahead.
“After all, it’s my path he’s trespassing on, Norah,” the Marchesa remonstrated.
They both began to laugh. “The wretch is as handsome as—as a god,” sighed Helena.
“You’ve seen him?” eagerly questioned Norah; and the glimpse—that tantalising glimpse—on Sandy Nab was confessed to.
The Marchesa sprang up, clenching her fist. “Norah, I should like to have that man at my feet, and then to trample on him! Oh, it’s not only the path! I believe he’s laughing at me all the time!”
“He’s never seen you. Perhaps if he did he wouldn’t laugh. And perhaps you wouldn’t trample on him either.”
“Ah, but I would!” She tossed her head impatiently. “Well, if you want to meet him, I expect you can do it—on my path to-morrow!”
This talk left the Marchesa vaguely vexed. Her feeling could not be called jealousy; nothing can hardly be jealous of nothing, and even as her acquaintance with Lynborough amounted to nothing, Lady Norah’s also was represented by a cypher. But why should Norah want to know him? It was the Marchesa’s path—by consequence it was the Marchesa’s quarrel. Where did Norah stand in the matter? The Marchesa had perhaps been constructing a little drama. Norah took leave to introduce a new character!
And not Norah alone, as it appeared at dinner. Little Violet Dufaure, whose appealing ways were notoriously successful with the emotionally weaker sex, took her seat at table with a demurely triumphant air. Captain Irons reproached her, with polite gallantry, for having deserted the croquet lawn after tea.
“Oh, I went for a walk to Fillby—through Scarsmoor, you know.”
“Through Scarsmoor, Violet?” The Marchesa sounded rather startled again.
“It’s a public road, you know, Helena. Isn’t it, Mr Stillford?”
Stillford admitted that it was. “All the same, perhaps the less we go there at the present moment——”
“Oh, but Lord Lynborough asked me to come again and to go wherever I liked—not to keep to the stupid road.”
Absolute silence reigned. Violet looked round with a smile which conveyed a general appeal for sympathy; there was, perhaps, special reference to Miss Gilletson as the guardian of propriety, and to the Marchesa as the owner of the disputed path.
“You see, I took Nellie, and the dear always does run away. She ran after a rabbit. I ran after her, of course. The rabbit ran into a hole, and I ran into Lord Lynborough. Helena, he’s charming!”
“I’m thoroughly tired of Lord Lynborough,” said the Marchesa icily.
“He must have known I was staying with you, I think; but he never so much as mentioned you. He just ignored you—the whole thing, I mean. Wasn’t it tactful?”
Tactful it might have been; it did not appear to gratify the Marchesa.
“What a wonderful air there is about a—agrand seigneur!” pursued Violet reflectively. “Such a difference it makes!”
That remark did not gratify any of the gentlemen present; it implied a contrast, although it might not definitely assert one.
“It is such a pity that you’ve quarrelled about that silly path!”
“Oh! oh! Miss Dufaure!”—“I say, come, Miss Dufaure!”—“Er—really, Miss Dufaure!”—these three remonstrances may be distributed indifferently among the three men. They felt that there was a risk of treason in the camp.
The Marchesa assumed her grandest manner; it was mediæval—it was Titianesque.
“Fortunately, as it seems, Violet, I do not rely onyour help to maintain my rights in regard to the path. Pray meet Lord Lynborough as often as you please, but spare me any unnecessary mention of his name.”
“I didn’t mean any harm. It was all Nellie’s fault.”
The Marchesa’s reply—if such it can be called—was deliveredsotto voce, yet was distinctly audible. It was also brief. She said “Nellie!” Nellie was, of course, Miss Dufaure’s dog.
Night fell upon an apparently peaceful land. Yet Violet was an absentee from the Marchesa’s dressing-room that night, and even between Norah and her hostess the conversation showed a tendency to flag. Norah, for all her courage, dared not mention the name of Lynborough, and Helena most plainly would not. Yet what else was there to talk about? It had come to that point even so early in the war!
Meanwhile, up at Scarsmoor Castle, Lynborough, in exceedingly high spirits, talked to Leonard Stabb.
“Yes, Cromlech,” he said, “a pretty girl, a very pretty girl if you like thatpetiteinsinuating style. For myself I prefer something a shade more—what shall we call it?”
“Don’t care a hang,” muttered Stabb.
“A trifle more in the grand manner, perhaps, Cromlech. And she hadn’t anything like the complexion. I knew at once that it couldn’t be the Marchesa. Do you bathe to-morrow morning?”
“And get my head broken?”
“Just stand still, and let them throw themselves against you, Cromlech. Roger!—Oh, he’s gone to bed; stupid thing to do—that! Cromlech, old chap, I’m enjoying myself immensely.”
He just touched his old friend’s shoulder as he passed by: the caress was almost imperceptible. Stabb turned his broad red face round to him and laughed ponderously.
“Oh, and you understand!” cried Lynborough.
“I have never myself objected to a bit of fun with the girls,” said Stabb.
Lynborough sank into a chair murmuring delightedly, “You’re priceless, Cromlech!”
“LIFE—” (The extract is from Lynborough’s diary, dated this same fourteenth of June)—“may be considered as a process (Cromlech’s view, conducting to the tomb)—a programme (as, I am persuaded, Roger conceives it, marking off each stage thereof with a duly guaranteed stamp of performance)—or as a progress—in which light I myself prefer to envisage it. Process—programme—progress; the words, with my above-avowed preference, sound unimpeachably orthodox. Once I had a Bishop ancestor. He crops out.
“Yet I don’t mean what he does. I don’t believe in growing better in the common sense—that is, in an increasing power to resist what tempts you, to refrain from doing what you want. That ideal seems to me, more and more, to start from the wrong end. No man refrains from doing what he wants to do. In the end the contradiction—the illogicality—is complete. You learn to want more wisely—that’s all. Train desire, for you can never chain it.
“I’m engaged here and now on what is to all appearance the most trivial of businesses. I play the spiteful boy—she is an obstinate peevish girl. There are other girls too—one an insinuating tiny minx, who would wheedle a backward glance out of Simon Stylites as he remounted his pillar—and, by the sun in heaven, will get little more from this child of Mother Earth! There’s another, I hear—Irish!—And Irish is near my heart. But behind her—set in the uncertain radiance of myimagination—lies her Excellency. Heaven knows why! Save that it is gloriously paradoxical to meet a foreign Excellency in this spot, and to get to most justifiable, most delightful, loggerheads with her immediately. I have conceived Machiavellian devices. I will lure away her friends. I will isolate her, humiliate her, beat her in the fight. There may be some black eyes—some bruised hearts—but I shall do it. Why? I have always been gentle before. But so I feel towards her. And therefore I am afraid. This is the foeman for my steel, I think—I have my doubts but that she’ll beat me in the end.
“When I talk like this, Cromlech chuckles, loves me as a show, despises me as a mind. Roger—young Roger Fitz-Archdeacon—is all an incredulous amazement. I don’t wonder. There is nothing so small and nothing so great—nothing so primitive and not a thing so complex—nothing so unimportant and so engrossing as this ‘duel of the sexes.’ A proves it a trifle, and is held great. B reckons it all-supreme, and becomes popular. C (a woman) describes the Hunter Man. D (a man) descants of the Pursuit by Woman. The oldest thing is the most canvassed and the least comprehended. But there’s a reputation—and I suppose money—in it for anybody who can string phrases. There’s blood-red excitement for everybody who can feel. Yet I’ve played my part in other affairs—not so much in dull old England, where you work five years to become a Member of Parliament, and five years more in order to get kicked out again—but in places where in a night you rise or fall—in five minutes order the shooting squad or face it—boil the cook or are stuffed into the pot yourself. (Cromlech, this is not exact scientific statement!) Yet always—everywhere—the woman! And why? On my honour, I don’t know. What in the end is she?
“I adjourn the question—and put a broader one. What am I? The human being as such? If I’m a vegetable, am I not a mistake? If I’m an animal, amI not a cruelty? If I’m a soul, am I not misplaced? I’d say ‘Yes’ to all this, save that I enjoy myself so much. Because I have forty thousand a year? Hardly. I’ve had nothing, and been as completely out of reach of getting anything as the veriest pauper that ever existed—and yet I’ve had the deuce of a fine existence the while. I think there’s only one solid blunder been made about man—he oughtn’t to have been able to think. It wastes time. It makes many people unhappy. That’s not my case. I like it. It just wastes time.
“That insinuating minx, possessed of a convenient dog and an ingratiating manner, insinuated to-day that I was handsome. Well, she’s pretty, and I suppose we’re both better off for it. It is an introduction. But to myself I don’t seem very handsome. I have my pride—I look a gentleman. But I look a queer foreign fish. I found myself envying the British robustness of that fine young chap who is so misguided as to be a lawyer.
“Ah, why do I object to lawyers? Tolstoy!—I used to say—or, at the risk of advanced intellects not recognising one’s allusions, one could go farther back. But that is, in the end, all gammon. Every real conviction springs from personal experience. I hate the law because it interfered with me. I’m not aware of any better reason. So I’m going on without it—unless somebody tries to steal my forty thousand, of course. Ambrose, thou art a humbug—or, more precisely, thou canst not avoid being a human individual!”
Lord Lynborough completed the entry in his diary—he was tolerably well aware that he might just as well not have written it—and cast his eyes towards the window of the library. The stars were bright; a crescent moon decorated, without illuminating, the sky. The regular recurrent beat of the sea on the shore, traversing the interval in night’s silence, struck on his ear. “If God knew Time, that might be His clock,”said he. “Listen to its inexorable, peaceable, gentle, formidable stroke!”
His sleep that night was short and broken. A fitful excitement was on his spirit: the glory of the summer morning wooed his restlessness. He would take his swim alone, and early. At six o’clock he slipped out of the house and made for Beach Path. The fortified gate was too strong for his unaided efforts. Roger Wilbraham had told him that, if the way were impeded, he had a right to “deviate.” He deviated now, lightly vaulting over the four-foot-high stone wall. None was there to hinder him, and, with emotions appropriate to the occasion, he passed Nab Grange and gained the beach. When once he was in the water, the emotions went away.
They were to return—or, at any rate, to be succeeded by their brethren. After he had dressed, he sat down and smoked a cigarette as he regarded the smiling sea. This situation was so agreeable that he prolonged it for full half-an-hour; then a sudden longing for Coltson’s coffee came over him. He jumped up briskly and made for the Grange gate.
He had left it open—it was shut now. None had been nigh when he passed through. Now a young woman in a white frock leant her elbows comfortably on its top rail and rested her pretty chin upon her hands. Lady Norah’s blue eyes looked at him serenely from beneath black lashes of noticeable length—at anyrate Lynborough noticed their length.
Lynborough walked up to the gate. With one hand he removed his hat, with the other he laid a tentative hand on the latch. Norah did not move or even smile.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” said Lynborough, “but if it does not incommode you, would you have the great kindness to permit me to open the gate?”
“Oh, I’m sorry; but this is a private path leading to Nab Grange. I suppose you’re a stranger in these parts?”
“My name is Lynborough. I live at Scarsmoor there.”
“Are you Lord Lynborough?” Norah sounded exceedingly interested. “TheLord Lynborough?”
“There’s only one, so far as I’m aware,” the owner of the title answered.
“I mean the one who has done all those—those—well, those funny things?”
“I rejoice if the recital of them has caused you any amusement. And now, if you will permit me——”
“Oh, but I can’t! Helena would never forgive me. I’m a friend of hers, you know—of the Marchesa di San Servolo. Really you can’t come through here.”
“Do you think you can stop me?”
“There isn’t room for you to get over as long as I stand here—and the wall’s too high to climb, isn’t it?”
Lynborough studied the wall; it was twice the height of the wall on the other side; it might be possible to scale, but difficult and laborious; nor would he look imposing while struggling at the feat.
“You’ll have to go round by the road,” remarked Norah, breaking into a smile.
Lynborough was enjoying the conversation just as much as she was—but he wanted two things; one was victory, the other coffee.
“Can’t I persuade you to move?” he said imploringly. “I really don’t want to have to resort to more startling measures.”
“You surely wouldn’t use force against a girl, Lord Lynborough!”
“I said startling measures—not violent ones,” he reminded her. “Are your nerves good?”
“Excellent, thank you.”
“You mean to stand where you are?”
“Yes—till you’ve gone away.” Now she laughed openly at him. Lynborough delighted in the merry sound and the flash of her white teeth.
“It’s a splendid morning, isn’t it?” he asked. “Ishould think you stand about five feet five, don’t you? By the way, whom have I the pleasure of conversing with?”
“My name is Norah Mountliffey.”
“Ah, I knew your father very well.” He drew back a few steps. “So you must excuse an old family friend for telling you that you make a charming picture at that gate. If I had a camera—— Just as you are, please!” He held up his hand, as though to pose her.
“Am I quite right?” she asked, humouring the joke, with her merry mischievous eyes set on Lynborough’s face as she leant over the top of the gate.
“Quite right. Now, please! Don’t move!”
“Oh, I’ve no intention of moving,” laughed Norah mockingly.
She kept her word; perhaps she was too surprised to do anything else. For Lynborough, clapping his hat on firmly, with a dart and a spring flew over her head.
Then she wheeled round—to see him standing two yards from her, his hat in his hand again, bowing apologetically.
“Forgive me for getting between you and the sunshine for a moment,” he said. “But I thought I could still do five feet five; and you weren’t standing upright either. I’ve done within an inch of six feet, you know. And now I’m afraid I must reluctantly ask you to excuse me. I thank you for the pleasure of this conversation.” He bowed, put on his hat, turned, and began to walk away along Beach Path.
“You got the better of me that time, but you’ve not done with me yet,” she cried, starting after him.
He turned and looked over his shoulder: save for his eyes his face was quite grave. He quickened his pace to a very rapid walk. Norah found that she must run, or fall behind. She began to run. Again that gravely derisory face turned upon her. She blushed, and fell suddenly to wondering whether in running she looked absurd. She fell to a walk. Lynborough seemed toknow. Without looking round again, he abated his pace.
“Oh, I can’t catch you if you won’t stop!” she cried.
“My friend and secretary, Roger Wilbraham, tells me that I have no right to stop,” Lynborough explained, looking round again, but not standing still. “I have only the right to pass and repass. I’m repassing now. He’s a barrister, and he says that’s the law. I daresay it is—but I regret that it prevents me from obliging you, Lady Norah.”
“Well, I’m not going to make a fool of myself by running after you,” said Norah crossly.
Lynborough walked slowly on; Norah followed; they reached the turn of the path towards the Grange hall door. They reached it—and passed it—both of them. Lynborough turned once more—with a surprised lift of his brows.
“At least I can see you safe off the premises!” laughed Norah, and with a quick dart forward she reduced the distance between them to half-a-yard. Lynborough seemed to have no objection; proximity made conversation easier; he moved slowly on.
Norah seemed defeated—but suddenly she saw her chance, and hailed it with a cry. The Marchesa’s bailiff—John Goodenough—was approaching the path from the house situated at the south-west corner of the meadow. Her cry of his name caught his attention—as well as Lynborough’s. The latter walked a little quicker. John Goodenough hurried up. Lynborough walked steadily on.
“Stop him, John!” cried Norah, her eyes sparkling with new excitement. “You know her Excellency’s orders? This is Lord Lynborough!”
“His lordship! Ay, it is. I beg your pardon, my lord, but—I’m very sorry to interfere with your lordship, but——”
“You’re in my way, Goodenough.” For John had got across his path, and barred progress. “Of course Imust stand still if you impede my steps, but I do it under protest. I only want to repass.”
“You can’t come this way, my lord. I’m sorry, but it’s her Excellency’s strict orders. You must go back, my lord.”
“I am going back—or I was till you stopped me.”
“Back to where you came from, my lord.”
“I came from Scarsmoor and I’m going back there, Goodenough.”
“Where you came from last, my lord.”
“No, no, Goodenough. At all events, her Excellency has no right to drive me into the sea.” Lynborough’s tone was plaintively expostulatory.
“Then if you won’t go back, my lord, here we stay!” said John, bewildered but faithfully obstinate.
“Just your tactics!” Lynborough observed to Norah, a keen spectator of the scene. “But I’m not so patient of them from Goodenough.”
“I don’t know that you were very patient with me.”
“Goodenough, if you use sufficient force I shall, of course, be prevented from continuing on my way. Nothing short of that, however, will stop me. And pray take care that the force is sufficient—neither more nor less than sufficient, Goodenough.”
“I don’t want to use no violence to your lordship. Well, now, if I lay my hand on your lordship’s shoulder, will that do to satisfy your lordship?”
“I don’t know until you try it.”
John’s face brightened. “I reckon that’s the way out. I reckon that’s law, my lord. I puts my hand on your lordship’s shoulder like that——”
He suited the action to the word. In an instant Lynborough’s long lithe arms were round him, Lynborough’s supple lean leg twisted about his. Gently, as though he had been a little baby, Lynborough laid the sturdy fellow on the grass.
For all she could do, Norah Mountliffey cried“Bravo!” and clapped her hands. Goodenough sat up, scratched his head, and laughed feebly.
“Force not quite sufficient, Goodenough,” cried Lynborough gaily. “Now I repass!”
He lifted his hat to Norah, then waved his hand. In her open impulsive way she kissed hers back to him as he turned away.
By one of those accidents peculiar to tragedy, the Marchesa’s maid, performing her toilet at an upper window, saw this nefarious and traitorous deed!
“Swimming—jumping—wrestling! A good morning’s exercise! And all before those lazy chaps, Roger and Cromlech, are out of bed!”
So saying, Lord Lynborough vaulted the wall again in high good humour.
DEPRIVED of their leader’s inspiration, the other two representatives of Scarsmoor did not brave the Passage Perilous to the sea that morning. Lynborough was well content to forgo further aggression for the moment. His words declared his satisfaction—
“I have driven a wedge—another wedge—into the Marchesa’s phalanx. Yes, I think I may say a second wedge. Disaffection has made its entry into Nab Grange, Cromlech. The process of isolation has begun. Perhaps after lunch we will resume operations.”
But fortune was to give him an opportunity even before lunch. It appeared that Stabb had sniffed out the existence of two old brasses in Fillby Church; he was determined to inspect them at the earliest possible moment. Lynborough courteously offered to accompany him, and they set out together about eleven o’clock.
No incident marked their way. Lynborough rang up the parish clerk at his house, presented Stabb to that important functionary, and bespoke for him every consideration. Then he leant against the outside of the churchyard wall, peacefully smoking a cigarette.
On the opposite side of the village street stood the Lynborough Arms. The inn was kept by a very superior man, who had retired to this comparative leisure after some years of service as butler with Lynborough’s father. This excellent person, perceiving Lynborough, crossed the road and invited him to partake of a glass of ale in memory of old days. Readily acquiescing, Lynborough crossed the road, sat down with the landlord on a bench by the porch, and began to discuss local affairs over the beer.
“I suppose you haven’t kept up your cricket since you’ve been in foreign parts, my lord?” asked Dawson, the landlord, after some conversation which need not occupy this narrative. “We’re playing a team from Easthorpe to-morrow, and we’re very short.”
“Haven’t played for nearly fifteen years, Dawson. But I tell you what—I daresay my friend Mr Wilbraham will play. Mr Stabb’s no use.”
“Every one helps,” said Dawson. “We’ve got two of the gentlemen from the Grange—Mr Stillford, a good bat, and Captain Irons, who can bowl a bit—or so John Goodenough tells me.”
Lynborough’s eyes had grown alert. “Well, I used to bowl a bit, too. If you’re really hard up for a man, Dawson—really at a loss, you know—I’ll play. It’ll be better than going into the field short, won’t it?”
Dawson was profuse in his thanks. Lynborough listened patiently.
“I tell you what I should like to do, Dawson,” he said. “I should like to stand the lunch.”
It was the turn of Dawson’s eyes to grow alert. They did. Dawson supplied the lunch. The club’s finances were slender, and its ideascorrespondingly modest. But if Lord Lynborough “stood” the lunch——!
“And to do it really well,” added that nobleman. “A sort of little feast to celebrate my homecoming. The two teams—and perhaps a dozen places for friends—ladies, the Vicar, and so on, eh, Dawson? Do you see the idea?”
Dawson saw the idea much more clearly than he saw most ideas. Almost corporeally he beheld the groaning board.
“On such an occasion, Dawson, we shouldn’t quarrel about figures.”
“Your lordship’s always most liberal,” Dawson acknowledged in tones which showed some trace of emotion.
“Put the matter in hand at once. But look here, I don’t want it talked about. Just tell the secretary of the club—that’s enough. Keep the tent empty till the moment comes. Then display your triumph! It’ll be a pleasant little surprise for everybody, won’t it?”
Dawson thought it would; at any rate it was one for him.
At this instant an elderly lady of demure appearance was observed to walk up to the lych-gate and enter the churchyard. Lynborough inquired of his companion who she was.
“That’s Miss Gilletson from the Grange, my lord—the Marchesa’s companion.”
“Is it?” said Lynborough softly. “Oh, is it indeed?” He rose from his seat. “Good-bye, Dawson. Mind—a dead secret, and a rattling good lunch!”
“I’ll attend to it, my lord,” Dawson assured him with the utmost cheerfulness. Never had Dawson invested a glass of beer to better profit!
Lynborough threw away his cigar and entered the sacred precincts. His brain was very busy. “Another wedge!” he was saying to himself. “Another wedge!”
The lady had gone into the church. Lynborough went in too. He came first on Stabb—on his hands and knees, examining one of the old brasses and making copious notes in a pocket-book.
“Have you seen a lady come in, Cromlech?” asked Lord Lynborough.
“No, I haven’t,” said Cromlech, now producing a yard measure and proceeding to ascertain the dimensions of the brass.
“You wouldn’t, if it were Venus herself,” replied Lynborough pleasantly. “Well, I must look for her on my own account.”
He found her in the neighbourhood of his family monuments which, with his family pew, crowded the little chancel of the church. She was not employed in devotions, but was arranging some flowers in a vase—doubtless a pious offering. Somewhat at a loss how to open the conversation, Lynborough dropped his hat—or rather gave it a dexterous jerk, so that it fell at the lady’s feet. Miss Gilletson started violently, and Lord Lynborough humbly apologised. Thence he glided into conversation, first about the flowers, then about the tombs. On the latter subject he was exceedingly interesting and informing.
“Dear, dear! Married the Duke of Dexminster’s daughter, did he?” said Miss Gilletson, considerably thrilled. “She’s not buried here, is she?”
“No, she’s not,” said Lynborough, suppressing the fact that the lady had run away after six months of married life. “And my own father’s not buried here, either; he chose my mother’s family place in Devonshire. I thought it rather a pity.”
“Your own father?” Miss Gilletson gasped.
“Oh, I forgot you didn’t know me,” he said, laughing. “I’m Lord Lynborough, you know. That’s how I come to be so well up in all this. And I tell you what—I should like to show you some of our Scarsmoor roses on your way home.”
“Oh, but if you’re Lord Lynborough, I—I really couldn’t——”
“Who’s to know anything about it, unless you choose, Miss Gilletson?” he asked with his ingratiating smile and his merry twinkle. “There’s nothing so pleasant as a secret shared with a lady!”
It was a long time since a handsome man had shared a secret with Miss Gilletson. Who knows, indeed, whether such a thing had ever happened? Or whether Miss Gilletson had once just dreamed that some day it might—and had gone on dreaming for long, long days, till even the dream had slowly and sadly faded away? For sometimes it does happen like that. Lynborough meant nothing—but no possible effort (supposing he made it) could enable him to look as if he meant nothing. One thing at least he did mean—to make himself very pleasant to Miss Gilletson.
Interested knave! It is impossible to avoid that reflection. Yet let ladies in their turn ask themselves if they are over-scrupulous in their treatment of one man when their affections are set upon another.
He showed Miss Gilletson all the family tombs. He escorted her from the church. Under renewed vows of secrecy he induced her to enter Scarsmoor. Once in the gardens, the good lady was lost. They had no such roses at Nab Grange! Lynborough insisted on sending an enormous bouquet to the Vicar’s wife in Miss Gilletson’s name—and Miss Gilletson grew merry as she pictured the mystification of the Vicar’s wife. For Miss Gilletson herself he superintended the selection of a nosegay of the choicest blooms; they laughed again together when she hid them in a large bag she carried—destined for the tea and tobacco which represented her little charities. Then—after pausing for one private word in his gardener’s ear, which caused a boy to be sent off post-haste to the stables—he led her to the road, and in vain implored her to honour his house by setting foot in it. There the fear of the Marchesaor (it is pleasanter to think) some revival of the sense of youth, bred by Lynborough’s deferential courtliness, prevailed. They came together through his lodge gates; and Miss Gilletson’s face suddenly fell.
“That wretched gate!” she cried. “It’s locked—and I haven’t got the key.”
“No more have I, I’m sorry to say,” said Lynborough. He, on his part, had forgotten nothing.
“It’s nearly two miles round by the road—and so hot and dusty!—Really Helena does cut off her nose to spite her face!” Though, in truth, it appeared rather to be Miss Gilletson’s nose the Marchesa had cut off.
A commiserating gravity sat on Lord Lynborough’s attentive countenance.
“If I were younger, I’d climb that wall,” declared Miss Gilletson. “As it is—well, but for your lovely flowers, I’d better have gone the other way after all.”
“I don’t want you to feel that,” said he, almost tenderly.
“I must walk!”
“Oh no, you needn’t,” said Lynborough.
As he spoke, there issued from the gates behind them a luxurious victoria, drawn by two admirable horses. It came to a stand by Lynborough, the coachman touching his hat, the footman leaping to the ground.
“Just take Miss Gilletson to the Grange, Williams. Stop a little way short of the house. She wants to walk through the garden.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“Put up the hood, Charles. The sun’s very hot for Miss Gilletson.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Nobody’ll see you if you get out a hundred yards from the door—and it’s really better than tramping the road on a day like this. Of course, if Beach Path were open——!” He shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly.
Fear of the Marchesa struggled in Miss Gilletson’s heart with the horror of the hot and tiring walk—with the seduction of the shady, softly rolling, speedy carriage.
“If I met Helena!” she whispered; and the whisper was an admission of reciprocal confidence.
“It’s the chance of that against the certainty of the tramp!”
“She didn’t come down to breakfast this morning——”
“Ah, didn’t she?” Lynborough made a note for his Intelligence Department.
“Perhaps she isn’t up yet! I—I think I’ll take the risk.”
Lynborough assisted her into the carriage.
“I hope we shall meet again,” he said, with no smallempressement.
“I’m afraid not,” answered Miss Gilletson dolefully. “You see, Helena——”
“Yes, yes; but ladies have their moods. Anyhow you won’t think too hardly of me, will you? I’m not altogether an ogre.”
There was a pretty faint blush on Miss Gilletson’s cheek as she gave him her hand. “An ogre! No, dear Lord Lynborough,” she murmured.
“A wedge!” said Lynborough, as he watched her drive away.
He was triumphant with what he had achieved—he was full of hope for what he had planned. If he reckoned right, the loyalty of the ladies at Nab Grange to the mistress thereof was tottering, if it had not fallen. His relations with the men awaited the result of the cricket match. Yet neither his triumph nor his hope could in the nature of the case exist without an intermixture of remorse. He hurt—or tried to hurt—what he would please—and hoped to please. His mood was mixed, and his smile not altogether mirthful as he stood looking at the fast-receding carriage.
Then suddenly, for the first time, he saw his enemy. Distantly—afar off! Yet without a doubt it was she.As he turned and cast his eyes over the forbidden path—the path whose seclusion he had violated, bold in his right—a white figure came to the sunk fence and stood there, looking not towards where he stood, but up to his castle on the hill. Lynborough edged near to the barricaded gate—a new padlock and newchevaux-de-friseof prickly branches guarded it. The latter, high as his head, screened him completely; he peered through the interstices in absolute security.
The white figure stood on the little bridge which led over the sunk fence into the meadow. He could see neither feature nor colour; only the slender shape caught and chained his eye. Tall she was, and slender, as his mocking forecast had prophesied. More than that he could not see.
Well, he did see one more thing. This beautiful shape, after a few minutes of what must be presumed to be meditation, raised its arm and shook its fist with decision at Scarsmoor Castle; then it turned and walked straight back to the Grange.
There was no sort of possibility of mistaking the nature or the meaning of the gesture.
It had the result of stifling Lynborough’s softer mood, of reviving his pugnacity. “She must do more than that, if she’s to win!” said he.
AFTER her demonstration against Scarsmoor Castle, the Marchesa went in to lunch. But there were objects of her wrath nearer home also. She received Norah’s salute—they had not met before, that morning—with icy coldness.
“I’m better, thank you,” she said, “but you must be feeling tired—having been up so very early in themorning! And you—Violet—have you been over to Scarsmoor again?”
Violet had heard from Norah all about the latter’s morning adventure. They exchanged uneasy glances. Yet they were prepared to back one another up. The men looked more frightened; men are frightened when women quarrel.
“One of you,” continued the Marchesa accusingly, “pursues Lord Lynborough to his own threshold—the other flirts with him in my own meadow! Rather peculiar signs of friendship for me under the present circumstances—don’t you think so, Colonel Wenman?”
The Colonel thought so—though he would have greatly preferred to be at liberty to entertain—or at least to express—no opinion on so thorny a point.
“Flirt with him? What do you mean?” But Norah’s protest lacked the ring of honest indignation.
“Kissing one’s hand to a mere stranger——”
“How do you know that? You were in bed.”
“Carlotta saw you from her window. You don’t deny it?”
“No, I don’t,” said Norah, perceiving the uselessness of such a course. “In fact, I glory in it. I had a splendid time with Lord Lynborough. Oh, I did try to keep him out for you—but he jumped over my head.”
Sensation among the gentlemen! Increased scorn on the Marchesa’s face!
“And when I got John Goodenough to help me, he just laid John down on the grass as—as I lay that spoon on the table! He’s splendid, Helena!”
“He seems a good sort of chap,” said Irons thoughtfully.
The Marchesa looked at Wenman.
“Nothing to be said for the fellow, nothing at all,” declared the Colonel hastily.
“Thank you, Colonel Wenman. I’m glad I have one friend left anyhow. Oh, besides you, Mr Stillford, ofcourse. Oh, and you, dear old Jennie, of course. You wouldn’t forsake me, would you?”
The tone of affection was calculated to gratify Miss Gilletson. But against it had to be set the curious and amused gaze of Norah and Violet. Seen by these two ladies in the act of descending from a stylish (and coroneted) victoria in the drive of Nab Grange, Miss Gilletson had, pardonably perhaps, broken down rather severely in cross-examination. She had been so very proud of the roses—so very full of Lord Lynborough’s graces! She was conscious now that the pair held her in their hands and were demanding courage from her.
“Forsake you, dearest Helena? Of course not! There’s no question of that with any of us.”
“Yes—there is—with those of you who make friends with that wretch at Scarsmoor!”
“Really, Helena, you shouldn’t be so—so vehement. I’m not sure it’s ladylike. It’s absurd to call Lord Lynborough a wretch.” The pale faint flush again adorned her fading cheeks. “I never met a man more thoroughly a gentleman.”
“You never met——” began the Marchesa in petrified tones. “Then you have met——?” Again her words died away.
Miss Gilletson took her courage in both hands.
“Circumstances threw us together. I behaved as a lady does under such circumstances, Helena. And Lord Lynborough was, under the circumstances, most charming, courteous, and considerate.” She gathered more courage as she proceeded. “And, really, it’s highly inconvenient having that gate locked, Helena. I had to come all the way round by the road.”
“I’m sorry if you find yourself fatigued,” said the Marchesa with formal civility.
“I’m not fatigued, thank you, Helena. I should have been terribly—but for Lord Lynborough’s kindness in sending me home in his carriage.”
A pause followed. Then Norah and Violet began to giggle.
“It was so funny this morning!” said Norah—and boldly launched on a full story of her adventure. She held the attention of the table. The Marchesa sat in gloomy silence. Violet chimed in with more reminiscences of her visit to Scarsmoor; Miss Gilletson contributed new items, including that matter of the roses. Norah ended triumphantly with a eulogy on Lynborough’s extraordinary physical powers. Captain Irons listened with concealed interest. Even Colonel Wenman ventured to opine that the enemy was worth fighting. Stillford imitated his hostess’s silence, but he was watching her closely. Would her courage—or her obstinacy—break down under these assaults, this lukewarmness, these desertions? In his heart, fearful of that lawsuit, he hoped so.
“I shall prosecute him for assaulting Goodenough,” the Marchesa announced.
“Goodenough touched him first!” cried Norah.
“That doesn’t matter, since I’m in the right. He had no business to be there. That’s the law, isn’t it, Mr Stillford? Will he be sent to prison or only heavily fined?”
“Well—er—I’m rather afraid—neither, Marchesa. You see, he’ll plead his right, and the Bench would refer us to our civil remedy and dismiss the summons. At least, that’s my opinion.”
“Of course that’s right,” pronounced Norah in an authoritative tone.
“If that’s the English law,” observed the Marchesa, rising from the table, “I greatly regret that I ever settled in England.”
“What are you going to do this afternoon, Helena? Going to play tennis—or croquet?”
“I’m going for a walk, thank you, Violet.” She paused for a moment and then added, “By myself.”
“Oh, mayn’t I have the privilege——?” began the Colonel.
“Not to-day, thank you, Colonel Wenman. I—I have a great deal to think about. We shall meet again at tea—unless you’re all going to tea at Scarsmoor Castle!” With this Parthian shot she left them.
She had indeed much to think of—and her reflections were not cast in a cheerful mould. She had underrated her enemy. It had seemed sufficient to lock the gate and to forbid Lynborough’s entry. These easy measures had appeared to leave him no resource save blank violence: in that confidence she had sat still and done nothing. He had been at work—not by blank violence, but by cunning devices and subtle machinations. He had made a base use of his personal fascinations, of his athletic gifts, even of his lordly domain, his garden of roses, and his carriage. She perceived his strategy; she saw now how he had driven in his wedges. Her ladies had already gone over to his side; even her men were shaken. Stillford had always been lukewarm; Irons was fluttering round Lynborough’s flame; Wenman might still be hers—but an isolation mitigated only by Colonel Wenman seemed an isolation not mitigated in the least. When she had looked forward to a fight, it had not been to such a fight as this. An enthusiastic, hilarious, united Nab Grange was to have hurled laughing defiance at Scarsmoor Castle. Now more than half Nab Grange laughed—but its laughter was not at the Castle; its laughter, its pitying amusement, was directed at her; Lynborough’s triumphant campaign drew all admiration. He had told Stillford that he would harry her; he was harrying her to his heart’s content—and to a very soreness in hers.
For the path—hateful Beach Path which her feet at this moment trod—became now no more than an occasion for battle, a symbol of strife. The greater issue stood out. It was that this man had peremptorily challenged her to a fight—and was beating her! And he won his victory, not by male violence in spite of male stupidity, but by just the arts and the cunningwhich should have been her own weapons. To her he left the blunt, the inept, the stupid and violent methods. He chose the more refined, and wielded them like a master. It was a position to which the Marchesa’s experience had not accustomed her—one to which her spirit was by no means attuned.
What was his end—that end whose approach seemed even now clearly indicated? It was to convict her at once of cowardice and of pig-headedness, to exhibit her as afraid to bring him to book by law, and yet too churlish to cede him his rights. He would get all her friends to think that about her. Then she would be left alone—to fight a lost battle all alone.