"Well, Tom, Webster has found you a job, has he?"
Stook straightened his back, drew in his hoe, leant upon it, and regarded Jasper with a sort of cautious respect.
"Mornin', Master Jasper."
"Weeds bad?"
"Pretty tarrifyin'. Be'unt so bad down yon end."
Now Tom Stook was one of the most garrulous of rogues when gossip did not press too tenderly upon such personal matters as poaching and smuggling. He was a bit of a ruffian, sly, shrewd, and immensely strong. Folk had tales to tell about him and his lonely hovel of a cottage down by Bramble End.
Tom Stook hoed and talked, wagging his tuft of a beard, and throwing queer, spying glances at Jasper.
"No more beacons afire, sir?"
"Not yet, Tom."
"That did tarrify the folk. I seed ut begin a'glimmering just afore midnight."
"You keep late hours, Tom."
"I doan't knows as I do."
He hoed on in silence for some moments.
"T 'rabbits be tarrible thick down our way. They'd be for eatin' all the green stuff, if I didn't snare 'em. Maybe I keeps late hours now and agen. A man sees some funny things of a night, surely."
"What sort of things, Tom?"
"Lights, and men wid dark lanterns. Smugglers and Frenchies."
"Oh, come, Tom!"
"Sure, I be tellin' the truth."
"Where do you see the lights?"
"Up yonder, at Stonehanger. It be'unt no sort of a light, but a sort of a glare fur the while you count ten. I doan't say nothing to nobody. We be'unt none of us so tarrible honest, Master Jasper, as we can pull other folks' clothes off their beds. But I've seed strange men go over Stonehanger Common at midnight."
Jasper kept a grave and rather sceptical face.
"When you go out rabbiting, Tom?"
Stook grunted.
"I doan't know nothing 'bout that."
"Nor do I, Tom. If the men didn't have a few rabbits, we shouldn't have any crops."
"Sure, Master Jasper, I always said you be a young man o' sense."
"The squire likes his punch, Tom. We don't ask too many questions in Sussex. I'll wager we have stuff in our cellar that never paid duty."
Stook went on hoeing methodically.
"Do y' know that thur furriner, sir? That black chap as rides about on a black horse?"
"Who do you mean, Tom?"
"Frenchy gentleman."
"Do you mean the Chevalier de Rothan?"
"It may be him, Master Jasper. I've seed the man I mean up at Stonehanger."
"The devil you have!"
"I've seed him come over t' common just afore daylight. You know t' old quarry 'twixt Bramble End and Stonehanger?"
"Yes."
"I've knowed him leave his nag thur all night. I've seed him, too, with Durrell's girl."
"What d' you mean, Tom?"
"No harm, master. Why, I seed 'em two days ago going over t' common. I was down under yonder cutting a bit o' furze to thatch m' wood lodge with."
"What day was it—Tuesday?"
"It ud be Tuesday."
Jasper sat and stared across the turnip field with the level stare of grim preoccupation. Tom Stook's lean figure had faced about, and was receding, with rhythmical strokes of the hoe.
"Have you told any one about this, Tom?"
"Sure, no, I ain't, Master Jasper. I be'unt one for tongue-wagging 'bout other folks's business. Guess, though, I've been puzzled. I be'unt no baby."
"No."
"I knows t' lads, and t' rabbit runs, and t' warrens."
"I reckon you do, Tom. But Stonehanger? Mr. Durrell's not hiding the stuff, is he?"
"That be what mizzles me."
"He isn't one of the gang?"
Tom grew reticent of a sudden.
"Don't you be for askin' me, Master Jasper."
"Well, about the foreigner. Are you sure you know him?"
"Maybe I be wrong, master."
"He and Durrell are something of a size."
"That be true."
"I'm glad you've told me this, Tom. You'll find half a side of bacon waiting to be given away up at the Hall."
Tom jogged his hat.
"Thank ye, Master Jasper. I doan't drop no words into t' old women's laps. I keep t' spigot in, sir, 'cept when a gentleman o' sense be about."
Jasper turned Devil Dick and rode out of the field in a very different temper from that in which he had entered it.
Hot blood is jealous blood, and Jasper was no bloodless saint. Tom Stook had sprung a surprise on him, and let fly with a blunderbuss into the thick of Jasper's perplexities. He had owned to a healthy if casual hatred of De Rothan, but personal, prejudiced hatred is a very different thing from vague antagonism. Good lovers are good haters, and Jasper was hating De Rothan at full gallop.
"Seems to me Stonehanger is a nest of spies! Deuce take it, how did we miss knowing De Rothan for a rogue! He and the girl are friends, are they? Oh, my innocent, sweet child! Oh, you besotted fool, Jasper Benham. Have it out with them, have it out."
Jasper rode straight for Stonehanger in about as black a temper as a man can boast. He had no very definite ideas as to what he meant to do. Feeling violent, savage, and very much befooled, he just rode toward Stonehanger, letting the impulse of his jealousy urge him thither.
The track he chose came from the south over the common, leaving Bramble End lying half a mile to the south-east. Jasper passed the quarry where Tom Stook said that De Rothan had sometimes left his horse. Jasper peered into it, and found the quarry a mere pit full of broom and brambles, its entrance half choked by a big elder-tree. But there were trampled places here and there, and a rough path that led out on to the common.
Any one approaching Stonehanger from the south had all but the roof and chimneys of the house hidden from him by a heave of the ground. Then one came into full and sudden view of the place with its grey terrace and wind-blown trees. Such a passion as jealousy often provokes the opposites of a man's normal nature, and Benham developed a spirit of wariness and cunning. He dismounted as soon as he saw the chimneys of the house, found a spot amid the furze where he could fasten Devil Dick to the tough stem of a furze-bush, and went on foot.
The windows and terrace rose into view, with the wind-blown yews and thorns, and then the stretch of grassland immediately below the terrace. It was here that Jasper dodged down behind the furze like a stalker sighting a stag. The lines of his face grew hard and keen. He took off his hat, and, thrusting it into the furze, made a sort of loophole between the boughs through which he could watch Stonehanger unobserved.
A man was walking to and fro on the grassland below the terrace, flourishing a stick as though he were trying the suppleness of his wrist for sword-play. Sometimes he would pause and draw imaginary patterns on the ground with the point of the stick. Or he would stride as if measuring the ground, look about him critically, and scan the surrounding country. There appeared to be some purpose in this pacing to and fro. The man might have been an engineer surveying the ground for the throwing up of earthworks and the placing of guns.
The man was De Rothan. Jasper knew him by his height, by his black clothes, and his haughty, swaggering walk. Only De Rothan could have flourished a stick with such gusto.
Jasper looked grim.
"Hallo, so it's you, is it! Tom Stook was right. What the devil do you think you are doing marching about up there?"
He watched De Rothan jealously, thoughtfully.
"Measuring the ground? Trenches and redoubts? By George, that's it! Why did I never think of that before? Stonehanger would make one of the strongest positions for ten miles round. A landing party might seize it and hold on——. Hallo!"
He was all eyes for the moment, for another figure had appeared upon the terrace. Jasper could see only the head and shoulders behind the low wall. It was Nance Durrell, a white sun-bonnet covering her black hair.
He saw her come to the edge of the terrace and look over. The white strings of her sun-bonnet were over her shoulders. She rested her hands on the parapet and watched De Rothan pacing to and fro below.
Jasper became for the moment the most violent of cynics. A sense of his own ineptitude tormented him. He believed that he understood all that was happening up yonder.
De Rothan turned and caught sight of Nance. He gave her a magnificent bow, sweeping hat and stick with splendid expressiveness. As for Benham, the toe of his boot alone could have expressed his emotions.
"Coxcomb—dog of a spy!"
They were talking together up yonder, and Jasper could hear the faint sound of their voices. Nance appeared to lean forward over the parapet with an intimate friendliness that did not ease Jasper's jealousy.
De Rothan approached the steps. He mounted them, turned to the right and sat himself down on the parapet within a yard of Nance. He laid his hat beside him and tapped one of the coping stones with his stick. Nance did not edge away. She perched herself facing him. It was evident that they were talking together.
Jasper imagined all manner of intimate confidences passing between them. Confound De Rothan, he seemed on excellent terms with the girl! No doubt that was why the Frenchman had looked him over with such amused insolence when they had met.
Jasper knelt awhile behind the furze, gripping his coat collar with one hand, and staring hard at the green gorse. He was ready to believe that De Rothan was Nance's lover, and a passion of repulsion held him for the moment. The anger in his blood was a cold and ugly anger. A man feels the more bitter when he has reason to despise himself.
Then a thought struck him.
"Yes, by George! That's it! I'll make sure of the man. Tom Stook shall have a look at him."
He started up, and, keeping his body bent, made his way back toward his horse.
"I'll make sure that Monsieur de Rothan is Tom Stook's man. Then, by George! I'll call him to account."
In half an hour Jasper Benham was back in the turnip field on the Rush Heath land where Tom Stook was still wielding his hoe.
"Tom, can you trot four miles at a stretch?"
"Lord, sur, what for?"
Jasper told him as much as he could tell such a man as Tom Stook.
"I'd take you up behind me, but you're such a big fellow, Tom. Leave your hoe in the hedge, and hold on to my stirrup. I'll tell you more as we go along."
And so they set out for Stonehanger.
They went by way of Bramble End, Jasper leaving Devil Dick tethered in Stook's little cow-lodge. Rogue Tom had come by a pretty shrewd notion of what Jasper Benham expected of him. He took the lead as they made their way over the common.
"No nag in t' old quarry, sir?"
"No."
"T' crossways at Dudden's Oak, that be the spot, then, Master Jasper."
"Sure?"
"Mounseer has to cross t' ridge. Let him take what track he will, he'll come to t' crossways at Dudden's Oak, unless he goes by t' woods and ditches."
Jasper agreed. Stook was a fox who knew the country.
They skirted the upper part of the common, and took a farm track that led to the crossways at Dudden's Oak. The old tree, a huge shell with its boughs half dead, stood in the centre of a triangular piece of grass. There was a wood between two of the converging roads, and Jasper laid Tom Stook in ambush in this wood.
"You'll get your glimpse of the gentleman, Tom, if he comes this way."
"I'd be glad to get a sound o' t' furriner's voice."
"You'd know him by the voice?"
"I've heard him speak in t' dark. If I see him and sound him I'll know 'em all for t' same man."
Jasper leaned against the trunk of the old oak with his face toward the two ways that led south-east and south-west. De Rothan might come by either road. Nor had Jasper been there fifteen minutes before he saw a mounted man appear far down under the oak boughs on the Rookhurst track. It was De Rothan himself, jogging along at a comfortable trot, yet sitting very straight and stiff in the saddle, like some grand seigneur riding over his estate. Jasper waited for him on the green point of grass between the two roads. He had seen Tom Stook's brown face thrust itself momentarily between the hazel boughs like the face of a satyr. He was on the alert.
De Rothan recognised Jasper when he was within thirty yards of Dudden's Oak. A slight knitting of the brows betrayed his impatience. But he came on with all the fine and unembarrassed confidence of a grandee.
Jasper stood forward with a sweep of the hat.
"I must ask you to stop, sir."
De Rothan pulled up, and gave Jasper a stiff bow. He was high in the stirrups of his dignity, and ready to play the grand monarch.
"Good day to you, Meester Benham."
"Good day to you, Chevalier. Will you be so good as to tell me whence you come, and where you are going?"
De Rothan looked haughty.
"Indeed, sir, by what right do you ask these questions?"
"By a right that it is not yours to question. I am a King's officer and we have our orders. You will be so good as to answer me."
"I take it as a reflection on my honour."
"Take it as you please. We have to supervise the comings and goings, even of our guests."
"Meester Benham, do you suggest——?"
"I ask you to answer my question."
"Your way of asking it is insolent."
"I stand by my orders. We are neither of us here to question them."
De Rothan appeared to do some rapid thinking. Then he gave an irritable shrug of the shoulders.
"I suppose an exile has to suffer suspicion. If you would know it, sir, I have been riding to exercise myself and my horse. I rode from my house to Stonehanger Common; I ride back again to my house. Is that what you require?"
"I take your answer at its value, sir. You may pass on."
De Rothan looked at Jasper as though he were half-minded to ride him down. He appeared to swallow something. He was a man who preferred to make very sure of success before he struck.
"I am deeply beholden to you, Meester Benham, for your serene patronage. There are things that we do not forget."
"Remember them when you please, Chevalier."
"I choose my own time, Meester Benham. I do not chastise insolence until the occasion suits me."
Jasper gave him a vicious smile.
"Do not postpone it too long, sir. We do not live so very far apart. Good day to you."
De Rothan rode on.
Then Tom Stook's brown face appeared. It was one broad grin.
"T' same furriner—all over. I've seen him meet t' smuggling Frenchy—Jerome. That be him, Master Jasper."
"Well, he's a liar, Tom."
"Liar! All Frenchies be liars. Good for you, Master Jasper."
Jasper sent Tom Stook home with a silver crown in his pocket, and rode back alone to Rush Heath. He wanted to worry this matter out, to think out his plans for dealing with Durrell and De Rothan. Jasper had no desire to drag the whole neighbourhood into the adventure. In a way it was his own affair, and he meant to carry it on his own shoulders. His motives and emotions were jumbled together. The one outstanding fact was his determination to break De Rothan. He would outwit the man, corner him, fight him, if need be, and get up early one morning to see him hanged. It was a question of duty; and it was not. Jasper loved and hated. These things are sufficient without a man dragging in duty and religion, and trying to cover up the essential and elemental passions with sentimental affectations, and platitudes about patriotism.
Jasper had been away from Rush Heath since the morning. Jack Bumpstead was not to be found, and Jasper, going in to stable Devil Dick, found a strange nag in one of the stalls. Old Mrs. Ditch, the housekeeper, met him in the passage, her grey curls very much in order, and a ribbon in her cap.
"La, Master Jasper, Mr. Winter came two hours ago. I had dinner kept back awhile. There be some cold victuals laid out for you."
"What—Mr. Jeremy?"
Mrs. Ditch looked coy. Mr. Jeremy was a gentleman who forever caused a tender fluttering among all sorts and conditions of women.
Jasper made for the dining-room. In the Chippendale arm-chair by the window sat a shortish, thickset, hard-headed man in black, smoking a long pipe, and looking out on life with steel-black, whimsical eyes. He had one of those Roman heads, with harsh strong features, power in every line, and a cynical kindliness about the mouth.
"Why, Jeremy——!"
"Jeremy it is, lad. Come over and kiss me."
They laughed, and came together to grip hands with the impulsiveness of two men who have learned to love each other as men can.
"What are you doing down here?"
"Filling a chair and a bed."
"Good, by George! It's a year since we've seen you. Where's Squire Kit? Have you seen him?"
Jeremy settled the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe with the end of his little finger.
"Having a nap upstairs, Jasper. Curse me, lad, it's good to see you. Brown and lusty, eh, though you had a broken arm in the spring. What, Jack Bumpstead's no gossip. And how's that old blackguard, Goffin? I've brought him down a pound of snuff."
Jeremy Winter had been a gentleman of many adventures, and his picturesque career had culminated in the founding of a fencing school in a quiet street near St. James's. Jeremy and Jasper's mother had been cousins, and for twenty years Mr. Winter had descended at spasmodic intervals upon Rush Heath, never with much money in his pocket, but with plenty of audacity and cheerfulness in his eyes. He would have tales to tell of Canada, or the East Indies, or of service in the Austrian army, or of bronzed and ragged adventures in Spain. There was something lovable about the man. He was tough, capable, humorous, warm-hearted, a master of the small sword and the sabre, imperturbable and smiling in the face of odds.
Jasper sat himself down at the table with a resentful and freshly remembered hunger. Jeremy Winter's coming struck him as the most welcome of coincidences. One could tell things to Jeremy that a man would not tell to any other living creature.
They talked hard, touching on a dozen familiar memories, and filling in the gaps between the now and the then. Jeremy had made a success of his fencing school, but as he put it—"London's a sort of howling wilderness just now. Every blessed soul seems to have gone off somewhere into the country to help to drill bumpkins, and stand ready for the French. I shut up the school for a month. There were only a few raw youngsters to teach."
When Jasper had dined they strolled out into the garden with the elbow-to-elbow air of men well pleased to be together. Jeremy had taught Jasper to fence as a boy. He had taken some pride in the lad, for their temperaments were much alike. Jasper had much of the elder man's nerve and courage and imperturbable toughness.
"Well, lad, how's the sword-arm?"
"Out of practice. I have an idea, Jeremy, that you are the very man I want."
"What, getting ready for a quarrel—woman—and all that?"
"More than that. I'll tell you."
In the long walk Bob the gardener had thrown down half a dozen hazel fagots, for sticking the rows of sweet peas. Jeremy brought out a knife, chose two hazel boughs, sliced off the twigs and shaped them to the length of two foils.
"Let's try you, Jasper."
They stood in the grass walk and fenced together, the sunlight shining on the brown hazel stocks and on their intent faces. Jeremy Winter was extraordinarily quick and supple for a man of fifty. He had the wrist of a blacksmith and the cunning of a player on the spinet. Jasper was slow and out of practice. Jeremy touched him five times in as many minutes.
"Stiff. Is the business serious?"
They began to pace up and down the grass walk while Jasper told Jeremy Winter the truth about Stonehanger. Jeremy was a good listener, shrewd, attentive, and ready to compare new facts with the gleanings of a very varied experience. He was an easy man to confide in, because he was so full of a sage understanding. Jeremy had led a picturesque and rather dissipated life between the twenties and forties, and it is the man who has been a man who is of most use to his brother men.
"So you fell in love with the girl, lad. What! I'm old dog enough to know that! Heaven help me, it happened to me every month when I was a youngster. But I was only in love—once—you know; the great splash; and she left me to drown."
"That's all done with, Jeremy."
"Twenty years ago, sir."
"No, I mean my small incident. It was just an inclination; no more than that."
Jeremy regarded him with an affectionate twinkle.
"Just so—just so."
"I have got to pull this nest of spies to pieces. The girl mustn't blame me. I've got to do my duty."
"Duty! You be very careful of that word, Jasper. It's a fool's word. I don't trust men who talk about their duty. Why not send a file of soldiers in?"
Jasper stared at the chimneys of the house that rose against the stately gloom of the cedars.
"I have a mind to carry the thing through myself."
"Out of consideration for the lady!"
"No. This Frenchman and I have a score to settle."
Jeremy stroked a firm and shiny chin.
"Who is he? Anémigré?"
"Pretends to be. He calls himself the Chevalier de Rothan."
"What?"
"De Rothan."
Jeremy said something under his breath.
"Tall, dark rogue, is he, with the airs of a grandee, drooping tip to his nose, wears black, and talks about St. Louis?"
"That's the man! Do you know him, Jeremy?"
Winter looked thoughtful.
"I've met him in London."
"Where?"
"At my school. He came in to fence; Jack Sidebotham brought him. He was all over my best men."
They paused, and looked each other in the eyes.
"Jasper, the fellow is one of the best swordsmen in the country. I had a turn with him."
He smiled a grim little smile.
"Vanity, that's his weak point, too much flourish. I had him pinked, but—"
Jasper threw up his chin.
"All right, Jeremy. I'd tackle him—curse him!—even if he were a better man than you."
"You wait a bit, my lad."
"You had better call me a coward!"
Jeremy laid a hand on Jasper's shoulder.
"Stop that. Do you think I don't love you, lad? Do you think I want to have you run through by a swaggering blackguard like De Rothan? He's a good shot, too, mind you. You wait a bit, till we have had a week with the foils."
As men they knew each other, and Jasper was touched.
"I'm a hot-headed fool, Jeremy. I'll do what you wish."
Had Jasper Benham been able to see into Nance's heart he would have felt a man's pity for her, that richer tenderness that dissolves away the pettier and more selfish thoughts.
For Nance was very lonely, and perplexed amid her loneliness. Things had happened that had troubled her beyond measure. In the first place, she had overheard some talk that had passed between De Rothan and her father, a few, disjointed sentences, nothing more, and yet the words had caught her ear and set her musing upon their meaning. Moreover, De Rothan himself had become suddenly and ominously real. He had swaggered out of a vague and questionable past into an urgent and audacious present. He had kissed her hand, and he had tried to touch her with the touch of a lover.
A woman can judge a man by his eyes, and his way of looking. The Frenchman was infinitely courteous, but he had no reverence. His admiration was a complacent and self-confident emotion. It bent, half patronisingly, and touched what it admired, as though a woman's charm was a mere flower to be plucked and held to the nostrils.
De Rothan had made Nance's spirit creep. She had become suddenly afraid of him, and shy of being alone.
Queerly enough her loneliness and her craving for comradeship and sympathy found her thoughts turning toward Jasper Benham. It was a pure impulse and it surprised her new self-consciousness. There seemed something inevitable about it, something that claimed spontaneous justification. Nance found herself questioning the meaning of this impulse. If she distrusted one man and felt drawn toward the other, did not this spiritual phenomenon suggest some deep and instinctive truth? It contradicted the things that she had been told about Jasper. If he was a bad man why should she think of him now that she needed help?
It was in a mood of doubt and unrest that she idled round her terrace garden, looking at the faces of the pansies, pulling up weeds, and putting a stick here and there to a head-heavy flower. The sound of footsteps made her start self-consciously. A figure of Time came striding over the grass—old David Barfoot—scythe on shoulder, a brown straw hat shading his lean, tanned face.
Nance smiled at the old man, a smile of relief. There had been rain in the night, and the moist grass was ripe for scything. It would cling to the edge of the blade and make the work easier.
"I like the grass short, David."
He had a way of hearing Nance's words as he heard no one else's.
"I'll shave it close; trust me."
He carried the stone in a queer little leather case fastened to his belt at the back. Getting an edge was a great business. The stone rang along the blade of the scythe. Presently he began to mow with steady, purring strokes, and the swinging movement of his arms and shoulders was not without a kind of grace.
Nance sat herself on the terrace and watched him. There was something restful in the level, swinging rhythm.
David was not a talkative man, but he had his moments of illumined loquacity.
"Fine weather for the crops. They'll be making hay afore the end o' June. Maybe the French won't tarrify us at all."
Nance had the look of a contented listener. It was pure coincidence that sent David drifting toward matters that were vital to her needs. He began to talk about his relatives and their affairs, which were mostly of a sordid, poverty-stricken, and child-bearing order.
"Maybe you've heard speak of my sister, Sue Barton. Thirteen brats, and her man down with t' ague. Bad times, too. I don't say as the gentry can't be kind."
"Thirteen children, David!"
He stopped to sharpen his scythe.
"Pig's meal, they be glad to get it! Jim sick, and Sue expectin' as usual. It was lucky for Jim Barton as he had worked on and off for t' Benhams. They be good gentlefolk, t' Benhams, though t' old squire has the mouth of hell on him."
Nance said "Oh!"—a non-committal exclamation.
"Master Jasper, he be a good young gentleman."
"The Mr. Benham who was shot in the lane?"
"Sure. There be gentry and gentry. Some of 'em doan't care; some of 'em gives for what they gets. Master Jasper's a soft heart, but he be'unt no fool, neither. A tough gentleman when a man be a rogue and a beggar."
Nance had a moment's perplexity. Then she said:
"I have heard bad things about Mr. Benham, David."
She spoke softly, but David was watching her mouth. He picked up the words and answered them.
"Have ye now! Well, I've heard different. Be man, woman, or child sick down Rush Heath way, the young squire he be for knowing about it. Better than the parson, he be. Not pious-like; can do his cussing. Clean about t' wenches, too. Though I shouldn't be saying such a thing afore you, Miss Nance."
Nance reddened, not wholly because of David's words.
"You appear to know a great deal about Mr. Benham, David."
"Sure—we knows this and that in t' country. I likes a fine, upstanding gentleman. I wishes him good luck in the shoes of his father."
"Is it true that Mr. Benham is to marry his cousin, David?"
"She? You be meaning Miss Benham o' Beech Hill?"
"I don't know."
"Sure, Mr. Benham be'unt no fool! Marry she! 'Tain't no sense."
"Well, it isn't our business, is it, David?"
The old man grunted. He was thinking of things that it was not his business to utter.
But his words had had their effect on Nance. For days she had been striving against a growing sense of resentment. Doubt and mental suffering have some kinship to physical pain; they torment the mind until it breaks out into passionate rebellion. Nance left David to his scything and went straight into the house. She knew that her father was in his study, and her very doubts drove her to demand some answer to the questions that were troubling her heart. Durrell's secretiveness, De Rothan's mysterious presence about the place, the slandering of Jasper Benham, all these things combined to form a distorting glass that threw the reflections of life back at her with perplexing vagueness.
Nance climbed the stairs slowly, stiffening her courage against this colloquy with her father. The house seemed very still as she passed down the long brown gallery and knocked at her father's door.
"Yes?"
"May I come in, father?"
"Yes, come in."
He was wrapped in an old dressing-gown, and sitting at his table, books open before him, a quill in his hand. It might have been some austere Milton inditing polemics against the Church of Rome.
Durrell had the look of a preoccupied man who suffered interruption grudgingly.
"Well, what is it?"
She closed the door.
"I want to speak to you, father."
He frowned, and laid his pen in the trough of an open book.
"What is it? About the food—or the pots and pans?"
"No. It is about things that have been worrying me."
"Things—things? How loosely you express yourself!"
His impatience stiffened her courage.
"This Chevalier De Rothan—why does he come to the house?"
Durrell leaned back in his chair, pushing his feet out under the table.
"What has that to do with you, Nance?"
"I want to know why you have him to the house."
"Indeed!"
"I don't like him. I don't trust him. I have a kind of feeling that we are in his power."
Durrell looked at her with frowning intentness.
"Little fool!"
She flushed, sensitively.
"Father, I feel that things are happening here about which you have suffered me to know nothing. It is wrong to me, unfair——"
"Tssh! Don't let us have this nonsense, this tragedy queening."
"Can you swear that——"
"Nance, you are a fool. Am I to be catechised by a silly girl! Stuff and nonsense!"
"Then why does this man come here in the middle of the night? Why does he spend hours with you, here, in this room? Oh, I may know more than you think, father. One cannot help having ears and eyes."
"Girl—what do you mean?"
"I have a right to know——"
"Right? You talk to me about your rights!"
Durrell was a quick-tempered and a scornful man, but Nance had never seen him look so evil.
"Let me tell you, Nance, that I am not a man who thinks it necessary to explain things to a child."
"But you explained away Jasper Benham's character—to me."
He pushed his chair back violently, and rose.
"I told you some truths for your own good."
"Did the man De Rothan tell you these things?"
"Silence!"
"I have a right——"
"Silence, I say!"
Durrell's face had lost all scholarly repose and refinement. It was harsh, flushed, and threatening.
"Go to your room, girl. Never let me have more of this interference."
"I am not a child any longer. If you drive me to it, father, I shall rebel——"
He broke out in a way that amazed her, with a scolding fury that threw aside all self-control. Durrell was not capable of the blind, physical violence of the ordinary male, and his unreasoning wrath ran into a torrent of outrageous taunts and sarcasms. We are the creatures of savage littlenesses in our rages, those nerve-storms that rise out of nothing, and end in nothing.
Durrell's fury of words had a numbing effect upon the girl. She stood mute, staring, astonished by the unreasoning violence of the man who had given his life to accumulating wisdom out of books. Then she drew back toward the door, opened it, and escaped.
She went to her own room, realising in a numb way that her father had spoken words to her that could never be forgotten. The very violence of his anger had been an outrage, its arbitrariness an answer to her suspicions.
Then she heard De Rothan's voice on the terrace below. He was talking to David Barfoot, but David would never consent to understand him.
The voice sent a shiver of repulsion through Nance. She turned and locked the door.
"Mees Nance, Mees Nance, where is the sunlight?"
He was calling up at her window, and she hated him for not being another man.
Durrell's footsteps came down the gallery, and he joined De Rothan on the terrace. The Frenchman could have done with other company, but he was drawn sharply toward sterner issues.
Durrell took him into one of the dark paths through the shrubbery.
"The girl has begun to suspect us."
"What, sweet Nance?"
"She challenged me to a confession, as though I owe any confession to a child!"
"And you scolded her! You men of letters lose your tempers as badly as tipplers at an inn. Poor Nance; you scorched her with that infernal tongue of yours."
Durrell gave him a sneering look.
"You need not pity the girl. She seems to hate the very sound of your name."
"Come, come, that is promising."
"You had better hold away from her."
De Rothan laughed.
"Mr. Benham, too, suspects us. I have decided how to deal with that gentleman. But sweet Nance hates me! That is good news."
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Do you see your daughter, Durrell, as one of the beauties of Napoleon's court? It is not impossible, sir, not impossible. Where hate is, there love shall be gathered in."
Bob, the gardener, scything grass in the Rush Heath garden, saw Jasper and Mr. Jeremy Winter come out of the house while the dew still lay upon the grass. Jasper had a pair of foils under his arm. The two gentlemen stripped off their coats in the long walk, rolled up their shirt-sleeves and began to fence. They were at it for an hour or more in short, sharp bursts, Jeremy pulling the younger man up from time to time, and making him repeat some series of parries and passes. The clinking of the foils made a thin and constant tingle of sound, broken now and again by Jeremy's deep and imperturbable voice. There was no blood in the battle, but the great poppies in the borders were the colour of blood.
Jeremy was not ill-pleased with these practise bouts.
"You will soon have a quick point again. The man behind the sword's the thing. Nerve, and a devilish sharp eye."
"You will warrant me sound in a week, Jeremy?"
"Not far off, not far off. Don't forget the pistols, though. And look you, lad, the game is to play up to the vanity of a man like De Rothan. Fencing's a subtle art. 'Tain't all wrist and sinew. There's mind in it, personality, soul. It's a picking to bits of human nature. You don't fight a man's sword alone, but his grit, or his conceit, and his damned flourishes."
"You are a cunning master, Jeremy."
"Why, confound me, half life is acting. Act when you fight, lad. I could play a man like De Rothan the veriest clown's game, make him think me a bungler, and run him through before he had the sense to take me seriously. That's what fighting should be, brain as well as beef."
They went in to breakfast, a silent meal so far as Jasper was concerned. Jeremy Winter watched him with affectionate amusement. A man of fifty renews his youth in seeing a young man in love.
"I have it, Jeremy!"
"What, lad?"
"An idea."
It did not unfold itself, for there was a sudden violent hammering on the floor of the room above. Mr. Christopher Benham was using the heel of his shoe to attract attention.
"Hallo, the squire's awake."
"I'll go up and see what he wants. I say, Jeremy, not a word about this."
"Not a word. He'd curse me out of the country for egging you on to take risks."
"Besides, there's Rose. You remember Rose?"
Jeremy drew in his lips.
"Remember her, by gad! We always quarrelled, Rose and I. So he wants you to marry her?"
"I don't know. Rose can twist him round her finger. I don't want her meddling in my affairs."
"The less a woman knows the better."
Jasper spent the morning practising with his pistols in the little meadow by Ten Acre Wood. He chose the meadow because it was a mile or more from the house, and the oaks of the wood smothered the reports of the pistol. He did not wish the sound to come to Mr. Christopher's ears, for he was in an intensely irritable state, and very feeble. The most trivial thing would send him into a gouty rage, and his rages left him breathless and inarticulate.
After dinner Jasper ordered Jack Bumpstead to saddle Devil Dick. Jeremy Winter stood smoking a pipe in the porch, and watched him mount and ride out.
Jasper headed straight toward Stonehanger. His face had a set and very determined look. He was out on a grave business, and on his guard against sentiment and romance.
It was still and sultry, and there was a fog at sea. Grey haze covered the hills, and the long grass in the fields hardly so much as stirred. Stonehanger Common lay in the full, thundery glare of the afternoon sunlight. Warm, dry perfumes rose from it, and the gorse looked a dusty green. Jasper followed the lane, and, pushing Devil Dick through a gap in the hedge, approached Stonehanger from the western side. His plan of campaign promised to adapt itself to the identity of the person who chanced to meet the first attack.
As it happened, he came upon David Barfoot by the gate that led into the rough meadow where Jenny the cow was turned out to grass. The coincidence faced Jasper with two alternatives. He made a sign to David, and the old man came and stood by Devil Dick's right shoulder.
"Is Miss Nance at home?"
David watched Jasper's lips.
"She be out, Master Benham."
"And Mr. Durrell?"
"Would you be wanting to see him?"
David's sceptical sincerity stirred Jasper's inclinations. He discovered a very human desire to set eyes on Nance. Durrell! Barfoot was right. Anthony Durrell could go to the devil.
He was surprised to find David Barfoot so ready to help him.
"Do you know where she is?"
"She be gone down t' sea lane."
"Straight on?"
"Sure."
"I might meet her if I rode on down the lane." Barfoot grinned approvingly.
"I'm telling ye," he said.
The lane went winding down between furze-clad banks, a green way powdered with wild flowers. About half a mile from Stonehanger House the lane broadened out into a kind of grassy stream that meandered as it pleased. Jasper reined in on a piece of rising ground, and scanned the land ahead of him. Two furlongs to the south stood a group of may-trees. They were smothered in blossom, and their massed floweriness made them look like a great heap of white wool or of snow.
Jasper caught sight of a figure moving on the outskirts of these trees, a figure that loitered, and reached up to break off the flowering sprays. He had ridden to Stonehanger convinced that he could hold himself well in hand and that he could talk to Nance as dispassionately as he would have talked to his cowman's grandmother. But when he saw that figure down by the may-trees, Jasper knew why he hated De Rothan, and why he was trying to compromise with Nance.
He rode on, rather slowly, stiffening his upper lip as though he were in for a life-and-death tussle and not for a scene with a mere girl. Jasper had planned out what he would say, and how he would say it. He had stalked up and down the Rush Heath rose-walk, putting his emotions in order, and choosing his texts.
Something spoiled all that. It was his own sincerity, and the face and figure of the girl leaning through the foliage of a may-tree, and looking at him with widely opened eyes. This particular tree grew hollowed out on the inside, its lower branches lying like so many ledges with bands of shadow in between them. The long grass was all white and gold with buttercups and moon-faced daisies.
Jasper lifted his hat.
"David Barfoot told me I might find you down the lane."
His sudden appearing had thrown Nance's thoughts into confusion. She had been thinking about him, and he had startled the intimate inwardness of her thoughts. She was too conscious of their last meeting and the way she had rebuffed him.
She came out from amid the may boughs with a troubled shadowiness of the eyes. A sheaf of the white blossom lay in the hollow of her left arm. Perplexity is apt to simulate coldness and pride. She looked cold and white and upon the defensive.
The silence irked them both. They took refuge in vague superficialities.
"Fine trees, these. They looked like a pile of snow in the distance."
"Yes. I love the smell of may blossom."
"Scents carry one back to all sorts of memories."
"I know. I always like a bowl of wild flowers in my room."
"Are you going back to Stonehanger?"
She threw a quick and watchful look at him.
"Yes."
"Then I will turn back with you."
She seemed uneasy and perplexed. The half-scared look in her dark eyes touched him. What was she afraid of, and why did she glance at him in that queer, disturbing way? He began to relent, to lose himself in the world of her presence.
"You know that—my father——"
"I know that he does not want me at Stonehanger."
He dismounted, and set himself at her side.
"Then, if you know that——"
"Yes, but if you forbid a thing, it drives a man to do it. Besides——"
He found himself looking into her eyes, searching them with sudden impetuous passion. She glanced away, reddening, the bunch of may blossom crushed against her bosom. A thorn pricked her arm, but it was part of the pain of her perplexity.
She seemed to cast about for words.
"We lead such a lonely life, and father does not like strangers."
"Is that why you were so hard on me?"
"When?"
"Oh, you remember."
He was driving her into a corner, and it was impossible for him not to see her too palpable distress. It both troubled and angered him, pointing toward two possible explanations.
"You remember the night you rescued me out of the lane?"
"Yes."
"Well, you were very good to me—then. What made all this difference?"
"Father does not like strangers."
"But is that enough to make you treat a man as though——"
She broke in upon him, white and hurried.
"Mr. Benham, don't——"
"Nance, why won't you tell me the reason?"
"I can't."
"I'll take it well. It might help something pretty serious that I have to say to you."
She gave him a startled look, as though suspecting some other method of attack.
"You are so masterful!"
"No, no. You won't help me—whereas I have ridden over to help you."
"What do you mean?"
"Tell me what made you treat me as you did."
She lifted her chin, and showed him a clear and obstinate profile.
"No, I will not."
"You won't help me!"
"If you have come to strike bargains——"
"Nance, you drive a man into being angry."
"What right have you to be angry?"
"My own right."
"Who gave it you?"
"A man seizes it. Do you think I don't hold myself as good as that French fellow De Rothan?"
She paused, and looked at him half-warningly.
"You try to seize too much. The Chevalier de Rothan is my father's friend. I——"
"You——"
"I have nothing more to say."
"I have. It is what I came for. And it concerns your good friend De Rothan."
She flashed her eyes at him, mistaking his grim sarcasm. They were on the edge of a quarrel, and very near to those bitter words that rise to the lips of passion.