THE GARDEN OF
MEMORIES
BY
HENRY ST. JOHN COOPER
AUTHOR OF "SUNNY DUCROW," "JAMES BEVANWOOD,
BARONET," ETC.
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
LIMITED
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1921.
MUSSON
ALL CANADIAN PRODUCTION
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I [In the Garden of Dreams]
II [A Marriage Has Been Arranged]
III [A Desirable Family Mansion]
IV [How Allan Came to the Garden]
V [In Which Allan Buys the Manor House]
VI ["I Hate Him—Hate Him I Du!"]
VII ["How Wonderful—the Way of Things"]
VIII ["Kathleen—Do You Remember?"]
IX [How Sir Josiah Opened His Purse]
X [Confidences]
XI [In Which Sir Josiah Proves Himself a Gentleman]
XII [The Hands of Abram Lestwick]
XIII [The Homecoming]
XIV ["His Son's Wife"]
XV ["Will You Take This Man?"]
XVI ["My Lady Merciful"]
XVII [Harold Scarsdale Returns]
XVIII [In the Dawn]
XIX [The Dream Maiden]
XX [The Road to Homewood]
XXI [After Ten Years]
XXII [Mr. Coombe Wears a White Tie]
XXIII ["I Belong to Thee"]
XXIV [In Which Lord Gowerhurst Rises Early]
XXV [Beside the Lake]
XXVI [On Other Shoulders]
XXVII [The Conqueror]
XXVIII [The Watcher]
XXIX [Why Abram Lestwick Stayed from Church]
XXX [The Religion of Sir Josiah]
XXXI ["A Very Worthy Man"]
XXXII [The Awakening]
XXXIII [By the Lake]
XXXIV [The Going of Betty]
XXXV ["I Shall Return"]
THE GARDEN OF
MEMORIES
PROLOGUE
From the house a broad white stone path runs to the very heart of the garden and there opens out into a wide circle in the middle of which is set a sundial, and here too are placed some great benches of the same white stone; where, when the heat of the sun is not too great, it is pleasant enough to sit and watch the glory of the flowers.
They are wealthy folk, the Elmacotts, and they love their garden and pride themselves on it and hold that in all Sussex no soil can produce finer flowers and sweeter fruit, and though in this year of grace seventeen hundred and three the house, which is the Manor House of the Parish of Homewood, has no great antiquity, being scarce more than sixty years old, it has about it that completeness, those niceties of detail, the neatness and the order and the well being that are found only in the home which is ruled by a house-proud mistress.
And Madame Elmacott is proud of her house, proud of her garden, proud of the flowers that grow in it and above all proud of her stalwart sons, Master Nat and Master Dick, who are at this time with his Grace of Marlborough in Flanders, fighting their country's battles.
To-day the sun shines on the garden and the flowers stir gently, swaying in the light breeze that also lifts the white dimity at the open windows of the house, whence comes the sweet tinkling of a spinet, the keys of which are touched by the skilled white fingers of Mistress Phyllis Elmacott.
The tall hollyhocks that cast wavering blue shadows on the white stone pathway nod to one another in the breeze, nod, it seems, knowingly, for from the pathway one may see into the pleasant room where the spinet and its fair player are and seeing these may also see the handsome figure of the Captain, who leans upon the spinet, the better to see into those bright eyes that have brought him home to England and Sussex from across the seas, though at this time in the service of his Grace the Captain General there is much to be done and much to be won.
He has but waited to see and share in the victory of Donauwort and then has come hastening home on the wings of love and with the merry peal of marriage bells a-ringing in his ears.
But it is not of these, not of the dashing Captain in his red coat and fair-haired Mistress Elmacott, who thinks him the most perfect and wonderful, as well as the bravest and handsomest of all created beings. It is of the garden and of a lad who sits on the grassy bank at the edge of the lake and watches with eyes, that yet seem scarcely to see, the slim white figure of a maiden wrought of stone. She stands up from the green waters, in the center of the lake and on her sun-kissed shoulder she holds a pitcher, from which the glittering water is flung aloft into, the air to fall with a pleasant tinkling, back into the green pool beneath.
And so silent, so motionless does he sit here, that the swallows that now and again skim the water, the dragon flies in all the glory of their green and crimson, and blue sheen that dart hither and thither take no heed of him, no more heed than if he too were of senseless stone.
In all the colour, in all the glory of the garden, he is the sombre, the one sombre note. His clothes are drab, his shoes are stout and thick and ungainly and clasped with great brass buckles. His hands are the hands of a man who toils for his living, rough and hardened by spade and hoe and rake and scythe, and stained by the good earth of the garden. His eyes that stare so unceasingly on that white stone figure are blue, his face is lean and tanned, his neck too is tanned deeply to the very shoulders where the coarse shirt falls open.
Straight and strong and courageous he is. Has he not listened with bated breath and with quick beating heart to the brave stories told in the bar parlour of the "Fighting Cocks" in Stretton. Cross? Has he not watched the Serjeant who has told these thrilling tales, of every one of which, who should be the hero but the Serjeant himself, in his fine red coat and his crossed belts and his tall hat, that makes him, fine man that he is, seem almost a giant?
He has done well here in Stretton and Homewood and at Bush Corner and in all those other quiet places, has the Serjeant. There are at least a score of fine young Sussex lads, even at this very moment on their way to Harwich, en route for Flanders and glory, who have been wheedled from field and wood and garden and alehouse and stable by the Serjeant's persuasive tongue, his jolly laugh and his generous hand.
And Allan Pringle, sitting here by the green pool, clasping his strong brown chin with his hands, knows that he too would have been of that score, but for one reason—one reason that now, alas, is no more!
It is the first grief he has ever known and it is a bitter one, for what more bitter sorrow can youth feel than for wasted hopes, for broken faith, for misplaced love?
Only Betty and his love for her, only the happiness that she had promised should one day be his, had deafened him to the persuasive eloquence of the Serjeant.
But it is not too late now, others will hearken to the Serjeant and set off for Harwich and he will be among the next. Yes, he will be among the next to go, and pray God that he may never return!
He does not hear a light step on the long stone pathway, for it is scarce heavier than a bird might make. From the house a little maid comes hurrying. Now she stands hesitatingly and looks about her, her finger on her lips, as one a little fearful, a little anxious. Again and yet again, she pauses, as she looks about her, then comes to where beyond the great hedge of clipped yew trees the green waters of the pool reflect the golden, sunshine.
And now she sees him and stands watching, a tender smile on her lips. A dainty slip of a maiden is she, with hair that gleams gold under her cap, the soft rounded arms are bare to the dimpled elbows, save for the thin black lace mittens, through which her white skin shines.
Though he, the silent, solitary figure sitting beside the pool is but ten paces from her, yet she hesitates, half a score of times, making a timorous step and then pausing before the next, her blue eyes filled, now with mischief and love and now clouded by some fear. And then suddenly she makes a brave little run to him and drops lightly on her knees behind him and lifts her hands and clasps them over his eyes.
"And you—you would leave your Betty? Oh, Allan, you would leave your Betty who loves you and go away to the cruel wars?" she sobs.
He has taken her hands, has taken them strongly in his hold and holding them yet, he turns to her. "Why did you come, why did you come to me, Betty?"
"Because," and the blue eyes are lifted to his filled with an innocence and candour that even he, jealous and despairing though he is, cannot but recognise, "because I do love thee so and cannot let thee go!"
"And why, loving me, Betty, do you suffer the kisses of such a man as Timothy Burnand, a rascally tinker and a thieving poacher, a man whose hand I would not have touch thee, Betty?"
Into her face there flames a great flush, a look of anger, then it dies out and the laughter comes rippling to her lips and into her eyes come back the mischief and the love and a little pride too, for she realises that he is jealous of her, this man she loves and though jealousy be a sin, yet it is not without its sweetness, too, for say what the wiseacres may, jealously is oftentimes a proof of love.
"And you saw—" she cries, "Allan, you—saw—ugh!" She makes a little gesture, a little grimace. "Did you think that I invited, that I welcomed him? Did you think that I bore his kiss with patience? Go and seek him now and look for the red mark upon his face! He came on me unawares and then all suddenly—" she pauses. "Allan," she says pleadingly, "Allan, you will not go, you will not go, my dear, you will not go and leave me?" And sobbing she is in his arms. And so for Allan Pringle the sun shines out again and the flowers are blooming brightly and the little slim maiden of stone from the centre of the pool seems to throw the glittering water higher and yet higher into the air as though in joy that all is well between these two, who hold one another so tightly, who are mingling their tears and their laughter and their kisses, now that the cloud has passed.
* * * * *
There are no flowers in the garden now, for the garden of Homewood Manor and all the world beside lies under a pall of white, for the winter is here, the winter of seventeen hundred and five, which is remembered by all men as a winter of bitter cold, of great frosts and heavy snows.
In a tiny cottage that stands a bare quarter of a mile on the Stretton Road from the Homewood gates, a man is on his knees beside a bed.
And that bed holds all his world, all that the world can give him, all that makes life sweet, and his heart is black and bitter with suffering and despair and cries out against God that he, who was rich only in her and in her love, must lose her now, must spend the rest of his days solitary, and heartbroken.
His eyes are on the sweet white face, on those lips once so red and now so pale, but which even yet have a smile for him, a smile of wonderful tenderness and undying love. He takes no heed of the fretful cry that comes from the cradle, for there is no other in all his world now, but her, she who is so soon to leave him.
"Betty, my Betty, I cannot let thee go! Oh, remember, Betty, once when I would have left thee, you called me back and I came. I am calling, calling to you now, my life, my sweet, I cannot let you go! Stay with me, stay with me, for you are all my life and the world is black without you; stay with me!"
She would lift her thin little hand to caress, to touch his face, but the strength is not hers to do it.
"Allan, take me, hold me in your arms, hold me tightly, my dear, hold me tightly," she says.
And he puts his strong arms about her. God pity him, how light she is, how small, how fragile a thing this, that death is taking from him!
His very soul is in rebellion against fate, he is mad with the suffering, mad with his impotence. He can do nothing save watch her die, watch her fade out of his life; and it must be soon "A matter of hours," the doctor from Stretton had said and that was long ago and now, now it is but a matter of minutes.
"Allan, I wanted, always, to die like this, with your arms about me, your dear eyes the last of earth that I shall see—ah! Allan, it is now——"
"Betty, Betty, I am calling, calling to you, come back, beloved, come back!"
And then he knows that it is useless, she is leaving him, slipping away, no matter how tightly he may hold her. It is good-bye, their last good-bye and the sad word comes perhaps unconsciously to his lips.
And then, is it fancy? Is it some trick of his tortured brain? For as he watches, the dear lips move and it seems to him that the message they whisper to him with her dying breath is this: "It is not good-bye!"
He is holding her against his breast, he is kissing those lips that for the first time give not back kiss for kiss. He is calling to her from his aching, breaking heart, but she has passed beyond the sound of his voice, though the smile on her dead lips is still for him.
And those last words, were they real? Did they pass her lips with her dying breath, were they meant for him in pity and compassion and love?
"It is not good-bye!"
CHAPTER I
IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS
A girl, a slip of a maid with sunny hair and wonderful blue eyes, stood beside a crumbling old rose-red brick wall. She looked up the long country road and she looked down it, there was no one, not a soul in sight. So she thrust the too of one small and broken boot into a crevice of the wall, made a little spring and caught at the top, then dragged herself up till she sat, flushed and triumphant, on the coping.
She was a village girl and her dress was of print, well washed, well mended, skimpy, too, for her slight figure, slender though it was, for it had been hers for three years, and a dress that is originally made for a maiden of fourteen is apt to be small when worn by a maid of seventeen.
It was a demure and a very sweet face, the eyes big and strangely dreamy, the white skin of her face and neck powdered lightly with tiny golden freckles, her hair a deep red gold.
And wonderful hair it was, wonderfully untidy, too, so rebellious that it spurned all hairpins and fretted and struggled agains ribbons and tapes.
So now, she sat on top of the old rose red wall and looked down on the other side and saw a green tangle of brambles and grass and other things that grew rankly and luxuriously in that deserted place.
It was easier to descend the wall than to climb it, for here was a friendly tree that held out an inviting branch. Sho seized it, with small brown hands and lightly swung herself to the ground and then drew a sigh of relief and pleasure.
It was forbidden ground! Were there not many notices that announced the fact that "Trespassers Would Be Prosecuted"? But she cared nothing for these, the notice that she dreaded most of all was "This Desirable Historical Family Mansion, with Seven Hundred and Fifty Acres of Land, to be Sold."
How she dreaded lest one day someone should come and see and covet this place and buy it and so shut her out forever from its delights and its pleasures. But that someone had not come yet.
So she made her way through the tangle of the growth, and came presently to a great garden, a wonderful garden once, but now a weed-grown place of desolation.
Always this garden attracted her; to-day it brought a soft, tender light into her eyes as she stood with clasped hands and looked at it! She could see the old broken stone-paved pathway that led through the heart of the garden. She knew where that stone pathway opened out into a great circle in the midst of which was set a sundial, a sundial of stone chipped and green and the gnomon of the dial rusted away so that never again should its shadow fall upon the dial and mark the passing of the brighter hours. And about this circle, she knew, were old stone seats, green now like the pedestal of the dial and through the crevices of the paving grew and flourished and blossomed foxglove and dandelion, hollyhock and groundsell.
It had been a very, very beautiful garden long years ago, when ladies had tapped up and down the stone pathway in their little red-heeled shoes. Ladies who wore wide flounced skirts and powdered hair and cunning little patches on their fair cheeks. The garden with its roses, with its stately hollyhocks, its cloves and sweet-williams, its rosemary and lavender and all the sweet things that grow in English gardens, must have been a very lovely and perfect place then. But to this little maid with the dreamy eyes, it was a very wonderful place now. There was no other place like it in all the world; she had come here by sunshine and by moonlight, for sometimes in the night the garden had seemed to call to her and she had risen from her bed under the thatched roof of her old grandmother's cottage and had come stealing here to watch it, all bathed in the silver light of the moon. Perhaps she loved it best by moonlight, for then strange dreams seemed to come to her, dreams that never came when the sun was shining.
It seemed as if some kindly gentle hand touched lightly on the chords of memory, and then—the weeds and the tall rank grass, the decay of the present, the rioting growth, all were gone and she saw the old garden as it had once been, and she saw folk, strangely dressed folk, whom never in her life could she have met. These came and went, men with strange affected antics and gestures, gestures she might have smiled at, yet never did, and sweet, gracious ladies who moved with stately dignity through the old garden.
But always there was one, a young man whose clothes were plain and lacking all the finery that made the others seem so grand. She knew him for a servant, for one who worked in the garden, for often she would see him stooping over some trim bed, or with keen scythe sweeping the short grass.
They were dreams, only dreams that the old garden seemed to bring to her, when she came when the world was sleeping. Dreams, and yet she seemed to be so curiously awake.
But she never spoke of the old garden to the others, or told of the things that she saw here. Yet they knew she came, her grandmother rated her, "One day, my maid, caught ee'll be," she said, "and then summoned very likely for trespassing!"
But the Law had no terrors for her, so she came whenever the garden seemed to be calling to her and the high rank grass brushed her thin cotton skirt and wetted the coarse stocking that clad her slim ankle.
For an hour she wandered about the garden, she stood by the sundial and watched the line of the path-way, sadly encroached on now by the weeds and the self-seeded flowers. A tall yew hedge, once clipped into fantastic shapes, but now reclaimed by Nature, shut out what had once been the rose garden, all weed grown now and the roses gone. And beyond the rose garden, the lake in which the great carp swam lazily and over which the birds skimmed! From the lake's centre rose a figure in stone, sadly battered and marred, the figure of a slim girl, a girl that might have been, herself, changed into stone.
She often came to look at this figure rising from the centre of the lake. It held a vase poised on its shoulder, once a fountain had been flung high into the air from this vase, but the fountain had been dead long ago. To-day a rook sat perched on one stone shoulder, but flew away when the living girl came down to the brink.
She had a feeling for this stone maiden, all so lonely in the midst of the desolation. She never came into the garden without coming to the edge of the lake and nodding her little head to the figure who never nodded back.
And so, for an hour she wandered about the garden. She picked none of the flowers that grew so freely here, for she would not dare take them back, mute tale tellers that they would be. So, empty handed as she came, she presently made her way back to the old wall and seeing that no one was in sight, gained the road and went on to the cottage in the village.
Her grandmother was leaning over the gate, an old woman with the face of a russet apple that has been kept till it has wrinkled and mellowed.
"So there you be, Betty Hanson, and seeing the way you hev come it be useless and idle it be, for me to ask you where hev you been tu!"
The girl did not answer.
"You've been in that garden again, spite o' all I du say. Betty Hanson, it hev got to cease, my maid, and cease it will now!"
"Why?" the girl said and there was a frightened look in her eyes.
"Why? for I hev been talking to Mr. Dalabey and he du tell me that there be several parties after the old house, and one rich American he very likely to buy it and if he du, then there be an end to all your philanderings in that there disgraceful old garden, my maid!"
"Buy it! Buy it!" She looked at her grandmother and in the blue eyes there was a look of actual fear. "'Ee don't mean as—as anyone be going to buy—buy it?" She whispered, "'ee be only saying it!"
"A rich American!" The old woman nodded her head, "and going to buy it, he be, and a dratted good job, too!" she added. "Look at your frock now, what a sight it be!"
But she did not look at her frock, her face had gone very pitifully white. She lifted her little brown hands and laid them against her breast and went into the cottage with tragedy and misery in her blue eyes.
"And a dratted good job, too," the old woman said again.
CHAPTER II
A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED
"My dear child, if I were to say that we had arrived at our last shilling, such a statement would not be quite true, for we had reached that unpleasant position some months ago, and I fear that it is on other people's shillings that we are existing at the present moment. Not only is our financial position unsatisfactory, to say the least of it, but, and forgive me for speaking of it, Kathleen, the years are passing and five years ago—well, dear one, you were five years younger than you are to-day!"
"Father, if you think that you can goad me——"
"I never goad, it would be too fatiguing! Besides, Kathleen, as my daughter and a Stanwys, you are not a fool—the Stanwys——"
"Oh, please do not tell me about the Stanwys, father," she said bitterly.
"Would you rather that I spoke about the Homewoods? There is the father, Sir Josiah——"
"Common and vulgar!" the girl said with a note of contempt in her voice.
"But the son—he at least is presentable, have we not agreed that the son is not so bad, and the position——"
"I know of the position; do you think I can forget it for even a moment?"
She rose and went to the window and stared out into the dull London Square.
She was twenty-eight. It is not a great age, yet at twenty-eight the first sweet freshness of youth is on the wane—a woman of twenty-eight realises that she is no longer a girl, her girlhood is behind her. Sometimes she is terribly conscious of it. It is a little tragedy to be eight and twenty, unmarried and unsought. Kathleen Stanwys at twenty-eight was unmarried, nor was she engaged. Society was a little puzzled by the fact, for she was unusually and exceedingly handsome. She had been a very lovely girl and she was now a radiantly beautiful woman.
Seven years ago she had outshone all rival beauties in the great world of Fashion, but she had made no bid for popularity. She shrank from anything of the nature of publicity and cheap advertisement; rarely if ever had her photograph appeared in the press. She wrapped herself in a mantle of reserve. Ever conscious of the poverty which she was never permitted to forget she had earned the reputation of being cold and haughty and proud. Admirers she had never lacked, but suitors had been few and shy! Young men, well provided with money, had a wholesome fear of Lord Gowerhurst, her father, for he was a very finished specimen of his type.
Smooth tongued, with a charming and plausible manner, cynical, handsome as all the Stanwys are and have been, an accomplished gambler, too accomplished, perhaps his enemies, and he had many, whispered. He was utterly selfish, utterly pitiless. He had never been known to spare a man or a woman either. Woe to him or to her who fell into his toils. With what fine courtesy, with what charm of manner would he relieve some luckless victim, of his last shilling! How sweetly and sympathetically he would speak of his victims' ill fortune, would suggest some future "revenge," and then pocket his winnings with a grace that could have brought but little comfort to the poor wretch whose possessions had passed out of his own into the keeping of this courtly, delightful, aristocratic gentleman.
So, young men well endowed with money, having a wholesome fear of His Lordship, avoided his Lordship's beautiful daughter, and young men without money were of course not to be considered for a moment.
Therefore, at twenty-eight, Kathleen, unappropriated, and a very beautiful woman, stood staring out of the window this fine May morning, into the dull London Square.
My Lord, slender, dressed with exquisite care, was of a tallness and slimness that permitted his tailor to do justice and honour to his craft. Few men could wear their clothes with such perfect grace as his Lordship. His tailor, long suffering man, groaned at the length of the unpaid bill, but realised that as a walking advertisement Lord Gowerhurst was an asset to his business not to be despised. So the lengthy bill grew longer and more formidable, but youngsters, fresh to town, admiring his Lordship's appearance prodigiously, made it their business to discover who was his Lordship's tailor and Mr. Darbey, of Dover Street, saw to it that Lord Gowerhurst never went shabby and possibly, cunning man, made those who could and would pay, contribute unconsciously to the upkeep of Lord Gowerhurst's external appearance.
He came of a handsome family, the women of which had been toasts in many reigns and through many generations. His forehead was broad and high, crowned by silver hair that curled crisply, his nose was of the type of the eagle's beak, his hands white, well kept, reminiscent of the eagle's claws, a moustache of jetty blackness in admirable contrast to his silvered hair, shaded and beneficently concealed a thin-lipped, hard and somewhat cruel mouth.
My Lord rolled a cigar between his delicate fingers. It was an excellent cigar; years ago Julius Dix and Company had acquired the habit of supplying Lord Gowerhurst with cigars on credit and bad habits are difficult to eradicate. But then his Lordship sent wealthy customers to the quiet but extremely expensive little shop near the Haymarket.
"Our position, Kathleen, is irksome," he said softly, "deucedly irksome. Now and again I have little windfalls, but alas—they grow fewer and farther between as time goes on—at the moment I haven't a bob, you, dear, have not a bob—" he paused and laughed softly. "It recalls the French exercise of my youth. I have not a bob, thou hast not a bob, he has not a bob—" he waved the cigar. "Anyhow, that is the position, and then some kindly breeze of Heaven wafts that stout, prosperous, opulent craft the "Sir Josiah Homewood" on to the horizon of our "sea of troubles," as Shakespeare so aptly puts it!"
He paused, he looked at the slender, upright, girlish back of his daughter.
"So," he went on, "this large, stout, prosperous and richly freighted cargo boat, the Sir Josiah Homewood, rises on the horizon of our eventful lives and——"
"Oh, please," the girl said with a note of impatience in her voice, "leave out all that; I wish to understand exactly—exactly what you propose——"
"Not what I propose, but what Homewood proposes. Really, I rather admire the fellow's presumption. As you know, he has a son, a lad not altogether displeasing, who fortunately but little resembles his father, a fact you may have noticed, Kathleen. Indeed, I might almost say the young fellow is not without his good points; he is prepossessing, a little shy and silent, in which he does not resemble his father. He is well educated, he has Eton and Oxford behind him. By the way, what a time he must have had at Eton, if his parentage ever leaked out, poor devil—however, there it is, the lad is at least presentable—but the father is——"
"Terrible!" the girl said with a shudder.
"Too true, yet it is not proposed you should marry the father. We need money. You, child, need money, and what is more, a prospect, a future. You have nothing and the outlook is not cheering."
"The outlook is hopeless; I have nothing in the world, our family was always hopelessly impoverished, still the little we once had——" Kathleen paused.
"Recriminations, my love, are useless!" his Lordship said.
"There was very little and now that little hath taken unto itself wings and has flown away——" He stroked his long drooping moustache with his slender hand. "So it behoves us to make our arrangements for the future. Sir Josiah and I have discussed everything."
"You mean myself, you have arranged the deeds of sale, I suppose, how much am I worth?"
"Your value is inestimable. Sir Josiah, worthy Baronet, more daring than I, puts it down in actual figures—" he paused. "I made a note of them. He advances me—" He took some papers from his pocket, "the sum of twelve thousand pounds—advances, mind you, Kathleen, a kindly loan, which I shall, no doubt, find useful——"
"That is your part of the payment," she said bitterly, "go on!"
"He buys a fine house, an estate, he settles it on his son; by the way the lad's name is Allan."
"I know," she said, "go on."
"He settles a fine estate on this Allan, with an income of eight thousand a year, not so bad, eh?"
"And this is all conditional——"
"On your marrying the said Allan Homewood. I think," he said, as he rose from his breakfast table, "I have on the whole not done so badly for you!"
"And yourself," she said; "not so badly!" She smiled bitterly, then shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Very well, I suppose it is only left for me to say thank you very much indeed!"
"Quite so. The alternative, dear child, is this"—his lordship waved his hand—"an elderly unmarried lady residing in, say, a Brighton Boarding House, her face bearing some evidence of a past but long since faded beauty, her title, if she is foolish enough to make use of it, subjecting her to some little annoyance, mingled with a certain amount of servile respect. Not a pretty picture, my love, but a very true one."
"And the alternative is to marry Mr. Allan Homewood?"
"A pleasant alternative, and its acceptance never for a moment in doubt, eh?"
"Never for a moment in doubt," she repeated.
"Then it only remains for me to say Heaven bless you, my child, and to send a wire of acceptance to Sir Josiah. No, on second thought, I'll telephone him from the Club." He paused for a moment to arrange his necktie before the glass over the mantel, then went to the door. At the door. he stood and looked at her for a moment, then went out, a satisfied smile on his thin aristocratic face.
The girl stood there by the window for a long time. She was thinking. She had much to think about. She was twenty-eight and a beautiful woman of twenty-eight has no doubt many memories.
Presently she sighed and turned away from the window. A fine place and eight thousand a year and more when Josiah Homewood was laid with his fathers. Well! things might be worse, and the lad himself, she liked him. He was younger than she was by four years, but what did that matter?
She had seen him once or twice, had liked him vaguely, there was little to dislike about him. He was not handsome, she was glad of that, she hated handsome men, nor was he plain. Again she was glad; she disliked anything that was ugly. He was also, despite his parentage, a gentleman. She liked him for that most of all.
"If he had been vulgar like his father, three times the money would not have been enough," she said to herself.
Still, there were memories, memories that rose up out of the past, the memory of a face, of eager, ardent, worshipping eyes, of a lame, halting speech, words disjointed and broken, eager, pleading, yet hopeless words. "I love you, oh! I love you; don't turn from me. I know I am not worthy, Kathleen, but I love you so!"
She laughed suddenly, she felt ashamed and annoyed to realise that there were tears on her lashes and on her cheeks.
"Folly!" she said aloud. "Folly, and it's all dead and gone ten, years ago, ten years—" she laughed, "a lifetime! He's married to someone else; if he's sensible, he will have married someone with money, for he had none, poor fellow!"
Meanwhile at the Club, where the better part of his day and practically the whole of his night was spent, Lord Gowerhurst had looked up a telephone number and was putting a call through.
"Homewood—yes, Sir Josiah Homewood, is he in? Yes, I do, Gowerhurst—Lord Gowerhurst—You'll put him through—then hurry!"
He waited and then came a voice. It was evidently the voice of a stout man in a state of anxiety.
"Yes, it's me, it's Homewood, my Lord——"
Lord Gowerhurst detected the anxiety, purposely he delayed, he told himself the man was anxious—naturally—"Let him be anxious, let him remain on tenter hooks for a time!" It would do him no harm.
"Is that Sir Josiah Homewood?"
"Yes, yes, Homewood, I'm speaking to Lord Gowerhurst, aren't I?"
"Yes—ah, Homewood, is that you? Well, about that little matter we were discussing yesterday—" his lordship drawled, "the proposition that you placed before me with such engaging frankness, I should not be surprised if you remember——"
"Yea, my Lord, I've not forgotten! Not me!" The voice came chokingly, uncertain, but above all things eager.
"I have discussed it with the person—most concerned!"
"And what does her ladyship——"
"My dear Homewood, no names on the telephone, no names I beg!"
"No, no, of course not, my mistake, my Lord. I wouldn't think of mentioning any names, not for a moment, my Lord. Still what does she—the person—the party, I mean, my Lord, what does she—er—her——"
"I quite understand the—as you say—party—is inclined to give very favourable consideration to the matter. In fact, I may say, my dear Homewood, that the matter is practically settled on the basis you suggested."
Sir Josiah Homewood in his luxurious City office, closed his eyes as in ecstasy! He clung to the telephone receiver and an expression of rapt and perfect contentment stole over his features.
"Then—then it's all right. I may regard it as all right, my—my—Lord—she, the party, I mean——"
"Agrees—" said Lord Gowerhurst shortly. "Briefly, yes she agrees—the matter is settled and now it only remains to complete the contract, you understand, eh?"
"I understand, ha, ha, very good, just so, the Contract, always dealing with contracts I am, but not many like this! Ha, ha, splendid—and now your Lordship and the other party, I mean the other contracting party, will dine at my house in Grosvenor Square to-night."
Gowerhurst frowned. "Oh, very well!" he said ungraciously.
"Half past seven at Grosvenor Square, your Lordship remembers the number?"
"At half past seven, then!" His Lordship said and hung up the receiver.
"And that," my Lord said, "is that! When my time comes, and I am in no hurry for it to come, especially just now, I shall be able to close my eyes on this world, knowing that I have done my duty to my only child, a truly comforting reflection—And now for a brandy with the merest suggestion of soda, and if possible a little game of billiards." And he went up the Club's handsome staircase.
None of the multitudinous clerks in the large and palatial offices of Sir Josiah Homewood, Son and Company, Limited, had ever seen the Managing Director in such a delightful temper, for sometimes his temper was not delightful. This morning he beamed on all and sundry. Young Alfred Cope, who supported a widowed Mother on an insignificant salary, had long been trying to muster up courage to ask for a rise. It seemed to him that this morning, this bright May morning, the opportunity had come, and so opportunity sent him, a shivering, trembling wretch, tapping nervously on the highly polished mahogany door of Sir Josiah's private office.
"Well?" Sir Josiah said. "Well, and what do you want?"
Alfred stumbled lamely into his pitiful story.
Sir Josiah frowned. "How much are you getting paid now?" he demanded.
"Forty-two. Forty-two shillings a week! Bless my heart and soul, princely, princely! Why, when I was a lad such a wage would have been considered handsome, sir, and here you come asking me for more—Why; bless me, let me tell you this, Cope—the City is bristling with clerks, bristling with 'em, you can't move for clerks, sir, and most of 'em out of work! I've only got to hold up my finger, sir, like this—" He thrust a broad, stumpy finger into the air, "and say 'Clerk!' and a hundred would rush at me. I'd be suffocated! Do you understand me, Cope? Simply crushed to death by the rush! If I put an advertisement in the papers, I'd have to hire a policeman to keep the Quee—the Queek—what d'ye call the thing from obstructing the traffic—Forty-two shillings, you ought to go down on your knees, sir, on your knees and thank Heaven that you are earning such a salary! Princely! That's what it is, princely!"
And so on, for ten long, fear laden, wretched minutes, at the end of which the hapless wretch slunk away, thanking God that he had not been dismissed or that his wretched two and forty shillings had not been reduced to thirty or less.
"Forty-two shillings—and wants more," Sir Josiah said to himself, "bless me, what are things coming to?" Then he banished the frown, he beamed all over his round red face.
"Lady Kathleen Homewood," he said to himself, "Lady Kathleen Homewood, my daughter-in-law! Lady Kathleen—ah ha!" He rubbed his hands. "That'll make Cutler sit up! The fellow gives himself airs because his daughter married a fellow who is Governor of some place no one in their senses ever heard of—His Excellency the Governor—Bless my heart! I'm sick to death of His Excellency! Now Cutler will turn green, eh? There's nothing like the real thing, the real old true blue-blooded British aristocracy—can't get over that, eh? No, no fear!"
Usually it takes but two to make a bargain; in this case it required four. Three of the four were agreed, himself first of all, now His Lordship, the Earl of Gowerhurst, and Lady Kathleen Stanwys, his daughter. There was but one other, but that one other was a good boy, a dutiful son; he would do exactly what his father wished.
"Thank God I don't look for opposition from him!" Sir Josiah thought. "Never trod a better lad than mine, bless him! He knows my heart's set on this, knows it he does, and he'll do it to please me! He's not like other young fellows with their fancy tricks. Besides that, the girl's a beauty, apart from her blood and breeding! If she is a little older than he, well, what of that? It's the blood, the birth that is, what tells every time and by George—by George, when I have grandchildren I'll be able to look at 'em and say to myself—'These grandchildren of mine are also the grandchildren of an Earl!' And that's something these days, eh? That's something!" So he fell to muttering and chuckling to himself, this highly pleased old gentleman, and presently he picked up a pen and all unconsciously scribbled many times on the blotting paper:
"Lady Kathleen Homewood, Lady Kathleen Homewood, my daughter-in-law, Lady Kath——"
"Eh, what's that?"
"I thought I'd remind you that it is past one, Sir Josiah, and you were to lunch with Mr. Cutler and Mr.——"
"Oh, bless my soul, yes, I'd clean forgotten—many thanks—Jarvis—quite right, sensible of you!"
Mr. Jarvis, the head clerk, bowed and would have retired.
"Oh, Jarvis, one moment, here, help me into my coat, there's a good feller! That young feller, young what's his name—Cope—Crope—eh?"
"Cope, sir, yes, sir!"
"What sort of a chap is he, good worker and all that?"
"A very attentive worker and a respectable young man!"
"Supports a widowed mother, I understand?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Bless me, well, well. I've been having a chat with him—where's my umbrella?—having a chat with him—a man can't support a widowed mother cheaply these days, eh, Jarvis?"
"Very expensive days, sir!"
"Quite so, expensive hobby, too, supporting widowed mothers. Raise his salary to—say Three pound ten, Jarvis, and report to me how he goes on! My hat, do you see my hat? Oh, thanks, I'll be back at two-thirty, Jarvis——"
And Sir Josiah went out.
CHAPTER III
A DESIRABLE FAMILY MANSION
DEAR SIR,
"In reply to your advertisement in the Daily Telegraph, I am at the moment in a position to offer you a very fine old historical mansion situated in West Sussex on the Hampshire border. The house has been untenanted for a number of years and will require considerable attention. In the hands of a man of wealth and taste, it could be restored to its original condition and would form one of the most picturesque and desirable mansions in the Country. It is eminently a place that it is necessary to see and a description of it would take too much time now, for as I have previously mentioned, I am only, at the moment, in a position to offer it as it has already been seen and highly approved by a wealthy American gentleman and it is quite probable that he will close at the bargain price at which the house and estate of seven hundred and fifty acres, including part of a small and picturesque village, is being offered. I would urge on you, therefore, if you care to consider the place, to view it without one moment's delay, as obviously it will be sold to the first who makes a good offer. I may add that the Mansion in question, with its many historical associations, would make a country seat fit for any nobleman in the land. May I finally repeat my urgent advice to view the place at once, as the delay of even an hour may be prejudicial to your obtaining it. Believe me, sir,
Yours truly,
DALABEY AND SON."
Over this letter Sir Josiah pondered a little and frowned a little.
"It's rather like having a pistol at one's head! Hanged if it isn't!" he muttered. "But it reads all right, it reads—the goods! Historical Mansion, seven hundred and fifty acres, fit for a nobleman, with part of a village, sounds right—sounds right—" he muttered. He nodded his head. "But this hurry—why it's a confounded nuisance, that's what it is. How can I go? I've got—let me see—har hum—" He muttered to himself and frowned heavily.
He had much important business to see to, that day, a meeting of Directors at twelve, another at two, and there were things to be arranged and discussed that Sir Josiah knew would require his clear brain and intellect. How could, he go journeying down to some remote part of Sussex to view this ancient mansion with its historical associations, desirable as it might be?
Sir Josiah looked up from the letter and glanced across the breakfast table at his son.
Allan was reading. It would have been noteworthy had Allan not been reading. The lad was always reading. His book was propped up against a teacup and he seemed to have forgotten his breakfast.
A good looking, big and broad shouldered young fellow this, with clean cut features and massive jaw and a broad high forehead! Muscle and sinew were there, but there was intelligence and brain power in that noble forehead of his.
Fully six feet stood he in his socks, massive of build, with straight, honest blue eyes and waving hair that was neither dark nor fair. A face that might in its strength seem a little hard, a little fierce, even a little forbidding, but that the mouth atoned for all.
No man with a mouth like this could be other than very human, very tender and kindly, very generous, the mouth of a man who could give much, suffer much and love greatly.
But Sir Josiah saw nothing of all this, he only saw Allan, his son, reading another of those confounded books, for which Sir Josiah had no feeling, except of the deepest disgust.
"Allan!"
"Father?" The young man looked up. "I'm sorry!" he said. "Did you speak to me before?"
"No, I didn't, and breakfast ain't the time, Allan, to be stuffing your head with all that there nonsense!"
Allan smiled. "You had your letters, and as I had my book——"
"You always have your book! I never saw such a fellow for reading—but I'm not saying anything, my boy. No, no, you're a good lad. Few sons please their old fathers as you do me—we're not quarrelling, Allan lad!"
"We never have yet, father, and we never will, I think!"
"I know!" said Sir Josiah. "Ah, Allan, you're doing well, a fine woman, beautiful as a picture, tall and stately, and the daughter of an Earl. Why, boy, you ought to be in the Seventh Heaven of delight and instead you sit there with your nose in a book!"
"She is a fine and a beautiful and I believe a good woman," said Allan, "but her father—" he paused. "I could have wished her a better father!"
"An Earl, an Earl!" cried the old man. "A better father than an Earl! Bless me, Allan—what nonsense! However, you're marrying her not her father; it's all settled, all agreed—" He rubbed his hands, his round red face shone with benevolence and joy. "You're a sensible and dutiful fellow, Allan! You say to yourself, 'My old father wishes it—The girl is good and beautiful and well born, I don't know particularly that I love her—come to that perhaps I don't, but I might go farther and fare worse!' Eh, that's it, isn't it? And you're doing it, boy, because you know it will give pleasure to the old man!"
"I think you have got my reasoning very correctly, father!" Allan said.
"There's no one else?" Sir Josiah said.
"No one else, no—and I like Lady Kathleen. I admire her and I pity her——"
"Pity—pity—bless my soul, boy, pity. Why should you pity her? Isn't she well born, doesn't she move in the best, the very best society? Isn't she the only daughter, only child come to that, of an Earl? Pity her?"
"Just that, I pity her, I am deeply sorry for her. I think she suffers a good deal and can't you understand why?"
"I—I don't know, lad, how should I know what the feelings of a young Society lady are?"
"She is proud and she is poor, there's suffering in that—She is proud and she knows that her father's name is in bad odour. Do you think a sensitive, highly strung girl as she is doesn't feel a thing like that? Yes, I pity her, and if through me her life may be made a little happier, why not? Last night when you and her father were talking money—she and I had much to say to one another. She was very open and very frank to me and I to her. We made no pretence—we know that we do not love one another. She is desperately poor and she is marrying me chiefly—entirely for the money you are going to give us both. I know that you are lending Lord Gowerhurst money, that he has not the slightest intention of every repaying you—Oh, Kathleen and I have been perfectly open and frank with one another—I understand that she cares for no one else. She has the same assurances from me, so there—" Allan laughed sharply, "you have it, the usual thing, a marriage of convenience! How can I pretend that I like it, Father, when I do not? You—you know that I would sooner not—but it is arranged, it is agreed—I do not love her, but thank God I can and do respect her and I feel sorry for her—and so we shall go through with it, Father!" he concluded.
Josiah nodded. "Yes, boy, you will go through with it and one day you'll thank me that I brought it about. I know a good woman when I see one and I tell you she is that—good—good to the core—I'm not clever and not over well educated, Allan, like you are. I don't set up to be a gentleman, but there's one thing I can do, I can sum up my fellow men and women, too, come to that. You'll find Allan, I'm making no mistake when I say Lady Kathleen is as fine and as true a woman as ever stepped. You'll go through with this marriage, Allan, I count on you!"
"I've never failed you yet, Father."
"You never have, never, and never will!" A look of rare tenderness came into the commonplace, even vulgar face. He rose and went to his son and put a large trembling hand on his shoulder.
"No Allan, you've never failed me, not even when you were a little chap! Do you think I don't think of it? Do you think I don't thank God for it, do you think when I hear other men speaking of their sons and of—of the trouble some of 'em bring? Do you think I don't say to myself—'My boy's above that kind of thing, my boy's an honest man and a gentleman!'" He gripped the shoulder under his hand tightly.
"And now read that, read this letter——" he went on in a changed voice. "Read it, Allan!"
Allan took the letter and read it.
"Well, father?"
"It looks like being just the kind of place I'm after!"
"There are bound to be hundreds of others—hundreds!"
"That's just what there aren't. You know how I've advertised, you know how many places I've seen, twenty at least, and I wouldn't be found dead in any one of 'em. No! places like I want aren't to be found every day, and I've got an idea this might be the place. Besides that, these agents write, it's to be bought cheaply. I'm never above making a bargain, Allan. It's in pretty bad condition evidently and I daresay it'll cost some money to put right, but what's that matter if I get it off the purchase price? Now to-day I can't go and you see that this agent writes to say it's urgent. There's an American out for it and I don't like to be beat, Allan, and especially I don't like to be beat by an American. They are keen buyers and clever buyers and what I say is this—if this place is good enough for a rich American—why it might also be good enough for me!"
Allan nodded. "And you will go and see this place and——"
"That's just what I can't do, I've got two Company meetings and important ones they are, and I can't miss 'em. Time's short, it's a bit like having a pistol pointed at one's head; but there you are, you can't help it and so my boy you've just got to put that book of poems, or whatever it is, away and forget it for to-day—you've got to go down—to——" he paused and looked at the letter, "this place, this Little Stretton, Little Stretton——" he repeated. "I seem to know the name, been there before perhaps—motoring or something, however you'll have to go there to-day instead of—me! You're not a fool, Allan, you've got eyes in your head—After all, the place is to be for you when you are married to her Ladyship, and it's right you should be the one to see it, so go down there, boy, see the place, size it up and find out the price. Use your own judgment because you've got it to use. I'll leave it in your hands. I'll make out a cheque for five hundred and sign it and you can leave it as deposit if you decide to buy. Only make up your mind, don't beat about the bush, remember we're not the only ones—and if it's the right place I don't want to lose it!"
"But father—had you not better see it yourself, surely to-morrow——?"
"To-morrow won't do—it must be done to-day—I know, worse luck, you're not a good hand at making a bargain, but I've got to make the best of that! Do your best, if you like the place, if you think it's cheap, if there are possibilities in it—why, Allan, boy, snap it up—don't let anyone get ahead of you! Here's the cheque." Sir Josiah tore a cheque out and made it out for five hundred pounds and signed it "Josiah Homewood."
"And now you'd better look out a train to this place, this Little Stretton——" again he seemed to linger over the name. "Unless, of course," he added, "you'll go by the car?"
"I'll go by train——" Allan said. In the train he could read his beloved books. The car allowed no such relaxation. "I'll go by train!" he said.
CHAPTER IV
HOW ALLAN CAME TO THE GARDEN
For May it was a very hot day, almost an unnaturally hot day. It was a day that might well have belonged to August.
Allan stepped it from the station, a sign post told him that Little Stretton was yet a mile to go. He took off his hat and henceforth carried it in his hand. He had read his book all the way down in the train and his mind was still lingering on it, on the book rather than on realities. So when he came to where stood an old, a very, very ancient oak, the mere relic of a once noble tree, he looked at it vaguely, and then looked beyond for the little red tiled barn that some fancy told him would be there. And it was there, but it was a very old barn and the roof had fallen in, in places and lichen was growing on the broken tiles.
Allan stared at it, he felt faintly surprised.
"Strange!" he said aloud. "Strange—why——"
He had an idea that the barn was not so old, why it ought to have been almost a new barn, had he not seen——
"Good Heavens!" he said aloud. "I must be dreaming or something——" Then he walked on rapidly. He breasted a hill and descended on the far side, following the twisting, turning road between the hedgerows all sweet with May flowers, and so came at last to a little village of red houses roofed with slabs of old Sussex stone, all green and yellow with lichen, yellow mostly.
Allan stood still and looked at the village that lay almost at his feet.
"I suppose," he said slowly. "I suppose we must, have motored through here once!"
He seemed to know it all so well, the sleepy sloping street with the quaintly irregular houses, the little shops with curved bow windows thrusting out on to the pavement, and the low pitched doorways one gained by climbing perhaps three or more worn stone steps. The Inn, the sign of which swung from a beam that spanned the street. Yes surely he had seen it all before—on some motoring trip perhaps—and yet—and yet in a way it was strangely different, as the barn had differed from his expectations. For a time with a queer puzzled sensation, he stood, and then he came back to realities. He had journeyed here to see some house agent—what was his name?
Dalabey! yes Dalabey!
"Boy," he called to a dusty white haired urchin playing with a dog. "Boy, which is Mr. Dalabey's, the house agent?"
The boy pointed. "That be Dalabey's up they steps be Dalabey's shop."
So Allan went up the steps and found himself in the office of Dalabey and Son.
Mr. Dalabey, a stout, red haired man, wearing no coat, was talking with a visitor, he looked at Allan.
"My father had a letter about a house, an old house, he asked me——"
"Ah yes, to be sure, the house as Mr. Van Norden be after, well there be nothing settled as yet, sir," Mr. Dalabey said as he reached up for a huge key.
"I'll be ten minutes about," he said, "if you'll wait here while I get finished with this gentleman!"
"Couldn't I go on? If you direct me I might find it."
"Aye, and I'll follow. Well you can't make any mistake, 'tis just beyond the village, you'll see a high red wall, a very old wall it be, follow the wall for maybe a quarter of a mile, then you will come to the gates, well this key don't fit the gates, you'll hev to go a bit further till you come to a green door. This key is the key of the door, if you'll go on I'll get my bicycle and follow you and maybe I'll catch you up before you get there."
"Thanks!" Allan said, he took the key, a ponderous thing and smiled at it for its bigness and clumsiness.
Children in the roadway stared at the young man swinging the ponderous key in his hand, women standing in their doorways nodded to one another.
They knew the key. "Very like he be the rich American who be coming to buy the Manor," they said.
Allan walked on. Yes, certainly they must have motored through this village, he remembered it vaguely, and yet it seemed to him always a little changed. Now was there not, should there not be a Cross standing here where the road widened, in front of the Inn.
He paused and stared about him. There was no Cross, no suggestion of one.
An old man, typically Sussex, grey bearded and bent double by age, clad in a smock and an ancient tall hat, stared at him with rheumy eyes.
"Grandfather," said Allan, "wasn't there a cross here once?"
"Aye, a cross there were and a very fine cross it was tu," said the old man. "I du remember her, when I were a lad, seventy years ago; I du remember that Cross, seventy years ago knocked down her were in broad daylight, her were and I see it done, I did wi' my two eyes, see it done, I did!" He nodded his hoary head. "'Twere this a way, the doing of it. Village Street be wunnerful steep it be, they was bringing up two great el'ums on a lurry, three strappin' hosses they were a-pulling of the lurry up the hill, then down all on a sudden goes one o' the hosses, and down goes another. T'other hoss rares up her did and crack goes the chain, lurry wi' they two great el'ums goes running back'ard down the bill it did. I say it, as seen it done seventy years ago, seventy and one to be parfectly correct, and bash goes they el'um trunks into the Cross. Bash goes the Cross, down it falls in little pieces. I picked up a piece, I du remember, the bit I've got to this day, it stands on the chimbley shelf, it du. Seventy and one years ago, and me a lad of turned twelve a fine strapping lad tu."
Allan slipped a coin into the old man's willing palm.
Strange he should have thought that a Cross stood there. And yet, why strange? He had seen some other village street like this one, with a Cross set up in it. One often saw Crosses set up in old world villages.
So he went on, swinging the great key in his hand and presently he came to the end of the village, where was the beginning of the old brick wall, a very high brick wall it was, fully ten feet, and the bricks were of that rare rose tint, the like of which have never been made since Anne was Queen, but these seemed to go back far before the time of Anne and here and there the wall was somewhat broken. But nature had done her best to make good the gaps, filling them up with lichen and moss of brilliant green and vivid yellow, a feast of colour for eyes tired of London's sombre streets.
And he knew, because Mr. Dalabey had told him, that a quarter of a mile on, he would come to the gates, wide gates of iron hung on stone pillars and on each stone pillar was set the head of a deer, also carved in stone.
And presently he came to the gates, and the pillars stood all moss covered, surmounted, as he knew they would be, by the sculptured heads of deer; but one had lost its antlers, and the other had its muzzle broken short off.
Allan looked up at them and smiled, and then his smile vanished. Mr. Dalabey had not told him of the deers' heads, and yet—they were here. Curious! he thought.
It was as though he had come on a place that he had visited in a dream, he could not shake off the feeling of familiarity, the knowledge, the certainty that attended his every step. He knew that the green door would be arched at the top and that it would be studded with great nails and bound with iron in many places.
He knew that it would be and it was! He fitted the heavy key in the lock and it turned at last with much rasping and complaining.
The door gave on a paved yard and in the crevices of the great flat topped cobbles grew weeds of all kind that bloomed and flourished untouched.
And now the feeling of familiarity, the knowledge of the place had grown on him, so that he wondered at it no longer. He accepted it, because it was right, because—he refused to consider it at all. He knew!
To the left stood the kitchen part of the house, he glanced towards it, but turned to the right and picked his way across the weed grown yard and came to a small wicket gate, between two tumble down buildings. The wicket gate had fallen into rottenness and lay all in fragments on the ground, but through the opening that was left he passed and found himself in the wild tangle of the great garden.
Through the garden he walked, a man waking, yet in a strange dream. He followed the flagged pathway past the old sundial that had lost its gnomon, beyond the wild yew hedge and so to the lake, from which rose the slim figure of a stone girl and at her he stared long.
He suddenly realised that, he had come here to see her, he had come on purpose, just to see this stone figure of a girl. He would have been disappointed, almost shocked, if she had not been here—and she was here—but the pitcher on her shoulder was empty and the upflung water flashed no longer in the sunlight.
Slowly, very slowly, he turned away, he went back through the rose garden with bowed head, he came to the great circle of stone in the midst of which was set the old sundial, and on a stone seat, warmed by the sun, he sat down.
"Strange!" he said. He said it aloud. "Strange!" he repeated. "I seem to know——" He stretched his arm out and laid it on the back of the old stone seat, and sat there staring at the moss grown sundial pedestal—staring till it seemed to waver, to become all uncertain before his sight.
And then—then he lifted his head and looked about him.
He saw a garden all glowing with flowers, and trim green lawns, the weeds, the desolation and the ruin of centuries had passed as with a breath. The garden was all glowing and blowing as perhaps it had two hundred years ago, and then slowly he turned his head and looked towards the house and saw that doors and windows stood open and that curtains swung from the casements lazily in the breeze. And as he watched a door opened and into the sunshine stepped, somewhat timidly he thought, a little maid, a trim, slim bodied little maid. She wore a flowered cotton gown, short at the ankles and low in the neck, and how the sun seemed to kiss it! And the little face above, a rarely sweet little face, purely oval with ripe red lips and the bluest eyes in the world. So she came hurrying along the wide stone pathway to him, a smile on her red lips and the copper red of her hair all flaming in the sunlight under the dainty mob cap.
But ere she reached him, she stood still suddenly and looked at him with a pretty frown that was yet half a smile on her little face.
"Allan!" she said. "Allan, be you still angry wi' your Betty now, dear? Will 'ee take back the words 'ee did speak in your anger, Allan? For you should know I would not have let a gawky rogue like Tim Burnand buss me, Allan, if I could 'a helped it. Before I could tell what he was at, he did steal a kiss, and I have rubbed my poor face sore to rub it all away for—for I want no kisses but thine Allan, my—my dear!"
Her voice was very soft and sweet and the tears gathered in her wonderful blue eyes, tears that seemed to wring his heart.
"I—I was overharsh and rough wi' thee, my Betty," he said. "I know 'twas not your fault, but all the fault of Tim Burnand whose bones I'll break for him, may——"
"Nay—swear not!" she said. "Oh Allan, I love thee for thy jealousy, I love thee for it!" Her eyes were laughing and joyous now and her face was all smiles and dimples and so she came to him, daintily, and put her two small hands, little brown hands in queer black lace mittens, on his shoulders and rising on her toes, she kissed him on the eyes.
"And never, never more will 'ee be angry and jealous of your Betty?" she said.
"Never again!" he said. "But because I do love thee so, my maid I could not bear to think that other lips——"
"Have never touched mine, 'twas but my cheek he bussed, and I boxed his ears soundly for him—but hush—I hear my lady calling to me—Listen! Betty! Betty! yes—I did but steal away, seeing you here—just to tell thee——" She paused for breath for a moment "to tell thee, my Allan, how I do love thee! Hark, my lady is calling again!"
"Blow me; sir, if I didn't think you'd been and lost yourself or fell down the old well, which I did ought to have reminded you about, or something!" said a voice.
Allan started up, stared up into the round red and over-heated face of Mr. Dalabey. He looked about him with dazed eyes. Weeds were rioting over the old garden, the grass stood knee high on the lawns, dandelions thrust their golden heads between the paving stones at his feet. He stared at the house and saw it all, sombre and lifeless, a house of the dead. Its windows were broken, desolation and ruin were upon it, and then he looked back at the jolly red face of Mr. Dalabey.
"Fell asleep!" Mr. Dalabey said. "And been dreaming!" he added.
"Yes—dreaming——" Allan said quietly. "Dreaming!"
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH ALLAN BUYS THE MANOR HOUSE
In and out and up and down Mr. Dalabey led Allan over the old house. They pried into dark and dusty corners, they ascended narrow and rickety stairs. It was a wonderful, rambling old place, the years had set their mark on it. The old oaken floors, worn and roughened by a thousand feet, took on many a queer pitch; from the pine panelling the paint had come away in great flakes; scarce a window but had its broken pane and through the pane some impertinent creeper thrust into the room and nodded to them familiarly.
Allan followed the stout, red faced, good humoured man up and down the stairs and in and out the old rooms. A great talker was Mr. Dalabey, a born seller of houses.
"This here be the banquetting hall, a very noble room, sir, very noble, fit for the aristocracy, her be, and a good many of the aristocracy it hev seen, sir, and many a bottle hev been drunk here, sir, I'll wager! Look at the ceiling, sir, some of the finest old plaster work to be met with in the kingdom, wonderful fine plaster work it be, as many gents as be connoisseurs, hev remarked. Greatly took with the plaster work was Mr. Van Norden."
"Yes," Allan said, and "Yes!" For his thoughts were far away, he looked through the broken and dusty windows into the garden with its weeds and its broken pathways and overgrown flower beds, and a strange sense of loss came to him. He felt a little ache at his heart, for the girl who had come to him in that same strange dream and had kissed his eyes and called him "her dear."
How real she had been. He marvelled now at the feeling that had been his at the time, that she was a very part of his life. How sweet and musical her voice, how warm and soft the touch of her red lips and yet it had only been a dream!
"This be one o' the guest rooms and you'll notice the wig cupboard, sir," said Mr. Dalabey; "very remarkable this wig cupboard, you'll see 'em in most of the bedrooms where the quality of them days kep' their wigs. Much took Mr. Van Norden was with they wig cupboards!"
"Yes!" said Allan, and all the time his thoughts were with the maiden of the garden, she who had kissed his eyes and had vanished as she had come, leaving him with this strange sense of loneliness and longing and hunger, and above all that deep, deep sense of loss.
"And now I think we've pretty well done it, sir, there's the stables, rare fine stables they was once. Seldom less than twenty hosses did they keep in them stables in the Elmacott's days——"
"Whose days?"
"Elmacott, that were the name o' the folk, dead and gone they be now—Sir Nathaniel were the last, a rare wild devil of a man according to history, my old grandfather, a wonderful man he were, would tell me many a story of Sir Nat, as they called him, when I were a boy. Stories my old granddad had from his father before him—well sir," Mr. Dalabey paused, "well, sir, there it be, I've shewn you all there is to see, hiding nothing, a rare lot of money'll be wanted to be spent on it, sir, and there be no disguising the fact, nor have I attempted to disguise it, as you'll bear witness, sir, but there be this Mr. Van Norden keen set on the place and likely for to make up his mind any moment, considering of it he is at this very time, I daresay!"