The morning broke, bright and clear, one of those rare winter mornings
without a cloud in the blue, and the sun making additional patterns
through the frost facets on the window pane. And the said sun had not
very long since risen.
Mervyn looked out of the window; the house faced due east and caught the
first glory of the morning sun--when there was any to catch, and to-day
there was. The frosted pines glistened and gleamed with it, so too did
the earth, with its newly laid coating of crystals. But in the midst of
this setting was a picture.
Melian was coming down the path. A large hooded cloak was wrapped round
her, but she had nothing on her head, and the glory of her golden hair
shone like fire in the new born, clear rays. The kitten, a woolly ball
of black fluffiness, was squatted upon her shoulder, and she was singing
to herself in a full, clear voice. He noted her straight carriage, and
the swing of her young, joyous, elastic gait. A picture indeed! And
this bright, beautiful, joyous child, was going to belong to him
henceforward--to him, all alone. No one else in the wide world had the
shadow of a claim upon her. She had come to him out of sordid
surrounding of depression and want--yes, it would soon have come to
that, judging from the account she had given of herself. Well, she had
fallen upon the right place, and at the right time.
He dressed quickly. He heard her enter the house, and old Judy's harsh
croaky tones mingling with the clear melodious ones. Then a silvery
rippling laugh, then another. He remembered old Judy could be funny at
times in her dry, cautious old rustic way. John Seward Mervyn felt the
times had indeed changed for him. He felt years and years younger,
under the bright spell of this youthful influence in the gloomy and
shunned old house.
"Well dear!" he cried gaily, coming into the room. "You don't look much
of the `flu' patient slowly convalescing. What sort of an ungodly early
time did you get up?"
"Oh Uncle Seward, I've had such fun. I've been out all up the pond, and
this little poogie had a romp all over the ice. Then it rushed up a
tree after a squirrel, and they sat snarling at each other at the end of
a thin bough, and the squirrel jumped to another tree, but the poogie
wasn't taking any. Were you, pooge-pooge?" And she squeezed the little
woolly ball into her face and neck.
"Well, it won't take you long to get on your legs again," said Mervyn,
looking admiringly at the perfect picture she presented. "What shall we
do with you to-day? Go for a long drive--or what? Well, I don't know.
The old shandradan I brought you here in isn't too snug for a
convalescing invalid, and it's the best I've got. But first we'll have
breakfast." And he hailed Judy, with an order to hurry on that repast.
"Oh, that be hanged for a yarn, Uncle Seward. I'm not a convalescing
anything. I've convalesced already, in this splendid air and
surroundings. Let's go out somewhere. Do let's."
She had clasped both hands round his arm and the blue eyes were
sparkling with anticipation.
"All right. You shall be Queen of the May, to-day at any rate. But I
think we mustn't overdo it at the start. We'll lunch early, and then
start on a rambling round of exploration--equipped with plenty of
wraps."
"And we may get another ripping sunset like yesterday," she exclaimed.
"You are extraordinarily fond of Nature's effects, child. What else
appeals to you?"
"Old stones?"
"What?"
"Old stones. Ruined castles--churches--Roman remains--everything of
that kind."
Mervyn emitted a long and expressive whistle.
"Good Lord! but you've come to the right shop for that," he said. "Why
this countryside just grows them. All sorts of old mouldy monuments, in
musty places, just choking with dry rot. Eh? That what you mean?"
"That's just what I do mean."
"Oh Lord?"
He was looking at her, quizzically ruthful. He foresaw himself being
dragged into all sorts of weird places; hoary old churches, whose
interiors would suggest the last purpose on earth to that for which they
had been constructed, and reeking of dry rot--half an ancient arch in
the middle of a field which would require wading through a swamp to get
at--and so on. But while he looked at her he was conscious that if she
had expressed a wish to get a relic chipped out of the moon, he would
probably have given serious thought to the feasibility of that
achievement.
"But that sort of thing's all so infernally ugly," he said.
"Is it? Ugly? Old Norman architecture ugly! What next?"
Mervyn whistled again.
"I don't know anything about Norman, or any other architecture," he
said, with a laugh. "I only know that when I run into any Johnnies who
do, or think they do--they fight like the devil over it, and vote each
other crass ignoramuses. How's that?"
"Oh, I don't know. Let's go and look at something of the kind this
afternoon. Shall we?"
"No, my child. Not if I know it. You wait till you're clean through
this ailment of yours before I sanction you going into any damp old
vault to look at gargoyles."
Melian went off into a rippling peal.
"Gargoyles don't live in vaults, Uncle Seward. They live on roofs, and
towers."
"Do they? Well, wherever they live, God's good open English country is
going to be the thing for you to-day, anyhow."
"All safe. The other will keep."
Mervyn dawdled over breakfast, absolutely contrary to his wont. His
wont was to play with it; now he ate it. This bright presence turned a
normally gloomy necessity into a fairy feast.
"Come and let's potter round a bit," he said, soon after they had done.
"Rather."
Melian swung on her large hooded cloak, and they went up the step path
to the sluice. The sheen of ice lay before them, running up in a far
triangle to the distance of the woods.
"By the way, do you know how to skate?" said Mervyn.
"Yes, but I'm not great at it, and it makes my ankles horribly stiff."
"Well, I sometimes take a turn or two, just to keep in practice. But
it's awful slow work all alone. If you like, dear, I'll get you a pair
from Clancehurst and you can take a turn with me."
"It wouldn't be worth while I think," she answered. "In point of fact
I'm feeling rather too much of a worm for hard exercise just now, and
the ice will probably vanish any day."
They wandered on, over the crisp frozen woodland path, and then he
pointed out the scene of the stranger's immersion and rescue. Melian
looked at it with vivid interest.
"It must have been a lively undertaking, Uncle Seward," she commented.
"And that you should only just have heard his call for help? And then--
him dying afterwards. Poor man, I wonder who he was."
"So do I--did rather--for you can't go on wondering for ever. But that
idiot, Nashby, has still more than a suspicion that I murdered him. By
the way, Melian, you remember I said there were reasons why I couldn't
come up to Town to fetch you; well, there it is. I've been practically
under police supervision ever since. If I had gone up to London they'd
have concluded I'd bolted, and started all Scotland Yard on the spot.
How's that?"
"How's that? They must be idiots."
"Yes. That's near the `bull.' But Nashby, though an excellent county
police inspector, imagines himself a very real Sherlock Holmes whose
light is hidden in a bushel called Clancehurst; consequently there being
no earthly motive for me making away with the stranger, therefore I must
have made away with him--according to Nashby."
"But, Uncle Seward. Do you really mean to say you're suspected of
murdering the man?"
"Well, more than half--by Nashby. I don't know that any one else shares
his opinion. In fact, I don't think they do. Look. Here's the place
where I hauled him out."
They had come near the head of the pond. In the weeks of frost that had
supervened there were still traces in the ice of that midnight tragedy.
Melian looked at them with wide eyed wonderment.
"Come along," said Mervyn extending a hand. "It's quite safe--from
seven to nine inches thick. We can walk all over it now, can even walk
back on it instead of through the wood."
And they did; but first they went up it to where it narrowed to its
head, where the feeding stream trickled in. Two wild ducks rose with
alarmed quacking, and winnowed away at a surprising velocity over the
tree-tops.
"There'd have been a good chance if I'd got a gun," remarked Mervyn. "I
come along at dusk sometimes and bag a brace. Old Sir John Tullibard up
at the Hall gave me a sort of carte blanche to shoot anything in that
line, and told the keeper to cut me in when the pheasants wanted
thinning down. He's a decent old chap, but isn't at home much. To put
it nakedly he's a regular absentee landlord, but his people seem snug
enough."
"The Hall? What sort of place is it? What's it called?"
Mervyn laughed.
"Why I do believe you're scenting old stones already. Well, it's rather
a jolly old place, Plane House it's called. Old Tullibard's my
landlord."
"Good. We must have a look over Plane House."
"Easy enough. If the old man comes over we'll go and dine there. I do
that when he is here, but that's not often. He's an old Indian too,
though we weren't in the same part. Now he prefers hanging out on the
Riviera. I don't. Old England's good enough for me. Look at this for
instance."
She did look, and thoroughly agreed. They were walking down the frozen
surface of the pond as on a broad highway. The gossamer branches of the
leafless trees shone in the sunlight, picked out in myriad frosted,
scintillating patterns of indescribable delicacy against the cloudless
blue of the winter sky, and, in between, the dark foliage of firs. Now
and then a slide of snow from these, dislodged by the focussed rays of
the midday sun, thudded to the ground, with a ghostly break upon the
silence of the woodland. But the air--crisp, invigorating--Melian's
cheeks were aglow with it, and the blue eyes, thus framed, shone forth
in all the animation begotten of the scene and surroundings. Mervyn
stared, in whole-souled admiration, likewise wonderment.
"Well done, my `flu' convalescent," he cried, dropping an arm round her
shoulders. "You've come to the right sort of hospital and no mistake."
"Yes, I have indeed," she answered, becoming suddenly grave, as she
thought of the all pervading murk and the blackened vista of chimney
stacks. Then, as they gained the broad end of the pond, and she climbed
lightly over the fence on to the road that ran along the top of the
sluice--"What an awfully picturesque old place Heath Hover looks from
here, Uncle Seward. By the way, it's a curious name. What does it come
from?"
"Ah--ah! An enquiring mind? I suppose that goes on all fours with the
love of old stones--eh? Heath I take it is after the surroundings.
When you get up beyond these woods you're on heathery slopes, which glow
red in summer, so I suppose they called it after that; the other in
local parlance is something coldish or damp, and this house is situated
that way in all conscience. So there you are."
"How ripping, I would like to see that same red glow."
"Well, and you will," he answered. "But you'll have to wait for it,
like for everything else. And summer's none too near just now."
They were halfway down the path from the sluice by now. Melian had
halted to take in the view, her eyes wide open and fairly revelling in
it. Mervyn did not fail to notice that one foot rested on the largish
round stone which covered something--which constituted the tombstone
of--_something_. And then, whether it was that the stone was slippery
with the frost, her footing suddenly failed, and she would have fallen,
had he not caught her in a firm grasp.
"Steady up, child," he laughed, as he set her on her feet again. "Why
you haven't got your ice legs even yet, although we've walked down that
long frozen pond."
She laughed too. But the coincidence struck him. Why on earth should
that have been the one stone of all those around, on which she should
have chanced to trip? It was significant. Further, as they resumed
their way, he noticed that the stone had been displaced, though ever so
little. Even that circumstance sent an uneasy chill through him. It
had been firm enough before. Could the frost have loosened it? Or--
could any other agency? And then came the sound of approaching
footsteps on the road above.
"Good-day, sir," and the passing man saluted, respectfully enough.
"Sharp, middlin' weather, this, sir?"
"It is," he answered, with a genial nod, and the man passed on.
"You remember what I told you about being under police surveillance," he
said as they entered the house--old Judy could be dimly heard grumbling
at her ancient proprietor through the back of the kitchen door.
"Yes," answered the girl wonderingly.
"Well that was one of Nashby's pickets."
"What? That old yokel who just passed?"
Mervyn nodded, with a whimsical smile on his face.
"But what in the world does he think he's going to discover?"
"Ah, exactly. Well, that's his job, not mine. Only he's wasting a
precious lot of valuable time."
All the same the speaker was just a trifle--and unaccountably--disposed
to uneasiness. What a curious coincidence it was, for instance, that
his niece should have suddenly slipped and so nearly fallen, headlong,
on that very stone that custodied this infernal thing! Then again, that
the plain clothes man, with his unmistakable imprint of Scotland Yard,
and his transparent affectation of local speech and dialect, should have
happened upon the spot at the very moment of that coincidence! There
was nothing in coincidence. Coincidence spelt accident:--sheer
accident. Still, this one set John Seward Mervyn thinking--thinking
more than a bit.