The year had dawned more and more into daylight if not correspondingly
into warmth, and for Melian life had become more of a settled thing at
Heath Hover. So far she was content, but a dreadful suspicion was
coming upon her that she might not be always content. She had a sort of
instinctive longing for work again, and that for its own sake--to be
doing. And in this quiet, rather lonely life, there was no scope for
such.
She had no friends of her own age or sex. Two or three of both had
called, on learning of her presence at Heath Hover, but with the best
intentions there was nothing about them to appeal to the girl from any
point of view. They were just well-meaning, commonplace people of the
most ordinary and commonplace type.
To a certain extent--a large extent--her uncle made up for the want of
such companionship. He was a companionable man, given intelligent and
sympathetic company, and this he found to the full in her. There was
hardly a subject under the sun that they did not thresh out together,
and grim old haunted Heath Hover seemed to shake its dry bones into new
life with the constant stream of talk and laughter which now echoed from
its walls.
"Why, you've put back the clock a quarter of a century for me, dear," he
declared. "I feel that much younger. Isn't that something for you to
have done?"
And she had agreed, wholesouledly; and yet, there would obtrude that
thought, of late, that she was doing nothing with her life.
By this time her uncle had come to regard her with a sort of idolatry.
His capacity for affection had become utterly atrophied for want of an
object upon which to expend any of it. Such few acquaintances or
relatives as he had he cared nothing about. If he had been well off
they would have discovered fast enough that they cared about him, he
used to tell himself cynically; and who shall say untruly. He had
become self-centred, even morose at times--just content to groove on
through life to the end; thankful--if he ever thought of being thankful
for anything at all--that there was nobody to worry him. He had allowed
himself to be worried at times in his life, and looked back to such
times with a mental shudder, which was when the spirit of thankfulness
was evolved.
But now here was such an object, and it had promptly captured the whole
of his capacity for affection and was expanding it every day. There was
everything in it that appealed--the sweet, refined beauty of the child,
the sunny lightheadedness, the naive untrammelled appreciation of all
that appealed to him--the sheer youthful enjoyment of life--well, he had
not lived in vain. And he made an idol of her more and more every day.
So they rambled together, drove long drives together, talked together;
indeed, not a wish of hers was left ungratified where it lay within his
power to gratify it, and she, knowing the extent of such power, never
dreamed of looking beyond it. And the curious part it of was that he,
watching her with furtive and solicitous jealousy, found that she was by
no means tiring of this mode of life.
Once or twice he had suggested she should ask some girl friend to come
and pay her a visit, as a relief from one incessant old fogey, but she
had not been in the least responsive. There was no such "relief"
required, she had answered spontaneously. She was quite happy as they
were. She would like to get Violet Clinock, when the latter could come,
but that would not be yet. Meanwhile she was quite jolly as they were.
To Mervyn this reply came with an undashed feeling of relief. Stay--not
altogether undashed perhaps, for he was old enough to know that a year
or two at the outside in the ordinary course of things would be all that
should remain to him of this idyllic time. Why, only to look at the
child! Were all the best years of her life to be wasted, mewed up in a
lonely old country corner! And with this idea came one that had just
hooked itself, not altogether pleasantly, on to his mind--and it spelt
Helston Varne.
For the latter had availed himself of his invitation to "come again."
He had "come again," only to the extent of three times, but Mervyn had
not been slow to mark a certain very complete sympathy, as of ideas in
common, that had sprung up between him and Melian, and that from the
very first. They talked animatedly on every subject, several outside
his own sphere of knowledge, and in short, seemed thoroughly to have
taken to each other. And Helston Varne was a remarkably fine looking
man.
Mervyn had set afoot enquiries with regard to Helston Varne, and in the
result had elicited that whatever line the latter was pursuing at the
present moment--and he very much more than supposed the nature of that
line--at any rate he was not dependent upon its results in any way. He
was, in fact, well off--almost wealthy. The inducement to take it up at
all was probably the sheer sporting instinct. So far, this conclusion
was, from a certain point of view, satisfactory. And Helston Varne was
a near relation of his old and intimate friend, Varne Coates of
Baghnagar.
Personally, he liked the man. John Seward Mervyn was a shrewd, keen
judge of character, and studying this one closely, his verdict was
"quite all right." He noted too with a modicum of dry amusement that
the "investigation" element was entirely absent during his subsequent
visits. Incidentally, what Inspector Nashby thought of it was quite
another matter, as to which Mervyn did not give two thoughts. And after
those three visits, Helston Varne had left the neighbourhood, now some
three weeks ago.
This afternoon, Melian was walking up the hilly road in the direction of
that which, crossing it at right angles, led to the hamlet of Lower
Gidding. There was a sharp north easterly wind blowing, which brought
the colour to her cheeks, tingeing them with the glow of health, and
lending an unusually clear brightness to the blue eyes. She revelled in
the exercise, walking straight from the hips with a firm elastic step.
On her left was a sombre oak-wood, its gnarled leafless boughs showing a
hundred fantastic--almost threatening shapes in its twilight depths. On
the right a high hedge showed through its bare leaflessness and gaps
here and there, a wide sweep of view over the valley beneath. Even that
far inland a sea mist was creeping up from beyond the distant downs,
partially blotting the fast setting sun into a blood red disc. A
cottage with its low eaves and picturesque chimney stacks stood out
against the murk. Then the sudden loud ting of a bicycle bell made her
look up with something of a start, for she was deep in her own thoughts.
The rider was coming down the hill on the free wheel. At sight of her
he clapped the brakes on sharp; so sharp, as well nigh to earn
catastrophe--for himself. In a moment he was standing in the road.
"Miss Seward! Why this is an unexpected and delightful meeting, I was
on my way to look up your uncle."
"Were you? He'll be glad. Well, we can walk back together, Mr Varne--
unless, of course, you'd sooner ride," she added, mischievously.
"Why of course I would," he answered, in the same vein.
"Where are you from now. The usual _Woodcock_, Lower Gidding?"
"No. The _Queen's Head_, Clancehurst, this time. You know how we used
to wrangle over the shortest way out. Well, I'm still inclined to think
there isn't a hundred yards to choose between them. The one you always
use _seems_ the straightest."
"All serene, I still stick to my opinion. The Cholgate way _is_ the
shortest," she answered, merrily mischievous.
"Then the Cholgate way _is_ the shortest, and there's no more to be
said," answered Varne in the same spirit, and as he looked down into the
dancing blue eyes, he came to the conclusion that he was looking upon
the sweetest, most entrancing vision of girl loveliness he had ever
looked upon in his life.
"Well, and what have you been doing with yourself all this time?" she
said as they walked down the steep, rather stony hill.
"H'm! Various things," he answered, unconsciously shading off his
lightness of tone a little, as the ugliness of a particularly grim
affair which he had been engaged upon investigating, obtruded
unpleasantly at such a moment.
She sent a quick look at him, and did not pursue the subject.
"Look. There's old Broceliande--still in the same place."
This was a reference to the dark oak-wood, now on their right as they
retraced their way. Melian was a great reader of Mallory, and during
one of Helston Varne's previous visits she had taken him for a walk
through this wood, pointing out its imaginary resemblances to that
legendary forest.
"Yes. It wouldn't have moved in between, and the British Isles don't
come within the zone of seismic disturbance," he answered. "And you
haven't discovered the ghost of old Merlin plodding about it yet?"
"No. I've tried to--in the dusk of a dismal evening. But that old
crowd seem to have lived in sunshine and moonlight for the most part.
What on earth they did with their armour and silken pavilions when it
rained is a puzzler."
Helston laughed. "Oh, one got rusty and the other draggle-tailed, I
suppose," he said. "Now, if I had made that remark you'd have been down
on me like a hammer as a Goth and a Vandal, and a profane person who'd
sold his birthright--for a plate of porridge, incidentally." Then, more
seriously, "And how have _you_ been getting on?"
"Fine. This country is too perfect for anything. I just revel in it."
But then, that misgiving which had been tugging at her mind on the way
out somehow recurred, and the bright, animated, speaking face was bound
to show something of it. Equally, her then companion was bound to see
it, and he--even he--of course was bound to put it down to the wrong
cause. Had there been any further development in the mystery--in its
latest form--which overhung Heath Hover, he thought? However, he
answered:
"That's right. Why you are looking twice the girl you were the first
time I saw you. You have put on colour, and look in altogether splendid
form."
"Thanks. Glad to hear I've improved," she answered, with a laugh.
"That's always a satisfactory item of knowledge." Then she subsided
into silence. She was thinking of two or three strange things which had
happened since she saw him last--occurrences which had frightened her,
utterly intangible, even more so than on that night when she had rushed
downstairs in a state of scare to her uncle. But with an effort she had
refrained from saying anything to the latter about them. He would only
laugh at the whole thing as he had done before and suggest bats or rats,
or something of the kind as an explanation. But this man somehow she
felt a longing to confide in. There was something about him that seemed
to render him in her eyes a very tower of strength and reliability. Had
she known what his real line was she would not have hesitated--let alone
could she have heard his light, easy, confident boast, when talking with
Nashby: "Given time, and make it worth my while, and I'd undertake to
dis-ghost every haunted house in England."
The twilight was merging into darkness now. From the sombre oak-wood
with its gnarled branches which had led her to christen it Broceliande,
came the crow of a belated pheasant fluttering up to roost, and the
surface of Plane Pond, coming into view beneath, stared white, a long,
slit-shaped eye. More than ever she felt moved to confide in him. And
as if to strengthen her towards this course he suddenly said:
"Something is troubling you. I wouldn't obtude for the world, but--you
have something on your mind."
"Why do you--why should you think that?" And the half-startled look in
the wide-opened eyes, meeting his in their straight glance, confirmed
him in his theory.
"Never mind," he replied, and she was quick to notice the world of
sympathetic reassurance in his tone. "I won't press you for confidence.
But remember--if at any time you feel like making it--and I don't say
it to brag, but those who know me would be able to tell you that you
might make it to plenty of people who could be of less use to you.
Well, if at any time you should want a friend, no matter what the nature
of the worry is, you won't hesitate to apply to me. Will you promise me
that much?"
She darted a quick look up at him in the gloaming. More than ever did
he seem as a very tower of strength. And then the sheer contrast seemed
to suggest bathos. How absurd her shadowy imaginative fears must appear
to a man of this stamp. Why, he would smile them down as a mere girlish
scare of bogydom. Of course. And yet--why not chance it?
"Well? Won't you promise that little?"
"Yes. I promise. But--"
She was on the point of keeping that promise then and there, of telling
him all, the haunting fear that hung over her in the lonely old house
down yonder, at times. At times--not always--that was where the strange
part of it came in; and, stranger still, not only during the hours of
darkness. Sometimes in broad daylight, when she was alone, would come
the chill, shuddering consciousness that there was another Presence
beside her, even the stealthy sound of steps, the whisper of voices.
But it would come so sporadically, with long intervals between, and
otherwise life was so good, that such a strange manifestation did not
avail to effect a lasting impression.
"But what?" he said.
She hesitated a moment, then the opportunity was gone. There was a
clink of stones on the roadway just in front and below, then a cough,
followed by another.
"Hallo, Uncle Seward!" cried the girl, as a figure loomed in sight in
the fast deepening gloom. "You oughtn't to have come out at the very
dampest part of the whole day."
"Oh don't blow me up, child," chuckled Mervyn, "I came to meet you.
Why--who's this? Varne, by George. You're quite a stranger, Varne.
Come along down and take pot-luck. Eh?"
"Delighted, I'm sure. I nearly collided with Miss Seward free wheeling
down that abominably stony hill. I was coming over to look you up but
I've got to catch the last train up from Clancehurst. Got something
important to attend to."
Mervyn emitted a half chuckle and turned it off into a cough. What
affair was Varne on to now, he wondered? At any rate he hoped it would
turn out more satisfactory than the one which had brought him down here,
his own to wit.
"Oh well, Business is--biz," he answered, "only I can't send you over in
the trap because there's no one to drive. But there'll be a moon. What
if you get punctured, though? Eh?"
"Can't. I've got unpuncturable tyres. I never take risks."
"Quite right. Quite right. Well, here we are, I'd got a touch of
sciatica, and a bit of a choke thrown in," he went on, "and have been
sticking in all day on the strength of it."
"And then coming out at the coldest, dampest end of it," supplied Melian
severely.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every temptation to the contrary the guest was as good as his word, and
it needed some strength of mind to tear himself away, comparatively
early, from that cosy lighted room with its great fire roaring up the
width of the wide chimney--more so still, indeed, from the entrancing
vision of that bright presence with the mass of gold-crowned hair
gleaming in the lamplight. But Helston Varne was nothing if not strong.
Yet as he wheeled along under a clear moon, heading for Clancehurst, now
darting through a gap of road between the blackness of sombre woods, now
skimming over high, open heath, with the dimming vista of wide country
spreading out beneath and beyond--of a truth he was thinking a great
deal more of that same bright presence than of the important matter
before him which he was hurrying back to unravel, and whereon hung
tragedy. But he promised himself that it would not be long before he
revisited Heath Hover.
Wherein becomes manifest the strange discrepancy that the astute never
failing unraveller of mysteries, known as Helston Varne, forgot to take
count of the greatest mystery of all--that of the Future.