the open window, reading her correspondence and sipping an early cup of
tea--she had become quite English in her habits. Her maid reentered the
room, carrying in her hand a small parcel. "For your Excellency," she
said. "A man has just left it at the door." She put the parcel down on
the marble top of the dressing-table.
"What is it?" asked the Marchesa indolently.
"I don't know, your Excellency. It's hard, and very heavy for its size."
Laying down the letter which she had been perusing, the Marchesa took up
the parcel and cut the string which bound it. With a metallic clink
there fell on her dressing-table--a padlock! To it was fastened a piece
of paper, bearing these words: "Padlock found attached to gate leading
to Beach Path. Detached by order of Lord Lynborough. With Lord
Lynborough's compliments."
Now, too, Lynborough might have got his flush--if he could have been
there to see it!
"Bring me my field-glasses!" she cried.
The window commanded a view of the gardens, of the meadows beyond the
sunk fence, of the path--Beach Path as that man was pleased to call
it!--and of the gate. At the last-named object the enraged Marchesa
directed her gaze. The barricade of furze branches was gone! The gate
hung open upon its hinges!
While she still looked, three figures came across the lens. A very large
stout shape--a short spare form--a tall, lithe, very lean figure. They
were just reaching the gate, coming from the direction of the sea. The
two first were strangers to her; the third she had seen for a moment the
afternoon before on Sandy Nab. It was Lynborough himself, beyond a
doubt. The others must be friends--she cared not about them. But to sit
here with the padlock before her, and see Lynborough pass through the
gate--a meeker woman than she had surely been moved to wrath! He had
bathed--as he had said he would. And he had sent her the padlock. That
was what came of listening to conciliatory counsels, of letting herself
give ear to dilatory persuasions!
"War!" declared the Marchesa. "War--war--war! And if he's not careful, I
won't confine it to the path either!" She seemed to dream of conquests,
perhaps to reckon resources, whereof Mr. Stillford, her legal adviser,
had taken no account.
She carried the padlock down to breakfast with her; it was to her as a
Fiery Cross; it summoned her and her array to battle. She exhibited it
to her guests.
"Now, gentlemen, I'm in your hands!" said she. "Is that man to walk over
my property for his miserable bathing to-morrow?"
He would have been a bold man who, at that moment, would have answered
her with a "Yes."
_Chapter Five_
THE BEGINNING OF WAR
An enviable characteristic of Lord Lynborough's was that, when he had
laid the fuse, he could wait patiently for the explosion. (That last
word tends to recur in connection with him.) Provided he knew that his
adventure and his joke were coming, he occupied the interval
profitably--which is to say, as agreeably as he could. Having launched
the padlock--his symbolical ultimatum--and asserted his right, he spent
the morning in dictating to Roger Wilbraham a full, particular, and
veracious account of his early differences with the Dean of Christ
Church. Roger found his task entertaining, for Lynborough's mimicry of
his distinguished opponent was excellent. Stabb meanwhile was among the
tombs in an adjacent apartment.
This studious tranquillity was disturbed by the announcement of a call
from Mr. Stillford. Not without difficulty he had persuaded the Marchesa
to let him reconnoiter the ground--to try, if it seemed desirable, the
effect of a bit of "bluff"--at any rate to discover, if he could,
something of the enemy's plan of campaign. Stillford was, in truth, not
a little afraid of a lawsuit!
Lynborough denied himself to no man, and received with courtesy every
man who came. But his face grew grim and his manner distant when
Stillford discounted the favorable effect produced by his appearance and
manner--also by his name, well known in the county--by confessing that
he called in the capacity of the Marchesa's solicitor.
"A solicitor?" said Lynborough, slightly raising his brows.
"Yes. The Marchesa does me the honor to place her confidence in me; and
it occurs to me that, before this unfortunate dispute----"
"Why unfortunate?" interrupted Lynborough with an air of some surprise.
"Surely it is--between neighbors? The Castle and the Grange should be
friends." His cunning suggestion elicited no response. "It occurred to
me," he continued, somewhat less glibly, "that, before further annoyance
or expense was caused, it might be well if I talked matters over with
your lordship's solicitor."
"Sir," said Lynborough, "saving your presence--which, I must beg you to
remember, was not invited by me--I don't like solicitors. I have no
solicitor. I shall never have a solicitor. You can't talk with a
non-existent person."
"But proceedings are the natural--the almost inevitable--result of such
a situation as your action has created, Lord Lynborough. My client can't
be flouted, she can't have her indubitable rights outraged----"
"Do you think they're indubitable?" Lynborough put in, with a sudden
quick flash of his eyes.
For an instant Stillford hesitated. Then he made his orthodox reply. "As
I am instructed, they certainly are."
"Ah!" said Lynborough dryly.
"No professional man could say more than that, Lord Lynborough."
"And they all say just as much! If I say anything you don't like, again
remember that this interview is not of my seeking, Mr. Stillford."
Stillford waxed a trifle sarcastic. "You'll conduct your case in
person?" he asked.
"If you hale me to court, I shall. Otherwise there's no question of a
case."
This time Stillford's eyes brightened; yet still he doubted Lynborough's
meaning.
"We shouldn't hesitate to take our case into court."
"Since you're wrong, you'd probably win," said Lynborough, with a smile.
"But I'd make it cost you the devil of a lot of money. That, at least,
the law can do--I'm not aware that it can do much else. But as far as
I'm concerned, I should as soon appeal to the Pope of Rome in this
matter as to a law-court--sooner in fact."
Stillford grew more confidently happy--and more amazed at Lynborough.
"But you've no right to--er--assert rights if you don't intend to
support them."
"I do intend to support them, Mr. Stillford. That you'll very soon find
out."
"By force?" Stillford himself was gratified by the shocked solemnity
which he achieved in this question.
"If so, your side has no prejudice against legal proceedings. Prisons
are not strange to me----"
"What?" Stillford was a little startled. He had not heard all the
stories about Lord Lynborough.
"I say, prisons are not strange to me. If necessary, I can do a month. I
am, however, not altogether a novice in the somewhat degrading art of
getting the other man to hit first. Then he goes to prison, doesn't he?
Just like the law! As if that had anything to do with the merits!"
Stillford kept his eye on the point valuable to him. "By supporting your
claim I intended to convey supporting it by legal action."
"Oh, the cunning of this world, the cunning of this world, Roger!" He
flung himself into an arm-chair, laughing. Stillford was already seated.
"Take a cigarette, Mr. Stillford. You want to know whether I'm going to
law or not, don't you? Well, I'm not. Is there anything else you want to
know? Oh, by the way, we don't abstain from the law because we don't
know the law. Permit me--Mr. Stillford, solicitor--Mr. Roger Wilbraham,
of the Middle Temple, Esquire, barrister-at-law. Had I known you were
coming, Roger should have worn his wig. No, no, we know the law--but we
hate it."
Stillford was jubilant at a substantial gain--the appeal to law lay
within the Marchesa's choice now; and that was in his view a great
advantage. But he was legitimately irritated by Lynborough's sneers at
his profession.
"So do most of the people who belong to--the people to whom prisons are
not strange, Lord Lynborough."
"Apostles--and so on?" asked Lynborough airily.
"I hardly recognize your lordship as belonging to
that--er--er--category."
"That's the worst of it--nobody will," Lynborough admitted candidly. A
note of sincere, if whimsical, regret sounded in his voice. "I've been
trying for fifteen years. Yet some day I may be known as St. Ambrose!"
His tones fell to despondency again. "St. Ambrose the Less, though--yes,
I'm afraid the Less. Apostles--even Saints--are much handicapped in
these days, Mr. Stillford."
Stillford rose to his feet. "You've no more to say to me, Lord
Lynborough?"
"I don't know that I ever had anything to say to you, Mr. Stillford. You
must have gathered before now that I intend to use Beach Path."
"My client intends to prevent you."
"Yes?--Well, you're three able-bodied men down there--so my man tells
me--you, and the Colonel, and the Captain. And we're three up here. It
seems to me fair enough."
"You don't really contemplate settling the matter by personal conflict?"
He was half amused, yet genuinely stricken in his habits of thought.
"Entirely a question for your side. We shall use the path." Lynborough
cocked his head on one side, looking up at the sturdy lawyer with a
mischievous amusement. "I shall harry you, Mr. Stillford--day and night
I shall harry you. If you mean to keep me off that path, vigils will be
your portion. And you won't succeed."
"I make a last appeal to your lordship. The matter could, I believe, be
adjusted on an amicable basis. The Marchesa could be prevailed upon to
grant permission----"
"I'd just as soon ask her permission to breathe," interrupted
Lynborough.
"Then my mission is at an end."
"I congratulate you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Well, you've found out the chief thing you wanted to know, haven't you?
If you'd asked it point-blank, we should have saved a lot of time.
Good-by, Mr. Stillford. Roger, the bell's in reach of your hand."
"You're pleased to be amused at my expense?" Stillford had grown huffy.
"No--only don't think you've been clever at mine," Lynborough retorted
placidly.
So they parted. Lynborough went back to his Dean, Stillford to the
Marchesa. Still ruffled in his plumes, feeling that he had been chaffed
and had made no adequate reply, yet still happy in the solid, the
important fact which he had ascertained, he made his report to his
client. He refrained from openly congratulating her on not being
challenged to a legal fight; he contented himself with observing that it
was convenient to be able to choose her own time to take proceedings.
Lady Norah was with the Marchesa. They both listened attentively and
questioned closely. Not the substantial points alone attracted their
interest; Stillford was constantly asked--"How did he look when he said
that?" He had no other answer than "Oh--well--er--rather queer." He left
them, having received directions to rebarricade the gate as solidly and
as offensively as possible; a board warning off trespassers was also to
be erected.
Although not apt at a description of his interlocutor, yet Stillford
seemed to have conveyed an impression.
"I think he must be delightful," said Norah thoughtfully, when the two
ladies were left together. "I'm sure he's just the sort of a man I
should fall in love with, Helena."
As a rule the Marchesa admired and applauded Norah's candor, praising it
for a certain patrician flavor--Norah spoke her mind, let the crowd
think what it would! On this occasion she was somehow less pleased; she
was even a little startled. She was conscious that any man with whom
Norah was gracious enough to fall in love would be subjected to no
ordinary assault; the Irish coloring is bad to beat, and Norah had it to
perfection; moreover, the aforesaid candor makes matters move ahead.
"After all, it's my path he's trespassing on, Norah," the Marchesa
remonstrated.
They both began to laugh. "The wretch is as handsome as--as a god,"
sighed Helena.
"You've seen him?" eagerly questioned Norah; and the glimpse--that
tantalizing glimpse--on Sandy Nab was confessed to.
The Marchesa sprang up, clenching her fist. "Norah, I should like to
have that man at my feet, and then to trample on him! Oh, it's not only
the path! I believe he's laughing at me all the time!"
"He's never seen you. Perhaps if he did he wouldn't laugh. And perhaps
you wouldn't trample on him either."
"Ah, but I would!" She tossed her head impatiently. "Well, if you want
to meet him. I expect you can do it--on my path to-morrow!"
This talk left the Marchesa vaguely vexed. Her feeling could not be
called jealousy; nothing can hardly be jealous of nothing, and even as
her acquaintance with Lynborough amounted to nothing, Lady Norah's also
was represented by a cipher. But why should Norah want to know him? It
was the Marchesa's path--by consequence it was the Marchesa's quarrel.
Where did Norah stand in the matter? The Marchesa had perhaps been
constructing a little drama. Norah took leave to introduce a new
character!
And not Norah alone, as it appeared at dinner. Little Violet Dufaure,
whose appealing ways were notoriously successful with the emotionally
weaker sex, took her seat at table with a demurely triumphant air.
Captain Irons reproached her, with polite gallantry, for having deserted
the croquet lawn after tea.
"Oh, I went for a walk to Fillby--through Scarsmoor, you know."
"Through Scarsmoor, Violet?" The Marchesa sounded rather startled again.
"It's a public road, you know, Helena. Isn't it, Mr. Stillford?"
Stillford admitted that it was. "All the same, perhaps the less we go
there at the present moment----"
"Oh, but Lord Lynborough asked me to come again and to go wherever I
liked--not to keep to the stupid road."
Absolute silence reigned. Violet looked round with a smile which
conveyed a general appeal for sympathy; there was, perhaps, special
reference to Miss Gilletson as the guardian of propriety, and to the
Marchesa as the owner of the disputed path.
"You see, I took Nellie, and the dear always does run away. She ran
after a rabbit. I ran after her, of course. The rabbit ran into a hole,
and I ran into Lord Lynborough. Helena, he's charming!"
"I'm thoroughly tired of Lord Lynborough," said the Marchesa icily.
"He must have known I was staying with you, I think; but he never so
much as mentioned you. He just ignored you--the whole thing, I mean.
Wasn't it tactful?"
Tactful it might have been; it did not appear to gratify the Marchesa.
"What a wonderful air there is about a--a _grand seigneio_!" pursued
Violet reflectively. "Such a difference it makes!"
That remark did not gratify any of the gentlemen present; it implied a
contrast, although it might not definitely assert one.
"It is such a pity that you've quarreled about that silly path!"
"Oh! oh! Miss Dufaure!"--"I say come, Miss Dufaure!"--"Er--really, Miss
Dufaure!"--these three remonstrances may be distributed indifferently
among the three men. They felt that there was a risk of treason in the
camp.
The Marchesa assumed her grandest manner; it was medieval--it was
Titianesque.
"Fortunately, as it seems, Violet, I do not rely on your help to
maintain my fights in regard to the path. Pray meet Lord Lynborough as
often as you please, but spare me any unnecessary mention of his name."
"I didn't mean any harm. It was all Nellie's fault."
The Marchesa's reply--if such it can be called--was delivered _sotto
voce_, yet was distinctly audible. It was also brief. She said
"_Nellie_!" Nellie was, of course, Miss Dufaure's dog.
Night fell upon an apparently peaceful land. Yet Violet was an absentee
from the Marchesa's dressing-room that night, and even between Norah and
her hostess the conversation showed a tendency to flag. Norah, for all
her courage, dared not mention the name of Lynborough, and Helena most
plainly would not. Yet what else was there to talk about? It had come to
that point even so early in the war!
Meanwhile, up at Scarsmoor Castle, Lynborough, in exceedingly high
spirits, talked to Leonard Stabb.
"Yes, Cromlech," he said, "a pretty girl, a very pretty girl if you like
that _petite_ insinuating style. For myself I prefer something a shade
more--what shall we call it?"
"Don't care a hang," muttered Stabb.
"A trifle more in the grand manner, perhaps, Cromlech. And she hadn't
anything like the complexion. I knew at once that it couldn't be the
Marchesa. Do you bathe to-morrow morning?"
"And get my head broken?"
"Just stand still, and let them throw themselves against you, Cromlech.
Roger!--Oh, he's gone to bed; stupid thing to do--that! Cromlech, old
chap, I'm enjoying myself immensely."
He just touched his old friend's shoulder as he passed by: the caress
was almost imperceptible. Stabb turned his broad red face round to him
and laughed ponderously.
"Oh, and you understand!" cried Lynborough.
"I have never myself objected to a bit of fun with the girls," said
Stabb.
Lynborough sank into a chair murmuring delightedly, "You're priceless,
Cromlech!"
_Chapter Six_
EXERCISE BEFORE BREAKFAST
"Life--" (The extract is from Lynborough's diary, dated this same 14th
of June)--"may be considered as a process (Cromlech's view, conducting
to the tomb)--a program (as, I am persuaded, Roger conceives it, marking
off each stage thereof with a duly guaranteed stamp of performance)--or
as a progress--in which light I myself prefer to envisage it.
Process--program--progress; the words, with my above-avowed preference,
sound unimpeachably orthodox. Once I had a Bishop ancestor. He crops
out.
"Yet I don't mean what he does. I don't believe in growing better in
the common sense--that is, in an increasing power to resist what tempts
you, to refrain from doing what you want. That ideal seems to me, more
and more, to start from the wrong end. No man refrains from doing what
he wants to do. In the end the contradiction--the illogicality--is
complete. You learn to want more wisely--that's all. Train desire, for
you can never chain it.
"I'm engaged here and now on what is to all appearance the most trivial
of businesses. I play the spiteful boy--she is an obstinate peevish
girl. There are other girls too--one an insinuating tiny minx, who would
wheedle a backward glance out of Simon Stylites as he remounted his
pillar--and, by the sun in heaven, will get little more from this child
of Mother Earth! There's another, I hear--Irish!--And Irish is near my
heart. But behind her--set in the uncertain radiance of my
imagination--lies her Excellency. Heaven knows why! Save that it is
gloriously paradoxical to meet a foreign Excellency in this spot, and to
get to most justifiable, most delightful, loggerheads with her
immediately. I have conceived Machiavellian devices. I will lure away
her friends. I will isolate her, humiliate her, beat her in the fight.
There may be some black eyes--some bruised hearts--but I shall do it.
Why? I have always been gentle before. But so I feel toward her. And
therefore I am afraid. This is the foeman for my steel, I think--I have
my doubts but that she'll beat me in the end.
"When I talk like this, Cromlech chuckles, loves me as a show, despises
me as a mind. Roger--young Roger Fitz-Archdeacon--is all an incredulous
amazement. I don't wonder. There is nothing so small and nothing so
great--nothing so primitive and not a thing so complex--nothing so
unimportant and so engrossing as this 'duel of the sexes.' A proves it a
trifle, and is held great. B reckons it all-supreme, and becomes
popular. C (a woman) describes the Hunter Man. D (a man) descants of the
Pursuit by Woman. The oldest thing is the most canvassed and the least
comprehended. But there's a reputation--and I suppose money--in it for
anybody who can string phrases. There's blood-red excitement for
everybody who can feel. Yet I've played my part in other affairs--not so
much in dull old England, where you work five years to become a Member
of Parliament, and five years more in order to get kicked out again--but
in places where in a night you rise or fall--in five minutes order the
shooting-squad or face it--boil the cook or are stuffed into the pot
yourself. (Cromlech, this is not exact scientific statement!) Yet
always--everywhere--the woman! And why? On my honor, I don't know. What
in the end is she?
"I adjourn the question--and put a broader one. What am I? The human
being as such? If I'm a vegetable, am I not a mistake? If I'm an animal,
am I not a cruelty? If I'm a soul, am I not misplaced? I'd say 'Yes' to
all this, save that I enjoy myself so much. Because I have forty
thousand a year? Hardly. I've had nothing, and been as completely out of
reach of getting anything as the veriest pauper that ever existed--and
yet I've had the deuce of a fine existence the while. I think there's
only one solid blunder been made about man--he oughtn't to have been
able to think. It wastes time. It makes many people unhappy. That's not
my case. I like it. It just wastes time.
"That insinuating minx, possessed of a convenient dog and an
ingratiating manner, insinuated to-day that I was handsome. Well, she's
pretty, and I suppose we're both better off for it. It is an
introduction. But to myself I don't seem very handsome. I have my
pride--I look a gentleman. But I look a queer foreign fish. I found
myself envying the British robustness of that fine young chap who is so
misguided as to be a lawyer.
"Ah, why do I object to lawyers? Tolstoi!--I used to say--or, at the
risk of advanced intellects not recognizing one's allusions, one could
go further back. But that is, in the end, all gammon. Every real
conviction springs from personal experience. I hate the law because it
interfered with me. I'm not aware of any better reason. So I'm going on
without it--unless somebody tries to steal my forty thousand, of course.
Ambrose, thou art a humbug--or, more precisely, thou canst not avoid
being a human individual!"
Lord Lynborough completed the entry in his diary--he was tolerably well
aware that he might just as well not have written it--and cast his eyes
toward the window of the library. The stars were bright; a crescent moon
decorated, without illuminating, the sky. The regular recurrent beat of
the sea on the shore, traversing the interval in night's silence, struck
on his ear. "If God knew Time, that might be His clock," said he.
"Listen to its inexorable, peaceable, gentle, formidable stroke!"
His sleep that night was short and broken. A fitful excitement was on
his spirit: the glory of the summer morning wooed his restlessness. He
would take his swim alone, and early. At six o'clock he slipped out of
the house and made for Beach Path. The fortified gate was too strong for
his unaided efforts. Roger Wilbraham had told him that, if the way were
impeded, he had a right to "deviate." He deviated now, lightly vaulting
over the four-foot-high stone wall. None was there to hinder him, and,
with emotions appropriate to the occasion, he passed Nab Grange and
gained the beach. When once he was in the water, the emotions went away.
They were to return--or, at any rate, to be succeeded by their brethren.
After he had dressed, he sat down and smoked a cigarette as he regarded
the smiling sea. This situation was so agreeable that he prolonged it
for full half-an-hour; then a sudden longing for Coltson's coffee came
over him. He jumped up briskly and made for the Grange gate.
He had left it open--it was shut now. None had been nigh when he passed
through. Now a young woman in a white frock leant her elbows comfortably
on its top rail and rested her pretty chin upon her hands. Lady Norah's
blue eyes looked at him serenely from beneath black lashes of noticeable
length--at any rate Lynborough noticed their length.
Lynborough walked up to the gate. With one hand he removed his hat, with
the other he laid a tentative hand on the latch. Norah did not move or
even smile.
"I beg your pardon, madam," said Lynborough, "but if it does not
incommode you, would you have the great kindness to permit me to open
the gate?"
"Oh, I'm sorry; but this is a private path leading to Nab Grange. I
suppose you're a stranger in these parts?"
"My name is Lynborough. I live at Scarsmoor there."
"Are you Lord Lynborough?" Norah sounded exceedingly interested. "_The_
Lord Lynborough?"
"There's only one, so far as I'm aware," the owner of the title
answered.
"I mean the one who has done all those--those--well, those funny
things?"