JEAN woke to find the chill, wintry sunlight thrusting in long
fingers through the space between the casements and the edges of the
window-blinds. At first the unfamiliar look of a strange bedroom puzzled
her, and she lay blinking drowsily at the wavering slits of light,
wondering in vague, half-awake fashion where she was. Gradually,
however, recollection returned to her, and with it a lively curiosity
to view Staple by daylight. She jumped out of bed and, rattling up the
blinds on their rollers, peered out of the window.
There was a hard frost abroad, and the stillness which reigned over the
ice-bound country-side reminded her of the big Alpine silences. But here
there was no snow--no dazzling sheet of whiteness spread, with cold,
grey-blue shadows flung across it Green and shaven the lawns sloped
gently down from a flagged terrace, running immediately beneath her
window, to the very rim of the frozen lake that gleamed in the valley
below. Beyond the valley, scattered woods and copses climbed the
hillside opposite, leafless and bare save where a cluster of tall pines
towered in evergreen defiance against the slate of the sky.
In the farther distance, beyond the confines of the manor park itself,
Jean could catch glimpses of cultivated fields--the red Devon soil
glowing jewel-like through filmy wisps of morning mist that still hung
in the atmosphere, dispersing slowly as though loth to go. Here and
there a little spiral of denser, blue-grey smoke wreathed its way
upwards from the chimney of some thatched cottage or farmhouse. And back
of it all, adumbrated in a dim, mysterious purple, the great tors of
Dartmoor rose sentinel upon the horizon.
Jean’s glance narrowed down to the sloping sward in front of the house.
It was all just as her father had pictured it to her. On the left, a
giant cedar broke the velvet smoothness of mown grass, its gnarled arms
rimmed with hoar-frost, whilst to the right a tall yew hedge, clipped
into huge, grotesque resemblances of birds and beasts, divided the lawns
from a path which skirted a walled rose garden. By craning her neck and
almost flattening her nose against the window-pane, she could just make
out a sunk lawn in the rose garden, and in its centre the slender pillar
of an ancient sundial.
It was all very English and old-fashioned, breathing the inalienable
charm of places that have been well loved and tended by successive
generations. And over all, hills and valleys, park and woodland,
lay that faint, almost imperceptible humid veil wherewith, be it in
scorching summer sunshine or iron frost, the West Country tenderly
contrives to soften every harsh outline into something gracious, and
melting, and alluring.
To Jean, familiarised from childhood with the piercing clarity of
atmosphere, the brilliant colouring and the definiteness of silhouette
of southern Europe and of Egypt, there was something inexpressibly
restful and appealing in those blurred hues of grey and violet, in the
warm red of the Devon earth, with its tender overtone of purple like the
bloom on a grape, and the rounded breasts of green-clad hills curving
suavely one into the other till they merged into the ultimate,
rock-crowned slopes of the brooding moor.
“I’m going to love your England,” she told Nick.
They were making their way down to the lake--alone together, since
Blaise had curtly refused to join them--and as she spoke, Nick stopped
and regarded her consideringly.
“I rather imagine England will love you,” he replied, adding, with the
whimsical impudence which was somehow always permitted Nick Brennan: “If
it were not for a prior claim, I’m certain I should have loved you in
about five minutes.”
“I’m sorry I happened too late,” retorted Jean.
“But I can still be a brother to you,” he pursued, ignoring her
interpolation. “I think,”--reflectively--“I shall like being a brother
to you.”
“I should expect a brother to fetch and carry,” cautioned Jean. “And to
make himself generally useful.”
“I haven’t got the character from my last place about me at the moment,
but I’ll write it out for you when we get back. Meanwhile, I will
perform the menial task of fastening on your skates.”
They had reached the lake by now. It was a wide stretch of water several
acres in extent, and rimmed about its banks with rush and alder. At the
far end Jean could discern a boat-house.
“It must be an ideal place for boating in the summer,” she said, taking
in the size of the lake appreciatively as together they circled it with
long, sweeping strokes, hands interlocked. It was much larger than
it had appeared from her bedroom window, when it had been partially
screened from her view by rising ground.
“It’s all right just for paddling about,” answered Nick. “But there’s
really jolly boating on our river. That’s over on the west side of the
park”--he pointed in the direction indicated. “It divides Staple from
Willow Ferry--the property of our next-door neighbour, so to speak.
You’d like the boating here,” he added, “though I’m afraid our skating
possibilities aren’t likely to impress anyone coming straight from
Switzerland.”
“I’m sure I shall like skating--or anything else--here,” said Jean
Warmly. “It is all so beautiful. I suppose Devonshire is really quite
the loveliest county in England? My father always declared it was.”
“_We_ think so,” replied Nick modestly. “Though a Cornishman would
probably want to knock me down for saying so! But I love it.” he went
on. “There’s nowhere else I would care to live.” His eyes softened,
seeming almost to caress the surrounding fields and woods.
Jean nodded. “I can understand that,” she said. “Although I’ve only been
here a few hours, I’m beginning to love it, too. I don’t know why it
is--I can’t explain it--but I feel as if I’d _come home_.”
“So you have. The Petersons lived here for generations.”
“Do you mean”--Jean stared at him in astonishment--“do you mean that
they lived at Coombe Eavie?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know? They used to own Charnwood--a place about a mile
from here. It was sold after your grandfather’s death. Did your father
never tell you?”
She shook her head.
“He always avoided speaking of anything in connection with his life
over here. I think he hated England. Is there anyone living at Charnwood
now?” she asked, after a pause.
“Yes. It has changed hands several times, and now a friend of ours lives
there--Lady Latimer.”
“Then perhaps I shall be able to go there some day. I should like to see
the place where my father’s people lived”--eagerly.
Nick laughed.
“You’ve got the true Devonshire homing instinct,” he declared. “Devon
folk who’ve left the country always want to see the ‘place where their
people lived.’ I remember, about a year ago, a Canadian girl and her
brother turned up at Staple. They were descendants of a Tormarin who had
emigrated two or three generations before, and they had come across to
England for a visit. Their first trip was to Devonshire; they wanted to
see ‘the place where Dad’s people had lived.’ And, by Jove, they knew a
lot more about it than we did! They were posted up in every detail, and
insisted on a personally conducted tour over the whole place. They went
back to Canada rejoicing, loaded with photographs of Staple.”
Jean smiled.
“I think it was rather dear of them to come back like that,” she said
simply.
They swung round the head of the lake and, as they turned, Jean caught
sight of a woman’s figure emerging from the path which ran through the
woods. Apparently the newcomer descried the skaters at the same moment,
for she stopped and waved her hand in a friendly little gesture of
greeting. Nick lifted his cap.
“That is Lady Latimer,” he said.
Something in his voice, some indescribable deepening of quality,
made Jean look at him quickly. She remembered on one occasion, in a
jeweller’s shop, noticing a very beautiful opal lying in its case; she
had commented on it casually, and the man behind the counter had lifted
it from its satiny bed and turned it so that the light should fall full
upon it. In an instant the red fire slumbering in its heart had waked
into glowing life, irradiating the whole stone with pulsing colour. It
was some such vitalising change as this that she sensed in the suddenly
eager face beside her.
Hastening their pace, she and Nick skated up to the edge of the lake
where Lady Latimer awaited them, and as he introduced the two women to
each other it seemed as though the eyes of the woman on the bank asked
hastily, almost frightenedly: “Will you prove friend or foe?” And Jean’s
eyes, all soft and luminous like every real woman’s in the presence of
love, signalled back steadily: “Friend!”
“Claire!” said Nick. And Jean thought that no name could have suited her
better.
She was the slenderest thing, with about her the pliant, delicate grace
of a harebell. Ash-blonde hair, so fair that in some lights it looked
silver rather than gold, framed the charming Greuze face. Only it was
not quite a Greuze, Jean reflected. There was too much character in
it--a certain gentle firmness, something curiously still and patient in
the closing of the curved lips, and a deeper appeal than that of mere
wondering youth in the gentian-blue eyes. They were woman’s eyes, eyes
out of which no weeping could quite wash the wistfulness of some past or
present sorrow.
“So you are one of the Charnwood Petersons?” said Lady Latimer in her
soft, pretty voice. “You won’t like me, I’m afraid”--smiling--“I’m
living in your old home.”
“Oh, Jean won’t quarrel with you over that,” put in Nick. “She’s got a
splendacious castle all her own somewhere in the wilds of Europe.”
“Yes. Beirnfels is really my home. I’ve never even seen Charnwood,”
smiled Jean. “But I should like to--some day, if you will ask me over.”
“Oh, yes, certainly you must come,” replied Lady Latimer a little
breathlessly. But she seemed unaccountably flurried, as though
Jean’s suggestion in some way disquieted her. “But of course,
Charnwood--now--isn’t a bit like what it must have been when the
Petersons had it. I think a place changes with the people who inhabit
it, don’t you? I mean, their influence impresses itself on it. If they
are good and happy people, you can feel it in the atmosphere of the
place, and if they are people with bad and wicked thoughts, you feel
that, too. I know I do.” And there was no doubt in the mind of either of
her hearers that she was referring to the last-named set of influences.
“But I think Charnwood must be lovely, since it’s your home now,” said
Jean sincerely.
“Oh, yes--of course--it is my home now.” Lady Latimer looked troubled.
“But other people live--have lived there. It’s changed hands several
times, hasn’t it, Nick?”--turning to him for confirmation.
Nick was frowning. He, too, appeared troubled.
“Of course it’s changed hands--heaps of times,” he replied gruffly. “But
I should think your influence would be enough to counteract that of--of
everybody else. Look here, chuck discussing rotten, psychic influences,
Claire, and come on the ice.”
“No, I can’t,” she replied hastily. “I haven’t my skates here.”
“That doesn’t matter. We’ve a dozen pairs up at the house. One of them
is sure to fit you. I’ll go and collect a few.”
He wheeled as though to cross the lake on his proposed errand, but
Claire Latimer laid her hand quickly on his arm.
“No, no,” she said. “I can’t skate this morning. I’m on my way home.”
“Oh, change your mind!” begged Jean, noticing with friendly amusement
Nick’s expression of discontent.
“No, really I can’t” Claire’s face had whitened and her big eyes sought
Nick’s in a kind of pathetic appeal. “Adrian is not--very well to-day.
My husband,” she added explanatorily to Jean.
The latter was conscious of a sense of shock. She had quite imagined
Lady Latimer to be a widow, and had been mentally engaged in weaving the
most charming and happy-ever-after of romances since the moment she
had seen that wonderful change come over Nick’s face. Probably her
impression was due to the manner of his first introduction of Claire’s
name, “A friend of ours lives there--Lady Latimer,” without reference to
any husband lurking in the background.
She observed that Nick made no further effort to persuade Claire to
remain, and after exchanging a few commonplace remarks the latter
continued her way back to Charnwood.
It was so nearly lunch time that it did not seem worth while resuming
their skating. Besides, with Claire Latimer’s refusal to join them,
the occupation seemed to have lost some of its charm, and when Jean
suggested a return to the house Nick assented readily.
“She is very sweet--young Lady Latimer,” remarked
Jean, as they walked back over the frostily crisp turf. “But she
looks rather sad. And she isn’t the kind of person one associates with
sadness. There’s something so young and fresh about her; she makes one
think of spring flowers.”
Nick’s face kindled.
“Yes, she’s like that, isn’t she?” he answered eagerly. “Like a pale
golden narcissus.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes, the thoughts of each
of them dwelling on the woman who had just left them. Then Jean said
softly:
“So that’s the ‘prior claim?’”
“Yes,” he acknowledged simply.
“You never mentioned that she had a husband concealed somewhere. I quite
thought she was a widow till she suddenly mentioned him.”
“I never think of him as her husband”--shortly. “You can’t mate light
and darkness.”
“I suppose he’s an invalid?” ventured Jean.
Rick’s face darkened.
“He’s a drug fiend,” he said in a low, hard voice.
“Oh!”
After that one breathless exclamation of horror Jean remained silent.
The swift picture conjured up before her eyes by Rick’s terse speech was
unspeakably revolting.
Years ago she had heard her father describing the effect of the drug
habit upon a friend of his own who had yielded to it. He had been
telling her mother about it, characteristically oblivious of the
presence of a child of eleven in the room at the time, and some of
Glyn Peterson’s poignant, illuminating phrases, punctuated by little,
stricken murmurs of pity from Jacqueline, had impressed a painfully
accurate picture on the plastic mind of childhood. Ever since then,
drug-mania had represented to Jean the uttermost abyss.
And now, the vision of that slender, gracious woman, Rick’s “pale golden
narcissus,” tied for life to a man who must ultimately become that which
Glyn Peterson’s friend had become, filled her with compassionate dismay.
It was easy enough, now, to comprehend Claire Latimer’s curious lack of
warmth when Jean expressed the hope that she might go over to Charnwood
some day. It sprang from the nervous shrinking of a woman at the
prospect of being driven to unveil before fresh eyes the secret misery
and degradation of her life.
Jean was still silent as she and Nick re-entered the hall at Staple. It
was empty, and as, by common consent, they instinctively drew towards
the fire Nick pulled forward one of the big easy-chairs for her. Then
he stood gloomily staring down into the leaping flames, much as Tormarin
had stood the previous evening.
Intuitively she knew that he wanted to give her his confidence.
“Tell me about it, Nick,” she said quietly.
“May I?” The words jerked out like a sigh of relief. He dropped into a
chair beside her.
“There isn’t very much to tell you. Only, I’d like you to know--to be
a pal to her, if you can, Jean.” He paused, then went on quickly:
“They married her to him when she was hardly more than a child--barely
seventeen. She’s only nineteen now. Sir Adrian is practically a
millionaire, and Claire’s father and mother were in low water--trying
to cut a dash in society on nothing a year. So--they sold Claire. Sir
Adrian paid their debts and agreed to make them a handsome allowance.
And they let her go to him, knowing, then, that he had already begun to
take drugs.”
“_How could they?_” burst from Jean in a strangled whisper.
Nick nodded. His eyes, meeting hers, had lost their gay good humour and
were dull and lack-lustre.
“Yes, you’d wonder how, wouldn’t you?” he said. His voice rasped a
little. “Still--they did it. Then, later on, the Latimers came to
Charnwood, and Claire and I met. It didn’t take long to love her--you
can understand that, can’t you?”
“Oh, Nick--yes! She is so altogether lovable.”
“But understand this, too,”--and the sudden sternness that gripped his
speech reminded her sharply of his brother--“we recognise that that is
all there can ever be between us. Just the knowledge that we love each
other. I think even that helps to make her life--more bearable.”
He fell silent, and presently Jean stretched out a small, friendly hand.
“Thank you for telling me, Nick,” she said. “Perhaps some day you’ll be
happy--together. You and Claire. It sounds a horrible thing to say--to
count on--I know, but a man who takes drugs----”
Nick interrupted her with a short laugh.
“You needn’t count on Latimer’s snuffing out, if that’s what you mean.
He is an immensely strong man--like a piece of steel wire. It will take
years for any drug to kill him. I sometimes think”--bitterly--“that it
will kill Claire first.”