For many years now with Philip Yardley a widower and his mother old,
Stanier had withdrawn itself from the splendour of its traditional
hospitalities, but now with the installation of Violet and Colin there,
on their return from Italy, it blossomed out again into lavish and
magnificent flower. Throughout November a succession of parties
assembled there for the pheasant shooting, and in the early frosts of
that December the wild fowl, snipe and duck and teal in the marshes, and
the unprecedented abundance of woodcock in the park, gave an added
lustre to the battues. In the evening, after an hour’s concert, or some
theatrical entertainment for which the artists had come from London or
Paris, the band reassembled in the long gallery, and dancing kept the
windows bright almost till the rising of the late dawn.
There were many foreign royalties in England that year, and none left
without a visit to Stanier, accompanied by cousins of the English house.
Stanier, in fact, opened its doors, as in the days before the stroke
fell on Philip’s father, and fairly outshone its own records for
magnificence. Colossal in extravagance, there was yet nothing insensate
in its splendour; it shone, not for purposes of dazzling, but only as
reasserting its inherent and historical gorgeousness.
Violet seemed born to the position which she now occupied. While Colin’s
father lived, it was his pleasure that she should be hostess here, and
she picked up the reins, and drove the great gold coach along, as if she
had been born and trained all her life for that superb rôle. She and
Colin, at Philip’s wish, occupied the wing which was only tenanted by
the heir and his wife, and though at his death, so he supposed, they
would not step from porch to possession, he loved to give them this
vicarious regency.
Out of the silver safe there had come for her the toilet set by Paul
Lamerie, boxes and brushes, candle-stick and spirit lamp, and, above
all, the great square mirror mounted on a high base. Amarini of
chiselled metal supported it on each side; there was no such piece known
in museum or royal closet. A double cable-band encircled the base, and
the man who was in charge of the plate showed Colin how, by pressing a
stud in the cable just above the maker’s mark, the side of the base
sprang open disclosing a secret drawer. For some reason not even known
to himself, Colin had not passed on that curious contrivance to Violet.
Then Philip had brought out for her, as Colin’s wife, those incredible
jewels, which his mother, tenant for life, had long suffered to repose
in their chests, and one night she gleamed with the Stanier pearls,
another she smouldered among the burning pools of the rubies, another
she flashed with the living fire of those cascades of diamonds, and more
than once she wore the sapphire to which so strange a story was
attached. Some said that it had once belonged to the regalia, and that
Elizabeth had no more right to give it to her favourite who founded the
splendour of to-day, than she had to bequeath to him the sceptre of her
realm, but though twice an attempt had been made on the part of the
Crown to recover it, once at Elizabeth’s death, and once with the coming
of the German Dynasty, the Crown had not proved successful on either of
these inauspicious occasions, and had to content itself with what it
had.
This great stone was of 412 carats in weight, soft cornflower blue in
colour, and matchless in aqueous purity. How it had got among the Crown
jewels none knew, but its possession was even then considered a presage
and a fulfilment of prosperity, for, beyond doubt, Elizabeth had worn it
on her withered breast every day while her fleet was sailing to
encounter the Armada. By tradition the wearer was decked with no other
jewels when it blazed forth, and indeed its blue flame would have
withered any lesser decoration. It figured in the Holbein portrait of
its original possessor in the Stanier line, as a brooch to Colin’s
doublet, and there once more, impersonating his ancestor, Colin wore it
at the fancy dress ball which concluded the last of these December
parties. This took place the night before Raymond came back from
Cambridge.
Strange undercurrents, swirling and eddying, moved so far below the
surface of the splendour that no faintest disturbance reached it.
Admirable as was the manner in which Violet filled her part, it was not
of her that Philip thought, or at her that he looked, when he waited
with her and Colin for the entrance of royal visitors before dinner in
the great hall. Day after day the glass doors were opened, but to his
way of thinking it was neither for Violet nor for them that they swung
wide, but for Colin. His own life he believed to be nearly consumed, but
about the ash of it there crept red sparks, and these, too, were
Colin’s. All his emotions centred there. It was for him and his
matchless charm, that these great gatherings were arranged. Philip
obliterated himself, and feasted his soul on the sight of Colin as lord
of Stanier. While Raymond lived that could never come to pass, but he
beguiled himself with the fantasy that when his own eyes grew dim in
death, Colin’s splendour would light the halls from which he himself had
faded. That of all the material magnificence of which he still was
master, had power to stimulate him; sceptical of any further future for
himself, and incurious as to what that might be, if it existed at all,
the only future that he desired was for the son on whom all his love was
centred. He knew that he was cheating himself, that this sight of Colin
playing host at Stanier was one that, in all human probability, would
never after his death be realised, but it was in his power now to give
Colin a taste of it, and himself share its sweetness. For this reason he
had arranged that these gorgeous weeks of entertainment should take
place before Raymond got back from Cambridge, for with Raymond here,
Raymond, the heavy and the unbeloved, must necessarily exclude Colin
from the place which his father so rapturously resigned to him. At
Christmas there would be just the family party, and he would be very
civil to his eldest son.
Such was the course pursued by one of these undercurrents; two others
sprang from Violet, one in direct opposition to that of her
father-in-law. For she knew that, so far from his death dethroning her
and giving the sovereignty to Raymond, it but passed on to her with
complete and personal possession. Could his spirit revisit these earthly
scenes, it would behold her in ownership on her own account of all the
titles and splendours that had been his. Raymond--there alone her
knowledge marched with his desire--would be without status here, while
for Colin there would be just such position as his marriage with her
gave him. She, exalted now by Philip’s desire, to play hostess in virtue
of her marriage, would be hostess indeed hereafter, and Colin host
through his relationship to her.
These weeks had given her a hint, a foretaste, of what would be hers,
and once more, as in her maidenhood, she felt that she would have made
any marriage in order to robe herself thus. The splendour of what she
was lent had set light to her old ambitions again, and this was all to
be hers, not lent, but her own. She would enter into the fabled
inheritance of the legend, that legend to which, for its very
remoteness, she had never given two serious thoughts. But now, though it
still wore, like a cloak over its head, its unconvincing mediævalism,
the shape of it vaguely outlined and indifferently regarded, had
something sinister about it. It did not matter; it was only an ugly
shadow in the background, but now she averted her eyes from it, instead
of merely not noticing it.
Here, then, was the second undercurrent, which, sluggish and veiled, yet
steadily moved within her. For though with the passing of the
inheritance to her, it would be she who came within the scope and focus
of the legend, which, frankly, when looked in the face, presented that
meaningless, age-worn countenance, she felt that she was in the grip of
it not directly but, somehow, through Colin. She told herself that by no
combination of diabolical circumstance could that be; for, with the
knowledge that was hers about the date of Colin’s birth and his mother’s
marriage, it was he, he and Raymond, who had passed out of reach of the
parchment with its promises and its penalty. Yet instinct, unconvinced
by reason, told her that it was through Colin that she and the children
she would bear him, would be swept into the mysterious incredible eddy.
Was it the persistent luck that attended him which induced so wildly
superstitious a presage? Like some supernaturally protected being, he
passed along his way. Raymond’s attempt to kill him had, by the merest
most fortuitous circumstance of a punctured tyre, led to Raymond’s utter
helplessness in his hands.... Colin moved on a charmed pilgrimage,
idolised and adored by herself, by his father, by all who came in
contact with him and, she was beginning to see, he had no spark of love
in him that was kindled by these fires. Analyse him and you would find
no faintest trace of it. Perhaps, in spite of his twenty-one years now
so nearly complete, he had remained a child still in respect of the
heart’s emotions. Yet who could hate like Colin? Who, so she shuddered
to think, could have shewn, though but for a second, so white-hot a mask
of fury as he had once turned on herself?
She could not succeed in forgetting that, and all Colin’s warmth and
eagerness of affection to her ever since, could not wash that out. All
day, perhaps, in the hospitable discharge of their duties, they would
scarcely have a word together, but when at length for a few hours of
rest the house grew silent, he sought her side, relaxed and sleepy, yet
tingling, so she felt, with some quality of vitality that no one else
had a spark of. Youth and high spirits, the zest of life and the endless
power of enjoyment filled the house, but Colin alone, unwearied and
eminent as the sun, lit up all others. It was not the exuberance of his
health and energy that was the source of his burning; something inspired
them.
* * * * *
The last night had come. To-morrow morning their guests would depart,
and during the day Raymond would arrive. That night there had been the
fancy dress ball, and she, wearing the crown and necklace and girdle
made by Cellini, had impersonated the ill-fated Duchess of Milan for
whom they were made, and who, while wearing them, had drunk the poisoned
draught which she had herself prepared for her lover. Colin adored that
story; the lover, a mere groom of the chambers, he averred, was a sort
of old Colin Stanier--all prospered with him, even to the removal of his
mistress in this manner, for she was growing old and wearied him with
her insatiable desire. Colin himself had appeared as his ancestor
wearing the great sapphire.
Violet had undressed and got into bed, while he remained downstairs with
two or three men who still lingered. The Cellini jewels lay on her
dressing-table, and feeling too sleepy to plait her hair, she had just
let it down, and it lay in a spread web of gold over her pillow. Then
the door from his dressing-room softly opened, and he looked in.
“Not asleep?” he asked.
“No, but nearly. Oh, Colin, stand under the light a moment. There! The
sapphire is alive to-night. It’s like a blue furnace of flame. Now
shield it from the light.”
Violet sat up in bed. “But it’s the most extraordinary thing!” she said.
“Not a ray from the lamp touches it, yet it’s burning as brightly as
ever. Where does the light come from? It comes from below it. I believe
it comes from you. I’m frightened of you. Are you a fire?”
It seemed to him no less than her that some conflagration not lit from
without burnt in the heart of the stone. Blue rays, generated within,
shot from it; it shone with some underlying brilliance, as if, as she
had said, it was he who kindled it.
“Watch it, then,” he said, unbuckling his cloak. Even as he detached it
from him, the fire in it grew dim; only the reflection from outside fed
it. Incredulous at what she thought she saw, willing to attribute it to
some queer effect of faceted surfaces, she laughed.
“You’ve killed it,” she said. “I think I shall have to give it you, when
it’s mine, so that you may keep it alive.”
“Ah, do,” he said. “When you come into your own--may that day be far
distant.”
“Indeed, yes,” she said.
He sat down on the edge of his bed, and began unloosing the jewelled
buttons of his doublet.
“I believe my father would almost give it me now,” he said, “though I
suppose he has no right to, just as Elizabeth gave it to the other
Colin. I simply adore it. I’ve been saying my prayers to it, standing in
front of the picture.”
“Is that what has kept you?” she asked.
“No, they didn’t take me long. The Prince kept me; he wanted to hear the
whole of the legend. He was frightfully impressed; he said he felt as if
the original Colin had been telling it him, and expects nightmare. He
also besought me to swear allegiance when I come of age and see what
happens. I really think I shall, though, after all, I haven’t got much
to complain of in the way of what the world can give.”
“But it will be I, really, to choose whether I do that or not,” said
Violet.
“Well, I couldn’t tell him that,” said Colin, “though as a matter of
fact, I forgot it. In any case it isn’t I to do that. Raymond’s the
apparent heir-apparent, and dear Raymond has shewn his allegiance pretty
well already, though one doesn’t quite see why Satan made my
bicycle-tyre to puncture. If he had been on Raymond’s side, my face
would have been nearly blown to bits. No, Raymond’s not his favourite.
Fancy Raymond being anybody’s favourite. Oh, Vi, a thousand pardons; he
was yours just for a little.”
Colin was slowly undressing as he gave utterance to these reflections.
He had taken off his shirt, and his arms, still brown from the tanning
of the sun and sea, were bare to the shoulder.
“You brute, Colin,” she said, “you brown, bare brute.”
“Shall I dress again,” said he, “if a bare arm shocks you?”
“No, I don’t mind that. It’s the brute I object to. By the way, Raymond
comes to-morrow--to-day rather. How on earth can I behave to him with
decency? Don’t you wish he wasn’t coming?”
Colin picked up a long tress of her hair and wound it round his arm.
“No, I’m looking forward to his coming,” he said, smiling. “I’m going to
make Raymond wish that he had never been born. I’m going to be
wonderfully agreeable to him, and everything I say shall have a double
meaning. Raymond wanted to kill me; well, I shall shew him that there
are other ways of scoring off people. My father isn’t very fond of
Raymond as it is, but when he sees how pleasant I am to him, and how
black and sulky Raymond is to me, he won’t become any fonder of him. I
must think it all out.... And then all the time Raymond will be
consoling himself with the thought that when father dies his day will
come, and he’ll reign in his stead. There’s the cream of it, Vi! He’ll
be longing for my father to die, you know, and when he does Raymond will
be worse off than ever. And you, you once said, ‘Poor Raymond!’ to me.
Raymond’s got to pay for that. I won’t have Raymond pitied.”
Never had Colin worn a more radiant face than when, walking in and out
of his dressing-room, brown and lithe, as he divested himself of his
gorgeous dress and put on his night clothes, his beautiful mouth framed
itself to this rhapsody of hatred. There was nothing passionate about
it, except its sincerity; he did not rage and foam on the surface of his
nature, he but gleamed with the fire that seemed so strangely to have
lit up those wonderful rays in the sapphire that he had been wearing. He
still held it in his hand when, after having turned out the lights in
his dressing-room, he closed the door and sprang to her side.
“I don’t like to leave it alone,” he said. “I must pin it to the
pillows. It will watch over us. With you and it by me, I shall lie in
enchantment between waking and sleeping, floating on the golden sea of
your hair. Raymond, let’s make plans for Raymond....”
She lay in the warm tide of his tingling vitality, and soon fell asleep.
But presently she tore herself out of the clutch of some hideous vision,
which faded from vagueness into non-existence as she woke and heard his
breathing, and felt his cheek resting on her shoulder.
* * * * *
The next night, instead of the long cloth which, evening after evening,
had stretched from the window of the great dining-room to the
Elizabethan sideboard at the other end, there was spread near the fire,
for the night was cold, a small round table that just held the five of
them--Philip and his mother, Violet, Raymond, and Colin--and instead of
the rows of silver sconces in the dark panels, four red-shaded
candlesticks, sufficient for purposes of knife and fork, left the rest
of the room in a velvety dimness. Raymond had arrived only just in time
to dress for dinner, coming into the gallery but half a minute before
his father, while Colin, who all this week had been a model of
punctuality, had not appeared yet. Philip gave his arm to his mother,
and behind, unlinked, came Violet and Raymond. He had advanced to her
with elbow formally crooked, but she, busy with a sleeve-lace that had
caught in her bracelet, moved on apart from him. She had shaken hands
with him, and given him a cool cordial word, but she felt incapable of
more than that.
Philip sat down with a sigh of relief.
“A reasonable evening at last,” he said, “though I wouldn’t say that if
Colin were here. I believe he got fresher and livelier every day. Ah,
Raymond, you must know we’ve had some parties here. Colin took your
place, as you had to be at Cambridge.”
Raymond tried to put into his answer the geniality he did not feel.
“I know,” he said. “The daily picture papers have been full of Colin.
Are you having more people at Christmas, father?”
“No, just ourselves as usual.”
Raymond turned to Violet. “You had a fancy-dress ball last night, hadn’t
you?” he said. “I could have got down yesterday if I had known.”
Philip conjectured a reproach in this and resented it. The last few
weeks had been planned by him as “Colin’s show.” If Colin could not step
into his shoes when he was dead, he could wear them for a week or two
while he lived.
“I thought your term was not over till to-day,” he said.
“I could have got leave,” replied Raymond. “But I understand, father.”
Philip felt rising in him that ceaseless regret that Colin was not his
first-born. And that jealousy of Colin, implied in Raymond’s “I
understand” irritated his father. He wanted Colin to come and relieve
the situation, as he always did.
“What exactly do you mean by that?” he asked.
Suddenly old Lady Yardley joined in. “I know what he means, Philip,” she
said. “He means that he should have been host here, if you were going to
depute one of your sons to do the honours for you, and that you
preferred that Colin should do them instead. That is what he means.”
“There, mother, that’s enough,” said Philip.
An embarrassed silence ensued, broken by the sound of running steps in
the gallery. Just as they arrived at the door, which one of the footmen
opened, there was a loud crash and Colin slid in on his back, and had
begun to laugh before he picked himself up.
“Gosh, what a bang!” he said. “I believe somebody greased the boards in
the hope that I should be in a hurry and fall down. Sorry, father;
sorry, granny; sorry, Violet, for upsetting all your nerves.
Why--Raymond!”
Colin laid his hand affectionately on his brother’s shoulder.
“I never knew you had come,” he said. “How are you, dear Raymond? How’s
Cambridge? We have missed you in all this hullabaloo. Every one asked
after you and wanted to know why you weren’t here.”
Colin took the vacant place between Violet and his grandmother.
“How far have you all got?” he said. “Oh, very well, I won’t have any
soup. Now this is jolly! Just ourselves, Granny, and short coats and
black ties. Vi, darling, why didn’t you come and pull me out of my bath?
I was just lying soaking there; I had no idea it was so late.”
Colin spared one fleeting glance at his brother, and began to put into
words some of the things he had thought about in his bath.
“Raymond, it is time that you came home,” he said. “The pigeons are
worse than ever in the Old Park, and I’m no earthly use at that
snap-shooting between the oaks. Give me a rabbit coming towards me along
a road, not too fast, and a rest for my gun, I can hit it in the face as
well as anybody. But those pigeons among the oaks beat me.”
“Yes, we might have a morning in the Old Park to-morrow,” said his
father.
Colin looked at Violet as if she had called his attention to something.
“Yes, Vi, what?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, I thought you jogged my elbow. To-morrow, father? Oh, what a bore!
I promised to play golf. But I shall be back by one if I go on my
motor-bicycle. May I join you at that sharp corner in the road; that’s
about half-way to the keeper’s lodge, and I could come on with you from
there.”
“But that corner is at the far end of the Old Park,” said his father.
“Is it? The one I mean has a big rhododendron bush close to it. You know
where I mean, Raymond. Is it at the far end?”
“Yes, that’s the far end,” said Raymond.
“I believe you’re right. Oh, of course you’re right, and I’m idiotic.
It’s where I picked you up one day in the autumn when you had been after
the pigeons.”
Colin applied himself to his dinner, and caught the others up.
“There’s something in my mind connected with that day,” he said, “and I
can’t remember what it is. I had been playing golf, and I punctured, and
walked back along the ridge instead of wheeling my bicycle along the
road. Something funny: I remember laughing. Vi, darling, can’t you
remember? Or didn’t I tell you?”
Violet saw that even in the red glow of the candle-shades Raymond’s face
had turned white. There was red light upon it, but not of it.
“You certainly did not tell me,” she said in sheer pity. “I remember the
day, too. There was a man who had escaped from the asylum and stolen a
gun from the keeper’s....”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Colin. “I believe that’s on the track. A man
with a gun.”
Philip laughed.
“One of the most amusing things I ever heard, Colin,” he said. “I am
surprised at Violet’s forgetting it. Is that all?”
Colin turned to his grandmother. “Granny, they’re all laughing at me
because I can’t remember. Father’s laughing at me, so is Violet. You and
Raymond are the only kind ones. Man with a gun, Raymond shooting
pigeons. That makes two men with a gun. Then there was me.”
“The very best story, Colin. Most humorous,” said his father.
Colin sighed. “Sometimes I think of things just as I’m going to sleep,”
he said. “If I think of it to-night, I shall wake Violet and tell her,
and then she’ll remember it if I can’t. Man with a gun....”
“Oh, Colin, stop it,” said Violet.
“Well, let’s put it to the vote,” said Colin. “Father and Violet want me
to stop trying to remember it; little do they know how it would amuse
them if I did. Granny and I want me to go on--don’t you, dear--it all
depends on Raymond. What shall I do, Ray?”
Raymond turned to his father, appearing not to hear Colin’s question.
“Did you have good sport last week?” he asked.
“Ah, Raymond votes against us, Granny,” said Colin. “He’s too polite to
tell me directly. We’re squashed, Granny; we’ll squash them at whist
afterwards; you and I shall be partners, and we’ll play Raymond and
father for their immortal souls. It will be like the legend, won’t it?
Violet shall look on and wonder whether her poor husband is going to
heaven or hell. I keep my immortal soul in a drawer close to Violet’s
bedside, Granny. So if we lose, she will have to go up to her bedroom
and bring it down. Oh, I say, I’m talking too much. Nobody else can get
a word in edgeways.”
It was a fact that the other four were silent, but Raymond had the
faculty of producing silence in his neighbours. Cigarettes had come now
with coffee, and this was the usual signal for old Lady Yardley to rise.
To-night, however, she took no notice of the gold-mounted stick which
was put into her hand by Philip.
“Never mind them, my dear,” she said, “they are amusing themselves.
Listen to me, Colin.”
There was no other voice in the room but hers, the servants had gone
out, and again she spoke. No one moved; no one spoke; but Raymond
opposite her leaned forward; Violet leaned left-wise; Philip, with her
stick in his hand leaned to the right. She dropped her voice to a
whisper, but in the tense stillness a shout would not have been more
audible.
“There are strange things in this house, darling,” said she to Colin. “I
have been here sixty years, and I know better than anybody. Green leaf I
have been, and flower and fruit, and now I am withered. Sixty years ago,
my dear, I sold my soul to the master of it, and from that moment I have
been a ghost, oh, such a happy ghost, looking on at the glory of the
house. And then my son Philip married, and he brought you here, and the
moment I set eyes on you I loved you, for I knew that you were born of
the blood and the bargain....”
Philip drew back his chair and got up.
“There’s your stick, mother,” he said. “We’ll follow you quite soon, or
it will be too late for your game of whist.”
She fumbled for the crook of the handle, and rose; her eyes were bright,
and as blue as the sapphire Colin had worn last night.
“Yes, but I must talk to Colin again,” she said. “No one understands me
except Colin. There used to be other games than whist, Philip, at
Stanier. There was dice-throwing, you know, on the altar of God. We are
not so wicked now to all appearance. Whist in the gallery; far more
seemly.”
Raymond held the door open for her, and she hobbled through, Violet
following. As she passed out, Violet looked first at Raymond, and then
swiftly away, with a shudder, at Colin.
“Don’t be long, Uncle Philip,” she said in a low voice. “Grandmamma is
so queer to-night.”
Colin moved up next his father.
“Give me a glass of port, father,” he said. “Here’s Raymond back, and
I’m so glad to see him. Your health, Ray!”
He drank off his glass. “Father, isn’t it lovely to have Raymond back
again?” he said. “But--this is an aside--he’s putting on flesh. May your
shadow never grow more, Raymond. Tell us all about Cambridge; has it
been delightful? I’m sure it has; for otherwise you wouldn’t look so
prosperous. Speech! Mustn’t we have a speech from him, father?”
There, on one side of Philip, was Colin, brimming with good humour and
welcome, brimming, too, as he had shewn during dinner with the mere
nonsense born of happiness. On the other side was Raymond, serious and
unresponsive, without a spark to answer this crackling fire. There he
sat, and what sort of host would he have made during these last weeks?
He made no attempt to reply to Colin, and but fingered the stem of his
glass.
“You might tell us what has been going on, Raymond,” said his father.
“Nothing particular. Just the ordinary term. I’ve been playing for the
University at soccer. I shall probably be in the team.”
“And you never told us?” said Colin. “Lord! What a swell he is, father!
We’re not worthy to hear about it; that’s what is the matter with us.”
Philip turned to Raymond. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s pleasant news.
There’s Colin here, who won’t do anything more violent than golf.”
“Oh, father! What about shooting pigeons?” said Colin. “Oh, no, Raymond
did that. Bother! There was a man with a gun....”
Philip got up. “Now don’t get on to that again,” he said. “You’ve amused
us enough for one night....”
“But I may amuse Vi, mayn’t I, if I think of the rest of it?” asked
Colin.
Philip turned his back on him and took Raymond’s arm. He had the sense
of behaving with great fairness, but the impartiality demanded effort.
“Ring the bell, Colin, will you?” he said over his shoulder. “I’m
delighted to hear about your success in the--the football field,
Raymond. Games are taking the place of sport in this generation. Your
Uncle Ronald and I never played games; there was shooting, there was
riding....”
“Oh, but there’s lots of sport still,” said Colin. “Big game, father;
large animals. Not footballs, things that feel.... And then my bicycle
punctured. Oh, you wanted me to ring.”
At this rite of whist for the sake of old Lady Yardley, it was necessary
that one of the five should cut out. She herself and Philip took no part
in this chance; the rite was that both should play if there was not
another table to be formed. Raymond turned the highest card, and with a
paper to beguile him, sat just where he had sat when one night the
whist-table had broken up, and he heard Colin’s mimicry. As the four
others cut for deal, some memory of that must have come into Colin’s
mind.
“What an awful night that was, Vi,” he said, “when we were playing
bridge with Aunt Hester. She revoked, do you remember, and swore she
hadn’t. How we laughed. And then I thought everybody else had gone to
bed, and I--good Lord.... Yes!”
“Another of Colin’s amusing stories,” said his father.
“Sh-sh,” said Colin. “Granny, you always turn up the ace for your trump
card. Will you give me lessons?”
The rubber was very quickly over, and Raymond took Colin’s place. Colin
drew a chair up close to his brother, and instead of reading a paper in
the corner, watched his hand and the play of it with breathless
attention.
“Raymond; you’re a wizard,” he said at the end of it. “Every plan of
yours was right. You finessed and caught the king, you didn’t finesse
and caught the queen. Why don’t I have luck like yours? It’s enough to
make any fellow jealous; I shan’t look at your hand any more. I shall
look at Violet’s. My poor wife! Raymond’s got all the winning cards
again. Or, if he hasn’t, he’ll turn them into winning cards. He’ll down
you.”
“Colin, if you would talk just a little less,” said his father, “we
should be able to attend a little more.”
Raymond, if no one else, fully appreciated the utter absence of reproof
in his father’s voice. If it had been he who had been talking, there
would have been, at the best, a chill politeness there; at the worst, a
withering snub. But this was the candour of friend to friend.... About
that signed paper now, which Colin had deposited at his bank. He himself
had signed some sort of mad confession that he had planned to shoot
Colin. His will had bent to Colin’s like hot wax to strong fingers, but
could he not somehow get possession of it again? While it was in Colin’s
hands, it was like a toasting-fork in which that devil-twin of his
impaled and held him before the fire. All dinner-time Colin had scorched
him, and not less burning was this mocking kindliness which made the one
appear so warmly genial, the other awkward and ungracious. How long
would he be able to stand it? Presently, at the end of the rubber, Colin
would join him in the smoking-room and reveal another aspect, no doubt.
But he could rob him of that further indulgence, he would go to bed as
soon as the rubber was over.
The next hand finished it and Lady Yardley got up. She had won to-night
from Colin, and clinked a couple of half-sovereigns in her hand.
“But it will come back to you, darling,” she said. “Everything there is
will come to you if you are wise and careful. My eyes grow dim as I get
older, but there is another sort of sight that gets brighter. Oh, I see
very well.”
Philip went with her to the door.
“Your eyes are wonderful yet, mother,” he said. “There are years of
vision in them yet.”
As if Colin had read Raymond’s thought of going to bed, he turned to
Violet.
“I may be a little late to-night, darling,” he said. “Raymond and I are
going to have a long talk in the smoking-room.”
“Oh, I think not,” said Raymond. “I’m tired; I shall go to bed.”
Colin whisked round to him. “Not just yet, Ray,” he said. “I haven’t
seen you for so long. It would be nice of you to come and have a chat. I
know you will. Persuade him to do as I ask, Vi. Who knows what important
things I may have to tell about?”
Philip rejoined them. “I shall just come in and have a cigarette with
you boys,” he said. “Good-night, Violet.”
“Ah, that’s jolly,” said Colin.
They preceded him to the smoking-room, for he turned into his own room a
moment, and as soon as they were there Colin shut the door.
“Father will be with us in a minute,” he said, “and I can only just
begin my talk. But if you attempt to go to bed when he does, Raymond, I
shall tell him about the morning when you shot pigeons. Oddly enough, I
have remembered all about it. And to-morrow I’ll telephone for the
envelope I left at my bank. So it’s up to you.”
Colin came a step closer; with such an eagerness must some Borgia Pope
have looked on the white skin of the victim he had ordered to be flayed.
“It’s jolly seeing you again, you sulky blackguard,” he said. “Has
anybody smacked your face since I did it for you? You’re going to spend
the whole of the vacation here, unless I get tired of you and send you
away before. Ah, there’s father. Isn’t it jolly, father; Raymond hopes
to spend the whole of the vacation here.”
Philip did not seem as enthusiastic as Colin about this, but he was
adequately cordial, and, having smoked his cigarette in silence, got up
to go.
“Are you coming?” he said to his sons.
Colin nodded to Raymond to answer this.
“We were just going to have a talk first, father,” he said.
“Very good. Don’t sit up too late. Colin hasn’t been to bed till three
for the last fortnight.”
Colin waited till the door was shut.
“Now for our talk,” he said. “Isn’t Violet looking divine? Aren’t I a
lucky fellow? Even the thought of being mistress of Stanier wasn’t
enough to make her tolerate you. We had a lovely honeymoon, Raymond. We
often talked of you. Lord! How she loathes you! I should think even you
could see that. Now an interesting question. I ask for information. Do
you think she knows about that morning we were speaking of at dinner?”
“I have no means of telling,” said Raymond.
“Well, we’ll assume she doesn’t. Now I want you to observe her closely
again to-morrow, and see if you think she knows then. I’ve remembered
all about it, and, as you heard me say, I was thinking of telling her,
just drowsily and quietly to-night. And then to-morrow you’ll guess
whether I have done so or not. Take coffee for breakfast if you think I
have, tea, if you think I haven’t. What a jolly Christmas game!”
Colin poured himself out a glass of whisky and soda.
“Fancy father saying that I didn’t care for sport,” he said. “I adore
the thought of the sport I’m going to have with you. You used to be rude
to me when we were alone, now you have got to be polite. I can always
send for that paper which you signed and father witnessed. Now don’t be
tedious and say that the condition on which you signed was that I would
not tell him. What does that matter to me? You wanted to kill me; all
that I do now is in self-defence. Otherwise you might plan to kill me
again.”
He yawned. “I’m rather sleepy to-night, Raymond,” he said. “I thought
the satisfaction of seeing you again would make me wakeful. I shall go
upstairs. Violet will be pleased that I have not sat up late after all.
I shall sit on her bed and talk to her. Last night her hair made a
golden mat on the pillow. There is a marvellous fragrance in her hair.
Do you remember that from the days--not many of them--when you used to
kiss her? How she winced! Now it’s your turn to wince. We shall talk
about you, no doubt. And remember about the tea and the coffee
to-morrow.”
Day after day Colin amused himself thus; morning after morning Raymond
had to guess whether Violet had been told, until one evening, wearying
of this particular game, Colin casually mentioned that all his guessings
had been superfluous, for Violet had known ever since one day on their
honeymoon, when she had provoked him by saying, “Poor Raymond.” Even as
a cat with a mouse, so Colin played with him, taking no notice of him
except in ordinary intercourse, for nearly a whole day, and letting him
seem forgotten; then, with quivering shoulders, he would spring on him
again, tap him with sheathed claws and a velvet paw, or with more
forcible reminder, nip him with needle-like teeth. It was useless and
worse than useless for Violet to plead for him; her advocacy, her appeal
to the most elementary feeling of compassion only exasperated Colin.
“Darling, as if my brain wasn’t busy enough with Raymond, you must go
and add to my work like that!” he said. “I’ve got to cure you of being
sorry for Raymond as well. I thought you were cured when I told you he
tried to murder me. Just let your mind dwell on that. He planned to
shoot me from behind that wall. I’ll take you there to-morrow and show
you the place, to make it more vivid to you. One’s brother must not make
such plans and fail without suffering for it afterwards. Perhaps you
would prefer that he had succeeded? Ah! I made you shudder then. You
trembled deliciously.... I’ve got such a delightful Christmas present
for him, a little green jade pigeon with ruby eyes. It cost a lot of
money. The green--I shall explain to him--is his jealousy of me, for
he’s devoted to you still, and the red eyes are the colour of my blood,
and the whole will remind him of that amusing morning.”
The new year came in with three nights of sharp frost, and the ice on
the bathing lake grew thick enough to bear. The lake was artificial,
lying in a small natural valley through which a stream ran. A dam some
twelve feet high had been built across the lower end of it, in which was
the sluice gate; thus the stream, confined by the rising ground at the
sides, and the dam at the end, had spread itself into a considerable
sheet of water, shallow where the stream entered it, but some nine feet
deep at the lower end, where was the bathing-place and the header boards
and pavilions for bathers. The dam was planted with rhododendron bushes,
whose roots strengthened the barrier, and in summer the great bank of
blossom overhung the deep water. A path ran behind them crossing the
sluice by a stone bridge with balustrade.
Raymond had gone down there directly after breakfast, and came back with
the news that he had walked this way and that across the ice, and that
it seemed safe enough. For some reason which Colin failed to fathom, he
seemed in very cheerful spirits to-day; it might be that the end of the
Christmas vacation was approaching, when he would return to Cambridge;
it might be that he, like Colin, himself had seen the rapidity with
which old age was gaining on his father. There was humour in that.
Raymond looked forward, and little wonder, to his own succession here,
not knowing, poor shorn lamb, that he would be worse off than ever when
that unpropitious event occurred. As for the remission of subtle torture
which his return to Cambridge would give him, there were several days
yet, thought Colin; opportunity for much pleasant pigeon-conversation.
So Raymond got his skates, while Colin and Violet, sitting cosy in the
long gallery, wondered whether it was worth while going out, and he went
down by the long yew hedge to the lake, with brisk foot and brightened
eye. After all, other people besides Colin could make plans, and one of
his had matured this morning into a luscious ripeness. Sleepless nights
had been his, with hands squeezing for Colin’s throat and dawn breaking
in on the fierce disorder of his thoughts, before he had distilled his
brain down to the clear broth. Wild and vagrant fancies got hold of him,
goaded as he was to the verge of desperation by this inhuman
persecution; red madnesses had flashed before him, like the cloaks that
the matadors wave before the bull, and, whether he charged or not,
another ribanded dart pierced him. He had bitten his lip till the blood
flowed in order to recall himself to self-control, and to use those
hours of the night, when Colin was with Violet, to hew out some defence
to the fluttered red and the ribanded dart. There had been his handicap:
hate of Colin had made him violent, whereas Colin’s hate of him had made
Colin calm and self-possessed; he must cease to rage if he hoped to
arrive at any plan. So night after night he had curbed himself, making
his wits reduce their mad galloping to an orderly pace, and pull
steadily in harness.
The grass was encrusted with the jewels of frost; every step crunched a
miracle of design into powder, and now for the first time since he had
come to Stanier, Raymond fed with the braced joy of a frosty morning on
the banquet which the season spread. He was hungry for it, all these
days he had been starved and tortured, sick with apprehension, and
shuddering at the appearance of Colin with rack and pincers. But now he
was hungry again for the good things of life, and the long draught of
cold air was one of them, and the treading of the earth with muscles
alternately strong and relaxed was another, and the sense of the great
woodlands that would in no distant future be his, was a third, for how
old, how rapidly ageing, was his father; and the _congé_ he would soon
give to Colin and Violet was a fourth, sweeter than any. How sour had
turned his love of Violet, if indeed there had ever been any sweetness
in it. He lusted after her: that he knew, but just because she knew the
events of that morning, when all had gone so awry, he thought of her as
no more than a desirable mistress. Ha! there was a woodcock. In the
frost of the morning it had lain so close that he approached within
twenty yards of it before it got up. He was near enough to see how it
pulled itself forward, grasping a blade of grass in its reed-like bill,
before it could get those long wings free of the ground where it
squatted. With a flip flap, it skidded and swerved through the
rhododendron bushes; even if he had had a gun with him he could scarcely
have got a shot.
“Flip--flap”; it was just so that he had escaped from Colin’s barrels.
Those nights of thought, when he had bandaged the eyes of rage, had
given him simplicity at last, such simplicity as Colin had so carelessly
arrived at when he came through the oaks of the Old Park. He had trusted
to the extraordinary similarity of his own handwriting to that of Colin,
and had written a letter in Colin’s name to Colin’s bankers, requesting
them to send the letter which he had deposited there last August, with
the note on the outside of it about its eventual delivery in case of his
death, to his brother, Lord Stanier, whose receipt would be
forwarded.... Raymond knew it to be a desperate measure, but, after all,
nothing could be more desperate than his position here, bound hand and
foot to Colin, as long as that sealed envelope remained at Messrs.
Bertram’s. The bank might possibly make a further inquiry; telegraph to
Colin for confirmation, but even if that happened, Colin was doing his
worst already. No such disaster had followed. This morning Raymond had
received from the bank a registered letter, containing the unopened
envelope, forwarded to him by direction of Hon. Colin Stanier.
So now, as he went briskly towards the frozen lake, the confession which
he had signed was safe in the letter-case he carried in the inside
pocket of his coat, and for very luxury of living over again a mad
moment which now was neutralised, he drew it out and read it. There it
was ... in that crisis of guilt, covered by Colin’s pistol, he had
consented to any terms. But now, let Colin see what would be his
response when next he talked in flashes of that veiled lightning
concerning a shooting of pigeons, concerning a morning when there was a
lunatic at large....
Indeed Raymond determined that this very day he would fling the
challenge himself. Instead of sitting dumb under Colin’s blistering
jibes, he would defy him; he would insult and provoke him, till he was
stung into sending to the bank for the famous confession, vowing an
instant disclosure of the whole matter to his father. How Raymond would
snap a finger in his face for that threat, and how, when Colin received
the answer from the bank that the packet in question had been sent by
his own orders to his brother, would he choke with the derisive laughter
of hate! Who without solid proof would credit such a tale? Besides
(Raymond had it all ready now) no doubt Lord Yardley would remember
witnessing with Colin the paper about which he now impotently jabbered.
Had not the brothers come in together, ever so pleasantly, on that
morning of the pigeon-shooting, and asked for his witnessing signature?
That paper (so Raymond now framed it) had set forth how he had
determined to make a better job of brotherhood than he had hitherto
done, and to realise that Violet and Colin were mated in love. And
already the pact had fulfilled itself, for never had the two spent days
of such public fraternal amity. “Write to the bank for it in my name,”
Colin would be supposed to have said, “and tear it up, dear Ray! It’ll
be fun, too, to see if they can distinguish your handwriting from
mine”.... That was what Colin would find waiting for him if he sent to
the bank for the document on which this insane accusation was based.
His skates, fitted on to boots, clanked in his hand, his foot trod
briskly on the frozen soil that would soon be his own. Those eye-teeth
of Colin’s were drawn; his father aged rapidly, and, without doubt,
before many months, the park-gates would have clapped on to the final
exit of Colin and his wife. Perhaps he would let Stanier to some
dollar-gorged American; he had no feeling for it himself, and the other
two would abhor that. Never yet had Stanier been tenanted by aliens; it
was enough to make the dead turn in their graves. What was more
important, it would make the living writhe. Perhaps Colin--he would be
very rich, alas--would try to take it. The would-be lessees must be
closely scrutinised.
So here was the lake with its stiff frozen margin; a stamp on it and a
short slide over the black ice produced no cluck of remonstrance. The
pavilion of the bathing-place was on the other side, but a felled
tree-trunk made a comfortable seat for the exchange of his walking shoes
into the boots with skates on them. He had spent a winter month in
Switzerland two years before, and hungered for the bite of the blade on
the sweet fodder of that black field.... Instantly, as in swimming, the
instinct of that balance came back to him, and with long strokes he
curved out on to the delightful playground. Outside edge, and a dropped
turn, an outside back, and a taking up of the direction with the other
foot....
* * * * *
Colin, at this moment, had made up his mind not to skate till after
lunch.
“I’m lazy,” he said to Violet. “I’m tired of baiting Raymond. He was
more cheerful than I like this morning, Vi. I shall smoke a cigarette
and think of something new. Lord! I’ve got no matches.”
There was a paper basket handy, and he drew a crumpled envelope from it,
meaning to get a light with it from the log fire. Uncrumpling it he saw
it was addressed to Lord Stanier, and idly turning it over, as he made
his spill, he saw the seal of his own bank. The envelope was registered.
He tore a narrow strip off the edge of it, and used it for his purpose.
“I should like to sit here talking to you all morning,” he said, “but
that beastly motor-bicycle of mine has gone wrong again. I think I’ll go
up to the stables to see about it. Skating this afternoon, isn’t it? I
hate seeing Raymond skate because he’s so good at it. But as I want to
skate myself, what’s to be done?”
Colin floated off in his crisp, graceful manner, and never was he so
alert as when he appeared to be loitering. Why had Raymond received a
registered envelope from Bertram’s? Bertram’s was not Raymond’s bank.
What had that envelope contained?
He strolled out of the front door; the stables lay to the right, but
Raymond, hugely cheerful that morning, had gone to the lake, which was
in the opposite direction. So deferring the matter of the bicycle he
went down by the yew hedge and along the path on the top of the dam
behind the rhododendrons. He could hear the ring of Raymond’s skates on
the frozen surface. Raymond would have to cease his sport and explain
the matter of the envelope.
* * * * *
Hidden by the bushes, he had nearly come to the bridge over the sluice
when from close at hand there came a noise of loud crackings and
splintering across the lake and a great splash. For one moment Colin
stood quite still, his heart beating high and fast; then, with quickened
pace, he walked on to the bridge over the sluice. Some ten yards out was
a large hole in the surface with jagged edges; a cap and fragments of
broken ice floated on it, and bubbles rose from below.
“He has been carried under the ice,” thought Colin. “How cold it must
be! The water is deep there.”
What was to be done? Nothing it seemed. He could run up to the house and
get help, a rope, a plank, something to put out across that gaping hole
on which the sunlight glittered, but before he could return all hope
(all chance rather) of saving Raymond must have passed. Was there no
other plan? His mind, usually so ingenious and resourceful, seemed
utterly blank, save for an overwhelming curiosity as to whether Raymond
would come to the surface again, just once, just for a second.... As he
looked, leaning on the balustrade of the bridge, Raymond’s head
appeared; his face was white and wide-eyed, the lips of his open mouth
blue with the cold. Across those ten yards which separated them their
eyes met, Colin’s bright and sparkling with exuberant life, the other’s
stricken with the ultimate and desperate terror.
Colin waved his hand.
“So you’ve fallen in,” he said. “I’ll go and see what can be done. If
I’m too late, well, good-bye! Rather cold, isn’t it?”
The last words were spoken to emptiness. There was the cap still
floating and the stream of bubbles breaking on the surface of the
sparkling water.
Colin gave one leap in the air like some young colt whose limbs tingle
with the joy of life, and rubbed his hands which were chilled with
leaning on the bridge. Of course it was no use going to the house; the
shock and cold and the soft, smothering water would have done their work
long before he could bring help, and the resources of Stanier, so
powerful for the living had no succour or consolation for the dead.
Indeed, it would be better not to go to the house at all, for he could
not imagine himself, in this ecstatic moment, simulating haste and
horror and all that would be appropriate to the occasion. So making a
circuit through the woods, he strolled ten minutes later into the stable
yard to see about his bicycle. He had a pleasant word for the groom and
a joke for the motor-mechanic. Just then his brain could only be
occupied with trivial things; a great glittering curtain seemed to be
let down across it, behind which were stored treasures and splendours.
Presently, when he came to himself, he would inspect these.
He showed himself to Violet and his father, who were in the long
gallery, when he got back to the house, said a word about his
motor-bicycle, hoped that Raymond was having a good time, and went into
the smoking-room. Now was the time to pull up that glittering curtain.
Till then the fact of Raymond’s death, just the removal, the extinction
of him had hidden all that might lie behind it; now Colin saw with an
amazed gasp of interest how all the activity of his brain was needed to
cope with the situation. Raymond was finished with, while his father
still lived. The remote, the unexpected, the unlooked-for had occurred.
Yet not quite unlooked-for ... one morning dreaming on the Capri beach,
Colin had taken this possibility into account, had let it simmer and
mature in his brain, and as outcome had made Violet spend a night at the
house of the British Consul in Naples. How wise that had proved; he
would have been grinding his teeth if he had not done that.
Swiftly he ran over the whole process from the beginning, and though
there were problems ahead of him, so far his course had been flawless.
First had come the erasure in the Consulate register and the insertion
of that single numeral in his mother’s letter to Salvatore.... He would
have to see dear Uncle Salvatore again.... That had smoothed the way for
his marriage with Violet; that had ensured, even if Raymond lived to be
a hundred, his own mastership and that of his children after him at
Stanier. It was not mastership in name, for he would but be husband to
its mistress, but he knew that name alone would be lacking to the
completeness of possession. He could not have provided better for the
eventuality of his father’s death, which, according to all human
probability, would occur before Raymond’s. But fate, that blind
incalculable chance, had decreed otherwise, and Colin gave a frown and a
muttered exclamation to the recognition of the fact that had he left the
register alone, and torn up, instead of emending his mother’s letter, he
would now be heir to Stanier as he indeed truly was, in his own right.
It was a pity to have devoted all that ingenuity, to have saddled
himself with considerable expense as regards that troublesome Salvatore,
when fate all the time was busier and wiser than he.... Yet it had been
necessary, and it was no use wasting regret over it.
What stood in his way now was the letter and the register. With regard
to the former it was easy to destroy it, and to indicate to Salvatore
that all required of him was to hold his tongue, or, if necessary, to
tell a mere simple truth that he had given Colin two letters, one--he
seemed to recollect--dated March 1, in which his sister announced her
marriage, the other a fortnight later, giving news of the birth of the
twins. Uncle Salvatore, with his Viagi pride, so Colin smilingly
reflected, would be glad that the stain on the family honour could be
expunged; Rosina was married when she brought forth. For him, too, it
was pleasant to have the bar sinister lifted from him. It would not, he
allowed, have weighed heavily on him; in any case it would have been
amply compensated for by the enjoyment of Stanier and the expulsion of
Raymond, but now there was no need for that ounce of bitter.... So much,
then, for the letters; they could be destroyed. Violet would ask in vain
for their production to prove her possession.
“What letters do you mean, darling?” he would answer. Yes, those letters
should perish at once.
He turned his thoughts to the register. There at this moment it reposed
in that archive-room, bearing the erasure so easily overlooked, so
convincing when pointed out. You had but to look carefully, and, so to
speak, you could see nothing but the erased numeral: it stared at you.
He had, it was true, in his keeping a copy of that entry, certified to
be correct by Mr. Cecil, which bore the earlier date, but, now that
Violet had been informed of that erasure, she would, when Stanier
changed hands, insist on the production of the register, and, knowing
where to look and what to see, her lawyer would draw the conclusion,
which even in the absence of confirming letters, might easily satisfy a
jury. The register had been tampered with, and in whose interests but
Colin’s? And by what hand? Without doubt by his father’s (not that that
would hurt him then) or his own. There was danger, remote perhaps but
alive and smouldering, on that page; it must be quenched.
Colin recalled his meditations on the Capri beach which foresaw this
contingency with a vividness as clear as was the October air on that
morning. All the circumstances of it were equally sharp-edged in his
memory, the sense of the hot pebbles of the beach on which he lay, the
sea and its crystal embrace awaiting him when he got baked and pining
for its coolness, Nino, the joyous pagan boy asleep in the shade,
Vesuvius across the bay with the thin streamer of smoke. That was the
_milieu_ where thought came clean and clear to you, and clear and clean
that morning had his thoughts been, providing for this very situation.
The pieces of it lay in his brain like the last few fragments of a
puzzle; he had no need even to fit them together, for he could see how
curve corresponded with curve and angle with angle. All was in order,
ready to be joined up, now that Raymond no longer blocked his way, and
the key-piece round which the others fitted was undoubtedly that visit
of Violet to Mr. Cecil.
* * * * *
Then came quick steps up the passage, and Violet burst in.
“Oh, Colin,” she said, “a terrible thing has happened! Uncle Philip and
I walked down to the lake. Raymond was not there; his boots were on the
bank, there was a hole where the ice had given way at the deep end.
Uncle Philip is getting men and ropes....”