Even when he was living for two days in the retirement of his cottage
on the bank of the River Thames, Sir Creighton Severn was too busy a man
to find time to join the little company who set out in his launch on
the Sunday to pay the visit which his daughter had promised to the
new proprietor of The Gables. He was not so utterly overwhelmed with
business, however, but that he could look forward to two hours of
solitude and slumber during their absence. He calculated, without the
aid of logarithms, that the little company would be absent for two
hours, and he proposed spending twenty minutes of this space in the
enjoyment of his solitary cigar on the lawn and the remaining hour and
forty minutes on one of the long cane chairs in a bower over-clustered by
clematis, blue and white, and hidden away from the intrusive enquiries
of impressionable flies and impossible visitors.
He had no doubt that a visit to The Gables would have been very
interesting--as a matter of fact he found most things in the world very
interesting--but, as he remarked with a sigh that fully expressed his
gratification at the thought, a busy man must make up his mind to forego
a good many of those enjoyments which he most detested.
The utmost enjoyment that he could allow himself in connection with
this expedition was seeing the departure of the electric launch from
the little staging at the water’s edge. But this enjoyment though
only lasting a few minutes, was intense while it did last. His wife
understood his feelings thoroughly. It was not often that she was able
when up the river to withdraw her guests in so solid a body, leaving Sir
Creighton to the solitude of his bower.
Her guests pitied him. Some of the more sapient ones shook their heads
and talked about burning the candle at both ends.
She only smiled in response and said that it did not matter when the
candle was an electric one.
And so the launch made its noiseless way towards the lock at Hurley.
The cottage known as The Weir was quite a small place--it could only
accommodate six or seven visitors at once in addition to Sir Creighton’s
family, and the usual maids which the visitors brought with them; it was
just the snug little nook that would suit any one who did not want to
keep more than two gardeners and half a dozen servants. The woods of
Clievedon were behind it, and the waters of the weir at Marlow whispered
a perpetual “Hush” in the ears of all the household. Sometimes, however,
the sound was sufficiently loud to drown the silly bleatings of the
phonographs on the excursion steamers on the other side.
The fellow-guests of Josephine and Pierce on this particular Sunday were
only two--a man and his wife who were entering on the third month
of married life and living as if they were utterly regardless of the
likelihood that they had forty years or so ahead of them. They sat far
astern, not exactly side by side, but within easy reach of each other’s
hands. They thought it well to be prepared for any emergency. And they
were.
The Gables was scarcely a mile beyond Hurley. It had now and again
peeped into the pages of English history during the two hundred years of
its existence. It was only because it had not let very readily since
the death of its late owner that the agents had thought it advisable to
apply the Nell Gwyn myth to it. The imagination of the house agent is
bounded on every side by Nell Gwyn. He has not the least notion who Nell
Gwyn was and he doesn’t greatly care; but he knows that as a jog to the
dilatory purchaser there is no name so potent in a catalogue, whether
the “item” refers to a public-house or a rectory.
Nell Gwyn had been dead for several years before The Gables was built.
It was quite another actress who had found it a convenient place of rest
for a season, but even in respect of the date of her residence beneath
its roof some doubt exists; for at the very period assigned to her
occupancy of the house, it is known that it was in the possession of
a Royal Personage, which, of course, proves that a confusing error has
crept into the dates.
But it is certain that an historic duel once took place on the lawn--a
duel in which a distinguished nobleman ran his dearest friend through
the vitals, and subsequently was himself stabbed by the husband of the
lady with whom his former antagonist was in love.
The duel took place with swords on the lawn; but the successive owners
of the house have pointed out for generations the marks of the bullet
on the painted wainscot of one of the drawing-rooms; and the mahogany
Hepplewhite chair a portion of the carving of which was injured by the
same missile. No one has yet ventured to explain how it was that the
bullet in a duel fought with swords killed a man who was run through the
body and then injured the carving of a chair made of a wood that was not
introduced into England until forty years later, and by an artist who
was not born at the time.
Still there are the bullet marks and they were pointed out with pride by
the new owner of the house to his guests who had joined his house party
this evening.
And the girls, who knew all about the house, laughed quite pleasantly,
and the young man from Australia said that servants were very careless,
which was an absurd remark to make when talking about historic deeds and
the eccentricities of bullets.
Lady Severn said that the room wanted badly to be dusted, and this
was quite true, as every member of the house-party--they were three in
number: namely, Galmyn, Bateman and another--was ready to testify.
The historic house was not seen to the greatest advantage at that time;
but so far as one could gather, the pride of the new owner in possessing
it, was quite as great as if the place were habitable. It was far from
habitable, a casual observer might have been led to believe. After
crossing the high grass on the lawn--the proprietor explained
apologetically that he had been offered fifteen shillings for the hay
crop but he meant to hold out for a pound--the visitors skirted the
enormously overgrown shrubs and the unclipped yew hedges, until they
found themselves stumbling over the hillocks of what had once been a
rose-garden, now given over to the riotous luxuriance of the flaming
dandelion and the tangled masses of the blue periwinkle, and the
persistent nasturtium. The whole place resembled nothing so closely as a
neglected graveyard.
Guy Overton and his house-party trooped out to meet them, from the big
entrance-hall; and it was plain that the little party had been playing
billiards, for one of them appeared in the porch with a cue still in his
hand, and they all seemed warm and dusty, having hastily struggled
back into their coats, as garden snails retire to their shells when
surprised.
“Is it possible that you have been playing billiards indoors such a
lovely afternoon as this?” cried Amber in grave surprise.
“Oh, no; not billiards, only pool,” said Guy.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” said Amber.
“How could they do it when so charming a garden is smiling at them
here?” asked Pierce.
“Well, to tell you the truth, we have had only a poor kind of game,”
said Guy, with an exculpatory inflection. “In fact, I don’t think it
could be called a game at all.”
“There is the less excuse for you then, spending your time over it,”
said Amber.
“When all nature calls to you rapturously from the cemetery outside,”
added Pierce.
“Oh, that’s all my aunt!” cried Guy impatient of sarcasm. “The garden is
a bit depressing just now, but sooner than take fifteen bob for the hay
crop, I’d give it away.”
“That would be an extreme measure indeed,” said Pierce. “Take my
advice, Guy; let it continue increasing in luxuriance until the winter
and then sell it when the hay is getting scarce.”
“Welcome to The Gables!” cried Guy hospitably as the party passed
through the porch into the hall. “Welcome all! I hope this may be the
first of many pleasant visits to my humble home.”
“How nicely said,” cried Lady Severn. “I am sure that we all share your
kind hopes, Mr. Overton.”
The hall was a spacious apartment with a transparent dome roof and
mullioned windows. Here and there on the walls hung trophies of the
chase, done in plaster of Paris, beautifully tinted (an idea due to
the house agent) and some excellent specimens of drapers’ Japanese. The
floor was beautifully inlaid as one could see where the borders remained
free from the earthy layer that had been transferred from the garden by
the boots of (it seemed) half a century.
Cobwebs hung from the beams of the roof like the tattered regimental
colours in a church, and here and there a piece of plaster had
disappeared from above the panels of the walls. The remaining breadths
of plaster bore countless round marks on its surface, suggesting that
some man had designed a new and curious scheme of decoration, but had
failed to realise his aims.
It was while Josephine and Pierce were examining these singular
impressions on the wall that Guy explained their origin.
“The fact is,” he said, “we played a billiard or two last night, and as
the tables hadn’t been used for five or six years, there was no chalk,
but Galmyn, not to be beat, hit upon the notion of rubbing the tips of
our cues against the plaster of the walls. The idea worked remarkably
well.”
“It was worthy of the imagination, of a poet,” said Pierce, feeling the
cushions of the table and laughing. “You must have had a joyous time
over this table,” he added. “The cushions are clearly made of chilled
steel.”
“They are a bit hard, aren’t they?” said Guy. “Yes, we found that they
hadn’t much spring left in them.”
“Spring?” cried Mr. Galmyn. “Spring? No, there’s more that suggests
winter than spring about them.”
“They’ll be all right when they are played on for some time,” said Guy.
“Oh, yes; in a year or two they’ll be like butter,” said Pierce
encouragingly. “Your light wasn’t particularly good I should say?”
He pointed to a splash of wax about the size of a crown piece on the
edge of one of the pockets.
“That chap is a regular Sherlock Holmes,” cried Guy. “He has found out
that we played by the light of candles last night.”
On the shelf of the mantelpiece stood a pair of silver candelabra with
remnants of candle still in the sockets, but a good bit out of the
upright. Splashes of wax decorated the path from the billiard-table to
the fireplace, suggesting the white stones alongside a carriage drive.
“Only one cue had a tip,” said Guy. “That made playing a bit tiresome:
you see we had to pass it on for every stroke. We had best go on to
the drawing-room. The ceiling is said to have been painted by Angelica
Kauffmann--whoever she was.”
“I never saw a painted ceiling that poor Miss Angel hadn’t something to
say to,” whispered Josephine as the party trooped through the open door.
It was as Lady Severn had said: the drawing-room stood sadly in need of
dusting.
So, for that matter, did every other room, to say nothing of the stairs
which were carpetless. The house was not quite a wreck; but one felt
oneself instinctively quoting lines from Tennyson’s “Mariana”
as one stood--it was scarcely safe to sit--in any of the rooms. There
were bald patches upon some of the walls that had some time--long
ago--been painted; but as a sort of compensation for this deficiency, as
a member of the party remarked when it was pointed out to him there were
several patches on the wall that were not bald but quite the contrary;
for indeed the mildew had been at work increasing the forlorn appearance
of the place.
But the new proprietor was very proud of everything--of the patches
on the wall that marked where the plaster had become dislodged--of the
hirsute patches that had been subject to the damp--of the bullet
marks that he considered the visible signs of the duel fought with
swords--nay, even of the rat that went scurrying across a room which
he called the library, the moment the door was opened. Oh, there were
plenty of rats, he declared--some fine fat healthy animals; he talked of
them as though they were part of the live stock of the estate.
And in the drawing-room, after a depressing ramble through the dreary
house, tea was served by a couple of elderly women (local) and it was
certainly not deficient in strength. Neither was the cake (local) nor
the china. Young Mr. Overton was already making a heroic attempt to
introduce a scheme of economy that should tend to lessen the dead weight
of the expense to which he had been put in purchasing the historic
house.
Some members of the party wished that he had gone a little further
in the same direction and had refrained from forcing his _recherché_
entertainment upon them. They swallowed a portion of the black tea,
however, and congratulating him upon the appearance of everything--for
any one who was fond of developing a property, as he assured them
he was, the state of the house and grounds left nothing to be
desired--wondered secretly why he should have asked them to visit such a
scene of desolation.
If Amber was among those who marvelled what his motive could be, her
doubts were dispelled when she found herself alone with him at one of
the drawingroom windows: the other members of the party had made their
escape to the field of grass called by a daring figure of speech, a
lawn; but she had allowed herself to be persuaded to sample, so to
speak, a view from a side window. She admitted that the silver of the
river gleaming between the yew hedges was very effective, and felt
convinced that it would be improved by a judicious trimming of the
shrubs.
“And you like the old place?” said he. “It has surprised you, hasn’t
it?”
“Surprised me?--well,--oh, yes, it certainly surprised me,” she replied.
“You are looking forward to a delightful time with it, are you not? I
suppose it wouldn’t have had the same attraction for you if it had been
in any better condition?”
“Amber,” he said in a whisper which had something of shyness lingering
in its tremulous emotion. “Amber, I lay it all at your feet.”
She allowed him to catch her hand--she was too puzzled to keep it from
him. Was this his way of saying good-bye, she wondered.
“I lay everything here at your feet; if you like it, it is all yours,”
he cried.
“Don’t be a goose, Guy,” she said snatching her hand away. “What on
earth would I do with such a place as this?”
“Come to it--be the chatelaine of my castle, reign here, Amber, as you
do in my heart. I got the place cheap; but I shall spend money on it--by
degrees--to make it worthy of your acceptance, Amber, my own--my----”
At this point a rat put in an appearance at the side of the door and
rushed out through the open window.
“Was it for this you asked me to come here?” cried Amber, bravely
ignoring what other girls might have regarded as a legitimate
interruption of the scene. “Yes, you asked me to come here in order to
make your absurd proposal to me. You should be ashamed of yourself,
when you knew so well that I thought of our friendship as wholly
disinterested. If I had, for one moment----”
“I thought you saw it coming,” said he hanging his head.
“What coming?”
“This.”
“You have given me a blow, Guy--I thought that you were a sincere
friend.”
“So I was--I am. But I can’t help loving you all the same. Great Queen
of Sheba, you don’t fancy that what you call Platonic friendship can go
on beyond a certain point. It’s all very well for a beginning; it makes
a good enough basis for a start--but, hang it all, you don’t think that
a chap with any self-respect would be content--when there’s a pretty
girl like you--the prettiest and the dearest girl that ever lived----
Who the mischief is bawling out there?”
“They are calling to me from the launch,” said Amber. “It is just as
well. Guy, I am not angry--only disappointed. You have disappointed me.
I thought that you at least--they are getting impatient. I must go.”
She hastened away to the open window and he followed her with a face of
melancholy so congenial with the prevailing note of the house that an
artist would have been delighted to include him in a picture of “The
Gables from the River.”
She ran through the long grass and reached the launch so breathless that
she could with difficulty explain that she had been watching a rat.
Every one in the boat knew that Guy had been asking her to marry him.
Chaps only have that hangdog expression, worn with some distinction
by Guy Overton, when they have been proposing to girls, the two-month
husband explained to his wife.
A girl only shakes hands with a man so cordially as Amber had shaken
hands with Guy, when she has just refused to marry him, Josephine knew.
And the boatman shifted the lever.