LARGELY TOPOGRAPHICAL
Miss Gilletson had been studying the local paper, which appeared every
Saturday and reached Nab Grange on the following morning. She uttered an
exclamation, looked up from her small breakfast-table, and called over
to the Marchesa’s small breakfast-table.
“Helena, I see that Lord Lynborough arrived at the Castle on Friday!”
“Did he, Jennie?” returned the Marchesa, with no show of interest. “Have
an egg, Colonel?” The latter words were addressed to her companion at
table, Colonel Wenman, a handsome but bald-headed man of about forty.
“‘Lord Lynborough, accompanied by his friend Mr Leonard Stabb, the
well-known authority on prehistoric remains, and Mr Roger Wilbraham, his
private secretary. His lordship’s household had preceded him to the
Castle.’”
Lady Norah Mountliffey--who sat with Miss Gilletson--was in the habit of
saying what she thought. What she said now was: “Thank goodness!” and
she said it rather loudly.
“You gentlemen haven’t been amusing Norah,” observed the Marchesa to the
Colonel.
“I hoped that I, at least, was engaged on another task--though, alas, a
harder one!” he answered in a low tone and with a glance of respectful
homage.
“If you refer to me, you’ve been admirably successful,” the Marchesa
assured him graciously--only with the graciousness there mingled that
touch of mockery which always made the Colonel rather ill at ease.
“Amuse” is, moreover, a word rich in shades of meaning.
Miss Gilletson was frowning thoughtfully. “Helena can’t call on
him--and I don’t suppose he’ll call on her,” she said to Norah.
“He’ll get to know her if he wants to.”
“I might call on him,” suggested the Colonel. “He was in the service,
you know, and that--er--makes a bond. Queer fellow he was, by Jove!”
Captain Irons and Mr Stillford came in from riding, late for breakfast.
They completed the party at table, for Violet Dufaure always took the
first meal of the day in bed. Irons was a fine young man, still in the
twenties, very fair and very bronzed. He had seen fighting and was great
at polo. Stillford, though a man of peace (if a solicitor may so be
called), was by no means inferior in physique. A cadet of a good county
family, he was noted in the hunting field and as a long-distance
swimmer. He had come to Nab Grange to confer with the Marchesa on her
affairs, but, proving himself an acquisition to the party, had been
pressed to stay on as a guest.
The men began to bandy stories of Lynborough from one table to the
other. Wenman knew the London gossip, Stillford the local traditions:
but neither had seen the hero of their tales for many years. The
anecdotes delighted Norah Mountliffey, and caused Miss Gilletson’s hands
to fly up in horror. Nevertheless it was Miss Gilletson who said,
“Perhaps we shall see him at church to-day.”
“Not likely!” Stillford opined. “And--er--is anybody going?”
The pause which habitually follows this question ensued upon it now.
Neither the Marchesa nor Lady Norah would go--they were both of the Old
Church. Miss Dufaure was unlikely to go, by reason of fatigue. Miss
Gilletson would, of course, go, so would Colonel Wenman--but that was so
well known that they didn’t speak.
“Any ladies with Lynborough’s party, I wonder!” Captain Irons hazarded.
“I think I’ll go! Stillford, you ought to go to church--family
solicitor and all that, eh?”
A message suddenly arrived from Miss Dufaure, to say that she felt
better and proposed to attend church--could she be sent?
“The carriage is going anyhow,” said Miss Gilletson a trifle stiffly.
“Yes, I suppose I ought,” Stillford agreed. “We’ll drive there and walk
back?”
“Right you are!” said the Captain.
By following the party from Nab Grange to Fillby parish church, a
partial idea of the locality would be gained; but perhaps it is better
to face the complete task at once. Idle tales suit idle readers; a
history such as this may legitimately demand from those who study it
some degree of mental application.
If, then, the traveller lands from the North Sea (which is the only sea
he can land from) he will find himself on a sandy beach, dipping rapidly
to deep water and well adapted for bathing. As he stands facing inland,
the sands stretch in a long line southerly on his left; on his right
rises the bold bluff of Sandy Nab with its swelling outline, its
grass-covered dunes, and its sparse firs; directly in front of him,
abutting on the beach, is the high wall enclosing the Grange property; a
gate in the middle gives access to the grounds. The Grange faces south,
and lies in the shelter of Sandy Nab. In front of it are
pleasure-grounds, then a sunk fence, then spacious meadow-lands. The
property is about a mile and a half (rather more than less) in length,
to half-a-mile in breadth. Besides the Grange there is a small
farmhouse, or bailiff’s house, in the south-west corner of the estate.
On the north the boundary consists of moorlands, to the east (as has
been seen) of the beach, to the west and south of a public road. At the
end of the Grange walls this road turns to the right, inland, and passes
by Fillby village; it then develops into the highroad to Easthorpe with
its market, shops, and station, ten miles away. Instead, however, of
pursuing this longer route, the traveller from the Grange grounds may
reach Fillby and Easthorpe sooner by crossing the road on the west, and
traversing the Scarsmoor Castle property, across which runs a broad
carriage road, open to the public. He will first--after entering Lord
Lynborough’s gates--pass over a bridge which spans a little river, often
nearly dry, but liable to be suddenly flooded by a rainfall in the
hills. Thus he enters a beautiful demesne, rich in wood and undergrowth,
in hill and valley, in pleasant rides and winding drives. The Castle
itself--an ancient grey building, square and massive, stands on an
eminence in the north-west extremity of the property; the ground drops
rapidly in front of it, and it commands a view of Nab Grange and the sea
beyond, being in its turn easily visible from either of these points.
The road above mentioned, on leaving Lynborough’s park, runs across the
moors in a south-westerly line to Fillby, a little village of some three
hundred souls. All around and behind this, stretching to Easthorpe, are
great rolling moors, rich in beauty as in opportunities for sport, yet
cutting off the little settlement of village, Castle, and Grange from
the outer world by an isolation more complete than the mere distance
would in these days seem to entail. The church, two or three little
shops, and one policeman, sum up Fillby’s resources: anything more, for
soul’s comfort, for body’s supply or protection, must come across the
moors from Easthorpe.
One point remains--reserved to the end by reason of its importance. A
gate has been mentioned as opening on to the beach from the grounds of
Nab Grange. He who enters at that gate and makes for the Grange follows
the path for about two hundred yards in a straight line, and then takes
a curving turn to the right, which in time brings him to the front door
of the house. But the path goes on--growing indeed narrower, ultimately
becoming a mere grass-grown track, yet persisting quite plain to
see--straight across the meadows, about a hundred yards beyond the sunk
fence which bounds the Grange gardens, and in full view from the Grange
windows; and it desists not from its course till it reaches the rough
stone wall which divides the Grange estate from the highroad on the
west. This wall it reaches at a point directly opposite to the Scarsmoor
lodge; in the wall there is a gate, through which the traveller must
pass to gain the road.
There is a gate--and there had always been a gate; that much at least is
undisputed. It will, of course, be obvious that if the residents at the
Castle desired to reach the beach for the purpose of bathing or other
diversions, and proposed to go on their feet, incomparably their best,
shortest, and most convenient access thereto lay through this gate and
along the path which crossed the Grange property and issued through the
Grange gate on to the seashore. To go round by the road would take at
least three times as long. Now the season was the month of June; Lord
Lynborough was a man tenacious of his rights--and uncommonly fond of
bathing.
On the other hand, it might well be that the Marchesa di San
Servolo--the present owner of Nab Grange--would prefer that strangers
should not pass across her property, in full view and hail of her
windows, without her permission and consent. That this, indeed, was the
lady’s attitude might be gathered from the fact that, on this Sunday
morning in June, Captain Irons and Mr Stillford, walking back through
the Scarsmoor grounds from Fillby church as they had proposed, found the
gate leading from the road into the Grange meadows securely padlocked.
Having ignored this possibility, they had to climb, incidentally
displacing, but carefully replacing, a number of prickly furze branches
which the zeal of the Marchesa’s bailiff had arranged along the top rail
of the gate.
“Boys been coming in?” asked Irons.
“It may be that,” said Stillford, smiling as he arranged the prickly
defences to the best advantage.
The Grange expedition to church had to confess to having seen nothing of
the Castle party--and in so far it was dubbed a failure. There was
indeed a decorous row of servants in the household seat, but the square
oaken pew in the chancel, with its brass rods and red curtains in front,
and its fireplace at the back, stood empty. The two men reported having
met, as they walked home through Scarsmoor, a very large fat man with a
face which they described variously, one likening it to the sinking sun
on a misty day, the other to a copper saucepan.
“Not Lord Lynborough, I do trust!” shuddered little Violet Dufaure. She
and Miss Gilletson had driven home by the road, regaining the Grange by
the south gate and the main drive.
Stillford was by the Marchesa. He spoke to her softly, covered by the
general conversation. “You might have told us to take a key!” he said
reproachfully. “That gorse is very dangerous to a man’s Sunday clothes.”
“It looks--businesslike, doesn’t it?” she smiled.
“Oh, uncommon! When did you have it done?”
“The day before yesterday. I wanted there to be no mistake from the very
first. That’s the best way to prevent any unpleasantness.”
“Possibly.” Stillford sounded doubtful. “Going to have a notice-board,
Marchesa?”
“He will hardly make that necessary, will he?”
“Well, I told you that in my judgment your right to shut it against him
is very doubtful.”
“You told me a lot of things I didn’t understand,” she retorted rather
pettishly.
He shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. No good lay in anticipating
trouble. Lord Lynborough might take no notice.
In the afternoon the Marchesa’s guests played golf on a rather makeshift
nine-hole course laid out in the meadows. Miss Gilletson slept. The
Marchesa herself mounted the top of Sandy Nab, and reviewed her
situation. The Colonel would doubtless have liked to accompany her, but
he was not thereto invited.
Helena Vittoria Maria Antonia, Marchesa di San Servolo, was now in her
twenty-fourth year. Born of an Italian father and an English mother, she
had bestowed her hand on her paternal country, but her heart remained in
her mother’s. The Marchese took her as his second wife and his last
pecuniary resource; in both capacities she soothed his declining years.
Happily for her--and not unhappily for the world at large--these were
few. He had not time to absorb her youth or to spend more than a small
portion of her inheritance. She was left a widow--stepmother of adult
Italian offspring--owner for life of an Apennine fortress. She liked the
fortress much, but disliked the stepchildren (the youngest was of her
own age) more. England--her mother’s home--presented itself in the light
of a refuge. In short, she had grave doubts about ever returning to
Italy.
Nab Grange was in the market. Ancestrally a possession of the Caverlys
(for centuries a noble but unennobled family in those parts), it had
served for the family’s dower house, till a bad race-meeting had induced
the squire of the day to sell it to a Mr Cross of Leeds. The Crosses
held it for seventy years. Then the executors of the last Cross sold it
to the Marchesa. This final transaction happened a year before
Lynborough came home. The “Beach Path” had, as above recorded, been
closed only for two days.
The path was not just now in the Marchesa’s thoughts. Nothing very
definite was. Rather, as her eyes ranged from moor to sea, from the
splendid uniformity of the unclouded sky to the ravishing variety of
many-tinted earth, from the green of the Grange meadows (the one spot
of rich emerald on the near coastline, owing its hues to Sandy Nab’s
kindly shelter) to the grey mass of Scarsmoor Castle--there was in her
heart that great mixture of content and longing that youth and--(what
put bluntly amounts to)--a fine day are apt to raise. And youth allied
with beauty becomes self-assertive, a claimant against the world, a
plaintiff against facts before High Heaven’s tribunal. The Marchesa was
infinitely delighted with Nab Grange--graciously content with
Nature--not ill-pleased with herself--but, in fine, somewhat
discontented with her company. That was herself? Not precisely, though,
at the moment, objectively. She was wondering whether her house party
was all that her youth and her beauty--to say nothing of her past
endurance of the Marchesa--entitled her to claim and to enjoy.
Then suddenly across her vision, cutting the skyline, seeming to divide
for a moment heaven above from earth beneath, passed a tall meagre
figure, and a head of lines clean as if etched by a master’s needle. The
profile stood as carved in fine ivory; glints of colour flashed from
hair and beard. The man softly sang a love song as he walked--but he
never looked towards the Marchesa.
She sat up suddenly. “Could that be Lord Lynborough?” she thought--and
smiled.