THE MESSAGE OF A PADLOCK
“Lord Lynborough presents his compliments to her Excellency the
Marchesa di San Servolo. Lord Lynborough has learnt, with surprise
and regret, that his servants have within the last two days been
warned off Beach Path, and that a padlock and other obstacles have
been placed on the gate leading to the path, by her Excellency’s
orders. Lord Lynborough and his predecessors have enjoyed the use
of this path by themselves, their agents, and servants, for many
years back--certainly for fifty, as Lord Lynborough knows from his
father and from old servants, and Lord Lynborough is not disposed
to acquiesce in any obstruction being raised to his continued use
of it. He must therefore request her Excellency to have the
kindness to order that the padlock and other obstacles shall be
removed, and he will be obliged by this being done before eight
o’clock to-morrow morning--at which time Lord Lynborough intends to
proceed by Beach Path to the sea in order to bathe. Scarsmoor
Castle; 13th June.”
The reception of this letter proved an agreeable incident of an
otherwise rather dull Sunday evening at Nab Grange. The Marchesa had
been bored; the Colonel was sulky. Miss Gilletson had forbidden cards;
her conscience would not allow herself, nor her feelings of envy permit
other people, to play on the Sabbath. Lady Norah and Violet Dufaure were
somewhat at cross-purposes, each preferring to talk to Stillford and
endeavouring, under a false show of amity, to foist Captain Irons on to
the other.
“Listen to this!” cried the Marchesa vivaciously. She read it out. “He
doesn’t beat about the bush, does he? I’m to surrender before eight
o’clock to-morrow morning!”
“Sounds rather a peremptory sort of a chap!” observed Colonel Wenman.
“I,” remarked Lady Norah, “shouldn’t so much as answer him, Helena.”
“I shall certainly answer him and tell him that he’ll trespass on my
property at his peril,” said the Marchesa haughtily. “Isn’t that the
right way to put it, Mr Stillford?”
“If it would be a trespass, that might be one way to put it,” was
Stillford’s professionally cautious advice. “But as I ventured to tell
you when you determined to put on the padlock, the rights in the matter
are not quite as clear as we could wish.”
“When I bought this place, I bought a private estate--a private estate,
Mr Stillford--for myself--not a short cut for Lord Lynborough! Am I to
put up a notice for him, ‘This Way to the Bathing Machines’?”
“I wouldn’t stand it for a moment.” Captain Irons sounded bellicose.
Violet Dufaure was amicably inclined.
“You might give him leave to walk through. It would be a bore for him to
go round by the road every time.”
“Certainly I might give him leave if he asked for it,” retorted the
Marchesa rather sharply. “But he doesn’t. He orders me to open my
gate--and tells me he means to bathe! As if I cared whether he bathed or
not! What is it to me, I ask you, Violet, whether the man bathes or
not?”
“I beg your pardon, Marchesa, but aren’t you getting a little off the
point?” Stillford intervened deferentially.
“No, I’m not. I never get off the point, Mr Stillford. Do I, Colonel
Wenman?”
“I’ve never known you to do it in my life, Marchesa.” There was, in
fact, as Lynborough had ventured to anticipate, a flush on the
Marchesa’s cheek, and the Colonel knew his place.
“There, Mr Stillford!” she cried triumphantly. Then she swept--the
expression is really applicable--across the room to her writing-table.
“I shall be courteous, but quite decisive,” she announced over her
shoulder as she sat down.
Stillford stood by the fire, smiling doubtfully. Evidently it was no use
trying to stop the Marchesa; she had insisted on locking the gate, and
she would persist in keeping it locked till she was forced, by process
of law or otherwise, to open it again. But if the Lords of Scarsmoor
Castle really had used it without interruption for fifty years (as Lord
Lynborough asserted)--well, the Marchesa’s rights were at least in a
precarious position.
The Marchesa came back with her letter in her hand. “‘The Marchesa di
San Servolo,’” she read out to an admiring audience, “‘presents her
compliments to Lord Lynborough. The Marchesa has no intention of
removing the padlock and other obstacles which have been placed on the
gate to prevent trespassing--either by Lord Lynborough or by anybody
else. The Marchesa is not concerned to know Lord Lynborough’s plans in
regard to bathing or otherwise. Nab Grange; 13th June.’”
The Marchesa looked round on her friends with a satisfied air.
“I call that good,” she remarked. “Don’t you, Norah?”
“I don’t like the last sentence.”
“Oh yes! Why, that’ll make him angrier than anything else! Please ring
the bell for me, Mr Stillford; it’s just behind you.”
The butler came back.
“Who brought Lord Lynborough’s letter?” asked the Marchesa.
“I don’t know who it is, your Excellency--one of the upper servants at
the Castle, I think.”
“How did he come to the house?”
“By the drive--from the south gate--I believe, your Excellency.”
“I’m glad of that,” she declared, looking positively dangerous. “Tell
him to go back the same way, and not by the--by what Lord Lynborough
chooses to call ‘Beach Path.’ Here’s a letter for him to take.”
“Very good, your Excellency.” The butler received the letter and
withdrew.
“Yes,” said Lady Norah, “rather funny he should call it Beach Path,
isn’t it?”
“I don’t know whether it’s funny or not, Norah, but I do know that I
don’t care what he calls it. He may call it Piccadilly if he likes, but
it’s my path all the same.” As she spoke she looked, somewhat defiantly,
at Mr Stillford.
Violet Dufaure, whose delicate frame held an indomitable and indeed
pugnacious spirit, appealed to Stillford; “Can’t Helena have him taken
up if he trespasses?”
“Well, hardly, Miss Dufaure. The remedy would lie in the civil courts.”
“Shall I bring an action against him? Is that it? Is that right?” cried
the Marchesa.
“That’s the ticket, eh, Stillford?” asked the Colonel.
Stillford’s position was difficult; he had the greatest doubt about his
client’s case.
“Suppose you leave him to bring the action?” he suggested. “When he
does, we can fully consider our position.”
“But if he insists on using the path to-morrow?”
“He’ll hardly do that,” Stillford persuaded her. “You’ll probably get a
letter from him, asking for the name of your solicitor. You will give
him my name; I shall obtain the name of his solicitor, and we shall
settle it between us--amicably, I hope, but in any case without further
personal trouble to you, Marchesa.”
“Oh!” said the Marchesa blankly. “That’s how it will be, will it?”
“That’s the usual course--the proper way of doing the thing.”
“It may be proper; it sounds very dull, Mr Stillford. What if he does
try to use the path to-morrow--‘in order to bathe’ as he’s good enough
to tell me?”
“If you’re right about the path, then you’ve the right to stop him,”
Stillford answered rather reluctantly. “If you do stop him, that, of
course, raises the question in a concrete form. You will offer a formal
resistance. He will make a formal protest. Then the lawyers step in.”
“We always end with the lawyers--and my lawyer doesn’t seem sure I’m
right!”
“Well, I’m not sure,” said Stillford bluntly. “It’s impossible to be
sure at this stage of the case.”
“For all I see, he may use my path to-morrow!” The Marchesa was
justifying her boast that she could stick to a point.
“Now that you’ve lodged your objection, that won’t matter much legally.”
“It will annoy me intensely,” the Marchesa complained.
“Then we’ll stop him,” declared Colonel Wenman valorously.
“Politely--but firmly,” added Captain Irons.
“And what do you say, Mr Stillford?”
“I’ll go with these fellows anyhow--and see that they don’t overstep the
law. No more than the strictly necessary force, Colonel!”
“I begin to think that the law is rather stupid,” said the Marchesa. She
thought it stupid; Lynborough held it iniquitous; the law was at a
discount, and its majesty little reverenced, that night.
Ultimately, however, Stillford persuaded the angry lady to--as he
tactfully put it--give Lynborough a chance. “See what he does first. If
he crosses the path now, after warning, your case is clear. Write to him
again then, and tell him that, if he persists in trespassing, your
servants have orders to interfere.”
“That lets him bathe to-morrow!” Once more the Marchesa returned to her
point--a very sore one.
“Just for once, it really doesn’t matter!” Stillford urged.
Reluctantly she acquiesced; the others were rather relieved--not because
they objected to a fight, but because eight in the morning was rather
early to start one. Breakfast at the Grange was at nine-thirty, and,
though the men generally went down for a dip, they went much later than
Lord Lynborough proposed to go.
“He shall have one chance of withdrawing gracefully,” the Marchesa
finally decided.
Stillford was unfeignedly glad to hear her say so; he had, from a
professional point of view, no desire for a conflict. Inquiries which
he had made in Fillby--both from men in Scarsmoor Castle employ and from
independent persons--had convinced him that Lynborough’s case was
strong. For many years--through the time of two Lynboroughs before the
present at Scarsmoor, and through the time of three Crosses (the
predecessors of the Marchesa) at Nab Grange, Scarsmoor Castle had
without doubt asserted this dominant right over Nab Grange. It had been
claimed and exercised openly--and, so far as he could discover, without
protest or opposition. The period, as he reckoned it, would prove to be
long enough to satisfy the law as to prescription; it was very unlikely
that any document existed--or anyhow could be found--which would serve
to explain away the presumption which user such as this gave. In fine,
the Marchesa’s legal adviser was of opinion that in a legal fight the
Marchesa would be beaten. His own hope lay in compromise; if friendly
relations could be established, there would be a chance of a compromise.
He was sure that the Marchesa would readily grant as a favour--and would
possibly give in return for a nominal payment--all that Lynborough
asked. That would be the best way out of the difficulty. “Let us
temporise, and be conciliatory,” thought the man of law.
Alas, neither conciliation nor dilatoriness was in Lord Lynborough’s
line! He read the Marchesa’s letter with appreciation and pleasure. He
admired the curtness of its intimation, and the lofty haughtiness with
which the writer dismissed the subject of his bathing. But he treated
the document--it cannot be said that he did wrong--as a plain defiance.
It appeared to him that no further declaration of war was necessary; he
was not concerned to consider evidence nor to weigh his case, as
Stillford wanted to consider the Marchesa’s evidence and to weigh her
case. This for two reasons: first, because he was entirely sure that he
was right; secondly, because he had no intention of bringing the
question to trial. Lynborough knew but one tribunal; he had pointed out
its local habitation to Roger Wilbraham.
Accordingly it fell out that conciliatory counsels and Fabian tactics at
Nab Grange received a very severe--perhaps indeed a fatal--shock the
next morning.
At about nine o’clock the Marchesa was sitting in her dressing-gown by
the open window, reading her correspondence and sipping an early cup of
tea--she had become quite English in her habits. Her maid re-entered the
room, carrying in her hand a small parcel. “For your Excellency,” she
said. “A man has just left it at the door.” She put the parcel down on
the marble top of the dressing-table.
“What is it?” asked the Marchesa indolently.
“I don’t know, your Excellency. It’s hard, and very heavy for its size.”
Laying down the letter which she had been perusing, the Marchesa took up
the parcel and cut the string which bound it. With a metallic clink
there fell on her dressing-table--a padlock! To it was fastened a piece
of paper, bearing these words: “Padlock found attached to gate leading
to Beach Path. Detached by order of Lord Lynborough. With Lord
Lynborough’s compliments.”
Now, too, Lynborough might have got his flush--if he could have been
there to see it!
“Bring me my field-glasses!” she cried.
The window commanded a view of the gardens, of the meadows beyond the
sunk fence, of the path--Beach Path as that man was pleased to call
it!--and of the gate. At the last-named object the enraged Marchesa
directed her gaze. The barricade of furze branches was gone! The gate
hung open upon its hinges!
While she still looked, three figures came across the lens. A very large
stout shape--a short spare form--a tall, lithe, very lean figure. They
were just reaching the gate, coming from the direction of the sea. The
two first were strangers to her; the third she had seen for a moment
the afternoon before on Sandy Nab. It was Lynborough himself, beyond a
doubt. The others must be friends--she cared not about them. But to sit
here with the padlock before her, and see Lynborough pass through the
gate--a meeker woman than she had surely been moved to wrath! He had
bathed--as he had said he would. And he had sent her the padlock. That
was what came of listening to conciliatory counsels, of letting herself
give ear to dilatory persuasions!
“War!” declared the Marchesa. “War--war--war! And if he’s not careful, I
won’t confine it to the path either!” She seemed to dream of conquests,
perhaps to reckon resources, whereof Mr Stillford, her legal adviser,
had taken no account.
She carried the padlock down to breakfast with her; it was to her as a
Fiery Cross; it summoned her and her array to battle. She exhibited it
to her guests.
“Now, gentlemen, I’m in your hands!” said she. “Is that man to walk over
my property for his miserable bathing to-morrow?”
He would have been a bold man who, at that moment, would have answered
her with a “Yes.”