AN ARMISTICE
Lord Lynborough walked down to the edge of the terrace; Lady Norah stood
half hidden in the shrubbery.
“And that, I suppose, ought to end the matter?” he asked. “I ought at
once to abandon all my pretensions and to give up my path?”
“I just thought you might like to know it,” said Norah.
“Actually I believe I do like to know it--though what Roger would say to
me about that I really can’t imagine. You’re mistaking my character,
Lady Norah. I’m not the hero of this piece. There are several gentlemen
from among whom you can choose one for that effective part. Lots of
candidates for it! But I’m the villain. Consequently you must be
prepared for my receiving your news with devilish glee.”
“Well, you haven’t seen it--and I have.”
“Well put!” he allowed. “How did it happen?”
“Over something I said to her--something horrid.”
“Well, then, why am I----?” Lynborough’s hands expostulated eloquently.
“But you were the real reason, of course. She thinks you’ve turned us
all against her; she says it’s so mean to get her own friends to turn
against her.”
“Does she now?” asked Lord Lynborough with a thoughtful smile.
Norah too smiled faintly. “She says she’s not angry with us--she’s just
sorry for us--because she understands----”
“What?”
“I mean she says she--she can imagine----” Norah’s smile grew a little
more pronounced. “I’m not sure she’d like me to repeat that,” said
Norah. “And of course she doesn’t know I’m here at all--and you must
never tell her.”
“Of course it’s all my fault. Still, as a matter of curiosity, what did
you say to her?”
“I said that, if she had a good case, she ought to go to law; and, if
she hadn’t, she ought to stop making herself ridiculous and the rest of
us uncomfortable.”
“You spoke with the general assent of the company?”
“I said what I thought--yes, I think they all agreed--but she took
it--well, in the way I’ve told you, you know.”
Lady Norah had, in the course of conversation, insensibly advanced on to
the terrace. She stood there now beside Lynborough.
“How do you think I’m taking it?” he asked. “Doesn’t my fortitude wring
applause from you?”
“Taking what?”
“Exactly the same thing from my friends. They tell me to go to law if
I’ve got a case--and at any rate to stop persecuting a lady. And they’ve
both given me warning.”
“Mr Stabb and Mr Wilbraham? They’re going away?”
“So it appears. Carry back those tidings. Won’t they dry the Marchesa’s
tears?”
Norah looked at him with a smile. “Well, it is pretty clever of her,
isn’t it?” she said. “I didn’t think she’d got along as quickly as
that!” Norah’s voice was full of an honest and undisguised admiration.
“It’s a little unreasonable of her to cry under the circumstances. I’m
not crying, Lady Norah.”
“I expect you’re rather disgusted, though, aren’t you?” she suggested.
“I’m a little vexed at having to surrender--for the moment--a principle
which I’ve held dear--at having to give my enemies an occasion for
mockery. But I must bow to my friends’ wishes. I can’t lose them under
such painful circumstances. No, I must yield, Lady Norah.”
“You’re going to give up the path?” she cried, not sure whether she were
pleased or not with his determination.
“Dear me, no! I’m going to law about it.”
Open dismay was betrayed in her exclamation: “Oh, but what will Mr
Stillford say to that?”
Lynborough laughed. Norah saw her mistake--but she made no attempt to
remedy it. She took up another line of tactics. “It would all come right
if only you knew one another! She’s the most wonderful woman in the
world, Lord Lynborough. And you----”
“Well, what of me?” he asked in deceitful gravity.
Norah parried, with a hasty little laugh; “Just ask Miss Gilletson
that!”
Lynborough smiled for a moment, then took a turn along the terrace, and
came back to her.
“You must tell her that you’ve seen me----”
“I couldn’t do that!”
“You must--or here the matter ends, and I shall be forced to go to
law--ugh! Tell her you’ve seen me, and that I’m open to reason----”
“Lord Lynborough! How can I tell her that?”
“That I’m open to reason, and that I propose an armistice. Not
peace--not yet, anyhow--but an armistice. I undertake not to exercise my
right over Beach Path for a week from to-day, and before the end of that
week I will submit a proposal to the Marchesa.”
Norah saw a gleam of hope. “Very well. I don’t know what she’ll say to
me, but I’ll tell her that. Thank you. You’ll make it a--a pleasant
proposal?”
“I haven’t had time to consider the proposal yet. She must inform me
to-morrow morning whether she accepts the armistice.” He suddenly turned
to the house, and shouted up to a window above his head, “Roger!”
The window was open. Roger Wilbraham put his head out.
“Come down,” said Lynborough. “Here’s somebody wants to see you.”
“I never said I did, Lord Lynborough.”
“Let him take you home. He wants cheering up.”
“I like him very much. He won’t really leave you, will he?”
“I want you to persuade him to stay during the armistice. I’m too proud
to ask him for myself. I shall think very little of you, however, if he
doesn’t.”
Roger appeared. Lynborough told him that Lady Norah required an escort
back to Nab Grange; for obvious reasons he himself was obliged to
relinquish the pleasure; Roger, he felt sure, would be charmed to take
his place. Roger was somewhat puzzled by the turn of events, but
delighted with his mission.
Lynborough saw them off, went into the library, sat down at his
writing-table, and laid paper before him. But he sat idle for many
minutes. Stabb came in, his arms full of books.
“I think I left some of my stuff here,” he said, avoiding Lynborough’s
eye. “I’m just getting it together.”
“Drop that lot too. You’re not going to-morrow. Cromlech, there’s an
armistice.”
Stabb put his books down on the table, and came up to him with
outstretched hand. Lynborough leant back, his hands clasped behind his
head.
“Wait for a week,” he said. “We may, Cromlech, arrive at an
accommodation. Meanwhile, for that week, I do not use the path.”
“I’ve been feeling pretty badly, Ambrose.”
“Yes, I don’t think it’s safe to expose you to the charms of beauty.” He
looked at his friend in good-natured mockery. “Return to your tombs in
peace.”
The next morning he received a communication from Nab Grange. It ran as
follows:--
“The Marchesa di San Servolo presents her compliments to Lord
Lynborough. The Marchesa will be prepared to consider any proposal put
forward by Lord Lynborough, and will place no hindrance in the way of
Lord Lynborough’s using the path across her property if it suits his
convenience to do so in the meantime.”
“No, no!” said Lynborough, as he took a sheet of paper.
“Lord Lynborough presents his compliments to her Excellency the Marchesa
di San Servolo. Lord Lynborough will take an early opportunity of
submitting his proposal to the Marchesa di San Servolo. He is obliged
for the Marchesa di San Servolo’s suggestion that he should in the
meantime use Beach Path, but cannot consent to do so except in the
exercise of his right. He will therefore not use Beach Path during the
ensuing week.”
“And now to pave the way for my proposal!” he thought. For the proposal,
which had assumed a position so important in the relations between the
Marchesa and himself, was to be of such a nature that a grave question
arose how best the way should be paved for it.
The obvious course was to set his spies to work--he could command plenty
of friendly help among the Nab Grange garrison--learn the Marchesa’s
probable movements, throw himself in her way, contrive an acquaintance,
make himself as pleasant as he could, establish relations of amity, of
cordiality, even of friendship and of intimacy. That might prepare the
way, and incline her to accept the proposal--to take the jest--it was
little more in hard reality--in the spirit in which he put it forward,
and so to end her resistance.
That seemed the reasonable method--the plain and rational line of
advance. Accordingly Lynborough disliked and distrusted it. He saw
another way--more full of risk, more hazardous in its result, making an
even greater demand on his confidence in himself, perhaps also on the
qualities with which his imagination credited the Marchesa. But, on the
other hand, this alternative was far richer in surprise, in dash--as it
seemed to him, in gallantry and a touch of romance. It was far more
mediæval, more picturesque, more in keeping with the actual proposal
itself. For the actual proposal was one which, Lynborough flattered
himself, might well have come from a powerful yet chivalrous baron of
old days to a beautiful queen who claimed a suzerainty which not her
power, but only her beauty, could command or enforce.
“It suits my humour, and I’ll do it!” he said. “She sha’n’t see me, and
I won’t see her. The first she shall hear from me shall be the proposal;
the first time we meet shall be on the twenty-fourth--or never! A week
from to-day--the twenty-fourth.”
Now the twenty-fourth of June is, as all the world knows (or an almanac
will inform the heathen), the Feast of St John Baptist, also called
Midsummer Day.
So he disappeared from the view of Nab Grange and the inhabitants
thereof. He never left his own grounds; even within them he shunned the
public road; his beloved sea-bathing he abandoned. Nay, more, he
strictly charged Roger Wilbraham, who often during this week of
armistice went to play golf or tennis at the Grange, to say nothing of
him; the same instructions were laid on Stabb in case, on his excursions
amidst the tombs, he should meet any member of the Marchesa’s party. So
far as the thing could be done, Lord Lynborough obliterated himself.
It was playing a high stake on a risky hand. Plainly it assumed an
interest in himself on the part of the Marchesa--an interest so strong
that absence and mystery (if perchance he achieved a flavour of that
attraction!) would foster and nourish it more than presence and
friendship could conduce to its increase. She might think nothing about
him during the week! Impossible surely--with all that had gone before,
and with his proposal to come at the end! But if it were so--why, so he
was content. “In that case, she’s a woman of no imagination, of no taste
in the picturesque,” he said.
For five days the Marchesa gave no sign, no clue to her feelings which
the anxious watchers could detect. She did indeed suffer Colonel Wenman
to depart all forlorn, most unsuccessful and uncomforted--save by the
company of his brother-in-arms, Captain Irons; and he was not cheerful
either, having failed notably in certain designs on Miss Dufaure which
he had been pursuing, but whereunto more pressing matters have not
allowed of attention being given. But Lord Lynborough she never
mentioned--not to Miss Gilletson, nor even to Norah. She seemed to have
regained her tranquillity; her wrath at least was over; she was very
friendly to all the ladies; she was markedly cordial to Roger Wilbraham
on his visits. But she asked him nothing of Lord Lynborough--and, if she
ever looked from the window towards Scarsmoor Castle, none--not even her
observant maid--saw her do it.
Yet Cupid was in the Grange--and very busy. There were signs, not to be
misunderstood, that Violet had not for handsome Stillford the scorn she
had bestowed on unfortunate Irons; and Roger, humbly and distantly
worshipping the Marchesa, deeming her far as a queen beyond his reach,
rested his eyes and solaced his spirit with the less awe-inspiring
charms, the more accessible comradeship, of Norah Mountliffey. Norah, as
her custom was, flirted hard, yet in her delicate fashion. Though she
had not begun to ask herself about the end yet, she was well amused, and
by no means insensible to Roger’s attractions. Only she was preoccupied
with Helena--and Lord Lynborough. Till that riddle was solved, she could
not turn seriously to her own affairs.
On the night of the twenty-second she walked with the Marchesa in the
gardens of the Grange after dinner. Helena was very silent; yet to Norah
the silence did not seem empty. Over against them, on its high hill,
stood Scarsmoor Castle. Roger had dined with them, but had now gone
back.
Suddenly--and boldly--Norah spoke. “Do you see those three lighted
windows on the ground floor at the left end of the house? That’s his
library, Helena. He sits there in the evening. Oh, I do wonder what he’s
been doing all this week!”
“What does it matter?” asked the Marchesa coldly.
“What will he propose, do you think?”
“Mr Stillford thinks he may offer to pay me some small rent--more or
less nominal--for a perpetual right--and that, if he does, I’d better
accept.”
“That’ll be rather a dull ending to it all.”
“Mr Stillford thinks it would be a favourable one for me.”
“I don’t believe he means to pay you money. It’ll be something”--she
paused a moment--“something prettier than that.”
“What has prettiness to do with it, you child? With a right of way?”
“Prettiness has to do with you, though, Helena. You don’t suppose he
thinks only of that wretched path?”
The flush came on the Marchesa’s cheek.
“He can hardly be said to have seen me,” she protested.
“Then look your best when he does--for I’m sure he’s dreamt of you.”
“Why do you say that?”
Norah laughed. “Because he’s a man who takes a lot of notice of pretty
women--and he took so very little notice of me. That’s why I think so,
Helena.”
The Marchesa made no comment on the reason given. But now--at last and
undoubtedly--she looked across at the windows of Scarsmoor.
“We shall come to some business arrangement, I suppose--and then it’ll
all be over,” she said.
All over? The trouble and the enmity--the defiance and the fight--the
excitement and the fun? The duel would be stayed, the combatants and
their seconds would go their various ways across the diverging tracks of
this great dissevering world. All would be over!
“Then we shall have time to think of something else!” the Marchesa
added.
Norah smiled discreetly. Was not that something of an admission?
In the library at Scarsmoor Lynborough was inditing the proposal which
he intended to submit by his ambassadors on the morrow.