“Why not cut it down?” Mrs. Slinker asked, from the deep window seat in
the hall. She had been riding, and had come straight to her favourite
post, from which she could see the old pele tower of Dockerneuk through
the cloud of wood.
“Why not cut it down?” she said again, and she lifted a gauntlet and
shook it vindictively at some unconscious object without. “Horrid,
grewly old thing, standing there gloating over the misfortunes of the
house! It shouldn’t stop another day if I had the ordering of things.
Why don’t you get rid of it?”
Christian, standing behind her, shrugged his shoulders as she glared at
the huge cedar, centuries old, standing alone in its patch of emerald
lawn, as if the hand of a witch had ringed a curse round it.
“Swank, I suppose!” he said, smiling. “I can’t think of any other
particular reason. Only I can’t fancy myself setting out, on my own
responsibility, to grub up the family fate. Perhaps, if I spoke the
truth, I should say I was afraid! I hardly know.”
She turned and looked up at him.
“You don’t honestly believe that because, hundreds of years ago, one
of your ancestors hanged another on that horrid old object, no Lyndesay
of Crump will be allowed to die a natural death as long as the tree
stands in its place? Laker, you’re a cuckoo!”
“I don’t doubt it! Nevertheless, the fact remains that no Crump owner
has ever died peacefully of senile old age. We go out fighting,
hunting, shooting--moving, anyhow--always rebelling, never acquiescing;
and generally in pretty good time. We do not die as most other men die.”
“_That’s_ swank, if you like!” she answered him teasingly, and he
coloured hotly, biting his lip. “No! Don’t curl up. There never
was anybody less side-y than you, Christian. But you’ve got the
family-feel very strong. It showed in Slinker, too, at times,
though you never believed it was there. _He_ said things like that,
occasionally--generally when he had had too much to drink.”
His face clouded a little, and she turned squarely upon him.
“Look here, Laker, you’ve got to learn to bear it! I’m not your sort,
and I never shall be; and if I’m to go on living here for the present,
as you say you wish, you must get accustomed to my way of talking,
and the things I may shoot out at any moment, even if they do drive
the footmen into hysterics, and old Parker into dropping the beef. If
I’m to stop, I’ll not be glossed and veneered and shoved into a glass
case. I’m not a Lyndesay, in spite of Slinker. I’m Nettie Stone, the
horse-dealer’s daughter; and if I can’t use my native unparliamentary
language under your venerable roof, I must go and use it out in Canada
or some other place where ears are less tender and the air is free!”
“I beg your pardon!” he replied, very gently, and with a ceremonious
but perfectly sincere inclination, and this time it was she whose
colour rose.
“Oh, you--you aristocrat!” she said under her breath, with a little
laugh; and he parted suddenly with his new-born dignity, and flung
himself boyishly beside her.
“Heavens, Nettie, how serious we’re getting! And all because of a silly
old tree-thing! Let’s skip back a page. Tell me some more of your
impressions of our cranky old family.”
“Well, I can’t help thinking it’s just idiotic,” she went on, “to sit
round watching that old trunk flapping a curse at you without so much
as trying to answer it back. You can’t _really_ like the idea that you
may find yourself shoved into Eternity at any minute in the twenty-four
hours. Anybody with half a yard of backbone would have gone out and
talked to the gloating old ghoul with a bill-hook, centuries since,
before it got into its stride.”
“I suppose the real reason is that it is part of ourselves, by now,”
he answered thoughtfully. “It may have been superstition in the first
place; cussed pride, later on; but for myself it is just simply that
I would sooner put a bullet through my skull than give orders for the
tree to be destroyed. It’s a link between owner and owner--myself
and all the other freaks gone before--(that must be how I look at it
unconsciously)--and to break that link would mean annihilation of
spirit more terrible than any possible annihilation of body. I’ve got
all the other fellows looking on and lending a hand, you see. If the
tree went, I should be left standing alone.”
Again she looked at him curiously, as at something not wholly within
her comprehension.
“It sounds all right when you put it like that, of course. Very
majestic and Back to the Flood and all that kind of thing, don’t you
know?--though it isn’t exactly comfortable to think of the family
spooks perching like a lot of lost roosters on that slimy cedar. But
I should have thought you would be glad to be free of them. Thank
the powers _I’ve_ no family ghost-bones to be pulling my back hair
when I’m out to enjoy myself! I’ve been standing alone ever since I
wore openwork socks, and I feel fit enough to go on standing till the
Judgment! But from what I’ve seen of life, Christian, there comes a
time to every man when he’s got to learn to stand alone; and it strikes
me very forcibly, Laker, my lad, that you’ll have to take your turn
along with the rest!”
She laid her hand on Christian’s for a second, with the freedom of good
comradeship, but as her eyes dropped to the square strength of her
fingers, foiled by the slender strength of his, she drew it back and
pulled on her gloves sharply, conscious again of the intangible barrier
that had arisen momentarily when he asked her pardon. “I’m just
talking through my hat!” she added, with an angry little stamp, while
he watched her in amused bewilderment, having no clue to her change of
mood. “Well, go on dying as often and as suddenly as you please--you
and your bunch of devil’s firewood! And now I’m going out to talk on my
own level--to the stable-boy!”
After she had gone, a message came to Christian from his mother, and
he climbed the stairs to Slinker’s own room, which still was as he had
left it, and was likely to remain so as long as Alicia Lyndesay reigned
at Crump. Slinker had disdained the library and the other rooms on
the ground floor used by his conservative ancestors, and had fitted
himself a den overlooking the stable-yard. “Too many eyes looking on,”
he had said of the family portraits, and graced his walls with others,
obviously minus family, and chiefly remarkable for teeth. “No rotten
old views for me!” he had observed likewise, and had blocked sky and
air daily with a cloud of expensive smoke.
The room was full of sporting implements of the newest type and the
highest finish; beautiful, untried things stuck in corners or against
a wall to drag out a useless existence; for Slinker had been no
sportsman. He liked the look of the things well enough--the old blood
spoke sufficiently for that--but he rarely handled even a gun, though
in shooting-kit he was a most convincing spectacle; so much so, indeed,
that few had ever grasped his real form as a shot, except a nervous
keeper or two with eyes down their backs, and a badly-frightened dog.
From over the mantelpiece Slinker himself greeted his entrance, slim,
sleek, irritatingly guileless in expression. To the casual eye there
had been sufficient resemblance between the half-brothers to rouse
a sense of impotent wrath in Christian’s very dissimilar soul. Both
were fair and blue-eyed, gentle-voiced and quiet in movement; points,
however, which really served to mark an amazing difference to one
intimate with both. Christian’s athletic grace had been in Slinker
chiefly the artistic wisdom of an over-patronised tailor. Christian’s
gentleness was fear to hurt; Slinker’s, mere backstairs policy.
Christian’s charming serenity was the outward expression of his inward
self; Slinker’s guilelessness veiled deceit as deep as the sea.
Eluding the eyes of the portrait with difficulty, Christian experienced
an actual shock as he met those of Deborah from the opposite wall,
grave and rather haughty, as if disturbed by the picture-postcard
society around her. Moved by a sudden unaccountable impulse, he placed
himself before the photograph, so that Slinker’s travelling gaze could
no longer reach it.
His mother was seated at the desk in the recess by the fireplace,
surrounded on all sides by Stanley’s papers. Judging from her face, she
was not finding this voyage of discovery any too plain sailing.
Without speaking, she motioned him to a chair, and, avoiding Slinker’s
ostentatious saddle-bags, he dropped obediently into the Windsor which
the dead master had kept for his tenants.
“It is time things were settled,” she said at last, turning just
sufficiently in his direction to indicate that she was addressing him
and not Flossie Featherfin cake-walking in the alcove. “I suppose
you know that Stanley had engaged a new agent? We cannot keep the
man waiting any longer. No doubt you are willing to confirm the
appointment?”
“I wanted to ask you about that,” Christian put in. “I had a
letter from him, this morning. He seems all right, of course--good
testimonials and all that kind of thing--but I should prefer a personal
interview before settling anything definite.”
“How anxious you are to assert your new authority!” she sneered, and
waited while he winced. “Stanley’s judgment after years of experience
is of course not to be weighed against that of an untried youngster
fresh to his responsibilities! Probably you would prefer one of the
country yokels with whom you are on such intimate terms, to an educated
gentleman, trained in his profession. But there is the estate to be
considered before your own personal tastes--you must please make an
effort to remember that.”
“Of course the estate comes before everything,” Christian answered
quietly. “Why will you never believe that I care for the old place?”
“It is certainly difficult to realise,” she retorted coldly, “seeing
that you have never shown any sense of your position! _That_ must be
changed, at least. Now that you are Lyndesay of Crump, you must break
finally with the individuals who have hitherto made demands upon your
time and pocket--all those persons whose chief object in life seems to
consist in going about hitting somebody or something with something
else.”
“Do you mean that the games must go to the wall?” Christian
asked wistfully. “Is it really necessary? They keep one fit, you
know--and--and--it seems rotten to be throwing flowers at oneself, but
I’m considered pretty useful----” He broke off under her mocking eyes,
his enthusiasm dropping dead.
“All that is over!” she said very distinctly. “Lyndesay of Crump cannot
go out into an open field to make sport for spectators. There is
absolutely no second word on the matter. All that is over.”
He sat silent, wondering vaguely why he did not rebel; conscious
of something beyond and stronger than his mother forcing him into
acquiescence. He felt suddenly very desolate. He had loved that part,
at least, of the old life, and he was not ready for the new.
“I never approved, as you know,” Mrs. Lyndesay went on, “but while
Stanley lived, it was not of paramount importance. I never thought
Stanley would go--so soon.” She looked up at the portrait, setting her
lips, and Christian ran a gentle finger down the smooth cane of a rod.
It had been hard on Slinker, poor chap, in all conscience: yet Slinker
had never loved a swinging game as he loved it, nor ached to get at
grips with an adversary in fair and amicable fight. At that moment he
would almost have been content to change with him.
“You must get to know the County,” his mother was saying. “You have
been very much of a boor, refusing invitations when you were at home,
and going your own way entirely. Lyndesays of Crump have always led,
have always been expected to lead, and you must take your place. You
must get to know people.”
“Some of them are such slackers!” Christian answered sadly. “I’m afraid
I like people who do things for themselves instead of those who run a
reputation upon others who did things for them. But I’ll get to work on
the County points at once, if you like. And I’ll”--he rose abruptly,
and turned his head away--“I’ll give up the games.”
He could feel the leather sphere under his arm, the rush of wind past
his ears, the thud of his feet on the firm ground, the final pitch
into glory on the far side of the line. That was gone for good. Again
he crossed the ring with outstretched hand, sank his chin on his
opponent’s shoulder, braced his muscles and suppled his wrists ere he
felt for the final hold. That, too, was gone. Breathing deep, he came
back to the foreign atmosphere of Slinker’s den, and found himself
looking once more into Deb’s eyes. With a kind of mechanical deftness
he lifted the picture from its ambiguous position, and slipped it into
his pocket, turning towards the door.
“And you will confirm that appointment?” his mother asked again,
without looking round, an interesting document in Slinker’s theatrical
collection having sprung upon her.
“Very well. I will write at once. No doubt it will be all right. And if
there’s nothing further----”
In the library he drew out the photograph and looked curiously at the
gravely-aloof face.
“Why did I save you, I wonder?” he asked both of it and of himself.
“Because you wanted to come away so very badly, I suppose. Yet you went
of your own free will. Why, oh, why did you go? Couldn’t you _feel_
that it was all wrong? I’m not blaming you, of course--and yet I _am_
blaming you--I _am_! Almost anybody else might have done it, but not
you. You shouldn’t have taken the risk.”
He dropped it into a drawer, and turned the key.