THE COMING OF A FRIEND
"Eternal sunshine!" said Piers, with a grimace at the deep, deep blue
of the slumbering water that stretched below him to the horizon. "And
at night eternal moonshine. Romantic but monotonous. I wonder if the
post is in."
He cast an irresolute glance up the path behind him, but decided to
remain where he was. He had looked so many times in vain.
There were a good many people in the hotel, but he was not feeling
sociable. The night before he had dropped a considerable sum at the
Casino, but it had not greatly interested him. Regretfully he had come to
the conclusion that gambling in that form did not attract him. The greedy
crowd that pushed and strove in the heated rooms, he regarded as
downright revolting. He himself had been robbed with astonishing audacity
by a lady with painted eyes who had snatched his only winnings before he
could reach them. It was a small episode, and he had let it pass, but it
had not rendered the tables more attractive. He had in fact left them in
utter disgust.
Altogether he was feeling decidedly out of tune with his surroundings
that morning, and the beauty of the scene irritated rather than soothed
him. In the garden a short distance from him, a voluble French party were
chattering with great animation and a good deal of cackling laughter. He
wondered what on earth they found to amuse them so persistently. He also
wondered if a swim in that faultless blue would do anything to improve
his temper, and decided with another wry grimace that it was hardly worth
while to try.
It was at this point that there fell a step on the winding path below him
that led down amongst shrubs to the sea. The top of a Panama hat caught
Piers' attention. He watched it idly as it ascended, speculating without
much interest as to the face beneath it. It mounted with the utmost
steadiness, neither hastening nor lingering. There was something about
its unvarying progress that struck Piers as British. His interest
increased at once. He suddenly discovered that he wanted someone British
to talk to, forgetting the fact that he had fled but ten minutes before
from the boring society of an Anglo-Indian colonel.
The man in the Panama came nearer. Piers from above began to have a
glimpse of a tweed coat and a strong brown hand that swung in time to the
steady stride. The path curved immediately below him, and the last few
yards of it led directly to the spot on which he stood. As the stranger
rounded the curve he came into full view.
He was a big man, broadly built and powerful. His whole personality was
suggestive of squareness. And yet to Piers' critical eyes he did not look
wholly British. His gait was that of a man accustomed to long hours in
the saddle. Under the turned-down Panama the square, determined chin
showed massively. It was a chin that obviously required constant shaving.
Quietly the man drew near. He did not see Piers under his lowered
hat-brim till he was within a few feet of him. Then, becoming suddenly
aware of him, he raised his eyes. A moment later, his hand went up in a
brief, friendly salute.
Piers' hand made instant response. "Splendid morning!" he began to
say--and stopped with the words half-uttered. The blood surged up to his
forehead in a great wave. "Good Heavens!" he said instead.
The other man paused. He did not look at Piers very narrowly, but merely
glanced towards him and then turned his eyes towards the wonderful,
far-stretching blue below them.
"Yes, splendid," he said quietly. "Worth remembering--a scene
like this."
His tone was absolutely impersonal. He stood beside Piers for a moment or
two, gazing forth into the infinite distance; then with a slight gesture
of leave-taking he turned as if to continue his progress.
In that instant, however, Piers recovered himself sufficiently to speak.
His face was still deeply flushed, but his voice was steady enough as he
turned fully and addressed the new-comer.
"Don't you know me? We have met before."
The other man stopped at once. He held out his hand. "Yes, of course I
know you--knew you the moment I set eyes on you. But I wasn't sure that
you would care to be recognized by me."
"What on earth do you take me for?" said Piers bluntly.
He gripped the hand hard, looking straight into the calm eyes with a
curious sense of being sustained thereby. "I believe," he said, with an
odd impulse of impetuosity, "that you are the one man in the world that I
couldn't be other than pleased to see."
The elder man smiled. "That's very kind of you," he said.
He had the slow speech of one accustomed to solitude. He kept Piers' hand
in his in a warm, firm grip. "I have often thought about you," he said.
"You know, I never heard your name."
"My name is Evesham," said Piers, with the quick, gracious manner
habitual to him. "Piers Evesham."
"Thank you. Mine is Edmund Crowther. Odd that we should meet like this!"
"A piece of luck I didn't expect!" said Piers boyishly. "Have you only
just arrived?"
"I came here last night from Marseilles." Crowther's eyes rested on the
smiling face with its proud, patrician features with the look of a man
examining a perfect bronze. "It's very kind of you to welcome me like
this," he said. "I was feeling a stranger in a strange land as I came up
that path."
"I've been watching you," said Piers. "I liked the business-like way you
tackled it. It was British."
Crowther smiled. "I suppose it has become second nature with me to put
business first," he said.
"Wish I could say the same," said Piers; and then, with his hand on
the other man's arm: "Come and have a drink! You are staying for some
time, I hope?"
"No, not for long," said Crowther. "It was yielding to temptation to come
here at all."
"Are you alone?" asked Piers.
"Quite alone."
"Then there's no occasion to hurry," said Piers. "You stay here for a
bit, and kill time with me."
"I never kill time," said Crowther deliberately. "It's too scarce a
commodity."
"It is when you're happy," said Piers.
Crowther looked at him with a question in his eyes that he did not put
into words, and in answer to which Piers laughed a reckless laugh.
They were walking side by side up the hotel-garden, and each successive
group of visitors that they passed turned to stare. For both men were in
a fashion remarkable. The massive strength of the elder with his square,
dogged face and purposeful stride; the lithe, muscular power of the
younger with his superb carriage and haughty nobility of feature, formed
a contrast as complete as it was arresting.
They ascended the steps that led up to the terrace, and here Piers
paused. "You sit down here while I go and order drinks! Here's a
comfortable seat, and here's an English paper!"
He thrust it into Crowther's hand and departed with a careless whistle on
his lips. But Crowther did not look at the paper. His eyes followed Piers
as long as he was in sight, and then with that look in them as of one who
watches from afar turned contemplatively towards the sea. After a little
he took his hat off and suffered the morning-breeze to blow across his
forehead. He had the serene brow of a child, though the hair above it was
broadly streaked with grey.
He was still sitting thus when there came the sound of jerky footsteps on
the terrace behind him and an irascible voice addressed him with scarcely
concealed impatience.
"Excuse me! I saw you talking to my grandson just now. Do you know where
the young fool is gone to?"
Crowther turned in his solid, imperturbable fashion, looked at the
speaker, and got to his feet.
"I can," he said, with a smile. "He has gone to procure drinks in my
honour. He and I are--old friends."
"Oh!" said Sir Beverley, and looked him up and down in a fashion which
another man might have found offensive. "And who may you be?"
"My name is Crowther," said the other with simplicity.
Sir Beverley grunted. "That doesn't tell me much. Never heard of
you before."
"I daresay not." Crowther was quite unmoved; there was even a hint of
humour in his tone. "Your grandson is probably a man of many friends."
"Why should you say that?" demanded Sir Beverley suspiciously.
"Won't you sit down?" said Crowther.
Sir Beverley hesitated a moment, then abruptly complied with the
suggestion. Crowther followed his example, and they faced one another
across the little table.
"I say it," said Crowther, "because that is the sort of lad I take
him to be."
Sir Beverley grunted again. "And when and where did you make his
acquaintance?" he enquired, with a stern, unsparing scrutiny of the calm
face opposite.
"We met in Australia," said Crowther. "It must be six years or more ago."
"Australia's a big place," observed Sir Beverley.
Crowther's slow smile appeared. "Yes, sir, it is. It's so mighty big that
it makes all the other places of the world seem small. Have you ever been
in Queensland--ever seen a sheep-farm?"
"No, I've never been in Queensland," snapped Sir Beverley. "But as to
sheep-farms, I've got one of my own."
"How many acres?" asked Crowther.
"Oh, don't ask me! Piers will tell you. Piers knows. Where the devil is
the boy? Why doesn't he come?"
"Here, sir, here!" cried Piers, coming up behind him. "I see you have
made the acquaintance of my friend. Crowther, let me present you to my
grandfather, Sir Beverley Evesham! I've just been to look for you," he
added to the latter. "But Victor told me you had gone out, and then I
spied you out of the window."
"I told you I was coming out, didn't I?" growled Sir Beverley. "So this
is a friend of yours, is it? How is it I've never heard of him before?"
"We lost sight of each other," explained Piers, pulling forward a chair
between them and dropping into it. "But that state of affairs is not
going to happen again. How long are you over for, Crowther?"
"Possibly a year, possibly more." Again Crowther's eyes were upon him,
critical but kindly.
"Going to spend your time in England?" asked Piers.
Crowther nodded. "Most of it, yes."
"Good!" said Piers with satisfaction. "We shall see plenty of you then."
"But I am going to be busy," said Crowther, with a smile.
"Of course you are. You can come down and teach me how to make the Home
Farm a success," laughed Piers.
"I shall be very pleased to try," said Crowther, "though," he turned
towards Sir Beverley, "I expect you, sir, know as much on that subject as
either of us."
Sir Beverley's eyes were upon him with searching directness. He seemed to
be trying to discover a reason for his boy's obvious pleasure in his
unexpected meeting with this man who must have been nearly twice his age.
"I've never done much in the farming line," he said briefly, in answer to
Crowther's observation. "It's been more of a pastime with me than
anything else. It's the same with Piers here. He's only putting in time
with it till the constituency falls vacant."
"I see," said Crowther, adding with his quiet smile: "There seems to be
plenty of time anyhow in the old country, whatever else she may be
short of."
Piers laughed as he lifted his glass. "Time for everything but work,
Crowther. She has developed beastly loose morals in her old age. Some day
there'll come a nasty bust up, and she may pull herself together and do
things again, or she may go to pieces. I wonder which."
"I don't," said Crowther.
"You don't?" Piers paused, glass in hand, looking at him expectantly.
"No, I don't." Crowther also raised his glass; he looked Piers straight
in the eyes. "Here's to the boys of England, Piers!" he said. "They'll
see to it that she comes through."
Sir Beverley also drank, but with a distasteful air. "You've a higher
opinion of the young fools than I have," he remarked.
"I've made a study of the breed, sir," said Crowther.
The conversation drifted to indifferent matters, but Piers' interest
remained keen. It seemed that all his vitality had reawakened at the
coming of this slow-speaking man who had looked so long upon the wide
spaces of the earth that his vision seemed scarcely adaptable to lesser
things. There was that in his personality that caught Piers' fancy
irresistibly. Perhaps it was his utter calmness, his unvarying, rock-like
strength. Perhaps it was just the good fellowship that looked out of the
steady eyes and sounded in every tone of the leisurely voice. Whatever
the cause, his presence had made a vast difference to Piers. His boredom
had completely vanished. He even forgot to wonder if there were a letter
lying waiting for him inside the hotel.
Crowther excused himself at length and rose to take his leave, whereupon
Sir Beverley very abruptly, and to his grandson's surprise and
gratification, invited him to dine with them that night. Piers at once
seconded the invitation, and Crowther without haste or hesitation
accepted it.
Then, square and purposeful, he went away.
"A white man!" murmured Piers half to himself.
"One who knows his own mind anyhow," remarked Sir Beverley drily.
He did not ask Piers for the history of their friendship, and Piers,
remembering this later, wondered a little at the omission.