TRESPASS
Sara stood on the great headland known as Monk's Cliff, watching with
delight the white-topped billows hurling themselves against its mighty
base, only to break in a baulked fury of thunder and upflung spray.
She had climbed the steep ascent thither on more than one day of storm
and bluster, reveling in the buffeting of the gale and in the pungent
tang of brine from the spray-drenched air. The cry of the wind,
shrieking along the face of the sea-bitten cliff, reminded her of
the scream of the hurricane as it tore through the pinewoods at
Barrow--shaking their giant tops hither and thither as easily as a
child's finger might shake a Canterbury bell.
Something wild and untamed within her responded to the savage movement
of the scene, and she stood for a long time watching the expanse
of restless, wind-tossed waters, before turning reluctantly in the
direction of home. If for nothing else than for this gift of glorious
sea and cliff, she felt she could be content to pitch her tent in
Monkshaven indefinitely.
Her way led past Far End, the solitary house perched on the sloping side
of the headland, and, as she approached, she became aware of a curious
change of character in the sound of the wind. She was sheltered now
from its fiercest onslaught, and it seemed to her that it rose and
fell, moaning in strange, broken cadences, almost like the singing of a
violin.
She paused a moment, thinking at first that this was due to the wind's
whining through some narrow passage betwixt the outbuildings of the
house, then, as the chromatic wailing broke suddenly into vibrating
harmonies, she realized that some one actually _was_ playing the violin,
and playing it remarkably well, too.
Instinctively she yielded to the fascination of it, and, drawing
nearer to the house, leaned against a sheltered wall, all her senses
subordinate to that of hearing.
Whoever the musician might be, he was a thorough master of his
instrument, and Sara listened with delight, recognizing some of the
haunting melodies of the wild Russian music which he was playing--music
that even in its moments of delirious joy seemed to hold always an
underlying _bourdon_ of tragedy and despair.
“Hi, there!”
She started violently. Entirely absorbed in the music, she had failed
to observe a man, dressed in the style of an indoor servant, who had
appeared in the doorway of one of the outbuildings and who now addressed
her in peremptory tones.
“Hi, there! Don't you know you're trespassing?”
Jerked suddenly out of her dreamy enjoyment, Sara looked round vaguely.
“I didn't know that Monk's Cliff was private property,” she said after a
pause.
“Nor is it, that I know of. But you're on the Far End estate now--this
is a private road,” replied the man disagreeably. “You'll please to take
yourself off.”
A faint flush of indignation crept up under the warm pallor of Sara's
skin. Then, a sudden thought striking her, she asked--
“Who is that playing the violin?”
Mentally she envisioned a pair of sensitive, virile hands, lean and
brown, with the short, well-kept nails that any violinist needs must
have--the contradictory hands which had aroused her interest on the
journey to Monkshaven.
“I don't hear no one playing,” replied the man stolidly. She felt
certain he was lying, but he gave her no opportunity for further
interrogation, for he continued briskly--
“Come now, miss, please to move off from here. Trespassers aren't
allowed.”
Sara spoke with a quiet air of dignity.
“Certainly I'll go,” she said. “I'm sorry. I had no idea that I was
trespassing.”
The man's truculent manner softened, as, with the intuition of his kind,
he recognized in the composed little apology the utterance of one of his
“betters.”
“Beggin' your pardon, miss,” he said, with a considerable accession of
civility, “but it's as much as my place is worth to allow a trespasser
here on Far End.”
Sara nodded.
“You're perfectly right to obey orders,” she said, and bending her steps
towards the public road from which she had strayed to listen to the
unseen musician, she made her way homewards.
“Your mysterious 'Hermit' is nothing if not thorough,” she told Doctor
Dick and Molly on her return. “I trespassed on to the Far End property
to-day, and was ignominiously ordered off by a rather aggressive person,
who, I suppose, is Mr. Trent's servant.”
“That would be Judson,” nodded Selwyn. “I've attended him once or twice
professionally. The fellow's all right, but he's under strict orders, I
believe, to allow no trespassers.”
“So it seems,” returned Sara. “By the way, who is the violinist at Far
End? Is it the 'Hermit' himself?”
“It's rumoured that he does play,” said Molly. “But no one has ever been
privileged to hear him.”
“Their loss, then,” commented Sara shortly. “I should say he is a
magnificent performer.”
Molly nodded, an expression of impish amusement in her eyes.
“On the sole occasion I met him, I asked him why no one was ever allowed
to hear him play,” she said, chuckling. “I even suggested that he might
contribute a solo to the charity concert we were getting up at the
time!”
“And what did he say?” asked Sara, smiling.
“Told me that there was no need for a man to exhibit his soul to the
public! So I asked him what he meant, and he said that if I understood
anything about music I would know, and that if I didn't, it was a waste
of his time trying to explain. Do _you_ know what he meant?”
“Yes,” said Sara slowly, “I think I do.” And recalling the passionate
appeal and sadness of the music she had heard that afternoon, she was
conscious of a sudden quick sense of pity for the solitary hermit of Far
End. He was _afraid_--afraid to play to any one, lest he should reveal
some inward bitterness of his soul to those who listened!
The following day, Molly carried Sara off to Rose Cottage to make the
acquaintance of “the Lavender Lady” and her nephew.
Miss Herrick--or Miss Lavinia, as she was invariably addressed--looked
exactly as though she had just stepped out of the early part of last
century. She wore a gown of some soft, silky material, sprigged with
heliotrope, and round her neck a fichu of cobwebby lace, fastened at
the breast with a cameo brooch of old Italian workmanship. A coquettish
little lace cap adorned the silver-grey hair, and the face beneath the
cap was just what you would have expected to find it--soft and very
gentle, its porcelain pink and white a little faded, the pretty old eyes
a misty, lavender blue.
She was alone when the two girls arrived, and greeted Sara with a
humorous little smile.
“How kind of you to come, Miss Tennant! We've been all agog to meet you,
Miles and I. In a tiny place like Monkshaven, you see, every one knows
every one else's business, so of course we have been hearing of you
constantly.”
“Then you might have come to Sunnyside to investigate me personally,”
replied Sara, smiling back.
Miss Lavinia's face sobered suddenly, a shadow falling across her kind
old eyes.
“Miles is--rather difficult about calling,” she said hesitatingly. “You
will understand--his lameness makes him a little self-conscious with
strangers,” she explained.
Sara looked distressed.
“Oh! Perhaps it would have been better if I had not come?” she suggested
hastily. “Shall I run away and leave Molly here?”
Miss Lavinia flushed rose-pink.
“My dear, I hope Miles knows how to welcome a guest in his own house as
befits a Herrick,” she said, with a delicious little air of old-world
dignity. “Indeed, it is an excellent thing for him to be dragged out of
his shell. Only, please--will you remember?--treat him exactly as though
he were not lame--never try to help him in any way. It is that which
hurts him so badly--when people make allowances for his lameness. Just
ignore it.”
Sara nodded. She could understand that instinctive man's pride which
recoiled from any tolerant recognition of a physical handicap.
“Was his lameness caused by an accident?” she asked.
“It came through a very splendid deed.” Little Miss Lavinia's eyes
glowed as she spoke. “He stopped a pair of runaway carriage-horses. They
had taken fright at a motor-lorry, and, when they bolted, the coachman
was thrown from the box, so that it looked as if nothing could save the
occupants of the carriage. Miles flung himself at the horses' heads, and
although, of course, he could not actually stop them single-handed, he
so impeded their progress that a second man, who sprang forward to help,
was able to bring them to a standstill.”
“How plucky of him!” exclaimed Sara warmly. “You must be very proud of
your nephew, Miss Lavinia!”
“She is,” interpolated Molly affectionately. “Aren't you, dear Lavender
Lady?”
Miss Lavinia smiled a trifle wistfully.
“Ah! My dear,” she said sadly, “splendid things are done at such a cost,
and when they are over we are apt to forget the splendour and remember
only the heavy price. . . . My poor Miles was horribly injured--he had
been dragged for yards, clinging to the horses' bridles--and for weeks
we were not even sure if he would live. He has lived--but he will walk
lame to the end of his life.”
The little instinctive silence which followed was broken by the sound of
voices in the hall outside, and, a minute later, Miles Herrick himself
came into the room, escorting a very fashionably attired and distinctly
attractive woman, whom Sara guessed at once to be Audrey Maynard.
She was not in the least pretty, but the narrowest of narrow skirts in
vogue in the spring of 1914 made no secret of the fact that her figure
was almost perfect. Her face was small and thin and inclined to be
sallow, and beneath upward-slanting brows, to which art had undoubtedly
added something, glimmered a pair of greenish-grey eyes, clear like
rain. Nor was there any mistaking the fact that the rich copper-colour
of the hair swathed beneath the smart little hat had come out of a
bottle, and was in no way to be accredited to nature. It was small
wonder that primitive Monkshaven stood aghast at such flagrant tampering
with the obvious intentions of Providence.
But notwithstanding her up-to-date air of artificiality, there was
something immensely likeable about Audrey Maynard. Behind it all, Sara
sensed the real woman--clever, tactful, and generously warm-hearted.
Woman, when all is said and done, is frankly primitive in her instincts,
and the desire to attract--with all its odd manifestations--is really
but the outcome of her innate desire for home and a mate. It is
this which lies at the root of most of her little vanities and
weaknesses--and of all the big sacrifices of which she is capable as
well. So she may be forgiven the former, and trusted to fall short but
rarely of the latter when the crucial test comes.
“Miles and I have been--as usual--squabbling violently,” announced Mrs.
Maynard. “Sugar, please--lots of it,” she added, as Herrick handed her
her tea. “It was about the man who lives at Far End,” she continued
in reply to the Lavender Lady's smiling query. “Miles has been very
irritating, and tried to smash all my suggested theories to bits. He
insists that the Hermit is quite a commonplace, harmless young man--”
“He must be at least forty,” interposed Herrick mildly.
Audrey frowned him into silence and continued--
“Now that's so dull, when half Monkshaven believes him to be a villain
of the deepest dye, hiding from justice--or, possibly, a Bluebeard with
an unhappy wife imprisoned somewhere in that weird old house of his.”
Sara listened with undignified interest. It was strange how the
enigmatical personality of the owner of Far End kept cropping up across
her path.
“And what is your own opinion, Mrs. Maynard?” she asked.
Audrey flashed her a keen glance from her rain-clear eyes.
“I think he's a--sphinx,” she said slowly.
“The Sphinx was a lady,” objected Herrick pertinently.
“Mr. Trent's a masculine re-incarnation of her, then,” retorted Mrs.
Maynard, undefeated.
Herrick smiled tolerantly. He was a tall, slenderly built man, with
whimsical brown eyes and the half-stern, half-sweet mouth of one who has
been through the mill of physical pain.
“_Homme incompris_,” he suggested lightly. “Give the fellow his due--he
at least supplies the feminine half of Monkshaven with a topic of
perennial interest.”
Audrey took up the implied challenge with enthusiasm, and the two of
them wrangled comfortably together till tea was over. Then she demanded
a cigarette--and another cushion--and finally sent Miles in search of
some snapshots they had taken together and which he had developed since
last they had met. She treated him exactly as though he suffered no
handicap, demanding from him all the little services she would have
asked from a man who was physically perfect.
Sara herself, accustomed to anticipating every need of Patrick Lovell's,
would have been inclined to feel somewhat compunctious over allowing a
lame man to wait upon her, yet, as she watched the eager way in which
Miles responded to the visitor's behests, she realized that in reality
Audrey was behaving with supreme tact. She let Miles feel himself a man
as other men, not a mere “lame duck” to whom indulgence must needs be
granted.
And once, when her hair just brushed his cheek, as he stooped over her
to indicate some special point in one of the recently developed photos,
Sara surprised a sudden ardent light in his quiet brown eyes that set
her wondering whether possibly, the incessant sparring between Herrick
and the lively, impulsive woman who shocked half Monkshaven, did not
conceal something deeper than mere friendship.