Helena's Path/Chapter 3

sat on the terrace which ran along the front of the Castle and looked down, over Nab Grange, to the sea. With him were Leonard Stabb and Roger Wilbraham. The latter was a rather short, slight man of dark complexion; although a light-weight he was very wiry and a fine boxer. His intellectual gifts corresponded well with his physical equipment; an acute ready mind was apt to deal with every-day problems and pressing necessities; it had little turn either for speculation or for fancy. He had dreams neither about the past, like Stabb, nor about present things, like Lynborough. His was, in a word, the practical spirit, and Lynborough could not have chosen a better right-hand man.

"They had to climb."

They were all smoking; a silence had rested long over the party. At last Lynborough spoke.

"There's always," he said, "something seductive in looking at a house when you know nothing about the people who live in it."

"But I know a good deal about them," Wilbraham interposed with a laugh. "Coltson's been pumping all the village, and I've had the benefit of it." Coltson was Lynborough's own man, an old soldier who had been with him nearly fifteen years and had accompanied him on all his travels and excursions.

Lynborough paid no heed; he was not the man to be put off his reflections by intrusive facts.

"The blank wall of a strange house is like the old green curtain at the theater. It may rise for you any moment and show you—what? Now what is there at Nab Grange?"

"A lot of country bumpkins, I expect," growled Stabb.

"No, no," Wilbraham protested. "I'll tell you, if you like"

"What's there?" Lynborough pursued. "I don't know. You don't know—no, you don't, Roger, and you probably wouldn't even if you were inside. But I like not knowing—I don't want to know. We won't visit at the Grange, I think. We will just idealize it, Cromlech." He cast his queer elusive smile at his friend.

"Bosh!" said Stabb. "There's sure to be a woman there—and I'll be bound she'll call on you!"

"She'll call on me? Why?"

"Because you're a lord," said Stabb, scorning any more personal form of flattery.

"That fortuitous circumstance should, in my judgment, rather afford me protection."

"If you come to that, she's somebody herself." Wilbraham's knowledge would bubble out, for all the want of encouragement.

"Everybody's somebody," murmured Lynborough—"and it is a very odd arrangement. Can't be regarded as permanent, eh, Cromlech? Immortality by merit seems a better idea. And by merit I mean originality. Well—I sha'n't know the Grange, but I like to look at it. The way I picture her"

"Picture whom?" asked Stabb.

"Why, the Lady of the Grange, to be sure"

"Tut, tut, who's thinking of the woman?—if there is a woman at all."

"I am thinking of the woman, Cromlech, and I've a perfect right to think of her. At least, if not of that woman, of a woman—whose like I've never met."

"She must be of an unusual type," opined Stabb with a reflective smile.

"She is, Cromlech. Shall I describe her?"

"I expect you must."

"Yes, at this moment—with the evening just this color—and the Grange down there—and the sea, Cromlech, so remarkably large, I'm afraid I must. She is, of course, tall and slender; she has, of course, a rippling laugh; her eyes are, of course, deep and dreamy, yet lighting to a sparkle when one challenges. All this may be presupposed. It's her tint, Cromlech, her color—that's what's in my mind to-night; that, you will find, is her most distinguishing, her most wonderful characteristic."

"That's just what the Vicar told Coltson! At least he said that the Marchesa had a most extraordinary complexion." Wilbraham had got something out at last.

"Roger, you bring me back to earth. You substitute the Vicar's impression for my imagination. Is that kind?"

"It seems such a funny coincidence."

"Supposing it to be a mere coincidence—no doubt! But I've always known that I had to meet that complexion somewhere. If here—so much the better!"

"I have a great doubt about that," said Leonard Stabb.

"I can get over it, Cromlech! At least consider that."

"But you're not going to know her!" laughed Wilbraham.

"I shall probably see her as we walk down to bathe by Beach Path."

A deferential voice spoke from behind his chair. "I beg your pardon, my lord, but Beach Path is closed." Coltson had brought Lynborough his cigar-case and laid it down on a table by him as he communicated this intelligence.

"Closed, Coltson?"

"Yes, my lord. There's a padlock on the gate, and a—er—barricade of furze. And the gardeners tell me they were warned off yesterday."

"My gardeners warned off Beach Path?"

"Yes, my lord."

"By whose orders?"

"Her Excellency's, my lord."

"That's the Marchesa—Marchesa di San Servolo," Wilbraham supplied.

"Yes, that's the name, sir," said Coltson respectfully.

"What about her complexion now, Ambrose?" chuckled Stabb.

"The Marchesa di San Servolo? Is that right, Coltson?"

"Perfectly correct, my lord. Italian, I understand, my lord."

"Excellent, excellent! She has closed my Beach Path? I think I have reflected enough for to-night. I'll go in and write a letter." He rose, smiled upon Stabb, who himself was grinning broadly, and walked through an open window into the house.

"Now you may see something happen," said Leonard Stabb.

"What's the matter? Is it a public path?" asked Wilbraham.

With a shrug Stabb denied all knowledge—and, probably, all interest. Coltson, who had lingered behind his master, undertook to reply.

"Not exactly public, as I understand, sir. But the Castle has always used it. Green—that's the head-gardener—tells me so, at least."

"By legal right, do you mean?" Wilbraham had been called to the Bar, although he had never practised. No situation gives rise to greater confidence on legal problems.

"I don't think you'll find that his lordship will trouble much about that, sir," was Coltson's answer, as he picked up the cigar-case again and hurried into the library with it.

"What does the man mean by that?" asked Wilbraham scornfully. "It's a purely legal question—Lynborough must trouble about it." He rose and addressed Stabb somewhat as though that gentleman were the Court. "Not a public right of way? We don't argue that? Then it's a case of dominant and servient tenement—a right of way by user as of right, or by a lost grant. That—or nothing!"

"I dare say," muttered Stabb very absently.

"Then what does Coltson mean?"

"Coltson knows Ambrose—you don't. Ambrose will never go to law—but he'll go to bathe."

"But she'll go to law if he goes to bathe!" cried the lawyer.

Stabb blinked lazily, and seemed to loom enormous over his cigar. "I dare say—if she's got a good case," said he. "Do you know, Wilbraham, I don't much care whether she does or not? But in regard to her complexion"

"What the devil does her complexion matter?" shouted Wilbraham.

"The human side of a thing always matters," observed Leonard Stabb. "For instance—pray sit down, Wilbraham—standing up and talking loud prove nothing, if people would only believe it—the permanence of hierarchical systems may be historically observed to bear a direct relation to the emoluments."

"Would you mind telling me your opinion on two points, Stabb? We can go on with that argument of yours afterwards."

"Say on, Wilbraham."

"Is Lynborough in his right senses?"

"The point is doubtful."

"Are you in yours?"

Stabb reflected. "I am sane—but very highly specialised," was his conclusion.

Wilbraham wrinkled his brow. "All the same, right of way or no right of way is purely a legal question," he persisted.

"I think you're highly specialised too," said Stabb. "But you'd better keep quiet and see it through, you know. There may be some fun—it will serve to amuse the Archdeacon when you write." Wilbraham's father was a highly esteemed dignitary of the order mentioned.

Lynborough came out again, smoking a cigar. His manner was noticeably more alert: his brow was unclouded, his whole mien tranquil and placid.

"I've put it all right," he observed. "I've written her a civil letter. Will you men bathe to-morrow?"

They both assented to the proposition.

"Very well. We'll start at eight. We may as well walk. By Beach Path it's only about half a mile."

"But the path's stopped, Ambrose," Stabb objected.

"I've asked her to have the obstruction removed before eight o'clock," Lynborough explained.

"If it isn't?" asked Roger Wilbraham.

"We have hands," answered Lynborough, looking at his own very small ones.

"Wilbraham wants to know why you don't go to law, Ambrose."

Lord Lynborough never shrank from explaining his views and convictions.

"The law disgusts me. So does my experience of it. You remember the beer, Cromlech? Nobody ever acted more wisely or from better motives. And if I made money—as I did, till the customers left off coming—why not? I was unobtrusively doing good. Then Juanita's affair! I acted as a gentleman is bound to act. Result—a year's imprisonment! I lay stress on these personal experiences, but not too great stress. The law, Roger, always considers what you have had and what you now have—never what you ought to have. Take that path! It happens to be a fact that my grandfather, and my father, and I have always used that path. That's important by law, I dare say"

"Certainly, Lord Lynborough."

"Just what would be important by law!" commented Lynborough. "And I have made use of the fact in my letter to the Marchesa. But in my own mind I stand on reason and natural right. Is it reasonable that I, living half-a-mile from my bathing, should have to walk two miles to get to it? Plainly not. Isn't it the natural right of the owner of Scarsmoor to have that path open through Nab Grange? Plainly yes. That, Roger, although, as I say, not the shape in which I have put the matter before the Marchesa—because she, being a woman, would be unappreciative of pure reason—is really the way in which the question presents itself to my mind—and, I'm sure, to Cromlech's?"

"Not the least in the world to mine," said Stabb. "However, Ambrose, the young man thinks us both mad."

"Could that be Lord Lynborough?"

"You do, Roger?" His smile persuaded to an affirmative reply.

"I'm afraid so, Lord Lynborough."

"No 'Lord,' if you love me! Why do you think me mad? Cromlech, of course, is mad, so we needn't bother about him."

"You're not—not practical," stammered Roger.

"Oh, I don't know, really I don't know. You'll see that I shall get that path open. And in the end I did get that public-house closed. And Juanita's husband had to leave the country, owing to the heat of local feeling—aroused entirely by me. Juanita stayed behind and, after due formalities, married again most happily. I'm not altogether inclined to call myself unpractical. Roger!" He turned quickly to his secretary. "Your father's what they call a High Churchman, isn't he?"

"Yes—and so am I," said Roger.

"He has his Church. He puts that above the State, doesn't he? He wouldn't obey the State against the Church? He wouldn't do what the Church said was wrong because the State said it was right?"

"How could he? Of course he wouldn't," answered Roger.

"Well, I have my Church—inside here." He touched his breast. "I stand where your father does. Why am I more mad than the Archdeacon, Roger?"

"But there's all the difference!"

"Of course there is," said Stabb. "All the difference that there is between being able to do it and not being able to do it—and I know of none so profound."

"There's no difference at all," declared Lynborough. "Therefore—as a good son, no less than as a good friend—you will come and bathe with me to-morrow?"

"Oh, I'll come and bathe, by all means, Lynborough."

"'She is, of course, tall and slender'"

"By all means! Well said, young man. By all means, that is, which are becoming in opposing a lady. What precisely those may be we will consider when we see the strength of her opposition."

"That doesn't sound so very unpractical, after all," Stabb suggested to Roger.

Lynborough took his stand before Stabb, hands in pockets, smiling down at the bulk of his friend.

"O Cromlech, Haunter of Tombs," he said, "Cromlech, Lover of Men long Dead, there is a possible—indeed a probable—chance—there is a divine hope—that Life may breathe here on this coast, that the blood may run quick, that the world may move, that our old friend Fortune may smile, and trick, and juggle, and favour us once more. This, Cromlech, to a man who had determined to reform, who came home to assume—what was it? Oh yes—responsibilities!—this is most extraordinary luck. Never shall it be said that Ambrose Caverly, being harnessed and carrying a bow, turned himself back in the day of battle!"

He swayed himself to and fro on his heels, and broke into merry laughter.

"She'll get the letter to-night, Cromlech. I've sent Coltson down with it—he proceeds decorously by the high road and the main approach. But she'll get it. Cromlech, will she read it with a beating heart? Will she read it with a flushing cheek? And if so, Cromlech, what, I ask you, will be the particular shade of that particular flush?"

"Oh, the sweetness of the game!" said he.

Over Nab Grange the stars seemed to twinkle roguishly.

(To be continued.)