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"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 daresay," 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 daresay – 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 afterward."
"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 specialized," 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 specialized 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 daresay – "
"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."
"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."
"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 favor 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 highroad 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.
Chapter Four
THE MESSAGE OF A PADLOCK
Lord Lynborough presents his compliments to her Excellency the Marchesa di San Servolo. Lord Lynborough has learnt, with surprise and regret, that his servants have within the last two days been warned off Beach Path, and that a padlock and other obstacles have been placed on the gate leading to the path, by her Excellency's orders. Lord Lynborough and his predecessors have enjoyed the use of this path by themselves, their agents and servants, for many years back – certainly for fifty, as Lord Lynborough knows from his father and from old servants, and Lord Lynborough is not disposed to acquiesce in any obstruction being raised to his continued use of it. He must therefore request her Excellency to have the kindness to order that the padlock and other obstacles shall be removed, and he will be obliged by this being done before eight o'clock to-morrow morning – at which time Lord Lynborough intends to proceed by Beach Path to the sea in order to bathe. Scarsmoor Castle; 13th June.
The reception of this letter proved an agreeable incident of an otherwise rather dull Sunday evening at Nab Grange. The Marchesa had been bored; the Colonel was sulky. Miss Gilletson had forbidden cards; her conscience would not allow herself, nor her feelings of envy permit other people, to play on the Sabbath. Lady Norah and Violet Dufaure were somewhat at cross-purposes, each preferring to talk to Stillford and endeavoring, under a false show of amity, to foist Captain Irons on to the other.
"Listen to this!" cried the Marchesa vivaciously. She read it out. "He doesn't beat about the bush, does he? I'm to surrender before eight o'clock to-morrow morning!"
"Sounds rather a peremptory sort of a chap!" observed Colonel Wenman.
"I," remarked Lady Norah, "shouldn't so much as answer him, Helena."
"I shall certainly answer him and tell him that he'll trespass on my property at his peril," said the Marchesa haughtily. "Isn't that the right way to put it, Mr. Stillford?"
"If it would be a trespass, that might be one way to put it," was Stillford's professionally cautious advice. "But as I ventured to tell you when you determined to put on the padlock, the rights in the matter are not quite as clear as we could wish."
"When I bought this place, I bought a private estate – a private estate, Mr. Stillford – for myself – not a short cut for Lord Lynborough! Am I to put up a notice for him, 'This Way to the Bathing-Machines'?"
"I wouldn't stand it for a moment." Captain Irons sounded bellicose.
Violet Dufaure was amicably inclined.
"You might give him leave to walk through. It would be a bore for him to go round by the road every time."
"Certainly I might give him leave if he asked for it," retorted the Marchesa rather sharply. "But he doesn't. He orders me to open my gate – and tells me he means to bathe! As if I cared whether he bathed or not! What is it to me, I ask you, Violet, whether the man bathes or not?"
"I beg your pardon, Marchesa, but aren't you getting a little off the point?" Stillford intervened deferentially.
"No, I'm not. I never get off the point, Mr. Stillford. Do I, Colonel Wenman?"
"I've never known you to do it in my life, Marchesa." There was, in fact, as Lynborough had ventured to anticipate, a flush on the Marchesa's cheek, and the Colonel knew his place.
"There, Mr. Stillford!" she cried triumphantly. Then she swept – the expression is really applicable – across the room to her writing-table. "I shall be courteous, but quite decisive," she announced over her shoulder as she sat down.
Stillford stood by the fire, smiling doubtfully. Evidently it was no use trying to stop the Marchesa; she had insisted on locking the gate, and she would persist in keeping it locked till she was forced, by process of law or otherwise, to open it again. But if the Lords of Scarsmoor Castle really had used it without interruption for fifty years (as Lord Lynborough asserted) – well, the Marchesa's rights were at least in a precarious position.
The Marchesa came back with her letter in her hand.
"'The Marchesa di San Servolo,'" she read out to an admiring audience, "'presents her compliments to Lord Lynborough. The Marchesa has no intention of removing the padlock and other obstacles which have been placed on the gate to prevent trespassing – either by Lord Lynborough or by anybody else. The Marchesa is not concerned to know Lord Lynborough's plans in regard to bathing or otherwise. Nab Grange; 13th June.'"
The Marchesa looked round on her friends with a satisfied air.
"I call that good," she remarked. "Don't you, Norah?"
"I don't like the last sentence."
"Oh yes! Why, that'll make him angrier than anything else! Please ring the bell for me, Mr. Stillford; it's just behind you."
The butler came back.
"Who brought Lord Lynborough's letter?" asked the Marchesa.
"I don't know who it is, your Excellency – one of the upper servants at the Castle, I think."
"How did he come to the house?"
"By the drive – from the south gate – I believe, your Excellency."
"I'm glad of that," she declared, looking positively dangerous. "Tell him to go back the same way, and not by the – by what Lord Lynborough chooses to call 'Beach Path.' Here's a letter for him to take."
"Very good, your Excellency." The butler received the letter and withdrew.
"Yes," said Lady Norah, "rather funny he should call it Beach Path, isn't it?"
"I don't know whether it's funny or not, Norah, but I do know that I don't care what he calls it. He may call it Piccadilly if he likes, but it's my path all the same." As she spoke she looked, somewhat defiantly, at Mr. Stillford.
Violet Dufaure, whose delicate frame held an indomitable and indeed pugnacious spirit, appealed to Stillford; "Can't Helena have him taken up if he trespasses?"
"Well, hardly, Miss Dufaure. The remedy would lie in the civil courts."
"Shall I bring an action against him? Is that it? Is that right?" cried the Marchesa.
"That's the ticket, eh, Stillford?" asked the Colonel.
Stillford's position was difficult; he had the greatest doubt about his client's case.
"Suppose you leave him to bring the action?" he suggested. "When he does, we can fully consider our position."
"But if he insists on using the path to-morrow?"
"He'll hardly do that," Stillford persuaded her. "You'll probably get a letter from him, asking for the name of your solicitor. You will give him my name; I shall obtain the name of his solicitor, and we shall settle it between us – amicably, I hope, but in any case without further personal trouble to you, Marchesa."
"Oh!" said the Marchesa blankly. "That's how it will be, will it?"
"That's the usual course – the proper way of doing the thing."
"It may be proper; it sounds very dull, Mr. Stillford. What if he does try to use the path to-morrow – 'in order to bathe' as he's good enough to tell me?"
"If you're right about the path, then you've the right to stop him," Stillford answered rather reluctantly. "If you do stop him, that, of course, raises the question in a concrete form. You will offer a formal resistance. He will make a formal protest. Then the lawyers step in."
"We always end with the lawyers – and my lawyer doesn't seem sure I'm right!"
"Well, I'm not sure," said Stillford bluntly. "It's impossible to be sure at this stage of the case."
"For all I see, he may use my path to-morrow!" The Marchesa was justifying her boast that she could stick to a point.
"Now that you've lodged your objection, that won't matter much legally."
"It will annoy me intensely," the Marchesa complained.
"Then we'll stop him," declared Colonel Wenman valorously.
"Politely – but firmly," added Captain Irons.
"And what do you say, Mr. Stillford?"
"I'll go with these fellows anyhow – and see that they don't overstep the law. No more than the strictly necessary force, Colonel!"
"I begin to think that the law is rather stupid," said the Marchesa. She thought it stupid; Lynborough held it iniquitous; the law was at a discount, and its majesty little reverenced, that night.
Ultimately, however, Stillford persuaded the angry lady to – as he tactfully put it – give Lynborough a chance. "See what he does first. If he crosses the path now, after warning, your case is clear. Write to him again then, and tell him that, if he persists in trespassing, your servants have orders to interfere."
"That lets him bathe to-morrow!" Once more the Marchesa returned to her point – a very sore one.
"Just for once, it really doesn't matter!" Stillford urged.
Reluctantly she acquiesced; the others were rather relieved – not because they objected to a fight, but because eight in the morning was rather early to start one. Breakfast at the Grange was at nine-thirty, and, though the men generally went down for a dip, they went much later than Lord Lynborough proposed to go.
"He shall have one chance of withdrawing gracefully," the Marchesa finally decided.
Stillford was unfeignedly glad to hear her say so; he had, from a professional point of view, no desire for a conflict. Inquiries which he had made in Fillby – both from men in Scarsmoor Castle employ and from independent persons – had convinced him that Lynborough's case was strong. For many years – through the time of two Lynboroughs before the present at Scarsmoor, and through the time of three Crosses (the predecessors of the Marchesa) at Nab Grange, Scarsmoor Castle had without doubt asserted this dominant right over Nab Grange. It had been claimed and exercised openly – and, so far as he could discover, without protest or opposition. The period, as he reckoned it, would prove to be long enough to satisfy the law as to prescription; it was very unlikely that any document existed – or anyhow could be found – which would serve to explain away the presumption which uses such as this gave. In fine, the Marchesa's legal adviser was of opinion that in a legal fight the Marchesa would be beaten. His own hope lay in compromise; if friendly relations could be established, there would be a chance of a compromise. He was sure that the Marchesa would readily grant as a favor – and would possibly give in return for a nominal payment – all that Lynborough asked. That would be the best way out of the difficulty. "Let us temporize, and be conciliatory," thought the man of law.
Alas, neither conciliation nor dilatoriness was in Lord Lynborough's line! He read the Marchesa's letter with appreciation and pleasure. He admired the curtness of its intimation, and the lofty haughtiness with which the writer dismissed the subject of his bathing. But he treated the document – it cannot be said that he did wrong – as a plain defiance. It appeared to him that no further declaration of war was necessary; he was not concerned to consider evidence nor to weigh his case, as Stillford wanted to weigh her case. This for two reasons: first, because he was entirely sure that he was right; secondly because he had no intention of bringing the question to trial. Lynborough knew but one tribunal; he had pointed out its local habitation to Roger Wilbraham.
Accordingly it fell out that conciliatory counsels and Fabian tactics at Nab Grange received a very severe – perhaps indeed a fatal – shock the next morning.
At about nine o'clock the Marchesa was sitting in her dressing-gown by the open window, reading her correspondence and sipping an early cup of tea – she had become quite English in her habits. Her maid reëntered the room, carrying in her hand a small parcel. "For your Excellency," she said. "A man has just left it at the door." She put the parcel down on the marble top of the dressing-table.
"What is it?" asked the Marchesa indolently.
"I don't know, your Excellency. It's hard, and very heavy for its size."
Laying down the letter which she had been perusing, the Marchesa took up the parcel and cut the string which bound it. With a metallic clink there fell on her dressing-table – a padlock! To it was fastened a piece of paper, bearing these words: "Padlock found attached to gate leading to Beach Path. Detached by order of Lord Lynborough. With Lord Lynborough's compliments."