Anthony Lyveden Part 35

"In a way it's no affair of mine, and yet I feel concerned. I'll tell you why. That footman was a gentleman born. Moreover, he was down on his luck. He didn't look like a fellow who'd run through money, and I think the old testator was pretty rich. He gave that impression. And for a will made in such circ.u.mstances to go astray it would be easy enough--obviously. The devil of it is, except for the name of Lyveden, I can remember nothing else."

The solicitor sipped his port. Then--

"A search at Somerset House," he said slowly, "should give us the maiden surname of Anthony Lyveden's mother. If she had a brother...."

Sir Giles Molehill raised his eyes and sighed.

"And it never occurred to me," he said. "It's high time I went to the Court of Appeal."

Two days later his lords.h.i.+p received a letter informing him that a search at Somerset House had revealed the fact that a son named Anthony had been born upon the fourteenth of January, 1891, to a Mrs. Katharine Lyveden, formerly _Roach_.

As he read it, the Judge exclaimed audibly.

The note which he wrote there and then shall speak for itself.

_DEAR BLITHE,_

_Roach was the surname of the testator. Please go on. When you can submit a Christian name to my memory, please do so. I am not sure that it will respond, but we can try._

_Yours sincerely, GILES MOLEHILL._

When Anthony Lyveden had been for a week at Gramarye, he had reluctantly posted a letter containing his new address. This he had done because he had promised to do it. As the letter had fallen into the box, he had prayed fervently, but without the faintest hope, that it might never be delivered. A galley-slave who has broken s.h.i.+p and won sanctuary does not advertise his whereabouts with a light heart.

He may be beyond pursuit, yet--he and the galley are both of this world; things temporal only keep them apart, and if the master came p.r.i.c.king, with a whip in his belt.... You must remember that Anthony had been used very ill. At first, bound to the oar of Love, he had pulled vigorously and found the sea silken, his chains baubles. Then a storm had arisen. In his hands the docile oar had become a raging termagant, and, when he would have been rid of it, the baubles had opposed his will. He had been dragged and battered unspeakably. Over all, the lash had been laid upon his bare shoulders; and that with a nicety of judgment which should have been foreign to so white a wrist and to eyes that could look so tender. Now that he had escaped out of h.e.l.l, it was not surprising that he was loth to discover his refuge.

Still, a promise must be respected....

For that matter, supplications do not always go empty away. The answer to Anthony's came in the shape of a fire which attacked the last coach but one upon a London train and partially destroyed two mailbags before its flames were subdued. It follows that, though he did not know it, such friends as the ex-officer had knew no more where he was than did the man in the moon.

It is here convenient, believe me, to go imagining.

We have looked into Anthony's mind at the hour when he posted his letter. Had he posted it this nineteenth day of January, instead of six weeks ago, and we, as before, peered into his brain-pan, we should have found his supplication that the missive might go astray even more urgent. We should have noted that, while he was just as fearful to be reminded of the galley and the tall dark ganger with the red, red mouth and the merciless thong, he also viewed with alarm the possibility of any distraction from his work. The galley-slave was become a votary.

Let us be quite clear about it.

Anthony had come to Gramarye to try to forget. In this he was steadily unsuccessful. At the end of a month he had not advanced one inch. His love for Valerie was as breathless, haunting, wistful as it had ever been. The whole of the kingdom of his heart was hers alone, and, so far as he could see, like to remain hers only for the rest of his life.

Since, therefore, he could not dispatch Memory, he sought to immure her. Since Valerie's sovereignty was so fast stablished that it could not be moved, he sought to rule his heart out of his system. Had it been possible, he would, like Aesop's Beaver, have ripped the member from him and gone heartless ever after. The Fabulous Age being dead, Anthony made the best s.h.i.+ft he could, and strove to bury kingdom and queen together so deep within him that their existence should not trouble his life. If he could not put out the light, he would hide it under a bushel. It occurred to him that his mind, appropriately occupied, should make an excellent bushel--appropriately occupied....

He resolved that Gramarye should have his mind. Of this he would make a kingdom, mightier and more material than that of his heart. The trouble was, his mind, though more tractable, liked Valerie's occupation, found it desirable, and clung to its present tenant for all it was worth. By no means dismayed, Anthony, as before, had recourse to ejection by crowding out.... Two things, however, made this attempt more formidable. First, he did not have to be for ever scouring the highways and hedges for a new tenantry; Gramarye was always at hand.

Secondly, though Anthony did not know it, _there was no need for Gramarye to be compelled to come in_. He was pressing an invitation upon one who had invited herself. The hooded personality of the place had stolen up to the door: already its pale fingers were lifting the latch.... Before he had been in the Cotswolds for seven weeks, she had thrust and been thrust into the doorway.

It was the thin end of the wedge.

Each pa.s.sing day fell upon the wedge like the stroke of a hammer.

Sometimes they drove it: oftener the wedge stayed still where it was.

But it never slipped back. When it was stubbornest, and the days seemed to lose their weight, when Valerie's hold seemed indefeasible, when the woods were quick with memory, when Anthony heard an old faint sigh in the wind, and the laughter of a brook fluted the note of a soft familiar voice, then more than once that strange, cool, silvery call had stolen out of the distance, to melt upon the air as soon as uttered and leave its echoes at play upon the edge of earshot.... Before the echoes had died, the wedge would have moved.

For a master at once so tireless and so devotedly served, Colonel Winchester handled his team with a prudence which must have chafed his infatuation to the bone. Of every week, five and a half days did they labour and not an hour more. No matter how loudly a ch.o.r.e called for completion, no matter how blackly wind and weather were threatening the half-done work, upon Wednesday afternoon and Sunday not an axe was lifted, not a cord hitched, not a nail driven. It was a wise rule and fruitful. The Sabbath rest leavened the labour of the week. As for the midweek breathing s.p.a.ce, the men were not monks; however zealous their studies of the lilies of the field, the provision of meat and raiment must have some crumbs of consideration...

It was, indeed, these two commodities which had taken Lyveden to Girdle this January day. The milkman, the baker, the grocer, had all to be interviewed and paid. A kindly farmer's wife, who baked fresh meat for him and sent it thrice a week to his cottage in the shape of a cold pasty, had to be visited and made to accept payment for a slab of sweet fresh b.u.t.ter he had not asked for. A little linen had to be picked up....

By half-past three Anthony's errands were run. He had dealt with them quickly, for there was work waiting at the cottage; a load of fuel had to be stacked, and Patch had been bogged that morning and was, consequently, fit neither to be seen nor smelt. Besides, there was a book about forestry which Winchester had lent him.... Anthony bent his steps homeward eagerly enough.

As he left the village, a horsewoman overtook him, shot him a sharp glance, and pa.s.sed ahead. Her habit was mired, and it was evident that she had had a fall hunting. That Anthony did not remark this was because he was regarding her horse. There was nothing unusual about the animal, but of the two beings it alone touched his attention. If Valerie was like to be buried, at least she had killed all other women stone dead.

It was consequently in some annoyance that, upon rounding the second bend of the infamous Gallowstree Hill, he saw the lady before him with her mount across the road, placidly regarding a hunting-crop which lay upon the highway. As he came up--

"Would you be so good?" said the girl.

"With pleasure."

Anthony picked up the crop and offered it. As he did so, the horse became restive, and there was quite a substantial bickering before his mistress could accept the whip. Anthony, if he thought about it at all, attributed the scene to caprice. In this he was right, yet wrong.

Caprice was the indirect reason. The direct cause was the heel of a little hunting-boot adroitly applied to a somewhat sensitive flank.

There is no doubt at all that Anthony had a lot to learn.

Out of the broil stepped Conversation lightly enough.

"You must forgive us both," said the lady, turning her mount towards Gramarye. "We've had a bad day. Quite early on we took the deuce of a toss, and I lost him. A labourer caught him, and then let him go again. By the time I'd got him, the hounds were miles away. I'd never 've believed it was possible to go so fast or so far as I did and never hear of them. After two solid hours I gave it up."

Anthony was walking by her side, listening gravely.

"What a shame!" he said. Then: "I hope you weren't hurt."

"Shoulder's a bit stiff. I fell on the point. But a hot bath'll put that right. D'you live here?"

"About a mile on. At Gramarye."

The girl stared at him.

"Gramarye?"

"Not at the house," said Anthony. "I live in the cottage at the south-west end of the park."

"Oh, I know. D'you work there, then?"

Anthony nodded.

"That's my job."

"So you're Major Lyveden?" said the girl.

Anthony looked up.

"How did you know?" he said.

A pair of large brown eyes regarded him steadily. Then the red lips parted, and Andre Strongi'th'arm flung back her handsome head and laughed merrily.

"Did you think," she said, panting, "did you really think that you could come to dwell in the parish of Girdle, and the fact escape the notice of the other paris.h.i.+oners?" She hesitated, and a suggestion of mockery crept into her voice. "Or are you too wrapped up in the estate to think about anything else?"