The House 'Round the Corner Part 15

"Ashamed of nothing," he answered truculently. "I admit being sweet on the girl. What is there to be ashamed of in that, I'd like to know?"

"It's distinctly to your credit, in some ways," said Armathwaite. "I should have expected your tastes to run rather to barmaids, with an ultimate vote in favor of the daughter of a well-to-do butcher. I dislike cla.s.s distinctions, Walker. Too often they savor of sn.o.bbery; but, in this instance, I am obliged to remind you that my cousin is a lady."

"Oh, is that it? Cousins, are you? I wish you'd told me sooner."

"Why?"

"It might have saved this bit of bother, anyhow."

"I don't think that any well-meant explanations on my part could cure you of an impertinent nature, Walker."

"Dash it all, Mr. Armathwaite, why couldn't I visit Meg? I've seen and spoken to her scores of times."

"But, even in Nuttonby, one does not thrust one's presence on a lady uninvited."

Walker laughed. He could stand any amount of reproof as to his manners, because he rather prided himself on a swaggering disregard of other people's feelings.

"We don't stand on ceremony in Yorks.h.i.+re," he said jauntily. "I opened the door, and actually heard her voice. There was no sense in Betty Jackson sayin' Miss Garth wasn't here, and I told her so pretty plainly.

Then, out she came. What would you have done, in my shoes? Now, I ask you, sir, as man to man."

"I would have striven not to insult her so grossly that she should be moved to tears."

"But I didn't. Don't you believe it. I was pleasant as could be. She behaved like a regular little spit-fire. Turned on me as though she'd been waitin' for the chance. I can stand a lot, but I'm jiggered if I'd let her tell me she'd complain to her father, and have him take away the agency of the property from our firm, when her father is buried these two years in Bellerby churchyard. Why, she must think I'm dotty."

Armathwaite moistened his lips with his tongue.

"You enlightened her ignorance, I presume?" he inquired blandly.

"I didn't know what she was gettin' at, but I asked her plump and plain who the 'Stephen Garth' was who hanged himself in this very house, and has his name and the date of his death on the stone over his grave....

It strikes me that even you don't know the facts, Mr. Armathwaite. If her father is alive, who was the man who committed suicide?... And, by jing, _did_ he commit suicide?"

James Walker's theorizing ended suddenly.

"You poisonous little rat!" murmured Armathwaite, and seized him. Walker was young and active, and by no means a weakling or cowardly, but he resembled a jackal in the grip of a tiger when the hands closed on him which had choked the life out of Nas'r-ulla Khan, chief cut-throat of the Usman Khel. There was no struggle. He was flung face downwards on the table until the door was thrown wide. Then he was bundled neck and crop out of the house, and kicked along the twenty yards of curving path to the gate.

There Armathwaite released him, a limp and profane object.

"Now, go to Nuttonby, and stop there!" was the parting injunction he received. His bitterest humiliation lay in the knowledge that Marguerite Garth and Betty Jackson, hearing the racket, had rushed to hall and door, and were gloating over his discomfiture. A drop of bitterest gall was added by his a.s.sailant's subsequent behavior, for Armathwaite turned his back on him, and sauntered slowly to the house, seemingly quite a.s.sured that there would be no counter-attack. And, indeed, James Walker retained sufficient sense in his frenzied brain to realize that he had no earthly chance in a physical struggle with this demon of a man. So he climbed into the dog-cart, though not with his wonted agility, and drove away to Nuttonby without ever a backward glance.

But he vowed vengeance, vowed it with all the intensity of a mean and stubborn nature. He had visions, at first, of a successful action for a.s.sault and battery; but, as his rage moderated, he saw certain difficulties in the way. His only witnesses would be hostile, and it was even questionable if a bench of magistrates would convict Armathwaite when it was shown that he, Walker, had virtually forced an entry into the house, and refused to leave when requested.

But he could strike more subtly and vindictively through the authorities. Marguerite Garth had said that Stephen Garth was living, and Robert Armathwaite--that compound of iron knuckles and whip-cord muscles--had tacitly endorsed the statement. If that was true, who was the man buried in Stephen Garth's name and ident.i.ty in the churchyard at Bellerby? He had a vague recollection of some difference of opinion between the coroner and a doctor at the inquest. He must refresh his memory by consulting a file of the _Nuttonby Gazette_. In any event, he could stir a hornets' nest into furious activity and search the innermost recesses of the Grange with anguish-laden darts. Curse Meg Garth and her cousin! He'd teach both of 'em, that he would! If they thought that James Walker was done with because he had been flouted and ill-used, they were jolly well mistaken, see if they weren't!

Marguerite Ogilvey was as tender-hearted a girl as ever breathed, but it needed super-human qualities--qualities that no woman could possibly possess and have red blood in her veins--to restrain the fierce joy which thrilled her being when she saw her persecutor driven forth with contumely. Betty Jackson, the village maid, was delighted but shocked; Marguerite, the educated and well-bred young lady, rejoiced candidly.

"You've done just what I would have done if I were a strong man like you!" she cried tremulously, when Armathwaite faced her at the door.

There was a light in her eyes which he gave no heed to at the moment--the light which comes into the eyes of woman when she is defended by her chosen mate--but he attributed it to excitement, and hastened to calm her.

"I may have acted rashly," he said; "but I couldn't help it. Sometimes, one has to take the law into one's own hands. Surely, this is one of the occasions."

"He'll keep clear of Elmdale for a bit," chortled Betty. "P'raps he thinks no one saw you kickin' him except ourselves. He's wrong! Half the village knows it! Old Mrs. Bolland nearly fell out of an upstairs window with cranin' her neck to see what was goin' on, an' there's little Johnnie Headlam runnin' down the ten-acre field now to tell Mr. Burt an'

his men all about it."

The girl had thoughtlessly blurted out a fact of far-reaching import.

Armathwaite swung on his heel, and found gaping faces at every cottage backwindow, and above every hedge. Sleepy Elmdale had waked. Its usually deserted street was pullulating with child life. The sharp Walkers were somewhat too sharp on the land agency side of their business, and were cordially hated in consequence. The bouncing of Walker, junior, had not made him popular; his trouncing would provide a joyous epic for many a day. As for Marguerite Ogilvey's presence in the house, it was known far and wide already. She had been recognized by dozens of people. Elmdale, which might have figured as Goldsmith's deserted village five minutes earlier, was now a thriving place, all eyes and cackling tongues.

Armathwaite had lost sight of that highly probable outcome of his action, nor did it trouble him greatly. The major happening, which he had striven so valiantly to avert, had come about through no fault of his; these minor issues were trivial and might be disregarded. In an earthquake the crumbling of a few bricks more or less is a matter of small account. He knew that when Marguerite Ogilvey had almost forgotten the downfall of Walker she would remember its immediate cause the more poignantly.

"Hadn't we better go indoors till the weather is cooler?" he said, and the sound of his calm voice, no less than the smile he managed to summon in aid, relaxed the tension.

"Please, miss, shall I make a fresh pot of tea?" inquired Betty when the door was closed. There spoke the true Yorks.h.i.+re breed. Let the heavens fall, but don't miss a meal.

"No," said Marguerite, holding her open hands pressed close to eyes and cheeks.

"Yes," said Armathwaite--"that is, if Miss Meg has not had her tea."

Betty nodded, and hastened into the drawing-room, where, it appeared, tea was awaiting Armathwaite's return when Walker arrived on the scene.

She emerged, carrying a tea-pot, and went to the kitchen. Marguerite was now crying silently. When the man caught her arm, meaning to lead her gently into the drawing-room, she broke into a very tempest of weeping, just as a child yields to an abandonment of grief when most a.s.sured of sympathy and protection.

He took her to a chair, but did not attempt to pacify her. For one thing, he had a man's belief that a woman's hyper-sensitive nervous system may find benefit in what is known as "a good cry;" for another, he was not sorry to have a brief respite during which to collect and criticize his own ideas. He did not even try to conceal from himself the ugly fact that James Walker had put into one or two sentences of concentrated venom all that was known to him (Armathwaite) concerning the death in the house, and even a little more, because he had not learnt previously that Stephen Garth was buried at Bellerby. Nor did he permit himself to under-rate Marguerite's intelligence. Her heedless vivacity, and the occasional use of school-girl slang in her speech, were the mere externals of a thoughtful and well-stored mind. There was not the least chance that she would miss any phase of the tragedy which had puzzled and almost bewildered him by its vagueness and mystery. She would recall his own perplexed questions of the previous night. In all likelihood the Jacksons, mother and daughter, had said things which fuller knowledge would clothe with sinister significance. Walker's open-mouthed brutality had left nothing to the imagination. When Marguerite Ogilvey spoke, Armathwaite felt that he would be called on to deal with the most difficult problem he had ever tackled.

When Betty came with a replenished tea-pot she would have attempted to soothe the girl's convulsive sobbing had not Armathwaite intervened.

"Leave Miss Meg to me," he said. "She's going to stop crying in a minute, and vow that she looks a perfect fright, and must really go to her room and bathe her eyes. And I'm going to tell her that a handkerchief dipped in a teaspoonful of milk and dabbed on red eyes is more refres.h.i.+ng and healing than a bucketful of cold water. Then we'll have tea, and eke a stroll on the moor, and perchance Providence will send us a quiet hour in which to look at facts squarely in the face, whereupon some of us will know just where we are, and the world will not be quite so topsy-turvy as it appears at this moment."

Betty gathered that the "master's" harangue was not meant for her, and withdrew, whereupon Marguerite dropped her hands and lifted her swimming eyes to Armathwaite's grave and kindly face.

"Is that milk recipe of yours really intended for use?" she inquired, with a piteous attempt at a smile.

"The whole program has been carefully planned on the most up-to-date and utilitarian lines," he answered.

"Did you hurt Walker?" was her next rather unexpected question, while pouring some milk into a saucer.

"Yes."

"I'm glad."

"How many boxes of chocolates did he send you?"

"About half a dozen."

"Then I kicked him at least once for each box--gave good measure, too."

"It's horrid and un-Christian--still, I'm glad. Do you take sugar and cream?"

"Of course."

"Why of course? Some people don't."