The Orchard of Tears Part 4

Don stood still in the road, facing Paul. "Choose your seed with care, Paul, for generations yet unborn will eat of its fruit."

V

Paul Mario dined alone in the small breakfast-room overlooking the sloping lawns, waited upon by Davison, the late Sir Jacques' butler, a useful but melancholy servant, having the demeanour of a churchwarden and a habit of glancing rapidly under tables and chairs as though he had mislaid a ca.s.sock or a Book of Common Prayer. The huge, gloomy dining-room oppressed the new owner of Hatton Towers, being laden with the atmosphere of a Primitive Methodist Sunday School.

Sir Jacques had been Paul's maternal uncle, and Paul had often wondered if there could have been anything in common between his mother--whom he had never known--and this smug Pharisee. His father, who had died whilst Paul was at Oxford, had rarely spoken of Paul's mother; but Paul had chanced to overhear an old clubman refer to her as having possessed "the most fascinating ankles in London." The remark had confirmed his earlier impression that his mother had been a joyous b.u.t.terfly. For his father, a profound but sombre scholar, he cherished a reverence which was almost Roman in its character. His portrait in oils occupied the place of honour in Paul's study, and figuratively it was a shrine before which there ever burned the fires of a deathless love and admiration.

Paul's acute response to environment rendered him ill at ease in Hatton Towers. The legacy embarra.s.sed him. He hated to be so deeply indebted to a man he could never repay and from whom he would not willingly have accepted the lightest favour. It has been truly said that the concupiscence of the eye outlives desire. Tiberius succ.u.mbed to premature senility (and was strangled by Macro) in a bedchamber decorated with figures from the works of Elephantis; and Sir Jacques'

secret library, which he had omitted to destroy or disperse, bore evidence to the whited sepulchre of his intellectual life.

This atmosphere was disturbing. Paul could have worked at Hatton Towers, but not upon the mighty human theme with which at that hour his mind was pregnant. For his intellect was like a sensitive plate upon which the thoughts of those who had lived and longed and died in whatever spot he might find himself, were reproduced eerily, almost clairvoyantly. It was necessary that he should work amid sympathetic colour--that he should appropriately set the stage for the play; and Fame having coming to him, not empty-handed but laden with gold, he made those settings opulent.

He did spontaneously the things that lesser men do at behest of their press-agents. The pa.s.sionate mediaeval tragedy _Francesca of the Lilies_, destined to enshrine his name in the temple of the masters, he wrote at the haunted Palazzo Concini in Tuscany, where, behind tomb-like doors, iron-studded and ominous, he worked in a low-beamed windowless room at a table which had belonged to Gilles de Rais, and by light of three bronze lamps found in the ruins of the Mamertine dungeons.

For company he had undying memories of sins so black that only the silent Vatican archives held record of them; memories of unholy loves, of deaths whose manner may not be written, of births whereat the angels shuddered. Torch-scarred walls and worm-tunnelled furniture whispered their secrets to him, rusty daggers confessed their b.l.o.o.d.y histories, and a vial still bearing ghastly frost of Borgian _contarella_ spoke of a virgin martyr and of a princely cardinal whose deeds were forgotten by all save Mother Church. Paul's genius was absorbent, fructiferous, prolific of golden dreams.

But the atmosphere of Hatton Towers stifled inspiration, was definitely antagonistic. The portrait of the late Sir Jacques, in the dining-room, seemed to dominate the house, as St. Peter's dominates Rome, or even as the Pyramids dominate Lower Egypt. The scanty beard and small eyes; the flat, fleshy nose; the indeterminable, mask-like expression; all were faithfully reproduced by the celebrated academician--and humorist--who had executed the painting. Soft black hat, flat black tie, and ill-fitting frock coat might readily have been identified by the respectable but unfas.h.i.+onable tradesmen patronised by Sir Jacques.

Paul, pipe in mouth, confronting the likeness after dinner, recalled, and smiled at the recollection, a saying of Don's: "Never trust a whiskered man who wears a soft black felt hat and a black frock coat.

The hat conceals the horns; the coat hides the tail!"

From room to room he rambled, and even up into the octagonal turret chambers in the tower. Here he seemed to be rid of the aura of the dining-room portrait and in a rarefied atmosphere of Tudor turbulence.

In one of the turret chambers, that overlooking the orchard, he found himself surveying the distant parkland with the eyes of a captive and longing for the coming of one who ever tarried yet was ever expected.

The long narrow gallery over the main entrance, with its six mullioned windows and fine collection of paintings, retained, as a jar that has held musk retains its scent, a faint perfume of Jacobean gallantry. But the pictures, many of them undraped studies collected by Sir Jacques, which now held the place once sacred to ancestors, cast upon the gallery a vague shadow of the soft black hat.

From a tiny cabinet at one end of the gallery a stair led down to my lady's garden where bushes masqueraded as birds, a sundial questioned the smiling moon and a gathering of young frogs leapt hastily from the stone fountain at sound of Paul's footsteps. Monkish herbs and sweet-smelling old-world flowers grew modestly in this domain once sacred to the chatelaine of Hatton; and Paul kept ghostly tryst with a white-shouldered lady whose hair was dressed high upon her head, and powdered withal, and to whose bewitching red lips the amorous glance was drawn by a patch cunningly placed beside a dimple. My lady's garden was a reliquary of soft whispers, and Paul by the magic of his genius reclaimed them all and was at once the lover and the mistress.

In the depths of the house he found a delightful dungeon. More modern occupiers of Hatton had used the dungeon as a wine-cellar and Sir Jacques had converted it to the purposes of a dark-room, for he had been a skilful and enthusiastic amateur of photography; but that it had at some period of its history served other ends, Paul's uncanny instinct told him. A sense of chill, not physical, indeed almost impersonal, attacked him as he entered, hurricane-lantern aloft. For the poet that informed his lightest action dictated that the ray of a lantern and not the glare of a modern electric appliance should illuminate that memory-haunted spot.

Gyves fastened up his limbs and dread of some cruel doom struck at his heart as he stooped to enter the place. Here again the powerful influence of Sir Jacques was imperceptible; the dungeon lay under the spell of a stronger and darker personality; and as he curiously examined its structure and form, to learn that it was older than the oldest part of the house above, he knew himself to be in a survival of some forgotten stronghold upon whose ashes a Tudor mansion had been reared.

Searing irons glared before his eyes; in a dim, arched corner a brazier glowed dully; ropes creaked.

Returning to the library, he found himself again within the aura of his departed uncle. It was in this book-lined apartment that Sir Jacques had transacted the affairs of the ugly little church at Mid Hatton and the volumes burdening the leather-edged shelves were of a character meet for the eye of an elder. The smaller erotic collection in the locked bureau in the study presumably had companioned Sir Jacques' more leisured hours.

Paul sank into a deep, padded arm-chair. The library of Hatton Towers was in the south-east wing, and now because of the night's stillness dim booming of distant guns was audible. A mood of reflection claimed him, and from it he sank into sleep, to dream of the portrait of Sir Jacques which seemed to have become transparent, so that the camel-like head now appeared, as in those monstrous postcard caricatures which at one time flooded the Paris shops, to be composed of writhing nudities cunningly intertwined, of wanton arms, and floating locks and leering woman-faces.

VI

Through the sun-gay gardens, wet with dew, Paul made his way on the following morning. The songs of the birds delighted him and the homely voices of cattle in the meadows were musical because the skies were blue. A beetle crawled laboriously across the gravel path before him, and he stepped aside to avoid crus.h.i.+ng it; a ladybird discovered on the brim of his hat had to be safely deposited on a rose bush, nor in performing this act of charity did he disturb the web of a small spider who resided hard by. Because the flame of life burnt high within him, he loved all life to-day.

The world grew blind in its old age, reverencing a man-hewn symbol, a fragment of wood, a sacerdotal ring, when the emblem of creation, of being, the very glory of G.o.d made manifest, hung resplendent in the heavens! Men scoffed at miracles, and the greatest miracle of all rose daily before their eyes; questioned the source of life, and every blade of gra.s.s pointed upward to it, every flower raised its face adoring it; doubted eternity whilst the eternal flames that ever were, are and ever shall be, burned above their heads! Those nameless priests of a vanished creed who made Stonehenge, drew nearer perhaps to the Divine mystery than modern dogma recognised.

So ran his thoughts, for on a sunny morning, although perhaps sub-consciously, every man becomes a fire-wors.h.i.+pper. Then came the dim booming--and a new train of reflection. Beneath the joyous heavens men moiled and sweated at the task of slaying. Doubting souls, great companies of them, even now were being loosed upon their mystic journey.

Man slew man, beast slew beast, and insect devoured insect. The tiny red beetle that he had placed upon the rose bush existed only by the death of the aphides which were its prey; the spider, too, preyed. But man was the master slayer. It was jungle law--the law of the wilderness miscalled life; which really was not life but a striving after life.

Realising, anew, how wildly astray from simple truth the world had wandered, how ridiculous were the bickerings which pa.s.sed for religious thought, how puerile, inadequate, the dogmas that men named creeds, he trembled spiritually before the magnitude of his task. He doubted his strength and the purity of his motives. "Any fool can smash a Ming pot, but no man living to-day can make one." Dear old Don had a way of saying quaint things that meant much. The world was very fair to look upon; but for some odd reason a mental picture of Damascus seen from the Lebanon Mountains arose before him. Perhaps that was how the world looked to the G.o.ds--until they sought to live in it.

Coming out into the narrow winding lane beyond the lodge gates, Paul saw ahead of him a shambling downcast figure, proceeding up the slope.

"Good morning, Fawkes," he called.

Fawkes stopped as suddenly as Lot's wife, but unlike Lot's wife without looking around, and stood in the road as rigid as she. Paul came up to his side, and the gamekeeper guiltily raised the peak of his cap and remained standing there silent and downcast.

"A glorious morning, Fawkes," said Paul, cheerily.

"Yes, sir," agreed Fawkes, his breath bated.

"I want to tell you," continued Paul, "whilst I remember, that Mrs.

Duveen's daughter, Flamby, is to be allowed to come and go as she likes anywhere about the place. She does no harm, Fawkes; she is a student of wild life and should be encouraged."

Fawkes' face a.s.sumed an expression of complete bewilderment. "Yes, sir,"

he said, his reedy voice unsteady; "as you wish, sir. But I don't know about not doing no harm. She spoils all the shootin', alarms the birds and throws things at the beaters, she does; and this year she stopped the hounds, she did."

"Stopped the hounds, Fawkes?"

"Yes, sir. The fox he ran to cover down Babylon Lane, and right into Dovelands Cottage. The hounds come through the hedge hard after him, they did, and all the pack jumped the gate and streamed into the garden.

Colonel Wycherley and Lady James and old John Darbey, the huntsman, they was close on the pack, and they all three took the gate above Coates'

Farm and come up in a bunch, you might say."

Fawkes paused, glanced guiltily at Paul's face, and, rea.s.sured, lowered his head again and raced through the remainder of his story breathlessly.

"Flamby, she was peelin' potatoes in the porch, and she jumps up and runs down to the gate all on fire. The hounds was bayin' all round her as fierce as tigers, and she took no more notice of 'em than if they'd been flies. She see old John first, and she calls to him to get the pack out of the garden, in a way it isn't for me to say...."

"On the contrary, Fawkes, I take an interest in Flamby Duveen, and I wish to hear exactly what she said."

"Well, sir, if you please, sir, she hollers: 'Call your blasted dogs out of my garden, John Darbey!'

"'The fox is a-hiding somewhere here,' says John.

"'To h.e.l.l with the fox and you, too!' shouts Flamby, and pickin' up a big stick that's lyin' on the ground, she slips into them dogs like a mad thing. I'm told everybody was sure they'd attack her; but would you believe it, sir, she chased 'em out like a flock of sheep. She don't hit like a girl, Flamby don't; she means it."

"She loves animals, Fawkes, and knows them; therefore she has great influence over them. I don't suppose one of them was hurt."

"Anyway, sir, she got 'em all out in the lane and stood lookin' over the gate. John Darbey he was speechless in his saddle, like, but Lady James she told Flamby what she thought about her."

Fawkes paused for breath and darted a second furtive glance at Paul.

"Proceed, Fawkes," directed the latter. "What was the end of the episode?"

"Well, sir, Flamby answered her back, but it's not for me to repeat what she said...."

"Since the story is evidently known to the whole countryside, you need have no scruples about the matter, Fawkes. What did Lady James say to Flamby?"