CHAPTER VIII
THE MIDDLE OF THE STAIRCASE
Mallow Court, the Seymours' country home, lay not a mile from thevillage of St. Wennys. A low, two-storied house of creeper-clad stone,it stood perched upon the cliffs, overlooking the wild sea which beatsup against the Cornish coast.
The house itself had been built in a quaint, three-sided fashion, thecentral portion and the two wings which flanked it rectangularlyserving to enclose a sunk lawn round which ran a wide, flagged path. Alow, grey stone wall, facing the sea, fenced the fourth side of thesquare, at one end of which a gate gave egress on to the sea-bittengrassy slope that led to the edge of the cliff itself.
A grove of trees half-girdled the house, and this, together with thesheltering upward trend of the downs on one side of it, tempered theviolence of the fierce winds which sometimes swept the coast-line evenin summer.
Behind the house, under the lee of the rising upland, lay the gardensof Mallow, witness to the loving care of generations. Stretches oflawn, coolly green and shaven, sloped away from a terrace which ran thewhole length of the house, meeting the gravelled drive as it curvedpast the house-door. Beyond lay dim sweet alleys, over-arched bytrees, and below, where a sudden dip in the configuration of the landadmitted of it, were grassy terraces, gay with beds of flowers, linkedtogether by short flights of grass-grown steps.
"I can't understand why you spend so much time in stuffy old London,Kitty, when you have this heavenly place to come to."
Nan spoke from a nest of half-a-dozen cushions heaped together beneaththe shade of a tree. Here she was lounging luxuriously, smokinginnumerable Turkish cigarettes, while Kitty swung tranquilly in ahammock close by. Penelope had been invisible since lunch time. Theyhad all been down at Mallow the better part of a month, and she andRalph Fenton quite frequently absented themselves, "hovering," as Barryexplained, "on the verge of an engagement."
"My dear, the longer I stay in town, the more thoroughly I enjoy thecountry when we come here. I get the quintessence of enjoyment bytreating Mallow as a liqueur."
Nan laughed. There was a faint flavour of bitterness in her laughter.
"Practically most of our good times in this world are only to beobtained in the liqueur form. The gods don't make a habit of offeringyou a big jug of enjoyment."
"If they did, you'd be certain to refuse it because you didn't like theshape of the jug!" retorted Kitty.
Nan smiled whole-heartedly.
"What a miserable, carping, discontented creature I must be!"
"I'll swear that's not true!" An emphatic masculine voice intervened,and round the corner of the clump of trees beneath which the two girlshad taken refuge, swung a man's tall, well-setup figure clad inknickerbockers and a Norfolk coat.
"Good gracious, Roger, how you made me jump!" And Kitty hurriedlylowered a pair of smartly-shod feet which had been occupying a somewhatelevated position in the hammock.
"I'm sorry. How d'you do, Kit? And how are you, Miss Davenant?"answered the new-comer.
The alteration in his voice as he addressed Nan was quite perceptibleto anyone well-versed in the symptoms of the state of being in love,and his piercing light-grey eyes beneath their shaggy, sunburntbrows--fierce, far-visioned eyes that reminded one of the eyes of ahawk--softened amazingly as they rested upon her charming face.
"Oh, we're quite all right, thanks," she answered. "That is, whenpeople don't drop suddenly from the clouds and galvanise us into actionthis warm weather."
She regarded him with a faintly quizzical smile. He was notparticularly attractive in appearance, though tall and well-built.About forty-two, a typical English sportsman of the out-door,cold-tub-in-the-morning genus, he had a square-jawed, rather ugly face,roofed with a crop of brown hair a trifle sunburnt at its tips as aconsequence of long days spent in the open. His mouth indicated acertain amount of self-will, the inborn imperiousness of a man who hasmet with obedient services as a matter of course, and whose forebears,from one generation to another, have always been masters of men. And,it might be added, masters of their women-kind as well, in the good,old-fashioned way. There was, too, more than a hint of obstinacy andtemper in the long, rather projecting chin and dominant nose.
But the smile he bestowed on Nan when he answered her redeemed theugliness of his face considerably. It was the smile of a man who couldbe both kindly and generous where his prejudices were not involved, whomight even be capable of something rather big if occasion warranted it.
"It was too bad of me to startle you like that," he acknowledged."Please forgive me. I caught sight of you both through the trees anddeclared myself rather too suddenly."
"Always a mistake," commented Nan, nodding wisely.
Roger Trenby regarded her doubtfully. She was extraordinarilyattractive, this slim young woman from London who was staying atMallow, but she not infrequently gave utterances to remarks which,although apparently straight-forward enough, yet filled him with avague, uneasy feeling that they held some undercurrent of significancewhich had eluded him.
He skirted the quicksand hastily, and turned the conversation to asubject where be felt himself on sure ground.
"I've been exercising hounds to-day."
Trenby was Master of the Trevithick Foxhounds, and had the reputationof being one of the finest huntsmen in the county, and his heart andhis pluck and a great deal of his money went to the preserving of it.
"Oh," cried Nan warmly, "why didn't you bring them round by Mallowbefore you went back to the kennels?"
"We didn't come coastward at all," he replied. "I never thought ofyour caring to see them."
Nan was not in the least a sportswoman by nature, though she had huntedas a child--albeit much against her will--to satisfy the whim of afather who had been a dare-devil rider across country and had found hisjoy in life--and finally his death--in the hunting field he had loved.But she was a lover of animals, like most people of artistictemperament, and her reply was enthusiastic.
"Of course I'd like to have seen them!"
Roger's face brightened.
"Then will you let me show you the kennels one day? I could motor overfor you and bring you back afterwards."
Nan nodded up at him.
"I'd like to come very much. When shall we do it?"
Kitty stirred idly in her hammock.
"You've let yourself in for it now, Roger," she remarked. "Nan is themost impatient person alive."
Once more Nan looked up, with lazy "blue violet" eyes whose seductivesweetness sent an unaccustomed thrill down Roger's spine. She was sodifferent, this slender bit of womanhood with her dusky hair and petalskin, from the sturdy, thick-booted, sporting type of girl to which hewas accustomed. For Roger Trenby very rarely left his ancestral acresto essay the possibilities of the great outer world, and his knowledgeof women had been hitherto chiefly gleaned from the comely--if somewhatstolid--damsels of the countryside, with whom he had shot and fishedand hunted since the days of his boyhood.
"Don't be alarmed by what Kitty tells you, Mr. Trenby," Nan smiledgently as she spoke and Roger found himself delightedly watching theadorable way her lips curled up at the corners and the faint dimplewhich came and went. "She considers it a duty to pick holes in poorme--good for my morals, you know."
"It must be a somewhat difficult occupation," he returned, bowingawkwardly.
Into Nan's mind flashed the recollection of a supple, expressive,un-English bow, and of a deftness of phrase compared with whichTrenby's laboured compliment savoured of the elephantine. Swiftly shedismissed the memory, irritably chasing it from her mind, for was itnot five long, black, incomprehensible weeks since Peter had vanishedfrom her ken? From the day of the bridge-party at the Edenhall flat,she had neither seen nor heard from him, and during those five silentweeks she had come to recognise the fact that Peter meant much more toher than merely a friend, just as he himself had realised that she wasthe one woman in the world for him. And between them, now and always,stood Celia, the
woman in possession.
"Well, then, what about Thursday next for going over to the kennels?Are you disengaged?"
Trenby's voice broke suddenly across her reverie. She threw him abrilliant smile.
"Yes. Thursday would do very well."
"Agreed, then. I'll call for you at half-past ten," said Trenby."Well"--rising reluctantly to his feet--"I must be moving on now. Ihave to go over one of my off-farms before dinner, so I'll saygood-bye."
He lifted his cap and strode away, Nan watching his broad-shoulderedwell-knit figure with reflective eyes, the while irrepressible littlegurgles and explosions of mirth emanated from the hammock.
At last Nan burst out irritably:
"What on earth are you giggling about, Kitty?"
"At the lion endeavouring to lie down with the lamb," submitted Kittymeekly.
"Don't talk in parables."
"It's a very easy one to interpret"--Kitty succumbed once more to agale of laughter. "It was just too delicious to watch you and Rogertogether! You'd much better leave him alone, my dear, and play withthe dolls you're used to."
"How detestable you are, Kitty. I promise you one thing--it's going tobe much worse for the lion than the lamb."
Mrs. Barry Seymour sat up suddenly, the laughter dying out of her eyes.
"Nan," she admonished, "you leave Roger alone. He's as Nature made himand not fair game for such as you. Leave him to some simple countrymaiden--Edna Langdon, for instance, who rides straight to hounds andwhose broad acres--or what will be her broad acres when Papa Langdon isgathered--'march' with his."
"Surely I can out-general her?"--impertinently.
"Out-general her? Of course you can. But that's just what you mustn'tdo. I won't allow you to play with Roger. He's too good a sort--evenif he is a bit heavy in hand."
"I agree. He's quite a good sort. But he needs educating. . . . Andperhaps I'm not going to 'play' with him."
"Not? Then what . . . Nan, you never mean to suggest that you're inearnest?"
Nan regarded her consideringly.
"And why not, pray? Isn't he well-seeming? Hasn't he broad acres ofhis own? Do I not find favour in his eyes? . . . Surely the last fourweeks have shown you that much?"
Kitty made a small grimace.
"They certainly have. But seriously, this is all nonsense, Nan. Youand Roger Trenby are about as unsuited to each other as any man andwoman could possibly be. In addition to which he has the temper of afiend when roused--and you'd be sure to rouse him! You know a dozenmen more suitable!"
"Do I? It seems to me I'm particularly destitute of men friends justnow, either 'suitable' or otherwise. They've been giving me the coldshoulder lately with commendable frequency. So why not the M.F.H. andhis acres?"
Kitty detected the bitter, hurt note in her voice, and privatelycongratulated herself on a letter she had posted only the previousevening telling Peter that everything was obviously over between Nanand Maryon Rooke, as the latter had failed to put in an appearance atSt. Wennys--and would he come down to Mallow Court? With Peter oncemore at hand, she felt sure he would be able to charm Nan's bitternessaway and even prevent her, in some magical way of his own, fromcommitting such a rash blunder as marriage with Trenby could not failto be.
She had been feeling rather disturbed about Nan ever since they hadcome to Mallow. The Nan she knew, wayward, tantalising, yet alwayslovable, seemed to have disappeared, and instead here was thisembittered, moody Nan, very surely filled with some wild notion ofdefying fate by marrying out of hand and so settling for ever thedisappointments of the past--and whatever chances of happiness theremight be waiting for her in the lap of destiny. Settling them infavour of one most final and lasting disappointment of them all--ofthat Kitty felt convinced.
"Nan, don't be a fool!" she insisted vehemently. "You'd be wretched ifyou married the wrong man--far, far more wretched in the future thanyou've ever been in the past. You'd only repent that last step once,and that would be--always!"
"My dear Kit, I've taken so many steps that I've repented! But whenyou're in the middle of a staircase you must inevitably continue takingsteps--either up or down. And if I take this one, and repent it--well,at all events it will be the last step."
"Not necessarily," replied Kitty drily.
"Where are you wandering now?" gibed Nan. "Into the Divorce Courts--orthe Thames? Surely you know me better than that! I value my creaturecomforts far too much to exploit either, I assure you. The DivorceCourts are muddy--and the Thames is wet."
Kitty was silent a moment, her heart torn by the bitterness in thegirl's voice.
"You'd regret it, I know," she insisted gravely.
Nan rose from her cushions, swinging her hat in her hand.
"Always remembering that a prophet hath no honour in his own country,"she commented curtly over her shoulder, and sauntered away towards thehouse, defiantly humming the air of a scandalous little French song asshe went.
Kitty sank back into the hammock, lighting a cigarette to aid hermeditations. Truly matters had gone very crookedly. Maryon Rooke hadbeen the first cause of all the trouble. Then she herself hadintervened to distract Nan's thoughts by asking Peter to be a pal toher. And the net result of it all was that Peter, irrevocably bound toanother woman, had fallen in love with Nan, while the latter wasphilandering desperately with a totally unsuitable second string.
"Dreaming, Kitty?" said a voice, and looking up with the frown stillwrinkling her pretty brows, she saw Lord St. John approaching.
"If I am, it must be a nightmare, I think!" she answered lugubriously.
The old man's kindly face took on a look of concern.
"Any nightmare that I can dispel, my dear?"
Kitty patted the fine-bred, wrinkled old hand that rested on the edgeof the hammock.
"I know you love to play the fairy godfather to us all, but in thiscase I'm afraid you can't help. In fact, you've done all youcould--made her free to choose."
"It's Nan, then?" he said quickly.
Kitty laughed rather mirthlessly.
"'M. Isn't it always Nan who is causing us anxiety one way or another?"
"And just now?"
"Haven't you guessed? I'm sure you have!"
St. John's lips twisted in a whimsical smile.
"I suppose you mean that six-foot-odd of bone and muscle from TrenbyHall?"
"Of course I mean him! Just because she's miserable over that Rookebusiness and because Roger is as insistent as a man with that kind ofchin always is, she'll be Mrs. Roger before we can stop her--andmiserable ever after!"
"Isn't the picture a trifle overdrawn?" St. John pulled forward one ofthe garden chairs and sat down. "Trenby's a very decent fellow, Ishould imagine, and comes of good old stock."
"Oh, yes, he's all that." Kitty metaphorically tossed the whole packof qualifications into the dustbin. "But he's got the devil's owntemper when he's roused and he's filled to the brim with goodold-fashioned notions about a man being master in his own house, etcetera. And no man will ever be master in his own house while Nan's init--unless he breaks her."
St. John stirred restlessly.
"Things are a bit complicated sometimes, aren't they?" he said in arather tired voice. "Still"--with an effort--"we must hope for thebest. You've jumped far ahead of the actual state of affairs atpresent."
"Roger's tagging round after her from morning to night."
"He's not the first man to do that," submitted Lord. St. John, smiling,"Nan is--Nan, you know, and you mustn't assume too much from Roger'sliking to be with her. I'm sure if I were one of her contemporaryyoung men, I should 'tag round' just like the rest of 'em. So don'tmeet trouble half way."
"Optimist!" said Kitty.
"Oh, no." The disclaimer came quickly. "Philosopher."
"I can't be philosophical, unluckily."
"My dear, we have no choice. It isn't we who move the pieces in thegame."
A silence followed. Then, as Kit
ty vaguely murmured something abouttea, St. John helped her out of the hammock, and together they strolledtowards the house. They found tea in progress on the square lawnfacing the sea and every one foregathered there. Nan, apparently inwild spirits, was fooling inimitably, and she bestowed a small,malicious smile on Kitty as she and Lord St. John joined the grouparound the tea-table.
It was a glorious afternoon. The sea lay dappled with light and shadeas the sun and vagrant breezes played with it, while for miles alongthe coast the great cliffs were wrapt in a soft, quivering haze so thatthe lines and curves of their vari-coloured strata, and the bleak,sheer menace of their height, as they overhung the blue water lappingon the sands below, were screened from view.
"There are some heavenly sandwiches here," announced Nan. "That is, ifSandy has left any. Have you, Sandy?"
Sandy McBain grinned responsively. He was the somewhat surprisingoffspring of the union between Nan's Early Victorian aunt, Eliza, and aprosaic and entirely uninteresting Scotsman. Red-haired and freckled,with the high cheekbones of his Celtic forebears, he was a young man ofundeniable ugliness, redeemed only by a pair of green eyes as kind andhonest as a dog's, and by a voice of surprising charm and sweetness.
"Not many," he replied easily. "I gave you all the largest, anyway."
"Sandy says he hasn't left any," resumed Nan calmly.
"At least, only small ones. We mustn't blame him. What are they madeof, Kitty? They'd beguile a fasting saint--let alone a material personlike Sandy."
"Salmon paste and cress," replied Mrs. Seymour mildly.
"I bet any money its salmon and shrimp paste," declared Sandy. "Andit's the vulgar shrimp which appeals."
He helped himself unostentatiously to another sandwich.
"Your eighth," commented Nan.
"It's the shrimpness of them," he murmured plaintively. "I can't helpit."
"Well, draw the line somewhere," she returned. "If we're going to playduets after tea and you continue to absorb sandwiches at your presentrate of consumption, you'll soon be incapable of detecting the inherentdifference between a quaver and a semibreve."
"Then I shall count," said Sandy.
"No."
"Aloud," he added firmly.
"Sandy, you're a beast!"
"Not a bit. I believe I could compose a symphonic poem under theinfluence of salmon and shrimp sandwiches--if I had enough of them."
"You've had enough," retorted Nan promptly. "So come along and begin."
She swept him away to the big music-room, where a polished floor and anabsence of draperies offered no hindrance to the tones of the beautifulBluethner piano. Some of the party drifted in from the terrace outsideas Sandy's long, boyish fingers began to move capably over the keys,extemporising delightfully.
"If he were only a little older," whispered Kitty to Lord St. John.
"Inveterate match-maker!" he whispered back.
Sandy pulled Nan down on to the music seat beside him.
"_The Shrimp Symphony_ in A flat minor, arranged for four hands," heannounced. "Come on, Nan. Time, seven-four--"
"Sandy, don't be ridiculous!"
"Why not seven-four?"--innocently. "You have five-four. Come along._One_, two, three, four, five, six, sev'n; _one_, two, three, four,five--"
And the next moment the two were improvising a farcical duet that inits way was a masterpiece of ingenious musicianship. Thence theypassed on to more serious music until finally Sandy was persuaded toproduce his violin--he had two, one of which, as he was wont to remark,"lodged" at Mallow. With the help of Penelope and Ralph Fenton, theafternoon was whiled away until a low-toned gong, reverberating throughthe house was a warning that it was time to dress for dinner, broughtthe impromptu concert to an abrupt end.
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