Helena's Path

by Anthony Hope

  _Chapter Two_

  LARGELY TOPOGRAPHICAL

  Miss Gilletson had been studying the local paper, which appeared everySaturday and reached Nab Grange on the following morning. She uttered anexclamation, looked up from her small breakfast-table, and called overto the Marchesa's small breakfast-table.

  "Helena, I see that Lord Lynborough arrived at the Castle on Friday!"

  "Did he, Jennie?" returned the Marchesa, with no show of interest. "Havean egg, Colonel?" The latter words were addressed to her companion attable, Colonel Wenman, a handsome but bald-headed man of about forty.

  "'Lord Lynborough, accompanied by his friend Mr. Leonard Stabb, thewell-known authority on prehistoric remains, and Mr. Roger Wilbraham,his private secretary. His lordship's household had preceded him to theCastle.'"

  Lady Norah Mountliffey--who sat with Miss Gilletson--was in the habit ofsaying what she thought. What she said now was: "Thank goodness!" andshe said it rather loudly.

  "You gentlemen haven't been amusing Norah," observed the Marchesa to theColonel.

  "I hoped that I, at least, was engaged on another task--though, alas, aharder one!" he answered in a low tone and with a glance of respectfulhomage.

  "If you refer to me, you've been admirably successful," the Marchesaassured him graciously--only with the graciousness there mingled thattouch of mockery which always made the Colonel rather ill at ease."Amuse" is, moreover, a word rich in shades of meaning.

  Miss Gilletson was frowning thoughtfully. "Helena can't call on him--andI don't suppose he'll call on her," she said to Norah.

  "He'll get to know her if he wants to."

  "I might call on him," suggested the Colonel. "He was in the service,you know, and that--er--makes a bond. Queer fellow he was, by Jove!"

  Captain Irons and Mr. Stillford came in from riding, late for breakfast.They completed the party at table, for Violet Dufaure always took thefirst meal of the day in bed. Irons was a fine young man, still in thetwenties, very fair and very bronzed. He had seen fighting and wasgreat at polo. Stillford, though a man of peace (if a solicitor may sobe called), was by no means inferior in physique. A cadet of a goodcounty family, he was noted in the hunting field and as a long-distanceswimmer. He had come to Nab Grange to confer with the Marchesa on heraffairs, but, proving himself an acquisition to the party, had beenpressed to stay on as a guest.

  The men began to bandy stories of Lynborough from one table to theother. Wenman knew the London gossip, Stillford the local traditions:but neither had seen the hero of their tales for many years. Theanecdotes delighted Norah Mountliffey, and caused Miss Gilletson's handsto fly up in horror. Nevertheless it was Miss Gilletson who said,"Perhaps we shall see him at church to-day."

  "Not likely!" Stillford opined. "And--er--is anybody going?"

  The pause which habitually follows this question ensued upon it now.Neither the Marchesa nor Lady Norah would go--they were both of the OldChurch. Miss Dufaure was unlikely to go, by reason of fatigue. MissGilletson would, of course, go, so would Colonel Wenman--but that was sowell known that they didn't speak.

  "Any ladies with Lynborough's party, I wonder!" Captain Irons hazarded."I think I'll go! Stillford, you ought to go to church--family solicitorand all that, eh?"

  A message suddenly arrived from Miss Dufaure, to say that she feltbetter and proposed to attend church--could she be sent?

  "The carriage is going anyhow," said Miss Gilletson a trifle stiffly.

  "Yes, I suppose I ought," Stillford agreed. "We'll drive there and walkback?"

  "Right you are!" said the Captain.

  By following the party from Nab Grange to Fillby parish church, apartial idea of the locality would be gained; but perhaps it is betterto face the complete task at once. Idle tales suit idle readers; ahistory such as this may legitimately demand from those who study itsome degree of mental application.

  If, then, the traveler lands from the North Sea (which is the only seahe can land from) he will find himself on a sandy beach, dipping rapidlyto deep water and well adapted for bathing. As he stands facing inland,the sands stretch in a long line southerly on his left; on his rightrises the bold bluff of Sandy Nab with its swelling outline, itsgrass-covered dunes, and its sparse firs; directly in front of him,abutting on the beach, is the high wall inclosing the Grange property; agate in the middle gives access to the grounds. The Grange faces south,and lies in the shelter of Sandy Nab. In front of it arepleasure-grounds, then a sunk fence, then spacious meadow-lands. Theproperty is about a mile and a half (rather more than less) in length,to half-a-mile in breadth. Besides the Grange there is a smallfarmhouse, or bailiff's house, in the southwest corner of the estate. Onthe north the boundary consists of moorlands, to the east (as has beenseen) of the beach, to the west and south of a public road. At the endof the Grange walls this road turns to the right, inland, and passes byFillby village; it then develops into the highroad to Easthorpe with itsmarket, shops, and station, ten miles away. Instead, however, ofpursuing this longer route, the traveler from the Grange grounds mayreach Fillby and Easthorpe sooner by crossing the road on the west, andtraversing the Scarsmoor Castle property, across which runs a broadcarriage road, open to the public. He will first--after entering LordLynborough's gates--pass over a bridge which spans a little river, oftennearly dry, but liable to be suddenly flooded by a rainfall in thehills. Thus he enters a beautiful demesne, rich in wood and undergrowth,in hill and valley, in pleasant rides and winding drives. The Castleitself--an ancient gray building, square and massive, stands on aneminence in the northwest extremity of the property; the ground dropsrapidly in front of it, and it commands a view of Nab Grange and the seabeyond, being in its turn easily visible from either of these points.The road above mentioned, on leaving Lynborough's park, runs across themoors in a southwesterly line to Fillby, a little village of some threehundred souls. All around and behind this, stretching to Easthorpe, aregreat rolling moors, rich in beauty as in opportunities for sport, yetcutting off the little settlement of village, Castle, and Grange fromthe outer world by an isolation more complete than the mere distancewould in these days seem to entail. The church, two or three littleshops, and one policeman, sum up Fillby's resources: anything more, forsoul's comfort, for body's supply or protection, must come across themoors from Easthorpe.

  One point remains--reserved to the end by reason of its importance. Agate has been mentioned as opening on to the beach from the grounds ofNab Grange. He who enters at that gate and makes for the Grange followsthe path for about two hundred yards in a straight line, and then takesa curving turn to the right, which in time brings him to the front doorof the house. But the path goes on--growing indeed narrower, ultimatelybecoming a mere grass-grown track, yet persisting quite plain tosee--straight across the meadows, about a hundred yards beyond the sunkfence which bounds the Grange gardens, and in full view from the Grangewindows; and it desists not from its course till it reaches the roughstone wall which divides the Grange estate from the highroad on thewest. This wall it reaches at a point directly opposite to the Scarsmoorlodge; in the wall there is a gate, through which the traveler must passto gain the road.

  There is a gate--and there had always been a gate; that much at least isundisputed. It will, of course, be obvious that if the residents at theCastle desired to reach the beach for the purpose of bathing or otherdiversions, and proposed to go on their feet, incomparably their best,shortest, and most convenient access thereto lay through this gate andalong the path which crossed the Grange property and issued through theGrange gate on to the seashore. To go round by the road would take atleast three times as long. Now the season was the month of June; LordLynborough was a man tenacious of his rights--and uncommonly fond ofbathing.

  On the other hand, it might well be that the Marchesa di SanServolo--the present owner of Nab Grange--would prefer that strangersshould not pass across her property, in full view and hail of herwindows, without her permission and consent. That this, indeed, was thelady's attitude migh
t be gathered from the fact that, on this Sundaymorning in June, Captain Irons and Mr. Stillford, walking back throughthe Scarsmoor grounds from Fillby church as they had proposed, found thegate leading from the road into the Grange meadows securely padlocked.Having ignored this possibility, they had to climb, incidentallydisplacing, but carefully replacing, a number of prickly furze brancheswhich the zeal of the Marchesa's bailiff had arranged along the top railof the gate.

  "Boys been coming in?" asked Irons.

  "It may be that," said Stillford, smiling as he arranged the pricklydefenses to the best advantage.

  The Grange expedition to church had to confess to having seen nothing ofthe Castle party--and in so far it was dubbed a failure. There wasindeed a decorous row of servants in the household seat, but the squareoaken pew in the chancel, with its brass rods and red curtains in front,and its fireplace at the back, stood empty. The two men reported havingmet, as they walked home through Scarsmoor, a very large fat man with aface which they described variously, one likening it to the sinking sunon a misty day, the other to a copper saucepan.

  "Not Lord Lynborough, I do trust!" shuddered little Violet Dufaure. Sheand Miss Gilletson had driven home by the road, regaining the Grange bythe south gate and the main drive.

  Stillford was by the Marchesa. He spoke to her softly, covered by thegeneral conversation. "You might have told us to take a key!" he saidreproachfully. "That gorse is very dangerous to a man's Sundayclothes."

  "It looks--businesslike, doesn't it?" she smiled.

  "Oh, uncommon! When did you have it done?"

  "The day before yesterday. I wanted there to be no mistake from the veryfirst. That's the best way to prevent any unpleasantness."

  "Possibly." Stillford sounded doubtful. "Going to have a notice-board,Marchesa?"

  "He will hardly make that necessary, will he?"

  "Well, I told you that in my judgment your right to shut it against himis very doubtful."

  "You told me a lot of things I didn't understand," she retorted ratherpettishly.

  He shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. No good lay in anticipatingtrouble. Lord Lynborough might take no notice.

  In the afternoon the Marchesa's guests played golf on a rather makeshiftnine-hole course laid out in the meadows. Miss Gilletson slept. TheMarchesa herself mounted the top of Sandy Nab, and reviewed hersituation. The Colonel would doubtless have liked to accompany her, buthe was not thereto invited.

  Helena Vittoria Maria Antonia, Marchesa di San Servolo, was now in hertwenty-fourth year. Born of an Italian father and an English mother, shehad bestowed her hand on her paternal country, but her heart remained inher mother's. The Marchese took her as his second wife and his lastpecuniary resource; in both capacities she soothed his declining years.Happily for her--and not unhappily for the world at large--these werefew. He had not time to absorb her youth or to spend more than a smallportion of her inheritance. She was left a widow--stepmother of adultItalian offspring--owner for life of an Apennine fortress. She liked thefortress much, but disliked the stepchildren (the youngest was of herown age) more. England--her mother's home--presented itself in the lightof a refuge. In short, she had grave doubts about ever returning toItaly.

  Nab Grange was in the market. Ancestrally a possession of the Caverlys(for centuries a noble but unennobled family in those parts), it hadserved for the family's dower-house, till a bad race-meeting had inducedthe squire of the day to sell it to a Mr. Cross of Leeds. The Crossesheld it for seventy years. Then the executors of the last Cross sold itto the Marchesa. This final transaction happened a year beforeLynborough came home. The "Beach Path" had, as above recorded, beenclosed only for two days.

  The path was not just now in the Marchesa's thoughts. Nothing verydefinite was. Rather, as her eyes ranged from moor to sea, from thesplendid uniformity of the unclouded sky to the ravishing variety ofmany-tinted earth, from the green of the Grange meadows (the one spot ofrich emerald on the near coast-line, owing its hues to Sandy Nab'skindly shelter) to the gray mass of Scarsmoor Castle--there was in herheart that great mixture of content and longing that youth and--(whatput bluntly amounts to)--a fine day are apt to raise. And youth alliedwith beauty becomes self-assertive, a claimant against the world, aplaintiff against facts before High Heaven's tribunal. The Marchesa wasinfinitely delighted with Nab Grange--graciously content withNature--not ill-pleased with herself--but, in fine, somewhatdiscontented with her company. That was herself? Not precisely, though,at the moment, objectively. She was wondering whether her house-partywas all that her youth and her beauty--to say nothing of her pastendurance of the Marchese--entitled her to claim and to enjoy.

  Then suddenly across her vision, cutting the sky-line, seeming to dividefor a moment heaven above from earth beneath, passed a tall meagerfigure, and a head of lines clean as if etched by a master's needle. Theprofile stood as carved in fine ivory; glints of color flashed from hairand beard. The man softly sang a love song as he walked--but he neverlooked toward the Marchesa.

  She sat up suddenly. "Could that be Lord Lynborough?" she thought--andsmiled.