John recognised Victor Monset immediately, and when the artist gathered up his sketching block and climbed up to where he stood, he said:
“Have I made concentration impossible?”
Monset smiled.
“At the moment you appeared I was on the point of giving it up, in any case,” he laughed. “The need of a cigarette had overcome my concentration. Can you oblige? I seem to have left my case at the Hall.”
Travayne produced his cigarette case immediately and the artist lit up appreciatively.
“I’ve been working longer than I meant to,” he said, glancing at the sun. “I came out for a walk originally, but the scenery around here tempts me every time!”
“Have you tried Quaker’s Dene?” Travayne asked. “It’s five miles south, but worth every foot of the—pilgrimage! I walked there yesterday.”
“No, I haven’t discovered it so far, but I’ll take your advice.” Monset paused, glancing at the other quickly. “Are you enjoying your stay up here?”
“Very much,” Travayne admitted. “I’m just home from abroad, and this sort of thing”—he made a sweeping gesture with his hand which included sea and dunes and the gentle, undulating swell of the land towards the Border hills—“is worth waiting years to return to.”
“Your home is here, then?” Monset asked.
“I’m a north-county man,” Travayne admitted.
“You’re settled abroad?”
The interest Monset felt was genuine.
“I suppose so,” Travayne replied. “Although, sooner or later, we all begin to dream of returning to the old country.”
“Would you settle on the land again if you did decide to come back?” Monset asked.
“Most probably,” Travayne replied. “I haven’t a great deal of practical experience of English farming. I’m tea planting just now.”
Monset sat down on a tufty outcrop of rock.
“I have an elder brother at that,” he said. “He’s been in Ceylon for sixteen years. Brittain Monset’s his name.”
“Brit Monset of Ratnapura?” Travayne said reminiscently. “Good heavens! I know him like—like my own brother!”
Monset laughed.
“It’s a small world,” he said. “How is he? We used to write, but like everything else it lost its appeal in time. He was always at me to go out there.”
“He’s made a deal of money,” Travayne observed. “He’s one of the workers of this world.”
“You talk like him!” Monset smiled. “Like he used to talk. My ‘scribbling on a bit of paper’ evoked his wholehearted contempt. I suppose you’re of the same opinion?”
“Not altogether,” Travayne said slowly. “If the ‘scribbling’
justifies itself.”
Monset turned to look at him more closely.
“You’re right,” he said. “And for the first time in my life, the work I have done here does just that! I’ll be eternally grateful to Alric Veycourt for one thing, and that is the way I have been able to put everything I’ve got into my work here without stopping to wonder where my next meal was coming from.”
“The Squire’s hospitality is free enough, then?” Travayne asked. “I thought he generally drove a hard bargain?”
“Rumours get about concerning the best of people,” Monset observed. “Personally, I’ve come to like old Veycourt. His bark is worse than his bite, and the man has more than one thing to worry him.”
“I suppose his health is not of the best?”
“No. He suffers periodically from gout. Gout and his nephew! A combination to try any man’s patience!”
John Travayne turned the conversation back to India rather abruptly.
“I suppose you know your brother married recently?” he said.
“Yes. I heard a rumour to that effect,” Monset replied, “I always meant to write and congratulate him.”
“There’s a youngster, too, I believe—a boy,” Travayne told him, and they chatted on about India in the manner of two old friends until the sound of a motor horn rent the peaceful air around them.
Valerie Grenton’s car drew up on the narrow cliff road. “Hullo!” Valerie called across to them. “What’s this? A council of war?”
Monset grinned.
“Can’t you see we’re smoking the pipe of peace?” he said. “At least, Travayne is; I’m coming along well enough on a cigarette or two!”
Valerie got out and came towards them. She was slightly puzzled at finding them together.
“This is the second time I have been to the Guest House and found you out. I was beginning to think there must be some sort of conspiracy down there to keep me in ignorance of your whereabouts,” she said to Travayne.
“I’m on holiday,” John reminded her lightly. “I don’t want to leave behind an account of my probable movements each time I go out. This is a free and easy life, and I prefer to live it in a free and easy way.”
“Do you really mean to say you’re not bored?” Valerie asked.
“Never,” Travayne asserted, with a smile.
“He doesn’t give himself time to be bored,” Monset said. “Neither do I. We work too hard.”
“You haven’t been working hard this afternoon,” Valerie retorted, with a glance at the sketching-block in his hand.
She would have given a great deal to know what they had been discussing up here on the cliff. Self-centred and wholly selfish, she wondered what part, if not the whole, of their conversation she had occupied. Monset, who seemed able to guess her every thought, took a deliberate delight in shattering such illusions.
“We were very far away,” he said, glancing at Travayne. “ In India, as a matter of fact. Mr. Travayne has met my brother out there, Valerie. Rather interesting, isn’t it? He tells me Brittain has married and settled down admirably. There is even an addition to the family circle!”
“Which goes to prove?” Valerie asked sharply, a little exasperated at all this unnecessary fund of detail.
“Oh—that the Monsets are the marrying kind, shall we say?”
Valerie turned her back on him without replying. “Can I give you a lift to the farm?” she asked Travayne. “I’m going that way.”
John glanced at his watch. It was almost time for dinner. He had lingered on the cliff with the artist longer than he had thought. It was no great distance to Conningscliff, but the car would take him there more quickly than his own two feet.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’d be grateful.”
Monset went round to the door beside the driver’s seat and shut Valerie in.
“The matrimonial offer is still open,” he said below his breath, and there was a decided twinkle in his eyes as he stood back and watched the girl he was determined to marry drive off with the man he would like to call his friend.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ruth had carried a pile of mending out to the little sheltered garden at the side of the house and was sitting working quietly when Edmund Hersheil appeared through the gap in the hedge.
“I’ve been looking for you for half an hour, Ruth,” he said. “May I have a word with you?”
“You may,” Ruth replied, seeing the troubled look on his face. “Is there—anything wrong?”
He came over and sat down on the stone wall which raised the flower-beds a few inches above the level of the pathway, glancing back at the house to see if they were being overlooked.
“Is everyone away for the day?” he asked.
“Yes. They have gone to the Lakes.”
He seemed to hesitate, as if what he was about to say would not be easy, and some queer instinct warned Ruth that his news concerned herself—and Conningscliff.
“If your news is bad, please don't try to—wrap it up. I am quite capable of hearing anything there is to know,” she assured him.
He took a deep breath.
“It’s bad enough, I’m afraid,” he began, with a look of compunction that made her catch her lower lip between her firm white teeth. “Con
ningscliff seems to have been unlucky right from the start.”
“I—tell me,” she said calmly enough.
“My uncle has decided to sell the place.”
“Sell it? He can’t—he can’t!”
Ruth clutched his sleeve, and he put a hand over her trembling fingers.
“I’m afraid it’s more or less settled,” he said. “I’m sorry, Ruth.”
She did not hear him. She did not even feel the close pressure of his hand as he held hers. A sense of utter futility had gripped her, and she sat gazing helplessly into space. In those first few moments she knew herself a weak woman desperately in need of someone to whom she could turn. Edmund Hersheil might not have been there as far as her desire for his help was concerned. Yet he offered that help, confident in the belief that she could not refuse it now.
“Ruth, it’s no use expressing my sorrow, I know. He means to sell. I am quite sure of that. I know how much this is going to mean to you, and if I can help in any way, you know you have only to ask.”
Ruth stirred, roused at last from that crushing feeling of apathy which had numbed her body and mind.
“What is the Squire’s price?” she asked, knowing, even as she did so, that it must be far beyond the limit of their slender savings account.
“Round about six thousand, I should say.”
A tremulous, entirely mirthless laugh escaped Ruth’s dry lips. Why was she asking these stupid, useless questions? What chance had she to make an offer for Conningscliff? And what right had she even to consider it, with her father lying there and likely to need the money any day—for another doctor’s opinion—for an operation— anything? She couldn’t gamble with that money— and Conningscliff Guest House was just a small gamble in its own way.
She looked across at Edmund Hersheil and felt capable of intense hatred. Every piece of bad news which had been brought to her had come through the Squire’s nephew. And the Squire? Could Alric Veycourt know how much Conningscliff meant to her and to her father? Was he depriving them of their only means of livelihood without a thought?
“Can’t you do something?” She turned to Hersheil with a world of appeal in her dark eyes. “Can’t you ask him to wait—to give us a little time?”
“He’s determined, Ruth,” he told her, “and nothing I could say or do last night would make him change his mind. You don’t think I came here to-day without making some effort on your behalf—on my own behalf, too, remember! My own interests were very much centred in Conningscliff, and it has been a blow to me, too.”
She looked at him gravely, seeing this side of the situation for the first time.
“Yes, I suppose—it must be,” she said.
He moved nearer to her, imprisoning her other hand. “Ruth,” he said, “there’s another solution to all your difficulties. Let him take the farm—and marry me.”
“Marry you?”
She got to her feet, freeing her hands in one quick movement.
“Yes,” Edmund said, “it’s the easiest way out, isn’t it? I’m willing to do anything you please—settle down anywhere with you. My uncle makes me quite a generous allowance, and I daresay there would be more forthcoming if I married. The sale of Conningscliff could scarcely affect you then, and—your father would be amply provided for.”
Ruth gazed at him, scarcely realising that his quickly uttered words were a proposal of marriage. He had offered her a means of escape. Conningscliff would have to go, but her father would be provided for. And in return?
She looked at him again, seeing him, it seemed, for the first time, while something within her shrank from his suggestion just as she shrank physically from the touch of his hand.
“I can’t,” she said at last. “I can’t—marry anyone.”
“You are upset, Ruth,” he said, not unkindly. “I am not asking you to give me your answer now. Take time to consider it. My uncle won’t move in the matter of Conningscliff for a day or two, and it may be months before he receives an offer for the place. He’s asking a stiff price.” He paused, attempting to turn her round to look at him. “I’ll come back to-morrow. You’ll feel better when you’ve had time to think things over.”
“I won’t.” Ruth spoke slowly, deliberately, and she was able to look at him fully now. “I wouldn’t change my mind no matter how long I took to consider your offer, Edmund,” she went on. “You see—I don’t love you, and, for me, marriage without love is impossible.”
He stared down at her blankly. He was at a loss to understand her refusal, and he doubted if he had understood the meaning of her words.
“You mean—you intend to refuse me?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But—why?” He was incredulous.
Ruth moved uneasily, gathering up her sewing.
“I have tried to make you understand,” she told him.
He frowned impatiently.
“There’s no need for all this side-tracking,” he said, an irritable note in his voice in spite of his efforts to control it. “Think over what I’ve said, Ruth. You may see the advantages of my offer before to-morrow.”
The phrase was an unfortunate one. Advantages! Ruth flushed. A proposal of marriage—something she had always thought of as sacred—was being couched in the terms of a cold and calculating business agreement. What advantages would there be for her in a loveless marriage with the heir to Carbay Hall? She recoiled at the thought of it. No. She could continue to work for her father!
“I can give you my answer now,” she said firmly.
“An unconsidered no?” he questioned.
“A considered no!”
She turned away with the words, leaving him standing in the garden staring after her, the incredulous look in his eyes changing to one of deep anger and deeper mortification.
Ruth entered the house, passing through the empty kitchen and into her own room. She was trembling a little now with the force of her emotions, and she leaned back against the door when she had closed it, as if the remaining steps necessary to carry her across the room to the chair beside the window were too great an effort for her to make.
At last, she pulled herself together and crossed to the open lattice. The crisp muslin curtains swayed gently in the wind, and she caught them back, looking out.
The empty stackyard lay before her, with the wooden rick-rests ready to receive the harvest of hay from the two fields still under cultivation; Pete, the collie, lay on the cobbles of the yard, his nose cradled on his paws; there was a gentle, contented lowing from the end byres, a familiar clatter of pails from the dairy, and, beyond, the long stretch of the old cinder track ran down to the white gate which led into the avenue. Dear, familiar scene! Ruth’s eyes were misted over with tears. The Conningscliff, which meant so much to her father, had come to mean as much to her. It had sheltered her during those most impressionable years of life, the years between eighteen and twenty-five. It was the home she would never forget. And the new Conningscliff she had tried to build up ...
How could she bear to leave it now?—to give up everything? Yet she could never, never bring herself to accept Edmund Hersheil’s “advantageous” proposal. Surely there would be some other way out for her father and herself? Marriage could not be the only way—marriage with the Squire’s nephew! She had told him she couldn’t marry anyone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Keeping her information to herself all the evening had been a difficult task for Ruth while she felt the need for some kindly and understanding confessor so much. Aware that her father seemed to be sensing her growing anxiety, she had tried to avoid him, and had taken longer over the task of filling the water-troughs and closing the hens up for the night than she usually did. Even when she had completed her duties, a glance at her watch told her that it was just eight o’clock.
The night was mild, and the sun had gone down behind the Border hills in a blaze of glory. The flush of it still tinted the sky and left a warm glow along the sea. She walked slowly in the direction
of the dunes and stood on the cliff top looking down at the tide running smoothly over the yellow sand. The beauty of the place had power to hurt her now because she would be gone from it so soon. The dark cliffs seemed to bow their heads, and the bosom of the sea heaved in sorrow. It was the prelude to a farewell as poignant as any between two human creatures torn with the ache of parting. Ruth sank down on the dry, tufty grass and gazed out across the little bay that had always been so dear to her, her eyes dimmed with unshed tears.
She sat there for an hour, and was about to make her way back to the farm when she saw John Travayne approaching across the dunes. He was smoking the pipe without which he never seemed wholly at his ease, and he took it from between his teeth as he drew near to say:
“I saw you from the lane. I waited, but after a while I got the impression that you wanted to stay up here all night!”
She could not smile, even to please him.
“I felt that I could not go back just yet,” she confessed.
“Ruth,” he said gently, “is there anything wrong?”
“The Squire is going to put Conningscliff on the market.”
The truth had come out quite naturally. She knew that John would understand how she felt and the blow that Edmund’s information had been to her earlier in the day. Travayne stood motionless for a moment and his dark brows drew together.
“Who told you this?” he asked, at last.
“Edmund Hersheil. He came over to tell me this afternoon.”
“Especially to tell you?”
“I—suppose so,” she said, looking away again over the darkening water.
“How much does he want for the place?” he asked.
“Much more than I could ever afford to consider,” she told him. “Somewhere round about six thousand.”
Travayne turned and looked back down to Conningscliff. His glance seemed to take in each detail of the farm and the surrounding land, and then it swept across the moors to the grey wall which shut in Carbay Hall.
“This is—quite definite?” he asked.
Ruth stirred and got to her feet.
“As far as I know, and I don’t suppose Edmund Hersheil would have any reason to tell me a lie. His uncle means to sell.” She paused, hesitating, as if some thought had just presented itself to her for the first time. “I can’t believe that the Squire knows how much this really means to us,” she said.
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