Hunter's Green

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “What else is this?” he asked. “Star sapphires with a sweater? No Athmore man would be caught dead wearing such cuff links. I suppose it’s my way of saying, ‘What do I care for your traditions?’ I never dared say it as a boy because I was too much in awe. But I can say it now. Perhaps that’s the very reason I can better respect its traditions now and feel quite comfortable about marrying Maggie.”

  He spoke with quiet assurance, and I knew he meant every word. But he had learned this assurance through years of proving himself—which was something I had never been able to do.

  “It takes a certain amount of persistent obstinacy to stand up to Athmore,” he went on, and added with a slight smile, “You have that at least. Behind this house and the people who live in it, behind the portraits on the walls and the very stones of those old ruins in the woods, are hundreds of years of tradition and more or less responsible behavior. All of which provides a certain built-in superiority which those who are born to it take for granted. Yet what can Athmore do in the face of my cuff links but shudder? And shuddering I have never minded. You see, my dear, I have found out who I am. I need no one to tell me. I can live here now as Maggie’s husband without having Athmore destroy me. Can you, as Justin’s wife?”

  I sipped the last of the sherry and set the glass aside. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I only know that I am his wife—still.”

  “And you want to go on being, don’t you?”

  “Yes—yes, I do! I haven’t any pride about that any more. But Justin keeps telling me that he doesn’t want me here. So what am I to do?”

  Nigel answered me dryly. “You have the usual two choices. You can stay or you can go. If you go—what then?”

  “I don’t know. How do other people live when they lose everything they care about?”

  He regarded me seriously, not smiling now. “You’re very young. There will be other men. It’s ridiculous to think there won’t be. And love always changes. Even with the same two people it can take different forms. I suppose it never stands still, and for that reason it’s safer not to count on it.”

  I had never expected to pour myself out to Nigel Barrow. Somehow he had opened the floodgates that had been closed for a long time, and there was a certain relief in talking like this to someone. His manner, which took me seriously, his uncritical objectivity, made talking to him possible.

  But now he had obviously had enough of playing confidant. He stood up and moved toward the door.

  “Stay for a while at Athmore,” he said. “If you stay, a way may open.”

  I held out my hand to him. “Thank you, Nigel. Perhaps I owe you that—since it was your suggestion to Maggie that brought me here.”

  He took my hand briefly, then let it go. He still had not called me Eve. I found myself thinking of Dacia’s words—that Maggie would marry Nigel in order to save Marc and Justin and Athmore. If that was true and he really cared for her, then I ought to feel a little sorry for him. Somehow I did not. I had the feeling that Nigel would never do anything blindly. If Maggie married him he would be aware of her terms or he would not take the step. I found myself liking him better than I ever had before—perhaps because I knew him a little better.

  When he had gone I left my chair and went to one of the rear windows of the room, where I could look out over the topiary garden. No matter what Maggie or Nigel urged upon me, how could I stay when Justin did not want me? There were limits to foolish hope, limits even to my ability to snatch at straws. Perhaps the only sensible thing to do was pack at once and get myself aboard the next bus to London.

  But I did not move. I stayed where I was, staring out the window. When had I ever been sensible when it came to Justin?

  VII

  From my high place at the rear window the plan of the topiary chessboard lay spread below me, with every piece standing neatly on a square. This was a curious game, since those who had designed the garden so long ago had wanted to keep most of the pieces still in play. I had known nothing about chess until Justin had taught me the game, and even then I lacked the patience to learn it well. But at least I understood what was supposed to be happening down there on the grass chessboard.

  Because all the figures were carved from the same dark yew, Daniel had followed the old plan for distinguishing between the opponents. Black was black, but around every “white” piece he had placed a circlet of seashells as an identifying border. Even the grass played its role, with alternate patches clipped short, to form the dark and light squares of a chessboard.

  The possible end of a game was represented, rather than the beginning—perhaps because this seemed more dramatic. The black rook was in position to check White’s king in the next play, but convention decreed that it was White’s turn. If White succeeded in blocking the rook, then the game would continue. But if White was not clever and alert, the game would be over with Black’s next move.

  One rainy Sunday afternoon Justin had set up a board in the library to match the game in the garden. He had taken White’s side, easily blocking my black rook from its move to checkmate. We had gone on from there to the ignoble defeat of my black chessmen. Justin could always beat me and he never hesitated to win impatiently, so that I had liked better to play with Nigel Barrow. Nigel, too, had come late to the game of chess, but he had learned it far more expertly than I, and he was willing to point out strategy, and even help me at times to win against him.

  As I looked down upon the garden from Maggie’s window, the yew chessmen stood in place with the battle endlessly arrayed, and never a man moving. Only once, thanks to a cruelly mischievous prank, had the black rook moved. That had happened long ago one summer when the boys had been home from school on holiday. Maggie had told me the story a bit ruefully. One morning the family had been wakened by Daniel’s cries of outrage. He had not been “Old” Daniel then, but he was as deeply devoted to his topiary masterpiece as he was in later years.

  Maggie had rolled out of bed and rushed to the rear window of her sitting room to look down upon a garden that was still wet with early morning dew. Daniel was in a frenzy of rage, dancing about the place where the black rook should have stood ready for its strategic play. Instead, a yawning hole in the turf was all that showed where a rooted yew had once stood. The rook was gone, its roots torn out—and the game on the chessboard meant nothing.

  There was a considerable uproar. That summer Marc had been at his irresponsible worst, constantly playing tricks upon Daniel, tormenting him in one way or another. Yet when the gardener had accused him, Marc had simply laughed in his face. The man went into such a fury that it was only Justin’s generous act which saved Marc from Daniel’s rage. Justin calmly took the blame upon himself and admitted to digging up the rook. It was not Marc at all, he said. He had done it on a bet and he was sorry. He had not expected such a rumpus. He would buy a new yew tree himself and Daniel could transplant it.

  Maggie had told me that she believed not a word of Justin’s “confession,” nor did she think Daniel believed him either. The gardener hadn’t it in his heart to be angry with Justin, however, so Marc was let off scot free. It had taken a long while for the new yew to take hold and grow properly so that it would accept the ministrations of Daniel’s shears. But with patience this end was achieved and the rook’s castle-crowned head once more rose in its ordained place.

  Now, as I looked down from the window, the black rook seemed to stand in triumphant readiness, like a hunter ready for the kill, while the old man who had for so long trimmed the garden was dead. I wondered if anyone else had the skill to take over this exacting task, or if anyone could be found who would give it the endless, loving patience Old Daniel had.

  “It’s the rook’s play,” he had warned me yesterday. I was to remember, he told me, that Old Daniel had reminded me that it was the rook’s play next, and the king had better watch out.

  Once before the rook had moved, and it was Marc who moved it. Was this what Old Daniel meant? Had he tried to tell me in a so
rt of code that Marc was once more to be feared and that the white king—Justin, of course—had better be careful? Perhaps he had meant me to go directly to Justin with the message, but when I tried to tell Justin what the old man had said, he had shrugged the whole thing off. Now Old Daniel was dead, and I was unable to believe that his sudden death had been wholly accident. Someone else must have been there in that place of ruin. Perhaps the snapshot I’d taken recorded the hidden truth, which I had not been able to recognize.

  I stared at the dark yew shapes as though they might tell me something, studied the expert carving of a knight’s equine head, considered the mitered crown of a bishop—and returned always to that rook which was not black in reality, but dark green, even in the bright sun of noon. The garden was not the shadowy place it could be at dusk, or by moonlight. All stood open and revealed and quiet. Yet when I looked at the topiary forms I felt more uneasy than ever. “Unnatural,” Justin had once called them. He liked trees to be trees. He liked the forest and the park about Athmore better than he did the manicured lawns and ordered flowerbeds—or this topiary garden.

  Then, quite suddenly, breaking the dreaming spell of quiet, there was movement on the board. A woman in a light dress came running toward the house, darting between the carved chessmen. She was Maggie’s secretary, Caryl Davis, and there was a look of alarm upon her face.

  The back stairs for this wing opened across from Maggie’s rooms, and I ran down one flight to meet her at the back door. She saw me and flew toward me breathlessly.

  “Do you know where Mrs. Graham is? Or Mr. North?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I can help you look for them. Is it important?”

  She gestured behind her. “I was walking in the woods—and I saw a man. Not one of our people. When I came on him he stood and stared at me insolently, and he walked off rudely when I asked him what he wanted. He had very black hair and a strange sort of look in his eyes. With all that’s been happening around here, someone ought to discover who he is and what he’s doing on Athmore ground. He gave me quite a fright.”

  She hurried away toward the front of the house and I let her go. If I went with her the intruder would be gone, and I wanted to be useful to Justin for once. I ran through the back door, wound my way through the topiary figures and crossed the lawn to a path leading in among the trees at the rear of the house. But though I looked behind every shrub and tree as I walked, I saw no black-haired man. Instead, I met Maggie Graham coming through the woods toward me, walking fast, so that her face was pink with effort—and agitation.

  “That dreadful woman!” she murmured when she saw me. “I suppose it was a mistake to confront her—but I had to try.”

  I remembered that the path leading off behind Athmore was a shortcut to Grovesend—if you were a walker, as Maggie was. She wore the same gray trousers and sweater she had worn when she came downstairs last night during the fire, and she wore them well, for all that she was a big woman.

  “Did you see a man when you came through the woods?” I asked. “Miss Davis has had a fright, running into an insolent stranger.”

  Maggie nodded carelessly. “Yes, I saw him. It was Leo Casella, down from London. Alicia bought the Club Casella from him, and he still manages it for her. He said she had sent him to Athmore with a message for Justin. Sometimes he comes around, though I don’t like him. I suppose Caryl has never seen him before.”

  That mystery explained, I walked back with Maggie. She turned toward the drive that led behind garages and workshop, seeming far more perturbed than I’d ever seen her, striding beside me, rather aggressively, now and then putting absent hands to her head, rumpling her hair thoroughly in a gesture I had seen only on those rare occasions when something upset her.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What has happened?”

  She was too indignant for caution. “I went to see Alicia because of Marc. He’s been running with a gambling crowd in London that he can’t afford. And the Club Casella’s his favorite casino. I wanted to have it out with Alicia as to how much he owes the club by this time, but she wouldn’t tell me. She only smiled in that maddening, superior way of hers when I asked her to keep him out of the club. She’s encouraging him to gamble—I’m sure of it. And I don’t like it one bit.”

  “Can’t you tell Justin?” I asked.

  “He believes I’m prejudiced against Alicia—which is perfectly true. Besides, I don’t want him worrying about Marc now. He needs his mind free for his work. Alicia knows I won’t tell him so she feels safe in what she’s doing. But why is she doing it? I can’t see that it’s to her interest to let Marc go on like this, yet she won’t agree to bar him from the club.”

  “Isn’t it time Marc finds a way to pay his own debts?” I asked impatiently. “Hasn’t there been enough of his leaning upon other people?”

  Maggie was still too upset to be cautious about what she told me. “I don’t believe he can. He’s more deeply in debt than any of us suspected. Justin mustn’t know how bad it is—so don’t say anything to him, Eve. I’m worried because I don’t know what Alicia means to do, and I don’t trust her.”

  As we walked along the banked pavement of the test course, I could sense her tension, her very real concern. When Maggie’s poise was upset, something serious was undoubtedly wrong.

  “Dacia says that Alicia’s marriage to Justin would bring in the money to settle Marc’s debts,” I said. “But surely it can’t be as bad as all that. If it’s Alicia Marc owes, then—”

  “The problem mustn’t be solved that way!” Maggie broke in. “That’s why I want to know the exact sum. I want to tell Nigel exactly what he might have to take on when he marries me.”

  I gave her a quick look. “Maggie, you’re not sacrificing yourself to rescue Marc?”

  “Don’t be an idiot! Nigel and I are fond of each other. We respect each other. Neither of us expects romantic love at our age. It means a great deal to me to have his companionship and guidance. And it means something to him, I think, to come to Athmore belonging here, as he never could as a schoolboy. But I want to play fair with him. I want him to know just how much trouble Marc is in. I must be responsible—not Justin. There’s nothing left for Justin to be responsible with, though I know he’d take the thing on in a moment, no matter how angry with Marc he might be. But let’s not talk about this now. I must stop being furious before I speak to Nigel. So tell me about you, Eve. What have you decided?”

  “I don’t seem able to decide anything,” I said. “Not even to go home today.”

  She tucked her hand through the crook of my arm companionably. “If you’ll just stay from day to day, perhaps we’ll still rout Alicia. And by the way—she has some curious notion that she wants to talk to you. She told me she would get in touch with you soon.”

  Any thought of seeing Alicia dismayed me. “We met briefly this morning and I don’t want to see her again.”

  Maggie shrugged. “It’s up to you, of course. But she has something on her mind, and it might be wise to find out what’s up. She’s the enemy, you know, so it’s better to discover what she intends.”

  We were nearing a place where the road made a wide loop around a clump of trees that obscured our view and added an obstacle to the test course. Suddenly and almost silently, a car came from behind the trees, bearing down upon us. Maggie grasped my arm and we both leaped for the side of the road. Justin was at the wheel and he drove past, braked to a stop, and then backed up to us. The car was not one of those plush models driven by Marc and Dacia, but the long gray one I had glimpsed through a window in the small separate garage. It had a rather strange look because of a bumper that seemed to run all around it, as well as an unusual hood—bonnet, Justin would say—to accommodate the engine.

  The moment Justin stopped, Maggie ran to him contritely. “Don’t scold,” she begged. “Eve couldn’t know this was a dangerous spot. I’ve been careless again!”

  The passing glance Justin gave me was chill. “She knows. No one is
to walk in the middle of these drives under any circumstances. The test courses are here to service the cars, and for no other reason. There are other footwalks. Neither of you heard me coming, did you?”

  “No—which is very clever of your car,” Maggie said. “No uproar, no nasty smells. Now do forgive us and take us for a spin. Eve hasn’t had a taste of what you’re up to yet.”

  She did not wait for a probable refusal, but opened the door to the front seat, pushing me unceremoniously in beside Justin. Then she got in herself and pulled the door shut.

  “Justin, did you see Leo Casella?” she asked. “I met him in the woods just now and he said he’d come over to give you a message from Alicia.”

  “Leo?” Justin put the car in gear smoothly. “I’ve had no message. I didn’t know he was around.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Maggie said. “I’ve never cared for the fellow, and apparently he gave Caryl a fright.”

  “I’ll see about it,” Justin said, and we went off quickly, with scarcely a purr of sound.

  “It’s the new fuel that’s responsible for the quiet,” Maggie informed me. “You’ve really got it, haven’t you, Justin?”

  He shook his head. “Only in the crudest possible form. It works quietly enough and it won’t burn or explode, but it’s nowhere near ready for any sort of mass production. Too impossibly expensive now. The problem is to get on with it before someone else cuts in with the answers. Whoever arrives first will have the world market, and of course they’re working on various approaches everywhere.”

  “You’ll get it,” Maggie said as we picked up speed. “Nothing must stop you now.”

  We drove in swift silence after that—down the middle bar of the course and around the outer edge of the loop that encompassed the house. I was more conscious of being close to Justin than I was of the wind roused by our speed, or the smooth banking of the curves, the silence of the engine. I stared at his familiar long-fingered hands on the wheel—strong hands, well in control. The car of course was an English righthand drive, so his bandaged left arm was next to me and I tried not to touch him.