She looked him straight in the eyes.
“Sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, as a matter of fact I didn’t. As a matter of fact, when he began to get greasily sentimental, I couldn’t stand him at any price. In fact—— Oh, well, he had his revenge. He has made me look a nauseating fool before all the people I know. Nothing sticks like sex suggestion. He knew I couldn’t go for him and show him up. He knew that much about me.”
They were sitting on the grass in her garden, and Redmayne, who was smoking a pipe, laid it aside on the grass.
“You know, there is one thing that I am going to do before I go back to Rhodesia. I’m going to kick that man.”
She gave a little laugh.
“Is it worth it?”
“Every time.”
He disappeared, and Pannage realized that Mr. Branker’s bungalow had lost its tenant. He had been given a description of Mr. Branker. He put up at a London hotel, and the first book he consulted was a copy of “Who’s Who.” He found that Mr. Branker’s home address was Hampstead—“No. 3, Regency Terrace.” He went to Hampstead, and, calling at No. 3, inquired for the novelist. Mr. Branker was served by a married couple and the man interviewed Redmayne. He said that Mr. Branker was out, but he was expected home for dinner.
“What name, sir?”
“Never mind. I’ll call again.”
He hung about Regency Terrace for two days before his opportunity arrived. He had become sure of Mr. Branker’s person, and he had seen in Mr. Branker a type that it would be extremely pleasurable to kick. Mr. Branker was rather large and fat, with complacent blue eyes, and swelling chin and forehead. He was the sort of man whose walk was a waddle, a man who perspired easily.
Redmayne discovered that every evening about nine Mr. Branker took a little walk. He exercised himself upon the Heath, and upon that predestined evening Redmayne followed him. He was hoping that Mr. Branker’s constitutional would carry him into some more or less secluded spot where his penance could be performed in private. It did so. In the spreading twilight Redmayne found himself in a kind of little glade with the prey before him.
He overtook the novelist.
“Excuse me, Mr. Branker, I think?”
Mr. Branker swung round, and his blue eyes stared. When accosted by strangers he expected to be asked for an autograph or a sympathetic loan.
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
Redmayne’s very white teeth showed.
“O—I’d like you to join me in cocktails for two.”
The assault was so unexpected that the sacred act was performed upon Mr. Branker without his putting up any sort of serious and fleshly protest. He was a big man, but obviously he had no stomach for such barbarism. Hit hard and truly between the eyes he blinked and staggered. His hat fell off. He did manage to exclaim, “What the devil? Are you mad? Disgraceful!”
He was caught by the collar, twirled and given a push, and Redmayne, measuring his distance nicely, performed that pleasant act. He repeated it twice.
“Tails for two, you cad!”
He left Mr. Branker sitting on the grass and looking shocked and pensive. He collected Mr. Branker’s hat and walked off with it as a trophy. Mr. Branker did not follow him. Obviously there was no copy to be collected from so humiliating and disgusting an incident.
Redmayne took a morning train to St. Martin’s and a motor-bus to Pannage, and about tea-time he appeared at Windmill Hill. He found Joan Langdale collecting eggs from her chicken houses. He had brought a brown paper parcel with him, and he unwrapped it and showed her a grey felt hat.
“Here’s the scalp. Would you like it?”
She glanced darkly at the grey object. She knew that particular hat.
“No, burn it. But—Dick——”
“Yes, I performed the sacred act. I enjoyed it.”
“O, my dear, but supposing——”
He laughed.
“Not much kudos to be got out of being kicked. Do you think he will advertise it, pass it on to his publicity agent? Not likely.”
She did not object to the arm that enfolded her.
“Look here, Jo, do you really mean to give up the farm?”
“Yes. I simply couldn’t——”
“Oh, well, there’s an alternative. Care to consider it?”
“I might.”
“Come out to Rhodesia and farm with me. It’s not a bad life, and there are no literary gents in Rhodesia. At least, I haven’t struck one.”
She said, “I’ll come.”
THE UNEXPECTED HEIR
The clerk opened the door of Mr. Merriman’s room and announced a visitor—“Sir John Jewell.”
Mr. Merriman pushed back his chair and stood up. He was a little, dark, alert man with more humour in his eyes and mouth than the conventions might allow to the law. He had not expected this particular visitor. He held out a hand.
“I thought you were still in Canada.”
The young man smiled at Mr. Merriman, and somehow that pleasant smile of his was both unexpected and necessary, for in repose his face had too lean a fierceness. The smile seemed to break up its brown hardness, the blue ice of the eyes.
“I got things cleared up, sir, sooner than I thought. Besides——”
Mr. Merriman withdrew his hand from that very powerful brown grip. So this was young Jewell, old Harry Jewell’s unexpected heir, a man who had the face and the figure of a frontiersman.
“So, you were in a hurry. Sit down. Keen to take on the new adventure?”
“Well, yes. I did not lose much time.”
“Most certainly you did not. Sit down.”
Mr. Merriman had much to explain, and Sir John Jewell sat with his elbows on his knees, his body leaning towards the lawyer, and his very blue eyes fixed on Mr. Merriman’s face. They were rather disconcerting eyes, so steady, so unafraid, so relentless, and it occurred to Mr. Merriman that this young man from Canada would be an unpleasant person to quarrel with, but a good comrade to have with you in a tight corner. Also, it occurred to Mr. Merriman that Midworth Court and Midworth village might be inheriting the unexpected in the person of this young man who looked like a hard-bitten trooper of the Canadian Mounted Police.
Mr. Merriman had a clear head and no little skill in putting a case into words. Moreover he had known Midworth and old Sir Richard Jewell for twenty-five years. Sir Richard had passed the last ten years of his life as a recluse and a dreamer, a star-gazer in more senses than one. Midworth Court had had its own small observatory and telescope, and young Jewell was inheriting a curious tradition.
Very conscious of the young man’s vivid face he began to speak of certain matters that had long been in his mind.
“I suppose you are keen on taking over an English estate? Yes, I see you are.”
Young Jewell smiled and nodded.
“I’m absolutely all out in it. I feel like a kid.”
Mr. Merriman liked the man. He seemed to be the sort of person that Midworth needed.
“May I say that England isn’t Canada?”
“Yes, it’s an old country.”
“It’s a good country, but some of it is rather like the curate’s egg. Now, a few words about Midworth. I don’t want to damp your enthusiasm—but——”
John Jewell’s blue eyes gleamed.
“Yes, let’s have all the buts, sir. I may seem a bit raw to an old place like Midworth Court. I’ve lived a pretty tough life.”
“Yes—I think I can appreciate that.”
Mr. Merriman had dealt with the financial aspects of the Jewell estate, death duty, rents, dilapidations, the income that the new baronet might expect to possess. That income would be adequate in spite of social changes. But the estate had been allowed to run wild. Yes, Sir Richard had had his head in the stars. He had left things to other people, and the other people——
The Canadian was quick to understand him.
“Too much rope! Is that it? I’d like you to be pe
rfectly frank.”
Mr. Merriman was frank, and as he watched John Jewell’s face he saw a kind of amused grimness express itself in jaw and mouth and eyes.
“So—that’s the position.”
“I’m afraid it is. A good deal to clear up. I was not in a position to interfere. Sir Richard was a dreamer.”
“Which meant—that these other people were very wide-awake.”
“Exactly.”
Young Jewell sat with his hands clasped, staring at the top of Mr. Merriman’s desk. There was a kind of secret smile on his face. He appeared to be thinking.
“Mr. Merriman, I’ve got an idea.”
The lawyer waited for the idea.
“I’d like it to be assumed that I’m still in Canada, clearing up my property there. That could be arranged, I suppose?”
“Easily.”
“Good. Well, we will assume that I am, say, Mr. Brown, and that I am in search of a little place in England. Let us suppose that I want to farm. I go exploring. I rather fancy the Midworth country. I go and look round.”
Mr. Merriman’s eyes became humorous.
“I rather like your idea. Spying out Canaan.”
Young Jewell nodded.
“I should probably find out more as Mr. Brown than as Sir John Jewell. There’d be humour in it. The unknown warrior, sir.”
And Mr. Merriman laughed.
“I don’t know whether it is worth it. They may be rather mean little people. Of course—you could sack the lot. But—still—old servants.”
“Well—I should just go and find things out.”
The three villages, Eastworth, Midworth and Westworth, lay on the Surrey and Sussex borders in high country that was well wooded, and still refrained from being suburban. Eastworth had been made famous by a school of painters. Westworth had been the home of one of the English poets. Midworth, neither west nor east, and certainly not a Christ between two thieves, had known neither art nor poetry. Midworth had always been somewhat formless and even slightly sinister in its aspects. It lay in a kind of deep green cleft between the hills, and the old people of those parts had a saying that Midworth pulled a hood over its head at half-past four. The steep uplands of Midworth Court and its high beeches shut off the evening sunlight.
Midworth had its inn—the Chequers, kept by a Mr. Golightly who was far more a person of importance than the Midworth parson, and it was to Mr. Golightly that a certain young man addressed himself on an afternoon late in May.
“Can I put up here?”
Mr. Golightly looked at the young man and at the young man’s car. It was a cheap and shabby two-seater. The landlord of the Chequers did not encourage casual guests.
“How long for?”
His unfriendliness had not the slightest effect upon the stranger.
“Oh, two or three days. It depends. I’m looking round the country for a small place to settle in.”
Mr. Golightly’s oblique and rather unpleasant eyes re-examined both the stranger and the occasion. He supposed that this young fellow was just like dozens of other young fools, amateur gentlemen farmers who thought there might be a living to be made on the land. Mr. Golightly was one of those persons who saw to it that if there was any money to be lost by such young fools, a part of the cash remained in various Midworth pockets.
“You’ll have to take us as you find us. We don’t run a jazz band.”
That was Mr. Golightly’s joke and the young man smiled at it.
“That’s quite O.K. My name’s Brown.”
Mr. Golightly shouted over a surly shoulder:
“Milly, show the gentleman No. 3.”
Mr. Brown carried his suit-case upstairs at the heels of a fluffy-haired young woman who was as casual as her father.
Midworth possessed a telephone system. The Chequers telephone lived in a kind of stuffy cupboard off the private bar, and Mr. Golightly rang up someone on the telephone.
“That you, George. Bob speaking. Got a young fellow here who says he’s looking for a little place. Yes—thought you might be on the biz. That bungalow you bought from young Ferris. Yes—another Ferris—probably. Thought I’d put you wise. Quite. Nothing like being on the job. Cheerio, old lad.”
John Jewell went out and explored. England was in a May mood and the high beechwoods of Midworth Court were in young leaf, green clouds against a perfect sky. The east lodge of the Court stood just beyond the church. The white gate hung open as though inviting all the world to enter. It needed painting, and it needed it badly. The Canadian paused at the lodge, but no one came out to challenge him, and he walked on.
The park was surrounded by woods of beech and oak and an oak fence, and the oak fence was falling to pieces. Moreover, Jewell soon noticed that many trees had been felled during the last two or three years, and some of the butts were quite fresh. Bracken was springing up everywhere. The park itself contained groups of magnificent old trees—Scotch firs, oaks, beeches, a sequoia or two, sweet chestnuts. Its rolling, grassy spaces flowed above a deep valley into which the sunlight poured. Its beauty was the beauty of an England that was passing.
Jewell stood on a high bluff where Scotch firs grew, and looked out across the landscape. He thought, “All this is mine,” and he was conscious of pride and exultation. He had fallen in love with the place at first sight. He could see Midworth Court away beyond the trees, a long, low house of very old red brick with high chimneys and gables set upon a terrace. Its many windows glimmered at him.
That evening he happened to catch fragments of conversation from the private bar of the Chequers. He had been out again exploring and had come back and sat down on a seat under a pollarded elm in front of the inn. Dusk was falling, and he had filled his pipe.
“What’s the fellow’s name, Bob?”
“Brown.”
“It ought to be Green, old lad.”
There was laughter, and then a voice said—“What price Canada? That’s what interests us, Mr. Sugden, what? If the old man was as green as god, we’ll put up the parson to pray that the young one—may be green as grass.”
Someone suggested rather gruffly that the speaker had better shut up, and an argument developed.
“Well, what I says is, that the squires pinched the land from us in the old days. We’ve got a right to pickings.”
“That’s true. Half the park was common land. The old man’s grandfather jumped it. The Labour Party’s going to turn the land back to the people.”
Again the gruff voice interposed.
“Don’t you be so sure of that. Don’t you be so sure that you’d be better off. Not so much coming your way, my lad.”
Another voice broke in.
“Has anybody heard when the new chap’s coming? You ought to know, Mr. Sugden.”
The gruff voice replied:
“He’s still out in Canada.”
“Pity he doesn’t stay there. We don’t want a blinking Colonial bossing it round here.”
Jewell got up from the seat, and with his pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets strolled into the private bar. There was a moment’s silence and eyes appraised him. He smiled at the gathering, and his smile was pleasant and easy.
“I’m not intruding, gentlemen?”
His voice was not quite English, but it did not suggest to these Midworthites that he came from the other side of the Atlantic. Mr. Golightly was standing in a corner. He introduced the stranger.
“Come right in, Mr. Brown. Just a little family party.”
Jewell sat down by the window and ordered a drink. There were five other men in the rather dim room that smelt of sawdust and tobacco and beer. Jewell found himself next to the man with the gruff voice. He was a heavy, saturnine person with sly eyes and a rather brutal mouth that could be suave enough when it chose. Mr. Jewell behaved like a bright, ingenuous, barley-headed boy. He was ready to tell the whole Midworth world his business, and to listen to Midworth’s advice.
“Want a little place, do you?”
Mr. Golightly nudged a neighbour with his knee, a fat, bald man who wore spectacles and an air of bland rectitude.
“Here’s the very gentleman for you, sir. Mr. Barter. Does all our building and decorating. What Mr. Barter doesn’t know about Midworth isn’t worth knowing.”
Jewell smiled upon Mr. Barter.
“I’d like to have a talk to you, sir.”
“Glad to be of any use, Mr. Brown.”
In the course of the next week Jewell began to penetrate the various personalities of Midworth. The man with the harsh voice and the brutal mouth was Sugden, the Midworth Court bailiff. Every evening the Chequers collected the same coterie, a kind of secret village council. It included one Soames, the Midworth Court head-gardener, and less frequently so a Mr. Bliss who had been Sir Richard’s valet. Jewell was welcomed to the circle. He stood these gentlemen drinks. He more than guessed that he was expected to be plucked by them.
Old Barter, bland and bespectacled, was proposing to sell him the late Mr. Ferris’s bungalow “White Gates” and five acres of land for the sum of seventeen hundred pounds. Mr. Barter had bought the property from a bankrupt and suicidal Ferris for seven hundred and fifty pounds, but that was business. Jewell understood business as well as any man.
He offered old Barter twelve hundred pounds for the property, and Mr. Barter looked pained, but after some argument he accepted the offer. Probably, within a year or two he would be able to repurchase “White Gates” at a bankrupt figure and resell it once more at a profit.
Jewell moved into “White Gates.” It was a poor, sad, flimsy little place, and it seemed to possess the ghost of a man who had been broken. Its five acres of rough grass and young orchard joined one of the meadows of Burnt Farm that was rented by one Jesse Latimer. Burnt Farm was one of the Midworth Court farms, and Latimer was a Jewell tenant.
The Canadian met Latimer in the lane that served both Burnt Farm and the bungalow. Latimer was one of those lean, silent, aloof men, in age about fifty, round-shouldered and somehow austere. As potential neighbours they exchanged a few words; Jewell was aware of the farmer’s faded blue eyes looking at him with a shrewdness that contained pity.
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