Antony Gray-Gardener Part 24

"I couldn't go back," she insisted to herself, as she vanished round the corner of a big green-house. "And I _did_ say 'isn't there' even if it was mixed up with a sneeze. And wherever have I seen that man's face before?"

She whisked round another corner of the green-house, attempting no answer to her query at the moment, ran down a long cinder path bordered by cabbages and gooseberry bushes, and bolted through another door in another wall. And here Trix found herself in an orchard, at the bottom of which was a yew hedge wherein she espied a wicket gate. She made rapid way towards it. And now she saw a big grey house facing her. There was no mistaking it. Childhood's memories rushed upon her. It was Chorley Old Hall.

Trix came through the wicket gate, and out upon a lawn, in the middle of which was a great marble basin full of crystal water, from which rose a little silver fountain. Before her was the big grey house, melancholy, deserted-looking. The blinds were drawn down in most of the windows. It had the appearance of a house in which death was present.

And then a spirit of curiosity fell upon her, a sudden strong desire to see within the house, to go once more into the rooms where she had stood in the old days, a small and somewhat frightened child.

There was not a soul in sight. Probably the man with the wheelbarrow had not thought it worth while to pursue her. The garden appeared as deserted as the house. Trix tip-toed cautiously towards it. She looked like a kitten or a canary approaching a dead elephant.

To her left was a door. Quite probably it was locked; but then, by the favour of fortune, it might not be. Of course she ran a risk, a considerable risk of meeting some caretaker or other, and her presence would not be particularly easy to explain. Curiosity and prudence wavered momentarily in the balance. Curiosity turned the scale. She tried the door. Vastly to her delight it yielded at her push. She slipped inside the house, closing it softly behind her.

She found herself in a long carpeted pa.s.sage, sporting prints adorning the walls. She tip-toed down it, her step making no smallest sound on the soft carpet. The end of the pa.s.sage brought her into a big square hall.

To her right were wide deep stairs; opposite them was a door, in all probability the front door; to her left was another door.

Trix recalled the past, rapidly, and in detail. The door to the left must lead to the library,--that is, if her memory did not play her false. She remembered the big room, the book-cases reaching from floor to ceiling, and the man with the black eyes, who had terrified her. Something, some fleeting shadow, of her old childish fear was upon her now, as she turned the door handle. The door yielded easily. She pushed it wide open.

The room was shadowed, gloomy almost. The heavy curtains were drawn back from the windows, but other curtains of some thinnish green material hung before them, curtains which effectually blotted out any view from the window, or view into the room from without. Before her were the old remembered book-cases, filled with dark, rather fusty books.

Trix pushed the door to behind her, and turned, nonchalantly, to look around the room. As she looked her heart jumped, leapt, and then stood still.

CHAPTER XXII

AN OLD MAN IN A LIBRARY

A white-haired man was watching her. He was sitting in a big oak chair, his hands resting on the arms.

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Trix. And further expression failed her.

"Please don't let me disturb you," came a suave, courteous old voice.

"You were looking for something perhaps?"

"I only wanted to see the library," stuttered Trix, flabbergasted, dismayed.

"Well, this is the library. May I ask how you found your way in?"

"Through a door," responded Trix, voicing the obvious.

"Ah! I did not know visitors were being admitted to the house?" This on a note of interrogation, flavoured with the faintest hint of irony, though the courtesy was still not lacking.

Trix coloured.

"I wasn't admitted," she owned. "I just came."

"Ah, I see," said the white-haired man still courteously. "You perhaps were not aware that your presence might be an--er, an intrusion."

Again Trix coloured.

"A man did tell me I couldn't come through this way," she confessed.

"Yet he allowed you to do so?" There was a queer note beneath the courtesy.

Trix's ear, catching the note, found it almost repellant.

"It wasn't his fault," she declared. "I came. I said, 'Isn't there someone at the gate?' And while he turned to look, I ran. At least,--" a gleam of laughter sprang to her eyes--"I sneezed first, so it sounded like 'There's somebody at the gate.' So he thought there was really.

It--it was rather mean of me."

"What you might call an acted lie," suggested the man.

Trix looked conscience-stricken, contrite.

"I suppose it was," she admitted in a very small voice. "But it was the cows. Only I think they were bulls. I _am_ so frightened of cows. I couldn't go back. And he wasn't going to let me through. It wasn't his fault a bit, it wasn't really. I know I told a--a kind of lie." She sighed heavily.

"You did," said the man.

Again Trix sighed.

"I'd never make a martyr, would I? Only"--a degree more hopefully--"A sneeze isn't quite like denying real things, things that matter, is it?"

This last was spoken distinctly appealingly.

"I'm not a theologian," said the man dryly.

Trix looked at him. A sudden light of illumination pa.s.sed over her face, giving place to absolute amazement.

"Aren't you Mr. Danver?" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"I never heard of his being a theologian," was the retort.

"But Mr. Danver is dead!" gasped Trix.

"Is he?"

"Well," said Trix dazed, bewildered, "he evidently isn't. But why on earth did you--" she broke off.

"Did I what?" he demanded with a queer smile.

"Say you were dead?" asked Trix.

"Dead men, my dear young lady, tell no tales, nor have I ever heard of a living one proclaiming his own demise."

Trix laughed involuntarily.

"Anyhow you've let other people say you are," she retorted.

The man shrugged his shoulders.