Antony Gray-Gardener Part 3

"d.a.m.n the fellow," he had said as the door had closed behind him. But the very truth of the words had left a wound,--a clean-cut wound however.

There was never any bungling where Doctor Hilary was concerned.

And now incisive, sharp, came the taps of the hammer on it, taps dealt by Job Grantley's chance words.

"Confound both the men," he muttered. "But the fellow deserved the five pounds. It was the first interest I've had for fifteen years. The kind of entrance I'd have made myself, too; or perhaps mine would have been even a bit more unusual, eh, Nick the dare-devil!"

It was the old name again. He had never earned it through the least malice, however. Fool-hardiness perhaps, added to indomitable high spirits and good health, but malice, never.

How Father O'Brady had chuckled over the prank that had first earned him the t.i.tle,--the holding up of the coach that ran between Byestry and Kingsleigh, Nick at the head of a band of half a dozen young scapegraces clad in black masks and huge hats, and armed with old pistols purloined from the historic gun-room of the old Hall! It had been a leaf from the book of Claude Duval with a slight difference.

Nick had re-acted the scene for him. He was an inimitable mimic. He had taken off old Lady Fanshawe's cackling fright to the life. As the stoutest and oldest dowager of the lot he had obliged her to dance a minuet with him, the terrified coachman, postilion, and solitary male pa.s.senger covered by his companions' pistols the while. The fluttered younger occupants of the coach had frankly envied the terrified dowager, yet Nick had bestowed but the most perfunctory of glances upon them, and that for a reason best known to himself.

Later the truth of the affair had leaked out, and Lady Fanshawe could never chaperon one of her numerous nieces to a ball, without being besieged by young men imploring the favour of a dance. Being a sporting old lady--when not out of her wits with terror--she had taken it all in good part. Once, even, she had danced the very same minuet with Nick, the whole ballroom looking on and applauding.

It had been the first of a series of pranks each madder than the last, but each equally light-hearted and gay.

That is till Cecilia Lester married Basil Percy.

The world, namely the small circle in which Cecilia and Nick moved, had heard of the marriage with amazement. If Nick was amazed he did not show it, but his pranks held less of gaiety, more of a grim foolhardiness.

Father O'Brady no longer chuckled over their recitation. Maybe because they mainly reached his ears from outside sources. Nick, who was not of his fold, seldom sought his society in these days. Later he heard them not at all, being removed to another mission.

And then, at last, came the day when Nick played his final prank in the hunting field,--his maddest prank, in which Baccarat failed him. The horse was shot where he lay. His rider was carried home half dead; and half dead, literally, he had been for fifteen years.

And there was yet one more year left to him.

Nicholas sat gazing at the fire.

His brain was extraordinarily alert. There was a dawning humour waking in his eyes, a hint of the bygone years' devil-may-careness. The old Nick was stirring within him, roused by the little blows of that sentence.

Suddenly a flash of laughter illuminated his whole face. He brought his hand down on the arm of his chair.

"By gad, I've got it, and Hilary's the man to help me."

It was characteristic of Nicholas to forget his own share in that little ten-day-old scene. Also it may be safely averred that Doctor Hilary would be equally forgetful.

Nicholas still sat gazing into the fire, chuckling every now and then to himself. It was midnight before he rang for Jessop. The ringing had been preceded by one short sentence.

"By gad, Nick the dare-devil, the scheme's worthy of the old days."

CHAPTER I

THE LETTER

Antony was sitting on the stoep of his bungalow. The African sun was bathing the landscape in a golden glory. Before him lay his garden, a medley of brilliant colour. Just beyond it was a field of green Indian corn, scintillating to silver as a little breeze swept its surface.

Beyond it again lay the vineyard, and the thatched roof of an old Dutch farmhouse half hidden among trees. Farther off still rose the mountains, golden in the sunlight.

It was the middle of the afternoon. Silence reigned around, broken only by the occasional chirp of a gra.s.shopper, the m.u.f.fled note of a frog, the twitter of the canaries among the cosmos, or the rustle of the reed curtain which veiled the end of the stoep.

The reed curtain veiled the bathroom, a primitive affair, the bath consisting of half an old wine vat, filled with velvety mountain water, conducted thither by means of a piece of hose-piping attached to the solitary water tap the estate possessed. It was emptied by means of a bung fixed in the lower part of the vat, the water affording irrigation for the garden.

Antony sat very still. His coat lay beside him on the stoep. A small wire-haired puppy named Josephus mounted guard upon it. Woe betide the person other than Antony's self who ventured to lay finger on the garment. There would be a bristling of short wiry white hair, a showing of baby white teeth, and a series of almost incredibly vicious growls.

Josephus permitted no man to take liberties with his master's property, nor indeed with his ridiculously dignified small self. Antony was the sole exception to his rule. But then was not he a king among men, a person whose word was law, whose caress a benediction, whose blow a thing for which to demand mute pardon? You knew it was deserved, though the knowledge might possibly at times be vague, since your wisdom was as yet but puppy wisdom.

Now and again Josephus hung out a pink tongue, a tongue which demanded milk in a saucer. He knew tea-time to the second,--ordinarily speaking that is to say. He could not accustom himself to that extra half-hour's delay which occurred on mail days, a delay caused by Riffle, the coloured boy, having to walk to the village to fetch the post. The walk was seldom entirely fruitless. Generally there was a newspaper of sorts; occasionally--very occasionally--a letter. Josephus knew that the click of the garden gate heralded the swift arrival of tea, but it was not always easy to realize on which days that click was to be expected.

Antony gazed at the scintillating field of corn. The sight pleased him.

There is always a glory in creation, even if it be creation by proxy, so to speak. At all events he had been the human agent in the matter. He had ploughed the brown earth; he had cast the yellow seed, trudging the furrows with swinging arm; he had dug the little trenches through which the limpid mountain water should flow to the parched earth; he had watched the first hint of green spreading like a light veil; he had seen it thicken, carpeting the field; and now he saw the full fruit of his labours. Strong and healthy it stood before him, the soft wind rippling across its surface, silvering the green.

The click of the garden gate roused him from his contemplation. Josephus c.o.c.ked one ear, his small body pleasurably alert.

Antony turned his head. Mail day always held possibilities, however improbable, an expectation unknown to those to whom the sound of the postman's knock comes in the ordinary course of events. Riffle appeared round the corner of the stoep. Had you seen him anywhere but in Africa, you would have vowed he was a good-looking Italian. A Cape coloured boy he was truly, and that, mark you, is a very different thing from Kaffir.

"The paper, master, and a letter," he announced with some importance.

Then he disappeared to prepare the tea for which Josephus's doggy soul was longing.

Antony turned the letter in his hands. It must be confessed it was a disappointment. It was obviously a business communication. Both envelope and clerkly writing made that fact apparent. It was a drop to earth after the first leap of joy that had heralded Riffle's announcement. It was like putting out your hand to greet a friend, and meeting--a commercial traveller.

Antony smiled ruefully. Yet, after all, it was an English commercial traveller. That fact stood for something. It was, at all events, a faint breath of the Old Country. In England the letter had been penned, in England it had been posted, from England it had come to him. Yet who on earth had business affairs to communicate to him!

He broke the seal.

Amazement fell upon him with the first words he read. By the end of the perusal his brain was whirling. It was incredible, astounding. He stared out into the sunshine. Surely he was dreaming. It must be a joke of sorts, a laughable hoax. Yet there was no hint of joking in the concise communication, in the small clerkly handwriting, in the business-like letter-paper, a letter-paper headed by the name of a most respectable firm of solicitors.

"Well, I'm jiggered," declared Antony to the sunshine. And he fell to a second perusal of the letter. Here is what he read:

"Dear Sir,

"We beg to inform you that under the terms of the will of the late Mr.

Nicholas Danver of Chorley Old Hall, Byestry, in the County of Devon, you are left sole legatee of his estate and personal effects estimated at an income of some twelve thousand pounds per annum, subject, however, to certain conditions, which are to be communicated verbally to you by us.

"In order that you may be enabled to hear the conditions without undue inconvenience to yourself, we have been authorized to defray any expenses you may incur either directly or indirectly through your journey to England, and--should you so desire--your return journey. We enclose herewith cheque for one hundred pounds on account.

"As the property is yours only upon conditions, we must beg that you will make no mention of this communication to any person whatsoever until such time as you have been made acquainted with the said conditions. We should be obliged if you would cable to us your decision whether or no you intend to hear them, and--should the answer be in the affirmative--the approximate date we may expect you in England.

"Yours obediently, "Henry Parsons."

And the paper was headed, Parsons & Glieve, Solicitors.

Nicholas Danver. Where had he heard that name before? What faint cord of memory did it strike? He sought in vain for the answer. Yet somehow, at sometime, surely he had heard it! Again and again he seemed on the verge of discovering the clue, and again and again it escaped him, slipping elusive from him. It was tantalizing, annoying. With a slight mental effort he abandoned the search. Unpursued, the clue might presently return to him.

Riffle reappeared on the stoep bearing a tea-tray. Josephus sat erect.