Antony Gray-Gardener Part 46

Antony was sitting in his cottage. It was quite dusk in the little room, but he had not troubled to light the lamp. A mood of utter depression was upon him, though for the life of him he could not tell fully what was causing it. That very fact increased the depression. There was nothing definite he could get a grip on, and combat. He was in no worse situation than he had been in three hours previously, in fact it might be considered that he was in an infinitely better one, and yet this mood was less than three hours old.

Of course the thought of the d.u.c.h.essa was at the root of the depression.

But why? If he met her again--and all things now considered, the meeting was even more than probable--what earthly difference would it make whether he met her in his role of Michael Field, gardener, or as Antony Gray, agent? And yet he knew that it would make a difference. Between the d.u.c.h.essa di Donatello and Michael Field there was fixed a great social gulf. He himself had a.s.sured her of that fact. Keeping that fact in view, he could deceive himself into the belief that it alone would be accountable for the aloofness of her bearing, for the frigidity of her manner should they again meet. Oh, he'd pictured the meetings often enough; pictured, too, and schooled himself to endure, the aloofness, the frigidity.

"I rubbed it well in that I am only a gardener, a mere labourer," he would a.s.sure his soul, with these imaginary meetings in mind. Of course he had known perfectly well that he was deceiving himself, yet even that knowledge had been better than facing the pain of truth.

But now the truth had got to be faced.

There would be the aloofness, sure enough, but there would no longer be that great social gulf to account for it. The true cause would have to be acknowledged. She scorned him, firstly on account of his fraud, and secondly because he had wounded her pride by his quiet deliberate snubbing of her friendship. Whatever justification she might presently see for the first offence, it never for an instant occurred to his mind that she might overlook the second. He had deliberately put a barrier between them, and it appeared to him now, as it had appeared at the moment of its placing, utterly and entirely unsurmountable. She would be civil, of course; there would not be the slightest chances of her forgetting her manners, but--his mind swung to the little hotel courtyard, to the orange trees in green tubs, to the golden sunshine and the sparkle of the blue water, to the woman then sitting by his side.

Memory can become a sheer physical pain at times.

Antony got up from the settle, and moved to the window. Despite the dusk within the room, there was still a faint reflection of the sunset in the sky, a soft pink glow.

One thing was certain--nothing, no power on earth, should ever drag him back to Teneriffe again. If only he could control the action of his memory as easily as he could control the actions of his body. At all events he'd make a fight for it. And yet, if only--The phrase summed up every atom of regret for his mad decision, his falling in with that idiotic plan of Nicholas's. And, after all, had it been so idiotic? Mad, certainly; but wasn't there a certain justification in the madness? It was a madness the villagers would unquestionably bless.

His thoughts turned to the recent interview. It had fully borne out all Nicholas's expectations. Bland, self-confident, Curtis had entered the library. Antony had had no faintest notion whom he had expected to see therein, but most a.s.suredly it was not the two figures who had confronted him. Bewilderment had pa.s.sed over his face, and an odd undernote of fear.

It was just possible he had taken Nicholas for a ghost. The rea.s.surance on that point had set him fairly at his ease. He had been subservient to Nicholas, extravagantly amused to learn of the trick that had been played. He had been insolently oblivious of Antony's presence. Antony had enjoyed the insolence. When he learnt that his services were no longer required, he had first appeared slightly discomfited. Then he had plucked up heart of grace.

"Going to take matters into your own hands?" he had said to Nicholas.

"Excellent, my dear sir, excellent."

Nicholas had glanced down at the said hands.

"I think," he had said slowly, "that they are rather old. No; I have other plans in view."

"Yes?" Curtis had queried.

"I wish to try a new _regime_," Nicholas had said calmly. "I should like to introduce you to my new agent." He had waved his hand towards Antony.

Black as murder is a well-worn and somewhat trite expression, nevertheless it alone adequately described the old agent's expression.

And then, with a palpable effort, he had recovered himself.

"A really excellent plan," he had said, with scarcely veiled insolence.

"I congratulate you on your new _regime_. They say 'Set a thief to catch a thief'; no doubt 'Set a hind to rule a hind' will prove equally efficacious." He had laughed.

"On the contrary," Nicholas's voice, suave and calm, had broken in upon the laugh, "that is the very _regime_ I am now abolishing. 'Set a gentleman to rule a hind' is the one I am about to establish, that is why I have offered the post of agent to Mr. Antony Gray, son of a very old friend of mine."

For one brief instant Curtis had been entirely non-plussed, the cut in the speech was lost in amazement; then bl.u.s.ter had come to his rescue.

"So you have had recourse to a system of spying," he had said with a sneer that certainly did not in the least disguise his fury. "Personally I have never looked upon it as a gentleman's profession."

"The question of a gentleman's profession is not one in which I should readily take your advice, Mr. Curtis," Nicholas had replied, smiling gently.

Curtis had turned to the door.

"I did not come here to be insulted," he had said.

"Neither," Nicholas had retorted sternly, "have I paid you to insult my tenants. You have accused me of a system of spying. You yourself best know whether such a system was justified by the need. Though I can a.s.sure you that Mr. Gray was no spy. He believed in my death as fully as you did."

There had been some further conversation,--remarks it might better be termed. The upshot had been that Curtis was leaving Byestry of his own accord on the morrow; Antony took over his new post immediately.

It had not been till Curtis had left that Nicholas had broached the subject of the tea-party the following day, and had requested Antony's presence. The request had been firmly declined, nor could all Nicholas's persuasions move Antony from his resolution.

"I am utterly unsociable," Antony had declared.

Nicholas smiled grimly.

"So am I, or, at any rate, so I was till Miss Devereux took me in hand."

"Miss Devereux!" Antony had echoed.

"Yes, she's at the bottom of this business," Nicholas had a.s.sured him, "though what further plot she has up her sleeve I don't know. Why, if it hadn't been--" And then, on the very verge of declaring that Antony himself had been the real foundation of the whole business, he had stopped short. Never in his life had Nicholas betrayed a lady's secret or what might have been a lady's secret. They were pretty much one and the same thing as far as his silence on the matter was concerned.

Well, the long and the short of the whole business was that the tenants of the Chorley Estate were about to receive fair play, and Nicholas was about to emerge from the chrysalis-like existence in which he had shrouded himself for fifteen years,--an advantage, certainly, in both instances. Only so far as Antony's own self was concerned there didn't seem the least atom of an advantage anywhere. Of course he was fully aware that he ought to see immense advantages. But he didn't.

"It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,"

says one of the poets. Was it Tennyson? But then that depends very largely on the manner of the losing. And in this case!

Antony crossed to the dresser and lighted the small lamp. He had just set it in the middle of the table when he heard the click of his garden gate, and a footstep on his little flagged path.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

ON THE OLD FOUNDATION

Antony stood very still by the table. Once before he had heard that same footfall on his path,--a light resolute step. His face had gone quite white beneath its tan. There was a knock on the door. For one brief second he paused. Then he crossed the room, and opened the door wide.

"May I come in?" asked the d.u.c.h.essa.

He moved aside, and she came into the room, standing in the lamplight. He stood near her, words, conventional words, driven from his lips by the mad pounding and beating of his heart.

"Might I sit down?" asked the d.u.c.h.essa a little breathlessly. And she crossed to the settle. Her face was in shadow here, but Antony had seen that it was strangely white.

Still Antony had not spoken.

The d.u.c.h.essa looked up at him.

"I am nervous," said she, an odd little tremor in her voice.

"Nervous!" echoed Antony, surprise lending speech to his tongue.

"Nervous," she replied, the odd little tremor still in her voice. "I owe you an apology, oh, the very deepest apology, and I don't know how to begin."