Antony Gray-Gardener Part 9

And a fourth time Doctor Hilary repeated them.

At the end of a lengthy interview, James Glieve opened the door of his sanctum to show Doctor Hilary out.

"You might give my kindest remembrances--" he stopped. "Bless my soul, I was just going to send my remembrances to old Nick, and we've been spending the last hour settling up his will. Where's my memory going! I shall probably run down in a few days, and go through matters with you on the spot. A--er, a melancholy pleasure to see the old place again.

What?"

Henry Parsons, within the room, lost this last speech; therefore it found no echo.

When Antony entered the private sanctum of James Glieve, he saw a stout red-faced man, with a suspicion of side whiskers and a slight appearance of ferocity, seated at a desk. On his right, and insignificant by comparison, was a small grey-haired and rather dried-up man.

"Mr. Antony Gray?" queried the red-faced man, looking at Antony over his spectacles.

Antony bowed.

"You come in answer to our communication regarding the will of the--er, late Mr. Nicholas Danver?" asked James Glieve.

"I do," responded Antony. And he drew the said communication from his pocket, and laid it on the table.

James Glieve glanced at it. Then he leant back in his chair, put his elbows on its arms, and placed the tips of his fingers together.

"The--er, the conditions of the will are somewhat unusual," he announced.

"It is my duty to set them plainly before you. Should you refuse them, we are to see that you are fully recompensed for any expense and inconvenience your journey will have entailed. Should you, on the other hand, accept them, it is understood that as a man of honour you will fulfil the conditions exactly, not only in the letter, but in the spirit."

"In the spirit," echoed Henry Parsons.

Antony bowed in silence.

"Of course, should you fail in your contract," went on James Glieve, "the will becomes null and void. But it would be quite possible for you to keep to the contract in the letter, while breaking it merely in the spirit, in which case probably no one but yourself would be aware that it had been so broken. You will not be asked to sign any promise in the matter. You will only be asked to give your word."

"To give your word," said Henry Parsons, looking solemnly at Antony.

"Yes," said Antony quietly.

James Glieve pulled a paper towards him.

"The conditions," he announced, "are as follows. I am about to read what the--er, late Mr. Nicholas Danver has himself written regarding the matter."

He cleared his throat, and pushed his spectacles back on his nose.

Antony looked directly at him. In spite of the business-like appearance of the room, the business-like att.i.tude of the two men opposite to him, he still felt that odd Arabian Nights' entertainment sensation. The room and its occupants seemed to be masquerading under a business garb; it seemed to need but one word--if he could have found it--to metamorphose the whole thing back to its original and true conditions, to change the room into an Aladdin's cave, and the two men into a friendly giant and an attendant dwarf. The only thing he could not see metamorphosed was George, the office-boy-butler. He retained his own appearance and personality. He appeared to have been brought--as a human boy, possibly--into the entertainment, and to have grown up imperturbably in it. Though quite probably, under his present respectable demeanour, he was well aware of the true state of affairs, and was laughing inwardly at it.

James Glieve cleared his throat a second time, and began.

"The conditions under which I make the aforesaid Antony Gray my heir," he read, "are as follows. He will not enter into possession of either property or money for one year precisely from the day of hearing these conditions. He shall give his word of honour to make known to no person whatsoever that he is my heir. He shall live, during the said year, in a furnished cottage on the estate, the cottage to be designated to him by my friend Doctor Hilary St. John. He will undertake that he lives in that cottage and nowhere else, not even for a day. He will live as an ordinary labourer. That this may be facilitated he will have a post as one of the under-gardeners in the gardens of Chorley Old Hall. Golding, the head-gardener, will instruct him in his duties. He will be paid one pound sterling per week as wage, and he shall pay a rent of five shillings per week for the cottage. He will undertake to use no income or capital of his own during the said year, nor receive any help or money from friends.

Briefly, he will undertake to make the one pound per week, which he will earn as wage, suffice for his needs. He will take the name of Michael Field for one year, and neither directly nor indirectly will he acquaint any one whomsoever with the fact that it is a pseudonym. In short, he will do all in his power to give the impression to everyone that he is simply and solely Michael Field, working-man, and under-gardener at Chorley Old Hall.

"He will make his decision in the matter within twenty-four hours, and, should his decision be in the affirmative, he will bind himself, as a man of honour to abide by it. And, further, he will proceed to Byestry within one week of the decision, to take up his duties, and his residence in the aforesaid cottage.

"Nicholas Danver.

"The fifth day of March, nineteen hundred and eleven."

James Glieve stopped. He did not look at Antony, but at the paper, which he placed on the desk in front of him.

"Hmm," said Antony quietly and ruminatively.

"You have twenty-four hours in which to make your decision," said James Glieve.

"Twenty-four hours," said Henry Parsons.

"I think that's as well," returned Antony. He was still feeling the quite absurd desire to find the word which should metamorphose the scene before him to its true conditions.

"I told you the terms of the will were unusual," said James Glieve.

"Very unusual," emphasized Henry Parsons.

"They are," said Antony dryly. Then he got up from his chair. He looked at his watch. "Well, Mr. Glieve, it is twelve o'clock. I will let you know my decision by eleven o'clock to-morrow morning. That, I believe, will entirely fulfil the conditions?"

"Entirely," said James Glieve.

"Entirely," echoed Henry Parsons.

CHAPTER IX

THE DECISION

As soon as Antony left the office, he walked down into the Strand, where he took an omnibus as far as Pimlico. There he dismounted, and made his way to the embankment, intending to walk back to his rooms in Chelsea. He had spent the previous evening hunting for rooms solely on Josephus's account. Dogs, and more especially puppies, are not welcomed at hotels; also, Antony considered the terms demanded for this special puppy's housing and maintenance entirely disproportionate to Josephus's size and requirements.

As he walked along the embankment he reviewed the situation and conditions recently placed before him. At first sight they appeared almost amusing and absurd. The whole thing presented itself to the mind in the light of some huge joke; and yet, behind the joke, lay a curious sense of inexorableness. At first he did not in the least realize what caused this sense, he was merely oddly aware of its existence. He walked with his eyes on the river, watching a couple of slowly moving barges.

It was a still, sunny day. The trees on the embankment were in full leaf.

Scarlet and yellow tulips bedecked the window-boxes in the houses on his right. An occasional group of somewhat grubby children, generally accompanied by an elder sister and a baby in a perambulator, now and again occupied a seat. A threadbare and melancholy-looking man flung pieces of bread to a horde of sea-gulls. Antony watched them screaming and whirling as they s.n.a.t.c.hed at the food. They brought the _Fort Salisbury_ to his mind. And then, in a sudden flash of illumination, he saw precisely wherein that sense of inexorableness lay. With the realization his heart stood still; and, with it, for the same brief second, his feet. The next instant he had quickened his steps, fighting out the new idea which had come to him.

It was not till he had reached his rooms, and partaken of a lunch of cold meat and salad, that he had reduced it to an entirely business-like statement. Then, in the depths of an armchair, and fortified by a pipe, he marshalled it in its somewhat crude form before his brain. Briefly, it reduced itself to the following:--

Should he refuse the conditions attached to the will, he remained in exactly the same position in which he had found himself some four or five weeks previously; namely, in the position of owner of a small farm on the African veldt, which farm brought him in an income of some two hundred a year. In that position the dream, which had dawned within his heart on the _Fort Salisbury_, would be impossible of fulfilment. His life and that of the d.u.c.h.essa di Donatello must lie miles apart, separated both by lack of money and the ocean. If, on the other hand, he accepted the conditions, a year must elapse before he made that dream known to her; and--and here lay the meaning of that sense of inexorableness he had experienced--he could give her no explanation of the extraordinary situation in which he would find himself, a situation truly calculated to create any amount of misunderstanding. To all appearances the adventure on which he had started out had brought him to an impa.s.se, a blind alley, from which there was no favourable issue of any kind.

"The whole thing is a deuced muddle," he announced gloomily, addressing himself to Josephus.

Josephus put his paws on Antony's knees, and licked the hand which was not holding the pipe.

"To refuse the conditions," went on Antony aloud, and still gloomily, and stroking Josephus's head, "is to bring matters to an absolute deadlock, one from which I can never by the remotest atom of chance extricate myself. To accept them--well, I don't see much better chance there. How on earth am I to explain the situation to her? How on earth will she understand the fact that I remain in England, and make no attempt to see her for a year? I can't even hint at the situation. Oh, it's preposterous! But to accept gives me the only possible faintest hope."