Delia Blanchflower Part 27

"Come along then. There's just time--while this light lasts."

They s.n.a.t.c.hed their caps, and were presently mounting the path which led ultimately through the woods of Monk Lawrence to the western front.

Blaydes frowned as he walked. He was a young man of a very practical turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of Lathrop's two published volumes. For some time past he had been Lathrop's chancellor of the exchequer--self-appointed, and had done his best to keep his friend out of the workhouse. From the tone of Paul's recent letters he had become aware of two things--first, that Lathrop was in sight of his last five pound note, and did not see his way to either earning or borrowing another; and secondly, that a handsome girl had appeared on the scene, providentially mad with the same kind of madness as had recently seized on Lathrop, belonging to the same anarchial a.s.sociation, and engaged in the same silly defiance of society; likely therefore to be thrown a good deal in his company; and last, but most important, possessed of a fortune which she would no doubt allow the "Daughters of Revolt" to squander--unless Paul cut in.

The situation had begun to seem to him interesting, and having already lent Lathrop more money than he could afford, he had come down to enquire about it. He himself possessed an income of three hundred a year, plus two thousand pounds left him by an uncle. Except for the single weakness which had induced him to lend Lathrop a couple of hundred pounds, his principles with regard to money were frankly piratical. Get what you can--and how you can. Clearly it was Lathrop's game to take advantage of this queer friendship with a militant who happened to be both rich and young, which his dabbling in their "nonsense" had brought about. Why shouldn't he achieve it? Lathrop was as clever as sin; and there was the past history of the man, to shew that he could attract women.

He gripped his friend's arm as they pa.s.sed into the shadow of the wood.

Lathrop looked at him with surprise--

"Look here, Paul"--said the younger man in a determined voice--"You've got to pull this thing off."

"What thing?"

"You can marry this girl if you put your mind to it. You tell me you're going about the country with her speaking at meetings--that you're one of her helpers and advisers. That is--you've got an A1 chance with her.

If you don't use it, you're a blithering idiot."

Paul threw back his head and laughed.

"And what about other people? What about her guardian, for instance--who is the sole trustee of the property--who has a thousand chances with her to my one--and holds, I venture to say--if he knows anything about me--the strongest views on the subject of _my_ moral character?"

"Who is her guardian?"

"Mark Wilmington. Does that convey anything to you?"

Blaydes whistled.

"Great Scott!"

"Yes. Precisely 'Great Scott!'" said Lathrop, mocking. "I may add that everybody here has their own romance on the subject. They are convinced that Winnington will soon cure her of her preposterous notions, and restore her, tamed, to a normal existence."

Blaydes meditated,--his aspect showing a man checked.

"I saw Winnington playing in a county match last August," he said--with his eyes on the ground--"I declare no one looked at anybody else. I suppose he's forty; but the old stagers tell you that he's just as much of an Apollo now as he was in his most famous days--twenty years ago."

"Don't exaggerate. He _is_ forty, and I'm thirty--which is one to me.

I only meant to suggest to you a _reasonable_ view of the chances."

"Look here--_is_ she as handsome as people say?"

"Blaydes!--this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about her--you get on my nerves. Handsome? I don't know."

He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either hand.

"I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself--and your creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily--"You must know your affairs are in a pretty desperate state."

"And a girl like that is to be sacrificed--to my creditors! Good Lord!"

"Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, I've nothing to say. Of course I know--there's that case against you.

But it's a good while ago; and I declare women don't look at those things as they used to do. Why don't you play the man of letters business? You know very well, Paul, you could earn a lot of money if you chose. But you're such a lazy dog!"

"Let me alone!" said Lathrop, rather fiercely. "The fact that you've lent me a couple of hundred really doesn't give you the right to talk to me like this."

"I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly.

Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter.

"I say, do shut up! I a.s.sure you, you can't bully me. Now then--here's the house!"

And as he spoke they emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew edges, from which as from a flat and s.p.a.cious shelf carved out of the hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the cl.u.s.tered village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far distance, a shining line of sea.

"My word!--that is a house!" cried Blaydes, stopping to survey it and get his townsman's breath, after the steep pitch of hill.

"Not bad?"

"Is it shown?"

"Used to be. It has been shut lately for fear of the militants."

"But they keep somebody in it?"

"Yes--in some room at the back. A keeper, and his three children. The wife's dead. Shall I go and see if he'll let us in? But he won't. He'll have seen my name at that meeting, in the Latchford paper."

"No, no. I shall miss my train. Let's walk round. Why, you'd think it was on fire already!" said Blaydes, with a start, gazing at the house.

For the marvellous evening now marching from the western forest, was dyeing the whole earth in crimson, and the sun just emerging from one bank of cloud, before dropping into the bank below, was flinging a fierce glare upon the wide grey front of Monk Lawrence. Every window blazed, and some fine oaks still thick with red leaf, which flanked the house on the north, flamed in concert. The air was suffused with red; every minor tone, blue or brown, green or purple, shewed through it, as through a veil.

And yet how quietly the house rose, in the heart of the flame! Peace brooding on memory seemed to breathe from its rounded oriels, its mossy roof, its legend in stone letters running round the eaves, the carved trophies and arabesques which framed the stately doorway, the sleepy fountain with its cupids, in the courtyard, the graceful loggia on the northern side. It stood, aloof and self-contained, amid the lightnings and arrows of the departing sun.

"No--they'd never dare to touch that!" said Lathrop as he led the way to the path skirting the house. "And if I caught Miss Marvell at it, I'm not sure I shouldn't hand her over myself!"

"Aren't we trespa.s.sing?" said Blaydes, as their footsteps rang on the broad flagged path which led from the front court to the terrace at the back of the house.

"Certainly. Ah, the dog's heard us."

And before they had gone more than a few steps further, a burly man appeared at the further corner of the house, holding a muzzled dog--a mastiff--on a leash.

"What might you be wanting, gentlemen?" he said gruffly.

"Why, you know me, Daunt. I brought a friend up to look at your wonderful place. We can walk through, can't we?"

"Well, as you're here, Sir, I'll let you out by the lower gate. But this is private ground, Sir, and Sir Wilfrid's orders are strict,--not to let anybody through that hasn't either business with the house or an order from himself."

"All right. Let's have a look at the back and the terrace, and then we'll be off; Sir Wilfrid coming here?"

"Not that I know of, Sir," said the keeper shortly, striding on before the two men, and quieting his dog, who was growling at their heels.

As he spoke he led the way down a stately flight of stone steps by which the famous eastern terrace at the back of the house was reached.

The three men and the dog disappeared from view.