Helena's Path Part 16

Lynborough saw them off, went into the library, sat down at his writing-table, and laid paper before him. But he sat idle for many minutes. Stabb came in, his arms full of books.

"I think I left some of my stuff here," he said, avoiding Lynborough's eye. "I'm just getting it together."

"Drop that lot too. You're not going to-morrow, Cromlech, there's an armistice."

Stabb put his books down on the table, and came up to him with outstretched hand. Lynborough leaned back, his hands clasped behind his head.

"Wait for a week," he said. "We may, Cromlech, arrive at an accommodation. Meanwhile, for that week, I do not use the path."

"I've been feeling pretty badly, Ambrose."

"Yes, I don't think it's safe to expose you to the charms of beauty." He looked at his friend in good-natured mockery. "Return to your tombs in peace."

The next morning he received a communication from Nab Grange. It ran as follows:

"The Marchesa di San Servolo presents her compliments to Lord Lynborough. The Marchesa will be prepared to consider any proposal put forward by Lord Lynborough, and will place no hindrance in the way of Lord Lynborough's using the path across her property if it suits his convenience to do so in the meantime."

"No, no!" said Lynborough, as he took a sheet of paper.

"Lord Lynborough presents his compliments to her Excellency the Marchesa di San Servolo. Lord Lynborough will take an early opportunity of submitting his proposal to the Marchesa di San Servolo. He is obliged for the Marchesa di San Servolo's suggestion that he should in the meantime use Beach Path, but cannot consent to do so except in the exercise of his right. He will therefore not use Beach Path during the ensuing week."

"And now to pave the way for my proposal!" he thought. For the proposal, which had a.s.sumed a position so important in the relations between the Marchesa and himself, was to be of such a nature that a grave question arose how best the way should be paved for it.

The obvious course was to set his spies to work--he could command plenty of friendly help among the Nab Grange garrison--learn the Marchesa's probable movements, throw himself in her way, contrive an acquaintance, make himself as pleasant as he could, establish relations of amity, of cordiality, even of friendship and of intimacy. That might prepare the way, and incline her to accept the proposal--to take the jest--it was little more in hard reality--in the spirit in which he put it forward, and so to end her resistance.

That seemed the reasonable method--the plain and rational line of advance. Accordingly Lynborough disliked and distrusted it. He saw another way--more full of risk, more hazardous in its result, making an even greater demand on his confidence in himself, perhaps also on the qualities with which his imagination credited the Marchesa. But, on the other hand, this alternative was far richer in surprise, in dash--as it seemed to him, in gallantry and a touch of romance. It was far more medieval, more picturesque, more in keeping with the actual proposal itself. For the actual proposal was one which, Lynborough flattered himself, might well have come from a powerful yet chivalrous baron of old days to a beautiful queen who claimed a suzerainty which not her power, but only her beauty, could command or enforce.

"It suits my humor, and I'll do it!" he said. "She sha'n't see me, and I won't see her. The first she shall hear from me shall be the proposal; the first time we meet shall be on the twenty-fourth--or never! A week from to-day--the twenty-fourth."

Now the twenty-fourth of June is, as all the world knows (or an almanac will inform the heathen), the Feast of St. John Baptist also called Midsummer Day.

So he disappeared from the view of Nab Grange and the inhabitants thereof. He never left his own grounds; even within them he shunned the public road; his beloved sea-bathing he abandoned. Nay, more, he strictly charged Roger Wilbraham, who often during this week of armistice went to play golf or tennis at the Grange, to say nothing of him; the same instructions were laid on Stabb in case on his excursions amidst the tombs, he should meet any member of the Marchesa's party. So far as the thing could be done, Lord Lynborough obliterated himself.

It was playing a high stake on a risky hand. Plainly it a.s.sumed an interest in himself on the part of the Marchesa--an interest so strong that absence and mystery (if perchance he achieved a flavor of that attraction!) would foster and nourish it more than presence and friendship could conduce to its increase. She might think nothing about him during the week! Impossible surely--with all that had gone before, and with his proposal to come at the end! But if it were so--why, so he was content. "In that case, she's a woman of no imagination, of no taste in the picturesque," he said.

For five days the Marchesa gave no sign, no clue to her feelings which the anxious watchers could detect. She did indeed suffer Colonel Wenman to depart all forlorn, most unsuccessful and uncomforted--save by the company of his brother-in-arms, Captain Irons; and he was not cheerful either, having failed notably in certain designs on Miss Dufaure which he had been pursuing, but whereunto more pressing matters have not allowed of attention being given. But Lord Lynborough she never mentioned--not to Miss Gilletson, nor even to Norah. She seemed to have regained her tranquillity; her wrath at least was over; she was very friendly to all the ladies; she was markedly cordial to Roger Wilbraham on his visits. But she asked him nothing of Lord Lynborough--and, if she ever looked from the window toward Scarsmoor Castle, none--not even her observant maid--saw her do it.

Yet Cupid was in the Grange--and very busy. There were signs, not to be misunderstood, that Violet had not for handsome Stillford the scorn she had bestowed on unfortunate Irons; and Roger, humbly and distantly worshiping the Marchesa, deeming her far as a queen beyond his reach, rested his eyes and solaced his spirit with the less awe-inspiring charms, the more accessible comradeship, of Norah Mountliffey. Norah, as her custom was, flirted hard, yet in her delicate fashion. Though she had not begun to ask herself about the end yet, she was well amused, and by no means insensible to Roger's attractions. Only she was preoccupied with Helena--and Lord Lynborough. Till that riddle was solved, she could not turn seriously to her own affairs.

On the night of the twenty-second she walked with the Marchesa in the gardens of the Grange after dinner. Helena was very silent; yet to Norah the silence did not seem empty. Over against them, on its high hill, stood Scarsmoor Castle. Roger had dined with them, but had now gone back.

Suddenly--and boldly--Norah spoke. "Do you see those three lighted windows on the ground floor at the left end of the house? That's his library, Helena. He sits there in the evening. Oh, I do wonder what he's been doing all this week!"

"What does it matter?" asked the Marchesa coldly.

"What will he propose, do you think?"

"Mr. Stillford thinks he may offer to pay me some small rent--more or less nominal--for a perpetual right--and that, if he does, I'd better accept."

"That'll be rather a dull ending to it all."

"Mr. Stillford thinks it would be a favorable one for me."

"I don't believe he means to pay you money. It'll be something"--she paused a moment--"something prettier than that."

"What has prettiness to do with it, you child? With a right of way?"

"Prettiness has to do with you, though, Helena. You don't suppose he thinks only of that wretched path?"

The flush came on the Marchesa's cheek.

"He can hardly be said to have seen me," she protested.

"Then look your best when he does--for I'm sure he's dreamed of you."

"Why do you say that?"

Norah laughed. "Because he's a man who takes a lot of notice of pretty women--and he took so very little notice of me. That's why I think so, Helena."

The Marchesa made no comment on the reason given. But now--at last and undoubtedly--she looked across at the windows of Scarsmoor.

"We shall come to some business arrangement, I suppose--and then it'll all be over," she said.

All over? The trouble and the enmity--the defiance and the fight--the excitement and the fun? The duel would be stayed, the combatants and their seconds would go their various ways across the diverging tracks of this great dissevering world. All would be over!

"Then we shall have time to think of something else!" the Marchesa added.

Norah smiled discreetly. Was not that something of an admission?

In the library at Scarsmoor Lynborough was inditing the proposal which he intended to submit by his amba.s.sadors on the morrow.

_Chapter Twelve_

AN EMBa.s.sAGE

The Marchesa's last words to Lady Norah betrayed the state of her mind.

While the question of the path was pending, she had been unable to think of anything else; until it was settled she could think of n.o.body except of the man in whose hands the settlement lay. Whether Lynborough attracted or repelled, he at least occupied and filled her thoughts. She had come to recognize where she stood and to face the position.

Stillford's steady pessimism left her no hope from an invocation of the law; Lynborough's dexterity and resource promised her no abiding victory--at best only precarious temporary successes--in a private continuance of the struggle. Worst of all--whilst she chafed or wept, he laughed! Certainly not to her critical friends, hardly even to her proud self, would she confess that she lay in her antagonist's mercy; but the feeling of that was in her heart. If so, he could humiliate her sorely.

Could he spare her? Or would he? Try how she might, it was hard to perceive how he could spare her without abandoning his right. That she was sure he would not do; all she heard of him, every sharp intuition of him which she had, the mere glimpse of his face as he pa.s.sed by on Sandy Nab, told her that.

But if he consented to pay a small--a nominal--rent, would not her pride be spared? No. That would be victory for him; she would be compelled to surrender what she had haughtily refused, in return for something which she did not want and which was of no value. If that were a cloak for her pride, the fabric of it was terribly threadbare. Even such concession as lay in such an offer she had wrung from him by setting his friends against him; would that incline him to tenderness? The offer might leave his friends still unreconciled; what comfort was that to her when once the fight and the excitement of countering blow with blow were done--when all was over? And it was more likely that what seemed to her cruel would seem to Stabb and Roger reasonable--men had a terribly rigid sense of reason in business matters. They would return to their allegiance; her friends would be ranged on the same side; she would be alone--alone in humiliation and defeat. From that fate in the end only Lynborough himself could rescue her; only the man who threatened her with it could avert it. And how could even he, save by a surrender which he would not make? Yet if he found out a way?

The thought of that possibility--though she could devise or imagine no means by which it might find accomplishment--carried her toward Lynborough in a rush of feeling. The idea--never wholly lost even in her moments of anger and dejection--came back--the idea that all the time he had been playing a game, that he did not want the wounds to be mortal, that in the end he did not hate. If he did not hate, he would not desire to hurt. But he desired to win. Could he win without hurting? Then there was a reward for him--applause for his cleverness, and grat.i.tude for his chivalry.