Miss Arnott's Marriage Part 6

"I was just telling Miss Arnott the story. Odd that you should come upon the scene as corroborating evidence."

"For two pins I'd let fly!"

"Now, Baker, don't be an idiot. Take care how you handle that gun, or there'll be trouble; your hands don't seem too steady. You don't want me to give you another thrashing, do you? Have you forgotten the last one I gave you?"

"Have I forgotten?" The man cursed his questioner with a vigour which was startling. "I'll never forget--trust me. I'll be even with you yet, trust me. By ---- if you say another word about it I'll let fly at you now!"

Up went the stock of the gun to the speaker's shoulder, the muzzle pointing direct at Mr Morice. That gentleman neither moved nor spoke; Miss Arnott did both.

"Baker, are you mad? Put down that gun. How dare you so misbehave yourself?"

The gun was lowered with evident reluctance.

"Mr Arnott, he told me to shoot him if ever I see him this side the fence."

"I am mistress here now. You may think yourself fortunate if you're not presently introduced to a policeman."

"I was only obeying orders, that's all I was doing."

"Orders! How long ago is it since the orders to which you refer were given you?"

Mr Morice interposed an answer,--

"It's more than four years since I was near the place."

The keeper turned towards him with a vindictive snarl.

"Four years! what's four years? An order's an order if it's four years or forty. How was I to know that things are different, and that now you're to come poaching and trespa.s.sing whenever you please?"

Miss Arnott was very stern.

"Baker, take yourself away from here at once. You will hear of this again. Do you hear me? Go! without a word!"

Mr Baker went, but as he went he delivered himself of several words.

They were uttered to himself rather than to the general public, but they were pretty audible all the same. When he was out of sight and sound, the lady put a question to the gentleman,--

"Do you think it possible that he could have been in earnest, and that he would have shot you?"

"I daresay. I suspect that few things would have pleased him better.

Why not? He would only have been carrying out instructions received."

"But--Mr Morice, I wish you would not jest on such a subject! Has he a personal grudge against you?"

"It depends upon what you call a grudge; you heard what he said. He used to live in that cottage near the gravel pits; and may do so still for all I know. Once, when I was pa.s.sing, I heard a terrible hullabaloo. I invited myself inside to find that Mr Baker was correcting Mrs Baker with what seemed to me such unnecessary vigour that--I corrected him. The incident seems to linger in his memory, in spite of the pa.s.sage of the years; and I shouldn't be at all surprised if, in his turn, he is still quite willing to correct me, with the aid of a few pellets of lead."

"But he must be a dangerous character."

"He's a character, at anyrate. I've always felt he was a little mad; when he's drunk he's stark mad. He's perhaps been having half a gallon now. Let me hasten to a.s.sure you that, I fancy, Baker's qualities were regarded by Mr Septimus Arnott, in the main, as virtues. Mr Arnott was himself a character; if I may be excused for saying so."

"I never saw my uncle in his life, and knew absolutely nothing about him, except what my father used to tell me of the days when they were boys together."

"If, in those days, he was anything like what he was afterwards, he must have been a curiosity. To make the whole position clear to you I should mention that my uncle was also a character. I am not sure that, taking him altogether, he was not the more remarkable character of the two. The Morices, of course, have been here since the flood. But when your uncle came my uncle detected in him a kindred spirit. They became intimates; inseparable chums, and a pair of curios I promise you they were, until they quarrelled--over a game of chess."

"Of chess?"

"Of chess. They used to play together three or four times a week--tremendous games. Until one evening my uncle insisted that your uncle had taken his hand off a piece, and wouldn't allow him to withdraw his move. Then the fur flew. Each called the other everything he could think of, and both had an extensive repertoire. The war which followed raged unceasingly; it's a mystery to me how they both managed to die in their beds."

"And all because of a dispute over a game of chess?"

"My uncle could quarrel about a less serious matter than a game of chess; he was a master of the art. He quarrelled with me--but that's another story; since when I've been in the out-of-the-way-corners of the world. I was in Northern Rhodesia when I heard that he was dead, and had left me Oak Dene. I don't know why--except that there has always been a Morice at Oak Dene, and that I am the only remaining specimen of the breed."

"How strange. It is only recently that I learned--to my complete surprise--that Exham Park was mine."

"It seems that we are both of us indebted to our uncles, dead; though apparently we neither of us owed much to them while they still were living. Well, are the orders to be perpetuated that I'm to be shot when seen on this side of the fence?"

"I do not myself practise such methods."

"They are drastic; though there are occasions on which drastic methods are the kindest. Since I only arrived yesterday I take it that I am the latest comer. It is your duty, therefore, to call on me. Do you propose to do your duty?"

"I certainly do not propose to call on you, if that's what you mean."

"Good. Then I'll call on you. I shall have the pleasure, Miss Arnott, of waiting on you, on this side of the fence, at a very early date. Do you keep a shot gun in the hall?"

"Do you consider it good taste to persist in harping on a subject which you must perceive is distasteful?"

"My taste was always bad."

"That I can easily imagine."

"There is something which I also can easily imagine."

"Indeed?"

"I can imagine that your uncle left you something besides Exham Park."

"What is that?"

"A little of his temper."

"Mr Morice! I have no wish to exchange retorts with you, but, from what you say, it is quite obvious that your uncle left you all his manners."

"Thank you. Anything else?"

"Yes, Mr Morice, there is something else. It is not my fault that we are neighbours."

"Don't say that it's my misfortune."

"And since you must have left many inconsolable friends behind you in Rhodesia there is no reason why we should continue to be neighbours."