The Brother of Daphne Part 31

I stopped short and looked at her. "You are a deceitful witch." I said.

"A what witch?"

"The which to adore," said I.

After the fourth hole the course lies inland. For the next ten holes you play directly away from the sea. Then the fifteenth takes a sharp turn to the left, skirting the deer-park of Mote Abbey, while the sixteenth bears to the left again, heading straight for the club-house and the coast once more.

My lady was a pretty player. I gave her two strokes a hole and led till the fourteenth, but on that green she holed a ten-foot putt which made us all square.

If she hadn't sliced her drive from the fifteenth tee, it would have been a beautiful shot. We watched it curl over the grey wall into the sunshot park.

"Out of bounds, I suppose," said I. "What a pity, pretty Princess."

"Not at all," she replied. "It was a lovely shot. You can't do better than follow that line."

"Into the deer-park?"

"Why not? It's much prettier."

"I'm sure it is," said I.

"But what of that? Unless somebody's moved it since this morning, the green's about a hundred and twenty yards away from the wall on this side. To say nothing of the fact that the park's private property, while there's a notice-board about three feet square, beginning 'Golfers are requested to remember,' at the one place where a giant might effect an entrance."

"Yes," she said quietly, "I got brother to put that board there. We tried to make it polite. The caddies used to frighten the deer so."

I just stood and looked at her. The three smiles blazed back at me.

In silence I turned and teed up. Then I drove after her ball into the fair park.

When we reached the place where the board was posted, she touched my hand and pointed to her little brown shoe. For an instant she rested on my palm. The next moment she was on the top of the wall. She smiled her thanks before disappearing. I followed with the clubs.

There was a ladder on the other side. She was awaiting my descent. In silence we walked forward together. Presently I touched her arm and stood still. She turned and looked at me, the sun making all manner of exquisite lights in her glorious hair.

"If I had a hat on," I said simply, "I should uncover."

The little bow she gave me would have launched another "thousand ships." In the slight action all the charm of her was voiced exquisitely. Grace, sweetness and dignity--all in a bow. So it was always. Helen's features would not have fired a sheepcote: the charm that lighted them blotted out a city. Cleopatra's form would not have spoiled a slave: the magnetism of her ruined Marc Antony. Elizabeth's speech would not have sunk a coracle: the personality behind it smashed an Armada.

We came to her ball first. As I handed her her bra.s.sie:

"Tell me one thing," said I. "If I had not been there, how would you have got over the wall?"

She looked at me mischievously. "I have a way," she said.

"I know," I said, patting her golf-bag. "These aren't really clubs at all."

"What are they, then?"

"Broomsticks."

It was the best part of a mile to the fair lawn, where we holed out underneath the cedars. I won with fourteen, which wasn't bad, considering I was bunkered in a bed of daffodils. She gave me tea in the old library, sweet with the fragrance of pot-pourri. Out of its latticed windows I could see the rolling woods, bright in their fresh green livery. For nearly an hour and a half we sat talking. I told her of Daphne and the others. She told me of her mother and sisters and how her brother had cared for the Abbey since her father's death.

It was true that the family was away. She was alone there, save for her eldest sister's child--Roy. Next month she would go to London.

"Where I may come and see you?"

"I should be very hurt if you didn't. It's going to be rather nice."

"It is," I said with conviction.

"I meant the season. I'll enjoy it all. The dances and theatres, Ranelagh, Ascot, Lord's, the Horse Show and everything. But--"

"How glad and happy she'll be to get back to the Abbey with its deep woodland and its warm park, its gentle-eyed deer, its oaks and elms and cedars, its rose-garden and its old paved court. How grateful to lean out of her bedroom window into the cool, quiet, starlit nights. How pleased to watch the setting sun making the ragged clerestory more beautiful than did all its precious panes."

I stopped. She was sitting back in her chair by the window, chin in air, showing her soft, white throat, gazing with half-closed eyes up at the reddening sky.

"He understands," she murmured, "he understands."

For a little s.p.a.ce we sat silent. Then I rose.

"Good-bye." I said. "You have been very kind. Perhaps I may come again."

She did not move. Only her eyes left the window and rested on mine.

"Ring the bell," she said. "I am going to take you to see the ruins.

They are at their best, as you said, at sundown."

"Thank you," I said, and stepped to the fireplace. A footman entered the room. "I want the key of the Abbot's kitchen," said my hostess.

"Some visitors have it, madam. A gentleman called to ask for it ten minutes ago."

"Oh, all right." She rose and turned to me. "Let's go, then. We'll probably meet them bringing it back."

The half-light lent the old quire's walls a rare beauty. A great peace hung over them. Perhaps it was of them. For a little we strolled, talking, upon the greensward. Then:

"Now you shall see the kitchen," she said.

"If you please, Princess."

The kitchen stood away from the ruins, in the middle of a fair meadow: a circular building of grey stone, very lofty and about sixty paces in circ.u.mference. Its great oak door was closed. I could see one tiny window--gla.s.sless, of course--some sixteen feet from the ground.

"Why!" said the girl, stopping suddenly, "the door's shut."

"Yes," said I; "but what of that?"

"Well, the people must have gone."

"Why?"

"Well, you can't see inside if you shut the door. Besides, if you do, you can't open it again. Not from within I mean. It's a spring lock."

"Perhaps they're locked in."