Helena's Path

"Any ladies with Lynborough's party, I wonder!" Captain Irons hazarded. "I think I'll go! Stillford, you ought to go to church – family solicitor and all that, eh?"

A message suddenly arrived from Miss Dufaure, to say that she felt better and proposed to attend church – could she be sent?

"The carriage is going anyhow," said Miss Gilletson a trifle stiffly.

"Yes, I suppose I ought," Stillford agreed. "We'll drive there and walk back?"

"Right you are!" said the Captain.

By following the party from Nab Grange to Fillby parish church, a partial idea of the locality would be gained; but perhaps it is better to face the complete task at once. Idle tales suit idle readers; a history such as this may legitimately demand from those who study it some degree of mental application.

If, then, the traveler lands from the North Sea (which is the only sea he can land from) he will find himself on a sandy beach, dipping rapidly to deep water and well adapted for bathing. As he stands facing inland, the sands stretch in a long line southerly on his left; on his right rises the bold bluff of Sandy Nab with its swelling outline, its grass-covered dunes, and its sparse firs; directly in front of him, abutting on the beach, is the high wall inclosing the Grange property; a gate in the middle gives access to the grounds. The Grange faces south, and lies in the shelter of Sandy Nab. In front of it are pleasure-grounds, then a sunk fence, then spacious meadow-lands. The property is about a mile and a half (rather more than less) in length, to half-a-mile in breadth. Besides the Grange there is a small farmhouse, or bailiff's house, in the southwest corner of the estate. On the north the boundary consists of moorlands, to the east (as has been seen) of the beach, to the west and south of a public road. At the end of the Grange walls this road turns to the right, inland, and passes by Fillby village; it then develops into the highroad to Easthorpe with its market, shops, and station, ten miles away. Instead, however, of pursuing this longer route, the traveler from the Grange grounds may reach Fillby and Easthorpe sooner by crossing the road on the west, and traversing the Scarsmoor Castle property, across which runs a broad carriage road, open to the public. He will first – after entering Lord Lynborough's gates – pass over a bridge which spans a little river, often nearly dry, but liable to be suddenly flooded by a rainfall in the hills. Thus he enters a beautiful demesne, rich in wood and undergrowth, in hill and valley, in pleasant rides and winding drives. The Castle itself – an ancient gray building, square and massive, stands on an eminence in the northwest extremity of the property; the ground drops rapidly in front of it, and it commands a view of Nab Grange and the sea beyond, being in its turn easily visible from either of these points. The road above mentioned, on leaving Lynborough's park, runs across the moors in a southwesterly line to Fillby, a little village of some three hundred souls. All around and behind this, stretching to Easthorpe, are great rolling moors, rich in beauty as in opportunities for sport, yet cutting off the little settlement of village, Castle, and Grange from the outer world by an isolation more complete than the mere distance would in these days seem to entail. The church, two or three little shops, and one policeman, sum up Fillby's resources: anything more, for soul's comfort, for body's supply or protection, must come across the moors from Easthorpe.

One point remains – reserved to the end by reason of its importance. A gate has been mentioned as opening on to the beach from the grounds of Nab Grange. He who enters at that gate and makes for the Grange follows the path for about two hundred yards in a straight line, and then takes a curving turn to the right, which in time brings him to the front door of the house. But the path goes on – growing indeed narrower, ultimately becoming a mere grass-grown track, yet persisting quite plain to see – straight across the meadows, about a hundred yards beyond the sunk fence which bounds the Grange gardens, and in full view from the Grange windows; and it desists not from its course till it reaches the rough stone wall which divides the Grange estate from the highroad on the west. This wall it reaches at a point directly opposite to the Scarsmoor lodge; in the wall there is a gate, through which the traveler must pass to gain the road.

There is a gate – and there had always been a gate; that much at least is undisputed. It will, of course, be obvious that if the residents at the Castle desired to reach the beach for the purpose of bathing or other diversions, and proposed to go on their feet, incomparably their best, shortest, and most convenient access thereto lay through this gate and along the path which crossed the Grange property and issued through the Grange gate on to the seashore. To go round by the road would take at least three times as long. Now the season was the month of June; Lord Lynborough was a man tenacious of his rights – and uncommonly fond of bathing.

On the other hand, it might well be that the Marchesa di San Servolo – the present owner of Nab Grange – would prefer that strangers should not pass across her property, in full view and hail of her windows, without her permission and consent. That this, indeed, was the lady's attitude might be gathered from the fact that, on this Sunday morning in June, Captain Irons and Mr. Stillford, walking back through the Scarsmoor grounds from Fillby church as they had proposed, found the gate leading from the road into the Grange meadows securely padlocked. Having ignored this possibility, they had to climb, incidentally displacing, but carefully replacing, a number of prickly furze branches which the zeal of the Marchesa's bailiff had arranged along the top rail of the gate.

"Boys been coming in?" asked Irons.

"It may be that," said Stillford, smiling as he arranged the prickly defenses to the best advantage.

The Grange expedition to church had to confess to having seen nothing of the Castle party – and in so far it was dubbed a failure. There was indeed a decorous row of servants in the household seat, but the square oaken pew in the chancel, with its brass rods and red curtains in front, and its fireplace at the back, stood empty. The two men reported having met, as they walked home through Scarsmoor, a very large fat man with a face which they described variously, one likening it to the sinking sun on a misty day, the other to a copper saucepan.

"Not Lord Lynborough, I do trust!" shuddered little Violet Dufaure. She and Miss Gilletson had driven home by the road, regaining the Grange by the south gate and the main drive.

Stillford was by the Marchesa. He spoke to her softly, covered by the general conversation. "You might have told us to take a key!" he said reproachfully. "That gorse is very dangerous to a man's Sunday clothes."

"It looks – businesslike, doesn't it?" she smiled.

"Oh, uncommon! When did you have it done?"

"The day before yesterday. I wanted there to be no mistake from the very first. That's the best way to prevent any unpleasantness."

"Possibly." Stillford sounded doubtful. "Going to have a notice-board, Marchesa?"

"He will hardly make that necessary, will he?"

"Well, I told you that in my judgment your right to shut it against him is very doubtful."

"You told me a lot of things I didn't understand," she retorted rather pettishly.

He shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. No good lay in anticipating trouble. Lord Lynborough might take no notice.

In the afternoon the Marchesa's guests played golf on a rather makeshift nine-hole course laid out in the meadows. Miss Gilletson slept. The Marchesa herself mounted the top of Sandy Nab, and reviewed her situation. The Colonel would doubtless have liked to accompany her, but he was not thereto invited.

Helena Vittoria Maria Antonia, Marchesa di San Servolo, was now in her twenty-fourth year. Born of an Italian father and an English mother, she had bestowed her hand on her paternal country, but her heart remained in her mother's. The Marchese took her as his second wife and his last pecuniary resource; in both capacities she soothed his declining years. Happily for her – and not unhappily for the world at large – these were few. He had not time to absorb her youth or to spend more than a small portion of her inheritance. She was left a widow – stepmother of adult Italian offspring – owner for life of an Apennine fortress. She liked the fortress much, but disliked the stepchildren (the youngest was of her own age) more. England – her mother's home – presented itself in the light of a refuge. In short, she had grave doubts about ever returning to Italy.

Nab Grange was in the market. Ancestrally a possession of the Caverlys (for centuries a noble but unennobled family in those parts), it had served for the family's dower-house, till a bad race-meeting had induced the squire of the day to sell it to a Mr. Cross of Leeds. The Crosses held it for seventy years. Then the executors of the last Cross sold it to the Marchesa. This final transaction happened a year before Lynborough came home. The "Beach Path" had, as above recorded, been closed only for two days.

The path was not just now in the Marchesa's thoughts. Nothing very definite was. Rather, as her eyes ranged from moor to sea, from the splendid uniformity of the unclouded sky to the ravishing variety of many-tinted earth, from the green of the Grange meadows (the one spot of rich emerald on the near coast-line, owing its hues to Sandy Nab's kindly shelter) to the gray mass of Scarsmoor Castle – there was in her heart that great mixture of content and longing that youth and – (what put bluntly amounts to) – a fine day are apt to raise. And youth allied with beauty becomes self-assertive, a claimant against the world, a plaintiff against facts before High Heaven's tribunal. The Marchesa was infinitely delighted with Nab Grange – graciously content with Nature – not ill-pleased with herself – but, in fine, somewhat discontented with her company. That was herself? Not precisely, though, at the moment, objectively. She was wondering whether her house-party was all that her youth and her beauty – to say nothing of her past endurance of the Marchese – entitled her to claim and to enjoy.

Then suddenly across her vision, cutting the sky-line, seeming to divide for a moment heaven above from earth beneath, passed a tall meager figure, and a head of lines clean as if etched by a master's needle. The profile stood as carved in fine ivory; glints of color flashed from hair and beard. The man softly sang a love song as he walked – but he never looked toward the Marchesa.

She sat up suddenly. "Could that be Lord Lynborough?" she thought – and smiled.

Chapter Three

OF LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS

Lynborough sat on the terrace which ran along the front of the Castle and looked down, over Nab Grange, to the sea. With him were Leonard Stabb and Roger Wilbraham. The latter was a rather short, slight man of dark complexion; although a light-weight he was very wiry and a fine boxer. His intellectual gifts corresponded well with his physical equipment; an acute ready mind was apt to deal with every-day problems and pressing necessities; it had little turn either for speculation or for fancy. He had dreams neither about the past, like Stabb, nor about present things, like Lynborough. His was, in a word, the practical spirit, and Lynborough could not have chosen a better right-hand man.

They were all smoking; a silence had rested long over the party. At last Lynborough spoke.

"There's always," he said, "something seductive in looking at a house when you know nothing about the people who live in it."

"But I know a good deal about them," Wilbraham interposed with a laugh. "Coltson's been pumping all the village, and I've had the benefit of it." Coltson was Lynborough's own man, an old soldier who had been with him nearly fifteen years and had accompanied him on all his travels and excursions.

Lynborough paid no heed; he was not the man to be put off his reflections by intrusive facts.

"The blank wall of a strange house is like the old green curtain at the theater. It may rise for you any moment and show you – what? Now what is there at Nab Grange?"

"A lot of country bumpkins, I expect," growled Stabb.

"No, no," Wilbraham protested. "I'll tell you, if you like – "

"What's there?" Lynborough pursued. "I don't know. You don't know – no, you don't, Roger, and you probably wouldn't even if you were inside. But I like not knowing – I don't want to know. We won't visit at the Grange, I think. We will just idealize it, Cromlech." He cast his queer elusive smile at his friend.

"Bosh!" said Stabb. "There's sure to be a woman there – and I'll be bound she'll call on you!"

"She'll call on me? Why?"

"Because you're a lord," said Stabb, scorning any more personal form of flattery.

"That fortuitous circumstance should, in my judgment, rather afford me protection."

"If you come to that, she's somebody herself." Wilbraham's knowledge would bubble out, for all the want of encouragement.

"Everybody's somebody," murmured Lynborough – "and it is a very odd arrangement. Can't be regarded as permanent, eh, Cromlech? Immortality by merit seems a better idea. And by merit I mean originality. Well – I sha'n't know the Grange, but I like to look at it. The way I picture her – "

"Picture whom?" asked Stabb.

"Why, the Lady of the Grange, to be sure – "

"Tut, tut, who's thinking of the woman? – if there is a woman at all."

"I am thinking of the woman, Cromlech, and I've a perfect right to think of her. At least, if not of that woman, of a woman – whose like I've never met."