The Coldstone (2 page)

Anthony burst out laughing.

“He painted some of the worst pictures in England! It's the only thing I knew about him till now. You see, my father died when I was three, and my mother a year later; but the aunt who brought me up—my mother's aunt—kept the whole collection of mouldy old pictures because she said they were heirlooms.”

“Er—yes. Well, that was the reason for the breach. Sir Jervis carried on the feeling about it—he carried it on very strongly. You know, of course, that he served with distinction in the Crimea, and was awarded the K.C.B. for his services during the Mutiny. It was when you entered the army that he made the will under which you inherit. By the way, I suppose you mean to send in your papers?”

“Oh—I don't know. I've got eight months' leave. I thought I'd go down and have a look round.”

“Sir Jervis hoped you would go into Parliament. He himself left the army and went into Parliament when his father died.”

Exasperation mounted in Anthony. He was to do this, and he was not to do that. He had been left the property because he had pleased Sir Jervis by going into the army; and now he was to leave the service and take up politics because Sir Jervis had left the service and taken up politics about a hundred years ago.

“I shan't decide anything at present.”

“Unless you have private means—”

“I haven't.”

“You may find the place too expensive to keep up. Sir Jervis found it difficult, and now, what with the death duties and a charge on the estate of eight hundred a year for Sir Jervis' daughters—”

“I won't decide anything till I've had a look round. By the way, the old ladies, the Miss Colstones—I thought of running down to-morrow. They won't mind, will they?”

“You won't find them at Stonegate. They were anxious to move as soon as possible.”

“I say, that's rather beastly for them, isn't it?”

“It was their own wish. You will find them very pleasantly installed in what is called The Ladies' House. And they particularly desired me to say that they were looking forward to making your acquaintance.”

Anthony got up.

“That's awfully nice of them. What are their names again?”

“Miss Agatha, and Miss Arabel. Their grandmother, a Miss Langholme, claimed descent from the Lady Arabella Stuart. They are very proud of the fact, especially Miss Arabel. And—about this undertaking, Mr. Colstone—you are not inclined to give it?”

“Not without a reason,” said Anthony.

CHAPTER TWO

Anthony Colstone went down to see his new possession next day.

The station was Wrane, but he had to drive seven miles to reach Ford St. Mary; at first through low-lying pasture land dotted with an occasional farm; then up into hilly country, open, arid, lonely to a degree he would hardly have believed possible; and then down once more to where a little river moved between pollarded trees, with the village of Ford St. Mary straggling beside it on the hither side.

A sharp bend hid everything. They passed into a black shade of over-arching trees. It was strange to be in bright sunlight one moment, and then to lose it. The wood was very thick, and full of a dense undergrowth. Another turn, and they were out of it, running between high banks that hid the view. Then the first house—a cottage, crooked with age, asleep under its heavy thatch, with a neglected garden full of knee-high weeds.

Something pricked him sharply. If this was Ford St. Mary, he was on his own ground. The fields across the river were his—this old cottage his. The secret pride of possession flared up into an intense flame. He had always wanted land; but not till this moment had he known what it would feel like to look at water, and fields, and trees, and say, “These are mine.”

He pulled up his thoughts with a jerk. He wasn't going to let the place knock him off his feet. He tried to see it all dispassionately. More cottages, all thatched; some with bright gardens—hollyhocks, marigolds, snapdragon, and climbing roses, with a sultry drowsy August sunshine over all. Then the village street, and a high stone wall rising sheer on the right; no house visible, only the long towering wall. In the middle of it a heavy oak door flanked by stone pillars, and between the pillars a shield with an almost obliterated device.

The taxi stopped. Anthony put his head out.

“Can't one drive in?”

He got a shake of the head; and opening the door, he jumped out and rang the bell.

It wasn't in the least like what he had expected. He had thought that there would be an entrance gate and a drive; a park perhaps; big grounds. This high blank wall challenged his imagination. It made the place seem like a castle. He liked it.

Then the heavy door opened and he saw that a glazed passage led from it to the real door of the house. There were a few plants in tubs, things with striped leaves, a palm or two, some gawky geraniums. He stared past them through the glass, trying to get a view of the house, and had a confused impression of grey stone and formal windows. Somehow he had expected something older—gables, old beams, something more in line with those thatched and timbered cottages.

The butler, Lane, met him at the door—a pale, stoutish man, just perceptibly nervous. Behind him, Mrs. Hutchins, the housekeeper—large, rubicund, jolly. Behind them, the house—his house. He desired ardently to get rid of them and to make its acquaintance.

The grey stone front was like a mask; it hid beauty. The eighteenth century had built on to and covered up the original Elizabethan Stonegate. The old hall remained, rising to the height of the second storey, with a stair that swept nobly up to a carved gallery. The great chimney measured ten feet across. On the dark panelling hung pictures almost as dark.

He went up the stair and along the gallery, Mrs. Hutchins a little in advance, talking about which room he would have, and what a hot day it was—“Though to be sure, sir, you'd make nothing of that, coming from India. And if you please to mind the step. Built everything with steps up and down in the old days, and I'm sure I don't know why. There's another one here, sir—up this time—and then just a half step down again.”

She flung open a door and stood aside for him to enter.

“This was Sir Jervis' room, sir.”

Anthony came into it with a sense of intrusion. It was a fine room with three large windows, and paper, not panelling. The whole room had a surprisingly modern air; the furniture Victorian mahogany, the paper very faded and hideous beyond belief—olive green whorls on a ground of yellow ochre; the bed a plain old-fashioned brass affair of the same period as the huge dark wardrobe on the opposite side of the room. Two of the windows looked upon a green lawn set with cedar trees. The high stone wall lay on the left. It had fruit trees trained against it, and a narrow border at its foot, somewhat empty and neglected.

Anthony walked to the other window. It looked to the hilly country through which he had come; a patch of dark trees on the right—the wood where he had lost the sun; fields all on the slant; not many trees; hedges; cows grazing. And straight in the line from where he stood something grey that caught his eye.

He turned quickly to Mrs. Hutchins.

“Are those the Stones?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked round at her quickly. She had been so voluble—and now only two words, and her mouth set as if she didn't mean to open it again. He had thought her a jolly old thing, but as he looked round she seemed formidable, and her little grey eyes cold; the whole of her big red face was like a slammed door. He looked back at the hillside.

“How many stones are there? I can see two. Is that all there are?”

“I don't know, sir.”

He swung round impatiently.

“Why? How long have you been here? I thought Mr. Leveridge said—”

“I've been here thirty years, sir—housekeeper for fifteen.”

Her face relaxed a little. Pride in her long service was evident.

Anthony gave a short, half stifled laugh.

“Thirty years! And you don't know how many stones there are?”

“No, sir. Will you be having this room, may I ask, sir?”

“Never been up to have a look at them?” He ignored the question of the room. He was puzzled and intrigued.

“No, sir. About the room, sir—”

He walked to the window and stared out. Straight maroon curtains framed the green fields that were his—green fields all on the slant of the hill. He wondered if he could farm the land and make it pay. He had always wanted to farm really. He looked at the two grey stones, like grey sheep feeding on the green slope a long way off—two of them. And Mrs. Hutchins didn't know if there were any more. She had been here thirty years, and she didn't know.

He turned, smiling; and when he smiled he looked like a schoolboy.

“And how long has Lane been here?”

“Forty years. Shall I have this bed made up, sir?”

“No—I don't think so. I don't think I'll have this room.”

“It's the best room.”

“I don't think I should ever feel as if it were mine. Is there another room that looks up the hill? I'd like that.”

He thought that Sir Jervis had liked it too; he could lie in bed and look across the brass knobs of the foot-rail at the green fields that climbed the hill, and the grey stones that broke the green.

They went along the passage, through a door, up a step, and down three more. Anthony began to wonder how long it would take him to find his way about the house.

Then Mrs. Hutchins flung open a thick oak door.

“It's one of the old rooms, sir, if you don't mind that.”

He had to bend his head a little, because the doorposts were not quite six foot. The room pleased him immediately. It had panelling to about his own height, and then clean whitewash crossed with timber. Two heavy beams ran overhead, and all the narrow end of the room looked through a long casement at the green, tilted fields. The bed was a four-poster stripped of its curtains, the fluted posts as bare and graceful as winter trees. On the floor a faded Persian carpet, and the bare oak boards polished and blackened by the passing feet of many generations.

“I'll have this room,” said Anthony with decision.

CHAPTER THREE

An hour later he stepped across the village street to pay his respects to the Miss Colstones. The Ladies' House had a little square paved garden in front of it; there was a low stone wall, and a high stone gate. The house itself crossed the back of the garden and sent out two wings that enclosed it. There was a square bed of scarlet geraniums in each corner of the paved place, and a round bed, with a large lavender bush and an incongruous edging of lobelia, in the middle. The path led up to the round bed, divided in two to encircle it, and then ran straight up to a worn grey step and a dark green door.

Anthony was shown into a white panelled room with a glass door open to a miniature lawn. On either side of the door there were casement windows very deeply recessed. He stood in the middle of the pale flowered carpet and looked about him. The furniture exhibited a pleasing mixture of periods. There were three gimcrack gilt Empire chairs, some dignified oak, a round table with a wreath of flowers inlaid upon its edge and a marvellous erection of wax fruit under a glass shade standing in the middle of it, flanked by photograph albums with gold clasps and edges. One of the albums was bound in crimson plush, and the other in faded red morocco. Over the fireplace a lady in a ruff looked sadly at her own long thin fingers, her hair drawn tightly back beneath a jewelled cap, her eyebrows raised in strained interrogation.

The door opened, and there came in a little lady, very point device, with pretty white hair rolled back over a cushion, and scraps of old lace at the neck and wrists of her mourning gown. She had a wisp of a white Shetland shawl about her shoulders. Her eyes were a clear pale blue, her cheeks round and pink, her mouth the cupid's bow of a Victorian book of beauty. She had pretty little hands and pretty little feet, and a fluttered manner that was pretty too in its suggestion of timid welcome. The small outstretched hand trembled just perceptibly.

Anthony took it, and found it cold.

He said, “How do you do, Miss Colstone?”

“Oh, not Miss Colstone! Indeed I hope you will call us Cousin. And I am not Miss Colstone—I am Miss Arabel—your Cousin Arabel. Agatha is Miss Colstone, and—won't you sit down?”

He chose one of the stronger chairs, moving it nearer to the frail gilt sofa with its faded brocade cushions which made Miss Arabel's cashmere look so dead a black.

She gazed at him earnestly and said,

“You are not at all like dear Papa. Did you have a pleasant journey? We would have sent to meet you, but we have no carriage. Have you come alone?”

“I'm expecting a friend to-morrow.”

“That will be pleasant for you. It is a big house to be alone in.”

“I feel as if it would take me ages to find my way about in it. Do you know if there's a plan of the house at all?”

“A plan?”

“Yes. I'd like to get it into my head.”

“I—don't know.” She looked a little alarmed. “Oh, here is Agatha.”

Miss Agatha Colstone came in through the open door from the garden. She wore a wide straw hat tied under her ample chin with a bit of rusty black ribbon. Her skirt was short, her shoes very sensible. She held a garden fork. The hand she offered Anthony had obviously been weeding.

“
There!
” she said in a deep voice. “I've finished that border, thank goodness! So you're young Anthony. Let me have a look at you. Who are you like?”

“He isn't like poor Papa,” said Miss Arabel rather plaintively.

“Why should he be?”

“Must I be like someone?” said Anthony with a twinkle.

Miss Agatha fixed her rather prominent eyes upon him. They were brown and round like little bullseyes, but not unfriendly.