The Quiet Gentleman (8 page)

He awoke very suddenly, he knew not how many hours later, as though some unusual sound, penetrating his dreams, had jerked him back to consciousness. The room was in dense darkness, the fire in the hearth having died quite away; and he could hear nothing but the rain beating against the windows, and the howl of the wind, more subdued now, round the corner of the building. Yet even as he wondered whether perhaps he had been awakened by the fall of a tile from the roof, or the slamming of a door left carelessly open, he received so decided an impression that he was not alone in the room, that he raised himself quickly on to one elbow, straining his eyes to see through the smothering darkness. He could hear nothing but the wind and the rain, but the impression that someone was in the room rather grew on him than abated, and he said sharply: ‘Who is there?’

There was no answer, nor was there any sound within the room to betray the presence of another, but he could not be satisfied. Grasping the bedclothes, he flung them aside in one swift movement, and leaped up. As his feet touched the floor, something creaked, and his quickened ears caught a sound which might have been made by a softly-closing door. He reached the windows, grazing his shin against the leg of the dressing-table, and dragged one of the curtains back. A faint, gray light was admitted into the room. He could perceive no one, and strode back to the bedside, groping on the table for his tinder-box. His candle lit, he held it up, keenly looking about him. He noticed that his wedge was still firm in the door leading to the gallery; he glanced towards the door to his dressing-room, and saw that that too was shut. He set the candle down, thrust his feet into a pair of gay Morocco slippers, and shrugged himself into his dressing-gown, aware, as he did so, of the unlikelihood of anyone’s entering his room at such an advanced hour of the night, but still convinced that he had not imagined the whole.

A board cracked outside the room. He picked up the candlestick, and wrenched open his door, stepping out on to the gallery. He found himself staring at Martin, who, fully dressed, except for his shoes, and carrying a lantern, had halted in his tracks, just beyond his door, and was looking in a startled, defensive way over his shoulder. ‘Martin!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the devil – ?’

‘Don’t kick up such a dust!’ Martin begged him, in a savage but a lowered voice. ‘Do you want to wake my mother?’

‘What are you doing?’ Gervase demanded, more softly, but with a good deal of sternness in his tone. ‘Where have you been?’

‘What’s that to you?’ Martin retorted. ‘I suppose I need not render
you
an account of my movements! I have been out!’

‘
Out?
’ Gervase repeated incredulously. ‘In this hurricane?’

‘Why shouldn’t I go out? I’m not afraid of a paltry thunderstorm!’

‘Be so good as to stop trying to humbug me!’ Gervase said, with more acidity in his voice than his brother had ever heard. ‘You had the head-ache! you went early to bed!’

‘Oh, well!’ Martin muttered, reddening a little. ‘I – I recalled that – that I had an appointment in the village!’

‘An appointment in the village! Pray, in which village?’

‘Cheringham – but it’s no concern of yours!’ said Martin sulkily.

‘It appears to me to be raining, but I observe that you are not at all wet!’ said Gervase sardonically.

‘Of course I am not! I had my driving-coat on, and I left it, with my boots, downstairs! There is no need for you to blab to my mother that I was out tonight – though I daresay that is just what you mean to do!’ He cast his brother a look of dislike, and said: ‘I suppose that curst door woke you! The wind blew it out of my hand.’

‘Which door?’

‘Oh, the one into the court, of course!’ He jerked his head towards a door at the end of the gallery, which, as the Earl knew, led to a secondary flight of stairs. ‘I came in by that way: I often do!’

Gervase looked at him under slightly knit brows. ‘Very well, but what brought you to my room?’

‘Well, I am bound to pass your room, if I come up by that stairway!’

‘You are not bound to enter my room, however.’

‘Enter your room! That’s a loud one! As though I should wish to!’

‘Did you not, in fact, do so?’

‘Of course I did not! Why should I? I wish you will be a little less busy, St Erth! If I choose to go to Cheringham on affairs of my own –’

‘It is naturally no concern of mine,’ interposed Gervase. ‘You choose wild nights for your intrigues!’

‘My – ?’ Martin gave a crack of laughter, hurriedly smothered. ‘Ay, that’s it! Old Scrooby’s daughter, I daresay!’

‘I beg pardon. You will allow that if I am to be expected to swallow this story some explanation should be vouchsafed to me.’

‘Well, I ain’t going to explain it to you,’ said Martin, scowling at him.

A glimmer of light at the angle of the gallery in which they stood and that which ran along the north side of the court, caught the Earl’s eye. He took a quick step towards it, and Miss Morville, who, shrouded, lamp in hand, had been peeping cautiously round the corner of the wall, came forward, blushing in some confusion, but whispering: ‘Indeed, I beg your pardon, but I thought it must be housebreakers! I could not sleep for this horrid storm, and it seemed to me that I heard footsteps outside the house, and then a door slammed! I formed the intention of slipping upstairs to wake Abney, only then I heard voices, and thought I could recognize yours, my lord, so I crept along the gallery to see if it were indeed you.’ She looked at Martin. ‘Was it you who let the door slam into the court? Have you been out in this rain and wind?’

‘Yes, I have!’ said Martin, in a furious under-voice. ‘I have been down to the village, and pray, what have either of you to say to that?’

‘Only that I wish you will be more careful, and not give me such a fright!’ said Miss Morville, drawing her shawl more securely about her. ‘And, if I were you, Martin, I would not stand talking here, for if you do so much longer you will be bound to wake Lady St Erth.’

This common-sense reminder had the effect of sending him off on tiptoe. Miss Morville, conscious of her bare toes, which her nightdress very imperfectly concealed, and of the neat cap tied under her chin, would have followed him had she not happened to look into the Earl’s face. He was watching Martin’s retreat, and, after considering him for a moment, Miss Morville asked softly: ‘Pray, what has occurred, sir?’

He brought his eyes down to her face. ‘Occurred?’

‘You seem to be a good deal put-out. Is it because Martin stole away to the village? Boys will do so, you know!’

‘That! No! – if it was true!’

‘Oh, I expect it was!’ she said. ‘I thought, did not you? that he had been drinking what my brother Jack calls Old Tom.’

‘I know of no reason why he must go to the village to do so.’

‘Oh, no! I conjecture,’ said Miss Morville, with the air of one versed in these matters, ‘that it was to see some cocking that he went.’

‘Cocking!’

‘At the Red Lion. To own the truth, that was what I thought he meant to do when he said he had the head-ache and would go to bed.’

‘But, in God’s name, why could he not have told me so?’

‘They never do,’ she replied simply. ‘My brothers were just the same. In general, you know, one’s parents frown upon cocking, on account of the low company it takes a boy into. Depend upon it, that was why he would not tell you.’

‘My dear ma’am, Martin can hardly regard me in the light of a parent!’

‘No – at least, only in a disagreeable way,’ she said. ‘You are so much older than he, and have so much more experience besides, that I daresay the poor boy feels you are a great distance removed from him. Moreover, he resents you very much at present. If I were you, I would not mention his having gone out tonight.’

‘I shall certainly not do so. How deep is his resentment, Miss Morville? You seem to know so much that perhaps you know that too!’

‘Dear me, no! I daresay he will recover from it when he is better acquainted with you. I never heeded him very much, and I expect it will be better if you do not either.’

‘You are full of excellent advice, ma’am!’

‘Well, I am not clever, but I am thought to have a great deal of common-sense, though I can see that you mean to be satirical,’ she replied calmly. ‘Good-night! – I think the wind is less, and we may perhaps be able to sleep at last.’

She flitted away down the gallery, and the Earl returned to his bedchamber. Sleep was far from him, however, and after drawing the curtain across the window again he began to pace slowly about the room, thinking over all that had passed. The creak he had heard might, he supposed, have been caused merely by the settling of a chair; but he could not charge his nerves with having led him to imagine the closing of a door. He could have sworn that a latch had clicked very softly, and this sound was too distinctive to be confused with the many noises of the storm. He glanced towards the door into his dressing-room, and took a step towards it. Then he checked himself, reflecting that his silent visitor would scarcely return to his room that night. Instead of locking the door, he bent to pick up his handkerchief, which had fallen on the floor beside the bed, and stood for a moment, kneading it unconsciously between his hands, and wondering whether the click he had heard had not been in the room after all, but had been caused by Martin’s closing of the door leading to the stairway down the gallery. He could not think it, but it was useless to cudgel his brain any further at that hour. He tossed the handkerchief on to his pillow, and took off his dressing-gown. Suddenly his abstracted gaze became intent. He picked the handkerchief up again, and held it near the candle, to perceive more clearly the monogram which had caught his eye. Delicately embroidered on the fine lawn were the interlinked initials, M and F.

A bright day succeeded the storm, with a fresh wind blowing, but the sun shining, and great cumulus clouds riding high in a blue sky. Some of the havoc wrought from the night’s tornado could be observed from the windows of the breakfast-parlour; and when Martin strode in presently, he reported that at least one tree had been struck in the Home Wood, and that shattered tiles from the roof of the Castle littered the courts.

‘I trust your lordship’s rest was not too much disturbed?’ Mr Clowne said solicitously. ‘It was indeed a tempestuous night!’

‘His lordship will tell you, sir,’ said Theo, ‘that, having bivouacked in Spain, an English thunderstorm has no power to disturb his rest. He was boasting of it to me last night. I daresay you never enjoyed a quieter sleep, eh, Gervase?’

‘Did I boast? Then I am deservedly set-down, for I must own that my rest was not quite undisturbed.’ He met his brother’s wary, kindling glance across the table, and added, meeting those dark eyes smilingly, but with irony in his own lazy gaze: ‘By the by, Martin, I fancy this must be yours!’

Martin caught the handkerchief, tossed to him, and inspected it casually. ‘Yes, it is. Did you find it amongst your own?’

‘No,’ said Gervase. ‘You dropped it.’

Martin looked up quickly, suspicion in his face. ‘Oh! I daresay I might have: it can easily happen, after all!’ He turned away, and began to tell his cousin about the damage caused by the storm which had so far been reported.

‘Then, as I really mean to ride towards Hatherfield this morning,’ observed the Earl, ‘I shall no doubt be besieged with demands for new roofs and chimney-stacks. What shall I say to my importunate tenants, Theo?’

‘Why, that they must carry their complaints to your agent! Do you indeed mean to go there? I had abandoned hope of bringing you to a sense of your obligations! Mind, now, that you don’t deny old Yelden the gratification of receiving a visit from you! He has been asking me for ever when he may hope to see you. You have no more devoted a pensioner, I daresay! He swears it was he who taught you to climb your first tree!’

‘So he did, indeed! I will certainly visit him,’ Gervase promised.

Martin, who had become engaged in conversation with the Chaplain, seemed not to be paying any heed to this interchange; nor, unless some direct enquiry obliged him to do so, did he again address his brother while the meal lasted. He strolled away, when the party rose from the table; and, upon Mr Clowne’s excusing himself, Theo looked shrewdly at his cousin, and said: ‘Now what’s amiss?’

The Earl raised his brows. ‘Why do you ask me that? Do I seem to you to be out of humour?’

‘No, but it’s easy to see that Martin has taken one of his pets.’

‘Oh, must there be a reason for his pets? I had not thought it! Are you very busy today? Go with me to Hatherfield!’

‘Willingly. I shall be glad to see what damage may have been done to the saplings in the new plantation, Cheringham way. I daresay we may meet Hayle there, and I must have a word with him about fencing. You might care to talk to him yourself!’

‘Pray hold me excused! I know nothing of fencing, and should infallibly betray my ignorance. It will not do for my bailiff to hold me cheap!’

His cousin laughed, but shook his head at him. He went off to transact some trifling matter of business, but in less than twenty minutes he rejoined the Earl, and they set forward on their ride.

The most direct route to the village of Hatherfield lay through the Home Park and across a stream to Cheringham Spinney. The ground on either side of the stream was marshy, and a long wooden bridge had been thrown across it by the Earl’s grandfather. No more than a footbridge, it was not wide enough to permit of two horsemen riding abreast across it. After the storm, the stream was a miniature torrent, with evidences of the night’s havoc swirling on its churned-up flood. The nervous chestnut Gervase was riding jibbed at the bridge, but, after a little tussle with his rider, stepped delicately on to the wooden planks. ‘
You
would not do for a campaign, my friend!’ Gervase chided him gently, patting his sweating neck. ‘Courage, now!’

‘Take care, Gervase!’ Theo ejaculated, hard on his heels, but reining back. ‘Gervase,
stop
!’

‘Why, what is it?’ Gervase said, obediently halting, and looking over his shoulder.

‘It won’t hold! Back!’ Theo said, backing his own horse off the bridge. He dismounted quickly, thrust his bridle into the Earl’s hand, and went squelching through the boggy ground to the edge of the swollen stream. ‘I thought as much!’ he called. ‘One of the supports is scarcely standing! Good God, what a merciful thing that Hayle was speaking to me about the supports only five days ago, and I recalled it in time! One of those great branches must have been hurled against it: it is cracked almost right through!’

‘No wonder, then, that Orthes refused to face it!’ said Gervase. ‘Poor fellow, I maligned you, didn’t I? You are wiser by far than your master, and would have spared him an ignominious wetting!’

‘A wetting!’ Theo exclaimed, coming back to dry ground. ‘You might think yourself fortunate to escape with no worse than that! There are boulders in the stream-bed: if you had ridden this way alone, and been stunned perhaps – ! I blame myself: I should have had this bridge attended to when Hayle first spoke to me of it! My dear Gervase, it is very well to laugh, but you might have sustained an ugly injury – if not a fatal injury! Now what are we to do?’

‘Ford the stream, of course. Orthes won’t like it, so this well-mannered roan of yours shall give him a lead.’

Theo took the bridle from him again, and remounted. ‘Very well, but take care how you go! The water has risen so much that you can’t perceive the rocks – and, I assure you, there are several!’

Though the muddied water did indeed hide the rocks, it was not very deep, scarcely rising above the horses’ knees. Gervase was obliged to acknowledge, however, that a fall from the bridge might have resulted in a broken limb or a concussion, for the boulders were numerous, making it necessary for them to pick their way very slowly across the stream. Once Orthes stumbled, but his master held him together, and the passage was accomplished in safety. ‘An adventurous ride!’ remarked Gervase merrily. ‘I am glad you were with me, Theo. A tumble into this dirty water would not have suited me at all. And what my poor Turvey will have to say to my boots when he sees them I shudder to think of! Ah, now, behold the guardian of the bridge – a trifle late, but you can see how zealous!’

He pointed with his riding-whip down the rough track that lay before them to where a ruddy-cheeked urchin in a smock and frieze breeches was striding importantly towards them with a red handkerchief attached to a hazel-wand carried in the manner of a standard before him.

‘Well, Ensign, and who may you be?’ the Earl enquired, smiling down at the boy. ‘Horatius, I fancy!’

‘That’s Parson,’ disclaimed the urchin. ‘I’m nobbut Tom Scrooby, come to mind the bridge, and see no one don’t come acrost, your honour, because it’s clean busted.’ His round eyes, having thoroughly taken in the Earl, travelled to Theo. He pulled his sandy forelock. ‘Mr Martin said as how he would tell Mr Hayle, sir, and Father said when he come home that I could mind the bridge till Mr Hayle come down to see it.’

‘Mr Martin – !’ Theo checked himself. ‘Very well! See you mind it carefully, Tom! Mr Hayle will be here presently.’

The Earl flicked a shilling to Master Scrooby, and set his horse in motion down the ride. Orthes was encouraged to break into an easy canter, but in a moment or two the roan caught up with him. Theo said in his quiet way: ‘You had better tell me what it is that troubles you, Gervase. If you are thinking that Martin should have warned you, I daresay he might not have heard you say that you would ride to Hatherfield this morning.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘No,’ said Theo bluntly.

‘Nor do I think it. Do you know, I am becoming a little tired of Martin? Perhaps he would be happier at Studham after all. Or, at any rate, I should be.’

His cousin rode on beside him in silence, frowning slightly. After a pause, the Earl said: ‘You don’t agree?’

‘That he would be happier there? No. That doesn’t signify, however. If you wish him to leave Stanyon, so be it! It will mean a breach, for he will not leave without making a deal of noise. Lady St Erth, too, will not be silent, nor will she remain at Stanyon. What reason will you give for banishing Martin when he and she publish their wrongs to the rest of our relations?’

The Earl let Orthes drop to a walk. ‘Must I give any?’

‘Unless you wish it to be thought that you have acted from caprice, or – which perhaps might be said by those who do not know you well – from rancour.’

There was a pause. ‘How very longheaded you are, Theo!’ Gervase complained. ‘You are quite right, of course. But what is the boy about? Does he hope to drive me away from Stanyon? He cannot be so big a clodpole!’

Theo shrugged. ‘There is no saying what he may hope. But you cannot, I believe, shut your doors to him merely because he fenced once with the button off his foil, and did not warn you that a bridge was unsafe.’

‘Ah, there is a little more than that!’ Gervase said.

‘What more?’

Gervase hesitated. ‘Why, I did not mean to tell you this, but I woke last night to the conviction that someone was in my room.’

Theo turned his head to stare at him under his brows. ‘In your room? Martin?’

‘I can’t tell that. I have certain reasons for suspecting it may have been he, but by the time I was up, and could pull back my curtain, there was no one there.’

‘Good God! Gervase, are you sure of this?’

‘No, I am not sure, but I think that someone entered my room through the dressing-room. I heard what sounded to me like the click of a lock.’

‘I cannot think it! Why, if – But what reason have you to think it was Martin?’

‘I found him on the gallery outside my room.’

‘
What?
’

‘He said that he had been out – to Cheringham, a statement which I was disinclined to believe. Miss Morville, however, who was roused by the slamming of a door, considers that he may well have been speaking the truth. She seems to think he went there to see a cockfight.’

‘Very likely. But I had no idea of this! I thought he had had the head-ache! And you believe –’

‘No, no, I believe nothing! But I have a strong notion I shall take my pistols to bed with me while I remain at Stanyon! It will be quite like Peninsular days.’

Theo smiled. ‘You have brought some desperate habits home with you! Only don’t rouse the household by firing at a mouse which is unlucky enough to disturb your rest!’

‘Nothing less than a rat, I promise you!’ Gervase said gravely.

They proceeded on their way without further mishap. The Earl faithfully visited his old friend, Yelden; his cousin inspected the new plantation; and they returned to Stanyon at noon, by way of the main avenue, which traversed the Home Park from the seventeenth-century lodge, with its wrought-iron gates, to the original Gate-tower of the Castle, still in remarkably good preservation, but no longer guarding a drawbridge. The moat having been filled in, the tower served no particular purpose, but figured in the guide-books as a fine example of fourteenth-century architecture. Through its vaulted archway the east, and main, entrance to the Castle was reached, which opened on to what had once been the outer bailey, and was now a handsome court, laid out with a broad gravel drive, and formal flower-beds.

As the cousins rode through the archway, a sporting curricle came into sight, drawn up by the steps leading to the front-door. A smart-looking groom was standing at the heads of the wheelers; and the equipage plainly belonged to someone aspiring to the highest crack of fashion, since it was drawn by four horses. This made Theo exclaim that he could not imagine who could have come to visit Stanyon in such a turn-out. He sounded scornful, but Gervase said in mock-reproof that he showed a shocking ignorance. ‘A curricle-and-
four
, my dear Theo, is the mark of the Nonesuch, let me tell you! Now, whom have you in Lincolnshire who – Good God! I should know those horses!’ He spurred forward as he spoke, and a gentleman in a driving-coat of white drab, and a hat with a high, conical crown and beaver brim, who had been conferring with Abney at the head of the wide stone steps, turned, saw him, and came down the steps again, calling out: ‘Hallo, there, Ger! Turn out, man! the enemy is upon you!’

‘Lucy, by all that’s wonderful!’ the Earl ejaculated, sliding from the saddle, and gripping both his friend’s hands. ‘My dear fellow! Where have you sprung from?’

‘Been staying with the Caldbecks, dear old boy,’ explained his visitor. ‘Couldn’t leave the country without seeing you! Now don’t,
don’t
think yourself bound to invite me to put up here! My man is following me with all my baggage, but I see how it is – you have no room!’

An airy gesture indicated the sprawling pile behind the speaker; a pair of bright eyes quizzed the Earl, who laughed, and retorted: ‘An attic – we will find room for you in an attic! Theo, can we house this fellow, do you think? My cousin, Lucy – Theo, this is Captain Lucius Austell – oh, no! I beg pardon! It is Lord Ulverston! When did you sell out, Lucy?’

‘Not so long after you,’ replied Ulverston, exchanging a cordial handshake with Theo. ‘M’father felt, when m’grandfather died, that he couldn’t have the three of us serving, so it fell to me to sell out. I told him I might as easily be killed in the streets of London as on any military service – never saw such a rabble of traffic in my life! Lisbon’s nothing to it, dear boy! – but nothing would do for him but to have me in England!’

By this time, Theo had grasped that his cousin’s friend was the heir to the Earl of Wrexham, who had lately succeeded to his father’s dignities. He enquired civilly after his youngest brother, Cornelius, whom he had once met in the house of a common acquaintance, and the Viscount replied, with the insouciance which characterized him: ‘Haven’t a notion how he is! Think he’s on the West Indian station, but these naval fellows, you know, jaunter about the world so that there’s no keeping up with them at all! Corney means to be a Rear or a Vice, or some such thing, but with the Frogs
rompé
’d, and poor old Boney sent off to some curst island or another, devil a bit of promotion will there be! Said so to Freddy, when I sold out, but he’s just got his company, and thinks he’ll command the regiment in a brace of shakes. D’you know my brother Freddy? No? Very dull dog: ought to have been the eldest! Often thought so!’