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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 CHAPTER IV

U
pon the garden side of Caermere is a very large conservatory,
built nearly fifty years ago, at the close of the life of the last
duchess. The poor lady left no other mark of her meek
existence upon the buildings, and it was thought at the time that she
would never have ventured upon even this, had it not been that
every one was mad for the moment about the wonderful palace of
glass reared in London for the First Exhibition.
In area and height, and in the spacious pretensions of its dome,
the structure still suggests irresistibly the period of its inception. It is
as ambitious as it is self-conscious; its shining respectability remains
superior to all the wiles of climbers and creeping vines. The older
servants cherish traditions of “Her Grace’s glass,” as it used to be
called. She had the work begun on her fortieth birthday, and
precisely a year later it happened that she was wheeled in from the
big morning room, and left at her own desire to recline in solitude
under the palms beneath the dome, and that when they went to her
at last she was dead. The circumstance that Shakespeare is
supposed also to have died on the anniversary of his birth, has
somehow come to be an integral part of the story, as it is kept alive
now in the humbler parts of the Caermere household, but the
duchess had nothing else in common with the poet. The very face of
her, in her maturer years, is but dimly remembered. The portrait in
the library is of a young Lady Clarissa, with pale ringlets and a
childishly sweet countenance, and clad in the formal quaintness of
the last year of King George the Fourth. She became the duchess,
but in turn the duchess, seemed to become somebody else. That
was the way with the brides brought home to Caermere. The
pictures in the library show them all girlish, and innocently pretty,
and for the most part fair-haired. Happily there is no painted record
of what they were like when, still in middle life, they bade a last
goodbye to the dark-skinned, big-shouldered sons they had borne,
and perhaps made a little moan that no daughters were ever given
to mothers at Caermere, and turned their sad faces to the wall.
The crystal house had memories of another and more recent
mistress, the countess. She had come six years after the other went,
she had lived for twelve years—a silent, colorless, gently unhappy
life—and then had faded away out of sight. It was this Lady Porlock
who had caused the orchid houses to be built at the inner side of the
conservatory, and it was in her time, too, that the gifted Cheltnam
was fetched from her own father’s house in Berkshire to be head
gardener at Caermere. Her fame is indeed irrevocably linked with
his, for the tea-rose of his breeding, bearing her maiden-name of
the Hon. Florence Denson, is scarcely less well known than this
hybrid sweet-briar the Countess of Porlock.
And now, in the third generation, still another lady had for some
years enjoyed special property rights in this great glass apartment.
Lady Cressage came into the conservatory from the large morning
room, with a large volume in her hand, and an irresolute look on her
face. She glanced about at the several couches piled with cushions
and furs, at an easy-chair beyond—and yawned slightly. Then she
wandered over to a row of early chrysanthemums, and, putting the
book under her arm, occupied herself with the destruction of a few
tiny beginnings of buds in the lower foliage. In this she employed as
pincers the delicately tinted nails of a very shapely finger and thumb,
and at the sign of some slight discoloration of these she stopped the
work. From a glance at the nails, she went to a musing scrutiny of
this whole right hand of hers, holding it up, and turning it from one
composition of graceful curves to another. It had been called the
most beautiful hand in England, but this morning its owner, upon a
brief and rather listless inspection of its charms, yawned again.
Finally she seated herself in the chair and, after a languid search for
the place in her book, began to read.
 Half reclining thus, with the equable and shadowless light of the
glass house about her, the young widow made a picture curiously
different from any in the library within. All the dead and gone brides
of the Torrs had been painted in bright attire; Lady Cressage wore a
belted gown of black cloth, unrelieved save by a softened line of
white at the throat and wrists. The others, without exception, had
signified by elaborate hair-dressing not less than by dutifully vacuous
facial expressions, their comprehension of the requirements of the
place they had been called upon to fill; Lady Cressage’s bistre hair
was gathered in careless fashion to a loose knot at the back of the
head, and in her exquisitely modeled face there was no hint
whatever of docility or awed submission to any external claims. The
profile of this countenance, outlined for the moment against a
cluster of vividly purple pleroma blossoms, had the delicacy of a rare
flower, but it conveyed also the impression of resolute and enduring
force. If the dome above could have generated voices of its own,
these would have murmured to one another that here at last was a
woman whom Caermere could not break or even easily bend.
In the season of 1892, London had heard a good deal of this lady.
She was unknown before, and of her belongings people to this day
knew and cared very little. There was a General Kervick enumerated
in the retired list, who had vegetated into promotion in some
obscure corner of India, and now led an equally inconspicuous
existence somewhere in the suburbs—or was it in West Kensington?
He had never belonged to a service club, but an occasional man
encountered him once in a while at the Oriental, where he was
supposed by the waiters to have an exceptional knowledge of
peppers and chutneys. The name of his wife had been vaguely
associated with charitable committees, or subscription committees,
and here and there some one remembered having heard that she
was distantly related to somebody. The elder Kervicks never secured
a much more definite place in London’s regard—even after this
remarkable daughter had risen like a planet to dim the fixed stars of
the season.
 The credit for having discovered and launched Miss Kervick came
generally to be ascribed to Lady Selton, but perhaps this turned
upon the fact that she lent her house in Park Lane for the
culminating scene in the spectacular triumph of that young person.
No doubt there were others who would have placed still bigger
houses at the disposal of a bride whose wedding was, in many
respects, the most interesting of the year, and some of these may
have had as good a claim to the privilege as Lady Selton. As matters
turned out, however, they were given no cause to repine. The
marriage was not a success, and within one short year Lady Selton
herself had grown a little shy about assuming responsibility for it. A
year later she was quite prepared to repudiate all share in it, and
after that people ceased to remember about it all, until the shock of
the tragedy came to stir polite London into startled whisperings.
Hardly within the memory of living folk had a family been dealt
such a swift succession of deadly blows as these which were rained
upon the Torrs in the first half of 1896.
The Earl of Porlock had been the heir of dukedom since most
people could remember, and had got himself called to the House of
Lords in his own right, apparently as a kind of protest against his
father’s unconscionable longevity, at least a dozen years before his
own end came. It was not to be supposed that he desired a peerage
for any other reason, since he had never chosen to seek a seat in
the House of Commons, and indeed, save upon one occasion
connected with ground game, made no use whatever of his
legislative powers after they had been given to him. He cared
nothing for politics, and read scarcely more in newspapers than in
books. Up to middle life, he had displayed a certain tendency toward
interest in fat stock and a limited number of allied agricultural topics,
but the decline in farming values had turned him from this. In his
earlier years, too, he had enjoyed being identified with the sporting
set of his class in London, and about the racing circuit, but this
association he also dropped out of as he grew older, partly because
late nights bored him, partly because he could no longer afford to
jeopardize any portion of his income. He came at last to think of his
mastership of hounds as his principal tie to existence on land. He
liked it all, from the sailing sweep over the highest barrier in an
exceptionally rough country, to the smell of the kennels of an early
morning across the frozen yards. This life with the horses and dogs,
and with the people who belonged to the horses and dogs, offered
fewer temptations to the evil temper in his blood than any other, and
with growing years his dislike for the wear and tear of getting angry
had become a controlling instinct. He continued to use bad language
with an appropriate show of fervency, when occasion required, but
he had got out of the way of scalding himself with rage inside. He
even achieved a grim sort of jocularity toward the close. In the last
year of his life a tenant-farmer, speaking to a toast, affirmed of him
that “a truer sportsman, nor yet a more humorous and affable
nobleman, has never taken the chair at a puppy-walk luncheon
within my recollection,” and this tribute to his geniality both pleased
and impressed the earl. He was then in his sixty-second year, and he
might have lived into a mellowed, and even jovial old age, under the
influence of this praise, had there been no unwritten law ending the
hunting season in the early spring.
The earl cared very little for otters and rats, and almost nothing at
all for salmon, so that when April came he usually went to his yacht,
and practically lived aboard it until November. Sometimes he made
long cruises in this substantial and comfortable vessel, which he
delighted in navigating himself. He was lying in at Bremerhaven, for
example, in May, when one of a sheaf of telegrams scattered along
the line of North Sea ports in search of him, brought the news that
his youngest son Joseph, who had drifted into Mashonaland after
the collapse of the Jameson adventure, had been killed in the native
rebellion. Upon consideration, the earl could not see that a post-
haste return to England would serve any useful end. He sailed
westward, however, after some telegraphic communication with
England, and made his leisurely way down the Channel and round
Cornwall to Milford Haven, where his wont was to winter his yacht,
and where most of his crew were at home. The fact that he and the
vessel were well known in this port rendered it possible to follow in
detail subsequent events.
It was on the 10th of June that Lord Porlock came to anchor in
Milford, and went ashore, taking the afternoon train for Shrewsbury.
He returned on the 14th, accompanied by his eldest son and heir,
Lord Cressage. This latter personage was known only from hearsay
at Milford, and local observation of him was therefore stimulated by
a virgin curiosity. It was noted that Viscount Cressage—a stalwart
and rubicund young man of more than his father’s height, but
somewhat less swarthy of aspect—was laboring under very marked
depression. He hung about the hotel, during the delay incident upon
cleaning up the yacht, taking on new stores and altering some of the
sailing gear, in a plainly moping mood, saying little to his father and
never a word to any one else. A number of witnesses were able to
make it clear that at first he did not intend to sail forth, but was
merely bearing his father company while the latter remained in
harbor.
The fact of their recent bereavement accounted in a general way
for their reticence with each other, but it was impossible not to see
that the younger man had something besides the death of a brother
on his mind. When, on the second day of their waiting, the tide
began to fill in which on its turn was to bear out the yacht, his
nervous preoccupation grew painfully manifest. He walked across
many times to the headland; he fidgeted in and out of the bar,
taking drinks for which he obviously had no relish, and looking over
and over again in the railway time-tables for information which he
seemed incapable of fixing in his memory. At last, when everything
was ready, and the earl stood with his hand out to say good-bye to
his son, the latter had suddenly, and upon the evident impulse of the
moment, declared with some excitement that he also would go.
People remembered that he had said, as if in defensive explanation
of his hasty resolve: “Perhaps that will teach her a lesson!” His father
had only remarked “Rot!”—and with that the yacht sailed off, a
heaving white patch against the blackening west.
 But what followed was too grossly unreasoning to afford a lesson
to anybody. The morning newspapers of the 18th contained in one
column confirmation of the earlier report that the Hon. Anselm Torr,
second son of the earl of Porlock, had been a passenger on the ill-
fated “Drummond Castle,” and had gone down with the rest in the
night off Ushant; and in another column a telegram from
Porthstinian, announcing the total loss of a large yacht, on the rocks
known as the Bishop and Clerks, with all on board. The evening
papers followed with the rumor that the lost yacht was the
“Minstrel,” with both Lord Porlock and his son, Lord Cressage, on
board; but it was not until the next afternoon that the public
possessed all the facts in this extraordinary affair. Then it happened
that the edge was rather taken off the horror of the tragic
coincidence, by the announcement that these sudden deaths
brought forward as next heir to the dukedom Captain Edward Torr,
late of the —th Hussars, who was better known, perhaps, as the
husband of Miss Cora Bayard. The thought of Cora as a prospective
duchess made such a direct appeal to the gayer side of the popular
mind, that the gruesome terrors surrounding her advancement were
lost to sight. When, a few days later, it was stated that the venerable
Duke of Glastonbury had suffered a stroke of paralysis, and lay at
Caermere in a critical state, the news only made more vivid the
picture of the music-hall dancer turned into Her Grace which the
public had in its mind’s eye. Her radiant portrait in the photographic
weeklies and budgets was what remained uppermost in the general
memory.
For a time, however, in that little fraction of the public which is
called Society, the figure of another woman concentrated interest
upon itself, in connection with the Torr tragedy. The fact that a
music-hall person was to wear a great title had no permanent hold
upon the imagination of this class. They would probably see rather
less of her then than now—and the thing had no longer the charm of
the unusual. But they had known Lady Cressage. They had admired
her, followed after her, done all sorts of nice things for her, in that
season of her wonderful triumph as the most beautiful girl, and the
most envied bride, in London. After her marriage she had been very
little in evidence, it was true; one hardly knew of any other reigning
beauty who had let the sceptre slip through her fingers so promptly
and completely. What was the secret of it all? It could not be said
that she had lost her good looks, or that she was lacking in
cleverness. There was no tangible scandal against her; to the
contrary, she seemed rather surprisingly indifferent to men’s
company. Of course, it was understood that her marriage was
unhappy, but that was scarcely a reason for allowing herself to be so
wholly snuffed out of social importance. Everybody knew what the
Torrs were like as husbands, and everybody would have been glad to
be good to her. But in some unaccountable way, without quite
producing the effect of rebuffing kindness, she had contrived to
lapse from the place prepared for her. And now those last words
from the lips of poor young Cressage—“Perhaps that will teach her a
lesson!”—sifted their way from the coroner’s inquest in a Welsh
village up to London, and set people thinking once more. Who could
tell? It might be that the fault was not all on one side. According to
the accounts of Milford, he was in a state of visible excitement and
mental distress. The very fact of his going off alone in a yacht with
his father, of whom he notoriously saw as little as possible on dry
land, showed that he must have been greatly upset. And his words
could mean nothing save that it was a quarrel with his wife which
had sent him off to what proved to be his death. What was this
quarrel about? And was it the woman, after all, who was to blame?
Echoes of these questions, and of their speculative and varied
answers, kept themselves alive here and there in London till
Parliament rose in August. They were lost then in the general flutter
toward the moors.
Lady Cressage, meantime, had not quitted Caermere or disclosed
any design of doing so, and it is there we return to her, where she
sat at her ease under the palms in the glass-house, with a book
open before her.
 The spattering reports of a number of guns, not very far away,
caused her presently to lift her head, but after an instant, with a
fleeting frown, she went back to her book. The racket continued,
and finally she closed the volume, listened with a vexed face for a
minute or two and then sprang to her feet.
“Positively this is too bad!” she declared aloud, to herself.
Unexpectedly, as she turned, she found confronting her another
young woman, also clad in black, even to the point of long gloves,
and a broad hat heavy with funereal plumes. In her hand she held
some unopened letters, and on her round, smooth, pretty
countenance there was a doubtful look.
“Good-mornin’, dear,” said this newcomer. Her voice, not unmusical
in tone, carried the suggestion of being produced with sedulous
regard to a system. “There were no letters for you.”
There was a momentary pause, and then Lady Cressage, as if
upon deliberation, answered, “Good-morning—Cora.” She turned
away listlessly as she spoke.
“Ah, so it is one of my ‘Cora’ days, after all,” said the other, with a
long breath of ostentatious reassurance. “I never know in the least
where to have you, my dear, you know—and particularly this
mornin’; I made sure you’d blame me for the guns.”
“Blame”—commented Lady Cressage, musingly—“I no longer
blame anybody for anything. I’ve long since done with my fancy for
playing at being God, and distributing judgments about among
people.”
“Oh, you’re quite right about this shootin’ the home covers,”
protested the other. “I gave Eddy a fair bit of my mind about it—but
you know what he is, when once he’s headed in a given direction.
You might as well talk soft to the east wind. And, for that matter, I
was dead against his bringin’ these men down here at all—though it
may surprise you to hear it.”
 Lady Cressage, still looking away, shook her head very slightly.
“No—I don’t find myself particularly surprised,” she said, with an
effect of languor. “Really, I can’t be said to have given the matter a
thought, one way or the other. It is neither my business nor my wish
to form opinions about your husband’s friends. We were speaking of
something else, were we not?”
“Why, yes,” responded Mrs. Edward; “I mentioned that sometimes
I’m ‘Cora,’ and sometimes it’s very much the other way about. I
merely mentioned it—don’t think I mean to complain—only I began
calling you Edith from the start—from the first day I came here, after
the—after the——”
“I know you did. It was very kind of you,” murmured Edith, but
with no affectation of gratitude in her voice. Then, slowly, she turned
her eyes toward her companion, and added in a more considerate
tone: “But then you are by nature a much kindlier person than I
am.”
“Oh, yes, you say that,” put in the other, “but it isn’t true, you
know. It’s only that I’ve seen more of the world, and am so much
older than you are. That’s what tells, my dear—it’s years that
smooths the temper down, and rubs off one’s sharp corners—of
course, if one has some sense to start with. I assure you, Edith, that
when I was your age I was a perfect tiger-cat.”
Lady Cressage smiled in a wan fashion, as if in despite of her
mood. “You always make such a point of your seniority,” she said,
not unamiably, “but when I look at you, I can never believe you’re of
any age at all. I seem a thousand years old beside you.” Mrs.
Edward showed some dazzling teeth in her pleased appreciation of
the compliment. Her smile was as characteristic as her voice, in its
studiously regular and equable distribution. The even parting of her
bright lips, with their symmetrical inner lines of white, was
supported to a nicety of proportional value by eyelashes and eyes.
 “It’s what I’ve been saying,” she commented, with frank
enjoyment. “It’s good temper that does the trick.”
To tell the truth, Mrs. Edward’s was a face which bore no visible
relation to years. It was of rounded oval in contour, with beautifully
chiseled small features, a faultless skin which was neither fair nor
dark and fine large eyes that seemed sometimes blue, and as often
something else. In these eyes there lay always, within touch of the
surface, a latent smile, ready to beam, to sparkle, to dance, to
languish in mellow softness or glitter in cool abstract recognition of
pleasantries afloat, all at the instant bidding of the lips below. These
lips, delicately arched and of vivid warmth of color, were as
restricted in their movements as is the mercury in a thermometer.
They did not curl sidewise upon occasion; they never pouted, or
pulled themselves inward together under the stress of sudden
emotion. They did nothing but separate, in perfectly balanced
measure, sometimes by only a hair’s breadth, again in the freest
fashion, but always in painstaking harmony with the spirit of the
glance above. Students of this smile, or rather of this range of
graded smiles, ordinarily reached the conclusion that it was the lips
which gave the signal to the eyes. Certain it is that they worked
together in trained accord, and that the rest of the face did nothing
at all. The white forehead furrowed itself with no lines of puzzled
thought; there was not the shadow of a wrinkle at the corners of the
little mouth, or about the shapely brown lashes—and it seemed
incredible that time should ever bring one.
Beside this serene and lovely mask—in the placidity of which one
found the pledge of an easy temper along with the promise of
unfailing youth—the face of Lady Cressage was still beautiful, but in
a restless and strenuous way. If she did produce the effect of being
the older of the two, it was because Mrs. Edward’s countenance had
nothing to do with any such standard of comparison.
“When you come to think of it,” the latter went on now, “you do
seem older than I do, dear—I mean you seem so to me. Of course I
know there’s a good six years’ difference between us—and as far as
appearance goes, I needn’t say that you’d be the belle of the ball in
London as easily as you were four years ago—but all the same you
have the knack of making me feel as if I were the youngster, and
you the grown-up. I’ve a sister—five years younger than me—and
she does the same thing. When she looks at me—just quietly turns
her eyes full on me, you know—it seems as if I ought to have a
pinafore on, and she have spectacles and a cap. Oh, she used to
give me the jumps, that girl did. We haven’t seen much of each
other, these last few years; we didn’t hit it off particularly well—but
—why, hello! this is odd, if you like!”
“What is it?” asked the other, perfunctorily.
Mrs. Edward had been, shuffling the envelopes in her hand the
while she spoke, and idly noting their superscriptions. She held up
one of them now, in explanation of her remark.
“Well, talk of the devil, you know—I was speaking of my sister
Frank, and here’s a letter from her. She hasn’t written a line to me in
—how long is it?—why, it must be—well, certainly not since I was
married. Funny, isn’t it? I wonder if it’s anything about the pater.”
She continued to regard the sealed missive absent-mindedly, as if
the resource of opening it had not yet suggested itself to her. In the
meantime, something else occurred to her, and she turned to face
Lady Cressage, who had seated herself again.
“I meant what I said about these men Eddy’s brought down,” she
declared. “I didn’t want them to be asked, and I don’t like their
being here, any more than you do. Yes, I want to have you
understand,” she persisted, as the other offered a gesture of
deprecation, “I hope I’m the last person in the world to round on old
pals, but really, as I told Eddy, a man in his position must draw the
line somewhere. I don’t mind giving a leg-up to old Pirie—in a quiet
way, of course—for he’s not half a bad sort by himself; but as for the
rest, what are they? I don’t care for their families or their
commissions—I’ve seen too much of the world to be taken in by kid
of that sort—I say they’re bounders. I never was what you might call
keen about them as the right friends for Eddy, even before—I mean
in the old days, when it didn’t matter so much what company he
kept. But now, with everything so altered, he ought to see that
they’re not in his class at all. And that’s just what I can’t get him to
do in the least.”
“Men have their own views in these matters. They are often rather
difficult to understand,” commented Edith, sententiously.
“I should think so!” began Mrs. Edward. “Why, if I were a man,
and in Eddy’s place—”
Her words had ended aimlessly, as her eyes followed the lines of
the letter she had at last opened and begun to read. She finished
the brief task, and then, going back to the top of the single page,
went over it again more attentively. There was something indefinably
impressive about the silence in which she did this, and Lady
Cressage presently raised an inquiring glance. Mrs. Edward’s face
exhibited no marked change of expression, but it had turned deathly
pale. The unabated redness of the lips gave this pallor a ghastliness
which frightened Edith, and brought her to her feet.
“What in the name—” she began, but the other held up a black-
gloved hand.
“Is this something you know about?—something you’ve been
putting up?” Cora demanded, in a harsh, ungoverned voice, moving
forward as she spoke. “Look at this. Here’s what my sister writes.”
She did not offer to show the letter, but huskily read forth its
contents:
“‘London, September 30.
“‘My dear Cora: I don’t know whether you will thank me or not,
but I feel that some one ought to warn you, if only that you may pull
yourself together to meet what is coming. Your house is built of
cards, and it is only a question of days, perhaps of hours, when it
will be pushed over. Your husband is not the heir, after all. I am truly
in great grief at the thought of what this will mean to you, and I can
only hope that you will believe me when I sign myself,
“‘Your sincerely affectionate sister,
“‘Frances.’”
The two women exchanged a tense look in which sheer
astonishment encountered terror, and mingled with it.
“No, I know nothing of this,” faltered Edith, more in response to
the other’s wild eyes than to the half-forgotten inquiries that had
prefaced the reading of the letter.
“No trick of a child, eh? What do they call it, posthumous?” Cora
panted, still with the rough voice which had shaken off the yoke of
tuition.
Edith lifted her head. “That is absurd,” she answered, curtly.
As they confronted each other thus, a moving shadow outside
caught their notice. Instinctively turning their eyes, they beheld
through the glass a stranger, a slender young man with a soft hat of
foreign fashion, striding across the lawn away from the house. He
held his head high in the air, and they could see that the hands
carried stiffly outstretched at his sides were clenched.
“He struts across the turf as if he owned it,” said Edith, clutching
vaguely at the meaningless relief which this interruption seemed to
offer.
But Mrs. Edward had sunk info the chair, and buried her face in
her black-gloved hands.
 CHAPTER V

C
hristian began his walk with swift, energetic steps, and a
guiding eye fixed resolutely on a distinguishing mark in the
distant line of tree-tops beyond, as if both speed and
directness of course were of utmost urgency to his purpose. While
his body moved forward thus automatically, however, his mind
remained engrossed with what had been said and done in the room
he was leaving behind.
His brain reproduced over and over again the appearance of the
two young brothers, their glances at each other, their sneering
scowls at him. The picture of Augustine whispering in Edward’s ear,
and of Edward shaking his sulky head, stuck in his memory as a
living thing. He had continued to see it after he had turned his back
on them and gone to the window. The infamous words which had
been spoken about his father were a part of this picture, and their
inflection still rang in his ears just as the young men still stood
before his eyes, compact of hostility to him and his blood.
The noise of guns in the wood he approached was for a time
subordinated in his mind to those bitter echoes of Edward’s speech.
When at last these reports of firing attracted his attention, he had
passed out of sight of Caermere, and found himself on a vaguely
defined path at the end of a broad heath, much overgrown with
heather and broom and low, straggling, inhospitable-looking shrubs
novel to his eye. Curious movements among this shaggy verdure
caught his wandering notice, and he stopped to observe them more
closely. A great many rabbits—or would they be hares?—were
making their frightened escape from the wood in front of him, and
darting about for cover in this undergrowth. He became conscious
now of an extraordinary tumult in the wood itself—a confused roar
of men’s voices raised in apparently meaningless cries, accompanied
by an unintelligible pounding of sticks on timber and crackling brush.
This racket almost drowned the noise of the remote firing; its effect
of consternation upon the small inhabitants of the thicket was only
less than the bewilderment that it caused in Christian’s mind.
Forgetting altogether his own concerns, he pushed cautiously
forward to spy out the cause of the commotion.
Somewhat later, he emerged from the wood again, having
obtained a tolerable notion of what was going on. He had caught a
view of one line of beaters making their way through a copse,
diagonally away from him—rough men clad for the most part in
white jackets, who shouted and thrashed about them with staves as
they went—and it was easy enough to connect their work, and the
consequent rise and whirring rush of birds before it, with the excited
fusillade of guns farther on. Christian did not get a sight of the
sportsmen themselves. Albeit with some doubts as to the dignity of
the proceeding, he made a detour of the piece of woodland, with the
idea of coming out upon the shooting party, but when he arrived at
the barrier it was to find on the spot only a couple of men in
greenish corduroys, whom he took to be underkeepers. They were
at work before a large heap of pheasants, tying the birds in pairs by
the necks, and hanging them over a long stick, stretched between
two trees, which already bent under its burden. They glanced up
from their employment at Christian, and when he stooped to pick up
one of the cartridge cases with which the ground at his feet was
strewn, they exchanged some muttered comment at which both
laughed aloud. He instinctively threw the little tube down, and
looked away from the men. The thought occurred to him that if they
only knew who he was their confusion would be pathetic, but as it
was, they had the monopoly of self-possession, and it was he who
shyly withdrew.
The whole diversion, however, had cleared and sweetened his
mood. He retraced his steps through the wood and then struck off in
a new direction across the heath, at a more leisurely pace than he
had come, his mind dwelling pleasurably upon the various
picturesque phases of what he had witnessed. The stray glimpses of
la chasse which had been afforded him in the South had had nothing
in common with this. The unkempt freedom of the growths about
him appealed to his senses as cultivated parks and ordered forests
had never done. It was all so strong and simple and natural—and
the memory of the beaters smashing along in the thicket, bawling
and laying about them with their clubs, gave it a primitive note
which greatly pleased his fancy.
The heath was even finer, in his eyes, than the wood. The air
stirring across it, for one thing, had a quality which he seemed never
to have known before—and the wild, almost savage, aspect of its
squat gray and russet herbage, the sense of a splendidly unashamed
idleness and unproductiveness suggested by its stretches of waste
land, charmed his imagination. He said to himself, as he sauntered
here, that he would gallop every day across this wonderful plain,
with a company of big dogs at his horse’s heels. The thought of the
motion in the saddle inspired him to walk faster. He straightened
himself, put his hands to his coat at the breast as he had seen young
Englishmen do on their pedestrian tours, and strode briskly forward,
humming to himself as he moved. The hateful episode of the
morning had not so much faded from his thoughts, as shaken itself
into a new kaleidoscopic formation. Contact with these noble
realities out of doors had had the effect, as it were, of immeasurably
increasing his stature. When he thought of those paltry cousins of
his, it was as if he looked down upon their insignificance from a
height.
He came at last face to face with a high stone wall, the
pretensions and obvious antiquity of which told him at once that he
had returned to the vicinity of the castle. Sure enough, there were
discernible at a considerable distance down to the right some of the
turrets and roofs of Caermere, and he turned his course in that
direction. It seemed to him a long way that he walked by the side of
this great wall, marveling as he did so at its size and at the
ambitious views of the persons who built it. The reflection that they
were ancestors of his own came to his mind, and expanded therein.
He also would build like a great nobleman in his time! What was
there so grand as building?—he mused as he looked about him—
unless it might be the heath and the brownish-purple hills beyond,
and these also one intuitively thought of as having been built.
Presently a small doorway appeared in the massive wall, and
Christian, finding it unlocked, passed through it into a vast garden.
The inner and sunny side of the wall, as far as he could see in either
direction, was veined with the regularly espaliered branches of dwarf
trees flattened against it, from which still depended here and there
belated specimens of choice fruit. On the other side of the path
following close this wall, down which he proceeded, were endless
rows of small trees and staked clumps of canes, all now bereft of
their season’s produce. The spectacle did not fit with what had been
mentioned to him of the poverty of Caermere. Farther on, a tall
hedge stretching at right angles from the wall separated this orchard
from what he saw now, by glimpses through an open arch, to a be a
flower garden. He quickened his pace at the sight, for flowers were
very near his heart.
At first there was not much to move his admiration. The sunlit
profusion of his boyhood’s home had given him standards of size
and glowing color which were barely approached, and nowhere
equaled, here. Suddenly he came upon something, however, before
which he perforce stopped. It was the beginning of a long row of
dahlias, rounded flowers on the one side of him, pointed and twisted
cactus varieties on the other, and he had imagined nothing like this
before in his life. Apparently no two of the tall plants, held upright to
the height of his breast by thick stakes, were alike, and he knew not
upon which to expend the greater delight, the beauty of their
individual blossoms or the perfection of skill exhibited in the color-
arrangement of the line.
He moved slowly along, examining the more notable flowers in
detail with such ardor that a young lady in a black gown, but with a
broad hat of light straw on her pale hair, advanced up the path,
paused, and stood quite near him for some moments before he
perceived her presence. Then with a little start, he took off his hat,
and held it in his hands while he made a stiff bow.
“You are fond of flowers?” Lady Cressage said, more as a remark
than an inquiry. She observed him meanwhile with politely calm
interest.
“These dahlias are extraordinary!” he exclaimed, very earnestly. “I
have never seen such flowers, and such variety. It surprises me a
great deal. It is a spécialité in England, n’est ce pas?”
“I think I have heard that we have carried the dahlia further than
other countries have done,” responded the lady, courteously giving
the name the broad-voweled sound he had used. She added with a
pleasant softening of eyes and lips: “But you ought not to begrudge
us one little triumph like this—you who come from the very paradise
of flowers.”
The implication in her words caused him to straighten himself, and
to regard her with a surprised new scrutiny. He saw now that she
was very beautiful, and he strove to recall the few casual remarks
Lord Julius had dropped, concerning the two ladies at the castle, as
a clue to her identity. One had been an actress, he remembered—
and this lady’s graceful equanimity had, perhaps, something
histrionic in it. But if she happened not to be the actress, then it
would no doubt anger her very much to be taken for one. He knew
so little of women—and then his own part in the small drama
occurred to him.
“It is evident that you understand who I am,” he said, with
another bow. The further thought that in either case she was related
to him, was a part of the family of which he would soon be the
head, came to give him fresh confidence. “It is not only dahlias that
are carried to unrivaled heights of beauty in England,” he added, and
bowed once more.
 She smiled outright at this. “That is somewhat too—what shall I
say?—continental for these latitudes,” she remarked. “Men don’t say
such glowing things in England. We haven’t sun enough, you know,
properly to ripen rose-hips—or compliments. I should like to
introduce myself, if I may—I am Edith Cressage—and Lord Julius has
told me the wonderful story about you.”
She held out her hand as she spoke, with a deliberate gesture,
which afforded Christian time to note its exquisite modeling, if he
had had the eyes for it. But he took the hand in his own rather
cursorily, and began speaking with abruptness before he had
finished his bow and relinquished it.
“It is much too wonderful,” he said, hastily. “It frightens me. I
cannot get used to it. I have the feeling that I should go away
somewhere, and live by myself, till it became all familiar to me. But
then I see it would be just as painful, wherever I went.”
“Oh, let us hope it would be least painful here, of all places,”
urged the lady, in gentle deprecation of his tone. “Caermere is not
gay, but it can be soothing and restful—to those who stand in need
of solace. It has come to be my second home—I never thought one
could grow so deeply attached to a place. It has been to me like a
tender old nurse and confidante—in times when—when its shelter
and consolation were very welcome”—she faltered for an instant,
with averted face, then raised her moist eyes to his, and let them
sparkle—“and oh, you will grow to love Caermere with all your
heart.”
Christian felt himself much moved. He had put on his hat, and
stepped now to her side.
“I have seen nothing of it at all,” he said. “I am going to ask that
you shall show it to me—you who love it so much. But if I shall
remain here now, that I cannot in the least tell. Nothing is arranged,
so far as I know. I am quite in Lord Julius’ hands—thus far.”
 They had tacitly begun to move down the path together, loitering
to look at plants on either side which particularly invited notice.
“Lord Julius is a remarkable man,” she said. “If one is fortunate
enough to enlist his friendship, there is no end to what he can do for
him. You can hardly imagine what a difference it makes for you in
everything—the fact that he is warmly disposed towards you.”
“Yes, that I have been told,” said Christian, “and I see it for
myself, too. I do not feel that I know him very well, as yet. It was
only yesterday morning that I met him for the first time at an hotel
in Brighton. We breakfasted together, we looked through papers
together and then we began a long railway journey together, which
only ended a few hours ago. We have talked a great deal in this
time, but, as I have said, the man himself is not very clear to me
yet. But no one could have been kinder—and I think he likes me.”
“Oh, of course he does,” affirmed Lady Cressage, as if anything
else would have been incredible. “And—talking with him so much, so
continuously, you no doubt understand the entire situation. I am
glad that he at least left it to me to show you over Caermere; there
is apparently nothing else in which I can be of use.”
Christian, though he smiled in kindly recognition of her attitude,
offered no verbal comment, and after a wandering digression about
dahlias, she returned to the subject.
“If there is anything I can tell you—about the family, the position
of affairs in general, and so on—you should not stand on ceremony
with me. Has he, for example, explained about money affairs?”
The young man looked keenly at her for an instant, as if the
question took him by surprise. Then he answered frankly enough:
“Nothing definite. I only gather that it will be made easier for me
than it would have been for—for other members of the family, if they
—had been in my place. But perhaps that is not what I should say to
you.”
 Lady Cressage smiled on him reassuringly.
“Oh, don’t think of me in that light,” she pleaded. “I stand quite
outside the—what shall I say?—the interested family circle. I have
no ax of any description to grind. You, of course, have been told my
position in the castle—that is, so far as it can be told by others. It is
a simple enough story—I was to have been everything, and then the
wind happens to change off the Welsh coast and lo! I am nothing—
nothing! It is not even certain that I am not a beggar—living here on
alms. Legally, everything is in such confusion that no one knows how
he stands. But so far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter. My cup
has been filled so full—so long:—that a little more or less trouble is
of no importance. Oh, I assure you, I do not desire to be considered
in the matter at all.”
She made this last declaration with great earnestness, in
immediate response to the sympathetic look and gesture with which
Christian had interrupted her narrative.
His gentle eyes regarded her troubled beauty with compassionate
softness. “I venture to think that you will be considered a good deal,
none the less,” he remarked, in a grave yet eager tone. The sense of
elation at being able to play the part of Providence to such a lady
spread through his mind and possessed his being. The lofty
possibilities of the powers devolving upon him had never been so
apparent before. He instinctively put out his arm toward her, in such
overt fashion that she could but take it. She did not lean upon it, but
imparted to the contact instead a kind of ceremonial reserve which
directly ministered to the patrician side of his mood.
They walked, if possible, still more slowly now, pausing before
almost every stake; their talk was of the flowers, with occasional
lapses into the personal.
“What you said about Lord Julius,” she remarked, in one of these
interludes, “is quite true. He has it in his power to say whether the
duke shall be a rich man or a pauper, and until yesterday he was all
for the pauper. If poor Porlock and his sons had lived, they knew
very well that Lord Julius was no friend of theirs, and would starve
the title whichever of them had it. And so with these others—Edward
and Augustine—only with them, it isn’t merely dislike but loathing
that Lord Julius has for them.”
“I met those young gentlemen this morning,” said Christian stiffly.
“It seemed to me that Lord Julius went quite out of his way to be
kind with them. I should never have gathered that he hated them.”
“Oh, not personally,” she explained. “I don’t think he dislikes
anybody personally. But in what you may call their representative
capacity he is furious with people if they don’t measure up to his
idea of what they should be. I never heard of any other family that
had such a man in it. I used to admire him very much—when I was
newly married—I thought his ideals for the family were so noble and
fine—but I don’t know—”
“Do you have suspicions of Julius, then?” asked Christian,
hurriedly.
“Oh, no, no!” she protested. “Nothing is farther from my thoughts.
Only I have seen it all, here. I have lived in the very heart of it—and
much as I sympathize with his feelings, I can’t help feeling that he is
unjust—not willfully, but still unjust. He and his son are men of great
intelligence and refined tastes; they would do honor to any position.
But is it quite fair of them to be so hard on cousins of theirs who
were not given great intelligence, and who had no capacity whatever
for refinement? That is what I mean. You saw those young men this
morning. They are not up to much, certainly; their uncle Porlock and
his sons averaged, perhaps, even a shade lower—you see I am
speaking quite frankly—but when it is all said and done, they were
not so remarkably worse than other men of their class. If any of the
six had succeeded to the title, he would not have been such a
startling anomaly in the peerage. I doubt if he would have attracted
attention, one way or the other. But it became a fixed idea with Lord
Julius years ago to get control of the estates, and to use this control
to bully the elder line into the paths of sweetness and light. It didn’t
succeed in the least—and I think he grew a little spiteful. That is all.
And besides—what does it matter? It is all ancient history now.”
Christian was looking straight before him, with a meditative gaze.
They walked for some moments in silence before he spoke. “And
how did he know that he would like me?” he demanded, musingly.
“How should he be confident that I was better than the others?
Perhaps—do you know?—was he very fond of my father?”
“I have no idea,” she responded. It was impossible not to note the
brevity of her tone.
“No one speaks willingly of my father,” he broke forth with
impulsive bitterness. “Even Lord Julius would tell me nothing of him.
And the young lady on the boat—she too—”
He paused, and his companion, who had been looking away,
glanced again at him. “The young lady on the boat,” she said, more
by way of suggesting to him a safe topic than as an inquiry.
“Oh, I much want to know who she can be,” he cried,
unconsciously accepting the diversion. He described the meeting at
Rouen, the conversation and, after a fashion of his own, the girl
herself. “She said,” he went on, “that she had personally something
to do with the story—‘remotely’ was the word she used. I asked Lord
Julius, but he could not think who she might be. She earns her own
living—she told me that—and she had never been out of England
before. She is not well educated—in the school sense, I mean—her
French was ridiculous. But she spoke very beautifully her own
language, and her mind filled me with charm, but even more so her
good heart. We swore friendship for all time—or at least I did.”
“Dear me!” said Lady Cressage. Her thoughts had not been idle,
and they brought to her now on the instant a satisfactory clue. She
pondered it for a little, before she decided to speak. “I think I know
who this remarkable young lady must be,” she observed then. “This
Captain Edward whom you met this morning—he has a wife.”
 “Yes, I know,” put in Christian abruptly—“the actress-lady; Julius
told me of her.”
“I suppose ‘actress’ would cover the thing,” she answered, with an
air of amiable indifference. “She danced more than she acted, I
believe, but ‘actress’ is a very general term. Well, your eternal friend
is, I suspect, her younger sister. ‘I have never seen her, but by
accident I happen to know that she is aware of your coming to
England.”
Christian’s mobile face had lengthened somewhat. “Is she also an
—an ‘actress’?” he asked, dolefully.
Lady Cressage looked skyward, with halfclosed eyes, in an effort
of memory. “I really seem to have heard what she did,” she mused,
hesitatingly. “I know her sister has often spoken of her. Is it
‘barmaid’? No. ‘Telegraph’? No, it’s her father who’s in the General
Post Office. Why, now, how stupid of me! She can’t be a nurse, of
course, or there would have been her uniform. Oh, now I remember
—she’s a typewriter.”
It was not clear to her whether Christian wholly comprehended
the term, now that she had found it. She perceived, however, that
he disliked something in what she had said, or in her manner of
saying it. The remarkable responsiveness of his countenance to
passing emotions and moods within him had already impressed her.
She regarded his profile now with a sidelong glance, and
reconstructed some of her notions about him by the help of what
she saw. Nothing was said, until suddenly he paused, gazing with
kindled eye upon the prospect opened before him.
They had come to the end of the garden, and stood at the summit
of a broad stone-kerbed path descending in terraces. Above them,
the dense foliage of the yews rising at either side of the gap in the
hedge had been trained and cut into an arched canopy. From under
this green gateway Christian looked down upon a Caermere he had
not imagined to himself before.
 The castle revealed itself for the first time, as he beheld it now, in
its character as a great medieval fortress. On his arrival in the
morning, emerging from the shadowed driveway into the immediate
precinct of the house, he had seen only its variously modernized
parts; these, as they were viewed from this altitude, shrank to their
proper proportions—an inconsiderable fraction of the mighty whole.
All about, the massive shoulders of big hills shelved downward to
form the basin-like hollow in which the castle seemed to stand, but
their large bulk, so far from dwarfing Caermere, produced the effect
of emphasizing its dimensions. Its dark-gray walls and towers, with
their bulging clumps of chimneys and turrets, and lusterless facets of
many-angled roofings, all of somber slate, were visibly the product,
the very child, of the mountains. A sensation of grim, adamantine,
implacable power took hold of the young man’s brain as he gazed.
For a long time he did not want to talk, and felt vaguely that he was
signifying this by the slight, sustained pressure of his arm against
hers. At all events, she grasped his wish, and preserved silence,
holding herself a little behind him, so that he might look down,
without distraction, upon his kingdom.
“These Torrs,” he burst forth all at once, with a nervous
uncertainty in his tones as of one out of breath, “these ancestors of
mine—the family I belong to—did they produce great men? You
must know their history. Julius says we are the most ancient family
in England. I have not had the time yet to learn anything of what we
did. Were there heroes and famous soldiers and learned scholars
among us? To look at that wonderful castle there at our feet, it
seems as if none but born chiefs and rulers of mankind could ever
have come out of it.”
“Captain Edward and his brother Augustine were both born there,”
she permitted her own over-quick tongue to comment.
He let her arm drop from his with a swift gesture, and wheeled
round to look her in the face. The glance in his eyes said so much to
her that she hastened to anticipate his speech.
 “Forgive me!” she urged hastily. “It was silly thoughtlessness of
mine. I do not know you at all well as yet, you know, and I say the
wrong things to you. Do tell me you forgive me! And it is only fair to
myself to say, too, that I have been in a bad school these last few
years. Conversation as one practices it at Caermere is merely the art
of making everything pointed and sharp enough to pierce thick
skins. I should have remembered that you were different—it was
unpardonable of me! But I have really angered you!”
Christian, still looking at her, found himself gently shaking his head
in reassurance. It was plain enough to him that this beautiful young
woman had suffered much, and that at the hands of his own people.
What wonder that acrid memories of them should find their way to
her lips? He also had been unhappy. He smiled gravely into her face
at the softening recollection.
“We were speaking of different things, I think,” he commented,
and nodded approval at sight of the relieved change which his tone
brought to her countenance. “I know very well there are many
disagreeable and unpleasant matters close about us—when we are
down below, there. But now we are up above them, and we forget
them all, or ignore them—and I was asking you about the history of
the family—its ancient history.”
She put her hand lightly upon his arm again. “Lord Julius is right
about it being a very, very long history,” she said, putting into her
voice a tacit recognition of his magnanimity. “I know it, in a certain
way, but I can hardly make a good story of it, I’m afraid. The family
is Keltic, you know. That is what is always said about it, as its most
distinguishing characteristic. It is the only large English one which
managed to survive through the Saxon period, and then the Norman
period, and keep its name and its estates and its territorial power.
This makes it very interesting to historians and archaeologists. There
are many stone circles and Druidic monuments about here, some of
which are said to be connected with the introduction of Christianity
into Britain. You will see them another day, and read the legends
about them. Well, it is said that the chief who possessed this land
here, and who had some kind of a stronghold there where the castle
is, at that time, was a Torr. Of course, there were no surnames then,
but it would have been his tribal appellation, or something of the
sort. The fact itself, I believe, is generally accepted—that the family
that was here in St. David’s time is here now. It is a tradition that
there should always be a David in the family; it used to be the
leading name, but now Christian is usually the duke’s name, and the
others are all saints, like Anselm, Edward, Augustine and—and so
forth.”
The young man looked down in meditation upon the gloomy,
historic pile. “It is a very grand beginning,” he said, thoughtfully.
“Perhaps it was too grand for mere mortals to live up to,” she
ventured, with a cautious sidelong eye on him.
“I see your meaning,” he assented, nodding. “Yes, no doubt it is
natural. It is as if a boy were named Napoleon. He would be
frightened to think what he had done to make his name and himself
fit together—and very likely he would never do anything at all.”
“Yes, that is it,” she answered, and drew a long, consolatory
breath.
They had begun to move down the wide winding path, and when
they paused presently at one of the steps to note a new view of the
buildings, she called his attention to something by a little
exclamation and a pointing finger.
“Do you see the balcony there, up above and to the left of the
flat-topped tower—no, this side of the highest chimneys—there are
figures coming out on it from the window.”
“There is some one in a reclining chair, n’est ce pas?” he asked,
following her finger.
“It is your grandfather,” she said softly. “Those are his apartments
—the rows of windows with the white woodwork. When the sun gets
round to them, they bring him out—if he is strong enough. Evidently
this is one of his good days.”
Christian, gazing eagerly, made out beyond the attendants and the
couch they bore, another figure, with a splash of white like a shield
upon its front.
“Is it not Julius?” he asked swiftly, pressing her arm. “Oh, then by
this time my grandfather knows of me—knows that I am here!
Should you not think so? And no doubt, since it is his good day, they
will take me to see him. Is that not probable?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” she responded, after a momentary
pause, “either as to what Lord Julius has told him, or as to how
much he is capable of understanding. Except from this distance, I
have not seen him since he was struck down with paralysis. I know
nothing of his condition beyond a stray, guarded word now and then
from the doctors. If I were a professional thief and he a crown
jewel, I could not have been more securely shut out from him!”
The melancholy bitterness of her words, and tone appealed to the
young man. He drew her hand closer to his side by a delicate
pressure of the arm. “I can see that you have been very unhappy,”
he said, compassionately.
“Oh-h-h!” she murmured, with a shuddering sigh. “Don’t—don’t
speak of it, I beg of you!”
“I also have had a sad youth,” he went on, unconsciously
tightening his arm. “But now”—and he lifted his head and smiled
—“who knows? Who shall say that the bad days are not all gone—
for both of us?”
Only the flutter of the hand against his arm made answer. They
walked oh together down the broad sunlit path.
 CHAPTER VI

A
t the foot of the terraced slope, the wide, graveled path down
which Lady Cressage had led Christian described a formal
curve to the right, across a lawn which he recognized as
belonging to his morning’s experiences. The angle of the high,
domed conservatory recalled itself to him. Beyond it, on the same
side, would be the window from which he had quitted the house.
To the left, a smaller footpath turned into still another garden, and
he was glad that his companion moved this way. They were in a
relatively small inclosure, hedged upon three sides by closely knit
high walls of box; the straggling, untrimmed profusion of this tall
growth, through which a multitude of sweet-briers thrust still farther
upward their dipping and interlaced green rods, gave the place a
homely if unkempt aspect. On the fourth side rose the blue-gray
masonry of the castle itself—an ancient curtain stretched between
two towers. The autumn sunlight lay upon this stained old wall, and
warmed it, and glowed softly among the leaves and saffron
blossoms of the great rose-tree trained upon it. This garden
preserved the outlines of some former quaint arrangement of walks
and beds, but these were comfortably softened everywhere, and in
part obscured, by the untrammeled freedom of vegetation. Even
over the moldering red tiles of the paths mosses had been suffered
to creep unmolested. A few late roses were in bloom here and there,
and at one corner there rose a colony of graceful white lilies, the
scent of which filled the air. It was all very restful and charming, and
Christian, pausing to gaze about him, gave little exclamations of
pleasure at what he saw.
In the center of the garden, surrounded by a low seat of weather-
worn woodwork, was what seemed to be a fountain, culminating in a
piece of statuary, so blackened and battered by time and storm that
little could be made out of its creator’s intentions. Christian, with
some murmured inquiry, led the way toward this—and then
perceived that Lord Julius, who had been sitting at the other and
sunny side of the statue, was standing now in the path, confronting
the new-comers with a friendly smile.
“This is my particular haunt at Caer-mere,” he explained to the
young man.
“In so huge a place, one is lost if he does not fasten upon a
special corner or nook of some sort, and send down roots in it and
make it his own. This was my mother’s garden, and for over fifty
years now I have bargained with one generation of head gardeners
after another to leave it alone—as she left it. When Cheltnam came,
he was so famous a person that I submitted to his budding some
new varieties on the old wall-rose there—but, bless me, even that is
thirty years ago—before either of you was born. I see you young
people have lost no time in becoming acquainted.”
Edith Cressage looked into the old gentleman’s eyes for a moment
before she replied. They had exchanged this same glance—on her
side at once puzzled, suspicious, defiant; on his full of a geniality
possibly pointed with cynicism—very often during the last four years,
without affecting by it any prepossession or prejudice in either’s
mind. “We met by accident in the upper fruit-walk, and I introduced
myself. It must be quite luncheon time. Shall we go in?” She added,
as upon an afterthought, and with another steadfast look into his
face, “I have promised to show him over the house and the castle.”
“Admirable!” said Lord Julius, cordially.
He looked at his watch. “We will follow you in a very few
moments, if we may. I dare say he is as ready for luncheon as I am,
but I want to show him my old garden first.”
“Oh, let me stop too!” she exclaimed, without an instant’s
hesitation. “May I confess it?—when you’re not here I call it my
garden, too. I knew it was your mother’s—and I was always going to
ask you to tell me about her, but the opportunity never offered. It is
the one really perfect spot at Caermere, even to me. And I can
understand how infinitely these old associations add to its charms
for you! I shall truly not be in the way if I stop?”
The elder man regarded her with a twinkling eye from under his
broad hat-brim as he shook his head. “To the contrary, we are both
delighted,” he answered, amiably enough. He began leading the way
at this, and the two young people, walking perforce very close
together on the narrow path, followed at his heels.
He pointed out to them that the fountain, which he could not
remember being in working order even in his boyhood, was built
over the ancient well of the castle. The statue apparently dated from
William and Mary’s time; at least, it was very like the objects they
set up at Hampton Court. Part of its pedestal was made of three
Ogham stones, which were said to have stood by the well in former
times. Flint knives and other primitive weapons had been found in
the garden. Antiquaries were not agreed as to the possibility of the
well having been in existence at any very remote period, but it was
not unlikely that this small garden had been the center of interest—
perhaps the scene of Druidical sacrifices, or even of the famous
conversion of the tribe resident here by St. David—at the beginning
of things. These speculations as to precise localities were interesting,
but scarcely convincing. The wall at the end was a more definite
affair. It had been built after the Third Crusade by Stephen de la
Tour, as the Normanized name went then.
“Ah, the name has not always been spelled the same then?”
interrupted Christian here. He spoke with an eagerness which the
abstract interest of the query seemed hardly to warrant.
“Heavens, no!” said Lord Julius. “It has been Tor with one ‘r’ and
with two; it has been de la Tour, as I said, and Tour without the ‘de
la,’ and Toure, and I know of at least one branch of the people of the
name of Tower who are undoubtedly of our stock. It is quite
conceivable that many others of them are, too.”
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