Helena's Path Read online

  _Chapter Three_

  OF LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "She'll call on me? Why?"

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

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

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

  "Everybody's somebody," murmured Lynborough--"and it is a very oddarrangement. Can't be regarded as permanent, eh, Cromlech? Immortalityby merit seems a better idea. And by merit I mean originality. Well--Isha'n't know the Grange, but I like to look at it. The way I pictureher----"

  "Picture whom?" asked Stabb.

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

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

  "I am thinking of the woman, Cromlech, and I've a perfect right to thinkof her. At least, if not of that woman, of a woman--whose like I'venever met."

  "She must be of an unusual type," opined Stabb with a reflective smile.

  "She is, Cromlech. Shall I describe her?"

  "I expect you must."

  "Yes, at this moment--with the evening just this color--and the Grangedown there--and the sea, Cromlech, so remarkably large, I'm afraid Imust. She is, of course, tall and slender; she has, of course, arippling laugh; her eyes are, of course, deep and dreamy, yet lightingto a sparkle when one challenges. All this may be presupposed. It's hertint, Cromlech, her color--that's what's in my mind to-night; that, youwill find, is her most distinguishing, her most wonderfulcharacteristic."

  "That's just what the Vicar told Coltson! At least he said that theMarchesa had a most extraordinary complexion." Wilbraham had gotsomething out at last.

  "Roger, you bring me back to earth. You substitute the Vicar'simpression for my imagination. Is that kind?"

  "It seems such a funny coincidence."

  "Supposing it to be a mere coincidence--no doubt! But I've always knownthat I had to meet that complexion somewhere. If here--so much thebetter!"

  "I have a great doubt about that," said Leonard Stabb.

  "I can get over it, Cromlech! At least consider that."

  "But you're not going to know her!" laughed Wilbraham.

  "I shall probably see her as we walk down to bathe by Beach Path."

  A deferential voice spoke from behind his chair. "I beg your pardon, mylord, but Beach Path is closed." Coltson had brought Lynborough hiscigar-case and laid it down on a table by him as he communicated thisintelligence.

  "Closed, Coltson?"

  "Yes, my lord. There's a padlock on the gate, and a--er--barricade offurze. And the gardeners tell me they were warned off yesterday."

  "My gardeners warned off Beach Path?"

  "Yes, my lord."

  "By whose orders?"

  "Her Excellency's, my lord."

  "That's the Marchesa--Marchesa di San Servolo," Wilbraham supplied.

  "Yes, that's the name, sir," said Coltson respectfully.

  "What about her complexion now, Ambrose?" chuckled Stabb.

  "The Marchesa di San Servolo? Is that right, Coltson?"

  "Perfectly correct, my lord. Italian, I understand, my lord."

  "Excellent, excellent! She has closed my Beach Path? I think I havereflected enough for to-night. I'll go in and write a letter." He rose,smiled upon Stabb, who himself was grinning broadly, and walked throughan open window into the house.

  "Now you may see something happen," said Leonard Stabb.

  "What's the matter? Is it a public path?" asked Wilbraham.

  With a shrug Stabb denied all knowledge--and, probably, all interest.Coltson, who had lingered behind his master, undertook to reply.

  "Not exactly public, as I understand, sir. But the Castle has alwaysused it. Green--that's the head-gardener--tells me so, at least."

  "By legal right, do you mean?" Wilbraham had been called to the Bar,although he had never practised. No situation gives rise to greaterconfidence on legal problems.

  "I don't think you'll find that his lordship will trouble much aboutthat, sir," was Coltson's answer, as he picked up the cigar-case againand hurried into the library with it.

  "What does the man mean by that?" asked Wilbraham scornfully. "It's apurely legal question--Lynborough must trouble about it." He rose andaddressed Stabb somewhat as though that gentleman were the Court. "Not apublic right of way? We don't argue that? Then it's a case of dominantand servient tenement--a right of way by user as of right, or by a lostgrant. That--or nothing!"

  "I daresay," muttered Stabb very absently.

  "Then what does Coltson mean----?"

  "Coltson knows Ambrose--you don't. Ambrose will never go to law--buthe'll go to bathe."

  "But she'll go to law if he goes to bathe!" cried the lawyer.

  Stabb blinked lazily, and seemed to loom enormous over his cigar. "Idaresay--if she's got a good case," said he. "Do you know, Wilbraham, Idon't much care whether she does or not? But in regard to hercomplexion----"

  "What the devil does her complexion matter?" shouted Wilbraham.

  "The human side of a thing always matters," observed Leonard Stabb."For instance--pray sit down, Wilbraham--standing up and talking loudprove nothing, if people would only believe it--the permanence ofhierarchical systems may be historically observed to bear a directrelation to the emoluments."

  "Would you mind telling me your opinion on two points, Stabb? We can goon with that argument of yours afterward."

  "Say on, Wilbraham."

  "Is Lynborough in his right senses?"

  "The point is doubtful."

  "Are you in yours?"

  Stabb reflected. "I am sane--but very highly specialized," was hisconclusion.

  Wilbraham wrinkled his brow. "All the same, right of way or no right ofway is purely a legal question," he persisted.

  "I think you're highly specialized too," said Stabb. "But you'd betterkeep quiet and see it through, you know. There may be some fun--it willserve to amuse the Archdeacon whe
n you write." Wilbraham's father was ahighly esteemed dignitary of the order mentioned.

  Lynborough came out again, smoking a cigar. His manner was noticeablymore alert: his brow was unclouded, his whole mien tranquil and placid.

  "I've put it all right," he observed. "I've written her a civil letter.Will you men bathe to-morrow?"

  They both assented to the proposition.

  "Very well. We'll start at eight. We may as well walk. By Beach Pathit's only about half-a-mile."

  "But the path's stopped, Ambrose," Stabb objected.

  "I've asked her to have the obstruction removed before eight o'clock,"Lynborough explained.

  "If it isn't?" asked Roger Wilbraham.

  "We have hands," answered Lynborough, looking at his own very smallones.

  "Wilbraham wants to know why you don't go to law, Ambrose."

  Lord Lynborough never shrank from explaining his views and convictions.

  "The law disgusts me. So does my experience of it. You remember thebeer, Cromlech? Nobody ever acted more wisely or from better motives.And if I made money--as I did, till the customers left off coming--whynot? I was unobtrusively doing good. Then Juanita's affair! I acted as agentleman is bound to act. Result--a year's imprisonment! I lay stresson these personal experiences, but not too great stress. The law, Roger,always considers what you have had and what you now have--never whatyou ought to have. Take that path! It happens to be a fact that mygrandfather, and my father, and I have always used that path. That'simportant by law, I daresay----"

  "Certainly, Lord Lynborough."

  "Just what would be important by law!" commented Lynborough. "And I havemade use of the fact in my letter to the Marchesa. But in my own mind Istand on reason and natural right. Is it reasonable that I, livinghalf-a-mile from my bathing, should have to walk two miles to get to it?Plainly not. Isn't it the natural right of the owner of Scarsmoor tohave that path open through Nab Grange? Plainly yes. That, Roger,although, as I say, not the shape in which I have put the matter beforethe Marchesa--because she, being a woman, would be unappreciative ofpure reason--is really the way in which the question presents itself tomy mind--and, I'm sure, to Cromlech's?"

  "Not the least in the world to mine," said Stabb. "However, Ambrose, theyoung man thinks us both mad."

  "You do, Roger?" His smile persuaded to an affirmative reply.

  "I'm afraid so, Lord Lynborough."

  "No 'Lord,' if you love me! Why do you think me mad? Cromlech, ofcourse, is mad, so we needn't bother about him."

  "You're not--not practical," stammered Roger.

  "Oh, I don't know, really I don't know. You'll see that I shall get thatpath open. And in the end I did get that public-house closed. AndJuanita's husband had to leave the country, owing to the heat of localfeeling--aroused entirely by me. Juanita stayed behind and, after dueformalities, married again most happily. I'm not altogether inclined tocall myself unpractical. Roger!" He turned quickly to his secretary."Your father's what they call a High Churchman, isn't he?"

  "Yes--and so am I," said Roger.

  "He has his Church. He puts that above the State, doesn't he? Hewouldn't obey the State against the Church? He wouldn't do what theChurch said was wrong because the State said it was right?"

  "How could he? Of course he wouldn't," answered Roger.

  "Well, I have my Church--inside here." He touched his breast. "I standwhere your father does. Why am I more mad than the Archdeacon, Roger?"

  "But there's all the difference!"

  "Of course there is," said Stabb. "All the difference that there isbetween being able to do it and not being able to do it--and I know ofnone so profound."

  "There's no difference at all," declared Lynborough. "Therefore--as agood son, no less than as a good friend--you will come and bathe with meto-morrow?"

  "Oh, I'll come and bathe, by all means, Lynborough."

  "By all means! Well said, young man. By all means, that is, which arebecoming in opposing a lady. What precisely those may be we wellconsider when we see the strength of her opposition."

  "That doesn't sound so very unpractical, after all," Stabb suggested toRoger.

  Lynborough took his stand before Stabb, hands in pockets, smiling downat the bulk of his friend.

  "O Cromlech, Haunter of Tombs," he said, "Cromlech, Lover of Men longDead, there is a possible--indeed a probable--chance--there is a divinehope--that Life may breathe here on this coast, that the blood may runquick, that the world may move, that our old friend Fortune may smile,and trick, and juggle, and favor us once more. This, Cromlech, to a manwho had determined to reform, who came home to assume--what was it? Ohyes--responsibilities!--this is most extraordinary luck. Never shall itbe said that Ambrose Caverly, being harnessed and carrying a bow, turnedhimself back in the day of battle!"

  He swayed himself to and fro on his heels, and broke into merrylaughter.

  "She'll get the letter to-night, Cromlech. I've sent Coltson down withit--he proceeds decorously by the highroad and the main approach. Butshe'll get it. Cromlech, will she read it with a beating heart? Will sheread it with a flushing cheek? And if so, Cromlech, what, I ask you,will be the particular shade of that particular flush?"

  "Oh, the sweetness of the game!" said he.

  Over Nab Grange the stars seemed to twinkle roguishly.