Lord Lynborough

“ Alas, neither conciliation nor dilatoriness was in Lord Lynborough’s line! He read the Marchesa’s letter with appreciation and pleasure. He admired the curtness of its intimation, and the lofty haughtiness with which the writer dismissed the subject of his bathing. But he treated the document—it cannot be said that he did wrong—as a plain defiance. It appeared to him that no further declaration of war was necessary; he was not concerned to consider evidence nor to weigh his case, as Stillford wanted to consider the Marchesa’s evidence and to weigh her case. ”

“ Lynborough assisted her into the carriage.
“I hope we shall meet again,” he said, with no small empressement.
“I’m afraid not,” answered Miss Gilletson dolefully. “You see, Helena——”
“Yes, yes; but ladies have their moods. Anyhow you won’t think too hardly of me, will you? I’m not altogether an ogre.”
There was a pretty faint blush on Miss Gilletson’s cheek as she gave him her hand. “An ogre! No, dear Lord Lynborough,” she murmured.
“A wedge!” said Lynborough, as he watched her drive away. ”

“ I have no solicitor. I shall never have a solicitor. You can't talk with a non-existent person."
"But proceedings are the natural—the almost inevitable—result of such a situation as your action has created, Lord Lynborough. My client can't be flouted, she can't have her indubitable rights outraged——"
"Do you think they're indubitable?" Lynborough put in, with a sudden quick flash of his eyes.
For an instant Stillford hesitated. Then he made his orthodox reply. "As I am instructed, they certainly are."
"Ah!" said Lynborough dryly.
"No professional man could say more than that, Lord Lynborough." ”

“ 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 small ones.
"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 the beer, Cromlech? Nobody ever acted more wisely or from better motives. And if I made money—as I did, till the customers left off coming—why not? I was unobtrusively doing good. ”

“ She gave a charming little shrug, accompanied with what Roger, from his novel-reading, conceived to be a moue.
“Of course I—I know that you—you think you’re right,” he stammered.
She stopped on the path. “Yes, I do think I’m right, Mr Wilbraham. But that’s not it. If it were merely a question of right, it would be unneighbourly to insist. I’m not hurt by Lord Lynborough’s using this path. But I’m hurt by Lord Lynborough’s discourtesy. In my country women are treated with respect—even sometimes (she gave a bitter little laugh) with deference. That doesn’t seem to occur to Lord Lynborough.” ”

“ The Marchesa will be prepared to consider any proposal put forward by Lord Lynborough, and will place no hindrance in the way of Lord Lynborough’s using the path across her property if it suits his convenience to do so in the meantime. ”

“ But Lord Lynborough she never mentioned—not to Miss Gilletson, nor even to Norah. She seemed to have regained her tranquillity; her wrath at least was over; she was very friendly to all the ladies; she was markedly cordial to Roger Wilbraham on his visits. But she asked him nothing of Lord Lynborough—and, if she ever looked from the window towards Scarsmoor Castle, none—not even her observant maid—saw her do it.
Yet Cupid was in the Grange—and very busy. There were signs, not to be misunderstood, that Violet had not for handsome Stillford the scorn she had bestowed on unfortunate Irons ”

“ Dawson assured him with the utmost cheerfulness. Never had Dawson invested a glass of beer to better profit!
Lynborough threw away his cigar and entered the sacred precincts. His brain was very busy. “Another wedge!” he was saying to himself. “Another wedge!”
The lady had gone into the church. Lynborough went in too. He came first on Stabb—on his hands and knees, examining one of the old brasses and making copious notes in a pocket-book.
“Have you seen a lady come in, Cromlech?” asked Lord Lynborough. ”

“ Every real conviction springs from personal experience. I hate the law because it interfered with me. I'm not aware of any better reason. So I'm going on without it—unless somebody tries to steal my forty thousand, of course. Ambrose, thou art a humbug—or, more precisely, thou canst not avoid being a human individual!"
Lord Lynborough completed the entry in his diary—he was tolerably well aware that he might just as well not have written it—and cast his eyes toward the window of the library. ”

“ I acted as a gentleman is bound to act. Result—a year’s imprisonment! I lay stress on these personal experiences, but not too great stress. The law, Roger, always considers what you have had and what you now have—never what you ought to have. Take that path! It happens to be a fact that my grandfather, and my father, and I have always used that path. That’s important by law, I daresay——”
“Certainly, Lord Lynborough.”
“Just what would be important by law!” commented Lynborough. “And I have made use of the fact in my letter to the Marchesa. But in my own mind I stand on reason and natural right. ”

“ Why does it exist at all? (14) Is it Ridiculous?
It is not to be inferred that Lord Lynborough answers these questions. He is, like a wise man, content to propound them. If, however, he had answered them, it might have been worth while to transcribe the diary.
“Can we as gentlemen——?”—Roger had put the question. It waited unanswered till Lynborough had taken his book and returned to record its utterance—together with the speculations to which that utterance gave rise. Stabb weighed it carefully, rubbing his bald head, according to the habit which his friend had animadverted upon. ”

“ But you'll be thought odd over there, Ambrose."
"Odd? I odd? What the deuce is there odd about me, Cromlech?"
"Everything." The investigator stuck his cheroot back in his mouth.
Lynborough considered dispassionately—as he fain would hope. "I don't see it."
That was the difficulty. Stabb was well aware of it. A man who is odd, and knows it, may be proud, but he will be careful; he may swagger, but he will take precautions. Lynborough had no idea that he was odd; he followed his nature—in all its impulses and in all its whims—with equal fidelity and simplicity. ”

“ He found her in the neighborhood of his family monuments which, with his family pew, crowded the little chancel of the church. She was not employed in devotions, but was arranging some flowers in a vase—doubtless a pious offering. Somewhat at a loss how to open the conversation, Lynborough dropped his hat—or rather gave it a dex [Pg 117] terous jerk, so that it fell at the lady's feet. Miss Gilletson started violently, and Lord Lynborough humbly apologized. ”

“ So he disappeared from the view of Nab Grange and the inhabitants thereof. He never left his own grounds; even within them he shunned the public road; his beloved sea-bathing he abandoned. Nay, more, he strictly charged Roger Wilbraham, who often during this week of armistice went to play golf or tennis at the Grange, to say nothing of him; the same instructions were laid on Stabb in case, on his excursions amidst the tombs, he should meet any member of the Marchesa’s party. So far as the thing could be done, Lord Lynborough obliterated himself. ”

“ Lynborough had an instant to wait for it. He tried to think of the ball and the ball only.
It fell—it fell into his hands; he caught it—fumbled it—caught it—fumbled it again—and at last dropped it on the grass! “Oh!” went in a long-drawn expostulation round the field; and Lynborough heard a voice say plainly:
“Who is that stupid clumsy man?” The voice was the Marchesa’s.
He wheeled round sharply—but her back was turned. He had not seen her face after all!
“Over!” was called. Lynborough apologised abjectly to the second gardener.
“The sun was in my eyes, Peters, and dazzled me,” he pleaded. ”

“ Lynborough denied himself to no man, and received with courtesy every man who came. But his face grew grim and his manner distant when Stillford discounted the favourable effect produced by his appearance and manner—also by his name, well known in the county—by confessing that he called in the capacity of the Marchesa’s solicitor. ”

“ They grew curious and restless on the lawn; the private audience lasted long, the homage took much time in paying.
“A marvellous thing has come to me,” said Lynborough, speaking slower than his wont, “and with it a great courage. I have seen my dream. This morning I came here not knowing whether I should see it. I don’t speak of the face of my dream-image only, though I could speak till next St John’s Day upon that. I speak to a soul. I think our souls have known one another longer, ay, and better than our faces.” ”

“ 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 is between being able to do it and not being able to do it—and I know of none so profound.”
“There’s no difference at all,” declared Lynborough. “Therefore—as a good son, no less than as a good friend—you will come and bathe with me to-morrow?”
“Oh, I’ll come and bathe, by all means, Lynborough.”
“By all means! Well said, young man. By all means, that is, which are becoming in opposing a lady. ”

“ While the question of the path was pending, she had been unable to think of anything else; until it was settled she could think of nobody except of the man in whose hands the settlement lay. Whether Lynborough attracted or repelled, he at least occupied and filled her thoughts. She had come to recognise where she stood and to face the position. Stillford’s steady pessimism left her no hope from an invocation of the law; Lynborough’s dexterity and resource promised her no abiding victory—at best only precarious temporary successes—in a private continuance of the struggle. ”

“ There are plenty of eminent men—at the moment, it is believed, no less than seventy Cabinet and ex-Cabinet Ministers (or thereabouts) —to say nothing of Bishops, Judges, and the British Academy—and all this in a nook of the world! (And the world too is a point!) Lynborough was something much more uncommon ”

“ We shall use the path.” Lynborough cocked his head on one side, looking up at the sturdy lawyer with a mischievous amusement. “I shall harry you, Mr Stillford—day and night I shall harry you. If you mean to keep me off that path, vigils will be your portion. And you won’t succeed.”
“I make a last appeal to your lordship. The matter could, I believe, be adjusted on an amicable basis. The Marchesa could be prevailed upon to grant permission——”
“I’d just as soon ask her permission to breathe,” interrupted Lynborough. ”

“ The two first were strangers to her; the third she had seen for a moment the afternoon before on Sandy Nab. It was Lynborough himself, beyond a doubt. The others must be friends—she cared not about them. But to sit here with the padlock before her, and see Lynborough pass through the gate—a meeker woman than she had surely been moved to wrath! He had bathed—as he had said he would. And he had sent her the padlock. That was what came of listening to conciliatory counsels, of letting herself give ear to dilatory persuasions!
“War!” declared the Marchesa. “War—war—war! ”

“ No, I shan't, Wilbraham."
"No more shall I. Good night, Stabb. You'll—think it over?"
Stabb grunted inarticulately. Roger drew the blind aside for a moment, looked down on Nab Grange, saw a light in one window—and went to bed. The window was, in objective fact (if there be such a thing) , Colonel Wenman's. No matter. There nothing is but thinking makes it so. The Colonel was sitting up, writing a persuasive letter to his tailor. He served emotions that he did not feel; it is a not uncommon lot.
Lynborough's passing and repassing to and from his bathing were uninterrupted next morning. ”

“ Lynborough sat on the terrace which ran along the front of the Castle and looked down, over Nab Grange, to the sea. With him were Leonard Stabb and Roger Wilbraham. The latter was a rather short, slight man of dark complexion; although a light-weight he was very wiry and a fine boxer. His intellectual gifts corresponded well with his physical equipment; an acute ready mind was apt to deal with every-day problems and pressing necessities; it had little turn either for speculation or for fancy. He had dreams neither about the past, like Stabb, nor about present things, like [Pg 34] Lynborough. ”

“ He hardened his heart against the Marchesa. She chose to fight; the fortune of war must be hers. He turned his eyes down to Nab Grange. Lights burned there—were her guests demanding to be sent to Easthorpe? Why, no! As he looked, Lynborough came to the conclusion that she had reduced them all to order—that they would be whipped back to heel—that his manœuvres (and his lunch!) ”

“ The thought of that possibility—though she could devise or imagine no means by which it might find accomplishment—carried her towards Lynborough in a rush of feeling. The idea—never wholly lost even in her moments of anger and dejection—came back—the idea that all the time he had been playing a game, that he did not want the wounds to be mortal, that in the end he did not hate. If he did not hate, he would not desire to hurt. ”