Читать книгу The Window - Alice Grant Rosman - Страница 14

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Christopher Royle had received Mrs. Winter's note of invitation when he came down to breakfast that morning, with pleasure and a sense of relief. He had been suffering since the afternoon before from a return of an old diffidence which had troubled him long ago. Removed from the spell of Mrs. Willingdon's presence, he felt uneasy about his visit to the Manor, as though he had jumped at an invitation which must after all have been offered him under a misapprehension. Mrs. Winter's quick glance of derision was in part responsible for that, so that her cordial little note relieved him. He could not, he saw now, have done anything as unpardonably gauche as he had feared.

He decided to spend most of the day fishing and, having been supplied with a picnic luncheon by Mrs. Towner, he set off for Woden in excellent spirits.

For so small a property he found Miss Eden's had a good stretch of water, and the beauty of its setting immediately entranced him. He could see the house as he went by and before it a daisied lawn set with standard roses, but down here by the stream it was all a wilderness. No money, he thought the rector had suggested. Hard that, and yet the very wildness of the place added to the beauty of the swiftly running waters under the ancient trees.

England and what a country!

"She is not any common earth

Water or wood or air,

But Merlin's isle of Graymarye

Where you and I will fare."

Yes, Kipling knew, and yet wasn't there more truth really in that other thing——

"I am the land of their Fathers;

In me the virtue stays.

I will bring back my children

After certain days."

That was no song of England, but of all countries, of any country, for, after all, he thought, aren't we a part of this earth and water, wood and air, part of the land that bore us and to which, through generation after generation, the dust of our fathers has returned?

Patriotism, of course, should be a conscious state of mind, he knew, a passionate sense of the justice of a cause, but in actual fact it was nothing of the kind: it was a blind instinct to defend our own.

A wise man's country is the world. Who said that? Some old sage. Then we are all unwise, for how else all down the ages should exile have been the last and greatest penalty? Christopher thought of old Pollock, sent from Windy, but soon to learn that he was called back; and somehow at this moment the privilege of calling him seemed the best part of his inheritance. During his own absence abroad he had not thought of England very much except as something at the moment unattainable, but with luck to be attained; yet now he knew that if he had had to die out there, as that poor chap Robertson had died, he would have felt cheated and furious.

His fishing that day was a desultory affair, for his heart was not in it. He smoked and dreamed, he ate his luncheon, he lay under trees green-latticed against the summer sky while the river ran past him with flashes of silver as it caught the sun.

Christopher Royle had come home ... not to Windyhill, for from there he was still an exile for a little while ... but to England in the lovely quiet of Patricia Eden's garden.

Towards four, rather reluctantly, he gathered his things together to return to the Inn for a bath and change, and as he went he glimpsed the house again. With its wide open windows and the banner of smoke from a rear chimney, it had a friendly air; and as he looked a sheep dog ran out from somewhere and after him the joyous figure of a little boy.

So there were children at Woden ... or at least one lucky lad? The place was beginning to take on for him a personality.

He turned his steps towards the Manor with a pleasant feeling of anticipation, not only for this further meeting with the beautiful old lady, but for the dinner at the Rectory afterwards. How immensely kind to him they had been, all these people, complete stranger though he was. Yet soon, in a day or two, he realized, he must be moving on, to find that other village of Dorne and get rid of his responsibility to poor Robertson. He could have relegated it, no doubt, for there must be channels in town through which you could find out what you wanted to know about almost anyone; but this might be rather a delicate business, and surely it was little enough to attend to it himself, if only in gratitude to the Fates for his own so much better fortune.

In his contemplation of the task ahead of him, he missed the entrance to the Manor, and, redirected to it, found it at last with dismay. There had been a lodge at one time but now it was closed and empty and fallen into disrepair. A window fronting the road was broken, and what had once been a little garden ran in a riot of tall weeds and seedlings to the door.

Christopher, who had been too long away from England to have any knowledge of what post-war conditions had done to so many old estates, was shocked, but even the lodge did not prepare him for the desolation inside. What must have been once a lovely garden was now abandoned to decay ... uncut lawns and hedges, broken borders, paths and flower-beds overgrown and gravel worn away; this as a background for the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. What was it, poverty? Yet these people could buy an old Italian Window to the memory of their son. It seemed incredible, a nightmare from which surely he must soon awake.

He wondered if the house might dispel it, but it did not. As a maid ushered him through a chill hall to the drawing-room, he saw it still, this desolation. The house smelt faintly of mildew and there were damp spots upon the walls. Curtains were colorless, carpets worn and the whole character of the room seemed to have faded away.

In the center of it, as a queen upon her throne in a palace of the dead, sat Mrs. Willingdon, even lovelier than before. She was in mauve to-day, a rich, thick silk, and spotless as though it at least were new. There were pearls about her lovely throat, her fingers were heavily ringed, and on her couch of dull old gold brocade were heaped all the cushions in the room.

Christopher was not at first conscious of any other presence, until, having greeted him adorably, his hostess turned her head and called:

"John, my darling ... Mr. Royle, our guest."

Then he saw rising with difficulty from a leather chair set in the bay window to catch the sun, a very tall old man.

Colonel Willingdon tried to rise but, caught in a paroxysm of coughing, sank into his chair again, the younger man hurrying towards him meanwhile and begging him not to move.

"You must forgive me, Mr. Royle, my bronchitis has been rather troublesome."

His fine courtesy and evident concern for his condition, the shabby dressing gown and thin rug over his knees were pitiful to Christopher, and he felt an almost overmastering impulse to turn and run away. What right had he here ... a stranger, an intruder? But Mrs. Willingdon was calling him to her side and perforce he had to obey.

"Poor John has a cough," she said, "but it will be better to-morrow. He does so hate being a little ill, like all you men ... babies, every one of you. Now tell me, has it come yet, my Window?"

Christopher explained that he did not know. He had been fishing all day and had seen no one from the village.

"Ah, then it has not come, or you would most certainly have heard from somebody," said the old lady. "They are all so immensely interested, in the village, the dear things. I am impatient, Mr. Royle. You don't know what it means to an old woman to have her dream come true. John laughs at me. He doesn't care tuppence for windows, do you, John?"

"If it makes you happy, my darling," said the Colonel tenderly. "I am a soldier, Mr. Royle, and as I grow older I realize that the man who dies in battle has all the fortune of war. As for the Window ... well, the world will forget him all the same."

"John, John, how absurd you are." Mrs. Willingdon was plaintive, but she did not take him very seriously, it was clear. "How can it forget my boy with his name set out in black and white before it every day?"

"Ah, my dear," said the Colonel, shaking his head. "It is the things set out in black and white that so many of us never see."

There was no bitterness in his voice, it seemed to Christopher, but an infinite sadness. He had the look of a dying man watching the disintegration of his house. Yet was that perhaps merely a stranger's view ... an absurd stranger, too deeply interested in the spectacle called Life? Mrs. Willingdon at least was vital still and it was evident the poor old man adored her.

She cried, with her brightest look at him:

"He loves to pretend he is hard and cynical, Mr. Royle, but don't you believe him. He is the kindest soul. Ah, here is tea at last and my darling Doris ... Doris, love, this is Mr. Royle, who has come to hear all about the Window."

Christopher, supposing the newcomer to be a daughter of the house, looked at her curiously. She was somewhere about thirty, he thought, and her perfectly cut and very modern clothes were a queer contrast to her surroundings. Yet something of the atmosphere of the place seemed to have caught her too. She was inert, only waking to animation under the spell of Mrs. Willingdon's voice.

"Shall I pour out tea for you, dearest?" she said, as one speaking to a favorite child.

"Do, my pet. You always spare me, but weak, please, for strong tea is so bad for us all."

"Won't you let me make myself useful, Miss Willingdon?" asked Christopher, going to the tea-table, and Doris, glancing up to thank him, answered, as one quite used to making the explanation:

"My name is Duffield."

"My dear daughter all but in name," supplemented Mrs. Willingdon affectionately. "Poor Doris was to have married my boy."

"She must be a great comfort to you," said Christopher, feeling awkward.

"She is indeed. Just a tiny sandwich for the Colonel, if you will be so kind, Mr. Royle. We must tempt his poor appetite."

Christopher wished he could tempt it with a good beef steak, but the Colonel accepted the little sandwich and weak tea with his courteous smile and tried to do his best with them. The young man, having received his own cup from Miss Duffield, presently came and sat by his host and spoke to him of the beauty of Dorne.

"A very lovely country," agreed the Colonel, his sad eyes lighting for a moment. "Gloucestershire has few rivals, I think, but I am sorry you could not have seen Dorne in happier days, Mr. Royle. So many of us are too poor in these new times to give our estates the attention they require."

"John darling, my cushions," interrupted Mrs. Willingdon, plaintively. In putting down her cup she had sent the cushions flying, and Christopher and Doris immediately rose to restore them to her. Ill as he was, however, the Colonel was too quick for them, and as he piled them once more behind her lovely shoulders, she caught his old hand and held it against her cheek.

"See how he spoils me," she said to her guest. "It has always been the same ... all my life, hasn't it, John? Such a lucky woman."

The old man disengaged himself gently, patting her hand and smiling as he did so.

"Now you will let me run away," he said. "Mr. Royle will excuse me, I know, for it is time for my medicine. I hope we shall see more of you, my boy, if you are remaining at Dorne."

"It is very kind of you, sir, but I am afraid I must move on in a day or two."

"Oh, no, no, dear Mr. Royle, you must stay for the Dedication of my Window. Promise that you will stay," cried the old lady, imperiously. "Doris, love, give Mr. Royle some more tea and then you will find the picture for me, won't you?"

Christopher declined the tea, and Miss Duffield, having finished her own, went off on this quest.

"He's a love, a dear, my John," said his hostess confidentially as soon as they were alone, "but oh, so jealous. He is jealous of the Window, jealous of poor Doris, and he was even jealous of my darling boy." She spoke with a rich enjoyment, evidently loving this quality in her John as she would love it in any man. She was the eternal coquette.

Miss Duffield returned with the picture which was enshrined in a catalogue of art treasures, Mrs. Willingdon turning over the pages with the eager excitement of a child.

"There now," she said, displaying it triumphantly at last.

The reproduction was in color on heavy art paper, the history of the Window set out somewhat preciously on a blank sheet beside it. It had begun life in the chapel of an old monastery near Padua now in ruins, had been brought from Italy fifty years ago by a prominent collector and erected in his house in Park Lane, passing into the hands of the dealers when his art treasures were sold after his death. The subject was not quite clear to Christopher though he admitted the beauty of color and design. The catalogue, with a ready eye on the main chance, declared it a particularly beautiful and suitable work for a War Memorial of either a public or private nature, and Mrs. Willingdon, with touching faith in the printed word, had evidently seized upon that.

"It was my clever Doris who found it for me," she said, but Miss Duffield disclaimed any credit for the discovery, with a fond look at the elder woman.

The catalogue, it seemed, had come to her father, and when she was at Dorne it was her practice to go over to Highways every few days to keep an eye upon things. She had brought it back with her among various other circulars and letters which did not seem sufficiently important to send on to Sir Peter at Monte Carlo.

"But you found the Window, dearest," she added tenderly to Mrs. Willingdon.

"Yes," said that lady in a pleased tone. "I saw it at once, and that night, Mr. Royle, I dreamt that we had bought it for my son. All my life I have had these wonderful dreams ... it is a curious faculty I have ... and afterwards they have come true."

Again a vague note of familiarity about this phrase touched Christopher Royle, but it was immediately engulfed by nearer considerations. Had her other dreams, he wondered, with his first touch of cynicism about her, been as expensive as this? For the catalogued price of the Window was £1500, and all his inborn sense of property and one's obligation to it, made him set this sum against the ruin of the house and garden.

The Window became horrible.

"There is nothing to show us the exact meaning of the design, you see," proceeded Mrs. Willingdon, "but that is so satisfactory because without anything definite to go on we can put our own interpretation on it."

"Allegorical perhaps," suggested Christopher. "I don't know very much about such things, but don't you think it may be meant to represent St. Anthony of Padua, since it came from that neighborhood ... the local saint?"

"Or why not dear St. George?" said Mrs. Willingdon eagerly, "for after all he must often have appeared without the dragon, and that would be so beautifully appropriate. My boy's name, you see, was George."

Christopher thought with an inward smile: "Then St. George it will most certainly be."

"There, darling, put it away for me very carefully, won't you?" she went on, closing the catalogue and handing it to Miss Duffield. "The bottom drawer of my desk, love."

The girl took it, folded it in tissue paper and walked to the door.

Then she turned back for a moment and gave Christopher Royle the shock of his life.

"Shall I bring Terry's photograph?" she said.