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The Black Avons IV — Frontispiece

IT is almost inconceivable that there should be in our family a Black Avon who was, for any reason whatever, an unpopular figure. They have for scores of generations been built in an heroic mould; a shining light of their time, and their memories have been hallowed by all who bear our name.

My niece, Lorrain Avon, crystallized the peculiar change of attitude in one pungent, if somewhat vulgar, sentence.

"The boys simply cannot stand an Avon who works for his living," she said. "They think that a Black Avon who doesn't spend his life gadding over the earth, sticking his sword into some poor, wretched enemy, isn't the real thing!"

"Lorrain," I said severely, "your language is becoming deplorably lax."

My brother, Sir James Avon, is not what I would describe as a broad-minded man, and he shares the views of his two sons, Hubert and Stanley, that this Avon, who had suddenly dawned upon us, was indubitably a true Black Avon who would have satisfied the most exacting of critics, but was nevertheless a black sheep.

Of the new Harry. Avon's existence I don't think any of us were previously aware, except in a vague kind of way. He belonged to that branch of the family which had settled in India and had moved on to the Cape. Harry's father had been something of a recluse, maintained no correspondence with the other branches of the family, and had offended my brother to an unimaginable extent by sending his boy to England to be educated, without notifying any of us of his intentions. So that Harry Avon was living under our noses, so to speak—he was at Oundle School, one greatly favoured by our family—and none of us was the wiser. And then, when we had almost forgotten that there was a South African branch, Harry Avon comes from South Africa, buys Manby Hall, adjacent to my brother's estate, and, without so much as "by your leave," begins to interest himself in the welfare of the village.

"In fact, he trespassed on our preserves," said Lorrain, with the ghost of a smile, when she told me this. "Daddy likes to feel that he is the feudal lord of Manby, and he is simply furious that Cousin Harry should have bought the estate, which carries with it the lordship of the manor. As a matter of fact, father intended buying the Hall, and that wretched London agent promised to give him the first refusal. I met him to-day in the village."

"Whom—your father?"

"No, Harry. And really, he's quite a nice man: very tall, horribly black, with a cold sort of blue eye that makes you shiver. I was sufficiently lost to all self-respect, as I have been told repeatedly, to go up to him and tell him that I was his cousin."

"And was he cold and stern and haughty?" I asked, with a smile.

"No, he was simply charming. When I asked him why he hadn't called on us, he said that he had no idea there were any Avons left in England!"

She rocked with laughter at the cool audacity of the man.

"And, Uncle John, he is terribly rich, and full of the weirdest ideas about this country. He says there is going to be a great war."

"What does your father say to that?"

Lorrain made a little grimace.

"What would father say to any view which did not coincide with his own?" she demanded. "Harry has been for two years on the Continent—father didn't know that. He's been travelling through the Balkans, Austria, Germany, Russia and Russian China, and he is full of this idea of war. What do you think about it, Uncle John?" she asked, a little anxiously.

"Pooh!" I said contemptuously. "How can there be a war? The world is governed by humane and intelligent men. There may be threats and sabre-rattling, but that sort of thing is part of the diplomatic game. I have not served in the Foreign Office for twenty-five years without knowing that, Lorrain."

She was silent at this, and then:

"I told him about you, and he wondered if you would come to the Hall—he said he would like to meet a Foreign Office official for whom he had some reverence!"

I laughed.

"The young dog ought to call on me, unless his bump of respect is abnormally under-developed," I said. "But I am no stickler for the proprieties, and I will call on him at the first opportunity I find."

My work in Whitehall was not very strenuous, for, as head of a department of the Foreign Office, my hours were not long. And the opportunity was at hand, because my brother invited me to spend a week-end with him at his country place in Norfolk. I drove through the little village of Manby, saw the white lines of Manby Manor as I passed along the road, and wondered what sort of material this new Black Avon would provide for a poor scribe.

Many years ago it had been laughingly said by some of our family that I should write the story of the next Black Avon; but during all the fifty-five years of my life no Black Avon had arisen to succeed that brave man who fell in the Indian Mutiny. There were red Avons, one of whom fulfilled the prediction of the old prophet who said: "Red Avon a lord, Black Avon a sword." There were fair Avons, and, alas! there were now a few grey Avons! But the Black Avon of romance had not yet crossed the horizon, and I could not help thinking, a little ruefully, that this young man who had arrived so annoyingly from South Africa, and had obtruded himself upon our lives, was likely to be very unpromising material indeed.

When I reached Avon Place I found that the question of the new Black Avon occupied the minds of my brother and his family to an extraordinary extent.

"What do you imagine the young beggar has done?" demanded James furiously. "He has had a meeting in the village, and raised a sort of glorified Boy Scouts team amongst the elder boys! He says that war is coming and that they should be truly prepared! He takes them out on long walks and gives them lectures on military subjects. War, indeed! He is a publicity-hunting young scoundrel! And he hasn't even so much as been to this place to leave his card!"

"Perhaps he doesn't understand his responsibilities to the great family," I said good-humouredly. "And, anyway, James, isn't it our business to call on him? I've been tracing his history this morning, and undoubtedly he belongs to what I call the major branch of the Avons."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said my brother violently.

"It may be stuff and it may be nonsense," I replied, "but here is the fact, that the home of the Avons is in Hampshire."

"The real home of the Avons is in Norfolk," insisted Sir James.

"In Hampshire, old boy," I said gently, and I was prepared to trace back the family to the days of Stephen to prove my words, but he knew very well that what I said was true.

"I don't care whether he's an old branch or a young branch or a mere tine! He's been out of England so long that he's not entitled to be in the family at all," said John illogically.

"He's an awful bounder too, Uncle," Stanley put in. "He's gassing all the time about Germany and how efficient she is."

"Have you heard him?" I asked.

"No, but I've heard it from other people. He had a meeting in the village the other night and talked for two hours."

I asked if "the foreign Avon," as my brother insisted upon calling him, was popular in the village, and I was rather amused when James growled something about "publicity hunting," and gathered therefrom that the strange Avon had won his way into the affections of the countryside.

"Why he should be popular I don't know!" exploded James. "He's a fellow who doesn't hunt, hasn't a single friend amongst the county families, and has already succeeded in antagonizing half of them."

It appeared that Harry Avon had very much annoyed the sitting member, Sir Wilbraham Stote, who was what my brother, a most hard-shelled Conservative, described as "a respectable Liberal." It appeared that Harry had attended the meeting which Sir Wilbraham held every year in order to keep in touch with his constituents, and had asked a lot of ridiculous questions about the state of Europe.

"State of Europe indeed!" snorted James. "Europe is in the same state it has always been and always will be. This German Emperor fellow is no bad sort. I met him at Kiel three years ago, and he was quite charming to me."

I might have told James that, however much they bulked in the public eye, kings and emperors were not always as powerful as they appeared to be, and that usually there was somebody behind the throne of a semi-despotic monarchy, who directed affairs, pulled wires without the least compunction about who would suffer at the other end, and generally maintained in themselves and their associates the real government of the country.

It was rather a queer coincidence that I should be in Norfolk that night when Harry made one of the few attempts he had so far initiated to soothe the ruffled feelings of my brother. A footman brought a note asking us if the whole family would dine with him that Saturday night, or, alternatively, if we would go over after dinner.

"At three hours' notice!" spluttered James. "Good heavens! what does he think we are—?"

It was Lorrain who came to the rescue. There was a very level head on those young shoulders, and her brother never failed to insist that it was she who dominated the house.

"We'll go after dinner, darling," she said to her father. "I'm most anxious to meet him at close quarters. And really, it would be the civil thing to do. He is one of our family—"

"Fiddlesticks!" her father scoffed.

Nevertheless, he sent a somewhat ungraciously worded message back to the effect that he would be at the Hall at nine o'clock.

We drove over in my car, a fairly large party to descend upon a bachelor; but I verily believe that, if we had been five hundred strong instead of five, Harry Avon would have shown no surprise.

He came out into the big hall to greet us: a thin, brown-faced man, with calm eyes and perfectly carved lips. They were almost too good for a man, as Lorrain confided to me afterwards.

But I am one of those crusty bachelors who think that nothing is too good for my own sex. His voice was low, and, to my surprise, cultured (I don't know why on earth it shouldn't have been but somehow one visualized him as being a little uncouth); and my first impression was that he was a man who missed nothing. When Lorrain's cup was put down it was he who was instantly at her side to take it away; when James felt in his pocket for his gold matchbox to light one of his excellent cigars, it was Harry who was immediately at his elbow with a match.

I think James was mollified both by his deference and by his obvious knowledge of affairs. He was older than I had expected—nearer twenty-eight than twenty-five (as they had first told me)—and he had a queerly incisive—perhaps decisive would be a better word—way of discussion which in any other man would have irritated me.