The Blue Diamond (24 page)

“Neither can I at present,” said Garth in a curiously significant tone. “But we are gathering up the threads, Mavis, and I think it will not be long before the end of this remarkably tangled skein is in our hands.”

Mavis did not reply for a minute; she was looking puzzled and worried.

“I—I don't see what you mean, Garth,” she said slowly. “I don't see what Mrs. Leparge's coming has to do with Hilda, unless”—thoughtfully—“Hilda has been the victim of some plot, that perhaps Mrs. Leparge has been one of the people who have ill-treated her, that they thought they could get possession of her again, and when she was here she found it hopeless as we should make so many inquiries and so gave it up. Is that what you think, Garth?”

“Not—not exactly,” he said slowly. “In fact I should be puzzled to tell you what I do think, Mavis. My feeling is more one of vague suspicion than anything definite.”

“Suspicion of Mrs. Leparge?”

“Oh, of her and other people.”

Mavis sighed.

“Well, I hope it will all come right some day. Oh, Garth, how I should like to go to sleep and wake up and find that everything was a bad dream—everything that has happened since we dined at the Court, I mean!”

Garth looked out of the uncurtained window—the moon was so bright that, in spite of the electric light, outside things stood out almost as clearly as in the day-time; his eye was caught by a dark bank of clouds near the horizon.

“See, Mavis,” he said, directing her attention to it, “those threatening clouds will spread presently and obscure all this moonlit sky, but after a while they will pass, and everything will be bright again. I think our lives are like that—when troubles come they darken and alter the face of the world for us, but some day it will be all clear again.” His hand just touched hers. “Can't you believe it, Mavis?”

The girl's eyes looked up at him trustingly.

“Oh, yes. I will—I do! But it seems difficult to realize the silver lining when one only sees the cloud.”

“Ah, we all feel that!” Garth said absently, his attention once more straying to his future brother-in-law, whose back was towards them, but whose attitude of admiring attention was sufficiently obvious. “Oh, by the way,” he went on, “when I was in town I had a regular turn-out, made my man institute a systematic search, and I have found the pouch you worked for me, Mavis, and which the police professed to believe was the one discovered in the small library at the time of Nurse Marston's disappearance. I shall take it in and have a talk with Stokes in the morning.”

“Oh, I am glad!” Mavis exclaimed. “I hate you to lose my presents, and Stokes seemed so horrid about it besides. I wonder what Arthur and Hilda will say when they know that Mrs. Leparge's daughter was not lost from Brighton.” She raised her voice. “Hilda!”

“Don't say anything about it, don't tell them for the world,” Davenant said in a low, emphatic tone, “or you may spoil everything.”

The other two looked up in some surprise as he sauntered over to them with some excuse about the latest political
canard
, and Mavis was left alone to puzzle out the mystery of his words.

When Garth rose to take his leave she glanced once more out of the window; the dark clouds of which he had spoken had fulfilled their prophecy in so far as they had spread over the sky. Obscured by them, the moon shone slantwise across the heavens, and even as she watched a vivid flash of lightning almost blinded her for a moment, and nearly simultaneously a crash of thunder seemed to shake the very house. The girls sprang to their feet and looked at one another in consternation.

Sir Arthur turned to the window.

“It is late in the season for such lightning,” he remarked. “I wonder if it has struck anything. Garth, my boy, how are you going home? The storm will be upon us directly.”

Garth laughed.

“Well, I am not exactly sugar and salt. I drove Gipsy over in the high cart, and I fancy her nerves are pretty well seasoned.”

Mavis laid hold of him.

“Well, mine are not,” she declared positively. “No, Garth, indeed you are not going out of this house until the storm is over. Do you think I could sleep to-night if I knew that you had been out in such a storm as this promises to be? Besides, this lightning might strike you dead,” as another flash lighted up the room. “Oh, no. Indeed, Garth, you must not go!”

“Why, what is this? Garth thinking of going?” Lady Laura, roused by the thunder, was sitting up and rearranging the scrap of lace, called by courtesy a cap, on her hair. “It is out of the question, my dear boy,” she went on. “Here you are, and here you must stop until it is fine again. Do you hear that?” as the thunder crashed overhead, and the first few heavy drops amid the stillness that followed heralded a veritable downpour. “That settles it, I think.”

Garth smiled in her harassed eyes. The two women's solicitude was very pleasant to him, and though in his heart he felt that Lady Laura was really responsible, from sheer kind-heartedness and lack of worldly wisdom, for much of her own trouble, yet his real affection for her made him long to smooth away the wrinkles from her forehead, the tired lines round her mouth.

“It does sound rather alarming, doesn't it?” he said.

“I will wait a little, if you will allow me, Lady Laura. But you are not afraid of lightning, are you?” as a vivid forked flash lit up the room and she shuddered. “There is no danger really.”

“Oh, one never knows! I always feel a little nervous in these old houses; something may catch fire,” and Lady Laura glanced round apprehensively.

Garth took her hands in his.

“Oh, it is passing over now. Already the thunder is more distant. Listen! And it had much better come this week than next, you know.”

Lady Laura looked at her son, who was engaged in soothing Hilda's fears.

“Yes, I should have been very sorry if it had spoilt the outdoor amusements for the poor people,” she said listlessly. “But for myself, as you know, this affair” —nodding at the young people—“has been such a disappointment that personally I should not care if it rained cats and dogs the whole time.”

Garth hesitated a moment; he glanced round doubtfully. He and Lady Laura were virtually alone—Mavis, her nervousness apparently forgotten, had retired to a distant window to watch the progress of the storm; Arthur and Hilda were well out of earshot. He bent towards her.

“Would it be any consolation if I told you that I feel almost certain this projected marriage will not come off, Lady Laura?”

Lady Laura sniffed in a melancholy fashion.

“Well, certainly it would, if I could believe that you were speaking the truth about it, but unfortunately I can't,” she replied honestly. “I know Arthur better than you do, Garth, and I am sure that when he has once made up his mind he is obstinacy itself. Besides, did you ever see anyone so infatuated?”

“It was not of any change of mind on Arthur's part that I was thinking,” said Garth slowly. “I fancy that circumstances will intervene. Perhaps you are right not to let me raise your hopes unduly, dear Lady Laura, for after all it is only a theory of my own.”

“Ah, I think I am too unhappy to be cheered up by any theories!” Lady Laura said with a sigh.” Still, it is nice to know that anybody thinks there is a chance that it may end in smoke. It is good of you to care, Garth.”

“Mavis's mother must be mine too,” he responded, and, moved by a sudden impulse, he stooped and kissed her pale cheek. “I believe the rain has stopped now; I must be starting, or it will be coming on again, and I shall be on your hands for another hour.” He turned to Arthur. “I think now, Hargreave—”

Mavis held up her hand.

“Who can this be in the avenue so late? How fast the horse is being driven! Do you think it is running away?”

With common consent they all moved nearer the window. Sir Arthur flung it open and leaned out. The cool night air, the fresh, sweet scent of the earth after the rain, filled the room, but outside there was not a movement, not the faintest rustle of wind; everything was still with the absolute silence that presages the coming of another storm.

Plainly now they all heard the sound of which Mavis spoke—the sound of a horse being urged up the avenue at its fullest speed.

With some instinct of impending calamity Mavis turned pale.

“What can it be?” she said.

“The fish for to-morrow's breakfast miscarried,'' Arthur said lightly.

“A messenger in hot haste with a brief for me,” Garth suggested.

Arthur moved back and shut the window.

“Probably a message from some of the tradespeople with respect to the arrangements for next week; but I don't know why we should all stand still to listen to the not unwonted sound of a horse in the drive,” ironically.

“It is unusual at this time of night,” Mavis said.

“Well, we shall soon know what it is,” Garth began.

Hilda laid her hand on her lover's arm.

“Arthur, suppose it should be some one come for me?” with a little sob in her throat.

“Then I shall not let them take you away,” he responded playfully, with a loving glance at the girl's flushed cheeks.

Meanwhile the cart had stopped at the front door, thereby disposing of Sir Arthur's suggestions, and there was a loud, insistent peal at the bell.

No one spoke; in the silence the sound of a low-voiced altercation in the hall was plainly audible, and just as Sir Arthur, with an indistinct murmur, moved towards the door, it was opened, and Jenkins, looking curiously disturbed appeared.

“If you please, Sir Arthur,” hesitating and stammering, “could you speak to Mr. Grimes, the butcher?”

“Grimes, the butcher!” Arthur exclaimed. “Well, it sounded like a butcher driving, I must say. What does he want with me, Jenkins? Something wrong with his accounts?”

The butler paused.

“No, I don't fancy it is anything of that, Sir Arthur. He—he is waiting in the hall if you could speak to him just for a minute.”

Arthur glanced at him curiously a moment.

“Oh, I'll come!” he said in an altered tone. “Garth—”

Lady Laura put him aside.

“What is it, Jenkins? Something is wrong, I'm sure. Not Miss Dorothy—”

A momentary expression of relief crossed Jenkins' face.

“Oh, no, my lady, it is nothing of that kind!”

“Some private affair of Grimes's, I expect.” Sir Arthur moved forward.

Lady Laura checked him.

“Then what is it, Jenkins? Speak out!”

The man glanced round as if for inspiration.

“Your ladyship heard that dreadful crash of thunder before the rain began—you saw the lightning?”

“Yes, yes, certainly I did!” Lady Laura said impatiently.

“Do you mean that it has struck something?”

“It struck the Lovers' Oak, my lady—broke a big branch off.”

Lady Laura drew a deep breath of relief.

“Was that all, Jenkins?—There was no one there, was there?” she went on, her fears taking a new direction. “Nobody was hurt?”

“No, my lady; nobody was hurt,” Jenkins said. “The tree was struck. That was all, my lady.”

Garth, watching the man closely, saw that his eyes were glancing uneasily, appealingly, at his master, that his face had an odd look.

“All!” Sir Arthur echoed with a laugh which had something forced in its merriment. “Quite enough, too, I should think, Jenkins! Will the destruction of the Lovers' Oak mean misfortune to the lovers who have plighted their troth beneath its branches and drunk from the Wishing Well, do you think?”

“I couldn't say, I am sure, Sir Arthur.” The man's stiff lips smiled in an unmirthful fashion at his master's pleasantry. “Grimes, he came straight away as soon as he heard of it to tell you, Sir Arthur.”

“Ah, well, I will come and speak to him, then.” At the door Arthur turned with an imperceptible sign to Garth. “We will bring you all the details in a moment, mother.”

With a murmured apology to Lady Laura, Garth followed Jenkins.

A
S THE
door closed behind them Sir Arthur's manner changed.

“Well, Jenkins, out with it! What do all these mysterious signals portend?”

The butler's face looked white and scared.

“If you please, Sir Arthur, I couldn't speak of it before the ladies, but it—but Mr. Grimes there will tell you about it better than I can, Sir Arthur.”

Grimes, the Lockford butcher, was standing, cap in hand, near the front door. He was a big, burly man with a thick neck like one of his own oxen; ordinarily his great, clean-shaven face was of a cheerful rubicund hue, but to-night it looked grey, save that in places there were curious purple patches.

He touched his forehead.

“It—I am afraid it is a bad business, Sir Arthur! Mr. Jenkins has likely told you how the Lovers' Oak has been struck by lightning—it has broke away the biggest branch altogether—”

“Yes, yes, I have heard all this!” Sir Arthur interrupted impatiently. “But, though I am sorry enough about the old tree, I can't understand for the life of me why you should all look so tragic about it. If there is anything else to hear, man, tell us without any more beating about the bush.”

Mr. Grimes looked around and scratched his head doubtfully.

“It is an awful thing, Sir Arthur,” said Grimes, after a pause. “As soon as we saw that flash of lightning and heard the thunder we come out, me and my missis, and looked about us; then young Bill Grogram brought us word as it was the Lovers' Oak as was struck, and we went up to see it, me and a few more. We found the oak was split right down, Sir Arthur, and what we never knowed before at Lockford, speaking for myself, it was hollow, Sir Arthur.”

“Well, there is nothing so astonishing about that,” said Sir Arthur irritably, “nothing to be so tragic over, that I can see, Grimes. A tree of great size, and an old tree such as that was, often is hollow.”