Part 4

"Make it payable to me," Dalabey said. "Thomas J. Dalabey," which Allan did.

"And now," Allan said, "I'd like to look about the old place alone, take the cheque and I will call at your office on my way back, you can then give me the receipt."

"To be sure and so I will, and once more congratulate you I do, and if so be you'll honour me, sir, I'll have a cup of tea ready and waiting for you when you come back!"

"Thank you!" Allan said. "And now, one thing more, how is the old place called, Mr. Dalabey?"

"Why 'tis Homewood Manor, I thought as I mentioned the name in my letter----"

"No, you did not, though I remember someone else spoke of it to me--Homewood Manor, that is strange!"

"In the Parish of Homewood it be," said Dalabey, "just within, and the next Parish be Little Stretton, but as this----"

"I understand, I quite understand, but all the same it is curious!"

"I don't see how," said Mr. Dalabey, "curious it 'ud be if it were called anything else, sir!"

"Look at the cheque, at the signature!" Allan said.

Mr. Dalabey looked, he uttered an exclamation as he spelled out Josiah Homewood's crabbed handwriting.

"Very odd it be, I swear!" he said. "And very right and proper too, come to that, nothing could be better! Mr. Homewood of Homewood Manor, it sounds good, sir! And now I'll get back and a cup o' tea'll be ready for you in say an hour's time----"

"Say two----" Allan said, "and thank you!"

So Dalabey hurried off to spread the news through Little Stretton. Beaming with joy he was, as he cycled down the road.

"Ah, Mrs. Hanson, there you be, Ma'am!" he shouted, slowing down by the little cottage. "News I've got for 'ee and for that little gel o' thine!"

"News--hev the American----"

"No, ma'am, he hasn't! Why, my maid, what be the matter wi' 'ee?" Dalabey added, for he had caught sight of Betty's blooming face in the window.

And a pretty picture the girl made, her sweet face framed in the clinging greenery and the roses on the point of breaking into bloom, but the sweetest rose of all was there in the window.

"Fair joyous you do look," said Dalabey, "joyous be the word, all bubbling over wi' delight--and yet--you cannot have heard the news of the selling yet?"

"The--the selling--Mr. Dalabey, not--not the selling of--my--of--oh you said--the American hasn't bought----"

"Homewood Manor be sold, sold by I, this very day, Mrs. Hanson, sold by I within the hour!" He rubbed his big red hands, "and a fair price, yes I'll admit, a fair price as things go--but sold it be, sold and done for, but not to the American gentleman--Why, Mrs. Hanson, what be the matter wi' that gel o' thine?"

For Betty had gone white, white as death, and the joy had gone out of her face and her little red lips dragged down pitifully and into her blue eyes had come tears, tears which all unnoticed trickled down her pale cheeks.

"Fair daft that maid be about that old garden!" said Mrs. Hanson. "And glad I be, Mr. Dalabey, as the place be sold, and put to orders, I hope it'll be, so this maid of mine will go no more roamin' where her haven't no business to be!"

"Ah yes, to be sure, to be sure!" Mr. Dalabey said. "To be sure," he added, "well! sold it be and, strangest of all, to a young gentleman, leastways his father, which be all the same, of the name of Homewood. There, what do 'ee think of that now? Homewood Manor sold to a Homewood, curious, eh? Well, well, I must be getting along!"

"Sold it be and a dratted good job too!" Mrs. Hanson said.

Betty crept away to her attic room under the thatched roof. Sold! Her garden sold and for ever now barred against her! No more rambles in the enchanted garden by moonlight, no more dreams in which she peopled the old garden with all those strange folk, of whom she had seen visions. And He--she would never see Him more, bending over the flower beds at his work. He whose face she had hardly seen, and yet somehow she knew that He meant so much to her. So the little maid crept to her room with bursting heart.

"Sold it be, sold it be," she whispered to herself.

*CHAPTER VI*

*"I HATE HIM--HATE HIM I DU!"*

Allan sat on the old stone seat in the warm sunshine. He watched the rioting weeds, the broken sundial, the long pathway of flagged stone leading to the grim desolate house.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping to see that vision he had seen, but it came to him no more. No! there were only the weeds and the decay and the green moss.

So he sat there for a full hour and tried to force that which would not come. He could see her, in fancy, tripping down the flagged path to him, with love and tenderness in her blue eyes, that dainty little figure with the head of flaming gold and the white neck. But it was a vision that could not be forced.

So presently, disheartened and hopeless, he rose and went to the lake and stared hard at the broken stone nymph and watched the great idle fish and the sense of loss grew stronger and yet stronger on him.

Who was she who had come out of the past to kiss his eyes and to tell him that she loved him? Why should such dreams come to him? He had never dreamed in all his life before, but she had been so real, even to the little black lace mittens, black lace mittens such he had never seen on a girl's hands before. Yet he had dreamed of her and the sweet voice of her and the sweet Sussex speech and strangely enough, had he not answered her in that same speech? He remembered it now with a sudden start of surprise.

Yes, he with Eton and Oxford behind him, had spoken as she had spoken, as the old man who had told him about the broken Cross in Little Stretton had spoken.

He turned away, he made his way back through the garden. He wondered at his seeming previous knowledge of it now, for that knowledge was gone, it took him some time to find the gap where the broken wicket gate had been, but he found it and went, blundering and uncertain, across the grass grown stable yard.

He locked the battered green door behind him and thrust the great key into his coat pocket and went along the road, and on the way to the village he passed a little thatched roofed cottage and under that thatched roof a maid was lying on her little bed, face downward, weeping her heart out for the thing that he had done, yet he could not know that. How could he? He saw an old dame standing by the little gate, an upright severe old dame, with white hair and a wrinkled face, and she bobbed him a country curtsey.

To her Allan lifted his hat politely.

"A beautiful day!" he said.

"And that it be, a wunnerful fine day and hot like for May her be, sir and might--might I make bold----" she hesitated.

Allan stopped and looked at her with kindly eyes.

"You were going to ask me something?"

"Cur-us I be, which be a besetting sin!" she admitted. "But Mr. Dalabey he hev passed by just now when my maid and I--my granddarter her be, were here and he told we as he hev sold the old Manor House and I were thinking, sir, seeing the key was sticking out, of your pocket----"

Allan laughed. "Yes," he said, "you are right, I have bought it, for my father, that is----"

"A wunnerful fine place it be!" she said.

"And we shall be near neighbours, eh?"

Again she dropped a curtsey.

"'Tisn't for the like of we to be a neighbour to the like of gentry," she added, "but if any little thing I can du----"

"Be sure I will come and ask you Mrs.----"

"Hanson be my name, sir, as anyone can tell 'ee. Old this cottage be, but there never yet lived in it one whose name was not Hanson. 'Twere Hansons lived here in the days when the Elmacotts lived at the Manor, Hansons hev been servants there, always served the Elmacotts, they did, and if, sir, there be any little thing that we can du----"

"You are very good!" Allan said.

"A dear talkative old soul," he thought; he held out a friendly hand to her and she blushed at the honour and bobbed him a dozen curtseys as he went his way.

"Betty, Betty, my maid, Betty, come 'ee here, Betty, where be 'ee? Come here!" cried Mrs. Hanson, when Allan had gone.

"Here I be, Grandmother!" Betty came, a pale sorrowful faced little maiden.

"And crying 'ee've been, shame on 'ee my maid for to cry because that dirty old place hev been sold and who do 'ee think I have been talkin' wi'? Why bless 'ee wi' the young gentleman as hev bought her and a proper young gentleman he be, not above shaking hands wi' an old body like me and lifting of his hat to I, for all the world like I were a fine lady! Bless 'ee my maid, a fine, upstanding, smart, young gentleman he be, one of the quality too, aye of the quality, my maid, for mark 'ee the real quality are never above shaking hands wi' a poor body and talking pleasant to the likes o' we! 'Tis they upstarts and nobodys as looks down on poor folks! When 'ee sees him Betty, 'ee'll----"

"I never want to see him, never!" the girl cried, "Never, never, I hope I never shall see him!"

"Bless me what nonsense are 'ee talking now?"

"I never want to see him, for--for if I du, I shall hate him, hate him, aye, I hate him now, I du--hate him terribul bad, I du----"

"For shame and to your room wi' 'ee till you du come to your senses--I be ashamed o' you, Betty Hanson, that I be! Hate him indeed, hate him, a fine upstanding----"

"I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!" Betty said, and then once again, with defiance and anger and sorrow too in her blue eyes, "I hate him, I du, Grandmother!"

Mrs. Hanson lifted a rigid arm, she pointed at the door.

"To your room wi' 'ee, Betty Hanson," she said, "I be ashamed of 'ee, I be, to your room, you perilous bad maid!"

*CHAPTER VII*

*"HOW WONDERFUL--THE WAY OF THINGS"*

"Bless my soul!" Sir Josiah said, "Bless my soul!" He said it several times, there was a look of astonishment on his red round face, "Bless my soul, sir!"

He walked up and down the large and imposing room, his hands behind his back.

"And how about the drains, did you make any enquiry about the drains?

"No!" said Allan.

"No, you wouldn't, nor about the water! Is water laid on, eh, answer me that?"

"I--I don't know, father, I am afraid I--I was a bad representative!"

"It's enough to worry a man's head off," cried his father. "Here do I go trusting you to go and--and--not a thing do you know! Hand over my cheque for five hundred pounds like it was a bagatelle as the saying is. You don't know anythin' about the title deeds, nothing about the drains, nothing about the water, while you admit the state of repair of the house is somethin' disgraceful!"

"Father, I wish you had gone yourself, I told you----"

"Yes, I know, you told me I know, you did--told me you weren't no good at bargaining, and I'm afraid you were right! Here you go and--and--and----" Sir Josiah paused, a little breathlessly.

"Well, what's the place like? Just try my lad and pull yourself together and describe it!"

"Homewood Manor is----"

"What Manor?"

"Homewood--it bears the same name as we do, father!"

Sir Josiah sat down, he sat down abruptly and stared wide eyed at his son.

"Homewood----" he gasped, "Little Stretton--Homewood Manor--well, well if this don't beat anything--anything I've ever heard--Homewood----"

"It is an odd coincidence," said Allan.

"Odd coincidence, it's more--it's more. It is the very hand of Fate, that's what it is, the hand of Fate, you don't understand of course you don't----" he paused. "Allan, did you ever hear the name Pringle?"

"Pringle?" asked Allan, puzzled, "of course I have heard it, but----"

"Heard it, just heard it--eh? That's all, just heard it, mentioned and nothing more, eh?"

"It's a name I have heard, father, that's all!"

"And don't signify anything to you, nothing particular, out of the way, eh?"

"Nothing, father!"

"Bless me, bless me, you never heard me speak of Allan Pringle of The Green Gate Inn in Aldgate?"

Allan shook his head.

"A wonderful man!" said Sir Josiah. "Allan, his name was, the same as yours and Allan was his father before him and his father before him, yes Allans all along the line, till they came to me, only me they called Josiah, Josiah after Josiah Rodwell, my mother's father, hoping to get a bit out of the old man, which they never did, bless me! and never heard of Allan Pringle, you haven't?

"Queer too," Josiah rambled on, "that he should be the kind of man he was, they said of him as he could squeeze gold out of a stone and I b'lieve he could. Coming from the country, a farm hand he was and his father a gardener and his father's father a gardener, grubbing about in the earth, Allan, and yet Allan Pringle came to London, a farmer's boy and makes a little fortune!"

"But who was he?"

"My grandfather, Allan Pringle was. He laid the foundation of our fortune! My father was keen and clever, not up to the old man though. Still he did not do so badly, he left me forty thousand when he died, that's what I've been building on, Allan, and now--now--maybe it's nearer twenty times forty thousand, my boy! That comes of having a head on you--a head which you haven't got and never will have!"

"Then your name is--is Pringle?"

"Was!" said Sir Josiah. "It was my father who took the name of Homewood when he began to get on a bit and wanted to sink the aleshop, called himself Homewood after the place where his father was born and where all the family came from----"

"And it is this very place that to-day----?"

Sir Josiah nodded. "The very place!" he said. "Queer, isn't it, Allan? Very queer! When I heard the name Little Stretton, it set me thinking, but even then I didn't quite catch on. But now, Homewood Manor, why bless me, boy--my grandfather, Allan Pringle's mother, was maid in that very house and my great grandfather, Allan Pringle he was, Allan, the same as you, he and she was sweethearting, her the lady's maid, he the under gardener, and got married, they did. A wonderful pretty young woman, so I've heard and a sad story if what one hears is true, hadn't been married a year when she died when the boy was born, him as afterwards kept the Green Gate Inn in Aldgate. And now, now after all these years, Allan, here am I, buying the very house, the very house, my boy, where my great-grandfather was under gardener and my great-grandmother was lady's maid. Wonderful, isn't it? Wonderful the way of things, Allan?"

"Wonderful!" Allan said dreamily. "Very wonderful--the way of things--Father----" He turned suddenly on Sir Josiah, "This--this marriage of mine----"

"Well, what about it?"

"It--it must go on--there's no way----"

Sir Josiah stared, his round face grew redder, it turned purple. "Way," he shouted, "to what? Are you going to kick against it now? Are you going to, to turn everything down now? But--but you can't do it--you can't do it! If you do I'll never forgive you, never to my dying day and after and then--think of her ladyship--Lady Kathleen, do you mean you want to back out of it, Allan, now?"

Allan did not answer, he stared out of the window, he did not see the gloomy London Square, he saw a garden, sweet with flowers and down the paved pathway a little maid with sunkissed hair and eyes as blue as the Heavens came tripping towards him.

"Allan, Allan," she said, "my dear, I love you so!"

"Allan you--you can't do it!" Sir Josiah's old voice trembled, he came and put a hand on Allan's shoulder. "It--it isn't as if it was only a promise to me, to me now, it's a promise to her, you can't shame and disgrace her--Lady Kathleen--you can't--by--by Heaven you can't! Allan, it isn't a thing that even I'd do, much less a gentleman like you!"

"I understand, father, I understand that, it--it must go on, I shall not back out of it as you say--it shall go on!"

"Ah!" Sir Josiah said, "ah, a lady, an Earl's daughter, Lady Kathleen Homewood of Homewood Manor, that sounds good, Allan boy, eh? Sounds good, don't it? I can hear myself saying it at the Club--my daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen Homewood! No, you can't back out of it now, Allan, I'd never forgive you if you did--Besides, why should you? Last night, you weren't against it, Allan----"

"Last night," Allan said, "last night----" he paused. How far away seemed last night! Sir Josiah was watching him anxiously and Allan smiled.

"Yes, I understand, it must go on now, but--last night--was last night!"

*CHAPTER VIII*

*"KATHLEEN--DO YOU REMEMBER?"*

My lady sat with her chin in her hand, her dressing gown had slipped over the polished loveliness of her white shoulders, on which the soft dark brown of her hair fell in heavy glistening curls.

She had sat here for many minutes, her thoughts away in the past. Now she stirred, she sighed a little, she roused herself and laughed wearily, then reached out a white hand and took a ring from the dressing table. A magnificent ring, one of immense value, a ring worthy of her and of the man who had put it on her finger, yet she doubted if Allan had bought it. It looked in its ostentatious magnificence more like his father, somehow, and she shivered suddenly and cast the ring aside. And then laughed again a queer, uncertain, trembling little laugh that might have sounded naturally enough from the lips of a maiden of eighteen, but which came a little oddly from the lips of a woman of twenty-eight.

But to-night her eyes were soft and misty. To-night memory was there, tapping at the door of her soul. "You can't shut me out," it seemed to say, "close the door, bolt it, bar it against me, but you can't shut out memory, you never, never can! Fight against me, but I am always here, always ready to come to you--a chance word, a chance gesture, the scent of a flower or a perfume, the music of an old song and though you think you have locked the door against me, see I am back again! Listen, even the ticking of the clock--the little clock on your mantel. Kathleen, do you remember how the clock ticked that night when you--you and he----"

She threw out her hands suddenly, she rose, a tall, queenly young figure.

"The past is past, is dead and will remain dead!" she said, then she crossed the room, and very resolutely she unlocked a drawer, from the drawer took a little steel japanned box, she unlocked it and from it took a packet of letters.

Should she read them before she destroyed them? Should she? No, and yet she hesitated--the strength and resolution of a moment ago were gone, she sat down and toyed with the ribbon that held the papers together.

"Just for the last time," she said, "and then I shall forget them utterly!" So she untied the ribbon and took the letters one by one and read them and the misty look in her eyes seemed to grow more soft and more gentle and there came a sweet womanly tenderness to her lips that the world until now had thought a little hard and contemptuous.

Is there not some little packet of old letters jealously hidden away in your possession? Haven't you treasured just one or two? Open the packet with reverent fingers, touch them gently, for here are holy things!

A child's unformed hand, the unsteady letters yet so neatly and so carefully made. Can't you see him as he makes them? that little chubby fist, that somehow cannot hold the pen in just the way the master says it must be held.

Can't you see the little curly head leaning a little to one side? Slowly he forms the great round "Os" and fashions the long tailed "Ys" and does his honest best to keep them fair and square upon the pencilled line that even now you can see ruled faintly on the old paper?

A child's letter, a little odd glove, a lock of yellow hair, his hair! Only these, but they bring back memories, don't they? Do you remember--? Ah, can you forget? When you held him so tightly in your arms that day--when he went away for ever. Such a great strong fellow, so brave, so confident of the future! How he looked into that future with clear shining eyes, eyes that were unafraid.

"Dear, it is all right, I shall come back to you, safe and sound!" So he said, and then the waiting, the agony of it, the long suspense, the silence, the hourly prayers to Almighty God that all might be well with him--and then--then the news--that came at last!

And all that you have now is the child's letter--the little glove and the curl of yellow hair.

And there are other letters, yours, Kathleen. I wonder did he think when he wrote them ten long years ago that you would be sitting here to-night reading them over yet once again? I wonder, did he think that those letters of his could bring the tears to your eyes, Kathleen? Did he dream when in his eagerness and his passion and his love for you, as he penned them, never weighing his words, only eager to pour out his soul to you, that you would keep them and cherish them all these years, Kathleen, only to destroy them at last?

The unsteady writing fades and is gone. Your eyes through a mist of tears see a young, ardent, boyish face, you see eyes that plead and are filled with a hope that fights valiantly against despair. Those hastily scrawled, passionate words are as voices that come to you out of the past, voices that remind you of how he loved you once--when you were but eighteen!

There came from the little clock on, the mantel a whirring sound, then it struck One--Two--She lifted her head for a moment, there was a step on the stairs outside, her father come home from the Club, he passed her door.

A mist was before her eyes, the letters were all blurred and indistinct, the writing--she could no longer see, yet, she knew every word written there. How many times had she read them over and over and yet over again!

And what need to read them when, she knew them so well? Would she ever forget them? So many pages, so closely written and yet all that had been said, could have been said in but three words, three short words, "I love you!"

So she sat there with the letters all in a heap in her lap, and her head bowed.

Memory--Memory was monarch of all to-night. Memory ruled and reigned supreme.

That night, do you remember, Kathleen? The night when the raindrops pattered on the glossy leaves of the magnolia that grew beneath your window? Do you remember how he stood there looking up at you, the light from your lamp on his face? Do you remember? And that day, the day you met him by the end of the lane and put your hand in his and went with him down the long road? Do you remember? And then again----

She moved suddenly, she flung her head back, her face was white and drawn and there was agony in her eyes. She rose suddenly and thrust the letters into the empty grate, she bent over them and struck a match and watched them burn.

And then, when the last was turned to grey and black ash, she went back to the table and took up the great expensive, glittering ring, the ring that represented more money than He had ever owned. And so she turned it over and over between her white fingers and laughed suddenly. But the laughter was not good to hear.

*CHAPTER IX*

*HOW SIR JOSIAH OPENED HIS PURSE*

Sir Josiah garaged his two thousand guinea car in the old coach house of "The Fighting Cocks" Inn. He ordered a sumptuous repast in that antique house of call, the best and the oldest wines must be brought up from the cellars for him.

A keen money getter, yet he was at heart a very generous man. The respect, the bobbing curtseys, the doffed hats and smiling faces here at Little Stretton delighted him. He felt just a thrill of regret that he had bought the old place for Allan rather than for himself. He had an idea that he would make a far better and more imposing Lord of the Manor than Allan.

In the City of London he was "somebody," but here in little quiet out of the world Little Stretton, he was "everybody."

Mr. Dalabey fawned on him, he fetched and carried, he was hat in hand. A cunning, artful fellow Mr. Dalabey, he sized Sir Josiah up, he called him "Squire," and Sir Josiah glowed with satisfaction.